The Land of Neverendings

by Kate Saunders

  A sharp knock on the door made them jump. Emily’s mother was back from work and neither of them had noticed the time.

  Mum said, ‘Didn’t you hear me? I was knocking round the front for ages!’

  ‘Sorry, we got carried away,’ Ruth said. ‘We were talking about … er …’

  ‘My history homework,’ Emily said quickly. ‘Ruth was helping me.’ She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Her mother wasn’t exactly suspicious, but she looked at Emily rather oddly when they got home.

  ‘I’m glad you’re getting on so well with Ruth.’

  ‘She’s nice,’ Emily said.

  ‘Oh, I know she’s nice,’ Mum said. ‘But I didn’t expect to find the two of you gossiping like that – like you and Maze. Come to think of it, we haven’t seen Maze for ages – why don’t you ask her round on Saturday?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Emily hadn’t told her parents that Maze was no longer her best friend. ‘I’ll see how I feel.’

  *

  ‘I think there’s a very simple reason why people love the story of Alice in Wonderland,’ Ms Robinson said. ‘It’s about discovering a secret, magical world – and who hasn’t dreamed of doing that? Hands up everyone who checked the back of the wardrobe when they first read about Narnia!’ She raised her own hand, and there was a scatter of giggling. ‘When I was little, I made up a game called “Tableland”. My mother had to put a big cloth over the kitchen table, and then I’d crawl underneath and pretend that I’d slipped into another dimension – just like Alice falling down the rabbit hole.’

  It was the last lesson of the week, double English. And this afternoon they were in the assembly hall, where all the chairs had been cleared away to leave a vast expanse of empty floor. Emily had not been able to tune out, or to write in her Bluey book. This was the first official rehearsal for the end of term play, and Ms Robinson had kept them busy – she made them do the silly Caucus Race, in which everybody wins, and it had been so totally hilarious that they were all sitting or lying on the floor, exhausted from laughing.

  ‘That’s what I want the audience to think about when they see my version of the story,’ Ms Robinson went on. ‘And before I tell you who’s playing what, a word of warning – I’ll be using every single one of you, so if you don’t get a proper part, it doesn’t mean you won’t be working your little socks off!’

  There were more giggles at this, and a quickening of interest. Maze and Summer tossed their long hair and nudged each other smugly.

  ‘First of all, it won’t hang together without a really good narrator. As you’ll see when you get your copies of the Carla Robinson version, there are places where I split up the bits of storytelling. But there has to be a main voice – Summer Watson.’

  Maze let out a dramatic gasp; everyone had been so sure that Summer would be Alice. And Maze had fancied the main narrator for herself, to the point of deciding what she would wear.

  Ha-ha, serves them both right.

  Emily’s gaze drifted to the darkening sky outside the big windows. For the first time since Holly died, she was glad it was Friday. She couldn’t wait to get back to Barkstone Bygones to talk more about Smockeroon. Her own night had been disappointingly uneventful, but perhaps Ruth had seen something (or someone) else.

  She listened with half an ear while Ms Robinson gave out the rest of the cast list.

  ‘The White Rabbit – well, that has to be Martha Bishop, after her stunning performance in class the other day. The Red Queen – Maze Miller, I think you’ll enjoy shouting “Off with their heads!”’

  Everyone laughed at this, including Maze; both Maze and Summer were coming round to being pleased about the parts they had been given, but they were wild to know who would be playing Alice.

  ‘And finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for.’ Ms Robinson made a noise like a drum roll. ‘Ladies and – er – ladies, the part of Alice will be played by Emily Harding.’

  It took Emily several seconds to hear her own name, and to realise that the entire class was gaping at her in obvious surprise.

  Someone muttered, ‘Who?’

  Her cheeks burned. She looked over at Maze, and Maze looked back at her as if they had never met, with a horrible mixture of pity and scorn that made Emily’s stomach curdle.

  She had never been so glad to hear the bell.

  ‘Just a minute!’ Ms Robinson called. ‘You all have copies of my brilliant script – learn as many lines as you can!’

  The day was over. There was a burst of talking, and a rush to the stage, where they had piled their coats and backpacks.

