Unbelievable!

by Paul Jennings

  They looked up and saw that there were now four or five birds circling above. One of them swooped down and released its load. Another white splodge hit Tracy’s head. The other birds followed one after the other, each dropping its foul load onto one of the girls’ hair. They put their hands on top of their heads and started to run. More and more birds gathered, circling, wheeling and diving above the fleeing figures. Bird droppings rained down like weighted snow.

  The girls stumbled on. There was no shelter on the exposed, wind-swept cliffs – there was no escape from the guano blizzard which engulfed them.

  Tracy stumbled and fell. Tears cut a trail through the white mess on her face. ‘Come on,’ cried Gemma. ‘Keep going – we must find cover.’ She dragged her sister to her feet and both girls groped their way through the white storm being released from above by the squealing, swirling gulls.

  Finally, exhausted and blinded, the twins collapsed into each other’s arms. They huddled together and tried to protect themselves from the pelting muck by holding their packs over their heads. Gemma began to cough. The white excrement filled her ears, eyes and nostrils. She had to fight for every breath.

  And then, as quickly as it had begun, the attack ended. The whole flock sped out to sea and disappeared over the horizon.

  The girls sat there panting and sobbing. Each was covered in a dripping white layer of bird dung. Finally Gemma gasped. ‘I can’t believe this. Look at us. Covered in bird droppings. Did that really happen? Where have they gone?’ She looked anxiously out to sea.

  ‘They’ve probably run out of ammo,’ said Tracy. ‘We had better get to the shack as quick as we can before they come back.’

  3

  An hour later the two girls struggled up to the shack. It sat high above the sea, perched dangerously on the edge of a cliff which fell straight to the surging ocean beneath. Its battered tin roof and peeling wooden walls stood defiantly against the might of the ocean winds.

  Both girls felt tears springing to their eyes. ‘It reminds me of Dad and all those fishing holidays we had here with him,’ said Tracy. They stood there on the old porch for a moment, looking and remembering.

  ‘This won’t do,’ said Gemma as she unlocked the door and pushed it open. ‘Let’s get cleaned up and start looking for those two rubies.’

  Inside was much as they remembered it. There were only two rooms: a kitchen with an old table and three chairs and fishing rods and nets littered around; and a bedroom with three mattresses on the floor. The kitchen also contained a sink and an old sideboard with a huge, stuffed seagull standing on it. It had only one leg and a black patch on each wing. It stared out of one of the mist-covered windows at the sky and the waves beyond.

  ‘It almost looks alive,’ shivered Tracy. ‘Why did Dad shoot it anyway? He didn’t believe in killing birds.’

  ‘It was wounded,’ answered Gemma. ‘So he put it out of its misery. Then he stuffed it and mounted it because it was so big. He said it was the biggest gull he had ever seen.’

  ‘Well,’ said Tracy. ‘I’m glad you’re the one who is going to look inside it for the rubies, because I’m not going to touch it. I don’t like it.’

  ‘First,’ said Gemma, ‘we clean off all this muck. Then we start searching for the rubies.’ The two girls cleaned themselves with tank water from the tap in the sink. Then they sat down at the table and looked at the stuffed seagull. Gemma cut a small slit in its belly and carefully pulled out the stuffing. A silence fell over the hut and the clifftop. Not even the waves could be heard.

  The air seemed to be filled with silent sobbing.

  ‘The rubies aren’t there,’ said Gemma at last. She put the stuffing back in the dead bird and placed it on its stand. ‘I’m glad that’s over,’ she went on. ‘I didn’t like the feel of it. It gave me bad vibes.’

  As the lonely darkness settled on the shack, the girls continued their hunt for the rubies. They lit a candle and searched on into the night without success. At last, too tired to go on, Tracy unrolled her sleeping bag and prepared for bed. She walked over to the window to pull across the curtain but froze before reaching it. A piercing scream filled the shack. ‘Look,’ she shrieked. ‘Look.’

  Both girls stared in terror at the huge seagull sitting outside on the window sill. It gazed in at them, blinking every now and then with fiery red eyes. ‘I can see into it,’ whispered Gemma. ‘I can see its gizzards. It’s transparent.’

