1
The following Wednesday evening the Sorcerer turned up as usual for his weekly draughts tournament at the Gadget Man’s place.
‘Come in, come in,’ said the Gadget Man, glancing curiously at the bulky overnight bag the Sorcerer was carrying.
Once they were in his lounge and he had poured their tea, he looked expectantly at his guest.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Did you manage it? Were you able to effect the Exchange?’
‘Oh, I did, I did,’ said the Sorcerer smiling. ‘And, if I may say so myself, it was a complete triumph.’
‘Oh, good … good …’ said the Gadget Man.
Detecting a slight lack of enthusiasm in his friend, the Sorcerer said. ‘Now, Daniel, I know you gave it your best shot; just as I gave it my best shot. The point is, however, that my best shot was better.’
‘I suppose so,’ said the Gadget Man.
‘To put it in a nutshell …’ said the Sorcerer.
‘You won.’
‘I won!’ said the Sorcerer, and then added. ‘Fair and square!’
‘I suppose you’d like me to congratulate you?’ asked the Gadget Man.
‘Oh, no, not at all,’ smiled the Sorcerer, ‘your discomfit is reward and congratulations enough. In fact,’ he added, ‘knowing how awful you’d no doubt be feeling, I’ve taken the liberty of bringing you a small present.’
‘A present? For me?’
The Sorcerer pointed to the overnight bag, which he’d placed on the settee beside him. As the Gadget Man looked closer he saw the bag was shifting and twitching a little as if something inside it were pushing slightly at the fabric. Moreover, he thought he could hear a slightly high-pitched complaining noise like cellophane being crumpled.
He was quite intrigued. He stared over his half-glasses at the Sorcerer. ‘What on earth is it? What have you brought me?’
‘I’ve often thought, as you’ve shown me through the shop and into the apartment, that the old birdcage you have hanging in the shop was a wasted opportunity.’
‘Birdcage?’
‘Yes, the large birdcage with the stuffed parrot.’
‘Oh, that birdcage.’
‘Yes. So I’ve brought you something to put in it.’
‘You have?’
In reply, the Sorcerer leaned over the bag and gently unzipped it. Then he gestured the Gadget Man across.
He saw, crouched there and looking very sorry for itself, a large white bird with a distinctive yellow crest on its head. The bird looked up at him soulfully and croaked. It was a sad croak, like the creak of a sad door that hadn’t been opened for a long, long time.
‘What is it?’
‘I believe,’ said the Sorcerer, ‘that it’s a sulphur-crested cockatoo.’
‘It doesn’t look very happy.’
‘That’s because it’s been stuck in the bag for too long. It’ll be miles happier once you put it in the cage.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Of course! Go and get it.’
The Gadget Man still looked a little doubtful, but nevertheless hurried out of his living room and into the shop. As soon as he was out of sight the Sorcerer slipped the telescope from his sleeve and quickly returned it, although not to the mantelpiece he had taken it from. Instead he placed it on the floor, on to the tiles at the base of the surround. By the time the Gadget Man had returned, lugging the large split-cane cage, the Sorcerer was sitting on the settee again as if he’d never budged.
‘Here it is,’ gasped the Gadget Man. ‘I’d forgotten it was so awkward and heavy.’
He deposited it so clumsily on the coffee table next to the draughts board that the draughtsmen rattled and there was a small cloud of dust. The stuffed parrot looked faded and moth-eaten. It was attached to the perch, but leaned at an unnatural angle.
‘I suppose, I should take the parrot out?’
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ said the Sorcerer easily. ‘It’ll be good company for Ben.’
‘Ben?’
‘That’s what I’ve called the cockatoo. After an old friend.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t name it Daniel,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘Two of us could be confusing.’
The Sorcerer was inspecting the cage critically. ‘I don’t suppose you have a small lock amongst all your things, do you?’ he asked. ‘This door doesn’t look very secure. Cockatoos are quite intelligent and even more resourceful. I suspect Ben could manoeuvre his way out of here. We wouldn’t want to lose him.’
‘I’m sure I have,’ said the Gadget Man, and once again he hurried from the room. In his absence, the Sorcerer once more unzipped the bag, but this time he reached in and gently withdrew the cockatoo, stroking its beating breast softly with the back of one finger. Then, holding the bird firmly with one hand only, he unfastened the door to the cage, and then carefully fed the bird in. By the time the Gadget Man came back with a small padlock, the sulphur-crested cockatoo was sitting on the floor of the cage, blinking in the light.
