by John Larkin
Rebecca and Kevin looked at each other. Weird.
‘So,’ continued the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa, after he’d finished slurping up the dregs of his banana milkshake, ‘what brings you to our beautiful country?’
As knowledgeable and as mystical as the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa appeared to be, if he was aware that he was talking to a horse, then he wasn’t letting on. He’d probably seen a lot in his time as the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa anyway, and chatting to a horse in a café over a banana milkshake and dinosaur donut, probably wouldn’t have even ranked in the top-one-hundred weird things to have happened to him.
‘We’re on a quest, oh chief mystical one-legged Sherpa,’ said Kevin. ‘We seek the one who goes by the applanation of the Amazing Beryl.’ He stood up and allowed the breeze to flap at his orange robes for effect. Unfortunately for Kevin they were inside the café and the only breeze was coming from the reverse-cycle air-conditioning unit above their heads.
Rebecca rolled her eyes. ‘Applanation’? What did that mean? Becoming an honorary mystical one-legged Sherpa was obviously starting to get to Kevin. If he kept it up, Rebecca felt that she might just saw off one of his legs herself. Or at the very least bite it.
‘Ah,’ said the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa. ‘’Tis the Amazing Beryl, whom you seek? Or as we call her, Beryl.’
‘Yes,’ said Rebecca. She was getting excited now. Maybe their quest was nearing its end at long last. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Yes,’ said the mystical one-legged Sherpa. He signalled to the counter to order another round of banana milkshakes. ‘Our mutual friend, Beryl, has gone to live with our goddess Miyo Lungsungama.’
‘Oh,’ said Rebecca. She felt about as deflated as a getaway car on some police road spikes.
‘So she’s living on the top of Mount Everest?’ asked Kevin. ‘Or as we mystical one-legged Sherpas call it . . . er . . .’ Kevin trailed off. ‘What do we call Mount Everest again?’
‘Chomolungma,’ said Kevin’s chief.
‘That’s it,’ said the mystical one-legged Kevin. ‘So she’s living on top of Chomolungma with, er, our goddess sort of person.’
‘Oh no,’ said the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa. ‘Chomolungma cannot support life for very long. The Amazing Beryl would not last five minutes on the summit of Chomolungma, even with her three-bar electric heater on high.’
‘So where is she?’ asked Rebecca.
The chief mystical one-legged Sherpa took his milkshake from the waiter and continued with his story. ‘It seems that we weren’t mystical enough for this Beryl of yours. We have a hut further up the Upper Langtang Valley. We don’t use it in the winter months, you see. It’s far too cold. But it’s open to climbers or trekkers who may have become lost or disorientated and who seek shelter from the wind or the snow, or simply require a place out of the elements to rest for the night. The Amazing Beryl has gone to spend the winter months in the hut, with this toucan of hers, to continue on her path to spiritual enlightenment. The chief one-legged Sherpa lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘Can I let you in on a secret?’
Rebecca and Kevin nodded and huddled in closer.
‘That toucan of hers is no toucan. She’s got a couple of cardboard cylinders and stuck them on a seagull . . . ’
‘We know,’ said Rebecca and Kevin together.
‘It only eats chips,’ continued the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa.
‘So how do we find her?’ asked Rebecca.
‘She has the power,’ said the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa as he looked up to the heavens.
‘What does that mean?’ said Kevin, before remembering that he was speaking to his chief. ‘I mean, what does that mean, oh, chief mystical one-legged Sherpa?’
‘Follow me,’ said the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa. He got up and walked behind the counter of the café.
Rebecca baulked. ‘We can’t go behind there,’ she said. She pointed to a sign on the counter that read: Staff and Management Only.
‘That’s okay,’ said the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa. ‘This café is owned by the brotherhood as indeed are most of the establishments in town.’
Rebecca shook her head. Being a mystical one-legged Sherpa, it seemed, was quite lucrative. She squeezed her massive 300-kilogram frame behind the counter and into the small office at the rear of the café. There the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa pointed to an electrical socket on the wall. It had an extension cord plugged into it that ran across the office floor, outside and into the snow, where it presumably ran out of town and up into the Upper Langtang Valley and into the Amazing Beryl’s hut.
