Poor Skip. That night I do not tie her up. I sneak her into my bedroom and let her sleep in bed with me. She is a very clean dog. She is always licking and chewing herself.
Mum, however, has a keen sense of smell. She will know that Skip has been in. Even when you burn incense in your room Mum can still smell dog. I open the window to let in the fresh air. Then I fall asleep and have a lovely dream. All about how Kim and I and Beethoven and Skip get married and all live together on a tropical island. It reminds me a bit of one of those pretend stories that always have a lovely ending. I wish real life was like that.
The next day is Sunday. I sleep in until the sun shines on my face and wakes me up. A soft wind is blowing into the room. I get out of bed and shut the window.
Skip has gone.
5
I look out of the window and see Skip running around with a yellow tennis ball.
I think about how Mum doesn’t like getting dog spit on the tennis balls. It leaves green marks on her hands.
Green marks. Our tennis balls are green.
What is that yellow thing in Skip’s mouth? I jump out of the window and run down the yard. Skip sees me coming. A chase. She loves a chase. She runs off at top speed. She reminds me a bit of a rabbit bobbing up and down as it runs away from a hunter.
My heart is beating very fast. ‘Please,’ I say to myself. ‘Let it be a ball. Let it be Mum’s best glove. Let it be my new transistor radio. But don’t let it be …’ It is too awful to even say.
I run after Skip. She loves the fun. She runs under the house. ‘Come out,’ I yell. ‘Come out, you rotten dog.’ Skip does not move. ‘I’ll kill you,’ I yell. I am shouting. There are tears in my eyes.
Skip knows that I’m mad. She rolls over on her back and begs. Way under the house where I can’t even get her. She drops the yellow thing and nicks off.
Oh, no. I can’t bear it. I crawl under the house on my stomach. It is dusty and dirty. There are spiders but I don’t even notice them.
I stretch out my hand and I grab the little bundle of feathers. It is Beethoven. Dead. He is smeared with blood and dirt and dog spit. His eyes are white and hard. His little legs are stiff. They remind me of frozen twigs on a bare tree. Beethoven stares at me without seeing. He has sung his last song.
Tears carve tracks down my face. They run into my mouth and I taste salt.
Everything is ruined. My life is over. My dog has killed Beethoven. It is all my fault. If I had tied Skip up this would never have happened. My head swims. When Kim finds out she will cry. She will hate me. She will hate Skip.
Her mum will tell my mum. What will they do to Skip?
6
I crawl out into the backyard. Skip is wagging her tail slowly. She knows something is wrong. I feel funny inside. For a second I feel like kicking Skip hard. I feel like kicking her so hard that she will fly up over the fence.
Then I look into her gravy-pool eyes and I know that she is just a dog. ‘Oh, Skip,’ I cry. ‘Oh, Skip, Skip, Skip. What have you done?’ Then I say to myself. ‘Gary, Gary, Gary, what have you done?’
I tie Skip up. Then I take Beethoven into my bedroom. He is so small and stiff and shrunken. He reminds me a bit of my own heart.
I think about Kim. She mustn’t find out. What if I go and buy another yellow budgie? One that looks the same. She will never know. Kim’s car is not there. They are out.
I go down to the garage and get this old golden cage that is covered in dust. When I was a little kid I used to think it was made of real gold. ‘No,’ Mum told me, ‘it is only gilt.’
I wrap up Beethoven in a tissue and put him carefully in my pocket. Then I look in my wallet. Seven dollars. Just enough. I jump on my bike with the golden cage tied to the back. Where do they sell budgies? At the market. It is late. The market will be closing soon.
I ride like I have never ridden before. The wind whips my hair. I puff. I pant. Sweat runs into my eyes. I ride up Wheeler’s Hill without getting off my bike. No one has ever ridden up Wheeler’s Hill before. My heart is hurting. My legs are aching. I look at my watch. It’s five o’clock. The market will be closed.
It is. The trucks are all leaving. The shoppers have gone. The ground is covered in hot-dog papers and cabbage leaves. The stalls are empty.
