Emmelisa Planemaker was sitting
silently on the floor with a
sketchbook on her lap, surrounded by coloured crayons and felt
tip pens. Drawing pictures, colouring and painting were
Emmelisa's favourite activities. She'd started to draw a picture of
her mummy, her daddy, her brother and their house at number
one, Fern Bank Road, Leftington, near Pierton, Lancashire.
Outside, it was pouring with rain.
On wet Sunday afternoons, Emmelisa's brother would
normally
watch the cartoon channel on the wide screen television but that
afternoon, he was upstairs in his bedroom playing a computer
game that he'd downloaded from the web. He'd agreed to stay in
his room until teatime because his father was resting on the sofa
downstairs in the same room as the television.
Before his big operation, two years ago, Mr. Planemaker
had
been a very handsome man of medium height with broad
shoulders.
He had a fine head of thick, brown, curly hair,
but his most
outstanding features were his dark blue eyes, surrounded by
long, dark eyelashes.
As a baby, his hair was a mass of blond, not brown,
curls. His
almost black eyelashes that nearly touched his cheek when he
was asleep in his cot, were frequently admired and envied by his
mother's natural blonde friends, who had to rely on mascara to
achieve the same effect.
Often, they would remark,
'It's so unfair. Boys with blond hair shouldn't
be allowed such
naturally long, dark eyelashes!'
Mr. Planemaker's eyes had
not changed and he was still
handsome but his face was much thinner and had a more angular
appearance. Also, his arms and legs were leaner and less strong
than they had been before the operation and, because he'd lost
weight and his body was slimmer, his clothes did not fit as snugly
as they used to.
As well as the changes in his physical appearance
and his loss of
strength, he often felt tired because he had much less energy
than before the operation and he needed to rest during the day.
Since he was no longer able to go out to work, he spent most of
his time at home, where he frequently rested in the afternoons.
On the rare occasions that he did venture outside,
he either went
to see his doctor or he visited the hospital for a check-up.
When their daddy was at home, Emmelisa and her
brother were
no longer allowed to run around and shout a great deal. This
proved to be quite a problem for Emmelisa, who was too young to
show the same consideration as her older brother.
That Sunday afternoon, she had been permitted to
stay in the
living room with her daddy, on the strict basis that she must play
quietly. Although she tried to be good, because she knew that her
daddy was very poorly, she didn't always succeed. Sometimes
she would forget to be quiet, provoking a thoughtful reminder from
her mummy,
'Keep the noise down. Try not to disturb daddy.'
Mr. Planemaker appreciated that, for an eight-year-old
boy and
an almost seven-year-old girl, it was quite a burden to ask them to
hush up all the time.
This thought was on his mind as he fell asleep
and began to
dream.
In his dream, two small children, a boy and a girl,
were trying to
find a house at the end of a long garden path that was bordered
on both sides by a sea of pale blue and violet flowers.
As the two children reached the front door, they
were startled
because the whole house became invisible. They immediately
turned around and ran back to the gate at the end of the path
leading to the house but, before they opened the gate, they
heard a loud THUD! as the house reappeared.
The first time this happened,
the two children laughed and ran
back along the path towards the front door but the house
disappeared again.
When they reached the gate a second time, they
heard another
THUD! as the house reappeared.
Whenever the children approached the house, it
disappeared.
They were no longer amused by the time the house
had vanished
three times, and they began to look a little anxious and lost.
Suddenly, a man appeared in the dream with a key in his hand.
As the man beckoned to the children, the small girl called out,
'The house keeps disappearing.'
At the same time, Mr. Planemaker could hear someone
calling
gently. He recognised the voice; it was his little daughter saying,
'Daddy, are you asleep?'
'No poppet,' her father said as he awoke from his
short nap. 'No,
I'm awake, did you want me?'
'I can't find my picture,' his little girl said,
sadly.
'Which picture?' her daddy asked.
'The one with the new house. The new, red brick
house I drew
yesterday. I can't find it.'
'Draw another one, I'll watch you,' he suggested.
'No, I want you to draw one,' whined Emmelisa,
as she held out a
pencil and a piece of paper.
Before he could reach for the pencil, Mrs. Planemaker
appeared
in the doorway and spoke to Emmelisa,
'Teatime, sweetheart. You can leave your crayons.
