Uncanny!

by Paul Jennings

  ‘Don’t think you’ll get paid for this,’ said Mayor Steal in a hard voice. ‘It’ll take five thousand dollars to clean this mess up. I doubt that anyone in this town is ever going to speak to you again.’

  ‘I can’t understand it,’ said Dad, shaking his head. ‘It shouldn’t have gone up with such a big bang. Thirty-two sticks shouldn’t have gone up like that.’

  ‘It was him,’ I screamed, pointing at the grinning Nick. ‘He stole the tally sticks. He took the matches out of the box. They are in his shirt pocket.’

  ‘Don’t try to blame my boy,’ said the Mayor. ‘Don’t try to shift the blame onto an innocent bystander.’

  ‘Search him,’ said Dad. ‘Look in his shirt pocket.’

  ‘No,’ said Mayor Steal.

  Before Nick could move, Dad grabbed him and searched his pockets.

  They were empty.

  6

  ‘He’s thrown them away,’ I shouted. ‘He always does that after he nicks something. You can never catch him. I saw him with matches. I saw him. I did, I did, I did.’ I was crying but I didn’t care. I had gone down into the whale’s guts for nothing. We would never get a house now. Never.

  ‘What a low trick,’ said Mayor Steal. ‘First you blame Nick and now this grubby wrecker searches him. And finds nothing. I want an apology.’

  Dad hung his head. Then he looked at Nick. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

  We turned and walked sadly home through the whale-infested town. The Council workers were already out cleaning up. We both felt miserable. We had missed our chance to earn five thousand dollars. All because of that rotten Nick.

  ‘We will never get a house now,’ I said sadly. ‘Not unless we win Tatts.’

  ‘Or find a lump of ambergris,’ answered Dad slowly.

  ‘What’s ambergris?’ I asked.

  ‘When a whale is sick,’ said Dad, ‘it sometimes makes this stuff called ambergris inside its stomach. It’s worth a lot of money. But only one whale in a thousand ever has it.’

  I brightened up a bit. ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t have the foggiest,’ said Dad, looking around him at the bits of blasted whale that covered the ground.

  When we got back to the caravan I could see bits of whale on the roof. One of the caravan windows was broken. I went inside and found a round, grey lump on my pillow. It was about the size of a cricket ball. It was a slippery glob of something from inside the whale. I took it outside and put it on the caravan step.

  Then Dad and I went to help the Council workers clean up. ‘It’s the least we can do,’ said Dad.

  As we went out of the caravan park I saw Nick staring at us from his bedroom window. He was looking at us with binoculars. I pretended not to see him.

  Dad and I worked all day helping people clean up their houses. We collected the horrible guts and put it in bins. Then we took it down to the tip on the back of the truck. The people of the town didn’t say much. Just about everyone liked Dad and they could see that he was trying to make up for the damage by helping with the cleaning up.

  Halfway through the afternoon, while we were sweeping up in the school yard, Mayor Steal pulled up in his Jaguar. He had a little grey-haired man with him. ‘This is Mister Proust,’ said the Mayor. ‘He wants to talk to you.’

  Mr Proust spoke with a high, squeaky voice. He looked right at me. ‘Are you the boy who went inside the whale?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said wearily.

  ‘Did you see anything that looks like this?’ He showed me a coloured photo.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s ambergris. It comes from inside the sperm whale. We use it to make perfume. The best perfume in the world. But now that whales can’t be killed any more it is very hard to get.’

  I stared at the photo of a grey slippery glob of something from inside the whale. It was about the size of a cricket ball.

  The little man was getting more and more excited. ‘One piece that big,’ he said, ‘is worth ten thousand dollars. That’s what I will give you for a bit that size.’

  I hadn’t seen anything inside the whale. It was too dark. I shook my head. That’s when I remembered. ‘Back at the caravan,’ I yelled. ‘I’ve got a bit back at the caravan and it looks just like that.’

  We all piled into the Jaguar and Mayor Steal drove us back towards the caravan park. He seemed to want to please this little man for some reason. As we went past the Steals’ house I noticed Nick in the upstairs bedroom. He was throwing something up and down in his hands. It looked like a ball.

  When we reached the caravan the ball of ambergris was not on the step. ‘Someone’s swiped it,’ said Dad. He looked downcast and beaten.

