Eight Socks

Aron was standing in the community hall’s corridor with his ear pressed to an empty tin. He rocked it slowly to and fro. Something rustled inside.

‘Rain,’ he said when he saw Mila.

‘It’s dry outside.’

He tilted the tin. A soft pattering grew louder and louder.

Mila listened. ‘Hail.’

‘I’ll do it more gently, then.’

He turned the tin so carefully that at first nothing happened. Then three drops tapped against the bottom. Mila leaned closer.

‘What’s in it?’

‘Rice. Tell the little ones that, and they’ll never hear rain again.’

Grandma hung her coat on a hook. Mila kept hers on. The corridor smelt of mandarins and warm air from the little hall. A notice on the door said the show started at half past seven. They had fifteen minutes.

‘My flower’s still on there, isn’t it?’ she asked.

Aron looked into the hall. ‘There are five.’

‘The one with three petals.’

‘Why only three?’

‘The scissors jammed. I told you last week.’

‘Then it’s still there. Ilyas hasn’t thrown anything away. Not even the old fish.’

Mila made her way between the chairs to the puppet theatre. Cushions lay on the floor in front of its low stage. A pair of socks poked out of a bag at one side. Both were orange, though not quite the same orange.

Behind the curtain, Mr Ilyas sat on a stool with the purple octopus on one hand. With the other, he was feeling about beneath his leg.

‘Don’t look down,’ he told the octopus.

The octopus looked anyway. One tentacle slid towards the floor.

‘I’ve lost my clothes peg,’ Ilyas told Mila. ‘And if I stand up, the whole ocean falls down.’

The blue tulle had caught on his trousers. Mila freed the edge and held it up so he could stand. Under his stool lay two pegs, a bit of string and half a mandarin peel.

‘Your flower’s round the back,’ he said. ‘Have a look.’

The boot stood on a wooden box. Paper flowers grew from its wide top on thin wire stems. Mila spotted her blue one straight away. Three petals and a long crease where she had mended it with sticky tape. A strand of green wool clung to the sole. Yesterday it must have been grass.

‘Who’s doing the storm?’ asked Ilyas.

Aron poked his head through the curtain beside Mila. ‘Me. Ordinary wind first, though. Otherwise the fisherman’s finished before he’s started.’

He rustled a newspaper. The octopus turned its head away.

‘Bit damp,’ Ilyas grumbled in a deeper voice.

Mila laughed. Up close, the tentacles looked floppy, and she could see the thumb Ilyas used to move the head. She still wanted to answer the octopus.

In the hall, people shuffled their chairs closer. Six children had each chosen a cushion. One little girl pulled hers over her feet. Grandma sat on a chair behind them with her bag on her lap.

Mila was about to sit beside her when Aron handed her the newspaper.

‘Hold this a moment. Don’t start the wind yet.’

He slid the rice tin under his chair. The small stage lamp above the puppet theatre cast a yellow streak across the sea. Ilyas peered round the curtain to check that everyone was sitting down.

The lamp flashed.

For a moment the blue cloth turned white. Then everything behind the curtain went dark.

Ilyas pressed the switch. Once. Again.

‘One moment,’ he told the audience. ‘The fisherman can’t see his fishing rod.’

Someone by the door switched on the ceiling lights. Now Mila could see everything. The two hands above the fisherman. The box beneath the flowery boot. A safety pin at the edge of the curtain. The sea looked like the piece of fabric it really was.

Ilyas looked up but left the lamp fitting alone. ‘We’ll need an electrician tomorrow. We’ll carry on with these lights.’

A father in the second row took a torch from his coat. ‘Shall I shine this on it?’

The white circle darted over the fisherman and settled on the octopus. Its head was dazzling; the rest nearly black. It looked as though someone had put an angry glove on a stick.

One of the little children shuffled backwards.

Mila handed Aron his newspaper. Through her coat pocket, she felt the bundle. Even in there, the cloth was cool against her fingers.

‘Grandma,’ she whispered.

Grandma bent towards her. Mila drew one corner out of her pocket. Light brushed the edge of Grandma’s bag.

‘Would this work?’

Grandma looked from the little sea to Ilyas. ‘If he doesn’t nail it to anything.’

‘What am I nailing?’ asked Ilyas.

Mila carried the cloth behind the curtain and held it open, shining side towards the tulle. A soft silver spot appeared on Aron’s nose.

He put his hand in front of it. The spot moved.

‘Where’s that coming from?’

‘Grandma.’

Grandma had joined them. ‘Borrowed for the evening. It has to stay in one piece. No drawing pins. No glue.’

Ilyas put his stapler down on the box at once, although nobody had said he was going to use it. Together, they looked for somewhere to hang the cloth. The first wooden strip was rough. Mila felt a splinter and put it aside. Ilyas fetched a smooth strip from the scenery box and laid it across two low supports. The whole cloth could hang over it, clear of the floor, without a single nail.

When the ceiling lights went off again, the sea began to glow.

Mila stood looking at it. Pale folds overlapped behind the tulle. As Ilyas moved along the edge, the light shifted with him. She knew there was a wooden floor behind it, yet she wanted to see how deep the water was.

‘That’s good,’ Aron said very quietly.

Mila sat beside Grandma, holding her empty coat pocket shut.

The fisherman’s head rose above the curtain. His painted eyes were slightly crooked. In the gentle light, he seemed worried about something.

Aron rustled the newspaper. The fisherman pulled up his collar. Then rain fell from the tin. Mila knew where the sound came from, but she watched the puppet’s hat all the same, to see whether it was getting wet.

The fishing rod bent. A boot rose out of the sea, flowers and all.

The octopus wanted to buy it.

‘I’ll give you eight socks,’ he growled.

The fisherman counted his tentacles. At seven, he lost count. The children shouted for him to start again.

‘You’ll have to take the flowers out,’ said the octopus, once they had finally finished counting.

Mila watched her blue flower bobbing about. Three petals were enough after all. She laughed so hard that Grandma glanced at her.

When the boot sank into the sea again, the children clapped. Aron gave the tin one last shake: the final drops of the storm. Ilyas made the fisherman and octopus take a bow together.

A boy at the front called out that the octopus had forgotten his socks. Ilyas brought it up above the curtain once more.

On its second bow, the metal loop on its head caught on something.

There was no tearing sound. Mila only heard the puppet tap softly against the wooden strip. As Ilyas lowered his hand, the cloth came with it. A small, dark hollow appeared in the silver.

‘Pass the scissors,’ he said.

Mila was already on her feet.

‘Don’t cut it!’