by Sam Gayton
‘Where are we?’ She gazed round. Sheer brick walls rose on either side, almost up to the stars.
‘Just an alleyway,’ Finn said. ‘After you jabbed Mr Plinker with Stabber I managed to get away from him and hide here.’
At the mention of the clock maker, Lily’s shivers got worse. ‘Is he gone?’ she whispered.
Finn nodded. ‘Thanks to you,’ he said with a grin. ‘He took one look at the needle you jabbed in his thumb, and fainted.’
‘It was only a pinprick,’ she said, wiping Stabber clean. ‘He can’t have lost that much blood!’
Finn shook his head. ‘He didn’t faint from loss of blood, Lily – he fainted because he was terrified. My master only cares about ten things in the whole world – his fingers and thumbs. They’re his tools. He can’t make his clocks without them. You didn’t know it but you hit Mr Plinker right in his Achilles heel!’
Lily frowned. ‘His heel?’
‘I meant his weak spot,’ said Finn. ‘It’s a … Never mind. All you need to know is, Mr Plinker fainted. Headfirst into that butcher’s bucket of giblets.’
Lily laughed. Knowing that made her feel a tiny bit warmer.
‘I saw you land in that woman’s wool basket,’ Finn continued. ‘Then you jumped and I lost sight of you. I searched the market from top to bottom, but you were gone.’
Lily grimaced as she picked flakes of dry mud from her dress. ‘How did you find me?’
‘I searched. For hours and hours, until it was so cold I couldn’t feel the end of my nose, and so dark that I could barely see beyond it, either. And then, just when I was at the end of my hope, I saw something. A little white puff of mist come up from the gutter.
‘I went nearer. I saw it again, coming out of a straw. It was your breath, Lily. Your breath, misting in the cold. I pulled you out and … here we are.’
For a while the two of them sat in silence, gazing down the alley at the cobbles. At the moon. At the midnight slugs, laying their silver paths.
Here I am, Lily thought. What now?
She looked at Finn. The boy who had set her free, saved her life and given her hope. They could go anywhere now. Do anything. Lily wasn’t a prisoner any more …
So why did she still feel trapped?
Finn brought her up in his hands and frowned. ‘You look miserable,’ he said. ‘Is it the cold? The mud? The belly rumbles?’
She shook her head.
‘What is it, then? Why do you look sad?’
‘Because,’ she said. ‘You found me, but I still feel lost.’
‘You want to go home,’ he said quietly.
Lily nodded miserably. ‘I don’t know where it is, though,’ she said. ‘I came across the sea from Lilliput, but I’ve been caged up for so long, I don’t know where I am. Or even who I am.’
She sat in Finn’s hands, finally understanding the truth. Escaping from Gulliver was just the beginning. Now she had to search. She had to find Lilliput. She had to find her place in the world.
Lily gazed up at her friend. ‘When you came for me, I thought getting home would be easy. You ran so fast I thought I’d be home by sundown.’ She looked at the moon and covered her face with her hands. ‘But that’s nonsense, isn’t it? It’s blumbercrock. I’ve spent half of my life in pockets and cages and socks. I didn’t realise how big the world is. How can I search something so enormous?’
Finn thought for a long time. ‘I’ll help you,’ he said eventually. ‘We’ll search together.’
‘But it’s impossible,’ she whispered bitterly. ‘It took you all day just to find me in this market, didn’t it? Finding Lilliput will take a thousand lifetimes!’
Finn shook his head. ‘You can’t think like that.’ He sounded fierce. ‘You can’t, Lily. You have to hope. Hope is how I found you in the mud.’
‘It wasn’t,’ she said. ‘You saw my little puff of breath—’
‘But what about the hours and hours before that? If my hope had run out then, I never would have found you. Don’t you see?’
Lily did see. And maybe Finn was right. This city was just a freckle on the face of the earth. Which meant Lily was just a smidgen on a speck on a fleck of a freckle. But if she gave up hope, she would be nothing at all.
‘I’ll try,’ she muttered. ‘But it’s hard when the world is so big, and you don’t even know where to start.’
‘I know where to start.’ Out of nowhere a crafty smile crept across Finn’s face, like a fox over a field. ‘We start by warming our toes and filling our bellies.’
