The Land of Neverendings

by Kate Saunders

  ‘It’s so nice to hear them talking about Biggins’!’ Ruth burst out happily. ‘It’s a hot drink for very old toys that are stuffed with sawdust – Danny invented it when we visited a toy museum.’

  ‘Notty’s stuffed with sawdust,’ Emily said. ‘Maybe he has some.’

  ‘I’ll ask him,’ said Smiffy. ‘Or Bluey.’

  ‘Bluey!’ Emily’s heart skipped. ‘He’s not— I mean, he wasn’t stuffed with sawdust!’

  ‘No, but he lives next door to a really old rabbit,’ Smiffy explained (with a kind expression on his sweet and foolish face that pierced Emily with sudden longing for Bluey and his owner).

  ‘We should be going,’ said Blokey. ‘It’s nearly seven o’clock.’

  Hugo and Smiffy gaped at him in amazement.

  ‘Wow,’ whispered Hugo. ‘You can tell the time!’

  The tin monkey looked rather smug. ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Now we can fire that lazy cuckoo,’ said Smiffy happily. ‘Come along, everyone!’

  He opened the cardboard box, letting out a glow of white light. All the toys jumped into the box (Mokey did a showy dive off the table, shouting, ‘Wheee!’) and it closed behind them.

  Ruth and Emily were left dazed and blinking in a kitchen that had returned to the solid drabness of the hard world. Ruth opened Daniel’s box and they both stared in silence at the heap of dumb toys inside it.

  ‘I’ve just thought of something,’ Ruth said, stroking Figgy’s new dress. ‘These toys are not my property. They belong to the Staples estate – in money terms, they must be worth a small fortune. Maybe I should hand them in at the police station.’

  ‘Not yet!’ Emily begged. ‘Can’t we just hold on to them for a while?’ Though she couldn’t put it into words, the Edwardian toys gave her a sense of nearness to Bluey. ‘They might be able to help us find out how the magic is leaking out of Smockeroon.’

  ‘Never mind what’s getting out,’ Ruth said. ‘It’s what’s getting in to Smockeroon that bothers me. I can’t bear to think of that happy place being invaded by sadness.’

  Fourteen

  IT BEGINS

  THE NEXT MORNING they were giving Maze a lift to school.

  In the old days she would have run down their gardens to the back door. Today, however, she knocked on the front door, like a stranger.

  ‘Hi, Maze!’ Dad was just setting off to the pie factory on his bicycle. ‘Nice to see you!’

  ‘Hello, Maze – you’re bang on time!’ Mum beamed at her. ‘It’s been ages, hasn’t it?’

  Maze’s cheeks were red and the thunderous look in her dark eyes made Emily’s stomach turn nervous somersaults. For some reason – though Mum and Dad didn’t notice a thing – Maze was furious. Instead of the usual torrent of talking, she was ominously quiet.

  Emily had no idea what she was supposed to have done. When her mother’s back was turned, she mouthed, ‘What?’

  Maze only scowled at her and spent most of the journey across town in glowering silence. When the car stopped outside the gates of Hatty Catty, she mumbled, ‘Thanks,’ and got out so fast that Emily practically had to chase her through the main doors.

  ‘Maze – wait! What is it? What’ve I done?’

  Maze hissed, ‘Like you don’t know!’

  ‘But I don’t!’

  They were on the big staircase that led up to the classrooms, and because they were quite early it was deserted.

  ‘You think it’s funny, don’t you?’ Maze suddenly whisked round and grabbed Emily’s arm. ‘You and that pathetic Martha Bishop!’

  ‘Ow – that really hurts!’ Emily tried to tug her arm away. ‘Look, could you please just tell me?’

  A door opened on the landing above them. ‘You two Year Sevens – stop that messing about!’

  It was Mrs Lewis, glaring down at them like a cross, white-haired gargoyle. Maze stopped pinching Emily’s arm.

  A big gaggle of Year Nine girls came charging past them up the stairs, all chattering at the tops of their voices, and Mrs Lewis was distracted.

  ‘So you don’t know anything about THIS!’ Maze was holding a tatty scrap of paper, which she shoved at Emily. ‘You put it in my pocket!’ One side of the paper was covered with crude writing in what looked like purple wax crayon – HAHAHA YoU aRE a BUM!!!!

