The Mystery of the Cupboard

by Lynne Reid Banks

  Omri stiffened and straightened his back. His eyes were wide open.

  The old man’s head rolled on the floor again. Omri bent to hear him, but all he said was, “On my way, Jen.”

  The ambulance came while they were still there and Tom was lifted gently onto a stretcher and carried out to it. Peggy was trying to clean up and put on her coat to go with him, and pay some attention to her ‘guests’, all at the same time. She was in a state and Omri’s father told her not to bother, just to go to hospital with her father.

  “In fact we’ll take you,” he added. “We’ve got a friend there who has to be brought home today.”

  “I’d prefer to go with him in the ambulance,” said Peggy.

  On the drive to the hospital, Omri’s father kept glancing at Omri’s taut face.

  “I don’t like all this, Omri,” he said suddenly. “I thought it was all a game at first. But I’m beginning to think it’s a good deal more than that.”

  Omri said nothing. He felt panicky.

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, Dad. I’m fine.”

  His father seemed about to ask more. But then he turned back to face the road. They finished the drive in silence.

  When they got to the hospital and parked, his father said, “Is Patrick in on this, whatever it is?”

  Omri said, “It’s nothing, Dad. There’s nothing to be in on.”

  “Don’t lie to me, bubba,” said his father quietly. He only called the boys ‘bubba’ when he was feeling something very strong for them.

  Omri felt more panicky than ever, though he didn’t quite know why.

  *

  Patrick was full of bright chat about his fellow patients all the way home. Omri kept quiet, thinking, thinking… There was no time, when they got back, to tell Patrick any of the awful lot that had happened meanwhile. He just dragged him up the stairs to his room.

  “Block the doors,” he said. “Now look.”

  He showed the still-sleeping lady to Patrick.

  “She looks a bit like Ruby Lou,” said Patrick.

  “She’s years later than Ruby,” said Omri. “And a different country.” He was staring at her.

  “Who do you suppose she is?” Patrick asked.

  “I don’t suppose. I know who she is,” said Omri.

  Patrick looked at him.

  “How can you? Who is she, then?”

  “She’s Jessica Charlotte,” said Omri.

  18

  The Sleeping Lady

  “Jessica Charlotte!”

  “Keep your voice down. Yes.”

  “How can it be? She put these figures in here!”

  “Yes. And she put one in for herself as well.”

  Patrick gaped at him. “She — she wanted someone to find it, and - and bring her back!”

  “Well, wouldn’t you? It’s a way of not being absolutely dead.”

  “No — no — my mind’s boggling — hang on!”

  “She sent Tom Towsler to London to comb the toy departments for figures that could be her. She chose the one she felt right about. Her Gift helped her to pick, of course. Then she put it in the cashbox with the others, knowing that if, in future, anyone brought them to life, she’d come to life too.”

  “Omri, shut up, this is impossible! Wait. If she was brought, I mean like now, it must have been during her lifetime. She would know. She’d remember her coming!”

  “She did.”

  “What? You didn’t tell me that!”

  “I forgot. It was just a little thing, part of the Account that you couldn’t be bothered to read. Here, I’ll find it!”

  He unearthed the notebook, leafed through the pages, and found the place he wanted.

  “Here it is! It came back to me when Tom told me. Now listen! It was on the night she made the key. ‘…I cried myself to sleep. And had a very strange dream that even now I can remember, so clearly that I believe it was no dream… But it is not part of this story. Perhaps the future reader will know what I am speaking of…”’

  Omri looked up at Patrick. His eyes were blazing. Then he pointed to the sleeping lady.

  “Look! There she is, asleep. She didn’t even undress, just fell asleep where she was… I know what that little thing in her hand is, see it just sticking out? It’s the key, of course! She’s just finished making it!”

  “The key…” said Patrick in a dazed way.

  “We’ve brought her right in the middle of the story, don’t you see! If we could wake her now, for her to have her ‘dream’, which is really coming here, we might be able to persuade her not to steal the earrings!”

