by Alan Nolan
When the congratulations and the well done, man’s died down, Ms. Hennigan came up to him. ‘So, Mr. Jim, I mean, Uncle Ogg. There’s a caretaker job going here in the school. Starting tomorrow. If you’re interested, that is, we’d love to have you?’
‘Oh, call him Ogg, Ms. Hennigan, he actually prefers it. And he’s interested in the job alright,’ said Conor, quickly stepping between them. ‘Uncle Ogg LOVES taking care of things.’ But, he thought, who’s going to be taking care of Uncle Ogg?
Chapter Eight
Ogg Job Man
School ended early because of Bring Your Parent to School Day, and it was still raining heavily as Conor and Ogg made their way home to Clobberstown Crescent. Conor was so relieved that the day had gone well and so delighted with Ogg’s new job that he didn’t notice his mum’s car parked in the driveway of their house. He and Ogg walked right into the kitchen, where Conor’s mum was sitting. Luckily, she had a towel over her head and was face-down over a basin of steaming hot water, trying to breathe in the vapours. She couldn’t see a thing.
‘Is that you, Conor?’ she said, muffled under the towel. ‘Sorry, love, I’m choking with a cold. It’s all this rainy weather.’ She breathed in deeply. ‘This is an old remedy that my mother gave me. You breathe in steam from boiling water and it soothes your lungs. I don’t know if it’s working, but at least my face is nice and warm.’
Conor motioned for Ogg to keep quiet. ‘Hi Mum,’ he said, shoving Ogg back out the kitchen door. ‘I’m, em, just going upstairs to do my homework. See ya!’
He ushered Ogg out the door and into the dog kennel. Clarissa never went near the kennel – she missed her ex-dog too much.
‘Mum. Sick?’ asked Ogg when Conor had him safely inside the kennel.
‘She just has a cold. She works too hard,’ said Conor. ‘You know, a cold.’ He pretended to wipe his own nose and mimed a sneeze by way of explanation.
Ogg crawled out of the kennel and scampered around the back garden, gathering up weeds and leaves, seemingly at random.
‘Get back in the kennel,’ hissed Conor. ‘Mum will see you.’ But when he peeked through the kitchen window, Clarissa still had her head hidden under the towel.
Ogg brought the weeds back to the kennel and lit a small fire. He cooked up the leaves and weeds with water in a small pot he had taken from the kitchen, and soon the concoction was bubbling away, forming a greenish broth.
He gave the pot to Conor. ‘Mum. Eat. Get better.’
Conor looked at the pot’s soupy contents. It smelt okay, but he wasn’t convinced.
‘Mum. Eat. Get better,’ repeated Ogg.
Conor took the broth into the kitchen, where his mother was still breathing in steam and coughing under the towel. ‘I went to the health food store and got you some soup,’ he said. ‘If you want some, that is. If you’re up to it.’
Clarissa was touched by her son’s thoughtfulness. She emerged from under the towel, her hair wild and sticking up because of the steam. ‘Conor Corcoran, I am amazed at how self-sufficient you’ve become. You are turning into a real little man.’
Conor, delighted, poured the soup into a bowl, and his mum sniffed at it.
‘It smells nice, I think. My nose isn’t working properly. What’s in it?’
‘This and that,’ answered Conor truthfully. ‘Mostly greens. It’s good for you. So I hear.’
Clarissa stuck a spoon in and tasted the broth. ‘Oh! It’s an… unusual taste. But very nice!’ She smiled up at Conor, ‘Mmmmm, lovely.’
She was on her second spoonful and was about to ask Conor to pass the pepper when her head flopped down on the table, straight onto the rolled-up towel. She had passed out. Conor leapt to his feet, crying for Ogg, but Clarissa started to snore.
Ogg came into the kitchen and looked at the sleeping Clarissa. ‘No worry, Conor. Mum better soon.’ He lifted her up and carried her to the living room sofa to let her sleep.
When Conor came down the next morning, he found a breezy note from his mother waiting for him on the kitchen table, as well as a stack of pancakes and a jar of chocolate spread.
Ogg knocked at the kitchen window, and Conor let him in the back door. He was still wearing his handyman gear, which was just as well, as that morning was his first shift as caretaker for St. Gobnet’s School.
