Paul Jenning's Weirdest Stories

by Paul Jennings

  I set up the electric mouse fence. It took me quite a while to work it out but in the end I found out how it worked. The wire was stretched in a circle with little fence posts stopping it from touching the ground. Both ends were connected to the black box, which had a switch on the side.

  I went to turn on the fence but the mouse, Uncle Sid that is, was shaking its head. It pointed to a place where the wire sagged and touched the floor. One of the fence posts was missing. The electricity would go into the floor.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a matchbox. I placed it under the sagging wire with a bit of bubble gum for an insulator.

  Next I tore open some packets of blue-vein cheese. I tipped heaps of it inside the fence. Then I headed to the cellar. On the way I dropped small pieces of blue-vein cheese in a trail on the floor. I opened the cell door where Uncle Sid (or I should say the mouse in Uncle Sid’s body) was hungrily sniffing around.

  He came out on all fours. It was sad to see a man moving around like a mouse. He followed the blue-vein trail all the way to the kitchen. He ate every bit as he went.

  The mouse stood next to the electric fence. It had one paw on the wire. It had the other paw on the ON switch. Uncle Mouse came forward with a blue-veined mouth. He saw the cheese inside the fence. He sniffed. He shuffled forward. And touched the wire. The mouse threw the switch.

  Blue sparks flew along the wire. The mouse turned electric blue. Uncle turned electric blue. They flashed and flared. They crackled like crisps. They lit up like light globes.

  And then it was over. Uncle Sid stood up and smiled. The mouse fled out of the door. ‘Thanks, Julian,’ said Uncle Sid with a grin. ‘We did it. We did it.’

  He was his old self again. He had his mind back. And so did the mouse.

  We looked at the electric mouse fence. ‘It’s dangerous,’ said Uncle Sid. ‘We can never use it.’

  ‘It’s mine,’ screeched another voice. ‘After all I’ve gone through it is mine.’

  It was Aunt Scrotch. Her face was screwed up like a wet shirt that had been bunched into a ball and left to dry in the corner. She lunged forward at the electric mouse fence.

  That was when I noticed that my matchbox was open. ‘Oh no,’ I groaned.

  Aunt Scrotch grabbed the wire with her hands.

  She turned electric blue. She shimmered and shone. She beamed and screamed.

  The wire fence was flung up to the ceiling. The black box smashed into smithereens.

  It was all over.

  6

  I went home about a week later. Uncle Sid tried to fix the electric fence but so far he has had no luck. He writes to me quite often so I know what is going on. His last letter was a bit short though. He had to leave it and rush out to find Aunt Scrotch. She had run outside again looking for more cow manure.

  In my letter back I told him the little dung beetle was doing well. I still keep it in the matchbox. But at lunch time I let it out and give it as many chocolate freckles as it wants.

  If you multiply one by one,’ says Dad. ‘What do you get?’

  I know what he is on about but I decide to play dumb. ‘One,’ I say. ‘Once one is one.’

  ‘No,’ says Dad. ‘If one mouse multiplies with one other mouse the result is eight mice.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ says Dad. ‘You made a deal. You said if I let you have one baby mouse you would never ask for another one. One mouse on its own cannot have babies. Nibbles has just had babies. There has to be a father somewhere.’

  ‘She was lonely,’ I say.

  ‘What?’ yells Dad.

  ‘Foxy brought his mouse, Flick Face, over for an hour or so,’ I say. ‘Nibbles was lonely. So was Flick Face. Two lonely mice. So we put Flick Face in Nibbles’ cage. Just for an hour. Nothing much can happen in an hour.’

  ‘Plenty can happen in an hour,’ says Dad. ‘In fact plenty can happen in two minutes. You should know the facts of life by now, Troy. Flick Face made Nibbles pregnant. They mated. Mate.’ He says the last word in a very sarcastic voice.

  ‘Sorry, Dad,’ I say.

  ‘Sorry is not good enough, Troy,’ says Dad. ‘I am going to have to punish you severely. You have to learn to keep your side of a bargain.’

