The Calling E-Book

Philip Caveney

• Herausgeber: Fledgling Press
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

A boy wakes up on a train to Edinburgh.He is shocked to discover that no idea who he is or how he came to be on the train - and once off it, he finds himself immersed in the chaos of the Edinburgh Fringe. After a day of wandering the crowded streets, he falls asleep and is woken by the sound of bells tolling midnight - only to discover that is the night of The Calling - a magical yearly event when all the statues of the city come alive. He is the only human ever to witness it. He quickly makes a couple of allies - the Colonel, the bronze cavalryman of the Scots Grey's monument, and the intrepid explorer David Livingstone. They christen the boy 'Ed Fest' and take him to Parliament Square to meet Charles II, the king of the statues, who isn't particularly fond of 'Softies' (humans).He assigns Sherlock Holmes to investigate the boy's case, to discover his real identity and to get back to his home and family. But as the bronze detective begins to decipher the clues, he discovers that 'Ed' is on the run from a sequence of terrible events; ones that could threaten his very existence. The Calling is a magical story set during Edinburgh's most exciting event - and nearly all of its characters can be observed, standing on plinths in the heart of the city, waiting for next year's Calling.

Leseprobe

The Calling

Philip Caveney

© Philip Caveney 2016

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Fledgling Press Ltd,

7 Lennox St., Edinburgh, EH4 1QB

Published by Fledgling Press 2016

Cover Design: Kylie Tesdale

Print ISBN: 9781905916085

eBook ISBN: 9781905916092

Contents

Arrival

Edinburgh

Strange Encounter

David

Sir Walter

Please To See The King!

The Vote

The Bronze Detective

Looking For Clues

New-Fangled

Lucky

By Royal Appointment

Incognito

The Anomaly

The Peveril

The Phone Call

The Hippodrome

Home Sweet Home

The Ransom

Reinforcements

Aftermath

Epilogue

Statue Map

Other Titles

Crow Boy Chapter 1

One

Arrival

The boy opened his eyes…

He had the distinct impression that he was surfacing from deep underwater, rising slowly to meet the rippling surface. At first, everything was blurred. He was aware only of sound and movement, his vision an uncertain fog of muddy colours. Then everything came sharply into focus.

He was on a train, he decided, which was odd, because he didn’t remember getting on a train or even having the intention of doing so. He looked slowly around, blinking like somebody who had just emerged from a deep sleep. Perhaps he had.

It was packed, this train – heaving with people, some standing in the aisle, others seated and balancing heavy bags on their laps, perhaps because the proper luggage areas were too full. The boy realised that he was sitting at a table. Opposite him, an elderly couple, a man and a woman, were pulling on jackets as though preparing to leave. The boy stared at them helplessly. He didn’t know who they were, he was pretty certain he’d never seen them before but he couldn’t even be sure of that, because…

He didn’t know who he was.

He didn’t know what he was doing on this train or where he was going or why he had got on it in the first place. It dawned on him in a sudden rush of anxiety that he didn’t even know his own name.

He turned his head to look at the person sitting next to him, hoping it might be somebody he recognised, but it was a middle-aged man in a black suit who was pushing a laptop into an expensive-looking leather case, a man with the cold uncaring face of a stranger.

The elderly woman must have caught his look of confusion, because she smiled at him and said, ‘Are you all right, dear?’

He nodded, but didn’t know why he’d done that, because actually he wasn’t all right, he was scared and confused and he was trying to piece things together in his own mind, trying to remember what had brought him here, but it was like groping around in the mud at the bottom of a pond. There was only darkness in his recent past, a thick veil of sludge that he couldn’t seem to see through or get any kind of grip on.

‘Is somebody meeting you?’ asked the woman, clearly trying to be helpful and he could only shrug and smile like an idiot, because he didn’t know if anybody was meeting him, he didn’t know anything. He thought about telling her that, but for some reason decided against it. He’d sound like an idiot, he decided. No, he needed to pull his thoughts together before he went speaking to people. He needed to get a grip.

