Mennyms Alive Read online

  CHAPTER 2

  The Search

  IN THE ROOM next to the living-room, Miss Quigley returned to life just as the others had done. She recognised the room as a nursery, albeit an unfamiliar one. She quickly understood that life had indeed left them all on that fateful night in Brocklehurst Grove, and that it had now returned on another day in another place. She recognised the chair she was sitting in, a fireside chair that had once been in the breakfast-room.

  Other things in the room were also familiar. The playpen was the one they had always had. In it sat Baby Googles. Miss Quigley gave a sigh of relief as she saw her charge bend forward and roll the ball she had been given at Christmas – a musical toy with a carousel inside its clear plastic dome.

  A good nanny needs to take stock of alarming situations almost instantly. Hortensia Quigley was not simply good. She was the best! She picked up Baby Googles from the playpen and hurried to discover what was happening. The passage outside the nursery was empty but a familiar buzz of voices came from the room next door. Hortensia walked in, glanced round, and then directed her attention towards Vinetta, ignoring everyone else.

  “What has happened? Where are we now?” she asked quite calmly, as if they were travelling on a train and she was expecting to be told the name of the next station. But before her friend and employer had time to reply, Poopie burst into the room, followed by Tulip.

  “That’s what we want to know,” he said. “Where are we and how did we get here?”

  Vinetta looked at the two new arrivals. The living room was filling up with people. But was everyone there? Was everyone safe?

  “Where’s Granpa?” asked Vinetta anxiously. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s in his own bed in the room above this one,” said Tulip. She looked round the room. “But where’s Soobie?” she added. “I haven’t seen him.”

  “Soobie!” shouted Poopie, going to the doorway and looking up the stairs.

  There was no answer.

  Then began a search of the house. Every room was checked, every cupboard door opened. They discovered that they were in a two-storey flat, topped by attics with four little arched windows tucked under the eaves. A narrow staircase led down to ground level. Joshua went downstairs to the little lobby but all he found there was an outer door that led to the street. On the window over it, the number 39 appeared in reverse.

  At the front of the flat, facing out to the street, were the living-room and the nursery. To the rear was a large, square kitchen, very basic and old-fashioned, its most prominent feature a black fire-range with a side-boiler, all set in a huge, dark chimney. Next to the kitchen was a deep cupboard, large enough perhaps to be called a stock-room, full of packing cases and carefully stacked small furniture. Adjacent to that was a small bedroom, which, Miss Quigley noted, gave easy access to the nursery.

  “That will be my room,” she said, accepting the present situation without question, as if this were a new game about to begin. She had spent more than forty years pretending that a hall cupboard was her own little house. She had never questioned why that should be. So it seemed quite normal that another house should become home to her. Her good, practical intelligence did not extend to asking profound questions or peering too far round the next corner. Tulip looked at her sharply, marvelling at her obtuseness, but said nothing.

  On the floor above was the room where Granpa was lodged, and next to it was Poopie’s tiny room, the floor completely covered in bits of training tower. The searchers looked in on Granpa, explained briefly what they were doing, and hurried out before he could delay them. It was not too difficult. Magnus was still very tired, slipping in and out of sleep, and not yet concerned to take command.

  The rear rooms on this floor, one quite large, the other only slightly smaller, looked out onto a concrete backyard with high brick walls. The larger room was clearly meant for the parents – it held the bed that had come from Joshua and Vinetta’s room in Brocklehurst Grove. The other room had a cluttered look – three single beds and an assortment of bedroom furniture, all recognisably culled from their old home. This was a girls’ room, with girls’ clothing crammed into two wardrobes and a big chest of drawers.

  There was no sign of Soobie, not anywhere in the flat. There was not even a room that could conceivably be his.

  Pilbeam did not join in the search for her twin. She was still too dazed. She remained in the living-room sitting by Appleby. Without thinking, she reached out to grasp her sister’s hand. Her fingers closed round it and held it tight.

