The Enchanted Music Box

by Lindsay Johannsen

she could. One day she helped in her father’s workshop, sweeping and tidying and sorting into separate containers all the hundreds of little screws and things that he kept in his scratch-boxes. Another day she made some Anzac biscuits to sell to the neighbours.

  As Tilly set off along the street she met a little boy who was sitting on the footpath crying. He was coming back from his auntie’s place, he sobbed, with some cakes, he sobbed. Then he met a great big dog, he sobbed. The dog knocked him down, he sobbed, and ate all the cakes.

  “Never mind,” comforted Tilly. She helped the little boy to his feet, then gave him her biscuits and went back to her jobs around the house.

  When she told Grumpy Jake what had happened he gave her a very special job.

  “You can dust and polish all the big clocks,” he said, “and clean their glass faces and panels. I’ve been far to busy lately and haven’t been able to do it.”

  This was a surprise to Tilly, because Jake always insisted on doing it himself. It has to be done just right, he would say.

  He was serious about it, too. Every so often he would come along and inspect Tilly’s handiwork and make sure she was doing it properly.

  And, after that, as Tilly walked home from school each day, she would stop at Mr DaCosta’s shop window to say hello to the little ballerina. And every day Tilly would tell the ballerina how much she had saved.

  Now Mr DaCosta was not a mean person, but he certainly felt mean when he realized what was happening. He’d made the price twenty dollars without thinking and now wished he’d stuck to his friend’s idea of ten dollars. Had he done so, then Tilly would already have reached the amount needed, and it rather hurt his conscience to see her come by every day to tell the little figurine how hard she was saving.

  He wished he could just give it to her – or even put the price down. He knew, though, that Tilly Hayman had very resolutely set herself a task and so hesitated to do anything.

  Mr DaCosta also knew that something worse was to come, for what was he going to do with the twenty dollars when Tilly finally gave it to him and claimed her prize. He could see that sooner or later he was going to have to talk about this with Tilly’s parents.

  Then one day, a short time after these things had taken place, old She’ll-be-Jake – The Clock Man headed out of the house to go on his regular Wednesday afternoon walk. But instead of going the usual way – down through the park and along the river – he went straight up the street to Guessa DaCosta’s Quality Second Hand and Antiques Emporium. After looking over the contents of the window he decided to go inside, just as Mr DaCosta came to the door.

  They chatted about the weather and things in general for a while, then Mr DaCosta asked why Jake had come to the shop. And when he heard Jake’s reply he nearly jumped with joy!

  Here was a way out of his dilemma about the twenty dollars! Grumpy Jake was looking for something special to buy for Tilly’s birthday!

  Quickly he told Jake about Tilly and the ballerina in the music box. Then he explained about the reason and commitment behind her desperate saving. Then he told of his embarrassment over the twenty dollars and how he didn’t know what best to do.

  Jake gave his friend a smile and a pat on the shoulder. “This is exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for,” he said. “Let me see if I can get it going for her.” And even before he'd finished speaking Mr DaCosta had disappeared inside the shop to retrieve it from the window.

  On coming out again he handed Jake the ballerina in the music box and said, “It’s yours Jake, it’s yours. You’ve tickled up plenty of old clocks for me over the years and wouldn’t take my money, so here’s something in return.”

  “Well, thank you,” said Jake. “Though if I didn’t know better I’d say you were glad to have it off your hands.”

  “Too right I am!” replied Mr DaCosta, “And I'll tell you something else: this afternoon when school comes out the shop will be closed. Tilly Hayman will think I sold the music box to someone else and I won’t be able to say otherwise, will I”

  Jake had to agree. “I don’t suppose you will,” he said.

  “And I won’t be at home, either,” he added. “...And do us a favour, old mate. Be somewhere close-by when a certain little girl comes along and finds her ballerina gone. She’s going to be terribly disappointed.”

  Well! Mr DaCosta was certainly right about that. Tilly was just devastated.

  All empty inside, she felt. And hurty; and tearful. She had come past the shop to tell the little ballerina she only had two dollars and ten cents to go then she could take her home. Now this had to happen, and all she could do was stand there and stare at the empty place in the window.

