She paused, looked a little fearful, and then keeping her eyes on his, nodded her head slowly.
‘Tonight,’ he whispered, and then, checking the book, ‘No, today. At midnight, no sorry, midday. I will meet you. By that lamp post.’ He pointed out of the window and across the rolling lawns of the mansion. ‘By that lamp post. Do you understand?’
Linda followed his gaze. There was a lamp post at the far end of the driveway which could just be seen through the leaves of a large gum tree in the middle of the lawn. He took her hand. It was warm and soft and sent a current of happiness up his arm. He asked her again in a whisper. ‘Do you understand?’
She nodded, and for the first time he noticed a sparkle in her eyes.
‘I didn’t ask you to maul my son,’ a voice hissed from behind them. Ralph jumped as a grip of steel took hold of his arm. Dr Scrape was incredibly strong. He dragged Ralph out of the kitchen and into the lounge. ‘You stay in the laundry,’ he snarled at Linda as the kitchen door swung closed in her face.
‘Well, my boy,’ he said with a twisted grin. ‘How did it go? Could you make head or tail of what she said? Or should I say tail or head?’ He licked his greasy moustache with satisfaction at his little joke.
Ralph tried to disguise the contempt he felt. ‘What would happen if she mixed with people in the real world?’ he asked. ‘If she was to leave here and go to school? Would she learn to talk normally?’
Dr Scrape paused and looked carefully at Ralph as if reading his mind. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course she would. She would model on the others. She would soon speak just like you, I suspect. But that’s not going to happen, is it?’
Ralph could contain himself no longer. ‘You devil,’ he yelled. ‘You’ve mucked her up all right. She thinks I am the one who can’t talk properly. She thinks I’m a bit crazy. But don’t think I’m going to help you. I’ll do everything I can to stop you. You’re nothing but a vicious, crazy little monster.’ He stood up and stormed out of the house.
Dr Scrape gave a wicked smile of satisfaction as Ralph disappeared down the long driveway.
2
It was thirty minutes past midnight and a few stars appeared occasionally when the drifting clouds allowed them to penetrate.
It was a different Ralph who stood waiting beneath the lamp post. Gone were the overalls, work boots and the smudged face. He wore his best jeans and his hair shone in the light of the street lamp. He had taken a lot of time over his appearance.
He looked anxiously at his watch and then up at the dark house. There was no sign of Linda. She was thirty minutes late. His heart sank as slowly and surely as the sun had done that evening. She wasn’t coming. She had dismissed him as a funny speaking crank. Or that evil man had guessed their plan and locked her in a room.
It began to drizzle and soon trickles of water ran down his neck. One o’clock and still no sign of her. He sighed and decided to go. There was nothing more he could do. She wasn’t going to show up. The words started to keep time with his feet as he crunched homewards along the gravel road. ‘Show up, show up.’ Linda would have said ‘show down’ not ‘show up’.
A bell rang in the back of his mind. A tiny, insistent bell of alarm. Once again he heard Dr Scrape speaking. ‘Dog is cat, tree is lamp post, ant is …’ Of course.
‘Tree is lamp post. And therefore … lamp post is tree.’ He almost shouted the words out. She called a lamp post a tree. Linda might have been waiting beneath the gum tree in the middle of the gardens while he was waiting under the lamp post by the gate. He hardly dared hope. He ran blindly in the dark night. Several times he fell over. Once he put a hole in the knee of his jeans but he didn’t give it a thought.
He knew that she would have gone. Like him she would have given up waiting and have returned to the dark house.
At last he stumbled up to the tree, finding it by its silhouette against the black sky. ‘Linda,’ he whispered urgently, using her name for the first time. It tasted sweet on his lips.
There was no answer.
Then, at the foot of the house, in the distance, he saw a flicker of yellow light. It looked like a candle. He saw Linda, faintly, holding the small flame. Before he could call out she opened the front door and disappeared inside.