  Emily drew in a sharp breath. This note had not been written by a human. Suddenly she knew exactly who had sent it, and blurted it out before she knew what she was doing.

  ‘Maze, this isn’t from me – it’s from Prizzy! Don’t you remember her insulting messages?’

  The name of the old rag doll hit Maze like a slap. ‘Don’t be stupid – I know what this is! You’re using our babyish old game to make me feel guilty – because I don’t give poor little boohoo Emily enough attention!’

  ‘You … what?’ The injustice was breathtaking.

  ‘I’ve got new friends now.’ Maze drew a couple of breaths and hurriedly added, ‘Look, I’m sorry, OK?’ Her angry face flushed a deeper red and she dashed away up the stairs.

  Emily was left stunned, clutching the rude note that was obviously the work of Prison Wendy. Maze had said ‘sorry’, but not as if she meant it.

  I’ve been well and truly DUMPED.

  Before she could think about it properly, Martha and Amber Jones came running up the stairs.

  ‘Hi, Emily,’ Martha said breathlessly. ‘My uncle Mike – the one who bought the beer I won in the raffle – he’s in the fire brigade and he told me about the fire in your friend’s shop. He says you’re a heroine. Why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t really do anything …’

  ‘Mike said the lady could have died from inhaling the smoke long before anyone noticed the flames. I hope she’s OK.’

  ‘Yes, she’s—’

  ‘Mike’s the uncle who did the nude calendar for charity – he’s Mr August. My other uncle’s a vicar. He says he’d love to be in a nude calendar but nobody’s asked him.’

  Thanks to Martha, Emily was laughing when she walked into the classroom – and the pain of seeing Maze muttering to Summer wasn’t nearly as bad as she thought it would be. She wasn’t sitting alone at her desk any more. She had a circle of really nice friends.

  Martha tugged at her sleeve and whispered, ‘Look, hope you don’t mind, I haven’t asked Maze and Summer to my party. I don’t think they would have wanted to come, anyway.’

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ said Emily, suddenly remembering the sleepover. ‘It’s your birthday.’

  She thought of her own birthday, at the end of February. She had never had big parties because of Holly. When Holly was alive, they had celebrated Emily’s birthday with a small tea party and Maze had been the only guest – a great guest, who sang songs and made Holly smile.

  How could she forget?

  Does she even care that Holly died?

  *

  Emily’s parents had joined a club called The Barkstone Bookworms. They met once a fortnight in someone’s sitting room, and spent the evening drinking wine and talking about a book they had all read. This evening, eight Bookworms – including Ruth – had gathered at Emily’s house. Judging by the loud voices and roars of laughter behind the sitting-room door, it wasn’t a very serious discussion.

  Emily sat at the kitchen table with the laptop, watching a documentary about penguins in the Antarctic. Real penguins who were not toys had a terrible time – lashed by snowstorms, waddling for miles to find food. Hugo would have hated it.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about John’s spell, and the sudden appearance of his three toys. Ruth had put Blokey, Mokey and Figinda in Daniel’s box, and she managed to whisper to Emily that she hadn’t heard a squeak out of them.

  But something has changed.

  Ruth had left the rest of their ‘potion’ in a plastic bottle on the shelf in her kitchen, and Emily was sure she’d forgotten all about it – her kitchen was packed with old bottles and jars.

  What if that fire had
nothing to do with the spell?

  The Staples brothers had used the spell to visit Smockeroon every night, and they hadn’t died.

  I bet one more try wouldn’t hurt.

  It was very frustrating to know that she might be just one short step away from Holly, if only she could persuade Ruth to change her mind about trying the spell again.

  Dad hurried in to the kitchen to fetch more wine and beer from the fridge. ‘You OK, Em?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Sorry about the noise – we just voted to read a new book. We were all sick of The Great Gatsby so now we’ve changed it to Winnie-the-Pooh.’

  Lord Pooh and Lord Piglet.

  Emily quickly wrote this down in the Bluey book after Dad had gone back to the Bookworms; she’d forgotten that in her stories for Holly these famous characters and several other well-known toys (Dogger, Bagpuss) were lords and ladies in Smockeroon. And then she wondered about the oddness of it. Only yesterday Dad had been calling The Great whatsit the masterpiece of the twentieth century. Now he was reading Winnie-the-Pooh. It didn’t make sense – unless this was a sign that the magic was seeping out into the hard world in a very serious way.

