The Day the World Went Loki

by Robert J. Harris

  Their eyes turned apprehensively as the kitchen door swung open with the creaking menace of the entrance to a crypt. A cloud of vegetable odours wafted out. Lewis half expected the wallpaper to peel off and slip to the floor, begging for mercy.

  Aunt Vivien emerged in ghastly splendour with a glass casserole dish wrapped in a potholder in her upraised hands, looking for all the world like a pagan priestess presenting a sacrifice to some bloodthirsty god. Mum followed woodenly behind like she was in the grip of a voodoo spell.

  “Just you wait, boys, we’ve a few more things still to bring out of the kitchen,” Aunt Vivien informed them ominously.

  Greg and Lewis looked at each other aghast. If either of them had the nerve to turn and bolt for the door, the other would surely follow. As it was, they were as much prisoners as their mother.

  “It’s called Chicken Columbayo,” Aunt Vivien announced proudly, setting the dish down in the centre of the table.

  Inside, oddly shaped pieces of vegetable and blackened shreds of what had once been meat floated in a thick green liquid. A shower of white flakes had been liberally sprinkled over the surface. If they were lucky, it was only coconut.

  Further dishes were laid out before them like forensic evidence from a toxic waste disaster. From previous experience they recognised Aunt Vivien’s kidney beans in resin syrup and the notorious peppered potatoes, one nibble of which would have a professional fire-eater diving for the water jug.

  “Adele has done a wonderful job, with just a teeny bit of supervision,” Aunt Vivien confided as she commenced filling their plates with a generous helping from each dish.

  “Well, it’s mostly your work, Vivien,” Mum said. “All I did was help.” It was a weak stab at establishing her innocence.

  Dinner commenced in a solemn silence, which Aunt Vivien took it upon herself to shatter brutally. It was her habit throughout any meal to keep up an unstoppable stream of gossip about people no one else had ever heard of or would ever wish to meet, and she did this while simultaneously gobbling up huge portions without pausing for breath.

  Lewis tried to shut his ears to her talk of cousin this and Mrs So-and-so from somewhere or other. He poked a timid fork at his plate and speared what he believed to be a piece of chicken. Only DNA testing could establish it for sure. Slowly, fearfully, he raised it to his lips.

  Later, laid out full length on the bed, Greg was so pale he could have been taken for a corpse if not for the groans issuing from his trembling lips. Lewis leaned out of the open window, heedless of the danger of falling. If he was going to throw up, he only hoped it would happen while the Larkins’ dog was running past. That would pay it back for the time it had bowled him off his bike.

  “What did she say that dessert was called again?” Greg asked without lifting his head.

  “Scandinavian Ice Surprise,” Lewis answered distantly.

  “It was like eating cellophane. Come away from that window! You’re not going to puke.”

  “I will if I’m lucky.”

  “That’s it!” Greg exclaimed, sitting up abruptly. “That’s what I was going to tell you before we spotted Aunt Vivien’s car!”

  “That feels like an awful long time ago,” Lewis moaned.

  Greg swung his legs over the bedside and stood up. “Stop malingering,” he said, seizing Lewis by the collar and turning him around. “You can’t let one bad meal finish you off.”

  “Up until a few seconds ago you were no picture of health yourself,” Lewis accused.

  “That was before I remembered my idea. I think I may have found a way around that test.”

  “You’re not going to sleep with a pyramid under your bed again, are you? That didn’t work last time.”

  “That was a valid experiment. No, this time you’ve given me the answer.” He jabbed Lewis in the chest with his finger.

  “Hey, I only suggested you study.”

  “Yes, you did, but I’m willing to overlook that.”

  He pulled a book from the pile Lewis had set neatly on the desk, knocking the rest of them to the floor. It was The Folklore of Time by Lucas Oberon Key. His eyes agleam with excitement, he flicked through it then flourished the open book triumphantly under Lewis’ nose.

  “Just take a look at this!”

