The Boy in the Clouds E-Book

Sven Nilsson

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: The Boy in the Clouds
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 394

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Peter is a young boy that, after an unfortunate incident with his sister, ends up in the Overworld - a secret place on top of the clouds. The Overworld is under threat from a sinister general who has seized power and seeks to stop all rain. Peter must find the heir to the throne, stop the general and make sure that it rains again - but most of all he wants to find a way home. This book is the first in a series of books. It is followed by "Winter clouds".

Leseprobe

Huge thanks go out to everyone who helped make this book possible, both the original and translated versions! Special mention to:

Little sister

The Alhbins

The Perssons

Vicki

Table of Contents

Prologue

Outside the Window

The Hole in the Clouds

The Shepherd’s Council

The Rain-Flower

Tol’Tennen

The Major and the Farmer

Cumulus

The Rainers

A New Plan

The Road to Hamherr

Hamherr

The Sewers

A Bath and a Dinner

Behind the Painting

Introductions and Escape

Like Thieves in the Night

The Outcast

Jacob

Elderidge

The Tree in the Square

Roy

The Emperor’s Palace

The General and the Emperor

Epilogue

Prologue

There sits an old man on a throne of stone in a large room high up in a tall, tall tower. His clothes are simple but made of a fine white material that shimmers when he moves. There doesn’t appear to be anyone else in the room and the man sits silently and stares into thin air.

Most of the walls in the large room are windows, so that the man can look out over the town and the countryside far away and down below. But it has been a long time since the man last looked out. He knows exactly what it looks like. He knows every house, every tree, every blade of grass, yes even where every single person is.

The man sighs and shuts his eyes. He tries to remember when it wasn’t like this. He tries to remember when he last stood out on the balcony that encircles the tower and looked out over the countryside, when he last noticed something new. But he can’t remember the last time that happened. It has always been like this. Him, alone on his throne in his room in his high tower and the world out there exactly the same today as it was yesterday. The man sighs again and slumps back into his throne.

Far away there is suddenly a noise. Men shouting, metal clinking against metal. The man doesn’t move, but a smile spreads across his lips. A storm is on the way that will sweep away the old and make place for something new. A storm that will change everything.

Now footsteps. Someone comes running along the corridor behind the man. He opens his eyes and looks out through the window at the blue sky. Any change is hard and sometimes it hurts, but it is high time...

Peter is terribly angry. He sits with his nose pressed against the aeroplane window and boils with anger. As long as he can remember the family has gone abroad for their holiday and Peter has sat with his nose pressed against the window and looked down at the clouds far below. But now that his little sister is old enough to have her own seat, the journeys haven’t been the same. Sara knows very well that Peter likes to sit next to the window, so she always rushes to sit there first. She does this even though she is scared to death that the window will break and she will fall out. She usually pulls the blind down so that you can’t see anything at all, and Peter is always really annoyed. Which naturally is what Sara wants.

Normally they then argue until Mum or Dad gets tired and changes places with them. He hadn’t actually meant to hit Sara, despite the fact that somewhere there definitely must exist a law that says that you can hit your little sister - if she really deserves it, but somehow his clenched fist just happened to land right on Sara’s nose.

The nose then began to bleed and naturally she began to scream like a stuck pig. Both Mum and Dad had been extremely furious and while Mum had gone to the toilet to take care of Sara, Dad had scolded Peter. No computer for a month and he could forget about watching TV for the foreseeable future. Then Dad had stormed away and left Peter alone.

So, he sits there and just stares out through the window without really seeing anything. In his head he finds a million ways to get his own back on Sara for winding him up so badly and he wishes, oh how he wishes, that he could just disappear and escape the holiday and all these idiots!

Outside the window the clouds speed by. It looks almost like a landscape with hills and valleys. Here there could be a town and there a river. But Peter sees none of that.

He sees only an unending week on an island, with no fun at all and Sara running around after him the whole time.

She will of course wind him up like never before just to see if she can get Peter to lose his temper again.

Suddenly there is a little noise. Like when you put ice-cubes into a glass of fizzy drink. A soft, quiet knocking noise that spreads from where Peter’s nose is pressed against glass and out towards the edge. Surprised, Peter jerks his head away from the window and, yes, there is a little crack across the windowpane. While he watches, it becomes bigger and bigger and suddenly, with a loud crack the windowpane breaks and flies out into the wind outside the plane. It feels to Peter as if he is sitting in a storm. The air inside the plane rushes out through the hole in front of him, tearing and pulling at his clothes and hair. No matter how hard he tries to hold still and shout for help he can’t. Slowly but surely, he is pushed towards the hole in the window and then outside. For a moment he is stuck in the window with his legs outside and is scrabbling for something to hold on to but then he disappears completely, out and away.

