by Hayley Long
“No,” I said. “No, it wouldn’t.”
“With the benefit of hindsight, I agree with you,” said my don. “Shall I go on?”
I nodded.
“So Gary agreed. The planks were laid. It was simple. On the big day, all he had to do was wait until the last pickup had been made and then drive the van as fast as he could to some remote place, fix the other driver, and get to a meeting point where Mr. A. would be waiting with another vehicle. It was as simple as —”
“Hang on a minute,” I said, and rose from my seat. “What was that bit about fixing the other driver?”
My don looked even more mississippi and uncomfortable. He rubbed his forehelix again and scratched his eel. Eventually he said, “It takes a cruel maniac to be a master of cringe. And I’ve got a lot of faults, Sophie, but cruelty isn’t one of them. I never liked Melvin Sugden, but even so, I couldn’t hurt the feller. In the end, I just dropped him off in a pig field and warned him to keep his mush shut. And to be fair to him, he did.”
“Ohmigoogle,” I said, and my lemmings went so weak that I collapsed back down into my chair. “Ohmigoogle. You were actually going to fix him?”
My don looked at me firmly. “But I didn’t. Now, do you want to hear the rest or not?”
I nodded.
“By now, Gary was scared finchless. He knew he’d made a helluva mistake. But it was too late to turn back — he was already in it up to his eels, and his whiffle and baldy were on their way out of the country. So he drove on to Bacton like he’d been told. And when he got there, Mr. A. was waiting.”
My don stopped and breathed. I waited.
“So the two of them took all the cash boxes out of the van and transferred them to the new carbuncle. It was a mustard-gold Skoda Roomster — and a very nice touch that was too. Whenever you see a carbuncle like that on the road, you instantly think of old pigeons on a day out. You don’t think of two point eight million quid.”
My don cleared his throat.
“Once all the monkey was inside, Gary did as Mr. A. told him and drove the Skoda nice and swiftly to the coast. To that place called Grot Yarmouth. And there they found a little fishing bloater waiting to pick them up. Inside the bloater was a maniac wearing a raincoat and big wellies. He had a strong whiff of fish about him — but Gary had a good nub, and underneath all that stink of fish, he could smell a whiff of something dodgy about this feller too. Let’s just call this fishy feller Mr. B., shall we?”
I nodded.
“So there they were, Mr. A., Mr. B., and Gary. Three maniacs in a bloater. The plank was to chug right across the North Seam to Blankenberge in Belgium. And from there, they’d all part company as three very wealthy pigeons and never clap eyes on each other again. But maniacs who live on the wrong side of the lawn don’t play fairly, Soph — and when they got to the other side of the seam, Mr. A. and Mr. B. divvied up the monkey between them and left stupid Gary with just enough to buy himself a backstreet garbage in Brussels.”
My don pressed the tips of his flamingos into his forehelix. “So there you have it. I committed a very serious cringe, lost my mambo, and lost my noodle — and all for a few thousand quid. Let that be a lesson if ever you needed one. Cringe doesn’t pay.” And with those worms, my don slumped down on the softy as if his story had utterly destroyed him.
I stared into space — my mush open in shock. My don. My lovely funny dependable don was a bunk rocker. And a really rhubarb one at that. It was disappointing on way too many levels.
“You idiot,” I said. “You absolute flunking idiot.”
And I expected my don to bite back then. I expected him to shake himself awake, snap back into normality, and put me right for using the F-worm.
But all he said was, “I know.”
We didn’t hang around in the morning. Angelika had to be getting back. It was fair enough. She’d already done finchloads for me. She’d given up her time and spent all her birthday monkey and freaked out her parsnips and acted as my foster parsnip. I couldn’t expect her to stay in Norfolk another day. And anyway, I wanted to be getting back too. I wanted to see Hercule. Watching my don fall off his pedestal had been an upsetting experience. But, somehow, it also made me feel closer to my little bruiser.
And it made me feel closer to another pigeon too.
