'We'll have to kill him, though,' said Mr Sredna.

'Of course,' said Jon Kelly. 'We can't have any loose ends dangling around. But it has been a pleasure. And as /will be killing him...'

'You?' said Eddie.

'It really doesn't matter if he knows the truth.'Jon Kelly smiled upon Eddie. 'My name, as I said, is Jon Kelly. I work for the Sredna Corporation, a corporation in the world beyond. Originally a toy company, it dates back two hundred years or so: Purveyors of Clockwork Automata to the Gentry. But times and tastes change. When I told you, Eddie, that there was another world out there, beyond the world of Toy City, I was telling all of the truth. There 15 such a world. I come from there. I grew up there. I never worked in any clockwork factory, although I do know all about clockwork.'

'But Jack, everything we've been through together—

'It was all for a purpose, Eddie. I had to contact Mr Sredna here. He's been missing for two months. We had to know what happened to him, why he had not returned to the outer world. However, Mr Sredna is a very hard man to track down.'

'I have to be,' said Mr Sredna. 'I am known here. I've had to remain in hiding and disguise until all my plans were completed.'

'I understand that now,' said Jon Kelly.

'But soon, everyone will know my name.' There was a terrible tone to the voice, and a madness in the eyes of Mr Sredna. Neither went unnoticed by either Eddie or Jon.

'Well, what you choose to do here in Toy City is your business,' said Jon Kelly, 'but what goes on out there in the world beyond is a different matter. And if a presidential model fails, then the Sredna Corporation's reputation is at stake.'

'What is a presidential model?' Eddie asked.

'A kind of toy,' saidjon. 'Mr Sredna here employs his toy-making skills in the world beyond. And he does make exceedingly good toys. Very life-like. The Sredna Corporation supplies these toys to countries all over our world. These toys then appear to run these countries. But naturally they don't actually do that. The owners of these toys are the big business consortiums that can afford to buy them from Mr Sredna. It's all just good business. It's a businessman thing.'

'It sounds ghastly,' said Eddie. 'It sounds as corrupt as.'

'Oh it is,' said Mr Sredna. 'Totally. But then, what isn't? Who isn't?'

'I'm not,' said Eddie. 'And I didn't think that Jack was. I'm very upset.'

'Your city is quite amazing,'Jon Kelly said to Mr Sredna. 'When the corporation executives sent me here to find you, they told me that this city was inhabited by toys which actually thought for themselves; actually lived their own lives. I never really believed them. Never thought it possible. There is a magic here in Toy City, there's no doubt about that.'

'Of course there is.' Mr Sredna leaned back in his chair and interlinked his long, narrow fingers. 'If it wasn't for the fact that certain things can be done here in this world that cannot be done out there, there could be no Sredna Corporation.'

Eddie punched himself violently in the head. 'I am going mad,' he declared. ‘ Jack, you're my friend. You're my bestest friend. You and I were tracking down the evil twin. Have you forgotten about that?'

Jon glanced towards Mr Sredna. 'What about that?' he asked.

'Nothing you need concern yourself with,' said Mr Sredna.

'I'd like to know.'

'Then you shall.' The madness was once more in the eyes. 'Those nursery rhymers: they deserved what they got. And I gave it to them, one at a time, in the order that they became famous. I've always hated them. I didn't mean for them to become rich and famous, but they did, and they had me to thank for it. But did they thank me? No, they sided with my brother and threw me out of the city.'

'Your brother?' said Eddie. 'Tell me about your brother.'

'The toymaker,' said Mr Sredna.

'So you are the evil twin. There, Jack, he's confessed.'

'I'm not evil! How dare you!' Mr Sredna brought his fists down hard upon the table. 'Evil twin this! Evil twin that! I'm not evil. Never was evil. I am innovative. Imaginative. Special! But because I didn't play by the rules, follow the instructions, do things the way they were supposed to be done, I was cast from this world by that ungrateful scum.'

Eddie cowered on the floor.

'Let me tell you,' said Mr Sredna, 'who really wrote those nursery rhymes.'

'Really wrote?' said Eddie. 'Didn't Wheatley Porterman write them?'

'I wrote them!' Mr Sredna fairly bellowed. 'They're supposed to be hymns, not damn nursery rhymes.'

'Hymns?' said Eddie. 'But—‘

'Each one of them is a parable.' Mr Sredna leaned across his desk and scowled down at Eddie. 'They're all parables. Take the hymn of Jack and Jill: of course you can't go up a hill to fetch a pail of water. What the hymn really means is that if you spend your life seeking to achieve impossible goals, rather than doing something useful, you will surely tumble to earth. It's pretty damn obvious, isn't it?'

'I suppose it is,' said Eddie. 'So they're all like that, are they? They're all, like, parables; they all have real meanings?'

'Of course they do!' Mr Sredna drummed his fists upon his expansive desk, rattling precious things. 'They all mean something. They were supposed to be instructive. They were Holy Writ.'

'What?' said Jon Kelly.

'Holy Writ!' Mr Sredna's voice rose in zeal. 'Which is another reason that I was ousted. Gods aren't supposed to write their own Holy Writ. Gods are supposed to be "hands-off". Leave the writing of Holy Writ to "inspired" mortals. And what happens to theirs? The same as happened to mine. Misinterpreted! You can't produce any kind of Holy Writ without some oaf misinterpreting it. I write deep-meaningful hymns. And the trash that I wrote those moving deep-meaningful hymns about, the examples of man's folly, they get rich and famous from the proceeds. And because I've upset them, they conspire against me and then rise up and throw me out of the city. Me, a God in my own right: they throw me out. What kind of insane irony is that, I ask you?' Jon Kelly shook his head. 'I don't know,' he said.

'Enough to drive anyone mad,' said Mr Sredna. 'You think about any one of those "nursery rhymes", think about what the words actually say, actually mean. But nobody ever has. It was all wasted, all my time and effort wasted. But not any more. Away with the old and in with the new. All of this is going, all of it.'

'All?' said Eddie.

'I'm erasing the city,' said Mr Sredna. 'Starting with the rich and famous folk, then working all the way down.'

'To the toys?' said Eddie.

'All going,' said Mr Sredna, making sweeping hand motions. 'As soon as the new order conies off the assembly lines, I'll have them do away with the old. It has been all fun and games for me, wiping out the old rich one at a time, coming up with ingenious scenarios, throwing the city into chaos. This city is a mess, but I'm changing all that: a Heaven on Earth, and I shall be the God in this Heaven.'

'And your brother?' said Eddie. 'What about your brother?'

'He'll have to go too. He's an old fool. He believes in the "hands off" school of deity, that a God should simply let things happen, remain neutral. If you want someone to blame for the way this city is now, blame him. If I'd been around I'd never have let it get into this state. But I'm back now and things are going to be very different. Very, very different. So it's goodbye to the kindly loveable white-haired old toymaker. And not before time, in my opinion.'

Jon looked at Eddie.

And Eddie looked at Jon.

Neither had anything to say.

'But let's get back to business,' said Mr Sredna, smiling towards Jon. 'A problem with the presidential model, you said.'