The Lives of Christopher Chant. Diana Wynne Jones

Christopher tried to grin a strong manly grin at Uncle Ralph, because that seemed to be the only way to express the huge, almost hopeless adoration that was growing in him. Uncle Ralph laughed, a golden brown laugh, and completed the conquest of Christopher by fishing in a tweed pocket and tipping his nephew a bright new sixpence.

      Christopher would have died rather than spend that sixpence. Whenever he changed clothes, he transferred the sixpence to the new pockets. It was another way of expressing his adoration of Uncle Ralph. It was clear that Uncle Ralph had stepped in to save Mama from ruin, and this made him the first good man that Christopher had met. And on top of that, he was the only person outside the Anywheres who had bothered to speak to Christopher in that friendly man-to-man way.

      Christopher tried to treasure the Last Governess too, for Uncle Ralph’s sake, but that was not so easy. She was so very boring. She had a drab, calm way of speaking, and she never raised her voice or showed impatience, even when he was stupid about Mental Arithmetic or Levitation, both of which all the other governesses had somehow missed out on.

      “If a herring and a half cost three-ha’pence, Christopher,” she explained drearily, “that’s a penny and a half for a fish and a half. How much for a whole fish?”

      “I don’t know,” he said, trying not to yawn.

      “Very well,” the Last Governess said calmly. “We’ll think again tomorrow. Now look in this mirror and see if you can’t make it rise in the air just an inch.”

      But Christopher could not move the mirror any more than he could understand what a herring cost. The Last Governess put the mirror aside and quietly went on to puzzle him about French. After a few days of this, Christopher tried to make her angry, hoping she would turn more interesting when she shouted. But she just said calmly, “Christopher, you’re getting silly. You may play with your toys now. But remember you only take one out at a time, and you put that back before you get out another. That is our rule.”

      Christopher had become rapidly and dismally accustomed to this rule. It reduced the fun a lot. He had also become used to the Last Governess sitting beside him while he played. The other governesses had seized the chance to rest, but this one sat in a hard chair efficiently mending his clothes, which reduced the fun even more. Nevertheless, he got the candlestick of chiming bells out of the cupboard, because that was fascinating in its way. It was so arranged that it played different tunes, depending on which bell you touched first.

      When he had finished with it, the Last Governess paused in her darning to say, “That goes in the middle of the top shelf. Put it back before you take that clockwork dragon.” She waited to listen to the chiming that showed Christopher had done what she said. Then, as she drove the needle into the sock again, she asked in her dullest way, “Who gave you the bells, Christopher?”

      No one had ever asked Christopher about anything he had brought back from the Anywheres before. He was rather at a loss. “A man under a yellow umbrella,” he answered. “He said they bring luck on my house.”

      “What man where?” the Last Governess wanted to know – except that she did not sound as if she cared if she knew or not.

      “An Almost Anywhere,” Christopher said. “The hot one with the smells and the snake charmers. The man didn’t say his name.”

      “That’s not an answer, Christopher,” the Last Governess said calmly, but she did not say anything more until the next time, two days later, when Christopher got out the chiming bells again. “Remember where they go when you’ve finished with them,” she said. “Have you thought yet where the man with the yellow umbrella was?”

      “Outside a painted place where some gods live,” Christopher said, setting the small silvery bellcups ringing. “He was nice. He said it didn’t matter about money.”

      “Very generous,” remarked the Last Governess. “Where was this painted house for gods, Christopher?”

      “I told you. It was an Almost Anywhere,” Christopher said.

      “And I told you that that is not an answer,” the Last Governess said. She folded up her darning. “Christopher, I insist that you tell me where those bells came from.”

      “Why do you want to know?” Christopher asked, wishing she would leave him in peace.

      “Because,” the Last Governess said with truly ominous calm, “you are not being frank and open like a nice boy should be. I suspect you stole those bells.”

      At this monstrous injustice, Christopher’s face reddened and tears stood in his eyes. “I haven’t!” he cried out. “He gave them to me! People always give me things in the Anywheres, only I drop most of them. Look.” And regardless of her one-toy-at-a-time rule, he rushed to the cupboard, fetched the horse flute, the mermaids’ necklace and the clockwork dragon, and banged them down in her darning basket. “Look! These are from other Anywheres.”

      The Last Governess gazed at them with terrible impassiveness. “Am I to believe you have stolen these too?” she said. She put the basket and the toys on the floor and stood up. “Come with me. This must be reported to your mama at once.”

      She seized Christopher’s arm and in spite of his yells of “I didn’t, I didn’t!” she marched him inexorably downstairs.

      Christopher leant backwards and dragged his feet and implored her not to. He knew he would never be able to explain to Mama. All the notice the Last Governess took was to say, “Stop that disgraceful noise. You’re a big boy now.”

      This was something all the governesses agreed on. But Christopher no longer cared about being big. Tears poured disgracefully down his cheeks and he screamed the name of the one person he knew who saved people. “Uncle Ralph! I’ll explain to Uncle Ralph!”

      The Last Governess glanced down at him at that. Just for a moment, the hidden prettiness flickered in her face. But to Christopher’s despair, she dragged him to Mama’s dressing-room and knocked on the door.

      Mama turned from her mirror in surprise. She looked at Christopher, red-faced and gulping and wet with tears. She looked at the Last Governess. “Whatever is going on? Is he ill?”

      “No, Madam,” the Last Governess said in her dullest way. “Something has happened which I think your brother should be informed of at once.”

      “Ralph?” said Mama. “You mean I’m to write to Ralph? Or is it more urgent that that?”

      “Urgent, Madam, I think,” the Last Governess said drearily. “Christopher said that he is willing to confess to his uncle. I suggest, if I may make so bold, that you summon him now.”

      Mama yawned. This governess bored her terribly. “I’ll do my best,” she said, “but I don’t answer for my brother’s temper. He lives a very busy life, you know.” Carelessly, she pulled one of her dark glossy hairs out of the silver backed brush she had been using. Then, much more carefully, she began teasing hairs out of her silver and crystal hair-tidy.

      Most of the hairs were Mama’s own dark ones, but Christopher, watching Mama’s beautiful pearly nails delicately pinching and pulling at the hairs, while he sobbed and swallowed and sobbed again, saw that one of the hairs was a much redder colour. This was the one Mama pulled out. She laid it across her own hair from the brush. Then, picking up what seemed to be a hatpin with a glittery knob, she laid that across both hairs and tapped it with one sharp, impatient nail. “Ralph,” she said, “Ralph Weatherby Argent. Miranda wants you.”

      One of the mirrors of the dressing-table turned out to be a window, with Uncle Ralph looking through it, rather irritably, while he knotted his tie. “What is it?” he said. “I’m busy today.”

      “When aren’t you?” asked Mama. “Listen, that governess is here looking like a wet week as usual. She’s brought Christopher. Something about a confession. Could you come and sort it out? It’s beyond me.”

      “Is