The Land of Neverendings Read online

  ‘And Martha, you can be the White Rabbit.’

  Emily breathed more easily. She’d been dreading having to act with someone like Summer, but Martha Bishop was nice – plump and sweet-faced and friendly. And she was so good as the White Rabbit that Emily forgot about being awkward and having huge feet and started to pay proper attention to the story. It was a story she knew very well; Dad had read the book to her when she was little, and she had loved the Disney cartoon. But she had not seen the connection until now.

  Alice fell down the rabbit hole and came out in Wonderland.

  What if there’s a rabbit hole that could get me to Smockeroon?

  When the bell rang for the next lesson, it took Emily a few minutes to put her Bluey book safely inside the hidden pocket of her backpack, and she was the last girl left in the classroom.

  Ms Robinson shut the door. She walked across to Emily and sat down at the next desk. She was very serious, and for one nervous moment Emily thought she was about to get a telling-off. But her teacher wasn’t angry.

  ‘You were very good just now, Emily.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen the real you. Most of the time, you’re not really here, are you? You’re always scribbling away in your notebook or staring out of the window.’

  Emily didn’t know what she was meant to say to this; it was embarrassing that the teacher had noticed.

  Ms Robinson said, ‘When I was nine, my little brother died.’

  ‘Oh.’ This was unexpected, and jolted Emily into looking at her teacher properly for the first time.

  ‘I’m telling you because I want you to know that I know how it feels – OK? If you ever need to get away from everything, you can come to me and I’ll square it with the other teachers.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ Emily said.

  ‘His name was Lenny.’ Ms Robinson’s voice softened and her face was suddenly much younger. ‘He was seven and he was my partner in crime. When he died I didn’t know what to do with myself.’ She took her phone from her pocket, scrolled through her photos, and held up a picture of a grinning little boy with his front teeth missing. He was wearing a red demon costume with plastic horns. ‘That’s him at Hallowe’en.’

  ‘What did he die of?’

  ‘Meningitis. It happened so quickly – I was in shock for months.’

  Emily wondered if she was ‘in shock’; could that be the reason she was seeing all these weird things? ‘He looks … nice.’

  ‘I still miss him every day,’ Ms Robinson said. ‘That pink notebook of yours – are you writing about your sister?’

  ‘Yes – sort of.’

  ‘I used to write secret letters to Lenny – just bits of news. “Dear Lenny, today we went to Nan’s”, or “today we went swimming”. I couldn’t stand him being left out of things.’

  Emily said, ‘He looks like you.’

  ‘Thanks – now you have to show me a picture of Holly.’

  Nobody ever asked to see a picture of Holly. Emily took her phone out of her backpack and showed Ms Robinson her favourite – Holly sitting in the sun outside the back door, with Bluey perched on top of her head.

  ‘She’s lovely,’ Ms Robinson said. ‘And her eyes are just the same as yours – anyone can see that you’re sisters.’

  ‘And our hands were the same – the same shape I mean.’

  ‘You’ll always be sisters. Nothing and nobody can ever take that away.’ Ms Robinson stood up, brisk and teacher-like again. ‘Any time you want to talk about her, you can come to me – just remember that.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Emily said.

  She felt a little less of a freak for the rest of the day, and she didn’t have a chance to write anything more in her Bluey book because Martha Bishop decided to sit next to her at lunch. It was nice to have someone to sit with, and Martha’s cheerful stream of chatter was very entertaining.

  It helped to know that Ms Robinson understood about living without Holly because her little brother had died. But she couldn’t possibly understand everything else.

  *

  Barkstone Bygones had been closed for a couple of days. This was not unusual; Ruth often went off hunting for antiques at jumble sales and country auctions. When it was still closed on Thursday, however, Emily was worried; could Ruth have forgotten that this was one of the days she was coming after school?

  She bent down and called through the letterbox. ‘Ruth – are you there? Ruth! It’s Emily!’

  A dim light snapped on at the back of the shop. ‘Coming!’

  A few minutes later, Ruth opened the door. Her owl-shaped body was wrapped in a red tartan dressing gown and she looked awful – baggy-eyed, with a grey tint to her skin.

