A Boy Called MOUSE

by Penny Dolan

  ‘I’m sorry, darlings, but I have been asked to help someone with an important part,’ she said coyly.

  ‘Bet I know who that is,’ hissed Kitty.

  ‘Miss Lander’s back,’ Flora and Dora informed me. ‘She is very pretty, but she can’t dance.’

  We sat on the theatre steps munching on cold slabs of Aunt Indigo’s pie. When they had finished, the little girls ran around feeding crumbs to the pigeons, and Kitty chatted to the apple-women.

  I was too tired to go searching for Ma that day. Nick Tick’s clocks chimed constantly, night and day, and it was sometimes hard to sleep through them. I sat there yawning and gazing dismally at the crowds.

  A small dog pattered out from among the hurrying feet. It paused. It sat on the pavement and sniffed the air. It stretched its nose in my direction, and then its whole body. Then it moved. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, it came running towards me. Sniffing, snuffling, bouncing, barking, the dog raced round me, jumping up again and again, tail wagging.

  Punchman’s Toby!

  ‘Whatever are you doing here?’ I bent down, and he rolled on his back so I could tickle him, though he showed his starved ribs and his dulled, dirty fur. ‘You poor boy!’ I said, petting him until he wriggled to his feet again.

  All at once Toby danced away, and back, and then away again, wanting me to follow him. I got a very bad feeling then, hearing Toby’s whimpers of distress. Punchman was in the city, but something was very wrong. He would never willingly let his dog get into this condition.

  ‘Kit, I’ve got to go with Toby.’

  ‘We’ll come along with you,’ Kitty said firmly, ‘for a while at least.’

  ‘We’ll see Punchman’s puppet show?’ said the girls, who had heard my tales of Dog Toby. They linked hands and put on their good-as-gold faces.

  I didn’t laugh at their cheekiness. I didn’t even care. I was too worried. They could all come if they wanted. I was already off, racing after poor little Toby. I had to keep up with the scampering dog. I needed to know where Punchman was, and why he was here.

  The very worst of news. Toby took us through a warren of streets right to the gates of a charity hospital. It was a mean, cold place, close to the river. He waited for us, shivering.

  ‘Poor thing!’ Kitty scooped Toby up and wrapped him deep in her shawl, hushing him as if she was carrying a baby. Flora and Dora walked very close to Kitty’s heels, holding her skirts anxiously.

  At the entrance porch, a porter with a face like boiled pudding tried to turn us away.

  ‘Oh, please let us in, sir,’ Kitty pleaded, so sweetly you could not have imagined her as anything other than meekness itself. ‘Please help us. We are searching for our poor lost grandfather. We will be as quiet as the tiniest of mice, sir, and our mama has always taught us to be good. Alas! There’s only mama, my brother here and me, and we must care for these two tiny sisters and our baby brother.’ She peered into the shawl affectionately.

  ‘Go on then, miss,’ Pudding-face said, as a tear welled in his eye, ‘but be quick about it. Second corridor on the left.’

  We found a long grim room filled with low cots, where rows of men lay staring or moaning. This was not a place to play with puppets, or joke about a clattering wooden skeleton.

  Punchman’s bed was at the far end. His face was bruised, as if he had been beaten. His shivering hands clutched and picked at his blanket, and his shocked eyes watched out for something far away.

  As Kitty put Toby down, he nudged his furry nose against the old man’s hand. Punchman turned his bruised face, and his eyes twinkled.

  ‘Hello, Punchman,’ I said. ‘Came to see you.’

  ‘My boy Mouse!’ His once strong voice was as thin as a thread. ‘What a welcome sight! I knew I could trust my good little dog.’

  I nodded and smiled. Words stuck in my throat.

  Punchman patted and praised Toby for finding me. Then he said, ‘So that pair haven’t found you yet? That’s good, that’s good.’

  ‘What? Who?’ I turned cold. ‘Who wants to find me?’

  ‘The big ’un and the little ’un. Them two who are after you.’ He coughed painfully. ‘Vicious, they are. Little ’un said they were going to find you first, before someone else does. Not nice men at all, Mousey, so you’d better be careful. We came here to tell you that, didn’t we, Toby?’

