In the last episode of Karen Zipslicer’s adventures, she left Airship Downs, walking into the heart of town, headed for the ships that docked on its Southern side.

Karen could barely move her feet as she started the descent of Airship Downs, but she picked up speed as she went, and by the bottom, all her systems were in overdrive. Karen’s disappointment propelled her forwards. Desmond’s words kept repeating in her head: seaship captains sail over the edge of their maps. Maybe they could sail Karen home. She doubted it, but she wanted to find out. A chemical reaction had transformed Karen’s frustration into fuel, and it burned inside her. She wanted her red boots to tear across town like flaming rockets, and they did, for an hour. Then her movements clogged as she neared Lundern’s heart. Tough on the outside, her boots had pounded Lundern’s stony streets. Tender on the inside, her feet now suffered. Her left ankle was sore and her soles were blistered. She thought about slipping on her Heelys. However, she was too shy to do it in public. The pain was annoying, but what really delayed Karen was a congestion and compression of people and animals that filled every passage she walked down. Without noticing at first, her lone path had fed into a trickle which led to a stream which swelled into a river of Lundern life, all flowing towards Farrago Square, Lundern’s greatest meeting-place. Karen had no interest in the square, or the meeting, or the Lunderners going to it. She wanted to escape Lundern, not join its community. It was coincidence that her route to the river went through Farrago Square. This way was direct, so best for her painful feet. The streets were swamped, so flowed painfully slowly. Karen always hated it when people slowed her down. Her mind and body longed to get ahead.

Obstructed in her movements, Karen tried to break through. She jinked ahead of a waddling goose, but was trapped behind a herd of sheep. She tried to slip between a Welsh Corgi and an Old English Sheepdog, but a Scottish Terrier beat her to it. She nearly snagged her coat on a stag’s antlers, and she almost stepped upon a hedgehog. Karen was crammed in, hemmed in, hampered and impeded. She felt like she was walking to a big football match in the company of a zoo, though she did not like football, and was not keen on zoos. Fed up, she dived down a side street that led East, hoping to distance herself from the crowds. The street was empty, apart from two police constables “” one a woman, the other an enormous brown bear. They instantly confronted her.
“Insurance!” demanded the policewoman. Karen shakily reached for the inside pocket where she kept her waiver. “Hands where I can see them!” shouted the policewoman.
Karen put her hands straight up. “I was just getting my insurance,” pleaded Karen.
“Oh yeah, were you? Go on then,” said the policewoman.
“It’s alright dear,” said the policebear, speaking in a mild, feminine voice to the policewoman. “I don’t think this one is going to be trouble, are you?”
“No,” said Karen, energetically shaking her head. She pulled out the insurance waiver and handed it to the policewoman.
The policewoman scrutinized it carefully. “Is this all you’ve got? Karen Zipslicer. Karen Zipslicer. Are we looking for anyone called Karen Zipslicer?”
“I don’t think so,” said the bear.
“Alright, you can go,” said the policewoman, handing the waiver back to Karen. Karen put it inside her jacket pocket and zipped her coat, then stepped to go past the policewoman…
“Not that way!” roared the policewoman. “Go back the way you came!”
“No need to shout,” said the bear to her colleague, in a mild, feminine voice. Then the bear told Karen: “you’ll have to turn around sweetheart, we can’t let anyone through this way.”
“But I want to get away from the crowd,” begged Karen. She begged the bear, as she was far too afraid to speak to the woman.
“Sorry dear. Orders is orders. Now you’ve joined the protest rally, you’ll have to stay with it.”
Karen pouted, and her shoulders drooped, but there was no sign of sympathy from these police officers. She traipsed back to the crowd making their way towards Farrago Square. Rejoining them, she soon realized that the police had blocked every side street. There was no way to leave the throng. Inside her hip pocket, Whiteley was restless as well, and too frightened to climb out.
“Me don’t like crowds,” said Whiteley.
“Me neither,” said Karen.

The streets absorbed more and more, until they were fit to burst. As Karen progressed towards Farrago Square, she went from striding confidently, to treading carefully, to tiptoeing cautiously as everybody competed for space. Nobody wanted to fall like a domino. The multitude now walked in unison, bustling and bumping along with each other. In the crowd, Karen felt alone, even though Whiteley was with her. Everybody else shared a common purpose; she was just passing through. The crowd burbled excitedly, waves of chatter rippling all around. Some carried placards or banners with messages like ‘freedom now’ or ‘we want our rights’. Whiteley hid inside her pocket, refusing to talk. Karen bit her lip. She watched her boots shuffling forwards. The eyes of the crowd were opened wide and burned with passion; they wore no black boxes. Whiteley kept being jostled when strangers accidentally brushed alongside Karen. “Go back,” demanded Whiteley. Karen thought of her poor feet, and about swimming against this tide. “We’ll be alright,” she said.

