Chapter Six
As Sally's small fingers reached for the door, two big, black hands crawled their way around the outside of the viewing box where she'd found the musical snow globe, clinging to corners and crevasses and cracks in the white white wall. In between the picoseconds, those hands grew along to show long shadow arms, which grew into shoulders, a blank black face, no features, no nose. No mouth. No eyes, save two plump red cherries that dripped thick syrup, and the smell of burnt sugar wafted from him- for oh, it was 'a him', yes. He was most uncontritely a 'him'. He was Mister Fruit Sauce, in a white suit of fine gabardine and a black black tie.
Sally turned the knob; the door began to click. Then she thought better of it and pulled the door closed again.
"Are you out there? You being relative and not potential, that is? If you're potential, I suggest you make yourself plain instead; plain goes so much nicer with tea and marmalade!" she cried out, holding a hand to her ear.
"Little mouse, little mouse, may I come in?" called Mister Fruit Sauce, pouring himself along the lines of the box, scraping backward across the doorframe as if peeling paint could suddenly reverse its fortunes. He and his dark fingers and his clean white suit, they were looking for a way. If the little mouse didn't do something soon, they would find it.
Sally decided she would have been able to handle this one, had she still been a universe. But she was a girl now, slightly irritated and- a little doll, like the one in her fingers back at the party. It would take some thinking. Perhaps a phone call.
"Aunty!" Sally called, snapping her fingers for a direct line to the TARDIS.
A white phone blazed in quiet, stark black crayon on a nearby wall. She reached for it, giggling as the receiver took on shape at her touch, growing out to fill her hand, like a proper phone. She had no use for those cell phone things; no good reception, and besides- Daddy had no good luck with towers…
"Did daddy get a man in, aunty?" Sally ventured into the crayon phone, "I didn't see a building permit on my way here, nor a florist's van, nor a builder's truck. And there aren't any phone lines in here. Do you know who he is? Can't very well see him in here. Shall we have a look?"
A dark window sprouted next to the phone, but with boards on, and nails.
Feeling cheated, Sally huffed into the phone. "Well it isn't like I never did anything for you, aunty! What is this? They aren't even made of buttercream! Just boring old…"
She touched the greyish boards and her fingers sizzled a little; she stuffed them in her mouth and frowned.
"All right, all right! Perhaps fondant would have been the wiser choice. I shan't do it again, aunty. I promise."
Resolved to discover an answer she could live with, Sally grabbed her filmy thick tutu and lifted it over her knees so she could see her pretty white converse. Then, her fists full of spun sugar and vinegar, she plodded back to the door and reached for the lock.