1
The loblolly boy looked at the Gadget Man.
‘You can’t be serious!’ he exclaimed.
‘Why not?’ asked the Gadget Man mildly. ‘I always believe that if an obstacle presents itself then the best course of action is to remove it.’
‘But …’
‘It won’t work,’ said Mel. ‘We already discussed it. If you take out Benjy then there won’t be anybody for the loblolly boy to Exchange with.’
‘Mmm,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘I suppose that is a consideration.’
‘He’ll be stuck,’ said Mel. ‘Forever,’ she added ominously.
‘Exactly,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘So whatever we do, it has to leave Benjy alive and intact.’
It was a problem.
‘Perhaps we should kidnap him and lock him up somewhere,’ suggested Mel. ‘Same as he did to the loblolly boy.’
They thought about that for a moment or two. The loblolly boy looked around at the three of them: Mel was small and skinny, the Gadget Man wasn’t very big and looked to be pretty old. He didn’t really think that even in combination they’d have the muscle power to subdue somebody like Benjy who, while quite weedy himself, would fight like a weasel.
‘No,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘Kidnapping won’t work. Too blunt an instrument by far.’
The loblolly boy felt relieved.
‘Like a tuba,’ said the Gadget Man.
‘A tuba?’
‘Another blunt instrument. No,’ continued the Gadget Man, ‘what we need is subtlety. Something subtle and underhand.’
The word underhand suggested the Sorcerer to the loblolly boy. He thought about him, suddenly remembering the way the Sorcerer had turned the waiter into a dog. He wasn’t sure how it was done. It may have been hypnosis.
He reminded the others what the Sorcerer had done, and how the waiter had started begging for food and then been sent to fetch the napkin.
‘So that’s what you meant when you said he turned the waiter into a dog,’ said Mel. ‘I thought you were just being weird.’
‘What do you think?’ asked the loblolly boy. ‘You know the Sorcerer. Would he help?’
‘Probably not,’ said the Gadget Man sadly. ‘He’s very averse to doing good.’
‘Are you sure?’ said the loblolly boy.
‘Very sure,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘I mean, I could ask him and he might possibly agree, but if he did I suspect he’d only do so to sabotage the idea and turn it on its head. He’d find that particularly amusing. He’s a dreadful fellow really, the Sorcerer.’
‘I guess so,’ said the loblolly boy despondently.
Glancing at his expression, the Gadget Man said cheerfully, ‘However, don’t despair. The idea is a very good one and to execute it we don’t really need the Sorcerer’s help at all. I’m sure I can find a hypnosis gadget somewhere around here, and if not, why I’ll be very pleased to devise one!’
2
As it happened, the Gadget Man could not find any hypnosis gadget to hand. He told the loblolly boy and Mel to give him a few days during which time he would have either found a device, adapted one or developed an entirely new gadget.
‘If it comes to that, it will be a very satisfying challenge,’ he said, rubbing his hands in anticipation.
All this was very promising and, as they left, the loblolly boy felt happier about possible outcomes than he had for several days. He could only remember the waiter’s transformation from irritated critic to fawning obedience. How great it would be if the Gadget Man fashioned something that could have the same effect on Benjy.
‘Come back in four or five days,’ the Gadget Man said. ‘I should have something to show you then.’
He led them cheerfully through the shop and ushered them out on to the road once more. He was so cheerful, in fact, he was whistling a chirpy little tune. It was only after the Gadget Man closed the door that, with a small start, the loblolly boy recognised that he had actually been whistling the Captain’s strange shanty.
With this realisation, the loblolly boy’s confidence sagged a little. The more he thought about it, the more the Captain’s song seemed nothing more than a succession of warnings, filled with words like fear and beware.
Was this development going to be yet another fire waiting beyond the frying pan?
Mel must have seen the touch of concern cross his face. She grinned and punched him playfully on the arm.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’s only a few days.’