If anyone on the right-hand side of the plane had looked out and behind them, they would have seen him fall, almost floating like a leaf down towards the clouds far below.

Outside the Window

Peter had always loved clouds. He could lie for hours at a time on his back and look at them passing by high up in the sky. A cloud could be anything at all. Sometimes it was a dragon that flew through the sky, sometimes an old man and suddenly it was a house or a boat. The clouds changed all the time and became new things – or nothing at all. Over time Peter became really good at recognising different types of clouds. He could see what the cloud was going to transform into next. “That’s going to become a car.” he would think and in the next moment the cloud looked exactly like a car.

Someone else who loved clouds was Peter’s Grandad.

When Peter was little, they would often lie together and look up at the clouds. Grandad would relate the most fantastic stories about the figures that appeared up in the clouds. He was unbelievably good at telling stories and whatever Peter could see up there in the clouds he could weave into his stories.

Peter’s favourite amongst all Grandad’s stories was from when Grandad was little. He’d got lost in the mountains and had managed to walk out on the clouds. Peter’s Dad had long ago explained that cloud was just water vapour and that it definitely was not possible to walk on them, but Grandad had just snorted and said that’s exactly what They would want you to believe. In Grandad’s story there existed a whole world up there on the clouds. Grandad had wandered around in the Overworld for several days before an old man with a long white beard had shown him the way home again.

Every time Grandad told of his adventures on the clouds Nana would explain that when he was a little boy, he had just got lost amongst the mountains, but that they had found him the next morning. “He probably just fell asleep and dreamed the whole thing.” Nana always said.

Grandad never answered. He would just smile and wink at Peter, as if only they knew the truth behind a big secret. When Peter was little, he always thought that Grandad was right and that it was everyone else who was stupid and just didn’t understand, but as he had got older, he had learned that clouds really were just water vapour and you really couldn’t walk on them. Grandad’s experience in the Overworld was just one of the many stories that they had made-up together, but Peter often thought about it when he looked at the clouds and daydreamed.

Peter thought about all of this as he lay on his back with his eyes shut. Everything had happened so fast that he wasn’t exactly sure in fact, just what had happened. One moment he was sitting in the aeroplane looking out of the window and the next he’d been out in the open air and was falling towards the clouds far below.

No, that wasn’t it. It had actually felt more as though he was stationary and that everything around him was flying upwards and passed him. He wasn’t falling towards the clouds, the clouds were coming upwards, as if to catch him.

“One thing you should always remember, Peter,” Grandad had always said, “is that the clouds can never hurt you.”

It was exactly those words that echoed round Peter’s head as the clouds came rushing up towards him and he hoped with all his heart that Grandad was right.

Really, he should have passed straight through the clouds and continued down towards the ground. Really the clouds should have passed by like a cold wet mist.

Then he should have fallen out through the other side and seen the ground come rushing up. Really, he should have fallen to his death.

But it didn’t feel like that. Peter checked himself over. It really didn’t feel like that at all. Peter had never thought much about how it would feel to be dead, but he had thought that it probably wouldn’t hurt. Logically speaking it would only hurt if the brain and the nervous system were working properly and Peter knew that the whole point of being dead was that things in the body totally stopped working. That’s how you knew that you were dead – the body had completely stopped working.

But Peter definitely hurt everywhere. It felt as if he was lying on a really hard, cold beach, like you’d find by the seaside in March. By this Peter drew two conclusions.

First, that he wasn’t dead and second, that he had landed somewhere. He couldn’t shake the thought that he had landed on the clouds, just like in Grandad’s story.

“Clouds aren’t solid.” Peter thought. “They shouldn’t even really be soft.”

But if he had landed on a cloud, it felt really solid, even if it was just water vapour that had condensed because of the cold at high altitude.

He had a horrible feeling that the cloud was just teasing him, that any second now it would stop being solid and he would continue his fall towards the ground. And ground was definitely known as being very solid and he didn’t have any wish to meet with that just now. So he lay very still and stared up into the air and tried to stop thinking about water vapour and gravity.

It’s not all that fun to lie totally still and stare in front of you without thinking about anything, so gradually Peter’s panic began to pass. If the cloud still hadn’t decided to behave like a cloud, maybe it would continue to be solid for a little while longer. Maybe it had even completely forgotten about him. Carefully, he moved a finger. Nothing happened. Peter waited a little, because you never could be sure what the world would think of next. Eventually he discovered that he had to breath, and he took a deep breath. He hadn’t even noticed that he had been holding his breath!

