The Puppet Master

by Charlie Small

  Oh no, I couldn’t believe it! What was he doing here? After all my hard work and all our planning, we were no better off than when the Puppet Master was alive. I had failed.

  ‘It’s in there,’ I said angrily, pointing back into the Icicle Arch.

  ‘Don’t look so crestfallen, Charlie,’ smiled Craik. ‘Just look what I’ve got for you and your pals!’ With that, the thief-taker dropped a large leather hold-all onto the ground, opened the top and pulled out a series of folded metal struts, all joined together with strong elastic cords. As he unfolded them on the ground, they snapped and slotted together.

  What on earth was it? I wondered as he fixed a piece at right angles to the main upright and slotted it into a tripod of legs. I know that shape, I thought; now where have I seen it before? Then it dawned on me – I knew exactly what I was looking at. Oh no!

  ‘Pretty nifty eh?’ chuckled Craik. ‘I designed it myself. A good thief-taker should always be prepared, and I did promise you that I would see you hang. I call it the Port-a-Noose! Now, when I come back with my gold, I’ll let you and your pals have a go on it!’

  No, no, no! I thought. This couldn’t be happening. Now we were all facing the gallows!

  ‘You guard this lot, Shirley,’ said the greedy thief-taker to the biggest thug in his gang.

  ‘Shirley!’ I exclaimed. ‘Isn’t that a girl’s name?’

  ‘No it’s not,’ yelled the thug. ‘It’s a boy’s name as well, so just you watch it, clever clogs!’

  ‘Oooh! Touchy!’

  ‘Pipe down, you,’ growled Craik, raising his dagger to my throat once again. ‘If this one causes any trouble, Shirley, then unbutton his belly.’ He pushed me roughly towards his pal and then, beckoning the rest of his men to follow, he ran under the Icicle Arch.

  ‘This way, lads. Look at that golden glow! There must a fortune back there. What are we waiting for, mates? Let’s go!’

  They disappeared between the great stalagmites and stalactites that glowed with the yellow light from the Puppet Master’s stash of gold. Soon their voices were lost in the depths of the cave.

  The other children looked at me expectantly, but I was all out of ideas. Then, without any warning, Jenny took a deep breath and, like an opera singer, sang a note so high and clear that it cut through the air like a knife. What was she doing? Had she gone completely mad? We all stared at her, but she continued her high-pitched screech; and then as I heard the stalactites in the arch start to rattle, I realized what she was doing!

  She ran out of breath, took a huge gulp of air and sang again, this time even louder.

  ‘Argh! Stop!’ cried Shirley, clamping his hands to his ears. ‘That hurts!’ But Jenny ignored him and the rattling of the stalactites grew louder and louder; then one by one they started to crack and shatter, falling to the ground like a thousand knives!

  ‘Help!’ Craik cried from deep inside the cave. The icicle spears fell in great swathes, slicing into the frozen ground below. ‘Help!’

  Now the whole icy archway started to shake and rumble, and as Jenny’s clear note continued to cut through the air, the whole mighty edifice collapsed in a roar and a huge cloud of snow. Craik’s gang was gone, and the ground shook with a huge aftershock! We all stared at Jenny in disbelief.

  ‘I used to be in the school choir,’ she said bashfully.

  ‘What have you done?’ cried Shirley. ‘Where’s the boss gone?’

  He rushed towards the Icicle Arch, which was now just a large heap of snow. ‘Boss, come back. Don’t leave me here with all these ’orrible urchins. Boss!’

  There was no reply, just the sound of the wind blowing across the snow flats. Shirley turned back to us and, pulling a heavy club from his coat pocket, advanced towards Jenny and me.

  ‘You knew that was going to happen!’ he cried. ‘You did that on purpose, and now you will pay the price.’

  The other children stepped forward to surround him and try to stop his advance, but the man just laughed. With a wide sweep of his stick, he knocked them down like a row of skittles. I only had one chance. Now it was my turn to hit the right note: I threw my head back and howled and howled again and again. Shirley stopped in surprise, but as my cries faded to silence, he took another step towards me.

  ‘Finished?’ he asked, sniggering. ‘I hope you feel better for that,’ and swinging his club, he lumbered forward, ready to strike. Just as the club was about to crash down on my skull, we all heard a low and throaty growl.

