Noah Barleywater Runs Away (19 page)

‘How extraordinary!’ said Noah, breaking into a smile. ‘Because my father is a lumberjack, and our house is situated on the edge of the forest, so I’d
have all the wood I needed. If I wanted to try it, I mean.’

‘You also need good equipment,’ continued the old man. ‘A solid chisel, a strong plane, some sharp knives. And paint, of course. Quality paints.’

‘Uncle Teddy!’ cried Noah.

‘Uncle who?’

‘Uncle Teddy! He runs a paint store. He has over three thousand different varieties of paint.
If we don’t ’ave it, it don’t exist, mate
– that’s his motto.’

‘Also,’ said the old man after a moment, considering the matter further, ‘in order to run a business, you need to be good at sums. Otherwise you’ll never balance the books.’

‘I’m not very good at them,’ admitted Noah. ‘Although I was starting to get better. At school, I mean. My teacher said I had started to get the hang of them. Fractions and decimals anyway. I’m afraid I never really understood trigonometry.’

‘Ah, well, trigonometry is about as useful to a boy as a bicycle is to a fish,’ said the old man. ‘So I wouldn’t worry about that too much if I was you. It’s important to be good at writing though,’ he added. ‘In order to write letters to your suppliers.’

Noah’s head was fizzing with ideas and he looked at the ground, his fists bouncing on his knees as he considered his options.

‘I wonder …’ he began. ‘If I
was
to go back … well, if I was to go back for just a little bit. I mean, until I was a year or two older, that’s all. Until I was
better at my sums, for example.’

‘And your writing,’ said the old man.

‘And my writing,’ said Noah. ‘Then maybe I could become as skilful a craftsman as you. And I could open my own toy shop someday!’

‘It’s possible,’ said the old man, stopping at a crossroads and breathing heavily. ‘Stranger things have happened. I, for example, once saw a caterpillar debating with a whale. And winning the argument too. Do you mind if we stop here for a moment?’ he asked then. ‘I’m feeling a little tired.’

‘Of course,’ said Noah, looking around and spotting a bench only a few feet away. ‘Why don’t we sit over there?’

The old man nodded and they walked towards it and sat down. ‘That’s better,’ he said with a sigh. ‘It’s a terrible thing growing old. The idea that I, the greatest runner in history, am unable to walk to the edge of my own village without having to stop and take a rest – well, it’s something I never could have imagined happening to me.’

Noah turned to look at the old man and hesitated, wanting to phrase this question just right. ‘Do you think … ?’

‘I do sometimes, my boy,’ admitted the old man. ‘When I can’t avoid it.’

‘No,’ said Noah, shaking his head. ‘What I wanted to ask was, do you think I could stay here with you?’

‘What, here?’ asked the old man, looking around. ‘On a bench at a crossroads? It doesn’t seem like a very sensible plan.’

‘Not
here
,’ said Noah. ‘I meant at the toy shop. I could come and live with you and you could train me up. I could learn all about woodwork and carving and I could keep the shop open if you ever fancied a holiday.’

‘I have no plans to take any further holidays,’ said the old man, smiling and patting the boy’s hand. ‘My travelling days are behind me, I’m afraid.’

‘Well, I could run the shop at night. When you’re asleep. It could be open twenty-four hours.’

‘But I don’t think we’d have the passing trade to support it,’ said the old man, frowning. ‘No, I don’t think so, my boy. It doesn’t seem like a very sensible idea.’

‘Then maybe I could just be your apprentice,’ suggested Noah. ‘You could teach me all you know. I could be a great help to you and—’

‘Noah,’ said the old man in a kind voice, smiling at him, ‘you forget that you already have a home of your own.’

‘Do I?’ asked the boy, wondering whether that was the case or not.

‘Of course you do.’

‘I’m not sure it will feel like home any more,’ Noah said, narrowing his eyes and looking down the road ahead to where the path twisted and
turned and led back towards the second village, and then the first, and then towards the forest and his own collection of stone walls, where his mother lay in bed.

