Mennyms Alive

by Sylvia Waugh

  Soobie shrugged. All this business of phantom meals seemed more ludicrous than ever in their new surroundings. His own failure to rebel was down to no more than good manners. He didn’t answer Tulip directly.

  “Granpa asked me to say that he didn’t want to be disturbed, and not to take him any tea.” he said. “I left him reading,”

  “There! What have I just been saying?” said Tulip. “No tea! Then it will be no supper and no breakfast!”

  Soobie put one arm round her shoulders. He was taller and much broader than his grandmother.

  “He’ll come round in time,” he said gently. “In a way, he’s coming round already. He is reading, though he’s reluctant to admit to it. Once we get another house where he can have more and more books, without having to hide them under the wardrobe, he’ll come round.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Billy

  THE BELL OVER the shop door jangled and a sandy-haired boy of about twelve or thirteen came in. Daisy looked up from the cameos she and her customer were handling.

  “Excuse me a minute, Mr Lucas,” she said. “That’s my nephew’s son. I’ll just have a word with him.”

  She walked over to Billy and grasped his arm warmly.

  “It seems ages since you were here last,” she said smiling, and looking delighted to see him. “But now you’re just a little bit early. I’ll be shutting up shop at twelve. Do you think you could go into the kitchen and start brewing us a pot of tea?”

  The kitchen was at the rear of the shop. Billy was partly flattered to be entrusted with tea-making, but it was not what he had expected.

  “I could go up and wait in the flat,” he said, looking towards the pocket in Daisy’s skirt from which, on his last visit, she had produced the key to the house upstairs. For him, Number 39 North Shore Road was magical – and that was without knowing the most wonderful of the dolls’ secrets.

  “Not this time,” said Daisy. “We have things to talk about first. And I’ve made you some cake and a few sandwiches. We’ll eat first and have a look upstairs later.”

  Billy was disappointed but he went into the kitchen and left Daisy to her work. Last time, she had let him go upstairs on his own to see the dolls. He had moved them about, setting them in new positions. He had played with the soldiers, pretending that the doll in the room above was a real little boy. He had fixed up the playpen in the nursery and put the baby in it. Had he done something wrong?

  The customer departed and Daisy shut the door after him, turning the CLOSED sign towards the street. Then she hurried into the back kitchen where the kettle had already boiled and the tea was brewing. From the cupboard above the fridge she took out plates full of food, far more than the two of them could expect to eat, and put them on the table.

  “Shall I pour,” she said to Billy, “or will you?”

  Then she sat back and waited as the boy poured tea into their cups.

  “You’re looking very grown up,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve grown a lot in the past few months. Or maybe I’ve shrunk again! People do as they get older, you know.”

  Daisy laughed, knowing that her shortness of stature was a thing that sometimes made people feel sorry for her. But not Billy! He knew better.

  “You always say that,” he said, “and I used to believe you. When I was really little, I honestly believed you!”

  Daisy gave him a wistful look.

  “That’s what we’ll have to talk about now,” she said. “What you and I honestly believe.”

  Billy gave her a sharp glance. He was a bright boy and he understood immediately that the words held some special meaning.

  “It’s what we don’t know that I’d like to talk about,” said Daisy seriously. “What we don’t know but might honestly believe. Do you remember that blue doll you told me about?”

  “Yes,” said Billy slowly, wondering what Daisy was leading up to.

  “It moved,” said Daisy, “and it even spoke to you once.”

  “Yes,” said Billy ruefully. “It said it would crush me bones. But it didn’t mean it.”

  “How d’you know?” asked Daisy. She leant across the table and looked at him very earnestly making him feel that what he said really mattered.

  “I just know,” said Billy. “It had a nice face, and it waved goodbye when it left in the man’s car the next night.”

  “And then,” said Daisy, “at that point, what did you believe? Did you think it was a trick, or a robot or what?”

