by Lisa Nicol
Next door, the Taylor boys had resumed airborne combat on the trampoline.
‘The battle of the flying foam monsters has begun,’ declared Ned.
Blue peeked through a hole in the fence to see what a battle of flying foam monsters actually looked like.
Just to spice things up, the Taylor boys had put the sprinkler underneath the trampoline and poured a bottle of washing-up liquid on top. Ned, Riley and Tom were covered head to toe in bubbles.
‘You’re on my team, Tom,’ said Ned.
‘Then Moose is on mine,’ said Riley, scrambling out and hauling the family dog up onto the trampoline. Moose slid and rolled through the white foam, barking at the bubbles. Before long, they were all knee-deep.
How Blue wished she could join in. It looked like so much fun.
That night, Nell, the family’s personal chef, cooked Blue her favourite meal: chicken schnitzel, corn on the cob and white chocolate mousse. That in itself wasn’t unusual. Nell always cooked Blue her favourite meal. What was unusual was the crackly feeling that had steadily filled Blue’s tummy since visiting the Boogaloo Family Clinic of Musical Cures.
Lying awake in bed, her mind hummed. She imagined the possibility that maybe, just maybe, she might get her laughter back. Not being able to laugh was hard to describe to people who could. Things still looked funny. And sounded funny. But they didn’t feel funny anymore. It was as if a cocoon was ever so slowly being wrapped around her. With each and every layer, the world became a little bit more muffled and distant. Although she knew there were much more important wishes to be had – like world peace or an end to global warming – Blue only ever had one wish.
She wanted her laughter back.
She didn’t need uncontrollable laughing fits or full-blown belly laughs. Just an occasional giggle would do.
Before that cocoon sealed her off completely.
CHAPTER 4
Bessie
Promised I’d get round to it, didn’t I? Now, the wonderful Bessie … where to begin?
Well, you already know Bessie is Dr Boogaloo’s wife. According to Dr Boogaloo, Bessie was the magic in his wand. Not that Dr Boogaloo actually used a wand. It was just his way of saying how INDISPENSABLE Bessie was to the Boogaloo Family Clinic of Musical Cures. ‘Thank goodness for Bessie,’ he’d say at least ten times a day. ‘Without Bessie, there’d be no curing anyone!’
Now, apart from his shiny silver suits, Dr Boogaloo looked very much like any other doctor. You know, sensible. Neat and tidy hair, necktie, that sort of thing. And apart from his secret love of jalapeño-pickle-and-fish-flavoured snow cones, he was a fairly ordinary sort of fellow.
Bessie, on the other hand, was anything but. With a fairy-floss cloud of mandarin-orange hair exploding out from under her striped beanie, Bessie was like a rainbow caught up inside a tornado – a firecracker of colour and sound! Her long thin arms were a tangle of bangles, beads and bells, which jingled and chinked as she moved. She wore long peasant skirts that made a gentle but rhythmic swooshing noise as they swept along the floor. Wherever she went, a jingle-jangle-swish-swoosh sound would herald her arrival.
Few people noticed, but inside the folds and ruffles of Bessie’s skirts lived a small family of pygmy possums. In case you’ve never seen a pygmy possum, they’re no bigger than an egg, with impossibly cute microscopic pink hands and feet – all four of which would fit on your thumbnail! Bessie had sewn pockets onto her bright floral aprons so that the little fellows, being nocturnal creatures, had somewhere to sleep. But come night-time, those cinnamon balls with whiskers would emerge. They’d tumble and scramble about, hanging and swinging by their long tails. And if you listened very, very closely to most cures, you could hear their teeny, tiny tuneful squeaks. Indeed, Bessie was convinced her musical marsupials were often the magical note.
That morning, as Blue sat waiting for Bessie, her ears were not yet familiar with the jingle-jangle-swish-swoosh sound that came floating down the corridor and into the waiting room. In fact, Blue didn’t even notice. She’d lost a battle with her better self and surrendered completely to bad manners. Blue was staring mercilessly at a girl whose toes were growing out of her nose. Not that the girl seemed to mind at all. She was happily painting her nose toes with a bright shade of red nail polish.
‘What do you think? Too much? I’ve got a pale pink,’ said the girl. She pulled out a bottle of pixie-dust pink polish and showed it to Blue.
