“It sounds bad, Kylie,” I said, though actually I thought it sounded a great deal worse.
It was ages before Kylie spoke. “We need to find out what they’re planning,” she said at last, “and stop them before someone gets hurt.”
“Surely your mum’s seen something,” I said. “Like, when she’s gone into Sniper’s room to do the hoovering. . .”
But Kylie shook her head. “Sniper’s got a Do not enter on pain of death notice stuck to his door,” she said. “No one dares.”
A terrible picture flashed through my mind then of Sniper standing behind his bedroom door with a crowbar, waiting to bludgeon anyone who dared enter. I wanted to stay and start the spying right away, but it was already way past my bedtime.
As we went downstairs, Kylie pointed out Sniper’s bedroom door. Under the Do not enter on pain of death message, he’d drawn a skull and crossbones and a hangman’s noose.
I shuddered. Sniper was certainly taking no chances. . .
***
It was late in the morning when I made my Discovery. Mum was downstairs fixing lunch, Bilal was fast asleep in a mound of damp cardboard shavings, and Nani was sitting all hunched up on the stairs. I’d just packed a stuffed porcupine and climbed back up to check that the shelf was empty, when I saw it, right in the corner, covered in cobwebs and dust. It was a carved wooden box.
I lifted it down and wiped it, and that’s when I saw just how beautiful it was. It was shaped like a cube, and there were flowers carved all over it. The petals of the flowers were carved into patterns, too, with pale, pinkish-white pearls that looked like the inside of shells.
I sat beside Nani and put the box in her lap. “Where did you get it, Nani-jee?” I said.
For a while Nani glowered down at the box. Then she picked it up, spat on it, and wiped it hard with the corner of her dupatta. The clean bit glowed fiery red, and now I could see that the whole surface was covered with delicate, swirly lines. They curved this way and that round the pearls, and they looked as though they were made of pure gold.
Neither of us moved when Mum called us for lunch. Nani kept glowering, and I kept looking at her, wondering why on earth she wasn’t pleased. If it had been my long-lost box, I’d have been pleased as anything.
Then the most surprising thing happened. With a snort of annoyance, Nani handed it back to me.
“Put it in the ‘For throwing out’ box, Yosser,” she said. “I don’t want it.”
And she heaved herself up and thumped her way downstairs.
I was flabbergasted, but I also couldn’t believe my luck. If Nani really didn’t want the box, perhaps she’d let me have it, then Kylie could give it to her mum. It would be the perfect fortieth birthday present. Perhaps it even had red velvet inside.
I pulled it and twisted the top, but it wouldn’t open, so I put it in my pocket, brushed the cardboard pulp off Bilal’s head and took him downstairs to join Mum and Nani at the table.
I was dying to ask Nani more about the box, but I decided I’d wait till we were alone. It was obvious Nani had major issues with it.
In the afternoon Mum went to the shop, leaving us to drag the boxes into my room and unpack them. Now the decluttering was over, and Nani had won, she cheered up, and quite enjoyed telling me exactly where she wanted everything put.
I’d tried to persuade her to leave a few of the animals in their boxes, but she was having none of it. And as I filled my shelves with desert rats and wild cats and armadillos and bats, I felt more and more miserable.
I was worried about Smartypants too. I’m not sure how well goldfishes can see things that aren’t in the water, but there was a wildcat right beside his bowl, and he kept swimming up to it, and opening and closing his mouth as though he was screaming for help.
It was quite distressing. Goldfish bowls magnify things, so the wildcat probably looked like an enormous sabre-toothed tiger to Smartypants. In the end, I found a large box of Elastoplast and put it between him and the wildcat to act as a sort of barrier. I wasn’t at all sure it helped, though.
When the last box was empty, Nani and me sat down and looked around. Even without her bed, there was hardly a square centimetre of space.
Nani nudged me hard with her shoulder. “Cheer up, Yosser,” she said. “We’ll be all right, you and me and the fish. You’ll see.”
I gave a brave smile, but I didn’t feel it. The reality of the situation had fully kicked in now, sending my Auntie Shabnam Worry Factor soaring to a spectacular 9.2. After a few nights with Nani, I suspected it could rise even higher.
I took the beautiful box out of my pocket. “How do you get it to open?” I asked.
