Mennyms Alive

by Sylvia Waugh

  She paused, almost as if she thought someone behind her might speak.

  Then she began to cling to doubt as others cling to faith. There was no proof that the dolls were living, no proof at all. It was most improbable that they were.

  “Not improbable,” said Daisy out loud, turning round to look at the dolls, “impossible. Till I see one of you move or hear one of you speak, I won’t believe it.”

  The dolls heard her and understood. Now being stiff and still was not simply for their own protection. It was collaboration with a friendly alien.

  Daisy sat down on a dining chair at the table, resting one elbow on the cloth.

  “I heard strange news today,” she said looking at Vinetta and becoming more easy as she saw that the doll remained motionless. “There is another doll in the attic at Brocklehurst Grove. I haven’t seen it yet but I’m told it’s blue all over. But it will have a home here, same as the rest of you, for however long it may need one.”

  Daisy was suddenly aware of what she had said. And what she had said was odd. It sounded as if she were giving them merely temporary accommodation, as if she expected them some day to move on of their own accord!

  “Let’s have a game of cards,” she said, quickly changing the subject. Playing with the dolls was part of her original plan. Following out the plan was a way of holding on to disbelief.

  She placed each of the dolls at chairs around the table. It was not all that difficult for her to do. Her legs lacked mobility, but her shoulders were powerful and her arms were strong.

  The dolls for their part behaved exactly as any doll should. They flopped forward, they sagged backwards, and they resisted the inclination to giggle at themselves and at each other.

  When Daisy had them all seated, she took her own place, between Appleby and Wimpey, and dealt out cards for a game of Snap. Then she took a card from each one in turn, placing them upwards on the table. Whoever laid a matching card on top of one below claimed the whole pile.

  The dolls sat stiller than ever human beings could. They ceased to breathe. Breath supplied freshness to their fibre and sound to their voices, but they had no circulatory system making urgent demands for oxyen. To suspend breathing was for them much easier than for humankind.

  Of course, Daisy herself had to call “Snap” for them each time. It is the simplest of card games, but everyone sitting at that table was interested in the outcome, even Joshua. Daisy wondered which doll would win. Appleby thought that she was sure to be the winner. Pilbeam wanted Wimpey to win and Vinetta did not care so long as everyone was happy.

  The first game was won by Joshua.

  “Shall we have another hand?” said Daisy, shuffling the cards and dealing them out without waiting for an answer.

  Joshua won again.

  “Aren’t you lucky?” said Daisy. Then she looked round at the others.

  “We’ll play something else next time. Perhaps we’ll have a different winner.”

  She put the cards into their packet and put all of the dolls back where they were before.

  “I’m going to see the others now,” she said. “My taxi’s ordered for half-past three. If I don’t look in on you again, don’t worry. I’ll be running short of time.”

  She went out and shut the door behind her.

  In the nursery she was startled to see Googles sitting in the corner of the playpen. Miss Quigley had become confused as to who was where. Since Daisy’s last visit she had fed the baby several times and put her bottle away in the cupboard. She had burped her, sung quietly to her and ‘changed’ her nappy by removing the one she was wearing, refolding it and replacing it as if it were fresh and clean. With all these duties carried out faithfully, it is not surprising that she forgot that Daisy had left her feeding the baby and might expect to find her still doing so.

  “My memory’s failing me,” said Daisy very deliberately. “I could have sworn I left you nursing the baby!” Then she reminded herself once more of the time she’d seen the boots under the curtain at Glenthorn Drive.

  Outside the taxi-driver gave a bleep on his horn.

  Daisy looked at her watch.

  “Oh dear,” she said, “I really have run out of time! I shouldn’t have spent so long in the room next door.”

  So the dolls upstairs were spared a visit. Daisy went off without giving the family one important bit of news. Ted and Michael would be bringing the other rag doll to join them on Friday . . .

  Soobie visited North Shore Road again on Wednesday evening. Shortly after he arrived it began to drizzle and, though it did not look like coming to much, Vinetta persuaded him to stay the night.

