The Puppet Master

by Charlie Small

  He opened the sack I’d been carrying and spilled its contents onto his workbench. ‘Oh lovely, Charlie, you’ve excelled yourself,’ he beamed. ‘I think you and I are going to work very well together; and you too, Jenny my dear, as always. Don’t worry about the other puppets, they will sit nice and quiet in a home for wayward children and no one will be any the wiser. There’s plenty more where they came from!’ Poor things! I thought as the Master quickly tied our strings back on and hung us from the beam. They’ll be sent to a lock-up and no one will ever know why they don’t talk and why they wander around like little lost zombies.

  Luckily the Master didn’t notice that we were no longer puppets. He was so excited about the gold and so aware of the dog’s barking getting nearer and nearer that he didn’t look too closely at Jenny and me, and we got away with our Oscar-winning impersonation. He quickly jumped onto the driving seat and whipped his horse into a gallop and away.

  The caravan rattled down the lane and the puppets were thrown about on their strings, crashing and bashing into each other. It really hurt now that I didn’t have my hard shell to protect me, and it was all I could do to stop crying out and giving myself away. We had only gone a mile or so, when somebody stepped out in front of the horse, making it rear up and forcing us to stop. I heard the bark of the hound and Craik’s voice call out. ‘You’re in a hurry, Puppet Man. Been up to something you shouldn’t have?’

  ‘I’m giving a show beyond the marshes, and if I don’t hurry I’ll be late,’ growled the Puppet Master. ‘Now get out of my way and stop waving that pistol around.’

  ‘All in good time,’ said Craik. ‘I’m looking for a nasty little pest called Charlie Small. He’s wanted on both sides of the Pangaean Ocean, and less than an hour ago he robbed me of a king’s ransom. I want it back, and I want to see him and his friends dangling from the end of a gibbet. So you won’t mind, Mister Puppet Man, if we have a little look in your caravan, will you?’

  Jenny and I stared at each other in horror.

  ‘You don’t scare me. I’ve never heard of Charlie Small and I don’t know anything about a robbery. Now, get out of my way, or I’ll run you down,’ ordered the Master, his eyes blazing with anger.

  ‘That’s not very friendly, mate,’ sneered Craik, and, all of a sudden, he let off a warning shot that pierced the Master’s stovepipe hat. ‘The next one will trim your beard, you lanky stick insect.’

  I heard the Puppet Master hiss, and with a movement too quick to see, he flicked his horsewhip, and its thin, leather tongue snaked out with a crack! Craik dropped his pistol with a cry, and the whip cracked again, wrapping itself around Craik’s ankles. With a tug he was brought to the ground.

  The Puppet Master urged his horse on and the caravan rumbled forward, its heavy wooden wheels grinding the stones and just missing the thief-taker as he rolled desperately out of its path.

  Soon we were thundering along the road again, the Puppet Master standing on the board at the front, his whip raised, his cloak flying out behind him and a wild look in his eye. As we raced along, the caravan jumped and bucked on the rocky road. We hit a large stone, the doors at the back of the caravan flew open and a whole show’s worth of puppets were thrown out, landing in the hedgerows and ditches. The Puppet Master didn’t stop; he didn’t even look round, but drove the horse on even harder.

  We rode through the rest of the night and all through the next day. The fury of our pace never slackened until the horse, wheezing and with its coat flecked with sweat, finally slowed to a trot. The Puppet Master pulled into a roadside inn and let the animal drink its fill at the water trough.

  It was then that I noticed a distinct change in the Puppet Master. Gone was the smooth, confident showman who beguiled and bewitched the public; the man that stood in front of hundreds and treated and threatened, teased and tormented them in the same breath, now crept about like a very old man. The mighty master of the puppets, the terror of every town and village in the land, who had almost glowed with energy and evil intent, was a shadow of his former self!

