besides.
Hour-lilies by the thousand blossomed in her
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mind's eye, welling up as if from some magical, inexhaustible spring,
and new words rang out as each new flower appeared. Momo had only to listen
closely and she could repeat the words - even sing them. They told of
strange and wonderful things, but their meaning eluded her as soon as she
uttered them.
So that was what Professor Hora had meant when he said that the words
must first take root within her!
Or had everything been a dream after all? Had none of it really
happened? Momo was still pondering this question when she caught sight of
something crawling across the arena below her. It was the tortoise, engaged
in a leisurely quest for edible plants.
Momo ran quickly down the steps and knelt on the ground beside it. The
tortoise looked up for a moment, regarded her briefly with its dark, age-old
eyes, and calmly went on eating.
'Good morning, Tortoise,' said Momo.
The creature's shell remained blank.
'Was it you that took me to Professor ¨®£ last night?'
Still no answer.
Momo heaved a sigh of disappointment. 'What a pity,' she muttered. 'So
you're only an ordinary tortoise after all, and no"- - oh, I've forgotten
what she was called. It was a pretty name, but long and foreign-sounding.
I'd never heard it before.'
Some faintly luminous letters showed up on the tortoise's shell.
'CASSIOPEIA,' they read.
Momo joyfully spelled them out. 'Yes,' she cried, clapping her hands,
'that was it! So it "s you. You are Professor Hora's tortoise, aren't you?'
'WHO ELSE?'
'Why didn't you say so right away, then?'
'HAVING BREAKFAST.'
'Oh, I'm so sorry,' said Momo. 'I didn't mean to disturb you. All I'd
like to know is, why am I back here?'
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BY CHOICE.'
Momo scratched her head. 'That's funny, I don't remember wanting to
leave. How about you, Cassiopeia? Why did you come, too, instead of staying
with the professor?' 'BY CHOICE,' Cassiopeia repeated. 'Thanks,' said Momo.
'That was nice of you.' 'NOT AT ALL.' That seemed to conclude the
conversation as far as Cassiopeia was concerned, because she plodded off to
resume her interrupted breakfast.
Momo sat down on the steps, impatient to see Beppo, Guido and the
children again. The music continued to ring out inside her, and though she
was all alone with no one around to hear, she joined in the words and
melodies more and more loudly and lustily. And as she sang, straight into
the rising sun, it seemed to her that the birds and crickets and trees -
even the amphitheatre's time-worn stones - were listening to her.
Little did she know that they would be her only listeners for a long
time to come. Little did she know that she was waiting in vain for her
friends to appear -- that she had been gone a whole year, and that
everything had changed in the meantime.
The men in grey disposed of Guido with relative ease. It had all begun
about a year ago, only days after Momo's sudden and mysterious
disappearance, when a leading newspaper printed an article about him.
Headlined 'The Last of the Old-Time Storytellers', it mentioned when and
where he could be found and described him as an attraction not to be missed.
From then on, the amphitheatre was besieged by growing numbers of
people anxious to see and hear him. This, of course, was all right with
Guido. He continued to say the first thing that came into his head and ended
by handing around his cap, which always came back brimming with
155
coins and banknotes. Before long he was employed by a travel agent who
paid him an additional fee for permission to present him as a tourist
attraction in his own right. Busloads of sightseers rolled up in such
numbers that Guido was soon obliged to keep to a strict timetable, so that
all who had paid to hear him got a chance to do so.
He began to miss Momo more and more, because his stories had lost their
inspiration, but he steadfastly refused to tell the same story twice, even
when offered twice his usual fee.
After a few months, Guido no longer needed to turn up at the
amphitheatre and hand around his battered peaked cap. Having been
'discovered', first by a radio station and then by television, he was soon
earning a mint of money by telling his stories, three times weekly, to an
audience of millions.
By now he had given up his lodgings near the amphitheatre and moved to
quite another part of town, where all the rich and famous lived. He rented a
big modern villa set in well-kept grounds, dropped the nickname Guido, and
called himself Girolamo instead.
Guido was far too pressed for time, of course, to go on inventing new
stories as he used to. He began to ration his material with care, sometimes
concocting as many as five stories out of one idea. When even that failed to
meet the ever-increasing demand for his services, he did something he should
never have done: he broadcast a story destined for Memo's ears alone.