Before they went to school (for Conor) and work (for Ogg), Conor made Ogg take a shower. Six thousand years frozen in ice kept Ogg fairly fresh, but everyone – even cavemen – needs a shower once in a while. Ogg was filled with wonder at the warm rain falling from the showerhead, and Conor ended up worrying about the water charges and hammering at the door to get him out.
When Ogg emerged, dressed as before in the workman dungarees, he looked much cleaner. His hair was less matted and was neatly brushed, and he had ditched some of his furs, which made him look trimmer and less bulky. He looked almost like a modern person, apart from his heavy forehead and unibrow.
When they arrived at the school, Ms. Hennigan immediately put Ogg to work, painting some tool sheds on the school allotment. Conor sniffed the air: he could have sworn Ms. Hennigan was wearing perfume.
Ogg wasn’t used to holding a paintbrush – he normally did cave paintings with his fingers – but he soon got the knack of it, and, under the watchful (and admiring) eye of Ms. Hennigan, he finished the entire shed before little break.
‘Very impressive,’ said Ms. Hennigan, helping Ogg down from the ladder (not that he needed any help). ‘I can see you’re a dab hand with the paintbrush, unlike the last caretaker we had. Did you hear about him?’
Ogg shook his head. He had no idea who the last caretaker was. He hadn’t even heard of paintbrushes until that morning.
‘Wee Willie Whelan, his name was. An absolute disaster from start to finish. Do you know, one day last year, on the hottest day of the summer, I asked him to help put sunblock on the little ones. Do you know what he put on them? Vegetable oil. The poor children were running around the school yard with black smoke rising off their heads. Two of them caught fire!’
Ogg grunted.
‘But you, Ogg,’ cooed Ms. Hennigan, who, despite having helped Ogg off the ladder minutes ago still hadn’t let go of his hand, ‘you have the rough hands of a hard-working man, the hands of a warrior. But you also possess the gentle soul of a …’
But we will never know what it was that Ogg possessed the gentle soul of, because at that moment there came a loud, frightened cry from the field behind the allotment.
The fields around the school were used for grazing horses and animals, and this one was no different. It contained an animal, namely a bull. A very large, very angry bull with two sharp horns. The field also contained a small girl, namely Charlotte Finch, otherwise known to you and me as Charlie.
Charlie had gone into the field to gather conkers and horse chestnut leaves to draw in art class (like all the most intelligent, trustworthy and good-looking people in the world, she loved to draw), but unfortunately she had forgotten all about the bull. She noticed the aforementioned very large, very angry bull sitting in the corner of the field only after she had tramped halfway across it. She also noticed, for the first time, that the school jumper she was wearing was bright red. She wasn’t sure if it was a myth that bulls hated the colour red. In fact, she was so scared at that moment that she couldn’t actually remember whether or not bulls ate people.
The bull jumped to his feet and started running towards Charlie. Charlie started running away from the bull. She also started shouting, which is what alerted Ogg to her predicament.
‘Char. Leee,’ he said and dropped Ms. Hennigan’s hand. He leapt the fence into the far field and sprinted over the grass toward the bull. He clapped his huge hands and shouted to get the bull’s attention, and when the bull changed course to charge Ogg instead of Charlie, Ogg just stood dead still, waiting for him.
The bull charged forward at full speed, but when he reached Ogg, the caveman sidestepped him easily and grabbed
onto one of his sharp horns. Using the bull’s own speed to power his leap, Ogg flipped himself over the dangerous set of horns and onto the bull’s back.
Once there, Ogg used his strength to pull back the horns, slowing the bull down to a canter, then a trot, a walk, and then to a full stop. The bull dropped down on the ground, exhausted, with Ogg still on top. Ogg leant down and whispered ancient words into the bull’s ear, and the huge animal closed its eyes and drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
Ogg looked up. Charlie had made it to the fence and was safe in Ms. Hennigan’s arms.
‘Oh, you silly girl!’ cried Ms. Hennigan. ‘My poor pet, are you alright?’