Lily’s stomach gurgled like an empty drain. ‘You’re right,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘We’ll never find Lilliput on an empty stomach!’
Finn’s smile grew even wider. He took the little brown penny from his pocket. ‘I know just who we need to see. Someone who will warm us up and fill us to the brim …’
As he got to his feet, Lily saw two names in his eyes.
‘Who’s Mr Ozinda?’ she asked. ‘And what on earth is hot chocolate?’
‘MR OZINDA WILL cheer us up. Hot chocolate is just what we need.’ That’s all Finn would say. He scooped up Lily and sped out of the alley. It was late. No one walked the midnight streets but a sorry-looking chimney sweep who left black footprints behind him.
There was little for Lily to do while Finn walked, so she busied herself widening a small hole near the bottom of the pocket. After a few pokes with Stabber it was big enough for her to peek through without being seen.
She gazed at the candlelit windows flickering past, wondering where they were headed. Who was Mr Ozinda? His name didn’t sound like any other giant she had met. Perhaps, like Lily, he came from somewhere else…
She tried to look through Finn’s thoughts for any clues. But apart from finding out that Mr Ozinda was a Spaniard (whatever that was) Finn’s eyes were full of other things. Street names and left-turns and roads they had to cross to reach their mysterious destination.
He ran onto a square, where the houses were stacked very neatly, side by side, like books on a shelf. Tucked away, just round the corner, was a two-storey building. Lily looked at the elegant sash windows and the great golden O swinging on a sign above the doors.
‘There it is,’ Finn said, licking his lips. ‘Mr Ozinda’s Chocolate House.’
As Lily watched the doors, they opened. Out onto the street squeezed the biggest giant she had ever seen. His body was shaped like a pear, his skin was the colour of syrup and his name (of course) was …
‘Mr Ozinda!’
Finn waved and called his name again, and Mr Ozinda answered back in his sing-song voice: ‘If your spirits be low and your body be thin, wipe your feet on the mat and come right in!’
Everything about Mr Ozinda was gigantic – from his appetite to his cheerfulness to his huge wobbly bottom.
Lily liked him at once.
‘Mr Ozinda,’ Finn began. ‘It’s me – Finn … from the orphanage! From the House of Safekeeping!’
‘Of course!’ said Mr Ozinda. ‘Finn! Finn! Where have you been? Last Christmas I go like always to the orphanage and give out my hot chocolate. But you are not there. “Where is Finn?” I say. And the orphans all tell me: “Gone away with Mr Plinker”.’
Finn nodded. ‘It’s true. Mother Mary Bruise caught me tinkering with the clocks Mr Plinker had sold her.’
‘Tinker and Plinker,’ Mr Ozinda said with a silly grin. ‘But why ever did you do that?’ he added, serious again.
‘Whenever us orphans were working, Mr Plinker had designed the clocks to tick slowly. And whenever we were resting, they sped up. It was horrible.’
‘Yes!’ said Mr Ozinda. ‘Last Christmas Day at the orphanage was only forty minutes long. I went there first thing in the morning, and everyone was getting ready for bed!’
‘It wasn’t fair. So I waited until the dead of night. Then I crept up to the clocks and fixed them, but Mother Mary Bruise found out. I thought she was going to beat me, but instead she did something much worse. She took me straight to
Mr Plinker’s workshop and sold me to him.’
In the pocket, Lily’s heart filled with pity.
Poor Finn, she thought. Neither of us know our parents, but at least I still have a home.
‘I became his apprentice,’ Finn continued. ‘No, that’s not the right word. I became his slave. But not any more.’
‘No?’ Mr Ozinda raised his eyebrows. ‘That is good to hear. I cannot stand any man who smells worse than his pet. But let me ask … if you are not his apprentice, what are you now?’
Finn thought for a while. ‘I’m a safekeeper,’ he said simply, and in his pocket Lily smiled.
‘A safekeeper?’ Mr Ozinda laughed and leaned closer. His voice sank to a murmur. ‘Well, Mr Safekeeping, what exactly are you keeping safe?’
Lily’s smile vanished. Finn, you mungle bof, you’ve said too much! Mr Ozinda looked curious, even hungry for an answer.
But Finn just shrugged and replied: ‘A secret told is a secret spread, I hide mine away in my pocket instead.’
