Lilliput

by Sam Gayton

  This is where the perch travels as it shoots from the clock, she told herself. Swift will be at the end of this tunnel.

  Lily took a step forward, then another and another. Somewhere, a tiny bell jingled. She tensed, thinking that the clock might still be capable of ticking, but nothing happened.

  Relax, she told herself. Everything’s going to plan. Just find Swift.

  The bird’s calls echoed around the clock: ‘Tsik tsik!’ he called. ‘Tsik tsik!’

  She frowned. That sounded like a phrase Señor Chitchat had taught her, but Lily couldn’t remember what it meant …

  Behind her, hinges creaked and something went click. Lily spun round in a panic. Was the clock was winding up again?

  ‘Tsik tsik!’ Swift cried.

  And Lily remembered – tsik in Swiftian meant danger! She ran back to the window. It was shut. She pushed, but it wouldn’t budge. She flung herself against the glass, barging with her shoulder, beating with her fists.

  She was locked in.

  Behind her, Swift called out a sad, faint, ‘Skee …’

  Tap tap tap. Lily whirled back to the door and jumped. Mr Plinker’s long brown nail was clinking against the glass. Tap tap tap.

  ‘Are you in there?’ he said. ‘Are you in there, little one?’

  MR PLINKER KNEELED down, leering at Lily. The glass door was slightly warped, making his grin impossibly wide. It wrapped around her as he spoke.

  ‘You fit!’ the clock maker said delightedly. ‘You fit perfectly! Why, you are just the right size, I think. Not too big, and not too small.’

  Lily took a step back from the door. ‘Just the right size? For what?’

  At this, Mr Plinker began to giggle. ‘Why, to make my clocks, of course.’

  Lily stared at the clock maker, and saw herself reflected in his gaze. To Gulliver she had been a specimen. To Dumpling she had been a toy. But in Mr Plinker’s eyes she was nothing but a slave.

  ‘Just think!’ he continued rapturously. ‘You can build my inventions from the inside out … And that is just the start! Eventually, you will make clocks so tiny and delicate that they will seem more magic than machinery! And I will be the richest clock maker in all the world!’

  Lily trembled, but she forced herself to look Mr Plinker in the eye.

  Stay brave, she told herself. Keep him talking. There’s still Finn and Mr Ozinda outside. They’ll rescue you.

  ‘How can I make you a clock?’ she asked as bravely as she could. ‘I don’t know anything about them.’

  Mr Plinker began to giggle again. ‘But that’s not quite true, is it?’ he said. ‘You unwound my Waste-Not Watch, so I know you have talent. You will quickly learn the rest. Won’t she, Finn?’

  He stepped aside and behind him Finn answered: ‘Yes, Mr Plinker.’

  Lily’s head stung as if she had been slapped. She backed away from the window, stumbled and fell. Something bad had happened. Something was very, very wrong. Her friend, her safekeeper … why was he back with Mr Plinker?

  At last Finn raised his head. His face was streaked with tears. He looked as if he were in agony, though Mr Plinker had not so much as touched him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lily.’ Finn held up the Waste-Not Watch ticking on his wrist.

  That’s when Lily began to panic.

  That’s when she knew the plan had gone badly, badly wrong.

  Out in the street, Gulliver’s travels had led him to a little girl at last. But not the one he was expecting.

  This little girl sat outside Plinker’s Timepieces, stroking a ginger cat and talking to a huge mound of rubbish that was clogging up the gutter.

  ‘Mr Plinker is a stinker,’ she said.

  Gulliver approached her warily. ‘Child?’ he said softly.

  The little girl lifted her head and stared at him. Her lip quivered. The cat crouched down by her ankles and hissed.

  Gulliver hesitated. It had been a long time since he had talked to anyone but Lily. But he was too full of gin and desperation for that to matter much now.

  And so he blurted out, ‘Do you believe in faeries?’

  The little girl sniffed and rubbed her little snout of a nose. ‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘You have to be nice to them, or they’ll turn you into a trufferdunk.’

  She turned back to the mound of rubbish. ‘Mr Plinker is a stinker. He’s a beast and a brute and a greasy-brained newt.’

  ‘Well …’ said Gulliver, trying to interrupt her. ‘I am looking for a faerie. Have you seen one?’ He was very much puzzled as to why the little girl was talking to a rubbish pile.

