The three grinning ghosts nodded. I held out the last bottle. The one with no label. ‘Here,’ I said, ‘take this as well.’ They shook their heads. ‘Whose is it?’ I asked.
Sam put his hands together and rested his head on them like someone sleeping. ‘A dead person?’ I said.
He shook his head.
‘A dead ghost?’
He nodded.
‘Can ghosts die?’ I asked.
They all nodded.
‘But then you would have the ghost of a ghost.’
By this time they were not listening. They started to spin. Faster and faster. And then, like propeller blades, they became invisible. They spun themselves into nothingness. They were gone.
I never saw them again.
My feet dragged along the ground as I walked home. I had got rid of Sad Sam. But there was big trouble ahead. Tomorrow I would have to go back to school. I was really in for it.
When I reached home Mum was waiting. She looked at me for a long time without saying anything. She always did that when she wanted me to feel guilty about something. In the end she said, ‘The school rang. They told me all about the things you have done. Terrible things. You needn’t think that I’m going to get you out of it. You will just have to front up to the school in the morning and take your punishment. And you can go up to your room now and have no tea.’
I went up to my room. It was no good telling Mum about the ghosts. She would never believe me. I thought about running away. But in the end I decided to face the music. Face Snapper that is.
8
It was worse than I thought. The whole school was assembled. I was called to the front. Two hundred pairs of eyes stared at me. Snapper snarled. ‘This boy,’ he said in a loud voice, ‘has disgraced us all. He ran away from school. He laughed at a funeral. He broke my antique vase. He told Miss Stevens to nick off. He talks to himself. And worst of all … he tells terrible lies.’
Everyone was staring at me. All the kids. All the teachers. My head swam. It wasn’t fair. I was innocent. Something came over me. I don’t know what. I started yelling. ‘It was the ghost. The tickling ghost.’ I pulled out the blue bottle and waved it around. ‘His smile was stolen. Put in a bottle. I gave it back to him.’
The lines on Snapper’s face united in the biggest frown the world has ever seen. His wrinkles looked like a thousand upside down horseshoes. ‘Stop. Enough,’ he shrieked. He snatched the bottle from my hand and threw it to the ground. It smashed into a thousand pieces.
There was a whisper, a sigh. A puff of cloud. It twisted and hummed. And headed straight up Snapper’s nostrils. It had gone to the nearest miserable person.
‘Your punishment …’ he said. And then he stopped, like a startled rabbit. Something was happening to his wrinkles. They were starting to twitch. To move. Like rheumatic sticks they began to bend upwards. You could almost hear them crack. For years and years they had drooped meanly down his chin. Now they were curving upwards. His wrinkles turned to crinkles.
Snapper was smiling. The bottled smile had found a new home.
He beamed at me. ‘There will be no punishment,’ he said generously. ‘Not for a nice boy like you.’
I went and sat down.
Mr Snapper was a terrific teacher. The best I ever had. The class even gave him a nickname.
Smiley.
Greensleeves
My nickname was Greensleeves and I didn’t like it. Not one bit. It wasn’t what you think though. It had nothing to do with the way I wipe my nose. Nothing at all.
It was because of the watch.
Anyway, let me start at the beginning. You might as well know the whole story.
Dad and I lived in the caravan park in Port Niranda. We were very poor. Always short of cash. Dad used to get paid for digging out tree stumps on people’s farms. He would dig a hole under a stump and then shove in a couple of sticks of gelignite. Then he would rush for cover as the whole thing went up with a mighty bang. After that he used to load up the scraps of stump that were left and sell them for firewood.
It didn’t pay much. That’s why I was so surprised when he gave me the watch. ‘Gee thanks Dad,’ I yelled. ‘What a ripper. A digital watch with an alarm.’
‘Try out the alarm,’ said Dad with a grin. ‘It plays a tune.’
I pressed a couple of buttons and set the alarm. Five minutes later, at exactly four o’clock, off it went. It played a little tinkling tune called ‘Greensleeves’.
