The Curse of the Jelly Babies

by Karen McCombie

  Praise for You, Me and Thing:

  ‘I loved this warm and funny story. Now I want a Thing in MY garden! This book is full of giggles and magic – sit back and enjoy!’ Jeremy Strong, author of The Hundred-Mile-an-Hour Dog

  ‘A refreshing, engaging read, perfectly pitched for the age group. Thing is a thing to be reckoned with!’ Kaye Umansky, author of Pongwiffy series

  ‘Adorable and irreverent.’ Ivan Brett, author of Casper Candlewacks

  For Alice Mary Brown,

  with love and huggles

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 Once upon a thing …

  2 Funny feelings and ffftts!!

  3 Phew and hurray

  4 A sweet squish

  5 Talking without speaking

  6 Seriously spectacular weirdness

  7 The sudden SPLAT!

  8 In the blink of a (human) eye

  9 Another ARRGHH!

  10 Once upon an end

  About the Author

  Copyright

  I never expected to be friends with a Thing.

  Well, you don’t, do you?

  You usually think of friends being either boys or girls, or maybe even cute yappy dogs or something.

  Well, Thing certainly doesn’t fit into any of those categories.

  Thing is just a … a …

  Actually, I’m not sure quite how to describe it.

  ‘A sort of troll crossed with a fairy crossed with a squirrel?’ Jackson suggested, after we first discovered Thing.

  ‘I is not a squirrel,’ Thing purred grumpily at the time, twitching its squirrelly ears at Jackson. ‘And not a fairy or a trolly. Whatever they is.’

  By the way, I never expected to be friends with Jackson Miller either.

  I guess I’ve got a bit of explaining to do, about Jackson and about Thing.

  (Oh, and about curses and jelly babies too, I suppose. And the magic. I mustn’t forget the magic!)

  But how do I start?

  Well, I could do it with a once-upon-a-time …

  That’s the way an awful lot of stories start, I know. But I’m Ruby Morgan, and I’ve never begun a story with a once-upon-a-time ever before in my entire life (which has lasted nine years so far) and I’d quite like to give it a try, if nobody minds.

  So, are you ready? Here goes …

  Once upon a time, a girl called Ruby (that’s me!) lived with her parents in a very old cottage at the edge of small town.

  The cottage had roses round the door, a nicely tangly front garden where an old cat called Christine liked to snooze, a little windy road that meandered to the town, and a view of a few swishy-swashy fields of hay.

  At the back of the house was another, bigger, nicely tangly garden, and beyond that were trees, trees, trees and quite a lot more trees. To Ruby, it seemed like Muir Wood went on forever (just about). It was packed full of fat cooing wood pigeons boinging around on skinny twiglets, and delicious smells of pinecones and damp leafiness. There were acres of old roots and branches and lots of rustly stuff which were perfect to make dens in, if you were Ruby.

  (By the way, that’s the good part of this once-upon-a-time bit of my story – the bad news part is coming right up.)

  Ruby didn’t pay much attention to her parents frowning at reports in the local newspapers and tutting to each other in corners when they thought she wasn’t listening.

  But she did take quite a LOT of notice when a bunch of diggers and lorries came barrelling down the windy road outside her house. And she took a whole HEAP of notice when gaggles of guys in yellow safety helmets and stern boots started stomping through the woods, hacking through just about every tree they came across with their buzzing big chainsaws.

  (See? I warned you that bit was bad news.)

  *

  And so – like this once-upon-a-time story explains – my cottage used to sit happily on the edge of Muir Wood.

  Then it turned into the odd-one-out amongst a whole Legoland of shiny brand-new houses called the ‘Forest View Estate’.

  Ha!

  Apart from the five trees at the end of our garden, there wasn’t a forest left to have a view of!

  OK, so now you know how it was, and how it is.

  What shall I tell you about next?

  Thing? Jackson? The curse? Or the jelly babies? (I haven’t forgotten about the magic, I promise!)

