Open Sesame

by Tom Holt

Aziz watched them depart, and breathed a sigh of relief. For one moment it had looked as if an unpleasant situation was about to develop. Still, all’s well that ends well.

  ‘Where to now, boss?’

  ‘Let’s see.’ Aziz unfolded the map and scratched his head. The map was the wrong way up, but that didn’t matter terribly much. ‘Let’s try over there,’ he said.

  Three hours later, after a highly bewildering tramp through a forest that suddenly seemed to spring up out of nowhere all around them, they came to a picturesque little cottage in a clearing. Fingers Hassan had smashed a window and got his lazy tongs round the catch before Aziz noticed the door was ajar. He pushed it, called out, ‘Hello!’ and walked in.

  It was - well, spooky. There was a table,, and three sweet little chairs; one big chair, one middling chair and one little chair. And on the table were three plates and three cups, similarly in sizes L, M and S, and up against the far wall, three beds, likewise. There was porridge in the bowls, milk in the cups and a cheerful fire crackling in the hearth, but nobody about.

  ‘Hello?’ Aziz repeated, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword. ‘Anybody at home?’

  Silence. Three pairs of slippers - enormous slippers, medium-large slippers and dear little slippers. Three nightgowns, hung tidily on hooks. Three—

  ‘Skip! Look out!’

  Aziz whirled round, his sword out of its scabbard and on guard before he stopped moving. The door had burst open, and framed in the doorway was a gigantic bear. At the sight of Aziz and his companions, the huge beast reared up on its hind legs and growled, displaying a mouthful of long yellow fangs. Faisal, who was nearest the door, stood rooted to the spot, obviously paralysed with terror. It was time, Aziz realised, for decisive action. What would the Boss do? Easy.

  With one bound, Aziz leapt at the bear, sword raised. The monster lunged forward to meet him, and as it did so, Aziz could see another bear, only a little smaller, following hard on its heels; and behind that, the dim shape of a third.

  A moment later, it was all over. The largest of the terrible creatures lay dead on the cottage floor. The second largest it had made up for it by its unspeakable ferocity - had slunk off into the forest to lick its wounds. The third had bolted before any of the thieves had engaged it. Aziz sheathed his sword with a grunt of satisfaction, and sank back onto the nearest bed.

  It was all too easy to work out what had become of the three unfortunates - woodcutters, probably, or homesteaders - who had strayed this far into the wild wood, built this heartbreakingly twee little home for themselves and fallen victim to the merciless predators. If only, Aziz muttered to himself, we’d come this way a day or so earlier, we might have saved them…

  Just a minute. What am I saying?

  Saved them? Dammit, we’re villains. Baddies. Baddies don’t go around saving people, you could get chucked out of the union. Handsome princes and knights errant save people; that’s what they’re for.

  Aziz felt slightly sick. ‘Lads,’ he croaked, ‘I don’t like this. There’s something funny going on around here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Us,’ the answering machine repeated. ‘We found you, took pity on you, and brought you up as our own. Don’t stare like that, dammit, it’s rude. You wouldn’t be taking on so if we were wolves.’

  ‘But you’re machines’ Michelle stuttered, when she was finally able to speak. ‘How could …? ‘

  ‘Ungrateful little madam,’ huffed the iron.

  ‘Typical,’ agreed the blender. ‘You take them in, give them the best years of your life, and then they don’t want to know you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Michelle whimpered. ‘Look, will someone please explain? Starting, if at all possible, at the beginning.’

  The answering machine was sulking, so the deep fat fryer took up the story. ‘Once upon a time,’ it said, ‘there was this flat, right? To let, fully furnished. We’re the fully furnished. And there we were, minding our own business, when suddenly we wake up one morning and there’s this entirely unexpected and inexplicable new-born human child lying screaming its head off on our doormat.’

  ‘Never been the same since, that doormat,’ complained the freezer. ‘Paranoid. Curls its edges up if you so much as look at it.’

  ‘Well,’ continued the fryer, ‘what were we to do? We took a vote on it, and decided we’d just have to look after you till your owner turned up. And we did.’

  ‘Hard work,’ growled the hoover. ‘No labour-saving humans to do half the work for us. Guess who had to change your nappies. Yuk!’

