A World Repaired
Madeline had seen the crooked Yallery sneak out of the Robot while it had been dancing. He had seen her following him and picked up his pace, but he still could not move too fast. He had tried pressing the remote possibly hoping the reboot would start. But he had not won the battle. Sure as Madeline had predicted when he pressed the button, nothing happened. Finally, he gave up, chucked the remote to the floor and covered up.
“I am sorry friend,” the bearded coward pleaded.
Madeline took the remote from the ground and turned her attention to Yallery.
The hunchbacked little fellow looked to be quite sorry for him. The ringmaster hat of the master compare was still on his head but covered in mud, as was his sparkling jacket. He looked like a very sad clown.
“I wanted it all for myself,” Yallery admitted.
Tommy, Sam, Rob, Simon and the man bear had caught up with Madeline and were stood around her looking as intimidating as five children and a guy in a bear suit could look.
“I know you did,” she replied looking at the remote.
“But this is far too much power for you,” she looked at the others before adding.
“I think it's too much power for us too.”
She handed the remote to Simon.
“Officially you entered the battle and you won. You know what to do with it.”
Simon nodded. Silently he took the remote and handed it to Count Douglass.
“You were the one that was meant to succeed the Duchess Douglass,” Madeline told him.
“I didn't want it now anyway,” Simon said sounding a little bitter.
“I want to ask you one favour though once you are ruler,” Madeline said as the remote changed hands.
Douglass smiled but his eyes were empty.
“I think I can guess what that favour is. You guys want to go back home don't you?”
She nodded and for a moment, Tommy thought she looked quite empty too.
“I guess the time has come for goodbye?” Douglass asked.
None of the children or the man bear could answer him. For a moment, there was a sad heavy silence.
“Here goes,” Douglass said, extending the aerial of the remote control and pressing the reboot button.
There was a whisperer static type noise. Suddenly there were things to be seen outside of the reboot shore. There were mountains and winding roads. There was a castle made entirely of sand just off the shoreline. On one of the mountains, Tommy saw a bus making its run. There were seagulls once more all around them. The place was how he remembered. As if by magic, within a few seconds, the world was repaired.
The mannequin people were bear people or owls again. The ones that had been sitting like toys watching the battle now lifted Douglass onto their shoulders.
“Douglass old boy,” one of them shouted.
“However did you do it?”
“Well, now you come to ask it was not easy. It was I against this huge robot you see. So I draw my sword and...” Douglass stopped speaking. His mother was giving him a stern look and so he chose to save this particular story for another time.
“Mother, Father,” Sam cried. Two of the mannequins had been changed back to people and Sam rushed to meet them. They were hugging and Sam was waiving the group goodbye.
“We didn't know that much about her,” Tommy said as he watched the reunited family walk away.
“I don't think we were supposed to,” Madeline offered.
Rob scratched his head.
“Yeah, I wonder how she managed to get here to begin with. It's left me with a lot of questions.”
But they had done the right thing. They had reunited the stranger's family and it felt good.
“Well Douglass, we had better be getting back to London,” Tommy said.
“Yes of course. Thank you all so much. Before I send you back though, are you sure that is what you want?”
Douglass scanned the children's faces and saw that they were all quite confused.
“If you were to stay here you would want for nothing.”
It was Madeline rather than Tommy who answered for the group.
“Our lives are not perfect, but London is where we belong.”
In what appeared to be a rare show of feeling the man bear rested his arms on Tommy and Madeline's shoulders.
“What Douglass means to tell you is that once you go back to London there is no way back here. There will be no bus to bring you back this time.”
The mood seemed to change in moments from one of excitement to a sombre one. The last time they had visited, they had all wanted to return to normality. This time Tommy suspected they had enjoyed the adventure a little more. The understanding that this would be their last adventure seemed to have hurt them all.
Douglass turned his attention to Tommy
“You all have extremely strong character.Rob, you showed a great deal of real courage. You worked out that not all wasright with Yallery and you investigated. You tried very hard and you succeeded.”
“Don't be so soppy,” Rob replied but he was smiling as he spoke.
“Simon, you thought you wanted power but when it came to it you understood that friendships are not won through power.”
Simon shrugged.
“Madeline, you could have just given in to the potion like the other mannequins. But you chose to fight, to be an individual. When you defeated Yallery you chose compassion over revenge,” Madeline gave a knowing smile.
