The Clock People

by Mark Roland Langdale

  ‘Keep your hair on!’ Wilbur exclaimed thinking the girl would not hear him.

  ‘I hope I will, I know elves are famous for tying children’s hair into elf knots while they’re asleep,’ Scarlet replied, gently putting her hand up to her ear, as in all honesty she did not want to cause harm to the little people. Scarlet got up out of bed, lit a candle, picked up her hand mirror and held it to the side of her ear. ‘It is you, the fairy folk. Don’t you ever sleep?’

  ‘Yes of course we do, not sure about the tooth fairy though. Look, forget the fairies for we are not fairies. I just said that so you wouldn’t be frightened. Now we need to tell you things, important things, but keep your voice down, we don’t want that giant over there waking. He’ll probably step on us!’ Wilbur shouted.

  ‘Yes of course, sorry, I will whisper from now on so tell me your story!’ exclaimed Scarlet in a whisper, sitting cross-legged on the floor as her excitement grew to unimaginable heights.

  ‘And that’s the story, the whole story and nothing but the story of the Clock People, so help me the Clock God. Well, as much as we know we too have been kept in the dark regarding our history but that’s something we hope to find out upon our travels,’ Wilbur and Tippy said as one voice.

  ‘I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears. That’s some tall tale and I’ve read a lot of tall tales, tales of little people including General Tom Thumb and Thumbelina and Gulliver’s Travels. I didn’t understand all of Gulliver’s story. Some of it was written in between the lines, or so my father said. I said no wonder I couldn’t read it as there is nothing written in between the lines, unless it was written in invisible ink. In truth I was half imagining I had a clockwork storyteller sitting in my ear, what with you telling me stories of a clockwork nature!’ Scarlet said in jest giggling to herself.

  ‘So can you help us find our home?’ Tippy shouted standing on tippy toes.

  ‘I will try my very best, there’s nothing worse than a thief, especially a thief who steals people’s homes,’ Scarlet replied, imagining a giant stealing her family home and putting it in his pocket. Then she imagined she had shrunk down to the size of a toy soldier who lived in a dolls’ house with his wife as a giant turned up and picked up the dolls’ house and put it under his arm. You see, the giant thought it made a perfect present for his newborn child, or so Scarlet was over-imagining!

  At that moment the elephant boy snorted and turned over. He was gripped by a nightmare where he was starring in a freak show alongside the Elephant Man as his son, the Elephant Boy.

  ‘Don’t worry, he sleeps like a baby elephant. It would take an earthquake, a thunderstorm and a lightning strike to wake him from his slumbers!’ Scarlet’s laugh was so infectious that soon they were all laughing, even though the stealing of people’s homes and property was a serious business.

  ‘It sounds like the thief’s patch is along our street, which has many shops upon it. If you stand on the windowsill on the top of a couple of books you might see him and if you do you can point him out then we can follow him home and reclaim your home,’ Scarlet said as her imagination ran wild.

  ‘We don’t want to put you in any danger,’ Tippy said quietly.

  ‘Sorry, didn’t catch that,’ Scarlet replied.

  ‘We don’t want to put you in any danger,’ Tippy shouted at the top of her lungs, which in all honesty was better than shouting at the bottom of your lungs.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be careful, might even get that no-good brother of mine to help. He might be a tease and a royal pain in the derrière as my father says, but he would never see me come to any real harm. And he’s as strong as an ox. Anyway I love a good adventure. Haven’t had one since we got parted from our parents at the frost fair on the River Thames. Old Big Feet over there fell down a crack in the ice. Luckily no sense, no feeling. Most people would have frozen to death but not my brother, he’s got a hide like a walrus,’ Scarlet said looking over to her brother and smiling. ‘Now, I think we all need to get some rest then after breakfast we can make our plans to rescue your home and your people,’ Scarlet added as she put her hand up to her ear and Tippy and Wilbur stepped out onto it. Scarlet carefully put Wilbur and Tippy to bed in their matchbox home, tucking them up as if she were their mother.

  It was hard to imagine a giantess mothering a couple of the fairy folk, but then again large hounds had fostered kittens and geese had fostered baby chicks, so why not a giantess fostering a couple of fairy folk, or little people if you prefer. Talking of tall tales, there was an even taller one called The Chronicles of the Clock People by Anon which neither Tippy, Wilbur nor Scarlet had read, and when they did they would find it even harder to believe than any of the previous tall tales they had read, but that tale’s for another time… tick tock, tick tock, tick…

  18

  Oh Brother, You’re Potty!