As if to mirror his thoughts, the train slipped abruptly into shadow. He turned to look out of the window and saw that it was entering a grey stone tunnel. For an instant his reflection stared back at him from the glass. He saw a boy of about twelve or thirteen years old, he thought, a boy with dark hair and a face he didn’t recognise. Then a voice came over the tannoy, a man’s voice speaking with what sounded like a Scottish accent.

‘We will shortly be arriving at Edinburgh Waverley where this train terminates. Will passengers please ensure they have all of their personal belongings before leaving the train?’

The voice seemed to act as a kind of goad. Suddenly everyone was up on their feet, pulling on coats, heaving down bags from the luggage racks overhead. The boy looked up at the glass shelf immediately above him, wondering if one the bags stored there might be his, but as he watched, eager hands removed item after item, until there was nothing left.

And then the train emerged from darkness and slid slowly into the station and he saw a sign announcing that this was indeed, Edinburgh Waverley. The boy knew that Edinburgh was in Scotland, but as far as he was aware, he had never been here before and had no reason to be here now, because he lived in…

No.

Nothing. Another blank. This was beginning to feel really scary. His heart seemed to leap in his chest.

The train lurched to a stop, the doors pinged open and the exodus began, everybody seemingly intent on getting off the train as quickly as possible. The boy hung back, not wanting to be caught up in the frantic press of bodies. The elderly woman gave him one last concerned look, as though she might be thinking of asking him more questions, but her husband was clearly anxious to be on the move, one hand clutching her arm, his expression saying ‘don’t get involved,’ so after a moment’s hesitation, she followed him out into the aisle and off towards the doors. The boy sat there, staring out of the window at the heaving platform, thinking that he really ought to try and come up with some kind of plan, but nothing useful occurred to him and after a little while, there was just him sitting alone in the empty carriage. Then a uniformed man came along the aisle with a bin bag, picking up rubbish from the tables as he came. He paused and gave the boy an odd look.

‘You not getting off?’ he asked indignantly.

‘Er… yeah, sure.’ The boy got obediently to his feet and shuffled sideways into the aisle. He turned and headed for the nearest door. He came to a luggage rack and paused to see if anybody had left a bag or a case behind, but it was empty. He frowned then, aware that the uniformed man was still looking at him, went out through the exit doors and onto the platform.

It was incredibly busy out there, people sweeping to and fro, like a colony of ants all engaged in important business, most people dragging huge suitcases on wheels behind them. The boy joined the tail end of a long procession heading towards some exit gates and noticed, as the queue began to shorten, that people were displaying tickets to a man standing at some electronic barriers. He was using a plastic card to open and shut them, allowing only one or two people through at a time.

The boy knew enough to realise that he ought to have some kind of ticket for travel, so he started rooting in the pockets of his jeans. He pulled out a handful of coins from one pocket, a piece of folded paper from the other and a single metal key. The queue in front of him was rapidly shortening and the man at the gate didn’t look the sympathetic sort, so the boy tried the pockets of the jacket he was wearing, a hooded khaki affair. He found various bits of detritus but nothing that resembled a railway ticket and now he saw that he was next in line and he began to panic. The man ahead of him went through the barrier and it snapped shut behind him. The guard turned his baleful gaze to the boy. He was a thickset man with cold blue eyes and a stubbled chin.

‘Ticket?’ he snapped.

The boy looked at him helplessly. ‘I don’t… I can’t… it’s…’

‘TICKET!’ growled the guard, looking irritably at the long queue forming behind the boy.

‘I haven’t… I can’t find…’ The boy couldn’t see any other way out of this. ‘I don’t know who I am!’ he said.

A strange expression came over the guard’s grumpy face. He looked weary, as though this was something that happened to him all the time. He rolled his eyes, shook his head, then waved his card in front of the barrier, making it slide magically open. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Get moving.’

‘But…’

‘NEXT!’ roared the guard and the boy jumped forward, galvanised by the urgency in the man’s voice. Then he was following other travellers across a flat stretch of tarmac and up a steep ramp to the open air.