I gave Dad a hug. He really was the tops. He could easily have spent the money on himself. He was saving up for the deposit on a house so we didn’t have to live in the caravan park any more. Poor old Dad. He only owned work clothes. Old boots, a woollen beanie, grubby jeans and an old battle jacket. He wasn’t exactly the best-dressed man in town. But as far as I was concerned he was the best man in town.
‘Where did you get the money?’ I asked. ‘You shouldn’t have spent it on me Dad. You should have bought yourself a new outfit.’
‘I’ve just landed a big job,’ he said with a crooked smile. ‘A real big job. We’ll soon be in the money.’
2
I didn’t like the way he said ‘real big job.’ A nasty thought was trying to find its way into my mind. ‘What job?’ I asked.
‘The whale. I’m going to get rid of the whale.’
‘Oh no,’ I groaned. ‘Not the whale. Not that.’ I looked at him in horror. To tell the truth I felt like giving the watch back. Even if it did play ‘Greensleeves’.
A whale had stranded itself on the main beach about three weeks ago. It was the biggest sperm whale ever seen. It was longer than three big houses joined together.
And just as high. Before anyone could do anything to save the poor thing it had died.
People came from everywhere to look at this whale. All the motels were full up with rubbernecks. They swarmed down on the beach taking photos. Special buses came up from Melbourne filled with tourists. No one had ever seen such a large whale before.
Then, suddenly, the tourists stopped coming. No one would even go onto the beach or anywhere near it. The whale started to go bad.
What a stink. It was terrible. When the wind blew from the south (which was just about all the time), the whole town was covered in the smell. It was unbearable. People locked themselves in their houses and shut the windows. But it was no good. The terrible fumes snuck under the doors and down the chimneys. They seeped and creeped into every crevice. There was no escape. It was revolting. It was just like living with a bucket of sick under the bed.
Sailors tried to tow the whale out to sea with a tug boat but the cable broke. The whale was too heavy.
Men from the Council, dressed in gas masks, tried to move it with bulldozers. It still wouldn’t budge. In the end they gave up and refused to go anywhere near it.
And now Dad had offered to take on the job. ‘Five thousand dollars,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m getting for removing the whale. Everyone else has failed. The Mayor is desperate.’
‘Five thousand dollars,’ I echoed. ‘That’s enough for …’
‘Yes,’ interrupted Dad. ‘Enough for a deposit on a house.’
I looked around our little caravan. I sure would be glad to move into a house. ‘But how are you going to move it?’ I asked.
‘Not me,’ said Dad. ‘We. You are going to help.’ He was grinning from ear to ear.
‘Me,’ I gasped. ‘What can I do? Tie a rope onto one of its teeth and drag it off. There’s nothing I can do.’
‘You can scramble into its mouth,’ said Dad, ‘and get right down deep inside it. Like Jonah. Then you can shove the sticks of gelignite into its guts.’
‘What,’ I screamed. ‘You’re going to blow it up. Blow up the whale?’
‘Yes,’ hooted Dad. ‘It’ll be a cinch. No one’s thought of blowing it up. The gelignite will break it up into small bits and the tide will wash them out to sea And we will be five thousand dollars richer.’
For a minu
te I just stood there thinking about the whole thing. I thought about crawling into a whale’s gizzards. I thought about the terrible stink. Then I thought about poor old Dad trying to save up for a house. I looked at his worn-out clothes and his faded beanie.
‘Okay,’ I said with a shiver. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Shake, Troy,’ said Dad holding out his big brown hand.
I shook his hand. The deal was done. A boy’s word is his word. I couldn’t get out of it now.
3
The next day Dad and I headed off towards the beach in our old truck. On the back were boxes of gelignite, fuses, ropes, axes and other tackle. As we got closer to the shore the smell became stronger and stronger. What a pong. It was revolting. Dad pulled over to the side of the road and we put on our gas masks. It was a little better with the gas masks on, but it was very hard to talk. We had to shout at each other.
When we reached the beach there were only two people to be seen. I couldn’t tell who they were because they had gas masks on too.
