Gribblebob's Book of Unpleasant Goblins

by David Ashby

  They had slowed down, as they were coming close to the Grey Lady’s bungalow.

  “All right, my friends,” said William. “We’re nearly there.”

  “I’ve been thinking, though,” asked Anna.

  “Yes, fair lady?” William full-beamed.

  “About the rip-rider, the one you scared out of Ms Toureau…”

  “Hmm?” William nodded, his full-beam dimming a little.

  “Is it… is it just gone now? Or, or is it floating around somewhere? I mean, what I mean is—”

  “Yes,” he interrupted her. “I think that is the answer to the question you would rather not ask. Yes, the rip-rider could return and could attempt to ride one of us. But I do feel I weakened it.”

  “Oh,” was all Anna could say.

  “Also,” said Nils, filling the gap, “are you a vampire?”

  “What?” William laughed and drew his hand through his long hair. “A vampire? Me? No.”

  “But you turn into a bat.”

  “A bat? No. Not a bat.”

  “Well, you turn into something.”

  “Or maybe something turns into him,” said Bengt suddenly, and everyone turned to look at him.

  William’s eyes narrowed slightly.

  “Sorry,” said Bengt nervously, dropping his gaze to the floor. “I don’t really know where that came from.”

  “But anyway,” went on Nils, “you turn into some type of creature, and it has wings and can fly and has sharp teeth and talons and you drink blood.”

  “Drink blood!” repeated William aghast. Nils merely pointed at William’s T-shirt, the one that had a picture of a bat’s head and said Drink Blood on it.

  “But you told me that your Uncle Oscar had one just like it. Does that make your Uncle Oscar a vampire?”

  “He does mainly come out at night,” said Anna, smiling.

  “Vampire,” smirked Gribblebob, under his breath.

  “I have a question too,” said Bengt. “What’s a True Dreamer?”

  “Ah!” said the goblin. “Now, then. There’s a story and a third. But to spit out the nut of it… they’re old blood. Not shadowfolk, not magic, but they are closer to the things of nature and one step nearer the veil than normal folk. They feel things on their fingertips, see things out of the corner of their eye that most people miss.”

  Dimple barked, and the goblin reached into his pocket and fetched out the other half of the ginger snap, which was gratefully gobbled up, causing the dog’s head to begin coming into view.

  “But why True Dreamers?” pressed Bengt, as Gribblebob ruffled Dimple’s neck.

  “Good boy… Because they hear things in their dreams, get told things, things that end up coming true.”

  “So—”

  “Enough!” William said firmly. “The Grey Lady’s abode lies just ahead.”

  “You still haven’t told us why we need to talk to her,” Anna said.

  “No, I haven’t, have I?” William replied, and he made his way up the higgledy-piggledy path.

  CHAPTER 35

  William stood at the door of the bungalow, Gribblebob by his side, with Dimple slightly behind, then Anna and Nils, side by side, and Bengt bringing up the rear. William rapped heavily on the door and waited.

  No response.

  “It’s Wednesday,” Gribblebob said. “Probably out at bingo or pingball or whatever it is they call it with the trampolines and whatnot.” Anna, Nils and Bengt all looked at each other and just shrugged.

  William rapped again, harder this time, and they heard a shuffling behind the door and a jangling of latches. The door swung open, and there stood a little, old, grey lady, totally living up to her name. She had long silver-grey hair, pulled back tight, striking diamond-grey eyes, sparkling and alive, wrinkled skin that looked like it had been dusted all over with fine sugar-ash from a fireplace, a dark, dove-grey silk scarf at her neck, with a grey quartz clasp, a thick blue-grey knitted dress on, plus grey tights and a pair of big, bushy Bugs Bunny slippers, which rather spoilt the ensemble.

  “Oh my,” she exclaimed, and placed a grey hand over her heart. “Visitors. As I live and breathe.” Her lively eyes took in the group on her doorstep. “And such visitors they are. You’d best come in—I don’t want the neighbours talking.”

  “With all gratitude.” William bowed slightly and entered, the others following.