  Shirley span round, and there stood my friend Braemar, appearing from the snow-filled air like a ghostly apparition. All along a snowy ridge stood a huge pack of white wolves and, as one, they threw back their heads and howled at the sky. Craik’s toughest thug panicked, and dropping his club, he turned and ran, hurried on his way by the barks of the pack and the cheers of the children.

  Braemar ran and leaped forward, knocking me back into the snow and licking my face. I rubbed his fur in gratitude and relief.

  ‘Thank you, Braemar. It’s so good to see you again,’ I cried. ‘But what do we do now?’ For, although we had defeated the Puppet Master and got rid of Craik, we were still stuck out in the middle of nowhere.

  Braemar barked and the pack ran down the slope, each wolf going to a different child. Braemar turned to look at me and barked again. I knew exactly what he meant, and I climbed onto his strong, wide back.

  ‘Come on,’ I cried to the others. ‘We’re going home!’ They all scrambled up onto the high backs of the white wolves, and Jenny climbed up onto Braemar with me. With a mighty yelp, Braemar sprinted off across the snowy wastelands, followed by the whole howling pack.

  The sky is starting to grow light. I’ve been bringing my journal up to date, writing down all the ghastly adventures I had in the Puppet Master’s lair. Changing into a helpless dummy and being controlled by the monstrous Puppet Man was so scary that I hope I never experience anything like it again. But I have beaten him; with the help of my friends, I have beaten him and Joseph Craik. HOORAY!

  I’ve been staying at Granny Green’s shop for the last week, but now I’m getting ready to leave. Everyone has been very kind to me – too kind, really. I’m being treated like a hero. If I want anything, anything at all, I only have to ask and it’s mine. That’s why I have to go. If I stay here much longer, I may never want to leave, and I would never see my home again. Being a hero can be really difficult. Though at first, of course, I thought it was great!

  Like furry white arrows, we had darted across the wastelands on our wonderful wolves, not stopping for snowstorm or nightfall. When we reached the Slate Hills, the wolves separated, each wolf taking the child they were carrying to their home.

  As we galloped through the hills, we passed lines of other children, all on their way home. They too had been freed from their puppet prison when the Puppet Master was destroyed. They came from wherever the evil puppeteer had abandoned them. Whether it was the home for wayward children, the municipal dump or in a hedgerow at the side of some distant road, the children were on their way home at last.

  Jenny and I dashed into the market square on Braemar’s back, all of us howling at the tops of our voices! The villagers rushed out to see what all the fuss was and cried in delight when they saw Jenny. As the rest of the village’s missing children started to arrive, Braemar licked my hand once and, before I knew what had happened, he was gone.

  To cheers and applause, I followed Jenny as she rushed through the market square. Throwing open the door of the ironmonger’s shop, she stopped, feeling awkward now she was finally home. Her grandmother became aware of the figure standing in the doorway. Granny Green’s eyes filled with tears as she held out a shaking hand. The young girl rushed into her arms and they hugged and kissed and cried and calmed each other and cried again and didn’t let go for a long, long time.

  When Granny Green turned to look at me, I knew I had become a hero. Something, surely, that every boy would want to be, and I was no exception!

 
But believe me, being somebody’s hero is not all it’s cracked up to be.

  The old woman was so pleased to have her granddaughter back that she insisted I stay with them. I was given the best room in the house and bought a new set of clothes, and after the rest of the town’s children had found their way home, I could have anything I wanted. I only had to look at a toy, or a hunting knife, or a slab of bread pudding in a shop window, and immediately the grateful shopkeeper would run outside and present me with it. I was treated like royalty, and that, I’m afraid, was the problem.

  I had become so famous and popular so quickly that I was in danger of becoming a bighead. My fame spread throughout the Slate Hills and beyond. I was a celebrity, a superstar, and everywhere I went, crowds followed and cheered and girls screamed my name.

  I was invited to banquets arranged in my honour, and I was interviewed for all the newspapers. It was great: I was famous and I loved it. I even forgot about trying to get home. Perhaps I should stick around, I thought, and live the life of luxury.

  Then one day a big-shot businessman from a neighbouring town offered me a million-dollar recording contract. He hadn’t even heard me sing! I knew I had a voice like a rusty door hinge, but the man said that it didn’t matter.

  ‘We’ve got to strike while the iron is hot, Charlie,’ he said. ‘Soon you’ll be yesterday’s news.’

  It was only when I heard myself say, ‘I’m sorry, but a million’s just not enough …’ that I knew I had turned into a bigheaded twit. It was time to go before I made a complete fool of myself, and before Jenny, her grandmother and the whole village grew to resent me.