Mr Ozinda laughed delightedly. It seemed Finn’s rhyme had satisfied him. ‘Well said, Mr Safekeeping the safekeeper, well said! Now you must enter, come, have a sniff!’
‘A sniff?’
‘A sniff of this wonderful whiff!’ And Mr Ozinda took the golden handles of his shop doors and threw them open. At once the smell – the rich, warm smell of chocolate – oozed out onto the street.
Lily closed her eyes, gulping down breath after breath of the heavenly aroma. Her nose feasted on the delicious air. If chocolate smelled like this, what would it taste like? Her mouth watered.
‘Oh! I see – a whiff is not enough!’ The Spaniard put his arm round Finn’s shoulder and pulled him into the chocolate shop.
They moved past tables where portly giants sat flicking through newspapers and sipping daintily from cups. Candles lit everything with a soft, treacly glow. And something swooped back and forth above Lily, finally landing on Finn’s shoulder.
‘Buenos dlas,’ a voice rasped.
‘Get away from my guest, you pest!’ Mr Ozinda said with a chuckle. ‘Do not mind him, Finn. He is a good parrot.’
Lily looked up at an enormous bird. At first his feathers appeared to be dull and colourless, but as he moved she saw they were actually a whole rainbow of greys – ash, slate, steel, cinereous and silver. He was beautiful.
‘You must be thinking: where did I get this wonderful pet?’ said Mr Ozinda fondly. ‘A present from Mrs Ozinda, my wife. She travels the world, selling my chocolate treats to emperors, sultans and kings, and she brings back all manner of marvellous things.’
He motioned to some of the treasures adorning the walls. ‘Blankets embroidered with the histories of fallen empires. China pots as fragile as eggshells. But best of all, a talking bird who repeats back what he has heard. I have named him Señor Chitchat.’
‘Hola,’ said the parrot.
The Spaniard stroked him fondly. ‘Señor Chitchat speaks English, French and Spanish. I am sure he can also speak Pigeon, Sparrow and Swift. What a gift he has for languages!’
Mr Ozinda led Finn to a gleaming brass counter, where cutlery and china cups lay immaculately arranged and the smell of cocoa was strongest. Señor Chitchat hopped onto his perch below the shelves, which were stacked with mountains of food.
There were pyramids of chocolate truffles, boxes of snuff tagged ‘Havana’ and ‘Seville’, and several bottles of drink. Through her hole Lily read the labels: cinnamon brandy, peach cider and almond beer.
‘Now …’ said Mr Ozinda. ‘Sweet or creamy, good young sir? Which hot chocolate would you prefer?’
‘Sweet and creamy, please,’ Finn ordered, dropping his coin into the Spaniard’s palm.
‘Ah! My daughter, Dumpling, likes her hot chocolate this way, too. So! Two ounces of beans. Then add double cream … three and one half-spoons of sugar … stir with a little of what you English call … vigour! And, of course – it must be filled to the very brim!’
He wiped his hands on a towel, clicked his fingers together and said, with a theatrical flourish: ‘So! We begin!’
Lily watched as he scattered a handful of chocolate beans into a mixing bowl, and then BANG! BANG! BANG! – he pounded them to dust, using a huge boulder of marble.
He swept the powder onto a hot granite slab, then rolled it back and forth with an iron rolling pin. Very soon the chocolate began to melt into a gooey brown lake.
‘Then this!’ said Mr Ozinda adding pinch after pinch of spices from the seven jars to his left, throwing them all in one after the other and pronouncing: ‘Then this! Then this! Then this!’
He carried on until the liquid chocolate was dark, rich and bubbling. It smelled delicious.
Mr Ozinda took one of his tall teapots with a curved spout and, using a silver ladle, began to fill it with the chocolate slop. He measured out the hot milk and cream, whirled them all together using a swizzle stick then slid the pot over the counter towards Finn. He hadn’t spilled a drop.
‘Voila!’ squawked Señor Chitchat.
‘Is done so neatly!’ Mr Ozinda announced. ‘And very sweetly! Enjoy!’
FINN TOOK THE teapot over to a bench in the corner, far away from the other customers. Gloop-gloop-gloop went the spout as he poured out a steaming cup of hot chocolate. Lily longed for just a drip. She bent down and scooped up the thimble that Finn kept in his pocket.