  ‘And I know who,’ I yelled. ‘I saw Nick with it as we went past. It’s in his bedroom.’

  Mr Proust was jumping up and down excitedly and waving his cheque book around.

  Mr Steal narrowed his eyes. ‘You are not blaming my son again are you?’ He was hissing in a low voice. He was very angry.

  Dad looked at me. ‘Are you sure? Are you really sure?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘We want to search Nick’s room,’ said Dad. ‘Troy doesn’t tell lies.’

  ‘And Nick doesn’t steal,’ said the Mayor.

  Both men looked at each other. Finally Mayor Steal said, ‘All right. I’ll let you search Nick’s room. But if you don’t find anything you have to agree to one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Dad.

  ‘That if you don’t find the ambergris in Nick’s room you both leave town tomorrow and never come back.’

  Dad and I both blinked. We were thinking the same thing. We didn’t want to leave town. We loved Port Niranda. All our friends lived there. My mother was buried in the cemetery there. We didn’t want to leave.

  There was a long silence. Then Dad said, ‘Okay, we search the room, and if we don’t find anything we leave Port Niranda tomorrow.’ I could see that his eyes were watering.

  7

  We all trooped up into Nick’s room. ‘I didn’t take nothing,’ he yelled at his father. ‘You can look where you like.’ He was smirking. My stomach felt heavy. He didn’t look the least bit worried.

  Dad and I searched the room while the others stood and watched. We spent a whole hour at it. Nothing. We searched under the mattress. In the cupboards and drawers. Everywhere.

  ‘I saw you throwing something shaped like a ball,’ I said to Nick.

  ‘I don’t even have a ball,’ he smirked. ‘Do I Dad?’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Steal. ‘And that’s enough searching. There is no ball of ambergris in this room. I expect both of you to be out of town by first thing tomorrow.’

  I looked at Dad. He suddenly seemed very old. ‘Can’t I come back to visit my wife’s grave?’ he asked.

  Mayor Steal shook his head. ‘A man’s word is his word,’ he replied.

  Nick was grinning his rotten head off.

  I looked up at the clock on the wall. Four o’clock. Time to go.

  As we turned to leave I heard a soft noise. Something I had heard once before. A little tinkling tune. A very faint melody. It was ‘Greensleeves’.

  ‘There,’ I yelled. ‘Under the carpet.’

  Dad rushed over and pulled back a rug. There was a small trapdoor. He yanked it open and pulled out the ball of ambergris. A little shining piece of watch could be seen poking out of it. It was my watch. The one I had lost in the whale. It must have got jammed in the ambergris when the whale exploded. The alarm was still set for four o’clock and it had just gone off.

  Nick ran out of the room yowling. His father ran after him shouting and shaking his fist and calling Nick a thief and a liar.

  Mr Proust started writing in his cheque book with a big smile. ‘Ten thousand dollars,’ he said as he handed the cheque to Dad. ‘And you can keep the watch as well.’

  We both looked at the sticky
watch with big grins on our faces. It was still playing ‘Greensleeves’.

  Mousechap

  ‘You’re not taking that dung beetle with you,’ said Mum.

  ‘But Mum, Uncle Sid likes dung beetles. He won’t mind.’

  ‘Aunt Scrotch will. She doesn’t even like boys. You’re lucky that she lets you have a holiday there each year. You leave that dung beetle at home with me.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. I put my dung beetle back in his matchbox and shoved it into my pocket. Aunt Scrotch would never know I had it.

  The first night at Aunt Scrotch’s house was terrible. There I was, lying in bed in the dark. Aunt Scrotch wouldn’t let me have the light on. She was too mean to use the electricity. Inside the room it was almost black. There was just enough light to see shadows on the wall. Just enough light to nearly see the eyes that were watching me.

  I didn’t know what to do. If I screamed the eyes might get me and finish me off. If I lay still, hardly breathing, they might go away. The night was long. I could measure the crawling time by my silent breathing.

  The eyes stared. I was sure they stared even though I couldn’t see them. Something moved. Near the clock on the shelf. A rustle? A whisper? A footstep? My dry mouth screamed silently. I wanted to cry out. I wanted to say, ‘Who’s that?’ I wanted to call out for Uncle Sid but my terrified tonsils refused to talk. Instead they trembled – trapped behind the tomb-stones of my teeth – quivering under the strains of a choked-off cry.

