by Heide Goody
“Um, isn’t that food?”
He put the lid on and whizzed the whole lot up. “Not anymore.”
I shrugged. Theo was clearly an expert in making the most of the rules, and who was I to stop him?
I poured the tea and pulled my phone out of my pocket to open a browser window. I was nervous of doing things like this in Adam’s flat as I was certain that Lexi would somehow monitor everything. I wanted to see whether I could find anything like my pendant. I googled magic pendant Crete as a start. There were quite a few results about jewellery that mentioned the word Minoan. It wasn’t a word I knew. I tried it out. “Minoan.”
Theo looked over with interest.
“Minoan?” he said.
“Minoan,” I repeated. “I’m researching this pendant of mine. What does Minoan mean?”
“Something to do with the Minotaur,” said Theo. He poured out his milkshake. It had the consistency of quicksand. A court of law could probably spend weeks debating whether it was a liquid or a solid. “There was a King Minos. In Greek mythology. It’s in my book of Greek myths. The Minotaur was his son. Sort of.”
“Which one’s the Minotaur?” I asked. I’m only really confident on the ones that are in Harry Potter.
“A man with the head of a bull,” said Theo.
I nodded seriously. “Yeah, I’ve seen him on the market. He runs the fruit and veg stall.”
Theo laughed and tried to stick a straw in his milkshake. The milkshake put up a good fight. “The queen gave birth to the minotaur,” he said. “She fell in love with a bull and got the craftsmen to build her a big wooden cow that she climbed inside so the bull might –”
“Woah. Cut,” I said. “Was this a PG-thirteen rated myth?”
“A lot of them are like that. Zeus, he was at it all the time.”
“Okay, I think it’s milkshake time. Save the filthy legends for another day.”
I finished making Uncle Phil’s tea and carried it through towards the back room, along a long hallway lined with packed bookshelves. My phone rang and I put the tea down on a radiator shelf in the hallway to see who it was. Adam.
“Hello Adam,” I said cautiously.
“Lori, I think we need a bit of a chat,” he said. Was he deliberately trying to sound like our dad?
“It’s good to talk,” I said, deliberately chirpy.
“I’ve seen an invoice for three thousand condoms,” he said. “They’ve taken fifteen hundred pounds from my bank.”
“Ah, that.”
“What on earth are you playing at Lori?”
“Three thousand condoms,” I said, playing for time. I couldn’t see a way to deny it, so I decided to go on the offensive. “Well I don’t really think that was my fault to be honest, Adam.”
“What? Are you mad? Did you press the button?”
“I did, yes, but I think that any normal person would have done the same,” I said. “You must have seen that television show where the contestants are locked in a room with nothing but a button to press. The average person lasts three seconds before they press the button.”
“What button?”
“It’s human nature, Adam.”
“Are you comparing what you’ve done to a game show?” he said, his voice going a little squeaky with unrestrained emotion. “This is exactly the sort of immature attitude that’s got you into this situation! You need to be responsible for your own actions. I expect you to pay me back for those condoms.”
“What?” I said. “You can use them, can’t you?”
“Three thousand condoms!”
“It might take you a while, but –”
“Lori, I’m not going to discuss this any further. You’ve messed up and you will pay me back. Now, I’m going to be out of touch for a while – I’ve been booked in as a last-minute replacement for a thing filming in Tierra del Fuego – but you really need to get your act together.”
“You were going to tell me where Mom and Dad are.”
“Not a chance, Lori. You were going to show that you can stand on your own two feet, but from what I can see you need to try much harder!”
He ended the call and I stared at my phone with impotent rage. If I hadn’t been in someone else’s house I would have shouted abuse at Adam, just for the satisfaction of it, but I managed to stop myself from making too much noise. I did blow a big raspberry at the phone before I stuffed it back into my pocket though.
I picked up the cup of tea, took a deep and cleansing breath and went through to find Uncle Phil. I’d expected to find an ancient shell of a man reclining in a hospital bed, but I found a gentle-looking older man sitting in a leather armchair watching a television programme about ant colonies or something. He looked up at me as I set his tea down on a small table beside his chair.
“You don’t look like a Melissa,” he smiled.
“People say that.”
“I must congratulate you.”
“On what?”
“Young Theo’s not laughed so much in a good while.”
I grinned. “He’s a lovely boy.”
He turned his tea cup round to reach the handle.
“Trump-tastic.”
“Pardon?”
He pointed at the tea. “Nice colour that. You get my seal of approval.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I don’t get a lot of praise.”
“Three thousand condoms, eh?” he said with a sly look on his face.
I’d fallen into the trap of assuming that all old people were deaf. I felt my face colour, and quickly replayed the other parts of the conversation in my head. What else had he heard?
“An interesting conundrum,” he said. “Assuming that you don’t have the energy to use them all for their intended purpose.” My face grew hotter and hotter. “You’re too young to remember that soldiers in the Gulf war used them to keep sand out of their rifles, I imagine?”
“Yes.”
“You could always see if the military will take them off your hands.”
“Not the fluorescent ones though,” I said.