‘Er, um, no, the red’s lovely,’ replied Blue, trying to appear unfazed, as if she’d seen nose toes a million times before. She was so busy seeming unastonished she didn’t even hear Bessie call her name.
‘Good morning, Blue!’ said Bessie a second time and just a little louder.
Startled, Blue looked up to see the glowing mandarin-haired Bessie, her jingle-jangle hand outstretched.
‘I’m Bessie, lovely to meet you,’ she said with a warm smile.
Bessie was wearing a magnificent green velvet skirt with pink flowers and a red-ribbon trim. As Blue shook Bessie’s tuneful hand, out of the corner of her eye she saw two brown furry smudges flip their way up Bessie’s skirt and into her apron pocket.
‘Hello. Um … ah … I think I just saw two mice run up your skirt,’ said Blue, as politely as she could.
‘Oh, ah! Not mice, dear – possums. That’s Dolly and Makeba. They’re just getting themselves comfy for their morning nap, otherwise I’d introduce you. Now, you’re with me today, luv,’ said Bessie. ‘We’re off to the Laughter Clinic, I believe. It’s lovely and sunny outside. Let’s take the bike, shall we?’
‘Okay,’ said Blue, a tad on the shy side and still trying to recover from the nose toes and skirt-dwelling possums.
‘Now, where did I leave my bike?’ Bessie ushered Blue outside. ‘Ah, I remember – it’s over there, near the jacarandas.’
Bessie strode off towards the purple trees. Blue followed. She felt like such a plain Jane next to Bessie. She wished her mother would let her wear colours instead of boring white all the time.
Blue looked around, but she couldn’t see any bike. All she could see was a large jumble of stuff piled up against a tree. But as she got closer, she could see the pile of stuff wasn’t stuff at all. Sure enough, poking out the bottom were two wheels, so Blue guessed that classified as a bicycle. But then, instead of your usual configuration of seat and handlebars, it looked as if an entire orchestra of instruments had collapsed on top. It was the strangest contraption Blue had ever seen.
‘That?’ said Blue, trying very hard not to sound rude.
‘That,’ said Bessie. ‘Isn’t she magnificent? Dr Boogaloo bought it for me from a busker in Scotland. It plays over a million tunes. I call it my iBike.’
The front wheel was like some sort of circular piano with black and white keys, and under a clutter of horns and bells Blue could just make out the handlebars. On one side was a tuba. On the other, half a dozen drums. And where you might have expected to find a seat was a humpy structure with cymbals, flutes, tambourines, a ukulele, a violin and a bassoon, as well as some stringed things Blue had never seen before. At the very back was an upright double bass, and up front were two maracas on long bendy stalks. A swirl of tubes and a web of strings connected instruments, bows and bike. Strangely enough – as if an entire orchestra collapsed on top of a bike wasn’t strange enough – on the front was a small propeller.
Bessie hoisted two cymbals up high like little umbrellas, revealing two seats. ‘Jump on,’ she said, lifting her long skirt and flinging a stripy leg up and over. ‘It’s more comfy than it looks.’
Blue climbed aboard.
‘What music do you like, luv? This bike can play anything.’ Bessie pulled a small lever on what appeared to be the gears. Instead of numbers, the names of every type of music you could imagine spun.
‘Rap, classical, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, pop, blues … what’ll it be?’
‘Oh gosh, I’m not sure,’ said Blue. ‘I don’t know anything about music.�
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‘Don’t worry, I’ll find something nice to go with this autumn sun. Now, let’s get moving.’
Bessie pushed off and pedalled. All at once music began to play.
Blue had never heard anything like it. Instantly, her feet started to tap furiously. The clickety-clack of the driving double bass made her whole body wiggle and shake. She was slightly embarrassed, but at the same time there was no way she could stop. The music made her feel as though she was hanging out the door of a runaway train as it raced across a dusty desert. And it was thrilling!
‘WHAA HOOO!’ yelled Bessie. ‘There’s nothing like rockabilly music in the morning. Makes you want to grab a partner and dance, doesn’t it? I can’t keep my feet still! Perfect for pedalling!’