The first experiment had gone well, so Peter tried to look as innocent as he could and stared up into the sky thinking about hot air balloons. When he was sure that the world was looking in the other direction, he tried moving the fingers of both hands at the same time.

Nothing happened this time either and the ground under his fingers felt definitely very solid.

“Are you thinking of lying there much longer?” a voice said suddenly.

Peter was so startled that his whole body almost left the ground and immediately he panicked that because he’d moved, he would fall again. He tried to lie totally still, not to breath, not to blink and preferably not to think either.

“Actually, you look really silly.” said the voice again. “I thought you should know.”

This time a face appeared above Peter. It was a little round with a really large flat nose and a mass of freckles on it. The ears stuck out a little and the blond hair was ruffled and looked sun bleached. The face seemed to belong to a boy of about Peter’s age, maybe a little younger. He looked very serious, but the blue eyes looked as if they were laughing.

“Because if you were thinking of lying there for a little while longer, wiggling your fingers, then I can go and get something to eat. I’m really hungry.” continued the boy.

Peter’s mouth was too dry to reply, even if he had dared to open it to speak.

The boy looked at him for a while and then shrugged his shoulders and said, “I’ll be sitting over there if you change your mind.”

Then he disappeared.

Peter tried to look around him without moving his head, but it was really hard. All he could see out of the corner of his eyes was white. There was blue sky overhead but all around him everything was just white, or rather a kind of whiteish grey.

But the boy that had spoken to him just now seemed real and not cloudy. He could obviously wander around at will. Maybe it was safe after all.

Peter propped himself up on his elbows and looked around. Everything around him was white and fuzzy.

Exactly as clouds look. A little further away the boy sat on a bit of cloud munching away on something. He was looking interestedly at Peter, as if Peter was some sort of circus animal that was going to do some amazing trick.

Irritated, Peter sat up. The ground was still solid. It still looked like cloud, but it was definitely solid. Peter couldn’t understand what was happening, but it seemed to be working anyway.

Carefully he got up and took a few careful steps to check it out. The ground was still solid and it didn’t feel as if he was going to sink through it.

The boy lifted his eyebrows in encouragement but said nothing. He was dressed in some kind of large shirt that seemed to be made of a bed sheet. The shirt was knotted in the middle with a rope that also seemed to function as a belt for the rough trousers. Both the shirt and the trousers were a little grey brown in colour, except where they were green from grass stains.

Peter wondered a little where the grass stains had come from. All he could see were clouds, although it did actually look like a landscape with hills and valleys. Next to him there were several small hillocks, just like the one the boy sat on.

“You look really unconvinced.” said the boy and took another bite of something that Peter thought looked mostly like a piece of cloud.

“I am very unconvinced.” answered Peter and he looked around suspiciously.

“My name is Jacob.” said the boy. “Do you want something to eat?” he continued and held out a piece of cloud.

Peter looked carefully at what Jacob had in his hand, but it still looked like cloud.

“What are you eating?” he asked.

Jacob looked at him, surprised. “Bread, of course.” he said.

“It looks more like cloud to me.” said Peter and he looked around at the white landscape again.

“It is cloud,” answered Jacob. “And it is bread. You could actually say that it is cloud that is bread.”

Peter looked doubtfully at him. “Cloud that is bread?” he said. “And I suppose that you’re sitting on a piece of cloud that is stone?”

“Exactly right.” said Jacob and he took another bite of his cloud-bread.

“And I guess that this here is also a cloud-stone?” asked Peter and he kicked the closest little cloud-hillock. It didn’t feel like stone. It was far too soft and ran off when Peter kicked it.

“Stop it!” exclaimed Jacob. “That’s one of my sheep.

Please stop kicking them, I’ll be the one who gets the blame if they’re injured.”

Peter looked at the hillock he had just kicked. It was running away from him and if he looked really closely at it, it did look a little bit like a sheep. He took another look around and a few of the other small hillocks also looked like sheep. Like sheep grazing. He went up to one of them.

“No kicking!” said Jacob alarmed.

Peter didn’t listen to him but stretched out his hand and felt the sheep-cloud. It felt pretty much like pulling your hand through something with curly hair that hadn’t taken a shower in the whole of its life. It was rough, sticky and actually really rather horrible. Peter had never stroked a sheep before, but thinking about it, that would be how a sheep would probably feel.