I look at the trucks. One or two men are still loading. I drop my bike and run from truck to truck. Car parts – no. Plants – no. Watches – no. Chocolates – no. Fairyfloss – no. I look in each truck. None have pets.
I am done. I hang my head. Beethoven is dead. Kim will hate me. Kim will hate Skip. What will happen?
I walk back slowly. Men are laughing. Children are calling. Cats are meowing.
Cats are meowing? Pets.
There is a lady with a small van and in the back are cats, dogs, guinea pigs and birds. There is a large cage full of birds.
‘Please,’ I yell. ‘Please. Have you got any budgies?’
‘They are up the back of the truck,’ she says. ‘I can’t get them out now. Come back next week.’
‘I can’t,’ I sob. ‘I need it now.’
The lady shakes her head and starts up her van. I take Beethoven out of my pocket and unwrap him. The lady looks at the little blood-stained body. She turns off the engine with a sigh and starts to unload the van.
At last we get the cage of birds unloaded. There are canaries and finches. The cage is filled with birds. There are about twenty budgies. There are green ones and blue ones.
And there is one yellow one. It looks just like Beethoven. It is a ringer for Beethoven. I will put this bird in Kim’s cage and she will never know the difference.
‘Ten dollars,’ says the lady. ‘Yellow ones are hard to get.’
I empty my wallet. ‘I only have seven dollars,’ I tell her.
The lady takes my money with a smile and gently hands me the bird. ‘I was young once myself,’ she says.
I put the bird in my golden cage and pedal like crazy. My trip back reminds me a bit of a sailing boat skidding to shore in a storm. I hope I can get there before Kim arrives home. I have to put the new bird in the cage before she knows Beethoven is dead.
7
Finally I get home. There is no car at Kim’s house yet. They are still out. I rush into the backyard and down to the aviary where the wire door is flapping in the wind. The new budgie is sitting on the perch in my golden cage. It flaps its wings.
Wings?
Beethoven only had one wing. Beethoven couldn’t fly. Oh no. Kim will know straight away that the new bird is not Beethoven.
My plan has failed. I take out the little bird and stretch out its wings. It has one wing too many. ‘Little bird, little bird,’ I say. ‘You’re no good to me like this. What will I do with you?’
There is only one thing to do. I throw the tiny budgie up into the air. ‘Goodbye, little bird,’ I say. It flies off in a flurry of feathers and disappears forever.
I go home.
All is lost. Kim will know what Skip has done. Kim will know what I have done. I let Skip run free. I didn’t chain her up like Mum told me. It is all my fault. I am a murderer. I am responsible for Beethoven’s death.
I will never be able to look at Kim. She will never want to look at me.
Then I get an idea. I’ll bury Beethoven and say nothing. Kim will think he has escaped and walked off.
No. That’s no good. Kim will still think Skip opened the cage. And she’ll ask me to help look for Beethoven. I would have to pretend to hunt for the bird knowing it was dead.
I get another idea. It is better. But terrible. I will sneak back to the cage and put Beethoven inside. I will lock up the cage with the brick. Kim will think that Beethoven has died of old age.
But Beethoven is covered in blood and dirt and dried-up dog spit.
I will have to clean him. I take Beethoven’s body to the laundry and wash him gently. I hate myself for doing this. The blood starts to rinse out. But not all of it. I soak him for a while. I try detergent.
I try soap. At last he is clean.
He is clean. And dead. And wet.
8
I go and fetch Mum’s hair dryer and I dry out Beethoven’s feathers until they are all fluffy and new. I gently close his staring eyes. Then, I sneak down to Kim’s backyard. I remind myself a bit of a robber skulking around a jewellery shop.
I go inside the aviary door and put Beethoven down on the sawdust. No one will ever know my terrible secret. I am safe. Skip is safe. Kim will still like us. I close the door, replace the brick and go home.
That night I cannot sleep. I see Kim’s sad face. I dream of myself in jail. Nobody likes me. Nobody wants me. I have caused sorrow and pain.
In the morning I look out of my window. I see Kim and her mum and dad. They are gathered around the cage. I can’t hear what they are saying. I don’t want to know what they are saying. Kim will be crying. Her tears will be falling. If I could see them they would remind me of a salty waterfall.
