The Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop
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Eventually he got back to his seat - and the seats were very plush crimson velvet, matching the heavy crimson velvet curtains which hung across the stage. As they watched, the curtains slowly opened, revealing a large sign which read, ‘The Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop’. It shone iridescent in the purple light. It looked amazing.
The pantomime was in fact based on a true story; and it was indeed a funny story and an amazing one, but the story had actually happened.
The audience watched in awe as large buildings appeared in front of them. In the first scene they saw the Sands of Time Hotel with its revolving glass doors and a large iridescent Sands of Time egg timer in the hallway. The hotel was situated in the Bayswater area, and there was a zebra crossing at the corner of the street. There wasn’t heavy traffic, but there was a steady flow.
Two American tourists were standing outside the hotel - Cynthia and Tobias Chimes. They had decided to go to Stonehenge, which was a place they had always wanted to go to, and they were waiting for a taxi to take them there. They looked left and then right to see if the taxi was on its way; and then Cynthia looked left again and noticed a shop. It was not just any shop, but the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop. They both rushed back into the hotel through the revolving doors, where the hotel owner, Claude Monet, a Frenchman dressed in a beret and typical French clothes, was concentrating on painting a picture on his easel. The painting looked extremely brilliant, just like a famous artist’s painting, and, strangely enough, it was of the street outside. Claude was splashing on the colour, using a palette with every colour you can imagine on it. In the painting the audience could clearly see the front of the hotel and the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop beside it.
Tobias asked Claude Monet if he’d ever seen the shop before. He didn’t say he had seen it, and he didn’t say he hadn’t seen it; he said he’d seen a lot of strange things - even upside-down rain - in London. He told them they should take a look inside the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop instead of going to Stonehenge, as they could go to Stonehenge on another day. He said he was sure Stonehenge wasn’t about to disappear - he knew it was a very magical place, but he had never heard of it disappearing.
The Laugherty family ate their popcorn and drank their lemonade, shuffled in their seats and became engrossed in the pantomime. It actually seemed as if it was actually happening, or as if it had actually happened.
On the stage the two American tourists had rushed into the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop.
Daisy and Oliver felt sure they had seen the shop somewhere before, and Patrick and Penelope also felt they’d seen it somewhere before.
The shopkeeper, whose name was Mabble Merlin, was dressed in a Victorian suit - the kind of suit that was fashionable in the 1860s.
The Laugherty family couldn’t take their eyes off the stage. They were mesmerised. The shop was full to the brim with all sorts of things, including what looked like antiques from hundreds of years ago and things that looked as though they came from thousands of years ago, and things that looked as though they came from the age of the dinosaur. There were things from every century and every planet and they all looked as good as new, without scratches. Nothing was in need of repair. Everything was old, but looked as though it had just been made.
Suddenly Daisy and Oliver got a shock. They noticed a cat in the shop window, and it looked almost exactly like Mog Og. The only thing different was that its fur kept changing colour, from grey to black to stripy, to tortoiseshell, to ginger, to white, to black-and-white, to brown. Luckily it didn’t change to blue or pink or red or orange or purple, and it didn’t change to green. When it finally changed back to grey, it looked exactly like Mog Og.
Unknown to the Laugherty family, it actually was Mog Og.
The Lemonade family laughed so much at the cat changing colour that they nearly fell off their seats. If they had known it was Mog Og, the Laugherty family’s silly cat, they would definitely have fallen off their seats.
Mog Og couldn’t think what on earth he was doing in the shop window of the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop. When he looked out through the window of the shop, he could see all the people in their seats in the theatre. He felt weird! He thought he was probably dreaming.
He looked up and saw an owl in a tree, so he decided to ask the owl in the tree. He had a feeling he’d seen the owl before, and it came into his head that the owl would know anything he asked.
“Have you any idea what I’m doing in this shop window?” he asked.
“You’re in a Christmas pantomime, Mog Og. You’re a hero, and now you’re a star too, and everyone’s come to the pantomime to see you. You’re a magical cat, and that’s why your fur keeps changing colour.”
“Well, surely it’s just a dream, isn’t it, Mr Owl? I was just at home in front of the log fire. I was on the fluffy rug dreaming - or actually, I think I was talking to someone, but I can’t recall who.”
“It was the magical fairy, Pumby Ely Fuddles, who was sitting on the top of the Christmas tree. She used her magical powers to magic you here along with all of the clocks.”
“Along with all of the clocks! You mean George Midnight, the grandfather clock; and Milly Paris, the French clock; and London Melody, the picture clock; and Jasmine Feathersprings; and the Australian clock, Polly Quazar?”
“Yes, and even Omega Horizon and the other wristwatches, if they were doing nothing. Pumby Ely Fuddles wanted to use her magical powers to magic all of you here to make you all stars. She wanted you to see your name in lights - and now you all have! It’s a wish come true.
Now Cynthia and Tobias were in the shop and Mabble Merlin was offering to take them on the trip of a lifetime.