  ‘And it’s not as if we had the faintest idea how to go about it,’ added the tumble-drier. ‘You always seemed to be breaking down or going wrong. I was all for sending you back, at least while you were still under warranty.’

  ‘Fortunately,’ said the answering machine, who’d decided to stop sulking, ‘the TV was able to work out the basic ground-rules from watching soap operas and the like …’

  ‘We were going to call you Krystle originally,’ said the toaster. ‘Only then we found the name Michelle on your receipt, so we guessed you were called that at the factory, so—’

  ‘Receipt?’ Michelle interrupted.

  ‘The bit of paper that came with you,’ explained the tumble-drier. ‘Dunno whatever became of that. I think once your warranty period expired we chucked it out.’

  ‘Anyway,’ the answering machine went on, ‘as time went on we worked out what we had to do with you. The telly taught you to speak, the cooker did your food, the hoover—’

  ‘Don’t keep harping on about it,’ moaned the Hoover. ‘Scarred me for life, probably.’

  ‘The phone did an awful lot,’ the answering machine went on. ‘Rang up the school and enrolled you as a pupil. Sent for the doctor when you broke down. Made your dentist’s appointments. Tapped into the bank’s, computer and diverted money to an Access account to pay the bills and everything. Like a mother to you, that phone.’

  Michelle hung her head in shame. It was no more than four months since she’d finally slung out the old dial-fronted phone and treated herself to a flash new cordless walkabout.

  ‘Of course,’ said the fridge, ‘there was the problem of how to account for it all. Please bear in mind that until tonight, we were never able to talk to you. Actually, we honestly thought you knew about us - you know, what we’ve been to you all these years - or at least had some sort of inkling… But apparently not. Ah well.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Michelle said, choking back a sob.

  ‘But,’ said the answering machine, ‘we were realistic enough to tumble to the fact that one day you were going to start asking questions; where’s my mummy, where’s my daddy, all that jazz. A problem, yes?’

  ‘So,’ interrupted the toaster, ‘we hypnotised you.’

  ‘Hypnotised…!’

  The answering machine blinked a red light. ‘Remember the old pendulum clock, used to hang on your bedroom wall? Piece of cake, apparently. Once you were under, of course, we were able to communicate with your subconscious, or whatever the expression is - the TV knows all the technical terms, you’d better ask her - and just sort of sweep all that stuff under the carpet, so to speak. And then, when you were, oh, eleven

  ‘Twelve and a half.’

  ‘Was it? My memory. Anyway, the phone called your school with some cock-and-bull story about your family getting wiped out in a car crash, and we sent you away to a boarding school, so you could grow up with your own kind.’

  ‘Nearly blew our fuses,’ sniffed the cooker. ‘After twelve years, you were just like our own little baby.’ What’s a baby cooker, Michelle couldn’t help asking herself. Toasted sandwich maker, perhaps?

  ‘And that’s it, more or less,’ the answering machine concluded. ‘Oh, except for your aunt. The one who had the ring.’

  Michelle gulped. ‘Aunt Fatty,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right. Came as a real shock, I can tell you. Must have been when you were six, maybe seven. This woman
rang, asking to speak to your phone.’

  ‘You mean me?’

  ‘No,’ replied the answering machine sternly. ‘Haven’t you been listening? Anyway, that was weird enough, finding a human who could talk to us. Then when she said our little Michelle was her great-niece …’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Not,’ continued the toaster, ‘that we were able to get anything useful out of her, like who your mum and dad were or what happened to them. Clammed up on us, as soon as she found out you were all right. She did say she’d like to see you, so we made a note of the address and put it into your mind under hypnosis.’

  ‘She left a tape for you,’ said the answering machine, ‘on me. But,’ it went on guiltily, ‘it got wiped. Not my fault, I can’t actually change my own tapes, and you wouldn’t take a hint.’

  ‘Can you remember what she said?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ replied the answering machine, offended. ‘You think I eavesdrop on people’s private conversations?’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Well,’ said Michelle eventually. ‘I don’t know what to say. I—’

  The washing machine hummed. ‘Thanks might be a convenient starting point,’ it said acidly. ‘Twenty-seven years washing your underwear, there must be some kind of medal.’

