Lilliput

by Sam Gayton

  Lily looked at the boy. What did she know about him?

  He snatches things. His friend is a torturer. He works for cruel Mr Plinker.

  What would a boy like that do to Lily if he found her?

  He might put her in a jar with wasps, and watch …

  Or sell her to a circus freak show …

  Or bleed her dry with leeches, and dissect her like a toad …

  Suddenly Lily decided not to wriggle out of the quilt but to wriggle further in. She would hide from this boy with his jagged watch and his fingers full of scars.

  I’ll wait until he goes. Then I can escape on my own.

  She squirmed her way deeper into the folds and creases. Very soon it was pitch-black – there was nothing but the smell of goose feathers and sweat.

  Still she went deeper, through twisting, folding passageways. Lily imagined the boy creeping around the attic, peering into the birdcage, checking under the bed.

  At last, when it was so stuffy she couldn’t bear to go any further, Lily stopped and tried to listen. The quilt muffled everything except her own gasps and heartbeat. Had he gone? Was she safe?

  About her the quilt began to move.

  Suddenly all the creases and folds rippled and smoothed out, and Lily tumbled around and around. The quilt opened up like a crumpled white envelope and she fell out on to the bed.

  The boy stood above her. He threw the quilt to the floor and his head angled down, and he saw her.

  He saw Lily.

  WITH A YELP the boy stepped back and trod in the breakfast bowl. He slipped in the porridge, yelped again and fell to the floor with a crash. Then he was still.

  Lily peered over the side of the bed. The boy lay beside Gulliver like a fallen tree.

  ‘I’ve killed him,’ she whispered, not quite knowing how she’d done it.

  Suddenly the boy groaned. His eyes flickered open and fixed on Lily again. And this time he didn’t blink, he stared. Lily saw her own reflection in his eyes: a tiny girl with slippered feet, in a dress of cobwebs and silk. Hair so black and fine it was a wisp of smoke. Eyes shining like dew drops.

  She had a dozen different thoughts then. Some said RUN, and others said HIDE, and one very brave and very stupid thought said FIGHT.

  But in the end Lily ignored them all. Before she could run or hide or fight her eyes became blurs, her legs turned to trembles and she collapsed on the bed and burst into tears.

  Lilliputian tears were different to giant tears. Whenever Gulliver cried, whole buckets poured from his cheeks and soaked the floor with splashes. Lilliputian tears were much smaller. They hung in the air around her head, like mist.

  ‘You’re Lily, aren’t you?’ the boy whispered.

  She looked up. Through her tears he was hazy. Why was he asking that? He was supposed to be squashing her, or slicing her up, or selling her to a circus.

  ‘Why are you crying?’ he said.

  ‘Because of you, you horrible yahoo!’ Lily sobbed. ‘I don’t want to be stamped on, and I don’t want to be sold to a circus, and I don’t want to be eaten like poor Squeak! I just want to go home! Why won’t you giants let me go home?’

  And she looked down at the boy for an answer.

  And he lay there, trying to find one.

  ‘I thought you were a mouse,’ he said eventually.

  Lily stopped crying at once and scowled. ‘A mouse?!’ She waved away her tears. ‘I’m not a mouse.’

  The boy shook all over. It was as if his brain did not believe his eyes and was trying to fling them out of his head. He picked himself up out of the pond of porridge. ‘I see that now. You look more like a faerie.’

  ‘Furry?’ cried Lily. ‘First you call me a mouse, and now you call me furry—’

  ‘Not “furry”, a faerie,’ said the boy quickly. ‘You know, a sprite. Or a goblin.’

  ‘Goblin?!’ yelled Lily. Now she was really furious …

  ‘Maybe you’re just little,’ he said hastily.

  ‘I’m not little,’ Lily sniffed. ‘You’re big.’ Suddenly she stopped and squinted up at him. ‘Why aren’t you eating me?’

  The boy reared back. ‘Eat you? Don’t be disgusting!’

  ‘Why?’ said Lily, offended. ‘What’s wrong with me? I’m probably delicious. Are you going to chop me up into little bits first, is that it? So you can feed me to your friend?’

  ‘Chop you up? Feed you to my friend?’ The boy looked helplessly confused. He blinked. ‘I don’t have any friends,’ he added quietly.