Two

Edinburgh

He emerged into even greater chaos. It was late afternoon, judging by the long shadows, and the street was crowded with people, all of them pushing and shoving their way towards a line of black cabs parked alongside the kerb, so he detached himself from that queue and headed to his right, following the pavement across a wide bridge that was thronged with busy traffic. He had to push and shove his way through the other people heading in both directions on the crowded pavement. When he got to the far side of the bridge, a weird sound assailed his ears, something that sounded like the caterwauling of a tortured animal. Looking around, he saw a band of musicians on the far side of the road. They were playing some kind of rocked-up Scottish folk tune: a guitarist, a drummer and a man playing bagpipes, who was leaping up and down on the spot like somebody demented. The band was standing beside the open gates of a park and an eager crowd were gathered in front of them, clapping their hands and urging them on.

The park’s entrance seemed to offer some respite from the bustle and noise, so when he got to the top of the road, he waited for the lights to change and crossed over, noticing as he did so how every lamppost along the street was decorated with a colourful poster, advertising a whole series of events, most of them featuring a grinning face. He thought he recognised one or two of the faces, decided he’d seen them before, possibly on TV, but he couldn’t be sure. A name accompanied each face and though some of the names had a familiar ring to them, he couldn’t have said with any certainty who any of these people actually were.

He made it to the far side of the road and paused for a moment to stare at the band. Close up, they sounded quite fearsome, the drummer bashing at his miniature kit with manic energy, the sound of his bass drum seeming to thud like a series of punches to the boy’s chest. As he watched, a couple of people broke from the crowd and moved forward to throw coins into a hat on the pavement, but the boy didn’t feel he could spare any of the money he’d found in his pocket, so instead he went in through the gates and descended a long flight of stone steps to a wide path some ten feet below the level of the street.

It was a bit quieter here, though still busy with people. The sounds of the traffic receded as the boy walked along. On the horizon, away to his left, perched on a high clump of rock stood what could only be described as a castle. It looked like something from a fairy tale, the boy thought, but he managed to make some kind of a connection with the word Edinburgh. There was an Edinburgh Castle, wasn’t there? He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but it felt right and for the first time since he’d opened his eyes he felt a little cheered. At least there was something he thought he knew. He kept walking. He went past long rows of park benches and a little café serving coffee and ice cream. People sitting at outdoor tables were enjoying the last rays of the afternoon sunshine, but the peaceful scene was short-lived because, all too soon, he reached the far end of the park and had nowhere else to go but back up onto the busy road. As he came out of the gates he caught sight of a road sign announcing that he was on Princes Street. Buses and trams rumbled past him and a seemingly never-ending stream of black cabs.

Thinking that it might be quieter on the far side of the road, he crossed over and found himself heading down narrower streets, but the crowds were no thinner here, so he headed up a steep hill that curved slowly around to his left. The railings that flanked the pavement along the route were now an endless procession of garish posters, advertising comedy nights, theatre events, musicals, concerts… Edinburgh clearly was a very busy place.

He reached the top of the hill, a crossroads, and paused for a moment, wondering which way to go. To his right there was a big black and white pub where throngs of people stood outside drinking beer and wine. A prominent sign announced that this was ‘Deacon Brodie’s Tavern.’ The boy turned left away from it and started walking down the cobbled street beyond, but he’d only gone a short distance when he realised that he’d made a mistake. The way ahead was absolutely choked with people, many of whom seemed to be in fancy dress, some of them carrying placards for various shows, and as he walked along some of them started approaching him, offering him sheets of paper advertising the different events.

‘Do you like comedy?’ asked a man who was dressed as some kind of Space Pirate, pushing a leaflet into his hands. ‘Captain Danger and the Super Vixens from Venus,’ he added mysteriously. ‘Starts in ten minutes, just up the street there.’