  ‘Slimy, smelly, awful man,’ she sang. ‘He messed up little Lily’s plan.’

  Gulliver jumped and almost dropped his lantern. ‘You said Lily!’ he cried, trying to keep calm. ‘You know her? Where is she?’

  A second, even more exciting, realisation struck Gulliver, and he jumped again. ‘Who are you talking to?’ he asked. ‘Is there … someone in that gutter?

  ‘Yes,’ said the girl. ‘It’s Papa. Mr Plinker hit him on the head and made him sleep. I’m telling him rhymes. They always wake him up.’

  Shining his lantern at the gutter, Gulliver was startled to see that the mound of rubbish was actually a man. An enormous man, lying there with the slop and the trickling slime.

  And, as Gulliver watched, he was even more startled to see the enormous man open his eyes.

  ‘Who is that?’ he groaned. ‘Lily and Finn … You must listen … Plan has failed … Rescue mission …’

  It was not one of Mr Ozinda’s best rhymes, because he had just been punched in the head, and it left Gulliver feeling utterly confused.

  ‘Rescue Lily? Where is she? Tell me! Please!’

  But Mr Ozinda could not manage another word, and when Gulliver turned to the man’s daughter she just shrugged.

  Fortunately, there was someone else there to explain.

  Unfortunately, the explanation was in Spanish.

  ‘Hola,’ said a voice from above.

  ‘Well done, Finn,’ said Mr Plinker in the workshop. ‘You have served me well tonight.’

  He inserted the copper turnkey into the Waste-Not Watch and twisted it twice. The strap loosened just a little, just enough to lessen Finn’s agony. He let out a whimper of relief.

  ‘Relax, Finn,’ said the clock maker kindly. ‘For a few moments, at least.’

  Lily wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. But screaming and crying wouldn’t rescue them. Nothing could. They were all prisoners of Mr Plinker’s cruel imagination. First Swift, then Finn … and now her too.

  ‘Where’s Mr Ozinda?’ she shouted through the window’s glass. ‘Where is he, Finn? Finn?’

  Lily looked at him. He wouldn’t answer, or even meet her eye. It was like he didn’t know her any more. It was like he was just another of Mr Plinker’s machines.

  Lily threw herself against the glass window again and again, hurling every rude word she could think of at Mr Plinker.

  ‘You zijji-gunching, uck stinking fluggytat!’ she bellowed, throwing herself against the window. ‘You yahoo! You quog! You slubber!’

  Mr Plinker smirked. ‘Call me what you like, but you and Finn are still my slaves. And now, it’s time for you to start mending my clocks. You can start with the Astronomical Budgerigar. It has a nasty habit of trying to murder people. Fix it, and make it tick again.’

  ‘Never!’ Lily shouted. ‘We’ll never work for—’

  But Finn’s fingers interrupted her – they were already working on the Astronomical Budgerigar. Twisting and turning and tinkering.

  ‘No, Finn!’ Lily clambered through the clock and gave his thumb a kick. ‘Don’t give in! Don’t be his slave!’

  ‘You need to go deeper inside the clock, Lily,’ he said, ignoring her pleas. ‘Doesn’t she, Mr Plinker?’

  ‘Of course,’ said the clock maker. ‘Right into the middle, where Finn can’t reach.’

  Lily collapsed by her safekeeper’s hand weeping with rage an
d frustration. Her tears drifted through the clock, mingling with the dust.

  ‘You can’t give up,’ she sobbed. ‘You have to hope, Finn. You have to. That’s what you told me.’

  His fingers stopped polishing a cog. The Waste-Not Watch went tick-tick-tick.

  ‘Go deeper, Lily,’ said Finn at last. And his voice wasn’t weak or defeated, it was strong. Urgent. ‘Go deeper in. That’s where you’ll want to be when I wind up the clock.’

  Lily was about to call him an oik-smelling mungle bof when she realised – Finn wasn’t ordering her about, he was trying to give her a message.

  And suddenly she understood what it was.

  FINN, YOU’RE A genius!’ Lily whispered, waving away her tears.

  Now she knew what he was doing. How had it taken her so long to understand? Finn was fixing the Astronomical Budgerigar, but not for Mr Plinker. He was doing it to set Lily free.

  When the clock began to tick again, it would strike one.

  And the glass window would spring open.

  And Lily and Swift could escape.

