conceptualizations from month to month, year to year, we offer the nearest thing to the Ideal Teacher-Friend- Companion-Blood Relation. A trial period can be arranged for—“»
«Stop,» said Father. «Don't go on. Even
«Why?» said Timothy. «I was just getting interested.»
I folded the pamphlet up. «Do they
«Let's not talk any more about it,» said Father, his hand over his eyes. «It was a mad thought—»
«Not so mad,» I said, glancing at Tim. «I mean, heck, even if they tried, whatever they built, couldn't be worse than Aunt Clara, huh?»
And then we all roared. We hadn't laughed in months. And now my simple words made everyone hoot and howl and explode. I opened my mouth and yelled happily, too.
When we stopped laughing, we looked at the pamphlet and I said, «Well?» «I—» Agatha scowled, not ready. «We do need something, bad, right now,» said Timothy. «I have an open mind,» I said, in my best pontifical style.
«There's only one thing,» said Agatha. «We can try it. Sure. But — tell me this — when do we cut out all this talk and when does our
There was a single gasp from the family as if, with one shot, she had struck us all in the heart. I don't think any of us stopped crying the rest of that night.
It was a clear bright day. The helicopter tossed us lightly up and over and down through the skyscrapers and let us out, almost for a trot and caper, on top of the building where the large letters could be read from the sky:
FANTOCCINI.
«What are
«But
The helicopter flapped a lot of loud shadows over us and went away.
We sank down in an elevator as our stomachs sank up. We stepped out onto a moving carpet that streamed away on a blue river of wool toward a desk over which various signs hung:
THE CLOCK SHOP Fantoccini Our Specialty.
«Rabbits on walls?» I held up my fingers in profile as if I held them before a candle flame, and wiggled the «ears.» «Here's a rabbit, here's a wolf, here's a crocodile.» «Of course,» said Agatha.
And we were at the desk. Quiet music drifted about us. Somewhere behind the walls, there was a waterfall of machinery flowing softly. As we arrived at the desk, the lighting changed to make us look warmer, happier, though we were still cold.
All about us in niches and cases, and hung from ceilings on wires and strings were puppets and marionettes, and Balinese kite-bamboo-translucent dolls which, held to the moonlight, might acrobat your most secret nightmares or dreams. In passing, the breeze set up by our bodies stirred the various hung souls on their gibbets. It was like an immense lynching on a holiday at some English crossroads four hundred years before.
You see? I know my history. Agatha blinked about with disbelief and then some touch of awe and finally disgust. «Well, if that's what they are, let's go.»
«Tush,» said Father.
«Well,» she protested, «you gave me one of those dumb things with strings two years ago and the strings were in a zillion knots by dinnertime. I threw the whole thing out the window.»
«Patience,» said Father.
«We shall see what we can do to eliminate the strings.»
The man behind the desk had spoken.
We all turned to give him our regard.
Rather like a funeral-parlor man, he had the cleverness not to smile. Children are put off by older people who smile too much. They smell a catch, right off.
Unsmiling, but not gloomy or pontifical, the man said, «Guido Fantoccini, at your service. Here's how we do it, Miss Agatha Simmons, aged eleven.»
Now there was a really fine touch.
He knew that Agatha was only ten. Add a year to that, and you're halfway home. Agatha grew an inch. The man went on:
«There.» And he placed a golden key in Agatha's hand. «To wind them up instead of strings?» «To wind them up.» The man nodded. «Pshaw!» said Agatha. Which was her polite form of «rabbit pellets.»
«God's truth. Here is the key to your Do-it-Yourself, Select Only the Best, Electrical Grandmother. Every morning you wind her up. Every night you let her run down. You're in charge. You are guardian of the Key.»
He pressed the object in her palm where she looked at it suspiciously.
I watched him. He gave me a side wink which said, well, no… but aren't keys fun?
I winked back before she lifted her head.
«Where does this fit?»
«You'll see when the time comes. In the middle of her stomach, perhaps, or up her left nostril or in her right ear.»
That was good for a smile as the man arose.
«This way, please. Step light. Onto the moving stream. Walk on the water, please. Yes. There.» He helped to float us. We stepped from rug that was forever frozen onto rug that whispered by.
It was a most agreeable river which floated us along on a green spread of carpeting that rolled forever through halls and into wonderfully secret dim caverns where voices echoed back our own breathing or sang like Oracles to our questions.
«Listen,» said the salesman, «the voices of all kinds of women. Weigh and find just the right one…!»
And listen we did, to all the high, low, soft, loud, in-between, half-scolding, half-affectionate voices saved over from times before we were born.
And behind us, Agatha tread backward, always fighting the river, never catching up, never with us, holding off.
«Speak,» said the salesman. «Yell.»
And speak and yell we did.
«Hello. You there! This is Timothy, hi!»
«What shall I say!» I shouted. «Help!»
Agatha walked backward, mouth tight.
Father took her hand. She cried out.
«Let go! No, no! I won't have my voice used! I won't!»
«Excellent.» The salesman touched three dials on a small machine he held in his hand.
On the side of the small machine we saw three oscillograph patterns mix, blend, and repeat our cries.
The salesman touched another dial and we heard our voices fly off amidst the Delphic caves to hang upside down, to cluster, to beat words all about, to shriek, and the salesman itched another knob to add, perhaps, a touch of this or a pinch of that, a breath of mother's voice, all unbeknownst, or a splice of father's outrage at the morning's paper or his peaceable one-drink voice at dusk. Whatever it was the salesman did, whispers danced all about us like frantic vinegar gnats, fizzed by lightning, settling round until at last a final switch was pushed and a voice spoke free of a far electronic deep:
«Nefertiti,» it said. Timothy froze. I froze. Agatha stopped treading water. «Nefertiti?» asked Tim. «What does that mean?» demanded Agatha.
«I know.»
The salesman nodded me to tell.
«Nefertiti,» I whispered, «is Egyptian for The Beautiful One Is Here.»
«The Beautiful One Is Here,» repeated Timothy.
«Nefer,» said Agatha, «titi.»
And we all turned to stare into that soft twilight, that deep far place from which the good warm soft voice came.