  The others returned to the living-room, baffled and distressed at their failure to find Soobie.

  Vinetta shivered at a thought that came to mind.

  “We have all been brought here by someone,” she said. “Someone must have thought well enough of us to want us to have this house. Could they have made a mistake about Soobie?”

  “A mistake?” said Tulip. “What sort of mistake?”

  Vinetta struggled to find the right words, hardly daring to say them.

  “He is blue,” she said. “Maybe . . . whoever it was . . . thought he didn’t match the rest of us. They haven’t brought him here. Goodness knows what they’ve done with him.”

  The thought put into words, Vinetta looked desolate. Joshua placed one hand firmly on her shoulder.

  “No,” he said. “That was not the way of it.”

  Vinetta gave him a look of surprise. What did he mean, sounding so positive?

  “Then why isn’t he here? Everyone else is.” She looked across at the motionless figure of Appleby. Pilbeam, holding onto her sister’s hand, looked back at her mother, but was still not ready, or perhaps not able, to speak.

  “I think,” said Joshua, speaking slowly as usual, “that they might not have found him at all.”

  “How could they not?” said Vinetta. “He was there in the room with the rest of us.”

  On the first of October, how long ago not one of them yet knew, all of the Mennyms had gathered in one room to wait for life to end. For forty-six years they had lived at Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove, sharing a life given to them by their maker, Kate Penshaw. Then Sir Magnus began to have premonitions that Kate’s spirit was going to leave them. He even predicted the day and the hour.

  On that fateful day, by his decree, they all gathered in the little room that had once been Appleby’s but now became ‘the doll-room’, a sort of toy cupboard for oversized dolls. They sat in chairs brought in for the purpose, except for Appleby who lay in the bed where she had lain for the past two years. Soobie’s chair was the one nearest to the door.

  “Soobie left the doll-room before the end came,” said Joshua. “I saw him slip out.”

  “Well, where did he go?” said Vinetta.

  “I think he must have gone up to the attic,” said Joshua. “It’s what I would have done if I’d thought about it.”

  They sat silent. The first wave of bewilderment had passed over. A second, more powerful and more terrible, followed as each one realised that their present condition was more full of unknowns than anything they had ever experienced in nearly half a century.

  “Whoever brought us here won’t just leave us,” said Tulip at last. “They’re bound to come back some time. Then what are we going to do?”

  She was about to suggest holding a meeting in Granpa’s room, as of old, when something so stupendous happened that all she could do was gasp.

  CHAPTER 3

  What Do I Know?

  THE WATCH ON his wrist told Soobie that the time was seven-thirty in the evening and the date was the tenth of May. But what day was it? What day of the week?

  He sat back in the rocking chair and gave that minor problem serious thought. And compared to everything else, the problem was miniscule.

  Soobie Mennym, the blue rag doll, was life-sized and living, and from a distance looked no different from any other young man. He had been one of a large and loving family. But now he was all alone.

  For forty-six years, f
ollowing the death of Kate Penshaw, the woman who had spent half her life making the dolls, Soobie and the rest of the Mennyms had lived here at Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove, a house large enough to accommodate all eleven of them in comfort, and private enough for them to lead a comparatively untroubled existence. Their life began within hours of their maker’s death. That they were different from everybody else in the street, in the town, in the whole wide world, was something that outsiders had never suspected. Who would imagine, in their wildest dreams, that the people who came and went in the house along the road were not human beings but dolls covered in cloth and stuffed with kapok?

  In all that time, they never aged. Soobie was and would always be a very mature teenager. Just one member of his family had ceased to live, and even that was not like the death of a human being. Appleby Mennym simply became inanimate, lying serene in her bed and cared for by Granny Tulip as if she were a saint in a shrine.

  Then, on Tuesday the first of October, just over seven months ago, the ghost of Kate Penshaw departed, leaving a room full of lifeless dolls. Only Soobie, curious and tired of waiting, had slipped away minutes before and gone alone to the attic . . .

