“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
“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 shells. 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 crushing, 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
“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?”
“Pardon me,” replied the man; “can you tell me
“Of course, yes, of course,” the man shouted. “Why didn’t I think of that? I’m as happy as can be.” Then he quickly sat down, put his head in his hands, and sighed. “But I’m also as sad as can be.”
“Now will you tell me where we are?” asked Tock as he looked around the desolate island.
“To be sure,” said Canby; “you’re on the Island of Conclusions. Make yourself at home. You’re apt to be here for some time.”
“But how did we get here?” asked Milo, who was still a bit puzzled by being there at all.
“You jumped, of course,” explained Canby. “That’s the way most everyone gets here. It’s really quite simple: every time you decide something without having a good reason, you jump to Conclusions whether you like it or not. It’s such an easy trip to make that I’ve been here hundreds of times.”
“But this is such an unpleasant-looking place,” Milo remarked.
“Yes, that’s true,” admitted Canby; “it does look much better from a distance.”
As he spoke, at least eight or nine more people sailed onto the island from every direction possible.
“Well, I’m going to jump right back,” announced the Humbug, who took two or three practice bends, leaped as far as he could, and landed in a heap two feet away.
“That won’t do at all,” scolded Canby, helping him to his feet. “You can never jump away from Conclusions. Getting back is not so easy. That’s why we’re so terribly crowded here.”
That was certainly the truth, for all along the bleak shore and clustered on the rocks for as far as anyone could see were enormous crowds of people, all sadly looking out to sea.
“Isn’t there even a boat?” asked Milo, anxious to get on with his trip.
“Oh no,” replied Canby, shaking his head. “The only way back is to swim, and that’s a very long and a very hard way.”
“I don’t like to get wet,” moaned the unhappy bug, and he shuddered at the thought.
“Neither do they,” said Canby sadly. “That’s what keeps them here. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it, for you can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry. Most people do. But you must excuse me now. I have to greet the new arrivals. As you know, I’m as friendly as can be.”