The story was true. And the old man was The Busker. I watched him shuffle away with his bent neck. Then the moon went in and he was gone.
I ran home as fast as I could and jumped into bed. But I couldn’t sleep. I lay there thinking about the sad, strange tale of Tiny and The Busker who had tried to use money to make people like him.
The next morning I met Dad on the stairs. He pushed ten dollars into my hand. ‘Here you are, Tony,’ he said. ‘If Tania won’t go out with you unless you take her in a taxi, you might as well have the money.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ I said.
I stuffed the ten dollars into my pocket. Then I went round to Tania’s house and told her to go jump in the lake.
I just wouldn’t go anywhere near a redhead.
Now don’t get me wrong and start calling me a hairist or something like that. Listen to what I have to say, then make up your mind.
It all started with Mr Mantolini and his sculptures.
They were terrific, were Mr Mantolini’s frozen statues. He carved them out of ice and stood them in the window of his fish shop which was over the road from the pier. A new ice carving every month.
Sometimes it would be a beautiful peacock with its tail fanned out. Or maybe a giant fish thrashing itself to death on the end of a line. One of my favourites was a kangaroo with a little joey peering out of her pouch.
It was a bit sad really. On the first day of every month Mr Mantolini would throw the old statue out the back into an alley. Where it would melt and trickle away into a damp patch on the ground.
A new statue would be in the shop window. Sparkling blue and silver as if it had been carved from a solid chunk of the Antarctic shelf.
Every morning on my way to school, I would stop to stare at his statue. And on the first of the month I would be there after school to see the new one. I couldn’t bear to go around the back and watch yesterday’s sculpture melt into the mud.
‘Why do you throw them out?’ I asked one day.
Mr Mantolini shrugged. ‘You live. You die,’ he said.
Mr Mantolini took a deep breath. Now he was going to ask me something. The same old thing he had asked every day for weeks. ‘My cousin Tony come from Italy. Next month. You take to school. You friend. My cousin have red hair. You like?’
I gave him my usual answer. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I won’t be able to.’ I couldn’t tell him that it was because I hated red hair. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
He just stood there without saying anything. He was disappointed in me because we were friends. He knew how much I liked his ice statues and he always came out to talk to me about them. ‘You funny boy,’ he said. He shook his head and walked inside.
I thought I saw tears in Mr Mantolini’s eyes. I knew I had done the wrong thing again. And I was sorry. But I didn’t want a redhead for a mate.
2
I felt guilty and miserable all day. But after school I cheered up a bit. It was the first of September. There would be a new ice statue in the window. It was always something to look forward to.
I hurried up to the fish shop and stared through the glass. I couldn’t believe what I saw. The ice statue of a girl. It reminded me of one of those Greek sculptures that you see in museums. It had long tangled hair. And smiling lips. Its eyes sparkled like frozen diamonds. I tell you this. That ice girl was something else. She was fantastic.
‘You’re beautiful,’ I said under my breath. ‘Beautiful.’
Of course she was only a statue. She couldn’t see or hear me. She was just a life-sized ice maiden, standing among the dead fish in the shop window. She was inside a glass fridge which kept her cold. Her cheeks were covered with frost.
I stood there for ages just gawking at her. I know it was stupid. I would have died if anyone knew what I was thinking. How embarrassing. I had a crush on a piece of ice.
Every day after that, I visited the fish shop. I was late for school because of the ice maiden. I filled every spare minute of my time standing outside the window. It was as if I was hypnotised. The ice maiden’s smile seemed to be made just for me. Her outstretched hand beckoned. ‘Get real,’ I said to myself. ‘What are you doing here? You fool.’ I knew I was mad but something kept drawing me back to the shop.
Mr Mantolini wouldn’t meet my gaze. He was cross with me.
I pretended the ice girl was my friend. I told her my secrets. Even though she was made of ice, I had this silly feeling that she understood.
Mr Mantolini saw me watching her. But he didn’t come outside. And whenever I went inside to buy fish for Mum, he scurried out the back and sent his assistant to serve me.