It was lapped up as greedily, and forgotten as speedily, as all the
rest, and the public clamoured for more. Guido was so bemused by the sheer
pace of everything that, without stopping to think, he reeled off all of
Momo's treasured stories in quick succession. When the last of them was
told, he felt drained and empty and incapable of making up any more.
Terrified that success might desert him, he started to tell his stories
all over again, making only minor changes and
156
using different names for his characters. Extraordinarily enough,
nobody seemed to notice - at all events, it didn't affect his popularity.
Guido clung to this thought like a drowning man clutching at a straw.
He was rich and famous now, he told himself, and wasn't that what he'd
always dreamed of?
Sometimes, though, while lying awake at night between silk sheets, he
yearned for his old way of life - for the happy times he'd spent with Momo
and Beppo and the children, when he was still a genuine storyteller.
But there was no way back, for Momo had never reappeared. Guido had
made strenuous efforts to find her at first, but he no longer had the time.
He now employed three super-efficient secretaries to negotiate contracts for
him, take down his stories in shorthand, handle his publicity and keep his
engagement diary. Somehow, his schedule never left him time to resume the
search for Momo.
One day, when little of the old Guido remained, he pulled what was left
of himself together and resolved to turn over a new leaf. He was a somebody
now, he told himself. He carried a lot of weight with millions of listeners
and viewers. Who was better placed than he to tell them the truth? He would
tell them about the men in grey, emphasize that the story was a true one,
and ask all his fans to help him look for Momo.
He formed this intention late one night, when he had been pining for
his old friends. By daybreak he was at his massive desk, preparing to put
his ideas down on paper. Even before he had written a word, however, the
telephone rang. He picked up the receiver, listened, and went rigid with
terror At the sound of the peculiarly flat, expressionless voice in his ear,
he felt as if the very marrow in his bones had turned to ire
'Drop the idea,' the voice said. 'We advise you to, for your own sake.'
157
'Who's speaking?' Guido demanded.
'You know very well,' the voice replied. 'We've no need to introduce
ourselves. You haven't had the pleasure of making our acquaintance, but
we've owned you body and soul for a long time now. Don't pretend you didn't
know.'
'What do you want?'
'This latest scheme of yours doesn't appeal to us. Be a good boy and
drop it, will you?'
Guido took his courage in both hands. 'No,' he said, 'I won't. I'm not
poor little Guido Guide any longer, I'm a celebrity. Try taking me on and
see how far you get!'
The voice gave such a grey, mirthless laugh that Guide's teeth began to
chatter.
'You're a nobody,' it said, '- a rubber doll. We've blown you up, but
give us any trouble and we'll let the air out. Do you seriously think you
owe what you are today to yourself and your own unremarkable talents?'
'Yes,' Guido said hoarsely, 'that's just what I do think.'
'Poor old Guido,' said the voice, 'you're still as much of a dreamer as
you ever were. You used to be Prince Girolamo disguised as a nobody called
Guido. And what are you now? Just a nobody called Guido disguised as Prince
Girolamo. You should be grateful to us. After all, we're the ones who made
your dreams come true.'
'That's a lie!' Guido shouted.
'Heavens!' said the voice, with another mirthless laugh. 'You're hardly
the person to bandy words with us on the subject of truth and falsehood. Oh
no, my poor Guido, you'll regret it if you try quoting the truth at people.
Thanks to us, you've become famous for your tall stories. You aren't
qualified to tell the truth, so forget it.'
'What have you done with Momo?' Guido asked in a whisper.
'Don't worry your poor little scatterbrained head about that. You can't
help her any more, least of all by telling
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stories about us. If you do, you'll only destroy your success as
quickly as it came. It's up to you, of course. If you're really set on
playing the hero and ruining yourself, we won't stop you, but you can't
expect us to reward your ingratitude by continuing to protect your
interests. Don't you like being rich and famous?'
'Yes,' Guido replied in a muffled voice. 'Exactly, so leave us out of
it. Go on telling people what they want to hear.'
'Now that I know the truth,' Guido said with an effort, 'how can I?'
'I'll give you some sound advice: Don't take yourself so seriously. The
matter's out of your hands. Look at it from that angle and you'll find you
can carry on very nicely, as before.'