  His dry limbs cracked at every movement and his grey skin had become so pale that you could almost see through it. I had no idea what brought about this change, but it had only come on after the puppets had fallen out of the caravan. Then an idea hit me like a bolt of lightning. Could it be that the Puppet Master got his power from us; that without his troop of performing puppets, the Master was nothing? Were we really in control of him instead of the other way around? This was something to think about …

  Now that I’m able, I’ve been catching up on my journal. A lot has happened since I answered the Puppet Master’s call and I was worried that I might get it all muddled up. So I rescued this journal from my rucksack, and while the Puppet Master has been driving the caravan on at a relentless pace, I’ve managed to jot everything down. Now, though, Jenny and I have a lot of work to do and plans to make. I’ll write more soon.

  Hello! This is Jenny Green writing. I bet that’s surprised you, but I’ve taken over Charlie’s journal for a bit while he finds us something to eat. When I was a puppet I didn’t feel like eating at all, but now I’ve shed my horrible puppet skin I’m absolutely ravenous!

  At this very moment, Charlie is sitting high up on the shelf that runs around the inside of the caravan, rummaging through his rucksack. It was quite a spectacle to watch him get up there, almost better than going to the circus! First he pulled on his strings which were still hooked to the beam overhead and, slowly at first, he started to swing. Soon he was swinging back and forth like a trapeze artist, whizzing higher and higher through the air.

  Despite bumping and clattering into the puppets hanging around him, Charlie managed to swing level with the shelf. With one huge forward swoop, he grabbed it, and in the same movement hooked one leg onto the ledge. Then it was easy for him to scramble up, and rifle through the things he keeps in his bag.

  My tummy was rumbling and gurgling as I watched Charlie open can after can of food and wolf down the contents. As soon as he’d finished, though, Charlie filled a can with a selection of goodies and shuffling his bottom to the edge of the shelf, pushed himself off. He swung across the caravan like Tarzan swooping through the jungle, and passed me the can of food. He was really good – it was as though he has spent half his life swinging through a tropical rainforest!

  I grabbed the can and tucked in. Oh, how good it tasted! Slices of corned beef mixed with peaches in sweet syrup; cold tomato soup with croutons of Kendal mint cake. Food has never tasted so fantastic!

  I’d better finish writing now as Charlie and I need to start thinking of a plan to get us out of here – if we can think of one, that is!

  It’s me again – Charlie – and I think we’ve got a plan! I don’t know whether it will work, but we’ve got to do something. We’ve noticed that some of the other puppets are so old and have been bashed about for so long that their skin is covered with a fine web of cracks. I’ve decided to help things along! I’ll let you know how it goes as soon as I can.

  Days have come and gone. The scenery has changed from marsh to woodland, from plains to rolling hills, and now we are back in the land of snow and ice. Jenny and I have been very busy …

  I discovered the little toffee hammer in my trouser pocket, which was the perfect tool to use in our escape attempt. By crawling along the beams, I slid down the puppets’ strings.

  With a series of sharp hammer taps, their hard skins shattered and cracked until they looked like jigsaw puzzles. Then, taking my super-sharp, super-tough croc tooth, I chipped away pieces of puppet skin, exposing their real skin underneath. Soon it started to drop off, and for the first time in years the children were able to stretch their fingers and rub their aching muscles.

  Jenny did the same, sliding along the beams like a commando on an assault course, with my penknife clamped between her teeth.

  ‘Oh, thank you so much,’ whispered one of the puppets as he was freed. ‘I thought I was going to be stuck here f
orever. Now, what are we going to do about that nasty, vicious stick insect out there?’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘We do have a sort of plan …’

  Now there are about a dozen of the children completely free. They’re dangling from their strings, waiting patiently to put the plan we have been plotting into action. Oh, I hope it works! I’d better get back into my strings too. It’s got to work – I just hope there are enough of us!

  I still can’t believe what happened next. Even as I’m writing, my hand is starting to shake! If it weren’t for Jenny I wouldn’t be here at all …

  Finally one day the horse slowed its pace, and the Master steered the caravan into a long, sweeping curve. We had arrived at our destination, and I looked out of the window to try and get a glimpse of where we were. Oh, wow! I couldn’t believe it; we were just entering the mouth of one of the huge Icicle Arches that I had visited before. I hoped there would be no more batty bats to deal with!