Carefully he went up to another cloud-form that looked a bit like a tree and felt it. It felt like a tree. He could feel the coarse bark under his hands and it was definitely solid like a tree. It even smelt like a tree.

“A tree.” he mumbled.

“Very good.” said Jacob and he clapped his hands. “If you come over here you can guess a few other things too.”

But Peter just stayed still and shut his eyes. He could hear things now. Aside from Jacob’s chattering he could hear sheep bleating, he could hear the wind in the trees, a stream that babbled and birdsong. He could see the whole of the countryside in front of him inside his head.

Green fields with sheep that grazed, a stream, a tree and Jacob sitting on a stone with a piece of bread in his hand. Carefully he opened his eyes and looked around.

Everything had changed. Now as he opened his eyes, the picture he had in his head was really there. There were the sheep, the stream, the tree and Jacob on his stone.

Amazed, Peter looked around. Just a second ago there had been only clouds and now it was a whole landscape. The grass was green, the stone was grey, the sheep looked like sheep and one of them even looked at him with a hurt look in its eyes. Maybe that was the sheep that he had kicked.

“Do you believe me now?” said Jacob as he hopped off his stone. Peter didn’t answer. He just stood and looked wide-eyed at everything around him.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” continued Jacob. “Now we’ll try again. Hello, my name is Jacob.” he said and reached out his hand.

“Peter.” said Peter and shook Jacob’s hand.

“A pleasure to meet you.” said Jacob. “I saw you fall out of the sky. Do you have any pain anywhere?”

Peter checked himself over. He had completely forgotten that he’d had any pain and now as he felt himself over it didn’t seem so bad anymore.

“Actually, no.” he said and stretched a little.

Jacob looked him up and down for a moment in speechless wonder. Peter was wearing his t-shirt from NASA, a pair of blue jeans and his trainers. Luckily it was quite warm where they stood in the sun, and he wasn’t cold.

“Where are we?” he asked Jacob.

Jacob looked at him for a moment.

“Come.” he said. “I have a little bread and mutton that we can eat, then we can talk about things in peace and quiet.”

Jacob slumped back down onto the stone that he had sat on before and began to root around in a large rucksack that was standing there. Peter sat on the ground with his back against the tree and looked out over the hollow where the sheep continued to graze.

Everything seemed so real, but it couldn’t possibly be real.

“Just now we are in the province of Menna, not far from the village of Olemea.” said Jacob. He had taken out a few more pieces of bread and some dried meat from his rucksack and laid it out on a little cloth between them along with some sort of leather water skin filled with liquid.

Peter looked thoughtfully at the skin and Jacob said. “It’s just water. My uncle says that anything stronger is for cleaning knives and to relieve toothache. Oh, and for idiots, but I think that last bit is just to tease Grandad.

Dig in!”

Jacob took a piece of bread and a bit of meat and handed it over to Peter. Peter was not actually very hungry, but he thought that it would be good not to offend the only person he had met when he didn’t have a clue where he was.

“Thank you.” he mumbled and took the food from Jacob. The bread tasted mostly of sawdust and the meat was so leathery that he wondered if his teeth would be pulled out, but he ate it in any case.

They sat for a while and ate in silence. Both boys tried to look at the other without being noticed and both failed miserably. Suddenly they heard a whinnying sound and a little horse came galloping over the crest of the hill and approached Jacob. It looked like a little horse, but it was only the size of a large dog and the fur was vaguely chequered and russet in colour. It wasn’t as defined as a chessboard but was definitely chequered. The horse first greeted Jacob and then went across and sniffed interestedly at Peter.

“What … is that?” said Peter and moved his hand away when the horse nibbled at his fingers.

“That is Pyrgos, my sheepjelk.” said Jacob as if it was obvious. “Don’t be afraid, he’s just saying hello.”

Peter held forwards his hand again and Pyrgos licked it amiably.

“Have you never seen a jelk before?” asked Jacob.

“No.” answered Peter and he wiped his hands on his trousers. “On earth we usually use sheepdogs and horses are much larger.”

“But that’s not a horse.” laughed Jacob. “That’s a jelk.

They are much more practical than dogs as herding animals because they eat grass and you don’t have to have any dog food with you.”

Peter was forced to acknowledge that this was definitely logical, even if the animal seemed really strange. A bit like a little chequered horse that thought it was a dog.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to play with.

“It’s starting to get late.” said Jacob after a while. “It would probably be just as good to sleep here tonight and carry on tomorrow.”