  Those left in the room below were drained of life. Not Soobie. When the final moment came, he became immobilised but remained fully and terrifyingly conscious.

  The first of October was a Tuesday, thought Soobie as he rocked slowly in the chair. So the twenty-ninth of October would be a Tuesday. He worked his way painstakingly through November, December . . . right up to May, checking and double-checking his arithmetic. Saturday, he said to himself when he finished his calculations. Today must be Saturday.

  That problem solved, his mind was at last free to consider all the other things he knew, things that would surely be important in any effort to take up the threads of life again.

  One fact was clear to him. When it came to the point, Kate Penshaw had been unable to desert her people. The other dolls had died, as they were all meant to do, himself included, but a bit of Kate’s spirit had clung to Soobie, like a bur in his clothing, refusing to make the final separation. Soobie, unlike any other member of his family, was blue from head to foot, a misfit made on a whim. This perhaps was why his maker had loved him so much that she could not leave him.

  He got up from the seat and walked stiffly round the attic, trying out his limbs for movement, bending his elbows, flexing his fingers. The door that led to the stairs was shut. To leave the attic, to go down into the house, was something he was not ready for, not yet. Look before you leap, as Granpa would surely say.

  So Soobie sat down in the rocking-chair again and dredged up the knowledge he had acquired over the past months. In the time of his paralysis he had heard many sounds in the house, sounds telling him that the whole building, except for the forgotten attic, was being emptied of furniture and carpets. The rest of the dolls were removed from Appleby’s room and put into crates. So much Soobie discovered as he strained to listen to the workmen’s raised voices.

  Those months were torture. Soobie lived on, but his immobility was worse than death. It was fortunate that his left arm settled across his lap. That way he was at least able to see his watch, that wonderful Christmas present his father, Joshua, had bought for him. It told the time and the date and had a battery that would last not months but years.

  Yesterday, thought Soobie, that girl moved my arm.

  And for twenty-four hours he could not see what time it was. For twenty-four hours, he thought he might never be able to see the time again.

  He did not know the girl who came into the attic so unexpectedly. She was not alone. Her name, he learnt, was Lorna. Then, with a shock, Soobie recognised her companion. It was Albert Pond! He knew Albert well enough. Albert had once been almost a member of the family, sent by the ghost of Kate Penshaw to save them when Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove had been threatened with demolition.

  Albert had no recollection of this episode in his life. Powers beyond even Kate’s understanding had removed the whole sequence from his memory. Albert looked at Soobie and saw only a rag doll.

  Soobie wanted desperately to speak, but it was impossible. All he could do was listen. It was clear from what passed between Albert and Lorna that, except for this attic, Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove was completely empty, ready for its new owner.

  Where were the rest of the Mennyms – Granny and Granpa, Mother and Father, the brother and the sisters, and Miss Quigley, the baby’s nanny? Listening carefully and using his powers of deduction, Soobie concluded that they were all being cared for by a lady called Daisy. Probably in a house somewhere on North Shore Road. And Daisy, some day soon (but no sooner than next weekend – Albert mentioned taking her the key next Saturday) would be coming to the attic, to see the blue doll and, presumably, to take him away to join the others.

  After Albert and Lorna left, the agony of all those months welled up in Soobie. His whole being cried out to Kate in a wordless, savage prayer. He begged for life – or death. But ‘begged’ is hardly the right word. He clamoured, raged, howled, implored, demanded, refusing to be ignored. Though no word could pass his lips, his thoughts would not be silenced. And this, at last, was the answer.

  But the life he begged for was not just his own. All of us, he said, all of us. So it followed that somewhere, somehow, the rest of the Mennyms must also have been restored to life. Even more terrifying for them than for me, he thought. What must they be thinking? What will they do?

