Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms

by Lissa Evans

  “I’ve got another threepence with me,” he said, forcing the words out. “It’s okay.”

  She swallowed again. “Look, why don’t I go and open the window in the bathroom while you’re doing that?” she suggested. “At least I can try and be a bit useful.” He heard her footsteps leaving.

  “April!” he called out.

  “What?”

  Stuart took a deep breath. “The window was too high up for me,” he said. “But I think you’ll be able to reach it.”

  “Okay.” Her footsteps disappeared.

  Stuart inspected the try-your-strength machine. It looked straightforward enough. You hit the iron mushroom with a mallet and a small weight was sent whizzing up a vertical groove toward the bell. The mallet looked enormous. He tried to lift it, but it was held in place by a metal catch.

  He rested the flashlight on top of the toffee dispenser so that it cast a clear light onto the strength machine and then he pushed threepence into the slot. There was a click as the metal catch fell away. Easing the mallet off its hook, he tried a couple of practice swings and did some deep breathing to get his strength up. “Right,” he said to himself.

  He took off his jacket, drew another deep breath, lifted the mallet, and at the exact moment that he began to swing it, there was a sudden movement in the shadows to his left. Startled, he half turned, and the weight of the mallet threw him off balance, and he staggered back a step and then sat down very hard on the iron mushroom.

  It bounced slightly, and there was a pathetic ding from the machine. Beside the coin slot, a little drawer shot out of the mechanism. Stuart reached for it, but another hand got there first—a large but slender hand, with polished nails and a bandaged thumb.

  “Goodness me,” said Jeannie, taking a card the size of a bus ticket out of the drawer. “Whatever is this?”

  CHAPTER 23

  Stuart’s heart seemed to stop. The flashlight rolled off the toffee dispenser and bounced across the floor. For a moment, all was darkness, and then from over his shoulder another flashlight clicked on, illuminating Jeannie. She was standing just in front of him holding the card. On the back of it, in large black letters, was printed the word WEAKLING!

  “So tell me,” said Jeannie conversationally. “What is the significance of this little object?”

  “I don’t know,” Stuart answered truthfully, his voice not much more than a squeak. “Can I have it back?” he added, reaching out a hand.

  “Not yet.” She frowned as she read something on the other side of the card. “It’s all very puzzling. And I presume that you’ve also been interfering with these other machines?”

  “No,” lied Stuart.

  Jeannie stooped into the shadows, and when she straightened up again she was holding his jacket. Stuart made a grab for it. She snatched it out of his reach. “Clifford!” she called.

  Stuart looked around and saw the dazzle of a flashlight beam, and then felt his wrists grabbed from behind. Almost immediately they were released again, but now, somehow, he couldn’t pull his hands apart; his index fingers seemed to be stuck together behind his back, and the more he struggled the more tightly they were linked.

  “That’s better,” said Jeannie. “Very well done, Clifford. You’re well on your way to a distinction in grade two.” She lowered Stuart’s jacket again, felt in the pockets, and took out the little tin case. “Top Marks Tire Repair Kit,” she read.

  “That’s mine,” said Stuart.

  Jeannie ignored him and opened the lid. “Glue, sandpaper, and a rubber patch,” she said, disgustedly. She snapped the lid shut again. “Where’s your little friend?” she asked.

  “What friend?”

  “The girl with the glasses, who obviously thinks she’s rather clever. Wrongly, since it didn’t occur to her that Clifford was acting as a rather obvious decoy. I was able to observe your fence-climbing activities at my leisure, and then follow you to the museum in my car. Anyway, where is she?”

  “She got scared,” Stuart fibbed. “She wanted to go home, so I said okay.”

  He was feeling scared himself, though he tried not to show it.

  “When we met at my factory,” said Jeannie, “I distinctly remember asking you to come to me if you found out anything useful about your uncle’s workshop. What I don’t remember saying is, ‘Please arrange a secret meeting with Leonora.’”

  “It wasn’t secret,” said Stuart.

