Lizard's Leap: chapter Thirteen: From Whence She Came

‘My real name is Silkier Taffetine Ozenga. But I’m sure you can see the advantages of using the name Sylvia Sanders while I’m staying here. You may call me Sylvia. You see, I don’t like to draw attention to myself.’

They looked at her purple hair and bright orange slippers and tried not to laugh. Mark almost succeeded. He’d taken a mouthful of lemonade. He had to decide between swallowing and laughing and the laugh won. They all laughed, except Kerry, who sat opposite him with lemonade dripping from her face and into her lap.

‘Where are you from?’ Emma asked when Kerry had wiped her face and they had all calmed down.

‘I’m from Whence.’

‘Where’s Whence?’

‘From Whence They Came,’ said Vicki, remembering the inscription on the gate.

‘That’s right, child.’ Sylvia said. ‘From Whence I came.’

‘But where is Whence?’ persisted Kerry.

‘Through the Way.’

For a few seconds none of them could think of anything to say. They were confused. Somehow, they felt as though this conversation should make sense, but if it did then they were missing a vital point in translation.

‘It does sound like English, but I can’t understand a word you’re saying,’ Emma said, getting irritated.

‘What’s the Way?’ Kerry asked.

‘The Way to Whence.’

‘Oh, oh,’ Emma said. ‘I’m out of my mind but do feel free to leave a message.’

‘Okay,’ Kerry butted in before Emma could make anymore of her sarcastic remarks and risk offending Sylvia. She seemed okay now, but she was still talking some really crazy talk and they didn’t know if she was likely to turn nasty. ‘I think I’ve got it. The Way is the way you get to Whence and Whence is where you came from. But where is the Way?’

‘Why, it’s over here, dear.’

‘Right,’ Vicki said, figuring that this was another of the cryptic riddles that were sending them all round in circles. ‘So what’s Here?’

Sylvia looked at Vicki as though she was stupid. “Here isn’t a what, it’s a where. What on earth do you mean, what’s here? You’re here. I’m here. The house is here.’

Vicki was frustrated. ‘Oh, now you’re just being silly. I’m sorry, I know you’re an adult and that I’ve got to respect you, but you aren’t making any sense at all.’

Kerry had been thinking during this exchange. ‘The Way to Whence is over here. Can you show us the Way to Whence, please?’ she asked.

‘Of course, dear. You only had to ask.’

Sylvia got up and walked over to the old grandfather clock. ‘This is Granddaddy, and he is the Way.’

They looked at each other. Mark put his finger up to his temple and turned it. ‘Nuts,’ he mouthed.

Sylvia turned around suddenly and Mark had to pretend to scratch his forehead.

‘Watch this.’ Sylvia told them to come over to her and watch carefully. She stroked her hand over the face of the grandfather clock and said:

‘Granddaddy, Granddaddy, wise old Way,
Show me Whence, would you, please, today.’

The face of the clock clouded. They couldn’t see the dial; it was covered, on the inside, with a thick layer of white smoke. Sylvia ran her hand over the face again and it cleared.

The clock face was a receiver, like a television. Inside the screen, strange people were bustling about what looked like a town square and in the centre of the square were an elderly couple. They were sitting in a gazebo that was decorated with all kinds of colourful flowers.

There was a queue of people waiting to talk to them. The old couple looked funny; they were sitting on top of a tower of books and their little legs dangled over the side.

The lady was very thin with long black hair and pointed features. She wore a black dress and red-and-green striped socks. The man was far more spectacular. He was fat with very long hair and a beard down to his knees. Sylvia had one broad, purple stripe running from the front of her head to the back, but this man had a whole host of stripes. He looked crazy with his white and purple striped beard and hair. He wore a glittery blue suit that finished at his knees, and he had orange and pink socks. They both wore boots that looked like army boots but they were soft and made from felt. They had half-glasses balanced on the ends of their noses and they peered over the tops of them as they looked down on the people, just as Sylvia had been doing to them.

‘They are my parents,’ said Sylvia, proudly, ‘Ozzie and Olivia Ozenga. They are the Olds of Whence. They were Booked to be the Whence Olds thirty mertles ago.’

‘What’s a mertle?’ Kerry interrupted.

‘Don’t they teach you anything? Everybody knows what a mertle is, and that there are seventy mertles in a kwartle.’

‘Oh,’ Kerry said and Sylvia went back to her story.

