by Ruskin Bond
TOO MUCH
TROUBLE
By the same author:
Angry River
A Little Night Music
A Long Walk for Bina
Hanuman to the Rescue
Ghost Stories from the Raj
Strange Men, Strange Places
The India I Love
Tales and Legends from India
The Blue Umbrella
Ruskin Bond's Children's Omnibus
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-I
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-II
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-III
Rupa Book of Great Animal Stories
The Rupa Book of True Tales of Mystery and Adventure
The Rupa Book of Ruskin Bond's Himalayan Tales
The Rupa Book of Great Suspense Stories
The Rupa Laughter Omnibus
The Rupa Book of Scary Stories
The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses
The Rupa Book of Travellers' Tales
The Rupa Book of Great Crime Stories
The Rupa Book of Nightmare Tales
The Rupa Book of Shikar Stories
The Rupa Book of Love Stories
The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories
The Rupa Book of Heartwarming Stories
The Rupa Book of Thrills and Spills
TOO MUCH
TROUBLE
Ruskin Bond
Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2006
First Published 2006
This edition 2010
Second Impression 2011
Published by
Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj,
New Delhi 110 002
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Ghost Trouble
Contents
Ghost Trouble
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Snake Trouble
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Monkey Trouble
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
It was Grandfather who finally decided that we would have to move to another house.
And it was all because of a Pret, a mischievous north-Indian ghost, who had been making life difficult for everyone.
Prets usually live in peepal trees, and that's where our little ghost first had his home—in the branches of a massive old peepal tree which had grown through the compound wall and spread into our garden. Part of the tree was on our side of the wall, part on the other side, shading the main road. It gave the ghost a good view of the whole area.
For many years the Pret had lived there quite happily, without bothering anyone in our house. It did not bother me, either, and I spent a lot of time in the peepal tree. Sometimes I went there to escape the adults at home, sometimes to watch the road and the people who passed by. The peepal tree was cool on a hot day, and the heart-shaped leaves were always revolving in the breeze. This constant movement of the leaves also helped to disguise the movements of he Pret, so that I never really knew exactly where the was sitting. But he paid no attention to me. The traffic on the road kept him fully occupied.
Sometimes, when a tonga was passing, he would jump down and frighten the pony, and as a result the little pony-cart would go rushing off in the wrong direction.
Sometimes he would get into the engine of a car or a bus, which would have a breakdown soon afterwards.
And he liked to knock the sun-helmets off the heads of sahibs or officials, who would wonder how a strong breeze had sprung up so suddenly, only to die down just as quickly. Although this special kind of ghost could make himself felt, and sometimes heard, he was invisible to the human eye.
I was not invisible to the human eye, and often got the blame for some of the Pret's pranks. If bicycle-riders were struck by mango seeds or apricot stones, they would look up, see a small boy in the branches of the tree, and threaten me with terrible consequences. Drivers who went off after parking their cars in the shade would sometimes come back to find their tyres flat. My protests of innocence did not carry much weight. But when I mentioned the Pret in the tree, they would look uneasy, either because they thought I must be mad, or because they were afraid of ghosts, especially Prets. They would find other things to do and hurry away.
At night no one walked beneath the peepal tree.
It was said that if you yawned beneath the tree, the Pret would jump down your throat and give you a pain. Our gardener, Chandu, who was always taking sick-leave, blamed the Pret for his tummy troubles. Once, when yawning, Chandu had forgotten to put his hand in front of his mouth, and the ghost had got in without any trouble.
Now Chandu spent most of his time lying on a string-bed in the courtyard of his small house. When Grandmother went to visit him, he would start groaning and holding his sides, the pain was so bad; but when she went away, he did not fuss so much. He claimed that the pain did not affect his appetite, and he ate a normal diet, in fact a little more than normal—the extra amount was meant to keep the ghost happy!
Chapter 2
Well, it isn't our fault,' said Grandfather, who had given permission to the Public Works Department to cut the tree, which had been on our land. They wanted to widen the road, and the tree and a bit of our wall were in the way. So both had to go.
Several people protested, including the Raja of Jinn, who lived across the road and who sometimes asked Grandfather over for a game of tennis.
'That peepal tree has been there for hundreds of years,' he said. 'Who are we to cut it down?'
'We,' said the Chief Engineer, 'are the P.W.D.'
And not even a ghost can prevail against the wishes of the Public Works Department.
They brought men with saws and axes, and first they lopped all the branches until the poor tree was quite naked. It must have been at this moment that the Pret moved out. Then they sawed away at the trunk until, finally, the great old peepal came crashing down on the road, bringing down the telephone wires and an electric pole in the process, and knocking a large gap in the Raja's garden wall.
It took them three days to clear the road, and during that time the Chief Engineer swallowed a lot of dust and tree-pollen. For months afterwards he complained of a choking feeling, although no doctor could ever find anything in his throat.
'It's the Pret's doing,' said the Raja knowingly. They should never have cut that tree.'