  ‘… and in other news, the terrible jelly flood at Pointed End was caused by a disgruntled wooden cuckoo …’

  She blinked and gasped as a surge of dazzling lights suddenly came streaming out of the laptop, painting the whole kitchen with the colours of Christmas.

  A jelly flood at Pointed End?

  As usual, she had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the glare of toys’ television. The screen was filled with the solemn face of the lady panda reading the news.

  ‘… claimed that he’d been unfairly fired from his job. Several small toys are still trapped in jelly.’

  A series of photos appeared of the gardens around The Sycamores covered in a thick layer of red jelly. And then the screen was filled with a police mugshot of the cuckoo, his wooden features carved into a scowl, and numbers across his chest.

  But this isn’t right!

  Toys were never mean or nasty; it was one of the great rules of Smockeroon. Humans could be mean to each other, but toys were always kind.

  The sadness is taking over in Smockeroon.

  The panda’s face came back. ‘And now the weather; don’t forget the nine-minute shower of rain due at eighteen past eleven tomorrow morning.’

  Some adverts came next and Emily watched them anxiously, looking for more signs of human horridness. It was reassuring to see that everything else in Smockeroon looked as sweet and silly as ever.

  I was a bear with terrible CORF,

  I corfed so hard my ears blew ORF …

  She leaned close to the screen, trying to look at the background; those lovely woods and fields of Deep Smockeroon, where Bluey played with Holly, and Hugo and Smiffy played with Danny.

  Bluey, where are you?

  The announcer’s voice said, ‘And now a brand-new series – My Owner’s Bedroom.’

  There was a burst of music; the screen filled with a view of a human bedroom, quite a lot like Emily’s own bedroom. A human was sitting at the desk – a girl with curly brown hair and a sweet, dimpled face.

  It was Martha Bishop, and she didn’t seem to have a clue that she was on television.

  ‘Martha?’

  But Martha obviously couldn’t hear her; she carried on eating crisps and reading her book.

  ‘Hello. I’m Pippa. Welcome to My Owner’s Bedroom!’

  Yes, it was Pippa, the little yellow Seam-Rite bear, beaming with pride as she showed off Martha’s stuff. Why didn’t she notice?

  ‘Finally, my favourite thing,’ said Pippa, pulling open a drawer. ‘This wonderful five-pack of new knickers!’

  Emily burst out laughing – much as she yearned to see Bluey, she was glad he didn’t discuss her knickers on TV. Embarrassing! Even if it was only seen by a bunch of toys.

  ‘And now for a newsflash.’ The panda was back. ‘Reports are coming in that the Sturvey’s office is broken. Hundreds of toys have complained about not-answered messages and there are fears that the Great Sturvey himself has vanished.’

  The sitting-room door opened, the light turned normal again and the penguins were back on the laptop. It was annoying not to hear any more of this incredible story.

  What has happened to the Great Sturvey?

  The bear had apparently disappeared leaving Smockeroon to slide into chaos.

  The Bookworms were roaring with laughter and yelling out a song that contained the word ‘tiddely-pom’. They said their goodbyes and left the house with a noise like the pub turning out at closing time.

  And they were all such quiet, grey-haired, respectable people.

  Though she wasn’t exactly scared, Emily had a strong sense that the magic was more out of control than ever.

  ‘What a fascinating discussion that was!’ Ruth was staying for a cup of tea. Her face was flushed and her eyes were glazed and dreamy.

  Dad said, ‘It’s a masterpiece of the twentieth century, perhaps the masterpiece. And I think next time I might dress up as Eeyore.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ said Mum. ‘And we can eat honey and condensed milk, like Pooh.’

  Emily’s parents both had a weird, other-worldly look to them, and Emily felt a first flutter of alarm; couldn’t they hear what they were saying? She tried to catch Ruth’s eye, but nobody would look at her properly.

  Dad started to chat about his work, and at first he sounded perfectly normal. ‘We’re pretty busy at the moment, launching a new range of fruit pies.’ But then silliness took over again, when he added, ‘They’re special throwing-pies – you know – for pie fights.’