The boy didn’t know what to say. He took the leaflet and started to walk on, only to be accosted by a young woman dressed as some kind of medieval wench. ‘The Crucible!’ she barked in his face, displaying rows of teeth that had been artificially blackened – at least, the boy hoped that was the case. ‘Arthur Miller’s brilliant play about the Salem Witch trials, Pleasance Courtyard, seven o’clock tonight. Special discount with this flyer.’

‘Er… thanks,’ said the boy, taking the sheet from her, though he really didn’t have much idea what she was on about. As if at some signal, others in the crowd appeared to sense that he was an easy target. There was a sudden rush and he found himself wading though a sea of humanity, every one of whom was intent on shoving a sheet of brightly-coloured paper at him. He’d accepted a dozen of them before he began to gaze frantically around, looking for some avenue of escape. He saw an opportunity and ducked behind a large metal litterbin, then ran around it, only to find himself standing beside a makeshift wooden stage, where a group of what he thought might be Spanish dancers in colourful costumes were whirling and spinning to amplified guitar music. One of the women saw him standing by the stage and blew him a theatrical kiss. He felt his cheeks reddening.

Then he saw a couple of policemen walking through the crowd towards him and decided there was nothing for it but to level with them. He couldn’t take much more of this. He approached them and said, ‘I don’t know who I am!’

The policemen looked at him, registered the collection of flyers he was holding and laughed out loud.

‘Yeah, very good,’ said one of the cops. ‘But we’re on duty. We haven’t got time to take in a show.’

‘I’m sure it’s genius!’ laughed the other cop.

‘No, wait, you don’t understand. I really…’

But they were already walking away and the moment was lost. The boy looked down at the sheaf of papers he was clutching and realised what had happened. He made a sound of disgust, hurried back to where he’d seen the litterbin and dumped the whole lot inside. The medieval wench saw him do it and gave him an indignant glare, so he turned away and moved back into the cover of the crowd, looking frantically around for somewhere he could sit down and get his thoughts together. He spotted a small clearing around a statue, a life-size figure of a man in old fashioned clothes and a top hat, so he went gratefully over to it and sat down on the statue’s plinth, thinking he would just rest for a moment and get his breath back.

‘Oi!’ snapped a voice above him and he looked up in alarm to see that the ‘statue’ was glaring down at him. ‘Get off me plinth! You’ll damage it.’

The boy jumped up in alarm, realising that this wasn’t a statue at all, just a man, painted grey from head to foot and wearing specially treated clothes. Even his plinth was just a painted wooden box.

‘I’m sorry,’ muttered the boy. ‘I didn’t realise you weren’t… er… what… what are you doing?’

‘Trying to make an honest living,’ snarled the man in a broad Scottish accent. ‘And you’re not helping one wee bit!’

The boy heard laughter and turning, he saw that several passers-by had stopped to watch the proceedings, as though they thought it was all part of a show. One man was even lifting a camera to take a photograph. The boy turned back to the statue-man. ‘I… I’m sorry, I thought you were real,’ he stammered. He waved a hand around at the encircling magic. ‘What… what is all this?’ he asked.

‘What’s what?’ snapped the statue-man.

‘All these people…’

‘It’s the Festival,’ snapped the statue. When the boy just stared up at him blankly, he added, ‘The Edinburgh Festival. What did you think it was? Disneyland?’

‘What’s the… Edinburgh Festival?’ asked the boy.

‘It’s three weeks of total madness,’ said the statue-man. ‘And a chance for me to earn enough money to see me through the winter. Now kindly stick some coins in the hat or sling your hook.’

‘Oh, er…’ The boy shoved a hand into his pocket, then realised he couldn’t afford to give away the tiny bit of cash he had. ‘Sorry, I… I can’t really…’

‘Let’s have a photograph,’ suggested the man with the camera, speaking in an American accent. Before the boy could even think about it, the statue reached down, grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him in close. ‘Smile,’ hissed the statue-man in his ear and the boy did his best to comply, but the rictus grin he came up with couldn’t have been very convincing.

The photographer stepped forward and dutifully dropped a coin into the statue-man’s hat. ‘Thanks, buddy,’ he said.