  The next morning Scarlet got up late, in part due to the dream she’d had the previous night. At first she thought everything that had happened during the night had been nothing more than a phantasmagorical dream. She carefully picked up the matchbox sitting on her bedside cabinet and opened it, but there was nothing there, no little people, fairies or elves, so it was just a very vivid dream after all. That was the trouble with having a vivid imagination: sometimes it felt like your dreams were real.

  Scarlet heard the gramophone in the back room playing loudly. That was funny, she thought her parents were working down below in the hat shop.

  ‘I didn’t know you liked music, Alfie?!’ exclaimed Scarlet sounding surprised as loud jazz music blared out of a large green flower-shaped trumpet. Alfie was kneeling down, his head as close to the spinning record as he could get. How odd, thought Scarlet, it was like he was hypnotised by the black grooves as the disc span round and around.

  ‘Music? Why, I love music, can’t get enough of the stuff – big brass bands, marching bands, rubber bands!’ Alfie trumpeted standing up and aiming a rubber band at his sister, which almost took her eye out.

  ‘Oh brother, even I didn’t know you were that potty. Wait till I get my hands on you, Alfie Potts, your life won’t be worth living. I’ll make you wear that gramophone trumpet like a mad hat and you’ll have to wear it to school too by the time I’m finished with you. Mark my words, you’ll wish you hadn’t been born!’ Scarlet shrieked at the top of her voice, mimicking her mother. Alfie legged it out of the door like a scalded cat that had just jumped off a hot tin roof as fast as his fat little legs would carry him. However, instead of chasing her brother out of the room she stood frozen to the spot as she spied what at first she imagined were two toy soldiers caught on a giant Catherine wheel as a giant needle grew ever closer. ‘They’re not toy soldiers. I don’t believe it, it’s Wilbur and Tippy!’

  ‘Help, I can’t fly, I’m not a fairy!’ cried Tippy as she shot off the spinning record like a ball out of a cannon.

  ‘My feet are stuck in glue, it’s a nightmare!’ Wilbur exclaimed as the giant needle grew ever closer. The truth was, his feet were not stuck in glue but that was only because they were stuck in strawberry jam, jam that dear little brother Alfie had put there so the little people would meet a sticky end.

  ‘Hold on, I’m coming,’ Scarlet cried trying to get her feet unglued as if she were having a nightmare. In truth she and the little people were having a waking nightmare.

  Suddenly the record hit a scratch and jumped. For a moment there was silence, then the arm of the needle landed back upon the disc and the music returned. Scarlet closed her eyes. She was sure Wilbur must have been done for. Nervously she walked towards the record player, bent over and saw Wilbur waving to her, all smiles.

  ‘Wilbur, you’re safe, you’re safe but where’s Tippy?’ Scarlet cried with relief looking all about her. She couldn’t see that Tippy was standing in the giant armchair waving to her. Scarlet looked down at her feet, for the very last thing she w
anted to do was step on the girl not much bigger than a flea.

  ‘Get me off this nightmare fairground carousel ride, I’m feeling sick!’ Wilbur cried, fearing the needle would jump and this time he wouldn’t be so lucky.

  Scarlet did not hear his cries but she seemed to realise that Wilbur was still in harm’s way, so she picked the arm of the needle off the record and it came to a grinding halt.

  ‘Are, are you alright?’ Scarlet asked, gently picking Wilbur up and placing him in the palm of her hand.

  ‘Yes, yes, I think so, I’m a bit sticky though,’ Wilbur smirked, putting a brave face upon nearly being spiked to death with a giant needle. Scarlet held him as close to her ear as she was able so as she could hear what he was saying.

  ‘Yes, I think you may need a bath and a change of clothes. I have a bath in my dolls’ house and the dolls have clothes you can wear.’

  ‘I’m not wearing dolls’ clothes!’ exclaimed Wilbur, who made it sound like wearing girls’ clothes was far worse than being spiked to death by a giant needle! The expression ‘a stitch in time’ sprang to Wilbur’s spinning wheel mind as he imagined time as a giant fabric, and if a stitch came undone then the threads of time itself could spin themselves out of the fabric, unravelling time as they did so. Thankfully this head-spinning idea soon disappeared into the back of his mind where it came from.

