by Mike Ashley
“I’ve forgotten the magic word,” stammered Gawaine.
“What a pity,” said the dragon. “So that was the secret. It doesn’t seem quite sporting to me, all this magic stuff, you know. Not cricket, as we used to say when I was a little dragon; but after all, that’s a matter of opinion.”
Gawaine was so helpless with terror that the dragon’s confidence rose immeasurably and it could not resist the temptation to show off a bit.
“Could I possibly be of any assistance?” it asked. “What’s the first letter of the magic word?”
“It begins with an ‘r’,” said Gawaine weakly.
“Let’s see,” mused the dragon, “that doesn’t tell us much, does it? What sort of a word is this? Is it an epithet, do you think?”
Gawaine could do no more than nod.
“Why, of course,” exclaimed the dragon, “reactionary Republican.”
Gawaine shook his head.
“Well, then,” said the dragon, “we’d better get down to business. Will you surrender?”
With the suggestion of a compromise Gawaine mustered up enough courage to speak.
“What will you do if I surrender?” he asked.
“Why, I’ll eat you,” said the dragon.
“And if I don’t surrender?”
“I’ll eat you just the same.”
“Then it doesn’t make any difference, does it?” moaned Gawaine.
“It does to me,” said the dragon with a smile. “I’d rather you didn’t surrender. You’d taste much better if you didn’t.”
The dragon waited for a long time for Gawaine to ask “Why?” but the boy was too frightened to speak. At last the dragon had to give the explanation without his cue line. “You see,” he said, “if you don’t surrender you’ll taste better because you’ll die game.”
This was an old and ancient trick of the dragon’s. By means of some such quip he was accustomed to paralyze his victims with laughter and then to destroy them. Gawaine was sufficiently paralyzed as it was, but laughter had no part in his helplessness. With the last word of the joke the dragon drew back his head and struck. In that second there flashed into the mind of Gawaine the magic word “Rumplesnitz”, but there was no time to say it. There was time only to strike and, without a word, Gawaine met the onrush of the dragon with a full swing. He put all his back and shoulders into it. The impact was terrific and the head of the dragon flew away almost a hundred yards and landed in a thicket.
Gawaine did not remain frightened very long after the death of the dragon. His mood was one of wonder. He was enormously puzzled. He cut off the ears of the monster almost in a trance. Again and again he thought to himself, “I didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz’!” He was sure of that and yet there was no question that he had killed the dragon. In fact, he had never killed one so utterly. Never before had he driven a head for anything like the same distance. Twenty-five yards was perhaps his best previous record. All the way back to the knight school he kept rumbling about in his mind seeking an explanation for what had occurred. He went to the Headmaster immediately and after closing the door told him what had happened. “I didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz’,” he explained with great earnestness.
The Headmaster laughed. “I’m glad you’ve found out,” he said. “It makes you ever so much more of a hero. Don’t you see that? Now you know that it was you who killed all these dragons and not that foolish little word ‘Rumplesnitz.’ ”
Gawaine frowned. “Then it wasn’t a magic word after all?” he asked.
“Of course not,” said the Headmaster, “you ought to be too old for such foolishness. There isn’t any such thing as a magic word.”
“But you told me it was magic,” protested Gawaine. “You said it was magic and now you say it isn’t.”
“It wasn’t magic in a literal sense,” answered the Headmaster, “but it was much more wonderful than that. The word gave you confidence. It took away your fears. If I hadn’t told you that you might have been killed the very first time. It was your battle-ax did the trick.”
Gawaine surprised the Headmaster by his attitude. He was obviously distressed by the explanation. He interrupted a long philosophic and ethical discourse by the Headmaster with, “If I hadn’t of hit ’em all mighty hard and fast any one of ’em might have crushed me like a, like a—” He fumbled for a word.
“Egg shell,” suggested the Headmaster.
“Like a egg shell,” assented Gawaine, and he said it many times. All through the evening meal people who sat near him heard him muttering, “Like a egg shell, like a egg shell.”
