Page 61 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

I got you to dance, and I got you to show me a few of the exercises you did

for hand flexibility, and I got you to talk about your school and its classrooms
full of students obsessed with attaining mastery of puppets. I liked the sound of
it. Your eyes narrowed intently as you spoke of your final year there: The best
two students were permitted to choose two new students and help them through
their first year. It was in your mind to play a part in another puppeteer’s future,
that much was clear. You believed in the work that puppet play can do—you’d
seen it with your own eyes. Before your father began teaching, back in the days

when he performed, you had seen a rod puppet of his go down on its knees
before a girl who sat a little aside from his audience of schoolchildren. This girl
had been looking on with her hair hanging over her face, only partly hiding a
cruel-looking scar; her eyes shone with hatred. Not necessarily hatred of your
father or of puppets or the other children, but a hatred of make-believe, which

did not heal, but was only useful to the people who didn’t need it. Man and long-
bearded puppet left the stage, walked over to the girl, and knelt—the puppet’s
kneeling was of course guided by your father’s hand, and every eye in the
audience was on your father’s face, but his uncertain expression convinced
everyone that the puppet had suddenly expressed a will of its own. “Princess, I
am Merlin, your Merlin,” the puppet man said to the girl. “At your service
forever.”

“Me?” the girl said, suspicious, on the edge of wrath—you just try and make
me the butt of your joke—“Me, a princess? You, at my service?”
“It’s no mistake.” The puppet’s hand moved slowly, reverently; it held its
breath despite having no breath to hold, the girl allowed that wooden hand to
fondly brush her cheek—watching, you were absolutely sure that no hand of
flesh and bone would have been allowed to come that close. “This is the sign by

which we recognize you,” the puppet said, “but if you wish you may continue as
you are in disguise.”
And your father and his puppet returned to the stage, never turning their
backs on the girl, as is the protocol regarding walking away from royalty. The
girl’s teacher cried, but the girl herself just looked as if she was thinking. She
continued to think through the second act of the puppet play, but by the third act
she was clapping and laughing as loudly as the rest of them. I really don’t know

why I thought your reaching the end of that story would be a good moment to
kiss you; I wasn’t entirely surprised that it didn’t work.
—