  ‘Hey, well done!’ Martha gave her a friendly nudge. ‘You’ll be fantastic as Alice.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Emily said automatically, her head still spinning with the shock of it. ‘I’m glad you’re the White Rabbit.’

  Maze and Summer were muttering behind her, hardly even bothering to lower their voices.

  Emily caught the words: ‘… of course she can’t act. It’s just because her sister died.’

  Maze hissed, ‘Shhh!’

  ‘Don’t you shush me – you said it yourself!’

  Emily couldn’t stop the painful rush of tears and had to pretend she was fiddling with her bag so nobody would see her face. Maze had been her closest friend. She had known Holly and Bluey, and how special they were, and now she was talking like a stranger.

  The hall was emptying. Ms Robinson lingered beside the stage to gather up the stray pages of her script. Emily hurriedly wiped her eyes and went to help her.

  ‘Thanks,’ Ms Robinson said. ‘I hope I didn’t give you too much of a shock just now.’

  ‘Do you really think I can play Alice?’

  ‘Of course! You’ll be just right.’

  ‘It’s just that I’ve never really done any acting before. And I might be rubbish.’

  Ms Robinson gave her a look that was sharp, but also kind. ‘Oh, I see what this is – you think I gave you the main part out of pity, because of Holly?’

  Emily nodded, her throat aching again.

  ‘Well, you can put that out of your head right now. I’m not rewarding you for being related to a dead person. And it’s not because you’ve got blonde hair, either – I was a wonderful black Alice when I was at school. It was a major inspiration for Tableland.’

  ‘You played Tableland with Lenny, didn’t you?’

  ‘So you were listening after all. I never know how much you’re taking in. Yes, it was our favourite game.’ Ms Robinson shoved the last of the papers into her big bag. ‘I gave you the part of Alice because the audience needs her to be someone they can identify with, someone who can take them on the journey through the story.’ She chuckled softly. ‘Someone who’s never been in an ad for B&Q.’

  Six

  TROUBLE IN POINTED END

  THE DOORBELL RANG AT half past nine, while Emily and her parents were watching Masterchef on television.

  It was Ruth. ‘Sorry to bother you so late – could I borrow Emily for a moment? I need her help with something.’ She was trying to sound breezy and jolly but she was breathless, and her sagging brown cardigan was buttoned in the wrong holes. ‘Emily, would you mind?’

  Until then, it had been a very quiet Friday afternoon and evening. When Holly was alive, Emily had spent most of her Fridays with Maze. But Maze was at Summer’s house, and her former best friend was left to doze on the sofa between her silent mother and father.

  The panicky look in Ruth’s eyes woke Emily like a rush of cold air. The moment they were outside on the front path, she said, ‘You’ve seen something!’

  Ruth stopped pretending to be jolly and clutched at Emily’s hand. ‘I need you to tell me you can see it too.’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘Oh crikey – wait just a minute, let me get my breath …’ She halted a few feet away from her back door, panting as if she had been running. ‘I was upstairs in the sitting room and I swear I wasn’t asleep – and then all
of a sudden— Emily, what’s going on?’ Her voice dropped to a fearful whisper. ‘Why am I being haunted by my son’s old toys?’

  ‘Toys can’t haunt people,’ Emily said. ‘They don’t have ghosts.’

  A shiver ran through her; even as she said it, she wondered if the Bluey who lived in Deep Smockeroon counted as a ghost.

  ‘OK, I’m ready now.’ Ruth squared her shoulders bravely and opened her back door. ‘Come up as quietly as you can. I don’t want to scare them off.’

  The staircase in the ancient house was narrow and uneven. Emily followed Ruth, her heart fluttering with excitement. Inside the sitting room someone was talking – she couldn’t make out the words – and then there was a burst of cheering. Ruth opened the door with extra care, as if she expected it to bite her.

  The small sitting room was crowded with toys. They filled the sofa and the armchair, the top of the bookcase and the windowsill. There were bears of all shapes and colours, penguins large and small, several cuddly dinosaurs, a couple of giraffes and the soft puffin from the children’s corner at the bookshop. It was an extraordinary sight – these squashed and battered creatures fidgeting, laughing, whispering to each other. Emily had to blink several times before she recognised the toys who had held their choir practice in her bedroom. None of them took the slightest notice of the two humans.

