A Night in the Manx Museum

by Michele McGrath

  A Night in the Manx Museum

  Michèle McGrath

  For Shannon, Lara, Toby and Georgina

  The next generation, with love

  A Night in the Manx Museum

  Chapter One: How Ellen got lost and found a friend.

  “One ….two…..three….four…”

  Ellen dodged round the corner and down the stairs. For once, she had discovered the perfect hiding place, even though she knew she shouldn’t really use it and she would be in trouble if one of the curators saw her. No one would ever find her there. Sure enough, none of the others had followed her. She wasn’t very good at games and she was usually the first to be found. She was absolutely sick of always being ‘it’. Not today. She looked around hurriedly. Good. The lower floor was empty.

  Quickly, before anyone came to stop her, she stepped over the rope, with its ‘Do not enter’ notice and ran over to the old hay cart that formed part of the farming exhibit. She climbed over the back of the hay cart and burrowed her way into the straw. The hay was old and scratchy and it rustled but she kept going, pushing it aside until she had made a big enough space for her body. Then she straightened the straw back into place, to hide where she had entered. She made a small hole at the side, so that she could see when the others came looking for her and to get some fresh air. It was musty and hot under the straw and very uncomfortable but she would be the winner.

  It was ages before she heard footsteps on the stairs. Very carefully, she peered through her hole. It was Megan, looking for her. Great. Ellen held her breath and kept very still as she passed, but she never even glanced at the hay cart. Ellen smiled. Let them keep looking for her. She had spent so much time looking for them when it was the other way round. She was determined that they’d have to shout “I give up” before she would come out. Then she would emerge triumphantly. Contentedly, she settled down to wait.

  The dust made it hard to breathe under the straw but it was quiet. With the heat and lack of air, she began to feel sleepy and to think that she was going to have to come out after all, when she heard footsteps once again. She got ready to push the straw aside and shout “I’ve won!” when she saw that it was only one of the curators. He had a quick look around him and then headed back up the stairs. She was alone again and beginning to get bored.

  “I’ll have to come out soon,” she thought, “it must be getting late. But it would be a pity when they can’t find me for once. I’ll give them another few minutes.”

  Then, without any warning, the lights snapped off. Whatever’s happening?” Ellen thought. It was pitch black through her peephole and she could see absolutely nothing! In alarm, she started to wriggle out of the straw. There was no sound, only the rustling of the straw and the whistling of the wind around the corners of the old building. Then, suddenly she realised that there were voices in the wind and the sound of people yawning.

  “I don’t like this at all,” Ellen thought, groping her way off the back of the cart and onto the floor. “Ouch!” She had hit her knee on the cart. Pain stabbed through her.

  “Who’s there?” said a man’s voice and a flickering light came towards her. Her heart started to thump.

  “Me, Ellen,” she squeaked in a small voice. She could hardly speak and her words came out as a gasp.

  A sparkle caught her eye and she turned quickly. Someone had lit a candle. Then more and more candles flickered. The darkness retreated. A strange sight met her eyes. A host of ladies and gentlemen were stretching and yawning, then standing sleepily, talking to each other or walking up and down the room together. They looked as if they had just woken up. But the strangest thing was that they were all wearing the kind of clothes that you only saw in history books. The ladies’ dresses swept down to the floor and the men wore coats with long tails and carried tall hats.

  “Where are you?” One of the men was coming towards her, carrying a candle in a long holder. At first she was frightened because of his clothes and because he was very tall and towered over her. When she looked at his face, though, he was smiling and his eyes were kind.

  “Here,” she whispered and stepped forward into the light.

  “What are you doing here, lass?” He stooped down so that he was on her level and his voice was kind too.

  “Playing Hide and Seek, but no one found me and the lights have all gone out.”

  “They’ve all gone home now and so should you. There are only us here now.”

  Ellen could see the shadowy figures even more clearly now as more candles were lit.

  “Us?”

