The Toyminator (12 page)

“Here it comes,” he panted. And here the cover came, up and over and onto Jack’s foot.

“Ow!” howled Jack. And his “Ow” echoed down along the sewer beneath them.

“Keep it quiet,” said Eddie. “And get down the hole.”

“I’ll get business on my trenchcoat,” said Jack.

“Time is wasting,” said Eddie. “You brought us here to save lives, didn’t you?”

Jack lowered himself into the unpleasantness beneath, then called up to Eddie and Eddie jumped down. Jack caught Eddie, reached up and pulled the sewer-hole cover back into place.

Eddie and Jack stood in darkness. And in smelliness also.

“Whoa!” went Jack, holding his nose and fanning his face. “This is revolting – I’m up to my ankles in business here.”

“I’m nearly up to my bottom,” said Eddie. “But it’s quite a pleasant smell. Once you’ve acclimatised yourself.”

“So, which way do we go?”

“That way,” said Eddie.

Jack sighed deeply. “I can’t see a thing in the darkness. Which way do you mean?”

“
That
way,” said Eddie.

“Oh,
that
way,” said Jack. “I see.”

But of course he did not. But he did follow Eddie by holding his ear. And Eddie strode forward with confidence, because, as he informed Jack, bears are noted for their remarkable night vision and natural sense of direction.

Presently they reached the inevitable dead end.

“Brilliant,” said Jack.

“Up the ladder,” said Eddie. “Put your hands out – there’s rungs in the wall.”

Jack put his hands out. “Ah,” he said.

There were strugglings and pantings and it’s hard to climb a ladder in the darkness with one hand holding your nose. But at length the two now somewhat ill-smelling detectives emerged into a kind of underground chamber, bricked all around with big stone slabs and lit by flaming
torchères
in wall sconces. There was an old organ in one corner of this chamber and at this sat an old organist, playing an old organ tune.

Jack dusted down his trenchcoat, but demurred at wringing out its sodden hem. Eddie squeezed at his soggy legs and dripped fetid water.

The old organist suddenly burst into song.

The gulls that circle overhead

Cry out for crumbs and bits of bread.

The gulls that circle underfoot

Are very rarely seen.

“What a wonderful song,” said Jack.

“I hated it,” said Eddie.

“Who said
that
?” asked the old organist. And he turned. And Jack and Eddie beheld … the Phantom of the Opera.

“Oh my goodness,” said Jack, and he fell back in considerable disarray.

The Phantom wasn’t the prettiest sight, but he wasn’t the ugliest, either. He was somewhere in between, but at a certain level in between that made him, or perhaps it was a her, or indeed an it, utterly, utterly …

“What is the word I’m looking for?” Jack did whispering to Eddie.

“Search me,” said the bear in reply. “Average, bland, standard, run-of-the-mill, insipid, dull, middling, trite, mediocre, commonplace.”

“That’s enough,” said Jack. “But that’s what it is.”

“Aaagh,” went the Phantom. “Do not gaze upon my ubiquitousness.”

“And that’s a good’n,” said Eddie. “Possibly the best’n. He’s as ubiquitous as.”

“What are you doing here?” The Phantom raised his voice, but it didn’t really seem to raise. It droned somewhat. Which was odd as his, or her, or its, singing had been sweet. Although Eddie had hated it. “Have you come to mock me for my generality? Come to laugh at the cursed one? The one too dull and everyday to be noticed?”

“We noticed you at once,” said Jack. “And I really loved the singing.”

“You did?” said the Phantom. “You
really did
?”

“It was a beautiful song. But we’re lost. We need to get up into the Opera House. Would you help us, please?”

“I rarely venture above,” said the Phantom. “My appearance is too lacking in extremity even to draw notice. Folk don’t even know I’m there.”

“Who said that?” said Eddie.

“Stop it,” said Jack. “It’s not funny.”

“Oh, it is,” said the Phantom, wringing hands of abundant nonentity. “They all laugh. It’s all the Toymaker’s fault.”

“The kindly, lovable white-haired old Toymaker?” said Jack.

“Unless you know of another.”

Jack shook his head.

“He wanted to create a toy that would be loved by all, that would appeal to all. So he took a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of the other and he blended them all together. But did he create something that would universally be loved by all?”

Jack shook his head slowly. “No?” he suggested.

“Correct,” said the Phantom. “I am everything. And by being everything, I am nothing. I am a Phantom.”

