Free The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu Page A

Scareperson. The thing is, I’m a bit terrified myself, because I need to hold on to this job if I want to remain the little singer’s official neighbour.
    I get my heart ready, transforming it into a terrifying instrument. Up on top of the mountain at Dr Madeleine’s, I used to have fun stuffing all sorts of things inside my clock: pebbles, newspaper, marbles . . . The gears would start screeching, the tick-tock became chaotic and the cuckoo impersonated a miniature bulldozer lumbering around my lungs. It used to horrify Madeleine.
    Half-past ten. I’m glued to the wall of the last carriage, like a Red Indian ready to attack a stagecoach. Brigitte Heim watches me out of the corner of her menacing eye. Imagine my surprise when I notice Miss Acacia calmly sitting in one of the Ghost Train carriages. My stage fright intensifies, making my tick-tock sputter.
    The train sets off, I leap from carriage to carriage, and there she is – my conquest of the Amorous West. I’ve got to put in a consummate performance. My life is at stake. I hurl myself against the carriage walls, my cuckoo clock rattling inside me like a popcorn machine. I glide my icy hour hand against the customers’ backs, and think of Arthur as I start to sing ‘Oh When the Saints.’ A few people shout: ‘What can you do to scare us?’ I just want to escape my own body and project sunlight on to the walls for her to see, so she warms up and yearns for my arms. But instead, as a kind of finale, I appear in the white light for a few seconds, thrusting out my chest in exaggerated fashion. I open my shirt, so people can see the gears moving beneath my skin with each heartbeat. My performance is greeted by an astonishing goat’s shriek from a lady of mature years, and three rounds of fake applause littered with laughter.
    I watch Miss Acacia, hoping that somehow I might have pleased her.
    She smiles like a mischievous sweet-snatcher.
    ‘Is it over? . . . Ah, very good, I didn’t see a thing, but everybody seemed to think it was highly entertaining, congratulations! I didn’t know it was you, but bravo!’
    ‘Thank you . . . and what about the glasses, have you tried them on?’
    ‘Yes. But they’re all bent or broken . . .’
    ‘I chose them like that, so you could wear them without worrying about breaking them!’
    ‘You think I don’t wear glasses because I’m worried about breaking them?’
    ‘No . . .’
    She has this gentle way of laughing, as light as beads tumbling over a xylophone.
    ‘Last stop, everybody off!’ screeches the ostrich in charge.
    The little singer gets up and waves at me discreetly. Her curly hair ripples over her curvy shadow. I wish I could have scared her just a teeny bit, but I’m relieved she didn’t get to see what my heart looks like. It doesn’t matter that I’m a shining sun when I dream at night, old Brigitte has woken my old demons. The toughest carapace in the world sometimes softens in the grip of insomnia.
    In the distance, Miss Acacia’s high heels tinkle rhythmic ally. I relish their sound until I hear my little singer crashing into the exit door. Everybody laughs and nobody helps her. She totters like a well-dressed soak, then disappears.
    Meanwhile, Brigitte Heim has launched into a critique of my performance that goes right over my head, but I think at one point she does utter the words ‘ pay you ’.
    I can’t wait to catch up with Méliès and tell him all about it. Thrusting my hand into my pockets as I head off, I discover a scrap of paper rolled up into a ball.
    I don’t need glasses to see how accomplished your performance is. Your appointments diary must run to several volumes . . . Will you be able to find the page where you wrote my name?
    I make the conjurer who tends to my heart read the message, between two rounds of cards.
    ‘Hmm, I see . . . your Miss Acacia isn’t like the other singers I’ve known, she’s not self-centred. That means she’s not entirely