  The Puppet Master drove the caravan further and further into the deep archway, until we had left the entrance far behind. We came to a halt and the Puppet Master got down and opened the doors of his caravan.

  The Master had made the back of this icy cave his home. A few sticks of furniture lay dotted about; a chair and table; a cabinet where open drawers were spilling old magic tricks and coloured scarves onto the floor. A long bench stood in the corner covered in test tubes and beakers and jars of strange liquids. Was this where he concocted his potion that turned us all into puppets? I didn’t have time to think about it, though. The Puppet Master pulled on a rope, some thick curtains opened behind him and the whole scene was bathed in a strong golden glow!

  I squinted into the glare. It was as if the sun was rising inside the Icicle Arch; but it wasn’t the sun. If anything it was even more incredible, because as my eyes grew accustomed to the brilliance of the glare, I understood what I was looking at: gold! Pile upon pile, and shelf upon shelf, chest upon chest and barrel upon barrel of gold. As it caught the light from the myriad icy surfaces in the cave, it reflected it back a thousandfold, turning the whole inside of the arch a brilliant yellow.

  As the curtains opened and the golden light illuminated the arch, the Puppet Master fell to his knees, raised his arms and bathed himself in the glow.

  This must be the Puppet Master’s whole reason for living, I thought, to admire and polish and display his treasure. But no matter how much loot he stole, I knew it would never be enough. He would always want more, and more and more … and to help him get it, he needed his army of puppets!

  ‘Oh, what marvels! What gorgeous gewgaws and whatnots,’ he cried, speaking to his treasure as lovingly as a father speaks to his child. ‘I have brought some new friends for you, my pretty poppets.’ He got to his feet and walked shakily over to the back of the caravan.

  Come inside, Puppet Master, I said to myself. Our plan can’t work unless you do. But he stayed outside, pulling the chest of gold to the open door and throwing back the lid. It was full to the brim, not only with Craik’s gold but all the other booty stolen by the Master’s puppets on his latest tour.

  The Puppet Master picked up an armful of treasure and carried it over to his stash. He was very tired now and obviously weak. Then I got a shock; as he walked in front of the treasure trove, I could see the light shine faintly through his body, as if he was disappearing before my eyes. I realized, for the first time, that the Puppet Master was not a human being! But in that case, what kind of thing was he?

  The Puppet Master carefully placed his gold in a pile. Then picking up each piece one by one, he polished it, turning it gently in his hands, before placing it lovingly in a gap on the already heaving shelves.

  A spark had returned to his eye, but the Master was still weak. If we had any chance of ever defeating him, it would have to be now while his powers were low. I had to get the puppeteer back inside his caravan; it was now or never!

  ‘Hey you, Puppet Master,’ I called, rattling the puppet hanging next to me. ‘You’re heading for a fall!’ I swung the puppet hard, making it clatter against its neighbour, setting it swinging and so on all down the line. The puppeteer leaped through the door like an enormous, ungainly grasshopper, and glanced fiercely around the caravan. All the puppets hanging from the ceiling were swaying to and fro.

  ‘Where are you, you little devil?’ he snarled, walking up and down the lines of marionettes, staring intently at each one. ‘I’ll find you, and when I do I will make you wish you’d stayed a puppet forever!’

  I waited, stony-faced, as the Master stopped in front of me, staring hard and trying to detect the slightest movement in my face. Oh boy, how I wanted to sneeze, but my life depended on me staying perfectly still. He turned to inspect the puppet opposite me, and as he did so I slipped out of my strings and dropped onto his shoulders, clamping my hands tightly over his eyes and kicking my heels with all my might. The Puppet Master stumbled, spinning round in a crazed attempt to shake me off.

  ‘Get off, you useless piece of driftwood!’ he yelled, throwing his head wildly back and forth.

  It was like trying to ride a bucking bronco.

  ‘Yippee yi yah!’ I cried in nervous excitement. ‘Ride ’em, cowboy!’

  Reaching up, the Master grabbed my arms and started to force them away from his face. I’m so glad he wasn’t at full strength, because he was still more powerful than I had hoped. I didn’t know if this was going to work!