  ‘What about the one that tried to eat Squeak?’ Lily demanded.

  ‘You mean Horatio?’ The boy flushed red. ‘Horatio isn’t my friend, Lily. He’s Mr Plinker’s cat.’

  Lily stepped back as the realisation hit her. ‘Oh,’ she said, thinking back to what the boy had said. ‘Ohhhh.’

  ‘He’s Mr Plinker’s mouse-catcher,’ the boy said. ‘And I’m Mr Plinker’s clock-winder. His apprentice.’

  Lily felt herself blushing. So this boy wasn’t cruel, after all. He had saved Squeak. Was he here to save her too?

  The boy kneeled on the floor to sit with his face inches away from her.

  ‘The whole city thinks Gulliver is mad,’ he whispered. ‘I thought it too. Sometimes, when I was winding up the clocks, I heard him up here, talking to himself.’ The boy looked at Lily, and he was smiling. ‘But he’s not mad, is he? He was talking to you. Lily from Lilliput. When I read your note I could barely believe it. But now I know – it’s all true.’

  His eyes were close now, very close. They were blue as skies and full of wonder.

  And Lily gasped.

  For the first time, she could see. Not just into his eyes, but past them. To the place where all his thoughts flew about, like birds.

  It was incredible.

  It was marvellous.

  It was magic.

  ‘Don’t blink!’ she cried at him. ‘Come closer! Let me see!’

  ‘See what?’ said the boy, blinking. His hands flew up to touch his face. ‘Did I get porridge on my nose?’

  ‘Shhh,’ she hissed, gazing through his eyes and into him.

  Lily stared at hundreds and hundreds of giant thoughts. They were flying … swirling … Whole flocks of them. Gulliver’s head had been a map she hadn’t known how to read. All his thoughts were hidden like buried treasure. But this boy was different. When Lily looked inside him she saw a story – his story – and she read it in his eyes as if they were pages of a book.

  She saw herself, the birdcage, Gulliver. She saw a trapped bird in a cruel clock, a jagged watch coiled on a slender wrist …

  She saw the boy’s name.

  It was Finn. Finn Safekeeping. And all of Lily’s worries about him fell away then, because she could see that Finn wasn’t here to hurt her, or snatch her, or bleed her dry with leeches.

  He had come to set her free.

  Part Two: SEARCHING

  ‘I know not where, nor how, nor what I am.’

  (Henry Fielding, Tom Thumb)

  THEY BOTH HAD questions. Lily could feel them crowding around her head, waiting for her to blurt them out.

  ‘Why are you saving me?’ she wanted to yell. ‘Where are we going? When can you take me home?’

  But Lily couldn’t ask Finn, because there wasn’t time for answers. Not with Gulliver snoring on the floorboards. They had to get away. Fast.

  ‘Finn Safekeeping!’ she cried. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  His jaw dropped. ‘How do you know my—?’

  ‘I can see it in your eyes,’ Lily interrupted. ‘And I know you’re here to rescue me, so hurry up and do it!’

  Bouncing off the bed, she landed on his palm. Finn lifted her up and the air around her went whoosh! – it felt like flying. She laughed. Never in her wildest escape plans did she ever think that a giant would get her out of the attic.

  Somehow, though, it made sense. It felt right. They were together. From now on it was Lily and Finn. Finn and Lily. Their journeys had w
oven into one.

  ‘Here.’ Finn plonked her down on his shoulder. ‘Hold tight!’

  ‘Don’t be a dim-wit!’ she yelled into his ear. ‘I’ve got to sit somewhere secret.’

  She tobogganed down his arm, leaped from his wrist and vanished into his waistcoat pocket. ‘I’ll stay hidden in here,’ she said, popping her head out. ‘Nice and snug. Now go!’

  It felt like being catapulted through the air. Across the landing and down the stairs they flew, leaving Gulliver alone in his room with his cold porridge, his half-burnt book and his empty birdcage.

  Lily gasped at the speed. Gulliver might have taken her far, far away from Lilliput, but Finn ran faster than the wind. He flew down the stairs, his feet barely touching the ground. It was incredible. Exhilarating. It sent her giddy with hope.

  Lily’s mind soared with possibilities. At this speed, home didn’t seem so out of reach. Finn could whisk her back to Lilliput in no time at all. He could leap over mountains and splash through oceans as if they were puddles.