“That’s very sad,” said Jack.

“But we are in a hurry,” said Eddie.

“That
is
true,” said Jack. “Do you think, Mister Phantom, that you could be kind enough to show us the way up into the Opera House. It is
Mister
Phantom, is it, or is it
Miss
or
Missis
?”

“If only I knew,” said the Phantom. “Then, if I
did
know, I’d know whether some of the urges I feel at times are natural rather than perverse.”

“Difficult,” said Jack.

“Time,” said Eddie, pawing at an imaginary wristwatch.

“That bear’s no master of mime,” said the Phantom. “And what is
he
, anyway?”

“I’m an Anders Imperial,” said Eddie. “Cinnamon plush –”

“That’s a beer-bottle top in your ear hole.”

“That’s my special button tag.”

“Oh no it’s not.”

“Oh yes it is.”

“Time,” said Jack, and he pointed to his wristwatch.

“I’ll take you up,” said the Phantom, “but I’ll caution you to take care.”

“Oh yes?” said Jack.

“Something is amongst us,” said the Phantom. “I can sense it. Something that pretends to be us, but is not. Something other. Something apart. Something from Beyond The Second Big O.”

“We are aware of this,” said Jack, “and it is our job to stop it.”

“Really?” the Phantom voiced surprise, but in a manner too dull and too monotone to express the emotion. “Really, I
am
surprised. But you
must
beware. This something, and there is more than one of these somethings – there are two, in fact – these somethings will destroy us all, they will suck the very life force out of Toy City, leaving it an empty shell.”

Jack looked at Eddie.

And Eddie looked at Jack.

“Please lead us up,” said Jack.

The Phantom led the way. He, she or it, or all of the aforementioned, had a certain height to whatever he, she or it was. But it was an indeterminate height that was difficult to quantify. It was neither one thing nor the other; it lay somewhere in between, but beyond.

“If they ever make a movie of
this
,” Eddie whispered up to Jack, “they’ll have a real problem casting this, er, being.”

“They’ll probably get Gary Oldman,” said Jack. “He can play anyone.”

“Who is Gary Oldman?”

“Search me,” said Jack. “I think my mind’s wandering again. It was poetry yesterday. I probably
do
need some sleep.”

“This way,” said the Phantom, leading onward.

And onward the Phantom led and eventually his leading was done with the opening of a secret panel, as is so often the case with Phantoms. “This is the royal box,” he, she or it said. “You’ll have a good view of the show from here – no one uses it any more. Something to do with Edict Five. Did you ever hear of it?”

“Never,” said Eddie. “Thank you for helping us, Mister, er, well, Phantom.”

“I do have a name,” said the Phantom.

“Oh,” said Jack. “What is it?”

“Ergo,” said the Phantom. “I’ll be leaving you now.”

“Nice fellow,” said Jack, once the Phantom had departed. “Or woman, or whoever, or whatever.”

Eddie shrugged and climbed into a most comfortable-looking queenly kind of a chair. “All right, I suppose, if you like that kind of a thing.”

Jack dropped down into the chair next to Eddie’s, a most sumptuous kingly kind of a chair. Jack gazed all about the royal box. It was all gold twirly bits and gilt wallpaper.

And then Jack looked out from the box and into the Opera House proper. He had been there before, had Jack, as too had Eddie, and this
was
the royal box that Eddie had been sick in. Although it didn’t smell of sick now, or possibly it did, a bit. It smelled a bit like sawdust. And Jack marvelled anew at the wonders of the Opera House.

“It really is an incredible place,” said Jack.

“Gaudy,” said Eddie. “Gaudy.”

Jack looked out over the audience.

And then Jack whispered to Eddie, “They’re out there somewhere, our lookalikes, about to strike.”

“Did your, er,
secret
source tell you just
who
they are intending to strike at?” Eddie asked.

“The orchestra,” Jack whispered in return.

Eddie stood up on his chair and peered down into the orchestra pit. And Eddie counted on his paws, which meant counting two at a time. And when Eddie had finished his counting, Eddie turned to Jack.

“The orchestra?” said Eddie. “The
entire
orchestra?”

“According to my source,” said Jack, “who calculated the odds. There were twelve monkeys and then there was the jazz trio. Three times twelve is thirty-six and there are thirty-six orchestra members here. The murders are growing in a mathematical progression.”