  Kitty glanced across. ‘What does he mean?’ she mouthed.

  It was too late. Punchman’s mind had drifted on, and for a while his mumblings made no sense. Then another anxiety surfaced, and the old man tried to drag a grubby sack from under his bed. ‘Mouse, help me. Let me see them again.’

  One by one I took out Punchman’s puppets so that he could see each familiar carved and painted face. He raised a hand to each one, and nodded, giving shallow, contented sighs.

  ‘Look after my wooden friends for me, won’t you, my boy? Won’t be using them for a while.’

  Suddenly his feverish eyes gazed beyond me, at little Flora and Dora with their shining golden curls.

  ‘The Lord be praised. It’s the blessed angels come for me after all, Mouse, my old friend. Two pretty little cherubs, come to take me to heaven. Keep safe, my dearest boy,’ he whispered. ‘Keep happy.’

  Punchman smiled, and it was a moment of great joy. Then he was gone to his peace.

  We carried Toby away with us, holding the shawl tight around him so he could not run back.

  Kitty looked at the girls sternly. ‘You say nothing to the Aunts about where we’ve been.’

  ‘Not even that we are angels?’ Flora asked.

  ‘Not a word from either of you, or you’ll never live to be angels. The Aunts would be worried.’

  The girls were not worried about poor Punchman. Hadn’t the old man gone to heaven to be an angel, like their mother did when they were born? I, Mouse, had a sackful of the old man’s puppets, so they would be able to see a show after all. Best of all, we now had Dog Toby to look after. The dog was only one of my worries.

  ‘What did he mean, Mouse, about the men after you?’ Kitty asked quietly.

  I dared not reply, because the more I thought about Punchman’s bruises, the worse I felt about whatever I had brought my friend. He spoke of a big man and a small man. They could only be Bulloughby and Button.

  Dread wrapped around me. I walked back to the theatre in silence. How could I explain those men to Kitty without worrying her? Why did they want me anyway? Bulloughby had no reason for wanting me back at Murkstone Hall, and I could not imagine that I mattered much to Button.

  Next day I said another goodbye to Punchman. He was buried just outside a churchyard stuffed with upright slabs and smug angels. I had groomed Toby as best I could, and I prayed as best I could, in the words Ma taught me, with Mr Punch peeping out of my coat pocket.

  The parson, uncomfortable about being seen in the pauper’s corner, gabbled through the prayers. I placed a bunch of violets on the bare mound of earth in feeble farewell.

  As I strode back to the Albion, Punchman’s words chattered in the back of my mind: ‘Going to find you first, before someone else does.’

  All these months, while I had been searching so unsuccessfully for Ma, someone else was searching for me. I wanted to be ready for whoever it was. Maybe my lost Ma was the only one who could explain.

  So I tried harder to find her. I got up early, to grab hold of the ordinary dawn-lit everyday world as well as the half-pretence of the Albion’s night-time world. I discovered nothing new, except that I was growing tired to my bones.

  I hung round all the carriage stops, enquiring. I peered into the speeding flies and the slowly rolling carts. I jumped on the running boards of the hansom cabs, asking the drivers if they had seen someone like Isaac in any stables.

  When the omnibuses stopped, I
watched every face. I studied the Sunday folk coming from steepled churches, dressed in heavy silk and bombazine, and the chapel folk, buttoned into their simple best as they scuttled towards their own Sabbath service. No Ma or Isaac there.

  This city had become such a big, big place. Since meeting poor Punchman, my fear of shadows had returned. I grew ill-tempered, unable to chat and joke with Flora or Dora. Their wide hurt eyes followed me, silently asking what they had done wrong. I even avoided conversations with Kitty.

  Though Dog Toby followed at my heels, my searches made him anxious for his lost master, and he howled if he was left alone among the boots and shoes at the Albion. After he’d gnawed his way through two misshapen pairs, I left him behind, at Nick Tick’s feet. Toby snoozed, content, in the warm shop, but he met me with a wagging tail whenever I returned.

  I could not help him. I could not help my friend Punchman, could I? I didn’t even want to help myself. I curled up in my small bed in Nick Tick’s house, and longed to disappear. I closed my eyes. Ma, where were you?