The next day was clear, but Gawaine did not get up at dawn. Indeed, it was almost noon when the Headmaster found him cowering in bed, with the clothes pulled over his head. The principal called the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce, and together they dragged the boy toward the forest.
“He’ll be all right as soon as he gets a couple more dragons under his belt,” explained the Headmaster.
The Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce agreed. “It would be a shame to stop such a fine run,” he said. “Why, counting that one yesterday, he’s killed fifty dragons.”
They pushed the boy into a thicket above which hung a meager cloud of steam. It was obviously quite a small dragon. But Gawaine did not come back that night or the next. In fact, he never came back. Some weeks afterward brave spirits from the school explored the thicket, but they could find nothing to remind them of Gawaine except the metal part of his medals. Even the ribbons had been devoured.
The Headmaster and the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce agreed that it would be just as well not to tell the school how Gawaine had achieved his record and still less how he came to die. They held that it might have a bad effect on school spirit. Accordingly, Gawaine has lived in the memory of the school as its greatest hero. No visitor succeeds in leaving the building today without seeing a great shield which hangs on the wall of the dining hall. Fifty pairs of dragons’ ears are mounted upon the shield and underneath in gilt letters is “Gawaine le Cœur-Hardy,” followed by the simple inscription, “He killed fifty dragons.” The record has never been equaled.
THE BOSCOMBE WALTERS STORY
Robert Rankin
Robert Rankin (b. 1949) crept into the book arena in 1981 with the first of his Brentford trilogy, The Antipope. Since the same publisher had recently invested hugely in Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Rankin’s book was a little overshadowed, but by the time the trilogy was complete, with The Brentford Triangle (1982) and East of Ealing (1984), his work was being noticed. Although it inevitably came to be compared to that of Terry Pratchett, there is little similarity. Rankin’s work is closer to Spike Milligan’s Puckoon or Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, although removed to an anarchic and bewildering London. Rankin later added a fourth novel to his “trilogy”, the superbly entitled The Sprouts of Wrath (1988). He has since produced his Armageddon trilogy, the Cornelius Murphy series, and such one-off books as The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived (1995), The Garden of Unearthly Delights (1995) and A Dog Called Demolition (1996), from which the following story comes.
“The cruel fact of the matter,” sighed the sympathetic dermatologist, “is that some people are simply born – how shall I put this? – ugly. While some have complexions like peaches and cream, others resemble glasspaper, or places of acute volcanic activity. Sadly you are one of the latter.”
And there was no doubt about it, Boscombe Walters was one ugly bastard. And it wasn’t just the pustules. It was the entire physiognomic caboodle. The heavy jowls. The flaccid mouth. The bulbous nose. The terrible toad-like eyes.
These now glared balefully at the handsome dermatologist.
“But it needn’t be a handicap,” this fellow was saying. “Many a man born without the advantage of conventional good looks has gone on to find fame and celebrity. Has won the respect of his peers and the love of a good woman. Think of, well . . .” He paused for thought. “Think of Sidney James, or Ron
do Hatton.*”
Boscombe thought of them. Both were dead, he thought.
“It’s not what a man looks like. It’s what he has inside him.”
Boscombe raised a grubby mit to squeeze a prominent boil on his neck and release a little of what he had inside him.
“Oh, please don’t,” implored the doctor. “The surgery has just been redecorated.”
Boscombe returned his mit to his lap and scratched his groin with it. “So what you’re saying,” he growled, “is that you can do sweet sod all to help me.”
Dr Kinn, for such was the physician’s name, coughed politely. He had come to dread the weekly sessions with this unsavoury little man. An aura of evil surrounded him, which made him about as welcome as King Herod at a baby show. “Go out and live your life,” the doctor advised. “Rejoice that you are alive. Revel in your existence. Think positively.”
