Un Lun Dun - China Mieville [86]
“LET YOU GO?” said Mr. Speaker. “OH, I DON’T THINK SO. I HAVEN’T HEARD WORDS LIKE THAT IN MY LIFE. I CAN STILL TASTE THEM COMING OUT. LOOK AT THEM!”
It was true. The slang utterlings looked particularly healthy and energetic. Mr. Speaker stared at Deeba greedily.
“NO NO NO. NOT GIVING THAT UP. YOU’RE STAYING HERE. YOU GET TO TALK TO ME WITH THOSE LOVELY WORDS. TEACH ME ALL THE LANGUAGE YOU KNOW, FOREVER AND EVER.”
60
Insurgent Verbiage
“No way!” Hemi said. “That’s not on!”
“You promised!” the book said.
“I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT,” MR. Speaker said. “A PROMISE IS WORDS. I’M MR. SPEAKER! WORDS MEAN WHATEVER I WANT. WORDS DO WHAT I TELL THEM!”
His voice echoed in the enormous room, and the utterlings jumped up and down enthusiastically. Deeba looked around at the utterlings holding her, felt the strength of their grip. She thought quickly.
“I don’t think that’s true,” she said.
Silence settled, and all the eyes in the room turned to Deeba.
“WHAT?” Mr. Speaker said.
“Well,” said Deeba. “I don’t think words do what anyone tells them all the time.”
Hemi was looking at her with at least as much bewilderment on his face as Mr. Speaker had.
“What are you on about?” Hemi said.
“YES, WHAT ARE YOU ON ABOUT?”
Deeba paused to admire about, an utterling like a living spiderweb.
“Words don’t always mean what we want them to,” she said. “None of us. Not even you.” The room was quiet. All the people and things in it were listening.
“Like…if someone shouts ‘Hey you!’ at someone in the street, but someone else turns around. The words misbehaved. They didn’t call the person they were meant to. Or if you see someone at a party and they’re wearing something mad, and you say ‘That’s some outfit!’ and they think you’re being rude, but you meant it really.
“Or like if someone says something’s bad and people think they mean bad bad and they mean good bad. Or…” Deeba giggled, remembering one of the Blyton books her mother had given her, saying she had enjoyed it when she was Deeba’s age. “Or like that old book with a girl’s name that just sounds rude now.”
The utterlings were twitching, and staring at her. Mr. Speaker was flinching. He looked sick.
“Or even,” Deeba said, “like some words that mean something but they’ve got like a feeling of something else, so if you say them, you might be saying something you don’t mean to. Like if I say someone’s really nice then I might mean it, but it sounds a little bit like they’re boring. You know?”
“Yeah,” said Hemi. “Yeah.”
“The thing is,” Deeba said, eyeing Mr. Speaker, “you could only make words do what you want if it was just you deciding what they mean. But it isn’t. It’s everyone else, too. Which means you might want to give them orders, but you aren’t in total control. No one is.”
“THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS NONSENSE!” Mr. Speaker spluttered, burping four confused creatures, but Deeba interrupted him.
“So, you might think all these words have to obey you. But they don’t.”
“NO MORE SPEAKING! UTTERLINGS, TAKE HER AWAY!”
The utterlings were staring at Deeba, absolutely still, their eyes enormous. None of them moved. Mr. Speaker’s face went dark purple with rage.
“UTTERLINGS!” he shrieked.
“Even your words don’t always do what you want,” Deeba said. She wasn’t looking at Mr. Speaker, though. She was looking at the utterlings, and she raised her eyebrows.
“TAKE HER AWAY!”
Some of the utterlings tightened their grips, but others were loosening them. Standing in a little group nearby, looking at Deeba uncertainly, were the silver locust, the many-legged bear, the bee, and the staring thing: the utterlings of London slang.
“I bet you could shut him up,” Deeba said to them. “I bet you don’t really have to do what he says.”
Hesitantly, the four utterlings turned and looked at Mr. Speaker. They moved towards him.
For a moment it was only those four, but very quickly, others joined them. The four-legged four-armed little man who had captured Deeba was one of a crew bearing down on Mr. Speaker, who was so apoplectic with rage he wasn’t even saying words—just screeching.
Other