‘Yes,’ said Charlie, ‘thanks to Ogg.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ cooed Ms. Hennigan. ‘A man of few words, but many talents …’
Chapter Nine
No Place like Home
Two days later Conor and Charlie’s class had a school trip to the Museum of Natural History in the centre of Dublin. Conor was one of the few kids in the class who was actually looking forward to it. Damian was one of the many who wasn’t. ‘Who wants to look at dusty old dead animals?’ said Damian. ‘If I wanted to see a bunch of oversized animals lying around and not doing much, I’d go to the next Clobberstown Dunkers match.’
Gulliver, as usual, griggled and took a sneaky swig of ink from the bottle he had hidden in his bag.
Ms. Hennigan came into the classroom. ‘Alright, children, the bus is here but I’m afraid your class teacher isn’t. Ms. Sniffles has called in sick, and we’re short-staffed here, as you know, so I’ve asked our new caretaker, Mr. Ogg, to come with us to keep an eye on you.’
Conor and Charlie sat bolt upright and stared at each other. Ogg came into the classroom, ducking his head to pass under the doorframe. He smiled at Conor and Charlie and gave them a little wave. What was this? How could Ogg look after kids?? He could barely look after himself!
The children filed onto the bus, which was parked in the set-down zone at the front of the school. Ms. Hennigan fussed them along the aisles, clucking like a mother hen. She sat down in the seat beside the driver at the front of the bus and then noticed that Ogg hadn’t boarded. She looked out the side window and saw Ogg standing at the door, staring wide-eyed at the steps. ‘Come along, Mr. Ogg,’ said Ms. Hennigan. ‘We don’t want to be late!’
Ogg was frozen to the spot, but this time it seemed like he was frozen with fear rather than ice!
Charlie stood up from her seat and trotted down the aisle to where Ms. Hennigan was sitting. ‘I’m sorry, Ms. Hennigan,’ she said. ‘You see, Conor’s uncle is a bit scared of buses, ever since …’ She got stuck there. Why would anyone be scared of buses?
‘Ever since he was bitten by one as a child!’ piped up Conor, who had scuttled down behind Charlie. Charlie looked at Conor dumbfounded. Conor just shrugged.
‘Oh, the poor pet,’ said Ms. Hennigan, who, luckily for Conor, wasn’t really listening to him. ‘Scared of buses? Oh, my poor big brave caretaker.’
She was up from her seat and off the bus like a shot. She gently took Ogg by the hand and led him onto the bus. ‘There we go, Mr. Ogg. If you’re nervous or are prone to motion sickness, I’m happy to hold your hand the whole way into town.’
And she did, but she had to do it long distance, because Ogg was too big to sit in the single seat beside her and had to sit in the double seat opposite. With his other hand he gripped the handle on the side of his seat, his knuckles white. He kept his eyes tightly shut the whole way in.
Although the journey into the city was short enough, there was a school tradition of singing songs whenever they were on public transport. A few of the boys and girls took turns leading the rest of the class through rousing renditions of such classics as ‘Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me, I’m Going Out to Eat Worms’; ‘Oh, You’re All Very Quiet at the Back’; and that all-time perennial favourite, ‘Stop the Bus, I Want a Wee Wee’.
Conor and Charlie didn’t join in – they were keeping an eye on Ogg and on Ms. Hennigan, who was patting and stroking his huge, hairy hand, making strange tut-tut noises and repeating the words ‘poor pet, poor poor pet’.
When they arrived at the Natural History Museum, Ogg wrestled his hand from Ms. Hennigan’s grip and was first off the bus. He stood like a sentry guard as the boys and girls got off.
‘Well done, Ogg,’ said Conor quietly and squeezed his arm. ‘I’m proud of you.’ Ogg smiled down at him.
Ms. Hennigan counted heads – they were all there. ‘In we go,’ she trilled and marched ahead through the impressive museum doors, with the children following and Ogg bringing up the rear.
As soon as they were inside, the kids scattered in all directions, but Ogg stood still as a standing stone in the foyer. His eyes bulged. All around him were animals and creatures he was very familiar with! To his right was a massive stag, to his left was an enormous bison, and right in front of him was the mighty skeleton of an ancient giant elk.
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ cooed Ms. Hennigan. ‘This elk must have been a beautiful specimen in its day.’