“Jack, the
entire
orchestra? All of them?”

“That’s what my source suggests.”

“Jack,” said Eddie, “look down at the orchestra, if you will.”

Jack looked down upon the orchestra.

“Jack, count the number of members of the orchestra, if you will.”

Jack counted.

“Jack, tell me the number you have arrived at, if you will.”

Jack said, “Yep, that’s thirty-six, including the conductor, I’m afraid.”

“Jack, so many folk. This will be a massacre. What are we going to do?”

“Well,” said Jack, “I
have
thought about this, and the way I see it is –”

But then Jack’s words were swallowed away, for the orchestra struck up.

Now Jack felt that he could understand a clockwork orchestra. In a way. Which is to say that he understood the principles involved. A clockwork orchestra was an orchestra of automata – clockwork figures programmed, as it were, to perform a series of pre-planned tasks, to pluck certain strings, to touch certain keys, to finger certain notes. In fact Jack, with his knowledge of clockwork, apprenticed as he had been in a factory that produced clockwork figures, felt confident that he had the ability to personally create a reasonably efficient and melodic clockwork orchestra. It was only down to knowing how clockwork functioned and what it was capable of.

But the trouble was.

The trouble was, as the trouble had been ever since Jack had first arrived in Toy City, in what now felt to him like a distant past, the trouble was that the clockwork orchestra playing beneath him was actually playing. These were not simple (or indeed complex) automata going through their mechanical motions. No, not a bit of it. These were clockwork musicians, but they were
real
musicians. They actually played, and some of them sometimes hit the wrong notes.

They
really
played. They thought. They used their skills.

But clockwork brains? It was a mystery to Jack. It had always been a mystery and it remained a mystery still.

Jack glanced at Eddie. The little bear looked out anxiously over the audience, down upon the clockwork orchestra. That bear, as Jack knew, had nothing in his head but sawdust. Yet he thought, saw, heard, felt. Loved.

It was above and beyond a mystery. And although Jack felt certain that his own senses – those of a living, breathing man – did not deceive him, that he really
was
here in Toy City, a city where toys lived and moved of their own accord, it was beyond his comprehension as to how. And Jack knew that he cared for these ersatz creatures, these living toys. He wished no harm to come to them. In fact, like Eddie, he wished that something could be done to ease their lot, which was for the most part a pretty rotten one.

Jack looked out once more towards the orchestra: they were hammering into the overture. Going at it with gusto. These thinking, feeling clockwork musicians knew nothing of the threat that was presently hanging over them, that at any moment the terrible light might strike and their very essences would be torn from their bodies.

“Eddie!” bawled Jack. “We have to get down there. To the stage.”

“You
do
have a plan?” Eddie bawled back.

“I need the toilet,” bawled Jack.

“You need
what
?”

Jack and Eddie left the royal box. There was no one in the corridor. Jack located the nearest gentlemen’s toilet.

“Bottle job, is it?” Eddie asked.

“Just give me a minute, please. Wait here.”

Jack slipped into the gentlemen’s toilet, closing the door behind him. He locked himself into the nearest stall and withdrew from his trenchcoat Wallah the calculating pocket.

“You’ve a lovely soft hand,” crooned Wallah.

“Yes,” said Jack, “I’m sure I have. Now, you must help us, please. You were absolutely right about the orchestra being the next target and I’m still not certain how you arrived at your calculations.”

“That’s because I haven’t explained it to you,” said Wallah, in a husky tone. “And it’s not really necessary that I do, is it?”

“No,” said Jack, “not at the moment. But please, tell me, what should Eddie and I do next? The murderers are already in the building and they could strike at any moment. Eddie and I have to stop them.”

“Well then, my dearest –” said Wallah.

“Dearest?” said Jack.

“Well, you’re such a dear boy.”

“Please tell me,” said Jack. “I don’t know what to do.”

Wallah did snugglings into the palm of Jack’s hand. “You’ll need a plan,” she whispered.

“Yes,” said Jack, “and very fast indeed.”

“Then hold me up to your ear and let me whisper.”

Jack emerged from the gentlemen’s toilet.

“All right now?” Eddie asked. “I hope you didn’t forget to wash your hands.”

“I have a plan,” said Jack.

“Now, that’s a coincidence,” Eddie said, “for I have a plan as well.”

“Nice,” said Jack. “But my plan is this –”

“You’ll want to hear mine first,” said Eddie.