  She led them to her little living room, which was filled with trinkets and candles and more furniture than you would imagine was strictly necessary in such a small bungalow. There seemed to be tables next to tables, chests of drawers on top of chests of drawers and net curtains double-thick at every window. A TV set was blaring loudly in the corner.

  “Oh, that’s a good show, that is,” said the goblin, “I likes that one,” and he started to watch it, until the Grey Lady toddled over and switched it off.

  “Bloogers,” muttered the goblin. “Never mind, I’ll watch it on catch-up.”

  The little old lady settled herself down into what was obviously her favourite chair, and beckoned the others to sit too.

  “Please do make yourselves comfortable. I’d offer you tea and jam sandwiches, but, honestly, I really can’t be bothered.” She smiled a really sweet old-lady smile. “Besides, I have a feeling you have questions for me. Don’t you, William Wynn?” She looked over at the tall man sitting on her couch.

  “Grey Lady,” he began, “I know you have dwelt on this side of the veil for many a year.”

  “I do so like the television here,” she said, nodding, “and the flushing toilets.”

  “Holy-loo-ya to that, sister,” muttered the goblin under his breath.

  “And I know that one of your particular pastimes is to keep a track of those of us who traverse the veil, for your own entertainment.”

  “Everyone needs a little hobby, William Wynn. Something to keep the mind young and lively. One cannot live by television and toilets alone. Or indeed bingo and trampolines. If you don’t have something to keep you young, you shrivel up and decay like an old packet of fish fingers left out in the rain.” She turned to Gribblebob and looked him up and down with distaste. “You should think about finding yourself a hobby, Robert Gribble, before it’s too late.”

  “Muddy cheek!” blurted out the goblin. “I looks after meself. I’m a fine figure of a goblin, I am.”

  “If you ask me, Mr Robert Gribble, these days I think you’re starting to look rather more like a chipped and hollow garden ornament than the fine figure of a goblin you might well once have been.” She crossed her legs at the ankle, so that both the Bugs Bunny slippers seemed to be looking, and laughing, at the goblin.

  “Hang on a blooming moment!” Gribblebob began. “Is you calling me a muddy garden gnome? A GNOME?” He was actually starting to get a bit angry now.

  “If the fishing rod fits, Mr Gribble, if the fishing rod fits…”

  The goblin put his hand on the arm of the sofa and started to raise himself up. “Now you just—”

  But William put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back down.

  “Please, Grey Lady, I don’t think we have much time. Can you tell us who has recently broken the veil?”

  “Told you she was twoboggleswoggle crazy,” hissed the goblin at nobody in particular. “Gnome indeed.”

  “Shh,” hushed Anna.

  “Very well,” said the old lady, and shifted slightly in her seat. She rolled up the sleeve of her dress and exposed a very intricate, very beautiful, very large tattoo that seemed to cover the whole of her forearm—from her wrist up as far as they could see. There was something about the tattoo that stirred something in Bengt. It was the pattern. He felt perhaps he had seen that strange, very unusual pattern somewhere else. But he couldn’t think where. Then the Grey Lady placed her other hand on her forearm and closed her eyes. She very gently began to rub her hand up and down the tattooed skin of her arm, and, to the surprise of the children, the grey tattoo started to shimmer and sparkle a little.
Immediately after that, small, especially bright pinpricks of light started to thrum and vibrate on the pattern.

  “It looks a little bit like one of those shoppingmall maps that shows you how to get to the food court,” whispered Nils, but Anna shushed him. She was staring intently at the pattern—she recognized it from somewhere too.

  Her eyes remained shut, but the Grey Lady started to talk.

  “There’s all the usual suspects, the ones who’ve been here for a while.” Her eyes flicked open and she stared for a second at the goblin. “The ones who have outstayed their welcome.” Her eyes flicked shut and she continued before Gribblebob could say anything. “But recently there’s been… there’s been you, William Wynn. There’s been… there’s been Hobley Brown, and he came with a flurry of rip-riders, which isn’t so nice, and… yes, that’s it.” She stopped, and opened her eyes.