I see Kim’s father put an arm around her shoulder. I wish it could be my arm. I see her mum pick up Beethoven gently in her hand.
I can’t look at them any more. Everything is my fault. Poor Skip is just a dog. I should have tied her up. Murderer. I am a murderer. And no one will ever know. My horrible secret will stay with me forever.
I get the golden cage and rush out to the garage. I cut a hole in the bottom with tin snips. I push my head through the hole. I will wear the golden cage for the rest of my life. It is my punishment. It is what I get for what I did. I will never take it off.
9
Mr Marsden is looking at me sadly. ‘You made a mistake,’ he says. ‘A little mistake that made big things happen. But it wasn’t your fault. And even if it was, you can’t carry around the burden forever. Like a rock on your shoulders. Or a cage on your head. You have to face up to it. Tell Kim. And then go on living.’
We are still sitting on the sick-room bed. Looking out of the window. A girl is slowly walking into the school grounds. She is late for school. She reminds me of a lonely ghost.
It is Kim.
Mr Marsden walks out and brings her into the room. Her eyes are red, but still lovely. Her face is sad. It reminds me of a statue of a beautiful princess who has passed away. I cannot look at her. I shrink down in my cage.
‘I’m sorry to be late,’ she says to Mr Marsden. ‘But something happened at home. My budgie Beethoven died on Friday. Dad says he died of old age.’
I hang my head in shame. I can’t tell her the truth. I just can’t.
Friday?
‘Not Friday,’ I say. ‘Yesterday.’
‘No,’ says Kim. ‘He died on Friday. We buried him in the backyard. But someone dug him up and put him back in the aviary.’
I take the cage off my head and throw it in the bin. After school I walk home with Kim. She holds my hand. It sort of reminds me of, well, flying free, like we are up there in the clouds with Beethoven.
‘Where will I put it?’ asked Old Jack Thaw in a creaky voice.
I looked at the mouse. Its frozen tail stuck out straight behind it like an arrow. It was poised with one frozen leg raised as if it was sniffing the air. Its frozen eyes stared ahead without blinking.
Jack Thaw had never been to school and he couldn’t read or write too well. That’s why he needed me. I always stopped off at Jack’s place on the way home from school.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘mouse starts with “M”. That comes between “L” and “N”. So you have the lizard on one side and the numbat on the other.’ I pointed at a space between the little ice blocks.
Jack Thaw gave a wrinkly grin. His bare gums showed because he had forgotten to put in his false teeth. He picked up the lizard’s ice block and moved it a little bit to the left. Then he placed the frozen mouse in its place on the shelf. It seemed to glare at us from inside its icy prison.
We both stood and stared at the collection of tiny animals. Birds, spiders. Bats, rats. Grasshoppers, goannas. Fleas, flies. You name it, if it was small and dead it was there. The walls of the freezing room were lined with shelves. On the shelves were thousands of small ice blocks – each one with a tiny creature frozen inside.
Long ago, this had been an ice factory. And Jack Thaw had been an ice man. He used to take blocks of ice around to people’s houses on the back of an old truck. But gradually people stopped needing the ice. They sold their ice chests and bought fridges instead. In the end no one wanted ice at all.
So Jack stopped working and started up his collection. Whenever he found a small, dead creature he brought it back to the ice works and froze it inside an ice block. Then he put it on a shelf inside his huge freezer room. This room was so big that you could drive a truck inside it if you wanted to.
A shiver ran up my spine. ‘Let’s go outside,’ I said. ‘I’m cold.’
We walked out of the freezer room into the factory. Jack swung the massive doors closed. Then he pointed to the bandage on my finger. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’ he asked.
I nodded and took off the stained bandage. My finger was bleeding from a deep cut. ‘Barbed wire,’ I said. ‘I cut it on the barbed wire on Gravel’s fence.’
Jack took me over to a huge steel bin on wheels. It was full of salty water. Jack would never usually let me near this bin of water. It was special. He used tap water to freeze the animals. Once I had seen Jack drink a bit of the salty water when he didn’t know I was there.