‘I suppose so,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘You know,’ he added, ‘the Captain warned me about the Gadget Man. I wished he’d warned me about his awful puns.’
3
It might have only been a few days, but they were long, interminable days for the loblolly boy. He alternated between his refuge on the church tower and his linden tree in the park. In between times he flew about the city exploring its highways and by-ways. There was not a lot to explore however, and he soon felt he had the total measure of the place.
At other times he wandered the streets. This was a depressing occupation, though, constantly reminding him of his shadow-like existence, and proof of the old saying that you are never lonelier than when you are in a crowd. If that saying was true for ordinary people, then it was ten times truer for the loblolly boy. He was in the crowd but not of it. He could not be seen. He could not be heard. He could not communicate with anybody. A shadow-like existence? Worse, far worse: a shadow can at least be seen.
Nevertheless, he did walk among people, sit among people, listen to their chatter and ache to say a few words himself.
The few people he was able to talk to were not able to offer much for they were all cut off from him in their various ways. He did not see the Sorcerer, and was glad. Mel was in school most of the day, and he learnt from her at one point that her mother had grounded her for staying too long at the park the day she’d visited the Gadget Man. Of course Mel could not explain to her mother that she’d been eating cream crackers and drinking lemonade with a strange old man in the back apartment of his shop with only an invisible boy and a singing gorilla for company. Instead she simply said that she’d forgotten how late it was and her mother had said, ‘Well you’d better not go out again for a few days until you learn to remember what time it is.’
And nothing Mel could say would sway her.
The loblolly boy did not wish to disturb the Gadget Man. It was really important that he wasn’t distracted from what could be an absolutely critical task.
That left Benjy.
The loblolly boy made a particular point of avoiding Benjy. It was far better that Benjy assumed he was still locked in the little brick shed. Were Benjy to see him flying free, he could well feel threatened and be on his guard. It was far better to let Benjy remain cocky and confident so that when the counter-attack came it would be all the more unexpected.
Thus cut off from all contact the loblolly boy spent several of the longest, loneliest days of his life.
What made the days longer and lonelier was the awful knowledge that this could well be the way he would spend the rest of his existence.
4
Some days later he was drowsing on a park bench near the stopped floral clock, when a jaunty whistling penetrated his slumber. The melody again was the now quite familiar tune of the Captain’s shanty, and the loblolly boy half-opened his eyes expecting to see the Gadget Man.
Instead, the Sorcerer was standing before him.
‘Hello, little man,’ he said. ‘Not up and about?’
‘Hello,’ said the loblolly boy cautiously.
‘May I join you?’ asked the Sorcerer, sitting down beside the loblolly boy without waiting for any response.
The Sorcerer was no longer wearing his dinner jacket, but was no less elegant. He was dressed in a white linen suit with a pink tie and a pink carnation in his buttonhole. He wore polished snakeskin boots and he was carrying a silver topped cane which he now held before him, both hands clasped on the top.
‘You’re not busking today?’ asked the loblolly boy.
The Sorcerer must have felt this too self-evident to warrant a reply for he said, ‘I understand you’ve enlisted the aid of my good friend the Gadget Man in order to pursue this somewhat foolish quest of yours.’
‘It’s not foolish,’ said the loblolly boy.
‘Ah, but it is, it is,’ said the Sorcerer glancing at him with a measure of pity.
‘Not to me,’ said the loblolly boy crossly.
All the same he felt a slight chill at the Sorcerer’s pitying look.
‘Have you been talking to him?’ asked the loblolly boy.
The Sorcerer nodded.
The loblolly boy remembered that the two played draughts together.
‘Did you play draughts?’ he asked.
Once more the Sorcerer nodded. ‘We play once a week. Daniel always lets me beat him because he’s worried I might react badly if he should defeat me. It’s most unsatisfactory.’
‘Would you react badly?’
‘Of course,’ smiled the Sorcerer. ‘I detest losing.’
