Sita, Snake

by Franzeska G. Ewart

  “How much does this Thrill City cost, Yosser?” Nani asked.

  She’d spotted the picture of Sita, and I could see from the sparkle in her eyes that she liked her a lot.

  “Loads,” I said. “Over a hundred pounds, I bet.”

  I couldn’t keep my eyes off the thing on Nani’s lap. “What’s that, Nani-jee?” I said, and Nani pulled the vest off. It was a stuffed weasely thing with black glass eyes and sharp teeth, and the teeth were sunk into a stuffed cobra which was all coiled round it.

  “It’s a mongoose killing a cobra,” Nani said proudly. “Nanoo gave it to me as an engagement present. He was always very romantic …”

  She stood up and put the stuffed mongoose on the shelf above my bed, beside the picture of Sita. “Great little fighters, mongooses are,” she said, admiringly. “Specially where snakes are concerned.”

  “Is it for me?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I wanted the mongoose and the cobra in my bedroom. Sometimes Nani’s stuffed things get wood weavels, because they’ve got sawdust inside. And they smell of mothballs, but underneath the mothball smell there’s another smell, which I don’t entirely trust.

  Nani nodded. “Thought you’d like it,” she said. “Because of the cobra.”

  I thanked her and decided it was a nice thing to have in my bedroom after all, because it went so well with the Sita picture.

  “Thrill City sounds wonderful,” Nani said then, and suddenly I felt a tiny flicker of electric current at the bottom of my spine.

  It got stronger when she said the next thing though.

  “Supposing we went together, Yosser?”

  I nodded like mad. Then I remembered. “But neither of us has any money, Nani-jee,” I said. “And if I pass the entrance exam, Our Lady of the Sorrows’ll be taking all Dad’s.”

  Nani stood up, rather creakily. “We don’t need to go for long, do we?” she said. “Just long enough to ride with Sita…”

  “Of course!” I said. “One night would do it. But the money?”

  Nani ran her tongue round her mouth thoughtfully. When she spoke again, her voice was very determined.

  “I’ll speak to your dad,” she said. “Maybe if I told him you were going to earn some of the money?”

  She gave my arm a little punch with her fist. “You know what your dad’s always saying, Yosser,” she reminded me. “Look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves.”

  Then she jabbed her thumb up towards Sita, Snake-Queen of Speed. “Come on,” she said. “You’ve got to do it – for Sita!” And then she headed off downstairs to wait for Dad to come home.

  I lay back on my bed and wracked my brains to think of a way to earn some money, and I must have fallen asleep. Then a little miracle happened. When I woke up it was almost dark, and the first things I saw were the ghostly shadows of Sita and the mongoose – and, believe it or not, I knew just what to do.

  I knew what to do, because suddenly I knew what Sita would do, if she was strapped for cash. It was obvious, really. She’d gather a Fearless Band of Snake-Warriors around her, and they’d hunt for treasure! They’d borrow their dad’s metal detector, and they’d scour the countryside. They’d leave no stone unturned, and they’d face every danger with courage, till they found the treasure that would bring them their hearts’ desire.

  And that was what we had to do too.

  I took my mobile out of my pocket and hit the ‘txt’ button. I couldn’t wait to tell Kylie.

  A Treasure Quest

  Next day was Saturday and, first thing in the morning, Kylie came round to my house with a carrier bag which she tipped on to my bed.

  “Here we are,” she said. “Everything a Fearless Band of Snake-Warriors could possibly need!”

  “Wow,” I said, quietly.

  I said it quietly because, to be honest, Kylie’s Snake-Warrior Equipment didn’t have a huge wow-factor. It was two rubber snakes, one green and one yellow, and two pairs of rubber gloves, one pink and one blue.

  “What do you think?” she said. “I know the gloves aren’t the right colour for snakeskin but I thought they’d do. We’ve got tons of rubber gloves in our house. On account of my dad’s ferrets.”

  “Your dad’s got ferrets?” I asked.

  “Sure,” said Kylie. “Champion ferrets. Won Best of Breed in the Angora Class last year, he did. This year he’s dead set on getting Best In Show.”