  3. RHYME WITHOUT REASON

  At that moment there came a brisk knock at the door. Before they could say anything, it opened and Mum’s face appeared through the gap. Greg shut the book and stuffed it under his arm.

  “Can’t you two come downstairs and be sociable for a while?” Mum demanded sharply.

  The notion of deliberately spending time in Aunt Vivien’s company left the boys too numb to respond.

  “Vivien doesn’t have any close family to fill her time, so she likes to be helpful,” Mum said, piling on the pressure. “When she heard Dad was going away, she came straight here to help us out.”

  There was a brief pause when fate hung in the balance, then Greg brandished the book and said, “I’ve got to study. I’ve got a big test tomorrow.”

  Mum looked to Lewis for confirmation.

  “It’s true, Mum,” Lewis said. “He has got a test.”

  “And what about you, young man?”

  “I need to work on my school project,” Lewis answered, plucking up one of the books Greg had knocked to the floor.

  Several seconds ticked by as Mum steamed in silence. “You’d better study,” she said at last, “or you’ll be dusting and carrying laundry for the rest of the year!”

  Both boys nodded dumbly. They were well aware that Mum could make good on her threat.

  She closed the door and her footsteps descended to where Aunt Viven waited. They could hear the distant buzz of a game show coming from the TV and Aunt Vivien’s high-pitched laugh piercing the air like the sound of a drill.

  “Boy, Mum’s being a real ogre!” said Lewis.

  “At least she let us stay out of the danger zone,” Greg said.

  “So what were you going to tell me that’s so important?” Lewis asked, dropping the book onto Greg’s desk, which was already halfway back to its usual state of disorganised clutter.

  “Oh yes!” said Greg.

  He darted a conspiratorial glance around the room before shutting the window, as though there might be someone outside listening. Lewis half expected him to search for hidden microphones. Greg opened the book on the folklore of time and presented it to Lewis with the victorious air of Sherlock Holmes exposing a murderer.

  “What do you think of that?” he asked with upraised eyebrows.

  Lewis read the page out loud.

  “In the Orkney Islands of Scotland this rhyme, relating to a lost day of the week, was recorded by the Reverend Murdo Abercrombie in 1857. Its meaning, however, is obscure.”

  “So?”

  “Read the rhyme, idiot!” Greg insisted.

  Lewis read aloud in a long-suffering tone:

  “The Lokiday Rhyme.

  The day that was lost returns in time

  If two will but recite this rhyme.

  At Thorsday’s end but say it fine,

  Restore the day that once was mine.”

  “You see, it’ll be a lucky day,” said Greg. “And that’s just what I need – luck.”

  “It says Lokiday, not Luckyday.”

  “So what? They spelled Thursday wrong too.”

  “Actually Thor was the Norse god of thunder,” Lewis began. “Over the years the pronunciation—”

  “Whatever! The main thing is that it’s tonight, right? Thursday night.”

  Lewis treated his brother to as blank a look as he could muster.

  “Don’t you see?” Greg exclaimed impatiently. “That’s all I need: just one day of good luck.”

  Lewis experienced a sinking feeling in his overfull stomach. “Is this going to be like the time you had us both dress in opposing primary colors so that when we stood together nobody would be able to see us?”

  “It’s not my fault
that didn’t work,” Greg asserted bullishly. “Blame it on science.”

  “You don’t get science from The Amazing Book of Incredible Feats,” Lewis objected. “You have to join facts together and make something sensible out of them.”

  “Look, we say this rhyme and we’ll have a lucky day,” Greg persisted. “It’s not brain surgery. Don’t you want to be lucky?”

  Lewis didn’t have to think hard to come up with one area of his life where he’d like to be lucky.

  “I suppose so,” he agreed grudgingly. “But I don’t think that’s what it means. I think what it does is kind of conjure up this day that’s disappeared. It brings it back.”

  “Okay, at worst, it’s a whole extra day to study, and it might be lucky, too. Look, it says it takes two to make it work. So, are you in?”