“No I won’t,” said Jack.

“Oh, I think you will – mine is a real blinder. It’s as brilliant as.”

“Mine is calculated to achieve optimum success,” said Jack.

“Ooh,” went Eddie. “Optimum success.”

“Time,” went Jack, doing wristwatch tappings, “time is surely running out.”

“Then we’ll run backstage and on the way I will explain to you my plan.”

“And if it doesn’t conflict with mine, we’ll put it into operation.”

“Jack, there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“You know there is.”

“Then tell me, please.”

“I won’t.”

And the two took to jogging down the corridor.

It’s really quite easy to move about unseen, as it were, in a big Opera House when a production is underway. After all, the audience are in their seats, the front-of-house staff, who are not required again until the half-time rush for the bar, are outside having a fag and discussing what rubbish they think the production is and how much better they could do it themselves. The technical staff are deeply engaged in their technical stuff, gaffers are gaffing and best boys, who don’t really have a role to play in the running of a successful ballet, and who would be better off getting back to whatever movies they should be being the bestest of boys on, are generally to be found in the stars’ dressing rooms, sniffing the roses and drinking champagne out of glass slippers. But some folk have all the luck and best boys have most of it.

And so it
really is
quite easy to move about unseen, behind the scenes, as it were, in a big Opera House when a production is under way.

“Up this way,” said Eddie.

“Might I ask why?” Jack asked.

“It’s part of my plan. Any objection?”

“Actually, no,” said Jack. “It’s part of my plan also.”

Jack and Eddie were backstage now, that wonderful place where all the flats are weighted down and there are big ropes everywhere and curiously it smells a bit like a stable.
[16]
Unlike the front of the stage. Which smells quite unlike a stage.

As a matter of interest for those who have never attended a ballet, or those who have attended a ballet but sat either up in the circle or further back in the stalls, it is to be noted that if you are ever offered front-row stall seats to the ballet,
do not
accept them. If you do attend the ballet, take a look at the front row of stalls seats. Notice how few folk are sitting there, and how uncomfortable these folk look.

Why? you might well ask. What is all this about? you also might ask. Well, the answer is this: what you can smell when you sit in the front row of the ballet is a certain smell. And it is a smell quite unlike stables. What you can smell when you sit in the front row of the ballet is …

Ballet dancers’ feet.

Why ballet dancers’ feet smell quite so bad is anybody’s guess. Probably because ballet dancers work so hard that they don’t have time to wash their feet as often they should, would be anybody’s
reasonable
guess.

But there it is.

Never
accept front-row seats for the ballet.

Never
.

Understood?
[17]

“Why does this backstage smell of stables?” Jack asked Eddie.

“Because of the hay bales that are used as ‘running chuffs’.”

“Ah,” said Jack. “But what are –”

“This way,” said Eddie.

“That was the way I was going,” said Jack. “But what are –”

“Let’s hurry,” said Eddie. “I have a
very
bad feeling coming upon me, and as you know, we bears are noted for our sense of –”

“Let’s just hurry,” said Jack.

And so they hurried and presently they found themselves, and indeed each other, upon a high gantry, which held the above-stage lighting rigs. There were lots of ropes all about and wires and cables, too.

“We’re here,” said Eddie.

“Yes we are,” said Jack. “About this plan of yours.”

“Let me ask you just one thing,” said Eddie. “Does your plan involve a chandelier?”

“Actually, it does,” said Jack.

“Mine, too,” said Eddie.

“Well, what a coincidence that is.”

“Really?” Eddie raised his imaginary eyebrows. “And yet this is an Opera House, and we did meet the Phantom of the Opera. And the one thing everyone remembers about the Phantom of the Opera, and indeed associates with operas, is the big chandelier that hangs above the centre of the stage. Which gets dropped upon someone.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about
that
,” said Jack.

“Nor me,” said Eddie. “I just made that bit up to pass some time.”

“Oh,” said Jack. “Why?”

“Because
that
,” said Eddie, and he pointed with a paw, “is a
very
big chandelier and I’m not exactly certain how we’ll be able to drop a thing that size on anyone.”

“Aha,” said Jack. “Gotcha.”

“Gotcha?” said Eddie. “What means this odd word?”

“It means that my calculated plan extends a little further than your own. I know exactly how to drop that chandelier upon the evildoers.”