‘It was a grand day. People came from as far as Once to see the Booking ceremony. Mummy and Daddy were chosen because they had read more Whence books than anyone else in the kingdom. This made them very wise and gave them the tallest towers. It is written in the third book of Daddy’s tower that whoever has the tallest tower will be Booked to be Whence Oldie and Oldess. Once a week the people gather in the town circle to hear their wisdom and do their bidding.’

They were trying to concentrate on what Sylvia was saying but they were fascinated by the odd people milling about in the Grandfather clock’s face.

‘Whence is a marvellous place. It’s full of all the books that it’s possible to write, all the books that will one day be written, and all the ideas that someone will one day fill books with. Everytime a book in your world is written, one disappears from Whence, but it’s always replaced by two more.

Whence will never run out of books. The Whenceians will always be able to build their book towers, but in thirty mertles no one has built a higher tower than Mummy and Daddy. Oh, look! Look! This is going to be good. I want to watch this bit.’

A couple moved away from the head of the queue, smiling and behind them, an odd little man shuffled forward. He was dressed in black felt army boots, tight black pants that made his skinny legs look very knobbly and a loose sort of smock-coat. He had a peculiar face; it was shrivelled up with a pointy nose and chin and the beadiest black eyes. His black hair was long and straggly and he looked a like a skinny black weasel.

‘That’s my brother, Adobe,’ Sylvia said. ‘He’s for it, now. He’s going to get into terrible trouble. He was responsible for giving the frame to the school fair.’

The little man threw himself down in front of the two book towers. ‘Oh, ‘onourable olden ones,’ he grovelled. The children all burst out laughing.

‘Sush,’ said Sylvia. ‘Listen.’

‘Oh, most ‘ospitable, ‘onourable olden ones. It was all an ‘orrible mishunderstanding. I never meant to give the frame to that ‘orrible school fair. It just ‘appened. Please say you hunderstand and will be lenient with your most hunworthy son’

‘Silence,’ boomed the man with the purple, striped beard. His voice was as big as the town square. It sounded like a deep, wind instrument flooding the land with its tone. Everybody in the queue shielded their faces with their arms and one lady’s hat blew off and she had to lose her place in the queue to run after it.

‘How dare you insult my wisdom, you—you—you—,’ he obviously couldn’t think of a suitable word to describe the grovelling man so he turned to his wife to ask about his earlier statement. ‘I am wise, aren’t I, Olivia?’

‘Of course you are, dear,’ his wife said, patting him gently on the arm. His bottom lip had stuck out and he looked as though he might cry. He shook himself, hit himself over the head with a book from the table beside him, put his bottom lip in and turned back to Adobe.

‘I’ve taken enough of your lies and deceit, Adobe Ozenga,’ he said, pulling himself back to the point. ‘I’m ashamed to call you my son. I have made excuses for you all your miserable life, but no more. It says in the forty-second book in my tower that people who do wrong should be punished. You shall be taken immediately to the Outer Wither of Whence, and there you will stay until I decide what is to become of you.’ A roar went up from the crowd and everybody cheered and danced.

Two men in bright red uniforms came forward to lead Adobe away, but first they searched him and gave back all the moneybags that he had pick-pocketed from the people in the queue. Sylvia explained that this was a regular occurrence on Wisdom Day. Adobe would steal everybody’s moneybags and then the Whence Policemen wouldn’t know what belonged to whom.

Olivia had pondered the problem for some time and then came up with something that she had remembered reading in the twenty-sixth book in her pile: ‘If you stitch your name on all of your property, it can be returned to you if it gets lost or stolen.’ Everybody had been in awe of her wisdom. Oldie Olivia was the wisest woman who had ever lived.

‘Oh, good,’ Sylvia said, jumping up and down with excitement until her slippers jingled. ‘That gets him out of our hair for a while. But you must always be on your guard. Daddy will soon go soft and let him back from the Outer Wither and then you must be ready because he will come after the frame. And now I think it’s a good time to check on the frame, don’t you?’

‘I haven’t brought it,’ Kerry said, defensively.

Sylvia gave her a look and then ran her hand over the clock face. She chanted:

‘Granddaddy, Granddaddy, wise old Way,
Show me the frame, would you, please, today.’

She wiped her hand over the glass again and when the fog cleared it showed the frame, with the horse picture, sitting on the mantelpiece, in Kerry and Mark’s bedroom, at their Granddad’s house.

‘So dat’s how you knew so much aboud us,’

Vicki’s pipes had blocked up again and her eyes were streaming. She sneezed and blew her nose. ‘Doh, I wish by dose would stop rudding.’