'Yes,' Guido muttered, staring into space, 'from that angle .. .'
The earpiece gave a click and went dead. Guido hung up too. He slumped
forward on to the desktop and buried his face in his arms, racked with
silent sobs.
From then on Guido lost every last scrap of self-respect. He abandoned
his plan and carried on as before, though he felt an utter fraud. And so he
was. Once upon a time his imagination had soared along and he had blithely
followed its lead, but now he was telling lies. He was making a buffoon of
himself -- a public laughing-stock - and he knew it. He hated his work, and
the more he hated it the sillier and more sentimental his stories became.
This didn't impair his reputation, though. On the contrary, the public
acclaimed him for pioneering a new style of humour and many comedians tried
to imitate it. Guido was all the rage, not that he derived any pleasure from
the fact. He now knew who was responsible for his success. He had gained
nothing and lost everything. And still he continued to race by car or plane
from one
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engagement ro the next, accompanied everywnere oy me secretaries to
whom he never stopped dictating old stories in new guises. 'Amazingly
inventive' was the newspapers' pet description of him.
Guido the dreamer had, in fact, become Girolamo the hoaxer.
Beppo Roadsweeper presented the men in grey with a far harder nut to
crack.
Ever since the night of Memo's disappearance, and whenever his work
permitted, he had gone to the amphitheatre and sat there waiting. At last,
when his mounting concern and anxiety became too much to bear, he resolved
to override Guide's objections, reasonable though they were, and go to the
police.
'What if they do put her back in one of those homes with bars over the
windows?' he reflected. 'Better that than being held prisoner by the men in
grey - if she's still alive, of course. She escaped from a children's home
once, so she could do it again. Besides, maybe I could fix it so they didn't
put her in a home at all. The first thing to do is find her.'
So he made his way to the nearest police station, which was on the
outskirts of the city. Once there, he hung around outside for a while,
twisting his hat in his hands. Then he plucked up courage and walked in.
'Yes?' said the desk sergeant, who was busy filling out a long and
complicated form.
Beppo took some time to get it out. 'The thing is,' he said at last,
'something dreadful must have happened.'
'Really?' said the desk sergeant, still writing. 'What's it all about?'
'It's about our Momo,' said Beppo.
•A child?'
'Yes, a girl.'
'Is she yours?'
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'No,' Beppo said, uncertainly, '-1 mean, yes, but I'm not her father.'
'No, I mean, yes!' snapped the desk sergeant. 'Who's child is she,
then? Who are her parents?' 'Nobody knows,' said Beppo. 'Where is she
registered, then?'
'Registered?' said Beppo. 'Well, with us, I suppose. We all know her.'
'So she isn't registered,' the desk sergeant said with a sigh. 'That's
against the law, in case you didn't know. Who does she live with, then?'
'She lives by herself,' Beppo replied, 'that's to say, she used to live
in the old amphitheatre, but she doesn't any more. She's gone.'
'Just a minute,' said the desk sergeant. 'If I understand you
correctly, the ruins have until recently been occupied by a young female
vagrant named - what did you say her name was?'
'Momo,' said Beppo.
The policeman pulled a pad towards him and started writing. 'Momo,' he
repeated. 'Well, go on: Momo what? I'll need her full name.'
'Momo nothing,' said Beppo. 'Just Momo.' The desk sergeant stroked his
chin and looked aggrieved. 'See here, old timer, you'll have to do better
than this. I'm trying to be helpful, but I can't file a report without your
cooperation. Better begin by telling me your own name.' 'Beppo,' said Beppo.
'Beppo what?' 'Beppo Roadsweeper.' 'Your name, I said, not your occupation.'
'It's both,' Beppo explained patiently. The desk sergeant put his pen down
and buried his face in his hands. 'God give me strength!' he muttered
despairingly. 'Why did I have to be on duty now, of all times?'
161
Then he straightened up, squared his shoulders, and gave the old man an
encouraging smile. 'All right,' he said gently, as though humouring a child,
'I can take your personal particulars later. Just tell me the whole story
from start to finish.'
Beppo looked dubious. 'All of it?'