‘Just follow the lead,’ said the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa. Then he turned to Kevin and bowed. ‘I wish you well in your quest, Brother Kevin. I also wish you well on your quest, sister of Brother Kevin.’ And with that the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa walked back out into the café itself and ordered another banana milkshake and dinosaur donut.
35
Rebecca trudged on through the snow that now came all the way up to her knees, or rather, the place on her legs where her knees would have been if horses actually had any. The dreadful wind howled, thrashed and screamed about her like a dreadful howling, thrashing and screaming thing. A loose flap from her horse-sized tracksuit cracked and whipped like the spinnaker of a racing yacht caught at sea in a gale.
The going was slow. Painfully slow. But she had to keep moving. If she gave up now she would just lie down and the snow would bury her alive in minutes. That would be some discovery in years to come. Especially way up here. Rebecca could imagine a group of palentologists palitentologsts those-people-who-dig-up-bones-for-a-living standing around and scratching their heads. ‘Now how do you suppose a horse got up here? And is that a tracksuit it’s wearing?’
Rebecca shook her head and tried not to panic. This, she realised, was exactly the same as her dream. Maybe she was getting hypothermya hyperthmia hypothermmmia really, really cold after all.
Kevin (or the mystical one-legged Kevin as he now insisted on being called) had lost the plot when they’d lost the trail of the extra-extra-long extension cord. The extra-extra-long extension cord had become buried in a blizzard as soon as they’d started climbing higher up into the Upper Langtang Valley. And just like in her dream, Kevin was buried deep down inside his sleeping bag and lying on her back. Rebecca really didn’t know what was the most amazing feat: the legendary Sherpa Wonton piggybacking Colonel Bannister-Smythe all the way down Mount Everest on one foot, or her piggybacking Kevin all the way up the Upper Langtang Valley on four. At least Sherpa Wonton’s epic adventure had been downhill all the way.
‘Are we there yet?’ mumbled Kevin from deep within his sleeping bag. She’d told him that those orange flowing robes of his wouldn’t keep him very warm once they’d set off up the valley, but he wouldn’t listen and had left most of his warm clothes in the mystical one-legged Sherpas’ café. Now he was really suffering. Or rather, Rebecca was suffering because she had to cart him all the way up the frozen Upper Langtang Valley.
She trudged on through the snow.
Suddenly, about halfway up the valley, just as Rebecca was ready to give up and lie down in the snow and let hypothermya hyperthmia hypothermmmia the really, really cold take her, the gale suddenly ceased its relentless howling and the blizzard cleared. And there, not more than a hundred metres away in a clearing, was a hut. Rebecca knew that this was the mystical one-legged Sherpas’ hut because it had a large sign on the front that read:
THIS HUT BELONGS TO THE MYSTICAL ONE-LEGGED SHERPAS
Rebecca galloped up the small incline to the hut, snorting all the way as she did. She knew that this was the hut that the Amazing Beryl was staying in because it had a small sign out the front that read:
The Amazing Beryl. Mystic, Faith Healer, Fortune Teller. For a free reading come inside.
Their quest was almost at an end.
Rebecca tapped gently on
the door of the hut. Kevin climbed down from his perch on his sister’s back.
‘Come in,’ said a cheery voice from inside.
Rebecca and Kevin cautiously stepped into the hut. It was a lot warmer in the hut than it was outside. The Amazing Beryl had a small three-bar electric heater burning away to help keep out the biting cold. Kevin followed the heater’s extension cord as it snaked its way around the Amazing Beryl’s fortune-telling table and disappeared back outside through a small hole in the wall, where it presumably ran all the way down the Upper Langtang Valley and into the chief mystical one-legged Sherpas’ café.
Rebecca simply couldn’t believe how much this was turning out like her dream. All she need were some sparkly red shoes and a bunch of flying monkeys to cart Kevin back home kicking and screaming, and the picture would have been complete.
The Amazing Beryl looked up at Rebecca and smiled. She wasn’t wearing her pink witch’s hat or that lime-green dress that seemed to be made out of ten cent coins. Instead, she was wearing a purple fluorescent tracksuit. Kevin went over to pet the Amazing Beryl’s toucan that was sitting comfortably by the fire on a little cushion. Or at least he did until the toucan pecked him on the finger with its cardboard beak.
‘How may I help you, my dears?’ said the Amazing Beryl.
Rebecca decided to stick with her dream.