  “You can go back to the Grove tomorrow night,” she said. “There’s no need to go out and get damp.”

  Joshua was not so sure, but his objections were over-ruled.

  “What if Daisy comes to see us tomorrow after the shop closes? She didn’t say she wouldn’t.”

  “Soobie can hide in Granpa’s wardrobe,” said Vinetta. “He can go in there at five o’clock and come out again when we see Daisy leave in her taxi.”

  Already their landlady, for such they now felt she was, had become too familiar for them to regard her as a stranger, or to refer to her other than by her own name.

  CHAPTER 20

  Thursday

  AT TEN-TO-FIVE ON Thursday afternoon the doorbell rang three times.

  Upstairs there was consternation. Everyone scattered to their appointed places. Miss Quigley had been sitting at the table with Vinetta, who was holding the baby. Googles was passed over to the nanny who ran out of the living room door and back into the nursery – playpen . . . play dead! . . . phew!

  Appleby and Pilbeam came hastily out of their bedroom and hurtled past Poopie who was on his way upstairs. Wimpey sat herself down on the floor in front of the television. Joshua was already in his seat. Vinetta went to hers, only to find it occupied by a bewildered Soobie who had had no training in this emergency procedure.

  “Soobie!” said Vinetta in a hoarse whisper. “You’re supposed to be upstairs in the wardrobe!”

  The door below opened and closed.

  “Hello,” Daisy called up the narrow staircase. “I’m just popping in for a short visit.”

  Vinetta looked desperately around the living room. The door was closed, as it was meant to be. Soobie was standing in the middle of the room looking large but helpless.

  “No time now!” said Vinetta. “What shall we do?”

  Step . . . clump. Step . . . clump. Step . . . clump. Step . . . clump . . .

  Slowly, inexorably, Daisy was ascending the stairs. To reach the wardrobe on the floor above was out of the question. To go out on to the landing was to invite discovery.

  “Quick!” said Vinetta to Soobie. “Get into the cupboard!”

  There was a cupboard to the right of the fireplace, a long narrow cupboard whose height inside was reduced by the presence of two shelves. It was not even very deep. Soobie pushed himself in and sat down with his knees up to his chin. Vinetta had to put all her weight against the door to close it. To lower the tiny catch into position was a desperate effort, but she managed it. The task had been made harder by the wedge of blue cloth that had got stuck between the door and the jamb. Inside the cupboard, Soobie tugged at the bit of his sleeve that had become entrapped but it was gripped too tightly to be released.

  Vinetta got back to her own seat just in time. There was a tap at the living room door, a polite pause, and then Daisy was standing in the doorway looking in at them all. She was wearing her outdoor coat as usual, but it was fastened up to the chin in a way that suggested that this might not be too long a visit.

  “Those stairs don’t get any easier!” she said to Vinetta. “I really must see about a lift!”

  She came in and sat down on her usual dining chair to get her breath back before going on to explain the main reason for this visit.

  “I was just ordering my taxi,” she said, “when I remembered I had news that I ha
dn’t told you. Remember what I said about the blue doll?”

  She paused and looked round at them before going on. It was then that she saw the piece of blue cloth protruding from the cupboard door. That was puzzling. She knew the cupboard was almost empty. A good shopkeeper always knows where there is spare storage space. I can’t remember putting anything in there, she thought. She walked towards the door. The dolls, secretly watching her, held themselves alert. Vinetta knew what was going to happen next, but could not imagine what Daisy would think, or do, when she opened the door.

  Then . . .

  THUD!

  Daisy stopped in her tracks. She turned round apprehensively to see what had caused the noise in the room behind her.

  There, doubled up on the floor, was the red-headed teenage doll. Appleby had deliberately fallen forward from her chair just after Daisy passed her. It was a desperate effort, a last ditch attempt to avert discovery.

