Mennyms in the Wilderness

by Sylvia Waugh

  Then on an impulse he kissed her cheek. “Goodbye, Pilbeam. Goodbye,” he said.

  The black button eyes that had learnt to see suddenly did something they had never done before. They cried real tears. Just a drop or two, easily brushed away, but real. Pilbeam made sure that no one saw them, not even Albert. He got up into the driving seat of the car and briefly grasped hands that reached out in a final farewell.

  After the car had left the drive, Joshua closed the gates and they all went into the house. Only Appleby and Pilbeam lingered. They stood in the garden long after the car was out of sight.

  The day was cold and overcast.

  Pilbeam sighed.

  “He’ll never come back,” said Appleby gently. It was an unusual tone of voice for Appleby, but not completely unknown.

  “I know,” said Pilbeam. “Do you not think I know?”

  “Please, please, Nuova Pilbeam,” said Appleby, seeing the sadness in her sister’s face, “let’s go inside and pretend something else – something happy.”

  They went back into the house together, and together they listened to music in Appleby’s room.

  50

  The Last Word

  WHEN ALBERT DROVE out of Brocklehurst Grove he forgot the Mennyms completely. Once and for all and finally he forgot their very existence. The past was changed especially for him. It was a small concession in the history of the universe, a mere drop in the sea of infinity. On a cosmic scale it was a tiny, tiny miracle, but certainly no party trick. It took much more power than the spirit of Kate Penshaw could ever possess! She knew that, and she trembled.

  The car’s log book showed that it had only ever had two owners and they were both called Albert Pond. The bit of his memory that had been full of rag dolls suddenly became flooded with knowledge of Eric the Red, on whose explorations Albert was to become a world authority. It was as if the episode with the Mennyms had been no more than a dream.

  But it wasn’t a dream. It was a real experience and no experience can be completely lost. The heart stores what the head forgets. So what did he really remember? The love he had truly felt for Pilbeam was ready there as a pattern for loving. The joy and comfort he had felt as one of a family was imprinted on his soul as a model for his own family life with children and grandchildren in the century to come.

  On a more mundane, practical level, he had an exact idea of how to sell Comus House and all its contents! That was something not erased from his memory.

  In the weeks and months that followed Albert’s departure, all of the Mennyms settled back into what they hoped would be a beautifully normal life. Noisy. Yes, they would always be noisy. But under the noise, peaceful and untroubled by the world outside. That was all they asked of life. That was all they had ever hoped for. Especially Vinetta. If she could have wrapped her whole family safely in the cloths of heaven, she would have done so.

  As for Pilbeam – her heart soon mended. She was only sixteen. At sixteen, hearts break and mend quite easily. Pilbeam never forgot Albert, but the memory, oh the memory, was sweet.

  Read on for the first chapter of Mennyms under Siege . . .

  1

  The Fringe

  “I NEED A fringe.”

  Pilbeam was gazing at herself critically in a mirror propped up on the kitchen table. Her long black hair was combed back from her broad forehead. Her mother, busy ironing, looked up from her work and smiled.

  “Need? Surely you mean ‘want’ or ‘would like’?”

  “No,” said Pilbeam. “I do mean need.”

  Vinetta stood the iron on its heel and went and sat down beside her eldest daughter.

  “Well, come on. Explain yourself,” she said. “It’s not like you to use the word ‘need’ so carelessly.”

  “I need a fringe,” said Pilbeam, “to hide my brow and to act as a sort of disguise for the outside world.”

  That was a fair enough reason, but obviously not the complete story.

  “You’ve managed well enough so far,” said her mother. “What is different now?”

  “I want to go to the theatre,” said Pilbeam. “Really go to a real theatre. I will be sitting next to people. I need my face to be as veiled as possible by my hair.”

  Her hair reached nearly to her waist. It was thick and heavy and looked completely genuine. Pilbeam was the family beauty, like the princess out of a fairytale. And the Mennyms were a strange family, a family of life-sized rag dolls created forty-four years before by Kate Penshaw, a lonely old lady whose hobby became her passion in life. After her death, the dolls had come mysteriously to life and taken over Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove, living there almost as if they were human. Except for Pilbeam. She was the last of Kate’s creations and had lain unfinished in the attic for forty years. Soobie, her twin, had found her in a wicker chest and Vinetta, her loving mother, had finished the work that Kate had long ago begun.

  The taking over of Kate’s house had been surprisingly easy. Her heir, Chesney Loftus, had failed to come from Australia to claim, or even inspect, his inheritance. Among Kate’s papers the Mennyms had found the name of an agent to whom they had written claiming to have been Kate’s paying guests, and asking to be allowed to remain on as tenants of the property. Chesney himself had died three years ago, leaving the house he had never seen to what he must have assumed to be his aging tenants, for however long Sir Magnus and/or his son Joshua should reside there. He would clearly not have expected them to live forever. On their demise, the property was to go to an English branch of Kate’s family.