  And the shop was shut. She couldn’t even ask Mr DaCosta what had happened.

  Just as her eyes were beginning to fill with tears Grumpy Jake suddenly appeared. “Dear me,” said Jake as he put his arm around her shoulder. “You look as if nobody loves you. Whatever can be the matter?”

  Tilly turned to her Grandfather. “She’s gone, Grandpa. My little ballerina’s gone and I’ve been working and saving so hard to pay for her because I wanted to take her home and I nearly had enough and now she’s gone and I’ll never see her again and I don’t think...”

  “Whoa up there, Girlie,” said Jake. “Let’s you and me walk home together. We can talk about it along the way. Then we can tell your mother all about it. Let’s see if we can’t get a smile back on that pretty face again.”

  “But Grumpy Jake, you don’t understand. My little ballerina...”

  “Old Grumpy Jake understands much more than you think, my little girl. Do please try to be brave. Remember, you’ll be ten years old tomorrow. Who knows what your birthday might bring.”

  “Yes Grandad. But I feel so sad...”

  That night, after making sure Tilly was asleep, Jake went to work. First he drilled out the rusty screws holding the music box case together, then he carefully opened it up. Its insides were in an awful mess – half full of dirt and with all the tiny gears and parts rusted together.

  Jake realized straight away that he could never get the music box working again. He thought for a while about what he might do to improve it. Could he make the ballerina turn again by using the gears from a little wind-up clock? he wondered. The problem was, it would be a difficult job and he just didn’t have enough time.

  Then he saw something he’d not noticed before. It was a small flake of gold – a tiny plate that was almost completely hidden behind the stand on which the ballerina would have turned. Being pure gold meant it had been unaffected by the moisture and corrosion which had so badly damaged the rest of the music box.

  When Jake looked more closely he discovered a pattern of some sort on it, so he put his watchmaker’s glass to his eye and held the music box up to the light. To his surprise he found the pattern was actually an inscription, in the finest minute writing.

  The words were in German, and had been written in a very old style of script. And after all this time the lettering was still perfectly clear.

  Carefully he copied the letters onto a piece of paper. Then, after a lot of searching on the internet and a good deal of scribbling, Jake more or less worked out in English what the words said.

  The inscription was actually a strange little poem, and Jake kept reading it over and over to himself in the hope of revealing its meaning.

  “When light from the fullest moon doth train (it said),

  Through doublet glass, from silvered pane;

  Enchanted by the love you bring,

  Then I shall turn again, and sing.”

  Despite his best efforts it remained a mystery, so Jake put his translation aside and went back to the problem of music box.

  First he tried to free the hinges so that the lid might close. If he could fix that, then the ballerina and the lumpy round stand on which she turned could fold down into the box, as they should.

  Yet even this proved impossible. The hinges were rusted
solid and so were all the little parts which raised and lowered the stage.

  He let out a sigh of disappointment. In spite of his many skills, all he could do was clean the dirt and rust from inside. That done, he found some tiny screws to replace the ones he’d carefully drilled out and put it back together.

  Following this he scraped the glue from the ballerina’s wings, then fixed and straightened them as best he could. And then – with the greatest of care so it didn’t break – Jake arranged her tiny wand so she was holding it at the proper angle.

  Next he looked at the ballerina's costume. This was obviously not her original gown. Besides being grubby and stained it was a poorly made, ill-fitting affair. Yet apart from a few gentle tugs at the hem to try and make it sit better there was nothing he could do to improve it.

  Poor Jake. At first he'd hoped to get the music box going; now he just wished he could make the little ballerina look better. Yet he couldn’t even do that. It was all very disheartening. He had no doubt about Tilly's feelings, though. She would be delighted to have the little ballerina – just as she was, exactly as she'd seen her in Mr DaCosta's window.

  After this he found a small cardboard box, packed the ballerina in paper wool, wrapped the box in coloured paper and tied it with a ribbon. He then took a card and wrote on it: “Happy Birthday Dearest Tilly, With love from Grumpy Jake”, and slipped it under the ribbon.

  Tilly found her gift when she