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‘The Big Bang?’ Luka asked. ‘Or some other Bang I don’t know about?’

‘There was only one Bang,’ said Nobodaddy, ‘so the adjective Big is redundant and meaningless. The Bang would only be Big if there was at least one other Little or Medium-Sized or even Bigger Bang to compare it with, and to differentiate it from.’

Luka didn’t want to waste time arguing. ‘Yes, I’ve heard of it,’ he said.

‘Then tell me,’ said Nobodaddy, ‘what was there before the Bang?’

Now this was one of those Enormous Questions that Luka had often tried to answer, without having any real success. ‘What was it that had gone Bang anyway?’ he asked himself. ‘And how could everything go off with a Bang if there was nothing there to begin with?’ It made his head hurt to think about the Bang and so, of course, he didn’t think about it very much.

‘I know what the answer is supposed to be,’ he said. ‘It’s supposed to be “Nothing”, but I don’t really get that, to be honest with you. And anyway,’ he added as sternly as he could manage, ‘that has nothing to do with the subject under discussion.’

Nobodaddy wagged a finger under his nose. ‘On the contrary, young would-be assassin,’ he said, ‘it has everything to do with it. Because if the whole universe could just explode out of Nothing and then just Be, don’t you see that the opposite could also be true? That it’s possible to implode and Un-Be as well as to explode and Be? That all human beings, Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, or the Emperor Akbar, or Angelina Jolie, or your father, could simply return to Nothing once they’re … done? In a sort of Little, by which I mean personal, Un-Bang?’

‘Un-Bang?’ Luka repeated, in some confusion.

‘Exactly,’ said Nobodaddy. ‘Not a spreading out but a closing in.’

‘Are you telling me,’ Luka said, feeling an anger rise in him, ‘that my father is about to implode into Nothing? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

Nobodaddy did not answer.

‘Then what about life after dea—’ Luka began, then stopped himself, slapped himself on the head and rephrased the question. ‘What about Paradise?’

Nobodaddy said nothing.

‘Are you trying to say that it doesn’t exist?’ Luka demanded. ‘Because if that’s what you are trying to say, I know a lot of people in this town who will give you a pretty heated argument.’

Not a word from Nobodaddy.

‘You’re suddenly very silent,’ Luka said crossly. ‘Maybe you don’t know as many answers as you pretend you do either. Maybe you’re not as big a deal as you think.’

‘Ignore him,’ said Dog the bear in an oddly big-brotherly way. ‘You really should go home now.’

‘Your mother will be worrying,’ said Bear the dog.

Luka was still not used to the animals’ new powers of speech. ‘I want an answer before I go,’ he said stubbornly.

Nobodaddy nodded, slowly, as if a conversation he had been having with someone invisible had just come to an end. ‘I can tell you this,’ he said. ‘That when my work is done, when I have absorbed your father’s … well, never mind what I will have absorbed,’ he added hastily, seeing the look on Luka’s face, ‘then I – yes, I, myself! – will implode. I will collapse into myself, and simply cease to Be.’

Luka was astounded. ‘You? You’re the one who’s going to die?’

‘Un-Be,’ Nobodaddy corrected him. ‘That’s the technical term. And as I have answered your third question first, I should add that, one, nobody sent me, but somebody did send for me, and, two, I don’t exactly come from somewhere, but I do come from someone. And if you think about it for a moment, you will know who that somebody and that someone are, especially as they are one and the same, and I am the spitting image of them Both, who are only One.’

The silver sun brightened in the east. Dog and Bear looked agitated. It was definitely time for Luka to be at home getting ready for the school day. Soraya would be beside herself with worry. Maybe she had sent Haroun out to search the neighbourhood streets. When Luka got home for breakfast he was going to be in nineteen different kinds of trouble. But Luka wasn’t thinking about breakfast, or about school. This was not the time for cereal, Ratshit or geography. He was thinking about things he had hardly ever thought about in his life. He was thinking about Life and Dea— well, Un-Life. He still couldn’t bear that other, incomplete word.

‘And the Fire of Life can save my father,’ he said.

‘If you can steal it for him,’ said Nobodaddy, ‘then, yes, without a doubt.’

‘And it will give Dog and Bear back their real lives as well.’

‘It will.’

‘And what will happen to you then? If we succeed?’

Nobodaddy did not reply.

‘You won’t have to implode, will you? You won’t Un-Be.’

‘That is so,’ Nobodaddy said. ‘It won’t be my time.’

‘So you’ll go away.’

‘Yes,’ said Nobodaddy.

‘You’ll go away and never come back.’

‘“Never” is a long word,’ said Nobodaddy.

‘Okay … but you won’t come back for a long time.’

Nobodaddy inclined his head in agreement.

‘A long, long time,’ Luka insisted.

Nobodaddy pursed his lips and spread out his arms in a kind of surrender.

‘A long, long, long –’

‘Don’t push your luck,’ Nobodaddy said sharply.

‘And that’s why you’re trying to help us, isn’t it?’ Luka concluded. ‘You don’t want to implode. You’re trying to save your own skin.’

‘I don’t have skin,’ said Nobodaddy.

‘I don’t trust him,’ said Bear the dog.

‘I don’t like him,’ said Dog the bear.

‘I don’t believe a word he says,’ said Bear the dog.

‘I don’t think for one moment that he’ll just go away,’ said Dog the bear.

‘It’s a trick,’ said Bear the dog.

‘It’s a trap,’ said Dog the bear.

‘There’s a catch,’ said Bear the dog.

‘There must be a catch,’ said Dog the bear.

‘Ask him,’ said Bear the dog.

Nobodaddy took off his panama hat, scratched his bald head, lowered his eyes and sighed.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘There’s a catch.’

Actually, there were two catches. The first, according to Nobodaddy, was that nobody in the entire recorded history of the World of Magic had ever successfully stolen the Fire of Life, which was protected in so many ways that, according to Nobodaddy, there wasn’t enough time to list one-tenth of them. The dangers were almost infinite, the risks dizzying, and only the most fool-hardy adventurer would even think of attempting such a feat.

‘It’s never been done?’ Luka asked.

‘Never successfully,’ Nobodaddy replied.

‘What happened to the people who tried?’ Luka demanded.

Nobodaddy looked grim. ‘You don’t want to know,’ he said.

‘Okay,’ said Luka, ‘so what’s the second catch?’

Darkness fell – not everywhere, but just around Luka, Dog, Bear and their strange companion. It was as if a cloud had covered the sun, except that the sun could still be seen shining in the eastern sky. Nobodaddy seemed to darken, too. The temperature dropped. The noises of the day faded away. Finally Nobodaddy spoke in a low, heavy voice.

‘Somebody has to die,’ he said.

Luka was angry, confused and frightened all at the same time. ‘What do you mean?’ he shouted. ‘What sort of a catch is that?’

‘Once someone like me has been summoned,’ said Nobodaddy, ‘someone alive must pay for that summons with a life. I’m sorry, but that’s the rule.’