The buildings turned from wood to stone as they neared Farrago Square. They grew taller, grander and paler. The roads stretched wider and the paving stones lay smoother, which was a blessing for Karen’s downtrodden feet. She would have loved to heely-wheely down these roads, if there had been room to do so. Every inch had already been occupied by a foot, or a hoof. Now they passed a line of police “” men, women, Alsatians, Dobermans and Giant Schnauzers “” who guarded Lundern’s Treasury. Karen recognized it from the likeness on the pfennigs in her purse. Those coins were tiny. The Treasury building was monumental. It made surrounding buildings look like doll houses next to a real house. The line of police was unbroken, guarding the Treasury’s perimeter. They looked fearsome. The police dogs were attentive, with wide eyes and ears pointed forward. The policemen and women had helmets on their heads and faces behind bars, circular steel shields in one hand, and wooden batons in the other. The crowd kept its distance. Karen, desperate for space, broke the other way, towards the police. “Please officer, is there a way to walk around the Square, without going through it?” He did not blink, saying: “you can’t stop here, girl “” now you’ve joined the protest, you’ll have to keep moving”. Karen did move on, muttering that she was “a young woman.” But there was not much further to go. Like many, she stopped and stood in awe after turning the corner, round the Treasury and into Farrago Square.

Wow. Some people pushed past to either side of Karen. Karen barely noticed. She was so small… they were so small… everything was so small compared to this open space. Airship Downs had impressed. Farrago Square exceeded all estimation, and boggled the imagination. It was shaped like a giant rectangular granite bowl, with a cascade of steps that ran down each side, leading to a flat expanse in its middle. Its size was matched by the weight of the crowd it contained. Though full already, more poured in from all four corners. In the centre of the square, a pillar rose five hundred feet above the sea of people. From that vantage point, the statue of Gilbert the Observant looked down upon the living ocean beneath, watching it through a pair of binoculars. And whilst he looked down on the square, birds looked down from him, having occupied every spot and space upon his head, shoulders, arms and around his feet. The birds had commandeered his column, and did the same to every roof of every building around the square, including the façade of the mighty Treasury. So many birds were flocking to the square that the skies were temporarily blackened. And above the birds, a giant airship hung, like a full moon over the ocean. Whichever way she looked, Karen could not take it all in. Her neck craned around, turning back and forth as she observed the scene. This was so much larger than the protest she had witnessed at Parliament Square in London. And whatever these Lunderners wanted, an awful lot of them wanted it, and they wanted it an awful lot.

In the last episode of Karen Zipslicer’s adventures, Karen was told the bad news that there were no airships that could fly her back to Britain, and the shocking news that Britain was not even on their maps. Disconsolate, she needs some care and attention…

Karen left Thomas’ filing shed without a word, without needing to be asked again. She wanted to be outside, wanted to be alone, wanted to be in the rain, wanted to feel it crashing down on her head. The rain was coming down, and the world was coming down, as far as Karen was concerned. She stood motionless, her arms by her side, eyes unfocused, rain running down her face, colder every second. Until Desmond stepped up, and held his umbrella over her.
“You don’t look happy,” said Desmond.
Karen did not answer.
“You’ve had a bit of a shock,” said Desmond.
Karen did not answer.
“You’re going to catch cold if you stand around in this pouring rain. Why don’t you come with me and warm up with a cup of hot chocolate?”
Karen did not answer.
“And maybe a nice slice of cake?”
Karen did not answer. But she did not resist when Desmond placed one hand on her arm, leading her away. Her stomach growled. Cake would help to fill it.