  “But does it make any sense that—”

  “Switch off your brain for a second!” Greg commanded. “Your hair’s starting to sizzle. Will you do it?”

  Seeing that he had no choice, Lewis nodded.

  “That’s my boy!” Greg congratulated him with a hearty slap on the back.

  This only confirmed to Lewis that he was making a big mistake. But unlike Greg’s other schemes, if this didn’t come off, then nothing would happen. Or would it?

  Greg stretched out his forearm and checked his watch in a brisk, military fashion. “Just five hours to go. What’ll we do until then?”

  “You could always try breaking your golden rule and studying for the test.”

  “Studying? Don’t be daft. I told you, tomorrow’s going to be my lucky day.”

  Around ten thirty Mum found an excuse to unglue herself from Aunt Vivien. She came to Greg’s bedroom door but was too disgusted with her sons to look in.

  “Are you in bed yet?” she asked icily through the door.

  “Yes, Mum!” they lied in chorus.

  Mum was too dispirited by an evening in Aunt Vivien’s company to press the point and slipped away to her bedroom before Aunt Vivien could call her back.

  Lewis was in his pyjamas and climbing into the sleeping bag. He shut his eyes wearily, hoping that Greg would be so tired he’d forget all this nonsense about reciting the rhyme at midnight.

  Lewis was having that dream where he turned up for school with no clothes on when a sharp poke in the ribs awoke him. “Come on, dozy, it’s nearly time,” he heard Greg say.

  He struggled out of the sleeping bag and stifled a yawn.

  Greg looked at his watch. “What time do you make it?”

  Lewis looked blearily around him and picked his watch up from a nearby chair. “Eleven fifty-five.”

  Greg frowned. “I’ve got ten to midnight.”

  Lewis hated being forced out of a sound sleep and his tone was testy. “Yours hasn’t worked right since that time you pretended to swallow it.”

  “I won the bet, didn’t I?” Greg wrinkled his nose. “We need to be accurate if this is going to work. Hey, I know.”

  He stepped over to the window and yanked it open. “If we listen out we’ll hear the town hall clock when it chimes midnight. As soon as it starts, we say the rhyme.”

  Lewis shivered as a cold breeze blew into the room.

  “Fine, but once we’re done, can we close the window and get some sleep?”

  Greg frowned at him. “You might show a little enthusiasm. You know, you can’t achieve anything in life if you won’t believe in yourself.”

  Lewis’ tolerance snapped. “This isn’t about believing in myself. It’s about you making me say this stupid rhyme because you’re too lazy to do a little hard work.”

  Greg put his hands on his hips and regarded his brother through narrowed eyes. “We’re both under a lot of stress right now, with Aunt Vivien and everything, so I’m going to assume you didn’t mean that to sound as judgemental as it did.”

  Lewis sighed and glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly time.”

  Greg picked up the book and flipped to the right page. Then he stood by the window with his ear cocked. When they heard the first chime of the town hall clock sounding in the distance, he pulled Lewis to his side.

  “Okay, start reading.”

  “The Lokiday—”

  “Not the title, you plank,” Greg interrupted. “Just the rhyme. Start on the next chime.”

  They started together on the next stroke of twelve.

  “The day that was lost returns in time

  If two will but recite this rhyme.”

  Greg sped up, trying to complete the rhyme before the clock finished striking. Lewis almost got tongue-tied trying to keep pace with him.

  “At Thorsday’s end but say it fine,

  Restore the day that once was mine.”

  At the last word Greg shut book with a flourish. “Close the window, will you? There’s a draft.”

  Lewis pulled the window shut and yawned.

  “Well, do you feel lucky?” he asked.

  “It’s not about feeling lucky,” Greg retorted scornfully. “We need to test it scientifically.” His gaze swept across the room. “I know.”

  He hauled open a drawer in his desk and raked through the assorted debris it contained. Some bottle tops and pencils fell out before he triumphantly lifted up a deck of cards. He thrust them at Lewis.