  ‘You’re ill,’ Emily said. ‘You should’ve told us.’

  ‘I’m not ill,’ Ruth said. ‘Not according to the doctor, anyway. He says I don’t have a brain tumour and I haven’t had a stroke. It’s all stress, apparently.’

  ‘Oh.’ Emily was uneasy; this sounded like good news, but Ruth didn’t seem to think so. ‘Can I do anything – maybe go round to the shop for you? If you don’t want me here, I could go to Mum’s office …’

  ‘No,’ Ruth said, rubbing her forehead wearily, ‘I do want you here. In fact, I think you may be the only person I can talk to.’

  ‘Me? What do you mean?’

  ‘You might think I’m completely bonkers, but I can take it from you.’ With a sudden burst of energy she pulled Emily into the darkened shop and locked the door. ‘Come into the kitchen, and try not to notice the mess.’

  Emily followed her through the obstacle course of knick-knacks in a high state of curiosity; whatever Ruth was about to tell her, this was the most interesting conversation she’d had for ages.

  On her way past the till, she glanced up at the shelf, and there was the ancient bear in his usual place, with his not-for-sale sign hanging round his neck. In her mind she said, Hi Notty – but he looked like a toy again, with his dim glass eyes and stitched-on smile, and it was impossible to imagine him as anything else.

  Maybe I was dreaming after all.

  ‘I’ve been living on toast and marmalade for the past few days,’ Ruth said. ‘Just brush off the crumbs.’

  Emily sat down in the least crumby chair. The small table was crowded with empty jars, sticky plates and mugs half filled with cold tea. Everything was covered with crumbs, even Podge, sitting in a lazy heap of fur on the floor.

  Ruth hastily dumped most of the dirty crockery into the sink. ‘Look, I’d be really grateful if you don’t tell your parents about all this.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Let me make some more tea – I’m still trying to work out how to explain it.’ She made two mugs of tea and plumped down into the other chair opposite Emily. ‘Do you know what “hallucination” means?’

  Emily’s mouth was dry. ‘When you see something that isn’t there.’

  ‘Exactly – something that isn’t there, though it feels perfectly real when it’s happening. It definitely wasn’t a dream.’

  ‘You saw something?’

  ‘I’ll start at the beginning,’ Ruth said, with a frown of concentration. ‘I was watching TV in my little sitting room upstairs. I nodded off for a few minutes, and when I woke up, I suddenly had one of those moments …’ She halted, searching for the right words. ‘My son died nearly ten years ago, but sometimes it hurts as if it happened yesterday. I expect you know how that feels.’

  Emily nodded, knowing exactly.

  ‘Well, this is where the hallucinations begin, so let me be perfectly clear, I was not asleep. And yet I had the strangest feeling that something dreadful had got in downstairs – something that soaked the whole house in darkness and despair. There was a noise, too – like a great crowd of gnats whining – but as I went downstairs and got closer, I realised that it was the noise of hundreds of people crying and sobbing. And then I saw it, on the floor beside the cat flap – a huge black toad.’

&
nbsp; ‘What?’ Emily gasped. ‘My evil toad?’

  ‘Yes! It was a horrible, shiny black blob, with such an awful expression in its eyes – but this is the really bonkers part.’ Ruth took a deep breath. ‘The next thing was that I heard a voice. And it wasn’t a human voice.’

  ‘What was it?’ Emily hardly dared to breathe.

  ‘It sounded sort of fuzzy,’ Ruth said. ‘I turned round and nearly keeled over with amazement – it was my mother’s old bear! He was running across the kitchen floor and he was singing a song – something like: “Shoo! Shoo! You smelly old Pooh!”’

  Neither of them smiled at this.

  ‘He had a little can of aerosol and he sprayed the toad with a cloud of pink glitter,’ Ruth went on. ‘It gave a sort of angry croak, and then it disappeared into a crack in the floor, like a hideous, oozing blob of black oil.’

  They were quiet for a moment, listening to the wind outside.

  ‘That’s when I decided I must’ve had a stroke, or some kind of brainstorm. Even though the doctor swore I was fine.’

  Emily shivered.

  I’m not the only one.