  “We live here.” A tall lady with auburn hair who was wearing a long blue dress joined them.

  “She can’t go home, John, they’ve locked the doors by now and the alarms are on. She’ll have to stay with us until morning.”

  Ellen gaped at her. She knew that dress. It was her favourite. She had often imagined herself sweeping into a ballroom wearing it. It lived in the glass case with the other costumes. But it fitted the auburn haired lady perfectly, as if it had been made for her. Then the meaning of what the lady had just said hit her.

  “But I can’t stay here until morning,” Ellen wailed. “They’ll be worried about me at home.”

  She stopped, as she remembered that her mother was on night duty and her big brother, Danny, never thought about what she did. He wouldn’t worry about her. He was only interested in his friends, rugby and playing on his computer.

  ‘Could Monarch take her home?” The lady asked the tall man, who looked very concerned.

  “Perhaps. We could ask him.”

  “Oh please let her stay, Papa, it’s so rare that I have anyone new to play with. I’ll look after her.”

  A little girl with long black ringlets and sparkling eyes was looking round her father’s legs. She was wearing a red cashmere dress with black patterns and lace round the neck. Ellen recognized that dress too. It lived in the cabinet next to the blue dress, which the lady was wearing. What on earth was going on?

  “Don’t be selfish, Sophie. Her people will be worried about her,” the tall man said sharply.

  “Actually, they probably won’t be,” Ellen said slowly, “Mum’s on nights and my brother won’t worry until it gets really late.”

  The little girl smiled and held out her hand. Ellen took it and it tingled slightly.

  “Do stay,” she said, ‘”we could have so much fun. There’re all sorts of things to see and people to tell us stories and Billy to play with as well as …. ”

  “Will it really be all right?” the man asked, cutting her short, “Don’t listen to Sophie.”

  “It will be all right. I can stay for a while,” Ellen said loudly, trying hard to convince him as well as herself. Perhaps she could stay for a couple of hours. No one would be bothered by that; no one would even notice.

  “All right, then.” He turned to his daughter, “But when she says she must go, you ask Monarch to take her at once, no arguing!”

  “Of course not, Papa.’”

  “Promise?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die!”

  He nodded and Sophie smiled.

  “We must go, John,” said the lady in blue, who was looking anxious, “we’ll be late.” She linked arms with the man and they walked away, her dress swishing on the polished wooden floor. At the foot of the stairs they turned and looked back.

  “Have a good time and be good.”

  “We will,” Sophie and Ellen said together.

  “Where are they going?” Ellen asked.

  “There’s a concert tonight in the Bay Room. Most of the adults are going but some of them are listening to Hall Caine reading one of his books in the library.” She giggled, “I went once b
ut it was so boring that I fell asleep and started to snore. Mamma had to shake me and Mr. Caine looked very offended. They won’t be back for hours and, thanks to you, Mamma has forgotten that I haven’t done my lessons yet. Now we can have fun. I’m Sophie Crellin, what is your name?”

  “Ellen McCreanney.” They looked at each other and Ellen realised that Sophie had a puzzled frown on her face.

  “You are wearing very peculiar clothes,” she said.

  Ellen glanced down. She was wearing her pink cord jeans, rather crumpled now, with bits of straw sticking to them, trainers and her favourite purple jumper.

  “No, I’m not. What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  “You are a girl but you are wearing trousers.”

  Ellen laughed, “Everyone wears them, but mine are pink and no boy would wear pink! Pink for a girl, blue for a boy. Pink’s my favourite colour.”

  “Mine’s red. Just like my dress,” Sophie pirouetted around, holding out her skirts, “Do you like it?”

  “I love it but why are you wearing the dress from the display?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve seen your dress in the cabinet over there,” Ellen pointed, “and your mother’s too.”

  Sophie laughed, “Oh yes, they hang there when we are asleep. When we wake up, we put them on again.”

  “It must be difficult to play in,” Ellen said, looking at the heavy woollen fabric.