We'll tidy
them away later.'
Emmelisa knew better than to argue with her mummy,
although
she was clearly displeased. She pulled herself up off the floor and
slowly walked towards the lounge door, gently kicking one of her
crayons in the process.
'Okay,' she murmured with a screwed up face.
'It's your favourite,' her mother hinted with a
smile.
Emmelisa whooped and, with an enormous grin, skipped
out of
the room.
That night, Mr. Planemaker
tiptoed into the bedrooms of his two
children, who were in bed fast asleep. On each pillow lay the
angelic faces of his innocent son and daughter.
Holding back a tear, not of sadness but of joy
at such a lovely
sight, his heart filled with love as he gazed at each child.
Minutes later he was lying in bed, drifting into
a deep sleep with a
picture of the two sleeping babes in his mind.
He began to dream about the vanishing house from
his afternoon
nap.
The man with the key was looking for the two children
who had
wandered off through the garden gate, away from the house.
Unable to find the youngsters, he'd decided to
approach the front
door to see if the key would fit the lock.
Before he reached the door, a smartly dressed,
very well
groomed lady suddenly appeared on the doorstep. She had
sleek, chin-length, dark brown hair, and she was wearing a
charcoal grey, pin-stripped, designer, trouser suit with an
open-necked white blouse. Her make-up, which was immaculate,
neither too little nor too much, accentuated her dark eyes and
high cheekbones.
The man was wondering if he should say something
when the
smart young woman said,
'Hello.'
As she extended her right hand towards the man
with the key, he
could see that she was holding a gold-edged business card,
which the man took and held in his left hand. At the top of the
card, the company's address:
Dream Homes Incorporated,
Heaven's Gate, Land of Angels,
Principality of Just Rewards,
was printed in gold letters. The name in the centre, Ann R.
Keytect, was printed in embossed black type with the words
"Member of the Angel's Guild of Chartered Surveyors and
Architects" printed immediately below in the same gold lettering as
the address.
She obviously belonged to
a very well respected, professional
organisation.
While he was still looking at the card, Ms Keytect
added,
'Welcome to the Dream House. I hope you like it.
I designed it
especially for you.'
'You designed this house for me?' the man asked
as he looked
firstly towards Ms Keytect then towards the house and finally to
the key in his hand.
'Is this the key to the house?' he enquired.
'Yes,' she replied. 'But it will only fit the lock
if you know the secret
number of the house.'
'Oh, I don't know anything at all about the house.
I found the key
in my toolbox. I hadn't seen it before and I'd no idea where it came
from. As I touched the key this house suddenly appeared. Two
children were trying to open the door but the house kept
disappearing and they've disappeared, too.'
'Don't worry about the children, they'll come back
again. Children
usually do reappear, even when they run off for a short while.'
'Yes, they do. They're like boomerangs. They run
off in one
direction and return from another!' the man said in agreement.
Holding up the key, he added,
'This is of no use to me. I don't know the number
of this house.'
'Do you remember the number of the house in which
you were
born?''
'Yes,' replied the man.
Ms Keytect stood aside to allow the man to step forward as she
invited him to try the key, saying,
'Insert the key in the lock and whisper the number
of the house of
your birth.'
Even though the man was a little unsure, his natural
curiosity
urged him towards the door. He put the key in the lock and turned
it as he whispered a number. His face was crestfallen. Nothing
happened. Although the house didn't disappear, the door didn't
open either.
When he tried to remove the
key, which remained stubbornly in
the lock, he wasn't strong enough to pull it out.
'I can't budge the key. It's stuck in the lock,'
he said, adding,
'Should I just leave it for someone else who knows the secret
number?'
'Ah, this is a very special key. Try again. The
number you
whispered is correct. Except, this time,
turn the key
anti-clockwise and repeat the number,' suggested Ms Keytect.
The man grasped the key with his right hand, turned
it
anti-clockwise and whispered the number again.
Immediately, the door didn't just open; it disappeared
completely.
He heard Ms Keytect ask,
'Do you remember my name?'
The man replied,
'Yes, you're Ann R. Keytect.'
However, when he turned towards her, she was gone:
completely
invisible.