Despite the smile, this was said with considerable vehemence. The loblolly boy looked at the Sorcerer with some alarm. After some time he said nervously, ‘Are we playing a game? You and me?’
The Sorcerer laughed. ‘Of course we are,’ he said. ‘People are always playing games.’
‘I see.’
The loblolly boy looked at the Sorcerer again, hoping his eyes were sparkling with good humour. He was disappointed, the Sorcerer’s laugh had been rich and deep, but his eyes were hard and cold, so cold the loblolly boy turned away with a little tremble.
‘Anyway,’ continued the Sorcerer standing up and shooting his cuffs. ‘I’m glad to have seen you as I especially wanted to warn you about our mutual friend the Gadget Man.’
The loblolly boy looked up. ‘You did?’
‘Yes,’ said the Sorcerer easily. ‘The Gadget Man is a brilliant man in many ways and has created some most astonishing devices, but he does, shall we say, get carried away by his enthusiasms and sometimes his devices lack … how shall I put it? Well, they lack finesse.’
‘Finesse?’
‘Yes, finesse. Or, to put it another way, while they are usually aimed in the general direction of the target, they only occasionally hit it. Do you follow.’
The loblolly boy nodded soberly.
5
The next day, the Saturday, Mel’s mother had apparently let her off the leash.
The loblolly boy had been keeping well hidden in his tree taking careful note of the comings and goings in the park in case Benjy should turn up. Rather than Benjy, though, it was Mel he saw coming purposefully through the gates. He followed her progress along the path right until the moment she shimmied up the tree to join him in the upper branches.
‘Reckon we ought to go and see what that old guy has come up with?’ she asked.
‘I suppose so,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘It’s about that time, I guess.’
However, the meeting with the Sorcerer had put something of a pall over him, and he had lost his confidence that the Gadget Man would really be able to help him.
Mel, seeing this, grinned encouragingly. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘Look at it this way, you’ve got nothing to lose.’
He gave her a smile. ‘You’re right, I guess,’ he said.
‘Anyway,’ said Mel. ‘Wouldn’t it be great to see that rat Benjy have to join a canine obedience class?’
The loblolly boy laughed. ‘I reckon,’ he said. ‘You didn’t see him anywhere,’ he added.
Mel shook her head. ‘None of that lot are down there. They’re probably out smashing toilets somewhere.’
‘Okay,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘Let’s go.’
6
They opened the door and made their way into the dusty shop. The Gadget Man was sitting on a high stool behind the counter. He was once again wearing the brown dustcoat and he smiled broadly as he waved them in.
‘I have news!’ he announced.
‘Good news?’ asked Mel.
‘Good news, indeed,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘Come along in.’
He slid off his stool and, after locking the shop door against possible customers, ushered them into his apartment.
Sitting on a table was a small object that looked a little like a tiny windmill.
The Gadget Man gestured towards it proudly. ‘Look!’ he said.
‘Is that it?’ asked Mel.
‘It certainly is,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘It works like a treat.’
‘Have you tested it then?’ asked the loblolly boy.
‘Not really,’ admitted the Gadget Man. ‘Testing it could be dangerous. But I’m one hundred per cent certain it will do the trick.’
‘Great!’ said Mel.
The loblolly boy did not say anything.
‘So how does it work?’ asked Mel.
‘I’ll show you,’ said the Gadget Man. He was almost bubbly with enthusiasm.
The little windmill-like object was about the size of a small flashlight. It had a similar cylinder to hold and could have been mistaken for a torch except that instead of a light at one end it had a small propeller. It was not an ordinary propeller however. The six blades were flat and were studded with what looked to be small gemstones in a variety of colours.
‘The switch is at the bottom,’ said the Gadget Man turning the device upside down so that they could see the controls. There were not many: just a small dial in the middle of which was a red button. The Gadget Man turned the device the right way up once more. He held it upright so that the cylinder was vertical but the propeller was about head height. Then he carefully turned away from his visitors.