“Tommy you were once again a great leader. But you learned that you can't always be there to lead. When you were separated, you found a way back and a way to repair what had been broken with forgiveness. Ultimately that repaired my world too and for that I am grateful.”
“Oh give over Douglass, enough with shoving morals down their throat. They know what they did. So just do as they ask and send them home,” Douglass's mother shouted from a window nearby.
Douglass sighed.
“I was being dynamic mother. You know, the way a new ruler should be.”
“I have cooked plenty of food Douglass. They could stay and eat. You could send them back to London afterwards?”
“Her cooking is awful. For the good of your own health I will send you back now,” Douglass told the children in a loud whisper.
“My last question, tell me Tommy, where have you been?” Douglass asked but his words echoed.
There was only black and the faint re echoing of the words
“Where have you been?”
Back Home
Tommy woke by the old computer. His memory was quickly jogged by the words on the screen.
Reboot successful
Where have you been?
Some time passed.
“There you are,” came, Mrs. Huntington's voice.
“You have been tired lately haven't you?”
Then Geoff appeared.
“I found a way back Geoff,” Tommy told him.
Geoff smiled,
“I'll put the kettle on.”
Over hot sugary tea, Tommy told Geoff everything that had happened. Occasionally Geoff stopped to ask more details. Mrs. Huntington knitted for most of the afternoon but Tommy knew she was listening just as intently as Geoff was. When Tommy spoke about the clowns, Geoff laughed a little.
“You never did like those clowns,” he chuckled. All too quickly, it was time to go home. Tommy crossed the two zebra crossings back to his house.
The next day he found himself sat behind Madeline during the schools assembly.
“Please turn to page sixty-three in your hymn books,” Miss Arthur asked.
The hymn was Lord of the Dance by Sydney Carter. It described God dancing while he created the earth. Tommy never thought of God as a dancer and the idea struck him as odd. It wasn't that he had a problem with god dancing. It rather contradicted his image of
god as an old guy with a big white beard. But if god wanted to dance so be it. Just because he was powerful didn't mean he shouldn't dance. It reminded him of the dancing robot so he chuckled to himself a little. Dave looked puzzled as to what Tommy found so funny. Oddly, he saw that Madeline was looking right at him.
He wondered if it had all been a dream for her too. Could it be that she remembered?
On the way out of the assembly, he saw she had waited for him.
“What was funny?” She asked.
“Oh, nothing I just remembered something.”
“Really,” she replied.
For a moment, Tommy thought she sounded offended. Maybe she thought that he had been laughing at her. She spoke again.
“Because I was thinking of a giant dancing robot.”
She turned to walk away but Tommy called after her.
“You remember? So it could not have been just a dream?”
Madeline only offered him that knowing smile.
“But if it wasn't all a dream then what was really going on?”
She waived away the question and replied.
“Oh I think you already know the answer to that Tommy, if you really think about it.”
“Madeline you are in the wrong line here,” Miss Arthur interrupted.
With that, she walked away leaving Tommy confused.
But as days turned to weeks no more was mentioned of dancing robots or singing owl's.
Nothing until just over one year later, when Tommy would embark on an adventure for the last time.
The Last Year of School
“Make sure you do the best you can sweetie. Comb that hair again. It is sticking up at the back,” Tommy's mother said.
Tommy enjoyed the last of his tea and had no intentions of re combing his hair just yet. The mock exams his mother had mentioned would determine how his real exams would go. Maybe how the rest of his life would pan out. It was all getting a bit scary. He needed to concentrate these last few months and the last thing he needed was distractions.
“There's some post for you here,” his mother said handing him a few envelopes.
The first few were junk. He opened the last one. The address had been handwritten. Nobody wrote much to Tommy. His friends all used email, text or social networking. So he opened the envelope feeling quite excited. Inside was a card. It had four words written in bright red ink.
We have your man bear
He felt a mixture of emotions as he let the words on the card sink in.
He felt concern for his old friend the man bear, and fear of the cards threatening tone. But more than both of those he felt overwhelming excitement. Because he knew that for this card to have reached him someone or something had gotten through. If they had come here then there might be a way he could get back.
“Is anything exciting?” Tommy's mother asked in that way adults did when they were being nosy but pretending not to be.
“It's nothing,” Tommy replied putting the card in his pocket.
So much for no distractions.
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