“Assuming of course they stand directly beneath it when we do the dropping,” Eddie said.

“Eddie,” said Jack, “let’s face it: it’s a pretty preposterous idea. But this
is
a pretty preposterous situation. All of this is utterly ludicrous.”

“When you put it like that, how can we fail?”

“Well said. Now bung your furry ear hole in my direction and let me whisper into it.”

And so Jack whispered. And when his whispering was done, which, it has to be said, was quite loud whispering as it had to make itself heard above the spirited strains of the orchestra beneath, Jack straightened and Eddie looked up at him.

And then Eddie said, “No way.”

“No way?” said Jack.

“Absolutely no way,” said Eddie. “What do you take me for? You’ll get me killed.”

“It will work,” said Jack. “You’ll be fine. It’s a calculated risk.”

“I won’t be fine, I’ll die. You do it.”

“I can’t do it. It has to be you.”

“And what do I do it with?”

“You do it with a spanner. This spanner.”

“And where did you find that?”

“Backstage, next to the ‘thunder sheet’.”

“And what’s a –”

“Don’t start with me. I know you made up ‘running chuffs’.”

“But I’ve only got paws, Jack. No hands with fingers and opposable thumbs.”

“It’ll only take a few turns – you’ll manage.”

“Oh, look,” said Eddie. “The ballet has begun.”

Now ballets and operas have several things in common. Swanky costumes they have in common, and too much stage make-up. And music, of course – they are both traditionally very musical affairs. But the most notable thing that they share is the storyline. The one thing that you can always be assured of if you go to the opera or the ballet is, in the case of the opera, lots of really good loud singing, and in the case of the ballet, lots of really wonderful dancing, and
in the case of both, really rubbish
storylines.

They
are
rubbish. They always are. You always know what’s coming next. Who the baddy is and who the goody. The jokes, such as they are, are telegraphed a mile off. Rubbish, they all are. Rubbish.

Eddie watched the dancers a-dancing beneath. Very pretty dancing dolls they were, of the variety that pop out of musical boxes, only bigger.

“What is this ballet all about?” he asked Jack.

“Boy sees girl, villain sees girl, boy meets girl, villain sees boy meet girl, boy gets parted from girl due to villain’s villany, boy remeets girl and boy gets girl in the end.”

“And
that’s
the story?” Eddie asked.

“Yes,” said Jack. “Clever, isn’t it?”

“That would be irony, would it?”

Jack said, “We should be doing our stuff!”

Eddie said, “I don’t want to!”

Beneath them, dolly ballerinas twirled. The hero, a wooden dolly who given the bulge in his tights apparently had wood on, did pluckings up on the heroine and twistings of her round in the air and the doing of something that is called a pas de deux. And also a full-tilt whirly-tronce, a double chuff-muffin rundle and a three-point turn with the appropriate hand signals and other marvellous things of a quite balletic nature.

The villain of the piece, imaginatively costumed in black, lurked in the limelight at stage left, posturing in a menacing fashion and glowering ’neath overlarge painted eyebrows.

Eddie said, “Don’t do this to me, Jack.”

Jack said, “It has to be done.”

And then Jack did it, but did it with care. He lifted Eddie from his paw pads, raised him to shoulder height and then hurled him. Eddie, wearing the face of terror, soared out over the dancers beneath. Jack buried his face in his hands and prayed for a God to believe in and wished Eddie well. And Eddie landed safely in the topmost crystal nestings of the mighty Opera House chandelier.

Unseen by dancers, orchestra or audience.

Jack peeped out through his fingers and breathed a mighty sigh. Eddie clung to the chandelier and growled in a bitter fashion. Jack waved heartily to Eddie.

Eddie raised a paw to wave back and all but fell to his death. Jack rootled the spanner from a nameless pocket and waggled it at Eddie.

Eddie steadied himself in his crystal nest and prepared to do catchings.

And it could have been tricky. In fact, it could have been disastrous. That spanner could have fallen, down and down onto dancers beneath. But it didn’t, for it was a calculated throw.

And Eddie caught that spanner between his paws and offered a thumbless thumbs-up back to Jack.

And Eddie peeped down from his lofty crystal eyrie. Through twinkling crystals, which presented the world beneath as one magical, he viewed the dancers, the orchestra and even the backstage, smelling of stables, which lurked behind the flats. It was a pretty all-encompassing overview, and one that brought no little sense of awe to Eddie Bear.