‘Well, it’s sort of like this. We came and saw you when the Dingaling Brothers’ Big Top, Flying Monkeys and Sea Slug Circus Extravaganza visited our suburb.’
‘Ah yes,’ said the Amazing Beryl. ‘Such fun times.’
Not for me, thought Rebecca.
‘Anyway,’ said Rebecca. ‘The thing is, you sort of, accidentally I guess, turned me into a horse.’
The Amazing Beryl reeled back in shock. ‘What, my dear? You think that you’re a horse.’ The Amazing Beryl gave her a kindly smile.
‘Um, no,’ replied Rebecca. ‘I don’t think that I’m a horse. I know that I’m a horse.’
The Amazing Beryl closed her eyes and shook her head. Then she opened her eyes and looked at Rebecca again. ‘My dear, you’re not a horse.’
‘Yes I am,’ insisted Rebecca. ‘Look at me.’
‘I am looking at you, my dear,’ said the Amazing Beryl with a kindly smile. Rebecca was starting to get annoyed with the Amazing Beryl smiling kindly all the time.
‘Do you know what I see?’ continued the Amazing Beryl. ‘A little girl who is growing up. Growing up into a teenager and all the confusion and frustration and angst that goes with becoming a teenager.’
‘Yeah, that’s great,’ said Rebecca sarcastically. ‘Very deep and meaningful. You should write a book. The thing is, I’m still a horse!’ she shouted.
‘No, you’re not, my dear,’ said the Amazing Beryl. ‘I don’t have that sort of power.’
Rebecca put her enormous horse head into her hooves. She could feel the tears of frustration trickling down her elongated face and splish-splashing onto the Amazing Beryl’s clarevyont clairevoyent fortune-telling table. If the Amazing Beryl couldn’t see that she’d turned Rebecca into a horse, then she had no hope of being turned back into a twelve-year-old girl.
‘Please don’t cry, my dear.’ The Amazing Beryl handed Rebecca a handkerchief. Rebecca blew a big, wet, chunky, horse-sized snarler into it and then handed it back.
‘That’s okay, my dear,’ said the Amazing Beryl with a kindly smile. ‘You keep it.’
‘You’d better help us, oh, Amazing Beryl,’ threatened Kevin, as he shook his fingers from where the toucan had pecked him. ‘Or I’ll evict you from this hut.’
‘Excuse me?’ said the Amazing Beryl.
Rebecca shook her head. The Amazing Beryl wasn’t aware of her own power, but there was no point getting angry with her and start evicting her from huts.
‘I said you are to help my sister or I will evict you, oh, Amazing Beryl.’
The Amazing Beryl looked at Kevin. ‘The hut belongs to the mystical one-legged Sherpas . . . ’
‘Of whom I’m one,’ said Kevin, and Rebecca shook her head. ‘Of whom I’m one’? That just didn’t sound right.
‘That may be so,’ said the Amazing Beryl. ‘But I’ve leased this hut for a year.’
‘Well, that changes things slightly then, doesn’t it?’ said Kevin.
‘When did you visit me at the circus?’ said the Amazing Beryl, ignoring Kevin and turning her attention back to Rebecca.
Rebecca thought back to their visit to the Dingaling Brothers’ Big Top, Flying Monkeys and Sea Slug Circus Extravaganza. ‘It was a few months ago,’ she sniffed through her tears.
Suddenly the Amazing Beryl brightened. ‘I remember you, now,’ she said. ‘You’re the little girl who wanted to be turned into a horse.’
‘No, I didn’t!’ insisted Rebecca. ‘It was him.’ Rebecca gestured over to where Kevin was practising his hopping.
The Amazing Beryl scratched his head. ‘Your brother wanted to be turned into a horse?’
‘No,’ said Rebecca. ‘He wanted his toy racing car to be turned into a real one. Don’t you see? You got the wishes round the wrong way. I wished for a horse and he wished that his toy racing car was a real one.’
‘But I can’t do any of that,’ said the Amazing Beryl.
‘Yes, you can,’ insisted Rebecca. ‘Look at me!’
‘I am looking at you, my dear, and you’re not a horse.’
‘Look closer,’ Rebecca was practically begging now. ‘And you’ll see me for what I am.’