‘Damn and blast,’ he said aloud. He smashed his clenched fist into the trunk of the tree in disappointment. A lump of bitter anguish welled up in his throat. He threw himself heavily down on the damp ground to wait. Perhaps she would try again. Anyway, he resolved to stay there until morning.
Inside the dark house Linda made her way back to her bedroom upstairs. Her eyes were wet with tears of rejection. The strange girl had not come. She crept silently, terrified of awaking her tormentor. Holding the forbidden candle in her left hand she tiptoed up the stairs. She held her breath as she reached the landing lest her guardian should feel its gentle breeze even from behind closed doors.
‘Betrayed, betrayed,’ shrieked a figure from the darkness. The candle was struck from her hand and spiralled over the handrail to the floor below. It spluttered dimly in the depths.
The dark form of Dr Scrape began slapping Linda’s frail cheeks. Over and over he slapped, accompanying every blow with the same shrill word. ‘Betrayed, betrayed, betrayed.’
In fear, in shock, in desperation, the girl pushed at the flaying shadow. Losing his footing, Scrape tumbled backwards, over and over, down the wooden staircase. He came to a halt halfway down and lay still.
Linda collapsed onto the top step, sobbing into her hands, not noticing the smoke swirling up from below. Then, awakened to her peril by the crackling flames that raced up the stairs, she filled her lungs with smoke-filled air, screamed and fainted dead away.
The old mansion was soon burning like a house of straw. Flames leapt from the windows and leaked from the tiles. Smoke danced before the moonless sky.
The roar of falling timber awakened Ralph from a fitful doze at the base of the tree. He ran, blindly, wildly, unthinkingly through the blazing front door and through the swirling smoke, made out Linda’s crumpled form at the top of the staircase. He ran to her, jumping three steps at a time, ignoring the scorching flames and not feeling the licking pain on his legs. Staggering, grunting, breathing smoke he struggled with her limp body past the unconscious form of Dr Scrape. He paused, and saw in that second that Scrape was still breathing and that his eyes were wide and staring. He seemed unable to move. Ralph charged past him, forward, through the burning door and along the winding driveway. Only the sight of an ambulance and fire truck allowed him to let go and fall with his precious load, unconscious on the wet grass.
‘Smoke inhalation,’ yelled the ambulance driver. ‘Get oxygen and put them both in the back.’
Linda’s eyes flickered open and she stared in awe from the stretcher at the uniformed figure. Only the third person she had seen in her life. A mask was lowered over her face, but not before she had time to notice that the unconscious Ralph was breathing quietly on the stretcher next to her.
‘I want to speak to her,’ yelled the fire chief, striding over from the flashing truck.
‘No way, they are both going to hospital,’ shouted the ambulance driver in answer.
The fire chief ignored the reply and tore the mask from Linda’s gasping mouth. He bent close to her. ‘I can’t send men in there,’ he yelled, pointing at the blazing house. ‘Not unless there is someone inside. Is there anyone inside?’
‘Mother,’ whispered the girl.
The fireman looked around. ‘She said “Mother”.’
She hasn’t got a mother,’ said a short bald man who had come over from the house next door. ‘Her mother died when the girl was born. She only has a father. Dr Scrape.’
The fireman leaned closer. His words were urgent. ‘Is your father in there, girl? Is anyone in there? The roof is about to collapse. Is anyone inside the house?’
Linda tried to make sense of his strange speech. Then a look of enlightenment swept across her face.
She understood the question – that was clear. But many have wondered if she understood her own answer.
As the ambulance driver shut the door she just had time to say one word.
‘No.’
‘Can you lend me ten dollars, Dad?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he answered without even looking up.
‘Aw, go on. Just till pocket money day. I’ll pay you back.’
He still didn’t look at me but started spreading butter onto a bread roll. He was acting just as if I wasn’t there. He ate the whole roll without saying one word. It was very annoying but I had to play it cool. If I made him mad I would never get the money.
‘I’ll do some jobs,’ I pleaded. ‘I’ll cut the whole lawn. That’s worth ten dollars.’
