Tanglefoot_ A Story of the Clockwork Century - Cherie Priest [5]
“He’s automatic,” Edwin said, as if this explained everything.
“Automatic indeed. Very nice, love. But Mr. Bird and Miss Emmie will be here in a few minutes, and the kitchen will be a busy place for a boy and his new friend. You’d best take him back downstairs.”
“First I want to go show Mrs. Williams.”
Mrs. Criddle shook her head. “Oh no, dear. I think you’d better not. She’s upstairs, with the other boys and girls, and well, I suppose you know. I think you’re better off down with Dr. Smeeks.”
Edwin sighed. “If I take him upstairs, they’ll only break him, won’t they?”
“I think they’re likely to try.”
“All right,” he agreed, and gathered Ted up under his arm.
“Come back in another hour, will you? You can get your own supper and carry the doctor’s while you’re at it.”
“Yes ma’am. I will.”
He retreated back down the pristine corridors and dodged between two empty gurneys, back down the stairs that would return him to the safety of the doctor, the laboratory, and his own cot. He made his descent quietly, so as not to disturb the doctor in case he was still working.
When Edwin peeked around the bottom corner, he saw the old scientist sitting on his stool once more, a wadded piece of linen paper crushed in his fist. A spilled test tube leaked runny gray liquid across the counter’s top, and made a dark stain across the doctor’s pants.
Over and over to himself he mumbled, “Wasn’t the lavender. Wasn’t the…it was only the…I saw the. I don’t…I can’t…where was the paper? Where were the plans? What was the plan? What?”
The shadow of Edwin’s head crept across the wall and when the doctor spotted it, he stopped himself and sat up straighter. “Parker, I’ve had a little bit of an accident. I’ve made a little bit of a mess.”
“Do you need any help, sir?”
“Help? I suppose I don’t. If I only knew…if I could only remember.” The doctor slid down off the stool, stumbling as his foot clipped the seat’s bottom rung. “Parker? Where’s the window? Didn’t we have a window?”
“Sir,” Edwin said, taking the old man’s arm and guiding him over to his bed, in a nook at the far end of the laboratory. “Sir, I think you should lie down. Mrs. Criddle says supper comes in an hour. You just lie down, and I’ll bring it to you when it’s ready.”
“Supper?” The many-lensed goggles he wore atop his head slid, and their strap came down over his left eye.
He sat Dr. Smeeks on the edge of his bed and removed the man’s shoes, then his eyewear. He placed everything neatly beside the feather mattress and pulled the doctor’s pillow to meet his downward-drooping head.
Edwin repeated, “I’ll bring you supper when it’s ready,” but Dr. Smeeks was already asleep.
And in the laboratory, over by the stairs, the whirring and clicking of a clockwork boy was clattering itself in circles, or so Edwin assumed. He couldn’t remember, had he left Ted on the stairs? He could’ve sworn he’d pressed the switch to deactivate his friend. But perhaps he hadn’t.
Regardless, he didn’t want the machine bounding clumsily around in the laboratory–not in that cluttered place piled with glass and gadgets.
Over his shoulder Edwin glanced, and saw the doctor snoozing lightly in his nook; and out in the laboratory, knocking its jar-lid knees against the bottom step, Ted had gone nowhere, and harmed nothing. Edwin picked Ted up and held the creation to his face, gazing into the glass badger eyes as if they might blink back at him.
He said, “You’re my friend, aren’t you? Everybody makes friends. I just made you for real.”
Ted’s jaw creaked down, opening its mouth so that Edwin could stare straight inside, at the springs and levers that made the toy boy move. Then its jaw retracted, and without a word, Ted had said its piece.
After supper, which Dr. Smeeks scarcely touched, and after an hour spent in the laundry room sharing Ted with Mrs. Williams, Edwin retreated to his cot and blew out the candle beside it. The cot wasn