If anyone had left the kitchen before coffee, Carla would have been discovered in the hall. But as fate would have it, they all remained together around the table, each fearful of leaving the room and all feigning holiday good will. Outside the small red figure carried on climbing across furniture, hopping in her peculiar way across the old Indian rug, dedicated to her task. She was homing in on the face.
The face wanted an audience with George’s smallest plasticine figure and the rest of the army stayed behind on their special shelf learning patience, hoping for the call to reform. George’s room gave off a scent of old oil and wherever he went he was shadowed by a solitary figure, watching him, protecting him from those who had betrayed his Aunt.
Carla felt a pull towards the room with the piano and tall plants. It was a left hand room and she altered her head to look inside. Her eyes were tiny and saw the world in variegated colours. No one knew why, but unknowing was the new way, the faith. Her wrists both had a coil of twisted green and blue plasticine about them. She could reform without permission now and this gave her an easeful way of moving that no other figure could yet imitate. She decided to crawl around the door and then propped up her head and stared into the corner next to the French Window.
Dust shimmered in the air as if something had been disturbed, or awakened, something that was now creating its own shape; a mouth, a strong nose, two deep set eyes, dark cheekbones. Dust began to dance.
The face in the wall stared at Carla. The mouth began to move.
