Paul Jenning's Weirdest Stories

by Paul Jennings

  Giffen thought that he would like to fly over to his truck. It worked. He went gently flying through the air and landed on the roof of his truck. Flinty floated over and joined him. ‘Great,’ said Giffen. ‘Really great. How high can we go with these things?’

  ‘As high as you like,’ said Flinty. ‘As high as you like.’

  7

  Giffen forgot about everything except the Strap Box Flyer. He forgot about the time. He forgot about Giffen’s Great Glue and he forgot about getting out of town quickly.

  ‘Let’s go up to the clouds,’ he said to Flinty. And so they flew together. High into the sky. When they looked down the people looked like tiny ants. It was wonderful to fly so high.

  Time passed quickly. Hours went by. It started to get dark. Giffen decided that he would wait until it was night. Then he would be able to get away from Flinty. He would just fly off and lose Flinty in the dark. Then he would drive off in his truck and never come back. He could take the Strap Box Flyer to bits and find out how it worked. Then he could make a lot more of them. And sell them. Then he would be rich.

  Flinty flew over to Giffen. ‘We are very high,’ he said. ‘We can’t go much higher than this. There will be no air to breathe.’

  Giffen looked down. They were so high that he could not see the ground. They were above the clouds.

  ‘I have only made two Strap Box Flyers so far,’ said Flinty, ‘and yours is the best of the two.’

  ‘Why is that?’ asked Giffen.

  ‘Because I joined it together with Giffen’s Great Glue.’

  Giffen was just in time to see his Strap Box Flyer break into bits. Then he started to fall.

  He screamed all the way down.

  ‘Look at this school report,’ said Dad. ‘It’s a disgrace. Four D’s and two E’s. It’s the worst report I have ever seen.’

  He was starting to go red in the face. I knew I was in big trouble. I had to do something. And fast.

  ‘I did my best,’ I said feebly.

  ‘Nonsense,’ he yelled. ‘Look what it says down the bottom here. Listen to this.’

  Robert could do much better. He has not done enough work this term. He spends all his time at school reading Superman comics under the desk.

  ‘That’s it,’ he raved on. ‘That’s the end of all this Superman silliness. You can get all those Superman comics, all those posters and all the rest of your Superman junk and take it down to the council rubbish bin.’

  ‘But Dad,’ I gasped.

  ‘No buts, I said now and I mean now.’ His voice was getting louder and louder. I decided to do what he wanted before he freaked out altogether. I walked slowly into the bedroom and picked up every one of my sixty Superman comics. Then I trudged out of the front door and into the corridor. We lived on the first floor of the high-rise flats so I took the lift down to the council rubbish bin. It was one of those big, steel bins that can only be lifted up by a special garbage truck. I could only just reach the top of it by standing on tiptoes. I shoved the comics over the edge and then caught the lift back to the first floor.

  That was when I first met Superman.

  He was making a tremendous racket in flat 132b. It sounded as if someone was rattling the window. It can be very dangerous banging on the windows when you live upstairs. At first I thought it was probably some little kid trying to get outside while his mother was away shopping. I decided to do the right thing and go and save him. I pushed open the door, which wasn’t locked, and found myself in the strangest room I had ever seen.

  The walls of the flat were completely lined with cans of soup. Thousands and thousands of cans were stacked on bookshelves going right up to the ceiling. It was a bit like a supermarket.

  Then I noticed something even stranger. I looked over at the window and saw someone trying to get in. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was him. It was really him. My hero – Superman. In person.

  He was clinging to the outside ledge and trying to open the window. He was puffing and blowing and couldn’t seem to lift it up. Every now and then he looked down as if he was frightened of falling. I ran over to the window and undid the catch. I pulled up the window and Superman jumped in.

  2

  He looked just as he did in the comics. He was wearing a red cape and a blue-and-red outfit with a large ‘S’ on his chest. He had black, curly hair and a handsome face. His body rippled with muscles.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘You came just in time. I couldn’t hang on much longer.’

  My mouth fell open. ‘But what about your power?’ I asked him. ‘Why didn’t you just smash the window open?’