  Billy struggled to put into words the feeling he so well remembered, the feeling that he and Joe had shared as they crouched behind the wall at Comus House and saw the blue doll wave its arm in their direction. Anything he said would make him vulnerable. But he trusted Aunt Daisy, trusted her even more than he would his own mam and dad.

  “It was real,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” said Daisy, pushing him to say more.

  “It was alive, just as if it were human. Leastways, that’s what I believed then.”

  “And now?” said Daisy. “What do you believe now?”

  “Same as I believed then,” mumbled Billy and he bit vigorously into a cheese scone. “It was living, just like you and me.”

  Daisy took the cosy off the pot and poured herself another cup of tea.

  “Another for you?” she said, nodding to Billy.

  “No thanks,” said Billy. Eating and drinking had become an interruption. He looked at Daisy expectantly, waiting for what she would say next.

  “The dolls in the flat upstairs,” began Daisy. “I think that they are living. I haven’t seen them move or heard them speak, but I have reasons for believing that they are alive and can hear every word I say to them.”

  Billy gasped.

  “Tell me,” he said, “tell me all about them.”

  So Daisy told him the tale from beginning to end, told it simply and had him believing every word. When he heard about the blue doll, he wanted to go upstairs there and then to see it, but Daisy made him hear the story out, finishing with all the details of the pact she had made with them.

  “We won’t see them move,” she said, “and they won’t talk to us.”

  “So how will I know they’re really living?” said Billy.

  “You’ll know,” said Daisy. “You’ll know.”

  “Can we go and see them now?” said Billy. “The blue one must be the one I knew. It couldn’t be any other. I mean – how could there be two?”

  Daisy got up from her seat and went to take her coat from the coat stand in the shop. Billy followed.

  “One more thing,” said Daisy as she fastened up her coat. “You won’t be able to move them around as if they were just dolls. Think of them as people, talk to them as people, and show them the same sort of respect you would show to any other human being.”

  When they reached the doorway of Number 39, Daisy put her key in the lock as usual, but at the same time she rang the bell three times emphatically. Billy watched her, wondering.

  “We’re on our way up,” Daisy called up the staircase as they went into the lobby. “I’m bringing Billy to see you. You remember. I told you about Billy.”

  To Billy, she said, “I’ll go first. I know I’m slow, but it’s better that way.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Recognition

  “THEY’RE DIFFERENT.”

  Billy looked at the dolls in the living-room. His back was towards the blue doll, but even before he saw Soobie he knew that these dolls had changed in a way that was subtle, but recognisable. He touched Vinetta’s hand which rested quite limply on the chair arm. Beyond question, she was as still as any statue. No breath passed her silken lips, no tremor stirred in face or fingers.

  “They’re different,” said Billy again. “Last time I was here, they were paler and stiffer, as if they’d been starched. Now they are, I don’t know, somehow soft.”

  Daisy stood in the doorway, measuring his words.

  “More alive, do you think?” she said, coming
right into the room and standing by Joshua. And now it seemed to her that she had known this from the first, known it and wilfully ignored it. When, all those months ago, the dolls had been delivered, and had been removed so gently from their crates, they had indeed been much less supple and much paler than they were now.

  When had it happened?

  How had it come about?

  ‘When’ was an easier question to answer than ‘how’.

  “The night Miranda moved her head,” said Daisy. “Before then I noticed nothing. I assumed that they were what they were meant to be – a family of rag dolls.”

  Billy looked at her, wondering. Then his gaze shifted to the doll in the rocking-chair, set a little apart from the others, half-turned towards the window. It was not quite the blue doll he remembered. The tracksuit with its neat white trim was nothing like the tattered striped suit the doll had worn three years ago. But the hands were the same. The head was the same. And the eyes, yes, the eyes were the same. Billy looked at the silver buttons set in the blue cloth face, and saw life.