Jack climbed up the side of the bin and dipped in a glass. He held the glass out to me. ‘Put your finger in there,’ he said.
Without a word I dipped in my bleeding finger.
When I pulled it out my finger had stopped bleeding.
Jack smiled. ‘Wonderful stuff, salt water,’ he said. Then he shook a gnarled old hand at me. ‘Don’t you tell anyone about this,’ he croaked. ‘Or my collection.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I’ve told you a million times. I can keep a secret. No one knows about your frozen zoo. Not even Mum.’
Some of the kids at school said that Jack was 200 years old. They were scared of him. I was the only person he ever let in the ice factory.
I walked towards the outside door.
‘Come back tomorrow,’ said Jack. ‘I’m going to the beach. I might find a dead fish. You will have to show me where to put it.’ He sure was a funny bloke. All he ever thought about was his precious collection. But he had a heart of gold. He was a good mate.
I waved goodbye. ‘See you,’ I said. ‘I’d better be going. I haven’t said goodbye to Jingle Bells yet. I rushed off without saying goodbye to her when I cut my finger.’
2
Jingle Bells was a cow. You might wonder what a cow was doing in the middle of the city. Well, it was the saddest thing. Poor old Jingle Bells was locked in a shed. In the shadow of the high-rise flats. In between the factories and the freeways. Stuck in the polluted, smelly city. Surrounded by smog. Like us.
Only it was worse for a cow.
Jingle Bells had never grazed in the grass. Never stepped on a flower. Never snatched a glimpse of the sky. She was a prisoner in Gravel’s shed. He sure was a mean bloke.
Every day for the last two weeks she had been mooing. Long sad moos. They went on and on without stopping.
Jack had told me it was because it was springtime. ‘It’s the smell of the country,’ he had said. ‘In between the fumes and the foul air, a tiny bit of pollen from the country is carried on the wind. It gets through a crack in the dark shed. It creeps across the concrete floor. It snakes into Jingle Bells’ nostrils. And then she smells the pollen – the little messenger from the bush. It tells her that far away there are other cows. It speaks of soft winds – and blossoms that bend the branches of trees until they touch the cool clover. She moos for the moon and the stars and the dew of the still, cold nights.’
Jack Thaw might not be able to read. But he sure had a way with words. Every time I thought of Jingle Bells after that a tear would come into my eye.
So
mething had to be done. It was wrong to keep a cow locked up in a dingy shed.
Jingle Bells was my best friend after Jack Thaw. Not that she had ever seen me. She had only heard my voice. And looked into my eye.
Every night after school I would creep along the alley behind Gravel’s house and climb over his back fence. Then I would sneak up to his cow shed and peep through a crack in the palings. Jingle Bells would stare at me through the crack and I would stare back at her. We would stand there for ages – eye to eye. Not moving. Just looking.
You can tell a lot from staring at a cow’s eye. I could tell that Jingle Bells wanted to get out. Wanted to escape. I knew that she longed for the sunshine. I knew that she hated Gravel, who kept her in this black hole.
Before I left her each night I would poke a little bit of fresh grass through the crack. All Gravel ever gave her was dry old chaff and hay. When Jingle Bells saw the grass she would give six, short, happy moos. They sounded a bit like the first bars of the song ‘Jingle Bells’. That’s why I named her after the Christmas carol.
Gravel just called her ‘the cow’. Whenever he was around, Jingle Bells’ long, sad moos could be heard filtering through the sounds of car horns and screeching brakes.
3
Anyway, on the day that it all started I saw something especially sad. I looked through the crack and saw Jingle Bells straining at her rope. She was pulling and pulling. Trying to reach a tiny little patch of sunshine that had leaked in through a hole in the roof. It was only about the size of a twenty-cent coin but Jingle Bells wanted to stand in it. Imagine that. The poor thing wanted to stand in a tiny little splot of sunshine.
I put back my head and gave a scream of rage. Then I fumed and ran. I clambered over Gravel’s back fence. I sped down the alley. I tore across the road to the high-rise flats where we lived. My lungs felt like fire but nothing could stop me.
Paul Jenning's Weirdest Stories Page 15