Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London by Keith Mansfield Page A

krun started whipping the leather ball constantly, turning it red all over.
    â€œStop!” Clara cried. “You’re hurting it.”
    Stevens looked at Clara. “For years I’ve had to put up with your do-gooder nonsense. Not any more.” He laughed, took hold of one of the whips and started lashing the ball so hard the whip was now piercing the outer hide.
    â€œNo!” Johnny heard himself say. He didn’t know what, but he had to do something. Trying to run toward Stevens he misjudged the low gravity and crashed straight into the floating gas bag. Instead of bouncing off he found he’d stuck to it. Somewhere in the distance he thought he heard a scream of pain as the whip lashed into the back of his skull over again,forcing his head into one of the lesions that had opened up in the ball’s side. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut for a moment and everything went quiet.
    The silence was broken by a rich, deep voice that seemed to be inside Johnny’s head. It said, “Hello … that was rather unexpected.”
    Johnny opened his eyes again. His face was somehow inside the huge ball, which was hollow. From his new vantage point the outer hide was translucent, a battered brown membrane on which red streaks were appearing and disappearing from the continuing, but now silent, cracks of the whip. The ball’s insides were illuminated by a swirling, glowing golden pattern of light at its very center. Somehow Johnny knew that this was where the voice he’d heard had come from.
    â€œHello,” Johnny said back. He couldn’t actually tell if he’d simply thought the words or had spoken them out loud. “Where am I? What are you?” He’d tried to hold this final question back as it did seem rather rude, but he’d simply thought it and out it came.
    â€œI,” said the voice, “am a hundra. And you,” it continued, “do not appear to be dead.”
    â€œNo, I don’t think I am,” said Johnny. The atmosphere inside the hundra was old, stale and very thick—it was like being under the surface of a swimming pool where the water hadn’t been changed for months. Yet he could breathe.
    â€œHow very curious,” said the hundra.
    â€œAre you OK?” Johnny asked. “They seemed to be hurting you.” As the red weals appeared on the brown membrane, he could dimly hear Clara calling his name in the distance.
    â€œRegrettably, I shall live,” said the hundra. “Tell me, what race are you?”
    â€œI’m human,” Johnny replied. “My name’s Johnny—Johnny Mackintosh.”
    â€œI have lived many years and witnessed many things,” boomed the hundra. “But never have I seen a human, Johnny—Johnny Mackintosh. It is thought no race can touch the hundra, without suffering an instant and most horrible death. Not since the ancients—the ones who gave us our gift.”
    â€œI don’t understand,” said Johnny. “What gift? And how could I touch you?”
    â€œWe, the hundra,” said the creature, “are the galaxy’s translators. We feed on language. We ingest words from one people and emit brainwaves in the language of others. As to how you come to be bonded to me, and how you lived, I do not know. Stay with me a while, Johnny—Johnny Mackintosh. I would welcome a companion with whom to enter discourse.”
    â€œI can’t,” said Johnny. “There’s loads I need to ask, but my sister’s out there. I can’t leave her. Is there any way you can send me back?”
    â€œIf that is your wish,” said the hundra sadly, all the time its golden lights swirling. “I fear after all these years my conversation may have been lacking anyway. You show courage, human. And kindness for trying to help me. Such qualities are rare in these modern times.” Johnny felt the word “modern” was meant to sound insulting.