He pressed the red button.
Even looking from the rear it was plain that the propeller did not spin especially quickly and it seemed to be throwing out little specks of coloured light.
‘You hold this up to the victim, press the button, and within seconds he’ll be absolutely convinced he’s a dog.’
‘Wow!’ said Mel.
The loblolly boy asked, ‘Why a dog?’
‘Wasn’t that what you wanted? A dog, I mean. When you mentioned the incident in the restaurant it was about the waiter becoming a dog, wasn’t it?’ asked the Gadget Man a little flustered by the question.
‘Yes,’ admitted the loblolly boy, ‘but that was just an example. There’s no real need to make Benjy into a dog.’
‘Of course there is,’ said the Gadget Man.
There was just a hint of exasperation in his voice and the loblolly boy realised that his question was being perceived as a vote of no confidence in all of the Gadget Man’s hard work. ‘What else could it be?’ continued the Gadget Man. ‘A dog is obedient. It responds to commands, you know, like your waiter. I suppose we could turn him into a cat, but a cat doesn’t do as it’s told. A cat would probably just turn its tail and run; likewise a rabbit. We could turn him into a sheep, but a sheep would only …’
‘Baa?’ suggested Mel.
‘Yes, baa,’ said the Gadget Man flashing the girl a little grateful smile. ‘And also simply run away.’
‘No, you’re missing the point,’ the loblolly boy said. ‘All I’m saying is, why does it have to be an animal at all?’
The others stared at him.
‘Why can’t we simply turn Benjy into a different sort of human? An obedient human, a person who does what he’s told and responds to commands? I reckon that might be simpler.’
‘Humph,’ said the Gadget Man, turning around so that the machine was pointing at the loblolly boy who jumped quickly aside.
‘Careful!’ he cried.
‘The simplest way is not always the best,’ said the Gadget Man with a sniff. Switching it off, he placed the machine back on the coffee table. ‘Besides I’ve worked many, many hours to perfect this little beast. However, if you consider that …’
Mel, sensing the growing friction, frowned at the loblolly boy. He didn’t seem to be showing the right sort of gratitude. This was after all a brilliant way to solve his problem.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I suppose it might have been simpler just to turn Benjy into a nice agreeable guy for a few moments, but aren’t you forgetting something?’
‘What?’ asked the loblolly boy.
Mel gave him a wicked little smile. ‘Turning him into a dog will be so much more fun!’
7
Mel’s diplomacy worked. The loblolly boy relaxed considerably and the Gadget Man felt somewhat more appreciated.
Now that they had the device set up and ready to go, however, there was the problem of where and how to use it.
‘It can’t be at his house,’ said Mel. ‘He’d smell a rat as soon as he saw you.’
The loblolly boy nodded. ‘I know. I’d much prefer he thought I was still locked up in that shed.’
Mel considered this.
‘I guess that sort of means that you can’t be the one to set the propeller going on his face?’
The loblolly boy nodded. ‘I don’t think so. He’d smell an even bigger rat if he saw me coming towards him with a funny-looking machine in my hand.’
There was a short silence as the implications sank in.
‘It’ll have to be me,’ said Mel.
The loblolly boy nodded again. ‘Looks like it.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Mel lightly. ‘He’s seen me around. He thinks I’m harmless. If he sees me with that gadget he’ll just think it’s some sort of kid’s toy and take no notice.’
‘Until it’s too late of course,’ said the Gadget Man smiling. ‘You will take care with it, though, won’t you.’
‘It sounds pretty simple,’ said Mel. ‘Just point, press the red button and then Woof! Woof! Woof! Sit, Benjy!’
‘Good,’ said the Gadget Man.
‘Not quite,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘We haven’t sorted out when and where.’
‘Oh, I think tomorrow,’ suggested Mel. ‘Strike while the iron’s hot!’
‘Excellent,’ said the Gadget Man.
