A Fragment

It was summer in England, and there were four children. Their names were Christopher, Oliver, Molly and Geraldine. Christopher was the eldest, Oliver was the youngest, and Molly and Geraldine were somewhere in between, I expect.

Christopher was tall, fair haired and was cricket captain at school. Oliver was small, thin and bespectacled, and preferred reading to sports. Geraldine was big for her age, and had broad shoulders and large hands and heavy dark eyebrows. She was a tomboy.  Molly was tiny and blonde and liked to wear pink frilly things, and to have her hair in bunches.

One day they were playing in the maze in the grounds of Christopher's father's country house. Christopher's mother had told him not to take the other children into the maze in case they got lost and missed their tea, but boys will be boys and Christopher forgot about his mother's injunction, especially after Geraldine dared him. Christopher, not wanting to look weak in front of the girls, or in front of Oliver for that matter, immediately sneaked into the shack used by Dunkley, the elderly gardener, and stole the keys to the gate at the entrance to the maze. Christopher unlocked the gate and ushered his friends inside. Dunkley, who was trimming the hedge on the outermost edge of the maze, saw what was happening. He ambled over and tried to suggest that the children shouldn't go in, but he tried to combine this suggestion with a deferential tug of his forelock to the young master, so none of the children felt any need to pay any attention to what he said.

Soon, of course, the children were lost. But they had only the faintest perception of the fact, and the sun was shining, and the birds were chirruping, and the summer holidays would probably last forever, and they were in the grounds of Christopher's father's estate, and there were lots of servants who could be sent in to look for them if needs be, and there would be cream buns and lemonade waiting for them when they were brought back, and Christopher's father was apt to forgive his son after only brief periods of stern silence, so none of them worried too much about it. Instead, they imagined themselves lost in a dark forest, or the corridors of an evil witch's castle... pretences all the more delicious for the knowledge, at the back of their minds, that they were entirely safe.

"You be the witch," Christopher instructed Geraldine.

"I don't want to be the witch!" objected Geraldine.

"You have to be the witch," insisted Christopher.

"Why?"

"Because you're the oldest girl and you're tall and dark and you look funny," said Christopher.

Geraldine began to glower, and seemed about to get angry, which annoyed Christopher immensely.

"Don't be common," he said.

He turned to Molly and told her to be the beautiful princess, a role that Molly had already more or less assumed as an entitlement.

Christopher, naturally, would be the dashing young prince who would rescue Molly from Geraldine.

“What am I?” asked Oliver, with a weary feeling of inevitability.

“You can be my squire,” said Christopher, which Oliver had seen coming.

Oliver opined that he didn't see why Christopher always got to be the dashing young prince while he had to be the squire, but Christopher informed him (not for the first time) that this was just the way of things.

“Can’t I be a wizard or a wise sorcerer or something?” asked Oliver, who wondered why he was asking Christopher for permission even as he asked.

“No,” said Christopher, “that’s common.”

‘Common’ was very much Christopher’s all purpose word for things he didn’t like.

"Fine," said Oliver pettishly, adjusting his spectacles on his nose, "I didn't want to be the prince anyway. Princes are stupid. My father says it’s the little people who do all the work who really matter."

Oliver’s father, in addition to being an an old school friend of Christopher’s father, and a book publisher, was a ‘communist’ and a ‘Jew’. Christopher didn’t know what these words meant, but he had heard the tone of indulgent contempt in his father’s voice when he said them… an amused contempt he now emulated in his response to Oliver.

“Right you are old chap,” said Christopher.

Christopher thought it would probably be ‘ungentlemanly’ or something to undermine Oliver's pride, especially in front of the girls, but he knew Oliver was lying. Every little boy wants to be a dashing princely hero, and the ones who say they don't are just fibbing and covering up their jealousy.

Oliver scowled at Christopher’s patronising tone and began to say something in response.

"Please don't let's fight," said Molly, who hated arguments and always wanted everyone to get along. The others immediately softened. Molly's huge, plaintive blue eyes were impossible to withstand. Oliver and Geraldine both decided simply to do as Christopher said… though both felt somewhat annoyed at the way Molly had directed her plea mostly to them, as though they were the ones causing the trouble.