  I groan to myself. What will the punishment be? Washing up duty for a week? Maybe even two weeks. Raking leaves all day Saturday? Grounded for a month? Dad is capable of many cruel and unusual punishments.

  ‘I am confiscating your head-lopper for two weeks,’ he says slowly.

  ‘Oh no,’ I shriek. ‘Not the head-lopper. Not that.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Dad. ‘I have already locked it in the shed. And if you say one more word it will be two months and not two weeks.’

  I stagger out of the room. This is very serious. This is tragic. The end of my life as I know it. A totally unfair and catastrophic punishment.

  In ten days’ time there is going to be a school concert. I am going to perform a magic trick. And the main part of it is the head-lopping act. How it works is this: I put a kid inside a black box shaped like a coffin. His feet stick out one end and his head pokes out of the other. Above his head is a fake guillotine blade. I drop the blade down through his throat. Everyone will think I have chopped him off at the neck. But the kid’s head does not fall off.

  It is a great trick. I saved up for over a year to buy it. In fact I sold over forty mice at three dollars each to get the money. Three times forty is one hundred and twenty. Dollars. That’s how much the head-lopper cost.

  Nibbles and Flick Face were very good multipliers. Dad didn’t know anything about it. Okay, so I shouldn’t have started breeding mice. But it did start the way I said. By accident. And Nibbles was lonely. I didn’t lie about that. After Flick Face’s first visit things just got a bit out of hand, that was all.

  Me and my mate Foxy sold the baby mice off. Everyone wanted them. So we produced another batch. And then another. We made heaps of dosh out of it until Dad found the latest lot of babies.

  Now I have a tragedy on my hands. The winner of the school concert is going into the grand finale. On television. Yes, on TV. It is my chance to be famous.

  The way it works is this:

  After every act they turn on the applause meter. It can measure sound. The act that gets the loudest clap from the audience is the winner. And that would have been me for sure. No one but no one could beat the head-lopping act. Now I will have to do a card trick and that will never win.

  My life is ruined.

  2

  Foxy and I trudge our way to school.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ I say. ‘I have been practising the head-lopping act for months. I would have won for sure.’

  ‘Appeal to a higher court,’ says Foxy.

  ‘Mum?’ I say. ‘That won’t work. She will just back Dad up.’

  ‘Buy another magic act,’ says Foxy. ‘There must be other good ones.’

  I think about this for a bit. ‘There is an act where you can make a boy float in the air,’ I say. ‘But levitation tricks are very expensive. Hundreds of dollars.’

  ‘We could sell the baby mice,’ says Foxy.

  ‘Nah, that would only be twenty-four dollars. And anyway, every kid in the school has already got one.’

  This is true. In fact, mice are banned from our school since one of Nibbles’ first batch escaped and ate Mrs Brindle’s lunch.

  Still and all, Foxy has got my brain working overtime. The levitation act is even better than the head-lopping trick. But where can I get the money?

  All day I think and think and think. I could sell my surfboard but that would mean big trouble from Mum and Dad. No, I just have to face it. There is no way out. I will just have to do a card trick.

  I wander home slowly and sadly. My head feels as if it is in a fog. In fact it is in a fog. It is a cold day. I can see my breath floating out in front of me.

  Tonight it will probably hail. Whenever the temperature gets down
to zero in The Hills it hails. I give a little shiver and hurry home.

  That night I beg Dad to give me my head-lopping box back.

  ‘No way,’ he says. ‘I have just found out that this is not the first batch of mice. If you would like to discuss this further we can …’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘I get it.’

  I hurry out of the room before Dad decides I need more punishments. I go out to the front porch and stare up into the black sky. It is cold and raining. A distant peal of thunder rolls through the night.

  My little finger starts to go numb. It always goes numb when the temperature falls to zero. And when the temperature falls to zero it will hail, as sure as eggs are eggs.

  And eggs are what seem to fall out of the sky. Great balls of ice start to bounce across the lawn. I have never seen such big hailstones.

  They are like rocks.

  I am glad I am safely tucked away under the verandah. Otherwise I could get knocked out.