  Kylie’s dad was a man of few words. Every time I went to Kylie’s house he was out the back, in what I’d assumed was his potting-shed, but now realised must be his ferret-shed. Suddenly I wanted to know all about it, but then I thought we shouldn’t really hang around talking ferrets when there was treasure to be found, so I made Kylie promise to tell me more later on. Then I pulled on the pink rubber gloves.

  “You can have the yellow snake round your neck, because it’s more like gold,” Kylie said generously.

  That really made my day. “Does that mean I’m Sita?” I said, and Kylie nodded.

  “I’m your Humble Vassal,” she said and, because I must have looked puzzled, she explained that a vassal was a sort of servant.

  “I will be at your beck and call at all times, noble Sita,” she said humbly, and she bowed and pulled on the blue rubber gloves and knotted the green rubber snake loosely round her neck.

  She picked up the metal detector (I’d decided Dad wouldn’t mind if I took it without asking, since it was a good cause) and hoisted it on to her shoulder.

  “Do I look fearless?” she asked, and I nodded and knotted the yellow rubber snake round my neck.

  Then we faced my Sita-picture, and we thumped the snakes round our necks first with one snakeskin-clad hand and then with the other, like a special Snake-Warrior salute.

  It made us both feel very brave.

  “OK,” I said. “So what do we do now?”

  “I suppose,” Kylie said, “we start scouring the countryside for treasure.”

  “A Treasure Quest?” I said, and Kylie nodded.

  And that’s what we did. A Treasure Quest. All morning.

  We started off in the park. We took it in turns to wave the metal detector from side to side over the long grass, and it blipped loads of times, which was really exciting. But when we searched through the grass it was always a ring-pull we found, or a beer can, or a rusty old nail.

  Once, Kylie found a two pence coin, which cheered us up no end. But after that it was more ring-pulls and nails, and we began to lose heart; so we decided to try our luck in the town.

  We got a few odd looks as we marched along Little Malden High Street in our Snake-Warrior outfits, but we ignored them. The metal detector battery was running out by then, so we stopped using it and just walked with our heads down, eyes glued to the pavement, but we didn’t find a thing.

  Once, I spotted what might have been an ancient Treasure Map. It was a piece of yellowy paper covered in spidery handwriting, and it was stuck to the pavement with some chewing gum.

  Peeling it off was not a pleasant task (and best done by a Humble Vassal) but when Kylie managed to open it up and read the ancient spidery handwriting, all it said was:

  …which was a Bitter Disappointment.

  Feeling very dejected, we sat on the Post Office windowsill and took off our rubber gloves for a scratch. Rubber gloves get very clammy, especially when it’s hot. I bet snakeskin’s better. I bet Sita doesn’t sweat.

  “I don’t think there’s any treasure in Little Malden, Yosser,” Kylie said at last, taking the two pence coin out of her pocket and looking at it dismally.

  She was wrong, though. There was treasure in Little Malden. But it wasn’t at all the kind of treasure we’d been thinking of. And we had a few more trials to go through before we found it.

  We’d just decided to go home and watch cartoons and forget the Treasure Quest, when who should come out of the Post Office but Nani. She had Bilal in his buggy, and Bilal was holding an envelope up to his nose and sniffing hard.

 
; He always sniffs before he sucks, does Bilal.

  Seeing Nani cheered us up, and when we heard what she had to say we were even more excited.

  “Your dad was too late home last night to ask,” she said, “so I had to wait till this morning.”

  She gave my arm a triumphant punch. “He’s agreed!” she said. “The two of us can go to Thrill City for a night. That’ll give us two whole days!”

  She paused. “Just as long as you earn some money,” she added. “Whatever you earn, he’ll treble. Not bad, eh?”

  I nodded. It wasn’t bad. Treble is times three, so for every pound I earned, he’d make it up to £3.

  And I’d never expected my dad just to let me go to Thrill City without some kind of fuss. He’s into making me work for things I want. He says hard work never killed anyone, though I’m not sure if that’s true.

  “We’ve already started, Nani-jee,” I said, gratefully heaving the metal detector into the buggy behind Bilal. “We’re on a Treasure Quest.”

  “But we’ve only found 2p,” Kylie said. “Which trebles up to 6p, I suppose,” she added.

  Nani looked over her glasses at us.