Mr. Planemaker was still half asleep when he eventually
woke and
heard the bubbling sound of two young children laughing,
intermingled with an adult's voice issuing orders about school
bags, woollen hats, mittens and all the paraphernalia associated
with a Monday morning.
He realised that soon the children would pile into
their mother's
car and then be ferried safely to the local school, Leafy Lea
Primary. A few minutes later he heard his wife calling,
'We're about to leave. I've some shopping to do.
I'll see you later.'
Her two exuberant, chanting children drowned out
her words, as
they sang,
'Bye daddy. Bye.'
When Mr. Planemaker tried to recall last night's
dream, it seemed
far away. He scratched his chin, which was badly in need of a
shave, before he stopped thinking and started the slow process of
showering, shaving and dressing. These days everything seemed
to take twice as long as usual.
When he made his way down
to the kitchen to prepare breakfast,
he glanced at the kitchen clock. Although he knew that the clock
was ten minutes fast to allow Mrs. Planemaker extra time to make
sure that the children were never late for school, it was still nearly
an hour since he'd first opened his eyes and looked at the
bedside clock.
But the morning pattern was becoming familiar to
Mr.
Planemaker, who had formed a routine that suited him. He was a
builder by trade and he'd created quite a successful business
over twenty-odd years. When he was a working man, he'd been
too busy to spend much time preparing breakfast but his dear wife
always made sure he ate a healthy cooked meal every morning
before he left the house for work.
Mr. Planemaker knew that he would need all the
energy the early
morning breakfast provided, because building site work was very
hard work and he would burn off all that energy by midday.
There were benefits in the hard, physical work. Men in the
building trade were fit, healthy and well muscled. Consequently,
Mr. Planemaker's illness, two years ago, came as
a big surprise to
everyone because he was permanently tanned from working
outdoors and, physically, he was very strong from all the heavy
lifting that was necessary to do the job.
He was very surprised when he first became aware
of pains in his
chest, that he thought were mild and nothing to worry about,
because he was normally so fit and strong,. However, after visiting
the doctor and seeing a specialist in the nearby hospital, it
became evident that the problem was much more serious than he
could have imagined.
The consultant at the hospital told him that he
would need to
undergo a lengthy operation and, if it went well, he would be able
to return to full employment.
After the operation, because he slowly made a complete
recovery,
he returned to work and he hadn't experienced any more chest
pains until recently.
The first suggestion that
he should no longer work full time came
from the doctor, who explained that the illness ran in the
Planemaker family. Although not all the males in his family would
suffer from this illness, Mr. Planemaker was one of the
unfortunate few who did.
The medical explanation was long and detailed but
the advice
from the doctor was quite simply,
'You need more rest and less work. I think
you should consider
retiring.'
To which he responded,
'Retire. You think I should retire. I'm only forty-three.'
The doctor agreed that this was very young to be
taking such an
important step and yet, by continuing to work, Mr. Planemaker
would be putting himself at great risk of becoming gravely ill in
the
very near future.
After speaking with the doctor, Mr. Planemaker
discussed the
problem with his wife. Together they sat down to work out
whether, or not, Mr. Planemaker could afford to retire.
The initial shock of the illness was beginning
to wear off and the
whole situation didn't look quite as bad as it first seemed to be.
However, even with a certain amount of cutting
back on their
spending and selling part of the business in order to invest the
money from the sale, they would still need to be careful.
After everything had been taken into account, they
concluded
that it would be possible to manage on less without becoming very
poor, so the decision to retire was made.
Once the decision was made, as with all decisions,
Mr.
Planemaker started the process of fulfilling the plans for their
future. He spoke to the partners in his company and they agreed
to buy out his share of the business.
Within a matter of weeks, Mr. Planemaker had completely
retired
from full-time employment in a thriving business. Had he not been
feeling so permanently tired, he would've regretted the decision.
As it was, he accepted, without argument, that
life would be much
easier in the future.
Nowadays, time did sometimes
stretch out and seemed to last
much longer than it did when he was working. This extra time to
reflect led to thoughts about involving himself in some kind of
project.
Everything that came to mind seemed to require
too much effort,
and even just thinking about some of the things tired him out.
Today, during his light breakfast of cereal and fruit juice, he was
giving some more thought to how he should set up something
worthwhile.
