by Gavin Bishop
‘Vic Gherkin has lent us his car for the afternoon. He says we should go for a spin, blow away the cobwebs. And give his old Ford a run. He says he’s too busy behind the bar at the pub to take it out much these days.’
‘Can I drive?’ asked BB.
‘Have you got a licence?’ asked his father.
The little boy shook his head.
‘I’ll get dinner on the table,’ said the boys’ mother. ‘The sooner we have it, the sooner we can go.’
The family wolfed down the roast mutton, potatoes, pumpkin and peas as if they had been cast adrift on an ice floe for three weeks without food.
‘Who would like some apple crumble?’
‘No thanks, Mum. No time!’ said Boy. ‘Let’s go!’
The leftover meat and vegetables were put in the safe. The fire was dampered. The dishes were rinsed and stacked in the sink.
‘Ready!’ shouted BB, although he had done nothing to help.
Their grandmother was already on the front lawn with her hat and coat on. She was wearing her best pair of lisle stockings and steadying herself with her walking stick.
‘It’s in case we feel like an ice cream later,’ she said when she saw the boys’ mother looking at the big black patent-leather handbag hanging from her arm.
The old car was where the boys’ dad had parked it after driving it back from the pub. We piled in. The parents sat in the front. The grandmother, the two boys and I sat in the back. The leather seats were very comfortable and there was even a rug to throw over the grandmother’s knees.
The car started first time. Vic Gherkin had said it might have to be cranked, but it coughed into life with only one pull on the ignition. The boys’ dad put the car into gear, and as it rolled off along the gravel a little squeaky song could be heard over the hum of the engine, as if the old car were singing a song of the road.
We drove up through Kingston, past the school to the main road.
‘Left or right?’ asked Dad over his shoulder.
‘Right! Turn right!’ cried Boy. ‘The other way goes over the Devil’s Staircase!’
‘All right, all right,’ said Dad. ‘Keep your hair on! I thought we might go to Queenstown. But we can check out Lumsden instead, if you like.’
He turned right at the Humes’s place.
In the back seat, the old lady handed Boy a ten-shilling note.
‘Hold on to that. You can be the man in the car. When we stop, you can pay for the ice creams.’
Even though the road was dusty and winding, the old lady fell asleep. The boys didn’t notice. They were busy playing ‘black dog, white horse’. I couldn’t see out the window very well because I was squashed between BB and his grandmother. Most of me was under the rug.
The sky above the road was what some people called powder blue. A rough white cloud, like the scribble of a two-year-old, sat just above the hills. It was a perfect day for blowing away the cobwebs, even if there wasn’t much of a breeze. The boys’ father wound down his window and stuck his elbow out. He started to sing ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ as a duet with the car’s squeaky song.
He had just reached the end of the first verse when the car gave a lurch. Dad pulled the car to a stop under some willows near a bridge.
‘Look at that temperature gauge! We’ll have to let her cool down before I put some water in the radiator,’ he said.
‘Can we go down to the creek?’ asked Boy.
‘Shush!’ said their mother. ‘Don’t wake Mamma.’
‘It’ll take a mag. nine quake to wake her up,’ said the boys’ dad.
As Boy and BB scrambled out of the back doors of the car, their grandmother, still sound asleep, sank down onto the back seat. I slid to the floor. The boys’ mother reached over from the front seat and pulled the rug up to the old lady’s chin. Only the top half of her head was sticking out.
Outside, I heard the boys’ dad open the car boot. Luckily he found an empty tin can to collect some water in. ‘You kids go ahead. We’ll catch up,’ he called.
With much shouting, the boys raced ahead of their mum and dad towards the bank that led down to the creek. But then I heard the two boys stop and run back towards their parents.
‘Hey, look, those two men over there, on the other side of the bridge,’ said Boy.
‘Where did they come from?’ asked the boys’ dad.
‘Maybe they’re gypsies like in Ruth Fielding?’ said Boy.
‘Don’t let your imagination run away with you,’ said his mother.
