Porcelain Princess (10 page)

She passed her
hand through the wooden frame of the caravan’s doorway.

‘
We
create this from wood and iron, yet fail to realise we form the
wood and the iron itself. The trees, the rocks, the soil; we don’t
just
fill
everything, we
are
everything. We’ve
forgotten that we’ve created all these false boundaries, these
imaginary edges were we think one thing ends and another
begins.’

The woman could
see the doubt on Carey’s face.

‘
Tell
me,’ she said, ‘when you’re frustrated, and the things around you
seem to only add to your frustration by letting you down; do you
think that’s a
coincidence
? Do you think it only happens to
you?’

‘
These could do with putting somewhere safe,’ the man
unintentionally interrupted as he pointed to the large jugs he’d
placed against the caravan’s wheel. ‘It’s the spirit; for your
little friends,’ he added nonchalantly, grinning up at
Carey.

‘
Friends?’ said Carey, taken aback. ‘Oh, er, you mean
lamps
; spirit for my
lamps
!’

After swapping a
knowing glance with the man, the woman said, ‘Don’t you worry
Carey; if you’re not ready to introduce the others to us just yet,
we understand. They’ve been a secret for so long, a few more
minutes or hours won’t make any difference now, will
it?’

‘
I
think she means us, Carey,’ Dougy said, crawling out with relief
from beneath a pile of costumes, where he’d been getting hotter and
hotter with every passing second.

‘
Ah,
Dougy!’ the woman said with obvious delight. ‘See Carey, I said
we’d understand.’

‘
I
don’t understand!’ Carey exclaimed in exasperation.
‘I don’t understand how you know so much about us! How you seemed
to be expecting us!’

‘
Well, because of the Illuminator, of course! He somehow sees
so much of what’s going on in the world. He doesn’t tell us
everything he sees, naturally; but he does keep us informed of
things he believes might concern us, such as your arrival in
town.’

‘
Then
he knows we’re here?’ Carey glanced back over her shoulder, almost
as if she could somehow see through the caravan’s roof and see the
gleaming palace towering over them. ‘He knows
why
we’re
here?’

‘
Of
course he knows; there’s little he doesn’t know, you ask
me.’

The others had
all cautiously stepped out of their hiding places, blinking,
stretching, smiling stupidly, as if they had all just woken up from
a dreamy sleep. It was so unusual to be revealing themselves to
someone other than Carey, a totally new experience for
them.

They looked to
Carey, waiting for her permission to step outside.

Carey nodded,
smiled. She and Grudo stood aside, leaving the way towards the door
clear.

The woman
stepped back, clearing the doorway.

Being the
bravest, Peregun was the first to approach the open doorway. He
paused on the top step, looking out over the assembled
crowd.

‘
Peregun! It’s Peregun!’ someone cried out
excitedly.

As one, as if it
were a vast living creature, the crowd audibly breathed in before
erupting in cheers, clapping and joyful laughter. It rippled and
swayed too, as people moved to get a better view.

‘
Neris! Neris is there too now!’ the cry went up as Peregun
began to nervously descend the steps and Neris took his
place.

‘
Ferena!’

‘
Durndrin!’

‘
Dougy!’

The crowd
shouted out their names as they each appeared in the doorway. Each
also received a fresh, excited burst of clapping and
cheers.

On reaching the
bottom of the short flight of wooden steps, they were immediately
surrounded by people wanting to touch them, hug them, or drape silk
or lace scarves and neckerchiefs about them. Everyone stared at
them with the awe of disbelieving children. The children themselves
chuckled when they saw that, for once, they weren’t the smallest
people in the crowd.

Carey laughed
too when she saw how bewildered her friends were. They were edgy,
enthralled, amazed, like children experiencing a dip in the sea for
the very first time, being both incredibly scared and yet also
ridiculously exhilarated.

And every one of
them giggled with happiness.

*

Grudo was the
next to peer out of the door, bending low and edging out slightly
sideways to get his massive bulk smoothly through the door
frame.

‘
Grudo!’ everyone yelled in a mix of joy and wonderment at his
size.

As he stepped
down he looked just as bewildered as the others. He had, of course,
walked and moved amongst living people many times, but he had never
been greeted in such an ecstatic fashion. So, just as for the
others, all this was an entirely new experience for him.

Children rushed
towards him, almost treating him like a playground climbing frame
in the way they reached up for and swung off his massive arms, or
sat astride his feet so that they had a ride as he
walked.

Finally, Carey
appeared in the doorway, pausing as everyone else had done so far
to take in this wonderful sight of a massed crowd cheering their
every appearance and move. The clapping and cheers for Carey were
the loudest of all, however.

With a smile,
the woman and her companion began to step away, taking their now
empty cart with them.

‘
Wait, wait – I didn’t thank you enough for everything,’ Carey
said just in time to the woman before she disappeared into the
crowd. ‘I mean, I’m sorry, I’m so rude; I never asked you your
name, even though you brought me all these free
supplies.’

‘
Veraiconica,’ the woman replied; then she turned, walked off
and became one more person in the vast tide of love and joy
surrounding Carey and her friends.