  Shuffling away from Finn’s fingers, Lily clambered over the cogs until she stood back by the glass window. She tiptoed down the tunnel that descended into the heart of the Astronomical Budgerigar. The deeper she went, the darker it got.

  Suddenly she stopped. Up ahead, a dark something was ruffling and shuffling. There. On a tiny perch.

  ‘Swift,’ she breathed.

  He was as fierce as a dragon, as wild as a storm, as helpless as a child. Leather straps bound his wings, chest and feet to the perch. As Lily crept towards him, Swift turned to watch her, for his head was all he could move. He was a pitiful sight.

  ‘Skee, skee,’ he called.

  Blinking away her tears, Lily answered him with one of the Swiftian phrases that Señor Chitchat had taught her.

  ‘Chip chip,’ she sang.

  Time to fly.

  Swift’s dark eyes studied Lily, and he cocked his head. He was listening to her, but did he understand? Lily crawled closer, as close as she dared, and reached out her hand to touch him.

  Swift cried out again and his beak stabbed towards her like a spear. She jerked back just in time.

  He understands, but he doesn’t trust me. I don’t blame him. Lily remembered when Finn had come to free her from Gulliver. She had been terrified.

  How could she make Swift trust her? He was a wild animal, scared and starving.

  That gave her an idea. Reaching carefully between two cogs, she pulled out a squashed bit of spider.

  ‘You must be hungry,’ Lily whispered, offering it up to his beak. ‘Go on, take it.’

  For a moment Swift gave her a puzzled look. Then he lunged out, pecked the spider leg from her hand and swallowed it whole.

  ‘I’m Lily.’ She reached out for him again. Swift shuddered, but this time he let her fingertips rest upon his feathers. They were sleek and smooth.

  ‘I’m here to set you free,’ Lily whispered at last. ‘But first you have to put this on.’

  She brought up the saddle. Swift twisted away from her, but the leather straps held him trapped.

  ‘Skee! Skee!’

  ‘It’s not going to trap you,’ Lily promised as she looped the harness over his head, fixing the saddle to the spot between his wings. ‘You won’t even know it’s on.’

  She leaned her head against his feathers, whistling to him in Swiftian until he calmed. Then she ventured back through the clock again, looking for more dead spiders in the cogs.

  Mr Plinker would think Lily was cleaning the clock, just as he ordered. He wouldn’t be able to see her feeding Swift. Making him stronger. Getting him ready to fly.

  ‘You’re up to something!’ Mr Plinker snapped, and it took Lily a moment to realise he couldn’t see her – the clock maker was talking to Finn.

  ‘I’m working as fast as I can,’ Finn said.

  It was a lie. Lily knew. She heard the Waste-Not Watch ticking away almost constantly. Finn’s teeth were grinding together as he tried to block out the pain. But, still, every few seconds he would pause to wipe the dust from his eyes and the sweat from his brow.

  He was dawdling. Trying to give her more time.

  Lily turned and fled back to Swift. The bird trembled as she went from his feet, to his chest, to his wings, undoing the leather straps that held him to the perch.

  At last Finn couldn’t waste another second. Just as Lily freed Swift’s feet she heard her safekeeper say: ‘I have to test the clock hands now, Mr Plinker. To see if they’re damaged.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said the clock maker irritably. ‘Just hurry.’

  Above Lily the central spoke of the clock turned. A shower of dust fell down on her head, making her sneeze. Finn’s voice echoed in her ears.

  ‘Twelve o’clock … Eleven o’clock …’

  She understood at once – Finn was winding the clock hands back, an hour at a time.

  It was a countdown.

  ‘Ten o’clock … Nine …’

  ‘Come on!’ Lily hissed at her fingers as they slipped and fiddled with the buckle.

  ‘Eight … Seven …’

  Suddenly the strap came loose in her hands. All Lily had to do now was let go and jump on. Swift quivered, like an arrow in a bow, straining against her grip.

  Wait, she told herself. Wait until the last moment.

  ‘Six …’

  If this doesn’t work …

  ‘Five …’

  It will work.

  ‘Four …’

  It has to.

  And Lily let go of the strap and jumped.

  She landed on the saddle as Swift reared up. Now he was no longer tied down, Lily saw him for what he was. Wild. Fierce. Proud. With one flex of his wings, Swift tossed her from the saddle.

