Lord Kelvin's Machine - By James P. Blaylock Page 0,53

mother, wrinkling up her nose at the stink. In a fit of determination she leaped up and raced toward the sleeping room. She was immediately out again, brandishing a broad wooden paddle, and her son, suddenly contrite, began to howl and beg and cry. Then, abruptly, he gave off his pleading and started to yell, “Fire! Fire!” half giggling, half sobbing, as he slammed away at the burning elephant with his cap, capering around and around the table and chair as his mother angled in to swat him with the paddle.

It was an appalling sight—one I hope never again to witness as long as I live. I was up in a shot, and leaping for the door, getting out while the getting was good. The getting wasn’t any good, though; the door was locked tight, and both the mother and son turned on me together, he plucking up the razor and she waving the paddle.

I apologized profusely. “Terribly sorry,” I said. “Terribly, terribly sorry.” I couldn’t think of anything else. But all the while I looked around the room, searching out a weapon, and there was nothing at all close to hand except a chair cushion. I believe that if I could have got at something with a little weight to it I would have pounded them both into jelly right then and there, and answered for the crime afterward. There wasn’t a court in all of England that would have condemned me, not after taking a look at that mad pair and another look beneath the floorboards of their house in London.

They advanced a step, so I shouted, “I know the truth!” and skipped away against the far wall. It was a nonsensical thing to shout, since I didn’t any more know the truth than I knew the names of my fictitious cousins, but it stopped them cold. Or at least it stopped her. He, on the other hand, had fallen entirely into the role of being a menace, and he stalked back and forth eyeing me like a pirate, and she eyeing him, until, seeing her chance, she walloped him on the posterior with the paddle, grinning savagely, and very nearly throwing him straight razor and all into the chair I’d been sitting in.

He crept back to his table tearfully, like a broken man, whimpering nonsense at her, apologizing. He slumped over the ravaged elephant, hacking off its feet with the razor and then slicing its legs to ribbons, the corners of his mouth turned down in a parody of grief and rage.

“Where are they?” she asked.

What are they; that was the question. I ought to have had the answer, but didn’t. It could be she meant people—St. Ives, maybe, and Hasbro. She thought, perhaps, that they were lurking roundabout, waiting for me. It didn’t sound like that’s what she meant, though. I scrambled through my mind, recalling her conversation at Godall’s shop.

“I can lead you to them.” I was clutching at straws, hoping it wasn’t as utterly obvious as it seemed to be.

She nodded. The son peered at me slyly.

“But I want some assurances,” I said.

“An affidavit?” she asked, cackling with sudden laughter. “I’ll give you assurances, Mr. High-and-mighty.”

“And I’ll give you this!” cried the son, leaping up as if spring-driven and waving his straight razor in the air like an Afghani assassin. In a sudden fit he flailed away with it at the remains of the elephant, chopping it like an onion, carving great gashes in the tabletop and banging the razor against the little gear mechanism inside the ruined toy, the several gears wobbling away to fall off the table and onto the floor. Then he cast down the razor, and, snarling and drooling, he plucked up the little jumbo trousers and tore them in half, throwing them to the carpet, alternately treading on them and spitting at them in a furious spastic dance, and meaning to say, I guess, that the torn pants would be my head if I didn’t look sharp.

His mother turned around and slammed him with the paddle again, shouting “Behavior!” very loud, her face red as a zinnia. He yipped across the room and sank into the chair, sitting on his hands and glowering at me.

“Where?” asked the woman. “And no games.”

“At the Crown and Apple,” I said. “In my room.”

“Your room.” She squinted at me.

“That’s correct. I can lead you there now. Quickly.”

“You won’t lead us anywhere,” she said. “We’ll lead ourselves. You’ll stay here. There’s not another living