Phyllis froze, as if ice had set in her veins.
‘WELL?’ Sturdy cried, blocking the doorway. ‘Y-you can see me?’ Phyllis stammered.
His eyes enlarged with mounting fury. ‘Come to steal from me, have you?’
‘No! I—’
The ventriloquist advanced stealthily into the dressing room, one arm stretching out to grab Phyllis.
Her eyes darted to the dressing table, and her instincts—the quick reflexes of a conjuror—kicked in. She snatched up the large wooden-handled hairbrush and hurled it at Sturdy’s head.
Her aim was spot-on—it struck him on the temple, and he stumbled back, with a grunt.
‘Arf arf arf arf!’ came Daisy’s bark from Phyllis’s shoulder bag.
Phyllis raced past Sturdy, through the doorway and out into the corridor. Several performers mingling there quickly moved out of her way.
‘You wicked THIEF!’ Sturdy bellowed. He lurched out of his dressing room, his hand on his forehead, and took off after Phyllis, barging the performers out of his way.
Phyllis tore up the corridor, towards the spiral staircase. Wallace Wong came out of his dressing room, alerted by the commotion. He saw Phyllis dashing past and he looked confused, like he didn’t recognise her, but recognised something about her, although he couldn’t place exactly what it was.
Phyllis had no time to stop and explain things; she dashed onwards, looking over her shoulder at the advancing ventriloquist.
‘Excuse me!’ she cried, squeezing past more chorus girls who were going up the stairs. Startled, they moved to the side, and Phyllis leapt up the stairs, her hands clawing the balustrade, her knuckles white.
Sturdy hurtled to the stairs, but the chorus girls were filling it once again. While Phyllis, being smaller, had just managed to squeeze past them, the staircase was so narrow that adults could only go up or down it in single file. Sturdy seethed as he watched the girls going up; then he started trying to jostle past them, forcing them, one by one, harshly against the iron balustrade.
‘Ooh, watch it, monsieur!’
‘’Ey! What’s ze ’urry?’
‘’Ow rude!’
‘Ouch! Mind ze plumage, you great brute!’
Phyllis rushed into the wings and then, boldly, she raced across the stage, to the surprise of the busy stagehands. She found Clem, standing bewildered in the wings where she’d left him and Myrddin. But the wizard was nowhere to be seen.
‘Myrddin!’ she gasped, trying to get her breath back. ‘Where—?’
‘Gone,’ answered Clement.
Phyllis looked back across the stage. She could see some of the chorus girls emerging at the top of the stairs, and could hear the protests from the girls still trying to get up.
‘What?’
‘He’s gone. One minute, he’s looking at the handbill and the next, he says that it’s the very day that that vile felon perpetrated his deed; they’re his very words, Phyll, as though it all came back fresh to him. Then he went all withery and he said, “Goodbye, Master Whiskers!” and twirled around and he was gone. All I could smell was—’
Suddenly a huge figure came crashing through the black folds of the wings.
‘Quick, it’s Sturdy!’ Phyllis grabbed Clement’s arm and pulled him to the front of the stage, to the big curtains. They fumbled about, looking for the opening, as Sturdy rushed towards them.
‘Arf arf arf arf arf!’ Daisy was being jostled around—she knew that trouble was afoot.
‘Man,’ wailed Clement, ‘where is it?’
He and Phyllis buffeted the huge expanse of velvet, trying to find the centre of the curtains. But it seemed to have disappeared, just like Myrddin himself.
Then two things happened: Sturdy’s hand clamped firmly down on Phyllis’s shoulder. ‘Gotcha!’ he hissed.
At the same time, another hand clamped down on Sturdy’s shoulder. ‘Sturdy,’ said Wallace Wong, addressing Sturdy but still looking curiously at Phyllis, ‘you must leave the stage. The stage manager has announced curtain-up.’
‘Clear ze stage, s’il vous plaît! Beginners ERNLY!’ came the stage manager’s stub of a voice.
Sturdy, startled by the abrupt hold on him, eased his grip on Phyllis’s shoulder and scowled at Wallace Wong. ‘Unhand me, sir, I—’
‘Found it!’ Clem hoisted the curtains to one side, creating just enough of a gap for him and Phyllis to duck through.
The audience, at the unexpected appearance of Phyllis and Clement before the curtain, rippled with confusion. The orchestra conductor shooed them both off with a curt wave of his baton and a fierce glare.
Phyllis grabbed Clem and raced across the apron of the stage. At the edge they ducked behind a tall, narrow, black partition and up into a passageway. ‘I hope this goes where I think it goes,’ muttered Phyllis. They rushed through the passage and came out into the corridor that the doors to the box balconies ran off. ‘Good. C’mon,’ she urged, ‘we have to find those stairs we arrived on!’
‘How come they can all see us?’ Clement said.
‘When Myrddin went, his spell must’ve gone with him! Quick!’
Rushing along the corridor, past the potted palm trees, Phyllis spied the wide marble staircase that swept down to the foyer. She stopped at the top of the stairs and Clement banged into her.