“Late?” said Peter, surprised. The sun was still shining, and it didn’t look like it was going to get dark particularly soon. “But it’s still light.”

“What does it matter if it’s light or not?” answered Jacob equally surprised. “I’ve only got one blanket, but you look like you need it more than me, so you can borrow it.”

“Thank you.” mumbled Peter and took the blanket that Jacob handed over. “Are we just going to go to sleep here?”

“Of course.” answered Jacob and he settled down amongst the stones, with his rucksack for a pillow. “Here will be good. The sheep won’t go too far from the stream, so it’ll be easy to round them up in the morning.”

Peter looked around where he sat underneath the tree.

The sheep milled around and didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Jacob had already shut his eyes where he lay.

Peter had a thousand questions, but it seemed as if Jacob was one of those really annoying people that could fall asleep as soon as their head hit the pillow and he had already started to snore lightly.

There wasn’t anything left for Peter to do other than to settle down and go to sleep too. That, however, was easier said than done. The ground seemed to be full of roots and stones and once he’d finally found a position that was reasonably comfortable it was just too light. He felt really stupid lying there, tossing and turning trying to sleep in broad daylight. Around him he could hear strange noises from the animals and birds that he didn’t recognise. He shut his eyes and tried to empty his mind of all thought.

He might as well have tried to walk on water than to try to sleep. Which, in fact was exactly what he was trying to do. He was lying on a cloud. Thousands of metres in the air he was lying on a cloud underneath a blanket that was made of cloud listening to clouds that looked like sheep, with another cloud that looked like a little chequered horse running around somewhere.

Peter sat up and looked around again. The countryside was still exactly the same. The sheep were grazing in peace and quiet and Pyrgos came up to where he sat and sniffed at him. Deep down Peter knew that it was all completely impossible, but it was all exactly as Grandad had described. There was a whole world on the topside of the clouds and he was sitting right in the middle of it.

He lay down again and looked up at the clear blue sky.

All around him were sounds and noises that could have been from any old summer day in any old field. Pyrgos stopped nudging him and galloped away somewhere, maybe to hunt for a sheep that had run away.

Over and over again everything that had happened played itself out in Peter’s mind. It felt like a dream.

Maybe soon he would wake up on the plane and discover that it had all been a very strange dream. That must be it. Everything was a dream and if he could only fall asleep, he would soon wake up again and everything would be fine.

He snuggled down as best he could and shut his eyes.

Actually, now that the excitement had faded he was quite tired and soon he was fast asleep under his blanket.

The Hole in the Clouds

Peter didn’t think that he had slept at all when Jacob woke him up. The sun was still shining from a clear blue sky and here and there he could hear strange birdsong.

He looked around expectantly, but he was still there in the hollow with Jacob, the sheep and Pyrgos. Nothing had changed. Peter felt a little disappointed, but at the same time it felt strangely exciting. Just imagine if everything was true after all… “I’ve made breakfast.” said Jacob and he held out a bowl filled with some kind of porridge.

“What’s this?” asked Peter and looked suspiciously at the slightly blue-ish porridge.

“Foodgrass porridge.” answered Jacob. “Not the tastiest thing there is to eat, but when you’re out and looking after sheep you have to make do with whatever you can find and foodgrass is really good for you.”

“Foodgrass?” said Peter and looked questioningly at Jacob, who didn’t seem to hear him.

“I’ve been thinking a bit this morning.” said Jacob. “And I think that the only thing we can do is to go to the Shepherd’s Council and ask for help.”

“Shepherd’s Council?” asked Peter and tried a little bit of the porridge. It tasted a little like oatmeal porridge, but with a slight hint of pineapple.

“Three times each season all the shepherds meet together in one province for a Council. There we report on everything that has taken place since the last meeting and also ask for help if something has happened.”

“Like someone falling down out of the sky?” asked Peter, sarcastically.

“I’ve never actually heard of that happening before.” answered Jacob thoughtfully. “Normally it’s just a lot of chat about sheep.”

“What on earth can happen with a load of sheep?” asked Peter.

“Sheep can be very troublesome.” explained Jacob.

“They can run away or be attacked by an animal. Or get sick. You can’t imagine how many different illnesses a sheep can get. It’s a wonder that they survive at all! If a shepherd loses too many sheep, the others gather together some of their flock so that he’ll be ok.”

“That’s nice.” said Peter. “How long is it until the next Shepherd’s Council then?”

“I was actually on my way there when I found you.” answered Jacob. “I don’t know why, but a couple of days ago a message was sent out about an extra Council.

