“Well,” said Milly, “Mrs Laugherty said she wanted to buy a grandfather clock for the hall and a cuckoo clock for the dining room and possibly a clock for the drawing room and one for the living room, but do you think she ever will?” Milly sighed forlornly.
“Of course she will, if she can find them in one of those antique shops that she sometimes goes into.”
“Well,” said Milly excitedly, “I think you could help with this, Omega. When you’re on Mrs Laugherty’s wrist you could keep your eyes peeled; and if you see something - or you see an antique shop - give her a nudge. If you come across a grandfather clock - even if he’s a bit eccentric or mad - or an old cuckoo clock that works, of course I would be very happy.”
“I will see what I can do, Milly. I will keep my eyes open and try to get Mrs Laugherty in a dusty old antique shop.”
“Oh, you’re so kind, Omega,” cried Milly.
A few weeks later Penelope Laugherty was walking along the High Street in Bayswater and she happened to come across a shop she hadn’t seen before - at least, not that she could recall. It was the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop.
She immediately felt drawn to it. It looked fascinating, so she went in and browsed round. Cobwebs and dust hung in the corners of the shop, and the old shopkeeper who owned it looked very old indeed. He had a long beard, a bespectacled face and a dusty old pinstriped suit.
Suddenly the old shopkeeper asked, “Are you by any chance interested in a grandfather clock and a cuckoo clock?”
They were in the far corner of the shop, almost hidden from view under a thick layer of cobwebs. Penelope asked if they worked.
“Of course they work. Why wouldn’t they work? I think they would love to be purchased by you.”
The old shopkeeper went over to the clocks and brushed off the cobwebs with a feather duster. Suddenly the clocks woke up as if they had been asleep. The grandfather clock sneezed.
“Yes,” said Penelope. “I have a large Victorian house. It has a wide hallway, and high-heeled shoes make a clippety-clop sound on the black-and-white tiled floor. I think the grandfather clock would be perfect for the hallway, and I think the cuckoo clock would be splendid to have on the wall just next to the china cabinet in my dining room. I am looking for clocks that keep perfect time,” said Penelope. She was thinking out loud.
“As perfect as time itself!” said the old shopkeeper. “Well, guess what? Look no further, my dear. A couple of minor adjustments and they will be working as if brand new.”
Omega was listening to the conversation intently. She was so excited, and she couldn’t wait to get home and tell Milly about the great find. However, Omega thought it was strange to find such perfect clocks in a shop so full of cobwebs. She began to wonder if they did actually work.
Penelope arrived home feeling very cheerful, and when Patrick got home from a busy day at the surgery she told him of the great find. She had wasted no time, and they had been delivered that day. The grandfather clock was stood in the hallway, looking proud as Punch. His name was George Midnight. The cuckoo clock was on the wall in the dining room. Her name was Jasmine Feathersprings and she was feeling over the moon. She had a little smile on her face.
Patrick rushed into the hallway to inspect George, and he was very impressed. Then he went into the dining room, where Jasmine was happily sitting on the wall. He went right up to her to inspect her, and he got a big surprise when the cuckoo clock started shouting.
“Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!”
The bird flew out in front of him, nearly hitting him in the face.
Mog Og was asleep on the mat, but he was rudely awoken. He wasn’t so impressed by the noise - or the idea of a bird being in the house, rudely shouting and yelling. Mog Og didn’t share the family’s enthusiasm. He thought to himself that he would somehow get the cuckoo to stop squawking. But for the present he decided to pretend to be pleasant, friendly and courteous.
A Night Out
Omega Horizon excitedly told Milly all about the new clocks. At last Milly would have some new friends to help her tell the time when Omega was on Mrs Laugherty’s wrist. Mog Og wasn’t always around, as he sometimes stayed out all night, like most cats do now and then.