  The lonely bird stared, pleaded with them silently and then crouched on its single leg and flapped off into the moonlight.

  Before either girl could speak, a soft pitter-patter began on the tin roof. Soon it grew louder until the shack was filled with a tremendous drumming. ‘What a storm,’ yelled Gemma.

  ‘It’s not a storm,’ Tracy shouted back. ‘It’s the birds. The seagulls have returned. They are bombing the house.’ She stared in horror at the ghostly flock that filled the darkness with ghastly white rain.

  All through the night the drumming on the roof continued. Towards the dawn it grew softer but never for a moment did it stop. Finally the girls fell asleep, unable to keep their weary eyes open any longer.

  4

  At 10 a.m. Tracy awoke in the darkness and pressed on the light in her digital watch. ‘Wake up,’ she yelled. ‘It’s getting late.’

  ‘It can’t be,’ replied Gemma. ‘It’s still dark.’

  The shack was as silent as a tomb. Gemma lit a candle and went over to the window. ‘Can’t see a thing,’ she said.

  Tracy pulled open the front door and shrieked as a wave of bird droppings gushed into the room. It oozed into the kitchen in a foul stream. ‘Quick,’ she yelled. ‘Help me shut the door or we’ll be drowned in the stuff.’

  Staggering, grunting and groaning, they managed to shut the door and stop the stinking flow. ‘The whole house is buried,’ said Gemma. ‘And so are we. Buried alive in bird droppings.’

  ‘And no one knows we are here,’ added Tracy.

  They sat and stared miserably at the flickering candle. All the windows were blacked out by the pile of dung that covered the house.

  ‘There is no way out,’ moaned Gemma.

  ‘Unless …’ murmured Tracy, ‘they haven’t covered the chimney.’ She ran over to the fireplace and looked up. ‘I can see the sky,’ she exclaimed. ‘We can get up the chimney.’

  It took a lot of scrambling and shoving but at last the two girls sat perched on the top of the stone chimney. They stared in disbelief at the house, which was covered in a mountain of white bird droppings. The chimney was the only evidence that underneath the oozing pile was a building.

  ‘Look,’ said Gemma with outstretched hand. ‘The transparent gull.’ It sat, alone on the bleak cliff, staring, staring at the shaking twins. ‘It wants something,’ she said quietly.

  ‘And I know what it is,’ said Tracy. ‘Wait here.’ She eased herself back down the chimney and much later emerged carrying the stuffed seagull.

  ‘Look closely at that ghost gull,’ panted Tracy. ‘It’s only got one leg. And it has black patches on its wings. And look how big it is. It’s this bird.’ She held up the stuffed seagull. ‘It’s the ghost of this stuffed seagull. It wants its body back. It doesn’t like it being stuffed and left in a house. It wants it returned to nature.’

  ‘Okay,’ Gemma yelled at the staring gull. ‘You can have it. We don’t want it. But first we have to get down from here.’ The two girls slid, swam, and skidded their way to the bottom of the sticky mess. Then, like smelly white spirits, the sisters walked to the edge of the cliff with the stuffed bird. The ghost seagull sat watching and waiting.

  Tracy pulled the stuffed seagull from the stand and threw it over the cliff into the air that it had once loved and lived in. Its wings opened in the breeze and it circled slowly, like a glider, and after many turns crashed on a rock in the surging swell beneath.

  The ghost gull lifted slowly into the air and followed it down until it came to rest on top of the still, stuff
ed corpse.

  ‘Look,’ whispered Tracy in horror. ‘The ghost gull is pecking at the stuffed one. It’s pecking its head.’

  A wave washed across the rock and the stuffed seagull vanished into the foam. The ghost gull flapped into the breeze and then flew above the girls’ heads. ‘It’s bombing us,’ shouted Gemma as she put her hands over her head.

  Two small shapes plopped onto the ground beside them.

  ‘It’s the eyes of the stuffed seagull,’ said Tracy in a hoarse voice.

