The Land of Neverendings Read online

  Lenny.

  Emily was sure Koley had once belonged to Ms Robinson’s little brother.

  The door between the worlds is broken – that toy has come from Deep Smockeroon.

  *

  Emily ran into the antique shop as soon as she got back to Barkstone that afternoon, to tell Ruth the news.

  ‘Vanished?’ Ruth put down the silver teapot she had been cleaning. ‘That’s impossible!’

  ‘That’s what the newsreader said. The Great Sturvey has vanished and his office isn’t working.’

  ‘But how will the place keep going without him?’ She frowned thoughtfully. ‘I wish I knew what to do about it.’

  ‘Have I missed anything here?’

  ‘Nothing dramatic,’ said Ruth. ‘Except that I rather wish certain toys would go back to Smockeroon sometimes, instead of hanging about while I’m trying to work.’

  ‘Hello, Emily,’ said a frayed old voice.

  Notty was sitting on the shelf, and so was someone else: Figinda Faraway, in her new dress, with a big pink bow on each ear. They were drinking mugs of something hot.

  ‘I popped in for a drop of Biggins’ Mixture,’ said Figinda. ‘This elegant bear has a good supply.’

  Ruth said, ‘That place is leaking magic like a colander.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘And quite honestly, these old toys are making me incredibly nervous – it’s worse than having mice. It’s like being infested with mice who can talk – I mean, imagine if you could hear them calling to each other under the floorboards!’

  Emily lowered her voice. ‘Have they been here all day?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Figinda Faraway. ‘It’s lovely.’

  ‘Go home, you two,’ said Ruth. ‘Why won’t you go home?’

  ‘It’s nicer here,’ said Notty. ‘Pointed End is too full of fighting.’

  This was a strange and worrying thing to hear from a dear old teddy bear – and another sign of the sad, mean, hard world seeping into Smockeroon.

  ‘What is there to fight about?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Someone broke into The Sycamores and stole the whole top floor,’ said Miss Faraway. ‘The crime rate has certainly worsened since my day.’

  ‘It’s like the story of Adam and Eve,’ said Ruth. ‘The serpent has entered the Garden of Eden.’

  ‘I have a friend who’s a serpent,’ said Figinda Faraway. ‘She used to work Hardside as a draught-excluder.’

  And then Notty said, ‘I’m going down to Smartweed’s this afternoon, to buy myself one of those trendy novelty farts.’

  ‘Novelty farts?’ Ruth laughed softly. ‘That was one of Danny’s inventions! Toys could buy themselves farts that sounded like a strain of beautiful music!’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Figinda Faraway. ‘I’m trying to catch up on all the latest fashions – we’ve been so long in Deepest Smockeroon. What tune are you getting?’

  ‘“Greensleeves”,’ said Notty.

  ‘I fancy “Twinkle, Twinkle”.’

  Bluey’s fart tune would be ‘One Bear Went to Mow’.

  ‘Oh, what bliss this is!’ Half laughing and half crying, Ruth wiped her eyes. ‘But this isn’t right – and somehow, we’ve got to chase out the bad things that have got into Smockeroon … before they hurt the people we love.’

  Holly and Danny.

  It was sickening to think that their happy world might be spoiled.

  ‘There must be something we can do!’

  ‘But what?’ Ruth shrugged helplessly. ‘Call the police? Write to our MP?’

  ‘We’ve got to find the Sturvey,’ Emily said. ‘What if the black toad has hurt him?’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Ruth. ‘Customer alert!’

  A young woman was peering into the shop window. Ruth jumped from her chair, took the two toys down from the shelf, briskly covered their stitched mouths with sticky-tape and stashed them under the table.

  ‘I don’t want anyone else to hear them,’ she muttered to Emily. ‘This is the drill I worked out, to be on the safe side.’

  ‘I’d better get home now, anyway,’ said Emily.

  ‘Would you mind taking out my rubbish? It’s the black bag on the kitchen floor.’

  The young woman came into the shop. Emily went to the kitchen and found the rubbish bag on the floor. It was while she was tying up the bag that she saw it – a small plastic bottle half-filled with dirty water.