  “Oh!” he said. Then “Oh!”, a deep “Oh” coming from the bottom of his heart. He sat down heavily on a dining chair, his right arm coming to rest on the table. His face was drained of colour. Even his lips had whitened, so deep was his state of shock.

  “Are you all right?” said Daisy anxiously.

  Billy looked at her but said nothing. She sat down on the chair beside him and covered his hand with hers. The large, plump hand gripped the boy’s thin fingers, promising safety. Billy looked at Daisy and his eyes brimmed with tears, silly, childish tears that he wiped away vigorously with the hand that was free.

  “It’s a shock,” he said. “I mean – it’s a shock. They are alive. Really alive. And the blue one is the doll we took from that house near us. I don’t just think he is. I know he is.”

  He looked round at them as if he expected them to speak or move. A tension filled the room, waiting to be broken, and there was a moment when . . .

  But it passed. The Mennyms remained frozen, united in their resolution to suspend animation. That was the pact.

  “They won’t move,” said Daisy firmly. “They won’t talk. You believe that they are alive, but you will never know for sure.”

  Billy sat dazed for some minutes. Daisy said nothing more. She just sat there beside him and let him take his time. She was relieved to see a more natural colour returning to his cheeks. The worst was over. Then, slowly, Billy stood up and clutching the edge of the table he said in a low voice, “Can we see the others now?”

  “Are you sure?” said Daisy, still worried that the ordeal had been too much. I should never have told him, she thought. I should have kept it to myself. But what else could I do? He knew so much already. I couldn’t just say they weren’t here any more. I couldn’t lie. And I couldn’t let him come up here without any warning.

  Billy walked over to Soobie and put one hand on his shoulder. The chair rocked slightly, making Billy jump. Then he smiled sheepishly as he realised that it was his own movement that had set the chair rocking. He gave Daisy a brave look.

  “We’ll go to the nursery first,” he said. “I want to see the doll in the playpen.”

  “If she’s still there,” said Daisy, a faint smile returning to her lips.

  “What do you mean?” said Billy.

  “She might have been moved,” said Daisy. “I can’t quite remember where she was last.”

  Billy lifted Googles out of the high-chair.

  “I think I’ll put her back in the playpen,” he said, looking at Aunt Daisy. “Is that all right?”

  He was holding the doll up, one hand under each arm, and he was aware that she too was softer than he remembered and pinker in the face. The curl on her forehead looked springier, not plastered flat against her brow. Daisy nodded approval and Billy sat the doll in the playpen with her back against the corner post. Googles remained rigid but there was a warmth about her that no deliberate rigidity could dispel.

  “Now,” said Billy, looking round the room, “where’s your rabbit?”

  “It’s upstairs in the boy’s room,” said Daisy. “I think it fits in better there.”

  In Poopie’s room, Billy saw the rabbit sitting upright on a stool in the corner, and somehow he felt that, no matter how odd the idea seemed at first, Daisy was right. The rabbit, of course, was the same as before, totally inanimate.

  Billy looked thoughtfully at the assault course he had set up on his first visit, spending hours turning the whole room into an arena for military manoeuvres. He opened the cupboard door where Poopie’s other toys were stored. Something about Poopie’s face made Billy sense that the doll would like to play a different game.

  “I think I’ll put the training tower away and get out the Lego bricks,” he said. Daisy had kept the bricks, putting them in a large wooden box, planning for just such an occasion as this. “That’s if you don’t mind?”

  “Go ahead,” said Daisy. “I don’t mind, and I’m sure he won’t! Do you want me to stay with you, or shall I go back to the shop? Either way suits me. I have some paperwork I could be doing.”

  Billy looked at the boy doll and then at Daisy.

  “I’ll be all right,” he said. “He understands the pact. I think he’d like me to play here. It’ll be company for him.”

  “You’re sure you’re not . . . afraid?” said Daisy carefully.

  “Not now,” said Billy slowly. “I was at first – just a bit. But not now.”