‘I think he likes his new home,’ said the Sorcerer.
‘Do you really think so?’ said the Gadget Man, quite unconvinced. He thought that the cockatoo, if anything, looked even more miserable than it had in the overnight bag.
‘He’s probably just hungry,’ suggested the Sorcerer, leaning over and securing the door with the padlock then passing the key to the Gadget Man.
‘Oh, there’s a thought,’ said the Gadget Man, suddenly worried. ‘What does he eat? I mean if he eats millet or birdseed or anything then I’m afraid …’
The Sorcerer laughed. ‘He’s not a canary, Daniel. No, cockatoos are very agreeable in terms of diet. They’re particularly fond of nuts and vegetables. If you haven’t any nuts, chop up a carrot and a head of broccoli. I believe they’re especially fond of broccoli.’
2
As they settled to their first game, the Gadget Man said, ‘A small mystery, Sorcerer, has been troubling me, and I fear I have been thinking ill of the loblolly boy and that small girl.’
‘Mystery?’
‘The telescope I usually keep on my mantelpiece …’
‘Yes?’
‘It seems to have disappeared.’
The Sorcerer looked at the Gadget Man with alarm.
‘Daniel! You don’t think …?’
The Gadget Man nodded. ‘I’m sure I noticed that it was missing some time after their last visit.’
‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ said the Sorcerer. ‘That loblolly boy was a flighty little creature and I considered the girl to be a little shifty.’
‘Oh, I don’t think they were as bad as that, but it’s a worry all the same.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘See for yourself.’
The Sorcerer looked over his shoulder. ‘Indeed’, he said, ‘not on the mantelpiece. Could you have put it anywhere else?’
The Gadget Man shook his head. ‘I hardly ever touch it, except when I dust occasionally.’
‘A mystery then.’ The Sorcerer gave a wry smile. ‘Perhaps it disappeared all by itself?’
‘How could it do that?’
‘It may have looked up itself.’
The Gadget Man stared at the Sorcerer. ‘You don’t really think so?’
The Sorcerer laughed. ‘No, it was a joke. But seriously, don’t you think that you’ve been so troubled by the prospect of losing in this little challenge that you’ve been out of sorts, possibly imagining things? You’ve undoubtedly shifted the thing or mislaid it. And while I have no doubt that the loblolly boy or the girl could well have been capable of stealing your telescope, you’re forgetting the practical difficulties they’d have getting it out of the place under your very nose?’
The Gadget Man nodded. ‘I suppose so.’
He stood up.
‘Where was the last place you saw it?’ asked the Sorcerer. ‘That’s always a good place to start.’
‘It was on the mantelpiece,’ said the Gadget Man testily. ‘You know that.’
Obediently the Gadget Man crossed to the mantelpiece. ‘See. It’s not …’
And then he looked down.
‘Oh, my goodness!’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s here. The telescope’s here after all. It’s on the floor.’
The Sorcerer shrugged. ‘Perhaps one of those young ones, or perhaps it rolled off. Any earthquakes lately?’
‘I hope it’s not damaged,’ said the Gadget Man. Worriedly, he bent down and picked the telescope up, checking the cylinders and the lenses carefully.
‘Don’t look through it, mind.’
‘I’m not silly.’
‘Well, that’s that then,’ said the Sorcerer, clapping his hands. ‘What about this game then?’
The Gadget Man returned the telescope to the mantelpiece and rejoined the Sorcerer.
‘I’m so pleased I’ve found it,’ he said. ‘I have been worried. That little device could be dangerous in the wrong hands.’
Sitting disconsolately at the bottom of his cage, the sulphur-crested cockatoo had followed these exchanges with a deepening dejection. He cocked his head to look at the Sorcerer with bewilderment. The man was so callous, so completely beyond human feeling. And why was he surprised? He had been told to beware, he had been told to fear, and he had been told that the Sorcerer was the worst.
Catching the cockatoo’s eye the Sorcerer grinned and gave him a cheerful wink.
‘You know, I think Ben is going to be very happy here once he cheers up. You’re quite right, he does seem a little morose at the moment, even resentful. I’ve no idea why … You know, I think I’d keep him upstairs in the workshop. There’ll be more for him to see up there.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes, and, of course, there’s another locked door. Remember, they are very resourceful birds.’