  In the forty-four years of their residence, the Mennyms had never found it difficult to come and go to the shops and the market and the park. It was simply a matter of wearing clothes to cover cloth, and dark glasses of various styles to hide button eyes. But this going to a theatre was different. How different, Vinetta was not sure. She was startled at the thought of her daughter being in such close proximity to people, but she respected Pilbeam’s wishes and trusted her judgment. It was her deeply held belief that one should not be constantly frustrating the young.

  She looked closely at Pilbeam’s hairline.

  “If I combed your hair forward,” she said, “I suppose I could cut some of it into a deep fringe for you.”

  “No,” said Pilbeam, “that wouldn’t do. It might make a line across the top and it would thin the hair down. I want more hair on top, not less. You could try making a fringe and stitching it into place. Then if ever I didn’t want it we could unpick it, like Dad’s beard when he was Santa Claus at Peachum’s.”

  “What would I use to make it?” said Vinetta. “Your hair is so beautiful and silky. It would have to be an exact match. There’s nothing suitable in my workbox. I know there’s not.”

  “No problem,” said her daughter. “Just cut a few inches off the bottom. I have often thought it was a bit too long at the back.”

  The transplant was performed that very afternoon. Poopie and Wimpey, the ten-year-old twins, came and watched, fascinated. It was a frosty January day with lowering clouds threatening snow. The twins were bored enough to welcome the distraction of seeing their elder sister suffer. It was not painful, of course, just irritating and restricting. Pilbeam was not at all pleased that her two younger siblings were such earnest spectators.

  “It must feel funny,” said Wimpey as she watched the needle going in and out on Pilbeam’s brow. She stood with her head on one side, looking up at her mother and sister. Wimpey’s pale blue button eyes were always full of wonder. Her golden curls, tied in bunches with satin ribbon, made her look old-fashioned and even more doll-like than the rest of them.

  “Hold still,” said Vinetta when Pilbeam turned her head to look at her sister. “I don’t want to get the thread in a tangle.”

  Joshua, their father, coming into the kitchen after his nap, raised his eyebrows and then took refuge in the brown teapot, pretending to brew tea in it and pour it out into his old mug. He was a quiet man, his dollness well hidden beneath a gruff manner. Like a
ll the family, his life was a mixture of reality and pretence. He really did work as a nightwatchman at Sydenham’s Warehouse. He really did tend the garden at home, helped by his son Poopie. But the pipe he ‘smoked’ was a pretend. The ‘tea’ he brewed was make-believe. There really is a football team called Port Vale, one of the oldest in the English League, but Joshua, their lifelong supporter, had never been to see them play.

  When she had finished fixing the fringe in place, Vinetta stood back to admire her work. Then she held one mirror in front of Pilbeam and another behind to let her daughter see her hair from every angle. The twins watched her.

  Poopie looked up from under his own yellow fringe, cut straight across his brow, bright blue eyes glinting. “I don’t like you with a fringe,” he said. “I liked you better before.”

  Pilbeam looked at herself anxiously.

  “What do you think, Dad?” she asked Joshua.

  “Not much different,” said her father, barely raising his eyes from the newspaper he had begun to read.

  “Well, I think it looks lovely,” said Wimpey.

  Miss Quigley came in to collect a bottle for Googles, the baby. For the past three years, she had been nanny to Vinetta’s youngest child. Before that she had ‘lived’ in the hall cupboard, appearing in the Mennym house at intervals as a visitor and Vinetta’s friend. Her own home was supposed to be in Trevethick Street, but that was just a pretend. She was a lady of uncertain age with a plain but pleasant face and thin hair tied in a tight little bun on the back of her neck. Since moving properly into the house, she had developed talents, not only as a nanny but also as an artist painting pictures that, had she been human and not a rag doll, would surely have led to her work receiving wide acclaim. She took one look at Pilbeam and smiled a tight little smile.

  “Snow White has turned into Cleopatra,” she said as she passed by.

  Pilbeam looked annoyed, and Vinetta, seeing the expression on her daughter’s face, knew just what was coming next.

  “It must look odd,” said Pilbeam. “We’ll have to unpick it.”

  “Take your time,” said her mother. “Think about it. Get used to it. Remember, it was your idea in the first place. And you did say you needed a fringe.”

  Vinetta was reluctant that her work of the past two hours should be completely wasted. She wished dear Hortensia had been a little more tactful. It was nothing to say really, no insult to be likened to the Queen of Egypt, but young people do take things so seriously. Pilbeam suited her new hairstyle. Anyone with any taste could see that. And after a day or two they all did.

  “It makes you look older,” said Granny Tulip. “More grown up.”

  “I am more grown up,” said Pilbeam.

  It was Tuesday, and she and Tulip and Vinetta were sitting in the breakfast-room, which was Tulip’s office in this house that was home to three generations. Lady Tulip Mennym was an amazing woman. With her white hair and her blue-checked apron, she looked a typical, housewifely granny. She was small and neat and quick in speech and movement. But in addition to this, she was an excellent businesswoman. And, as if that were not enough, she was so skilled at knitting that the most famous store in London sold the garments she designed and made. Harrods, naturally, was never aware that the firm of ‘tulipmennym’ was so different from any of their other suppliers.