The coffee shop rumbled with all the people and conversation that was packed inside. Desmond plonked Karen down at the only free table, then went to buy their drinks. Sitting alone in such a noisy, boisterous place made Karen feel nervous; she pulled out Whiteley for company. A sign outside had read “no animals allowed”, under the silhouettes of a bird and a four-legged creature with red crosses painted over them. Karen was more afraid of feeling lonely than being thrown out. She held Whiteley and stroked him firmly.
“Me not allowed in here,” said Whiteley.
“Why shouldn’t you come in here? You’re doing no harm,” answered Karen, wearily.
“Sign says not allowed.”
“I say differently. Why wouldn’t you be allowed?”
“Human beings think they’re better than animals.”
“People are better at some things, and ferrets are better at other things, like chasing rabbits.”
“People think they’re better. Doesn’t matter what at.”
“Relax. Nobody’s complaining, Whiteley.”
“Me complaining. Makes me plenty angry,” said Whiteley. “Gilbert the Good emancipated all animals in 412 P.G. but me still not allowed in here.”
“What does ’emancipated’ mean?”
“He banned people from owning animals.”
“You mean like slavery?”
Desmond returned with a tray. There was a mug of coffee for him, a mug of hot chocolate for Karen, and a slice of battenburg cake for each of them.
“You’d better hide your rodent,” said Desmond, taking off his cap and sitting alongside Karen. “We don’t want to get chucked out.”
“He’s not a rodent,” said Karen.
“Me not her rodent,” said Whiteley.
“Don’t get upset. I’ve got nothing against animal’s lib. I only want to drink the coffee and eat the cake I bought.”
Whiteley climbed back into Karen’s pocket without speaking.
“You’re horrible,” said Karen.
“So horrible that I bought you cake,” said Desmond, calmly, his mouth already half full of battenburg.
“How much did it cost?” Karen dramatically unzipped her coat and reached inside for her purse. She wanted to show Desmond that she did not expect him to pay. At the same time, she hoped he would pay, because she doubted that her two little pfennigs would be enough.
“Don’t worry about it.” Phew. Karen put her purse away again. Desmond continued: “I’m fine with animal rights, I am. But I can’t change how the world works.”
The cake was good, generously sliced and covered in a thick layer of marzipan. The hot chocolate was bitter and greasy, but it warmed Karen and woke her up. She was not in the mood for talking, and Desmond was not the talkative type, so their table was the conversational eye of the hurricane. They sat in silence whilst all the other coffee shop customers roared around them. Desmond’s head bobbed as he tried to think of something to say.
“Your coat’s good. Looks like it’s still dry inside,” was the best he could come up with.
“It’s made of Gore-Tex,” explained Karen.
“Oh,” said Desmond, not knowing what Gore-Tex was. His head bobbed around some more, whilst he thought of something else to say.
“What’s England like?” was his next effort.
“It’s alright,” said Karen.
“Good.” Desmond was really stumped now. He had long finished his cake, and his coffee was turning cold by the time he could think of something else to say.
“The rain’s stopped,” said Desmond, nodding towards the window.
“Has it?” said Karen, not even looking. She was taking her time to finish her cake, pausing between each spoonful she swallowed. A fight broke out two tables behind Karen. An airship pilot, still in his uniform, broke the back of his stool over his co-pilot, also in uniform, and several others jumped in to pull them apart. Karen never noticed.
“Well. I’ve got to go now,” said Desmond, standing up.
Karen looked at him at last. “Have you?” she said. Suddenly she wanted him to stay.
“Yeah.” Desmond was good-looking. Karen had been daft to ignore him.
“It was really nice of you to buy me cake and hot chocolate,” said Karen. Desmond was putting his coat back on. Karen was now thinking of lots of things to say to him. “Do you have to go back to work this minute?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for everything,” and she stiffly held out her hand towards Desmond. It took him a few seconds to realize he should shake it. He had a very firm grip, which caught Karen off guard; the handshake hurt a little but Karen tried not to show it. He walked out of the door, and she sat down again. Her cake was almost finished. She put the last spoonful in her mouth.