  “It’s the ingratitude I can’t bear.” Jeannie’s voice rose in anger. “When I first met that sad old thing, she was trying to sell Grave Street and not getting any buyers because it was a crumbling wreck. Typical teacher, you see—no money, no business acumen. She’d saved nothing for her old age. She didn’t have the faintest idea of the true value of what she had.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Stuart.

  “All your great-uncle’s early tricks—the bird cage, the money box, the finger trap—were simply collecting dust on her coffee table. Ingenious, beautiful objects left lying around, unpatented. I’m a businesswoman, Stuart. If I see an opportunity, I grasp it. I took the house off Leonora’s hands, bought up the old factory site at the bottom of the yard, built a warehouse on it, gave her a lovely rent-free flat in the basement, and began to manufacture your uncle’s inventions. The business took off like a rocket. You’d think she’d be grateful, wouldn’t you? You’d think she’d be unlikely to sneak off behind my back and give information to a small and nosy boy? I tried to have a conversation with her today, but it wasn’t satisfactory. Old people can be so stubborn, and that dog is surprisingly vicious.” Broodingly, she rubbed the bandage that covered her thumb. “However,” she added, “I have a feeling that you might be able to tell me rather more than she did.”

  Stuart said nothing.

  Jeannie leaned toward him so that her face was close to his, and when she spoke again her voice was quiet and reasonable. “Let’s be sensible about this,” she said. “What would you do with that workshop if you found it? I can make use of it. I transformed a few little tricks into an empire of magic. Just think of what I could do with that feast of illusions. No foreign counterfeiters could possibly copy those.”

  She held out the card and the bicycle tire repair kit. “I believe that you’re following a trail of some kind, Stuart, and if you can tell me what these objects signify, then I’d be very grateful. And generous—I’d be ever so generous. How about a lovely new bike, for a start?” She smiled.

  Stuart shook his head, and her smile disappeared. Jeannie straightened up again, her face rigid, her uninjured hand gripping the card and the little tin. “Let’s go, shall we?”

  Stuart felt Clifford grasp his shoulders and begin to march him across the room. “Where are you taking me?” he asked, his voice rising.

  “No need to shout,” said Jeannie. “We’re going somewhere secluded to have a chat about your findings so far.”

  “Let me go!”

  “No.”

  “My mom and dad’ll be worried.”

  “What a pity. You should have thought of that before you broke into a public building after dark.”

  Her voice was calm, but there was an edge to it, and Stuart felt his breathing tighten with fear. He tried to shake himself free, but the grip on his shoulders was too strong. One by one—Stuart first, then Clifford, then Jeannie—they passed through the narrow doorway into the room with the tools and farm animals. As the flashlight beam leaped across the walls Stuart saw a shadow move to his left. It was a slow, rather elegant movement, like the spoke of a wheel spinning around, and in an instant he knew what it was. He coughed loudly to cover the thud of a wagon wheel hitting a large fake cow, and then he went boneless, dropping like a stone. Clifford stumbled over him, and there was an exclamation from Jeannie as she banged into the back of her student.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake! Now I’ve dropped that card,” she said impatiently. “And please stand up, Stuart. Behaving like a toddler is not going to help you in any—” And
then she shrieked as a giant fake blacksmith swooned out of the darkness, a vast hammer in his hand. In the chaos, Stuart found himself momentarily free and he rolled into the deep shadow and staggered to his feet, hands still linked behind his back.

  “Bathroom!” he heard April hiss. He heard the patter of her feet ahead of him, and her flashlight blinked just once, showing the way to the next room. He followed, zigzagging from one flashlight blink to the next, lurching against exhibits, stumbling through doorways, until April doubled back and took his elbow, dragging him along with her. Stuart could hear the rapid click of Jeannie’s heels now, walking swiftly just a room or two behind.

  “Here,” whispered April, shoving Stuart through the door into the bathroom. “I found a ladder in the janitor’s room,” she added. “I’ll go first.”

