Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

The man turned back to Roy.“Newman did something that he thought no one saw him do. But I did. I always keep my eye on troublemakers like this one.”

“What was it?” asked Roy, who now seemed curious to know what manner of delinquent child had entered Clive and Clare’s Reptilarium with mischief on his mind.

“He stole a lizard paperweight from the admissions counter. Do you want to give back the lizard paperweight, Newman, or will I have to take it from you?”

Newman recoiled from the man. He could scarcely produce the words: “I didn’t steal a paperweight. I did no such thing.”

“I saw it with my own eyes, Mr. Trimmers.”

Trimmers! Christian name and surname!

“I saw you take it from the admissions counter when no one was looking. Now hand it over before Roy here tells Clive and the two of them haul you off to juvenile court.”

Newman swallowed hard. He took a step backwards. He bumped his head against the ceramic box. Suddenly, hot air began to blow from the box. He jumped. “I don’t have what you say I do,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Look in my pockets.”

As the man approached Newman in acceptance of his offer of inspection, Newman noticed something clutched in his hand. It glistened slightly. The man reached out with his hand in such a way that the other man — the employee of Clive and Clare’s Reptilarium — could not see the secret object. The man put his large hand deep into Newman’s front trowser pocket and then pulled the hand back out again and uncurled his fingers. There it was: the paperweight which had glistened slightly on its way into the pocket, and now sat glistening and shimmering quite brightly upon the man’s open palm. It was a beautiful paperweight with a tiny baby lizard preserved in its thick glass. The man gave it to Roy who put it into a pocket on his person — one of the pockets that did not have a live newt nestled inside.

Newman didn’t speak. He knew that he would not be believed. The Reptilarium employee named Roy looked crestfallen, for it seemed that he had started to take a liking to the bedraggled, searching boy. The feeling was gone now. He turned away and resumed picking at his teeth.

The man from the omnibus clamped his hand upon Newman’s arm with such painful tightness that Newman could not withhold a little moan from deep within his throat. Then he led Newman through the swinging door of the lavatory for men and out into the corridor that led to the large exhibit room where the children had gathered to be taken upon their tour of the Reptilarium.

“Where are you taking me?” asked my nephew.

“Shut up,” said the man, without looking at Newman.

As the two turned the corner Newman could see that the large exhibits room was now empty of children; the tour had already begun and all of the children who had come with him had now been led outside to the park area where the crocodiles and mammoth tortoises lived beneath the open sky.

Newman wished that he hadn’t gone into the men’s lavatory. He wished that he had only put his head in and, seeing that the old man wasn’t there, had continued his search through all the other rooms and corners of this strange place. And yet the man named Roy had told him something very important, which he would not have otherwise known: he had confirmed that the Dinglian snake-handler named Mr. Rugg was there that day — that there lived the possibility of success at the end of Newman’s search. Now, if only Newman could find some way to wrest himself away from his captor before he could be removed to a place where no one would see him or hear from him again — a place where the mendacious, stony-faced man was certain to do something to him that would make him quite silent and quite dead.

The two moved through the great room where scaly creatures slithered and slinked and flicked their tongues behind glass. They moved in the direction of the admissions counter on their way to the door, which gave on the paved area where all the vehicles were parked. The man had been correct on one point: the paperweight had come from this counter. There were, in fact, quite a few of these paperweights for sale next to the metallic cashier’s box.

Newman walked nighest the counter. He walked so close, in fact, that he was able to reach out and pick up one of the paperweights — that he could in truth do that very thing of which he had only moments ago been falsely accused.

The glass paperweight that Newman’s hand had conscripted felt heavy and cold in his grip. He closed his fingers round the smoothness of it, taking firm hold of the rounded top. With calculated deliberation Newman raised his arm backwards, as if the half-orb were affixed to some taut catapultic spring. Just as the man was turning to discern the reason for the sudden movement in his side vision, Newman deployed his weapon. The glass paperweight struck the side of the man’s head with such force as to knock him backwards, his vise upon Newman’s arm loosening and falling away. The man emitted a great cry of pain as his face crimsoned, as his legs twisted and buckled beneath him, as his arms flailed uselessly in the air…and as Newman wheeled quickly round and fled back into the hissing, clammy bowels of Clive and Clare’s Reptilarium, where a very old Dinglian man draped himself with snakes so that none should know that every word he said about his homeland was the cold and inarguable truth.

ehind the counter the young woman whose office it was to take the money from visitors and put it into a drawer in the metallic box stood with a full and gaping mouth as she watched the boy-assailant tear away. She watched something else as well, something that she would no doubt remember for the remainder of her days: the stumbling, bloody-cheeked man falling backwards into a special glass cage set upon the floor — an enclosure with a sign upon it that read:“Star Reptile of the Week: the venomous Black mamba.” She watched as the weight of the man’s body shattered the protective glass. She watched as he collapsed upon the jagged shards, upon the snapping branches, upon the coils and coils of long grey snake — a suddenly very angry snake, which did not scruple to avenge this imposition upon its temporary home by springing at the man and delivering bite after bite after bite to his throat and face, as the man writhed and shrieked (for Black mambas are known not only for the potency of their venom but also for the insatiable repetition of their strikes), and finally, the woman behind the counter watched as the “Star Reptile of the Week” slithered quickly and indignantly away.

Someone else was also watching: Newman. Hearing the sound of the shattering glass he had stopt for a moment to make note of what he had done. By his own hand he had unleashed a deadly snake. At that terrible moment, my nephew felt both pride and fear, though fear was by far the most commanding emotion.

There was a third person watching as well: a different woman. She was at the same time drawing the mouthpiece of the telephone apparatus to her lips to make an urgent plea for help. She and the first woman had climbed upon the cushions of nearby chairs to remove themselves from possible engagement with one of the deadliest snakes in the world. She was entreating her colleagues to procure the antivenom from its refrigerated box in the infirmary, and to lock down and sequester all the Reptilarium visitors until the free-ranging snake could be captured. Then she spoke to someone else through the apparatus: the woman who was both Dinglian and Outlander at the very same time — Ruth Wolf.