  Two pinpoints of light. I could see them now. Moving silently. Blinking on and off. My hand crawled towards the light switch. I fumbled among the tissues. I found my watch. I clasped some coins. Everything except the switch.

  Oh switch. Dear, dear, light switch where are you?

  ‘Click.’ I found it. The room blazed. I saw at once who owned the eyes. A mouse. A small, grey mouse. It peered at me without moving. It seemed unafraid. Then, to my amazement, it stood up on its hind legs and walked. It walked along the shelf on its back legs. Then it clasped its little paws together under its chin as if it was praying.

  I picked up my slipper and threw it straight at the mouse. It scampered off behind the clock as the slipper thunked into the wall.

  With a sigh I turned off the light and lay down in bed. I felt as if I was going nuts. Mice don’t walk on two legs. And they certainly don’t say their prayers. I told myself I was upset because of Uncle Sid. Aunt Scrotch said that he couldn’t be disturbed. She said I wasn’t allowed to see him. I had come all the way to their lonely old house for a holiday and now I couldn’t see Uncle Sid. It wasn’t fair.

  Footsteps. Oh no, not again. This time they were real footsteps. Human footsteps in the passage outside. I climbed silently out of bed and pulled the door open a fraction. It was Aunt Scrotch creeping along the passage with a torch. Why hadn’t she turned on the light? Why was she creeping? And why was every wall in the house lined with boxes of cheese? There were sausages of cheese hanging from the ceiling. There were cartons of cheese stacked in the lounge. There were cheeses in string bags. Cheeses in red wrappers. Cheeses like plum puddings. They dripped from the light fittings. They staggered across the tables.

  Cheese, cheese everywhere.

  2

  Aunt Scrotch tiptoed down the passage to the cellar stairs. She picked up a carton of Edam cheese from the many that lined the walls and held it in both hands. She balanced the torch on top, making it roll from side to side. It sent creepy shadows flashing against the ceiling.

  Aunt Scrotch vanished down the cellar steps, leaving the house in darkness. I put on my thongs and crept towards the steps. With thumping heart I made my way down after her. At the bottom I peeped around the corner.

  There was a door that was not there last time I had visited. The door was locked from the outside with a large sliding bolt. It had a small window with bars in it. Aunt Scrotch tore away the cardboard from the carton and began throwing huge lumps of cheese through the bars. A loud scuffling, snuffling noise came from inside. It sounded like a hungry animal feeding at the trough.

  ‘Pig,’ said Aunt Scrotch as she turned around to come back. I flattened myself against the wall next to some boxes and held my breath. Aunt Scrotch passed by without looking in my direction. Her footsteps shuffled away upstairs to be finally silenced by the soft thud of her bedroom door. She was gone.

  In the blackness the sounds of soft gobbling came from behind the locked door. I switched on the passage light and peered through the bars. I nearly fainted at the sight. It was Uncle Sid. His hair was long and wild. A tangled beard surrounded his dribbling mouth. Stains of cheese covered his torn shirt. His feet were bare. He was kneeling down on all fours and nibbling at the cheese with his mouth.

  The last time I saw Uncle Sid he was strong and neat and tidy. He was one of those uncles who is always finding ten cents behind your ear. Or pulling off the end of his thumb and putting it back again before you can see how he does it. He was my favourite uncle. And now horrible Aunt Scrotch had him locked up in the cellar.

  ‘Uncle Sid,’ I croaked. ‘It’s me, Julian.’

  He didn’t even look up. Uncle Sid just kept gnawing away at his cheese.

  I was frantic. What was up with him? Why didn’t he answer? Angry tears filled my eyes as I yanked at the bolt and opened the door. This time he did look up. Then he scampered over to the corner and peered at me with bright, wild eyes. Before I could open my mouth to say anything, he made a rush for the door and, still on all fours, bolted out into the passage and up the stairs.

  I ran after him. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Uncle Sid was tearing at a large box. On the side was written BLUE-VEIN CHEESE. He was tearing at it with his fingers and his mouth, trying to get at the cheese inside. At last he succeeded. He pulled out the blue and white cheese and began gobbling it down.