  She scampered up the stepladder to the high window and disappeared. He could hear the thud of her feet hitting the ground outside. Stuart followed, sticking his head and shoulders through the open window and then coming to a halt, his stomach lodged on the windowsill, his feet waving.

  April dragged a bin across, climbed on it, grasped the neck of his sweatshirt and pulled. Stuart barely had time to cry out before belly-flopping into a bush. From inside, he heard the crash of the ladder, which he must have kicked over as he fell. April helped haul him to his feet, and then sprinted.

  Stuart headed after her, but nearly fell three times in the first hundred yards. “Can’t balance. Got to undo my hands,” he gasped. He knelt down in the gap between two parked cars and tried to tug his fingers apart.

  “Let me see,” said April, stopping and crouching beside him. She gave his hands a wrench and he yelled out.

  “What are you trying to do, break my fingers?”

  “I can’t understand it,” she said. “There’s a shiny metal tube, and you’ve got a finger in both ends. Just pull.”

  “I’m pulling.”

  “Pull harder.”

  “I can’t. It hurts. It—” And then he stopped talking as he heard a noise and saw a light.

  Not footsteps, but a siren and the screech of brakes.

  Not a flashlight, but the spinning blue lamp of a police car.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Get under here!” hissed April, crawling beneath the parked van next to them. Stuart wriggled after her, like a caterpillar. From his new viewpoint, his chin an inch or so above the road, he could see the tires of the police car, the door opening, the feet of a policeman getting out. There was a momentary pause, and then another pair of feet, clad in smart high heels, appeared in view.

  “Good evening, Officer,” came Jeannie’s voice.

  “Oh, hello, Miss Carr. I didn’t expect to see you here.” The policeman sounded both surprised and rather respectful. It was as if Jeannie were someone quite important. “We got a call from a local resident who spotted lights in the museum,” said the policeman.

  “As did I,” Jeannie lied. “I was about to call you. I think some vandals must have forced their way in.”

  “They had trouble yesterday too,” said the policeman. “A small boy smashed up the Victorian farm room.”

  “Shocking,” said Jeannie, sounding shocked. “My student Clifford’s gone to investigate—shall we join him?”

  The two sets of feet disappeared from view.

  “We should get out of here,” whispered April.

  “I still can’t move my fingers, they’re trapped, they’re …” In a trap, thought Stuart. A Fiendish Finger Trap—and what was it that Leonora had said? The more you try to free yourself, the firmer you stick. … Instead of pulling he pushed, and instantly the grip loosened. He eased his fingers out, one at a time. “Okay, let’s go,” he said.

  They ran, trying to keep to the side streets, silent apart from their sneakers slapping on the sidewalk. They’d almost reached Beech Road, when April suddenly snorted.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Stuart, breathless.

  She slowed to a stop, doubled over, and snorted again.

  “Is it asthma?” asked Stuart.

  April shook her head, and he suddenly realized that she was laughing helplessly. “I just can’t stop thinking about that blacksmith,” she said between snorts. “Waving a hammer at Jeannie. That was Jeannie, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Stuart, glancing around anxiously. The street was empty.

  “She just looked like—”April pulled a mad face, and then let out a sort of neigh of laughter.

  “Shhh!” said Stuart.

  “Sorry.” She crouched down and took some deep breaths.

  “It’s serious,” said Stuart.

  “I know.” She looked up at him and made a face again, and he heard himself begin cackling like a nutcase.

  It was a minute or two before he managed to speak again. “She took the clues,” he said.

  “What were they?”

  “Well, the first one was a little tin with glue, sandpaper, and a rubber patch inside.”

  “Did it say anything on the tin?”

  “Top Marks Tire Repair Kit.”

  “Well, that’s completely obvious,” said April, standing up again, snapping back to her usual organizing self. “When people get top marks they get ten out of ten, don’t they? So if the first number of the safe combination is twelve—a dozen toffees in every bag—then the second must be ten. So what’s the third?”