I listened as the family slithered down the bank to the edge of the creek. The boys shrieked as they pulled off their shoes and socks and paddled into the cold water. The tin can gurgled when their dad plunged it into the creek and held it down to fill up. The boy’s mum sat on a rock and slapped at a cloud of sandflies.
Above their heads, they would not have seen the two figures hurrying across the bridge to the car under the willows. But from where I was lying on the floor I could see between the front seats, and watched as two young men climbed in and quietly closed the car doors. The one in the driver’s seat looked delighted to see the keys in the ignition. He yanked on the ignition button, and the old car burst into life. The planks on the bridge rattled as the car drove across it. And above the rattling of the planks the car’s squeaky song sang out in the bright sunlit air.
I could imagine the fuss below.
‘That sounds like our car!’ shouted BB.
‘It can’t be,’ said his father. ‘I’ve got the keys in …’ He plunged his hand into his empty pocket.
The boys, followed by their parents, scrambled up the bank and stood staring at the empty space beneath the willow trees.
‘They’ve stolen our car!’ said Boy.
‘They’ve stolen your grandmother!’ cried his mother.
‘What about Teddy One-eye?’ BB burst into tears.
The cloud of dust left by the stolen car blew back across the bridge and drifted over the flummoxed family.
It was lucky they were on the main road to Invercargill, because I heard later it wasn’t long before a freight truck turned up. Boy’s father waved it down. The driver said he would telephone the police as soon as he got to the next petrol station.
In the stolen car, the driver had the accelerator pushed hard against the floor. He was crouching down, looking at the road through the steering wheel.
‘Hey man, look at this! Stirling Moss!’ he shouted. ‘This little buzzer can really go!’
I hung on to the edge of the rug as the car swung around a corner on two wheels. A tall plume of dust billowed out from behind as the car swerved to miss a sheep that had strayed onto the road.
The boys’ grandmother wasn’t disturbed in the slightest by the car’s antics, and I watched with my button eye as she slept on, snug as a bug under her rug.
With my other eye I saw that the temperature gauge was in the red again. If they didn’t let the engine cool down soon, we would be in big trouble.
The Ford raced on. Its squeaky song became shrill and urgent.
Then, in the rear-vision mirror, the driver must have noticed a dark shape forming on the road as the dust cleared near a corner. It was enough for him to see the outline of a police car. His mate opened his window and hung out to look behind them.
‘Come on!’ he shouted. ‘Shake those snakes!’
The old car swung sideways and shot through an open gate into a newly ploughed field. It lurched and bumped across the furrows, and the two thieves were tossed around inside like rag dolls. Their heads hit the roof. I left the floor and jumped forward, lodging myself firmly between the two front seats. The driver glanced down. ‘Goofy-looking bear,’ he muttered, then took no further interest in me. But my glass eye with its excellent vision watched his every move. The car’s song went from a shriek to a squeal.
This was exciting! There was far more excitement and fear in this adventure than any that Boy had taken me on.
The police car followed close
ly behind. At the far side of the field, the stolen car slid down the bank into a wide ditch full of water. Ducks scattered in a flurry of squawks and feathers. Now, much cooler, the old car churned up the bank on the opposite side as the two villains bounced off the side windows and hit the windscreen with their heads.
But, on the back seat, the old lady slept on.
The police car roared across the field like an angry bull. It flew into the air and missed the ditch altogether, crash-landing, front wheels first on the opposite bank.
The Ford driver rammed his foot to the floor. The car catapulted towards a row of macrocarpa trees and squeezed through a narrow gap into a wheat field, then thrashed its way through the soft green of newly sprouted wheat.
‘Ya-hoooooo!’ shouted the young man in the passenger seat. ‘The cops are still after us. Plant it, man!’
Ahead, a barn loomed up. The stolen car swerved to the left and went even faster — until it hit a haystack. A cloud of Rhode Island Reds exploded into the air.
The old car was buried in the middle of the stack, completely covered in hay. The driver couldn’t see where he was going, but that didn’t stop him. He drove even faster. The car feverishly screamed out its song.