  So now that the night is heading towards dawn; now that I’ve finished writing up my adventures and Jenny and Granny Green are still fast asleep, I’m going to creep downstairs, collect my rucksack and go.

  I have written a brief note to the old woman and her granddaughter. I didn’t know how to thank them for all their kindness, so I simply wrote:

  Lifting the latch on the shop door, I scampered across the square and disappeared into the alleyways that would lead me back to the open countryside and the chance of finding my own way home.

  NO, NO, NO! It’s all gone horribly wrong again!

  I’m writing this in the shadows cast by a roaring campfire. My feet are tied tight with a thick lasso and my rucksack is too far away to get at my hunting knife and cut myself free. A coffee pot is bubbling away on the fire, and in the shadows on the other side, noisily eating his bean supper, is my captor. I can’t believe I’ve got myself into another jam; and the day had started out so well …

  The sun was up and it was a beautiful, clear morning. Just right for adventuring! I sucked in the crisp, clean air, whistling to keep myself company as I walked. I had no idea which way was home and could only press on, hoping that sooner or later I would recognize some familiar landmark and make my way from there. But the landscape was as strange to me as the jungle had been when I first started out on my daring escapades, and I wandered aimlessly across the rolling hills.

  After some miles the landscape started to change, becoming more rugged. Deep and jagged craters had been cut into the sides of the hills, and I realized that I was passing through an area of abandoned mine-works. Rusted pitheads stood silhouetted against the sky on top of high, scarred peaks. Huge, empty quarries that had grassed over long ago, dropped away on either side, and I found myself walking the narrow ridge between two of them.

  The path that I was on became treacherous, and I whistled louder to give myself the confidence to carry on. My feet skidded, sending showers of scree sliding down the steep slopes to the quarry floor below. I knew that if I slipped, I would be cut to ribbons on the sharp stones that covered the quarry sides.

  Take it steady, I told myself as the ridge started to get narrower. I got down on all fours and started to crawl, grabbing at stones that shifted and fell under my weight. I had stopped whistling now, using all my concentration to stay on top of the crumbling ridge.

  Looking ahead, I could see the thin path snake out over a deep quarry to a wall of cliffs on the far side. The rock supporting the path had collapsed in the middle, so that it formed a bridge over the void below; a bridge that was no wider than my shoe. I had to stand up again, arms outstretched like a tightrope walker, and edge across, my feet feeling for the thin cord of rock.

  Help! I thought as the wind blew, and I wobbled above the chasm, sweat trickling into my eyes.

  The thin rock bridge beneath my feet began to crumble, shards of stone dropping into the void below. I had no choice but to go on, hoping and praying that the bridge would hold and that I wouldn’t slip and fall into the rocky pit.

  Eventually I made it. I scrambled across the last few feet of rock, jumped up onto the safety of the quarry’s cliff top, and collapsed. Panting and shaking, I waited to get my breath back. Then, checking that I still had my rucksack, I marched off across the stony peak.

  ‘Safe at last!’ I cried, my voice echoing back from the slab-sided hills and the cavernous quarry depths.

  BUT

  THEN IT

  HAPPENED …

  With a crack-like thunder, the earth beneath my feet opened up and a huge fracture, like a bolt of lightning, snaked across the ground.

  ‘Aaargh!’ I fell into the crevice, landing on a slope of loose stones that slid away beneath me. Down I went, rolling and tumbling, until the sides of the fracture were towering above me.

  As I looked up, the sky seemed no more than a thin blue line. Ahead was just dust and debris, and I seemed to slide and roll for ages, until … BUMP! I reached the base of the slope and came to a stop.

  Looking back, I could see that I had rolled down a huge crevice that formed a gorge between two cliff walls. The ground beneath me was dusty and scrubby, and I was just about to get up and dust myself down, when I heard a familiar click behind my left ear.

  ‘Where d’ya think you’re goin’, boy?’ asked a soft voice. I turned around carefully, with my arms raised, and found myself staring down the barrel of a Colt .45.

  ‘Oh, shucks! It’s a bad day for you, boy,’ smiled the young man, staring back at me with his clear blue eyes. ‘You’ve just barged into the camp of Wild Bob France, the most wanted outlaw in the whole of the wild west!’

  Oh no! What am I going to do now?

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is where the third journal ends.