The children separated into groups of two. The witch and her royal captive went one way; Prince Christopher and his trusty squire set off on their quest in another. They shouted to each other over the hedges. Christopher’s valiant cries of defiance to the witch were admirable for their noble and manly bravado. Geraldine settled into the role assigned her to the point where she almost began to relish it, and was equally vehement in her malevolent replies. Molly, meanwhile, soon tired of being dragged along by Geraldine like a prisoner. She found Geraldine’s commitment to the persona of wicked witch a little unnerving. She began to wonder if Geraldine was enjoying bullying her. Molly had been certain for some time that Geraldine was jealous of her blonde curls and blue eyes. Oliver, meanwhile, trudging along behind Christopher and pretending to carry Christopher’s imaginary sword (which seemed to become increasingly heavy as time passed), tried to adapt his role somewhat, making his squire something of a wry peasant sage who offered caustic comments upon his master’s quixotic behaviour. Christopher, however, ignored everything Oliver said, and simply fired orders at him.

They played the game (according to Christopher’s decisions… because after all it was his maze) for so long that the sun dipped out of sight and the shadows cast by the hedges filled the corridors. The children went from running through the twisting passageways to ambling through them somewhat wearily. Even Christopher began to tire of the game. Privately he was of the opinion that Geraldine was probably cheating in some way. Surely he would have caught her by now otherwise. Molly started to become vocal and tiresome on the subject of being hungry and having sore ankles. Oliver, who could hear her speaking from a few paths away, sympathised mightily. He was dreaming about his dinner (the time to daydream about afternoon tea had long passed) and about getting back to the book he had been forced to leave on his bedside table.

Oliver was actually on the point of swallowing his resistance to the idea of helping Christopher win and volunteering his best guess about which path would lead to the girls, when he and Christopher stumbled upon the clearing at the centre of the maze.

The clearing was about as large as a modest sized dining room, and square. Four pathways led in and out of the clearing into the maze. In three of the shaped alcoves between each doorway there were statues of classical virtues. In the fourth shaped alcove there was a large, tarnished mirror set into an ornate frame. At the centre of the clearing there was a fountain, upon which a cherub endlessly urinated.

“Ah ha!” declared Christopher, gesturing to Oliver to indicate that he needed his sword (which Oliver dutifully passed), “Victory! We have found the witch’s palace!”

“I thought we were already in the witch’s palace,” said Oliver.

“We have found the witch’s throne room!” Christopher boomed, correcting himself without missing a beat.

“I thought the object of the game was to find the witch and the princess, not the witch’s throne room,” said Oliver.

“Don’t get above yourself, squire Oliver,” said Christopher.

Oliver decided that this settled it. He’d stay out here in this maze all night rather than help the beastly, fat-headed oaf find Geraldine and Molly.

Rather annoyingly for both the boys (albeit for different reasons), Geraldine and Molly chose that exact moment to emerge into the centre of the maze from another entrance.

“Ah ha!” declared Christopher again (and without any shame), “found you!”

Christopher was expecting an argument from Geraldine. He was expecting howls of outrage, protestations that she had found him, that she had won, or that they still must fight over the helpless princess (her magic against his sword) before the winner could be declared. He was expecting Oliver to treacherously back Geraldine’s position over his (Christopher always thought Oliver was more like a girl than a boy anyway). Strangely, however, none of this controversy (to which he was covertly looking forward) occurred. Instead, there was stillness and silence in the little clearing. It took Christopher a good few moments to realise that the other three were no longer paying him any attention, but instead were staring at something behind him.

He whirled round, half suspecting that they were all playing some kind of joke on him, and found himself staring into the decorative mirror. With an effort, he looked past himself and saw what was behind him, the thing that the others were are staring at.

In the mirror, the statues were alive. Each one, including the cherub who was relieving himself into the fountain, had turned to look at the mirror, and thus to look out of the mirror at the children who stared at it. One of the statues - the embodiment of