Mabble Merlin pressed a button, and the Laugherty family saw the shop till disappear and a control panel popped up. They saw Cynthia and Tobias sitting in reclining seats and they heard Mabble Merlin asking them where they wanted to go. Tobias decided to go to the year 1533, and the audience saw the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop lift into the air and whizz off into the night sky, making a strange beeping and gurgling sound as it went.
Everyone in the audience went, “Wow!”
The shop zoomed through outer space and then the stars of the cosmos appeared as the shop floated through deep space. Then the ‘spacers’, Xanadu and Galaxy, appeared on a plasma screen above the control panel and offered refreshments to Cynthia and Tobias and Captain Mabble Merlin.
After the shop had gone through deep space and through a wormhole it eventually arrived in Tudor times in the year 1533. When the lights came up on the stage, the audience saw the amazing accommodation above the shop, and the next scene showed the wedding of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. The audience watched, mesmerised, and they were very sad when Anne Boleyn had to be cloned because King Henry wanted to chop her head off.
The funniest scene was the pie fight with the Four Just Men. One of the pies hit someone in the audience, but the audience all clapped and thought it was hilarious. They thought the wedding was funny too - how they danced to the Beatles music and other funky tunes - and the audience wondered if anyone would notice Tobias taking photographs all the time.
The Travellers Return
Although Cynthia and Tobias felt as though they were in Tudor times for a few years (from 1533 until 1536), when the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop came back it had really only been gone for a few hours, or so it seemed! For Mog Og and the clocks it seemed like an even shorter time than that.
The Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop beamed itself back to the year 2010, bringing with it Cynthia and Tobias, the twelve musicians and the real Anne Boleyn.
Cynthia and Tobias were glad to be back. In a little way they had really enjoyed Tudor times, but they wouldn’t have liked to live without running water and power showers and toilets and plasma televisions and telephones and all life’s other luxuries, like duvets
and feather pillows. It was OK for the trip of a lifetime, but they were glad to be back.
All of a sudden, in the Petticoat Theatre, all of the clocks and Mog Og started to sing:
“On the twelfth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me ...”
The twelve musicians from King Henry’s court started to sing along and play their musical instruments, and Anne Boleyn started to sing along too. Cynthia and Tobias joined in:
“On the first day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree.”
And the twelve musicians sang:
“On the second day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree.”
And Mog Og sang along, and all the clocks joined in, and the Laugherty family hummed along to the song, and so did the Lemonade family, and all the audience joined in. They thought it was an excellent evening - and an amazing pantomime! They didn’t know which part they loved the most.
The Butler Knows Something
Miles went into the living room and then the dining room and then the kitchen and hallway to make sure the house was clean and tidy for Christmas Day. Before the family returned from the pantomime, strangely enough, he realised Mog Og was missing from the fluffy rug where he had been sleeping five minutes before.
He then discovered that George Midnight was missing, and soon after that he found that all the clocks were missing.
Suddenly Pumby Ely Fuddles, the Christmas fairy, appeared in the middle of the room. She looked very pretty, with her long, dark hair tumbling down her back and her pretty pink dress with feathers at the hem and her pretty silvery-pink wings and sky-blue eyes. Pumby waved her silver wand and sprinkled fairy dust over Miles.
Miles wanted to tell the fairy that the clocks and Mog Og were missing. He tried to speak, but she whispered, “I’m Pumby Ely Fuddles, a magical fairy with magical powers. Don’t worry, Miles. They’ll be back by midnight. You’ve been a very, very busy butler. Have a rest; put your feet up; lay your weary self in the leather armchair. The dusting has been done; the crockery is washed.” (Miles always rushed around, trying to get things prepared.)
Just before midnight all the clocks and Mog Og came back, as if by magic. Mog Og had really enjoyed being in the pantomime, and so had all the clocks.
The Laugherty family really enjoyed the pantomime. Daisy and Oliver enjoyed the pie fight the most, but Patrick and Penelope enjoyed the wedding the best.
Cynthia and Tobias enjoyed everything. They came out of the shop and went into the hotel next door - the Sands of Time Hotel. When they asked to book a room, Claude Monet said one had already been booked for them and their bags were in storage and their bill had been paid.
When the Laugherty family got back from the pantomime the clocks were all in their places, exactly as they left them. Well, not quite all: George Midnight had been a bit dented and he was a little to the left of where he normally stood, and London Melody was crooked. The other clocks had been crooked as well, but Miles had straightened them up before the Laugherty family came in.
When Miles woke up after his rest, he thought he’d had a lovely dream about the fairy on the Christmas tree.
Mog Og was glad to be back on the rug in front of the fire, and he was glad his fur wasn’t changing colour any more.
The Laugherty family told Miles they really enjoyed the pantomime, and they said it looked as though Mog Og and all the clocks were on stage, but Miles decided not to say much about his experience. He just told the Laugherty family that he had had a little glass of sherry and sat down for five minutes in the armchair and had a strange dream that the clocks and Mog Og went missing. He said he woke up startled as he thought it was real, but, when he went to check, everything was in its place, but just a little bit crooked.
“I was so relieved that it was just a dream,” said Miles to the Laugherty family.
The Laugherty family had thought the pantomime was spectacular, and they thought they would have an extra-special Christmas.
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