Phyllis looked down the gleaming stairs, scrunching her eyes and concentrating. She tried to clear her head of everything that had just happened, ignoring her fiercely beating heart and the perspiration on her brow as she looked desperately for the TimePocket.
‘Can you see it?’ asked Clement, knowing what she was searching for.
‘Shh.’ The marble of the stairs gleamed up at her, the wide treads of each step looking like icy ledges of frozen milk. But there was no Pocket.
Of course! Phyllis realised. I have to find it from below. She grabbed Clement and rushed him down the staircase. At the bottom, she turned and peered upwards, urging the TimePocket to show itself.
Then, as if heeding her silent invitation, the edges of an opening began to appear: a large, almond-shaped hole, studded around the edges with twinkling beads of bright, shifting, golden molecules of light.
‘It’s there,’ she said, feeling the gusts of wind blowing down from the Pocket. She reached into her bag, scrabbled about for a bit—never once taking her eyes from the Pocket up there—and found one of the red spangly balls from her cups-and-balls tricks. She took it from the bag, holding it tightly. She didn’t need the Sphere of Greater Temposity or her Date Determinator now; she had her ‘passport’.
‘Hold onto my coat, Clem, we’re going home!’
And, with a spurt of great energy, they raced back up the stairs and disappeared into the windy, dark TimePocket.
‘But what if he comes down here?’ asked Clement, his eyes anxious behind his spectacles. ‘What if he follows us?’
He, Phyllis and Daisy were sitting on one of the old sofas in Phyllis’s magic basement. Phyllis had just told him what had happened when she’d gone into Sturdy’s dressing room.
She frowned. ‘No. I don’t think that’ll happen.’
‘Huh? How do you know it won’t?’ He pulled off his handlebar moustache and fiddled with it.
‘I’ve thought about it. See, as long as Sturdy doesn’t know where I am, exactly where I am, he can’t find me.’
‘Huh?’
‘If he knew my precise location, and if he had a Sphere of Greater Temposity—and, Clem, I don’t even know if more than one Sphere exists—well, he’d be able to find me. If he didn’t have a Sphere, but if he had something from down here in the basement instead, then he’d be able to locate me and Transit straight here. But that hasn’t happened.’
‘Yet,’ Clement gulped.
‘It hasn’t happened, Clem. So I’m hopeful that he doesn’t have a Sphere and he doesn’t have anything of mine, and so he can’t find me.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right.’
Phyllis stroked Daisy’s ears.
‘So,’ Clement said. ‘Those books. D’you think he’s into something really wicked? Like he’s a warlock or something?’
‘I don’t know if he’s a warlock,’ replied Phyllis. ‘But it’s bad, all right. I can feel it in my bones.’ She shuddered. ‘That book called Bringing Forth the Whimpering. Remember that inscription we found at Stonehenge?’ She took her Transiting journal from her bag.
Clement nodded. ‘Yeah. It mentioned the Whimpering.’
Phyllis flicked through the journal, to the page where she’d transcribed the words of the inscription before it had vanished with the moonlight. She read aloud, her voice low: ‘. . . the Great Whimpering will see the final days of this world. But it will not be here . . . it will not be until after the reigns of many kings beyond your time. No great winds or storms. No mighty destructions. Merely the Great Whimpering, and the collapsing of the knowledges above . . .’
‘The end of the world!’ Clement gasped. ‘Like I said!’
‘And it seems like Alexander Sturdy’s planning to make it happen.’
‘How?’
Phyllis frowned. ‘I don’t know.’ She pondered some of the words. ‘ “The collapsing of the knowledges above” . . . what on Earth does that mean?’
‘Search me.’
‘Clem? Tell me: what happened to Myrddin? I mean, what was he like just before he vanished?’
‘Oh, you should have seen him. His whole face went different, like he was a completely different person.’
‘How?’
‘It sort of went a bit . . . longer, I guess . . . like someone had pulled his chin down and stretched his head. And it was like . . . like all of a sudden he got really sad. Like he just crumpled. He wasn’t the Myrddin we knew. He was so sad it was like there was a cloud around him.’
‘Because he remembered the theft?’ Phyllis murmured.
‘When he looked at that handbill, and the date on it, it was like it came rushing back at him, and he had to get away.’
‘Like he didn’t want to go through it all over again . . .’ She interlocked her thumb and pinkie and put her head back against the sofa. She stared up at the high basement ceiling, but it wasn’t the ceiling she was looking at.
‘What did he take?’ she said abruptly, making Clement jump.
‘What?’
‘What did Sturdy take from Myrddin that’s hurt Myrddin so much? And is that the reason Myrddin’s hidden himself away for most of Time? Because he’s sad?’
‘Could be.’
‘I think I might know what it was,’ Phyllis said.
‘What?’
‘But I’ve got to be certain.’
‘Oh c’mon, Phyll, spill the beans!’
‘Oh, I will, Clemeleon Dude; just wait. I’ve got to be sure first. And there’s one way I can make sure.’