  “No it isn’t. I’ll show you. What do you want to do first?”

  “I don’t know what there is to do here at night. You’d better choose.”

  “Do you like stories or adventures or animals?”

  “I like all of them,” Ellen said happily, “but animals most of all.”

  “There are lots of animals here. Let’s go there first. Come on then, follow me.”

  Chapter Two: Ellen meets the God of the Sea.

  Although lights were now flickering in all the shops and cottages, Sophie made for the stairs and Ellen followed. It was darker here, like a tunnel with light at both ends and they had to feel their way by running their hands along the wall and the banisters. At the top, suddenly, Sophie gave Ellen a push, which sent her sprawling.

  “What are you doing?” Ellen shouted angrily. She hated being pushed and Danny did it all the time.

  “You nearly walked into one of the alarms, can’t you see the rays?”

  “No. Where?”

  “There!” Sophie’s finger sketched a line across their path.

  “There’s nothing there.”

  “Yes there is. Scrunch your eyes up. It’s red. You can see it if you try hard.”

  “I can’t see anything.”

  Sophie sighed, “Perhaps you can’t, but, believe me - it’s there! If you go through it, the alarm bells ring and all the curators come running. Then there’s no peace for the rest of the night,” Sophie chuckled. “The first night they switched the new system on, there was chaos. We didn’t know what it was and what would happen. Billy, the Loghtan sheep, tried to butt it and set it off. Then Monarch galloped through it, just as they had all gone home, so they had to come back again. When it was quiet, my mother caught it with her skirt and it all started again. None of the curators got any sleep that night. You should have seen their faces. They have a strange way of talking sometimes; they called it ‘a fault with the system’. They didn’t know it was us.” She laughed. “It was funny seeing them all running around and finding nothing.”

  “Has it happened again?”

  “Oh yes. Rumpy the cat is the worst for setting it off. He jumps up to look out of the window and forgets his back paws. It’s just as well he hasn’t got a tail! I set it off once myself, for fun, but Mamma said I wasn’t to do it again because it wasn’t fair to the curators. They have to sleep in the night-time, so they can look after us in the day. But you really don’t want to set it off. If they find you, they’ll take you straight home and you haven’t seen anything yet.” She looked thoughtful, “The alarms are round the windows and doors. If you really can’t see them, you’ll just have to follow me and do as I do. I’ll tell you when to jump. Can you do that?”

  “Of course I can.”

  Sophie ran forward and jumped into the air, landing with a bump. Ellen followed, trying hard to do it exactly the same way. To her relief no bells rang. Nothing happened at all.

  “That’s right! Just like that. We are all right now until we get to the next doorway.”

  They turned down the corridor. Light from the street lamps outside was falling through the stained glass windows, making coloured patterns of red and blue on the floor.

  “Hush!” Sophie laid a finger to her lips and they tiptoed past the Bay Room. They could hear the music of a violin. It was lovely and Ellen slowed down to listen but Sophie gripped her arm and pulled her past.

  “That’s where the adults are!” she warned.

  The corridor was empty but, in spite of their attempts to be quiet, their footsteps echoed on the wooden floor.

  “Down here!” Sophie darted to the left and immediately Ellen could smell the sea. A drop of water splashed on her hand and she glanced up. A porpoise was wriggling and shaking his tail and sending drops of bright water onto the floor.

  “What….?” she started to say, and then she heard a swish behind them and Sophie grabbed her arm and pulled her into a corner.

  Ellen turned round to see what was going on but Sophie hissed in her ear, “Hush! Perhaps he won’t hear us”. She sounded frightened and Ellen felt her heart thump. Who was coming? For a moment she wished she had asked to go home when she had had the chance. Sophie had closed her eyes, but Ellen preferred to know what was happening. The smell of the sea became stronger and the sound of something swishing stopped, right in front of them! Ellen looked up into the face of a very tall old man who was looking at them with eyes the colour of the sea itself on a sunny day. For a moment she saw his face clearly. He had long grey green hair and a beard that was like seaweed and wrinkles, as if he had been a long time in water. Then her vision blurred and she seemed to see him through a mist. He stooped slightly to look at them.