‘It may feel different,’ said the old man. ‘But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go back to it. I left my poor father alone for so long, and when I returned, well, it was too late for us. I wanted to see the world and was only interested in satisfying myself. I don’t think you want to see the world, do you?’

‘I do,’ cried Noah enthusiastically. ‘Well, someday anyway,’ he added in a quieter voice.

‘And if you do, if you continue on your way, don’t you think the day will come when you will be filled with as many regrets as I am?’

Noah nodded. The truth was, he was starting to long for his own home and his own bed. And even though he didn’t yet know how his mother’s story was going to end, she was still there now, she hadn’t gone anywhere, and she had been right to want to spend as much time with him as possible while she still could. It was time for him to do the same thing. He didn’t know how much longer they might have together, but even if it was just a day or two, that might still be enough time to build a lifetime of memories.

Noah tapped his left foot on the ground for a few moments, opened his mouth, closed it again, opened it, hesitated, and then came to a decision.

‘
I’ve decided to go home,’ he announced, standing up.

‘Very sensible,’ said the old man.

‘But do you think … ?’ asked Noah, looking across at his new friend hopefully. ‘Do you think that I could come back sometime? Just on a visit? And to watch you work? I’m sure I could learn a lot from you.’

‘Of course,’ said the old man. ‘But you’ll have to forgive me if I spend most of my time chipping away at old pieces of wood. I can’t seem to help myself.’

Noah smiled and turned round, looking off in the direction from which he had come. It had grown dark now, but somehow he didn’t feel frightened any more. He knew he wouldn’t come to any harm.

‘Would you like me to walk you back to the toy shop?’ he asked. ‘I can if you like.’

‘No, no, my boy,’ said the old man, shaking his head. ‘It’s a very kind offer but I think I’ll stay here a little longer and just enjoy the evening air. My friend the donkey passes by here most evenings around now. I expect he’ll be along soon and we can have a little chat before I go home again.’

‘All right then,’ said Noah, shaking hands with the old man. ‘Thank you for today. For lunch, I mean. And for showing me around your toy shop.’

‘You’re very welcome,’ said the old man.

‘I’d better be going then,’ said Noah, turning round; then, dashing off down the street in
the darkness, running as fast as he could, he disappeared into the night.

Noah Barleywater arrived home late at night, after the sun had set, after the dogs were asleep, after the rest of the world had already gone to bed.

He ran down the laneway that led to his house, hearing nothing except the rubbing of the crickets and the hooting of the owls, and looked up at the only light that was turned on, in the upstairs bedroom of the cottage, where his parents slept. He stopped for a moment and stared at it, swallowing nervously, and wondered how much trouble he would be in for running away, but he didn’t really care; the only thing that mattered was, he hadn’t left it too late. Afraid now to go inside in case the worst had happened, he might have stood in the cold for hours had the front door not opened a moment later and his father looked out, discovering his son standing there, alone in the darkness.

‘Noah,’ he said, staring at him, and Noah bit his lip, unsure what to say.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered after a moment. ‘I was afraid. So I ran away.’

‘I was worried about you,’ said Noah’s father, not sounding angry at all, but relieved. ‘I was going to look for you but something told me you were safe.’

‘I’m not too late, am I?’ asked Noah, asking the
question whose answer he feared the most. ‘I still have time to—’

‘You’re not too late,’ said his father, smiling a little. ‘She’s still with us.’

Noah breathed a sigh of relief and stepped inside, but as he did so, his father placed both his hands on the boy’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. ‘But, Noah, it won’t be long now. You realize that, don’t you? She doesn’t have long left.’

‘I know,’ said Noah, nodding his head.

‘Then let’s go upstairs,’ said his father, putting an arm around his shoulder. ‘She’ll want to see us now. Soon it will be time for her to say goodbye.’

They went upstairs together, and Noah stood in the doorway of his parents’ bedroom looking at his mother.

‘There you are,’ she said, turning her face towards him and smiling. ‘I knew you’d come home to me.’