Boscombe rose negatively from his chair. “Bloody quack,” said he.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, bloody quack. As in doctor, rather than duck.”
“You can collect your usual prescription at the reception area,” said Dr Kinn, moving papers around on his desk. “And, er, come back and see me in, what shall we say, six months?”
Boscombe hawked up a green gobbet of phlegm the size of a glass eye and spat it onto the carpet. “That to you,” said he.
“Make that one year,” said the doctor. “And see yourself out.”
Boscombe had recently taken to wearing tropical kit, as it made the mosquito net he had stitched onto his solar toupee in order to conceal his face seem a little more in keeping. The khaki shorts, however, flattered neither his beer belly nor his bow legs.
From the surgery in Abaddon Street to the chemist’s on the main road is a fairly short shuffle, and as it was term time there were no children about for Boscombe to cuff as he passed upon his dismal way.
A cat or two to kick at though.
Beneath his breath the ugly man cursed darkly. He would do for that bloody quack. Pop around at lunch-time and loosen his bicycle brakes, watch him sail down the hill towards the traffic lights, then—
Boscombe Walters sniggered. “Then splat and physician heal thyself.”
There was no spark of goodness in Boscombe. He was ugly through and through. From the outside to the in and out again. Boscombe cared for no one and no one cared for him. And that was just the way he liked it. Ugliness suited him fine. He’d made a career out of it (although not one that was likely to bring him fame and celebrity and the love of a good woman). Boscombe’s problem was the spots. The boils! The buboes! If only he could rid himself of these, then everything would be as fine as it was ever likely to be. Which, though far from perfect, was perfect enough for him.
Boscombe took a short cut down an alleyway, on the off-chance that there might be dustbins to ignite, or ladies’ items upon a line that he might add to his collection.
Sadly there was neither, but as he slunk along, muttering sourly, he did chance to notice a bright little card that was pinned to a back entrance gate.
It had the look of those printed postcard jobbies which always add that essential touch of colour to the otherwise drab interiors of telephone boxes.
This one, however, did not promote the skills of some lady “trained in those arts which amuse men”. This one bore a mysterious logo and the words:
DR POO PAH DOO. OBEAH MAN.
HERBALIST. SKIN SPECIALIST.
BMX CYCLE REPAIRS.
Out of habit, born from badness, Boscombe plucked the little card from the gate and crumpled it between the fingers of his rarely washed hands. He was about to cast it groundward when a little voice inside his head said, “Hang about there, pal.”
Boscombe sniffed deeply, brought up another ball of phlegm and sent it skimming back along the alleyway. And then he uncrumpled the card. DR POO PAH DOO. SKIN SPECIALIST!
“Luck,” said the ugly man. “Luck indeed.”
But was this luck? What was an Obeah Man? Something to do with voodoo, wasn’t it? And that was all crap, that kind of thing. “Nah,” said Boscombe, recrumpling the card. “Waste of time.”
But then, DOCTOR. SKIN SPECIALIST. HERBALIST? It had to be worth a try. It couldn’t hurt. And a spotty man is a desperate man.
Boscombe thrust the card into a pocket of his safari jacket and pressed open the gate. It moved upon groaning hinges to reveal a squalid backyard. There was a mound of mouldy papers and a black cat.
Boscombe skirted the mound and kicked the cat.
“Meoooow!” it went.
The back door was open. Boscombe didn’t knock.
It was dim and dank within. A dour hallway led to a flight of uncarpeted stairs. A sign on the wall read, “Dr Poo Pah Doo. First Floor.” Somewhere in the distance a dripping tap spelt messages in morse.
Boscombe trudged up the stairs. This house smelled none too good. This house smelled of dampness and old bed linen.
This house smelled like Boscombe’s house.
On the first floor was a single door and upon this a brass plate which bore the name of Dr Poo Pah Doo.
Boscombe knocked.
“Come on in then,” called a deep, brown voice. “And bring yo’ bike.”
Boscombe entered.