  He smiled at me. Then he held one finger over his mouth and went over and closed the door I had left open. ‘My power only lasts for half an hour,’ he said. ‘I had to go all the way to Tasmania to rescue a woman lost in the snow. I only just made it back to the window when my power ran out. That’s why I couldn’t get the window open.’

  ‘Half an hour?’ I said. ‘Superman’s power doesn’t last for half an hour. It lasts forever.’

  ‘You’ve been reading too many comics,’ he responded. ‘It’s S-o-u-p-e-r-m-a-n, not S-u-p-e-r-m-a-n. I get half an hour of power from each can of soup.’

  I started to get nervous. This bloke was a nut. He was dressed up in a Superman outfit and he had the story all wrong. He thought Superman’s power came from drinking cans of soup. I started to walk towards the door. I had to get out of there.

  ‘Come back, and I’ll show you,’ he said. He went over to the fridge and tried to lift it up. He couldn’t. He strained until drops of sweat appeared on his forehead but the fridge didn’t budge. Next he picked up one of the cans of soup and tried to squeeze it. Nothing happened. He couldn’t get it open.

  ‘See,’ he went on. ‘I’m as weak as a kitten. That proves that I have no power.’

  ‘But it doesn’t prove that you’re Superman,’ I said.

  He walked over to a drawer and took out a bright blue can-opener. Then he took out a book and flipped over the pages. ‘Here it is,’ he exclaimed. ‘Lifting up refrigerators. Pea and ham soup.’

  He took down a can of pea and ham soup from the shelf and opened it up with the bright blue can-opener. Then he drank the lot. Raw. Straight out of the can.

  ‘Urgh.’ I yelled. ‘Don’t drink it raw.’

  ‘I have to,’ he said. ‘I don’t have time to heat it up. Just imagine if I got a call to save someone who had fallen from a building. They would be smashed to bits on the ground before the soup was warm.’

  He walked over to the fridge and lifted it up with one hand. He actually did it. He lifted the fridge high above his head with one hand. I couldn’t believe it. The soup seemed to give him superhuman strength.

  ‘Fantastic,’ I shouted. ‘No one except Superman could lift a fridge. Do you really get your power from cans of soup?’

  He didn’t answer. Instead he did a long, loud burp. Then he held his hand up over his mouth and went red in the face. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a stomach-ache. It always happens after I drink the soup too quickly. I’ll just nick into the bathroom and get myself an Alka-Seltzer for this indigestion.’

  Indigestion? Superman doesn’t get indigestion. He is like the Queen. He just doesn’t have those sort of problems and he doesn’t burp either. It wouldn’t be right. That’s when I knew he was a fake. I decided to try the soup out myself while he was in the bathroom and prove that it was all nonsense.

  I looked at the book which had the list of soups. There was a different soup named for every emergency. For burst dams it was beef broth. For stopping trains it was cream of tomato. Celery soup was for rescuing people from floods.

  I decided to try the chicken soup. It was for smashing down doors. I picked up the bright blue can-opener and used it on a can of chicken soup I found on the top shelf. I drank the whole lot. Cold and raw. It tasted terrible but I managed to get it down. Then I went over to the door and punched it with my fist.

  Nothing happe
ned to the door but my poor fingers were skinned to the bone. The pain was awful. My eyes started to water. ‘You fake,’ I yelled through the bathroom door. ‘You rotten fake.’ I rushed out of the flat as fast as I could go. I was really mad at that phoney Souperman. He was a big disappointment. I wished I could meet the real Superman. The one in the comics.

  3

  My comics! I needed them badly. I wanted to read about the proper Superman who didn’t eat cans of raw soup and get indigestion. I wondered if the garbage truck had taken the comics yet. There might still be time to get them back. It had taken me three years to save them all. I didn’t care what Dad said, I was going to keep those comics. I rushed down to the council bin as fast as I could.

  I couldn’t see inside the bin because it was too high but I knew by the smell that it hadn’t been emptied. I jumped up, grabbed the edge, and pulled myself over the top. What a stink. It was putrid. The bin contained broken eggshells, old bones, hundreds of empty soup tins, a dead cat and other foul muck. I couldn’t see my comics anywhere so I started to dig around looking for them. I was so busy looking for the comics that I didn’t hear the garbage truck coming until it was too late.