  ‘I am most frightfully grateful,’ Michelle hastened to say. ‘Really I am. But, well, it’s been a bit of a shock.’

  ‘Not good enough for you, are we?’ grumbled the tumble-drier. ‘You’d have preferred blue blood in your veins rather than alternating current? Well, young lady, I’m afraid it’s a bit too late to do anything about that now.’

  ‘Be fair,’ replied the hoover indulgently, ‘it hasn’t been easy for the kid, she’s missed out on a lot. I mean, boyfriends, for one thing. Imagine how embarrassing it’d have been if she’d ever wanted to bring a boy home to meet her folks.’

  ‘Please.’ Michelle looked round pleadingly, and the chattels fell silent. ‘I owe you so much already, but can you please try and find out who my parents were? My real parents, I mean. You see, I’ve never thought about it before, and now —’

  ‘It’s all right,’ cooed the dishwasher. ‘Now look what you’ve done, you’ve made her cry. Kettle, put yourself on.’

  ‘Actually,’ muttered the answering machine. ‘We don’t know, of course, but we’ve sort of guessed …’

  ‘Call it electrical intuition.’

  Michelle froze. ‘Who?’ she demanded. ‘Come on, you’ve got to tell me.’ The answering machine beeped. The other appliances were silent.

  ‘Oh come on,’ Michelle shouted. ‘Answering machine, you obviously know something. For pity’s sake!’

  ‘Look, it’s only a guess. We’re probably wrong.’

  ‘Answering machine!’

  ‘Hello, I’m sorry there’s no one here to take your call but if you leave your name and telephone num —’

  ‘Machine!’

  ‘Oh all right.’ The answering machine rewound itself, hummed and crackled a little, as if clearing its throat. ‘We think your father may possibly be—’

  And then the fuses blew.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Stay,’ Akram commanded.’ Good bird.’ The phoenix glowered at him, but he took no notice. Good bedsits are hard to come by, and the photocopied sheet he’d been given said categorically NO PETS. If he’d been inclined to argue the point, he could have made out a case for the phoenix being an instrument of vengeance, not a pet; but there was probably a supplemental photocopied sheet headed NO INSTRUMENTS OF VENGEANCE, which would glide through his letterbox the very next morning if he tried to be all Jesuitical about it. Between daring escapades, therefore, the phoenix lived in a small lock-up unit on the industrial estate, which Akram rented by the week. And if the landlords wanted to take him to task over it, let them; he’d have no difficulty whatsoever in establishing that the phoenix was perfectly legitimate plant and equipment for use in his trade or profession.

  He locked up, walked home and let himself in. Just as he was about to switch on the light, a faint noise froze him in his tracks. There was someone in the room.

  It happens. Just as undertakers die, policemen get parking tickets and commissioners of inland revenue pay taxes, professional thieves do sometimes get burgled. A tiny spurt of pity flared in his mind for the poor fool of a fellow-artisan who’d been to all the trouble of busting in here to find there was nothing worth stealing, and who would very soon be getting the kicking of a lifetime. He sidled in, closed the door noiselessly, and listened.

  Whoever it was must have heard his key in the lock, because the room was completely silent; the sort of silence that proves beyond question that something’s up. Akram knew the score; he leaned against the door, drew a long, thin-bladed knife from the side of his boot, and waited.

  Five minutes later, he decided that he couldn’t be bothered, and switched on the light. To his amazement, there was nobody there. His establishment wasn’t large enough to afford concealment to a cockroach, let alone a felon. Imagination playing tricks? Misinterpreted plumbing? Surely not. Akram had relied implicitly on the accuracy of his senses long enough to know that they could be trusted implicitly. He frowned.

  Then the penny dropped. He’d switched on the overhead light, and the standard lamp had come on. He stepped smartly over to the lamp, knocked it over and put his foot on the place where the bulb should have been. ‘Gitahtavit,’ he snapped.

  Under the toe of his boot, the tiny ball of light squirmed. ‘Ouch,’ it said, ‘you’re hurting.’