  “I don’t know. A little card came out of the try-your-strength machine, but Jeannie wouldn’t let me read it. And then she fell over Clifford and dropped it somewhere.”

  “So the card might still be in the museum,” said April keenly. “We can go and look tomorrow morning. Or, rather, I can go and look, because they’ll throw you out if they see you. And if it isn’t there, then we can still have a go at the safe. There’s only one missing number now, so there’s a maximum of twenty-nine combinations we’d have to try and it wouldn’t take long to do that.

  “Now, your great-uncle’s house is being demolished on Monday, so it’ll have to be before then. How about tomorrow afternoon? Or evening? Or early Sunday morning? Of course, we’ll have to make sure that we’re not followed again, but I’ve just had a really good idea about that. Do you want to hear it?”

  Stuart felt exhausted. Didn’t she ever stop bossing people around? “Not right this second,” he said a bit grumpily. “Tomorrow will do. We’ve got the whole weekend.”

  “Oh.” She looked disappointed. “Okay. It is pretty late, I suppose. We ought to be getting home.”

  They jogged back to where they’d hidden the kitchen stool and quickly scaled the six fences between the alleyway and Stuart’s backyard.

  “Okay,” said Stuart. “Bye, then.” He had almost reached the back door when two things occurred to him. The first was that his parents would be expecting him to come in by the front door, and the second was that April had invented the plan, got him into the museum, saved him from Jeannie, and then got him safely out again.

  “April!” he called.

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “And, April?”

  “Yes?”

  “My mom and dad will be expecting me in by the front door.”

  “Just tell them you climbed over our back fence for fun,” said April.

  “Oh. Okay.” She really was irritatingly clever.

  He let himself into the house, shouted “hello” to his parents, and then opened the fridge and started to eat everything that wasn’t either raw or made of vegetables.

  It wasn’t until he was lying in bed that he started to think about the clues again. Something kept nagging away at the back of his mind, something about the toffee machine. Or was it about the bingo hall? Or was it about that old lady who’d been dressed entirely in blue? If only someone would stop saying, “Stuart, wake up,” in his ear, then he’d be able to remember what it was.

  “Stuart, wake up!” said the voice again.

  He opened his e
yes. Light was creeping around the edge of the curtains and his mother was standing beside his bed, fully dressed.

  His father’s head appeared over her shoulder. “Dawn salutations to our esteemed offspring!” he said. His father had a hat on. The straw hat that he only ever wore on vacation.

  “What’s happening?” asked Stuart.

  His mother sat on the edge of the bed and ruffled his hair. “We’ve not spent much time as a family lately,” she said, “and I’m sorry. I think it’s been pretty miserable for you, moving to a new town and not knowing anybody. You’ve not been your old self. So we thought we should have a long weekend away and do something lovely together. I spent all yesterday arranging it as a surprise.”

  “A long weekend?” repeated Stuart, struggling to understand. “So you mean we won’t get back to Beeton until …?”

  “Monday lunchtime,” said his mother. “So get dressed, have a quick breakfast, and we’re off! The taxi comes in half an hour.”

  “By noon we shall be breathing West Country air,” added his father unhelpfully.

  They closed the door and left Stuart sitting open-mouthed.

  The house, he thought.

  Great-Uncle Tony’s house is going to be knocked down on Monday morning.

  CHAPTER 25

  Stuart got dressed so fast that he put his T-shirt on inside out, and then he galloped down the stairs and opened the front door. He ran onto the sidewalk barefoot and looked up at April’s house. Every curtain was closed. He picked up a pebble to throw at the window and then hesitated. What if he woke up the wrong triplet?

  He dashed back into the house, grabbed some paper, and then for a moment he hesitated with the pen in his hand. This had been his adventure, his great-uncle, his clues, his inheritance. Could he really bear to hand it over to someone else? And then he thought of Leonora, who had been waiting for fifty years to find out what had happened to her sister. And he wrote: