The Palace of Laughter by Jon Berkeley Page A

the shoulder. The tree house seemed quieter and draftier than before. The only sound was the creaking of branches and the soft snores of Lady Partridge, and he realized that the cats had all left.
    â€œWhere have they gone?” whispered Miles.
    â€œTo their Grand High Council, in the gazebo. They hold it every third full moon. We should go and see what they’re saying.”
    Miles stretched and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He pulled Tangerine from his inside pocket, to check that he was all right. Little watched him asshe pulled on the old overcoat. “What do you call him?” she asked.
    â€œTangerine,” said Miles. “He used to be bright orange once, but he’s not too keen on baths.”
    â€œHave you had him for a long time?” said Little.
    Miles nodded. “I’ve always had him,” he said. “He’s the only thing I have that my…that I had when I came to the orphanage.”
    â€œYour parents gave him to you?” said Little softly.
    â€œI suppose so,” said Miles. It was something he did not like to talk about, and he shifted uncomfortably on the creaky floorboards. Mrs. Pinchbucket had told him that his parents had left the orphanage laughing and driven away in a shiny car, leaving him on the doorstep. She told this to all the children, and Miles did not believe it. It was hard to imagine what kind of monsters could leave their children with nasty Mrs. Pinchbucket and her brutish husband, and he preferred to believe that his parents were dead. They had been swallowed by time, and his only link to them was Tangerine.
    â€œCan I see him?” Little reached out her hand. Miles hesitated. He had never parted with Tangerine, not even for a moment. It felt strange to be handing him to someone else. Little took the small bear gently and propped him on her knees.She looked into his clouded glass eyes for a long time, as the tree house creaked gently in the breeze, then she leaned close and whispered something into Tangerine’s ear. She whispered very quietly, and as she did so Miles felt a strange sensation, like the warm breath of some invisible giant, passing through the tree house walls and ruffling his hair before disappearing into the night.
    Little smiled to herself, and put Tangerine down on the floor. Instead of flopping straight over, Tangerine kept his feet, and as Miles watched in disbelief he began to totter across the Persian carpet toward him. It was a wobbly path that he traced, and he fell over several times, picking himself up each time until he reached Miles’s knee. He began to climb, and Miles reached down instinctively to help him. His threadbare fur and saggy stuffing felt the same as they always had, but he wriggled in Miles’s hand, and when Miles tried to help him into his pocket, Tangerine clung to him and squeezed, just as Miles had hugged him ever since he could remember. Suddenly he felt warmer in his thin jacket. He looked at Little, who was watching him with a smile. “How did you do that?” he whispered.
    â€œI found his name in the One Song,” she said,“and I sang it back to him. Don’t ever tell Silverpoint. He’d be very angry.”
    â€œCan you do that with just anything?”
    Little shook her head. “Everything has a name in the One Song, but I am only learning, and there are many things whose names I don’t know. I found Tangerine’s real name there because you brought him to life in your imagination, and you made his name strong and bright, even though you didn’t know it.”
    Tangerine wriggled into his accustomed place in Miles’s pocket. With his head swimming, Miles buttoned his jacket carefully and followed Little down the rope ladder into the swaying weeds below. She set off around the empty mansion, still limping on her bandaged ankle. On the far side of the house the path curved away between the trees and around an old pond, choked now with