‘Elk,’ said Ogg.
They moved on into the museum, following the children.
The boys and girls were running from one display case to the next, reading about the stuffed animals contained in each. The museum was a truly amazing place to visit: it had thousands of exhibits of animals, birds, fish and insects from Ireland and Europe, and from Africa, Asia and Australia – all jam-packed into a high-ceilinged Victorian warehouse that was built in the 1850s. The ground floor and second floor held mammals and fish, while two balcony tiers that clung to the side walls held the exhibits of birds and insects.
The centrepiece of the collection was the huge skeleton of a blue whale that hung from the ceiling. ‘I’d love a closer look at that sucker,’ said Damian Deegan to Gulliver, and they set out to climb the steps up to the next balcony. They were stopped by a security guard.
‘Sorry, lads,’ he said. ‘The balcony levels are off limits to the public. Health and safety.’
‘What about those guys? Why are they allowed up?’ asked Damian, pointing to a group of men on the third-floor balcony, all of whom were wearing white coats and seemed to be carrying suitcases.
‘Visiting professors from England,’ came the reply. ‘They’re allowed up because they are clever people, which you and your friend here definitely aren’t.’
Damian looked at Gulliver. His mouth was covered in ink stains, and he was picking his nose with a blue-coloured finger. Damian couldn’t argue with the security man. Instead, he turned around and picked on Conor.
‘Hey, Conor. Check out the Neanderthals,’ he said with a mean tone in his voice, pointing at the huge display area behind them. It had half a caveman village inside – cavemen and women were cooking and relaxing and playing with cave-children beside a stone age hut. ‘Remind you of Uncle Ogg much?’
Conor looked at the display. Ogg certainly resembled these guys, but he was a good bit taller. If he was a Neanderthal, he must have been the biggest one in the village. Conor was about to reply to Damian when he felt a hand on his shoulder. A large hand. He looked up to see Ogg staring at the caveman village as well. He seemed to have tears in his eyes.
Suddenly they heard a girl’s frightened cry from the centre of the room. Ogg sprinted towards the noise, with Conor and Charlie following behind. Conor smiled when he saw what was going on – one of the kids from the class was lying on the ground under the enormous prehistoric moose, which had been stuffed in the act of rearing up on its hind legs. She was hamming up being scared while another kid was taking her photo with a camera phone.
Ogg, of course, had never seen a camera and thought the moose was somehow alive and attacking one of his children! He took a running leap onto the moose’s back and produced his caveman club from under his workman’s dungarees. He forced the stuffed moose onto its knees (badly bending its internal metal frame as he did so) and began to clobber it on the
head and antlers. The kids scattered, forming a ring around him, and started to roar laughing. The security man ran towards the ruckus and, panicked, fell into a display of stuffed rabbits and hares.
‘Mr. Ogg!’ shouted Ms. Hennigan. ‘Stop at once, you big, handsome brute!’
Damian and Gulliver rolled around on the floor, clutching their tummies and laughing. Conor covered his eyes.
‘Oh well,’ said Charlie. ‘That’s one less moose on the loose …’
High above on the third-level balcony, the little crowd of visiting professors had heard the commotion and were craning over the railings to see what was going on.
The tallest one – a skinny man with a bald head, bushy eyebrows and extremely hairy ears – stared down at Ogg, his eyes wide with astonishment. He turned to the three younger professors. ‘This is what I have always dreamt of finding, ever since I was a boy,’ he cried, his voice crackling with excitement. ‘If I am not mistaken, and I rarely am, that creature below …’
‘What – the one in the dungarees, Professor Griffin?’ asked one of the other professors nervously.
‘That creature below, the one in the dungarees,’ continued the hairy-eared boffin, ‘is … a CAVEMAN!’
Chapter Ten
Almost a Fair Cop
After many apologies and assurances from Ms. Hennigan to the museum staff that nothing even remotely like the moose-battering incident would ever happen again, the bus eventually left for the return journey to Clobberstown. Ogg was quiet and subdued the whole way, and even the kids didn’t really feel like singing, although they did do a solid fifteen minutes of ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’ as soon as the bus left the city centre and got on the motorway.