Mennyms Alive
Page 18
“I know I could,” said Billy. “I could look after the dolls upstairs an’ all. I would never let anyone hurt them.”
Daisy was about to answer when there was a noise from the flat above, as of somebody moving furniture. A heavy weight was being dragged slowly across the floor. Billy was just about to take a bite out of his mince pie. He stopped and gasped.
“They’re moving about up there,” he said in a voice full of amazement. “I’ve never heard them moving about before!”
What he really meant was far more complex. It was clear from Daisy’s lack of reaction that the noise upstairs was no surprise to her. Had she moved on? Did she know more than she’d known before?
Then, in the silence that followed, they heard laughter, a girlish giggle.
“They’re laughing,” said Billy, looking wonderingly at Daisy. Were the rag dolls out in the open? And Daisy was coping. Her heart had not stopped!
Daisy saw the look on his face and said quickly, “That’s not them. That’s Joseph and Sally, Mrs Cooper’s son and his wife – you know Mrs Cooper, the woman who does my cleaning . . .”
“But . . .” began Billy, puzzled.
“They live up there now. They moved in yesterday. They’ve got all sorts of plans for the property, but I let them move straight in, to have a proper home for Christmas.”
“What about the dolls?” said Billy. “The Mennyms? Where are they now?”
“That,” said Daisy, “is something else we’ll have to talk about.”
Billy listened dazed as she told him the whole story, showed him the letter the Mennyms had left on the stairs, told him about the taxi driver who had returned Wimpey’s doll. Daisy gave him the doll to hold in his hands as if it were evidence. Billy pulled the ring on the doll’s back and heard it say in its flat little voice, “I’m-Polly. What-are-you-called? Would-you-like-a-Chocolate-Milk?”
“We should put it in the window,” he said, wanting a ceremony, something to mark the departure. “Then if the little girl ever passes this way she will know where it is.”
Billy knew it would be no more than a gesture. The talking doll could be put in the window. It was very improbable that the doll with the blue ribbons would ever see it, but if she did she would not come in to claim it. Billy knew that.
And so did Daisy. Nevertheless, she hobbled on her stick to the window where Polly Waggons sat and she propped up the doll beside the folds of the long grey skirt so that it faced out towards the street.
“There now,” she said to the wooden betty lady who sat unmoving with her fingers spread out on the typewriter keys, “you have a little girl to sit by you. Her name’s the same as yours!”
CHAPTER 45
The Last Chapter
IT WAS HALF-PAST three.
Daisy and Billy had drunk yet another cup of tea and talked more and more about the dolls that had once lived upstairs. Billy went even further back, recalling the time he had taken make-believe meals to the blue doll in the loft at Bedemarsh Farm. He remembered the girl doll skipping on the path outside Comus House. But he made no mention of that Wednesday in August about which Soobie had warned him to be silent.
“Have another pie,” said Daisy. “There’s plenty left for your mam and dad. And I’ve got another plate of sandwiches in the fridge. Better take them out now so they won’t be too cold.”
“Oh!” said Billy. “I forgot. Dad says we have to be ready to go straightaway. They aren’t coming in. They want to get straight home. And have you got your case packed?”
Daisy laughed.
“No need to worry,” she said. “I’m all ready for my holidays! And if they really aren’t coming in, I’ll put the rest of the food into a carrier bag to take with us. Waste not, want not!”
As she wrapped up the sandwiches, Billy watched her thoughtfully. Even now he did not feel free to talk about his own special encounter with the dolls.
“What do you really believe?” he said.
“About the Mennyms?” said Daisy as she continued to make neat little packages of food and put them into a Tesco bag.
“Yes,” said Billy. “Do you think somebody stole them? Or do you think they really could have gone away of their own accord?”
Daisy stopped to consider. She looked at Billy across the table and weighed her words carefully before she spoke.
“What I believe needn’t be true,” she said. “You do know that?”
“Yes,” said Billy slowly. “I think I do.”
“Then, for my own part, in my own private opinion, I believe they somehow had the means and the ability to find somewhere else to live – some place where not even Daisy Maughan would visit them. I believe, if you like, that they are living happily ever after.”
Billy remembered the story of the Flying Dutchman and wondered what living happily ever after might really mean.
“Some day I’ll find them,” he said. “Some day I’ll see them again. I’ll talk to them and get to know them properly.”
He thought awhile and then had another wave of inspiration.
“It might be possible to trace them,” he said. “To find out where they went. Taxi drivers might know. They couldn’t all have gone in one taxi. Somebody at the Central Station might have noticed them, even if they were all wrapped up in hoods and things.”
“No!” said Daisy sharply. “You mustn’t look for them. You mustn’t ever look for them. It took a tremendous effort for them to leave here. To pursue them would be cruel. Think of the stories you have read, the films you have seen. The Mennyms have gone. For us, that is the end. We will never see them again.”
Her words gave Billy pause for thought. How much did Daisy know? He would never dare to ask. He began to suspect that she knew even more than he did. Suddenly he was able to see the dolls with Daisy’s eyes, to have some idea of what it all might mean. He stood up and placed one hand on her shoulder.
“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t quite know how or why, but I believe you are right.”
Daisy smiled up at him. Billy’s ginger hair was less wispy, his shoulders just a little bit broader than they had been on his last visit, and he must have added an inch or two to his height.
“You do keep on growing,” said Daisy, seeming to change the subject. “I wish you’d give me the recipe.”
“You’re not little, Aunt Daisy,” said Billy, knowing perfectly well what she really meant. “In my eyes, you’re as tall as a tree.”
In the street outside, Jamie Maughan’s car drew up in front of the shop. He looked for signs of his aunt and his son emerging and when there were none he sounded the horn twice over. It was already dark, and he was anxious to get out of the town before the rush hour. Daisy handed Billy her case, looped the Tesco bag over her arm and, leaning heavily on her stick, made for the door. Billy walked ahead of her to the car.
“I won’t be a minute, Jamie,” she called as she came outside. “Have a bit of patience, won’t you! I’ll just have to lock the front door. The lads will be around later to do the shutters.”
She turned the key in the lock and then fixed a padlock in place just below it. Unhurried, she glanced at the wooden betty dolls in the window, turning her head first to one and then to the other.
“Happy Christmas, Lily,” she said. “Happy Christmas, Polly.”
Then she looked out into the darkness and added, “Happy Christmas, Mennyms, wherever you may be. And God bless you, Kate Penshaw.”
For Daisy understood the secret of the Mennyms.
About the Author
Sylvia Waugh lives in Gateshead. She taught English at a local school for many years but has 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 in the Wilderness
Mennyms Under Siege
Mennyms Alone
The Ormingat series:
Space Race
Earthborn
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 ALIVE
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 19541 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, 1996
First Published in Great Britain by Julia MacRae, 1996
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