Frozen Billy by Anne Fine

looked quite frightened.
    Pushing his plate aside, he sprang to his feet. ‘I must be off. I have a man to see, and errands to run.’
    In half a minute he was out of the door. Will calmly watched him go.
    I lifted my brother’s empty plate. ‘Now it’s my turn to ask: “Well, Will?” ’
    He only muttered sourly, ‘I think, if Uncle Len wants a dog to follow him, then he should perhaps take the trouble to feed it.’
    A few nights later, I woke to the sound of busy voices. Raising myself in bed, I listened through the darkness as hard as I could. The earnest talk kept on. I slid my feet out from under the covers and down onto the cold floor. I crept across the room, avoiding boards that creak, and poked my head round the door to hear, quite clearly, Frozen Billy’s voice:
    â€˜. . .  and I assure you it is the very hardest thing, to lose a sister.’
    Then, from the same corner, came my brother’s own tones.
    â€˜But, Frozen Billy, Uncle Len has looked for her in every curiosity shop and every pawnbroker’s.’
    The dummy’s voice was angry. ‘He must look harder and longer . Still Lucy must be somewhere .’
    Then what a chill I felt! Here was my brother, lying alone in his bed, talking of a dummy’s missing wooden sister in both his own and Frozen Billy’s voice. I thought of shaking him from sleep. But then the horrid idea came to me that, startled, he might wake to find himself on the wrong side of that strange barrier between the dummy and the living boy.
    I hurried back to bed and lay in the darkness, telling myself fiercely, ‘Don’t be so foolish, Clarrie! Frozen Billy’s no more than a gangling toy, and children talk to toys.’ I thought back to when I had a doll of my own, remembering how I had longed for her to come to life far more than I’d feared it. I thought of Mother, too, and tried to comfort myself that she would have laid an arm round my shoulders and whispered, ‘Leave Will to his dreams’ (though in my heart I knew it wasn’t true, and she would have felt the same horror as I did).

    And then, a few days later, as I was tying on my bonnet to go to the shop, Will called from his bed to tell me drowsily, ‘Oh, Clarrie, Frozen Billy says you’re to bring home some thread the same blue as his jacket, so the snag in his sleeve can be mended.’
    I took him to be half asleep. But when I came home that evening and tossed the cotton spool on the table, Will said, ‘Frozen Billy will be pleased.’
    â€˜Uncle Len, you mean,’ I corrected him sharply.
    â€˜No,’ Will said, idly enough. ‘Frozen Billy.’ Then, glancing up, he saw the look on my face. ‘Oh, yes, of course!’ he said slyly. ‘It’s truly Uncle Len I meant to say. I’m sorry, Clarrie.’
    He stuck out his hands in a little ‘I was mistaken’ gesture. But his arms moved as stiffly as rods of wood, and, as I stared, he pulled his lips back to bare his pearly teeth like an unfeeling puppet.
    But in his glass-hard eyes there was no smile at all.
    You can imagine, my unease grew deeper till, one night, while Will was plastering the pale cream on his cheeks before the show, I heard a strange dull thud.
    I looked up from the sock I was darning to see Will swivel his head to stare at the carrying box.
    My eyes followed his. ‘What was that?’
    Will didn’t answer, and I was still gazing at the box when I heard Frozen Billy’s voice, all muffled: ‘Let me out! Let me out!’
    Will’s hand, streaked with white paste, stayed, still as alabaster, in front of his face.
    My nerves were jangling. ‘Will,’ I said sharply. ‘Are you playing a trick on me?’
    He turned his mask of a face in my direction. ‘Trick, Clarrie?’
    â€˜Yes. Have you learned so much from Uncle Len that you can even fool me?’
    He drew back his lips,