NIGHT SHOPPING

And, years later, when Little Tommy was older, much older and not so very little, he was trying on a changing suit in the ninth shop, when he felt a slight pain in his forehead. Asking the assistant for a glass of shadow, he sat down for a moment to calm his nerves. The suit, noticing his mood, loosened itself around his neck and chest, and then turned from its show-off silver to a soothing pastel blue. The shadow juice covered the pain with its dark and gentle hand, and between them, the suit and the shadow did their best to relieve Thomas of his discomfort.

The assistant asked him if everything was all right, and Thomas said it was, thank you, and how much was the suit? So a deal was made, and the assistant asked if he would like it wrapped, and Thomas said no, he would wear it now, and please dispose of his old clothes.

Then Thomas stood up, and went to transfer his wallet to his new jacket. The jacket made a pocket just where Thomas's hand was resting. But when he put his hand inside the pocket, something hard and warm knocked against his fingers. He pulled his hand back out, to see that it now held a key, a golden key. The assistant was surprised to see it there, and was puzzled, because the pocket had not existed until a second ago.

So Thomas started to walk back home, wondering whether a tramcat would be wiser, knowing his condition. Instead, he decided the walk would do him good, and the suit agreed, changing itself into a sturdy anorak, and the shoes into walking boots. Soon, however, Thomas found himself lost, something that had not happened in so many years, and he wondered if they had built a new shopping extension, because he had never seen such a precinct before.

He went into the first friendly kiosk, whose counters were filled with compass bugs of various directions. He bought one for his home-shop, swallowed it, and immediately felt better. Letting the beetle inside his stomach guide him, he set off confidently through the strange and twisted streets. But as he travelled farther, the places became less and less familiar. More and more of the stores were boarded up, and the streets almost deserted. Eventually he came to an area he thought he recognized: a small patch of lawn with a single tree, and a bench. And here, Thomas rested for a while, and slept. And his suit, slowly and gently, became a long, flowing nightshirt. He dreamed, for the first time in years, of his departed mother, and the brave shopping expeditions of his youth.

When he awoke, it was already artificial night, and the artificial moon hung from the precinct's sky. Strangely, his suit did not change from its long flowing shape. The square was quite deserted, and only one shop still whispered in faint light. The sign above the doorway was in a language he could not understand. He could no longer feel the directions in his stomach, and the headache was shadowless and almost like a long-lost thought.

So, he went into the shop.

It was filled with all the things he had ever bought, and all the things he had once dreamed of buying. The penny ghosts and the bird shoes, the word egg and song biscuit, the smoke-maps and dogseeds, and all the shadows in the world were on display like pieces of the night's calming sky. Reaching into a sudden pocket in his gown, Thomas found there a single penny of the old money. With it, he bought a lonely, whispering ghost.

Upon leaving the shop, he saw, or thought he saw, a group of people sitting beneath the tree on the patch of lawn. One of them, a woman, called to him by name. The children around her begged him to hurry.

And his suit changed to ashes.

EPILOGUE

WATCH

I believed in the invisible watch so much that I went straight back to the classroom and hid it behind some books in my desk. I didn't want anybody else to see it; the watch was mine alone.

Every so often, during a boring lesson, I would open the desk, just to have a look at it. Never, not for one second, did it puzzle me that you couldn't tell the time by an invisible watch. The time wasn't important; it was the invisibility that got to me.

The magic of it.

I took it home with me that night, actually strapped it to my wrist. I slept with it under my pillow. And wore it to school the next day, but then, nervous that somebody would steal it off me, I hid it safely in the desk.

Just thinking about the watch was enough, but then at playtime I saw Colin Bradshaw with his mates. He asked me how the invisible watch was doing. They were all laughing at me. 'What time is it, Noony?' they shouted. 'What time is it?' I went back to the classroom, lifted up the desk lid, slowly, moved the books aside.

The invisible watch had gone.