  ‘If you’ve had a stroke,’ she said carefully. ‘Then … so have I.’

  Slowly, she began to tell Ruth about the little tent she had seen on Holly’s bed and the strange toys. She was concentrating so hard on the story that it took her a minute to notice Ruth’s reaction.

  Her face had frozen into a look of terrified amazement. And when Emily got to the part about the names of the penguin and the bobbled bear being Hugo and Smiffy, she started to cry.

  ‘Ruth?’ She reached across the table to touch Ruth’s arm. ‘Did I say something wrong? I promise I’m not making this up.’

  ‘Wait there!’ Ruth gave a loud sniff and bounced up out of her chair. ‘Don’t move!’

  She rushed upstairs. Emily heard doors opening and distant thumps, and Ruth falling off something and swearing. Ten minutes later she was back in the kitchen, covered with dust and clutching a large cardboard box. It had ‘DANIEL’ written on the side in black marker. Emily helped to clear a space on the table and Ruth put the box down.

  ‘There were some things he loved so much that I could never throw them away, because I loved them too.’ She opened the box and took out two faded, squashed soft toys – a bear and a penguin.

  And Emily cried out, ‘But that’s them – that’s Hugo and Smiffy!’

  Five

  WONDERLAND

  EMILY AND RUTH GAPED at each other in astonishment, horror, fascination. The silence between them stretched out, until Emily was afraid she’d said something wrong.

  ‘Good grief!’ Ruth whispered.

  ‘I’m not making it up,’ Emily said again, rather fiercely. If Ruth didn’t believe her, she would sink through a crack in the floor like the black toad. ‘They moved and they talked. I know what I saw.’

  Ruth stroked the soft toys. ‘Hugo and Smiffy!’ She wasn’t crying now, but looked dazed. ‘I’ve told so many stories about these two! When Danny was little I had to make up a new adventure for them every night – and you met them!’

  ‘I told you, they just appeared in my bedroom.’

  ‘Right, let’s start again.’ Ruth was suddenly businesslike and vigorous. ‘Your mother will be back soon, and I want to hear all the details. Wait a sec – I need some very strong coffee, and there’s not a decent biscuit in the house! Run round to Pauline’s and get us a big packet of something chocolatey.’

  Pauline was the lady who ran the small supermarket at the end of the row of shops. While Ruth made coffee, Emily hurried out to buy the biscuits, so intensely alive with excitement that her every sense was tingling. Though she was only gone for a few minutes, the whole atmosphere of the shop was different by the time she got back.

  Ruth had swapped the tartan dressing gown for one of her embroidered sacks. She had swept up most of the crumbs and brushed the cobwebs from her springy grey hair. Her blackened coffee pot hissed and bubbled on the hot plate. The cardboard box was now on the floor and Hugo and Smiffy sat on the table, leaning against the wall.

  ‘Ah, classic milk-chocolate digestives – perfect! I know your mother doesn’t approve, but please help yourself to one of my evil sugary drinks.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Emily was only supposed to have Coke at weekends, and this was Thursday. But it was a special occasion; as special as it got.

  Finally, they sat down with their drinks and Ruth opened the biscuits.

  ‘You’ve met my son’s old toys and I’ve met your black toad.’ She stuffed a biscuit into her mouth. ‘There it is, and neither of us is crazy. I did wonder if we both had some weird illness – in medieval times, there was something called ergot poisoning, which was caused by mouldy wheat and made whole villages as mad as March hares. But I looked it up on the internet, and if we had ergot poisoning we would have hacked each other to pieces by now. Let’s assume we’re both in our right minds – take me back to the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.’

  Ruth was a good listener. Her brown eyes were huge and serious behind her thick round glasses.

  Emily began with the Bluey song she’d heard in her dream – she even sang it. The words poured out of her. Ruth nodded, sometimes raising her eyebrows, occasionally throwing in a comment.

  ‘Smiffy’s false moustache was orange, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes – how did you know?’

  ‘It was his favourite colour. Once, when Danny and I were on holiday in Devon, I knitted Smiffy a little orange scarf.’ Ruth bent down, rummaged in the cardboard box and pulled out a grubby, toy-sized scarf. ‘Danny was six, and he liked it so much that I had to knit another one for Hugo – a purple one – oh, this is so weird! Please go on, and don’t mind me.’