  “Shuffle them and deal me five cards.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a poker hand. If I get four aces or a full house, I’ll know it worked.”

  Lewis opened his mouth to object then thought better of it. The sooner they got this over with, the better. He took the deck out of its box and shuffled it clumsily.

  “Lewis, you’re going to drop them all over the floor.”

  “I’m not a Las Vegas dealer, you know,” grumbled Lewis.

  He carefully dealt out five cards face down on the bed.

  Greg snatched them up and pressed them to his chest as though afraid to look. Slowly he lowered them and looked. His face fell.

  “These are total rubbish.”

  Lewis shrugged. “At least there wasn’t any money riding on it.”

  Greg chewed his lip thoughtfully. “We should try it again, just to make sure.”

  Lewis heard his sleeping bag call and thought fast. The way things were going, he was either going to be dealing out cards all night or listening to Greg complain until dawn about his bad luck.

  “It probably won’t work till morning,” he said. “That’s when the day starts.”

  Greg considered this. “You may be right. Let’s get some sleep. You look like you could use some.”

  “Right,” Lewis said under his breath.

  He burrowed as deep as he could into the sleeping bag and closed his eyes tightly. It was a good idea to doze off before Greg started snoring.

  This time he had a dream in which Mum and Dad were sent abroad on a mission for MI5 and he and Greg had to go and live with Aunt Vivien. He was mumbling to himself about going out for a pizza when he awoke with a shudder. The sun was shining through the curtains and the dream quickly vanished from his mind.

  He didn’t know yet that the day which lay ahead would be worse than any dream he had ever had.

  4. BREAKFAST WITH A FLY

  Mum’s knock at the door was a lot heavier than usual. So heavy the door shook on its hinges.

  “Rise and shine, boys! It’s a school day!” she called.

  Lewis heard her walk away and there was something unusual about that too.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked.

  “What?” Greg responded groggily.

  “It sounds like Mum’s dragging something across the floor behind her. A sack or something.”

  “Maybe it’s Aunt Vivien’s dead body. Why was she trying to smash the door down?”

  “I’ve got no idea. Come on, let’s try to get out of here before Aunt Vivien wakes up.”

  “Right, you go first.” Greg yawned.

  Lewis shambled off to the bathroom. He noticed with bleary eyes that the bath
room mirror now had an ebony frame carved with intertwining serpents. Returning to the bedroom, he became aware of how rough the carpet felt beneath his bare feet. He glanced down and saw that it was gone. In its place was a coarse mat woven from rushes or some such thing. He looked around for more strangeness and saw that the portrait of Grandad McBride that normally hung on the wall had been replaced with a painting of a grinning leprechaun.

  The explanation was depressingly obvious, and it was just more bad news. Aunt Vivien suffered from occasional fits of redecorating. She had house-sat for them three years ago when they were on holiday in Canada, and they returned home to find a flea-infested moose head frowning down at them from above the TV set and strangely patterned Tibetan curtains hanging from most of the walls.

  Dad had muttered that he would have felt more at home living in an igloo, and as soon as Aunt Vivien had completed her cheery farewells, all of her “little touches” were consigned to the darkest corner of the cellar.

  It looked like she was at it again. She must have done it during the night while they were all asleep, as a surprise.

  “Aunt Vivien’s redecorating the house,” Lewis reported gloomily when he returned to the bedroom.

  “If I have to eat one more of her meals, I’ll probably redecorate the house with the result,” Greg said, dragging himself to his feet and shuffling off to the bathroom.

  By the time he returned Lewis was fully dressed.

  Greg scratched his head. “How can Mum let her get away with this?” he wondered as he threw on his clothes. “If she keeps on changing the house, maybe she can find some new people to come live here, too.”

  “That would suit me fine.”

  “We’d better eat breakfast before something happens to that as well.”

  They stepped out and padded past Lewis’ room where they thought they could hear Aunt Vivien breathing softly. She rarely got up before ten o’clock and if she’d been up all night redecorating the house she might not get out of bed before noon.