3
The next day, the sulphur-crested cockatoo was wakened into sudden daylight. Blinking in the brightness, he realised that the Gadget Man had just removed the heavy blanket that he had draped over his cage the night before.
He stretched out first one leg flexing his talons, and then the other. He tentatively lifted his wings a little, and then brought them back.
He looked around. Already the Gadget Man had turned his back and was making for his workbench. Clearly he did not intend to waste his time chatting to a cockatoo.
His cage was now sitting on a crowded table in the Gadget Man’s upstairs workroom. He remembered visiting the room briefly just a few days ago. He gave a little discontented squawk as he reflected that not even in his most ghastly nightmares could he have dreamed of being permanently transformed into a cockatoo and compelled to spend the rest of his days caged in this place.
He glanced up. The faded stuffed parrot leaned in its eccentric way overhead. Once its feathers would have been brilliant: crimson, yellow and aquamarine. Now age and dust had rendered the crimson rusty, the yellow muddy, and the aquamarine into a tired ink stain.
A hideous thought occurred to him: one day perhaps he too would be stuffed and fixed to the perch, forever to squat beside the fading parrot.
His heart was heavy. Everything he’d tried to do to improve his situation had led him to something worse. And this surely was worst of all.
It was hugely unjust.
The more he thought of it the more unjust it seemed.
It was all the fault of the Sorcerer of course. He said whatever he felt you wanted to hear. Truth had nothing to do with it. He was all mischief, all trickery.
Still, he couldn’t understand why the Sorcerer had directed so much of his mischief towards him. What was the reason for this? Was it simply because he didn’t suffer fools gladly? He knew the Sorcerer had thought him a foolish little loblolly boy.
But where was the fun in making fools of fools?
How much more satisfying to make fools of clever people, like the Gadget Man.
And then the Sorcerer, not content with turning him into a cockatoo, had deliberately set out to make his life miserable as a cockatoo. He had given him to the Gadget Man, who clearly didn’t want him; he had put him in a cage along with a horrible stuffed parrot; he had made sure there was a padlock on the cage; he told the Gadget Man to feed him broccoli; and he had suggested that he spend his days in this large, draughty, messy room filled with noisy tools and strange apparatus.
And then he had the gall to warn the Gadget Man that the cockatoo was a resourceful bird. Resourceful? What resources did he have now?
What weapons? He couldn’t even throw the loathsome broccoli through the bars of his cage at his reluctant owner.
It was so unfair. Unjust.
The biggest injustice was that final Exchange.
He hadn’t looked through the telescope and turned into a sulphur-crested cockatoo. Oh, no. That was Benjy. That had been Benjy’s destined fate; Benjy’s destiny. Just as it had been Janice’s destiny to be transformed into a white rabbit.
Now, here he was, crouched in a split-cane cage surrounded by drying slivers of carrot and raw broccoli flowerets, living out Benjy’s destiny. And meanwhile, Benjy was winging south as the loblolly boy, riding the wind and sailing the skies.
It was totally unjust.
4
After some hours, the Gadget Man, who had been pottering at his bench without once coming to check the cockatoo, took off his brown dustcoat, and threw it on the table next to the cage. This time he did come up to the bars to look at his new pet.
‘For goodness sake,’ he said. ‘Things can’t be that bad. I do wish you’d stop sulking and skulking.’
The Gadget Man checked the bottom of the cage, ascertaining that nothing appeared to have been eaten. The carrot and broccoli looked somewhat shrivelled.
‘Not hungry?’ he asked. ‘Well, little picky-eater. I’ve bad news for you. There’ll be nothing fresh until that’s eaten.’
The cockatoo looked at him.
‘You don’t even make a noise,’ remarked the Gadget Man. ‘I thought cockatoos were supposed to be good talkers? Better than cocker ones, anyway. Perhaps I should trade you in for a cocker three …’
Then he shook his head in disappointment. At that moment there was a far off knocking and the Gadget Man with a muttered ‘Bother!’ turned and left the workshop. The cockatoo heard the tell-tale click of a key turning in the lock, he heard the clump of his footsteps disappearing down the stairs.
He now lifted his head a little higher and looked around.
