Lilliput

by Sam Gayton

  The door was open a crack. Lily squeezed through. The voices from the shop faded away and the singing grew louder. It was still just a whisper, though – even Lily’s ears could barely hear it.

  ‘Show me, Gulliver,

  And show me soon,

  Or I’ll call you a liar and a loon!’

  Lily couldn’t believe it. The children knew about Gulliver too!

  She looked out across the room she now found herself in. It was dark and cold. A few slugs crawled over the stones. Lily past piled-up sacks of cocoa beans, startling ants into cracks and woodlice into little balls, until suddenly she arrived at the foot of the stairs.

  They loomed up into the darkness – each step an impossible climb. It would have been easy if Finn were there. Without him Lily would need the wings of a bird, or the legs of a spider …

  Or the slime of a slug.

  She sprinted back to them. Huge, grey, quivering things. They reminded her of Mr Plinker’s tongue. She shuddered. But there was no other way to climb those stairs …

  Tugging up her sleeves, Lily rolled over one of the slugs and coated her hands and feet with slime. It glooped between her fingers and squelched between her toes.

  ‘Sorry,’ she told the helpless creature. ‘I don’t like this any more than you do.’

  Finally she rolled the slug back over and rushed to the stairs. The gunk was already beginning to stick, and her feet left sticky strands on the stone as she ran.

  By the time she reached the staircase the slime was a thick glue. Lily rested her palm against the wooden step.

  Please work, she thought. Please stick.

  It did. The glue made climbing easy. Lily pulled herself up the sheer side, arm over arm, leg over leg, up and up. In no time at all she stood on the first step, looking at the second and the third and fourth and all the way to the top.

  ‘Only another twelve to go,’ Lily said, hoping the slime would stick for that long.

  And she climbed onwards, to the giggles and voices.

  SOMEONE HAD LAID her on a rug. It was soft on her cheek. Lily blinked her eyes, trying to remember how she got there. She had been climbing up the stairs. Right to the top. Then, after the tenth step, something had happened … what?

  Looking down at her hands, it came back to her. The slug slime stopped sticking. She groaned. Her head ached. How far had she fallen?

  Far enough to knock myself out. I’m lucky I didn’t break anything.

  Slowly she sat up. Her head felt like a plate spinning on a stick, ready to wobble off her neck at any moment. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited.

  After a while the swaying stopped. It was then Lily realised just how hard she had fallen. The dizziness was gone, but now she was hallucinating.

  She had to be. Because what she saw was impossible.

  She was in a bedroom, but it wasn’t a giant’s bedroom.

  It was Lilliputian-sized.

  Lily looked around amazed. For the first time in moons, she didn’t feel tiny. There was a wardrobe she could open. Curtains she could close. A bed she could sleep in. Three armchairs for sitting …

  But people sat there already. Watching her. Hidden in the gloom.

  With a jump and a yell Lily drew Stabber from her waist and pointed it at the shadowy figures.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said, clutching her head as the giddiness started again. ‘Tell me!’

  The figures did not answer, or even move.

  ‘You’re Lilliputians,’ Lily breathed. ‘What are you doing in London? Did you save me? I climbed up the stairs … I heard you singing … I thought you were giant children … I didn’t realise you were Lilliputians!’

  There was a long silence. Lily lowered the needle’s point. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, trying to clear her head. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m just … I fell and …’

  Peering into the gloom she thought she saw the people smiling.

  ‘Who are you?’ she whispered creeping forward, step by step, needle in her hand. ‘What are you?’

  The figures didn’t answer. They kept staring at the rug. They were dolls, with glass eyes and cotton hair. Their smiles painted on with a brush.

  Lily stepped back, finally understanding. She sprinted to the window and stared out of the doll’s house.

  A giant brown eye blinked back at her.

  ‘I told you she was alive!’ a voice gasped. ‘Told you, told you! Now we can play!’

  There was an explosion of giggles and someone said: ‘Let us see, we can’t see!’

  The room trembled. Hinges screeched as the windowed wall swung outwards like a door. Lily yelped, tripped over the rug and dropped Stabber. A giant podgy face peered in.

  ‘Hello, dolly,’ it whispered. ‘I’m Dumpling.’

  Dumpling’s eyes were small and set a little too far apart. Her nose was an upturned snout. Her dark ringlets were bunched up with a ribbon, so that they looked like a pile of sausages. She wore a nightdress the colour of butter.