On the back seat, the old lady slept on.
The driver of the stolen car turned on the windscreen wipers. Enough of the hay was swept away for him to get a glimpse of a farmer shouting and running out of his farmhouse, still clutching the cup of tea he had been drinking a few moments before. The driver yanked the wheel hard to the right and shot past the corner of the building, missing it by a whisker.
The police car, with its lights flashing and siren screaming, followed in the tracks of the haystack.
The old lady slept on.
The speeding haystack drove across a flowerbed, swept aside a rose trellis, tore down a driveway and out onto the road.
‘Plant ya boot, dude!’ shouted the thief in the passenger seat.
‘What’ya think I’m doing?’ replied the driver.
The old Ford screamed in protest.
‘Faster, go faster!’
And still the old lady slept on.
The car threw off the last of the hay and flew down the road like a bumblebee in a storm. But instead of continuing to gain speed, the Ford began to slow down. The squealing song became a squeaky one once more. Slower and slower went the car, until it stopped.
‘Quick, get out! Cops’ll be here in a minute!’
The two young men didn’t get far. The police pulled alongside, scooped them up and threw them into the back seat of their car.
One of the policemen checked the dash of the stolen Ford. He then tied a towrope to its front bumper.
The old car was out of petrol.
‘Thank you for returning our car,’ said the boys’ dad to the policeman. ‘What do I owe you for the petrol?’
The boys’ mother rushed to open the back door. Her mother woke, felt around for her handbag and threw back the rug.
‘Are we in Lumsden already?’ she asked.
‘It’s just down the road, Mum.’
The shadows were long and blue when they dropped the car off at the Kingston pub. The boy’s dad and the old car had sung together all the way back home.
‘Hope everyone had a good break,’ said Vic Gherkin. As he slipped the car keys back into his pocket, he noticed his car was splattered with mud and several stalks of straw were caught under the windscreen wipers.
‘We had a really exciting time,’ said Boy.
His mother’s eyebrows dropped just a little, but it was enough. Boy said no more. I kept quiet too. It was the best adventure I’d had for years.
‘It was a corker outing,’ added their grandmother. ‘There’s nothing like a Sunday drive to blow away the cobwebs.’
13
A GIRL’S BOOK
I HAD BEEN TO BOY’S SCHOOL many times. I had been to the school sports to watch Boy in a running race. I had watched as Boy and his friends ate sausages dripping with tomato sauce at a school break-up. And one year I even went to a school concert where Boy played a mouse in a play. This time it was Spring Festival Week and today was ‘Favourite Toy Day’. Why Boy decided to take me, I don’t know. It was probably to annoy BB. I certainly wasn’t his favourite toy anymore, even though I wanted to be.
I was displayed with all the other toys at the front of the room. Each child gave a morning talk about their toy and why they chose to bring it along. No sooner had Boy started to speak about me than he was drowned out by laughter. The other children thought he had brought me along as a joke. He probably had. I had seen him grinning as he was getting ready to take me to school that morning. My tattered fur and patched body looked shabby beside the other toys. And when Boy said my name was Teddy One-eye, the room exploded.
After the toy talks, I spent the rest of the day sitting on top of the book cupboard, waiting to go home.
At three o’clock, Boy put his chair up on his desk and hurriedly said, ‘Good afternoon Mr McLeod.’ He stuffed me into his bag. As he jumped from the school porch onto the path, we heard, ‘I know something that you don’t.’
‘I haven’t got time for that, Frankie,’ said Boy. ‘I’ve got to get home.’
‘But I know something real good,’ said Frankie Gibbs.
‘Well, it won’t be as good as what I’m going to hear. My grandma is reading me a book. And it’s really exciting!’
‘What’s so good about a book?’ asked Frankie.
‘Come and find out.’
