The Phantom Tollbooth Part 9

"What can I do?" wrote Milo.

"You must visit the Soundkeeper and bring from the fortress one sound, no matter how small, with which to load our cannon. For, if we can reach the walls with the slightest noise, they will collapse and free the rest. It won't be easy, for she is hard to deceive, but you must try."

Milo thought for just a moment and then, with a resolute "I shall," volunteered to go.

Within a few minutes he stood bravely at the fortress door. "Knock, knock," he wrote neatly on a piece of paper, which he pushed under the crack. In a moment the great portal swung open, and, as it closed behind him, a gentle voice sang out: "Right this way; I'm in the parlor."

"Can I talk now?" cried Milo happily, hearing his voice once again.

"Yes, but only in here," she replied softly. "Now do come into the parlor."

Milo walked slowly down the long hallway and into the little room where the Soundkeeper sat listening intently to an enormous radio set, whose switches, dials, k.n.o.bs, meters, and speaker covered one whole wall, and which at the moment was playing nothing.

"Isn't that lovely?" she sighed. "It's my favorite program-fifteen minutes of silence-and after that there's a half hour of quiet and then an interlude of lull Why, did you know that there are almost as many kinds of stillness as there are sounds? But, sadly enough, no one pays any attention to them these days.

"Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn?" she inquired. "Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause in a roomful of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're all alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful, if you listen carefully."

As she spoke, the thousands of little bells and chimes which covered her from head to toe tinkled softly and, as if in reply, the telephone began to ring, too.

"For someone who loves silence, she certainly talks a great deal," thought Milo.

"At one time I was able to listen to any sound made any place at any time," the Soundkeeper remarked, pointing toward the radio wall, "but now I merely--"

"Pardon me," interrupted Milo as the phone continued to ring, "but aren't you going to answer it?"

"Oh no, not in the middle of the program," she replied, and turned the silence up a little louder.

"But it may be important," insisted Milo.

"Not at all," she a.s.sured him; "it's only me. It gets so lonely around here, with no sounds to distribute or collect, that I call myself seven or eight times a day just to see how I am."

"How are you?" he asked politely.

"Not very well, I'm afraid. I seem to have a touch of static," she complained. "But what brings you here? Of course-you've come to tour the vaults. Well, they're usually open to the public only on Mondays from two to four, but since you've traveled so far, we'll have to make an exception. Follow me, please."

She quickly bounced to her feet with a chorus of jingles and chimes and started down the hallway.

"Don't you just love jingles and chimes? I do," she answered quickly. "Besides, they're very convenient, for I'm always getting lost in this big fortress, and all I have to do is listen for them and then I know exactly where I am.

They entered a tiny cagelike elevator and traveled down for fully three quarters of a minute, stopping finally in an immense vault, whose long lines of file drawers and storage bins stretched in all directions from where here began to where there ended, and from floor to ceiling.

"Every sound that's ever been made in history is kept here," said the Soundkeeper, skipping down one of the corridors with Milo in hand. "For instance, look here." She opened one of the drawers and pulled out a small brown envelope. "This is the exact tune George Was.h.i.+ngton whistled when he crossed the Delaware on that icy night in 1777."

Milo peered into the envelope and, sure enough, that's exactly what was in it. "But why do you collect them all?" he asked as she closed the drawer.

"If we didn't collect them," said the Soundkeeper as they continued to stroll through the vault, "the air would be full of old sounds and noises bouncing around and b.u.mping into things. It would be terribly confusing, because you'd never know whether you were listening to an old one or a new one. Besides, I do like to collect things, and there are more sounds than almost anything else. Why, I have everything here from the buzz of a mosquito a million years ago to what your mother said to you this morning, and if you come back here in two days, I'll tell you what she said tomorrow. It's really very simple; let me show you. Say a word-any word."

"h.e.l.lo," said Milo, for that was all he could think of.

"Now where do you think it went?" she asked with a smile.

"I don't know," said Milo, shrugging his shoulders. "I always thought that--"

"Most people do." She hummed, peering down one of the corridors. "Now, let me see: first we find the cabinet with today's sounds. Ah, here it is. Then we look under G for greetings, then under M for Milo, and here it is already in its envelope. So you see, the whole system is quite automatic. It's a shame we hardly use it any more."

"That's wonderful," gasped Milo. "May I have one little sound as a souvenir?"

"Certainly," she said with pride, and then, immediately thinking better of it, added, "not. And don't try to take one, because it's strictly against the rules."

Milo was crestfallen. He had no idea how to steal a sound, even the smallest one, for the Soundkeeper always had at least one eye carefully focused on him.

"Now for a look at the workshops," she cried, whisking him through another door and into a large abandoned laboratory full of old pieces of equipment, all untended and rusting.