  “But what about Jack Broadsword?” asked Anna. “We saw him come through, straight after William.”

  “Jack Broadsword?” repeated the Grey Lady, and closed her eyes again. The tattoo glowed brighter again. “No, no Jack Broadsword crossed over recently.” She opened her eyes and sought out Bengt. “I have the sense that Jack Broadsword has been on this side of the veil for a very long time.”

  William put his hands through his hair and looked at Bengt. “Hmm,” he said.

  CHAPTER 36

  “We need to know where Hobley Brown is right now,” said William finally. “Can you tell us, Grey Lady?”

  “Of course I can, William Wynn,” she replied, and she was just about to close her eyes and rub her arm again when Anna asked a question.

  “But what about Mara? The Rider? Can you see if she’s broken the veil too?”

  “Oh, my dear child,” said the Grey Lady. “Mara doesn’t need to break the veil like we do. She goes where she wants, she moves where she will. To her, the veil is nothing more than a puff of wind, a misty swirl. She is here, she is there, she is wherever. Like all her kind, both the good and the bad.”

  “Aha,” said Anna. “I see.”

  “Dis-pressing, ain’t it?” sniffled the goblin.

  “Hobley Brown,” insisted William.

  “Oh my, yes, of course.” The Grey Lady closed her eyes and touched her tattoo. There was a glimmering and a glittering, and then after a moment, she took her hand away and opened her eyes.

  “Hobley Brown, that nasty piece of work, is currently at the village museum—doing something unspeakable with relics, no doubt.”

  William Wynn stood up sharply. “Thank you, Grey Lady, you have done us a fine service.”

  “So much easier than making you tea and jam sandwiches, my dear,” she said happily, rolling down her sleeve again.

  “Come,” urged William, “we must go.”

  As they stood up and headed for the door, Anna turned to the Grey Lady. “I’ve never seen you around the village. What do they call you here? They can’t just call you ‘Grey Lady’.”

  “Well, my dear, here they call me Mrs Naineen Harma, or sometimes ‘that strange old Finnish lady’, which I’ve heard them say when they think I’m busy checking my bingo numbers or my rhubarb.”

  “But you’re not Finnish,” said Anna, puzzled.

  “And your school librarian doesn’t come from Trinidad.” The Grey Lady winked.

  “How did—” began Anna, but the old lady interrupted her as they reached the door.

  “Tell your Granny C I said hello, my dear, and that I might see her at salsa on Saturday.”

  “But—”

  “Tell her to go easy on the tartan. I have a feeling it unsettles Mr Broadchip.”

  “How?…”

  Anna felt like she was being pushed—not unkindly, but very forcefully—out of the door by the little old lady, then the door clanged shut against her back.

  “Rude old plumpleprune, ain’t she?” smirked the goblin.

  “I’ve known worse,” said Nils quietly, looking at the goblin.

  “Quickly,” instructed William. “We must get to the museum. Anna, lead the way.”

  So they all followed Anna as she hurried off to the Uppington Down Little Museum of Curiosities and Antiquities.

  CHAPTER 37

  As they walked briskly down the high street, William asked Gribblebob about the museum.

  “Tell me, goblin, why might Hobley Brown be at the museum? Are there exhibits there from our side of the veil?”

  “It’s a posy billy tea. I ain’t not never been. Too much good stuff on the tellybox to waste time going to a building full of old stuff.”

  Anna shook her head sadly. “You know, you probably do fit in better on our side of the veil than yours.”

  At this, the goblin gave the widest, happiest smile that Anna had ever seen him give.

  “Thanks you! That is the nicey-est thing any one of you thumbjabbers has ever said to me.”

  “It wasn’t meant as a compliment,” she said.

  “Any compliport in a storm,” he said, and continued smiling widely.

  “Anna,” asked William, “what about you? Can you think of anything really unusual or strange in the museum? Something that doesn’t look like it belongs?”

  Anna bit her lip and tried to think back to the last time she’d visited. It had been with the school, but they’d mainly looked at things to do with the history of the village, so more the antiquities than the curiosities.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “Not really, but…”

  Anna started to think about all the strange things they’d seen today. It really had been a most unusual Wednesday, so far.