'Anything that's relevant,' said the desk sergeant. 'I'm up to my eyes
in work - I've got this whole stack of forms to complete by lunchtime, and
I'm just about at the end of my tether - but never mind that. Take your time
and tell me what's on your mind.'
He sat back and closed his eyes with the air of a martyr at the stake.
And Beppo, in his queer, roundabout way, recounted the whole story from
Memo's arrival on the scene and her exceptional gifts to the trial on the
garbage dump, which he himself had witnessed.
'And that very same night,' he concluded, 'Momo disappeared.'
The desk sergeant subjected him to a long, resentful glare. 'I see,' he
said at last. 'So you're telling me that an unlikely-sounding girl, whose
existence remains to be proved, may have been kidnapped and carried off, you
can't say where to, by ghosts of some kind. Is that what you expect us to
investigate?'
'Yes, please,' Beppo said eagerly.
The desk sergeant leaned forward. 'Breathe on me!' he barked.
Although Beppo failed to see the point of this request, he shrugged his
shoulders and obediently blew in the policeman's face.
The desk sergeant sniffed and shook his head. 'You don't appear to be
drunk.'
'No,' mumbled Beppo, puce in the face with embarrassment. 'I've never
been drunk in my life.'
'Then why tell me such a cock-and-bull story? Did you really think I'd
be daft enough to believe it?'
162
'Yes," beppo replied innocently.
At that the policeman's patience finally snapped. He jumped up and
slammed his fist down hard on his stack of long and complicated forms. 'That
does it!' he bellowed, beside himself with rage. 'Get out of here at once or
I'll lock you up for insulting behaviour!'
Beppo looked dismayed. 'I'm sorry,' he mumbled, 'I didn't mean it that
way. All I meant was -'
'Out!' roared the desk sergeant.
Beppo turned and went.
During the next few days he called at various other police stations
with much the same result. He was kicked out, politely sent home, or
humoured as the best means of getting rid of him.
One day, however, he was interviewed by a police inspector with less
sense of humour than his colleagues. After listening to Beppo's story
without a flicker of expression, he turned to a subordinate and said coldly,
'The old man's off his rocker. We'll have to find out if he's a threat to
society. Take him down to the cells.'
Beppo had to spend half the day in a cell before being whisked off in a
car by two policemen. They drove him all the way across the city to a big
white building with bars over the windows. It wasn't a prison or detention
centre, as he at first thought, but a hospital for nervous disorders.
Here Beppo underwent a thorough examination. The hospital staff treated
him kindly. They didn't laugh at him or bawl him out -- in fact they seemed
very interested in his story, because they made him tell it again and again.
Although they never questioned it, Beppo got the feeling that they didn't
really believe it. Whatever they made of him, which was far from clear to
Beppo himself, they didn't discharge him.
Whenever he asked how soon he could go, he was told, 'Soon, but you're
still needed for the time being. We haven't
163
completed our investigations, but we're making progress.' And Beppo,
who thought they were referring to investigations into Memo's whereabouts,
continued to wait patiently.
They had allotted him a bed in a big ward where many othci patients
slept. One night he woke up and saw, by the feeble glow of the emergency
lighting, that someone was standing beside his bed. AU he could tell at
first was that the shadowy figure was smoking a cigar or cigarette - the tip
glowed red in the gloom - but then he recognized the bowler and briefcase.
Realizing that his visitor was one of the men in grey, he felt chilled to
the marrow and opened his mouth to call for help.
'Quiet!' hissed an ashen voice. 'I've been authorized to make you a
proposition. Listen to it carefully, and don't answer till I tell you. You
now have some idea of the power we already wield. Whether or not you get
another taste of it is entirely up to you. Although you can't harm us in the
least by retailing your story to all and sundry, it doesn't suit our scheme
of things. You're quite correct in assuming that your friend Momo is our
prisoner, but you may as well abandon all hope of finding her. That you'll
never do, and your efforts to rescue her aren't making the poor girl's
position any easier. Every time you try, she has to suffer for it, so be
more careful what you do and say from now on.'
The man in grey blew several smoke rings, gleefully observing the
effect of his speech on Beppo. It was clear that the old man believed every
word of it.
