4.45pm Thursday
The dummy felt bored and fidgety. He stood in the middle of the room swaying slightly and, because he had nothing better to do, set himself the task of licking his nose.
It wasn’t the sight of the dummy’s tongue that disturbed Gertie Stein. She had seen it often before. It wasn’t the spectacle of the dummy screwing up first his left eye and then his right that upset her brother Joe. After all, he’d spent hours teaching Franklin to wink and was pleased to see him practising.
No. Gertie and Joe were made of sterner stuff than that. As the children of scientists they were used to the odd bit of blood and gore in the fridge, the occasional skeleton in the cupboard. It took more than a few hideous faces to upset them.
Hadn’t they, after all, brought the shop dummy to life? Hadn’t they dragged him in 48 frenzied hours from babyhood to delinquent toddlerhood?
They had.
And did it bother them, thus to wave bye bye to normality?
Not one jot. What did disturb them, however, was the dummy’s outfit.
It was several moments before Joe was able to take in the full enormity of the situation. He stared blankly at the pink embroidery that decorated the pocket of Franklin’s shorts. ‘But it says “gotta love me”,’ he announced at last.
Gertie kicked the table leg. This was too much. ‘I can’t believe we actually told you that Franklin was a dummy,’ she groaned. Then, in case there was any doubt about whom she was addressing, she swung round and glared at one of the scientists. ‘What are you trying to do?’ she demanded. ‘Prepare him for a career in the window of a kiddies clothes shop?’
In fact, her father was merely trying to teach the shop dummy how to tie his shoe laces and getting nowhere. ‘Be quiet Gertie,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you quite understand. Franklin is a fantastic freak of nature whose existence rewrites Science as we know it. I won’t have you upsetting him. He’s a prodigy.’
‘Podgy,’ agreed Franklin.
‘No, dumpling, the word’s prod-ee-gee. Say it for Dada.’ Franklin, who like most dummies had the build of an athlete and the features of one of the more blandly handsome filmstars, simpered. A disgusting sight (‘I’ve met babes in arms with more self-respect,’ thought Gertie).
‘Podgy Dada,’ said Franklin and dribbled.
‘Don’t make me puke, Dad,’ said Joe. ‘You’re not his father and how come you’re teaching him to tie his laces? You never taught me. Mrs Howorth in Primary Two had to show me after I broke my nose on the edge of her desk.’
Certainly, the principal of child-rearing by healthy neglect didn’t seem to extend itself to the latest arrival in the Stein household. The scientists had been all over Franklin ever since they’d met him a week ago.
‘Never,’ thought Gertie, ‘but never, let your parents into your dearest secrets.’ She ground her teeth and watched her father as he gave up teaching Franklin how to tie a bow and laced the shoes himself. ‘There you go, Master Franklin Stein,’ he announced, sitting back on his heels.
‘Hmmm…’ he scratched his chin. ‘Franklin Stein, that’s quite a name. It’s got a certain ring to it.’
‘Of course it has,’ snapped Joe, ‘why else do you think we called him it. He’s not a Cabbage Patch doll, you know. He’s a sort of Frankenstein. Isn’t he, Gertie?’
But Gertie just gazed despondently at her friend’s brand new Clarks shoes (extra large), his scrubbed knees and baby-blue shorts. ‘He was,’ she said bitterly, ‘till Mum and Dad got their hands on him.’
The spotty piece of nonsense which covered the place where Franklin’s head screwed on to Franklin’s neck especially irritated her.
‘That bow tie has got to go,’ she told the other scientist who was sitting beside her at the table.
Her mother brushed the complaint aside. ‘Not now, Gertie,’ she murmured over the top of her newspaper. ‘I’m having an Idea.’ Mrs Stein laid the paper, open, on the table and waited while the Idea gradually formed itself into something momentous, something so strong and solid that it pulled her to her feet.
‘Family,’ intoned the Idea, speaking through Mrs Stein’s mouth while she performed various eloquent gestures with her hands. ‘Prepare for the public eye…’ It hesitated, as if awestruck by its own brilliance: ‘We’re all going to be famous… especially Franklin.’
‘What is it Jill?’ Mr Stein snatched the newspaper.
‘It’s at the bottom of page twelve,’ gabbled Mrs Stein as soon as she had regained control of her vocal chords. ‘An international conference in Toulouse.’ (‘That’s in France,’ she added, for Joe and Gertie’s benefit.) ‘It’s about language learning. You know, chimps that tell you to have a nice day, orangutans that speak in sign language, dolphins that do arithmetic, the usual stuff. Oh, except for the singing pig. That’s a new one on me. ‘Anyway, I reckon a talking shop dummy will easily upstage all that livestock, don’t you?’
‘Yes! Yes!’ yelled Mr Stein, wrestling the paper to the floor.
It was one of those moments when Joe longed for an ordinary family. He wasn’t quite sure what ordinary was, but he was pretty certain that this wasn’t it. He screwed his eyes shut and thought hard about words like ‘normal’ and ‘everyday’. Well even ‘boring’ would be preferable to what his parents were planning.
Yes, boring would do just fine. Joe flicked open his eyes and looked around for a responsible adult who would ask him about his homework and cook him his tea. Unfortunately, no-one in the room came near to fitting this description, least of all the pair cooking up the crackpot scheme in the corner. Some people will do anything for a write-up in the Sunday papers and a slot on ‘Tomorrow’s World,’ thought Joe.
‘I’m thinking Nobel Prize,’ said Mrs Stein.
‘At the very least!’ cried Mr Stein.
‘But you can’t!’ Joe burst out. ‘You can’t make Franklin stand up on a stage in that bow tie and perform for you.’
‘No you can’t,’ said Gertie, slamming her fist on the table to get their attention. ‘And do you know why?’
They didn’t, so she told them.
‘Because Franklin can’t even speak properly any more,’ she said. ‘It’s all this goo-ga-diddums stuff you teach him. At least when we looked after him he knew some decent words like xylophone and elephant. At least he knew a bed was a bed, not something you sail off in, to the land of Nod!’
There was a long telling pause during which Franklin played peekaboo with the curtains and pronounced himself a sausage and a lambkin. Mr Stein cleared his throat. ‘Well, OK,’ he said, ‘I take your point Gertie.’
He tore the page out of the newspaper and examined it closely. ‘How long have we got?
‘Good God!’ His eyes started out of his head. ‘Two days. We’re going to have move quickly… OK, we’ll take the night ferry and drive across France.’
He checked his watch.
5.03pm Thursday
His wife already had her coat on, but his children were still frozen in their chairs – mouths open, catching flies. What did they think they were doing? Posing for a school photo? Mr Stein clapped his hands, causing Joe and Gertie to leap to their feet and Franklin to pull the curtain down.
‘Look lively!’ he yelled, as the curtain rail, the Swiss cheese plant and the angle-poise lamp crashed to the floor. Mr Stein wondered aloud why everything was always so difficult, mopped his brow and waded into the wreckage to find Franklin, snapping instructions to his children as he went.
‘Get books,’ he said, ‘get pictures, get toys, anything you can fit in the car. You’ve two days to brush up Franklin’s conversation while Mum and I drive us to Toulouse.’