We’re a little late because you didn’t want to get up, but we’ll make it in time. It’s not that far from here.”

“Well, isn’t it just lucky that I happened to fall right here then.” said Peter.

“Absolutely.” answered Jacob and hurriedly ate the last of the porridge. “Hurry up and eat now, it’s going to take nearly the whole day to get there.”

Peter groaned. “Are we going to walk for a whole day?”

“Only if you hurry up,” grinned Jacob, “otherwise we’ll have to run some of it too.”

So Peter hurried up and ate the last of his porridge. With nothing to add to it, it was a little dry and when he had finished eating Jacob handed him the water skin. Before Peter had finished drinking, Jacob had packed the rucksack and was ready and waiting for him.

They started by rounding up all the sheep, who didn’t seem at all happy to leave the stream and the hollow with all the lush grass. If they hadn’t had Pyrgos to help them they would never have managed to leave. But eventually the flock was rounded up and they could get started.

“How far did you say that it was to the Council?” asked Peter worriedly as they began to walk.

“It takes about a day.” answered Jacob.

“You can’t just measure distance by saying how long it takes. It depends entirely on how fast you walk.” Peter exclaimed, irritated.

“It takes roughly one day if you walk exactly as fast as I walk.” answered Jacob. “If you walk as fast as you do, then it’ll take longer.” he continued and grinned over his shoulder at Peter.

Peter didn’t answer but lengthened his stride a little so that he could keep up with Jacob, who was by now a few metres ahead of him.

The countryside consisted of rolling fields and not much else. Here and there in hollows were little groves of trees, a few lone trees stood on the tops of little hills, but otherwise it was almost entirely grass.

Now and then they saw a large stone high up on a rise.

“Those are boundary stones. They form a boundary line from one stone to another. One landowner owns the grazing pasture on one side, and another owns the land on the other. Really, we’re only allowed to graze our sheep in our own landowner’s land, but no-one really minds.”

“Why is it only grazing pasture?” asked Peter. “Don’t you grow anything in the Overworld?”

“We grow lots of things.” answered Jacob cheerfully.

“But just now the countryside in our province is a little hilly, so we have to satisfy ourselves with keeping sheep.”

Peter didn’t bother to ask what Jacob meant, although it did seem very odd that the countryside could change quickly from being flat to hilly. Although Jacob was shorter than Peter, he walked really fast and Peter had to work hard to keep up.

“I have a question.” said Peter when they had walked for a while, mostly as an excuse to stop and rest for a bit.

“What?” asked Jacob as he turned around.

“How do you know how long a day is when it is light all the time?” said Peter.

Jacob thought for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders.

“I couldn’t really say.” he answered. “You just know. You can feel when it’s morning and time to get up, when it is time to eat lunch and when it’s time to go to bed.”

“Huh.” said Peter. “Just like having a built-in clock.”

“A what?” asked Jacob.

“Like this.” said Peter and he showed Jacob his wristwatch. “It tells you what time it is. If it’s morning or evening.”

“Maybe.” said Jacob as he inspected the watch with interest. “I think it would be better to have it inside you than on your arm though. Come. We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

Peter gave a deep sigh but hurried after Jacob.

They were following a little stream along a hollow between the hills when Jacob suddenly stopped and held up his hand. Peter, who was following only a few steps behind him, didn’t see that Jacob had stopped and walked straight into him.

“You can’t just stop…” began Peter reproachfully.

“Shush.” said Jacob and held up his hand again.

Peter was quiet and listened. He could hear nothing except for the babbling stream and some bird song in the distance.

“What are we listening to?” he asked after a while.

“Can’t you hear it?” answered Jacob.

Peter listened again, but then shook his head. He couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary at all. Except of course all the things that he’d never heard before landing on the clouds, but nothing out of that kind of ordinary at least.

“Come.” said Jacob and he began to go up the hill on one side of the stream.

Peter sighed and followed along up the really quite steep hill.

Up on the top they had a good view out over the countryside, it really was very hilly. There didn’t seem to be anything flat for as far as the eye could see.

“Nice view.” said Peter. “What’s so special?”

“Look over there.” answered Jacob and he pointed.

Peter looked over to where Jacob had pointed and could see that there was a place that seemed to be missing a hill.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“A hole.” answered Jacob.

“A hole?” asked Peter, surprised. “A hole in the clouds?

Can you see right down to the ground from there?”

He began to go in the direction of the hole, but Jacob stopped him.

“Wait.” he said. “It’s not safe to go too close to a hole.