  ‘I can adapt the clothes. I’m a dab hand with a sewing needle,’ Scarlet replied holding Wilbur up to her face. Wilbur shrugged and nodded his head as if to say, ‘I suppose that would be alright.’ Typical boy. Big or small they’re all the same ungrateful beasts and as stubborn as a mule. Happy to cut their own nose off to spite their face, thought Scarlet then added in a panic, ‘Where’s Tippy?’

  ‘She flew off, God knows where. I hope she’s alright!’ Wilbur exclaimed suddenly forgetting his woes to concentrate on his friend’s woes instead.

  Tippy was shouting as loud as she could, jumping up and down and waving a white handkerchief trying to attract their attention. While all the hullabaloo was going on, nobody seemed to see the family cat come into the room and jump up onto the old armchair Tippy was standing upon.

  Scarlet had placed Wilbur on top of a small round table so he was safe for the time being, then left the room for a little while, but was soon back with her brother’s magnifying glass in hand. Scarlet got down upon her knees and painstakingly scoured the floor as if she were a detective looking for clues, hoping and praying Tippy would appear in the magnifying glass all smiles.

  ‘Over here, over here!’ Tippy cried as the cat stared at her with great curiosity.

  ‘Now, Mr Pussycat or Mrs Pussycat, no offence meant, please don’t eat me as I’m all skin and bones and you don’t want me to get caught in your throat. Worse than fish bones I’ll be, I promise you,’ Tippy said wagging her finger at the giant beast who wagged its tail back as if to say, ‘Don’t mind me, I’m only looking for a place to rest my weary bones.’ The cat gave one great big yawn and then promptly fell asleep upon the chair, much to Tippy’s relief.

  ‘Tutt, tutt, what a state your hair is in. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there are a thousand fleas hiding in that coat of yours,’ Tippy said shaking her head as if all of a sudden overnight she had suddenly grown up and become an adult. A few seconds later, much to Tippy’s horror two fleas jumped ship. The fleas were about her size. Perhaps she could hitch a lift on their backs, or not, she mused, happy to still be in the land of the living and not the living dead! Tippy had heard tales of monsters like Frankenstein and vampires like Dracula and didn’t care for meeting either of these shady characters on a dark street.

  While all this was going on Wilbur was feeling both brave and foolhardy. He spied a giant mountain which he imagined would be a good lookout tower. From here he would be able to scour the floor for signs of his friend. So Wilbur decided to jump onto the mountain, as it did not seem that far from the small coffee table he was standing upon. ‘Here goes nothing!’ Wilbur exclaimed, taking in a deep breath as he jumped into nothingness. Wilbur hit the mountain and it shook but luckily it did not fall. It was only when he got to his shaky feet did he realise the mountain was covered in large faces. Was this the mountain in the books he had read called Mount Rushmore? Surely not, for that was in America and this was England. You see, Scarlet had sat Tippy and Wilbur down the day before and had given them a short history lesson on The Life and Times of the Modern Wonders of the World.

  But before Wilbur could work out exactly what he was standing upon, a loud bell almost shattered his eardrums. It wasn’t a doorbell as Wilbur had imagined but the bell in a birdcage. You see, the bird in the cage, a bright yellow canary, was ringing the bell with its beak. Now, perhaps it was simply bored or perhaps it had seen Tippy’s predicament and was trying to alert Scarlet to where she may be hiding. ‘You haven’t eaten my friend have you, birdy? For if you have your prison sentence inside that cage will be even longer,’ Scarlet scowled eyeing up the bird accusingly as it pecked at the birdseed in the cage. It seemed Scarlet may have imagined Tippy was a fairy and had somehow flown into the birdcage by accident. The bird stopped pecking at the seed and looked in the mirror as if looking for somebody else to blame. ‘No, miss, wasn’t me but it may have been that ugly bird in the mirror who done the dirty deed.’

  ‘I can’t find her anywhere!’ moaned Scarlet then saw the cat snoozing in the chair with a self-satisfied grin upon its face. ‘You haven’t, have you? Please tell me you haven’t,’ Scarlet snapped, not entirely making sense other than nonsense. ‘You haven’t eaten her, have you?’

