Magic Parcel Read Free

lounge was one of those enormously high rooms so popular about a hundred years earlier, with a large decorated fireplace and a long, curved wooden mantle piece over the fire grate. It never changed. The décor always had that freshly painted look, as if the decorators had only just packed away their pots, brushes and covers, and walked out the door just before he had walked in. The late morning sun stole through the slats of one fawn-coloured, half-closed shutter as they settled in front of a crackling fire in the black-leaded grate. They sat with a large glass of orange juice on their knees.
    â€œBefore we start, Uncle Reuben,” Jimmy said, fixing his relative’s glinting half-moons, “one thing has been puzzling me since the last time.”
    â€œYes, old chap,” Reuben asked, “and what is that?”
    â€œWell,” he went on, “I’ve been looking at some old photographs Mum gave me, and ... and ... why do you look the same? I mean ... why don’t you look older now?”
    Reuben’s eyes wrinkled at the corners as his brows met in the middle and threatened to cover his eyes altogether. That same smile played around his mouth, which widened slightly to reveal two rows of even, white teeth.
    â€œI’ll let you in on a secret,” he confided, bending closer to Jimmy as he dropped his voice to a whisper. “A secret I’ve never told anyone else yet.”
    Jimmy’s eyes widened, eager to learn anything about this remarkable man, particularly anything nobody else knew. His mouth opened slightly, and his cheeks grew vaguely pink as he almost stopped breathing in anticipation of what he might hear.
    â€œYou see,” he went on, “I’m at least three hundred and fifty years old, and I’ve been on other worlds different from this one as well.”
    The light grew steadily dimmer in the room and all noise gradually faded away until all Jimmy could hear was the gentle hiss of complete silence. And all he could see was the glowing face of his uncle, not a hand’s width from his own face.
    â€œI don’t age very quickly,” Reuben added, “so you wouldn’t tell any difference if you were to see me a hundred years from now. Yes, I shall still be here in a hundred years time. You see, I’m ...”
    There was a loud bang at the front door which made Jimmy jump almost onto the mantelpiece. He blinked his eyes, that slow blink as if waking from a long sleep and interesting dream, and found the room flooded with light again; and his uncle no longer there. He waited for a few minutes and, as Reuben didn’t return, he decided to explore the garden to pass the time.
    â€œMust have been somebody important,” he muttered as he stepped out of the scullery door into the brilliant late morning sunshine. Standing on the top step and surveying the scene before deciding where to go first, he noticed that the garden was an entirely different lay out from that he had seen the week before. Down towards the bottom of the long herbaceous border where there had been a great bank of thick leathery laurel bushes, there was now a wide gap, showing the sturdy fence beyond; and surely that shed ... had become much ... bigger?
    Puzzled, he set off down the stone steps and climbed across the turned stone balustrade at the bottom, to strike out across the well-manicured lawn. Usually he didn’t manage to reach the end of the garden, for interesting objects often caught his eye en route, off to the left or right. This time, however, there was no distraction; no deviation.
    Reaching the end of the lawn, he stepped out onto the wide gravel path which led across the border to the fence. With only two strides crunched along its noisy way, he stopped, realising that the path he now took for granted, should not have been here at all. And the space he had just walked through should have been an enormous weeping willow! The fence, however, seemed to draw