“Wait! Desmond! I’ll walk back with you.” Karen had run down one street and caught up with Desmond a little way round the corner.
“Yeah, good,” said Desmond, who was caught unawares, but pleased.
Now Karen struggled to remember all the things she was going to say. They crossed the street in front of a horse-drawn carriage, and headed up the hillside of Airship Downs. The rain had stopped but the wind had picked up, forcing Karen to shout when she worked out what she wanted to say.
“I didn’t thank you enough for taking me to the coffee shop.”
“That’s alright.”
“Really. I’m feeling a bit spaced out about having come here but not being able to find a way back. I don’t even understand where this place is, but that’s no reason to be mean to you.”
“You weren’t mean to me. You’re just upset. Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?”
“Yes, thanks,” and Karen started to cry. There was a rush of blood to her head and a tear squeezed out, though Karen did not want it to. She put one finger to her eye, dabbing the tear, but playacting at removing a stray eyelash whilst she turned her face away. Desmond kept looking and walking straight ahead, pretending not to notice, but he took hold of Karen’s other hand.
“It’s okay,” he said.
She rubbed the tear away. The emotion choked her. When she could speak again, she said: “it’s my eyelashes “” they’re long and when you get one stuck to your eye it really hurts.”
Desmond squeezed her hand. “I don’t know about any way you can get back home, but I can ask people, if you like.”
Karen did not know how to express what she was feeling. “Thanks. Yes, please.” What she said fell way short. “How will you let me know, if you do find out?”
“Tell me where you’re staying. I can always send one of our birds with a message.”
“Desmond, why are you being kind to me, when I was mean to you?”
Desmond thought about his answer, before he said: “helping matters most when there’s nobody else to help.”
They were back at the top of Airship Downs, and though they were high up, it was hard to see beyond the edge of the fields, past the airships that kept rising up and landing in front of them, and into the haze that still hung over Lundern. Whatever bits of Lundern Karen could glimpse, they all looked grey.
“It’ll be alright,” said Desmond. “I’ve really got to go back to work now. But you should check down the river. One of the ships might be able to take you home.”
“My home is not even on the map.”
“Yeah, but I heard that some ships sail right off the map, beyond the edges of the map.” He did not sound like he believed what he was saying, but Karen did not argue. “Keep walking straight ahead, due South, right through the centre of town. The river’s not that far after that. You can’t miss it. It’s big and wet.” Karen smirked. She had a good idea of how to get there, but she pulled out her map with the excuse of making Desmond explain the route. He looked at the map as he spoke. She looked at him as she listened. And then she pointed out Winton’s place, so Desmond would know where to send a messages.
“… or I might come round on my day off, if that’s okay.”
“When’s your day off?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll send you a message, to let you know. I’ll send that as well as sending any other messages, if I find out about travelling to England.” And as he finished what he was saying, there was a ruckus between a pair of passengers queuing to board an airship. “I’ve gotta sort that out. I’ll see you “” unless you find a way home in the meantime. Remember, for the river, first head for the column,” he said, pointing to a monument that Karen could not actually see, “and then it’s straight on from there.” She thanked him again, before walking away. As she headed down the hillside, she looked over her shoulder and wanted to wave, but Desmond was too busy breaking up the row with the unhappy passengers, so she pulled up her hood to protect her from the wind, and bowed her head down as she walked into it. A minute later, Desmond glanced towards Karen. He watched Karen march down the hillside, but lost sight of her in the muddle of people and animals and birds and airships and wagons and crates. He crossed his fingers for her.

After a long hiatus, I am working on a complete rewrite of Karen Zipslicer’s adventures in Lundern. This instalment retraces the steps of the last episode published on Halfthoughts, and reimagines the scene where Karen reaches Airship Downs, looking for transportation back home.

As the day wore on, the skies began to drizzle. It thinned the grey smog, so Karen could see through it to the equally grey clouds that hung above. Karen fastened her coat and pulled her hood over her hat, picked up Whiteley and put him into one of her hip pockets. She promised she would leave the pocket open, so the ferret would have nothing to worry about. Whiteley did not seem worried. He promptly fell asleep, forcing Karen to navigate using her map again, whilst being careful to keep it dry.

Though they were lighter than air, Karen could feel the hulking dirigibles, even before she could see them. As she approached the hill, she encountered their noise. They droned so thickly that the sound hugged her. Then she became aware of their shadows, looming from above. The airships were grey too, almost perfectly camouflaged for this dismal weather. The rain really started to pour, clearing the air. The airships emerged, as if a veil had been pulled away, and Karen realized just how many were above her. The sky teemed with them; they dominated the landscape. Dozens were suspended in the sky like monstrous elongated lampshades, except that they absorbed light instead of radiating it; the thin fabric of their shells had no lustre to it. Many were a hundred feet long. Some reached beyond two hundred feet. Their dense scrum caused Karen to gasp. Some were leaving. Others arrived. Yet more jostled and manoeuvred for position. They wore their names with pride, codes of giant letters and numbers painted on their sides. One was B330fj and another was N602sk. They owned Airship Downs.