Deprived of his tree, the Pret decided that he would live in our house.
I first became aware of his presence when I was sitting on the verandah steps, reading a book. A tiny chuckling sound came from behind me. I looked around, but no one was to be seen. When I returned to my book, the chuckling started again. I paid no attention. Then a shower of rose petals fell softly on to the pages of my open book. The Pret wanted me to know he was there!
'All right,' I said. 'So you've come to stay with us. Now let me read.'
He went away then; but as a good Pret has to be bad in order to justify his existence, it was not long before he was up to all sorts of mischief.
He began by hiding Grandmother's spectacles.
'I'm sure I put them down on the dining-table,' she grumbled.
A little later they were found balanced on the snout of a wild boar, whose stuffed and mounted head adorned the verandah wall, a memento of
Grandfather's hunting trips when he was young. Naturally, I was at first blamed for this prank. But a day or two later, when the spectacles disappeared again, only to be found dangling from the bars of the parrot's cage, it was agreed that I was not to blame; for the parrot had once bitten off a piece of my finger, and I did not go near it any more.
The parrot was hanging upside down, trying to peer through one of the lenses. I don't know if they improved his vision, but what he saw certainly made him angry, because the pupils of his eyes went very small and he dug his beak into the spectacle frames, leaving them with a permanent dent. I caught them just before they fell to the floor.
But even without the help of the spectacles, it seemed that our parrot could see the Pret. He would keep turning this way and that, lunging out at unseen fingers, and protecting his tail from the tweaks of invisible hands. He had always refused to learn to talk, but now he became quite voluble and began to chatter in some unknown tongue, often screaming with rage and rolling his eyes in a frenzy.
'We'll have to give that parrot away,' said Grandmother. 'He gets more bad-tempered by the day.'
Grandfather was the next to be troubled.
He went into the garden one morning to find all his prize sweet-peas broken off and lying on the grass. Chandu thought the sparrows had destroyed the flowers, but we didn't think the birds could have finished off every single bloom just before sunrise.
'It must be the Pret,' said Grandfather, and I agreed.
The Pret did not trouble me much, because he remembered me from his peepal-tree days and knew I resented the tree being cut as much as he did. But he liked to catch my attention, and he did this by chuckling and squeaking near me when I was alone, or whispering in my ear when I was with someone else. Gradually I began to make out the occasional word. He had started learning English!
Chapter 3
Uncle Benji, who came to stay with us for long periods when he had little else to do (which was most of the time), was soon to suffer.
He was a heavy sleeper, and once he'd gone to bed he hated being woken up. So when he came to breakfast looking bleary-eyed and miserable, we asked him if he was feeling all right.
'I couldn't sleep a wink last night,' he complained. 'Whenever I was about to fall asleep, the bedclothes would be pulled off the bed. I had to get up at least a dozen times to pick them off the floor.' He stared suspiciously at me. 'Where were you sleeping last night, young man?'
'In Grandfather's room,' I said. 'I've lent you my room.'
'It's that ghost from the peepal tree,' said Grandmother with a sigh.
'Ghost!' exclaimed Uncle Benji. 'I didn't know the house was haunted.'
'It is now,' said Grandmother. 'First my spectacles, then the sweet-peas, and now Benji's bedclothes! What will it be up to next, I wonder?'
We did not have to wonder for long.
There followed a series of minor disasters. Vases fell off tables, pictures fell from walls. Parrots' feathers turned up in the teapot, while the parrot himself let out indignant squawks and swearwords in the middle of the night. Windows which had been closed would be found open, and open windows, closed.
Finally, Uncle Benji found a crow's nest in his bed, and on tossing it out of the window was attacked by two crows.
Then Aunt Ruby came to stay, and things quietened down for a time.
Did Aunt Ruby's powerful personality have an effect on the Pret, or was he just sizing her up?
'I think the Pret has taken a fancy to your aunt,' said Grandfather mischievously. 'He's behaving himself for a change.'
This may have been true, because the parrot, who had picked up some of the English words being tried out by the Pret, now called out, 'Kiss, kiss,' whenever Aunt Ruby was in the room.
'What a charming bird,' said Aunt Ruby.
'You can keep him if you like,' said Grandmother.
One day Aunt Ruby came in to the house covered in rose petals.
'I don't know where they came from,' she exclaimed. 'I was sitting in the garden, drying my hair, when handfuls of petals came showering down on me!'
'It likes you,' said Grandfather.
'What likes me?'
'The ghost.'
'What ghost?'
'The Pret. It came to live in the house when the peepal tree was cut down.'
'What nonsense!' said Aunt Ruby.
'Kiss, kiss!' screamed the parrot.
'There aren't any ghosts, Prets or other kinds,' said Aunt Ruby firmly.
'Kiss, kiss!' screeched the parrot again. Or was it the parrot? The sound seemed to be coming from the ceiling.
'I wish that parrot would shut up.'