  With a sudden lurch the bin was lifted into the air and tipped upside down. I was dumped into the back of the garbage truck with all the filthy rubbish. I was buried under piles of plastic bags, bottles and kitchen scraps. I couldn’t see a thing and I found it difficult to breathe. I knew that if I didn’t get to the top I would suffocate.

  After what seemed like hours I managed to dig my way up to the surface. I looked up with relief at the flats towering above and at the clouds racing across the sky. Then something happened that made my heart stop. The rubbish started to move. The driver had started up the crusher on the truck and it was pushing all the rubbish up to one end and squashing it. A great steel blade was moving towards me. I was about to be flattened inside a pile of garbage. What a way to die.

  ‘Help,’ I screamed. ‘Help.’ It was no use. The driver couldn’t see me. No one could see me. Except Souperman. He was sitting on the window ledge of his room and banging a can of soup on the wall. He was trying to open it.

  The great steel blade came closer and closer. My ribs were hurting. A great pile of rubbish was rising around me like a swelling tide and pushing me upwards and squeezing me at the same time. By now I could just see over the edge of the truck. There was no one in sight. I looked up again at Souperman. ‘Forget the stupid soup,’ I yelled. ‘Get me out of here or I will be killed.’

  Souperman looked down at me from the first-floor window and shook his head. He looked scared. Then, without warning, and with the unopened can of soup still in his hand, he jumped out of the window.

  Did he fly through the air in the manner of a bird? No way. He fell to the ground like a human brick and thudded onto the footpath not far from the truck. He lay there in a crumpled heap.

  I tried to scream but I couldn’t. The crusher had pushed all the air out of my lungs. It was squeezing me tighter and tighter. I knew I had only seconds to live.

  I looked over at Souperman. He was alive. He was groaning and still trying to open the can of soup. From somewhere deep in my lungs I managed to find one more breath. ‘Leave the soup,’ I gasped, ‘and turn off the engine.’

  He nodded and started crawling slowly and painfully towards the truck. His face was bleeding and he had a black eye but he kept going. With a soft moan he pulled himself up to the truck door and opened it. ‘Switch off the engine,’ I heard him tell the driver. Then everything turned black and I heard no more.

  The next thing I remember was lying on the footpath with Souperman and the driver bending over me.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Souperman with a grin. ‘You’ll be all right.’

  ‘Thanks for saving me,’ I replied. ‘But you’re still a phoney. The real Superman can fly.’

  ‘I can fly,’ he told me, ‘but I couldn’t get the can of soup open. When you rushed out of my flat you took something of mine with you. Look in your pocket.’

  I felt in my pocket and pulled out a hard object. It was a bright blue can-opener.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it before,’ said the hypnotist. ‘You say he had a perfectly normal mouth yesterday?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs White, looking at the tiny hole in the middle of her son’s face. ‘A perfectly ordinary mouth just like anyone else. Now look at it. It’s so small there is only just enough room to poke in one pea at a time. The only food he can get into his mouth is soup sucked up through a straw. He can’t talk, he can’t stick out his tongue and he can’t eat.’

  A squeaky, gobbling noise came out of Sean’s little mouth hole. ‘What did he say?’ asked the hypnotist.

  ‘He said he can’t kiss either. He won’t be able to kiss his girlfriend.’

  The hypnotist bent over and had another look. ‘Incredible,’ he said. ‘You couldn’t even push a pencil through that little opening. I’m surprised a straw fits in. Are you sure you don’t know how it happened?’

  Sean nodded his head up and down vigorously.

  ‘He has no idea,’ said Mrs White. ‘He can’t remember anything about it at all. He just doesn’t know what happened.’

  ‘I don’t normally work on Christmas Day,’ said the hypnotist. ‘But this is different. This is an emergency. What can I do to help?’

  ‘We must find out where Sean’s lips have gone,’ answered Mrs White anxiously. ‘The doctor won’t do anything until they find out what happened.’