‘It’s Mr Steal, the Mayor,’ said Dad. ‘And that boy of his.’
I smothered a groan. The Mayor’s son Nick was a pain in the bum. And Nick was a good name for him too. He was always nicking things. The only trouble was you could never catch him. He was too quick. If you put your best pen on the desk at school when he was around you could kiss it goodbye. The pen would just vanish. It was no good telling the teachers. If you couldn’t prove that Nick stole the pen then you couldn’t complain. The teachers would just tell you off instead of him.
‘We don’t want anyone here while we work,’ Dad said to Mr Steal. ‘It’s too dangerous with all this gelignite around.’
‘I’m here to make sure you do a good job,’ said Mr Steal. ‘I’ll take care of Nick. He won’t get in your way.’
‘Well,’ said Dad, ‘you both stay here with the truck. I don’t want either of you getting any closer to the whale.’
I looked at the rotting whale. Its eyes were like dead white saucers. Seagulls sat on its mountainous back pecking away at the tough hide. Even with the gas mask on I could smell it. The fumes were so thick that you could almost see them.
‘Now,’ said Dad, peering at me through his gas mask. ‘You take two sticks of gelignite at a time into the mouth. Sixteen altogether. I’ll drop sixteen sticks down the blow hole. For every stick you take into the whale put a match in this box.’ He put a small wooden box down on the back of the truck next to Nick.
We called this the tally box. It helped us to know how many sticks of gelignite had been planted.
‘If we don’t put in enough,’ said Dad, ‘it won’t blow the whale into small enough pieces. Make sure you put one match in the box for every stick of gelignite. Then we will know we have the right number.’
I nodded at Dad. His voice sounded funny inside the gas mask.
I looked up at Nick. He was staring at the tally box. I could swear that he was sneering at us. Nick was a nasty bit of work. That was for sure.
Dad put a long ladder up against the whale and climbed up onto its back. ‘It’s slippery,’ he yelled, ‘but it will be okay.’ I watched him drop the first two sticks of gelignite down the whale’s blow hole. Then I walked around to the whale’s mouth.
My heart sank as I peered into the gaping jaws. It was like a big, wet cave. Every now and then a piece of rotting flesh would break off the roof of its mouth and fall onto its tongue with a wet thunk. I shivered. Then I walked back to the truck to get my first two sticks of gelignite.
I put two matches into the tally box and walked slowly back to the stinking carcass.
4
Dad gave me my instructions. ‘Get right down inside her guts. She won’t blow properly if you don’t. I’d go myself but I’m too big to get right inside. You don’t mind do you?’
To be honest I did mind. What if I got stuck? What if I got lost? What if the gizzards collapsed on me and I got buried alive? I stared at Dad’s eyes through the gas mask and remembered our handshake. A deal is a deal. With pounding heart I walked into the soggy, wet mouth of the dead whale.
Dad went back to his ladder to finish putting the rest of the sticks down the blow hole. I was alone.
I walked carefully over the sagging, stinking tongue. With every step I sank up to my ankles. My heart was pounding with terror. I shone my torch into the blackness and saw that the roof sloped downwards. On either side were white, glistening shelves of gristle. I forced my legs to take me forward. Soon the roof was so low that I had to go forward on my knees. My jeans were soaked with slime.
Suddenly the whole thing narrowed into a spongy tube like a sausage. I knew that I would have to lie on my stomach and wriggle in. I could hear my breath sucking and squeezing through the gas mask. The goggles were starting to mist up in the damp air. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bury myself inside that giant sausage-shaped bit of guts.
Then I thought of poor Dad and the battered old caravan. I pushed myself forward with a great shove and slithered into the tube. I had the gelignite in one hand and the torch in the other. But I couldn’t see anything. I was surrounded by gurgling blackness. I wriggled in further and further. Down, down, down into the darkest depths and all around me the dead whale’s decaying dinner.
Suddenly my hand touched something solid. It was like a slimy wall. It seemed to be crawling. It was crawling. It was covered in maggots. I dropped the gelignite and shrieking and screaming pushed myself backwards. Wriggling, choking, scrambling like a fat caterpillar inside the finger of a rubber glove.
