The Man with Two Faces

Part One. The Door in the Field

On Monday morning, there was a door in the middle of the school field.

It was just a door. A tall green wooden one, with a brass knocker and a letter box. It stood in the wet grass with no wall round it and no house behind it. It was open, and you could see straight through it to the other side of the field.

Nobody had put it there. But somebody had to have, because it had definitely not been there on Friday.

"It's a door," said Kenji.

"We know it's a door," said Maya. "The question is what it's a door to."

Felix was the one who noticed that it wasn't the only one. All the doors in the school were behaving strangely. The front doors were swinging open and shut, open and shut, with no wind at all. The Year One door opened, and behind it was the dinner hall. The cupboard door opened, and behind it was the playground. Ollie went to the toilets and came back from the Reception coat pegs, looking worried.

"I went in one door and came out of another," he said. "And I'm still hungry."

Alex walked through the green door in the field, to see what happened. He came out of the other side in exactly the same place, only facing backwards.

"Well?" said Felix.

"It's a very good door," said Alex, "for turning round."

That's when we heard somebody say "Welcome," and somebody else say "Goodbye," both at once.

Part Two. The Man on the Step

He was sitting on the front step.

He was tall, and he wore a long cloak the colour of old keys. A big ring of keys hung from his belt, jingling every time he moved. He had a walking stick, and a very fine beard.

And he had two faces.

We had seen him in the doorway on Friday night, but you don't really believe it until you see it in daylight. There was one face looking out at the road, and one looking back at the school, on the front and back of the same head. They had the same nose and the same beard. But the face looking out had bright, crinkly eyes, and was smiling so hard its cheeks must have hurt. The one looking in was quiet and tired, with a small, sad mouth.

They were not looking at each other. They were looking as far apart as two faces can.

"Welcome," said the bright face, to the road.

"Goodbye," said the quiet face, to the school.

His badge was pinned to his cloak. It said Mister Janus, Doors and Keys.

"Excuse me," said Dot. She is in Reception, and she is not scared of anything. "Why are all the doors wrong?"

"Through there," said the bright face, pointing at the road.

"Back there," said the quiet face, pointing at the school.

They both turned to glare at the other one. Neither of them could, because they were on the same head.

Part Three. Maya's Evidence

"Evidence number one," said Maya, opening her notebook. "A big ring of keys."

"Evidence number two. A badge that says Doors. Evidence number three. He has two faces." She looked at the man. "That's not even evidence. That's just a fact."

"He's Janus," she said. "He's Roman. Two thousand years ago, in Rome, people thought he was the god of doors and gates. And of beginnings and endings, which are the same thing, if you think about it. Every time something starts, something else stops."

"Like Monday," said Ollie.

"Like Monday," said Maya. "One face looks back at what has been, and one looks forward at what's coming. And his month is January, because that's the door at the start of the year. It's named after him."

"I've never been named after a month," said Kenji, impressed.

"The Romans prayed to him first," said Maya. "Before any other god. Because to reach any of the others, you have to go through a door. And somebody has to be holding it."

"Somebody has been," said Felix slowly. "Every time."

We thought about all the gods who had arrived at our school, one by one, on a Monday morning. Not one of them had had trouble with the front door.

Willow looked at the man's feet. She was thinking about doors, in the way that cats do.

Part Four. The Visitor Who Had Nowhere to Go

"I know one story about him," said Maya. "It's a good one."

She cleared her throat. Everyone sat down on the bottom step.

"Once, in the old days, there was a god called Saturn. He had been kicked out of his home in the sky. He had no house, and no friends, and nothing to eat. So he came down to earth, and walked for a very long time. And at last he came to a hill, and on the hill was a gate. And behind the gate lived Janus."

"Did he open it?" said Dot.

"He opened it before Saturn even knocked," said Maya. "He said, Come in, you look tired. He gave him tea, and a bed, and half of his hill. Saturn stayed. They looked after the land together, and taught people how to grow things. And for a long time, people say, nobody even locked their doors."

"That's lovely," said Kenji.

"There's a sad bit too," said Maya. "In Rome, they built a temple to Janus with a great pair of doors. In times of trouble, the doors were left wide open, so he could go out and help. In peaceful times, they were shut. But in all the years that followed, they were almost always open. Janus must have spent a very long time holding the door for people on their way out."

The man on the step gave a very small sigh. It was the quiet face.

Part Five. The Argument

It turned out the two faces had had a fight.

We got it out of them a bit at a time, because they would only talk through us. The bright face said it to Alex, and the quiet face said it to Felix, and we passed it along.

On Sunday night, the bright face had opened every door in the school, to let in the new week.

