The Music Box: Chapter Three

Emily closed the door behind her quietly, the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.

She’d done it! But she felt a knot in her tummy, which she knew was only partly fear. She hated fibbing to her mother. She recalled Pinocchio’s fate, that little wooden puppet who wanted so desperately to be a boy, but whose every lie showed for all the world to see. Absentmindedly her hand went to her nose, rubbing its button end. This was different. This was a one-off in exceptional circumstances. She would make it up to mother somehow.

Nevertheless the knot was still there. To take her mind of it, she tried to picture some of her favourite things. She began with remembering her first real friend, Hopalong. Hopalong was a bunny who used to live in their yard, when she was but three or four. Hopalong was freakishly white, so white her eyes would hurt if she played with him too long on a sunny day. He loved to be petted, for his fur to be stroked away from his front to his back, and day after day she would spend grooming him to his shiny best.

One day, when she was nine, she returned home to find mother sitting on her bed. She knew from the sad smile she wore that the news was not good.

“Honey, come and sit here. Now listen to me, you’re not to get too upset, I’m telling you this because you’re a big girl now and you must know about these things. While you were away I went into the yard and, well, we’ve had a visitor. Hopalong won’t be staying here any longer, he’s passed away. He’s died Emily.”

“What happened?”

“Well you don’t need to know all that, but Mr fox came by and wasn’t very nice to Hopalong. But he’s somewhere quite wonderful now, with grass as far as the eye can see, and clean hay every day, and carrot after carrot after carrot.”

“But who will look after his coat?”

“Why he’ll have the finest coat imaginable, where he’s gone they have people who will look after his coat every minute of the day. He will be the most handsome bunny around.”

Emily kept a brave face but as soon as mother left the room she threw herself down onto the bed. Racked with sobs, her eyes and nose ran all over her pillow. For hours it seemed she cried and cried, deep down unsure whether it was for Hopalong or for herself. She was desperately lonely and Hopalong had been the perfect friend – welcoming, loyal, loving, warm.

Lost in her thoughts, finally having put the music box to the back of her mind for the first time since she had seen it, it was some time before Emily felt his presence. His shadow first gave him away, then the shuffling of his dragged feet, while his breathing, hard and through the mouth, gave away who it was.
“Dudley Dimple what on earth do you think you’re doing,” she demanded, pirouetting to a standstill.
“How dare you creep up on me like that!”

By now Emily had reached the top end of High Street. Mr Crouch’s store was down the harbour end, amidst the bars and the tailors and the fishmongers. This was the last thing she needed.

“Hi Emily. I wasn’t creeping up. I’ve been trying to get your attention, but you’re off in one of your daydreams again.”

“I most certainly am not!” she huffed, crossing her arms defensively. “I just haven’t got time for nincompoops like you right now. Or ever!”

She was not usually so short with Dudley, but his timing was a disaster. He harboured a crush on her; this she knew. She had heard it from Tabitha, and heard many of the boys teasing him about it. The trouble was, she was very much in love with his elder brother Thomas, who was almost 14. Her heart turned back-flips any time he was near, butterflies flittering around and making her feel most unsettled. She hated when it happened, knowing how red and flushed she was getting, passionately cursing her inability to concentrate. Dudley no doubt had a heart of gold, but it was matched with a head of lead.

A shadow passed over Dudley’s face and his fat lower lip slip up and swallowed his thin top lip, looking to Emily like nothing so much as a slug gorging on a rose petal. Disgusted but relenting, she softened her tone.

“Look, Dudley, I’m sorry, you just frightened me. I guess I wasn’t paying attention, but you simply can’t go around sneaking up like that. You’ll scare someone half to death someday, someone far less forgiving than me.”

She found she often took this tone with Dudley, firm but gentle and guiding, and began wondering whether she would make a good mother one day, or perhaps a school teacher.

“Okay Emily. I’m really sorry. But I just wanted to know what you’re doing down here, all by yourself. I’m sure your mother doesn’t want you walking down this far into town by yourself.”

“Yes, well, I’ve have you know she has sent me on a very important errand,” she said haughtily, raising her shoulders as high as she could and broadening her chest, hoping her ‘grown-up voice’ would be convincing. But she squeaked out the last two words, somewhat undoing her effort.

“Your mother? Mrs Button? I should think not. Everyone knows she would never let you up here by yourself. Even Dudley Dimple knows that.”

Dudley Dimple
Is ever so simple
Thick as two planks of wood
Yet Emily Button
The poor love glutton
Thinks he’s sweet as Christmas pud!

She never found out who came up with that one, but had heard it more than enough. The last thing she needed was for someone to see her here with him now. It’s true she had been quite friendly with him at once stage, but this had been in the vain hope of seeing more of Thomas. Emily was crushed when Thomas started taking with Wanda Hildegard, the snooty daughter of the bank manager. After that she could not abide the thought of Dudley as he reminded her too much of Thomas, while being nothing like him at all.

What mattered most now, however, was getting to Mr Crouch’s store quickly so she could sneak back home, hide her music box away and make her way over to Tabitha’s so she would keep her word to mother.

“Okay Dudley, you’re right. Mother doesn’t know I’m here – it’s a surprise.”

“A surprise?”

“That’s right. I’m getting her a present for her birthday.”

“Oh. Well I can help with that.”

“No you can’t Dudley, you simply cannot.”

“Why? I like presents.”

“Because you can’t keep a secret, that’s why not.”

“Can too.” There went the slug again, exasperating Emily further. She simply did not have time for this.

“Dudley, remember when I told you about how mother had been into the hospital. How you promised never to tell anyone. And how the next day, the very first thing people would say to me was ‘oh Emily, I hope you’ll be okay’.”

Dudley looked down. Emily followed his gaze and saw his stumpy, shoeless, filthy feet, the short fat toes squashed together like a pen full of pigs – she half expected them to start squealing.

“I didn’t mean that. I only told Jimmy.”

“Jimmy couldn’t keep his mouth shut if his teeth were cemented and his lips were sewn together.”

She hadn’t meant to tell anyone, Dudley of all people. But it just came out and, she had to admit, it was like a massive weight had been lifted off her chest when she said it. But she regretted it almost as quickly, especially when father had expressly forbid her from telling a soul, from breathing a word about it. Even she wasn’t supposed to know, but she had overheard father talking about it with Dr Hopkins at the front door. For it wasn’t just any hospital, but the hospital on the hill – The Edgewood Institute for the Insane.