Big Change for Stuart (8 page)

And instantly the mirror in the frame disappeared.

Stuart looked at it, startled, and even stuck his hand through the hole, just to make sure. And then he went back to the arch. The black gap had filled up again – he couldn't even tell where he'd taken the mirror from.

‘So that was the wrong choice,' he muttered. ‘I must have to pick out one in particular—'

‘I'm bored,' said a voice behind him.

Stuart spun round and saw –

Himself.

He yelled.

Blue T-shirt, smudge on cheek, jeans, scuffed trainers, hands stuffed in pockets.

‘I mean, what do you even
do
here?' asked the other Stuart, ignoring the yell. ‘This is the dullest place I've ever, ever been to, and I didn't even bring any money with me, so I can't buy anything, even if I found a shop.' He had a slightly whiny, irritating voice.

Do I really sound like that?
thought the real Stuart, still reeling from the shock.

Bored Stuart yawned again. ‘I mean, it's dark, there's nothing to see, there's nowhere to go, there isn't even anything to sit on, I can't put on any music, I can't—'

‘Shhhh!' said the real Stuart. He could hear another voice somewhere, calling his name. He strained his ears.

‘I mean, there's only another two weeks left of the summer holidays,' droned Bored Stuart, ‘and if I have to spend it in this place, then—'

‘Will you please
be quiet
,' said Stuart. He could hear the other voice again, and this time he was certain that it was April.

‘I CAN JUST ABOUT HEAR YOU!' he yelled. ‘WHERE ARE YOU?'

A moment passed, and then he heard her distant answer.

‘IN FRONT OF THE ARCH. ON THE OTHER SIDE TO YOU, I THINK. HAVE YOU DONE IT YET?'

‘DONE WHAT?'

‘CHOSEN THE RIGHT MIRROR AND PUT IT IN THE FRAME?'

‘NO, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO. WHICH ONE'S THE RIGHT ONE?'

‘THE ONE THAT'S YOU.'

‘BUT THEY'RE ALL ME.'

‘NO THEY'RE NOT.'

‘YES THEY ARE.'

‘NO THEY'RE
NOT
. IF YOU LOOK CAREFULLY, YOU'LL SEE THAT THEY MIGHT LOOK A LOT LIKE YOU BUT THEY'RE NOT
ACTUALLY YOU
. ALL EXCEPT ONE. IT ONLY
TOOK
ME A COUPLE OF MINUTES TO PICK THE RIGHT ONE, BUT THEN, OF COURSE, I'M USED TO SEEING PEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE ME BUT WHO AREN'T ACTUALLY ME.' She sounded (Stuart thought) a bit smug.

‘I'm just so bored,' said Bored Stuart.

‘Shhh.'

‘I can't remember being as bored as this ever, not even when—'

‘Just
SHUT UP
,' snapped Stuart.

‘WHAT?'

‘I WASN'T SAYING IT TO YOU, APRIL.'

‘WHO WERE YOU SAYING IT TO, THEN?'

‘SOMEONE WHO LOOKS JUST LIKE ME. BUT WHO ISN'T.'

‘I mean,' continued Bored Stuart, ‘there isn't even a book or a magazine or anything, so how am I supposed to …'

Stuart turned and stared at his almost-twin as he drivelled on about how there was nothing to do. He examined every inch of the boy's face, and tried to compare each feature with what he saw in his own mirror every morning. But the trouble was, he
hardly
ever looked in his own mirror: four seconds for combing his hair, a quick glimpse of his teeth after brushing, and that was it. The truth was – and the realization made him feel more than a little uneasy –
he didn't really know what he looked like
. And he just happened to be in a place where there wasn't a mirror.

‘GOOD LUCK,' he heard April shout faintly. ‘THE LIGHTS ARE GOING OUT ON THIS SIDE. I THINK I'M ON MY WAY BACK NOW – ACTUALLY, I CAN HEAR SOMETHING ODD. I CAN HEAR A SORT OF CLICKING SOUND IN THE …' Her voice faded away.

‘APRIL!' he yelled. ‘APRIL?'

But there was no reply. He was completely on his own.

‘I am
so
bored.'

Well, nearly on his own.

STUART PEERED FROM
one image to the next, frowning, comparing, worrying, while Bored Stuart grumbled on in the background. Mirror after mirror showed a boy with shortish hair, greyish eyes, a roundish face and a few brownish freckles. An ordinary sort of face, with an ordinary array of expressions: puzzled, amused, tired, interested—

‘Bored. I don't think I've ever been this bored in my whole entire life.'

‘Please,' said Stuart, ‘I'm trying to think.'

‘There is
nothing
to do in here.'

‘You could help me work out which of these images is actually me.'

Bored Stuart glanced at the wall of mirrors and groaned. ‘But there are
loads
of them. It'll take
ages
.'

‘You're not exactly doing anything else, are you?'

Bored Stuart sighed and wandered over to the arch. ‘That one,' he said almost immediately, pointing to a mirror on the bottom row.

‘You sure?' asked Stuart. ‘Why that one in particular?'

Bored Stuart shrugged. ‘I dunno.'

‘You're just guessing, aren't you?'

‘Yeah.'

Stuart stared at the image; it looked just as much like him as all the others. There was nothing to lose. He pulled the mirror off the arch, fitted it into the empty frame and put the frame on the easel. Instantly the mirror disappeared.

Behind him, there was a grunt. ‘How many of these can you do in one minute?' demanded a voice.

Heart sinking, Stuart turned. Another Stuart was doing a series of one-armed press-ups.

‘I can't do any of those at all,' said Stuart.

‘There's no point in being short
and
unfit,' said the other Stuart, a bit breathlessly.

‘I'm not unfit.'