The cloud round the edge can be very thin.”

“Rubbish.” said Peter and shook off Jacob’s hand. “It looks just as safe as this bit of cloud here and that’s held up so far.” and he began to go down the hill in the direction of the hole.

It was Jacob’s turn this time to hurry along behind. He tried to stop Peter again, but Peter wasn’t listening.

Instead, he hurried forward as fast as he could and practically ran up the next hill with Jacob hot on his heels. On the other side of the hill, they were met with a fantastic sight. About halfway down the other side the ground just stopped. The last stretch before the hole looked just like cloud and not like hill at all. Beyond the edge there was nothing, just a large hole that stretched for a couple of hundred metres in either direction. The other side was so far away that it couldn’t be seen through the misty haze that hung over the hole. Now Peter could hear what Jacob had been listening to. It was a hissing sound, very quiet, but also deafening. Just like a really heavy rainfall on a warm summers evening. It smelt like that too. Peter began to walk towards the edge to see better, but Jacob remained up on the crest of the hill.

Peter went right up to the end of the green section of the hill but was careful to tread only on the solid pieces of cloud. The hole was entirely covered by a haze and you couldn’t see much. He thought he could glimpse a bit of blue far away down below, which could have been the sea or a lake. Carefully he poked the edge of the cloud with his foot, but here the cloud behaved like cloud and his foot disappeared downwards. He pulled his foot back and looked down again. So near, but yet so far. If the cloud hadn’t been so high up, he could have jumped home, but now he’d just be jumping to his death. Thoughtfully he took a final look over the edge and then he went back to Jacob who was jumping up and down on the other side of the crest of the hill.

“Never do that again!” exclaimed Jacob when Peter reached him.

“Phooey!” he said, “It wasn’t all that dangerous. The cloud was solid all the way out to the white part. It wasn’t really any worse than going out onto thin ice.”

Jacob however wasn’t at all reassured and he just glared at Peter before turning on his heels and then began to march towards the Shepherds Council. They continued their journey to the Council without speaking very much to each other.

The Shepherd’s Council

Peter was extremely tired by the time Jacob slowed down. When he turned around, he looked just as happy as when Peter had first met him. It seemed like Jacob wasn’t a person who remained angry for very long.

“We’re nearly there.” he said encouragingly to Peter.

Peter was so out of breath that all he could do to answer was smile weakly.

“Just as well too.” continued Jacob, who wasn’t even breathing hard. “It looks as if it’s going to be dark soon and it’s not good to be out walking in the wild when it’s dark.”

“Dark?” panted Peter. “I thought it was never dark up here.”

“Don’t be silly.” answered Jacob with a laugh. “Of course, it gets dark sometimes. It just depends on where the wind blows us.”

Peter just shook his head and concentrated on walking.

On the way up yet another hill they suddenly heard voices and up on the top they met around twenty shepherds of differing ages and sizes. They were busy making up a large fireplace in the middle of a circle of benches.

“We’ve arrived!” said Jacob and he smiled triumphantly.

“It took about a day, just as I said.”

Peter nodded and placed his hands on his knees. It was just as well that they had finally arrived because he didn’t think he could take another step.

“Jacob!” one of the other shepherds called out and came towards them waving.

“Hello Robert!” said Jacob. “How’s it going?”

“Just great, thanks.” answered Robert and he took Jacob’s outstretched hand. “And you? I see you’ve brought a guest to the Council.”

“This is Peter.” said Jacob and put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter wasn’t able to answer and just lifted a hand as a greeting.

“He fell from the sky right in front of my eyes as I was on my way here.” continued Jacob.

“From the sky?” asked Robert. “A Solid? You’d better keep that to yourself until the Council has started. Solids aren’t popular at the moment.” He eyed Peter up and down before continuing. “You look tired. There’s something to eat and drink on the other side of the hill.

Rest up a little before the Council starts.”

“Thanks Robert. We’d better round up the flock first.”

said Jacob and he shook his friend’s hand again.

“Come.” he said and turned to Peter. “It’ll be a little while before the Council starts. If we hurry with the sheep, we can eat and rest for a while before it begins.”

Peter had nothing against either eating or resting and together they rounded up Jacob’s flock into a little sheep pen that had been built a little further down the hill. Lots and lots of these little temporary pens had been built to hold all the sheep in one place during the Council.

The shepherds had prepared food and Peter and Jacob were given some kind of stew to eat. Peter assumed that it was mutton, but it was, in any case, much nicer than the porridge that they had eaten for breakfast and the bread they’d had for lunch.