  ‘Shall we play princesses, little dolly? Shall we have a tea party?’

  Lily didn’t answer. She scooped Stabber from the rug and ran. Bursting through the door, she pelted down a dark hallway for the stairs. Outside, Dumpling clapped and giggled.

  ‘Hide and seek! Hide and seek!’ she sang.

  Other voices whined: ‘Don’t make her hide … we haven’t seen her yet!’

  The hallway filled with another face. A thin and watery-eyed girl with straw-coloured hair and a glistening stream of slime running from her nostrils. This slug-nosed girl wore a nightdress as green as lettuce.

  ‘Ooh,’ she cooed. ‘Pretty.’

  Lily barged into another bedroom, threw open a wardrobe, and dived in amongst the princess dresses and soldier outfits.

  ‘Where are you, dolly?’ Dumpling called.

  ‘Come out, come out wherever you are!’ said Slug-Nose.

  ‘But I still haven’t seen her!’ a third voice whinged.

  ‘Then find her – ready or not, dolly, here we come!’

  Lily crouched in the wardrobe, listening to the girls as they ransacked the doll’s house giggling. They tossed aside beds and turned over bathtubs, hunting for her.

  What a fool she’d been, leaving Finn! There were no clues here, just Mr Ozinda’s daughter having a sleepover.

  But how could Dumpling and her friends know songs about Lilliput and Gulliver? And why didn’t they realise that Lily was a Lilliputian – why did they call her a dolly?

  Lily didn’t know the full reason, but she knew part of it. The girls were stupid and selfish. And that made them dangerous.

  Wake up, Finn, she prayed. Wake up soon.

  Suddenly the wardrobe tipped forward and shook from side to side. Lily spilled out onto the floor along with a pile of dolly outfits. Staring down at her was a third girl sucking her thumb.

  She doesn’t look so bad, thought Lily.

  ‘I found her!’ said the girl, taking her thumb from her mouth.

  Lily was almost sick. The thumb was a horrible sight. It had been stewing in the girl’s mouth for so long that it was wrinkly and soft and bruised, like bad fruit. Just the sight of it gave Lily the shivers. Plum-Thumb wore a purple nightdress with blue ribbons.

  ‘We’re having a sleepover, dolly,’ she said. ‘We were meant to be asleep hours ago, but Dumpling’s papa has forgotten about us.’

  ‘Make her dance!’ sang Slug-Nose in her thin, reedy voice. ‘Make her sing! Make her talk! Make her drink hot chocolate!’

  ‘Hot chocolate,’ said Plum-Thumb, eyes glazing over with pleasure.

  ‘It’s my sleepover,’ said Dumpling. ‘And my dolly. I heard the noise on the stairs. I went and found her. She’ll do what I say. Won’t you, dolly?’

  ‘I’m not a dolly,’ said Lily.

  The three girls shrieked and clapped.

  ‘It talks!’ they squealed. ‘The dolly talks!’

  ‘You’re much better than our other dollies,’ said Dumpling.r />
  The girls nodded enthusiastically, grabbing their dolls from the armchairs in the room where Lily had awoken.

  ‘This is Thumbelina,’ said Dumpling holding up a red-headed dolly.

  ‘This is Mrs Ittle-Wittle,’ said Slug-Nose holding up a doll with blonde hair.

  ‘And this is Princess Henry,’ said Plum-Thumb. Princess Henry had black pigtails, tied with red ribbon.

  ‘But they’re just pretend,’ said Dumpling. ‘They’re not special like you.’

  All at once the girls dropped their dollies and leaned forward, crowding around Lily.

  ‘Magic talking dolly,’ said Slug-Nose. ‘We’re going to have lots of fun together.’

  Plum-Thumb’s eyes sparkled. ‘Play time,’ she said.

  GRINNING OVER LILY, the girls clapped and stared. Their mouths were all dirty brown teeth and spit, like unwashed plates in a sink. Lily saw right into their eyes, to all of their terrible thoughts. Slug-Nose was spiteful. Plum-Thumb was greedy. And Dumpling was used to getting her own way.

  Lily was nothing to them but a toy to be played with.

  And once they grew bored the girls would toss her aside.

  She had to escape.

  ‘I want to play princesses!’ said Slug-Nose wiping her oozing nose.

  ‘I want a tea party, please!’ said Plum-Thumb elbowing her friend out of the way.

  ‘I asked first,’ said Slug-Nose barging her back.

  ‘I said please,’ growled Plum-Thumb.