  I guess it’s got to be Jackson, ’cause he came first.

  Though at the time, I wished he hadn’t come at all …

  It couldn’t get any worse.

  (Actually, it could.)

  Having a pile of boring brick houses dumped on top of a lovely wood was bad enough.

  But having one built slap-bang next door to us was terrible, because …

  Now e) was a MAJOR problem.

  Here’s why … the bedroom opposite mine belonged to a boy who I instantly liked as much as nettlerash.

  Get this: one morning, I woke up – as usual – with Christine cat purr-urr-urring in my ear.

  And – as usual – I pulled my curtains wide open to get a view of the sky and what it was doing.

  But instead of a view of the sky, or even the branches of the lovely old oak that used to stand there, I found myself gawping at a boy.

  A boy with blond hair, who was howling along to a loud hip-hop song while picking his nose.

  And – get this – he was only wearing boxer shorts!

  It gets even worse.

  The boy caught sight of me, and instead of acting embarrassed, he grinned like a crazy baboon, then turned round and wiggled his bum!

  Shocked, I clung on to the curtains, stared at my revolting new neighbour, and missed the tree very, very badly. It was a lot quieter and had much better manners.

  A little bit later that morning, I went to school with a black cloud of gloom floating invisibly above my head.

  ‘Ah, here she comes now!’ my teacher Miss Wilson said cheerfully, as I wandered into class.

  Beside her was a boy I’d only seen once before.

  (Can you guess who?)

  He had scruffy blond hair, a grin like a baboon and was wearing considerably more clothes than he had been earlier.

  ‘Jackson, this is your new neighbour!’ trilled Miss Wilson. ‘Ruby—’

  Ffftt!!

  My teacher hesitated at the small, sort of farty noise we’d all just heard. Then she continued, probably just assuming that the noise was the squeak of a chair.

  ‘Ruby—’

  Ffftt!!

  ‘Ruby lives in the old cottage next door to your new house, Jackson,’ Miss Wilson continued, with a slightly confused frown. ‘Don’t you, Ruby?’

  Ffftt!!

  Miss Wilson glanced around to find out where the nearby noise was coming from. Jackson did the same thing, frowning too.

  ‘Um, right – we’ll put you at the empty space on that table next to her, Jackson,’ she finally carried on, a little flustered by the odd noises. ‘That way, you can be neighbours in the classroom too!’

  Around me, boys and girls were sitting down, all ready for the register. One by one, they muttered a ‘Yes, miss!’ as Miss Wilson called their names out.

  ‘Jackson Miller!’

  ‘YES, MISS!’ Jackson bellowed, which made everyone but me laugh.

  (I was too busy realising he was also my neighbour on the class register, worse luck.)

  ‘Ruby Morgan?’

  Ffftt!! came the stupid noise again, and giggles erupted around the room.

  OK – that was IT!

  I suddenly knew for sure who was making that noise, even if Miss Wilson didn’t. I fumed all the way to breaktime then stomped right up to Jackson Miller
in the playground.

  As soon as he saw me coming he did his baboon grin and slid his right hand under his left arm.

  ‘Are you going to make that stupid noise every time you hear my name?’ I demanded.

  ‘Probably! Why – does it bug you, Ruby?’ he asked, while squelching a big fat Ffftt!! with his hand and his armpit.

  I didn’t bother to answer him.

  With that one dumb sound, I vowed that I would never, ever in a million years be friends with a donut like Jackson Miller!

  Oops.

  My vow broke long before I got to a million years.

  It broke by about half-past four that afternoon, thanks to a little thing called, er, Thing …

  Some people are born to be smart.

  Some are born to be caring.

  And some people – like Jackson Miller – are born to be annoying, as you are about to see (and hear) …

  Blaring from next door was some very loud music.

  It woke up Christine cat, who’d just settled down for a snoozle amongst the daisies and dandelions on our lawn.