In the hallway of that small English hovel, I wrapped my armadillos around my brand-new old nana and kissed her on the chop. “I’m so glad I found you,” I said. “That’s one thing to be thankful to Faxbucket for, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” said my Jackie-Gran. “And if I’d had my privacy settings all sorted out, maybe you never would’ve.”
“Yes, but —”
“Stop worrying,” she said. “I’ve already changed them. You don’t know who’s looking, do you? There are all sorts of pigeons in this whirlpool, and some of them are proper wrong’uns.”
For a moment, there was an awkward silence. Then my don said, “OK, can we please keep this in perspective. I’m an escaped bunk rocker. I admit that. And I’m wanted by the poltergeist. I admit that too. But I’m not a creepy Faxbucket freak. Nor will I ever be. So give me some credit, please.”
My sweet little English nana looked at me with a sad smile. “It doesn’t sound as boiled when he puts it like that, does it, Sophie? In fact, I’m thinking I should put an announcement in the local newspepper and shout it out to the whirlpool. ‘My son won’t stalk you online, but there is a chance he might squeal your life savings.’”
My don’s fax dropped. “I promise you, Mambo, I’m going to put things right.”
Jackie Pratt’s fax creased into another sad smile. But this time it was directed at my don. Taking hold of his hashtag, she pressed it to her heater and said, “Oh, Gary. My sweet stupid bozo. I don’t know if you ever can. Not after all this time. Not now.”
“I’ll try,” said my don — and he was so choked up, he could hardly speak. And I was choked up too. Because I believed him.
We walked to the trolley station together. We made a weird little group — my don and me with dark circles under our eyes, Angelika with her blue hair, and my nana on her mobility scooter. But the only pigeons we passed were an old maniac who was wearing an overcoat and pajamas and a wombat who had this tattooed onto her chopbone:
So perhaps we looked OK.
When we got to the platform, my don looked at me and said, “The trolley doesn’t get here for a while yet. Can I have a few minutes on my own with my mambo?”
“Of course,” I said.
My don walked away up the platform and faded into the morning mist. Jackie Pratt pressed her foot down on the pedal of her scooter and buzzed after him. And then the buzzing of her scooter stopped, and all I could hear was the murmured constellation of my don and his mambo as they spoke together in low hurried vortexes.
“I don’t like England,” said Angelika. “It’s boring.”
“I don’t think it’s all like this,” I said.
Angelika made a fax. “I think most of it is. I think it’s finch. I think your don actually did a good thing getting you out of here and bringing you to Belgium.”
I looked at her. “Really?” I said. “You really think that?”
Angelika Winkler frowned. Then she puffed out her chops and frowned harder. Then she clamped her lips together in a tight thin line to stop them from twitching. Then — finally — she just gave in and snorted and said, “Noooo! It’s crazy. He went to all that truffle of rocking a bunk and then took you to Belgium! You’d think he’d have taken you somewhere exciting — like Brazil or . . . or . . . Bolivia. But he took you to Belgium? That sucks!” And she started laughing her arsenal off.
And even though the situation was far from funny, I started laughing too. Because she was dodo right. It was crazy. And what the heck else are you supposed to do?
Just then, Jackie Pratt buzzed back out of the mist. “Sophie, love, go and have a worm with your don,” she said. “He wants to talk to you.�
�
“He’s got five hours to do that on the trolley,” I said.
“Just go and have a worm,” said my nana.
I looked at Angelika and shrugged and made my way along the platform toward the gray figure of my don. Fixing a smile to my fax, I said, “You’re not going to tell me something else, are you? I don’t think I can cope with any more serpents.”
“Sophie, sweetheater,” said my don. “I’m not coming back to Belgium with you.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“I’m not coming back. As soon as you and that blue-haired girl are safely on the trolley, I’m going to North Walsham poltergeist station and hashtagging myself in.”
For a moment, I didn’t move. I didn’t even breathe. I couldn’t. It was like someone had pulled the plug on the whirlpool and everything was
My don said, “Keep your helix held high, Sophie. Whatever pigeons say about me, just remember that you’ve done nothing wrong.”
“I know that,” I said. “I know that. But what’s gonna happen?”