3
The days passed. Weeks went by. The ice maiden smiled on and on. She never changed. The boys thought I was nuts standing there gawking at a lump of ice. But she had this power over me – really. Kids started to tease me. ‘He’s in love,’ said a girl called Simone. I copped a lot of teasing at school but still I kept gazing in that window.
As the days went by I grew sadder and sadder. I wanted to take the ice girl home. I wanted to keep her forever. But once she was out of her glass cage, in the warm air, her smiling face would melt and drip away.
I dreaded the first of October. When Mr Mantolini would take the ice maiden and dump her in the alley. To be destroyed by the warm rays of the sun.
On the last day of September I waited until Mr Mantolini was serving in the shop. ‘You can’t throw her out,’ I yelled. ‘She’s too lovely. She’s real. You mustn’t. You can’t.’ I was nearly going to say ‘I love her’ but that would have been stupid.
Mr Mantolini looked at me and shrugged. ‘You live. You die,’ he said. ‘She ice. She cold. She water.’
I knew it was no good. Tomorrow Mr Mantolini would cast the ice girl out into the alley.
The next day I wagged school. I hid in the alley and waited. The minutes dragged their feet. The hours seemed to crawl. But then, as I knew he would, Mr Mantolini emerged with the ice maiden. He dumped her down by the rubbish bins. Her last resting place was to be among the rotting fish heads in an empty alley.
Mr Mantolini disappeared back into the shop. I rushed over to my ice maiden. She was still covered in frost and had sticky, frozen skin.
My plan was to take her to the butcher. I would pay him to keep the ice maiden in his freezer where I could visit her every day. I hadn’t asked him yet. But he couldn’t say no, could he?
The sun was rising in the sky. I had to hurry.
The ice maiden still stooped. Still reached out. She seemed to know that her time had come. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll save you.’
I don’t know what came over me. I did something crazy. I bent down and gently kissed her on the mouth.
4
It was a long kiss. The longest kiss ever in the history of the world. My lips stuck to hers. My flesh froze onto the ice. Cold needles of pain numbed my lips. I tried to pull away but I couldn’t. The pain made my eyes water. Tears streamed down my face and across the ice maiden’s cheeks.
On we kissed. And on. And on. I wanted to pull my mouth away but much as I cared for the ice girl, I didn’t want my lips to tear away, leaving bleeding skin as a painful reminder of my madness. There I was, kissing ice lips, unable to move.
I tried to yell for help but I couldn’t speak. Muffled grunts came out of my nose. Horrible nasal noises. No one came to help me. The alley echoed with the noise.
I grabbed the ice maiden and lifted her up. She was heavy. Her body was still sticky with frost. My fingers stuck fast. She was my prisoner. And I was hers.
The sun warmed my back. Tears of agony filled my eyes. If I waited there she would melt. I would be free but the ice maiden would be gone. Her lovely nose and chin would drip away to nothing.
But the cold touch of the ice girl was terrible. Her smiling lips burnt my flesh. The tip of my nose was frozen. I ran out of the alley into the street. There was a group of people waiting by a bus stop near the end of the pier. ‘He
lp, get me unstuck. But don’t hurt the ice maiden,’ was what I tried to say.
But what came out was, ‘Nmn nnmmm nnnn nng ng ng mn nm.’
The people looked at me as if I was crazy. Some of them laughed. They thought I was acting the fool. An idiot pretending to kiss a statue.
I ran over to Mr Mantolini’s shop and tried to knock on the window with my foot. I had to balance on one leg, while holding the ice girl in my arms and painfully kissing her at the same time. I fell over with a crunch. Oh agony, oh misery, oh pain. My lips, my fingers, my knees.
There was no sign of Mr Mantolini. He must have been in the back room.
5
What could I do? I looked out to sea. If I jumped into the water it would melt the ice. My lips and fingers would come free. But the ice maiden would melt. ‘Let me go,’ I whispered in my mind. But she made no answer.
My hands were numb. Cold pins pricked me without mercy. I ran towards the pier. I spoke to my ice maiden again, without words. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.’
