I hated everything about him. I hated him even more than Will did, if that’s possible. I hated his painted staring wooden eyes and the way his eyelids clicked when Uncle Len pulled the string inside his back, to make them blink. I hated his long thin legs, like dangling rods. I hated his bright red wooden mouth, clacked shut or gaping open as square and wide as the opening in a pillar box. But most of all, I suppose, I hated his chirpy, over-confident voice. You think that sounds mad, I expect. Hate a doll’s voice? A wooden doll can’t speak. But Uncle Len is a ventriloquist. Oh, you never see his lips move, but that’s because you’re too busy staring at Billy sitting on his knee, blinking, and opening and shutting his mouth, and chatting, chatting – forever chatting. I never minded him when I was little. I’m teased about the time I dared stamp my foot and scowl at Uncle Len. ‘Make Wooden Billy speak!’ ‘Not Wooden Billy,’ Uncle Len corrected me. He tapped the rusty tin label screwed along one side of the carrying box.
