Paul Jenning's Weirdest Stories

by Paul Jennings

  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.

  ‘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.’

&nb
sp; 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’.

  ‘It’s on the bottom,’ says Dad.

  ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve got a fish.’

  ‘It’s too big,’ says Dad. ‘It couldn’t be a fish. You’re snagged on the bottom.’

  He is wrong. I know it is a fish because it is pulling the line out. Snags don’t pull on the line.

  My rod starts to bend and the line goes whizzing out. Whatever it is, I know I have hooked a whopper.

  ‘You’re right, it is a fish,’ yells Dad. ‘And it’s a big one. It’s even rocking the boat. Give me the rod, you might lose it.’

  Dad always does this. As soon as I hook a fish he wants to pull it in. He thinks that a fourteen-year-old kid can’t land his own fish. I shake my head and keep winding on the reel. ‘Get the gaff,’ I shout. ‘I can land it – I know I can.’

  For the next hour I play my fish. Sometimes he runs deep and fast and the reel screeches like a cooked cat. Sometimes I get it almost to the edge of our hire boat and then off it goes again. ‘I hope it’s a snapper,’ says Dad. ‘Snapper are good eating.’

  In the end I win. I get the fish to the edge of the boat and Dad pulls him in with the gaff. I am grinning from ear to ear because I have landed him.

  ‘It’s only a shark,’ says Dad. ‘A small shark. Not much good for eating.’ He gives a bit of a grin. ‘Well done Lucas. You played him well but you might as well throw him back.’

  ‘No way,’ I say. ‘You can eat shark. Haven’t you ever heard of flake?’

  ‘All right,’ says Dad, ‘but you have to clean it. You caught it. You clean it.’ Dad goes down the steps into the little cabin and leaves me up top to clean my shark. It is about a metre long and it is still kicking around on the deck. I open up a can of Fanta and look at the shark while I am drinking it. After a while the shark stops moving and I know it is dead. I get out my cleaning knife and make a long slit along its belly. I throw the innards and other stuff overboard. Seagulls swoop around fighting for the bits.

  Finally I come to the shark’s stomach. I decide to look inside and see what it has been eating. This will give me some clues as to what to use for bait. I throw out some fish heads and shells. Then I see something a bit different. I pick up this white, shrivelled thing that looks like a small sausage. For about ten seconds I stare at it. My mind goes numb and I can’t quite make sense of what I am seeing. I notice first of all that it has a finger nail. And a ring. Just below the ring is a small tattoo of a bear. An angry bear.

  It is a finger. I have just taken a human finger out of the shark’s stomach.

  2

  I give an almighty scream. A terrible, fearful scream. At the same time I throw my hands up and let go of the finger. It spins in the air like a wheel and then splashes into the sea. Quick as a flash a seagull swoops down and swallows it. The finger has gone.

  I have to hand it to that seagull. It swallows the whole finger in one go.

  Just then Dad comes rushing up from below. ‘What’s going on?’ he yells. ‘Did it bite you?’ Dad thinks the dead shark has bitten me.

  ‘No,’ I croak. ‘A finger. In the shark. A man’s finger. With a ring and a bear.’

  ‘What are you babbling about, boy?’ says Dad. ‘What finger?’

  ‘In the shark’s stomach. I found a finger. It had a little picture of a bear on it. And a ring. Oooh. Oh. Yuck. It was all shrivelled up and horrible.’ As I tell Dad this a little shiver runs down my spine.

  Dad goes a bit pale. He has a weak stomach. ‘Where is it?’ he asks slowly. Dad does not really want to see a human finger but he has to do the right thing and ask to see it.

  I point to the empty sky. There is not a seagull in sight. ‘A seagull ate it. I dropped it in the sea and a seagull ate it.’

  Dad looks at me for a long time without saying anything. Then he starts up the engine. ‘We will have to report it to the police. There goes our day’s fishing.’

  ‘How did it get there?’ I ask slowly.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ says Dad. ‘It’s better not to think about it.’ Then he stops talking. He is staring at my hand. He is staring so hard at my hand that I think maybe he has never seen a hand before. His face turns red.

  He grabs my wrist and starts shaking my arm around. ‘What’s this?’ he yells. ‘What on earth have you done?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘I haven’t done anything. What are you talking about?’ I can tell that Dad is as mad as a snake. Then I look down at my hand and I can see what the matter is. There on the back of my right hand is a little picture. A tattoo of a bear is on the back of one of my fingers.

  3

  We both gaze at the drawing of the little bear. ‘You fool,’ yells Dad. ‘You’ve gone and had yourself tattooed. Don’t you know that tattoos don’t come off? You’re stuck with it for life.’ He rushes ov
er to the locker and comes back with a whopping big scrubbing brush. He brushes at my hand so hard that my skin goes red. Tears come to my eyes. Dad stops scrubbing and has another look. The little bear is still there. It has a sad expression on its face. I have a sad expression on my face also.

  ‘It came from the finger,’ I tell Dad. ‘It must have jumped from the finger onto me. The finger from the shark’s stomach.’

  Dad looks at me through narrowed eyes. ‘Don’t make it worse boy,’ he says angrily. ‘Don’t add to your folly by making up a pack of lies about a finger. There was no finger.’ He shakes his head. ‘This is all the thanks I get for everything I’ve done for you.’ He is really angry about the tattoo.

  ‘There was a finger,’ I yell. ‘There was, there was, there was.’

  Dad turns the boat around and heads for shore. The fishing trip is over. ‘Don’t you mention one more word about a finger in the shark’s stomach,’ says Dad. ‘You must think that I’m as silly as you. Don’t let me hear another word of that cock-and-bull story. Or else.’

  It is no good saying anything. He won’t listen and I don’t really blame him. I can hardly believe it myself. How can a tattoo jump from a dead finger onto a live one? Tattoos don’t move. I sit down in the bow and look at my little bear.

  This is when I notice something strange. The bear is different. When I first saw my bear he had all four feet on the ground. Now he has one paw pointing. Pointing out to sea. I move my hand around so that the paw is pointing to the shore. The bear turns around. My tattoo moves. It turns around so that its paw once more points out to sea.

  The tattoo is alive and it is pointing out to sea.

  ‘It moved,’ I say to Dad. He shakes his head. He won’t listen. ‘The bear can move,’ I yell. ‘It’s pointing out to sea.’ Dad revs up the engine and heads for shore even faster than before.

  I look at the bear again. It seems to be staring back at me. It wants something. It wants us to go out to sea.