One night Mog Og went out through the cat flap. It was raining, and Mog Og decided that he’d have a little dance. He started to dance and sing ‘I’m Singing in the Rain’. He spun round and round and jumped on the fence, where he continued to dance. Well, Mog Og got carried away, and the female ginger cat next door, Marmalade, came out to see what all the noise was about. She saw Mog Og dancing, and before long they were both dancing together, doing the cha-cha, the jitterbug and the waltz in quick succession. It was great fun. When the moon came out they were still dancing and singing.
Eventually Mog Og, feeling very romantic, escorted Marmalade home. He was so tired that he ended up staying at Marmalade’s place, and he fell asleep on her fluffy rug, curled up next to her.
Next morning Mog Og had a bit of a shock when he woke up and saw Marmalade. He decided to sneak out of her house as fast as he could because he felt so embarrassed. He was sure he must have been drunk on the moonlight and the dancing.
He left Marmalade sleeping, and he sneaked out as fast as he could. He jumped over the fence and through his own cat flap and curled up on his own rug in front of his own fire.
Milly, sitting on the wall, saw the cat sneaking past. She knew Mog Og had been out all night.
A few minutes later Mog Og strolled into the kitchen as if he’d been in the house all night.
He said to Milly, “Oh, Milly, I feel as though I’ve been out all night on the tiles.”
“Really, Mog Og?” said Milly. “You normally sleep like a log.”
“Well, I’m just going to have a bit of a slurp of milk, and then I’m gonna go back to sleep and have a bit of a catnap.”
Then Mog Og strolled back out of the kitchen.
‘No change there, then!’ thought Milly. ‘I’ll not see Mog Og for about ten hours now. I’ll have to occupy myself.’
Then she realised she now had the grandfather clock and the cuckoo clock to talk to if she could muster up the courage to strike up a conversation.
Suddenly she felt very excited at the thought that she had more friends in the house that she could ask for help, instead of hoping that Mog Og would come into the kitchen for a slurp from his milk saucer. ‘God!’ she thought. ‘That fat cat’s so predictable. When he’s at home he comes in for a drink every ten minutes.’
Suddenly Mog Og was strolling into the kitchen.
“Hi, Milly. How are you tocking and ticking?”
“I’m cool, Mog Og. You seem in a good mood - anything happened?”
“Well, to be honest, Milly,” said Mog Og slowly, “I went out last night and I danced in the rain in the moonlight with Marmalade. We had a few kisses and cuddles. I think I’m in love. I think she’s the one.”
“I’m glad you’re happy, Mog Og.”
“I definitely am, Milly. I’m gonna go and have another catnap and just dream about her. Catch ya, later!” Mog Og swanned out of the kitchen, singing ‘I’m As Cool As Custard and Hot As Mustard’ and he curled up on his fluffy rug feeling like the cat that got the cream. In no time at all he was enjoying a groovy dream about his ginger lady-love, Marmalade.
Dr Rama Singh
The leaves were falling off the trees and there was a slight coolness in the morning air. Patrick thought they needed to have a party and invite their friends. It was also Penelope’s birthday on 31 October, so they decided to have a 1920s-themed cocktail party to brighten up the dreary autumn.
“Penelope,” said Patrick one morning, “what we’ll do is to have a cocktail party with a 1920s-themed buffet, and we’ll have all the 1920s paraphernalia. We could even hire a 1920s car. And, sweetie, I’m going t
o give you some money so you can buy yourself something from that antique shop you’ve been to. Those clocks have been just perfect, and there might be something else there you would like. I know you were over the moon with your bargain-hunting in that shop. You know, Penelope, I miss France and the warm French climate. I miss croissants for breakfast, and French wine, Notre-Dame and the Champs Elysées. We must find something amusing to do in the dreary autumn and winter in London.”
Patrick loved the warm weather, and he always liked to have friends around the house in the dark winter months. Penelope didn’t mind the autumn and winter. She wore long skirts and boots and jumpers, a fur hat, a thick coat and gloves. As long as you wear the right clothes you should feel OK. Possibly the real reason Patrick didn’t look forward to the colder time of year was that he had more patients with colds and flu at the surgery, and some of these patients suffered the winter blues. In his surgery, just to make him feel as though it were summertime for ever, he had a large picture of the French lavender fields with deep azure skies. He also had an aquarium with tropical fish, potted palms, a large picture of a tropical scene with orange-tinted skies, blue sea, palm trees and tropical birds in flight. He had a walnut office desk and brown leather upholstered armchairs. Everything was so cosy and upbeat that sometimes the patients wanted to stay for ever, chatting away.
