Beyond the Knock Knock Door

by Scott Monk

  The walking stick slowly pulled the door shut. ‘Curiosity, the cat and all that,’ Mr Deed said in a measured tone. ‘Now, my boy, what do you think of this costume? Worthy of a gentleman, yes?’

  He presented him with a battered plastic suit of gold armour, a faded red hooded cloak, a chipped helmet and a wobbly sword. But Michael failed to see them. He stared at the well-dressed man in front of him then the tamarin, remembering yesterday’s train ride. Her tail almost looked like a rat’s, and she could fit in the sleeve of the olive coat. Those white claws – they could easily snatch a cockroach.

  Samantha paid for their costumes at the front counter. Mr Deed rang up the bill, one eye on the cash register and one spying Michael hovering behind her.

  ‘And I’ll take that bandana, the stick-on cobra tattoo and the black cosmetic pencil, thanks,’ she said, placing a frayed pirate outfit next to that of the star ranger and gold knight.

  ‘How come they get swords and I don’t?’ Luke protested.

  ‘Because remember what happened at our farewell party?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve never seen so many police cars in my life.’

  He lumbered away and pointed to the red wagon. ‘What’s that supposed to be?’

  Mr Deed perked up and joined Luke beside it. ‘Don’t you know what a Now-Or-Never Wagon is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, good, because I’m uncertain myself. An old friend who worked for a travelling carnival was all too happy to give it to me. He said most times it helped you, but sometimes it was a curse.’

  ‘A curse?’

  ‘It offers strange gifts that you might desperately need when you’re in trouble – now, later or never – hence its name.’

  ‘Then why isn’t it called a Now-Later-Or-Never Wagon?’

  Mr Deed paused then smiled politely. ‘Yes …’

  ‘So why’s it cursed?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Because the last time my friend used it, his gift was pop-up flowers.’

  ‘Flowers?’

  ‘Yes. You see, two minutes later, he was hit by a motorbike and rushed to hospital, where, beside him was a vase –’

  ‘For his flowers,’ Samantha said. ‘Yeah, yeah. We get it.’

  ‘Try your luck,’ Mr Deed said. ‘Ten cents a turn.’

  ‘Give me some money, Sam,’ Luke begged.

  ‘What for?’ she said. ‘Everyone knows those machines are dodgy.’

  He nagged until she relented, and he fed the slot with ten cent coins. He toggled the joysticks, snatched a capsule with the claw and then caught it rolling down a chute. Twisting open the orange half, he blinked. ‘Huh?’ It contained a rusty key.

  ‘I told you it was a waste of money,’ she said, collecting their costumes.

  He had another go. The result was worse. Even before he clawed hold of a capsule, the wagon dropped into the chute a tin of sardines.

  ‘O-kay,’ Luke said. Not even getting socks for Christmas was that boring.

  His puzzlement was only superseded by Mr Deed’s. The Belgian crouched to inspect the Now-Or-Never Wagon.

  Luke didn’t care. He threw both items inside the star ranger’s utility pouches then opened the top half of the capsule. At least it contained candy. ‘Thank you,’ he burped into his sister’s ear.

  ‘You really are disgusting, you know that?’ she said, pushing him away.

  ‘Beware,’ Mr Deed warned, taking the remaining candy and dropping it into Luke’s top pocket. ‘Only in moderation or terrible things will happen.’

  ‘What terrible things?’ he asked, excitedly.

  Mr Deed leant forward. ‘You’ll get cavities.’

  Luke groaned. How lame was that?

  His sister didn’t want to hear any of it. ‘C’mon. We’re going home.’

  ‘Oh, yes! Look at the time, or let the time look at me.’

  Mr Deed pushed them out of the store, then flipped his OPEN sign to CLOSED. ‘And just remember what my mother said before she had my brother: “one good Deed deserves another”.’

  Samantha and Luke shook their heads and raised their umbrellas. Michael lingered, though, watching Mr Deed in the bay window dust a Little Red Riding Hood costume. He wanted an explanation about that broom closet.

  ‘Patience, young master,’ Mr Deed answered without prompting. ‘A mystery is a dull question if there’s not plenty of confusion first.’