  ‘Marvellous!’ said Mum.

  ‘Genius!’ said Ruth.

  Now Emily was really alarmed. Get your party going – with a pie that’s for THROWING!

  This was more than a small leak. The unique silliness of Smockeroon had seeped into the largest food factory in the West Midlands.

  ‘Ruth!’ she hissed.

  ‘Tiddely-pom,’ said Ruth.

  In desperation, Emily sloshed some of her hot tea (not hot enough to scald) on the back of Ruth’s hand.

  ‘Ouch!’ Ruth blinked hard for a few minutes, and frowned to herself, as if trying to work out a difficult sum.

  And then she looked at Emily properly, and murmured, ‘Oh dear.’

  Fifteen

  THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN

  THE STRANGEST THING of all was that everything was so normal the next morning. Emily and her parents ate a normal breakfast, Dad cycled off to the factory in a totally normal way, and there was no more ridiculous talk about throwing-pies. (Emily had tested this by asking Dad a casual question about his work, and all he’d said was, ‘Oh, it’s the same old grind – moving around columns of numbers.’)

  Her mother hustled her into the car.

  ‘Hurry up, Em! I want to dodge the traffic.’ There was nothing dreamy about Mum this morning. She was brisk and matter-of-fact, and only wanted to talk about taking on an extra day at her work. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind? Ruth was delighted, by the way – she says she’d love to have you for an extra afternoon.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Emily said. ‘I like going to Ruth’s.’

  She longed to talk to Ruth about last night: the alarming attack of silliness, and the sensational news that the Sturvey had been declared missing.

  ‘I think you’ve given her a new lease of life.’ Mum drummed her fingers thoughtfully on the steering wheel while they waited at the roundabout. ‘I haven’t seen her so jolly since … well—’

  ‘Since Daniel died,’ Emily said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When her heart was broken.’

  Mum was startled. ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘She didn’t need to tell me. I just knew.’

  ‘It must be nearly ten years ago – you were a baby. And Holly—’ Mum let out the endless, yearning sigh that Emily had got used to. ‘He was
a nice boy and he was only eighteen.’

  ‘Poor Ruth!’

  ‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you,’ Mum said, after a long pause. ‘It was a road accident – he was on a motorbike. Ruth had to identify his body.’

  ‘Oh.’ Emily had not known this, and she had to pretend to be staring out of the window so that her mother wouldn’t see that she was crying; it was so sad that she could hardly bear it. No wonder Ruth loved remembering all the happy times in Smockeroon.

  ‘Anyway – it’s great to see how much you’ve cheered her up. It reminds me of how she was before.’ Mum sighed again, then added, in her normal voice, ‘Sorry we’re so early. I keep forgetting – it doesn’t take me an hour to load up the car any more.’

  ‘That’s OK. I like being early.’ Emily shook away the last tears. ‘I can have a coffee from the machine.’

  The coffee machine was one of the best things about Hatty Catty; it felt very cool to stride around with a cup of machine coffee like a sixth-former. There was usually a queue, but this morning she was so early that the only person ahead of her was Martha.

  ‘Hi Emily! I’m so glad you showed up early – my dad parked me here at practically dawn because it’s market day and he was taking in some pigs.’ Martha took her cup of hot chocolate (much nicer than coffee but not nearly as cool). ‘Tell me honestly – do I smell piggy?’

  ‘All I can smell is perfume,’ Emily said, laughing. ‘You must’ve sprayed it on with a hose!’

  ‘I might’ve gone a bit mad with it. But I’m not giving that cow Summer any more excuses to make faces at me and “oink” noises, just because I live on a farm.’

  ‘Morning, girls.’ Ms Robinson was walking towards them along the corridor. ‘You two are keen – don’t we set you enough homework?’

  ‘Oh, isn’t this sweet?’ Martha reached out to stroke a small brown koala bear attached to the zip of Ms Robinson’s backpack.

  ‘Meet Koley the Koala key ring,’ Ms Robinson said, smiling and looking very young. ‘I hadn’t seen him for years, and then he suddenly turned up this morning, completely out of the blue! I thought he might like to watch our rehearsal this afternoon.’