Standing at one corner, Karen saw the hill as one wide expanse of green grass, some of it churned and scarred to brown by thousands of feet, hooves and wheeltracks. Hefty warehouses ringed the roads that ringed the airfield. Airship Downs gently rose to its highest point, which was the nicest thing that could be said about it. Mooring masts were arranged in a grid pattern all the way across it. A third of the masts were occupied by tethered airships. The airships that were moored sat like strapped party balloons, wavering when the breeze changed direction, but held tightly by many thick ropes tied to iron hoops in the ground. At their moorings, the balloons hovered barely above ground level, with their gondolas hanging beneath like windowed pot bellies. They hung so close to ground that Karen might almost touch them if she stood beneath and jumped.

For all their grandeur, the airships were not the most daunting aspect of the Downs. There was such a gaggle of people and birds, such a melee of horses and carts, that Karen felt overwhelmed. The people and the animals made such a racket that from close-up they rivalled the noise of the airship engines. It woke Whiteley up; he peered out of Karen’s pocket, then ducked back inside again. To Karen’s eyes, the Downs looked like a ballet of chaos in three dimensions. Some crews, numbering fifty or more, were strenuously hauling ropes and tying down newly-arrived airships, or pulling up gantries, or using hand-cranked cranes for the weightiest items. Large birds squawked and cried at each other in mid-flight, as they led the way for their respective ships, holding their airship’s tethers in their mouths as they guided them through. Gas tanks where wheeled to and fro by horses or oxen, then hooked up by men to replenish the balloons. Families and friends waved their farewells, sometimes tearfully, or bounded for joy at the arrival of their loved ones. Cargoes were rapidly loaded and unloaded, to and from the wagons that were so patiently pulled by sturdy Shire horses. Boys ran back and forth, shouting their offers of tickets for sale, to destinations that Karen had never heard of.

“Whiteley, are you awake?”
“Yes.” He poked his head out of Karen’s pocket.
“We’re here. Where do I find the airship to take me to England?”
“Me know this field alright, but not the airship for your flight.”
“You’re talking in rhyme again.”
“No. Is me talking in rhyme?”
“Not now, but you were.”
“Me stop.”
“Should I ask one of these boys about airship tickets?”
“Airships they know, which places they…”
“Okay.”
“…go.”
A nearby boy, of about thirteen years of age, saw Karen and started shouting in her direction: “tickets for the city-states of Wassailham, Chapstow and Duncester.” Karen walked closer, squelching through a patch of mud as she did. As she approached, she began to speak. “Which airships go to London?”
“London?” His face was blank.
“London.”
“Is that foreign?”
Karen was not sure of the answer. She guessed, “yes.”
“Dirigibles to foreign places are the biggest ones. They moor close to the top of the hill, miss.”
“Thank you.” She sighed. It would be a long walk to the hilltop. It was muddy and it would have been a trudge even if it was a straight-line walk. But it would not be a straight-line walk. It was going to be a marathon of circling around and pushing through the frenetic activity. At least she was wearing the right footwear, Karen mused to herself. She pulled her hood forward, and headed purposefully into the driving rain. Dense crowds congregated, forcing her to detour around them. Moving wagons rolled across her path, making her wait. She tripped over one of the iron rings used to tie down a tethered airship. She walked into a refreshingly wide open space, only to be pulled back again because it was the landing zone of an incoming airship. As Karen progressed up the hill, she would catch the eye of ticket-boys and ask them: “to London?” but none of them recognized the name. With diversions and hold-ups, it took Karen an hour to get near to the top. She plodded on, sometimes spitting the rain from her lips as it beat down upon her face. Whiteley fidgeted in her pocket, but did not speak or look out. He wisely wanted to stay dry. She checked her phone again as she neared the top; there was still no signal. Karen reached the mooring mast of an especially long airship, which had just taken off and was climbing upwards, looking like a fat cigar fired from a slow-motion cannon. An older boy stood by the base of the mast. He was watching the airship depart. “Excuse me, do you know where’s the airship to London?” said Karen, to the boy.
“To where?”
“London. London, in England.”
“England?”
“England, in the United Kingdom.” She was getting tired of repeating herself.
His eyebrows kitted together in thought. “England? United Kingdom?” he said back at her.
“England. London. London, capital of England,” she elaborated, squelching her boot into the mud as she twisted it from side to side.
“England, England…” and then he shouted at another boy, standing thirty yards way. “Desmond, do you know of an airship to England?”