  There was something in the tone of Pilbeam’s voice that made her grandmother look up, shrewd crystal eyes showing an awareness that Pilbeam was making a real statement and not just uttering empty words.

  “In fact,” Pilbeam went on, “I have decided to be eighteen instead of sixteen. Soobie agrees. Since last year, we have moved on. The whole family has. But, in our case, it meant more. We were adolescents. Now we are grown up.”

  Vinetta said anxiously, “Eighteen or sixteen – there’s little difference. We are as we are. And, whether we like it or not, our circle is complete. In the human world, change is constant. Children grow up and get married and grow old. That sort of cycle is not possible for us. We wouldn’t want it anyway. We do well enough as we are. In more than forty years we have never grown any older. There are many in the world outside this house who would envy us.”

  It was less than a month since their one and only contact with a human being had been finally severed. Albert Pond, Kate Penshaw’s great-nephew, had been called upon by the ghost of Kate to save the Mennym family when their home at Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove had been threatened with demolition to make room for a motorway. With the exception of Sir Magnus, everyone in the family came to look on Albert Pond as one of themselves, an honorary rag doll, but his departure became essential when he seemed to be falling in love with Pilbeam, and she with him.

  Pilbeam smiled at her mother, poor, worried Vinetta, whose sensibilities made it difficult for her to find the right words.

  “It’s all right, Mum,” said Pilbeam. “I know I’ll never have a boyfriend. I don’t think Granny could knit me one! Growing up, being mature, means accepting what you are and making the most of it. Soobie has changed too, you know, Mother. He has learnt to enjoy life more, even as a blue rag doll, jogging secretly through the dark streets. Maybe it’s the tracksuit that’s done it!”

  Soobie, Pilbeam’s twin, was unlike every other member of the family, for he was completely blue from head to foot and his eyes were bright, shining, intelligent silver buttons.

  Vinetta looked pleased at Pilbeam’s words about the tracksuit. Vinetta had bought it at Peachum’s, the town’s biggest department store, when Soobie’s old, striped blue linen suit was in tatters and he had at last agreed to wear a more modern, more human, style of clothing.

  “I think you’re right,” said Vinetta. “Soobie really does look smart in a tracksuit.”

  Pilbeam laughed.

  “That was a joke, Mum. Why do you always have to take everything so literally?”

  Vinetta smiled.

  “Part of my nature, I suppose. I am a bit too set in my ways to move on very far.”

  “Well, I’m not,” said Pilbeam. “So take it as a fact. I am eighteen years old. And so is Soobie. We are not children.”

  “Where does that leave Appleby?” asked Granny Tulip.

  At that moment, Appleby appeared in the doorway. The fifteen-year-old was very vivacious, with red hair and green eyes. She was the most volatile member of the family, a perennial teenager who never told the truth when a lie would do.

  “What about Appleby?” she asked, sounding cross and suspicious.

  “Appleby is Appleby,” said Pilbeam. “She’ll never be any different.”

  “I don’t want to be,” said Appleby. “That fringe has gone right to your head!”

  Pilbeam held her breath and did not laugh. Vinetta got up to go.

  “Let’s leave Granny in peace now. She has her work to do, and so have I.”

  After they were all gone, Tulip, following the careful directions Pilbeam had given her earlier, rang the booking office at the Theatre Royal. She had felt a bit unsure at first of the wisdom of the venture, but Pilbeam was so certain and so determined that her grandmother had not argued.

  “I’d like one seat in the stalls for The Merchant of Venice on Thursday, the twenty-seventh of January,” said Tulip when her call was answered.

  “One moment, please,” said the girl on the other end of the line. Voices could be heard talking to each other in the office. Then the girl returned to the telephone and began, “We have . . .”

  “It must be on a side aisle, near an exit,” Tulip interrupted.

  “No problem,” said the girl. “Seat 33N is exactly what you require. We’ll post the ticket out to you, if you would like to give me particulars of your credit card . . .”

  So it was all arranged. Pilbeam, a week come Thursday, was to have her first ever visit to the theatre. A real, happening-now thing, not a fictional memory.

  About the Author

  Sylvia Waugh lives in Gateshead. She taught English at a local school for many years but ha
s now given up teaching to devote her time to writing. She has three grown up children and two grandsons.

  Also by Sylvia Waugh

  The Mennyms

  Mennyms Under Siege

  Mennyms Alone

  Mennyms Alive

  The Ormingat series:

  Space Race

  Earthborn

  Who goes Home?

  Praise for the Mennyms Sequence

  ‘Brilliant’ Independent

  ‘An extraordinary book, quite unlike anything that has been written for years . . . a classic’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Wise, witty . . . fantastic’ Financial Times

  ‘Wonderfully original’ Guardian

  ‘Remarkable’ TES

  ‘All the ingredients of a classic fantasy on the lines of The Borrowers’ The Bookseller

  The Mennyms won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award (1994)

  MENNYMS IN THE WILDERNESS

  AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 19538 1

  Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,

  an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK

  A Random House Group Company

  This ebook edition published 2014

  Copyright © Sylvia Waugh 1994

  First Published in Great Britain by Julia MacRae, 1994

  The right of Sylvia Waugh to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.