  Patrick was perfectly still and silent for a long moment. Then he put both hands up to his ears and pressed hard. He pressed so hard he was shaking all over and his face was contorted worse than Tom’s.

  Then he dropped his hands and looked Omri in the face.

  “You are raving mad,” he said between his teeth. “This is dangerous. You always used to tell me I didn’t think but just went ahead and did stuff, but you’re ten thousand times worse!”

  “What are you—”

  “You refused to bring Little Bull and the others back because you said it was dangerous and not a game, but this is far, far worse. You don’t know what you’re playing with here. If you change what happened, what we know happened - if that’s possible - your whole life could be knocked crooked. You could turn into a different person. It could turn out that you weren’t even born.”

  Omri said “What?” as if he hadn’t heard properly.

  “Listen, listen to me!” Patrick sounded frenzied. “So in a few minutes she wakes up, and you talk to her, and you change it. She goes back, and decides not to steal the earrings, because you talked her out of it in her ‘dream’. So she doesn’t. So Maria doesn’t suspect Lottie, who doesn’t run out the door, Matthew doesn’t run after her, he isn’t killed. He lives to be old, he goes on earning, maybe he goes abroad again, or they move house — anyway, their whole lives are different. So it’s very likely that Lottie doesn’t meet your mum’s father, so your mum won’t be born. So you won’t be born. That’s just one of the million things that would be changed just because Jessica Charlotte decides not to steal the earrings!”

  Yes, thought Omri. Something like a blinding flash had come to him while Patrick was speaking. Yes, that’s what I was worrying about about the jewel case, but I couldn’t figure it out. He was staring at Patrick when his face seemed to blur and darken. The suppressed panic Omri had been feeling all day suddenly loomed up like a wave three times his own height and threatened to swamp him. The jewel case. The jewel case. Bert was taking back the jewel case! That would change everything just as much! Maybe in a few minutes or hours, Omri would just - disappear!

  Patrick was still talking.

  “Let’s put her back into the cupboard, or the cashbox,” he was saying. “Turn the key, send her back—”

  Omri wrenched himself away from his terrifying thoughts.

  “But her dream,” he said slowly. “She had her dream. If we send her back, it won’t happen. And it did happen. We’ve got to let her wake up here, and have her dream.”

  Patrick said nothing for a moment. He was breathing hard. “Right,” he said. “You’re right. She wakes up, she talks to us, she goes back. But we don’t try to talk her out of stealing the earrings. We don’t even know about the earrings. We just talk to her a bit and then she goes back and everything happens the way it did happen, and it’ll be all right.”

  “No,” said Omri, “it won’t. It’s too late. I’ve done something—”

  They were interrupted by a little sound like a moan.

  They turned. The sleeping lady had woken, and was sitting up. She was staring at the key in the palm of her hand.

  Omri sat down at his desk and leant so that his face was level with hers.

  “Hello,” he greeted her softly.

  She looked up at him, gasped, and jumped to her feet.


  She was forty, and not pretty. She was little and rather dumpy. But she had a strong, determined face, and a mass of brown curly hair piled onto her head. With her red dress (the very one she had worn at the parade, Omri remembered now) swirling around her, she looked rather glamorous and dashing. He knew right away that if he were only to have the chance and despite all he knew, he could like her.

  “Where am I?” she cried. Then she saw him properly, and raised both hands to her mouth to keep back a scream.

  “You’re having a dream,” said Omri. “Look out. You — you’ve dropped the key.”

  Jessica Charlotte looked round wildly, stooped, searched amid the paper creases, and then snatched something up.

  “My key!” she exclaimed. “I mustn’t lose my key!”

  “Perhaps you could thread it on a ribbon and hang it round your neck,” suggested Omri. He felt as if he too were in a dream, as if the words he was speaking were lines in a play written and performed long ago.