For the rest of the day, he considered any number
of projects
that might be within his ability. Eventually he gave up because
none of them was exactly what he was searching for. By the time
he went to bed he was completely worn out.
When he started to think about a plan he hadn't
previously
considered, he was so tired he immediately fell asleep and began
to dream.
The same man he'd dreamed about previously was
standing in
front of the Dream House wondering whether he should walk
inside, because there was no longer a front door to the house,
only an opening into the dimly lit hallway.
This dark entry wasn't very inviting and the man
was unsure if he
should make his way into the house when, before he could move,
a tall, thick set man, dressed in workman's clothes appeared in
front of the doorway and said,
'Hello, I'm A. W. Dare. I don't use my first name.
My second name
is William but everyone calls me Bill. Bill Dare. How do you do?'
he
enquired as he held out his hand and shook the man's right hand
firmly. 'I see you managed to open the door.'
'The door disappeared,' the man replied.
'Oh the door is still there even though you can't
see it.'
'If I tried to walk through the door, would I feel
it?' asked the man.
'No,' grinned Mr. Dare. 'But it's a good question.
Walking into a
solid door would be pretty painful!' he laughed.
'Why did the door disappear if it's still there?'
'Well,' said Bill Dare as
he scratched his balding head, 'You can't
see the door, so you'll be able to walk straight into the house.
The folk, who can see the door, won't be able to walk through a
solid door, will they... makes sense doesn't it?' he laughed again.
Although this seemed like a riddle, it did make
some kind of
sense.
Even so, not enough sense to satisfy the man, who
asked,
'Do the people who live here leave the door open
permanently
then?'
'No-one lives here,' was the quick reply.
'No-one has ever lived here,' confirmed Mr. Dare.
The man was mulling this over, when he suddenly
remembered
Ann R. Keytect saying that she'd designed the house
for him,
which prompted the next question,
'Have you met Ms Keytect? Ann R. Keytect?'
'Sure I have,' replied Mr. Dare, 'She designed
the house for you
and I built it.'
'Oh you're a builder!' the man exclaimed.
'I am indeed. I'm Bill Dare the builder!' Mr. Dare
exclaimed and
then added, 'Well now. Would you like to see inside the house?'
From where the man was standing he could just about see
through the open doorway and not much further. The poorly lit
hallway looked very eerie and uninviting: enough to send a shiver
down the man's spine.
'I'm not sure,' he said nervously.
'What are you afraid of?' Mr. Dare asked.
'I don't know. Something seems to be holding me
back. I'm not
sure that I'm ready to step inside this house,' the man tried to
explain.
'Well maybe today isn't the right time for you.
One day soon, I
dare say it will be. But then again I would dare to say so. I'm Bill
Dare,' he said, full of laughter.
Mr. Planemaker could hear
the laughter although he was no
longer dreaming. The sound of laughter came from his two
children, Emmelisa and Dylan, who were busily putting together all
their school stuff ready for the car journey to Leafy Lea Primary.
The noise from downstairs didn't abate until the front door
opened as the children chorused,
'Bye, bye daddy!' and somewhere amongst their singsong
voices
their mummy was saying, 'I'll see you later.'
As the door closed behind them, Mr. Planemaker
knew that it was
officially time to make his way to the bathroom and go through the
same routine as yesterday.
In the kitchen, he made a pot of tea, poured some
cereal into a
bowl and added some cold, semi-skimmed milk, while at the same
time he started to think about the future.
As he poured himself a second cup of very weak
tea, he was still
thinking about how he was going to spend his time over the
following weeks, in order to produce something meaningful. None
of yesterday's ideas had improved with age, so they didn't need
any further consideration.
Instead, he decided to do a thorough search through
all the
magazines he'd collected over the years, which he kept stored for
his retirement, without realising how soon that would be.
He set about the task with enthusiasm but, by lunchtime,
he was
losing interest rapidly. After lunch, he rekindled his interest and
made another attempt at looking through the pile of magazines
that remained but he had no more success than in the morning. In
the middle of the afternoon, because he was so disillusioned, he
fell asleep on the sofa and very soon, he was dreaming.
Although the Dream House and the same man were
in the dream,
Mr. Dare wasn't. The man walked forward and was standing in the
doorway, when he was made to take a step back. A wiry young
man with black hair and a black moustache, dressed in a white
overall had suddenly appeared in the doorway and, for a moment,
their noses were almost touching.