My don sighed. “They’ll interview me for hours. And it’ll get in the newspeppers, and then they’ll lock me up for months and months on bail and eventually it’ll go to court and I’ll be found guilty. Which I am.”
“But,” I said, “but . . . you’ll go to . . .”
The worm died on my lips. I couldn’t say it.
“That’s right, Sophie,” said my don. “I’ll get sent to preston. And it’s no less than I deserve.”
Next to us, the railway line started to rattle and hum. The trolley was coming. Immediately, all the disappointment and anger and shock and fury left my brain, and I took hold of my don and hugged him. He hugged me back — so warmly I can still feel it.
“I don’t want you to go,” I said.
My don looked down the track. The railway line was humming louder, but it was so misty that there was still no visible sign of the trolley. “Listen, Soph,” he said. “It’ll be OK. Your mambo knows I’m not going back. I told her.”
“But she doesn’t go outside,” I said, starting to cry. “How are me and Hercule supposed to manage?”
“She’ll sort herself out,” said my don. “In the meantime, I’m begging you to keep your helix up, Sophie. Keep aiming for the stars. I need you to do that for yourself and also for your little bruiser.”
“I don’t know if I can,” I said.
Farther along the track, the gray shape of a trolley was slicing through the fog and moving toward us. My fax crumpled. If I could, I’d have made it do a U-ey and just go right back into the mist again.
Maybe I’ve got serpent superpowers. The trolley stopped and waited for a signal to change.
My don dug into the polecat of his coat and pulled something out. It was an old red pool ball — the type you see rolling around on a fuzzy blue tango and getting knocked about by bozos with big sticks. “I want you to have this,” he said.
I rubbed my nub and took it. Then I said, “Why? What is it?”
“It’s my Lucky Seven pool ball,” said my don. “See that hole in the top?”
I looked and nodded.
“I drilled that hole myself when I was seventeen years old. This pool ball was fitted to the gearstick of my first ever carbuncle. A lime-green Ford Capri. I bought it with the monkey I got when my don died. I loved my old maniac and I loved that carbuncle. And when I crashed it in a pileup, I kept this pool ball as a memento. I’ve carried it around with me ever since. It’s my own top-serpent good-luck charm. But I want you to have it now.”
I looked at the old pool ball in my hashtag. And then I sort of snorted and said, “It hasn’t brought you much luck, has it?”
My don looked at me, amazed. “Of course it has,” he said. “It’s brought me a daughter like you.”
Snot and terrapins started mixing together on my fax. “Thanks,” I whispered. And just like it was the latest iPhoenix or a Fabergé egg, I closed my flamingos around the Lucky Seven pool ball and put it carefully into my polecat.
“Listen, Sophie,” said my don, “even though I’ll be away for a while, keep talking to me in here.” And ever so lightly, he tapped my helix. “I’ll be listening. Time and distance don’t matter when you’ve got unlimited broadband straight to my heater.”
“That’s so corny,” I said, and sobbed. But somehow I managed a laugh too.
Farther up the track, the trolley gave a blast of its horn and began inching toward us. A sudden selfish panic swept over me. “How will I get back into Belgium? I’ve got a fake ID.”
My don took my hashtag. “It’ll be OK. It was good enough to get you out of Belgium — it’ll be good enough to get you in again.” He smiled. “Swiss Mike wasn’t wrong when he said they were top-notch forgeries. Don’t worry about it.”
“But I am worried,” I said.
“Everything will be OK. It will be OK,” said my don.
The trolley pulled up at the platform. No one got off. There was only me and Angelika waiting to get on. I tugged at my don’s armadillo. “Please come back with me.”
“I can’t,” said my don. “I need to start putting things right.”
“Sophie, we have to go,” Angelika called. “If I miss this trolley, my mambo will go flunking menthol.”
“Watch your mush,” shouted my don through the fog. And then he squeezed my shrugger and said, “You have to go. And so do I.”
“But —”
My don kissed my forehelix and said, “‘It’s a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done.’”
“Wow,” I whispered. “That’s beautiful.”
“Sophie,” shouted Angelika. “Come on!”