Sylvia chuckled. ‘It will show me anything I ask it to, so I can always check on the safety of the frame, and on you lot, too. But that’s not all. It can also take me places. Watch this. Oh, andVicki? When I’ve gone, see if you can remember the ‘Show-me’ trigger spell.’

Sylvia ran her hands over the cabinet of the clock which housed the pendulum mechanism. She chanted:

‘Granddaddy, Granddaddy, wise old Way,
Take me to Whence, please, without delay.’

The door of the clock cabinet clicked. It swung back on its hinges and creaked open. A tunnel of bright light shone from inside. Sylvia walked into the light and vanished. They were frightened and called her, but she’d gone and they were alone in the strange, old mansion, with magic at every turn.

‘I’m going to try the Show-me rhyme,’ Emma said.
‘No, you’re not. Sylvia said I had to do it. I’ll try it.’

Vicki’s hand shook as she wiped it over the face of the clock. She chanted:

‘Granddaddy, Granddaddy, wise old Way,
Show me Whence, would you, please, today.’

She didn’t even know if she’d said it right and was amazed when the clock face clouded at her command. When it cleared, Sylvia waved at them from the end of the queue in Whence. She jumped up and down and looked very pleased with herself.

One second later she was back, looking rumpled but otherwise as though she’d never left.

‘Wow.’ said Mark, predictably. ‘I don’t want to go back to being just an ordinary school kid again; this is way too much fun.’

‘Now, before you go, I have one last thing to tell you. I am not allowed to just ‘Way’ into one of your leaps, it’s against the rules of order—etiquette and all that, you know?—you have to summon me if you ever need my help.’ She went to the side of the room and took the lid off a china ginger jar that was sitting on top of a bookcase. Taking something out of it, she said, ‘Vicki, as you’re the eldest…’

‘How do you know that,’ Vicki interrupted. ‘Oh, yes, of course, you heard us talking through The Way.’

‘…As I was saying, Vicki, you take this and wear it all the time. If you need me, rub the pendant. The trigger chant is:

Sylvia, Sylvia, most beautiful woman,
We’re in a mess and need you so, come on.”

The children looked at her in disgust.

‘Oh alright then,’ she said, ‘Try:

Sylvia, Sylvia, calling you,
We’re in the picture, come on through.’'

‘That’s better,’ Mark said, untwisting his face.

‘Now, you remember, don’t be calling on me every five-and-twenty twirfurls. I’ve been round this world, and several others, ten times and I have no wish to be bailing you out every day. It’s for emergencies only. Use it wisely.’

She handed Vicki a gold chain with a tiny lizard hanging from it. Vicki was going to have trouble explaining it to her mum. It was very beautiful and didn’t look like something a kid would have. She’d have to keep it hidden under her clothes.

‘I got the frame. I should get the necklace,’ Kerry whined.

‘I’ve got the prettiest neck, so I should get the necklace,’ Emma smirked.

‘I don’t want the flipping necklace,’ Mark said, and they all laughed.

Sylvia led them back through the maze of secret tunnels and out of a different door. This one led into the garden right up by the end of the drive. They emerged from one of the stone pillars holding up the main gates.

‘Think on, you lot. After you’ve lied to your mum about getting that cheap necklace from the hook-and-grab machine at the cinema, don’t you be telling your poor mother any more of your lies. You hear? Old Sylvia will be watching you.’ She winked and Vicki winked back.

They all said goodbye and waved to her as they went out of the gate. Suddenly, Mark turned and ran back flinging his arms round her waist and giving her a big bear-hug. ‘I like you, Sylvia. You’re really cool for an adult and you’re not really scary at all.’

‘Get off me, you big, soft fool,’ she said sternly. But as Mark ran to catch up with the others she had a grin from ear to ear. ‘Bye, Mark, my dear,’ she called after him softly.

When they got back to Granddad’s house, they rushed upstairs to check on the frame. Sylvia had already put the Berry spell on it. The lizards had moved further up the wood, and on each side of the frame, hanging from the vines in a cluster, was a bunch of smooth shiny berries carved from the wood. Each bunch held twelve berries.

‘Twenty-four mistakes,’ Emma said. ‘That’s all we’ve got. Just twenty-four visits from the mess-up fairy and then we loose the frame.’

That night, before they went to bed, they were all in Kerry and Mark’s room.

‘Night, night, Sylvia,’ Emma whispered. ‘Say goodnight to the Wrinklies for me.’

‘Olds! the other three corrected.