  “Who have we here?” His voice was deep with a rumble, which sounded like waves breaking over pebbles. Sophie pushed herself away from the wall and dropped into a curtsey, pulling Ellen down with her. Ellen could feel her hand trembling.

  “Please, your Majesty, this is my friend, Ellen.”

  “Hmm.” He looked them over. Ellen felt as if his eyes were boring deep inside her, into her very soul. She tried to stand up straight and look into his eyes but she could not do it. Without her meaning to, her eyes kept dropping to the floor. The seconds dragged and it seemed ages before he spoke again.

  “Your friend, you say, but she seems to be an outsider. Not one of us?”

  “No.”

  “Then why should I allow her to roam in my kingdom?”

  Ellen looked up fearfully but suddenly she thought she caught a gleam of laughter in his eyes. There was certainly a twinkle there. Reassured, she smiled and found her voice.

  “Please, your Majesty, because I like Sophie so much and she tells me there is so much to see here. Your kingdom must be wonderful. I would love to see it. Please let me?”

  She dropped her own curtsey, just as she had been taught in her dancing class. His laughter rumbled like the great waves.

  “Look after her then, Sophie, and keep out of mischief if you can!”

  He turned away and, with a flick of their tails the porpoises followed him, dancing down the corridor. As he went into the light, Ellen saw the back of his magnificent blue cloak, encrusted with embroidery. She gasped. He had reached the doorway when he looked over his shoulder and said,

  “By the way, you should tell the people in your world that this cloak needs mending. There is a seam coming undone and it catches on things. Very uncomfortable. It was their tribute to me, so the least they can do is to keep it in good order.”

  “I will, your M
ajesty.”

  He glided away into the mist. Ellen turned to Sophie, her eyes round with wonder. “That was Manannan? Wearing his cloak?” she whispered in awe.

  Sophie nodded. “He did not live here until they put the cloak in the cabinet. Then he appeared and I wish he hadn’t because he frightens me to death.”

  “I liked him; he’s got a nice smile.”

  “You don’t want to see him in a rage! He must have liked the look of you or something. I wouldn’t mind him if he was always like that but he isn’t. Quick now, let’s get out of here before he comes back!”

  Chapter Three: A sheep, a cat and a white wallaby.

  “What’s that noise?” Ellen exclaimed, as she paused in the entrance to the Wildlife Gallery. It sounded as if all the birds in the world were twittering at once.

  Sophie laughed, “Come and see. Jump!” She pointed through the doorway and jumped high into the air, landing neatly in the room. Ellen jumped after her, but as she landed, something hit her knee and she staggered back, almost into the beam, bouncing off the doorpost and only just managed to stop herself falling.

  “Stop it, Billy!”

  Sophie was hanging onto one of the huge horns of a Loghtan sheep. It was struggling hard and trying to get to Ellen again. She sidled round it further into the room. “Pat him!” Sophie ordered breathlessly, as she was tossed about by the eager sheep. “He likes being tickled behind his ears.”

  Ellen put her hand out gingerly, not keen to caress an animal that had just tried to knock her over. But instantly, as her hand touched the rough wool, the sheep became calm and stopped his struggles to get away. Sophie, though, was taking no chances and kept her grip on his right horn.

  “He’s a very silly sheep,” she said, “that’s why we call him ‘Silly Billy’. He thinks it is funny to knock people over if he doesn’t know them. He’s friendly when he does know you though. Friend, Billy!” Cautiously, she released him. Billy just stood there, turning his head and lifting his nose as Ellen rubbed him, obviously enjoying it. “Good boy. We are going to see the others now,” Sophie pulled Ellen further into the room, with the sheep trotting at their heels, his hooves tap tapping on the wooden floor.