dragon didnât kill him outright but left him horribly chewed up and burned, blinded, imprisoned in a wheelchair, only able to communicate with the outside world by wiggling his ears in semaphore? Somehow he knew instinctively that he wouldnât like that at all.
He turned the problem over in his mind as he dragged home on the bus. The answer came to him in a flash of pure white light while he was in the bath. It was blindingly obvious and brilliantly simple.
Take, for example, a kamikaze pilot. First, he has to do his basic training: this is how an aeroplane works, this is how to read a map, this is how you take off and land, this is how to make the aircraft go left or right, up or down. Months of classwork and one-to-one tuition later, heâs ready. Heâs passed the written tests and the practicals, clocked up his thirty solo hours, attained the exacting standard required of a fighter pilot. He climbs into the cockpit, and never comes back. Meanwhile his slow-witted, cack-handed classmate who flunked navigation and turned his flying instructorâs hair prematurely grey by bouncing down the runway like a rubber ball, survives the war and goes on to found a multinational electronics corporation. Moral: it doesnât always pay to do your very best.
With that comforting thought to snuggle up with, Paul fell asleep as soon as his briskly towelled head hit the pillow. He dreamed.
He dreamed that he was back in the wilds of rural Gloucestershire, in the dark and the rain; and here are the strange children, fixing his car. Here is Carrot-top, handing him the bill, as Monika purrs contentedly on the floodlit forecourt. Here is Paul, explaining that he didnât have that much cash on him, butâ
âDoesnât matter,â says Carrot-top, looking up at him with round, violet eyes. âOn the house. Least we could do, seeing itâs you.â
A moment, while the penny drops. âMe,â Paul repeats, suddenly wary. âWhat about me?â
Carrot-top smiles. âYouâre him,â she says.
âOh,â says Paul. âAm I?â
ââCourse you are,â interrupts another child, all golden hair and missing front teeth. âWe knew it soon as we saw you. Youâre Paul Carpenter, arenât you? Him. The chosen one.â
Oink? Paul thinks. âIâm not sure I quiteââ
âHang on a sec,â says Carrot-top; and she darts back into the workshop, while all the other children â thereâs rather a lot of them, apparently â come out of the shadows and stand round him, all staring at him as though he is the answer thatâs been inadvertently written up on the blackboard instead of the question. Then Carrot-top comes back, lugging along with her a huge calf-bound book, as big as the office-procedures manual, if not bigger. âHere you are, look,â says Carrot-top, and she thrusts the book at him, open somewhere near the middle.
âI donât actuallyââ he starts to say; but there on the page right under his nose is a picture of a good-looking, clean-cut youth, and underneath it the wordsâ
PAUL CARPENTER
The Chosen One
âOh,â he says; and then, feeling a right prawn for not knowing, âChosen for what?â
One of the other kids, a mop-headed brunette with glasses, clicks her tongue. âTo lead your people to the chosen land, of course, silly. Here, look, it tells you all about yourself in the book. Pages 256 to 312 inclusive.â
âGosh,â Paul says. âCan I have a look at that, please?â So they hand him the book; and itâs written in normal English letters, and he can see his name repeated over and over again, but the rest of itâs in French, or Italian, or possibly Spanish, and although he can make out about one word in ten, thatâs not enough to give him the sense of it; and just as he comes to a bit in Turkish (which apparently he can understand)
He turned the problem over in his mind as he dragged home on the bus. The answer came to him in a flash of pure white light while he was in the bath. It was blindingly obvious and brilliantly simple.
Take, for example, a kamikaze pilot. First, he has to do his basic training: this is how an aeroplane works, this is how to read a map, this is how you take off and land, this is how to make the aircraft go left or right, up or down. Months of classwork and one-to-one tuition later, heâs ready. Heâs passed the written tests and the practicals, clocked up his thirty solo hours, attained the exacting standard required of a fighter pilot. He climbs into the cockpit, and never comes back. Meanwhile his slow-witted, cack-handed classmate who flunked navigation and turned his flying instructorâs hair prematurely grey by bouncing down the runway like a rubber ball, survives the war and goes on to found a multinational electronics corporation. Moral: it doesnât always pay to do your very best.
With that comforting thought to snuggle up with, Paul fell asleep as soon as his briskly towelled head hit the pillow. He dreamed.
He dreamed that he was back in the wilds of rural Gloucestershire, in the dark and the rain; and here are the strange children, fixing his car. Here is Carrot-top, handing him the bill, as Monika purrs contentedly on the floodlit forecourt. Here is Paul, explaining that he didnât have that much cash on him, butâ
âDoesnât matter,â says Carrot-top, looking up at him with round, violet eyes. âOn the house. Least we could do, seeing itâs you.â
A moment, while the penny drops. âMe,â Paul repeats, suddenly wary. âWhat about me?â
Carrot-top smiles. âYouâre him,â she says.
âOh,â says Paul. âAm I?â
ââCourse you are,â interrupts another child, all golden hair and missing front teeth. âWe knew it soon as we saw you. Youâre Paul Carpenter, arenât you? Him. The chosen one.â
Oink? Paul thinks. âIâm not sure I quiteââ
âHang on a sec,â says Carrot-top; and she darts back into the workshop, while all the other children â thereâs rather a lot of them, apparently â come out of the shadows and stand round him, all staring at him as though he is the answer thatâs been inadvertently written up on the blackboard instead of the question. Then Carrot-top comes back, lugging along with her a huge calf-bound book, as big as the office-procedures manual, if not bigger. âHere you are, look,â says Carrot-top, and she thrusts the book at him, open somewhere near the middle.
âI donât actuallyââ he starts to say; but there on the page right under his nose is a picture of a good-looking, clean-cut youth, and underneath it the wordsâ
PAUL CARPENTER
The Chosen One
âOh,â he says; and then, feeling a right prawn for not knowing, âChosen for what?â
One of the other kids, a mop-headed brunette with glasses, clicks her tongue. âTo lead your people to the chosen land, of course, silly. Here, look, it tells you all about yourself in the book. Pages 256 to 312 inclusive.â
âGosh,â Paul says. âCan I have a look at that, please?â So they hand him the book; and itâs written in normal English letters, and he can see his name repeated over and over again, but the rest of itâs in French, or Italian, or possibly Spanish, and although he can make out about one word in ten, thatâs not enough to give him the sense of it; and just as he comes to a bit in Turkish (which apparently he can understand)
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