  “You don’t look dressed for a Treasure Quest,” she said. “If you ask me, you look dressed for washing cars.”

  Big Matt McBain

  Washing cars didn’t sound half as exciting as Treasure Questing. It certainly didn’t sound like the kind of job Sita, Snake-Queen of Speed would stoop to. But then, Treasure Questing hadn’t actually turned out to be very exciting, and, as Kylie pointed out, washing cars was much more likely to make us some money.

  “And we do have the gloves for it,” she added. “As your gran said.”

  So that’s how we spent Saturday afternoon, and I’m telling you – it wasn’t much fun, especially as I decided that if you needed one squirt of washing-up liquid for a bowlful of dishes, it followed that you’d need ten squirts for a car. Which was far too much, and it took us hours to get rid of the bubbles.

  Then, when we were collecting the bucket and water at my house, Mum insisted we took Bilal. And she wouldn’t let us take the buggy, because it was filthy after having the metal detector in it, so we had to carry him. He spent the whole afternoon sniffing around the bucket, and by the time Kylie and I realised that he was sniffing soap bubbles and then swallowing them, he had made himself sick.

  By tea-time we were exhausted, so we set off for home, taking it in turns to carry Bilal who whimpered and dribbled down our backs the whole time. We were just about there when Kylie stopped and stared ahead with a worried expression. I stared too.

  An enormous man was coming out of the allotment gate. He had a big bush of white hair, and big flappy trousers tied at the knees with string, and he was leading something that looked like a small brown tub with very thin legs, which turned out to be one of the ugliest dogs I’d ever seen.

  It was extremely stout, and its skin was shiny and so tightly-stretched, it looked as if it might explode. Its bottom jaw jutted out so you could see a row of tiny, lethal-looking, yellow teeth, and its eye-sockets were so tight that its eyes were just two narrow, bloodshot slits. It wore a broad leather collar covered in metal spikes, and it looked like the Dog from Hell.

  The man took great big steps, and the Dog from Hell had to take about twenty steps to each of the man’s. The nearer the man got, the huger he seemed, and the fiercer and more furious the dog.

  “It’s Big Matt McBain,” Kylie whispered. “My dad’s ferret-rival. You’ve got to watch him.”

  When Big Matt McBain reached us, he stopped and gave Kylie a big gummy grin. “Well now,” he said, in a low, rumbly voice, “if it isn’t Kylie Teasdale.”

  Kylie tried to walk on past, but Big Matt blocked her way. The Dog from Hell peered up at Bilal with its little red slit eyes, and whined. Bilal squirmed and screamed and wriggled in the dog’s direction till Kylie put him down. Then the Dog from Hell and Bilal, who were roughly the same height when Bilal was sitting, stared silently at one another. Both were spellbound.

  I didn’t speak either. I just did what Kylie said, and watched Big Matt like anything. In particular, I watched Big Matt’s big flappy trousers; and the more I watched, the odder I thought they were.

  There was a strange, earthy smell coming from them, and, as if that wasn’t enough, they were writhing.

  Honestly. It was the weirdest thing – like ripples going up and down the left trouser leg.

  Big Matt didn’t seem at all fazed by his ripply trousers though. “Your dad all set for the Grand Ferret Championships next Saturday, lass?” he asked Kylie.

  By this time, I wasn’t the only one who was fascinated by the trouser legs. Bilal had crawled right up to them and was sniffing the left one with enormous interest.

  “He sure is, Mr McBain,” Kylie said carefully.

  “Tell him I’ll see him then,” Big Matt said. Then he winked and added, “And his ferrets.”

  It wasn’t a very friendly wink, somehow. I could see Kylie didn’t like it either.

  Then suddenly Big Matt frowned and looked down. “Leave off!” he shouted roughly at Bilal. “Me leg’s all wet!”

  “Sorry, Mr McBain,” I said, and I pulled Bilal off and picked him up. The Dog from Hell peered at Bilal and gave a rather pathetic little whimper. When I looked back at the trousers, I saw there was a large damp patch on the left trouser leg. Bilal was licking his lips, and grinning from ear to ear.

  Whatever was on Big Matt’s trouser leg, it had fairly taken the taste of the soap bubbles away.