  5

  ‘Star Ranger Seven to Earth Control. Star Ranger Seven to Earth Control. Sensors are picking up unintelligent life form in bathroom. How should I proceed? Over.’

  ‘Get lost!’

  ‘Mutant is hostile. I repeat. Mutant is hostile and spraying toxic goo on her hair.’

  ‘I said get lost!’

  Samantha threw the empty aerosol can at Luke before turning to draw a beard on her chin with Mr Goode Deed’s cosmetic pencil.

  ‘Won’t that stain?’ her brother asked, filling the doorway again.

  ‘No,’ she said, rolling her eyes while looking in the mirror. ‘It washes off. Now get out. Don’t you have a stupid game to play or something?’

  ‘Samantha!’ Michael yelled from the living room. ‘Mum’s on the phone!’

  ‘Tell her I’m busy!’

  ‘She said it’s urgent.’

  Huffing, she stormed down the hallway to grab the handpiece. However, still lurking in the bathroom, Luke grinned. He checked no one was watching then swapped the cosmetic pencil with an almost identical one he’d bought from a convenience store. The fine print clearly warned – Handle carefully: Permanent marker.

  A few ‘Yes Mums’ later, Samantha returned to the bathroom and resumed drawing on her face, unaware of her brother’s prank. ‘Get dressed, would you,’ she snapped at Michael, who lingered nearby.

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘Yes! Now! Mum’s working a double-shift. She can’t give us a ride. We have to catch the bus instead.’

  ‘In our costumes?’ Luke asked.

  Across town, the birthday boy, Rajan Sudhakar, lived in a well-heeled suburb straight out of a glossy home-and-garden magazine. Every double-storey house had clipped lawns, pruned rose bushes, square hedges, porches trimmed with ivy and pebbled driveways. As the Bowman triplets approached, still smarting from all the sniggering on the bus, they heard the slamming of car doors as their classmates dashed into the rain wearing new and much cooler costumes, and carrying much bigger presents.

  ‘How do I look?’ Samantha asked, adjusting the feathered pirate hat over her knotted bandana. She wore a purple vest and coat with silver trimmings, black pants, a white shirt, boots folded at the knees, hoop earrings, a red sash round her waist and a short, curved plastic cutlass. A thick goatee beard scribbled down her chin and a fake cobra tattoo menaced her neck. She looked mean. Michael, on the other hand, felt like a turtle. His gold chestplate, leggings, sword, open helmet, shoulder guards and red cloak were way too big.

  ‘A turtle?’ Luke said, laughing.

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ Samantha said, pulling Michael’s long shaggy hair into a ponytail and plaiting two braids above each ear. ‘There. Now you look like a prince.’

  Unconvinced, he tucked his helmet under his arm and said, ‘You go on. I’ll catch the bus home. Mum won’t have to know.’

  ‘What is it with you and this party?’ she asked.

  ‘The Thornleigh sisters,’ Luke answered. ‘He’s worried they’ll show up.’

  ‘They won’t,’ she said. ‘Rajan’s not that stupid.’

  Unfortunately, he was.

  A green van arrived and delivered the three bullies and their bicycles. They too sported costumes. April Thornleigh – scowling as usual – had come as a spideress. She wore a swirling black-and-yellow cloak, heavy make-up, gold web earrings and a crawling nest of plastic tarantulas in her puffy blonde hair. The middle sister, May, was a mean cyborg, complete with robotic arms and legs, steel jaw and telescopic eye. And finally, the youngest sister, June,
was Red Riding Hood. Her outfit must have been stolen. It was the same one the triplets had seen in Mr Goode Deed’s shopfront before he’d closed for the day.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Samantha said, as both sets of siblings sized up each other. ‘I’ll deal with them. Just stay out of trouble.’

  Michael hurried after her, convinced she was joking. Weren’t they the same triplets who had once freed all the animals from a pet store, caused their old school bus to crash into a dam, and been banned from a chain of supermarkets for playing football in the aisles with rockmelons? As the old saying went: trouble always comes in threes.

  The party was held under a marquee in the back garden, where the guests were dressed as centurions, androids, Spidermen, ducks, ladybirds, vampires and movie stars. They ate, drank and listened to music as the birthday boy himself, Rajan, strutted around in a 1920s gangster outfit, speaking with a Chicago accent and calling all the girls ‘Toots’. A lot of the parents found this amusing – not because of the bad imitation, but at the irony that his father managed a bank that nowadays ‘robbed’ people instead.