I jogged along the pier. Further and further. My feet drummed in time with my thoughts. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’
I stopped and stared down at the waves. Then I closed my eyes and jumped, still clutching the ice-cold girl to my chest. Down, I plunged. For a frozen moment I hung above the ocean. And then, with a gurgle and a groan, I took the ice lady to her doom.
The waves tossed above us. The warm water parted our lips. My fingers slipped from her side. I bobbed up like an empty bottle and saw her floating away. Already her eyes had gone. Her hair was a glassy mat. The smiling maiden smiled no more. She was just a lump of ice melting in the waves.
‘No,’ I screamed. My mouth filled with salt water and I sank under the sea.
They say that your past life flashes by you when you are drowning. Well, it’s true. I re-lived some horrible moments. I remembered the time in a small country school when I was just a little kid. And the only redhead. I saw the school bully Johnson teasing me every day. Once again I sat on the school bench at lunchtime – alone and rejected. Not allowed to hang around with the others. Just because Johnson didn’t like red hair. Once again I could hear him calling me ‘carrots’ and ‘ginger’. They were the last thoughts that came to me before the world vanished into salty blackness.
6
But I didn’t drown. In a way my hair saved me. It must have been easy for them to spot my curly locks swirling like red seaweed thrown up from the ocean bed.
Mr Mantolini pulled me out. He and his cousin. I could hear him talking even though I was only half conscious. ‘You live. But you not die yet.’
I didn’t want to open my eyes. I couldn’t bear to think about what I had done to the ice maiden. I was alive but she was dead. Gone forever.
In the end I looked up. I stared at my rescuers. Mr Mantolini and his cousin.
She had red tangled hair. And smiling lips. Her eyes sparkled like frozen diamonds. I tell you this. That girl Tony was something else. She was fantastic.
‘You’re beautiful,’ I said under my breath. ‘Beautiful.’
Mr Mantolini’s ice statue had been good. But not as good as the real thing. After all, it had only been a copy of his cousin Tony. I smiled up at her. And she smiled back. With a real smile.
I guess that’s when I discovered that an ice maiden who is dead is not sad. And a nice maiden who is red is not bad.
Not bad at all.
The bird’s perch is swinging to and fro and hitting me on the nose. I can see my eye in its little mirror. Its water dish is sliding around near my chin. The smell of old bird droppings is awful. The world looks different when you are staring at it through bars.
Fool, fool, fool.
What am I doing walking to school with my head in a bird’s cage?
Oh no. Here’s the school gate. Kids are looking at me. They are pointing. Laughing. Their faces remind me of waves, slapping and slopping at a drowning child.
Strike. Here comes that rotten Philip Noonan. He’s grinning. He’s poking bits of bread through the bars. ‘Pretty Polly,’ he says. ‘Polly want a biscuit?’
I wish I was an ant so that I could crawl into a crack. Then no one would ever see me.
Teachers are looking out of the staffroom window. I can see Mr Gristle looking. I can see Mr Marsden looking. They are shaking their heads.
I hope Gristle doesn’t come. ‘Get that thing off your head,’ he will shout. ‘You idiot. You fool. What do you think you are? A parrot?’ Then he will try to rip the cage off my head. He will probably rip the ears off my skull while he is doing it.
Mr Marsden is coming. Thank goodness. He is the best teacher in the school. I don’t think he’ll yell. Still, you never know with teachers. He hasn’t seen a boy come to school with his head in a birdcage before.
‘Gary,’ he says kindly. ‘I think there is something you want to say.’
I shake my head. There is nothing to say. It is too late. I am already a murderer. Nothing can change that.
Mr Marsden takes me inside. We go into the sick bay and sit down on the bed. He looks at me through the bars but he doesn’t say anything. He is waiting. He is waiting for me to tell my story.
After a bit I say, ‘All right. I’ll tell you all about it. But only if you keep it secret.’
Mr Marsden thinks about this for a bit. Then he smiles and nods his head. I start to tell him my story.
