The Puppet Master

by Charlie Small

  ‘Enough!’ she called out to the Puppet Master. ‘Haven’t you taken enough?’

  ‘Keep quiet, old woman!’ hissed the audience. ‘Or he won’t come back again.’

  The old lady collapsed back down in her chair. She knew they were right; if the Puppet Master disappeared for good, they would never see their children again.

  After the show, when all the puppets were back in the caravan and hanging from the ceiling, the townsfolk queued outside. For the right price, money or secrets or promises, they were allowed inside the caravan, to walk past the strange and silent crowd of suspended children.

  The kind old lady shuffled past, reaching out to touch my arm. I could feel the warmth of her hand through my hard shell of skin. Then I heard her sob as she recognized her granddaughter, once a pretty girl, now an old and battered doll. The puppet’s eyes leaked tears as the old woman went to hug her, but she was forced out of reach by the push of the crowd.

  Then, all of a sudden, the doors were slammed shut, the Puppet Master shooed away the crowd, and with a flick of the reins the caravan rumbled out of the market square, out of the village and into the surrounding countryside.

  You won’t get away with this, Puppet Master, I thought. I’ll make sure of that, you despicable old despot!

  Over the following months, we travelled from one end of the valley to the other, giving countless performances to hundreds of villages. I danced on village greens, in busy markets, at inns and in castles. Everywhere we went, a new puppet was added to the Master’s collection; and sometimes he would abandon an old puppet by the roadside.

  The Puppet Master dazzled his audiences with shows of music and light and movement. He mesmerized them with honeyed words and sleight of hand, mixing his puppet shows with flashes of brilliant magic. With a twist of his wrist and to a clash of his steam-driven cymbals, he would produce a glittering jewel from the mouth of one of his puppets. Then clouds of coloured smoke would billow out from behind the stage curtains and, with a click of his long bony fingers, little flashes of lightning would spark and fizz through the fog. The Puppet Master’s tall, thin frame disappeared into the smoke, making it look as if his puppets were dancing all on their own.

  It was an amazing spectacle and village after village roared in delight at the performance. Their joy was soon turned to anguish, though, when they realized the price they would have to pay: one child!

  I’ll get you, Puppet Master, I told myself every time he took another child. You just see if I don’t.

  I hadn’t been a puppet for long before I realized that the other child puppets were as alive inside their shells as I was. Although none of us could open our mouths to speak or raise our arms to signal, we could communicate with our eyes. Over time, using all manner of looks and blinks as a sort of Morse code, it became possible to hold a silent conversation passed from doll to doll, from one end of the caravan to the other.

  I learned that some of the children had been puppets for a very long time. I learned that Granny Green’s granddaughter was called Jenny and that she was the same age as me (well, she was eight, not four hundred!), and I learned even more when the Puppet Master made his regular inspections. As he checked each puppet for damage, he used to talk in strange, one-sided conversations.

  ‘Soon, my little friends,’ he would say, ‘soon, when the night is dark and cloudy, some of you will be chosen to go out on another of my secret missions. That will be fun, won’t it? Will it be you, my little woodenhead, will you be the lucky one? Maybe … maybe not! But some of you will go out on a daring deed for your old Master.’

  Go out! Go out where? What on earth was the Puppet Master on about?

  I had to get away, but how? I couldn’t move unless the Puppet Master pulled and twitched the cords that were attached to my hands and feet. So I had no choice but to stay where I was and watch and wait. I have no idea how long it was before I had even a chance of escape. (I did eventually escape, of course, or this journal would never have been finished!) But I endured many months of puppet imprisonment, and to be honest I would have preferred to be locked up in the deepest, dampest, darkest dungeon than to be trapped motionless inside my puppet skin.

  Soon I learned all about the Puppet Master’s ‘special missions’. Sometimes he would send a few of his puppets out at night carrying burlap sacks. When they came back, the sacks clanked and jangled, and the Master emptied the contents into a big wooden chest, which he locked with a strong padlock.