  A particularly big hailstone bounces off the lawn and rolls over to where I am standing.

  I pick it up and stare at it.

  The hailstone stares back.

  3

  I can’t believe it. There are eyes inside the hailstone. I walk over to the light and look at it carefully. There is something inside the ice. It looks like an insect. Amazing.

  How could this have happened?

  Probably the insect was flying around and got frozen high up in the clouds. Ice formed around it. Sort of like a pearl forming around a grain of sand in an oyster. I have heard of such things before.

  ‘Hey, Dad,’ I go to yell. But I stop myself. He is still in a bad mood. It is better to keep out of his way.

  The little creature inside the ice does not move. It is frozen solid. Still and all, it sort of seems as if the eyes are looking back at me. I can’t see it properly through the ice but that is how I feel.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I say to myself.

  I take the hailstone inside and put it on a saucer next to my bed. When it melts I will take a good look at it. For the time being I have more important things on my mind.

  Like how to get some money.

  I get into bed but I can’t sleep. I start to count hundred-dollar bills in my mind. This always works and in no time at all I am sound asleep.

  The next thing I know it is almost morning. The sun is just starting to peep over the mountains. The air is filled with sunlight filtering through the mist. Butterflies are fluttering, circling each other and dancing like autumn leaves in a gust of wind. Some of them are in pairs, hanging on to each other’s legs and flying at the same time.

  There is a movement on my bedside table. It is coming from the hailstone. It has melted and left a small pool of water. And an insect, if you can call it that.

  The little creature starts to wriggle like a moth coming out of a cocoon. It is alive. Can you believe that? It was frozen and now it is alive. Amazing. Incredible.

  It starts to unfold its wings. And move its legs. It is hard to describe but I will have a go. The nearest thing it looks like is a grasshopper. It has six legs but they are all the same size. And its head – this is the weirdest bit – somehow looks human. It has tiny ears and a nose. And eyes that move around. Finally it unfolds its wings. They are beautiful. Red and green and yellow. Like a butterfly’s.

  Butterflies?

  I race over to the window. Those things dancing in the sun weren’t butterflies. They were the same as the hailstone bug. Zillions of them. I race to the window but I am too late. They are gone. Fluttered off into the air. All the hailstones have melted in the morning sun.

  I haven’t figured it all out yet but a thought is trying to worm its way out of my brain. I should have collected more. They might be rare. Or valuable. And now there is only one left.

  Or is there?

  The saucer is empty. My hailstone bug is gone. Quick as a flash I slam the door shut.

  ‘Where are you, little fellah?’ I say. ‘Come to Daddy.’

  But it does not come to me. Nothing moves in the room. Maybe it has escaped. No, there was not enough time. The hailstone bug is in here somewhere. I search and search and search. Nothing. It is lying doggo. Think. Think.

  I look at the walls. I look at my underpants on the floor. All five pairs. Where could he hide? Butterflies like flowers. Bright colours. I don’t have any flowers but I do have bright colours.

  My bedspread has a pattern of green and red and gold.

  Yes, yes. There it is. Cunning little insect. Lying doggo, trying to hide.

  ‘Gotcha.’

  I grab it by the wings and quickly drop it into a jar.

  I have got myself a hailstone bug.

  4

  ‘Wow,’ says Foxy as we walk to school. ‘It sure is a weird bug.’

  Everyone at school is amazed by it too.

  ‘It’s cute.’

  ‘Like a fairy.’

  ‘I wonder if it thinks.’

  ‘Its eyes look alive.’

  ‘Let it go, the poor thing.’

  These are the sorts of things that the kids say at lunchtime.

  ‘I’ll give you twenty bucks for it,’ says Susan Grayson.

  ‘Thirty,’ says Elaine Chung.

  ‘Thirty-five, fifty,’ says Nick Glare.

  ‘Don’t sell,’ says Foxy.

  ‘I’m not going to,’ I say. ‘Sorry, folks, but the hailstone bug is not for sale.’

  After school Foxy and I walk home together as usual.

  ‘What’s the weather forecast?’ I say.