  ‘You see?’ whispered Ruth.

  Hugo, perched on a cushion, was finishing off a speech, one flipper raised dramatically. ‘And if it won’t go by itself, we’ll have to throw things at it and tear its house down!’ (More cheers). ‘As your newly elected mayor, I will send that rascal a clear message – we don’t want your sort in Pointed End!’

  All the toys cheered loudly.

  ‘Hear hear!’ said Sister Pretty.

  ‘Can I take the bag off now?’ asked Sister Toop.

  ‘I suppose so, if you’re careful not to look too beautiful.’

  Emily knelt down on the carpet, to get closer to the toys. ‘Hi, Hugo.’

  ‘Ah, Emily!’ Hugo said. ‘You just missed my speech, but I’ll send you a copy. Hello, Ruth!’

  Ruth’s lips moved soundlessly and her eyes bulged with amazement.

  ‘More humans!’ snapped Sister Pretty. ‘You know I don’t like humans! How did we get here, anyway?’

  ‘It’s that door again,’ Smiffy said. ‘I bet that’s how you-know-who sneaked in!’

  This set a wave of agitation through the toys.

  Emily asked, ‘Who’s you-know-who?’

  ‘Settle down, everybody!’ shouted Hugo, his short, round body swelling importantly. ‘Let me explain. We’re the Pointed End Neighbourhood Watch, and we were having an emergency meeting.’

  ‘But that’s for guarding against crime!’ Emily’s dad was in the Barkstone Neighbourhood Watch, and she knew their meetings were mostly about things like security lights. ‘Toys can’t be criminals – can they?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Hugo said briskly. ‘The emergency is that a horrible toad has moved into our nice village and we were voting to chuck it out.’

  The toys murmured and muttered.

  ‘It’s evil!’ someone squeaked angrily.

  ‘It’s smelly!’ someone else called out.

  Smiffy said, ‘And it’s brought a banned substance into Smockeroon!’

  ‘Hang on …’ Emily’s head was swimming; now the soft bear sounded like her headmistress talking about drugs. ‘What banned substance?’

  All together, the toys shouted, ‘SADNESS!’

  ‘Of course,’ Ruth murmured, almost to herself.

  ‘But you left a message for the Sturvey,’ said Emily. ‘Hasn’t it done anything?’

  ‘No,’ said Hugo briskly. ‘I haven’t heard back from the Sturvey – I don’t know why. That phone must be playing up. So I decided to put it in writing.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Ruth. ‘What’s the address?’

  ‘Just “The Sturvey, Deepest Smockeroon”,’ said Smiffy. ‘Please don’t think we’re being mean about all toads – I know some really nice ones. But this toad is evil.’

  There was a sudden surge of glittering light, so bright that Emily and Ruth had to cover their eyes; when they could look again, the toys had vanished. It was just the two of them in an empty sitting room.

  A single sheet of paper floated gently towards the floor. Ruth snatched it in mid-air and held it out so that they could both read it.

  PerTIsHUN to the STURveY!

  GeT RiD OF thE EVIL TOAD!

  ‘Dear old Hugo,’ Ruth said quietly. ‘His terrible spelling made Danny laugh so much!’

  Emily said, ‘I hope the message gets through this time. That black toad doesn’t belong in Smockeroon.’

  What if it hurts Bluey?

  ‘And now the writing has disappeared – look!’ Ruth held up what was now a blank piece of paper. ‘What on earth is going on? Here we both are, wide awake and not crazy. So it must be some form of … magic.’

  ‘Magic!’ The word made Emily’s pulse jump. It meant that anything was possible. For a fraction of a second she remembered Holly so vividly that she could almost reach out and touch her warm, smooth hand.

  You’re so near – if only I knew where to look.

  ‘I don’t know what else to call it. Do you understand all the stuff about the broken door? Is it just one broken door – or lots of them?’

