Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms (15 page)

Stuart nearly walked straight into the waist-height model of 1940s Beeton, and as he lurched over it his flashlight swept across the miniature rooftops and gardens, lighting up something very odd, something that he hadn’t noticed before.

“Hey, look—” he started to say, and then he realized that April was hurtling ahead into the next room, flashlight beam bouncing. He hurried after her, past the horse (now back on four legs, with both ears restored), and into the final room.

“Right,” she said, ducking under the rope that cordoned off the coin machines. “Which first?” She shined her flashlight between the bicycle tire repair-kit machine and the try-your-strength one.

“The bicycle tire repair machine,” he said, fishing in his pocket for the screwdriver.

April watched impatiently as Stuart got to work on the first screw. “Was that a car?” she asked suddenly, cocking her head.

“Didn’t hear anything,” said Stuart, concentrating hard.

“I hope it wasn’t.” She sounded anxious. “What if somebody saw our flashlights through the windows? Did you open the one in the bathroom, incidentally?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. He was tired of admitting that he was too short to do things. “Didn’t have time,” he lied.

“What do you mean? You had ages. You had all that time when I was being lectured on those stupid Roman throwing things.”

“Yes, but it was complicated.”

“What was complicated? How are we going to get out? What if we’re stuck in here for the night?”

“Look,” he said, feeling exasperated. For all her cleverness, April was an awful worrier. “I’m trying to unscrew this. Why don’t you put the money in the fairground machine?”

“Oh, can I?” She sounded thrilled.

“Just to start it up,” he said quickly. “I’ll do the hammer thing.”

“Okay.”

He took a threepence out of his other pocket and handed it to her, and then with a couple of twists finished taking out the first screw. “Done it yet?” he asked, starting on the next.

“No … not quite. It won’t go in.”

“Give it a real shove,” he said. “I’ve had to do that on some of the other machines.”

The second screw came out quite easily, and the metal strip that covered the coin slot fell to the floor with a tinkle. Stuart pushed a threepence into the slot and pressed a button. There was a metallic clank and a small object landed in the compartment at the bottom. It was oblong, and no wider than his hand. He shoved it, unopened, into his jacket pocket.

“You ready?” he asked, straightening up and shining the flashlight in April’s direction. She was crouched over the try-your-strength machine, tugging at something.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry.”

“What do you mean?” Stuart shifted the beam of light so that it lit up her hands. Between her fingers, he could see half the threepence sticking out of the slot.

“It’s the wrong one,” she said.

Stuart leaned over. There were two slots next to each other on the front of the machine. One looked large enough for a threepenny bit. April, for some reason, had stuck the coin into the other, narrower one, meant for sixpences, and it had wedged there.

“Why on earth did you do that?” he asked sharply. He pushed her hands aside and tried to wiggle the coin. It had jammed fast. He inserted the flat end of the screwdriver beside the threepence and moved it around, and the slot started to cave inward. He tugged the coin again and this time it came out.

He held it up and stared at it in the blue flashlight beam. “It’s bent,” he said accusingly. “You’ve
bent
it. It’s ruined.”

April said something, but in a voice so muffled that he couldn’t hear the words.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“My stupid eyes,” she said. “I can’t see very well in the dark even with glasses, and the flashlight makes them go all dazzly. I didn’t notice the second slot until it was too late. Stupid eyes. Stupid glasses. Stupid, stupid glasses.”

He heard her swallow a couple of times and knew that she was trying not to cry. He felt furious, not only with April but also with himself—he’d told her to give the coin a real shove, and that’s what she’d done. And then he’d blamed her. It took him a moment or two before he could bring himself to speak.

“I’ve got another threepence with me,” he said, forcing the words out. “It’s okay.”

She swallowed again. “Look, why don’t I go and open the window in the bathroom while you’re doing that?” she suggested. “At least I can try and be a bit useful.” He heard her footsteps leaving.

“April!” he called out.