‘You . . . you’re gonna go back?’
‘We were there on the very night the theft happened. Only I don’t know if the theft had happened when we were present, or if it’s going to happen after we were there. I have to find out.’ She delved in her bag again, and pulled out the handbill. ‘You heard what Myrddin said: they printed these on the day of performance. This’—she flourished the piece of paper—‘will take me to October 24, 1931, straight back to the Froux-Froux Levité Opera House.’
Clement looked nervous. ‘Are you sure that’s such a good idea? He nearly got us last time. What’ll happen if he catches us there again? We won’t have Myrddin’s invisible protection this time, will we?’
‘Not we, Clem. Me.’
‘Huh?’
‘I have to go alone.’
‘Oh, Phyll!’
Daisy looked up, and tilted her head to one side.
‘It’s too risky for you to come, or Miss Daisy even. You’re right, I won’t be invisible. And if there’re two of us, or three of us, that’s more chances of us being seen. At least if it’s just me, I can keep a lower profile.’
‘But, Phyll, you know the old saying: safety in numbers!’
‘Sorry, Clem, you’re not coming. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in no Time.’
‘You always have all the fun,’ he grumbled.
She felt sorry that he couldn’t come with her this Time around, but she couldn’t bear the thought of him being upset—especially as she still felt responsible for when he broke his leg. ‘Look, I tell you what: no matter where I Transit to the trip after this one, you’re coming too. I promise. Okay?’
‘Cross your aorta nineteen different ways?’
She pointed with her index finger to her heart, then traced an invisible pattern of star-shapes all across her chest. ‘The old promise,’ she grinned.
‘Okay,’ he said, sighing.
‘But there is something you can help me with,’ Phyllis said.
‘Like what?’ he asked eagerly.
‘I can’t go back as myself. People have seen me, too many people backstage. I need to look different.’
Clem puffed out his chest. ‘Well, madam, have you come to the right place!’ He reached down into his backpack and pulled out his long, flat box of disguises. Shifting along the sofa, he plonked the box between himself and Phyllis and Daisy. ‘What can we transform you into today?’ he asked, opening the expandable trays inside the box and speaking in the way Miss Evangeline Hipwinkle from Thundermallow’s spoke whenever she sold him a new item of disguise.
‘Well, all I was thinking was—’
‘Y’know, I’ve often thought you’d look good with a moustache. How about this Poirot number?’ He pulled out a neatly trimmed moustache with the ends curled upwards in perfect points. ‘Human hair, of course, I never buy synthetic. And you’re in luck—this black model goes perfectly with your hair, and—’
‘Clem, I’d look like a freak!’
He considered the moustache carefully, ignoring her remark. ‘No, perhaps it’s not for you. Let me think . . .’
Phyllis and Daisy watched him poking about in the trays and drawers in the box of disguises.
‘I know! How’s about we tie your hair up and put it under a cap—you know, that big cap with the small brim at the front that you sometimes wear to school?’
‘I like your thought,’ Phyllis said.
‘That’s a good start,’ Clement said, nodding. ‘With all that hair out of the way, you’ll look different immediately. Ha! I’ve got an idea!’
‘Inform me, Clement, my man, inform me.’
‘Well, what if they all thought that you were some boy who worked backstage? Like a stage sweeper or something? There’re so many people backstage they’d never know. You could blend in. Melt into the scenery, if you see what I mean.’
Phyllis smiled. ‘You are too, too clever.’
‘Yes, I too, too am. Now, tie your hair up; you can get the cap later, after I’ve transformed you.’
For the next twenty minutes, Clement reshaped Phyllis’s eyebrows, shaded one side of her nose so that it looked a bit crooked near the tip, gave her a very light beard stubble with some stick-on fine liquid latex and stuck a large but not too prominent artificial wart on her left cheek. (The wart was a compromise; he’d originally wanted to give her a long scar running from her temple to her jaw, and a set of false teeth more suitable for a gopher than for a young stage sweeper, and Phyllis had firmly said no to those two suggestions.)
When he’d finished, Phyllis did indeed look different. Clement had taken his hobby of disguises seriously and this, coupled with his natural artistic talents, had paid off.
‘There,’ he said, holding up a mirror and letting Phyllis look at her new self. ‘Phyllis Wong, please meet Phillip Wong from the Froux-Froux Levité Opera House in Paris.’
Phyllis saw a young man who appeared a bit older than she was. ‘It’s swell, Clem. Thanks.’
‘Remember, we’re a team. I may not be there with you, but’—he said the next bit in a Doctor Frankenstein sort of voice—‘I created you!’
She laughed, and Daisy pranced around on the sofa, jumping onto Clement’s legs and sniffing about in his box of disguises.
Phyllis stood, putting the handbill into her bag. ‘I’ll run upstairs and get the cap, then I’ll be right back.’
‘And then you’ll be gone again,’ said Clement, quietly. ‘Promise me another thing,’ he added.
‘What?’
‘You’ll go carefully, and come back the same way.’