  In a fitful dream, three leering strangers knocked the door down, calling me by a name that was mine but not mine.

  ‘No, no!’ I yelled as they reached for me, and woke. Kitty was thumping the pillow by my head.

  ‘Sit up!’ she said.

  ‘Go away, Kit,’ I grumbled.

  She pulled the covers off, making me face her. ‘Mouse, why are you being so horrible?’

  I glared. I waved my hand dismissively. ‘Leave me alone.’

  She stood there defiantly. ‘Listen, Mouse,’ she said, ‘I got the Aunts to take you in. I got you work at the theatre, even when I wasn’t in the best place there myself. I told Vanya I trusted you, and I got you out of trouble with Adnam. I even went to that filthy hospital to see that poor old man. But all this means nothing, because you don’t trust me. What on earth is wrong?’

  ‘Secret,’ I muttered.

  ‘Pah! Everyone’s got secrets. Please, Mouse, tell me.’

  So I did. I admitted my search was getting nowhere, that I was bitter that Ma lied to me, that I was a silly little boy who got taken from his home like a fool. I told her about Murkstone Hall and Grindle. She listened without interrupting, and I dared to hope she understood.

  Finally I explained what Punchman had told me. A pair of men were following me – one big, one little. I paused, then added that they wanted to find me before someone else did so. Just saying those words made me afraid.

  Kitty stared at me, her eyes filling with concern.

  ‘Don’t know who this other man could be, Kitty,’ I said. ‘Don’t know what he wants. Don’t know what any of them want.’ The thoughts kept going round and round in my head. I needed to think about something else.

  So I turned the tables on Kitty. ‘Now you tell,’ I said. ‘Why do you skulk around that theatre, acting as if you’re invisible?’

  ‘No. One thing at a time, Mouse,’ she said briskly.

  ‘Tell me.’

  Her plait flew from side to side as she shook her head. ‘Not now, Mouse. Besides, I’ve come to tell you the Aunts are frying up some sausages, so don’t sit there like an idiot. Get ready. We miss you. Hurry up!’

  She left me there. I suddenly felt so glad that I’d told my tale that I laughed. A plate of sausages? Toby looked up hopefully, tail wagging, and barked five times.

  ‘Hope the Aunts have plenty of sausages then,’ I told him.

  .

  CHAPTER 43

  SOME WORDS OF DIRECTION

  Button’s smile creaked on his face. Bulloughby’s presence was hard to endure. Though the oaf had suited his purpose back at Murkstone Hall, the Punchman incident had made Button see the boastful headmaster as a liability.

  When they’d got Punchman on his own, Charlie had fought back so fiercely that Bulloughby had backed away. Who would have thought the little puppet master had so much fight in him? And then, with the sound of other wheels approaching, they’d flung the little man down among the reeds, in the hope that he’d drown in the ditchwater before he had a chance to wake – and all this without getting any information. That had really annoyed Button.

  An even worse annoyance was that Bulloughby was not a pleasure to be with. The big man sniffled and snorted like a walrus, complaining loudly and continually, no matter where they were. Bulloughby had a habit of drawing attention towards them. This was dangerous.

  Mr Button was a man who needed to be discreet. His kind of work was best done quietly, and Bulloughby was disturbing his mood.

  Down the city street the big man and small man walked, passing costermongers’ carts and pie shops and noisy pubs where songs burst out from doorways, filling the night air with sound.

  Button stopped, looked left and right, then turned into a quieter road. ‘Remembered a short cut, Bulloughby. This way.’

  The two men walked on and soon came to an excavation site fenced off by wooden palings. Within was one of the vast tunnels that engineers enjoyed hollowing out beneath the modern city.

  No navvy gangs toiled down there now. They were busy drinking and brawling elsewhere in the district. A dim lantern light hung outside the watchman’s rough shack, but from within came the sound of snores.

  Button froze, suddenly. ‘Quick! There!’ he whispered. ‘I saw him, the wretch! I saw Mouse!’

  ‘Where?’ Bulloughby swaggered forward, chin and fists stuck forward. ‘I’ll grab the vermin.’

  Button pointed to a gap in the fencing. ‘Ran through there, he did. Expect he thinks he can hide from us, my friend.’