He nodded sagely. “Balloon animals for those ones, you could make a fortune as a street entertainer. You’ve got plenty to practise with.”
Uncle Phil was teasing me. I resolved to take it like an adult. “Well if you need any yourself, just pass a message to James. Actually, on second thoughts, don’t.” Sometimes my mouth horrifies my brain.
“Don’t worry, I won’t say a thing,” said Phil, tapping the side of his nose.
“I’d best see how Theo’s getting along,” I said.
As I headed back to the living room, I saw a huge natural history encyclopaedia on a bookshelf and took it with me. I sat down beside Theo and while his dragon did incomprehensible things in a fantasy land on the TV screen, I flicked through to find the entry on fennec foxes. They did live in Africa (I didn’t know that) and, apart from the laser sword and cloak, the one in the game was a surprisingly accurate representation. They really did have giant ears that made their faces look like cute little bats. I showed the picture to Theo.
“Cute,” he said. “Still not as furry as a red fox.”
I felt things spiralling out of my control. Theo was running rings around me and I was supposed to be the adult. I needed to do something. I glanced down at the book, held my pendant and pointed discreetly at the picture of the fennec fox, then I flipped the page and did the same with the red fox.
Moments later there was a movement in the corner of the room.
“Well, what’s this?” I said as innocently as I could.
Theo dropped the controller in surprise as two foxes bolted across the room. The red fox moved very quickly, while the tiny fennec fox trotted daintily on its Bambi legs. Both looked as shocked as Theo at their arrival and, even though both creatures were considerably smaller than I had expected, I realised that I had just unleashed two sharp-toothed carnivores into the house. I had the feeling that perhaps this had been a bad idea. I wished I’d had the
feeling before I brought them to life. Oh, well, nothing to do but persevere with the plan.
“All we need to do now is get hold of them and we can see which one’s the furriest,” I said. “By the way, are we looking for softness of fur, or depth of fur, would you say?”
Theo had recovered from the initial shock enough to consider this.
“I’d say that the depth is the main thing to look for, but we should judge both. Where did they come from though?”
“They were just sort of there,” I said.
“No, they weren’t.”
“Do you have another explanation?”
“No,” he said.
“I wonder how we get hold of them?”
The red fox ran round the room, barking sharply. The fennec fox trembled and yipped each time it shot past. The fennec fox grabbed a cushion between its teeth and carried it into a corner where it chewed experimentally on the tassels.
Theo approached the fennec fox cautiously, wanting a closer look, but I guess he looked as though he wanted to take the cushion away, because the tiny fox ripped a huge chunk off the cushion and retreated under a chair, leaving a flurry of feathers in its wake.
Where had the other one got to? I heard the sound of smashing crockery coming from the kitchen and ran through to stop it. The fox was on the worktop, trying to get its jaws into the breadbin. When it saw me, it shot out of the kitchen again. I followed, pulling the kitchen door closed behind me.
“We ought to try and contain them,” I said to Theo.
“My dad’s going to think I did this on purpose so that I could stay up late,” he said, his face serious.
“No, we’ll make sure your dad knows that you didn’t do this,” I said, wondering how exactly I was going to explain this to James.
The red fox ran up the bookshelf as if it was a staircase. I had no idea foxes could do manoeuvres like that. It didn’t seem to like being at the top though, as it tried to squeeze behind the books, sending everything cascading off the shelf. It moved along the entire shelf in this way, emptying it of its contents: atlases, car owners’ manuals, Readers Digest novels and heavy textbooks. Every thump made it hasten along. It must have decided that it felt too exposed when the shelf was empty, so it made a leap for the next highest thing in the room which was a tall standard lamp. Obviously the lamp wasn’t the most solid thing perch that it could have chosen, so both the lamp and the fox toppled to the floor with an almighty crash. At that moment, the fennec fox made a brief foray out from its hiding place to retrieve the rest of the cushion and shook it savagely from side to side, filling the room with a snowstorm of feathers.
I would say that things were getting out of hand but, in truth, things had got out of hand some time ago and were now trying to destroy everything, possibly including the hand.
“I think Dad might have a packet of dog treats in the jacket he wears when he does the papers,” said Theo.
“That’s an inspired idea, Theo,” I said.
Theo led the way to an under stairs cupboard that was part pantry, part coat storage room. There was a large coat rack, and the walls were lined with bulky packets and tins that would find their way to the kitchen at some point. The feature that I was most interested in was the fact that this cupboard had a door that closed firmly.
“We could try and get them into here,” said Theo.
“Smart thinking, padawan,” I said.
We found the dog treats and laid a path of meaty biscuits into the pantry. I grabbed a broom out of the pantry and hid behind the door. Theo flattened himself against the wall on the other side. The red fox was the first to pick up the trail, and followed it greedily into the pantry. The fennec fox still hadn’t dropped the cushion, but he trotted over, looking for all the world as if he was judging the red fox’s bad table manners. He stood at the doorway of the pantry and I swept him inside with the broom before one of them ran out again. We slammed the door and made sure the catch was in place.