The two boys raced down the hill and across the stretch of rough ground to the railway line. Boy was ahead. Frankie stumbled along behind. With one hand he tried to stop his school bag from banging against his back, while with the other he managed to poke a sandwich left over from his lunch into his mouth. At the railway line they turned towards Boy’s house. The afternoon train from Invercargill was due any minute. But if the boys were quick, they would be home before it came down the tracks behind them.
Boy’s grandmother had been waiting. But now she was asleep. Her chin on her chest. Her hands in a basin of gooseberries that she had been topping and tailing. The book lay next to her. Boy’s mother was in the garden. The kettle was softly singing on the coal range. Everything was perfect for a story.
‘I brought Frankie with me.’
The old lady woke up. ‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘Do you boys want a piece?’
‘No thanks,’ said Frankie, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jersey. ‘Just had a sandwich.’
‘I’ll get something later, thanks,’ said Boy.
The 3.20 from Invercargill rattled past the gate.
‘That won’t do the washing any good,’ said the old lady as she looked up to see a cloud of black smoke drift past the kitchen window.
‘Mamma … story please,’ said Boy.
‘How did your morning talk go?’ asked his grandmother. She put the basin of gooseberries on the floor to finish later.
‘Okay, I s’pose,’ said Boy. ‘But everyone laughed at Teddy One-eye—’
His grandmother frowned. ‘Where is Teddy?’
Boy pulled me from his bag and sat me beside his grandmother. She pulled me close to her. Then Boy sat down next to me. Frankie found a seat by the window. I suspected he was hedging his bets. If the story turned out to be a fizzer, he could watch what was happening down by the engine shed. I put Frankie out of my mind and focused my best eye on the book so I could follow the words.
Boy’s grandmother smiled. She opened the book and carefully put the three pieces of red wool on the arm of the sofa. She adjusted her glasses. She cleared her throat.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘Chapter Seven: Fellow Travellers …’
Tom stayed outside to do some repairs on the car while Ruth and Helen went into the old abandoned house to shelter from the oncoming storm and to make a cup of tea on their portable stove.
‘“What a lonesome, eerie sort of place,” shivered Helen.’
They heard a noise and thought it was Tom coming inside, but it was two gypsy men. Helen and Ruth quickly hid in another room and listened as the gypsies plotted to rob the Gypsy Queen Zelaya of her treasure. The girls managed to frighten the men away by disturbing some bats that flew out of the chimney and into the room.
Tom finished fixing the car and the three friends left the old house to continue their journey. But …
‘Right at the foot of a hill, and by the shore of a dark lake, the engine died.’
There was nothing else for it: Tom would have to walk to Severn Corners to get help.
The two girls stayed in the car out of the rain. It began to get dark. Through the gloom the girls watched ‘a string of odd-looking wagons moving along the narrow trail down by the lake’s edge.’
The two girls in the car were soon spotted, and several ‘strange-looking people — all swarthy, dark-haired and red-lipped’ — came up the hill to see them.
A pleasant young woman with a baby on her hip offered to take Helen and Ruth to Severn Corners in her caravan.
‘Ruth felt some doubt about going with the woman. She was so dark and foreign looking.’
The girls finally decided to take up the offer of a lift. They followed the woman down to the lakeside where ‘a green van, horses and a handsome driver’ were waiting.
Helen and Ruth climbed aboard. To their horror they saw ‘an old, old crone, sitting on a stool, bent forward with her sharp chin resting on her clenched fists, while her iron-grey elf-locks hung about her wrinkled, nut-brown face.’
The old woman was Queen Zelaya and she was interested to hear that the girls had their own car. She said, ‘“Then your parents are wealthy,” and the fangs in her mouth displayed themselves in a dreadful smile. “It is fine to be rich. The poor gypsy scarcely knows where to lay her head, but you little ladies have great houses and much money — eh?”’
Queen Zelaya made Helen and Ruth her prisoners. Instead of going to Severn Corners, they arrived in a gypsy camp. The girls were forced to sleep in the same caravan as the queen. They pretended to go to sleep but secretly watched while the old crone rummaged through her boxes of money and jewels. She spent a great deal of time admiring a beautiful pearl necklace.