Soul Music

simply ask.”
    SQUEAK.
    “All right, but before would have been better.” The raven ruffled its feathers and looked around at the bright landscape under the dark sky.
    “This is the place then, is it?” it said. “You’re sure you’re not the Death of Ravens too?”
    SQUEAK.
    “Shape doesn’t mean much. Anyway, you’ve got a pointy snout. What was it you were wanting?”
    The Death of Rats grabbed a wing and pulled.
    “All right, all right!”
    The raven glanced at a garden gnome. It was fishing in an ornamental pond. The fish were skeletal, but this didn’t seem to interfere with their enjoyment of life, or whatever it was they were enjoying.
    It fluttered and hopped along after the rat.

    Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler stood back.
    Jimbo, Crash, Noddy, and Scum looked at him expectantly.
    “What’re all the boxes for, Mr. Dibbler?” said Crash.
    “Yeah,” said Scum.
    Dibbler carefully positioned the tenth box on its tripod.
    “You boys seen an iconograph?” he said.
    “Oh, yes…I mean, yeah,” said Jimbo. “They’ve got a little demon inside them that paints pictures of things you point it at.”
    “This is like that, only for sound,” said Dibbler.
    Jimbo squinted past the open lid.
    “Can’t see any…I mean, can’t see no demon,” he said.
    “That’s because there isn’t one,” said Dibbler. It was worrying him, too. He’d have been a little bit happier if there’d been a demon or some sort of magic. Something simple and understandable. He didn’t like the idea of meddling in science.
    “Now then…Suck—” he began.
    “The Surreptitious Fabric,” said Jimbo.
    “What?”
    “The Surreptitious Fabric,” Jimbo repeated helpfully. “It’s our new name.”
    “Why have you changed it? You haven’t been Suck for twenty-four hours.”
    “Yeah, but we thought the name was holding us back.”
    “How could it be holding you back? You aren’t moving.” Dibbler glared at them and shrugged. “Anyway, whatever you call yourselves…I want you to sing your best song, what am I saying , in front of these boxes. Not yet…not yet…wait a moment…”
    Dibbler retired to the farthest corner of the room and pulled his hat down over his ears.
    “All right, you can start,” he said.
    He stared in blissful deafness at the group for several minutes until a general cessation of movement suggested that whatever they had been perpetrating had been committed.
    Then he inspected the boxes. The wires were vibrating gently, but there was barely any sound.
    The Surreptitious Fabric clustered round.
    “Is it working, Mr. Dibbler?” said Jimbo.
    Dibbler shook his head.
    “You boys don’t have what it takes,” he said.
    “What does it take, Mr. Dibbler?”
    “You’ve got me there. You’ve got something ,” he said, at the sight of their dejected faces, “but not a lot of it, whatever it is.”
    “Er…this doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to play at the Free Festival, does it, Mr. Dibbler?” said Crash.
    “Maybe,” said Dibbler, smiling benevolently.
    “Thanks a lot, Mr. Dibbler!”
    The Surreptitious Fabric wandered out into the street.
    “We need to get it together if we’re going to wow them at the Festival,” said Crash.
    “What, you mean…like…learn to play?” said Jimbo.
    “No! Music With Rocks In just happens. If you go around learning , you’ll never get anywhere,” said Crash. “No, I mean…” He looked around. “Better clothes, for one thing. Did you see about them leather coats, Noddy?”
    “Sort of,” said Noddy.
    “What do you mean, sort of?”
    “Sort of leather. I went down to the tannery in Phedre Road and they had some leather all right, but it’s a bit…whiffy…”
    “All right, we can get started on them tonight. And how about those leopardskin trousers, Scum? You know we said leopardskin trousers’d be a great idea.”
    A look of transcendental worry crossed Scum’s face.
    “I kind of got some,” he said.
    “You either got them or you ain’t,” said Crash.
    “Yeah, but they’re kind of…” said Scum. “Look, I couldn’t find a shop that’d heard of anything like that but, er, you know that circus that was here last week? Only I had a word with the guy in the top hat and, well, it was a kind of a bargain and—”
    “Scum,” said Crash quietly, “what have you bought?”
    “Look at it this way,” said Scum with sweating brightness, “it’s sort of leopardskin trousers and a leopardskin shirt and a leopardskin