  ‘Why?’ says Foxy.

  ‘Because my little finger is starting to go numb,’ I say.

  5

  That night Foxy stays over. He looks into the jar. ‘You’d better feed it, mate,’ he says. ‘It might die.’

  I hit my forehead with the palm of my hand. ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘The poor thing.’

  I open the lid of the jar a fraction and slip in a bit of raw meat.

  ‘Careful,’ says Foxy. ‘Don’t let it out.’

  The hailstone bug does not go near the meat. In fact it flutters away from it.

  ‘It looks cross,’ says Foxy.

  I slip in other bits of food. A frozen pea. A bit of pizza. A chocolate biscuit. The hailstone bug does not eat any of them. Finally I try a bit of honey. The bug swoops down and starts to eat it.

  ‘Look at that,’ says Foxy. ‘It is using its front legs to feed itself.’

  ‘Like a person,’ I say.

  Just at that very moment there is a sound on the tin roof of the house.

  ‘Rain,’ yells Foxy.

  We race outside into the dark night with some jars. It is pouring. Pelting down.

  ‘How’s your little finger?’ says Foxy.

  ‘Tingling,’ I say. ‘But just a little bit.’

  We both stare at the rain. It pelts down making rivers across the lawn and down the gutters. It is not going to hail. We are not going to get zillions of hailstone bugs and sell them for thirty bucks each. What a let-down.

  Plonk.

  ‘What was that?’ I say.

  ‘Someone threw a stone on the roof,’ says Foxy.

  We look at each other.

  ‘Quick,’ I yell. ‘Before it melts.’

  I scramble up on to the wet verandah roof. It is slippery and freezing cold. I can’t see a thing.

  ‘Chuck up the torch,’ I yell.

  Foxy does as I say and I search around in the feeble light. Yes, yes, there it is. One small hailstone, melting quickly in the rain. I pick it up and throw it down to Foxy. He shoves it straight into one of the jars.

  I climb down and we go inside.

  Both of us stare into the jar. We gasp.

  ‘Look,’ I whisper. ‘There’s another one.’

  6

  In no time at all the new hailstone bug has hatched out of his chilly home.

  ‘It looks sad,’ says Foxy.

  ‘It’s not the only one,’ I say. �
�I’m sad too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we aren’t going to get enough money from two. Even if we get thirty bucks each for them we would need at least twenty. Thirty times twenty is six hundred. That would be enough for the levitation trick. But sixty dollars is not nearly enough.’

  ‘Let ’em go,’ says Foxy suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I feel sorry for ’em,’ says Foxy. ‘They sort of look like they know things.’

  They do too. But I can’t let them go. Sixty dollars is sixty dollars.

  ‘What if they have names?’ says Foxy. ‘What if they have grandfathers and children and things like that? How would you like being locked up in a jar?’

  The two jars are side by side and the hailstone bugs are staring through the glass at each other.

  Something I said earlier starts to buzz around in my mind.

  ‘Thirty times twenty is six hundred,’ I say to myself.

  ‘What?’ says Foxy.

  ‘And once one is eight,’ I yell.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ says Foxy.

  ‘That’s it. That’s it!’ I scream. I carefully take the lid off the first bug’s jar. Then I lift it out and place it in with the other one. I put the lid on tight.

  Immediately the two bugs start to fly around. They grab each other’s legs and do a little mid-air dance.

  ‘What are they up to?’ says Foxy.

  ‘You know,’ I say.

  Foxy goes red in the face. ‘We shouldn’t be looking,’ he says.

  ‘Why not? They’re only insects.’

  ‘Their heads are human,’ says Foxy. ‘They deserve privacy.’ He picks up a pair of my underpants and puts them on top of the jar.

  ‘No peeking, mate,’ says Foxy.

  7

  Foxy and I go and watch television. Finally Dad sends us to bed.

  ‘It’s school tomorrow,’ he says. ‘So off to sleep. Both of you.’

  We clean our teeth and do all the usual things. Then we take a gander inside the jar.

  ‘Look,’ says Foxy.