  The relief of letting it all out made Emily as light as a feather.

  Ruth chuckled over the Barbie nuns, saying she’d never heard of such a thing. ‘But I do know about Seam-Rite, the leading brand of seam cream. I made it up when one of Hugo’s seams burst and I had to mend it.’

  ‘And what about the Sturvey – did you make that up too?’

  ‘No, this is the first I’ve heard of anything called the Sturvey. Is it a person – I mean, a stuffed person – or a thing?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Emily. ‘But the toys seem to think the Sturvey can fix the broken door between Smockeroon and our world. When you told your stories to Daniel, who was in charge?’

  ‘Nobody. Nothing. The Land of Neverendings didn’t have any sort of ruler.’

  ‘So how did the Sturvey get into my imagination?’ Emily asked. ‘And how did the toad get into your imagination?’

  ‘That,’ said Ruth, ‘is the great question. Why would our imaginations join up? And why now? I mean – how is it possible that we were telling stories about the same place? But do go on – you say Hugo and Smiffy have opened a boarding house for toys?’

  ‘Yes, for toys who don’t have owners Hardside. Hugo called it The Sycamores because he thought it sounded posh.’

  ‘Hmm, typical Hugo,’ Ruth said, smiling but very thoughtful. ‘He always was rather a snobbish penguin. His hobby was making important speeches.’

  ‘I can believe that.’ Emily reached for another biscuit and crammed it into her mouth. ‘He likes bossing people about, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Lord, yes – Danny decided Hugo was the President of the Penguin Society. They had a wonderful HQ in the middle of town, with a snow machine and a swimming pool.’ Ruth knocked back the last of her coffee. ‘But the massed penguins were so noisy that they got chucked out, and they had to move to the remote countryside – and Hugo always got huffy if you mentioned it. “For your information, Daniel, we were not chucked out, we were asked to leave, which is quite different!”’ She stopped, and her smile faded. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to gabble at you. How extraordinary that it’s all hanging about in my memory, after all these years!’

  A silence settled around them. The really important part of the sto
ry was looming, and neither wanted to be the first to mention it.

  ‘The toys saw Bluey, Holly’s bear,’ Emily said. ‘I couldn’t see him. He got cremated and doesn’t exist any more. But in Deep Smockeroon he has a cottage and a hat made of cake. And he still goes off to play with his human owner – and so do Hugo and Smiffy.’ A knot of pain swelled in her chest, and for a couple of seconds the longing for her sister was so intense that she couldn’t speak. ‘If I could get to Smockeroon I could see Holly – I can picture it in my head so clearly. I think she’d still have her chair, which was part of her, and in my Bluey stories it was a magic flying chair.’

  ‘But she wouldn’t need that wretched breathing machine,’ Ruth said. ‘Not in any enchanted forest worthy of the name. And she wouldn’t need all those tubes sticking out of her. Horrid things like pain and sadness simply do not exist in that forest.’ She let out a long, long sigh. ‘How unbearably lovely, to think of my Danny popping back there to visit his old mates! He never completely grew out of it all – even when he was a towering sixth-former, years after I stopped telling the stories, he used to write the date of the annual Penguin Society outing in the calendar.’

  They were both crying and neither of them cared. Ruth tore off two sheets of kitchen roll so they could mop up the tears that slid down their cheeks.

  Emily’s tears ran in straight lines. Ruth’s tears took a more winding route along her grooves and wrinkles. She blew her nose in a series of loud honks – why did old people blow their noses so loudly?

  Suddenly, everything felt calm and back to normal.

  Emily said, ‘Please don’t say anything about this to my parents, or they’ll make me have therapy.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, I won’t breathe a word to anyone – I don’t want people to think I’ve lost my marbles.’ Ruth helped herself to yet another biscuit. ‘Did you make up the word “Smockeroon”?’

  ‘Yes.’ Emily was sure about this.

  ‘I have the strangest sense that I’ve heard it before somewhere, that’s all. I wish I knew where. That’s going to bother me for days.’