  ‘No it’s not,’ replied Gemma. ‘It’s Dad’s rubies.’

  They sat there, stunned, saying nothing and staring at the red gems that lay at their feet.

  Tracy looked up. ‘Thank you, ghost gull,’ she shouted.

  But the bird had gone and her words fell into the empty sea below.

  Snookle

  Snookle was delivered one morning with the milk. There were four half-litre bottles; three of them contained milk and the other held Snookle.

  He stared sadly at me from his glass prison. I could see he was alive even though he made no sign or movement. He reminded me of a dog on a chain that manages to make its owner feel guilty simply by looking unhappy. Snookle wanted to get out of that milk bottle but he didn’t really expect it to happen. He didn’t say anything, he just gazed silently into my eyes.

  I placed the three full bottles in the fridge and put Snookle and his small home on the table. Then I sat down and looked at him carefully. All I could see was a large pair of gloomy eyes. He must have had a body but it was nowhere to be seen. The eyes simply floated in the air about fifteen centimetres above the bottom of the bottle.

  Mum and Dad had already left for work so I wouldn’t get any help from them. I gave the bottle a gentle shake and the eyes bounced around like a couple of small rubber balls. The gloomy expression was replaced by one of alarm and the eyes blinked a number of times before settling back to their original position.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ There was no reply, just a long reproachful look.

  ‘Where did you come from?’ I asked. ‘And how did you get here? What sort of creature are you? What is your name?’ I received no reply to my question. In fact, the eyes began to close. He was falling asleep.

  A nasty thought entered my mind. What if he was dying? There is not much air in a milk bottle. He might be suffocating if he was an air-breathing creature. I thought about opening the bottle and letting him out. But if I did I could be in for big trouble. He might not go back into the bottle and he could be dangerous. He might bite me or give me some terrible disease that would kill off the whole human race. He might nick off, spreading death and disease wherever he went.

  I went over to the window and looked outside. Maybe one of the kids from school would be passing. Two heads would be better than one, especially if the thing in the bottle attacked me. Then I remembered. It was Curriculum Day and there was no school. The only person in the street was poor old Mrs McKee, who was hobbling down her steps to get the milk. She wouldn’t be any help. She had arthritis and it was all she could do to pick up one milk bottle at a time. It took her half an hour to shuffle back to the front door from the gate.

  Some weekends I used to go and do jobs for Mrs McKee because her hands were so weak that she couldn’t do anything by herself. Her garden was overgrown with weeds and her windows were dirty. All the paint was peeling off the house. I once heard Mum say that Mrs McKee would have to go into an old folks’ home soon because her fingers wouldn’t move properly. No, Mrs McKee wouldn’t be any use if the eyes in the bottle turned nasty.

  2

  I looked at my visitor again. His eyelids were beginning to droop. At any moment he might be dead. I decided to take the risk. With one swift movement I took the metal cap off the bottle.

  The expression in the eyes changed. They looked happy. Then they started to move slowly up to the neck of the bottle. I could tell that the little creature was climbing up the glass even though I couldn’t see his body. The eyes emerged from the bottle and floated in the air just above the rim. He sat on the top of the bottle staring at me happily. I couldn’t see his mouth or any part of his face but I knew he was smiling.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked. It might seem silly to talk to an unknown creature as if it could answer but I had a feeling that he would understand me. Even so, I got a shock when he did answer. He didn’t use words or speech. I could hear him inside my brain.

  The word ‘Snookle’ just sort of drifted into my mind.

  ‘Who are you, Snookle?’ I said. ‘And what do you want?’

  Again he answered without talking. His reply melted into my thoughts. ‘I am your servant. Your every thought is my command.’ They weren’t his exact words because he didn’t use words but it is more or less what he meant. Especially the bit about my every thought being his command. That was the next thing I found out – he could read my thoughts. He knew what I wanted without me saying anything.

  3

  My stomach suddenly rumbled. I was hungry. The eyes floated across the table and over to the pantry. Snookle could fly. The next thing I knew a packet of cornflakes and a bowl flew slowly back with the eyes following close behind. Then the fridge opened and the milk arrived the same way. The cornflakes and milk were tipped into the bowl and sugar added. Just the right amount and just the way I liked it. This was great. He knew I wanted breakfast and he got it for me without even being told. I didn’t eat it straight away because I like my cornflakes soggy.