'My time is valuable,' the man in grey went on, 'so here's our
proposition in a nutshell: you can have the girl back, but only on condition
that you never utter another word about us or our activities. As ransom, so
to speak, we shall additionally require you to deposit a hundred thousand
hours of your time with us. How we bank it is our affair and doesn't concern
you. All you have to do is save it. How you save it is your affair. If you
agree, we'll arrange for you to be
164
released in the next few days. If not, you'll stay here for as long as
Momo remains with us, in other words, for ever more. It's a generous offer,
so think it over. You won't get a second chance. Well?'
Beppo swallowed hard a couple of times. Then he croaked, 1 agree.'
'Very sensible of you,' the man in grey said smugly. 'So remember:
absolute discretion and a hundred thousand hours of your time. As soon as
you've saved them for us, you can have Momo back. And now, my dear sir,
goodbye.'
On that note the man in grey departed, leaving a trail of cigar smoke
behind him. It seemed to glow faintly in the darkness like a
will-o'-the-wisp.
Beppo stopped telling his story from that night on, and when asked why
he'd told it in the first place would merely look sad and shrug his
shoulders. The hospital authorities discharged him a few days later.
But he didn't go home. Instead, he went straight to the depot where he
and his workmates collected their brooms and handcarts. Shouldering his
broom, he marched out into the city streets and started sweeping.
He did not, however, sweep as he used to in the old days, with a breath
before each step and stroke of the broom, but hurriedly and without pride in
his work, solely intent on saving time. He felt sickened by what he was
doing and tormented by the knowledge that he was betraying the deeply held
beliefs of a lifetime. Had no one's future been at stake but his own, he
would have starved to death rather than abandon his principles, but there
was Momo's ransom to ;o!lect, and this was the only way he knew of saving
time.
He swept day and night without ever returning to his shack 'ear the
amphitheatre. When exhaustion overcame him, he ivould sit down on a park
bench, or even on the kerb, and snatch a few minutes' sleep, only to wake up
with a guilty start and carry on sweeping. He devoted just as little time to
165
his meals, which took the form of hurried snacks wolfed down on the
move.
Beppo swept for weeks and months on end. Winter followed autumn, and
still he toiled on. Spring and summer came around, but he scarcely noticed
the changing seasons. Preoccupied with saving Memo's hundred thousand hours'
ransom, he swept and swept and swept.
The townsfolk were too short of time themselves to pay any attention to
the little old man, and the handful that did so tapped their foreheads as
soon as he had gone panting past, wielding his broom as if his life depended
on it. Being taken for a fool was nothing new to Beppo, so he scarcely
noticed that either. On the few occasions when someone asked him what the
hurry was, he would pause for a moment, eye the questioner with mingled
alarm and sorrow, and put his finger to his lips.
Hardest of all for the men in grey to tailor to their plans were Momo's
friends among the children of the city. Even after her disappearance, they
went on meeting at the amphitheatre as often as they could. They continued
to invent new games in which a few old crates and boxes became castles and
palaces or galleons that carried them on fabulous voyages around the world.
They also continued to tell each other stories. In short, they behaved as if
Momo were still with them, and by doing so, remarkably enough, they almost
made it seem that she really was.
Besides, they never for a moment doubted that she would return. They
didn't discuss the subject, but children united by such an unspoken
certainty had no need to. Momo was one ot them and formed the ever-present
focus of all their activities, whether or not she was actually there in
person.
The men in grey were powerless to meet this challenge head-on. Unable
to detach the children from Momo by bringing them under their direct
control, they had to find
166
some roundabout means of achieving the same end, and for this they
enlisted the children's elders. Not all grown-ups made suitable accomplices,
of course, but there were plenty that did. What was more, the men in grey
were cunning enough to turn the children's own weapons against them.
Quite suddenly, one or two parents recalled how their offspring had
paraded through the streets with placards and posters.
'Something must be done,' they said. 'More and more kids are being left
on their own and neglected. You can't blame us - parents just don't have the
time these days - so it's up to the authorities.'
Others joined in the chorus. *We can't have all these youngsters
loafing around,' declared some. 'They obstruct the traffic. Road accidents
caused by children are on the increase, and road accidents cost money that
could be put to better use.'
'Unsupervised children run wild,' declared others. 'They become morally
depraved and take to crime. The authorities must take steps to round them
up. They must build centres where the youngsters can be moulded into useful
and efficient members of society.'