  If the puppets didn’t return, the Puppet Master would tut-tut and curse and drive his horse on without ever looking back. I felt the anger boil up inside me. How many other children had disappeared like this? When I looked across at Jenny, I could tell by her blazing eyes that she was as angry as me.

  I made myself a promise then and there, that no matter what happened, I was not going to remain a puppet prisoner forever; and if I had anything to do with it, neither would the rest of the puppets swinging beside me in the caravan.

  In the meantime, though, I had no choice but to wait patiently for my chance to escape. I knew it would come, but I could never have guessed who would be responsible for helping me get free …

  We travelled beyond the valleys, over the hills and far away. I think I would have gone loopy if I’d had to put up with swinging and swaying aimlessly, clattering into other puppets and feeling dreadfully travel-sick for much longer. After many days, however, the Puppet Master pulled the caravan into a small spinney and thankfully we finally came to a halt!

  The Puppet Master waited until the light had completely left the sky and it was night-time. Then, walking up and down the rows of puppets, he chose six of us, including Jenny and me. Putting us among the tools on his workbench, he unclipped the strings from our arms and legs.

  ‘I said you would get your chance to go on a special mission, Charlie, and this is it,’ said the puppeteer in his silky voice. ‘You see, as Puppet Master, I can make you do anything; I could make you run and run until your joints give up and you fall into a hundred pieces; I could make you climb to the top of the highest peak and launch yourself off, believing you can fly. Or I could make you and your friends here go out on a little expedition, a shopping trip if you like, to get your old Master something he would really treasure! Ha ha!’ And with that, he danced an ungainly jig of joy.

  Then the Puppet Master lined us up on his workbench and looked deep into our eyes. It was very quiet in the caravan. All I could hear was the gentle tick-tock of the clock on the wall. The longer I listened and the longer the Puppet Master stared into my eyes, the louder the ticking became. Soon the noise filled my head, driving out all other thoughts.

  My eyes became heavy and my head dropped forward.

  The six of us sat on the bench, slumped in a dreamless sleep. The ticking of the clock echoed through my empty head and now it was joined by the Puppet Master’s words, quiet but insistent, replacing my thoughts until they were the only thing I could think about.

  ‘You will go to the house. You will find the gold. Whatever happens you will bring it back to your Master. Go to the house; find the gold; whatever happens, bring it back … Go to the house …

  ‘… Come on, Charlie, time to get up … Char-lie!’

  My eyes opened and I sat up with a jolt. The Puppet Master was standing in front of me. ‘Time to go, Charlie. You know what to do,’ he said with a sneer.

  I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to grab my rucksack, run for the door and make my escape – but I couldn’t! I still couldn’t move an inch on my own. The Puppet Master clapped his hands, and we all immediately stood up on the bench like a little group of performing robots. Even without our strings, we were still under his control!

  ‘It’s time. You have all been given your orders, and you have no choice but to carry them out. You are totally in my power and don’t ever forget it!’

  Once again I tried to move, to jump off the table and get away, but as the Master clapped his hands again, I found myself shuff
ling into a line with the other puppets. Help!

  ‘Go, little puppets, go!’ ordered the Master, and we moved into action; our orders swirled through our heads as we jumped down from the table, each picked up a sack from a pile by the door, and descended down the steps into the little clearing where the caravan had stopped.

  We moved through the spinney, quickly crossing a lane that was bathed in moonlight, and dived into the deep shadows below the hedgerow on the far side. Pushing through the thorny branches, we came to a dry-stone wall. We climbed this easily, jumping down among some trees on the other side. I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going. My arms and legs moved to the tick-tocking that still sounded in my head, driving me on against my will.

  The trees bordered a wide garden, sweeping up to a bank of ivy in front of a large manor house. It was towards this that we went, dashing across the lawn and crouching at the bottom of the bank, looking up at the dark windows of the house.

