Mirror Man by Jacques Kat (ereader for textbooks txt) 📗

if it could affect me too. I couldn’t ask him again, though; he obviously didn’t want to tell me. If Mr Phillips was in trouble, I was going to have to find out how to help on my own.

About an hour after the incident, Mr Phillips’s yells brought me running to the main shop. I was greeted by two schoolboys, still in their uniforms, prodding at the pendulum inside an old grandfather clock.

‘Don’t touch that, either’ Mr Phillips scolded them.

‘Alright, mister, keep your hair on,’ the smaller of the two said, and they both started laughing.

I approached the clock when they moved away from it, closing the door gently and wiping the glass of their greasy fingerprints.

‘What do you want? Shouldn’t you both be in school?’ Mr Phillips said.

‘We want two fishing nets, mister,’ said the bigger kid.

‘You want to be across the road at the hardware shop, not here,’ he told them.

‘Yeah, well, it’s shut, ain’t it? That’s why we’re here.’

The pair laughed again.

Mr Phillips grumbled and approached the counter. ‘What’re your names? I’m ringing the school.’ He picked up the phone.

‘Albert and Elsie,’ the bigger one said as they ran out the door.

Mr Phillips slammed the handset down. ‘Flaming kids,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘What do they want fishing nets for? They aren’t old enough to fish, are they?’ I asked.

He scoffed. ‘They’re only after tadpoles in the dykes. Didn’t you ever go with your dad?’ he asked, returning to his ledger.

I bit down on my lip. Dad had never taken me. He’d always been too ill.

‘Oh, sorry, lad. I forgot for a moment then. I’ve not been with it lately. Forget I said anything.’

‘Okay, Mr Phillips…’ I turned to go back to my workstation, but his voice made me stop.

‘John-Michael.’

I lifted my head to meet his stare in the mirror ahead of me.

‘You know, Mary and I always said if we’d had a son, we’d have wanted him to be as nice as you. I know you’ll do right by me and figure everything out,’ he said.

The doorbell rang again, and Mr Phillips rolled his eyes. ‘I thought I told you two we don’t—’ But as he turned, he staggered back, crashing into a cabinet, and knocking a pencil to the floor.

‘Woah, you alright?’ one of the customers said.

There were two of them, both men, but judging by the bemused look they gave Mr Phillips, I guessed they knew each other.

‘Sorry, Clive… Fersy,’ Mr Phillips said as he regained his composure and retrieved his pencil. ‘What can I do for you two?’

I wanted to observe what they’d come in for, as the men were huge. The first man stood at over six feet, and the other was only slightly shorter. The bigger of the two carried a large, leather sports bag in his beefy hands.

I grabbed a pocket watch I’d finished earlier and a duster to clean it and stood in the rear doorway polishing it so I could listen to their conversation and view them in the mirrors.

‘What have you got there, Clive?’ Mr Phillips asked.

Clive heaved the bag onto the counter, and it landed with a thud. ‘Take a peek.’

Mr Phillips put down his pencil, unzipped the bag, and peered inside. He looked back at the men, then back at whatever was in the bag, then he pulled his glasses down from his head to his nose to inspect it further.

‘Is it a mace?’ he asked.

‘No, it’s a flail,’ Clive answered. ‘A mace is a ball on a stick. A flail is a handle with a chain and a ball.’ He pointed with his head. ‘Knights used to swing ’em round and belt people with ’em.’

I stopped pretending to polish the watch and stared at the bag they had put on the counter. I almost bounced on the spot. I wanted to edge closer to examine it for myself, but thought better of it and stayed put.

I watched them in the mirror when a shift of movement on the wall beyond Mr Phillips moved my gaze aside. For a second, I swore I saw a dark figure there, concealed by the shadows in the corner. I glanced behind me quickly—nothing there—and back to the mirror.

‘How old is it?’ Mr Phillips asked, bringing my attention back to the new antique.

‘We don’t know.’ They both shrugged. ‘That’s why we’ve come to see you. Thought you might know, or know someone who does.’

‘Where’d you get it from?’

This time, the other bloke answered. ‘Our Andrew swapped it for a Madness LP. A couple of lads found it down near the Foot Trods. The council were putting a new ditch in, and they found it there one afternoon after they’d left for the day.’

‘Ya, what?’ Mr Phillips scoffed. ‘Your Andrew got this in exchange for some weird music? If you can even call what the kids listen to these days music…’

The pair chuckled.

‘Is it genuine?’ asked Clive.

‘Possibly. Can I hang on to it for a couple of days to check it over?’

‘Sure, why not?’

‘You got a phone yet?’ Mr Phillips asked.

Clive shook his head. ‘I ain’t getting one of them when there is a perfectly good phone box at the end of the road.’

‘Fair enough. Right, can you come back for it on Saturday?’

‘Aye,’ he said, then they turned and left.

When the door shut behind them, I emerged from the back of the shop.

‘Is it genuine?’ I asked.

‘Aye, it might just be, lad.’

‘Can I have a look?’ I asked his reflection.

Mr Phillips nodded, and I almost ran over to peer inside. I’d only ever seen them in history books, and who knows where Clive and Fersy had really got this one from—as if the council hadn’t seen it and loaded it onto the back of their pick-up. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at; it appeared to be real and old with all the dirt on it.

‘Can I touch it?’ I asked him.

‘Yeah, go ahead,’ he said.

I moved closer and placed my hand over it for a moment. When