The Amazing Beryl smiled kindly again. ‘It was the power of suggestion,’ she said. ‘You’re right; I obviously got your wishes round the wrong way. Silly old me. I recall it all so clearly now. When you made your wish I thought, the poor little girl, she obviously hates being a little girl so much that she’d rather be a horse. So you know what I did?’
Rebecca shook her head. ‘No, I don’t. Please tell me.’
‘My poor, dear girl,’ said the Amazing Beryl. ‘I wanted you to see what it would be like to be a horse, so I hypnotised you so that you would see yourself as a horse.’
‘But, but, but,’ Rebecca was confused. ‘But, but what about . . .’
‘Your brother?’ said the Amazing Beryl, and Rebecca nodded. ‘He was in the tent with us, so I had to hypnotise him too, otherwise it wouldn’t have worked. I even remember the incantation that I used: “You won’t win on any racecourse, but from this day on you’ll see yourself as a horse.” It was only meant to be temporary and last about a week or so, but you must have believed it so much that it didn’t wear off.’
‘But, but, but.’ Now Rebecca was really confused. ‘But I did all those things . . . Things that I couldn’t have done unless I was a horse . . .’
‘My dear, dear girl,’ said the Amazing Beryl. ‘You had the power in you all along.’
Rebecca thought back to all those amazing things that she’d done as a horse. She’d broken the world record for the one-hundred-metre sprint at sport. She’d successfully auditioned for the part of Ricky Dixie in Saddle Soar (now that did make sense – as if they’d cast a horse as one of the girls). She’d waded across that flooded river with Daniela’s stunt double on her back. And then she’d . . . then she’d . . . Well, she’d just piggybacked her brother about thirty kilometres up the Upper Langtang Valley to the Amazing Beryl’s leased hut. Eat your heart out, Sherpa Wonton!
‘You see, my dear,’ continued the Amazing Beryl. ‘You could do all those things. You just had to believe in yourself.’
‘So how do I . . . ’ began Rebecca, before she was interrupted by the Amazing Beryl.
‘Come here, the both of you.’
Rebecca and Kevin moved closer to the Amazing Beryl. She placed her hands gently on their heads and told them to close their eyes. ‘Five, four, three, two, one. From this girl, horse goggles be gone.’
Rebecca and Kevin felt a surge of power shoot through them. They slowly, cautiously opened their eyes.
Kevin looked
over at his sister. ‘Welcome back, horse girl.’
Rebecca looked down at her hands. They were no longer hooves. She had fingers again. What a bonus. Never again would she have to sign autographs with a pen shoved in her mouth. She ran her fingers through her hair. Oh, how wonderful that felt.
‘Have you got a mirror?’ asked Rebecca.
The Amazing Beryl opened her handbag and pulled out a small compact. Rebecca opened it up and there she was. The same old Rebecca that she’d always been. She hadn’t been a horse at all. She’d always looked like this. Now that she thought about it she felt a bit sad. The horse was gone. Now there wasn’t anything special about her any more.
‘My dear, sweet girl,’ said the Amazing Beryl as if reading Rebecca’s mind. Maybe she was a proper clarevyont clairevoyent fortune teller after all. ‘You’re still special. Every child in the world is special. Please don’t ever forget that.’
Rebecca smiled at the Amazing Beryl. She was no halfwit, that was for sure. ‘I won’t,’ said Rebecca. ‘And thanks. Thanks for everything.’
When Rebecca and Kevin stepped outside with the Amazing Beryl, Kevin’s eyes widened to the size of startled frisbees. ‘What? Ah. Oooh,’ he said. ‘He . . . Wha . . . Hey,’ he added.
‘I like to give my clients what they wish for,’ said the Amazing Beryl.
Kevin gazed at the Formula One racing car that was standing in the snow outside the Amazing Beryl’s leased hut. Its racing slicks had been replaced by four-wheel drive tyres, but otherwise it was a Formula One racing car.
‘Get in and start her up,’ said the Amazing Beryl.
Kevin climbed into his Formula One racing car and fired up the engine. It throbbed into life with a low, guttural growl like a tyrannosaurus rex hunting a goat.
Rebecca was stunned. She looked over at the Amazing Beryl.
‘Don’t worry,’ whispered the Amazing Beryl to Rebecca. ‘It’s my old bike. And it’s got a wobbly front wheel. I’ve just hypnotised him so that he thinks . . . anyway, you know the rest.’