Talk? He wondered if he could talk.
He gave a little shrug of his shoulders and tried.
‘Nothing fresh!’ he squawked. ‘Nothing fresh!’
He tried again. Louder.
Then again.
This was better.
He cocked his head to one side. It was not unlike the sound the Gadget Man had made.
He tried again: ‘Picky eater! Picky eater!’
That sounded even a little better.
He lowered his head again.
It wasn’t much. But it was something.
5
He must have drowsed for a while. He listened but could hear no sounds of the Gadget Man. Looking around he saw that the room was still empty, and the Gadget Man’s dustcoat was still lying across the table.
He could not get out of his head the crashing unfairness of having to live his life as a sulphur-crested cockatoo, the cockatoo Benjy should have been.
This was not his destiny.
He wondered what his destiny would have been had not the Sorcerer mixed things up for him.
There was no way of knowing.
But then, he realised with a little surprised squawk, there was one way of knowing.
The telescope.
The dangerous telescope.
What would have happened had he looked through the telescope ahead of Benjy?
What would his destiny have been? Surely it wouldn’t have been a white rabbit, or a cockatoo.
It would probably have been something really foolish, something with very little brain, something easily manipulated and ready to believe anything. There were all sorts of possibilities, none of them especially pleasant.
And yet, what could be worse than being stuck in a padlocked cage with a stuffed parrot and bits of drying broccoli?
What frying pan could be worse than this particular fire?
There was nothing to lose. It was the only hope he had. The trouble was, whenever he’d taken the only hope he’d had before, everything had turned to custard.
He shook his head, thinking of the old joke: what’s soft, yellow and deadly?
Answer: shark infested custard.
Well, that’s just where he was, neck deep in the old shark infested custard.
Nothing could be worse.
He should grab his own destiny.
He should look through the telescope.
Yes, he thought. I’ll do it. He looked about the room again. The bars of his cage were solid. The door was hooked into place and padlocked. The door to the workroom was locked.
Right, great idea, he would look through the telescope as soon as he’d solved one or two rather pressing problems. Pressing problems? No problem to a resourceful bird, he thought bitterly.
6
It was then, as he cocked his head and glanced around the room once more, that he saw a glint of silver in a bulging pocket of the Gadget Man’s dustcoat.
The glint didn’t register for a moment, but then he remembered. Once again he saw Mel’s half-amazed, half-horrified face as the tiny skeleton pulled itself into being and climbed inexorably up the door and pulled open the padlock on the door to the brick shed.
Could it be the skeleton key?
There was no way of knowing. The dustcoat was well out of reach, and even if it weren’t he couldn’t have achieved anything. His talons could only protrude a few millimetres beyond the bars and his beak even less.
And even if it were the skeleton key, he had no way of operating it.
He cast his mind back, remembering how it all happened. How the little disconnected heap of metal had gathered itself together and stood up.
How had the Gadget Man done it?
And all at once he realised it could be brought to life.
The device was voice activated, he recalled, it had responded to certain words the Gadget Man had said.
The cockatoo racked its brains trying to remember the words. Even if he could, would the skeleton key respond to the words, or to the voice? If to the voice, then could his imitation of the Gadget Man’s voice be good enough.
What were the words?
The Gadget Man had talked to the skeleton key as if it were a little toy, a little pet even. What had he said? Little man, that’s right. He’d called it, little man.
The cockatoo strutted over to the side of the cage near the coat. He made a gravely gargling sound at the back of his throat then cried, ‘Little man! Little man!’ in a high-pitched squawk.
He cocked his head and stared at the coat, realising almost at once that these weren’t the words, no matter how well he’d been able to articulate them.
He tried to remember once more. This time he put himself back inside the darkness of his brick cell. He tried to hear their voices again: Mel’s and the stranger’s. Just before the scrabbling sound the stranger had called something out.
He concentrated.
Good Fellow! That was it.
The cockatoo could not resist jumping from one foot to the other. Again he approached the side of the cage.
‘Good Fellow! Good Fellow!’ he squawked.
Almost immediately, and to his great delight, the large flap pocket began to heave every which way and then, wonderfully, the little skeleton tumbled out and climbed fluidly to its feet. The tiny figure stood there for a second or two as if gauging its bearings.
‘Then the cockatoo, in a passable imitation of the Gadget Man, squawked, ‘Good Boy! Open the lock.’
