Magpie Tales 5.. The Hand

Who’d have thought when they took over the theatre that Brian would get involved with that stupid puppeteer? ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’ she screamed in her mind. But then Brian was always ready to earn an extra penny or two and when the old man had asked him for help taking down his puppet theatre, Brian had said ‘Yes’ right away.

Earlier in the week, Marge and Brian had been transfixed when the old man had brought out the large wooden puppet from the crate. Its clothes slightly shabby and faded where it had been used over the years, but when the old man pulled its wires it was almost as though it was alive. The theatre audience had laughed and cheered and the cash at the tills rolled in. Brian’s eyes had lit up when he saw the total and he tried to persuade the owner of the doll to stay an extra week. But the puppeteer had said that it wasn’t possible as there were other theatres booked and his puppet needed to be repaired, showing Brian that one hand was slightly damaged where on one occasion it hadn’t quite gone into the crate and it had been trapped by the heavy lid.

Bent and wiry the old man had been all smiles as he and Brian had loaded all the staging and crates onto his cart and that’s when he had asked Brian to ‘Lend him a hand?’ Foolishly Brian had thought, that there were other jobs to do and more money to be earned, as the old man had paid him handsomely for helping to dismantle the puppet theatre, so he answered without a qualm.. ‘Yes, what is it you want?’

‘Thank you, you’ve already given it to me.’ Was the reply and mounting the cart and clicking his tongue he flicked the reigns and his horse walked on and he and the cart lurched forward and was gone.

It was the next day, early morning that Marge heard Brian screaming and she rushed back to their bedroom where Brian was still in bed, a look of horror on his face, holding up at his right arm....... and that was all that was there, just his arm. His hand had gone, quite neatly and cleanly, just the wrist and then nothing!

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