Patrick had trained in hypnotherapy. He certainly wasn’t a conventional doctor. He believed in the power of herbs and lotions and potions, the power of prayer, the power of mind and the ability to bring out the magic in the mind. He believed in analysing dreams and trying to gain an understanding of them. His great ambition was to go to the Brazilian rainforest and study the plants there in order to find a cure for common illnesses. Above all, he hoped to find plants that can heal the mind. He also believed laughter was very healing, and he always managed to laugh and joke with his patients. He was very charming and amusing, with his wavy dark-brown hair and green twinkling eyes. His father was a doctor, so it was in his blood, so to speak. He was very popular. He had the Irish twinkle in his eye, and his grandparents were from County Cork in Ireland.
His grandparents had owned an apothecary business. They sold a face cream for wrinkles which contained lanolin mixed with wild honey and the herb comfrey. They had land and kept sheep. From the sheep’s wool the family all had hand-knitted woollen jumpers, and even today Patrick loved wearing hand-knitted jumpers. He was also fond of bow ties. He was a bit of a trend setter, or maybe a fashion icon - a doctor with a taste and flair for fashion.
It was his intention that one day, when the chateau in France was renovated, he would have sheep, so he could have his jumpers hand-knitted using wool from his own flock. He decided that all his sheep would have names. They would be classed as ‘pet sheep’ - they certainly wouldn’t go to the slaughterhouse. He also wanted to have cows, whose dung could be used on campfires instead of logs. He had plenty of plans, all in his head. Hopefully, with a bit of luck and elbow grease, some of his ambitions would actually happen. He believed they would.
He believed getting out in nature was an ideal therapy for body, mind and soul, and that is why he went camping so much. He knew that the open air had a unique feel-good factor. It was good for the morale.
He thought that when the chateau was renovated he would have a vineyard. There was already a bit of a vineyard on the property, but it needed some work done on it. It was very tangled with weeds. He decided to have free-range chickens and maybe some goats to provide milk and cheese. He discussed his plans with his patients, and some of them offered to help out with the vineyard. No doubt they were eager to get a few glasses of French wine!
This shows exactly how friendly Patrick was.
Now, Patrick had a friend who was a Sikh. He wore a turban, which was always the same colour as his clothes. If he wore a green suit, he wore a green turban; and if he wore a white suit, he wore a white turban. His name was Dr Rama Singh and he spoke with an Indian accent as he was from New Delhi, in India. He was a research doctor. Patrick was fascinated by him because he always said strange things, and he had a watch that would suddenly chant strange words. It could also create rainbows in the sky when it was raining. It cheered his patients up to see a rainbow out of the surgery window.
One day Patrick asked him if there could be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Dr Singh said he was 100 per cent sure of it.
The Australian Clock
A few days before Penelope’s birthday, on 31 October, Miles decided to buy her a birthday present.
Penelope loved Australia and she had an aunt and uncle that lived there. Their names were Sheila and Bruce. Penelope wanted to visit Australia. She regularly exchanged emails with Sheila and Bruce. Penelope had received a cuddly fluffy koala bear and fluffy kangaroos for birthday and Christmas presents for the children, and this inspired Miles to get something handmade in Australia for Penelope.
Miles had a few hours to spare, so he popped out of the house and walked along the Bayswater Road. He was going to the dry cleaner’s to pick up his best velvet butler suit and bow tie. It had needed cleaning as gravy and cranberry sauce had been spilt on it at Christmas. Well, he was just about to go into the dry cleaner’s, which was named Clean as a Whistle, when he suddenly saw the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop. It was next to a barber’s shop named Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow. He thought he would pop into the curiosity shop to look for something suitable for Penelope’s birthday.