‘Give us a slurp!’ she whispered, holding it out.
Finn looked around anxiously at the portly gentlemen, but none of them paid him the slightest bit of interest. Most were dozing, with their wigs pulled down over their eyes. Mr Ozinda was running his fat fingers round the rim of the chocolate bowl like a naughty child, and then looking about to see if anyone noticed.
‘There!’ Finn dipped her thimble in his cup. ‘That’s a hundred slurps for you.’
Lily gasped in delight. She took the steaming thimble in both hands and gulped down a mouthful.
It was like swallowing happiness. As the hot chocolate spread through her the hunger went from Lily’s belly, the cold went from her toes and the ache went from her heart. She was full to the brim with sweetness.
‘Wonderful lovely,’ she sighed picking up the thimble and gulping the rest.
‘Now we’re ready to start searching,’ Finn mumbled, head drooping down to his chest.
‘Yes,’ Lily yawned. ‘Now we’re ready to start …’ She was very snug and warm. The fire crackled and popped. Voices murmured and newspapers rustled. It was the easiest thing to lay back in Finn’s pocket and close her eyes.
Lily drifted off into a dream. There were angels in it, somewhere high above. They whispered secrets. And tiptoed over the ceiling. And giggled at being up past their bedtime.
Not angels, Lily realised as she dozed. Children. In the bedroom above the shop.
Then, as she listened, the children started to sing.
It wasn’t the tune that pulled Lily from her dream. It wasn’t the singing that almost stopped her heart. It was the words.
‘Have you heard of the tale
That’s short and tall?
There’s an island in the world
Where everything is small!’
Suddenly Lily poked her head from the pocket. ‘Finn,’ she hissed. ‘Can you hear that?’
But Finn just mumbled under his breath, chin on his chest. He was asleep.
‘I must still be dreaming,’ she whispered. But she wasn’t. She was in Mr Ozinda’s chocolate shop, and the song carried on above her:
‘And the babies that are born there
Are tiny as peas,
And they wear little frocks
with itty-bitty sleeves …’
‘Finn!’ Lily scrambled onto his lap, keeping under the table and out of sight of the other giants. ‘Wake up! They’re singing about Lilliput!’
She poked him, prodded him, kicked his belly. Even jumped up and down on his fingers. Finn just smiled, as if he were being tickled.
What could she do? Climbing up his arm and bellowing in his ear would wake him, but what if someone saw?
She could always jab him with Stabber … but then Finn might jerk awake and catapult her into the fireplace.
‘Finn!’ Lily whispered. ‘You’ve got ten seconds to wake or I’m going up those stairs without you. Finn, are you listening?’
‘And they live in houses
no higher than your foot,
Have you heard about the island of
Lilliput?’
It was impossible. Incredible. How did the children upstairs know about Lilliput? Lily’s whole body quivered with excitement. She had to find out.
‘I’m going, Finn. If you want to wake up, you better do it right now.’
Finn mumbled something about a budgerigar.
That was it, then. Lily would go on her own. She had to. Maybe they were nothing but rhymes. But rhymes were often riddles too. And sometimes riddles led you in circles, but sometimes they led to an answer.
What if these rhymes led Lily home?
Keep to the shadows, she thought looking at Mr Ozinda’s customers. These giants aren’t like Gulliver – they’re old and sleepy, and they don’t even know I exist. They’re not looking for me, so they won’t see me.
Upstairs, the children started another song.
‘Show me a girl
the size of a spoon,
And a giant who can reach to the moon.’
Lily could wait no longer. Sticking her finger in the thick hot chocolate, Lily splattered out two words on Finn’s sleeve – I’m upstairs. Then she took Stabber, hooked it into her dress and climbed down to the floor.
‘Show me an island
like a floating balloon,
And a horse that can sing this tune.’
Darting from table leg to table leg, Lily edged round the counter as Mr Ozinda popped cocoa beans into his mouth and chewed them slowly. She walked right under his feet – his belly and bottom were so big, he couldn’t see the floor.
‘Hola,’ Señor Chitchat squawked at her from his perch.
‘Silly thing,’ Mr Ozinda sighed. ‘There is no one here!’