  ‘Hugo says it’s one door, at the bottom of his garden, which keeps taking them to the wrong places, so they never know where they’ll be coming out next,’ Emily said. ‘Could it be my fault, because I started dreaming about the toys? Or did I dream about them because they were there already?’

  Downstairs in the shop, three antique clocks began to chime.

  ‘You’d better get home now, before your parents think I’ve kidnapped you.’ Ruth rubbed her hair distractedly. ‘But please come straight round and let me know if you see anything else, even if it’s only a dream. The shop’s usually quiet on Saturday afternoons.’

  ‘We’ll probably be out tomorrow afternoon,’ Emily said. ‘It’s the Autumn Fair at the hospital.’

  *

  Holly had spent a lot of time at Bottleton General Hospital. It was a place they all knew only too well. Mum had often stayed there when Holly was very ill, sleeping beside her on a hard camp bed. Emily had practically grown up there – she remembered learning to crawl along the endless corridors, and riding her tricycle across the gravelled paths outside.

  Every year, the hospital held a big autumn fair to raise money. Emily had always looked forward to this event. There was a live band, a bouncy castle and great food, and Holly had loved sitting with Mum behind the tombola stall – she couldn’t see the strings of fairy lights, but she had been able to feel the thud-thud-thud of the music played by the band.

  Mum wasn’t involved with all the planning this year, but it never crossed Emily’s mind that they would not be going to the Autumn Fair. Only yesterday her mother had been talking brightly about ‘popping in for a cup of tea’.

  ‘But I can’t do it,’ Emily heard her saying to Dad on Saturday morning. ‘I know I won’t be able to bear it without her. I’m not ready to go back to the place where she died.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Dad said. ‘I’m sure Em will understand if we give it a miss.’

  They were using what Emily thought of as their ‘private’ voices – dark and soaked with sadness, no matter how hard they pretended everything was fine when they were talking to her.

  She assured them that she didn’t mind missing the Autumn Fair. It was mostly true. Maze and Summer would be there and Emily didn’t fancy hearing any more snide remarks about her acting.

  But it made for another very dull Saturday.

  Emily spent the morning updating her report in the Bluey book.

  The black toad has invaded Smockeroon.

  Hugo is the new mayor of Pointed End.

  The Sturvey is not answering messages.

  In the afternoo
n, suddenly longing to get out of the silent house, she went to Pauline’s to buy a bag of rice for supper (Dad was making his vegetarian chilli con carne – in the old days the fart siren would have gone berserk).

  Ruth had said the shop would be quiet, but the pavement outside Barkstone Bygones was blocked by three young mums with buggies, and another mum was carefully backing another buggy out of the door. Emily peered through the window and saw Ruth at the till, wrapping something for a man who was carrying a toddler in a frame on his back.

  Ruth saw Emily and beckoned to her to come inside. ‘Would you get me a brown loaf and some tea bags and milk? It’s been so frantic today that I haven’t had a chance to do any shopping.’ She added, raising her eyebrows significantly, ‘And I’ve made rather an interesting discovery.’

  Ruth had seen something else. Emily hurried to Pauline’s shop, now really glad she hadn’t gone to the Autumn Fair. Magic was far more exciting.

  The customers had gone by the time she got back.

  ‘Thanks, Emily.’ Ruth was sitting behind the till, writing busily in her ‘Sales’ book. ‘It’s been an odd sort of morning. One customer after another, and all squeezing in with their enormous baby buggies – more like Waterloo Station than a small antique shop!’

  Emily sat down in the old armchair beside the wood burner. The sagging cushions were blissfully comfortable and she liked the musty smell of the threadbare linen covers. ‘Did they buy anything?’

  ‘Yes – all of them! I’ve never seen anything like it. Three Staffordshire figurines, both boxes of Minton tiles, one engraving of the ruins of Bottleton Abbey – and the hideous pokerwork fire screen that I thought I’d never get rid of!’

  ‘What was your discovery?’

  Before Ruth could reply, yet another customer came in – another mum with a toddler in a buggy.

  She said, ‘My little boy wants to wave to the bear.’

  Notty was in his usual place on the shelf behind Ruth, between the two large clocks. The toddler squawked happily and flapped his little fist.