  When the coast was clear, we climbed the bank of ivy. Like a little robot army, we padded quietly across to a large, pillared porch. Over the doorway was a fanlight, a semicircular window, and I waited as my puppet friends started to climb, one on top of the other, to form a human (or puppet!) ladder.

  When they were ready, I started to climb this strange contraption. My arms and legs moved automatically, until I found myself standing on the shoulders of the highest puppet, who happened to be Jenny. Using a piece of pliable material from my pocket, I slipped the catch of the window, propped it open and clambered inside.

  Dropping to the ground inside the dark hallway, I slipped the bolts and let the rest of the gang in through the front door. We immediately split up, each puppet going automatically to a different part of the house.

  I padded across the hallway, up the stairs and down a dark passage. I really did try to stop and turn around, but I didn’t have any choice in the matter. The tick-tocking urged me on, making my legs trot along the dark corridor and my eyes swivel behind the hard shell of my face, looking for danger. Coming to a heavy oak door, I turned the knob gently, and the door opened with the slightest of squeaks.

  By the moonlight that shone through the window, I saw the outline of a bed where a figure lay deep in sleep. My stiff puppet legs stepped across the room, where a large travel-trunk stood in a shadowy corner. But when I looked at it closely, my eyes bulged in terror.

  I couldn’t believe it! Of all the rooms in all the houses in all the world, I had been sent here! The fancy letters on the trunk spelled out the name JOSEPH CRAIK, thief-taker extraordinaire, and my arch-enemy from my days as a pirate on the Pangaean Ocean!

  How could this happen? What was the sneaky, double-crossing cheat doing here? Then I remembered what he had said to me when I had been forced to take his purse in our raid on the port of Spangelimar. ‘I will follow you to the ends of the earth, Charlie Small, and when I catch you, I will see you hang,’ he had said; and it looked as though he was keeping his promise! What else would he be doing here, so many miles from the sea, snoring away in a lonely house?

  I wanted to turn and run as fast as I could, and I didn’t want to stop until I had left the manor house, the Puppet Master and Joseph Craik far behind; but my arms and legs continued to move to the Puppet Master’s will. I quietly opened the trunk, moving aside Craik’s heavy coat and revealing a stash of gold underneath. There were goblets and bracelets, gold chains and a large golden crown. Craik was meant to be an honest thief-taker but he was obviously just one of the pirates he pretended to despise!

  I quickly stuffed the gold into my sack, horrified at what I was doing, but unable to stop. When the bag was full, I sneaked back out into the corridor. I was only halfway down the passage when I heard an almighty crash coming from another room. One of the other puppets had dropped something, and the noise of it clattering down the stairs filled the whole house.

  ‘Wha … What’s going on?’ cried Craik from the room behind me. ‘My gold! Someone’s taken my gold!’

  The next minute, he was out in the corridor and chasing after me, his pistols roaring and spitting fire!

  I scurried along the passage, but I wasn’t fast enough. In a few strides, Craik was just behind me and he dived, bringing me down in a flying rugby tackle.

  I smashed to the ground, and as I did so I felt the shell-like coating around my skin crackle and craze. All of a sudden, I found that I could move my limbs by myself. I twisted and kicked against Craik’s vice-like grip, and as I struggled the cracks in my shell skin got bigger. The more my skin cracked, the more I could move!

  Craik shook me roughly by the shoulders. ‘There’s no point struggling, boy. I’ve got you and there’s no escape,’ he yelled; but with the cracking of my shell came a breaking of my bondage to the Puppet Master. I felt my own will flood through my body again! I reached into the sack of treasure and felt around inside until my hand closed on the one thing that might help me: the crown!

  Craik turned me round. ‘Oh boy, you’re in serious trouble now,’ he said with a smirk. Then he saw my face frozen in a puppet’s grin and covered with a mesh of fine cracks, and his jaw dropped. ‘Black-hearted Charlie?’ he gasped. He seemed rooted to the spot in his shock and surprise, and this gave me my chance. Forcing my arms round, I brought the crown crashing down on his head with all my might.

  It was a tight fit, but with an extra effort I pushed it down over his eyes, jamming the rim underneath his nose! Craik raised a hand to try and remove the golden blindfold, but his other hand remained on my chest, pinning me to the ground. Using all my strength, I dragged myself forward and as I pulled myself from under the weight of his hand, I found myself squeezing out of the puppet shell, like a snake shedding its skin.

  I scrambled to my feet, leaving the empty husk of my puppet self on the floor, and shot along the corridor.

  ‘I will see you hang, Charlie Small,’ Craik screamed, tugging at the crown that was jammed over his head. As I ran out onto the landing, I looked behind me, ready to make a cutting remark … and crashed straight into Jenny, who was escaping from a different part of the house.

  ‘Ooof!’ she cried, and went cartwheeling down the wide staircase!

  Oh no! I thought, and threw my leg over the banisters and slid down into the hallway below.

  It was complete pandemonium. Everywhere, ruddy-faced men in their nightshirts were chasing the rest of the puppets, and one by one they were all cornered and captured, their sacks of booty falling to the tiled floor with a clang. All except Jenny, who was getting groggily to her feet at the foot of the staircase. There was nothing I could do to help the rest of the puppets so, seeing my chance, I grabbed Jenny’s hand, ran for the doorway and we rushed out across the lawn.

  All of a sudden, a sash window was raised and Joseph Craik cried, ‘Stop, thief!’ I heard the crack of a pistol and felt the bullet as it ricocheted off the gold I still carried over my shoulder. But I kept on running! Jenny was alongside me as we reached the trees and, with one bound, we cleared the dry-stone wall to lie panting in the hedgerow beyond.

  ‘Oh boy, that was close!’ I gasped, looking back over the wall into the dark garden. What could we do now? I wanted to escape, to run far away, but I had no idea where we were. I looked at Jenny and found her staring at me with her dark, fierce eyes.

  ‘Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm,’ she said, and by the light of the moon I saw her face was criss-crossed with deep cracks. I stuck my fingernails in one chink, gave a sharp tug, and a large fragment of shell pulled away from her face.

  ‘Ouch! Careful!’ she mumbled from behind her fixed grin. I picked another piece of shell off, and another and another, and soon Jenny was moving her jaw back and forth, round and round.

  ‘Oh, bliss!’ she cried. ‘I can move! Quick, Charlie. My hands, free my hands.’

  I took each of her hands in mine, quickly pulling away the damaged shell and as soon as they were free, Jenny tore and pulled at the shell around her legs, scratching at her chest until she was stand
ing in a big pile of hard fragments and she was as free as me.

  I heard the baying of a dog in the distance; it sounded as if Craik and his cronies had a tracking hound. I made a quick decision: if Jenny and I could convince the Puppet Master that we were still puppets, we stood a chance. If we stayed out in the open, we would be goners.

  ‘We have to go back to the caravan,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ agreed Jenny. ‘It’s our only chance. But you need to clean your face first.’

  I rubbed my face and hands, and the remains of my shell skin flaked off. When I had removed the last tell-tale signs of cracking, I put on a puppet-like grin and Jenny did the same.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked, stepping about stiff-legged.

  ‘Not bad,’ I smiled. ‘It might just work.’

  Then we heard the yowls of the hound again. He had picked up our scent.

  ‘It will have to work,’ I cried. ‘Let’s go!’

  The Puppet Master was in a panic. He had heard the gunshots and the baying of the hound and was pacing impatiently by the caravan steps.

  ‘At last!’ he cried. ‘Is it just you two?’ He stared off through the trees of the spinney, but when he realized we were on our own he grabbed our burlap sacks, and lifted us up into the caravan. ‘Never mind about the others, they can’t talk,’ he muttered to himself. ‘They can’t do anything!’