Desmond was older and better dressed than the ticket-boys that Karen had seen so far. His leather waistcoat and knee-high boots were as black as his sturdy umbrella. He wandered over, looking around to see if anybody else was nearby, then spoke to the other boy. “Why are you asking about England?” Karen lifted her head up. At last she had found someone who did not look blank-eyed or quizzical at the mention of her homeland.
“This girl wants to go there,” said the first boy, glancing toward Karen.
“Why does she want to do that?”
The first boy just puffed out his cheeks and shrugged his shoulders. Karen spoke instead: “I’m from there, and I want to get back as soon as I can.”
Desmond told the other boy that he had “better get back to work,” pointing, then pushing him in the direction of a tethered airship further down the hillside. Desmond sucked his teeth whilst he waited until the other lad was out of earshot. “Are you really from England?”
Karen nodded. “Yes. I’m from London, in England. Well, from just outside London, but definitely from England.”
“You look honest. You’d better follow me.” Desmond led Karen over the rise of the hill. Karen walked briskly alongside; Desmond held his umbrella so they could both shelter under it. He did not speak, and only looked ahead. Though polite in his actions, Desmond was reserved in his manner. Karen decided it was best to just follow where Desmond led, and not to disturb him with questions. Whiteley peeked out to see what was happening, then snuggled back into the pocket where he was safe from the cold rain. When they crossed the brow of the hill, Karen could immediately tell where Desmond was headed. A shack stood near a beech tree. It was the only building standing upon the hill itself, and it stood by the only tree. The shack was little more than a wooden shed with a corrugated iron roof and windows on either side. Off-duty birds congregated on the tree’s branches, resting and sheltering from the rain. Their chatter grew loud as Karen and Desmond approached. Desmond shooed away a young kestrel that had briefly perched on top of the shack, then he leaned against it, sheltering from the rain, and rapped his knuckles on the window. “Thomas? It’s Desmond.” The window swung open, and a large bearded man looked out, without rising from his chair.
“What do you want?” asked Thomas.
“This ‘un here says she’s from England.” Desmond nodded towards Karen.
“That’s a strange thing to say,” said Thomas. He was talking to Desmond, not Karen.
“Why would she make it up?” observed Desmond. Thomas looked Karen up and down. Desmond stood impassively; the fine features of his face revealed nothing to Karen.
“She’s got the right kind of clothing on,” said Thomas, more to himself than anyone else. Karen put her hands in her pockets so she could fidget with her fingers. She forgot that Whiteley was in one of the pockets, so she accidentally poked him in his tummy. He nipped her finger in return. She pulled the finger out and shook the pain off, turning away from the gaze of Thomas and Desmond so they could not see. She glanced at the wound; it was only a very small scratch. Karen pulled her hood forward, and she held her hands behind her back, one hand squeezing the finger that Whiteley had bit. All the while, Desmond kept blankly looking at Thomas, and Thomas looked lost in thought.
“I just want to know if there’s an airship that flies to London, or anywhere in England,” said Karen, eventually breaking the silence.
“You’re from England, are you?” asked Thomas.
“Yes,” said Karen, nodding.
“Which city-state are you going to?”
Karen did not understand the question at first. “I want to go to London. London, in England.”
“You’re planning on going back to England? Aren’t you supposed to go somewhere else?”

Karen was speechless. Thomas’ questions were so peculiar. She looked to Desmond, but his expression remained impenetrable. She stumbled over her words. “No, err… I’m not, there’s not anywhere else I’m supposed to go. I’m supposed to go home. My dad will be wondering where I am.”
“There’s nobody escorting you?” asked Thomas.
“No. I came on my own. I came here to get a flight back home.”
Thomas turned back to Desmond. “Is the girl all alone?”
“There’s a rodent in her pocket, but that’s all. There’s nobody looking after her, I’m sure of that,” answered Desmond, who then sucked his teeth again.
Thomas told Desmond: “get rid of her, she could be trouble,” and he pulled his window shut.
Desmond’s face did not flicker. He stopped leaning against the shack, and stepped toward Karen. “We’d better go.”
“I just want to buy a ticket to fly to London,” pleaded Karen, “I’ll pay!”
“Nothing doing,” replied Desmond.
Karen backed away from Desmond. The two of them circled the shack like that, with Desmond walking toward Karen, and Karen walking backwards, her hand trailing along the shack’s walls. “Why don’t you sell me a ticket?” asked Karen, but Desmond did not answer. When Karen was on the far side of the shack she saw the door, grabbed the handle, and jumped inside before Desmond could react quickly enough to stop her. Once inside, she put her back to the door, preventing Desmond from pushing his way in.