  Wilbur stared wildly at the cat with a horrified look upon his face.

  ‘You dirty beast, if you’ve eaten Tippy it will be straight to the cats’ home for you or worse, the butchers!’ Scarlet snapped, scolding the cat which awoke with a start and flew out of the door with its tail between its legs.

  ‘Over here, over here!’ cried Tippy jumping up and down and waving wildly.

  ‘Tippy, you’re safe, you’re safe!’ cried Scarlet, tears of joy welling up in her eyes as Tippy appeared from behind the cat in the magnifying glass.

  ‘Thank goodness you’re safe,’ Wilbur cried then cried some more, this time even louder. It was more of a wail than a cry, in truth the sort of wail someone may make if say a cat has knocked over the mountain you were standing upon, a mountain not to scale and one you most definitely could not scale. You see, the mountain was a card mountain that Alfie had built with his own fair hands.

  ‘Wilbur! He’s falling to his death, the mountain’s collapsing. Scarlet, catch him, catch him!’ Tippy shrieked in such a high-pitched voice even the cat and the canary had to put their fingers in their ears. Scarlet looked at Tippy gesticulating wildly, followed her arm which was pointing at the card mountain, quickly put two and two together and in one smooth motion reached out her hand and caught three playing cards. ‘The Joker and the King of Diamonds and the Ace of Spades, that’s pontoon!’ Scarlet cried close to tears… tick tock, tick tock… Time seemed to rush by so fast steam appeared to be coming out of the old grandfather clock in the corner of the room, that seemed close to combusting right there on the spot!

  19

  The Miniature Palace

  ‘Wilbur, where’s Wilbur?!’ Tippy yelled.

  ‘Tippy, over here, I’m over here!’ Wilbur yelled back with a broad smile plastered on his face as he held onto the Joker for dear life.

  ‘Wilbur, thank God you’re alright!’ exclaimed Scarlet, seeing what at first she thought was a fly crawling along the top of the Joker card then taking a closer look to see it was Wilbur. Scarlet, still on her knees, gently placed the cards down upon the coffee table and then gave a huge sigh of relief. ‘Adventures aplenty and we haven’t even left the house. I can see looking after you little people is going to be harder work than even I could possibly have imagined and I have quite the imagination according to Old
Tom Cobley and all!’ Scarlet giggled as she picked Tippy up and placed her on the table next to Wilbur. ‘Right, it’s the bath for you two scallywags and then I’ll fetch you some new clothes, dolls’ clothes for you Tippy then I’ll fetch my needle and cotton and make you some clothes fit for a gentleman, Wilbur, not the Emperor’s New Clothes though, that would be embarrassing,’ Scarlet laughed, referring to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale.

  ‘Nice house in a nice area. I could be happy living here, it’s like a miniature palace. Not quite in Hampton Court’s league but still very palatial,’ laughed Wilbur as he sloshed around happily in the bathtub in the dolls’ house.

  ‘Yes, quite a nice property. Could do with a garden though. It must cost a pretty penny to heat, and the house does need a woman’s touch just to spruce it up a bit,’ Tippy replied sounding like the lady of the manor as she tried on her new clothes in the bedroom next door.

  ‘You know, I could leave the dolls’ house on the windowsill, that way you could see the world go by and keep your eyes peeled for that thief at the same time,’ mused Scarlet imagining the replies she would get from the little people rather than listening out for them: ‘Yes, splendid idea, miss’, ‘You’re full of bright ideas, you,’ and so forth and such like.

  ‘Scarlet, Alfie, what’s all the noise? The customers in the shop can hear you yelling and screaming. No doubt they’re imagining I’ve got you captive up there,’ yelled Scarlet’s mother stomping up the stairs like a giantess on the warpath. By this time Wilbur and Tippy were standing on the old sewing box as Scarlet gave Wilbur his final fitting for his new outfit.

  ‘Oh, oh nothing,’ Scarlet replied rather sheepishly.

  ‘Didn’t sound like nothing to my sensitive ears, sounded like a world war was about to break out and we don’t want another war anytime soon, we’ve only just survived the last war of words between you two. Now please keep the noise down,’ Scarlet’s mother boomed firing another volley off as she stormed into the room, all imaginary guns blazing.