'Children,' declared still others, 'are the raw material of the future.
A world dependent on computers and nuclear energy will need an army of
experts and technicians to run it. Far from preparing our children for
tomorrow's world, we still allow too many of them to squander years of their
precious time on childish tomfoolery. It's a blot on our civilization and a
crime against future generations.'
The timesavers were all in favour of such a policy, naturally, and
there were so many of them in the city by this time that they soon convinced
the authorities of the need to take prompt action.
Before long, big buildings known as 'child depots' sprang up in every
neighbourhood. Children whose parents were too
167
busy to look after them had to be deposited there and could be
collected when convenient. They were strictly forbidden to play in the
streets or parks or anywhere else. Any child caught doing so was immediately
carted off to the nearest depot, and its parents were heavily fined.
None of Momo's friends escaped the new regulation. They were split up
according to the districts they came from and consigned to various child
depots. Once there, they were naturally forbidden to play games of their own
devising. All games were selected for them by supervisors and had to have
some useful, educational purpose. The children learned these new games but
unlearned something else in the process: they forgot how to be happy, how to
take pleasure in little things, and, last but not least, how to dream.
Weeks passed, and the children began to look like time-savers in
miniature. Sullen, bored and resentful, they did as they were told. Even
when left to their own devices, they no longer knew what to do with
themselves. All they could still do was make a noise, but it was an angry,
ill-tempered noise, not the happy hullabaloo of former times.
The men in grey made no direct approach to them - there was no need.
The net they had woven over the city was so close-meshed as to seem
impenetrable. Not even the brightest and most ingenious children managed to
slip through its toils. The amphitheatre remained silent and deserted.
The men in grey had done their work well. All was in readiness for
Momo's return.
So Momo sat on the stone steps and waited in vain for her friends to
turn up. She sat and waited all day, but no one came - not a soul.
The sun was sinking in the west. The shadows grew longer, the air more
chill.
At last Momo rose stiffly to her feet. She was hungry because no one
had thought to bring her something to eat.
168
This had never happened before. Even Guido and Beppo must have
forgotten about her, she reflected, but she consoled herself with the
thought that it was just an oversight -- a silly mistake that would sort
itself out the next day. • She went and knelt beside the tortoise, which had
already tucked itself in for the night. Timidly, she tapped the shell with
her knuckles. The tortoise put its head out and looked at her.
'Excuse me,' Momo said, 'I apologize for waking you, but can you tell
me why none of my friends came? I waited all day long.'
'ALL GONE,' the shell spelled out.
Momo read the words but couldn't follow their meaning. 'Oh well,' she
said cheerfully, 'I'll find out tomorrow. My friends are bound to come then,
aren't they?'
'NEVER AGAIN,' replied the tortoise.
Momo stared at the faint letters with growing dismay. 'What do you
mean?' she asked eventually. 'Has something happened to them?'
'ALL GONE,' she read again.
She shook her head. 'No,' she said softly, 'they can't have. You must
be wrong, Cassiopeia. Why, I saw them only yesterday at our grand council of
war - the one that came to nothing.'
'NOT YESTERDAY,' Cassiopeia replied.
Momo remembered now. Professor ¨®£ had told her that she would have to
wait like a seed slumbering in the earth until it was ready to sprout. She
had agreed without stopping to wonder how long that meant, but now the truth
was beginning to dawn on her.
'How long have I been away?' she asked in a whisper.
'A YEAR AND A DAY.'
Momo took some time to digest this. 'But Beppo and Guido,' she
stammered,'- surely they're still waiting for me?'
NO ONE LEFT,'she read.
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'But I don't understand.' Momo's lips were trembling. 'They can't all
be gone, not my friends, not the times we spent together . . .'
Very slowly, a single word lit up on Cassiopeia's shell:
•PAST.'
For the first time in her life, Momo grasped the terrible finality of
the word. Her heart had never felt so heavy.
'But,' she murmured helplessly, '- but I'm still here ...' She longed
to cry but couldn't. A moment later she felt the tortoise nudge her bare
foot.
•SO AM I,' she read.
'Yes,' she said, smiling bravely, 'you're here too, Cas-siopeia, and
I'm glad of your company. Come on, let's go to bed.'