  Our magic potion!

  Ruth had said the spell was too dangerous, but would it be worth the risk if Emily could see Bluey again? Or Holly?

  Emily pulled out the bottle of potion. It was covered with old tea leaves and the water had turned a sinister brown colour, but she felt a charge of excitement when she hid it at the bottom of her bag.

  So what if there was a small risk of death?

  Sixteen

  PIPPA’S HOLIDAY

  EMILY WENT TO BED as early as she could without making her parents suspicious. She got into bed clutching the plastic bottle and stared at it for a long time, working up the courage to swallow a spoonful of the dingy-looking water.

  It tasted musty and sour – could the magic potion have gone off, like milk?

  She lay down on her back, with her arms by her side, and whispered the rhyme:

  Magic mountains, valleys deep,

  Let me see you when I sleep! …

  It was an enormous let-down, but also a relief to wake up the next morning after a night without a single dream.

  What did I do wrong?

  She wasn’t dead, anyway. The day was cold and bright and her room was flooded with sunlight. The hard world had never looked harder.

  ‘Emily!’ her mother called. ‘Hurry up, or you won’t have time for breakfast!’

  ‘I’m coming!’ Her voice was croaky with sleep and she didn’t want to move, but she forced herself to swing her legs out of bed. Mum was a bit of a dictator in the mornings; if she didn’t hear ‘feet on the floor’ she was quite capable of bursting into Emily’s room and whisking off the duvet.

  ‘Em!’

  ‘I said I’m coming!’ The good thing about having a school uniform was that you always knew what to wear. Emily hurriedly dragged on her grey skirt, striped tie and white shirt and brushed the tangles out of her hair.

  When she came out of her bedroom, she found her mother on the landing beside the boiler-cupboard, her face buried in something soft and pink.

  ‘Mum?’

  She hastily wiped her eyes. ‘Sorry. I came up for a clean tea towel, and I suddenly came across this – I’d completely forgotten—’

  The soft pink thing was a T-shirt, with ‘HOLLY’ printed on it above a big red heart. They had bought it two years ago while visiting a safari park.

  ‘It took me by surprise,’ Mum said. ‘I wasn’t prepared.’

  Emily folded her arms around her mother, hugging her hard. For a few minutes they clung to each other and Mum cried on Emily’s shoulder, as if she had been the child and Emily the adult. This hadn’t happened when Holly died.

  ‘Oh, darling!’ Mum pulled away from her, scrubbing at her eyes, trying to smile. ‘I’m so glad I’ve got you! If you weren’t here …’

  ‘Well, I am here,’ Emily said. ‘I’ll never leave you.’ Her mother managed a proper smile and turned back into an adult by giving Emily a quick hug. ‘You’ve cheered us all up since the day you were born – and we never meant to have another baby.’

  ‘I know.’ Emily had heard this before, though not since Holly died. She liked hearing it.

  ‘You were our brilliant mistake. I’d been worried that a new baby would take away some of the love that Holly needed – but you brought her more love, not less.’

  Mum put the T-shirt back in the boiler cupboard and ran downstairs, and the sad moment was over.

  Emily quickly sniffed the T-shirt, in case it still smelt of Holly. Her smell had lingered after she died.

  Cake and baby wipes.

  There was nothing left of it now; all Em
ily could smell on the T-shirt was a dusty trace of fabric softener.

  Dead people leave their special smell behind.

  It’s partly nice and partly awful.

  And then it fades away and that’s worse.

  The spell had to work before she lost every trace of her sister.

  Did it fail because I was alone?

  Ruth had been on her own on the night of the fire, and it had worked for her. Emily puzzled over this mystery during breakfast, and on the drive to school. John’s instructions said two people were required. It was possible, however, that he’d been talking about the actual making of the potion, which Emily had helped with.

  Maybe it didn’t work last night because Ruth didn’t know about it.

  But Ruth would never agree to casting the spell again. Emily needed to find someone else so that they could brew the stuff up from scratch. Someone who understood Smockeroon.

