with you and tell him,” said the Goon.
Since the Goon was not a person you contradicted, they set out side by side. Howard said resentfully, “Why do you have to go with me? Can’t you go by yourself?”
The Goon’s little face grinned down at him from beyond the Goon’s huge shoulder. “Not scared of me,” he said.
“Oh yes I am,” said Howard. “Just seeing you makes me feel ill.”
The Goon grinned again. “Tell you things,” he said enticingly. “About Archer and the rest.”
“I don’t want to know,” said Howard. But he found himself asking anxiously almost at once, “Is Archer annoyed the words are no good?”
The Goon nodded and looked triumphant. “Like me really,” he said smugly.
“I don’t like you. Nobody could,” said Howard. “What will Archer do?”
“Send me,” said the Goon.
“Are you going to make trouble for Dad today?” Howard asked.
“Maybe,” said the Goon.
“In that case,” said Howard as a sort of experiment, “we’ll go somewhere else.” He turned round and walked the other way. The Goon turned round and walked beside him. “Where shall we go?” said Howard.
“Want to see Archer? Or one of the others?” the Goon offered.
“Let’s see Mr Mountjoy,” said Howard, not really meaning it.
“All right,” the Goon said equably.
Considerably to his astonishment, Howard found himself walking briskly to the centre of town, up Corn Street and along High Street, with the Goon towering beside him. They came to the Town Hall and climbed the steps briskly, just as if they had real business there. Someone will stop us soon, Howard thought.
They pushed open the big door and entered a wide marble hall. Howard thought he saw out of the corner of his eye some men in uniform who could have been policemen, but when he looked, they seemed to have melted away, just as his friends had. His footsteps and the Goon’s rang briskly through the hall as they went to a window marked ‘Enquiries’. There was a rather fierce-looking lady sitting at a desk behind the window. Before Howard could speak to her, the Goon found a door beside the window. He calmly tore it open and loomed over the fierce lady’s desk.
“What do you want?” asked the lady, tipping her head back ungraciously in order to see the Goon’s face.
The Goon smiled affably. “Mountjoy?”
The lady was one of those who take pleasure in denying people things. She took pleasure in saying, “Mr Mountjoy doesn’t see casual callers. You have to have an appointment.”
The Goon said, “Extension six-oh-nine. Where’s that?”
“Over in the housing department,” said the lady. “But—”
“Where’s that?” said the Goon.
“But I’m not telling you,” finished the lady.
The Goon jerked his head at Howard. “Go and look for it,” he said.
“You can’t do that!” the lady said, scandalised.
The Goon took no notice. He just marched out of the room and across the marble hall to the marble stairs, and Howard hurried behind. The lady shouted after them. When that did no good, she came to the door of her office and shrieked, “Come back!”
Howard very much wanted to come back by then. When the Goon stopped a few stairs up, he hoped they could go away now, before they got arrested. But the Goon simply called across the empty space to her, “Mountjoy?”
“I’m not telling you!” shrieked the lady. “Come back!”
The Goon jerked his head to Howard again, and they went on up the stairs. The next twenty minutes were the most harrowing ones Howard had ever spent. The Goon, smiling his daft smile, simply walked calmly into every room they came to. They went into offices, filing rooms, planning rooms, committee rooms, reference rooms, private rooms and public rooms.
Howard kept thinking: We’ll be arrested soon! We can’t do this! And certainly from time to time, agitated people no bigger than Howard did seem to try to bar the Goon’s way; but either the Goon smiled his daft smile at them and put them aside, or he said, “Mountjoy?” and when they shook their heads, he went on. Most people melted away before the Goon got that near.
Like a Centurion tank through butter! Howard thought, hazy with embarrassment. The Goon went, and Howard followed. One room with a large table and a carpet actually had a committee meeting in it, twelve or so people sitting at the table. As the Goon marched in, a man in a dark suit said angrily, “This is the highway board, not a public thoroughfare!” The Goon smiled his daft grin at the man, spotted a door across the room, and homed in on it in great strides over the carpet. The angry man picked up a telephone and started to talk indignantly into it. This time, Howard thought as he pattered after the Goon, we shall be arrested! He was so embarrassed by then that he hoped it would be soon.
But the Goon seemed unstoppable. He took Howard up some more stairs and then strode down a long corridor with frosted windows, which evidently led to another wing of the Town Hall. He tore open the door at the end. Inside there was a chain of offices, where people were typing at desks or walking about, consulting plans of buildings. The Goon turned his grin on Howard. “Getting warm.” He marched down the chain of rooms, and Howard followed, past the usual small people trying to stop them and the usual indignant faces, and made for a door at the end. A notice on it read M. J. MOUNTJOY. The Goon’s huge hand tore this door open, too. The man inside looked up with a jump.
“Here you are,” the Goon said to Howard. “Mountjoy.” He beamed proudly at Mountjoy, as if Mountjoy were treasure and the Goon had dug him up.
“That is my name,” Mr Mountjoy said. He looked uncertainly from the Goon to Howard in his school blazer, with his bag of books hung from his shoulder. His eyes went to the tape with which Howard had mended the rip the Goon had made in the bag and then back to the Goon. It was clear he thought they made an odd pair. Mr Mountjoy himself wore a neat dark suit. He was largish and plumpish, with smooth hair and large, shrewd eyes. He was exactly the kind of man Howard had imagined to go with the smooth, rumbling voice on the telephone.
“Talk to him,” the Goon said to Howard.
“Er—” said Howard. “My father’s Quentin Sykes—”
Before he got any further, the open door behind them was crammed with anxious people who all wanted to know if Mr Mountjoy was all right. They liked Mr Mountjoy, and they wanted him safe. Howard felt more embarrassed than ever. Several of the men wanted to know if they should turn the Goon out. The Goon turned and looked at them as if this were a very surprising notion. Not so much surprising as impossible, Howard thought.
Mr Mountjoy straightened his sober tie uneasily. “I’m quite all right, thank you,” he said in a soothing rumble. “Please shut the door. Everything is under control.” But as the people crowded out of the room, Howard distinctly heard Mr Mountjoy add, “I hope!” When the door shut,