  ‘Runs in the family,’ one mother said, scooping up bean salad.

  As Samantha and another classmate, Carrie-Anne Duncan, followed Rajan around the rain-speckled pool, Michael shivered alone by the food table, picking at sausage rolls, hotdogs, corn chips, salsa, garlic bread and mini-pizzas. He couldn’t help but overhear a group of pretty girls nearby gossiping about who was the cutest boy in their school. ‘Not the hillbilly chicken murderer,’ one said. ‘He’s only invited tonight because his mum asked.’ Their heads poked up together and he shrank away.

  He’d just watched his brother win a toy robot in a game of charades when six hands grabbed him from behind and shoved him against the far side of the house.

  ‘What present did you bring us, loser?’ Chewing licorice, April Thornleigh bared her black teeth. Around her boots lay a dozen torn-open presents. ‘Let me guess. It’ll be something cheap.’

  ‘No, don’t!’

  She shredded the present’s wrapping, laughed with disgust then stomped it underfoot. ‘A board game? How lame is that? Is your old lady too poor to afford anything good, Lowman?’

  ‘That would explain the costume,’ said her sister, May.

  ‘Would you like a cookie?’ asked June, the youngest, squashing it into his mouth. The basket of sweets was part of her Little Red Riding Hood costume.

  ‘What are we going to do with this cry-baby now?’ May asked.

  ‘Punish him for yesterday,’ April said.

  Ten minutes later, Luke barely heard the calls for help above the music and the rain. He found Michael in the compost bin – gagged, tied and his helmet dripping with hot mustard.

  ‘They did this, didn’t they?’ Luke demanded, freeing him. He threw away the ropes and balled his fists. ‘This has got to stop … tonight.’

  ‘No! Don’t! You’ll only make it worse.’

  ‘Worse than what? This? You’ve got to stand up to them, Mikey.’

  ‘But it only makes them angrier.’

  ‘Then we need the one person they’re afraid of.’

  But that one person was busy.

  ‘What?’ Samantha snapped. ‘Can’t you see I’m talking here?’

  Rajan slid from the kitchen bench and circled Michael, chuckling. ‘What happened to you, Bowman? Fall under a lawnmower?’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Luke said as their classmates laughed. ‘Why are the Thornleighs here?’

  ‘It’s my party. The more guests that show up, the more popular I am.’

  Luke almost puked. ‘Well? Are you going to kick them out?’

  ‘Me? Why would I –’

  ‘Not you – her,’ he said, pointing to his sister.

  ‘Can’t this wait?’ she said.

  ‘You promised to protect him.’

  ‘And I’ll deal with it later. Rajan’s in the middle of telling me about his time on TV.’

  ‘I was children’s game show champion eight weeks in row,’ Rajan said.

  ‘As if you haven’t told us a million times already,’ Luke groaned.

  ‘It would have been a record nine if they’d asked me an easy question like that other girl.’

  ‘Really? Okay, champ, what type of animals have feathers, lay eggs and cluck?’

  ‘Urnnt!’ Rajan honked like a game show buzzer. ‘Chickens!’

  ‘Yeah, and the room’s full of them.’

  With that, Luke pushed Michael outside, leaving Samantha fuming. He’d sort this out himself.

  Stepping from the kitchen with a pair of drinks, Samantha wondered where all the guests had vanished. One minute everyone was dancing. The next, she’d heard a whistle and the rush of feet. The mystery could wait, though. Rajan liked his Coke icy cold. She’d seen him creep towards the family powerboat docked on a trailer at the far end of the garden. Finally, it was their chance to be alone – away from all those silly girls who fluttered round him. Moths like Carrie-Anne Duncan, who laughed at everything he said, even normal things like, ‘Can someone get me a drink?’

  Samantha feared he’d vanished too until she heard a bump from the boat’s cabin. Freeing her hair from the bandana, she realised a fake beard may not be the most attractive look to win over a boy, but he’d told her twice that she had the second best costume at the party – behind his, of course.

  She climbed on deck and instantly froze. Rajan was sitting inside his parents’ boat all right. Sitting next to that moth, Carrie-Anne Duncan! And worse – kissing her!