  For a few seconds, Daisy looked down at the doll on the floor and felt a spasm of fear. But the doll had not moved as a person moves. She had fallen awkwardly, accidentally, into a crumpled heap. I must have caught her somehow as I passed, thought Daisy. That’s it, she thought, my elbow must have bumped against her.

  “Sorry,” said Daisy as she raised the doll and placed her back in her seat, gripping her firmly by the shoulders. “Did I catch your arm? That was very clumsy of me.”

  She was arranging Appleby’s hands neatly on the arms of the chair when another noise reached her. From the shop below came the rattle of shutters being set in place. A second later a car drew up and the driver tootled the horn. The cupboard was forgotten.

  “There’s my taxi,” said Daisy, looking towards Vinetta again. “I’ll have to be going. Anyway, tomorrow’s the day when it will all be happening. Ted and Michael are bringing the other doll – and the rest of the stuff from Brocklehurst Grove – over here at lunch-time. So I’ll see you all then.”

  Daisy hurried out as fast as she could. As the lower door closed behind her, Joshua turned to Appleby and said, “Nice work. Risky – but effective!”

  “Diversionary tactics,” said Appleby sweetly. “Just diversionary tactics.”

  Wimpey rushed upstairs to give the others the news.

  “Granny, Granny,” she said breathlessly, “did you hear? They’re bringing Soobie here tomorrow. But he’s here already!”

  “He shouldn’t have been here at all,” grumbled Granpa. “He should have stayed where he was. There could be someone in Brocklehurst Grove now, looking for the blue doll and finding out that it isn’t there!”

  Two hours later, Soobie was sitting in the living-room downstairs, as were all of the family with the exception of Sir Magnus. Even Miss Quigley had joined them and Googles was once more sitting on Vinetta’s knee. Soobie could not make the return journey till much later at night, but it was not a worry. The worst, they all thought, was over.

  “I was petrified when she saw your sleeve trapped in the cupboard door,” said Vinetta. “If Appleby hadn’t fallen, goodness knows what would have happened! We can only hope that Daisy won’t remember it. She’ll have plenty of other things on her mind. I’ll be very glad when tomorrow’s over though!”

  “Tomorrow will be another step forward,” said Tulip with determined optimism. “Once Soobie is finished with Brocklehurst Grove, that will be the end of it for all of us. We will be in a position to map out the future.”

  “What do you mean?” said Appleby, looking with interest at. her grandmother.

  “It will take some time,” said Tulip. “I can’t do everything overnight. But we won’t be staying here forever. We need a place we can really call our own.”

  The words left the others speechless. What did she mean?

  Before anything else could be said, however, another, more urgent matter forced itself on their attention. A flash of blue lightning lit up the room. There was a brattle of thunder right overhead, followed rapidly by another one even louder than the first.

  Then, with the same suddenness, rain began to lash the windowpanes. The drizzle of the night before was nothing compared to this. It was a deluge.

  Vinetta hurried to the window and quailed as she saw huge raindrops bouncing up off the pavement. Twisting streams of water were soon overflowing the gutters. Vinetta drew the curtains and Pilbeam switched on the light.

  “I hope it eases up soon,” said Vinetta looking anxiously at Soobie. “There’s no way you could go out in that.”

  “There’s no way I can stay here all night,” said Soobie. “If it doesn’t stop in the next few hours, I’m going to have to brave it. Before morning I must be back in the attic at Brocklehurst Grove.”

  “You should never have left,” said Joshua crossly. “You should never have been here in the first place.”

  “Well he is here,” said Vinetta, “and there’s nothing we can do about that.”

  “The rain might stop in a while,” said Pilbeam. “It can’t go on like this all night.”

  But it could and it did.

  At four o’clock in the morning, Soobie decided that, no matter what the weather, he would have to set out for the Grove.

  “Is there not an umbrella anywhere?” said Miss Quigley. “You’d think there would be. It’s the sort of thing people put in hall-stands.”

  The remark sounded silly, but they all knew what she meant. Among the bric-a-brac in the cupboards, it was quite possible that there could be an old fashioned hall-stand and that an umbrella might have been left in it. So everyone began to search for anything that might protect Soobie from the rain.