"It's a lovely week," said the bright face. "There's a new reading book. There's fish-finger Friday. It wanted to come in."

But the quiet face said it was too soon. Nobody had said goodbye to the old week yet. Nobody had tidied up the weekend. Everyone just charged straight through, and nobody looked back.

"He never lets me finish," said the quiet face.

"He never lets me start!" said the bright face.

"I'm not speaking to him."

"I'm not speaking to him."

"You're the same person," said Maya.

"We are NOT," said both faces, at exactly the same time. And they looked so cross that Alex and Felix nearly laughed. We all knew that argument. We'd all had it, many times, in the back of the car.

But then the keys began to rattle on Mister Janus's belt. And the doors, all through the school, began to swing.

Part Six. Doors to Everywhere

By break time, nobody knew where any door went.

If the bright face was winning, the door opened onto somewhere new. If the quiet face was winning, it slammed shut. Every few seconds, it swapped. It was like a very big, very fast game of Snap.

Mister Harris opened the staff room door, to tell everyone off, and walked straight into the middle of an ancient Roman market. He came back a minute later in a bedsheet, holding half a plum. "I've been abroad," he said, in a strange voice.

Ollie opened the dinner hall door and found next Wednesday's lunch. He wasn't allowed to eat any, but he was allowed to smell it. He said it was sausages.

The Lost Property door, under the stairs, opened onto a huge grey room with a thousand odd gloves in it. Madam Simurgh was standing in the middle, quite calm. Dot was thrilled. She said it was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and had to be dragged out.

Our own classroom door opened onto the sea. There was a beach, and a seagull, and a lot of nothing. And then the door slammed again, and when it opened, there was only the classroom.

"It's getting worse," whispered Maya. "Doors don't just let you through. They keep things in order. Without them, everything's just..."

"Everywhere," said Kenji.

Part Seven. Locked

At two o'clock, the quiet face began to win.

Doors started to lock. Not one at a time, but all through the school, clunk, clunk, clunk, as if an enormous invisible caretaker was walking round with a bunch of keys. The cupboard door locked, with Mister Heston inside it, shouting about his anvil. The hall door locked, with Year Three still in the middle of their recorders. The staff room locked, with the kettle on.

Mister Hadad tried to open the front door with a bit of weather. He sent a small bolt of lightning at it. It did nothing at all, but it made the door look rather hurt.

Our own class stood in the corridor with our coats on. Mister Harris was sweating. His bedsheet had come untucked.

"It's only a door," he kept saying. "I'm sure it's only a door."

"It's not only a door," said the bright face, wretchedly, from the step. "If the great doors close, with me like this, they'll stay shut."

"For how long?" said Felix.

"Until I can open them," said the quiet face. "And I can't open anything if I'm not speaking to myself."

"So how long?"

Mister Janus looked in both directions. He looked into the school, and out at the road, and both faces went pale.

"Until the start of the year," he whispered. "Until January."

Ollie did the sum on his fingers. He ran out of fingers.

Part Eight. Three O'Clock

At half past two, the great front doors began to close.

They were enormous, and made of oak, and nobody had ever seen them move so slowly. They swung together with a long, low creak, like a very old gate in a very old story.

We could see out through the gap. The lane was filling up. It was nearly home time, and the grown-ups were arriving: mums and dads and grandmas and a man with a dog. They stood at the gate with their coats flapping, looking at the school. They couldn't get in. We couldn't get out. The gap between the doors was as wide as a wardrobe. Then as wide as a bookcase. Then as wide as a cat.

"Is it going to shut?" said Dot.

"Yes," said Maya, in a very small voice.

That's when a Bengal cat walked calmly down the corridor, past all of us, and stepped into the gap.

She stopped, right in the middle. She sat down.

Half of Willow was in the school, and half of her was out in the lane. She put her tail on one side of the doorway, and her nose on the other. She looked at the two great doors as if she'd seen a hundred doors in her life, and not been impressed by any of them.

The doors came together. They touched her fur.

She did not move.

Part Nine. The Cat Who Wouldn't Decide

You have to understand about cats and doors.

Every cat in the world, at some point, stands in a doorway and cannot decide whether she wants to be in or out. She stands there for ever. You say, "Are you coming in?" She doesn't look at you. You say, "Then go out." She does not do that either. She is quite happy being neither.

Willow had been doing this all her life, and she was very good at it.

The doors leaned on her. The wood creaked. Mister Janus groaned, from the step, as if it was his own ribs. But Willow just narrowed her golden eyes, and sat there, as heavy as a sack of flour, and refused to be shut in or shut out.

"She can't hold it for ever," whispered Kenji.

"She's holding it right now," whispered Dot.