  ‘But he can’t,’ Bulloughby said, pulling the palings further apart. He stepped unsteadily through.

  ‘A bit further over, my friend,’ urged Button. ‘I’m here, right behind you. Just wait till we get hold of him! Then you’ll be able to learn the brat, won’t you?’

  ‘Mouse,’ Bulloughby called, ‘I’m coming to get you, and this time you won’t get away from me. I’ll learn you and I’ll learn you and . . .’

  The last words were rather more indistinct because Bulloughby felt such a sharp crack on his head that he found himself plunging down the shaft, way down into the belly of the tunnel, and entering the pool of seeping water that lay at the bottom.

  ‘Such clever engineers we have nowadays!’ commented Mr Button, as he slipped his lead-tipped life preserver into his coat and walked briskly down the quiet street, at peace and alone.

  .

  CHAPTER 44

  A REQUEST

  Vanya grabbed me and pulled me into a shadowy niche.

  ‘Your Nick Tick, he is not blabbermouth?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  Vanya’s words rushed out in a mix of excitement and fear. ‘It is this, Mousekin. I have a teeny tiny idea buzzing in my brain. It is only a pinch of a plan, an inch of an invention.’ He hit his forehead forcefully. ‘But my brain is made of wood. I cannot see the whole picture.’ His arms stretched out as if he wanted to demonstrate the vastness of the puzzle. ‘Mouse, soon the great Adnam will say, “Vanya, my dear friend, the one I rely on, what great surprise is there to use in my next play?”’

  A vast sigh rose from his chest. ‘So help me, boy, I have nothing to tell this magnificent man. I need another head to help me.’ He placed his hands on my shoulders, and stared down at me, his eyes hopeful. ‘Mouse, maybe your Mr Tick is a man who can help me. He made my mother’s watch work again. Will you ask him for me? It is most urgent.’

  ‘I’ll ask him tonight,’ I said.

  ‘Good boy!’ he said, beaming. ‘But do not give too much away, will you? This is our big, big secret!’

  Vanya placed one finger to his lips and padded off to attend to the latest delivery of scenery.

  Vanya’s forceful knock set the doorbell clanging, making Mr
Nick open his door very quickly indeed.

  ‘Humble apologies!’ Vanya whispered, closing the shop door very gently. ‘Forgot.’

  Dog Toby crouched against the floor, growling. ‘Shh!’ I said, and stroked his furry head.

  ‘You are most welcome, Mr Vanya,’ Nick said. Nervously he led this huge bull of a man among his precious clocks. Vanya trod slowly, one pace after another. Then, carefully lowering his head, he entered Nick’s small workroom with its miniature machines.

  ‘A very wonderful sight!’ Vanya shook like a child entranced, but he touched nothing. ‘It is just as Mouse described. You are an extremely clever man.’ He grasped Nick’s neat little hand in his huge paw enthusiastically. ‘Mr Nick, I am most delighted to meet you. Such miracles you’ve made!’

  ‘Delighted myself, Mr Vanya.’ Nick blushed, overwhelmed by Vanya’s joyous response. ‘Now, to business. You have an idea that you need to discuss?’ He indicated a sturdy wooden chest. ‘Sit down, Mr Vanya, do.’

  ‘An idea? That is what I do have! A marvellous idea,’ beamed Vanya, sitting. He brought out a pocket flask and two small metal beakers, which he filled. ‘We will be good friends, Mr Nick. Now drink!’

  ‘Cheers!’ Nick sipped, then gasped for breath. ‘Somewhat strong for a chap like me, I’m afraid,’ he gasped. ‘So? Tell me all about this idea of yours.’

  Vanya whispered something in Nick’s ear. ‘It will be stupendous,’ he concluded, rolling his eyes.

  ‘It will be that amazing?’ Nick said, bright as a sparrow that has seen a fall of fresh crumbs.

  ‘Amazingly so. It is a flying machine that will let the actor move this way and that, free like a bird, free like angel flying.’ He tugged some folded sketches from his pocket and smoothed them out across his knee. ‘You see how it goes? You think it good?’

  Nick peered at the heavily annotated and pencilled diagrams. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘this is a very excellent idea, though there is this, which must drop down, and this, which could be better . . .’