‘Thank you kindly, sir,’ said the statue-man, doffing his hat and then he pushed the boy away. ‘Scram,’ he said, none too politely.

The boy walked away, bewildered. He’d never heard of the Edinburgh Festival but had already decided that it was clearly an event intended for the insane. He scanned the way ahead, looking for somewhere quiet to hide himself but there didn’t seem to be anywhere that fitted that description. He glanced hopefully through the open doors of shops and cafés but all them were rammed to the gills. He wandered down narrow side streets and had to double back when they proved to be impassable. Before very much longer, it dawned on him that it had actually been a bit quieter back where he’d started, so he retraced his steps, running the gamut of the leaflet distributors a second time, but refusing now to take any more flyers from them, keeping his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

He went back down the hill and as the afternoon faded into evening, he eventually found himself once again on Princes Street, walking alongside the park. Finding an empty wooden bench, he slumped down on it and sat, watching the world go by, trying to come up with some kind of plan but he could think of nothing that would be of any use. It occurred to him that perhaps he should try to find a police station, so he got up from the bench and asked several passers-by where he might find one, but every single person he spoke to had pretty much the same answer. ‘Sorry, kid, I’m not from round here.’ This was said in an American, an Irish, a German and a French accent, before he finally gave up and went back to his bench. He felt completely exhausted by everything that had happened to him since he’d got off the train, so tired that he couldn’t seem to think straight any more.

The hours passed steadily. Darkness descended, the streetlights came on and it didn’t seem to be much quieter on the road than it had been in the day. Now it was dominated by large groups of young people hurrying off to one appointment or another, laughing and shouting to each other, taking no notice of the boy sitting alone on the bench. He started to wonder where he might sleep for the night and, on impulse, got up from the bench and went back through the entrance of the park, wondering if it stayed open all night. He was beginning to feel really tired.

He came to a place where a narrow cobbled path led upwards to a life-sized statue of a soldier on horseback, the horse standing on a tall rock plinth, the soldier gazing steadfastly out towards Princes Street. On the far side of the plinth, on a steep incline, there was a thickly-covered area of trees and shrubs. The boy paused for a closer look and noticed a narrow opening between the rows of foliage where somebody might be able to stretch himself out without being seen by passers-by. After glancing quickly around to ensure there was nobody observing him, he ducked under the metal rail that fenced the area off and crawled into the opening. The shrubs seemed to shrug around him like a blanket. He pulled up the hood of his jacket and lay on his side, listening to the sounds of the traffic passing by on the main road.

It was a strange lullaby but it worked well enough. Within minutes he was fast asleep.

Three

Strange Encounter

It was the sound of a clock chiming that woke him, a deep echoing tone that he decided must be a church clock or something similar. He lay in the bushes, listening. It went on for a long time before it stopped and he wished he’d been able to count them, but for some reason, he decided it was probably midnight. Then he heard another noise, something unexpected and rather startling under the circumstances: a loud snort, followed by a whinny. It sounded, he thought, like a horse. But what would a horse be doing here in the middle of the night?

Cautiously, he lifted his head and peered out from the shrubs. The park, or at least, what he could see of it from his position next to the statue, appeared to be deserted. He became aware of a deep silence. There were no sounds of traffic from the main road, which seemed odd even at this late hour. Again, he heard the snorting and a weird clip-clopping noise.

‘Huh?’ He sat up, peering around in astonishment and now he heard a gruff voice from somewhere in the air above him, a voice that spoke with a strong Scottish accent.

‘Steady on, Sultan, let’s just take a wee moment to stretch ourselves!’

The boy stared up at the stone plinth rearing into the air above him. He was looking at something that he could scarcely believe. The statue of the horse was moving on its plinth, lifting its hooves and shaking its head. And then the boy saw that the soldier, sitting astride the horse, was also in motion, twisting his head this way and that, beneath his tall bearskin hat, and reaching out his arms as though having a much-needed stretch.

The boy got cautiously to his feet, telling himself that this guy was amazing. He made the statue-man he’d seen earlier look like an absolute beginner. How had he managed to stay still for so long? And how had he ever trained a horse to do it with him?’ In standing up, the boy brushed against the vegetation and the soldier looked down at him.