  *

  Emily got to her classroom more than ten minutes before the bell.

  Maze was here at her desk – without Summer.

  ‘Hi,’ Emily said uncertainly.

  Maze scowled. ‘Just stop it, will you?’

  ‘What are you talking about? I haven’t—’

  ‘Very funny!’ hissed Maze. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know!’ She shoved a dirty scrap of paper into Emily’s hand. ‘I don’t know how you sneaked it into my pocket – but if it happens again …’

  Summer Watson made her entrance at this moment, and Maze pointedly turned her back. This was still hurtful, and a couple of weeks ago Emily would have felt like crying. Now she was just annoyed. She glanced at the note.

  HaHAHAHA YoU are a BUM and I wiLL BOPE yOu!

  Prison Wendy again. The word ‘Bope’ came as a slight shock. Years ago, at nursery school, boping had been one of Prizzy’s naughty inventions. When you ‘boped’ someone, you put your hands on their cheeks and squished their face. Emily and Maze had found it hilarious; they had boped each other until the boping craze had spread around the whole nursery – and then Maze’s parents, tired of being boped, had banned it, and sent Prizzy back to her box on the top shelf. Now the awful doll was back in the community and thirsting for trouble; was it possible that the broken barrier between the worlds had made her even worse?

  Martha rushed in late, when Ms Robinson was already halfway through the register.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry!’ She was pink and flustered, and her curly hair had taken on a life of its own. ‘We got stuck behind a broken-down lorry full of cows.’

  ‘Sit down and get your breath back,’ said Ms Robinson. ‘And try to remember this when you’re playing the White Rabbit.’

  A small yellow head popped suddenly out of the front pocket of Martha’s backpack. ‘Hi, Emily!’

  ‘Hi, Pippa.’ Emily said it without thinking – and got a very odd look from Martha, almost as if she were frightened. Could she hear?

  There wasn’t time to talk now. This morning they had school assembly, when the whole of Hatty Catty packed themselves into the enormous hall. The Headmistress, Mrs Willis, read out notices and showed some photos of her recent visit to Nigeria. Most of the pictures were of schools and teachers.

  ‘Huh – call that a holiday?’ shrilled a familiar voice. ‘Bor-ing!’

  Emily froze; how had Pippa got out of Martha’s bag?

  Mrs Willis, hearing nothing, showed a picture of herself in traditional African dress; her normal clothes were very plain and dowdy, and there was some giggling over how she looked in a long gown covered with red and gold flowers.

  ‘Ooh, isn’t that lovely?’ squeaked Pippa. ‘Can I have a pink one? Martha, it’s even prettier than your flowery knickers!’

  Martha’s face was bright red – and that was when Emily knew for sure.

  She can hear.

  *

  ‘It started last night,’ said Martha. ‘I was just getting into bed when she suddenly jumped out of my school bag and started singing and dancing.’

  ‘What did you do – were you shocked?’

  ‘Are you kidding? I nearly passed out!’

  ‘And that was the first time?’ It was morning break. Emily had dragged Martha off to the remotest part of the school grounds, an unpopular windy bench beside a section of wire fence, where they could talk properly.

  ‘Yes – and when I woke up this morning I told myself it must’ve been a dream,’ said Martha. ‘But then she was off again. She started singing inside my bag while I was eating breakfast, and she wouldn’t shut up in the car when Dad was driving me to school. I’m so glad someone else can hear her and it’s not just me!’ She smiled suddenly, light breaking over her sweet, round (slightly toyish) face. ‘I don’t mind being crazy if I’ve got company.’

  ‘You’re not crazy,’ said Emily. ‘I can’t explain it all now but I need your help with something. Can you come back with me this afternoon?’

  If Martha helps me, I won’t need Ruth.

  ‘OK – I’ll text my mum.’

  ‘Good morning, Emily!’ A tiny yellow head emerged from the front pocket of Molly’s bag. ‘Isn’t this fun?’

  ‘I wish you’d keep out of sight,’ said Martha.