Bessie and Blue rode into town. Music streamed out behind them like confetti. Children came running into the streets. Adults grabbed each other and danced. And mysteriously, when they turned a corner or rode out of sight, the iBike’s music kept on playing, right until the song ended. A vapour trail of music was left lingering in the air.
Exiting the town on the south side, Bessie and Blue rode on through farming land with rolling hills of corn and wheat and olive trees. The rockabilly music faded away and in its place huge orchestral music began to swell.
‘Landscape-controlled,’ said Bessie over her shoulder.
‘What?’
‘The iBike. Changes tune to suit the landscape.’
Now the music was gentle and soothing with cellos and violins. As they noodled along through fields of strawberries and snow-white lupin, the music changed again. This time, the iBike played an old-school country song. The sort of tune your mother might listen to on a Saturday night when your daddy wasn’t home and she was cooking dinner.
Not Blue’s mother, of course. She never listened to music, especially not in her ‘white phase’. Bernice, her mother’s acoustics counsellor, had convinced her of the therapeutic benefits of ‘white noise’. You know, the sound a radio makes between stations when you’re trying to tune it in. These days, Blue’s mother played it on a constant loop. ‘Bernice said it’ll help me reconnect my consciousness to the time when I was in the womb,’ she’d explained, which explained nothing at all. In fact, Blue had not the slightest idea what the heck it meant (and she had a sneaking suspicion neither did her mother). To Blue, all that white noise made it seem as though they lived inside a jet plane.
Blue and Bessie rounded a bend.
‘Warms days full of sunshine, in the afternoon came rain,’ sang the country singer, who sounded as though she was missing a couple of front teeth.
A loud neon sign appeared, flashing like a Las Vegas casino among the quiet country crops:
Beneath it was a large gate shaped like an open mouth with a tongue poking out.
‘Ah, here we are …’ said Bessie. ‘And right on time!’
CHAPTER 5
The Snorkel Porkel Crumpety Worpel Laughter Clinic
The buzzer next to the gate looked like a pig’s snout. Above it a neat, polite sign:
PLEASE SQUEEZE TO ENTER
Bessie gave it a squeeze. The snout snorted and the gates slid open.
Bessie and Blue rode through and parked the iBike in a stone courtyard. Blue followed Bessie down some steps and through a turquoise wooden door before arriving at the top of a giant yellow slippery slide. Next to the slide was a box of strange garments and another slightly less polite sign:
Greetings, folks!
Please remove high heels and any other ridiculous or pointy clothing before sliding.
P.S. WEDGIE WARNING: Slip on a pair of padded pants, unless you don’t mind a really good buttock burn – it’s awfully steep!
P.P.S. If you read ‘buttock burn’ without the edges of your mouth turning up, please skip testing rooms and move straight to treatment rooms, Level 2.
Blue leant over the edge and looked down. The slide was a near vertical drop before it twisted and turned its way down the hillside. At the end, she could see a funny-shaped round building, which looked a lot like a plump baby’s bottom.
‘That’s the Crumpety Worpel down there,’ said Bessie. ‘No steps, I’m afraid.’
Bessie and Blue pulled out two pairs of padded pants from the box and put them on. Bessie tucked her long skirt into the pants as much as she could. Her thin stripy legs were like candy canes poking out of a giant nappy. The two of them resembled overgrown babies. Bessie tried and failed to swallow a laugh. Without thinking, Blue coughed up a fake one as she always did when other people laughed.
‘AR HA HA HAAR!’
Bessie turned to Blue and smiled. ‘No need to pretend for me, luv. I don’t mind that you can’t laugh. Not one bit. And besides, it’ll only confuse things.’
Blue was taken aback. No one had ever told her that they didn’t mind she couldn’t laugh. Usually, people just called her a sourpuss or a grump or a misery guts. Or thought she was too stupid to get the joke. Blue felt a huge sense of relief. Pretending to laugh was exhausting.
‘All right,’ said Blue. ‘And I don’t mind if you do laugh. I love the sound of laughter, even if I can’t join in.’
‘It’s a deal,’ said Bessie, sticking out a jingly-jangly hand. Blue and Bessie shook on it.
Bessie sat down at the top of the giant slide and gestured for Blue to sit in front.