  We walked on past as quickly as we could, and as soon as we did Bilal reached out his hands towards Big Matt, and screamed blue murder.

  “What was in his trousers?” I asked Kylie, when we were out of earshot.

  “Ferrets,” Kylie explained. “Big Matt’s got so many he hasn’t room for them all at home. He keeps some of them on the allotment. He’ll be taking them back with him to get them ready for the Grand Ferret Championship.”

  I could see Kylie was upset about meeting Big Matt McBain, so when we got home I gave Bilal back to Mum, and took Kylie upstairs to cheer her up by counting the money we’d earned.

  It came to £2.50.

  We tried to treble it in our heads, but it kept coming to £75 which we knew was too good to be true, so we went and asked Nani. Nani ran her tongue round her mouth several times and told us the answer was £7.50. And that meant that, altogether, Sita’s Fearless Band of Snake-Warriors had earned £7.56. Which was, as Nani said, better than a kick in the teeth. But it wasn’t enough to get us to Thrill City.

  Kylie and I sat together on my bed, with Sita, Snake-Queen of Speed and the mongoose with its cobra, looking down at us; and we looked up at them, hoping for a flash of inspiration.

  “That mongoose,” Kylie said at last, “looks a bit like a ferret, don’t you think?”

  Then she sighed. “I do hope my dad wins Best in Show next Saturday, Yosser,” she said. “He’s been so close before, but somehow, Big Matt always manages to pip him at the post…”

  I felt ever so sorry for her. She had ferrets on the brain.

  Then I had an idea. “Tomorrow, Kylie,” I said, putting my arm round her, “you can wear the yellow snake and be Sita, and I’ll be the Humble Vassal, and we’ll try somewhere else.”

  “Thanks Yosser,” Kylie said, cheering up a little. “If we just keep looking, we’re bound to find treasure in the end.”

  And, you know what, in the end we did. But it wasn’t the kind of treasure we’d had in mind…

  An Absolute, Unmitigated Disaster

  Next morning, when the doorbell rang, and I saw the blurred pink-and-orange outline of Kylie’s head through the frosted glass, my first thought was, Great – the Fearless Band of Snake-Warriors is making an early start.

  But the very instant I opened the door and saw Kylie’s face, I knew something was wrong. Badly wrong.

  “Oh Yosser!” she howled, throwing herself into my arms, “there’
s been an absolute, unmitigated disaster!”

  “What on earth has happened?” I asked, but Kylie just kept hugging me, and sobbing on to my shoulder, and muttering Thunderball… Thunderball… Thunderball over and over again.

  My stomach turned over. Somehow, even though the word thunderball meant nothing to me, I had an awful feeling I knew what the absolute, unmitigated disaster might be. I didn’t want to start guessing, though, in case it wasn’t.

  I prised Kylie off my shoulder, took her arm very gently, like I do with Nani when her hip’s playing up, and led her upstairs to my bedroom. I eased her down on to the bed and patted her head; and at last she stopped crying, took a long, wet, quivering breath, and spoke.

  “It’s Dad’s prize Angora ferret,” she said, very slowly and steadily, taking huge breaths in between each sentence. “Thunderball Silver the Third… the one that won Best in Class last year… the one who’s bookies’ favourite to win Best in Show this year…”

  All the blood drained from my head. I’d been right. I knew what she was going to say next.

  “When Dad went to check his cage this morning,” Kylie whispered, “he’d gone.”

  Her eyes welled up with tears again and she stopped, sniffed, and rubbed her face with her sleeve.

  “Dad’s just devastated,” she added, her voice muffled by sleeve and tears. Then she sat, staring blankly up in the direction of Sita, Snake-Queen of Speed, letting the rest of the tears plop down on to my duvet.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say just then, so I waited till Kylie felt able to go on, and as I waited I saw, as clear as day in my mind’s eye, a big bush of white hair, a smelly, rippling trouser leg, and a wink you couldn’t put your finger on.

  “The lock on his cage had been tampered with,” Kylie continued, her voice slightly stronger.

  “He’s been stolen,” I said, and Kylie nodded.

  “You bet your sweet life he’s been stolen,” she said. “And there’s no prizes for guessing who’s stolen him.”