'It isn't the parrot,' I said. 'It's the Pret.'
Aunt Ruby gave me a cuff over the ear and stormed out of the room.
But she had offended the Pret. From being her admirer, he turned into her enemy. Somehow her toothpaste got switched with a tube of Grandfather's shaving-cream. When she appeared in the dining-room, foaming at the mouth, we ran for our lives, Uncle Benji shouting that she'd got rabies.
Chapter 4
Two days later Aunt Ruby complained that she had been struck on the nose by a grapefruit, which had leapt mysteriously from the pantry shelf and hurled itself at her.
'If Ruby and Benji stay here much longer, they'll both have nervous breakdowns,' said Grandfather thoughtfully.
'I thought they broke down long ago,' I said.
'None of your cheek,' snapped Aunt Ruby.
'He's in league with that Pret to try and get us out of here,' said Uncle Benji.
'Don't listen to him—you can stay as long as you like,' said Grandmother, who never turned away any of her numerous nephews, nieces, cousins or distant relatives.
The Pret, however, did not feel so hospitable, and the persecution of Aunt Ruby continued.
'When I looked in the mirror this morning,' she complained bitterly, 'I saw a little monster, with huge ears, bulging eyes, flaring nostrils and a toothless grin!'
'You don't look that bad, Aunt Ruby,' I said, trying to be nice.
'It was either you or that imp you call a Pret,' said Aunt Ruby. 'And if it's a ghost, then it's time we all moved to another house.'
Uncle Benji had another idea.
'Let's drive the ghost out,' he said. 'I know a sadhu who rids houses of evil spirits.'
'But the Pret's not evil,' I said. 'Just mischievous.'
Uncle Benji went off to the bazaar and came back a few hours later with a mysterious long-haired man who claimed to be a sadhu—one who has given up all worldly goods, including most of his clothes.
He prowled about the house, and lit incense in all the rooms, despite squawks of protest from the parrot. All the time he chanted various magic spells. He then collected a fee of thirty rupees, and promised that we would not be bothered again by the Pret.
As he was leaving, he was suddenly blessed with a shower—no, it was really a downpour—of dead flowers, decaying leaves, orange peel and banana skins. All spells forgotten, he ran to the gate and made for the safety of the bazaar.
Aunt Ruby declared that it had become impossible to sleep at night because of the devilish chuckling that came from beneath her pillow. She packed her bags and left.
Uncle Benji stayed on. He was still having trouble with his bedclothes, and he was beginning to talk to himself, which was a bad sign.
'Talking to the Pret, Uncle?' I asked innocently, when I caught him at it one day.
He gave me a threatening look. 'What did you say?' he demanded. 'Would you mind repeating that?'
I thought it safer to please him. 'Oh, didn't you hear me?' I said. 'Teaching the parrot, Uncle?'
He glared at me, then walked off in a huff. If he did not leave it was because he was hoping Grandmother would lend him enough money to buy a motorcycle; but Grandmother said he ought to try earning a living first.
One day I found him on the drawing-room sofa, laughing like a madman. Even the parrot was so alarmed that he was silent, h
ead lowered and curious. Uncle Benji was red in the face—literally red all over!
'What happened to your face, Uncle?' I asked.
He stopped laughing and gave me a long hard look. I realized that there had been no joy in his laughter.
'Who painted the wash-basin red without telling me?' he asked in a quavering voice.
As Uncle Benji looked really dangerous, I ran from the room.
'We'll have to move, I suppose,' said Grandfather later. 'Even if it's only for a couple of months. I'm worried about Benji. I've told him that I painted the wash-basin myself but forgot to tell him. He doesn't believe me. He thinks it's the Pret or the boy, or both of them! Benji needs a change. So do we. There's my brother's house at the other end of the town. He won't be using it for a few months. We'll move in next week.'
And so, a few days and several disasters later, we began moving house.
Chapter 5
Two bullock-carts laden with furniture and heavy luggage were sent ahead. Uncle Benji went with them. The roof of our old car was piled high with bags and kitchen utensils. Grandfather took the wheel, I sat beside him, and Granny sat in state at the back.
We set off and had gone some way down the main road when Grandfather started having trouble with the steering-wheel. It appeared to have got loose, and the car began veering about on the road, scattering cyclists, pedestrians, and stray dogs, pigs and hens. A cow refused to move, but we missed it somehow, and then suddenly we were off the road and making for a low wall. Grandfather pressed his foot down on the brake, but we only went faster. 'Watch out!' he shouted.
It was the Raja of Jinn's garden wall, made of single bricks, and the car knocked it down quite easily and went on through it, coming to a stop on the Raja's lawn.
'Now look what you've done,' said Grandmother.
'Well, we missed the flowerbeds,' said Grandfather. 'Someone's been tinkering with the car. Our Pret, no doubt.'
The Raja and two attendants came running towards us.
The Raja was a perfect gentleman, and when he saw that the driver was Grandfather, he beamed with pleasure.