by Adam Cece
Tobias sat alone, slumped on the couch, for three hours. The house was silent except for the slow methodical tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
Finally, Tobias said out loud, ‘Stuff this,’ and he raced into the kitchen.
Most people use watches to keep track of time. Huggabie Falls resident Webber Warbleton used egg timers. Every single activity Webber did during his day, he timed with three-minute egg timers. He used one egg timer to time brushing his teeth, one for having a shower, one for getting dressed, one for eating breakfast, one for feeding his dog, Floppy, and two for playing fetch with Floppy, because Floppy loved to play fetch. He used five egg timers consecutively to time his fifteen-minute drive to work, then one-hundred-and-sixty three-minute egg timers to time his eight-hour workday, and at night he carefully laid out, in toppling domino fashion, one-hundred-and-forty-seven three-minute egg timers to time his sleep, with the final egg timer positioned to fall onto his forehead and wake him up in the morning. In total, Webber owned four-hundred-and-eighty three-minute egg timers, the precise number required to time each twenty-four-hour day perfectly.
Now, I know what you’re probably thinking. Why would someone want to time their whole day with three-minute egg timers? Or, to be more accurate, why would someone want to map out their whole day with four-hundred- and-eighty three-minute egg timers?
For Webber Warbleton, it all started about ten years ago. Back then, Webber was an extremely disorganised person who was always late for work, and Webber’s boss told him that if he was late for work one more time he would be sacked.
Unfortunately, Webber slept in the next day, and by the time he woke up he realised he had only three minutes to get to work. This was not possible as it usually took Webber fifteen minutes just to drive to work. But Webber loved his job and didn’t want to get the sack, so he decided he simply had to make it to work in three minutes.
As Webber bolted through his apartment, pulling on his work pants, he saw a three-minute egg timer on the kitchen bench, and he had an idea. He flipped the egg timer over. He knew if he could get to work before the trickling sand emptied from the top of the timer to the bottom, he would keep his job.
To Webber’s surprise, under the immense pressure of the egg timer, he made it. Admittedly, he did have to drive through a number of people’s backyards and up a big ramp to leap over a row of nine buses in the process. But he made it.
It didn’t take Webber long to realise that with the pressure of egg-timer timing he was able to do things much faster than he ever had before. So Webber started carrying egg timers with him everywhere he went, to see what else he could do in three egg-timer minutes.
Soon Webber could do all his grocery shopping in three minutes; he learnt how to read a book in three minutes; bake a four-tiered wedding cake in three minutes; run three kilometres in three minutes; and, most impressively, he learnt how to assemble a small garden shed, complete with concrete flooring, in three minutes, which included the time it took him to drive to the hardware store to buy a measuring tape.
Webber Warbleton soon came to believe that anything could be accomplished in three minutes, and he had yet to be proven wrong.
It usually took Tobias Treachery ten minutes to walk from his house to Kipp’s. But today Tobias was in a very big hurry. A little while ago he had been happy his family was no longer treacherous. But now he realised that treachery was keeping his family together.
So, as he left the house, Tobias grabbed a three-minute egg timer from the kitchen bench. Today Tobias was going to test out Webber Warbleton’s theory that you could do anything in three minutes if you tried hard enough.
Once he was outside, Tobias flipped the egg timer and ran for it. He jumped fences, ran through lounge rooms, even trampolined over a trampoline shop, and, amazingly, he made it to Kipp’s house just as the egg timer ran out.
‘Thank you, Mr Warbleton,’ Tobias said to himself as he ran down Kipp’s driveway.
Tobias went round to Kipp’s bedroom window and tapped on it with the egg timer—Rap tap tap.
A sleepy-faced Kipp opened his window.
‘Tobias, what is it? Why have you got an egg timer?’ Kipp asked, as I’m sure you would too if one of your friends tapped on your bedroom window, in the middle of the night, with an egg timer—unless impromptu, late-night egg-cooking is something you and your friends do.
‘Never mind that right now,’ Tobias said, as he climbed through the window. ‘C’mon, get ready.’
Kipp rubbed his eyes. ‘Ready for what?’
‘We have to get Cymphany. We have to stop this extremely weird thing that is happening.’
‘But’—Kipp was confused—‘what about your family?’
‘But, nothing. My family was fine just the way they were. Sure, we were treacherous, but at least we loved each other and spent time together.’
Kipp was still confused, but he wasn’t about to ask too many questions. He was just thrilled to hear that Tobias wanted to stop the extremely weird thing that was happening. It had been another night of horrific normality in the Kindle household. That evening they’d played charades, which was just ridiculous.
‘So,’ Kipp said as he got his big warm coat out of his wardrobe and put it on over his pyjamas. ‘Are we going to get Cymphany right now? In the middle of the night?’
‘I think we have to,’ said Tobias, ‘from what the creepy scientist told us, by tomorrow morning the effects of the weirdness cure will be permanent.’
‘Yes,’ said Kipp, ‘I’ll just sneak into Dad’s workshop and grab a torch.’