Picking up the tortoise, she carried it through the hole in the wall
and down into her room. She saw by the light of the setting sun that all was
just as she had left it - Beppo had tidied the place up after its invasion
by the men in grey
- but everything was thick with dust and shrouded in cobwebs.
Then she caught sight of an envelope propped against a can on the
little table. The envelope, too, was covered with cobwebs. 'To Momo,' it
said.
Momo's heart began to race. No one had ever written her a letter
before. She picked up the envelope and examined it from every angle, then
tore it open and unfolded the slip of paper inside.
'Dear Momo,' she read, 'I've moved. If you come back, please get in
touch with me at once. I miss you and worry about you a lot. I hope nothing
has happened to you. If you're hungry, go to Nine's place. I'll foot the
bill, so be sure to eat as much as you want. Nino will tell you the rest.
Keep on loving me - 1 still love you. Yours ever, Guido.'
Momo took a long time to decipher this letter, even though Guido had
obviously been at pains to write as neatly and
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legibly as possible. The daylight had gone by the time she finished
reading, but she felt comforted.
She took the tortdise and put it on the bed beside her. 'You see,
Cassiopeia,' she said as she wrapped herself in the dusty blanket, 'I'm not
alone after all.'
But the tortoise seemed to be asleep already, and Momo, who had
pictured Guide's face with the utmost clarity while reading his letter,
never suspected that the envelope had been lying there for almost a year.
She pillowed her cheek on it, feeling cold no longer.
FOURTEEN
Three Lunches, No Answers
Towards noon on the following day, Momo tucked the tortoise under her
arm and set off for Nine's inn.
'You'll see, Cassiopeia,' she said. 'The mystery will soon be solved.
Nino will tell us where Guido and Beppo are Then we'll go and get the
children, and we'll all be together again. Perhaps Nino and his wife will
come along too. You'li like my friends, I'm sure. We could even give a
little party this evening. I'll tell everyone about the flowers and the
music and Professor Hora and everything. Oh, I just can't wait to see them
all again! First, though, I'm looking forward to a good lunch. I'm
absolutely famished.'
And so she chattered on merrily, feeling in her jacket pocket now and
then to reassure herself that Guide's letter was still there. The tortoise
fixed her with its wise old eyes and made no comment.
Momo began to hum as she went, and then to sing. The words and melodies
were those of the voices that still seemed to ring in her ears as clearly as
they had the day before. She would never forget them, she knew that now.
Then, abruptly, she broke off. They had reached Nine's inn, but her
first thought was that she must have gone astray. Where once had stood a
little old tavern with damp-stained walls and a vine growing around the
door, the street was flanked by a long, concrete box with big plate glass
windows. The street itself had been asphalted and was humming with traffic.
A big petrol station had sprung up opposite, and alongside it an enormous
office
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building. There were lots of cars parked outside the new establishment,
and the neon sign above the entrance said:
NINO'S FASTFOOD.
Momo went inside. She found it hard to get her bearings at 'first.
Cemented into the floor beside the windows were a number of tables with such
spindly single legs and tiny tops that they looked like toadstools. They
were just the right height for grown-ups to eat at standing up - which was
fortunate, since there were no chairs.
Running along the other side of the room was a son of fence made of
shiny, chromium-plated tubing. Just beyond it stood a long row of glass
cases containing ham and cheese sandwiches, sausages, plates of salad,
pudding, cakes and countless other things to eat, many of which Momo had
never seen before.
She could only take in the scene by degrees because the room was
jam-packed with people, and she always seemed to be getting in their way. No
matter where she stood, they elbowed her aside or jostled her along. Most of
them were balancing trays laden with food and drink, and all were intent on
grabbing a place at one of the little tables. Behind every man or woman that
stood there, eating in frantic haste, several others waited impatiently for
him or her to finish. From time to time, acrimonious remarks were exchanged
by those eating and those still waiting to eat. All of them looked glum and
discontented.
More people were shuffling slowly along behind the barrier, taking
plates or bottles and cardboard cups from the glass cases as they passed.
Momo was astonished. So they could help themselves to whatever they
liked! There was no one around to stop them or ask them to pay for what they
took. Perhaps everything was free, Momo reflected. That would certainly
account for the crush.
