Haroun and the Sea of Stories Read Free Page B

someone to come and take a ride. ‘No man can be sad who looks upon that sight,’ Rashid had said, ‘but a blind man’s blindness must feel twice as wretched then.’ So what Haroun asked Mr Butt for was this: front-row seats in the Mail Coach all the way to the Dull Lake; and a guarantee that the Mail Coach would pass through the Tunnel of I (also known as J) before sunset, because otherwise the whole point would be lost.
    ‘But but but,’ Mr Butt protested, ‘the hour is already late …’ Then, seeing Haroun’s face begin to fall, he grinned broadly and clapped his hands. ‘But but but so what?’ he shouted. ‘The beautiful view! To cheer up the sad dad! Before sunset! No problem .’
    So when Rashid staggered out of the Ticket Office he found Haroun waiting on the steps of the Mail Coach, with the best seats reserved inside, and the motor running.
    The other passengers, who were out of breath from their running, and who were covered in dust which their sweat was turning to mud, stared at Haroun with a mixture of jealousy and awe. Rashid was impressed, too. ‘As I may have mentioned, young Haroun Khalifa: more to you than meets the blinking eye.’
    ‘Yahoo!’ yelled Mr Butt, who was as excitable as any mail service employee. ‘Varoom!’ he added, and jammed the accelerator pedal right down against the floor.
    The Mail Coach rocketed through the gates of the Bus Depot, narrowly missing a wall on which Haroun read this:
     
IF FROM SPEED YOU GET YOUR THRILL
TAKE PRECAUTION—MAKE YOUR WILL

     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    Faster and faster went the Mail Coach; the passengers started to hoot and howl with excitement and fear. Through village after village Mr Butt drove, at top speed. Haroun observed that in each village a man carrying a large mailbag would be waiting by the bus stop in the village square, and that this man would look at first confused and then furious as the Mail Coach roared by him without even slowing down. Haroun could also see that at the rear of the Mail Coach there was a special area, separated from the passengers by a wire mesh partition, that was piled high with mailbags just like those held by the angry, fist-shaking men in the village squares. Mr Butt had apparently forgotten to deliver or collect the mail!
    ‘Don’t we need to stop for the letters?’ Haroun finally leant forward to inquire. At the same moment Rashid the storyteller cried out, ‘Do we need to go so blinking fast?’
    Mr Butt managed to make the Mail Coach go even faster. ‘ “Need to stop?” ’ he bellowed over his shoulder. ‘ “Need to go so quickly?” Well, my sirs, I’ll tell you this: Need’s a slippery snake, that’s what it is. The boy here says that you, sir, Need A View Before Sunset, and maybe it’s so and maybe no. And some might say that the boy here Needs A Mother, and maybe it’s so and maybe no. And it’s been said of me that Butt Needs Speed, but but but it may be that my heart truly needs a Different Sort Of Thrill. O, Need’s a funny fish: it makes people untruthful. They all suffer from it, but they will not always admit. Hurrah!’ he added, pointing. ‘The snow line! Icy patches ahead! Crumbling road surface! Hairpin bends! Danger of avalanches! Full speed ahead! ’
    He had simply decided not to stop for the mail in order to keep his promise to Haroun. ‘ No problem ,’ he shouted gaily. ‘Everybody gets other people’s correspondence anyhow in this country of so-many too-many places and so-few too-few names.’ The Mail Coach rushed up into the Mountains of M, swinging around terrifying curves with a great squealing of tyres. The luggage (which was all tied down on the roof rack) began to shift about in a worrying way. The passengers (who all looked alike, now that their perspiration had finished turning the dust that covered them to mud) began to complain.
    ‘My holdall!’ yelled a mud-woman. ‘Crazy buffalo! Looney tune! Desist from your speeding, or my possessions will be