  ‘But how is he going to tell us? He can’t talk.’

  Mrs White pulled out a sheaf of paper and a Biro. ‘He is very good at writing. I thought he might write it down for us.’

  The hypnotist slapped his knee enthusiastically. ‘It might work,’ he said. ‘It just might work. Come and sit at the desk, Sean. We will see what you can remember.’

  The hypnotist was very happy. He had never heard of a case of a lost mouth before. He decided he would write this one up. Everyone would be interested in the case of the boy with the smallest mouth in the world.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ he said to Sean in a dreamy voice. ‘And take five deep breaths. At the end of the fifth breath you will open your eyes … You will remember what happened to your mouth … You will pick up the pen and write the whole thing down … The whole story … Right from the beginning …’

  Sean closed his eyes and took five deep breaths. On the fifth breath he opened his eyes and picked up the pen. This is what he wrote.

  1

  It all started on Christmas Eve. I had to look after my little brat of a brother. ‘Take him into Myer’s and show him the Christmas windows,’ said Mum. ‘Keep him busy for about two hours while Helen and I wrap up his Christmas presents. We don’t want him to see us wrapping them up, do we? After all, he still believes in Santa Claus.’

  ‘But Mum, why can’t Helen do it?’ I said. ‘I hate taking him shopping. He’s a real pain. He gets lost and he won’t do what he’s told. It’s Christmas Eve and I want to go and see my new girlfriend.’

  ‘Your own brother comes before girlfriends,’ she answered. ‘And Helen is helping me wrap up the presents. Now off you go and don’t give me any more arguments.’

  It was no use. I had to go. I took Robert’s hand and dragged him out to the tram stop. We lived in Fitzroy and it was only four stops on the tram to Myer’s. Robert sat there sucking this dirty big icy pole with loud slurping noises. Everyone in the tram was looking at us. How embarrassing. I tried to pretend I wasn’t with him but he kept asking me stupid questions like, ‘How come you’ve got pimples on your chin, Sean?’

  After what seemed like ten years we finally got to Myer’s. ‘I want to go and see Santa Claus,’ whined Robert.

  ‘No way,’ I told him. ‘I’m going to the record bar and that’s that.’ I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him up to the record bar. I wanted to buy a couple of records. My favourite singers are Madonna and Sally Fritz. I
have a very sexy poster of Sally Fritz at home on my bedroom wall. Mum doesn’t like it. She says it’s not very nice.

  I didn’t have time to buy a Sally Fritz record though. As soon as we got there Robert started up again. ‘Santa Claus. I wanna see Santa Claus.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘If you don’t take me to Santa I’ll pee on the floor,’ he yelled.

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘Not in front of all these people.’ I looked around. The place was packed out with people doing their last-minute Christmas shopping.

  ‘I will so too,’ he shouted at the top of his voice. He started to lift up the leg of one side of his short trousers. People were looking. I went pale. He was going to do it. He was really going to do it with all of Melbourne watching.

  ‘You win,’ I said weakly. ‘I’ll take you to see Santa.’ We walked across to the lifts and squeezed in with the rest of the crowd. The lift stopped at the fifth floor and everyone except us got out.

  ‘I think Santa is on the roof garden,’ I told Robert.

  ‘He better be,’ was all Robert said.

  The doors opened and we stepped out into the black night. The whole place had changed. There was no roof garden and no Santa. There weren’t even any lights. ‘It looks like it’s different this year,’ I told Robert. ‘Santa must be on a different level.’

  ‘You tricked me,’ he screamed. ‘You tricked me. I’m telling Mum. I’m dobbing on you. You promised to take me to see Santa.’

  He really was a brat. I was sick of the whole thing. Why did I always have to get stuck with him? ‘There isn’t any Santa Claus,’ I blurted out. ‘It’s only an old man dressed up with a cotton-wool beard and a pillow stuffed down his shirt. There’s no such person as Santa Claus.’

  ‘There is,’ he screamed. ‘There is, there is, there is.’ He started stamping his foot on the ground. Then he turned and ran back to the lift. He jumped in just as the doors were closing. He was gone.