The fright of seeing someone
so close up had startled the man
into taking a step backward. The young man noticed the alarm
he'd caused and spoke out immediately in a light-hearted way to
put the man at his ease,
'Hi there,' he said smiling. 'You seem surprised
to see me!'
'Well, I was a little startled. You suddenly appeared
from
nowhere!' the man exclaimed.
'No need to worry. Sorry if I made yer jump.
I'm A. D. Orator.
Don't use my first name. My second name's Derek
but everyone
calls me Dek. Dek Orator. 'How yer doin'?'
The words, although in a different accent, sounded
very familiar.
Then the man remembered Bill Dare and asked,
'Do you work with Mr. Dare, Bill Dare?'
'Yep,' Mr. Orator replied. 'Mr. Dare built this
house for yer and I
did all the painting an' decorating.'
'So you're the decorator?' The man asked.
'That's what I said, I'm A. Dek Orator,' answered
Mr. Orator,
roaring with laughter.
'Mr. Dare didn't use his first name either and
it began with A. like
yours...'
Before he could say anything else Mr. Orator interrupted
and
said laughingly,
'Oh, there's lots of us!'
'Lots of you?' the man enquired.
'Yeah. All me mates. All the men, who helped to
build the house,
have names beginning with A.'
As he spoke, a group of men and one woman suddenly
appeared
on either side of Mr. Orator. They wore a mixture of blue denim
jeans with chequered, open-necked shirts, T-shirts, blue overalls,
heavy boots, trainers, hard hats, bobble caps, jackets with
reinforced shoulders and elbow pads, single gold earrings and a
gold neck chain.
After Mr. Orator had introduced them all, they
chorused a
welcome, in complete harmony, to the man for whom they had
spent many, many hours constructing a home.
'Hello' they said with warm
smiles.
The man, who was so pleased with such a friendly
greeting, said,
'Hello, It's really good to meet you!'
'Well, ye've met the team,' Mr. Orator said, 'I
suppose ye'd like to
check out their workmanship?'
The man was suddenly jolted out of his present,
pleasant frame
of mind because the question baffled him totally. When Mr. Dare
had offered to show him inside the house, he'd felt a little afraid
at
the suggestion. He was just as apprehensive about commenting
on the appearance of the house standing before him because it
was the most ordinary building he'd ever seen.
For a start, the house that was built of grey bricks
had only four
small glazed windows at the front with wooden window frames that
had been painted with grey paint.
The fact that the front door was no longer there
didn't help; it
made the place look a little bit derelict and, if the roof had been
covered with orange or red tiles, at least they would've added a
bit of colour.
Alas, no, the house had a grey slate roof and a
grey brick
chimney.
Seeing the expectant looks on the faces of the
happy crowd of
people facing him, filled him with trepidation as he said slowly,
'I don't know what to say.'
'You don't know what to say? Don't know what to
say! Goodness
me. There's a thing... a man who doesn't know what to say. Bless
me. I always have something to say. My, oh my yes. Never lost for
words... words tripping over themselves to get out and be spoken.
But then, I'm an orator. That's me. Dek Orator.'
Throughout this outburst the only thing in the
man's mind that he
felt he could say about the house was,
'It's grey.'
The words echoed in Mr. Planemaker's
head as he slowly came
out of his dreamlike state. He eventually opened his eyes and
looked across the room, where he could hear his wife, who was
standing by the large picture window in the lounge, saying these
very same words.
On a sunny day, because the room faced south, the
sunshine
would stream through the window adding warmth and brightness.
Today, however, the sun was completely hidden by a thick blanket
of clouds, giving a very bleak and dull outlook.
'It's grey and dull,' repeated Mrs. Planemaker
as she turned to
look at the pile of magazines strewn around the sofa, where her
husband was resting.
'Any luck with the project?' she asked.
Mr. Planemaker was about to say no, no luck, instead
he said,
'What was that you said about the weather?'
'I said it's grey. The sky... it's grey.'
'Yes,' thought Mr. Planemaker, 'the sky is grey.'
Things that fly in the sky are often grey too.
Immediately, as if
he'd always known, he knew exactly what he was going to do.
He was going to build an aeroplane.