I squirted out into the mouth and slithered over the tongue and into the glaring sunshine. Then, before my heart failed me, I staggered over to the truck and grabbed four sticks of gelignite – as much as I could carry. I threw four matches into the tally box and once again entered the unspeakable jaws.
Down I went – into the grizzly gizzards. Then out. Then back down. Then out. How many times I slid down into that filthy throat I couldn’t say. Each time I threw matches into the tally box but the pile never seemed to grow. I staggered in and out and in and out. My head swam. My brain pounded. At last I could do no more. I fell onto the ground next to the truck. Nothing would make me go in there again.
Dad counted the matches. ‘Fourteen,’ he said. ‘Two more to go.’
I couldn’t believe it. It seemed as if I had taken a million sticks of gelignite in there.
Dad could see that I was beat. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You’ve done a great job. I’ll just throw the last two sticks of gelignite into the mouth. That should be okay.’ He walked over to the whale and threw the last sticks in gently. ‘Right,’ he yelled at Mr Steal and Nick. ‘Get out of the way. We’re ready to blow her up.’
Nick and Mr Steal turned to go. And as they did so, I saw Nick shove something into his shirt pocket. It was a little bundle of matches.
My heart jumped up into my throat. He had been taking matches out of the tally box. This meant I had taken too many sticks of gelignite into the whale. I had been into the innards more often than I needed to. I felt faint with fury. I wanted to run after him and strangle him with my slippery hands. But I didn’t. If I told Dad he would make me go back into the whale and count the gelignite sticks. I just couldn’t do it.
5
We drove the truck back down the beach to a safe spot. Everyone in the town had gathered at the foreshore to watch the big explosion. They all stood with handkerchiefs over their noses to keep out the smell.
Dad lit the long fuse that dangled out of the whale’s blow hole and ran back to the truck. I wondered what difference it would make having too many sticks of gelignite inside the whale. It would probably just blow it up into smaller pieces, which would make it wash away easier.
The fuse spluttered and spat. The little orange flame crept up the side of the whale and into the blow hole. I pulled back my sleeve to see what time it was.
My watch was gone. It had fallen off inside the whale.
> Oh no. I couldn’t bear it. My new watch. I was mixed up. Angry. Crazy. Off my head. I stood up and ran over towards the whale. ‘My watch. My watch. My watch,’ I yelled.
I could hear Dad’s voice behind me. He was shouting and screeching. ‘Come back Troy. Come back. She’s about to blow.’
I didn’t know what I was doing. I fell into the mouth and slithered in. Dad’s strong hands grabbed my ankles and pulled me out. He dragged me back across the sand. Bumping, jerking, scraping on my stomach. My mouth and eyes filled with sand. Shells and pebbles scratched my face. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
Dad jerked me under the truck. Just in time.
Kerblam. The sky disappeared. The sun blotted out. Sand and whale gizzards filled the air with a black blizzard. It hailed whale. It blew whale. It shrieked whale. It wailed whale.
There must have been fifty sticks of gelignite inside it.
The roar almost burst our eardrums. The truck shook with the shock. Every sliver of paint was sandblasted off its body.
And when the air cleared a great lake had formed in the crater on the beach. Not one tiny piece of whale was left on the sand.
‘Whoopee,’ yelled Dad. ‘We’ve done it. We’ve done it.’
That’s not all you’ve done,’ said a cold voice from behind us. It was Mayor Steal and his gloating son Nick. Mayor Steal pointed at the town.
We all turned and stared. The whole town was covered in bits of stinking whale. Pieces of whale gut hung from the lamp posts and the TV aerials. The roofs were littered with horrible bits of red and grey stuff. Windows were broken. The electricity wires were draped with strings of intestines. The streets were filled with lumps and glumps of foul flesh.
If the smell had been bad before it was worse now. It was so bad that it made your eyes water. Every house was smothered in the torn and tattered remains of the whale.
Uncanny! Page 7