A crafty look would come into his eyes. "Of course they're real. What you mean is that they aren't alive, but you're wrong about that too. They are alive, all of them, Noddy is my favourite, he's my best friend and he listens to me."
"No he doesn't." She always felt too exhausted to reason with him.
"Noddy shows more understanding than you ever did. The other puppets are fine too, but Noddy's special. Some of the modern puppets are made of plastic but Noddy is wooden and his eyes are real glass. The others say stupid things in low whispers but Noddy only delivers nuggets of wisdom or remains silent. He never stops listening to me, though. He hears everything."
And so it went. She would throw up her hands in defeat and leave him to his own devices. Before moving to this house he had been relatively normal. Something about this place had changed him, started his obsession with puppets, compelled him to visit junk shops and jumble sales in an attempt to add to his collection. Now he had all the puppets he wanted and never went out.
Nor did he allow her to go down into the basement. Once, when he was fast asleep, she tiptoed down the stairs and switched on the light. The puppets stood in a large cardboard box in the centre of the room and she formed the distinct impression they were disappointed by her sudden arrival. A curious illusion.
"I need more space," Mr Sweep repeated. "You're getting in the way."
"You need a psychiatrist," responded Martha.
"No, I'm not mad, you don't understand. I know that puppets aren't normally alive, but mine are different, at least they are different here. My puppets can dance if they want to, and in fact they are constantly dancing in their souls, but they don't physically move for my sake. They told me why. Puppets build up a lot of resentment over the years, forced to move and jump at the whim of a human owner, with no choice in the matter."
"Puppets don't have souls, you fool!"
"Martha, listen to me. All that resentment eventually becomes a blind force. Provided the status quo isn't disturbed, everything will be fine, but if they are ever compelled or urged to move on their own all that pent up energy will be unleashed at once. That's when they will become truly dangerous. Imagine an avalanche of puppets! But it's fine right now, just dandy. They dance deep down inside only. This is a holy place for them. Our home, I mean."
She snorted in derision. "Why?"
"Because it has been built on the site of a puppets' graveyard!"
She wanted to beat her fists against the top of his head, but she restrained herself and plotted a more subtle revenge. She decided to use his own delusions against him. The following morning she went out for an hour, killing time in the park but returning with a great show of excitement, slamming doors and calling for him. He emerged reluctantly from the basement, his eyes full of annoyance but not suspicion.
"Something strange just happened!" she gasped.
"What was it?" he muttered.
"I went shopping and took a short cut through the park and I came across a group of puppets balancing in a tree. It was almost as if they were lost and trying to get their bearings by studying the landscape from a higher vantage. I could swear they were alive! I ran back as fast as possible to tell you."
"What did they look like?" Mr Sweep bellowed.
"One of them was a very old gnome, another was a policeman, a third was a clockwork mouse, and I also noticed a wobbly man, a set of anthropomorphic skittles, a pair of goblins and a sort of bunny-monkey hybrid."
Mr Sweep's eyes bulged. "Are you serious? Those are all Noddy's friends! His friends from the original Noddy books! They must be searching for him! I'd better go and find them."
"I'm sure they're still there," said Martha.
He hurried out and Martha grinned to herself. Then she set to work building a fire in the unused grate in the front room. For the first time in many months she felt alive, suffused with joy, vengeful, energised.
As for Mr Sweep, he scoured the park in vain, squinting up at each tree and shuddering with an unspecified fear. He had a touch of agoraphobia due to his long confinement indoors but he forced himself to continue until the light began to fade. He was bitterly disappointed and returned home slowly, imagining that the lost puppets had climbed down from the tree and gone off in the wrong direction. What was wrong with them? Couldn't they detect the emanations of the puppets' graveyard and use that to guide them?
But he cheered up when he reached his front door and saw the note taped there. He read the first two lines of it and was so delighted he snatched it into his hand, entered his house, slid the bolt and piled the hallway furniture against the door. He was scared Martha might change her mind and return.
The beginning of her note said: "I have gone forever. You wanted more space and so I now give you all the space you could ever need…"
He danced into the front room. Alone with his puppets at last! He was laughing so hard, his eyes were so blurry with tears of happiness, that it was a full minute before he understood there was a fire in the hearth. He blinked and his blood turned to acid. Then he was up and running to the kitchen for a pan of water. It took several trips to extinguish the abominable blaze.
Martha had ignited the entire box of puppets!
The individual figures weren't utterly consumed yet. Some of the plastic models had melted over the others and hardened under the impact of the cold water. Mr Sweep found himself gazing at a monster composed of many charred and twisted limbs and mutant heads, the vilest abortion in the history of puppetry. And it moved! The level of resentment was simply too high to repress any longer. The disgusting mess in the grate was alive and it wanted revenge on the nearest human!
Only Noddy had been spared, his favourite puppet, because Mr Sweep had taken him to the park. Noddy fell out of the wide pocket of his jacket and lay on the floor, idiotic head bouncing on its spring.
The rest of Martha's note said: "You are married to those damn puppets but you are dead to me. Do you know what happened long ago in India when a man died? His wife was burned alive on his funeral pyre. Our marriage is dead and so I have incinerated those who you loved. There is no puppets' graveyard here, only a crematorium!"
Mr Sweep was too terrified to move, but even if he had run it wouldn't have done him any good. His exit was barred.
Noddy kept nodding at his feet, still loyal but helpless.
Mr Sweep groaned. Why had he asked for more space? Space was terrible, a place where nobody was there to offer help.
The malevolent mass reached him. His mouth opened and something came out. A sound.
In space, Noddy can hear you scream.
THE GUNFIGHT
"The English are coming," said Hopkins.
"Following us, they are," confirmed Jones. He frowned and tapped his commander on the shoulder. "I thought you said we won the battle?"
"So I did," responded Williams, "and so we have."
"Then why are the English chasing us?"
Bullets zinged into the undergrowth on all sides. The moonlight streamed through the holes in perforated leaves. The spores of shredded mushrooms floated.
"And firing at us!" squeaked the other Jones.
"Because we didn't win the battle in the right way. Instead of winning it in the style of a victory, we won it in the style of a defeat," explained Williams. "That's why."
"Daft, that is," commented Hopkins.
The first Jones said, "If that's the way it is, we're done for. Here's a bloody ravine with no way across."
"Doomed, we are," agreed Hopkins.
"Not at all, boyo. Look here!" cried Price.
"An abandoned cottage is what that seems to be," said Williams, "and maybe we can knock on the door to see if anyone's at home?"