"This is where we used to invent the sounds," she said wistfully.

"Do they have to be invented?" asked Milo, who seemed surprised at almost everything she told him. "I thought they just were. were."

"No one realizes how much trouble we go through to make them," she complained. "Why, at one time this shop was crowded and busy from morning to night."

"But how do you invent a sound?" Milo inquired.

"Oh, that's very easy," she said. "First you must decide exactly what the sound looks like, for each sound has its own exact shape and size. Then you make some of them here in the shop, and grind each one three times into an invisible powder, and throw a little of each into the air every time you need it."

"But I've never seen a sound," Milo insisted.

"You never see them out there," she said, waving her arm in the general direction of everywhere, "except every once in a while on a very cold morning when they freeze. But in here we see them all the time. Here, let me show you."

She picked up a padded stick and struck a nearby ba.s.s drum six times. Six large woolly, fluffy cotton b.a.l.l.s, each about two feet across, rolled silently out onto the floor.

"You see," she said, putting some of them into a large grinder. "Now listen." And she took a pinch of the invisible powder and threw it into the air with a "BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM."

"Do you know what a handclap looks like?"

Milo shook his head.

"Try it," she commanded.

He clapped his hands once and a single sheet of clean white paper fluttered to the floor. He tried it three more times and three more sheets of paper did the very same thing. And then he applauded as fast as he could and a great cascade of papers filled the air.

"Isn't that simple? And it's the same for all sounds. If you think about it, you'll soon know what each one looks like. Take laughter, for instance," she said, laughing brightly, and a thousand tiny brightly colored bubbles flew into the air and popped noiselessly. "Or speech," she continued. "Some of it is light and airy, some sharp and pointed, but most of it, I'm afraid, is just heavy and dull."

"How about music?" asked Milo excitedly.

"Right over here-we weave it on our looms. Symphonies are the large beautiful carpets with all the rhythms and melodies woven in. Concertos are these tapestries, and all the other bolts of cloth are serenades, waltzes, overtures, and rhapsodies. And we also have some of the songs that you often sing," she cried, holding up a handful of brightly colored handkerchiefs.

She stopped for a moment and said sadly, "We even had one section over there that did nothing but put the sound of the ocean into sea sh.e.l.ls. This was once such a happy place."

"Then why don't you make sound for everyone now?" he shouted, so eagerly that the Soundkeeper leaped back in surprise.

"Don't shout so, young man! If there's one thing we need more of around here, it's less noise. Now come with me and I'll tell you all about it-and put that down immediately!" Her last remark was directed toward Milo's efforts to stuff one of the large drumbeats into his back pocket.

They returned quickly to the parlor, and when the Soundkeeper had settled herself in a chair and carefully tuned the radio to a special hour of hush, Milo asked his question once again, in a somewhat lower voice.

"It doesn't make me happy to hold back the sounds," she began softly, "for if we listen to them carefully they can sometimes tell us things far better than words."

"But if that is so," asked Milo-and he had no doubt that it was-"shouldn't you release them?"

"NEVER!" she cried. "They just use them to make horrible noises which are ugly to see and worse to hear. I leave all that to Dr. Dischord and that awful, awful DYNNE."

"But some noises are good sounds, aren't they?" he insisted.

"That may be true," she replied stubbornly, "but if they won't make the sounds that I like, they won't make any."

"But--" he started to say, and it got no further than that. For while he was about to say that he didn't think that that was quite fair (a thought to which the obstinate Soundkeeper might not have taken kindly) he suddenly discovered the way he would carry his little sound from the fortress. In the instant between saying the word and before it sailed off into the air he had clamped his lips shut-and the "but" was trapped in his mouth, all made but not spoken.

"Well, I mustn't keep you all day," she said impatiently. "Now turn your pockets out so that I can see that you didn't steal anything and you can be on your way."

When he had satisfied the Soundkeeper, he nodded his farewell-for it would have been most impractical to say "Thank you" or "Good afternoon"-and raced out the door.

13.

Unfortunate Conclusions

With his mouth shut tight, and his feet moving as fast as thoughts could make them, Milo ran all the way back to the car. There was great excitement when he arrived, as Tock raced happily down the road to greet him. The Humbug personally accepted all congratulations from the crowd.

"Where is the sound?" someone hastily scribbled on the blackboard, and they all waited anxiously for the reply.

Milo caught his breath, picked up the chalk, and explained simply, "It's on the tip of my tongue."

Several people excitedly threw their hats into the air, some shouted what would have been a loud hurrah, and the rest pushed the heavy cannon into place. They aimed it directly at the thickest part of the fortress wall and packed it full of gunpowder.

Milo stood on tiptoe, leaned over into the cannon's mouth, and parted his lips. The small sound dropped silently to the bottom and everything was ready. In another moment the fuse was lit and sputtering.