Peter sat for a while underneath a tree while Jacob went round greeting all the people that he knew. After a while dusk began to fall and Jacob went back to Peter.

“It seems like the Elder shepherd himself has called this Council.” said Jacob as he sat down next to Peter. “No-one knows exactly why, but we’re all a bit worried. Extra Shepherd’s Councils are only called when something really bad has happened.”

They sat for a little while longer underneath the tree and Jacob pointed out all the different shepherds, giving their names and where they usually grazed their sheep.

Eventually the shepherds began to gather in a circle around the fireplace and Jacob dragged Peter over.

It was as dark as the middle of the night once the Council finally convened. The fire crackled and spat in the middle of the circle sending sparks high up into the sky. Peter thought that it looked as though the sparks were sticking to the sky, which was full of stars. Peter had never seen so many stars in the whole of his life and he watched the sky in amazement.

Now that the sun had at last completely set, the temperature had dropped. Peter was grateful for both the blanket that he had borrowed from Jacob and for the fire, which was very warming even though they were sitting some distance from it. They sat amongst the younger shepherds on one side of the fire. On the other side sat the older shepherds. Most of them had retired some time ago from shepherding and now had their own farms, but everyone who had ever been a shepherd was eligible to attend. Opposite Peter sat a very old man. He had a long white beard and, as Peter looked at him between the flickering flames, it looked as if he was asleep in his seat. Peter could totally relate to this. The meeting began with everyone saying what they had seen and heard since the last meeting and it felt as if several hundred people got up to talk about sheep that had got lost, sheep that had been found and sheep that had had lambs. Also, for some reason that Peter didn’t understand, everyone also spoke about having seen or not seen any rain. Anyway, it quickly became very boring and Peter soon found himself falling asleep.

He awoke with a start when Jacob prodded him.

Confused Peter looked around. The fire had nearly burned itself out and its glow no longer lit up the circle of shepherds very well. It also seemed that everyone else in the circle was looking at him.

“Um?” said Peter and tried to remember what had happened.

“I’ve just explained about where I found you.” said Jacob and he scowled at Peter. “Now it’s your turn to explain how you got here.”

Peter blinked in surprise a few times and stood up.

“Um.” He began and looked around the circle again.

Everyone was looking at him, except for the old man on the other side of the fire. It looked like he had really fallen asleep.

“I fell out of an aeroplane.” said Peter at last. “And I landed on the clouds. Then Jacob found me.”

Nobody said a word. In the dim glow, hardly any faces were visible and it felt to Peter as if he was standing in a circle of eyes that were hovering in the dark around him.

“I just want to go home.” he stammered and looked down at the ground.

“Home to an aeroplane?” somebody asked. Peter couldn’t see who it was.

“No, home to earth. To my house. Home.” said Peter.

Peter heard the shepherds in the circle begin to whisper amongst themselves. It sounded as if they were angry about something, and Peter had the unpleasant feeling that they were angry with him. Or at least that it was all his fault.

“A Solid!” someone exclaimed. “We all know what happens if we trust Solids!”

“Exactly!” shouted a few others.

“Not all Solids are the same!” answered someone else and there were sounds of approval from around the circle.

The discussion then got into full swing. Peter didn’t understand what they were talking about. He understood the words of course, but they didn’t make sense. It felt as if the shepherds were talking about someone else in a foreign language. Jacob was taking part in the conversation and at one point went very red in the face as he stood and shouted at another shepherd that you shouldn’t judge one person for what somebody else had done.

The only person that seemed to be totally outside the discussion, apart from Peter, was the old man on the other side of the fire. The wild discussion had clearly woken him up, because he was now sitting and staring at Peter looking as though he was sucking on something. When Peter’s Grandad had become really old, he hadn’t had any of his own teeth left. Instead, he’d had dentures and when he’d been thinking about something he used to suck on them and he looked exactly like the old man on the other side of the fire looked now.

The old man stared at Peter for a while and then he turned to the shepherd that sat next to him and said something. The shepherd had been busy shouting at someone else, but as soon as the old man had begun to talk to him, he became quiet and listened. In fact, as soon as the old man had begun to talk, everyone in the circle became quiet. Everyone turned towards him and Peter could feel how everyone pricked up their ears to hear what was being said. The shepherd that the old man was speaking to looked anxious and grunted a couple of times, but then he nodded and stood up.

“The boy is a Solid and Solids can’t stay in the Overworld. We have all seen how much damage they can do.” he said and the crowd grunted in agreement.