At last she spotted Nino. Almost obscured by customers,
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he was seated in front of a cash register at the very end of the long
row of glass cases, pressing buttons, taking money and giving change without
a stop. So he was the person who took the money! The rail fenced people in
so they couldn't get to the tables without passing him.
'Nino!' she called, trying to squeeze through the crowd. She called
again and waved Guide's letter, but Nino didn't hear. The electronic cash
register was bleeping too loudly.
Plucking up her courage, Momo climbed over the rail and wormed her way
along the line to where Nino sat. He glanced up, because one or two
customers had started to protest. At the sight of Momo, his glum expression
disappeared in a flash.
'So you're back!' he exclaimed, beaming just as he used to in the old
days. 'This is a nice surprise!'
'Get a move on,' called an angry voice. 'Tell that kid to stand in line
like the rest of us. Cheeky young whippersnap-per, barging her way to the
front like that!'
Nino made appeasing gestures. 'I won't be a moment,' he said. 'Be
patient, can't you?'
'Anyone could jump the line at this rate,' another voice chimed in.
'Hurry up, we don't have as much time to spare as she does.'
'Look, Momo,' Nino whispered hurriedly, 'take whatever you like - Guido
will pay for it all - but you'll have to line up like the rest. You heard
what they said.'
Before Momo could reply, she was pushed past the cash desk by the
people behind her. There was nothing for it but to do as the others did.
Joining the end of the line, she took a tray from a shelf and a knife, fork
and spoon from a box. Because she needed both hands for the tray, she dumped
Cassiopeia on top.
Rather flustered by now, Momo took things at random from the glass
cases as she was slowly propelled along, step by step, and arranged them
around the tortoise. She ended up with an oddly assorted meal: a piece of
fried fish, a jam puff,
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a sausage, a meat pie and a plastic mug of lemonade. Surrounded by food
on all sides, Cassiopeia retired into her shell without comment.
. When Momo at last reached the cash desk, she hurriedly asked Nino if
he knew where Guido was.
Nino nodded. 'Our Guide's a celebrity these days. We're all very proud
of him - he's one of us, after all. He's on TV and radio every week, and
they're always writing about him in the papers. I even had two reporters
here myself last week, asking about the old days. I told them how Guido used
to -'
'Move along in front!' called an irate voice.
'But why doesn't he come around any more?' Momo asked.
'Ah, well,' Nino muttered, fidgeting because his customers were making
him nervous, 'he doesn't have the time, you see. He's got more important
things on his mind. Besides, there's nothing doing at the amphitheatre, not
now.'
'What's the matter with you?' called another indignant voice. 'You
think we like hanging around here, or something?'
Momo dug her heels in. 'Where's Guido living now?' she asked.
'Somewhere on Green Hill,' Nino replied. 'He's got a fine house there,
so they say, with a great big garden - but please, Momo, do me a favour and
come back later!'
Momo didn't really want to move on - she had a lot more questions for
him - but someone shoved her in the back again. She took her tray to one of
the toadstool tables and actually managed to get a place, though the table
was so high that her nose was on a level with it. When she slid the tray on
top, the neighbouring grown-ups eyed Cassiopeia with disgust.
'Ugh! See the kind of thing we have to put up with nowadays?' someone
said to the person beside him, and the other man growled, 'What do you
expect? These ktds!'
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They lett it at that and ignored Momo trom then on. Eating was quite a
problem because she could scarcely see what was on her tray, but being very
hungry she devoured every last morsel. Then, in her anxiety to discover what
had become of Beppo, she rejoined the line. Although she wasn't hungry any
more, she was so afraid people might get angry with her if she simply stood
there that she filled her tray with another assortment of things from the
glass cases.
'Where's Beppo?' she asked, when she finally made it back to the cash
desk.
'He waited for you for ages,' Nino said hurriedly, fearful of upsetting
his customers again. 'He thought something terrible had happened to you -
kept on talking about men in grey, or something of the kind. Well, you know
old Beppo -he always was a bit eccentric.'
'You, there!' called a voice from the back of the line. 'When are we
going to get some service?'
'Right away, sir!' Nino called back.
'What happened then?' asked Momo.
'Then he started pestering the police,' Nino went on,