"I hope no one gets hurt," thought Milo, and, before he had time to think again, an immense cloud of gray and white smoke leaped from the gun and, along with it, so softly that it was hardly heard, came the sound of- BUT.

It flew toward the wall for several seconds in a high, lazy arc and then struck ever so lightly just to the right of the big door. For an instant there was an ominous stillness, quieter and more silent than ever before, as if even the air was holding its breath.

And then, almost immediately, there was a blasting, roaring, thundering smash, followed by a crus.h.i.+ng, shattering, bursting crash, as every stone in the fortress came toppling to the ground and the vaults burst open, spilling the sounds of history into the wind.

Every sound that had ever been uttered or made, from way back to when there were none, to way up when there were too many, came hurtling out of the debris in a way that sounded as though everyone in the world was laughing, whistling, shouting, crying, singing, whispering, humming, screaming, coughing, and sneezing, all at the same time. There were bits of old speeches floating about, as well as recited lessons, gunshots from old wars, babies' cries, auto horns, waterfalls, electric fans, galloping horses, and a great deal of everything else.

For a while there was total and deafening confusion and then, almost as quickly as they'd come, all the old sounds disappeared over the hill in search of their new freedom, and things were normal again.

The people quickly went about their busy talkative business and, as the smoke and dust cleared, only Milo, Tock, and the Humbug noticed the Soundkeeper sitting disconsolately on a pile of rubble.

"I'm terribly sorry," said Milo sympathetically as the three of them went to console her.

"But we had to do it," added Tock, sniffing around the ruins.

"What a terrible mess," observed the Humbug, with his knack for saying exactly the wrong thing.

The Soundkeeper looked around with an expression of unrelieved sadness on her unhappy face.

"It will take years to collect all those sounds again," she sobbed, "and even longer to put them back in proper order. But it's all my fault. For you can't improve sound by having only silence. The problem is to use each at the proper time."

As she spoke, the familiar and unmistakable squinch-squanch, squinch-squanch squinch-squanch, squinch-squanch of the DYNNE's heavy footsteps could be heard plodding over the hill, and when he finally appeared he was dragging an incredibly large sack behind him. of the DYNNE's heavy footsteps could be heard plodding over the hill, and when he finally appeared he was dragging an incredibly large sack behind him.

"Can anyone use these sounds?" he puffed, mopping his forehead. "They all came over the hill at once and none of them are awful enough for me."

The Soundkeeper peered into the sack, and there were all the sounds which had burst from the vaults.

"How nice of you to return them!" she cried happily. "You and the doctor must come by for an evening of beautiful music when my fortress is repaired."

The thought of it so horrified the DYNNE that he excused himself immediately and dashed off down the road in a great panic.

"I hope I haven't offended him," she said with some concern.

"He only likes unpleasant sounds," volunteered Tock.

"Ah yes," she sighed; "I keep forgetting that many people do. But I suppose they are necessary, for you'd never really know how pleasant one was unless you knew how unpleasant it wasn't." She paused for a moment, then continued: "If only Rhyme and Reason were here, I'm sure things would improve."

"That's why we're going to rescue them," said Milo proudly.

"What a long, hard journey that will be! You'll need some nourishment," she cried, handing Milo a small brown package, neatly wrapped and tied with string. "Now remember: they're not for eating, but for listening, because you'll often be hungry for sounds as well as food. Here are street noises at night, train whistles a long way off, dry leaves burning, busy department stores, crunching toast, creaking bedsprings, and, of course, all kinds of laughter. There's a little of each, and in far-off lonely places I think you'll be glad to have them."

"I'm sure we will," replied Milo gratefully.

"Just take this road to the sea and turn left," she told them. "You'll soon be in Digitopolis."

And almost before she had finished, they had said good-by and left the valley behind them.

The sh.o.r.e line was peaceful and flat, and the calm sea b.u.mped it playfully along the sandy beach. In the distance a beautiful island covered with palm trees and flowers beckoned invitingly from the sparkling water.

"Nothing can possibly go wrong now," cried the Humbug happily and as soon as he'd said it he leaped from the car, as if stuck by a pin, and sailed all the way to the little island.

"And we'll have plenty of time," answered Tock, who hadn't noticed that the bug was missing-and he, too, suddenly leaped into the air and disappeared.

"It certainly couldn't be a nicer day," agreed Milo, who was too busy looking at the road to see that the others had gone. And in a split second he was gone also.

He landed next to Tock and the terrified Humbug on the tiny island, which now looked completely different. Instead of palms and flowers, there were only rocks and the twisted stumps of long-dead trees. It certainly didn't seem like the same place they had seen from the road.

"Pardon me," said Milo to the first man who happened by; "can you tell me where I am?"