“You’re not allowed in here,” said Thomas. He stood up behind his desk, which was a table top balanced upon two large crates. The desk was covered in many piles of paper, each pile at least a foot high. Thomas laid his enormous hands over the top of two of the piles, then started turning over the top sheets of the other piles, to stop Karen seeing what was written on them. “This here’s the filing office, and we’ve got confidential paperwork in here.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be here. I don’t want to be here, but I am,” said Karen. “I’ll go, I promise. Please just tell me why you won’t sell me a ticket to England.” Desmond kept pushing at the door. Occasionally it would open a chink, but Karen leaned back hard and pushed with her legs, forcing it closed again.
“Leave it Desmond,” shouted Thomas through the window, and Desmond stopped pushing at the door. “I don’t know if you’re from England or what, but wherever you’re from, you’ve got to go. I have work to do.”
“Tell me about flights back to England.”
Desmond was looking in at the window. Thomas noticed, and rapped the back of his hand against the glass, driving Desmond away. “You know it’s entrapment, to ask questions about illegal places. If I answer, you can’t use it against me in a court of law.”
“Entrapment!” squeaked Whiteley. Now they were inside from the rain, he had popped his head out to check what was happening.
Karen shook her head. “You’re being silly. England’s not illegal.”
“It is here.”
“How can England be illegal here,” rejoined Karen, “when England isn’t here? You can’t make other countries illegal.”
“I don’t make the laws,” replied Thomas, obliquely.
“And why’s it illegal?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Is it illegal to tell me?”
Thomas said nothing, but he looked away sharply.
“So, it is illegal to tell me,” guessed Karen.
“Did I say that?”
“No.”
“Eyes did,” said Whiteley, butting in.
“Not my mouth,” complained Thomas.
“Mouth no, eyes yes, good game, next guess?” said Whiteley, who made about as much sense as Thomas.
“My next guess is that you’re at secret war with England,” pronounced Karen, pointing at Thomas. Thomas rolled his eyes.
“Bad guess,” said Whiteley.
“You’re smuggling something illegal to England?”
Thomas scowled.
“Getting warmer,” said Whiteley.
“You’re buying something illegal from England?”
“No. I shouldn’t tell you this, but no airship flies to or from England. Satisfied?” Thomas’ tone was final.
Karen grasped the door handle, needing it for support. “No flights? None?”
“Not now, not never. Even if somebody wanted to fly there, nobody knows how to.”
“How can they not know how to fly there? You point the airship in the right direction, then go!”
“They might point it in the right direction, if they knew which direction.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not on anyone’s maps, sweetheart. Otherwise I expect we would fly an airship that-a-way, supposing it was legal to run an airship in that direction, which it might not be. Then again, some might fly there even so. But legal or otherwise, they can’t fly there if they don’t know where it is.”
“But you’ve heard of it?”
“All I know is that every so often we have a kid from England travelling through, on their way to one of the other city-states. That’s all. And I’m not supposed to talk about those kids to anybody. You’re the first kid I’ve met that says she’s from England that’s been travelling on their own. The others always have… company, so to speak.”
“How do you know they’re from England?”
“That’s what it says on the insurance paperwork.”

Karen persisted but Thomas would not reveal any more. He acted like he did not hear the rest of Karen’s questions, though she tried one last time: “do you really have no idea where England is?”
“Look at the map,” said Thomas, gesticulating to the wall behind Karen. Karen turned toward it. A big red dot signified Lundern. Straight red lines shot out in multiple directions from the dot, representing the routes flown by the airships. Many went to various points within the coloured blocks of land that immediately surrounded Lundern. Other lines stretched much further, stretching to other red dots with names like Duncester, Nidaros and Ilipa. The strangeness of the names were bad enough, but that was not the strangest thing about this map. The map showed two circles of blue sea, joined in the middle. In the middle of one circle there was a single land mass. The island continent was roughly in the shape of a lower-case letter ‘h’, with Lundern at its middle. On the other circle, there were two islands. One looked like an onion with a large bite taken out of it, whilst the other looked like a wedge of swiss cheese. Big bold letters were written right across the top of the map. They read: “A New And Accurate Map Of The World”. Geography had never been Karen’s favourite subject, but this lesson was much worse than most.