“That was fun,” said Theo.
I nodded, breathing a ragged sigh of relief.
“Why don’t you go and get ready for bed?” I said. “I’ll do a bit of straightening up down here and I’ll try to explain to your dad what the situation is when he returns.”
Theo nodded and headed upstairs.
I quickly began to tidy, starting with righting the lamp and putting the books back on the shelves. I reckoned I had about twenty minutes to undo at least a little of the damage.
I heard a key in the front door before I even got to the end of that thought.
James walked into the room where feathers were still drifting lazily in the air and stopped with the expression of a man who has returned to find his house has been destroyed by the world’s most incompetent babysitter. Because that was what had happened.
“Foxes!” I said.
“You’re a maniac,” he said.
“Theo’s fine,” I added quickly.
“I should never have left him.”
“He’s gone up to get ready for bed, but there’s been a bit of an incident.”
“You think?”
He shook his head and walked towards the under stairs cupboard to put his coat away.
“Don’t go in there,” I said.
“Why ever not?” he said. There was a slur in his voice. He’d clearly had a drink or two.
“Foxes,” I said.
“Real foxes?” He made a disbelieving ‘pfff!’
“Dad! Dad! There are foxes in the house!” said Theo, thundering down the stairs in his pyjamas.
“Foxes? Right.” James gave me a stern look. He had the perfect eyebrows for stern looks. It was actually a little bit sexy. Masterful even. “You got Theo to play along with your nonsense?”
“There really are foxes!” said Theo.
“Really? Where did they come from?” asked James.
“It’s a mystery,” I said. “A complete mystery.”
“We trapped them in the pantry with dog treats. They made a right mess,” said Theo gleefully.
“You need to get to bed, young man. You need your sleep. Say goodbye to Lori. She’s going.”
“Da-ad! How can I sleep when there are foxes in the pantry?” complained Theo.
“You’ll cope,” said James.
Just then, the foxes started to scream. It was the most unearthly, terrifying noise, only slightly muffled by the door. It genuinely sounded like the soundtrack to a horror movie or something. It was accompanied by the crashing of things falling over inside the pantry.
“There’s foxes in the pantry!” yelled James.
“We told you,” said Theo.
“I’m not a liar,” I said.
However squiffy James was, he sobered up instantly.
“Theo, bed. You.” He actually prodded me. “We’re sorting this thing out.”
Chapter 19
“Have you got a plan?” I asked. “Because I get the impression that you’re not, you know, one hundred percent sober.”
“No, I haven’t got a plan at all,” he said. “And yes, I am drunk, because I’ve had a challenging evening. How big are these things?”
I sketched them in the air. “One’s normal fox size.”
“Like a dog?”
“Like a small dog.”
“A Chihuahua?”
“Well, the other’s more of a Chihuahua type of thing. The red fox, it’s… well, it’s a fox. Take a look, just don’t let them out.”
He approached the door and opened it a crack. The screaming sound faltered slightly, and there was an accelerated scrabbling as well. James peered into the cupboard.
“I can’t see anything,” he said.
“Is the light on?” I asked. I was sure that Theo had put a light on in there.
“Yes, the light’s on. I just can’t see any foxes.”
“What? You can hear them in there,” I said, wondering how you could possibly miss a pair of foxes going bonkers in a small cupboard.
He pu
lled the door open and we both stared. The cupboard was empty of foxes, but there was a new feature. A hole in the back wall where there hadn’t been one previously. The foxes were no longer screaming, but they were making a new set of noises somewhere beyond the wall. I wasn’t sure what they were doing exactly, but it sounded as if they were destroying something.
“Does that go outside?” I asked.
“No, it’s just a plaster partition with the garage. Come on.”
James hurried round to the kitchen. I slammed the cupboard door closed, so that the foxes couldn’t come through again. I also picked up the carrier bag full of cakes, with a vague thought of putting some of them back, as James was home so early that he’d never believe I’d eaten them all. I followed James through a door into the garage.
It was an average-sized garage and it was mostly filled with car. I didn’t know anyone put cars in their garages these days.
“That’s Uncle Phil’s Jag,” said James, his voice lowered so that he didn’t spook the two foxes who were rootling through some boxes at the back.
“So, do you live with your uncle?”
“Theo and I are staying here for a while. It’s a temporary thing.”
Then there was a noise from behind. It was the click of the door from the kitchen, the sound of a latch falling into place.
“Tell me you have a key for that.”
“Inside the house,” said James. “Don’t worry, I always bring this out here with me.” He held up the remote-control device from the kitchen. “We can go out the front of the garage.”
“Ah,” I said.
“Ah?”
“I took the batteries out of it for the video game controller.”
He gave a long sigh and put the remote back in his pocket.
“Not to worry,” he said, mostly like he was trying to reassure himself. He thought for a while. “Listen,” he said.
“Listening.”
“I need to thank you for managing to get these things locked away.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“They could have bitten Theo or something. I’m very grateful.”
I smiled. I was obviously a massive fraud who had caused all of these problems in the first place but I wasn’t about to tell him that.