The Last of the Gullivers Read Online Free Page B

rakes?”
    â€œNo, sir,” Fenn coughed.
    â€œI broke mine,” the old man went on.
    â€œTry down the road—DIY store.”
    â€œHappened the other night,” the man was saying. “Heard a sound out back and what do you think I saw?”
    Michael was sure the old man knew him and now he would tell Fenn.
    â€œA bear.”
    Fenn spat out a total: “Thirty-four—twenty-two.”
    â€œBig as a Galloway cow. Charged right at me and I
whacked
him on the nose. Split my rake half in two. But he left me alone after that.”
    Fenn coughed. “There’re no bears in Moss-on-Stone.”
    â€œNot anymore.” The man paid Fenn. “I chased it off with a rake, didn’t I?”
    Fenn headed to the stockroom, but Michael stayed where he was and began to wonder, who
was
this old man?
    â€œCome—here!” Fenn was yelling.
    The old man started out and Michael said: “There aren’t really bears.”
    â€œThere are a lot of things that we never see,” the man shrugged. “There are whole other worlds all around us, if we bother to look.” He gave the boy a coin for a tip, a blackened old coin, probably worthless, and Michael put it deep in his pocket. “Not much to look at it,” the man said. “But sometimes you have to look twice to see the value of a thing.”
    â€œBoy!” Fenn called again and he turned and the old man left.
    Michael was walking down Sheep Street when he remembered the coin in his pocket. The clock at the Inn showed five fifteen and that left time to stop by the arcade in the back of the pub. He could try the coin in a video game: his favorite was the one called Cross-Country, steering a 2.4 liter V-8 Formula One over a digital landscape, the whole never-ending world blasting by on a screen.
    He crossed the Market Square, where the fairs used to be, and was passing the rusty headstones of St. Edwards, when he heard the wind whistling. But no. It wasn’t wind. It was someone whistling the tune he’d heard by the wall.
    The boy hid in the yews by the refectory door, and watched and listened. Yes, it was that same tune: somber, silly, pointed and pointless. The doorknob turned behind him and hinges squealed and Father Drapier stepped out to lock the stone-sainted church. “Michael Pine? Haven’t seen you in a while.” Drapier looked and saw the old man headed up the road, out of town, whistling as he went. “Well. Haven’t seen him in a while, either. Wonder what got him out of his house.”
    â€œWho is he?” asked Michael.
    â€œMr. Gulliver, who lives past the crossroads. Used to have a sister up there, but she’s been gone for some time.” The old priest was going over something in his head. “That man was ancient when I was a child. By now, he must be at least . . .” Father Drapier thought a moment more. “But, no. No. That couldn’t possibly be right. Nobody’s
that
old.” And he wandered off, still adding it up.
    Michael meant to go to the pub then, for the video game, but found himself following the fading song. He kept a distance as he trailed the old man out of the village and past spreading fields of clover.
    The road narrowed to a single carriageway, where hogweed and bracken took back the crumbled pavement. He passed the ancient ruins of a church, a cow grazing in its nave, and he followed the old man to the crossroads.
    Back in superstitious days, people thought this was a magic place: once the corpse of a witch was nailed to a stake here, to confuse her ghost so she’d never find the way back to haunt her executioners. People used to believe that kind of thing.
    The man took the northwest road and Michael kept following. They moved through a forest where there might be bears and to the stone cottage where the old man disappeared in the stillness. The boy moved quietly to the back wall and heard the music again.
    There