This time he looked up. ‘You must be crazy,’ he said, ‘if you think I’ll ever let you near that lawn mower again. The last time you cut the lawn you went straight over about fifteen plants I had just put in. They cost me twenty-five dollars to buy and five hours to plant. You cut every one of them off at the base and now you want me to give you ten dollars.’
I knew straight away I had made a mistake by mentioning the lawn. I had to change the subject. ‘It’s important,’ I told him. ‘I need it to take Tania to the movies on Saturday.’
‘That’s important? Taking Tania to the pictures is important?’
‘It is to me,’ I said. ‘She is the biggest spunk in the whole school. And she’s agreed to go with me on Saturday night if …’ Another mistake. I hadn’t meant to tell him that bit.
‘If what?’ he growled.
‘If I take her in a taxi. If I can’t afford a taxi she’s going to go with Brad Bellamy. He’s got pots of money. He gets fifteen dollars a week from his Dad.’
‘Good grief, lad. You’re only fifteen years old and you want to take a girl out in a taxi. What’s the world coming to? When I was your age …’
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Forget it.’ I walked out of the room before he could get started on telling me how he had to walk five miles to school when he was a boy. In bare feet. In the middle of winter. And then walk home again and chop up a tonne of wood with a blunt axe. Every time he told the story it got worse and worse. The first time he told it he had to walk two miles to school. The way it was going it would soon be fifty miles and ten tonnes of wood chopped up with a razor blade.
I walked sadly out into the warm night air. Dad just didn’t understand. This wasn’t just any old date. This was a date with Tania. She was the best-looking girl I had ever seen. She had long blonde hair, pearly teeth and a great figure. And she had class. Real class. There was no way that Tania was going to walk to the movies or go on a bus. She had already told me it was a taxi or nothing. I had to give her my answer by tomorrow morning or she would go with Brad Bellamy. He could afford ten taxis because his Dad was rich.
‘I’m going for a walk down the beach,’ I yelled over my shoulder. There was no answer. I might as well be dead for all Dad cared.
I walked along the beach in bare feet, dragging my toes through the water. I tried to think of some way of getting money. I could buy a Tattslotto ticket. You never knew what could happen. Someone had to win. Why not me? Or maybe I could find the mahogany ship. It was buried along the beach there under the sand but it hadn’t been seen for over a hundred years. What if the sea had swept the sand away and left it uncovered that very night? And I found it? I could claim the reward of one thousand dollars. Boy, would I be popular then. I could hire a gold-plated taxi to take Tania out.
The beach was deserted and the moon was out. I could see quite clearly. I walked on and on, well away from the town and the houses. It was lonely and late at night but I wasn’t scared. I was too busy looking out for the mahogany ship and thinking of how I would spend the reward money. Every now and then I could see something sticking out of the sand and I would run up to it as fast as I could. But each time I was disappointed. All I found were old forty-four-gallon drums and bits of driftwood that had been washed up by the heavy surf. It’s funny, I didn’t really expect to find the mahogany ship. Things like that just don’t happen, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking I might stumble over it and be lucky.
After a while I decided to climb up to the top of the sand dunes that ran along the beach. I knew I could see for miles from up there. I struggled to the top and sat down under a bent and twisted tree. Just at that moment the moon went in and everything was covered in darkness.
‘What are you looking for, boy?’ said a deep voice from the shadows.
I must have jumped at least a metre off the sand. I was terrified. There I was, miles away from any help, on an isolated beach in the middle of the night. And an unseen man was talking to me from the depths of the shadows. I wanted to run but my legs wouldn’t move.
‘What are you looking for, boy?’ the voice asked again. I stared into the darkness under the tree and could just make out a shadowy figure sitting on the sand. I couldn’t see his face but I could tell from the voice that he was very old.
I finally managed to say something. ‘The mahogany ship,’ I answered. ‘I’m looking for the mahogany ship. Who are you?’
He didn’t answer me but asked me another question. ‘Why do you want to find the mahogany ship, boy?’
‘The reward,’ I stammered. ‘There’s a reward of one thousand dollars.’