“What?”

Stuart took a deep breath. “The window was too high up for me,” he said. “But I think you’ll be able to reach it.”

“Okay.” Her footsteps disappeared.

Stuart inspected the try-your-strength machine. It looked straightforward enough. You hit the iron mushroom with a mallet and a small weight was sent whizzing up a vertical groove toward the bell. The mallet looked enormous. He tried to lift it, but it was held in place by a metal catch.

He rested the flashlight on top of the toffee dispenser so that it cast a clear light onto the strength machine and then he pushed threepence into the slot. There was a click as the metal catch fell away. Easing the mallet off its hook, he tried a couple of practice swings and did some deep breathing to get his strength up. “Right,” he said to himself.

He took off his jacket, drew another deep breath, lifted the mallet, and at the
exact
moment that he began to swing it, there was a sudden movement in the shadows to his left. Startled, he half turned, and the weight of the mallet threw him off balance, and he staggered back a step and then sat down very hard on the iron mushroom.

It bounced slightly, and there was a pathetic
ding
from the machine. Beside the coin slot, a little drawer shot out of the mechanism. Stuart reached for it, but another hand got there first—a large but slender hand, with polished nails and a bandaged thumb.

“Goodness me,” said Jeannie, taking a card the size of a bus ticket out of the drawer. “Whatever is this?”

CHAPTER 23

Stuart’s heart seemed to stop. The flashlight rolled off the toffee dispenser and bounced across the floor. For a moment, all was darkness, and then from over his shoulder another flashlight clicked on, illuminating Jeannie. She was standing just in front of him holding the card. On the back of it, in large black letters, was printed the word
WEAKLING
!

“So tell me,” said Jeannie conversationally. “What is the significance of this little object?”

“I don’t know,” Stuart answered truthfully, his voice not much more than a squeak. “Can I have it back?” he added, reaching out a hand.

“Not yet.” She frowned as she read something on the other side of the card. “It’s all very puzzling. And I presume that you’ve also been interfering with these other machines?”

“No,” lied Stuart.

Jeannie stooped into the shadows, and when she straightened up again she was holding his jacket. Stuart made a grab for it. She snatched it out of his reach. “Clifford!” she called.

Stuart looked around and saw the dazzle of a flashlight beam, and then felt his wrists grabbed from behind. Almost immediately they were released again, but now, somehow, he couldn’t pull his hands apart; his index fingers seemed to be stuck together behind his back, and the more he struggled the more tightly they were linked.

“That’s better,” said Jeannie. “Very well done, Clifford. You’re well on your way to a distinction in grade two.” She lowered Stuart’s jacket again, felt in the pockets, and took out the little tin case. “
Top Marks Tire Repair Kit
,” she read.

“That’s mine,” said Stuart.

Jeannie ignored him and opened the lid. “Glue, sandpaper, and a rubber patch,” she said, disgustedly. She snapped the lid shut again. “Where’s your little friend?” she asked.

“What friend?”

“The girl with the glasses, who obviously thinks she’s rather clever. Wrongly, since it didn’t occur to her that Clifford was acting as a rather obvious decoy. I was able to observe your fence-climbing activities at my leisure, and then follow you to the museum in my car. Anyway, where is she?”

“She got scared,” Stuart fibbed. “She wanted to go home, so I said okay.”

He was feeling scared himself, though he tried not to show it.

“When we met at my factory,” said Jeannie, “I distinctly remember asking you to come to me if you found out anything useful about your uncle’s workshop. What I
don’t
remember saying is, ‘Please arrange a secret meeting with Leonora.’”

“It wasn’t secret,” said Stuart.

“It’s the
ingratitude
I can’t bear.” Jeannie’s voice rose in anger. “When I first met that sad old thing, she was trying to sell Grave Street and not getting any buyers because it was a crumbling wreck. Typical teacher, you see—no money, no business acumen. She’d saved nothing for her old age. She didn’t have the faintest idea of the true value of what she had.”