  It’s possible, she told herself. Anywhere and anything is possible, when you’re in a giant’s pocket.

  By sundown she could be running up the beach towards Nana and the village. And it would be just like she’d imagined. The big’uns would light a fire and the little’uns would sit round it and listen as she told them her adventures.

  And Nana would cook pincher-crab pies, and play her stringalin, and they’d all sing songs and dance by the flames; and light dandelion seeds in the embers; and let the wind whisk them up into the night like floating lanterns, to light the way for the angels …

  ‘We’re here,’ Finn whispered, slowing to a stop.

  ‘Where?’ said Lily breathlessly.

  ‘Let me show you.’ Finn reached his hand inside the pocket and brought Lily out.

  LILY HAD TO hide her disappointment. Of course they weren’t home – they were in the middle of Mr Plinker’s workshop. In the light of day she saw the room clearly for the first time.

  It was as damp as a swamp, as filthy as a gutter, as smelly as an armpit. Just behind Finn was the counter, where Lily had saved Mr Plinker’s life. The Astronomical Budgerigar still sat there, but the clock maker was nowhere to be seen. His blood had left a dark stain on the wood.

  In front of Lily was a huge bow-fronted window with panes of foggy glass, and a door with a little brass bell on it which rang whenever a customer entered. A spongey rug sat beside an unlit fireplace. And nailed to each of the four walls were hundreds upon hundreds of clocks.

  Not one of them ticked. They were all quiet. Still. Their faces hung on the wall, like portraits in a gallery.

  ‘I woke up at sunrise and unwound them all,’ Finn murmured. ‘Every clock in the workshop. I even snuck up to Mr Plinker’s bedroom and unwound his alarm clock too.’

  So there are four levels to the shop, Lily thought to herself, all stacked on top of each other: the attic, Mr Plinker’s bedroom, the workshop, and the basement.

  ‘He won’t wake up now,’ Finn said. ‘Listen.’ He pointed up at the ceiling and, through the boards, Lily heard the greasy gurgle of the clock-maker’s snores.

  ‘Yuck,’ she said. ‘Sounds like he’s blarting out of his mouth. Smells like it too.’

  Finn stifled a laugh. ‘Even if he had a bath he’d still be cruel. He’s evil, Lily. He’s the most horrible man I’ve ever met. You must have seen on the night you came here … what he did to that bird in the Astronomical Budgerigar …’

  Lily shivered and nodded.

  ‘The poor thing is still in there,’ said Finn. ‘Can you hear?’

  Lily listened, and over on the counter she heard the faint cry of a trapped bird.

  ‘Skee … Skee …’

  ‘I wish I could free him, like I’m freeing you,’ said Finn sadly. ‘But it’s too hard. He’s tied to the perch, inside the clock. I’d have to reach into the Astronomical Budgerigar to get him … and you saw what happened last time someone put their hand in that clock.’

  Lily shuddered, picturing Mr Plinker’s mangled hand.

  ‘He’s the worst clock maker in all London, isn’t he?’ She remembered how she had described Mr Plinker when telling her story.

  Finn’s eyes grew wide, and he shook his head. ‘Oh, no, Lily. Not at all. Mr Plinker is a genius – his clocks are masterpieces.’

  Lily frowned. ‘No, they’re not. I always heard them from the attic. They never told the right time.’

  Finn shrugged. ‘That’s because they weren’t invented to tell the right time.’ He paused and his eyes flicked up to the stairs, but Mr Plinker snored on.

  ‘Think about it,’ he said quickly. ‘Some people want clocks that run slow or fast on purpose. Before I came to work for Mr Plinker I lived in an orphanage called the House of Safekeeping. That’s where I got my surname. It was a horrible place. The beds and bread were both as hard as bricks. But the worst thing was the work.

  ‘To keep the orphanage open, we had to sew shrouds and pillowcases. Then the owner of the orphanage, Mother Mary Bruise, sold them to the army.

  ‘Mother Bruise went to Mr Plinker and asked for a clock that would run fast when we ate our dinner, and slow when we sewed. That way Mother Bruise always had us working for longer. Mr Plinker’s clock made her rich.’

  Lily gasped. ‘That awful, Finn!’ she cried. ‘That’s monstrous! But what about all the angry customers? The ones I’ve heard bringing back clocks which have exploded?’