Ferena was
showing a group of astounded children how her wings flapped,
jumping up in the air as if about to take off, then shrugging sadly
as she explained they no longer worked as well as they used to.
Peregun was charming an excited gaggle of young women, even though
every one of them was at least twice his height. Neris was being as
equally seductive, the men surrounding her entranced by her beauty
and elegant moves, though even women were clamouring around her,
asking for all manner of advice on controlling their husbands’
wayward ways. Durndrin was smoking a pipe, regaling his own
admirers with some tales or adventures that seemed to involve an
awful lot of hand twirling, swift leaps, and spins. As Carey looked
around, Grudo appeared to have mysteriously vanished until she saw
him seated on the floor, quite happily acting as the adventure
playground the children had taken him to be. As for Dougy, well, he
really was nowhere to be seen; Carey could only assume that, like
any other dog, he was tearing around in-between people’s legs and
feet, and he was wherever the crowd appeared to flow, shiver and
abruptly laugh out as if unexpectedly disturbed.

Carey walked
amongst everyone as if in a dream, unable to take it all in. She
couldn’t hear what they were all saying. They moved in and out of
her vision without her really registering their
presence.

Her mind was on
the show they would have to put on.

How could they
put on a show that wouldn’t disappoint the high expectations of all
these people?

What show could
it be?

It couldn’t be
The Porcelain Kingdom
. How many times must they have seen
that? How many times had they heard the story?

How could you
possibly put on a play that would be all about them? They’d spot
flaws in the story. They might even be insulted. After all, every
story needed a slight retelling to become a play; you added lines
of speech, or bursts of action, all things that might only be
implied in the original but were necessary to tell the tale
accurately. Unfortunately, there was always someone who disagreed
with the changes you’d made.

No no; it
couldn’t be
The Porcelain Kingdom
.

‘
Ferena!’ she shouted, spotting her running amongst the crowd,
leading a line of children. ‘The show; what play should we put
on?’

‘
We
don’t
need
to put on a show, Carey; we could just fall down
and they’d all cheer!’

As Ferena and
her group snaked off into the crowd, Carey looked anxiously around
for one of the others.

‘
Durndrin! The show!’ Carey cried out.

‘
Yes,
yes!’ Durndrin yelled back enthusiastically. ‘We
must
put on
a show for them; without fake strings too!’

Neris was
already putting on a show, a dance of twirls and low bows. Peregun,
spotting Carey heading towards him, was too excited to give her
time to speak.

‘
Isn’t all this amazing Carey? We don’t have to hide away in
secret anymore! It’s like…it’s like we really are alive Carey! You
did it girl, you did it; you’ve given us a life, of a
kind!’

‘
But
the
show
Peregun; we need to prepare for the
show!’

‘
Yes,
yes, we’re all prepared Carey! All the costumes are
ready!’

‘
No
no; it can’t be
The Porcelain Kingdom
. Not here!’

Neris glanced up
from her dancing, instantly understanding Carey’s
dilemma.

‘
How
about
The Caliph’s New Lace-maker
?’

‘
No,
no Neris; not even one by the Illuminator, I think. They’ve
probably heard it too many times. We need something else; a tale
from one of our other books!’

‘
But
Carey, we haven’t rehearsed!’ Ferena insisted apprehensively as she
snaked past the others once more.

‘
Rehearsed? Oh come on girl, we know most of these tales off
by heart!’ Neris replied dismissively.

‘
That’s right; I could do them in my sleep!’ Durndrin
agreed.

‘
You
do
do them in your sleep, dear,’ Neris pointed
out.

‘
The Lion who Refused to Roar
has always been my
favourite!’ panted Dougy as he suddenly appeared from between
everyone’s legs. ‘Look, I’ve
finally
admitted I can’t help
it,’ he added, noticing Neris’s admonishing glare as he began to
hungrily lick the hands of the giggling children. ‘And you know
what? I’m having
fun
!’

Carey had never
felt so confused, so unsure about what to do.

She looked
around at the happy crowd, wondering how she could ever hope to
please them when they had all gathered so early and waited so
long.

The sun was
rising but still low in the sky. It’s rays played along the sides
of the looming palace, the stone glistening as if it were the
finest glazed porcelain, apart from those areas still aglow with a
flickering scarlet and crimson, as if set aflame.

‘
I
know,’ Carey suddenly said, ‘I know the show to put on.’

*

The
Porcelain Doll

Like any other
child, Kilita always looked forward to and enjoyed the bedtime
stories that her mother and father would read to her. They were
almost always fairy tales, of course, but that didn’t matter to
Kilita, as these were her favourite stories.

The favourites
amongst her favourites, however, were the tales of the Porcelain
Princess. So much so, in fact, that her parents found that they
were having to make up their own tales of the Princess, adding
these stories to the many legends that had already grown up around
her. Fortunately for the girl, her mother had a lively imagination,
while her father was exceptionally good at putting on the gruff
voices of ogres or the tinnier tones of fairies, bringing
everything to life for her.

Throughout the
day, Kilita would repeat these stories to her enthralled friends,
varying them slightly by taking out the parts of tales that seemed
even to her to be obviously ridiculous and unbelievable. For,
unusually for her village, Kilita didn’t think these stories were
fairy tales at all, but were descriptions of a kingdom that really
existed.

‘
Oh,
she’ll grow out of it, you’ll see,’ Kilita’s mother would reassure
her father. ‘All children do after a while; let’s just leave her
believing in magic for a little bit longer, eh?’

As Kilita’s
group of friends grew up, the older ones gradually stopped
believing in the magic. They began to secretly find it amusing that
Kilita continued to believe in such obviously silly
stories.

‘
This
is
going on too long,’ her father said to her mother.
‘Perhaps I should tell her that, even though I’ve travelled just
about everywhere selling our pottery, I’ve never come across
anything that resembles this magical kingdom.’

‘
No
no, dear; she’s still so young. It might break her heart to learn
the truth. I have a better idea; let’s buy her a book, in which she
can see for herself that the story isn’t real but just a fairy
tale.’