‘Oh, hang on,’ said Bessie. She zipped up her possum pockets. ‘Don’t want Dolly and Makeba falling out. Okay, ready now.’
Bessie wrapped an arm around Blue’s waist and pushed off. It was like dropping off the end of the Earth. They flew down the slide at breakneck speed, then spun and tumbled over each other as they shot round shoelace loops and curly pigtail bends. Eventually, the slide flattened out and they slowed to a stop at the baby’s bottom.
‘That was SO fun!’ said Blue. ‘Can we do that again?’
‘We will,’ said Bessie, ‘when we leave – backwards! It sucks you up and spits you out the top!’ Bessie laughed. She took off the padded pants, straightened her skirt and checked her pocket possums. ‘Will you look at that? They could sleep through anything, those two. Now, how’d you feel about being tickled?’
Blue realised she’d forgotten all about tickling. ‘I can’t remember the last time someone tickled me.’
‘Well, get ready,’ said Bessie, ‘’cause next up is the Tickle Machine. Completely forgot about the Tickle Machine. Wish I’d taken a pee before we left home. There’s no other way in, I’m afraid.’
The Tickle Machine – in case you’ve never had the pleasure – looks a lot like one of those drive-through car washes. Bessie ushered Blue to stand on a pair of large painted feet at the beginning of a long glass corridor. With a jerk, the floor beneath them began to move. They were on a conveyor belt, and coming towards them like giant feather dusters were four cylindrical spinning arms.
‘Oh no!’ shrieked Bessie, as a rotating wall of feathers and electronic fingers swallowed her up.
Seconds later, the Tickle Machine gobbled up Blue. She could no longer see Bessie, but she could hear her squawking with laughter, begging them to turn it off. Blue could feel fingers squeezing her knees and tickling her armpits, feathers softly brushing under her nose and tickling inside her ears. She realised she must have stopped being tickly when she lost her laughter. Blue didn’t feel a thing other than mild irritation and a sneeze coming on.
Eventually, the Tickle Machine spat Blue and Bessie out into the Laughter Clinic lobby.
Bessie straightened up her skew-whiff stripy beanie. A man with a donkey head looked up at them from behind a counter.
‘Good morning, marmaladies. What can we do for you?’ he said, before proceeding to make a honking noise that sounded like an overweight pelican trying to fly. ‘ORONK … ORONK … ORONK. Sorry, marmaladies. There’s something up my nose. Been bothering me all morning.’ He stuck a finger up his rather large donkey nostril and had a poke around.
‘We’re from Dr Boogaloo’s. We�
�re here for a Laughter Detection Test,’ said Bessie.
‘Not for you, obviously,’ said the man, looking at Bessie and winking, one finger still poking around his nostril. ‘So it must be you,’ he said, looking at Blue while doing an extremely strange, pretend gallop on the spot. ‘Testing Room B, red door – ORONK!’ he honked, pulling his finger out of his nose and pointing up the corridor.
A bulbous blob of green snot the size of an olive flew from his finger and landed SPLATTT on the red door.
‘Yup! That’s the one,’ he said, as the snot olive slid slowly down with a slimy squeak.
‘Thank you,’ said Bessie, turning and leading Blue by the hand up the corridor. ‘Sorry about that,’ she whispered. ‘They have to cater for all types of humour here. Some folks think picking your nose is hysterical.’
Careful to sidestep the snot olive, Blue and Bessie entered Testing Room B.
Inside sat two big armchairs in front of a small stage and screen. Bessie and Blue took a seat. The room was a bit like a tiny cinema, so it made sense when a man came round and offered them both ice-creams.
‘What would you like? Exploding Chocolate, Raspberry ‘n’ Chocolate, Choc-Chip Chocolate …?’ he said, listing the most exotic chocolate flavours Blue had ever heard. The man explained chocolate was excellent for laughter. ‘Loosens up the cheeks,’ he said, grabbing one of his rubbery jowls and giving it a jiggle.
Blue chose a French Raspberry and Ecuadorian Caramel choc top with exploding Swiss chocolate sprinkles. Bessie chose the Amazonian Dark Chocolate with Indian chilli and Himalayan salt rolled in Jamaican coconut.
As they munched on their glamorous, cosmopolitan ice-creams, the lights began to dim.