  She stared at him, trembling. “Thank you,” she said. “What a good idea.” She examined her wide sleeve, pulled a bow loose, and drew a red ribbon out of its eyelet holes around her sleeve. She threaded it through the top of the key, tied the two ends together, and slipped it round her neck.

  “So you enjoyed the parade,” said Omri. “I wish I could have seen it.”

  She looked at him in bewilderment. “You - you weren’t there?” she asked. “Everyone was there!”

  “Not me.”

  “How do you know - I rode in the parade?” she asked him.

  “I just do,” said Omri. “Don’t worry about it. Dreams don’t have to make sense.”

  She was staring at him. “Are you related to me?” she asked.

  “I’m your — I’m your posterity,” Omri said solemnly.

  “Are you Fred’s son?”

  “If you’d ever poured the lead for him, you’d know he never had a son,” Omri said.

  “Shall I pour the lead for you?” she asked, still gazing at him.

  “But you haven’t got any lead here.”

  “I have the key!” she said with sudden gaiety, holding it up. “Shall I melt this down, and read your fortune?”

  Omri gave Patrick a swift look. Patrick shook his head violently. Omri looked back at the lady.

  “You’d melt the key down — lose it?”

  “I could make another!” she said, and tossed her head. “Come. Let’s do it. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “No,” said Omri. “I don’t want to know the future.

  She stopped smiling.

  “Oh, wise young man,” she said softly, “How I do honour thee!”

  Then Omri heard himself say, “I could tell you your future, though.”

  Patrick trod heavily on his foot under the desk. The lady said, “Have you inherited my Gift?”

  “No,” said Omri. “I just have an open mind.”

  “An open mind… an excellent attribute! I must remember that - ‘an open mind’. Tell me just one thing,” she said. “Only one. If you know it… Truthfully. Will you?”

  There was silence in the room. Then Omri nodded. He couldn’t help himself. The knowledge he had of her was bursting in his mouth.

  “Will I do what I have set myself to do?”

  “Yes,” said Omri. “You’ll do it.”

  “And will I live to be glad, or to regret…?”

  Before Omri could say a word, Patrick had pushed him aside.

  “Miss Driscoll! Could you sing one of your songs for us?

  “One of my — oh! It’s been months since I’ve performed. I have nothing prepared—”

  “Oh, please! We’ve never been to the music halls.”

  “Never been! Oh, then, even in a dream, I must oblige you, young sirs!”

  Her manner had changed. She put a hand up to her hair, then looked about her, saw her hat lying near her feet, and swooped to pick it up. She turned her back for a moment and set it on her pile of hair, thrusting two almost invisible hatpins through the crown to hold it in place. Then she turned to face them.

  “I need a stage!” she cried loudly.

  Omri looked round. The cashbox! He turned it upside down so that its smooth metal base, with no lump of sealing wax or little curved handle to trip her, was on top. He opened a book and stood it behind the platform like scenery.

  With his good hand — the other arm was in a cast — Patrick turned the desk lamp so that it shone on the stage, and switched it on. A big school eraser provided a convenient step. In a moment the little crimson-red figure in the big, plumed hat had mounted the small platform - just the right size for her. She seemed to become an artiste before their eyes. Her plump little figure grew taller, more commanding.

  “Ladies AND gentlemen!” she cried, thrusting out her arms to them as if they were a huge audience. Her face was smooth and smiling — there was no sign of trembling now! “Tonight I have no one to announce me, so I must announce myself! Well, I’ve always wanted to — those announcers, they never say what we wish they would! Who knows the worth of an artiste better than she does?” She gave a cocky little flick of her head that made them laugh out loud.

  “Nor do I have an accompanist. But do I need one? NO! I have a voice that will carry to the back of any gallery in England, or any barrack, come to that! Sit back, ladies and gentlemen, and enjoy the entertainer who has thrilled the crowned heads of Europe and cheered the troops on their way to fight the foe! I give you - the darling of the halls - the toast of the tommies - Miss JESSIE DRISCOLL!”