The old man sat on the bench for a little while longer, thinking about the events of the day, and it was only when his friends, the dachshund and the donkey, passed by that he found himself ready to make his way back to the toy shop.

‘The boy went home then?’ asked the dachshund, looking around to check that they were alone. ‘I thought he would in the end.’

‘Yes,’ said the old man, raising a hand to greet the cuckoo clock, who was hovering overhead now, letting him know that another hour had passed.

‘I’ve never really trusted people who live at the edge of the forest,’ remarked the donkey. ‘They seem like a very unsavoury lot. I’ve gone there myself a few times, just to see what it was like, and I’ve noticed that they do the most extraordinary things. Do you know, I once saw a young woman holding a Labrador on a lead as they walked along together, as if she owned him or something.’

‘Yes, they have some strange ways,’ agreed the
old man. ‘But they’re not all bad. Remember, I used to live there myself. Poppa and I had a little cottage, and from my bedroom window I could see the forest opening up in front of me. They weren’t bad days really.’

‘Yes, but you came to live in the village,’ said the dachshund. ‘You had sense.’

‘That was more my father’s decision than mine,’ replied the old man. ‘Although I am glad he brought us here.’

‘Hee-haw! Hee-haw!’ cried the donkey, growing very agitated at this.

‘Oh no,’ said the old man, shaking his head. ‘No, I can’t agree with you on that. Things would have been different, certainly. But I wouldn’t have wanted to live anywhere else. It’s suited me, this life in the toy shop. I’ve been happy here.’ He hesitated at the front door and looked up at the little misshapen building, put together with so much love by Poppa, and felt those old regrets returning to torment him.

‘Do you think he’ll come back someday?’ asked the dachshund, turning round for a moment as he trotted off. ‘The boy, I mean. Will he come back to visit?’

‘It’s possible,’ said the old man with a smile. ‘He found his way here once. Who’s to say he won’t find his way back again? Goodnight, my friends. I’m sure I’ll see you all tomorrow.’

It was almost midnight by now, and after such
an exhausting day he felt quite tired, but then he had never enjoyed such prolonged company during a day and it had quite worn him out. Still, a night never went by when he didn’t do a little carving before bed, and so he pulled a branch from Poppa’s tree – it came away easily in his hands, as it always did – and closed the door behind him before making his way downstairs to the workshop. Sitting down, he took a chisel and hammer between his two ageing fists and started to work, stripping the bark away and smoothing down the lumber beneath his hands before beginning his latest figure.

It wasn’t long before the wood started to take on the form of the puppet of a boy – but then it always did at this early stage. It was only later, as he came closer to the end, that it transformed itself into something else entirely.

Still the old man worked on.

But what a foolish puppet he had been, he decided, memories of his life passing through his mind as he chipped away at the wood. Choosing to exist as a boy and then as a man, over the wonderful adventures he might have had for all eternity; over the places he might have visited, the friends he might have made. Why had he ever thought that he would be better off as flesh and blood? It was almost too much to conceive of. A great weight of sadness descended upon him and he tried to quell these emotions as he continued with his work.

How extraordinary!
he thought as he came closer to the end.
It looks so familiar. But any minute now it will change, surely?

He laid down his chisel and his knives and held the puppet up to his eyes. A small boy with straight, neat legs, jointed at the knees, a smooth cylindrical body, and a pair of skinny arms and simple hands that stretched out from them. A cheerful, eager face. A troublesome nose. And now, a radiant smile. He had succeeded at last.

‘Pinocchio,’ he said.

The letter arrived on the morning of Noah’s eighteenth birthday. He was lying in bed remembering how he always used to wake up very early on this day when he was a child, and run downstairs to see what presents might be waiting for him, but he decided not to do that this year. He was a man now, after all, and it would be a bit silly to rush downstairs too quickly. He smiled when he remembered the way his mother always used to make him a special birthday breakfast, but this was one of those recollections that didn’t make him feel sad any more; if anything, it made the smile on his face grow even wider as he recalled those happy memories from the first eight years of his life that had helped to shape him into the person he’d become.