  It was growing dark. Soobie got up and walked to the attic door, opened it very cautiously, reached out one hand and switched on the light by the switch on the landing. The risk of anyone seeing a light in windows that were set in the roof, he decided, was not worth worrying about.

  He sat down again. I am in an empty house, he thought, and I have at least a week to sort out what can be done. Daisy cannot come in here without a key. And Albert had said he would not be taking her the key till next weekend.

  CHAPTER 4

  All of Us

  “APPLEBY!”

  Pilbeam’s startled shout made all the others look towards her.

  The hand beneath Pilbeam’s hand had moved. Now, it struggled free with an impatient movement typical of its owner.

  Appleby’s hands fell to her lap and she looked down at them with a puzzled expression on her face. Her lips became mobile, capable of shaping words again. Her green eyes flickered. She gazed around her, recognising immediately that she was in a location and a situation that did not make any sense. Deep inside she was terrified and totally bewildered. But not for an instant would she show her feelings!

  The others continued to stare at the chair where she sat. Appleby stared back at them, impudence bubbling to the surface. Then she spoke!

  “What are you all looking at me for?” she snapped. “Have I grown two heads or something?”

  It was the shock they needed. It was the old abrasive Appleby. Her look forbade them to comment. But Vinetta could not stop herself from trying to clasp her daughter in her arms. Her joy at that moment blotted out the problems of their present predicament, however strange and frightening it might be.

  Appleby glared up at her mother and vigorously pushed her arms away.

  “Stop it!” she shouted. “I hate people making a fuss. You know I do.”

  “But you’re alive,” said Vinetta, letting her arms fall to her side. “You’re alive again!”

  “So what?” said Appleby. “That’s no big deal. We’re all alive. What’s so special about being alive?”

  Her green eyes glittered with fury.

  Vinetta did not heed the warning. She was too filled with her own emotions to be silenced.

  “But you were dead,” she went on. “For two long years you lay in your bed and never stirred. I never thought to see you move, to hear you speak again.”

  Appleby jumped up, pushing her chair back so that it nearly tipped over. Pilbeam shot out a hand to save it.

  “I don’t want to hear another word
,” shouted Appleby, fists clenched, body rigid with rage. “You’re talking rubbish. I’m no different from anybody else.”

  In a sense, it was true. They had all been dead. Now they were all alive again. Appleby, being longer dead, had taken longer to return to life. That was all.

  “Leave her,” said Tulip, recovering from the shock she had felt at seeing Appleby move again. “She hasn’t improved with keeping. That’s well to be seen!”

  For two years Tulip had tended this granddaughter with a loving care that was almost reverent, but now that Appleby was alive again and as cheeky as ever, all that would change.

  Appleby glared at her but did not speak. She looked at the unfamiliar room and gauged that something momentous must have happened. How much ignorance should she admit to? It was a problem and no mistake!

  “Well . . . where are we?” she was compelled to say at last, settling once more on her chair and fixing her eyes on Pilbeam. “How did we land up in this place?”

  “Not from choice,” said Granny Tulip, peering at her granddaughter over the rims of her spectacles. “We don’t know where we are, or how we got here.”

  “So,” said Appleby slowly, “we left Brocklehurst Grove, and we found ourselves here without knowing how or when. But how long ago was that?”

  No one answered.

  “Well?” said Appleby looking round at all of them aggressively.

  Then . . .

  CRASH!

  From the room above came a thud heavy enough to bring down flakes of white paint from the ceiling. Granpa Mennym, fully alert now, was fed up with being ignored. Shouts had brought no response. So he heaved himself up on his pillows, leant over the side of the bed, and deliberately tilted the bedside cabinet till it fell with a crash to the floor. A wooden bowl full of ornamental fruit fell with it and spilt its contents onto the rug.

  “That’s Granpa,” said Tulip, not displeased at the diversion. “We have kept him waiting long enough. If ever there were an occasion for a conference, this is it.”