‘Halt! Who goes there?’ he snapped.

‘Er… it’s just me,’ said the boy, dismayed.

‘Just you? Who’s you?’ growled the soldier. He studied the boy for a moment in astonishment. Then his eyes widened in evident surprise. ‘You’re a damned softie,’ he said.

‘Er… am I?’ muttered the boy. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘I can see you are,’ growled the soldier. ‘Soft as anything.’

‘Well that’s not very nice,’ said the boy. ‘You’ve only just met me and you’re calling me names!’

‘I’m calling you what you so obviously are!’ insisted the soldier. ‘You’re made of flesh and blood, boy. A softie. A human.’ He pronounced the last word as though it was something despicable. ‘Why aren’t you asleep?’

‘I was. But the sound of the clock woke me.’ The boy looked around. ‘Look, I‘m sorry. If I’m spoiling your act, I’ll find somewhere else to sleep.’

‘My act?’ The soldier gave a snort of derision. ‘This is no act, Sonny Jim. This is a once a year occurrence. And what do you mean, “the clock woke you?” It’s supposed to put you to sleep.’

‘Is it?’ The boy was completely confused. ‘Well, I’m sorry, I was already asleep and the noise woke me up but… look, I’ll leave you to it. I’m sorry, I can’t afford to give you any money, but…’

‘Money? Why would I want money?’

‘Well, why else would you pretend to be a statue?’

‘Hold on a minute,’ said the soldier. ‘I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, laddie.’ He paused to pat his horse’s flank. ‘Sultan, get us down from here.’

As the boy stood watching in astonishment, the horse lunged forward in an elegant leap, cleared the fence below and thudded down onto the sloping grass beyond it. He galloped on for a short distance, carried by his own momentum, then slowed, wheeled around and came trotting back up the cobbled path. The soldier halted the horse by the fence and sat there, studying the boy with interest. ‘This is irregular,’ he said, more to himself than to anyone else. ‘Most irregular. I’ve never heard the like before.’

The boy didn’t know what to say. Now he could see the soldier clearly in the moonlight, he began to feel afraid, because there was no costume on earth that could be that realistic. The man and his horse were clearly made of black metal, yet it was a metal that somehow moved at the joints as easily and smoothly as a human. As the boy stood there staring, the horse flared its nostrils and shook its head and every metal strand of its mane flowed and swayed as though made of real hair. The soldier was a foot or more bigger than any human had a right to be. He had a fierce, proud face, his top lip adorned with a thick moustache and the eyes that appraised the boy, despite also being made of metal, were keen and sparkled with intelligence. The boy couldn’t help but notice one odd detail. The soldier’s tall hat was liberally peppered with long white streaks. ‘I’m Colonel Robert Macintosh Alexander,’ he announced grandly. ‘My friends call me… The Colonel. Now you’d better do a bit of explaining. Who are you, lad?’

Good question. The boy shook his head. ‘I er… this is going to sound a bit odd,’ he said.

‘Yes?’ said the Colonel, expectantly.

‘I umm… well, I don’t know who I am.’

There was a long silence.

‘Come now,’ said the Colonel. ‘You must surely know who you are? Everyone knows that much.’

‘But I don’t,’ said the boy. ‘I don’t know anything. I guess it sounds weird, but… well, all I know is I woke up on a train just as it was arriving at the station over there…’ The boy pointed in the general direction of Edinburgh Waverley. ‘And since then, I’ve been wandering around Edinburgh trying to remember stuff. Except that I can’t seem to come up with anything at all. Anyway, then I got tired so I lay down here in the bushes. And the next thing I knew, your horse made a loud noise and…’

‘Ah yes, that’s Sultan for you, always eager to get moving. As soon as the bell wakes him, he… well, he has been waiting all year.’

The boy laughed. ‘This is nuts,’ he said. ‘It’s barmy. I’m standing here talking to a flipping statue!’