2
On Friday I walk over to see Kim Huntingdale. She lives next door. I am in love with her. She is the most beautiful girl in the world. When she smiles it reminds me of strawberries in the springtime. She makes my stomach go all funny. That’s how good she is.
My dog Skip goes with me. Skip is a wimp. She runs around in circles whenever anyone visits. She rolls over on her back and begs for a scratch. She would lick a burglar’s hand if one came to rob our house. She will not fight or bark. She runs off if Mum growls. Skip is definitely a wimp.
Mind you, when Mum growls I run off myself. When she is mad it reminds me of a ginger-beer bottle bursting in the fridge.
Anyway, when I get to Kim’s house she is feeding Beethoven. Beethoven is her budgie. She keeps it in a cage in the backyard. She loves Beethoven very much. Lucky Beethoven.
Beethoven can’t fly because he only has one wing. Kim found him in the forest. This enormous, savage dog had the poor bird in its mouth. Kim grabbed the dog without even thinking of herself and saved Beethoven’s life. But he was only left with one wing and he can’t fly at all.
Now Kim loves Beethoven more than anything.
I love Skip too. Even though she is a wimp.
Kim looks at Skip. ‘You shouldn’t bring her over here,’ she says. ‘Beethoven is scared of dogs.’
Skip rolls over on her back and begs with her four little legs. ‘Look at her,’ I say. ‘She wouldn’t hurt Beethoven.’ When she rolls over like that Skip reminds me of a dying beetle.
Kim walks into Beethoven’s aviary. She lets me in and locks Skip out by putting a brick against the door. Kim picks up Beethoven and the little budgie sits on her finger. It starts to sing. Oh, that bird can sing. It is beautiful. It is magic. A shiver runs up my spine. It reminds me of the feeling you get when fizzy lemonade bubbles go up your nose.
Kim puts the bird down on the ground. It is always on the ground because it can’t fly. ‘Tie up Skip,’ says Kim, ‘and I’ll let Beethoven out for a walk.’
I do what she says. I would do anything for Kim. I would even roll over on my back and beg like Skip. Just for a smile. But Kim hardly knows I am here. I tie up Skip and Kim lets Beethoven out for a walk. He chirps and sings and walks around the backyard. It reminds me of a little yellow penguin walking around on green snow.
Skip is tied up so she just sits and looks at Beethoven and licks her lips.
3
After a while Kim shuts Beethoven back in the aviary and puts the brick in front of the door. Skip sticks one ear up in the air (the other one won’t move
) and looks cute. Kim gives her a pat and a cuddle. ‘She’s a lovely dog,’ she says. ‘But you have to keep her away from Beethoven.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I promise.’
Kim smiles at me again. Then she says something that makes my heart jump. ‘Next to Beethoven, you are my best friend.’
It is hard to tell you how I feel when I hear this. My stomach goes all wobbly. It reminds me of a bunch of frogs jumping around inside a bag.
I walk back to our place feeling great. Wonderful. Mum isn’t home so I can let Skip inside. Mum doesn’t like Skip being in the house. Skip is a smart dog. She can open the door with her paw if it is left a little bit ajar.
Mum won’t let Skip in because she once did a bit of poop under the dresser. It did not smell very nice and I had to clean it up. Skip’s poop reminds me a bit of …
‘I think we can miss that bit,’ says Mr Marsden who is listening to my story carefully and looking at me through the bars of the bird cage.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll move on to the awful bit.’
4
I do not see Kim for two days because I have to visit Grandma with Mum. We leave Skip at the dog kennels all day Friday and Saturday. When we get back we collect her from the kennels. Poor Skip. She can’t even put up one ear. She hates the dog kennels. She cries and whimpers whenever she has to stay there. But she is too scared of the other dogs to bark.
We drive home with Skip on my knee. She looks at me with those big brown eyes. They remind me a bit of two pools of gravy spilt on the tablecloth.
‘Skip can sleep inside tonight,’ I say to Mum.
‘No,’ says Mum. ‘You tie her up in the shed, the same as always.’
Paul Jenning's Weirdest Stories Page 14