  She toppled backwards, slid down the feathers of his tail and clattered into the cogs below the perch.

  ‘Three …’

  Desperately Lily scrambled to her feet, jumping up at the perch. But it was too late. In another second the clock would be wound. The Astronomical Budgerigar would strike one. The perch would shoot forward. Swift would fly from the clock without her.

  ‘Two …’

  And Lily would be ground up in the cogs like meat in a mincer.

  ‘One,’ said Finn.

  ‘WAIT!’ MR PLINKER hissed. ‘Wait right there! What’s that sound?’

  Nothing happened. The pulleys didn’t fall and the cogs didn’t turn. Swift gripped his perch, looking for a way out, but there wasn’t one.

  Lily lifted herself free of the cogs, wondering what had happened. Did Mr Plinker know their plan? Something jingled, far away. Lily had heard it once already, just before Mr Plinker had caught her. It was the bell above the workshop door.

  Someone else had come into Plinker’s Timepieces. It couldn’t be a customer, not at this hour.

  ‘Mr Ozinda!’ Lily shouted running back down the tunnel to the glass window. ‘Oh, please let it be you!’

  Lily gazed out, hoping and hoping, wanting so badly to hear the sing-song rhymes of her Spanish safekeeper.

  But the person in the doorway only said three words. And none of them rhymed.

  ‘Release Lily. Now.’

  ‘Doctor Gulliver!’ Mr Plinker was astonished. ‘I heard you leave earlier … I assumed you were gone from my attic for good.’

  ‘I have been on a wild-goose chase,’ answered Gulliver wearily. ‘Or rather, a wild-parrot chase. Which led me back here.’

  Without thinking, Lily had drawn Stabber the moment Gulliver had appeared. But the needle wasn’t aimed at him. It hovered over her own heart.

  Because now that seemed like the only escape.

  Mr Plinker had put the Waste-Not Watch on Finn. Mr Ozinda was nowhere to be seen. And now Gulliver was here. What hope did she have?

  Gulliver stepped into the workshop. His face was dark and thunderous, and the wind had swept his thin hair into a grey frizz. It was as if a tiny storm
cloud had gathered on his head.

  And as Lily pointed Stabber at her heart, the storm cloud seemed to break open and pour down Gulliver’s cheeks. Because he began to cry.

  ‘Look at us,’ he wept. ‘Look at us yahoos. We kidnap children from their homes. We keep them in cages. We turn them into slaves. We are monstrous. Monstrous.’

  Lily’s grip on Stabber faltered. Gulliver carried on.

  ‘I thought Lily would change us all,’ he said as his tears pattered on the floor. ‘And she has. But not for the better. We have become even more selfish and cruel than ever. I should never have taken her from Lilliput. Never. I will burn my book. The world must never know about Gulliver’s travels.’

  Stabber dropped from Lily’s hands. Why was Gulliver saying this? How could he have changed so quickly? Lily thought of the moons she had spent desperately trying to convince him to take her back. He had to be lying. He had to. She couldn’t believe him.

  Then suddenly Lily understood. Gulliver was a man of science. And now he had left the attic he could see proof. It was right in front of him – the evidence that he was wrong.

  ‘I have made such a terrible mistake.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘But I will do what I can to put it right. Give Lily to me. I am going to take her home.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Mr Plinker softly. ‘Lily is going to make me a fortune. How can she do that if she leaves with you?’

  ‘If a fortune is what you want, Mr Plinker, then a fortune I will give you.’ As Gulliver spoke, he brought a heavy leather sack from his pocket. He loosened the drawstring and tipped the contents out slowly onto his hand.

  Lily gasped.

  Mr Plinker squinted and leaned forward. ‘What is that? Dust? Sand?’

  But it wasn’t either.

  ‘Sprugs!’ Lily breathed.

  In Gulliver’s palm were hundreds upon hundreds of gold coins, each one about the size of a full stop.

  ‘Sprugs,’ said Gulliver. ‘Four hundred gold sprugs. I was given them many years ago, on an island very close to Lilliput called Blefescu. They are pure gold, but quite useless to me … I tried to use them as proof that the island exists. Parliament dismissed them as forgeries. You can have them all, if you will only let Lily and your apprentice free.’ Gulliver hung his head in shame. ‘Do not make the same mistake that I did. Please, Mr Plinker. Let them go.’