  Poopie watched as Billy carefully put all of the Action Men and their equipment away in boxes in the wardrobe. Then he drew out the monster box full of Lego bricks. The boat Poopie had once made was not quite intact, but it had not been completely broken up. Its batteries were flat but that didn’t matter much. Billy set about restoring it. Then, thrilled with all of the different resources the box offered, he went on building more and still more. The ship paid a visit to a desert island where there were palm trees beside a Lego hut and small boats beached on crystal sands . . .

  The afternoon passed too quickly.

  “Billy!” called Daisy from the foot of the stairs. “I think you’d better come down now. It’s nearly tea-time. Your mam and dad will be here soon.”

  What she meant was, it was safer for him to be downstairs in the shop before his parents arrived. The secret of the dolls was not for sharing. Jamie and Molly Maughan would not be invited to pay them another visit.

  Billy understood.

  “See you next week,” he said to the doll on the floor. “I’ll bring some batteries. You’ve got everything else.”

  CHAPTER 30

  The Robot

  WHEN BILLY CAME the following Wednesday, he and Aunt Daisy parted company on the landing.

  “You can play with the doll upstairs. I know that’s what you’ll be wanting to do!” said Daisy. “I’ll stay down here with my friends. Pop in and see the old couple; say hello to them for me.”

  Daisy was right. Billy was longing to get back to what was for him an Aladdin’s Cave full of toys. He liked Poopie, though of course he did not know his name. What is more, among the dolls downstairs was Soobie. And Billy was still wary of the blue one, the doll that seemed to him more magical than all the others.

  “I’ve brought some batteries,” said Billy. “I told you I would. I bet you thought I’d forget. I’ve got three new sets in different sizes. Took them off me wages at the garage.”

  Poopie looked straight ahead of him at the Lego that was still spread out over the floor after last week’s game. This was fun, he thought, a bit scary but fun all the same. And it wasn’t easy – to spend two or three hours pretending to be dead.

  Billy went to the wardrobe that was full of toys stacked up in boxes. Methodically, he lifted one box out after another, continuing his investigation of their contents and replacing them carefully after he had finished. Then, right in the corner of the wardrobe, propped up against the back panel, he found the robot. By its side w
as a matching remote control complete with antenna. Excitedly, Billy slid the cover off the battery case, found batteries stained and clearly dead, but was pleased to note that they matched one of the sets he had brought with him. He even had the larger batteries needed to fill the gaps in the robot’s chest.

  And there began the game for the day.

  It took some time to set up.

  He began by lifting a puzzled Poopie onto the bed and settling him with his back against the wall.

  “You can watch,” he said, “but you mustn’t get in the way. That robot needs space.”

  The Lego bricks had to be boxed up again. The only things Billy kept from last week’s effort were some long plastic leaves, spreading out in fronds like jungle vegetation.

  “We’ll need those,” said Billy.

  Then he got out half-a-dozen Action Men with rifles, a few plastic bushes and a fence or two. On the floor he spread out crumpled sheeting for yellow sand and some brown cloth to go under the plastic greenery. Finally, he went back to one of the boxes he had already explored and brought out an assortment of lions, tigers and leopards.

  “That’ll do it,” he said.

  Poopie sat watching and wondering. He had liked the robot well enough when his dad first bought it for him. But he hadn’t played with it much for ages. I mean, what’s the use of a toy that doesn’t belong to a set and just moves back and forward bumping into things?

  Billy tested out the batteries. The robot moved clumpily forward, raising legs that did not bend at the knee.

  “That’s fine,” said Billy.

  Then he completed the landscape. Between the wardrobe door, which he left wide-open, and the centre of the room in front of the bed, there was the jungle, all trees and swaying branches with animals stalking. The other half of the room was a desert battlefield with soldiers lying on their stomachs in the sand, hiding behind boulders, taking aim ready to fire.

  Billy looked at the scene he had created and was satisfied. He then took the robot to the doorway.