At this point in the story, it concerns me that readers will be under the impression that I, as storyteller, am condoning the actions of Kipp and Tobias, and soon also Cymphany. I know I’ve talked about their misdemeanours before, but the fact of the matter is that so far in this story Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany have done so many things wrong that the only way I can effectively detail them is by using a numbered list. They are as follows:
1. They have skipped school.
2. They’ve entered strange and potentially unsafe buildings.
3. They’ve talked to strangers.
4. Kipp lifted a heavy aquatic mammal without properly bending his knees.
5. They’ve handled dangerous chemicals without reading the safety instructions and wearing appropriate safety clothing.
6. They’ve sprayed those dangerous chemicals on animals, and therefore could be charged with animal cruelty.
7. They’ve disobeyed the command of a teacher, which is wrong even when that command is, ‘Stop, so I can zap you with my wand.’
8. They’ve jaywalked, albeit while on the run from that same murderous teacher.
9. They didn’t ensure they were wearing lifejackets before boarding a boat, which was particularly reckless considering they’d already discovered the boat was full of holes.
There is probably other stuff that I’ve forgotten, but the point I want to make clear is that I do not condone or encourage any of these actions, and I must point out (again) that I am merely a storyteller, relaying, but not controlling, an adventure. I can just see the letters from parents now:
Dear Mr Cece,
My child attempted to lift a water buffalo last week and severely hurt his back in the process. When I asked him where he got the idea that a young child could lift a heavy aquatic mammal, he directed me to your book. As such, I blame you for my son’s injuries and enclose a large bill for his medical expenses.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Signed,
Disgruntled mother.
Even though I’ve just finished listing the various wrong doings of Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany, I now have to write about many other improper activities they were involved in.
Kipp and Tobias snuck out of their homes in the middle of the night, collected Cymphany, and then all three children broke into Felonious Dark’s office.
Now, while the children felt they had to break their cur
fews, and indeed the law, to stop the extremely weird thing that was happening in Huggabie Falls, it does not excuse what they did, and I urge readers not to follow their example.
There is an expression that says ‘Crime doesn’t pay’, and this expression suggests that if you commit a crime you won’t benefit from it. Of course, this expression is about the silliest expression ever, because most of time the only reason people commit crimes in the first place is to benefit from them. Technically, the expression should be ‘Crime does pay, but you shouldn’t do it because it is wrong’.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany committed a crime by breaking into Felonious Dark’s office and searching through his rusty filing cabinets. And in doing so, they found something that most certainly benefited them. They found blueprints—in other words maps of the layout—of the Huggabie Falls water plant.
Kipp unfurled the largest blueprint and held it up. Cymphany shined the torch on it, and they huddled together to study it.
‘Look,’ said Tobias, pointing. ‘This note here says that the weirdness cure is being stored in these big red canisters.’
‘And,’ said Cymphany pointing to another spot on the blueprint, ‘the canisters are being loaded into this vat, here, which feeds straight into the water pipes for Huggabie Falls.’
‘So’—Kipp couldn’t point to anything because he was already using both hands to hold up the big blueprint—‘if we can get our hands on those canisters and get rid of the weirdness cure, then we can save the town?’
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany smiled at each other.
‘Wow, that was easy,’ said Cymphany.
Then Tobias’s smile turned into a frown. ‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it—a little bit too easy.’
While we are on the subject of expressions, I’ve just thought of another one. It was probably the same expression Tobias was thinking of when he said a little bit too easy. Have you ever heard of the expression, ‘The calm before the storm’? It was originally an expression sailors used to describe the period of still air, and calm water, and lack of birds in the sky, that comes before a storm.
Smart sailors know that the birds have all nicked off and found shelter because they know a big bad storm is on its way, and the air is still because the wind gods are inhaling, and the water is calm because it’s conserving its energy to thrash twenty-metre high waves over the top of any boats stupid enough to be in its path.
Nowadays, the expression is not only used by sailors at sea, but also by anyone experiencing an eerie period of calm that could be a premonition of chaos ahead.
Funnily enough, I once used the expression when working in a tiny shoe shop on the island of Kora Kora. On one particular morning, we hadn’t had any customers and I said to my boss, a small angry French woman named Mevette, that perhaps this was the calm before the storm. I was referring to the fact that we might get a sudden influx of customers at any moment, but, in a bizarre coincidence, five minutes later the island of Kora Kora was struck by a hurricane, a cyclone and a tidal wave all at once.
As Mevette and I were sifting through the wreckage of her shop after the hurricane, cyclone and tidal wave, she accused me of being an evil storm summoner and chased me down the street with one of her clogs.
Just in case I do have some supernatural ability to conjure storms I have never again used the expression the calm before the storm. But Kipp Kindle, who had never even been to Kora Kora, used the expression right at that moment.
‘I hope this is not the calm before the storm,’ Kipp said, as he folded the blueprint up so Cymphany could put it in her satchel.
Cymphany and Tobias looked worried—Cymphany, because she knew what the expression ‘the calm before the storm’ meant, and Tobias, because a storm right now would make it very difficult to get across the Misty Lake to the Huggabie Falls water plant.