‘And what would you do with one thousand dollars if you had it?’ the voice asked sadly.
I don’t know why I didn’t turn and run. I was still scared but I felt a little better and thought I could probably run faster than an old man if he tried anything. Also, there was something about him that made me want to stay. He sounded both sad and wise at the same time.
‘A girl,’ I said. ‘There’s this girl called Tania. I need the money to take her out. Not a thousand dollars, only ten. But a thousand dollars would be good.’
The old man didn’t say anything for a long time. I still couldn’t see him properly but I could hear him breathing. Finally he sighed and said, ‘You think that money would make this girl like you? You think that a thousand dollars would make you popular?’
He made it sound silly. I didn’t know what to say.
‘Sit down, boy,’ he commanded. ‘Sit down and listen.’
I nearly ran off and left him. It was all very spooky and strange but I decided to do what he said. He sounded as if he expected to be obeyed, so I sat down on the sand and peered into the darkness, trying to see who he was.
‘I am going to tell you a story, boy. And you are going to listen. When I am finished you can get up and go. But not until I have finished. Understand?’
I nodded at the dark shadow and sat there without moving. This is what he told me.
2
Many years ago there was a busker who worked in Melbourne. He stood by the railway station and played music to the people who went by. He dressed completely in flags. His trousers, coat and vest were made from flags and his bowler hat was covered with a flag. When he pushed a button a small door would open on his hat and flags would pop out.
He played a number of different musical instruments. With his feet he pushed pedals which banged three drums. He had a mouth organ on a wire near his face and he played a guitar with his hands. His music was terrible but people always stopped to watch and listen because of his small dog. The dog, whose name was Tiny, walked around with a hat in her mouth and took up the money people threw into it. Tiny had a coat made out of the Australian flag. Whenever the hat was empty Tiny would stand up on her hind legs and walk around like a person. Everyone would laugh and then throw money into the hat.
The Busker, for that is what everyone called him, was jealous of the dog. He could see that the people really stopped and gave money because of Tiny and not because of the music. But there was nothing he could do about it because he needed the money.
As the months went by The Busker became more and more miserable. He wanted people to like him and not the dog. He s
tarted to treat Tiny badly when nobody was looking. Sometimes he would blame her if the takings were poor. Often he would forget to feed Tiny for days at a time. The little dog grew thinner and thinner until at last she was so weak that she couldn’t hold the hat up for the money. She had to drag it along the ground with her teeth.
Finally a man from the RSPCA came to see The Busker when he was working outside the station. ‘That dog is a disgrace,’ he said. ‘You are not looking after it properly. It is so hungry its bones are sticking out. It is not to work again until it is healthy. I will give you three weeks to fatten it up. If it isn’t healthy by then I will take it away and you will be fined.’
A crowd was standing around listening. ‘Yes, it’s a shame,’ said a man who had been watching. ‘Look at the poor little thing.’ Other people started to call out and boo at The Busker. He went red in the face. Then he packed up his drums and guitar and put them in his car and drove off with Tiny.
It was a long way to The Busker’s house for he lived well out of town. All the way home he thought about what had happened.
‘It’s all the fault of the rotten dog,’ he said to himself. ‘If it wasn’t for her none of this would have happened.’ The further he went, the more angry he became. When he reached home he grabbed Tiny by the scruff of the neck and took her round to the backyard. In the middle of the yard was an empty well. There was no water in the bottom but it was very deep. It was so deep you couldn’t see the bottom.
‘I’ll fix you, Tiny,’ said The Busker. ‘You’re not allowed to work for three weeks. Very well then, you can have a holiday. A very nice holiday.’ He went and fetched a bucket and tied a rope to it. Then he put Tiny into the bucket and lowered her into the well. The poor little dog whimpered and barked but soon she was so far down she could hardly be heard. When the bucket reached the bottom Tiny jumped out of the bucket and sniffed around the bottom of the well. It was damp from water that trickled down the wall but there was nothing to eat. The Busker pulled up the bucket and went inside.
Paul Jenning's Weirdest Stories Page 12