  It almost completely drowned out the gentle tweetly-tweeting of the birds in the huddle of trees at the bottom of my garden.

  That was a real shame because the tweetly-tweeting had been keeping me company while I was hanging out some washing for Mum.

  The tweetly-tweeting had been putting me in a good mood, after a tiring day avoiding Jackson Miller and his stupid armpit trick.

  And now it sounded as if he was turning his back garden into a drum ’n’ bass nightclub.

  Pegging up the last piece of washing, I was all set to stomp over to the fence that separated us. I planned to tell Jackson Miller just what I thought of him and his music.

  But he beat me to it, because – like I mentioned – he was born to be annoying.

  ‘Hey, NICE PANTS!’ Jackson bellowed.

  I looked over and saw him leaning his elbows on the top of the fence, grinning like the big baboon he was.

  Ping!

  I yanked the pants off the washing line and stuffed them damply in my jeans pocket. (They were pale blue, with daisies, if you wanted to know. But you probably didn’t.)

  ‘Go away, Jackson,’ I muttered.

  ‘OK!’ said Jackson. And with that, he took one cheeky, doll-size step back.

  Grinding my teeth together, I unhooked the peg bag from the line and ignored him.

  ‘Hey, Ruby, can I ask you something?’

  Jackson suddenly said, while waving a remote control in the direction of his house. (Phew – it turned the loud music off. And hurray – he’d forgotten to make the farty noise when he said my name.)

  ‘NO!’ I growled, certain that Jackson’s question was going to be an annoying or useless one like ‘Would you like to smell my socks?’

  ‘I was wondering, is there anything to do round here?’ Jackson asked, ignoring my no and my growling. ‘This place seems to be a bit, well, boring …’

  As he spoke, Jackson chucked something yellow up in the air and casually caught it in his mouth.

  I was pretty sure it was a jelly baby.

  I hoped it would choke him.

  ‘It didn’t used to be boring! There was a HUGE wood right there,’ I snapped, pointing to the clump of trees just over the back of my stone garden wall. Somehow the builders had forgotten to cut those last few down. ‘And you could walk through it and have adventures in it all day!’

  ‘Really?’ said Jackson, wrinkling his nose as if he didn’t quite believe me. ‘Where did it go?’

  (OK, so some people are born to be annoying – AND stupid.)

  ‘The wood got chopped down and went to the timber yard,’ I said sharply. ‘Then your house and all these other houses got built where it stood!’

  ‘Wow,’ Jackson muttered.

  It was tricky to tell what he was thinking.

  Maybe he was quietly shocked to hear about the damage his home had done to the environment.

  Or maybe he was just wondering whether to have another jelly baby or not.

  ‘And it’s not just the trees that are gone, you know!’ I carried on, hoping I might make him understand. ‘Lots of wildlife lived there too.’

  ‘Right!’ he mused, like he was getting it at last. ‘So what, uh, happened to all the animals?’

  ‘The developers built them a little petting zoo to live in,’ I lied.

  ‘Wow? Did they?’

  (See? What did I say about him being annoying AND stupid?!)

  ‘Of course they didn’t!’ I sighed. Good grief, it was like explaining multiplication to a frog.

  I immediately thought of the deer and rabbits and teeny-weeny voles and stuff that had to flee when the diggers and cement mixers and chainsaws moved in.

  They’d have had to cross fields and rivers and dual carriageways to find new habitats, running the risk of starvation or being squished on busy roads. It was all way too tragic …

  ‘Hey, wanna jelly baby?’ Jackson suddenly asked, while tossing a black one in the air and catching it in his mouth.

  ‘ARRGHH!’ I roared. Jackson Miller was SO infuriating!!

  ‘Just say “Yes, please”, or “No, thank you”, Ruby!’ he said, with a maddening baboon grin.

  I was on the point of losing my temper and throwing the first thing I could find at him. (Luckily I didn’t – it might have been my pants.)