  ‘Princesses!’ said Slug-Nose.

  ‘Tea party!’ glared Plum-Thumb giving her friend a pinch.

  Slug-Nose yelped and pulled Plum-Thumb’s hair. So Plum-Thumb trod on Slug-Nose’s foot ‘by accident’, and Slug-Nose wiped snot down the back of Plum-Thumb’s dress. She grinned and bent down to scoop up Lily, but then there was a horrible squirting sound as Plum-Thumb elbowed her in the nose.

  Suddenly the two of them were kicking, punching and biting each other, whilst hissing ‘Princesses!’ and ‘Tea Party!’

  ‘Quiet!’ Dumpling whispered, wrestling her fighting friends apart. ‘Stop being noisy or Papa will come!’

  Lily looked up at the seething mass of arms, legs and heads; a tangle of petticoats and pigtails. For now the girls had forgotten her – this was her chance to escape.

  She opened the doll’s-house door and crept across the floorboards. Stomp stomp stomp went the giant feet around her. Lily waited, saw her moment, darted forward—

  Something slammed into her side and she flew in the air and skidded on the floor. She lay there, doubled up, gasping for breath. Her chest felt broken.

  ‘You kicked the dolly,’ said Dumpling. ‘Look.’

  The fight between the girls wound down, from punches to pinches to nasty looks, until they were all looking at Lily gasping weakly on the floor.

  ‘You broke it,’ said Plum-Thumb to Slug-Nose. ‘It’s dead.’

  ‘I didn’t kick it,’ she sniffed back. ‘You did. Anyway, it’s still alive. Look.’

  Lily sat up, sipping the air slowly back into her lungs. Her head and chest were aching, but worse than the pain was the fear.

  The three girls didn’t realise Lily was a person. To them she was just a toy – a toy they all wanted but couldn’t all have. They were going to fight again and, sooner or later, Lily would get broken.

  She had to escape. She had to wake Finn, or even bring Mr Ozinda up here. But how? No one downstairs would hear her, no matter how loud she screamed for help …

  Suddenly an idea fell into Lily’s head, like an egg into a pan, and started to sizzle away. A single, perfect, delicious idea. Perhaps she could use the girls’ own stupidity against them. Despite the pain in her chest, Lily managed a smile.

  ‘I’m not playing with any of you,’ she choked out, rubbing her sore ribs.

  The girls were arguing amongst themselves, and they didn’t hear. So Lily stamped her feet and bellowed:

  ‘I’M GOING TO TURN YOU ALL INTO TRUFFERDUNKS INSTEAD!’

  The girls all stopped and looked down at her.

  ‘What’s a trufferdunk?’ Slug-Nose asked.

  ‘A trufferdunk,’ said Lily, thinking fast, ‘has the nose of an elephant, the eyes of a snail, the body of a toad and the tail of a pig. It walks on its ears, eats with its feet and burps out of its bellybutton. A trufferdunk is the most disgusting animal on all of the earth, and when I cast my spell, you’re going to be turned into one! All three of you!’

  Plum-Thumb and Slug-Nose shuffled back a little, but Dumpling stayed where she was. ‘You can’t do spells,’ she sneered.

  ‘I can,’ Lily lied. ‘Because I’m not a dolly at all. I’m a faerie.’

  The girls took another step back.

  ‘A faerie?’ Plum-Thumb squeaked.

  ‘Don’t listen,’ said Dumpling whirling round. ‘She’s tricking.’

  Lily grinned. ‘I’m not. I’m a faerie. What else can I be? I’m made out of stardust and blossom and baby laughs. I’m old as the hills and wise as the owls. And unless you take me downstairs right now I’m going to turn all of you into trufferdunks for a hundred years!’

  Dumpling snorted. ‘No such thing as a trufferdunk,’ she said, but the others looked far from convinced.

  ‘I don’t want to burp out of my bellybutton,’ Slug-Nose whimpered.

  ‘It’s too late,’ Lily said, lowering her voice to a soft, deadly whisper. She drew Stabber from her dress as if it were a wand. ‘I can feel the fizzing in my fingers. I can feel the sparks in my eyes and the spell on my breath!’

  She began to shake and swish Stabber round and round her head. Plum-Thumb let out a whimper of fear.

  ‘Hubblelunk, Bubbermunk, Flunnerstunk, Trufferdunk!’ Lily whispered, pretending to cast her spell. Then, louder: ‘Hubblelunk, Bubbermunk, Flunnerstunk, Trufferdunk!’