  I decided to try Snookle out on something else. I thought about bringing in the papers from the letter box. Snookle floated over to the front door and opened it. Then he stayed there hovering in the air. ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Out you go.’ The eyes moved from side to side. He was shaking his head. I looked out the door and saw a man riding by on a bike. As soon as the cyclist had passed Snookle flew out and fetched the papers. I knew what had happened. Snookle didn’t want anyone to see him except his master. I was his master because I had let him out of the bottle. He would only show himself to me.

  I went back to my bedroom followed by Snookle. His preferred altitude was about two metres off the ground. I decided to wear my stretch jeans as there was no school that day. The moment the thought entered my mind Snookle set off for the wardrobe. My jeans, T-shirt and underwear were delivered by air mail and laid out neatly on the bed. The next bit, however, gave me a bit of a surprise. Snookle pulled off my pyjamas and started to dress me. I felt a bit silly. It was just like a little kid being dressed by his mother. I could feel long, thin, cold fingers touching me.

  ‘Cut it out, Snookle,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to dress me.’ He didn’t take any notice. That was when I found out that Snookle helped you whether you wanted it or not.

  My nose was itchy. I could feel a sneeze coming on. As quick as a flash Snookle whipped my handkerchief out of my pocket and held it up to my nose. I sneezed into the handkerchief and said, ‘Thanks, but that wasn’t necessary.’

  I went back to the kitchen for my breakfast. Snookle beat me to the spoon. I tried to grab it off him but he was too quick for me. He dipped the spoon into the cornflakes and pushed it into my mouth. I tried to stop him by keeping my lips closed but he prised them open with his chilly little invisible fingers and shoved the next spoonful in. He fed me the whole bowl of cornflakes just as if I was a baby.

  Now I hope you will understand about the next bit. I am not really a nose picker but I have thought about it now and then. My nose was still a bit itchy and the thought just came into my mind to pick it. I wouldn’t have done it any more than you would. Anyway, before I could blink, this cold, invisible finger went up my nose and picked it for me.

  Snookle was picking my nose! I nearly freaked out. I screamed and tried to push him off but he was too strong.

  After that things just got worse and worse. Snookle wouldn’t let me do a thing for myself. Not a single thing.

  4

  I went back
to the kitchen and sat down. This wasn’t working out at all well. I could see my future looming in front of me with Snookle doing everything for me. Everything. He had to go. And quick.

  I dropped a cornflake into the empty milk bottle and thought hard about getting it out. Snookle floated over and went into the bottle to get it. I moved like greased lightning and put the top back on that bottle before Snookle knew what had hit him. He was trapped. He didn’t even try to get out but just looked at me with sad, mournful eyes as if he had expected nothing better.

  Now I was in a fix. I didn’t want to leave Snookle in the bottle for the rest of his life but I didn’t want him hanging around picking my nose for me either. I looked out of the window. Poor old Mrs McKee had managed to get back to the house with one of her bottles of milk. Soon she would make the slow trip back to the letter box for the next one.

  I picked up Snookle and slowly crossed the road. Then I put his bottle down outside Mrs McKee’s house. I grabbed her full bottle of milk with one hand and waved goodbye to Snookle with the other. His eyes stared silently and sadly back at me.

  That was the last I ever saw of Snookle.

  Over the next few days a remarkable change came over Mrs McKee’s house. The grass was cut and the flower beds were weeded. The windows were cleaned and someone repainted the house. The people in the street thought it was strange because they never saw anyone doing the work.

  I went over to see Mrs McKee about a week later. She seemed very happy. Very happy indeed.

  About the Author

  Paul Jennings is Australia’s multi-award-winning master of madness. The Paul Jennings phenomenon began with the publication of Unreal! in 1985. Since then, his stories have been devoured all around the world. The top-rating TV series Round the Twist and Driven Crazy are based on his stories.