by John Michael
His face was like the moon, cratered and pale and he had black lips with broken teeth and menacing blood-shot eyes. His shaggy red hair was crawling with worms and maggots and, perhaps even more frightful, were his long yellow fingernails which looked like they could skewer you like it was nobody’s business. Since his untimely death, Billy-Bob fables have become part and parcel of Quockingpoll folklore and, to this day, are popular bedtime stories which are used to keep children obedient, well-behaved and fearful, oh, and to give them terrifying nightmares as well.
“Barney, what was that yelling about?”
“Well... it’s just that... well... those poor orphans.”
“What do you mean? Because they have no parents?”
“Well that too, but I was thinking about the stolen money.”
“Yeah... it’ll hit them hard.”
“They’ll be eating nothing but gruel... nothing but gruel Howie!”
“I think that’s already their situation but, yeah, it’ll be tough.”
“The orphanage relied on that money.”
“I bet that the matron is gonna be really peeved.”
“I sure hope that she doesn’t take it out on those poor lil’ orphans,” cried Barney.
Not much was known about the goings-on at the orphanage. The matron was a mysterious figure who was seldom seen but it was known that she ruled with an iron fist. There were tales about her only appearing after dusk, like some vampire who haunted the night. There were also stories about how she would feast on the blood of the orphans but, to be honest, I’m not sure how much truth was associated with that particular rumour. She was a tall woman who had a robust frame with square shoulders and her large bosom could double up as a battering ram. I had never heard of a vampire of such stout proportions and I’ll tell you straight out, if the matron ever did take to the skies, her attempt at flight would defy all known laws of aerodynamics.
I had only come face to face with her once. It was one gloomy November night when Mum had forced me to walk the dog with her as punishment for fighting with my sister, Deborah. It seemed that every time my sister and I had a fight, I would end up walking our bulldog, T-Bone, with my mum while my sister would end up lounging on the sofa, watching TV and eating corn chips. Not fair! It had gotten to the stage where my sister would intentionally provoke a fight just to get me out of the house so that she could watch her favourite program − usually some reality show about artificial people in unreal situations doing fake things. Sometimes I would play it cool and ignore her predictable jibes:
“You’re as sharp as a spoon and twice as dense.”
“Your IQ is so low that T-Bone teaches you tricks!”
“The last time I saw a face like yours, it was behind bars... in a zoo... being fed bananas.”
I would just sit there like a Zen master, unflappable, unperturbed, unruffled. Yep, I was ‘cucumber boy,’ as in ‘cool as a...’ while she would fling her verbal slings and arrows. Of course, that would just get her more annoyed and Deborah wasn’t one for fair play. When things weren’t going her way she always loved to upset the applecart. She’d get angry that I was ignoring her taunts and then she’d pull out her pièce de résistance by hollering “Mum! Howie farted!” and that would bring Mum storming into the room and I would get the ol’ “That’s it mister, we’re taking T-Bone for a long walk!” Farts were a strictly taboo subject in our house. “Why?” I hear you ask. Well, don’t get me started on that one, I guess I’ll just have to tell you about it some other time.
The first half of my ‘walk of punishment’ always involved me grumbling to Mum about how I was always getting framed but she assured me that it was all in my mind. When I complained to Dad, he said something about me being the youngest and Mum not wanting to cut the apron strings − whatever that meant.
It was getting dark and the snow had started to fall steadily and there was definitely a cold nip in the air. As we passed the orphanage we heard a distinct clinking of keys. It was the matron. You could make out her portly silhouette in the fading light with her keys hooked to a chain around her waist, jingling and jangling with each step she took. They were those old style skeleton keys which prison wardens used to carry around.
“Good evening Matron Fulton,” said my mum as the woman approached the gate.
“What are you doing here?” queried the matron in an unfriendly tone. She had a fleshy face with close set eyes. Her dark hair was tied into a tight bun on the top of her head which seemed to stretch her eyebrows upwards, making her look like she was in a perpetual state of alarm.
“Can’t you read?” she enquired as she pointed to the ‘no loitering’ sign which hung on the gate and then made a condescending “tut-tut” sound.
“Just walking the dog,” responded Mum.
The matron looked down at T-Bone and frowned.
“I don’t like dogs, they’re just like children. They are slobbery, they are noisy, they never stop eating, they defecate everywhere, oh yes, and they smell,” responded the matron with a forced smile which made her look like she was wearing a scary Halloween mask.
“Well, thank you for the pleasant chat,” replied Mum uncomfortably, as we quickly walked away while averting all eye contact.
Barney and I stood there with our faces pressed against the bars of the iron gate, thinking about the fate of the poor orphans. The last flicker of sunlight reflected off the underbelly of the clouds which made them glisten like fading embers. An owl hooted in the distance and then an eerie silence filled the air.
“Okay Barney, time to hit the road,” I murmured.
“Yep... you’re right Howie, nothing more to see here.”
Suddenly a harsh grating sound broke the stillness, Barney and I quickly turned our heads towards the noise which sounded like metal scraping against stone. Just up the pathway through the trees and near the moat, we could make out the outline of a plump figure pushing a large round object along the gravel.