The room was souped in ganja smoke. A single bulb, yellow-hued and naked, cast a wan crepuscular glow.
Bits and bobs of bicycles brought an occasional glitter. But there was nothing here that really offered welcome.
“Welcome,” said something.
Boscombe strained his toad-likes. Close by in the fug something sat. It was a beefy-looking something and it wore a top hat decorated with chicken feathers. Two large dark hands tinkered with an alloy chainset.
“What de trouble?” asked Dr Poo Pah Doo, for such was this something. “Bin doin’ de bunny-hops and done twisted yo’ frame?”
“I don’t have a bike,” said Boscombe.
“Well, I don’t do skateboards. Trucks too damn expensive.”
“Don’t have a skateboard either.” Boscombe turned to take his leave. This obviously was a waste of time.
“Where yo’ damn well goin’?” asked the Obeah Man. “What yo’ problem anyhow?”
“Skin.” Boscombe had one hand on the door. “I saw your sign. Skin specialist, it said.”
“And in capital letters.” The tall top hat rose to expose the face beneath. It was an African face. A noble warrior’s face. Fierce, with piercing almond eyes, but smiling a mouthload of golden teeth. “Come here. Let’s have a look at you.”
Boscombe did a two-step shuffle, raised his mosquito net and inclined his head towards the sitter.
“Whoa!” went this body. “Not so god-damn close. Yo’ got a real rake of trouble and grief there, boy. Yo’ should get someone fix that for you.”
“Someone?”
Dr Poo Pah Doo sniffed at Boscombe. “I can smell yo’ aura, boy and it don’t smell good. It smell wicked. Yo’ wicked ’cos yo’ ugly, or ugly ’cos yo’ wicked? Which it be?”
“You spades know bugger all!” said Boscombe, who numbered racism amongst his more appealing qualities. “I’m off.”
“Yeah. Yo’ do that. Come in here, uglying up my workshop. I not make yo’ pretty.”
“As if you could.”
“Oh, I could do it, wicked man. I could do it. But I won’t. Go on now. Scoot.”
Boscombe stood his ground. “What could you do?” he asked.
“I could fix up that face of yours. Make that face as smooth as a baby’s bum bum.”
“How?”
“There’s ways.”
“What ways?”
“Old ways.”
“Mumbo-jumbo.”
“If yo’ think it’s that, then that’s what it is. It don’t work unless yo’ believe. Why do yo’ think I sit here fixin’ bikes all the damn day?”
“Probably because your old ways ain’t worth shite,” Boscombe suggested.
“The
n reckon yo’ know best, wicked man. Go on now, scoot. Believe in nothing. Be wicked ugly man all yo’ god-damn life. See if I care.”
“How much?” Boscombe asked.
“How much I care? Not much. Not damn all.”
“How much to make my face as smooth as a baby’s bum bum?”
“Hundred pounds.”
“How bloody much?”
“Hundred pounds. How much it worth to yo’? I charge you two hundred pounds and that’s my final offer.”
“Done!” said Boscombe, who didn’t intend to be.
An hour passed and during this time various prayers were offered up to less-than-Christian deities. Some salt was thrown. A frozen chicken was symbolically sacrificed.
A cheque for two hundred pounds changed hands and a bottle of yellow pills came into Boscombe’s possession.
“Trust it must be,” said the Obeah Man. “Now go, wicked man. Take one pill each day at dawn and look not into a mirror until the seventh day. Then all be done.”
“As smooth as a baby’s bum bum?” Boscombe asked.
“As smooth as a baby’s bum bum.”
Boscombe went off whistling: he had omitted to sign the cheque.
The days dragged into a week. Boscombe took one pill each dawn and on the seventh he rushed to his mirror.
And there a great wonder was to be revealed.
Boscombe blinked and blinked again. The hideous pustules had vanished without a trace. The skin, so long pitted and ghastly was now pure and unsullied, sensuous and soft.
The horrible pimples were gone.