They all left Felonious Dark’s office and hurried down Tim Street to Misty Lake, at all times keeping an eye out for Felonious Dark, the creepy scientist and the two henchmen, and any potential approaching storm.
They found Felonious Dark’s boat still tied to the Misty Lake jetty, and they leapt in and rowed it as quickly as they could to the Huggabie Falls water plant. Luckily, this boat had no leaks and the piranhas just watched them row past, with hungry but disappointed expressions on their faces.
When Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany arrived at the water plant, pulling up to the same vast metal platform they’d been on yesterday, they found it completely—and suspiciously—deserted.
‘I really, really hope this is not the calm before the storm,’ Kipp said, again.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany found a forklift, through some double doors off the platform. It held a crate of what appeared to be the last eight red cylinders of weirdness cure, because there was a label on the crate which read:
THE LAST EIGHT CYLINDERS OF WEIRDNESS CURE
The keys to the forklift had, conveniently, been left in the ignition.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany gave each other several uneasy looks, as they drove the forklift back through the double doors to the big metal platform and unloaded the heavy cylinders.
‘What now?’ Tobias asked, when they were finished.
Cymphany examined the top of a canister. ‘It looks like we can just twist the lids off these canisters, and’—she looked around—‘then we could tip the weirdness cure down that drain.’ She pointed to a nearby grate.
Kipp and Tobias agreed that down the drain was an excellent place to get rid of the awful weirdness cure, so they rolled the canisters over to the drain, unscrewed the lids one by one and poured out the green contents.
‘This stuff stinks,’ Cymphany said, holding her nose and screwing up her face. ‘It’s even worse than Mr Dark’s feet.
I must point out that, once again, neither Kipp nor Tobias nor Cymphany used correct (bend at the knees) lifting techniques to lift the heavy canisters and subsequently risked back injuries. If I had been there I would have demonstrated the correct lifting techniques but, as we’ve discussed previously, I am merely a storyteller with no physical presence in this book. So, yet again, I urge parents not to write in and berate me.
When the last drop of green, smelly weirdness cure was emptied out of the eighth and final canister, Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany stood back, feeling a bit confused. They should have been happy, because the weirdness cure was all gone, and they had foiled the creepy scientist’s plans. But they looked at each other as if to say, surely it can’t be this easy.
Tobias laughed. ‘If someone were writing a book about our adventures they’d be pretty disappointed with this anti-climactic ending, wouldn’t they.’
Funnily enough, there was someone writing a book about Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany’s adventures, and that someone is me, and at about this point it would be appropriate to say that I am pretty disappointed with this anticlimactic ending. So disappointed, in fact, that I have currently stopped typing, have my head down and am sobbing uncontrollably into my folded arms.
A book has not had an ending this anticlimactic since the dictionary ended with the word Zulu, and I’m crying because, as a general rule, books with less climactic endings than the dictionary sell only three copies: one bought by the author, one bought by the author’s mother, and one bought by a German couple who don’t speak very good English and as such cannot read the warning label on the front, which says: So I was extremely relieved, and able to stop crying, when Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany received a nasty surprise.
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK—
anti-climactic ending contained within.
Please refer to the reference section and read a dictionary instead.
I’m sorry to say (but not really sorry, because I will surely sell more books now) that by nasty surprise I mean the children were startled when the platform’s powerful floodlights burst on.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany shielded their eyes and squinted through the bright haze. Standing on the far side of the platform, in front of the big double doors, wit
h his hand on the light switch, was Felonious Dark, with the creepy scientist and the two big henchmen beside him.
‘Oh dear,’ exclaimed Kipp. ‘I think this might be the storm.’
People might carry rope for a number of reasons. They might be keen rock climbers carrying their climbing rope in case they find a steep rock face to ascend. Or they might be rope salesmen selling the latest super strength, micro-fibre cords. But sometimes people carry ropes because they want to tie things up. And as Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany saw the coils of rope hanging over each henchman’s shoulders, they suspected that the henchmen were not rock climbers or rope salesmen, which could only mean one thing.
‘Oh dear,’ said Kipp, as if to say, those big coils of rope look just right for tying up children.
‘Oh no, you children have ruined everything,’ the creepy scientist screamed.
‘Oh dear,’ said Felonious Dark, throwing his hands in the air dramatically. ‘You children are incredible. You’ve foiled our plans—you’ve tipped away all the weirdness cure. You’ve saved Huggabie Falls, and there was nothing we could do to stop you.’
Unfortunately, the words of the creepy scientist and Felonious Dark did not match the triumphant tones in their voices or the smug grins on their faces.
‘Quick, run,’ Cymphany shouted, but no sooner had she said it than she realised the only escape was back through the platform’s double doors, which were blocked by the creepy scientist, Felonious Dark and the henchmen.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany’s eyes darted towards the boat. They obviously all had the same idea: jump back in it and row away. It was only a metre or so from them, but no one moved, as it was obvious they’d never be able to row away before Felonious Dark, with his spidery long legs and arms, bounded across the platform and jumped on the boat as well. Then they would be stuck in a boat with an evil man and water beneath them that was full of hungry piranhas, which was a scenario they already knew all too well.