He walked into the shop, and straight away a very unusual wooden clock came to his attention. It was shaped like the land mass of Australia, and it had a cute little koala-bear motif in the middle of it. On the back it said, ‘Made in Queensland, Australia’. It looked fabulous.
“I really must have that,” said Miles to the shopkeeper.
The shopkeeper looked very strange to Miles. He was wearing a pointed purple hat decorated with stars that twinkled like real stars. His eyes were piercing like X-rays. They went right through Miles’s body and made him feel as though the man knew everything from A to Z.
In the shop window a tree grew out of the ground. The top branches poked out of a window in the roof, and in the tree an owl perched. It had huge eyes, which opened once in a while, and the owl was talking away to himself. Next to the owl, on a large purple cushion, sat a big white Persian cat with lime-green eyes - the colour of the leaves on the tree.
It said, “Oh, dearie me! Oh, dearie me! I’m a cat from the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop. I can’t be sold because I’m so old, but not really ancient, and my name’s Blug Blag Blig Blah. In other words, call me Lucky. If you say it three times, I will bring you luck all day.”
Then the owl chipped in and said, “And my name’s Hoot-Hoot. I will make you hoot all day with laughter. So come into the shop. We welcome thee. We have just about everything. We sell watches, fridges, bridges, ditches, cars, jars, pickled onions, walnuts, nougat, marzipan and frying pans. Erm, let me think - we also sell washing machines, dusters, spinning tops, groovers, movers, Hoovers, mobile phones, cherry scones, flapjacks, flip-flops, shirts, skirts, wedding rings, stars, televisions, Christmas hats, Christmas crackers, jokes, Mad Hatters, Christmas stockings, rocking chairs, looking glasses, oddments for the stairs, carpets, rugs, garden rakes, forks, trucks, rattlesnakes ...”
It was an extremely long list - they seemed to have everything under the sun.
The shopkeeper wore a long purple robe, and Miles thought he looked like Merlin the Wizard. ‘Perhaps he really is Merlin,’ thought Miles.
The shopkeeper suddenly said, “You like it, then?”
Miles handed him the clock from Australia.
“Indeed I do,” said Miles.
The shopkeeper’s name was Mabble-babble-bobble-bibble-frabble-go-babble Merlin. It was such a long name that most people simply called him Merlin. Others called him Mabble Merlin or Mad Mab, becaus
e they thought he was absolutely crazy, ‘nuts, whole hazelnuts’ insane - completely bonkers, utterly barking mad, totally cuckoo or a buffoon. At any rate, he was definitely quirky, eccentric and odd. Moreover, the shop was always moving from place to place and everything in the shop was odd and magical.
Miles thought the shopkeeper had a very old face - older than time itself, some might say. He had a long beard, a moustache and tousled grey hair that sprung out of his head like that of a mad professor. He had mud-brown eyes, like owls’ eyes, and sometimes he wore spectacles.
When a customer went into the shop he was never there, but suddenly he would pop up from behind the counter (or sometimes from out of thin air).
Sometimes inside the shop a little café bar would appear if the customer was feeling thirsty. It sold the tastiest, most mouth-watering food, including coffee, tea, milkshakes, muffins and scones. When a customer sat down, it wasn’t unusual for him to stay there all day. Sometimes a cup of coffee lasted all day and long into the night. Sometimes a customer woke up, having fallen asleep, and the café bar would be totally different. At times it was like a futuristic space bar selling glasses of potions, including an orange substance that made your head spin right round the Milky Way and across the Crab Nebula.
Miles had been in the shop before, and on that occasion he had decided to sit and have a coffee. He therefore knew from experience how easy it would be to lose two days or more.
He thought, ‘I’m just going to buy this Australian clock for Penelope’s birthday.’
Then Mabble Merlin piped up: “Are you just buying the clock today, Miles?”
“Yes, just a birthday present for Penelope, you see.”
“Well, Miles, the clock is named Polly Quazar. She is from Queensland in Australia.”
The Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop Page 2