  But suddenly Jackson stopped grinning.

  ‘Can you hear that?’ he asked, sticking a finger in the air.

  ‘Yes!’ I said snippily. ‘Obviously I can hear you chewing – you’ve got your mouth open!!’

  ‘No – not that!’ Jackson replied, tilting his head to listen better.

  Silence.

  Sort of.

  ‘I meant that …’

  Hardly daring to breathe, I froze and listened to the minuscule noises.

  ‘Peh!’ Zhush-swizh-zhush. ‘Peh!’

  ‘That’ seemed to be the sound of rustling and sighing. And it was coming from the direction of the trees.

  ‘Could be a hedgehog, tangled up in something?’ I murmured to Jackson.

  Mirroring each other, we softly padded down our gardens. At the end of mine was a low stone wall. At the end of Jackson’s was a tall fence he’d have to stand on tiptoe to see over.

  And so together we peered (high and low) and saw … (hold your breath …)

  A plastic Tesco shopping bag.

  Snarled up with some sticks.

  And it was trembling.

  ‘Do you still think it’s a hedgehog?’ Jackson whispered to me.

  Whatever it was, it knew we were staring at it, that was for sure. All the zhush-swizh-zhush-ing and ‘peh!’-ing had stopped.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I mumbled, my heart thumpety-thumping as I hoicked my leg over the wall and plopped on to the mossy grass at the foot of the trees.

  Jackson followed, hurling himself over his tall fence and landing with a jarring thump.

  The snarled-up Tesco-bag-and-sticks thing jerked in alarm.

  And uh-oh, through a rip in the plastic, I could make out a tiny snout and a pair of round, panicked eyes.

  ‘There, there …’ I said in a soft voice, as I hunkered down beside the trapped whatever-it-was. ‘Do you need some help, little guy?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ came a strange, purring sort of voice from inside the bag-and-twig tangle.

  ‘Ooh!’ I squeaked in shock.

  ‘Oof!’ grunted Jackson, as he flew back in surprise, banging his head on the fencepost.

  With a whoosh, a small paw/hand reached out from another rip in the bag, and patted the toe of Jackson’s trainer.

  ‘Ouchy! There, there …’ said the thing inside the bag.

  Well, whatever the weird, talking alien creature was, at least it seemed quite kind.

  I just hoped it would be as kind to me, because all of a sudden my head was going swirly …

  and I felt like I was …

  about to …

&
nbsp; I woke up with something being squished in my ear.

  ‘No … that’s not going to help!’ I heard Jackson say.

  ‘But look – I press it in, and girly’s eyes open!’ said the small, purry voice.

  I winced as the squashy something got squished in my ear again.

  ‘Probably because it feels a bit weird. Jelly babies are for mouths, not for ears,’ Jackson explained to whatever it was.

  Next, I saw him leaning over me.

  ‘Are you OK, Ruby? I think you fainted.’

  At the same time as Jackson spoke, a pointy little finger poked me in the ribs and the purry little voice said, ‘Girly forgot to breathe. Got to breathe, girly!’

  ‘But I was breathing!’ I protested, unplugging the jelly baby from my ear and sitting up woozily.

  Then I remembered …

  So yep, it looked like I had fainted.

  How nuts was that?

  Speaking of nuts, what about that talking plastic bag …

  ‘EEK!’ I squeaked, suddenly noticing the furry, gingery thing by my side.

  It was the size of a squirrel, but apart from the ears, didn’t look much like one.

  ‘EEK!’ squeaked the non-squirrel, as panicked as me.

  At least, I was pretty sure it wasn’t a squirrel. In all the years I’d wandered the woods, I’d never seen a squirrel that looked like this. It had huge, scaredy, bushbaby eyes, and a face that seemed almost human, except for the wet black snout.

  Then there were the paws with furry fingers, and … and … wings!

  Stubby, bumpy wings, tucked neatly at its back!

  It was like a science experiment gone very, oddly wrong …