‘And where?’ asked the loblolly boy.
‘Well,’ said Mel, ‘as you said his house is no good. It has to be a place where you can be close by without his seeing you.’
The loblolly boy said, ‘The park?’
‘I reckon,’ said Mel. ‘You can hide up in that tree and see everything that’s going on. Benjy won’t see you, especially as he thinks you’re still in the shed. You can come whizzing down as soon as you hear the Woof! Woof! Woof! and then you can do the swap thing.’
‘Exchange,’ said the loblolly boy.
‘Whatever,’ said Mel.
‘That sounds all very well organised,’ said the Gadget Man, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. ‘I can’t see the smallest problem.’
‘I can,’ said the loblolly boy, after a pause, ‘but it’s not a small problem …’
‘What is it?’ asked Mel.
‘How do we get Benjy to the park tomorrow?’ asked the loblolly boy. ‘Send him an invitation?’
8
‘Whoops,’ said Mel.
‘Oh dear,’ said the Gadget Man,
‘Beats me,’ said the loblolly boy.
They tried to think it through, but it seemed an insurmountable problem.
‘We can’t just rely on his turning up,’ said the loblolly boy.
Mel shook her head. ‘There must be a way,’ she said. She gazed about the room seeking inspiration, then found it in the telephone sitting on a small table near the door.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘We can ring him up and arrange to meet him by the ramp.’
‘We?’ asked the loblolly boy.
Mel screwed her nose in thought as she chased the idea. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You ring him up. He won’t have heard your voice on the phone — unless he’s ever rung himself up,’ she giggled. ‘No, you can ring him up and pretend to be Jason or Gavin.’
‘But I may not sound like Jason or Gavin.’
‘Pretend you’ve got a cold. You can talk through a handkerchief.’
‘Okay, but what if those guys are with him when I ring up. That’d just be my luck.’
‘They won’t be,’ said Mel confidently. ‘Try it. It’s brilliant.’
‘I can’t,’ said the loblolly boy.
‘Why not?’ asked Mel. ‘Cold feet?’
The loblolly boy shook his head indignantly. ‘No. I don’t know the number.’
‘Well, look it up in the book, dipstick!’ said Mel cheerfully.
‘No, I mean it’s not in the book. I checked to find out where they were when I first arrived. They must have an unlisted number or they may not even have a landline.’
Mel stared at him.
‘Bummer,’ she said.
Once again they lapsed into thought, and once again it was Mel who lifted her head smiling.
‘I’ve got it,’ she said.
‘What?’ asked the loblolly boy.
‘You said it right at the start,’ she said.
‘I did?’ he said.
‘Yep, remember? You asked whether we should send him an invitation.’
‘Yes, but I was being sarcastic.’
‘My mum says you should never be sarcastic,’ said Mel primly. And then she turned to the Gadget Man. ‘Would you have some note paper and an envelope. The frillier the better.’
The last request seemed to puzzle the little man, but he thought for a moment. ‘Actually,’ he cried, ‘I have. I have some really frilling paper!’ And he hurried off.
‘Oh, and a pen,’ Mel cried after him.
When she had this material, she knelt down before the coffee table. First of all she took the envelope and wrote in careful letters: For Benjy. Under this she drew a small heart. Then taking a sheet of paper, she wrote: If you can meet me at the ramp in the park at one o’clock tomorrow I can tell you a secret. Underneath this she wrote: Your Secret Admirer, and then she drew another heart, a little bigger this time.
She folded the note in three and put it in the envelope, which she sealed. Then she handed the envelope to the loblolly boy.
‘You can be the mailman,’ she grinned.
The loblolly boy was grinning too. ‘Brilliant,’ he said. ‘Be pleased to.’
‘Make sure you’re not seen,’ said Mel. ‘Oh. And don’t put it in the letter box.’
‘I’ll push it under the door,’ said the loblolly boy. He grinned again. ‘He’ll probably lie awake all night wondering.’