  She splashed them with the Cokes.

  ‘What’s going on in here?’

  The lovebirds split, spluttering and wiping themselves dry. But upon discovering it was plain old Samantha Bowman and not their parents, Carrie-Anne curled next to Rajan again and said in a sing-song voice, ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘But you said – outside – by the steps –’ Samantha turned to leave.

  ‘Toots, wait!’

  ‘Rajan!’ Carrie-Anne shouted.

  Samantha charged past the pool, under the marquee and up the driveway, Rajan chasing her and Carrie-Anne chasing him. She reached the front lawn, where a wall of guests blocked her escape. If it wasn’t humiliating enough to find the boy she liked making out with the prettiest girl in school, everyone was now laughing at her. Or so she thought.

  It took a moment to see what was so funny. From a large tree flashing with fairy lights hung three sets of bikes – or what remained of them. The wheels, seats, handlebars, chains, pedals and inner tubes had all been dismantled and thrown into the branches. Across the road, one of the frames poked from a drain, another was strung up a flagpole and the third was guarded by a particularly insane Doberman. Her classmates moaned when a parent clapped his hands and herded them towards the back garden again, announcing, ‘Show’s over’. As another father fetched a ladder, the real entertainment finally arrived. The Thornleigh girls returned from a corner store with stolen shaving cream, party balloons and laxatives for some mischief, only to stand agog when they spotted what remained of their rides.

  ‘Bowman!’ April screamed.

  ‘Bowman!’ May yelled.

  ‘Bowman!’ June fumed.

  Their angry voices pierced the quiet suburb and set off car alarms.

  Spotting Luke doubled-up laughing, the sisters ran towards the Sudhakar’s front porch. They bulldozed through kids and parents, still yelling his name before he bolted inside. Up the steps and into the lounge room they thundered, muddy classmates roaring after them. Mrs Sudhakar screamed as they ran along the hallway of antiques and rattling collectibles, and into the tiled kitchen. As the back door banged shut, April flung it open and –

  ‘Now, Mikey! Now!’

  The marquee collapsed, snaring all three sisters. Luke and Michael high-fived as the bullies flopped and stumbled under the wet canvas, knocking each other over as they tried to stand.

  ‘What have you done?’ Rajan shouted at them from the kitchen steps.
‘You’ve ruined my party!’

  The brothers reversed towards the pool as classmates and parents filled the backyard, also demanding answers. Only one person seemed to be enjoying herself.

  ‘And why are you laughing?’ Rajan yelled at Samantha, who’d rushed back down the driveway. ‘They’re your brothers. Take them back to your pigsty or wherever you come from!’

  Shove! Straight into the pool he went.

  ‘I told you I never liked him,’ she said, grabbing her brothers. ‘Now run!’

  They jumped over the back fence, slammed open a neighbour’s gate then hurtled down the street into the rain with the entire party screaming after them. They toppled a motorbike, smashed a pot, triggered a sprinkling system and woke a pair of dogs. If an angry mob of sugar-crazed classmates wasn’t bad enough, then two German shepherds snapping after them certainly was.

  ‘They’ve got sharp teeth, Sam!’

  ‘I know! I know!’

  The dogs tore at their feet as they climbed over another fence. Safely on the other side, they rushed around a swing set and returned to the streets. Unfortunately, the mob found them.

  The triplets hesitated at a T-junction. They turned right but a workman blocked them, saying, ‘Sorry, kids. The powerlines are down. You can’t go that way.’ They chose left instead.

  Splashing through an alleyway, Michael looked over his shoulder. He noticed all the lights were on.

  ‘Who cares? Run!’

  The alleyway ended abruptly and dipped into a giant unlit park. Black, mournful winter trees clung to its slopes, and a stormwater drain sloshed and groaned in its middle. With the mob closing on them, they had no choice. They ran down the rain-slicked grass and along a darkened path to a concrete bunker buried in the hillside.

  ‘It’s locked!’ Michael said, shaking the metal door, which warned KEEP OUT. Above, the mob spotted them and howled.

  Luke reached into the pouches of his star ranger belt. He rolled the key from the Now-Or-Never Wagon between his fingers before pushing his siblings aside and inserting it into the lock. It opened!