The skeleton swivelled around and located the cockatoo. Then in a rapid mechanical gait, it hurried towards the cage, observed the padlocked door, and immediately started climbing. It scrambled up the bars and found the lock. It proved no problem. As it had with the larger lock in the yard across the way, it levered its feet on the casing and tugged at the hasp. Moments later the lock was undone. The skeleton key unhooked the catch and then pulled the door open.
Amazing, thought the cockatoo. He leapt up to the door and sat at the now open entrance. Then he leapt into the air itself, using his wings for the first time. He flew about for a moment and then fluttered down and landed on the table beside the dustcoat.
Its job over, the skeleton key had subsided again and once more gave the appearance of being just a small pile of rods, springs and washers.
The cockatoo assessed the situation. He cocked his head at the door to the workshop.
The door he had heard the Gadget Man lock behind him.
The door looked a lot trickier.
The cockatoo was not at all sure that this was a task within the abilities of the skeleton key. This was not a padlocked door. This was a keyed lock and the Gadget Man had locked it from the other side, of course. Had he left the key in or had he taken the key with him? Did it matter?
When there’s only one thing to try, thought the cockatoo grimly, then try it.
He stepped over to the skeleton key and seized it with one claw. He was surprised at his own dexterity. Then he flapped over to the door and landed just before it.
‘Good Boy!’ he squawked. ‘Open the door!’
This time, immediately after the skeleton assembled itself, it marched toward the door, then it fell down on to the floor arms and legs akimbo, and finally wriggling back and forth it slid under the bottom of the door. The cockatoo could hear it scrabbling up the other side and then some other activity that seemed to involve small clicks and scratching. None of this took much time, and far earlier than he had expected, the door swung open towards him. In his delight, he scrambled backwards, and almost fell over on his tail. Quickly recovering his balance he had only time to squawk ‘Thank you!’ before the skeleton key tottered back across the threshold, and collapsed into its ill-defined heap again.
7
The cockatoo half-flew, half-jumped down the stairs and into the Gadget Man’s living room. All was quiet. He guessed the Gadget Man was in his shop. He leapt up on to the table lifting his wings for balance, and then looked around towards the mantelpiece and the telescope.
To his huge relief, he saw that it was still there, where the Gadget Man had replaced it the previous evening.
He looked about fluffing his feathers a little and growling with pleasure at his success.
The Sorcerer had said he was a resourceful bird.
How little did he know!
There was a huge satisfaction in this.
Then without thinking any more, he jumped into the air and flapped the short distance to the mantelpiece. It was not a wide mantelpiece and it was quite slippery because of the tiles. He had not realised just what a large bird he was. In his struggle to gain purchase he had to flap his wings and he was worried about the noise he was undoubtedly making.
Then, just as he was able to maintain some kind of an awkward equilibrium, he found, to his disappointment that he was at the wrong end of the telescope: the eyepiece was at the other end. This meant a repetition of the whole noisy, flapping process.
Finally, all was in place but his problems were not yet quite over. Somehow he had to get his eye to the eyepiece. This was a manoeuvre he was not sure he was capable of; in fact he was not sure it was physically possible. As a human he had only been able to lower his head to his chest, now he had to lower his head to his feet. Carefully he shuffled into position and tried. The world turned upside down briefly but then when he opened his eye he found the eyehole just adjacent to his eye.
‘Oh, please,’ he thought, ‘let it not be a guinea pig!’
8
It was not a guinea pig.
What the cockatoo saw through the telescope was a rather small boy in a red T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans.
There was a huge crash followed by a clatter.
The crash was Ben falling off the mantelpiece and on to the floor, and the clatter was the telescope, falling onto the tiles.
The noise was enough to bring the Gadget Man running into his apartment from the shop.
‘Goodness me,’ he said, as he saw Ben climbing awkwardly to his feet and rubbing at a suddenly sore spot on his shoulder. ‘How in heaven’s name did you get in here?’
Ben turned to the Gadget Man and shook his head, but could find no words.
‘Who are you, anyway?’ he asked.
‘I’m Ben,’ Ben whispered, ‘I think. I know who you are. You’re the Gadget Man.’
‘Good heavens,’ said the Gadget Man.
‘Do you think,’ said Ben, ‘I could borrow a mirror?’