‘Probably not,’ said Noah, looking down at the floor and feeling a little ashamed. ‘I don’t have any money, I’m afraid.’ A wooden mouse was sitting at his feet, painted grey and pink, sniffing a little at the toes of his shoes, but the moment he caught its eye it jumped a little, squeaked in surprise, and ran away to hide beneath the legs of a wooden giraffe in the corner of the shop.
‘Then might I ask what brought you in here? Shouldn’t you be in school?’
‘No, I don’t go to school any more,’ said Noah.
‘But you’re just a boy,’ said the old man. ‘And boys should be in school. Or have they changed the law since I was your age? Not that I’m one to talk, of course. I spent very little time there myself. I was always running off. I can’t tell you the amount of trouble I got into because of it.’
‘What kind of trouble?’ asked Noah, intrigued now because he always liked to hear about the trouble other people got into.
‘Oh, I never talk about the past on an empty stomach,’ said the old man. ‘I haven’t even had my lunch yet.’
‘But you said—’
‘Anyway, I want to know what brought you in here.’
‘Well, at first it was the tree,’ replied the boy. ‘The one outside your door. I was standing on the opposite side of the street, just looking across at it, and I thought it was quite the most impressive tree I had ever seen in my life. I don’t know why exactly. I just had a feeling about it, that’s all.’
‘I’m glad you like it,’ said the old man. ‘My father planted it, you know. The day we moved here. He was very fond of trees. He planted several others in the village but I think this is the best of the bunch. People tell the most extraordinary stories about it.’
‘Yes, I think I heard one,’ said Noah enthusiastically.
‘Really?’ asked the old man, raising an eyebrow. ‘Might I ask where from?’
‘There was a very helpful dachshund across the street,’ replied Noah. ‘And a very hungry donkey. He said that the tree is stripped bare every few nights and somehow manages to sprout new branches within a day or two. He said that no one knows how or why it happens.’
‘Oh, he’s full of stories, that one,’ said the old man, laughing. ‘He’s an old friend of mine. I wouldn’t mind what he says though. Dachshunds make up the most extraordinary tales. And as for that donkey … well, don’t get me started. Where most people settle for twelve to fifteen meals a day, he needs to have three or four times that number or he gets weepy.’
‘Twelve to fifteen meals a day?’ asked Noah in surprise. ‘I can assure you that I never have—’
‘Anyway, for all the people who tell some tale about this shop,’ said the old man, interrupting him, ‘I can promise you that not one has ever set foot inside it.’
‘Really?’ asked the boy.
‘Well, until now, that is,’ said the old man, smiling. ‘You’re the first one. Perhaps you were sent here for a reason. Of course, my father died many years ago so he never got to see how tall and strong the tree grew.’ A shadow fell across his face as he said this, and he looked away, unsettled for a moment, as if an unhappy memory had come over him.
‘My father is a lumberjack,’ said Noah immediately. ‘He cuts down trees for a living.’
‘Oh dear,’ said the old man. ‘Doesn’t he like them then?’
‘I think he likes them very much,’ replied Noah. ‘But people need wood, don’t they? Otherwise there’d be no houses to live in or chairs to sit on or … or …’ He tried to think of something else that was made of wood and, looking around, broke into an immediate smile. ‘Or puppets!’ he said. ‘There wouldn’t be any puppets.’
‘That’s very true,’ said the old man, nodding slowly.
‘And for every tree that he cuts down, he plants ten more,’ added Noah. ‘So it’s a good thing really.’
‘Then maybe one day, when you’re as old as I am, you’ll be able to walk past them and remember your father in the same way that I remember mine.’
Noah nodded but frowned a little; he didn’t like to think of things like that.
‘But I haven’t introduced myself,’ said the old man a moment later, extending his hand and offering the boy his name.
‘Noah Barleywater,’ said Noah in reply.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Noah Barleywater,’ said the old man, smiling a little.
The boy was about to say the same thing and opened his mouth, but then closed it almost immediately, for a wooden fly had been buzzing around his head just waiting for an opportunity to swoop inside. He remained silent for a few moments, but finally, after staring at the old man for so long he thought he could hear his own hair starting to grow, Noah searched his brain and found his next question hiding away just over his left ear.
‘What are you making?’ he asked, looking at the piece of wood the old man had picked up again and was chiselling away at even as they spoke, small flakes of wood falling at his feet and being gathered up and carried away by a wooden brush and pan that moved across the floor with the grace of a pair of ballroom dancers.
‘It looks like some sort of rabbit, doesn’t it?’ said the old man, holding it up, and sure enough, it did look like a rabbit. With very large ears and a fine set of wooden whiskers. ‘It wasn’t what I was intending to make, but there we are,’ he added with a sigh. ‘It happens every time. I start out with one idea in mind and it ends up as something else entirely.’
‘Why, what were you intending to make?’ asked Noah.
‘Ah,’ said the old man, smiling a little and then whistling a little tune to himself, ‘I’m not sure you’d believe me if I said.’
‘Oh, I probably would,’ said Noah quickly. ‘My mother says I believe everything I’m told and that’s why I get into so much trouble.’
‘Are you sure you want to know?’ asked the old man.
‘Please tell me,’ said Noah, intrigued now.
‘You’re not a gossip, are you?’ he asked. ‘You won’t go around telling people?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Noah. ‘I won’t tell a single person.’
The old man smiled and seemed to consider it. ‘I wonder if I can trust you,’ he said quietly. ‘What do you think? Are you a trustworthy little boy, Noah Barleywater?’
Chapter Six
The Clock, the Door and the Box of Memories
Noah didn’t have an opportunity to tell the old man just how trustworthy he was, for just at that moment a clock that was standing on the counter next to him began to make some very strange sounds indeed. At first it was just a sort of quiet moaning, as if the clock wasn’t feeling very well and wanted to go straight to bed and hide under the blankets until the pain passed. Then silence. Then the moaning transformed itself into a sort of chugga-chugga-chugga sound before settling into a series of curious and rather embarrassing rumbles, as if all the internal sprockets and springs were having a tremendous argument with each other and it could end in violence at any moment.