  “I can’t take a coat,” he said. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it when I got there. And it might be missed.”

  Eventually, they found a pink parasol behind some furniture in the cupboard next to the kitchen . . .

  “Take it,” urged Vinetta. “It’s not ideal, but it might help. You can put it out of the way in a corner of the attic.”

  Joshua went down to the door with Soobie. For a few seconds they both stood in the open doorway looking out at the rain. It was less fierce now, but still extremely wet. Soobie looked doubtfully at the pink parasol with its silk fringe.

  “I don’t think this will be much good,” he said, “and I’ll feel blooming stupid carrying it.”

  Joshua understood.

  “Leave it with me,” he said. “I’ll sneak it back into the cupboard. Keep your head down, stay close to the wall and run as fast as you can. I wish there was more I could do. But there isn’t.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Friday

  BY THE TIME Soobie reached the attic at Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove his tracksuit was wet through. His trainers were damp and dirty. Even his face that had been hidden in the hood was streaked with rivulets of rain. He did not know what to do about it.

  There’s nothing I can do, he thought as he sat down in the rocking-chair. He switched on the light and decided to leave it on till morning came. It made him feel less lonely and a little bit less wet!

  When they come to collect me they’ll wonder why I’m wet, he thought.

  I might have dried out by then, he thought, but none too hopefully.

  Then a voice in his head said, whatever they think, they will never suspect the truth. The truth is too incredible.

  In the hours that followed he watched his footprints dry out in the dust and was relieved to see at least one piece of evidence disappear.

  At eleven o’clock in the morning, Ted and Michael came up to the attic.

  “I told you about these stairs the last time we were here, but you didn’t want to know,” said Michael to his older partner.

  “I didn’t want to know,” said Ted, “because I didn’t need to know. Daisy pays us to do what she asks. If we start questioning we only confuse things. And if we act off our own bat we end up doing unpaid work that might be unwanted.”

  They went into the attic and looked at the assortment there.

  “There’s more
here than I thought,” said Ted. “Still, Daisy did say we were to clear it completely, so that’s what we’ll do. Doll first.”

  The rain had stopped but the sky was still overcast and the light in the room was poor. Ted and Michael went over to the rocking-chair. The blue rag doll sitting there, one hand on each arm, looked very dark. It was only when Ted touched it that he realised that the darkness was heightened by the fact that the doll’s clothes were wet.

  “What on earth . . .?”

  He looked up at the rafters, trying to detect a leak. The underside of the roof looked bone dry. The floor beneath the rocking-chair and all around the attic was dry and dusty. The only wet object in the whole room was the blue rag doll.

  A mystery, thought Ted, but not my mystery.

  Ted and Michael brought up a crate from their van. Then Ted took the doll’s shoulders and Michael lifted its feet and they laid it out straight as a corpse in a coffin.

  After that the job was simple. They took the crate down to the van, then the rocking-chair, then followed all the other bits and pieces. And the only thing not as dry as dust was the blue rag doll.

  Following Daisy’s instructions, the men took everything to their warehouse except the rocking-chair and the rag doll. These they carried straight up to the flat, but not before Daisy had rung the bell repeatedly and shouted up the stairs to signal their arrival. Ted and Michael grinned at each other, but said nothing.

  “It’s drenched,” said Daisy as she touched the doll which had been placed in the rocking-chair that now stood by the living-room window. “What have you been doing with it?”

  “Nothing,” said Ted. “Nothing at all. It was like that when we found it. We’ve no idea how it came to be that way. The attic was bone dry. There was no sign of water anywhere.”

  Daisy looked more closely at the doll.

  “You’d better remove the tracksuit,” she said. “I’ll take it home and get it washed and dried.”

  Soobie was horrified. There he was sitting in the armchair by the window, in full view of his mother, his father and his sisters, in full view of Daisy and two strange men; and they were about to remove his clothing, a thing that had never happened in all his life. No one had ever seen what he wore underneath!