  The smell was terrible. I hate the smell of blue-vein cheese. Uncle Sid loved it though. He gnawed and nibbled for all he was worth.

  After what seemed ages and ages he stopped eating. He turned up his nose and sniffed. He held up his hands under his chin like a dog begging. Then he headed up the stairs towards the house. Suddenly he froze. He began moving backwards. He was frightened of something.

  It was Aunt Scrotch. Her mouth was cruel and twisted. And in her arms she held Tiger, her fat tom cat. ‘Get him Tiger,’ hissed Aunt Scrotch.

  She put Tiger down on the floor and he crouched low, hissing and spitting. Uncle Sid was terrified. He backed down the stairs slowly, never taking his eyes from the vicious cat.

  Tiger flattened himself on the floor and crept slowly forward. His tail quivered. His whiskers twitched. He crouched, ready to spring. Uncle Sid seemed to be hypnotised by the cat. I rubbed my eyes. Poor Uncle Sid was scared of a cat. My head swam. Was I going crazy? Was this some terrible dream?

  Suddenly Uncle Sid turned and ran for it. On all fours. He fled back into his little prison cell. He darted in with incredible speed.

  Aunt Scrotch was almost as quick. She grabbed Tiger just as he was about to pounce. Then she slammed the door closed and locked it. Uncle Sid was trapped inside again.

  ‘You fool,’ snarled Aunt Scrotch as she pulled me out from my hiding place. ‘Why did you let him out?’

  ‘He shouldn’t be locked up,’ I yelled. ‘Why is Uncle Sid locked up?’

  Her voice was like fingernails on a blackboard. ‘Can’t you see? Can’t you guess? Your precious Uncle Sid thinks he is a mouse.’

  3

  I tried to take it in. I tried to make sense of it. My head swirled. It was true. Uncle Sid acted like a mouse. He sniffed the air like one. He ate cheese. He moved around on all fours. He was frightened of cats.

  My poor, dear Uncle Sid thought he was a mouse.

  ‘He should be in a hospital,’ I said slowly. ‘Not locked up.’

  Aunt Scrotch grabbed me by the collar of my pyjamas and pulled me along to the kitchen. She dumped me in a chair. ‘He’s been in hospital,’ she snapped. ‘They
can’t do anything for him. Now I’m stuck with him. I have to look after him. He acts like an animal so I treat him like an animal.’

  ‘It’s cruel,’ I yelled. ‘You don’t have to be cruel. You don’t have to put cats onto him.’

  ‘You stay away from him,’ ordered Aunt Scrotch. ‘Don’t you go near him. He tries to escape all the time. It’s hard to get him back once he is outside. And another thing. I want your help. I am looking for something. Something that is lost.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. I knew that whatever it was I wasn’t going to help Aunt Scrotch. I was angry. I was real mad at her. She was treating Uncle Sid terribly.

  ‘Your Uncle invented a new type of mouse trap,’ said Aunt Scrotch. ‘It is like a little electric fence. Whenever a mouse steps on the wire, its brain waves run along the wire into a little box. Then they run back to the mouse. The mouse sees visions of the countryside, of fresh air. Of fields. Of corn and blue sky. It runs straight off outside and never comes back. The electric fence makes the mice long for the fresh air. They can’t stay in a house. The mice are never hurt by it. This mouse fence would be worth millions. Millions of dollars. But after silly Sid started thinking he was a mouse someone stole it. Or Sid hid it somewhere. Anyway, it’s gone. If you find it give it to me. It is mine.’

  My mean aunt got up and went to the pantry. She took down a jar of chocolate freckles and tipped them onto a plate. All she ever ate was chocolate freckles – little buttons of chocolate covered in hundreds and thousands. I could never figure out how she stayed so thin. You would think that she would get fat from eating nothing but chocolate. She ate about thirty chocolate freckles and never even offered me one.

  ‘Go to bed,’ she ordered. ‘And remember. If you see that electric mouse trap fence – give it to me.’

  4

  I went to bed and turned off the light. But I couldn’t sleep. Little eyes were watching me. Little mouse eyes. It was the same mouse that had been watching me earlier. I just knew it was.