  Just then, Jenny and the twelve other children we had managed to set free rained down from the ceiling. They sliced through their strings with my penknife and hunting knife, the crocodile’s tooth and the scissors, and dropped from their hooks. Some landed, biting and kicking, on the Master’s back. Others dropped to the floor, grabbing hold of his legs as he stumbled around the caravan.

  We scratched and bit like a pack of monkeys, but the Master’s skin was as hard as a china plate. I don’t believe it! I thought. He’s just a huge puppet himself!

  I redoubled my efforts, clamping my hands even firmer into the deep sockets of his eyes. The Puppet Master turned and span, roaring at the top of his voice.

  ‘Now!’ I screamed as he stumbled close to the doorway. One small boy crouched in front of the Master as Jenny charged from behind, shoulder-barging his legs and sending him flying through the doorway to land with a terrible crash on the icy floor below. I heard a mighty snap as the Master hit the ground and I was thrown from his shoulders and rolled across the ground. I came to a jarring halt as I banged into a stalagmite. Looking back at the Puppet Master, I was amazed to see a large crack running from his cheek, down his neck and across the top of his chest, which was now exposed by his torn and gaping shirt.

  ‘Oh! He’s hollow!’ said one small boy, in a voice squeaky from not having been used for so long.

  ‘There’s nothing to him,’ said Jenny. ‘All this time, and he was just like a puppet himself. He’s all empty!’

  They were right. The Puppet Master’s chest had cracked wide open and he was hollow inside, as empty as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. But, hollow or not, the evil thing was still able to scramble to his feet and, stepping forward on his long, spindly legs, he came after me. HELP!

  The hollow Puppet Master marched towards me like Frankenstein’s monster. I was sprawled, winded, in front of the stalagmite, with nowhere to run. Just a few more steps and he would be on me. I had to do something.

  One step … Think, Charlie, think!

  Two steps … What had I got in my rucksack that might help me?

  Three steps … I had no ideas at all!

  Four steps … And then, all of a sudden, it came to me – I thrust my hand deep into my rucksack and pulled out the animal trap I had taken from Trapper Blane’s hut. I forced the jaws open until the spring loader clicked, and in one movement I sent it skidding across the ice, just as the Puppet Master’s foot came down.

  CRACK! The jaws slammed together. The Master didn’t feel a thing, but his hollow leg crumpled and he c
rashed to the floor once more, this time shattering like a porcelain vase into a thousand pieces. A puff of stale smoke rose from the shattered husk of his body, like the remains of an evil spell.

  The Puppet Master’s empty head, still intact, rolled across the floor and came to a halt beside me. His eyes swivelled in their sockets to look up at me.

  ‘Charlie Small,’ he hissed once, and then his eyelids closed, and his face collapsed into a pile of crumbs.

  Now that the Puppet Master had gone, all the remaining puppets were becoming children once again. The hard shells that had imprisoned them for so long simply dissolved away. The children unhooked their strings, dropped to the floor, and poured out of the caravan into the cave.

  ‘Hooray!’ they cried when they realized the Puppet Master had gone. ‘Yahoo!’ As they cheered, the forest of stalactites overhead shook and shivered, clinking like huge chandeliers.

  ‘Sssh!’ I said. ‘Don’t yell, or we’ll have that lot down on us and we’ll all be speared to the ground.’ The children fell silent.

  ‘Now, let’s get out of here,’ I whispered.

  I grabbed my rucksack, and as the roof of the Icicle Arch rattled and clinked, we made for the opening. Snow was now falling as we ran out of the arch and across the ice, reducing visibility to just a few metres.

  ‘We’ve done it!’ I cried, turning to the others. ‘We’re safe!’

  But not yet! Something grabbed me from behind. A strong hand covered my mouth and I felt a cold dagger tickling my throat.

  ‘Where’s my gold, Charlie Small?’ It was Joseph Craik, and he’d brought his cronies with him. ‘No tricks now, or I’ll gut you like a Christmas turkey.’