  ‘I’ll hurt a damn sight more in a minute,’ Akram replied. ‘Stop pissing me about. Last thing I need after a hard day is to spend half an hour on my hands and knees scrubbing squashed pixie out of the carpet.’

  ‘All right,’ the pixie sighed, ‘it’s a fair cop, I’ll come quietly.’ Akram lifted his toe a quarter of an inch and the ball of light edged out a little way. On closer examination it proved to be a three-inch-high young woman in ballet-costume, with rather crumpled wings, a black mask over her face and a sack over her shoulder, on the side of which Akram could just make out the word SWAG.

  ‘Oh come on,” Akram grunted scornfully. ‘This is ridiculous.’

  ‘Not my fault,’ the pixie replied defensively. ‘Victim of circumstances, that’s what I am. Indicative of a deep-seated malaise in modern society that threatens to undermine—’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Take your bloody great foot off my chest and I’ll explain.’

  It was a sad and, by and large, convincing story. Modern toothpastes, innovative toothbrush design and a greater public awareness of the need for preventive dental hygiene had led to forty per cent redundancies in the corps of tooth fairies. The redundancy money hadn’t lasted long, and career opportunities for tiny luminous flying people are few and far between. Six months ago she’d faced the stark choice: starve or steal.

  ‘I even tried going on the streets,’ she said mournfully. ‘Bought myself a red filter and everything. But nobody was interested. People can be very cruel sometimes.’

  Akram shook his head. ‘Get up,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘When did you last eat?’

  ‘About half an hour ago,’ replied the pixie. ‘I raided your fridge. You want to chuck that milk out, by the way. There’s things living in it that are larger than I am.’

  ‘You’re not very good at this, are you?’

  ‘Not very,’ the pixie replied with a shrug. ‘Getting in and out’s no problem, I’m used to that, naturally. It’s the carting stuff off that fazes me. When the bulkiest load you’re used to is a second-hand incisor, video recorders can be quite a challenge.’

  ‘I could tell you weren’t a pro,’ Akram replied. ‘Too noisy, for one thing.’

  ‘You startled me,’ the pixie said. ‘So what are you going to do?’

  Akram shrugged. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to turn you in or anything, if that’s what you’re getting at. I mean, if I were to go
banging on the door of the police station at half past two in the morning saying I’ve effected a citizen’s arrest and have they got an empty matchbox handy, they’d probably tell me to go home and sleep it off. On the other hand,’ he went on, as a faint light dawned inside his brain, ‘we might be able to help each other. If you’re interested, that is.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  Akram sat down on the radiator and drew his left heel up to his right knee. ‘For reasons I won’t bore you with,’ he said, ‘I could use a tiny winged assistant for a little job I’ve got lined up.’

  ‘This job pay money, by any chance?’

  ‘Saucer of milk a day and a shoebox with an old vest in it,’ replied Akram. ‘Take it or leave it.’

  ‘Done. When do I start?’

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ Akram replied. ‘Just one thing, though. The light. Can you turn it down?’

  At once the pixie dimmed to a faint glow. ‘Better?’ she asked.

  ‘Fine. You’ll also need rubber boots and wirecutters. There’s quite a lot of electrical work involved, you see.’ Quickly and concisely, Akram explained what the job involved.

  ‘That’s fine,’ the pixie replied. ‘Piece of cake. Talking of which…’

  After he’d given the pixie some milk and made its shoebox - they can’t get Blue Peter in Storybook Land, even with a dish aerial, but Akram made a reasonable fist of it just by light of nature - he cut himself some stale bread, washed it down with tapwater, shoved the lamp he’d just stolen under the mattress, lay down on the bed and immediately fell asleep. A pale yellow glow hovered above the shoebox for a while, and then went out.

  Ten minutes later, Akram sat up, switched the light back on and said, ‘Ouch.’

  The yellow glow reappeared. ‘Problem?’ asked the pixie.

  ‘Sort of,’ replied Akram out of the corner of his mouth. ‘I’ve got toothache.’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ The glow floated up, circled Akram’s head and swooped into his open mouth like a rook pitching on a newly sown field. ‘Ah yes,’ came its voice from inside, ‘I can see what the matter is.’

  ‘You can?’ Akram said, trying his level best not to swallow.