‘OK, how about some arm-wrestling?'

‘No,' said Stuart.

‘Arm-wrestling's really
boring
,' said Bored Stuart.

‘Are you saying I'm boring?' demanded Fit Stuart, leaping to his feet.

Stuart put his fingers in his ears and walked over to the arch again. It was hopeless. He couldn't tell one image from another, so he'd just have to get lucky. He started pulling off mirrors until he had a huge stack of them, and then, one by one, he put them in the frame …

‘Bad idea,' muttered Stuart to himself, a bit later. ‘
Bad
idea.'

The darkness around the arch was filled with Stuarts. Studious Stuart was reading a history textbook. Jokey Stuart was making farting noises with his armpit while Serious Stuart made a disapproving face. Fit Stuart had organized a hurdles race, using Lazy Stuart, Sleepy Stuart and Bored Stuart as hurdles. Boastful Stuart
had
told everybody beforehand that he was brilliant at running, and had just now lost rather badly to Silent Stuart, who hadn't said anything at all but had so far won the hurdles, the arm-wrestling, and the prize for the largest number of star-jumps in five minutes. The prize had been a spider in a matchbox, donated by Nature-loving Stuart. Moany Stuart had complained about the amount of noise they were all making.

Stuart slapped another mirror into the frame. It disappeared.

‘There are a hundred and thirty-seven mirrors in that arch,' said a voice behind him, ‘which is one of my favourite prime numbers.'

‘Hello,' said Stuart, not bothering to turn round. ‘So you're a Stuart who likes maths, are you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then what are the chances of me finding one particular mirror, if every time I choose wrongly, a new one appears?'

‘Infinite.'

Stuart nodded dully. ‘I thought so,' he said.
Suddenly
feeling exhausted, he sat down and put his head in his hands.

‘I don't know what to look for,' he muttered. ‘What makes me
me
? What am
I
best at? I'm not sporty, or mathematical, or swotty or jokey.'

‘Got anything to eat?' asked Greedy Stuart, prising open Stuart's lunch box and then making a face when he saw the healthy contents. ‘Is this all you've got?' he said disgustedly. ‘
Salad?
And
fruit?
'

‘It's healthy,' said Stuart.

And he remembered the letters his mum had written – one to his dad all about making sure Stuart was eating healthily (
much love to my kind, clever husband
), and the other to himself (
much love to my brave, energetic son
…)

So maybe that's who he was – Energetic, Brave Stuart. But how could he see those things in a mirror? And anyway, just because his mum had said them, didn't make them true – mums were always boasting about their kids, and half the boasts were exaggerated. By ‘energetic' his mum only meant that he was keener on
doing
things than
thinking
about them (his school reports always said:
Stuart
is
an energetic boy
, as if that wasn't a very good thing to be). And by ‘brave', she was probably referring to the time when (aged four) he'd apparently dragged a stepladder halfway across the garden to try and rescue a cat which had got stuck up a tree. She was always telling people the story of how the cat had scratched little Stuart, and then he'd fallen off the ladder and landed on his chin, and how if you looked carefully …

Stuart sat up straight and slapped a hand to his chin. If you looked carefully,
you could still see a sort of little crease where he'd had two stitches
.

He scrambled to his feet, ran across to the arch and began peering at the mirrors.

‘What are you doing?' asked Bored Stuart in a bored voice.

‘Looking for a Stuart with a tiny scar like the one I've got on my chin. Can you help?'

‘Sounds a bit boring.'

‘
I'll
be able to find it,' said Boastful Stuart. ‘I'm really, really observant – in fact my teacher says I'm the most observant child she's ever met. She put that in my end-of-term report.'

‘Well, get on with it then,' said Stuart, still searching.

‘I bet I can find it first,' said Fit Stuart, bouncing on his toes. ‘Get ready. Get set.
Go!
'

‘What about a “loudest burp” competition instead?' said Jokey Stuart, and then burped incredibly loudly, and raised his arms in triumph. ‘I've won!'

Stuart felt a tap on his arm. It was Silent Stuart, and he was pointing at the other end of the arch. Stuart followed him across. Silent Stuart placed a finger on one mirror, and Stuart peered at the image. And there it was – the little indented scar on the chin.

‘Thanks,' said Stuart hoarsely.

‘You're welcome,' said Silent Stuart.

‘So you can speak?'

‘Only when I have to.'

‘So what are you doing the rest of the time?'

‘Thinking.'

‘Oh. Perhaps I ought to do a bit more of that.'

Silent Stuart grinned, and together they went back to the easel. Stuart fitted the mirror into the
frame,
and suddenly the vast dark space full of arguing, moaning, yawning, sprinting, burping Stuarts was empty. Only Stuart himself was left, and the mirror in the frame was now just a mirror. Stuart frowned, smiled and yawned, just to make sure that his reflection did the same, and then he went over to the arch again.

It too had changed. Instead of rows of Stuarts, each mirror now showed the image of an identical letter.

A wide silver W.

The light began to fade slowly, as if someone were turning a dimmer switch. The silver letters dwindled and disappeared. For a second there was complete darkness, and then the light flashed on again, and Stuart was back in the museum, blinking with the shock of it.

‘At
last
!' said April, who was sitting on the high bronze throne of the Reappearing Rose Bower, surrounded by the curling stems of a hundred metal flowers. ‘You've been ages and ages. And I've been dying to tell you what I've found.'

‘WHAT?' ASKED STUART,
still a bit dazed. When he'd left, the room had been sunlit, but now the sky through the window was heavy with dark clouds, and the odd drop of rain streaked the glass. ‘Just a moment,' he added, going over to the Arch of Mirrors and retrieving the Magic Star from its socket. Before the adventure, it had had five spokes; now only four remained.