“Is that the matron Barney?”
“I think you’re right Howie.”
“What do you suppose she has there?
“Hmm... whatever it is, it seems quite heavy.”
“Well Barn, it’s definitely made out of metal.”
“And it’s round!”
“Do you think it could be –”
“Oh, it’s something alright!”
“No! it can’t be!”
“But Howie, it is!”
“Hmm... maybe it’s so!”
“You don’t think... not the Great Quiz Trophy?”
“What? I can’t believe it!”
“That crafty old cow − stealing from her own orphans!”
“If she has the trophy, then she has the charity money too!”
“We’ve got to do something Howie!”
“Yes... but what?”
Suddenly I could feel my brain whirring... the cogs were spinning and in my mind’s eye a complete Sherlock Holmes story unfurled in front of me. It was about a Baron and his Ming pottery, books in a library, people jumping out of windows, two women called Kitty and Violet and, most importantly, instructions on how to distract a villainous criminal.
“Elementary my dear Barney!”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. We need to distract the matron!”
“Distract her? How?”
“You need to pretend that you are an expert on Chinese pottery, you will go by the name of Dr Hill Barton, and you need to enter the orphanage and sell the matron a rare and precious piece of Ming pottery.”
“I don’t understand what you are talking about!” whimpered Barney.
“Well... I’m not sure either. That idea definitely sounded better in my head!” I responded in exasperation as a crow squawked loudly as it flew overhead. “Wait a minute! That’s it! I know! Make some animal noises!”
“Animal noises?”
“Yes... to distract the matron.”
“Ah alright... what type?”
“I
don’t know! Any type!”
“Um okay,” Barney responded.
I looked at Barney in disbelief. “Really? What was that?”
“Um... a duck.”
“A duck? No way!”
“Yes way.”
“It sounded like you were coughing up some phlegm.”
“Well I was just getting warmed up.”
“C’mon Barney. We need something a little more threatening.” I turned around and saw the shadowy figure of the matron as she continued up the path. “Hurry! She’s getting away!”
“I’m all out of ideas!”
“That’s it? You can only do ducks?” I cried in frustration.
“Yes! I can’t work under this pressure!” wailed Barney as he threw his arms up in the air.
Then I suddenly remembered our encounter with the matron as Mum and I were walking T-Bone. “Dogs! That’s it! She doesn’t like dogs... go for some barking!”
“What? How can you not like dogs?”
“I don’t know! Stop wasting time! Just make some barking sounds!”
“Alright, alright,” Barney cleared his throat.
Barney also threw in a wolf howl,
“Nice improvisation Barn!”
The matron stood still and cocked her head to one side. “Who’s there?” she yelled in the dusky twilight as she let go of the trophy to get a better look at us. At that moment, she stepped back, lost her footing and tripped. The trophy started to roll down the gravel path towards us, while the matron rolled in the opposite direction towards the moat.
“Oh no... she’s fallen in!”
“What about the alligators?” cried Barney.
“They haven’t kept alligators in the moat for more than a hundred years!”
“Really?”
“I thought they still had alligators.”
“Not since the late 1800s.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” I snapped.
At that moment, our discussion was interrupted by a deafening clanking echo which sounded like church bells signalling the end of days.
We both jumped a metre into the air and almost out of our skins.
“What was that?!” I yelled as we both turned around.
“Oh look Howie... it’s the trophy,” claimed Barney as he pointed at the large dark metal silhouette which had crashed into the gate.
“Wait a minute!” I knelt down and took a closer look. “That’s not the trophy.”
“What do you mean it’s not the trophy?”
“It’s a copper cauldron,” I responded as I reached out between the bars of the gate and touched the cold metal. “She must have been getting it ready to boil some gruel for the orphans.”
“A cauldron?” queried Barney. “Are you sure?
“Yes, I’m sure... why do keep asking me that? Look for yourself − there are no engravings, no decorations, no nothing.”
Barney knelt down and took a closer look. “Hmm... I guess you’re right. Now that you mention it, it does look like a cauldron.”
“Of course it looks like a cauldron! And do you know why?”
“Um... why Howie?”
“Because it IS a cauldron!”
Barney took another look, this time reaching out and touching the cauldron himself. “Hmm... you’re right Howie... and now it’s got a big dent in it now... I think the matron is gonna be mighty peeved. Why did you think it was the trophy if it’s clearly a cauldron?”
“I never said that!”
“You told me that it –”
“Wait a minute Barney... you were the one who said it was the trophy.”
“No... I’m pretty sure it was you!”
“Was not!”
“Was too!”
“Was not!”
“Was too!”
“Was –”
Suddenly we heard some splashing sounds and a long drawn out gasp for breath and as we looked up, through the darkness, we saw the matron clambering out of the moat like some creature from the black lagoon.
“Who’s there?” yelled the matron as she pointed her finger towards us. “I see you! You snivelling scoundrels!”
