The Long Earth

always sort out the pieces first, separating sky and sea and edge, before putting even two pieces together. Sometimes afterwards, if the puzzle was incomplete, he would go into his little workshop and very carefully shape the missing pieces out of hoarded scrap wood and then paint them to fit. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t believe that the puzzle had ever had holes. And sometimes he would cook, under the supervision of Sister Serendipity. He would collect all the ingredients, prepare them all in advance meticulously, and then work through the recipe. He even cleaned up as he went. He liked cooking, and liked the approval it won him in the Home.
    That was Joshua. That was how he did things. And that was why he wasn’t the first kid to step out of the world, because he’d not only varnished his Stepper box, he’d waited for the varnish to dry. And that was why he was certainly the first kid to get back without wetting his pants, or worse.
    Step Day. Kids were disappearing. Parents scoured the neighbourhoods. One minute the kids were there, playing with this latest crazy toy, and the next moment they weren’t. When frantic parent meets frantic parent, frantic becomes terrified. The police were called, but to do what? Arrest who? To look where?
    And Joshua himself stepped, for the first time.
    A heartbeat earlier, he had been in his workshop, in the Home. Now he stood in a wood, heavy, thick, the moonlight hardly managing to reach the ground. He could hear other kids everywhere, throwing up, crying for their parents, a few screaming as if they were hurt. He wondered why all the distress.
He
wasn’t throwing up. It was creepy, yes. But it was a warm night. He could hear the whine of mosquitoes. The only question was, a warm night
where
?
    All the crying distracted him. There was one kid close at hand, calling for her mother. It sounded like Sarah, another resident of the Home. He called out her name.
    She stopped crying, and he heard her voice, quite close: ‘Joshua?’
    He thought it over. It was late evening. Sarah would have been in the girls’ dormitory, which was about twenty yards away from his workshop. He had not
moved
, but he was clearly in a different place. This wasn’t Madison. Madison had noises, cars, airplanes, lights , while now he was standing in a forest, like something out of a book, with not a trace of a streetlight anywhere he looked. But Sarah was here too, wherever this was. The thought constructed itself a piece at a time, like an incomplete jigsaw. Think, don’t panic. In relation to where you are, or were, she will be where she is, or was. You just have to go down the passage to her room. Even though, here and now, there is no passage, no room. Problem solved.
    Except that to get to her would mean walking through the tree right in front of him. An extremely big tree.
    He worked his way around the tree, pushing through the tangled undergrowth, the briars, the fallen branches of this very wild wood. ‘Keep talking,’ he said. ‘Don’t move. I’m coming.’
    ‘Joshua?’
    ‘Look, I’ll tell you what. Sing. Keep singing. That way I’ll be able to find you in the dark.’ Joshua switched on his flashlight. It was a tiny one that fitted into a pocket. He always carried a flashlight at night. Of course he did. He was Joshua.
    She didn’t sing. She started to pray. ‘Our Father, who art in heaven …’
    He wished people would do what he told them, just sometimes.
    From around the forest, from the dark, other voices joined in. ‘Hallowed be thy name …’
    He clapped his hands and yelled, ‘Everybody shut up! I’ll get you out of here. Trust me.’ He didn’t know why they should trust him, but the tone of authority worked, and the other voices died away. He took a breath and called, ‘Sarah. You first. OK? Everybody else, go towards the prayer. Don’t say anything. Just head towards the prayer.’
    Sarah began again: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven …’
    As he worked his way forward, hands outstretched, pushing through briars and climbing over roots, testing every step, he heard the sounds of people moving all around him, more voices calling. Some were complaining about being lost. Others were complaining about a lack of cellphone signal. Sometimes he glimpsed their phones, little screens glowing like fireflies. And then there was the desolate weeping, even moans of pain.
    The prayer ended with an amen, which was echoed around the forest, and Sarah said, ‘Joshua?