“What do you mean?” asked Stuart.

“All your great-uncle’s early tricks—the bird cage, the money box, the finger trap—were simply collecting dust on her coffee table. Ingenious, beautiful objects left lying around, unpatented. I’m a businesswoman, Stuart. If I see an opportunity, I grasp it. I took the house off Leonora’s hands, bought up the old factory site at the bottom of the yard, built a warehouse on it, gave her a lovely rent-free flat in the basement, and began to manufacture your uncle’s inventions. The business took off like a rocket. You’d think she’d be grateful, wouldn’t you? You’d think she’d be unlikely to sneak off behind my back and give information to a small and nosy boy? I tried to have a conversation with her today, but it wasn’t satisfactory. Old people can be so stubborn, and that dog is surprisingly vicious.” Broodingly, she rubbed the bandage that covered her thumb. “However,” she added, “I have a feeling that
you
might be able to tell me rather more than she did.”

Stuart said nothing.

Jeannie leaned toward him so that her face was close to his, and when she spoke again her voice was quiet and reasonable. “Let’s be sensible about this,” she said. “What would you do with that workshop if you found it?
I
can make use of it. I transformed a few little tricks into an empire of magic. Just think of what I could do with that feast of illusions. No foreign counterfeiters could possibly copy
those
.”

She held out the card and the bicycle tire repair kit. “I believe that you’re following a trail of some kind, Stuart, and if you can tell me what these objects signify, then I’d be very grateful. And generous—I’d be ever so generous. How about a lovely new bike, for a start?” She smiled.

Stuart shook his head, and her smile disappeared. Jeannie straightened up again, her face rigid, her uninjured hand gripping the card and the little tin. “Let’s go, shall we?”

Stuart felt Clifford grasp his shoulders and begin to march him across the room. “Where are you taking me?” he asked, his voice rising.

“No need to shout,” said Jeannie. “We’re going somewhere secluded to have a chat about your findings so far.”

“Let me go!”

“No.”

“My mom and dad’ll be worried.”

“What a pity. You should have thought of that before you broke into a public building after dark.”

Her voice was calm, but there was an edge to it, and Stuart felt his breathing tighten with fear. He tried to shake himself free, but the grip on his shoulders was too strong. One by one—Stuart first, then Clifford, then Jeannie—they passed through the narrow doorway into the room with the tools and farm animals. As the flashlight beam leaped across the walls Stuart saw a shadow move to his left. It was a slow, rather elegant movement, like the spoke of a wheel spinning around, and in an instant he knew what it was. He coughed loudly to cover the thud of a wagon wheel hitting a large fake cow, and then he went boneless, dropping like a stone. Clifford stumbled over him, and there was an exclamation from Jeannie as she banged into the back of her student.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake! Now I’ve dropped that card,” she said impatiently. “And please stand up, Stuart. Behaving like a toddler is not going to help you in any—” And then she shrieked as a giant fake blacksmith swooned out of the darkness, a vast hammer in his hand. In the chaos, Stuart found himself momentarily free and he rolled into the deep shadow and staggered to his feet, hands still linked behind his back.

“
Bathroom
!” he heard April hiss. He heard the patter of her feet ahead of him, and her flashlight blinked just once, showing the way to the next room. He followed, zigzagging from one flashlight blink to the next, lurching against exhibits, stumbling through doorways, until April doubled back and took his elbow, dragging him along with her. Stuart could hear the rapid click of Jeannie’s heels now, walking swiftly just a room or two behind.

“Here,” whispered April, shoving Stuart through the door into the bathroom. “I found a ladder in the janitor’s room,” she added. “I’ll go first.”

She scampered up the stepladder to the high window and disappeared. He could hear the thud of her feet hitting the ground outside. Stuart followed, sticking his head and shoulders through the open window and then coming to a halt, his stomach lodged on the windowsill, his feet waving.