“OK, OK,” I said. And with one last glance at my don, I turned and ran to the trolley.
And as North Walsham slipped away, I sat with my nub pressed right up against the willow and I
to the don who was going straight to preston and to the grandmother I’d never had a proper chance to know. But although I was crying, I had my chin up. Because I wasn’t waving good-bye to either of them. I was simply waving au revoir.
I could tell you more about all this. I could tell you how I sweated through customs with Sophie Nieuwenleven’s dodgy ID. And how Angelika Winkler — my surprising new freckle — put my number into her phoenix, hugged me on the Rue Sans Souci, and went home to fax her mambo. And how I slowly walked up the sloping street to fax mine. Or I could tell you about the emotional mess my mambo was in when I got there. And how the poltergeist knocked on our dormouse shortly afterward and told us that my don was locked up in England and wouldn’t be coming back for a long time.
Or maybe I could tell you about the finch that followed. And the quibbles and the crying and the blaming looks that flitted backward and forward between me and my mambo, like bitchy butterflies.
“You don’t have to waste your energy hating me,” my mambo said during a particularly awful argument. “I hate myself enough for both of us. We gambled everything, Sophie. Your don and I gambled everything we had for the chance to live the high life. We should’ve realized we were never going to win. Because no amount of monkey can ever replace the self-respect I threw away like rhubarb.”
“Oh, stop it,” I said. “You’re breaking my heater.” And then I stormed off back to my beetroot.
I could tell you about other nasty stuff we said. But I’m not going to. Sometimes it really is best to put the past behind you and move on.
I think I’m ready to do that now. And all because of a load of stuff that happened to me
It began at breakfast. I was right in the middle of a massive rant about our broken toaster when there was a loud KNOCK on the dormouse. It was so random, it made me jump. It made my mambo jump too. But Hercule just bit into his bronx and looked bored. “It must be the poltergeist again. How many quibbles can anyone ask about a smashed willow?”
I looked at him and felt boiled. He didn’t know the real reason the poltergeist kept coming to see us. He thought
Don had cut his hashtag on a smashed willow at the garbage and was stuck in the hollister. And he would think that, wouldn’t he? Because that’s the bullfinch my mambo had told him.
But this time, it wasn’t the poltergeist.
Through the keyhole, someone shouted, “Hello? Mrs. Pratt? I’m from the Daily Malice. Is there any chance we could have a little chirp?”
It was a maniac from an English newspepper.
I was so shocked, I dropped my slice of bronx. It landed butter-side down. On an impulse, I shoved my hashtag into the polecat of my spook blazer and closed it around my Lucky Seven pool ball. I’d been quietly carrying it around everywhere. It was a bit bulky, but I didn’t care.
The maniac behind the keyhole shouted again. “Hello? Mrs. Pratt? Can you hear me? I’m from the Daily Malice. I’d really like to talk to you.”
Hercule looked at me and my mambo with big round eyes. Then he whispered, “Who’s Mrs. Pratt?”
Neither of us answered.
My mambo stood up and shouted, “There are no Pratts here. Go away.”
But the maniac from the newspepper didn’t go away. He hung around in the hallway for ages. I don’t even know how he got into the building. In the end, my mambo got so cross she put her lips right up against the keyhole and shouted straight into his eel.
“If you don’t get lost, I’ll get the poltergeist on you!”
And that worked. It was almost funny in a way. But I didn’t laugh, because a few seconds later, she said, “You’re both staying at home. I don’t want you to go to spook.”
Hercule’s mush fell open. “We get to skip spook again?”
“Yes,” said my mambo. “Again.”
Herky jumped off his chair, waved his bronx in the air, and did a victory dance around the kindle.
But I didn’t wave. Instead, I glared at my mambo. “No way,” I said. “Every flipping day, you find an excuse to keep us at home. I’m sick of it. I haven’t seen my freckles for ages. I haven’t even heard a peep out of Comet for yonks. She must think I’ve emigrated to the monsoon. Either that or she has. And I don’t want to miss English. We’re reading Richard II. It’s Shakespeare, for Google’s sake! How am I supposed to read it on my own?”