"Ten minutes," said Maya, looking at her watch. "Perhaps. Perhaps not even that."

"We've got to do something," said Alex.

"It's about the faces," said Felix. "It's only about the faces."

He grabbed Alex's sleeve. His voice dropped.

"Alex, do you remember the first day?"

Part Ten. The First Day

Most of us remembered it too, because we were in Reception then, on the same terrible, brilliant morning.

It was a year ago last September, in the playground, beside the front doors. The grown-ups had brought us in a crowd and were saying goodbye. Nana had gone down on her knees in front of Alex. His bottom lip was shaking so hard it looked like a tiny earthquake. His hand held on to hers as if it was glued.

"I don't want to go in," Alex had said. "I don't like it."

And Felix, who'd been behind him, said, "Come on. It's going to be brilliant."

But after lunch, it had been the other way round. Felix had seen the clock, and the coats, and had started to cry. He wanted Nana, and his pillow, and his bed. And Alex, who'd been happy all day, said, "It's all right. It's nearly home time. We can come back tomorrow."

"We were both," said Felix, now, in the corridor, as the doors creaked. "At lunch, you were sad, and I was glad. Then I was sad, and you were glad."

"And then at the end," said Alex, "we were both. Sad to go. And glad to come back."

"Both," said Felix. "At the same time."

Alex's eyes went wide.

"That's what's wrong with Mister Janus," he said.

Part Eleven. Felix Goes First

They marched out onto the front step.

They didn't do it as a plan. They just went, and the rest of us followed in a bunch, and stood a little way back.

Mister Janus had his head in his hands. Both faces were pointed at the ground, which was an odd thing to see, like a man looking at his own knees from both ends.

Felix went first. He stood in front of the quiet face, and cleared his throat.

"Hello," he said. "We know you don't want to say it. But we'd like to ask you something."

The quiet face lifted. It looked at him with huge, sad eyes.

"I do want to say hello," it said. "I only don't want to say goodbye."

"Why not?" said Felix.

"Because it hurts," said the quiet face. "I have watched so many goodbyes. Hundreds, at the gate. Hands waving. Little faces looking out of windows. And every time, I think: that's one more that's gone. I can't hold the doors open for ever. So I keep them shut."

Felix put his hand on the man's cloak.

"I know," he said. "I used to cry on the way in, too."

Alex, on the other side of the step, was already talking to the bright face.

"And you don't ever want to stop," said Alex.

"Stop?" said the bright face. "Why would I stop? There's a whole wonderful week."

"I know," said Alex. "But the quiet one's right, too. You've never said goodbye to the weekend. It's like going out in your pyjamas."

Part Twelve. Swapping

"They're both right," said Felix.

"That's what we've been saying," muttered the quiet face.

"No," said Alex. "You've been saying the other one's wrong."

"Let's swap," said Felix.

Alex stepped round the cloak and stood in front of the quiet face. Felix stepped round the other way, and stood in front of the bright one. They looked at each other over Mister Janus's shoulders, and nodded.

"I'll tell you something," said Alex, to the quiet face. "Goodbye isn't a door that shuts. It's a door that you wave through."

"And hello is the same door," said Felix, to the bright face, "from the other side."

Neither of the faces said anything.

"When we left Reception, we said goodbye to the old classroom," said Alex. "We had a party. We said thank you to the coat pegs."

"And then we said hello to Year One," said Felix. "We said hello to the new coat pegs. And we were still sad about the old ones. But you can be."

"You can be both?" said the quiet face.

"At the very same time," said Alex.

"You are," said Felix. "You've got two faces. Two faces, one head. You're doing it right now. You just can't see each other."

That's when something amazing happened.

Part Thirteen. Both at Once

The bright face turned slowly toward the quiet one.

It was the most extraordinary thing we've ever seen, and I'm including the day the sky cracked. Mister Janus's whole head rotated, one little click at a time, until the two faces were nose to nose. They'd been looking in opposite directions for so long that they'd forgotten how.

They stared at each other.

"You look awful," said the bright face.

"So do you," said the quiet face. "You've gone grey."

"I haven't slept," said the bright face. "I've been shouting at you for two days."

"I've been shouting back," said the quiet face. "I'm sorry I said you never let me finish."

"I'm sorry I said you never let me start."

"I do want to start," said the quiet face, quite small. "It's only that I want to finish first."

"Then finish," said the bright face, and it was so kind that the quiet face laughed.

It was a funny laugh, like a creaking hinge. And the keys on Mister Janus's belt stopped rattling, all at once.

Then the bright face said, softly, "Goodbye, weekend." And the quiet face said, "Welcome, Monday." And from the gap between the great doors, there was a long, low sound, like a very big breath being let out.