She started to run towards the gate. Actually, it was more of a gallop and we could feel the ground vibrate under our feet.
“I am going to pulverise you two loathsome miscreants!” she screamed.
The matron could certainly move fast for her size. Before we knew it, she was upon us and within reach of the gate.
“Let’s get out of here Howie!”
“I’m with you on that one!”
Barney and I sprinted out of there as quickly as we could.
“Come back here you dastardly cowards!” she hollered.
The matron shook the gates with all her strength. They rattled and clattered and sounded like they would come off the hinges.
“You will pay for this! You will pay for your depravity you wicked louts!”
As we ran away, we could hear her desperately fumbling through her set of keys in order to open the gate but her fingers must have been numb from the cold water and we heard the keys drop to the ground.
“I will find you! I shall have my revenge!” the matron howled like some wounded beast.
“You can But you can’t ”
Barney and I ran away as fast as our legs could carry us, all the while the matron’s bellowing screams still ringing in our ears like the screeching of some demented she-devil.
Chapter twelve
pancakes
Iopened my eyes and it took me a moment or two to realise that I was in my own bed and that it was morning. The dappled sunlight was filtering in through the window and every now and then some boisterous squawking from the birds outside interrupted the lazy silence. I was feeling quite comfortable and snug, like a big toasty muffin sitting in a warm oven. I rubbed my eyes, stretched my limbs, and yawned like a hippopotamus* and then accidently made a pffffrrrrrrt sound which sounded like it should have come out of a hippopotamus. My gut reaction was to quickly look around the room to see if anybody had heard me toot, even though it was obvious that no one was around.
I guess this reaction was a normal response as the fart was seen as the ugly cousin of other bodily functions. You cough, you get a lozenger. You sneeze, you get a ‘God bless you.’ You hiccup, you get a glass of water. You burp, you get a giggle. But heaven forbid that you should cut the cheese, or the world comes to an end. Well it certainly does when my sister is within earshot of a raspberry. You see, Deborah has a fear of farts and she has even been diagnosed with flatuphobia, and I’m not even making it up − it’s a thing! A phobia of farts! She goes crazy if she hears or smells a fart. So, at home, when it comes to letting one rip, I’m always treading on eggshells. There were times when I had to hold it in for so long that I felt like I was going to black out. My imprisoned gas would become angry and turn on me, stabbing pains would radiate through my intestines like knitting needles, gurgling sounds brewed within me like percolating coffee, my stomach would get so bloated that I looked ten months pregnant. If someone had stuck a pin in me, I would have exploded and bits of me would have splattered all over the floor, walls and ceiling − and it would have served my family right! Making me suffer like this! Barney was free to fart throughout his entire house and the only proviso was that he had to finish each toot with a customary “excuse me.”
Whenever T-Bone had to go do a doo-doo, we would let him into the garden to do his business. And that’s what my life had become as well. When I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I would rush out into the garden like a gassy bat out of hell and let rip like the trumpet section of the brass ensemble. And let me tell you, if our neighbour, old Mrs Garfunkel, was doing her gardening at the same time, she’d be thinking that the seven trumpets of the apocalypse were signalling the end of days.
If the weather was terrible, I had to find a secluded area of the house and use some cushions to stifle my toots. When it came to farts, school was a drea
m compared to my nightmare at home. Of course, out in public there were certain rules and procedures which had to be followed as you couldn’t just drop your guts like some brabbensack running through the savanna with the wind in its hair (and out of its butt).
Firstly, the proper etiquette demanded that there be a certain degree of deflection if you were the one doing the butt cheek sneak when in the midst of polite company. This level of stealth and cunning was especially necessary if you were in Miss Fremskey’s class as she could sniff out a fart at forty feet, or even worse, during Mr Perriman’s lesson where he would make you do ten push-ups for each toot – although, he always did get the maths wrong.
Of course, when deflecting blame, you needed to have at least three people in the vicinity, unlike Barney who pointed the finger at me for one hellacious stinker he gave birth to while we were playing checkers in his room. To this day he has never owned up to it. Additionally, if you were going to blame others you needed to make sure that your fart maintained a level of silence − Lazy Lenny once let out a rumbler in Science which sounded like a thunder storm over the Grand Canyon and then attempted the ol’ “Oh, who farted?” line while all eyes were fixated on him.
Of course, there were rare carefree moments when such pretence and deflection went out the window and you could just be your natural self − as close to being that brabbensack running through the savanna as humanly possible. And the closest you could get to that primeval state was the boys’ locker room. And it was in the locker room that, if you were lucky enough, you would come face to face with one of the most primeval spectacles known to man − the teenage farting competition.
No such luck at home of course! We certainly had no farting competitions within the walls of our house. Bummer! In fact, we had a strict ‘no farting’ rule when it came to my long-suffering ‘delicate princess’ of a sister but, of course, Deborah had no trouble using her so-called phobia to her advantage. Many a time she would falsely accuse me of blasting the bagpipes when it was her turn to do the dishes, or when she had to do her piano practice and of course, whenever we were arguing about which show to watch on TV.