The Giant's Almanac by Andrew Zurcher (black female authors .txt) 📕

‘Look, Navy, you can scoff, but I’m only telling you what I heard,’ Russ was saying. ‘I was right round the corner for ten minutes at least. They had no idea I was there, so there’s no way they were making it up.’

‘Well, I still don’t believe it,’ said Dolly, joining in again.

‘What’s all this?’ asked Padge. He was pouring a little more oil into the lantern, and seemed fixed on it, determined not to spill a drop.

‘Right,’ said Navy, sitting up, ‘if I’ve understood correctly, it goes something like this. Russ has been spying on the Offs after Feeding, because he is by nature devious.’ Russ rolled his eyes and Payne picked delicately at one of her nails, a smile on her face. ‘And during one of these sessions, he happened to catch the Sweeper and the Commissar discussing arrangements for the election of a new Heresiarch.’

‘Only it’s not an election,’ spluttered Russ.

‘Only,’ affirmed Navy, ‘according to Russ, it’s not an election. Because the Offs don’t get together and agree on the appointment of a Heresiarch. That would be too sensible. Apparently the Riddler gets to choose.’

‘That’s not what I said!’ said Russ, hotly. He had raised his voice, and the others quickly hushed him. Padge picked up a thick red blanket and offered to throw it over his head, if he didn’t keep it down. Fitz looked from one face to another, not yet aware just how much he was enjoying this fracas.

‘I don’t know, Russ,’ retorted Dolly. ‘That’s what I heard.’

‘And I,’ agreed Payne, still smiling, still looking at her nails.

‘It’s what half the Heresy heard,’ said Padge. ‘It’s past eleven bells, Russ. Keep your voice down, or the Jack will be in here like a flash, and we’ll be flushing out the sewers till dawn.’

Russ was quieter now, but he remained uncowed. ‘The Riddler doesn’t get to choose. It’s a lot worse than that. We all know the Riddler’s clever. He’d probably choose a good Heresiarch, even if he couldn’t talk about it in any kind of sensible way. But that’s not what the Commissar said. She said –’ Russ stopped, climbed to his feet, and stood in the centre of the little room. ‘Look, Padge, hand me that blanket.’

Padge gave him the woollen blanket, and Russ wrapped it round his body, securing it with a length of sash that looked like it normally held up the curtains.

‘There,’ he announced, pleased with his costume. ‘I’m the Commissar, okay?’ The red blanket shared with the Commissar’s famous cloak only one feature – colour – but Russ immediately threw his head back in a posture of airy disdain that all the children knew only too well. Giggles and even outright laughs erupted from around the room.

‘She’s not that bad!’ protested Dolly, laughing.

Navy raised her eyebrows and commented in an even tone, ‘She’s pretty bad, Doll.’

‘I never saw it till now, Russ, but one day, when you’re older, you’ll make an excellent … Cossack bandit,’ said Padge. He turned the wick up so high that the room suddenly flooded with light just at the moment that Russ began to strut back and forth in the narrow strip of open floor.

‘Right,’ said Russ, finishing with his parades. ‘Just for that, you can be the Sweeper. Role play.’

Padge stuffed a couple of pillows under his shirt and began to twitch his nose, as if he smelled something unpleasant. Unable to control her laughter, Dolly buried her face in Navy’s armpit and wept tears of mean delight. The others, including Fitz, watched with interest.

Russ struck his condescending pose. ‘You were asking me just now,’ he said, ‘about the next Heresiarch.’

‘I wasn’t,’ said Padge.

Russ dropped the act and remonstrated with him. ‘In character!’ he hissed.

‘Sorry –’ a twitch of the nose from Padge – ‘of course I was, yes, yes.’

‘As you well know,’ said Russ, ‘no one can claim the place who can’t open the Heresiarchy.’

‘Yes, I well know that,’ answered Padge. His hands mimed the scrabbling of a rat in the soil.

‘And there is but one way, and but one way only, into the Heresiarchy.’

‘And what is that?’ asked Padge, in a tone of great servility.

‘By the door, obviously,’ said Russ. He scowled, as if to say, ‘try harder.’ Padge stood up straight. ‘And thus one has need of the key.’

‘Quite so,’ answered Padge.

‘Now, there are but two people on this earth who know the location of the key to the Heresiarchy,’ continued the Commissar. She began to strut back and forth, very briefly, from side to side, and the Sweeper hung like a toy dog on her elbow, snivelling at every stride. ‘And one of them is dead.’

‘Quite so, your Commissariness,’ said the Sweeper. Padge was embellishing the role now, but they all loved it. Even Dolly, holding her sides, was drinking it up. ‘But to whom did the Heresiarch commit his secret, before he passed from this world?’

‘To the Riddler, naturally,’ answered the Commissar. ‘Always the location of the key is known to two people, and two people only: the Heresiarch, and his fool.’

‘This I did not know! This I had never imagined! Then surely,’ said the Sweeper with excitement, ‘if I wanted to be the Heresiarch myself –’ here Padge turned to his audience and flicked his eyebrows, miming the words ‘and I do’ – ‘all I need to do is apply myself to the Riddler, get the key, and let myself in!’

‘Fool!’ cried the Commissar, and whipped him with her sash. The Sweeper cried out, and put his tail between his legs. ‘Of course that is the one thing that the Riddler cannot tell you!’

‘Cannot?’ asked the Sweeper, rubbing his chin and looking up in wonder. ‘Or will not?’

‘He cannot,’ affirmed the Commissar. She was now at her most imperious. ‘When they addled – interfered with – when they did to him whatever they did to the Riddler to make him the Riddler, they made it impossible for him to reveal the location of the