  “But maybe… maybe the tattoo on the Grey Lady’s arm. Maybe I’ve seen something in the museum with that sort of pattern on. What about you, Bengt? Can you remember seeing anything like it?”

  Bengt looked over at Anna. He remembered being at the museum with her and the others from their history class that day. He thought hard about the pattern on the old lady’s arm—the way the swirls turned in on themselves, the way the inner curves seemed to both cut through and go over and under the outer lines at the same time. He knew it from somewhere inside of him, but he also recalled seeing it at the museum. In one of the smaller back rooms. In the curiosities section.

  “Wasn’t that,” he began, as it came back to him, “wasn’t that same pattern on two little bottles?”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Anna. “You’re right. There were two vials, weren’t there? Two little copper vials—one was really dark, almost brown, and the other was a really light orangey-red.”

  “And they both had that pattern on them, sort of raised up, bright,” added Bengt.

  “Don’t they sound just like the type of thing you could keep tears in?” chipped in Nils.

  “Oh, Nils, yes!” said Anna. “They could hold the tears of a pure-hearted warrior, shed in sorrow on this side of the veil…”

  Bengt turned to William. “Does that pattern mean anything?” he asked.

  William nodded. “It’s a soul seal. It’s the symbol of the True Dreamers.” He looked at Bengt knowingly.

  Bengt stared back at William but said nothing. He wished so much he could grab those scattered memories that were just under the surface; wished he knew why this William Wynn seemed so familiar; wished he knew why the sword felt good in his hand, made him feel more… complete, somehow. He knew that Jack Broadsword was only a name he had made up, but he didn’t think he could have made up someone like William Wynn.

  “Hey!” shouted an angry voice, and Bengt turned to see Frasier McCurdey standing at the door of The Tartan Teapot, which they were passing. Mr Broadchip had been joined by the late-night rush of Lucas Whetstone, old Winnie Hawkins, Amjad Ali and a confused-looking family of four, who’d got off at the the wrong bus stop and now had to wait an hour and a half for the next bus. Everyone looked up at the noise. “What’s some wee bairn doing with a big old sword like that?”

  “I-I…” stuttered Bengt, as he kept on walking.

  �
�The whole wide world’s gone sword crazy tonight,” went on Mr McCurdey. “Tell your other sword-waving friend he’s not welcome back here! Found scratches on my floor where he’d been dragging that humongous great thing. Taking liberties. Taking liberties with my floor, it is!” He started to raise his fist at Bengt as the confused boy hurried to catch up with the others.

  “Dad,” said Isla McCurdey, pulling her father back from the door, “calm down, for heaven’s sake. You’re upsetting poor Mr Broadchip, and he’s only just calmed down from all the noise earlier. He’s still stuck on seventeen down.”

  “Is it national sword day or something? National sword day, and nobody told me? Is seventeen-down a five-letter word for sharp, dangerous weapon that scratches hardworking café owners’ floors? Blooming should be, today!”

  The confused-looking family of four started to look quite uncomfortable, but the Uppington Down regulars, Mr Broadchip aside, were quite used to Frasier McCurdey’s outbursts by now. The incident with the French tourists, Mr McCurdey’s trousers and the misunderstanding over the trifle had become a thing of local legend.

  “Dad!” insisted Isla, pulling her father inside and closing the door. Her eyes followed William Wynn through the big glass window and down the street towards the museum.

  CHAPTER 38

  It was after seven thirty now and the museum was supposed to be shut. But lights could be seen on inside, and the large front doors were standing slightly ajar. William made his way towards them. He turned to his companions.

  “Quiet,” he whispered. “Goblin, leave your hound here.”

  Then he slipped through the heavy front doors. Gribblebob bent to tie Dimple up, as the three children followed William into the museum.

  The entrance itself was dark, but they could just make out the sign—Welcome to the Past! Come and discover the history of Uppington Down and its surrounds—and there was a relief map of the village and the surrounding countryside and hills. The light was bleeding out from one of the side rooms, farther back.