  Finn shrugged. ‘Mr Plinker designs them to explode. Dukes and earls give his exploding clocks as gifts to their enemies.’

  Lily shook her head in disgust. So she had been wrong about Mr Plinker – not only was he smarter than she’d thought, he was even nastier too.

  ‘I wish I’d never stitched him back together,’ Lily fumed. ‘Still, Finn, at least you won’t have to help him any more. When we get to Lilliput you can live with Nana and me, if you want.’ She looked at the front door, and grinned. ‘Come on, let’s go!’

  But to her surprise, Finn lowered her down to the floorboards and gently lifted her from his palm.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said softly, taking a step backwards. ‘I’ve taken you as far as I can, Lily. You’ll have to find your own way home.’

  ‘But … but, why?’ Lily spluttered. She ran towards him, but Finn shuffled back again and looked away. ‘Finn, do you like being Mr Plinker’s apprentice?’

  Finn shook his head. ‘I hate it,’ he said bitterly. ‘I always have.’

  ‘Then let’s run away!’ Lily blurted. She almost laughed, it was so obvious. ‘Together! You have to come, Finn. I’ve seen London. I know how big it is. I won’t survive if I go out there on my own.’

  Finn shut his eyes, and his hand went to rub his wrist, where his watch ticked. ‘Neither will I,’ he said.

  Lily didn’t understand. She didn’t know what to say. Finn was meant to come with her. She knew it. The two of them were connected. They were both trapped, they both wanted to be free, and so they should both escape. Together. Lily and Finn. Finn and Lily.

  ‘Why won’t you come?’ she said. ‘I need you, Finn Safekeeping. To keep me safe. To be my safekeeper.’

  Finn bit his lip. ‘Here’ – he reached into his pocket and held out something in his enormous fingers: a shiny sliver of silver as long as her arm – ‘take this. I can’t keep you safe, but this might.’

  Lily stared numbly at the giant needle. Then she grabbed it and tossed it angrily away. ‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded. ‘Why won’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because it won’t make any difference,’ Finn said sadly. ‘Just go, Lily. Time’s ticking, and you don’t have time.’

  As he spoke, Finn’s watch went ding-dong, and Lily saw it coil tighter on his wrist, like a snake tightens around its prey. Finn clenched his teeth to stop himself crying out. Hugging his arm to his chest, he shut his eyes against the pain.

  ‘Finn?’ Lily said in horror. ‘Finn, loosen that strap if it’s buckle
d too tight.’

  He looked up, buckets of tears in his big blue eyes. ‘I can’t.’ His voice was strained. ‘Only Mr Plinker can unwind the Waste-Not Watch.’

  ‘The What-Not Whatsit? What’s that, Finn?’ Lily ran forward and kicked his toe to get his attention. ‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me!’

  Finn slumped backwards onto the stairs. For a long moment he sat with his jaw clenched and his eyes shut. Then he let loose a weary sigh that nearly blew Lily over. ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you. I’m Mr Plinker’s prisoner.’

  Lily saw in his eyes that it was true. But even as she heard the words she didn’t understand them. How could Finn be a prisoner when he wasn’t in a prison?

  ‘This is my cage,’ Finn said raising his arm. And the sunbeams caught the watch on his wrist.

  It was then that Lily learned something she would never again forget. She learned that the world was full of cages, and not all were built of iron. Some were made of lies or promises or secrets or questions.

  Finn’s cage was made of time. It had no walls, no locks and no guards. But it was inescapable.

  It was called the Waste-Not Watch.

  THE WASTE-NOT WATCH was the greatest of Mr Plinker’s inventions – and the cruellest. It worked in a way quite unlike any other clock in the entire world.

  Most clocks are made to keep track of the time. The vast majority measure minutes and hours, mornings and afternoons. But the Waste-Not Watch measured something else.

  Something similar, and yet something entirely different.

  Something that was Finn’s, and Finn’s alone.

  The Waste-Not Watch measured his lost time. Time he wasted. Seconds spent daydreaming, playing. Hours spent laughing, living …

  The clock tallied up all this time – time that could be spent working on Mr Plinker’s clocks – and the more the Waste-Not Watch ticked, the tighter it wound on Finn’s wrist.

  An hour of wasted time made his fingers tingle.