Stuart’s flashlight had a wide yellow beam, and April’s a narrow bluish one. As they walked through the darkened “Beeton in Wartime” exhibition, their lights criss-crossed, giving sudden eerie glimpses of a figure in a gas mask or a dummy on a stretcher splotched with fake blood.
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?”