  The boys burst into spontaneous applause, Omri clapping and Patrick slapping his good hand on his knee. They couldn’t help it. She acknowledged it, then held up her hands. When they were perfectly quiet, she began to sing, her clear tones ringing out as if amplified:

  “There’s no one that you’d rather see — than me!

  There’s no one that I’d rather be — than me!

  Though I’m not one to boast,

  You should know I’m the toast

  Of London and Brum

  And each town on the coast!

  “My admirers I don’t count in scores, no siree!

  They flock in their hundreds and hoards, you see!

  I live for applause

  And I’m waiting for yours —

  For the modestest girl on the boards!!”

  She dipped and swirled and smiled and swayed, primping as if before a mirror and then turning to wink at them, involving them in the joke. There were a lot more verses, full of delicious bare-faced conceit, and all such fun that the boys sat enchanted, all else forgotten. She made them join in the chorus and refused to accept it until it was loud enough, so in the end they were shouting out “I’m the modestest girl on the boards!” at the tops of their voices.

  When she finally finished — in a last twirl, and a deep, deep curtsey with arms again outstretched - they burst into applause and cheers.

  “That was terrific! Thanks! Thank you so much!” they cried, and Patrick added, “Well, now we’ve seen music hall, and it’s every bit as good as—”

  “What are you doing? Who’ve you got in there?”

  The voice came from the other side of the door, which began moving inward against the pile of bricks. The two boys froze.

  “Quick! It’s Gillon!” hissed Omri.

  Patrick, who was fractionally nearer than Omri, snatched Jessica Charlotte up in his hand, upended the cashbox, thrust her into it, and slammed it shut.

  “The key! Where’s the key!”

  “Here!”

  They turned it, just as Gillon and Tony came pushing their way in, the bricks sliding across the floorboards.

  “Have you got a radio in here?” asked Tony, looking round.

  “Hey, Ton,” said Patrick. “I’m back! Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?”

  “Oh, yeah! How are you? Who was singing?”

  “We were,” said Omri.

  “Yeah, but someone else was as well, a tiny
little squeaky voice.”

  “It wasn’t—” began Omri, but Patrick nudged him and said, “That was me. You want to hear me sing a music hall song?”

  The other two boys gaped at him. “A what song?”

  “A song from the old music hall. I — I learnt it from an old boy in the hospital who used to be on the - on the boards. Listen!” And he began to sing in a fair imitation of Jessica Charlotte’s high-pitched little-big voice:

  “My admirers I don’t count in scores, he-he—”

  The other two roared and groaned and held their ears.

  “What kind of garbage is that?” said Gillon. “Knock it off! Come on, Mum’s going to take us to the wildlife park!”

  19

  Maria’s Bequest

  It should have been a wonderful afternoon out. The wildlife park was part of a local country estate, where they also made the most delicious ice cream. There was a really good adventure playground there too, as well as a nature trail, and the animals included elephants and a rhino.

  Gillon and Tony had a whale of a time. They couldn’t understand why Omri and Patrick were so down. They soon took off on their own and weren’t seen again till teatime.

  Omri had got Patrick alone outside the big cats’ area early on, and told him what he’d done. Patrick hadn’t been much comfort.

  “None of the mad things I did last year were half as mad as that,” was all he could find to say. “We’ll have to hope this Bert bottles out of it.”

  “He swore on his mother’s grave!”

  “Big deal. He probably doesn’t even know where it is. Obviously about as trustworthy as a sewer rat.”

  “Do you think I should have brought him back and told him not to bother?”

  “I don’t know. It’s all too much for me. I wish we could just forget it now and enjoy this!” They stared at a leopard for a while. It was lying motionless in the grass about fifty yards beyond the fence. It didn’t look at all dangerous, as if you could just go up and stroke it and it would purr.