Part Fourteen. The Doors Go Back

The great doors swung wide open.

Willow stepped out of the gap with enormous dignity. She walked three paces, sat down, and washed her face, as if she had never been a pillar of the school in her life. Dot ran to hug her. Willow permitted it, for exactly two seconds.

All through the school, we heard the doors. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. They were unlocking. The cupboard door opened, and Mister Heston came out with an anvil on his foot. The hall door opened, and Year Three stopped playing their recorders so suddenly that it sounded like a bag of ducks going to sleep. The kettle in the staff room, which had been boiling for forty minutes, clicked off with a sigh.

Every door was finally a door to the place it was meant to be.

Even the green door in the field. It walked itself across the grass, without any legs, and stood neatly at the side of the playground, with its knocker polished. It wanted to be a gate, we think. It looked very pleased.

Mister Harris came out last. He was holding his clipboard. He was wearing the bedsheet. He looked at the parents in the lane, and at the two boys on the step, and at his own shoes.

"I'd like to say something," he said, "and I'd like everyone to listen."

Part Fifteen. What Mister Harris Said

"I hate goodbyes," said Mister Harris.

Nobody laughed. The parents at the gate went quiet.

"I always have. Every afternoon, I stand at the gate with my clipboard, so that nobody can see my face. I pretend to count children. I'm not counting at all. I'm just being brave." He wiped his nose on the bedsheet. "I thought it was only me."

"It's not only you," said Mrs Idun, coming out of the orchard with a basket. She was looking younger than ever. "Not even a little."

"It's not only you," said Mister Hadad, who had once been afraid of windows.

"I cried at a lollipop yesterday," said Madam Simurgh, and the whole staff turned to look at her, and she said, "It was a very nice lollipop."

And Baba Yaga said, loudly, "I do not cry. It is the onions," which made everyone laugh at once, even Mister Harris, with tears still on his face.

That's what we remember most about that afternoon. It was the first time we'd ever seen every grown-up at the school laugh and sniff at the same time, in the same breath. We hadn't known you could.

Part Sixteen. What Mister Janus Said

At the end of the day, when everyone had gone home, Mister Janus sat down on the step.

It had started to rain, a soft grey drizzle that smelled of leaves. Nana was waiting at the gate with an umbrella, tapping her foot, but she let us have another minute. Mister Janus's keys lay across his knee. The bright face and the quiet face sat so close together that their noses almost touched.

"I have something to tell you," said the bright face.

"We're going to say it together," said the quiet face. "We've had a lot of practice."

"You can be sad at a goodbye, and glad at a hello," said the bright face.

"At the very same time," said the quiet face.

"Neither one cancels the other," said the bright face.

"And you don't have to choose," they said, together. "You can have a sad face and a glad face, on the same head. That is not a muddle. That is just what it is to be alive."

Felix was quiet for a bit.

"So when I go in at the door," he said, "and Nana waves at the gate..."

"You're sad and glad," said Alex.

"It's allowed," said both faces.

Maya didn't underline anything. She drew a tiny door in her notebook, and put a smiling face on each side.

Then Mister Janus took the biggest key off his ring. It was dull and golden and heavy, with two teeth, like two faces. He pressed it into Alex's hand. Then he took off the second-biggest, which was exactly the same, and put it into Felix's.

Part Seventeen. Locking Up Properly

"You really must lock up properly," said Mister Janus.

"We'll do it," said Alex.

"Every night," said Felix.

"The way you do it matters," said the bright face. "It's not for locking the school against the world. It's for tucking it in. You say goodbye to the day, and thank it, and you turn the key once. And then you say hello to tomorrow, and you turn the key once more."

Alex went to the front doors. He put the key in the lock, and said, "Goodbye, Monday. You were very odd." He turned it.

Felix put his key in beside Alex's. "Hello, Tuesday," he said. "Please be normal." And he turned it.

Clunk. The sound was warm and round. Every door in the school settled. Even the cupboard doors seemed to relax.

The rain stopped. A single star came out over the school, as if it had been waiting for the lock.

That's when Willow, who had been sitting very still on the wall, suddenly stood up. She looked down the road, toward the gate, and her fur went up in a puff.

There was a white cow standing in the lane.

She had red ears, and she was chewing the hedge. Round her neck hung a small cross, woven out of rushes. A tiny flame burned on top of it, and didn't burn the rushes at all. And out of the dark behind her, a woman's voice was singing a rhyme about rain, and wells, and cows, that she seemed to be making up as she went along.

Alex and Felix looked at each other, with the front door shut safely behind them. They said, at exactly the same time, "Monday."

The End.