  ‘Hi Pippa,’ said Emily. ‘Shouldn’t you be at the Seam-Rite factory?’

  ‘I’ve decided to take a holiday,’ said Pippa. ‘I’ve always wanted to visit a real human big school. When can I see a lesson?’

  ‘Sorry, Pips.’ Martha pushed Pippa back out of sight and firmly zipped her in. ‘Lessons are strictly humans only.’

  The little bear was very annoyed and there were a few minutes of muffled shouting before she suddenly went quiet.

  ‘I think she’s gone.’ Emily gave the bag an experimental squeeze. ‘She feels like a toy again.’

  ‘Good,’ said Martha. She was thoughtful. They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the reassuringly ordinary noises of voices and traffic. ‘This the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘You know, when I was little I would’ve loved my toys to come to life and talk to me. And I did think Pippa looked tremendously sweet when she was moving and talking. But I was mainly scared – well, not scared. Sort of nervous, like when you’re afraid of mice. It’s not only Pippa, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And – why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Emily wasn’t being totally truthful, but her own idea was too far-fetched to say out loud.

  It’s all happening because two sisters refused to be parted.

  Seventeen

  THE SPELLBINDERS

  THE MAD STORY of Smockeroon poured out as soon as they were alone together in Emily’s bedroom, with the door firmly shut. Martha was a wonderful audience, and thanks to Pippa, she believed every word of it.

  ‘If I go next door, will I be able to see Notty and John Staples’ old toys? I love his books so much! Will I be able to talk to them?’

  ‘I think you will,’ said Emily. ‘But you mustn’t tell Ruth about the potion. She meant to throw it away. She’ll be really cross if she finds out I’ve been fiddling with it. We’re supposed to be fixing the leak, because it’s letting sadness into Smockeroon – and of course I want to fix it, and find the Sturvey. But before that happens, the door’s still open. And that means there’s still a chance that I can get in.’

  ‘You said it didn’t work when you tried it.’ Martha picked up the plastic bottle and swished the dirty water; she was doubtful but also excited, and intensely curious.

  ‘That batch didn’t work for me because Ruth was the chief spellbinder,’ said Emily. ‘That’s my theory, anyway.’

  ‘So you need to make some more – do you remember the recipe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can we do it today?’

  ‘It’s … complicated.’

  Emily had to be honest about the danger involved. Ruth had nearly died. ‘
I know the official reason for the fire was an electrical fault. But Ruth says the fact that we’d just cast the spell was too much of a coincidence, and we mustn’t take any more risks.’

  Martha listened carefully as Emily told her the full story of that night, ending with the sudden intervention of the German lodger.

  ‘You were OK, though.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Emily. ‘I wasn’t the chief spellbinder. It’s fine if you’re just the assistant – and that’s all I’m asking you to do. I wouldn’t ask if I thought I was putting you in danger.’ (She hoped this was true.) ‘It’s just a tiny bit of chanting. Honestly.’

  She wanted to beg and plead, but forced herself to keep quiet while Martha made up her mind. The silence seemed to stretch on for ages. Martha stared at the plastic bottle, and at first her fresh, round face was fearful. But Emily could see that she was also incredibly excited – and the excitement was winning.

  ‘Would I get to see toys’ TV?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Emily. ‘I don’t see why not; you’re just as good at seeing magic stuff as I am, and I was only assistant spellbinder when I saw it.’

  ‘Wow.’ Martha was tempted. ‘And I’ve just thought of something. If you get to Smockeroon, and I can watch you on TV, that would mean I’d be standing by if the German lodger sees another fire or something.’

  ‘So you could – that’s a fantastic idea!’ said Emily, grabbing at it eagerly. ‘You’d be awake in the hard world, and you can raise the alarm if you see or hear that I’m in danger!’

  ‘What kind of danger should I be looking out for?’ asked Martha, doubtful again.

  ‘Nothing criminal, or violent.’ Emily swallowed a couple of times to stop her voice quivering with impatience. ‘One of the toys will warn you, like the German lodger warned me. You don’t need to worry unless you see me going too far into the background.’