  ‘Nooo!’ Slug-Nose wailed. ‘I’m sorry, faerie! I’m sorry!’

  ‘Shh!’ Dumpling hissed. ‘Papa will hear us!’

  That was exactly what Lily hoped. She screwed her eyes shut. Summoning up every last bit of her strength, she bellowed: ‘HUBBLELUNK, BUBBERMUNK, FLUNNERSTUNK, TRUFFERDUNK!’

  ‘Ahhhhh!’ Plum-Thumb screamed. ‘Help! Help! The horrid faerie’s making magic!’

  Dumpling clapped her hands over her friend’s mouth as if she could cram the words back in, but it was too late. Lily heard booming steps on the stairs, and a sing-song voice calling out, ‘Sweetheart, Pumpkin … my darling Dumpling! What is all this shouting for? You should be sleeping!’

  Then another voice – one that filled Lily with relief – said: ‘I think I know, Mr Ozinda.’

  ‘Finn!’ Lily shouted, dropping Stabber to the ground and running to the door. ‘I’m in here!’

  Slug-Nose, crouched on the floor with a pillow over her head, opened her eyes. ‘We’re not trufferdunks!’ she said happily.

  Dumpling just glared at her friends and muttered under her breath. Then the door to her bedroom flew open and in squeezed Mr Ozinda and Finn.

  ‘Lily!’ Finn cried. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Oh my,’ Mr Ozinda breathed. ‘Oh my, oh me, oh what’s this I see?’

  NOW IT WAS dawn, and the stars were unstitching themselves from the blanket sky. Mr Ozinda had emptied his shop of customers and sent Dumpling and her friends whinging and stomping to bed. Lily could hear his stern voice as he told them off in the bedroom above.

  ‘Mumblemumblemumble … Never tell … Mumblemumble … Naughty girl … Mumble … Straight to hell …’

  ‘Is it ready yet?’ she asked, turning to Finn.

  ‘Reddy yeh? Reddy yeh?’ said Señor Chitchat on his perch above the counter, for Lily had said it so many times that the parrot had now started to copy her.

  ‘Almost,’ Finn said again, dipping his finger into the porcelain egg cup he held over a candle flame. It was filled with soap suds and water.

  ‘I only want it toasty,’ she reminded him. ‘Not scorchy.’

  He nodded. ‘I know.
I think it’s done.’

  Lily jumped up and down with excitement then winced at the pain. Her head and ribs ached more than ever. ‘Come on, then, let me get in!’

  Carefully Finn put the egg cup into the bathroom of the doll’s house and swung the wall shut on its hinges. Mr Ozinda had brought it down from Dumpling’s room and placed it on a table by the fireplace.

  ‘Yours,’ he had told Lily. ‘To stay in for as long as you wish.’

  Lily went in through the front door, threw off her dress and sploshed into the soap suds and water.

  ‘Wonderful lovely,’ she murmured, closing her eyes.

  ‘Lily?’ Finn called through the curtains.

  She ducked down under the soap suds. ‘Get away from that window, Finn! I’m starkers in here!’

  She almost heard the blood rushing to his face. ‘Oh! I just wanted to say don’t be long. And don’t fall asleep, either. Mr Ozinda wants to speak to us when he comes back down.’

  She didn’t answer. Whatever the Spaniard had to say it wasn’t more important than this bath. Lily’s adventures had covered her in mud, slug slime, scratches, bruises, flea bites and the faint smell of Gulliver’s feet. Her palms were raw, her feet were sore, her ribs ached every time she breathed.

  At last all the dirt and pain seemed to slide from her skin and into the hot, soapy water.

  ‘I wanted to ask,’ Finn muttered from outside. ‘Why did you go upstairs without me?’

  Lily scrubbed the slug slime from her hands. ‘I shouldn’t have,’ she said. ‘But you were asleep, and I heard Dumpling with her friends. They were singing about Lilliput, Finn. I know it sounds impossible – ’

  ‘Were they singing rhymes?’ he interrupted. ‘Like this?’

  And he launched into a song:

  ‘Gulliver, Gulliver,

  You’re crazy as can be,

  Your brain’s been pickled by the brine in the sea.

  Horses don’t talk and

  Islands don’t fly.

  Ghosts don’t speak to passers-by.

  Gulliver, Gulliver,

  Can you explain?

  Why don’t the little people drown in the rain?

  Why don’t the giants come and gobble us for tea?