Nani frowned. “You won’t ever get it to open,” she said, “because it’s a puzzle box, and the key’s long lost.”
“What’s a puzzle box, Nani-jee?” I asked.
Nani took off her glasses, shut one eye, and examined the box up close. Very, very carefully, she placed her fingertips on three of the pearl petals and gave a sharp twist. All of a sudden the sides of the box sprang out, and I saw that there was a heart-shaped hole right in its middle.
“Wow!” I said. “Now will it open?”
But Nani had lost interest. Shaking her head, she began to search for Bilal.
“The key’s a wooden heart,” she said. “It fits into the hole. But like I said,” she added, as she hauled him out from under a pile of bubble-wrap, “it’s long lost.”
Dragging Bilal by the hand, she headed for the door. Then she stopped and stood, chewing the inside of her lip, which is what she does when she’s thinking hard.
“The box was a gift,” she said at last, “from someone I once knew, who journeyed to Samarkand.”
A little thrill ran up my back. Journeying to Samarkand sounded incredibly romantic and mysterious.
“Let’s not throw it out, Nani-jee,” I said, hugging the box to my chest. “It’s too beautiful to throw out. . .”
“Keep it if you like,” Nani said with a shrug. “Just don’t show it to me again.” And she stomped off.
I gave the box another wipe and put it in my underwear drawer. Later, I decided, I’d clean it up properly, and search for the heart-shaped key. Then Kylie could have it for her mum.
I couldn’t wait to see Kylie’s face when she saw the gold patterns and the carved flowers. Even if the box didn’t play a tune or have red velvet and a ballerina, it was a lot nicer than anything she could buy. It wouldn’t help her stop worrying about Sniper, but at least it would be one problem solved.
But I didn’t give Kylie the beautiful box after all. I kept it hidden away in my underwear drawer.
I kept it hidden because, that night, something happened that made me go off that box in a Very Big Way.
Unimaginable Horrors
After tea, Kylie and me took our minds off Sniper by building an extension to Castle Hamster, and inventing a game.
The extension was a maze made of old vacuum cleaner tubing. It started at the portcullis and snaked round and round Kylie’s bedroom.
We stuck yoghurt pots at various points in the maze to make blind alleys, and put numbers on them and food inside. The game was to place bets on which hamster would turn up where. Kylie was score-keeper.
Toffee had just run into Tub Number Four for the third time, putting me well in the lead, when the front door slammed. Kylie leapt up and peeped out.
“Sniper’s gone,” she hissed. “Quick!” And without even waiting to write down the score, she led the way to his room.
We stood for a while under the Do not enter on pain of death notice, listening. From inside, we could hear weird, eerie music, and every now and then a muffled scream.
“He’s left a DVD on,” Kylie whispered. “He won’t be out for long. One of us needs to keep a lookout.”
I went and hung over the banister while Kylie slipped in. After a while, she came back out looking absolutely shell-shocked.
“Well?” I said. “Did you find anything out
?”
Kylie shook her head. “You need to see that room, Yosser,” she said. “It defies description.”
I took a look inside, and I shook my head too. I’ve seen some terrible rooms in my time, but Sniper’s was something else.
The ceiling was black. The walls – what you could see of them – were black. The curtains, which were drawn across and fastened with clothes pegs, were black. There were posters with skulls and swords and blood on them, and everywhere, from floor to ceiling, lay bags, and boxes, and gigantic shapes covered in black plastic.
“Can’t I put the light on?” I asked, but Kylie shook her head again.
“Sniper only uses candles,” she said. “He’s saving the planet.”
Then she gave me a little push. “He’ll be back any minute,” she said. “Go and search for clues. And don’t worry if you hear scuffling – it’ll just be Fang.”
Arms outstretched, I shuffled my way into Sniper’s room. The air was smoky and made my eyes water, and the only light came from a computer screen. It was really hard to make anything out.
I had to find something out, though. I had to know what that terrible rap was all about. Most of all, I had to know who was going to be bang-bang-banged with a mallet before they were.
I took a deep breath and ran my hand up and down one of the black plastic shapes, trying to work out what might be inside. It felt like a bundle of pointed stakes, with nails sticking out. I shuddered.
In one corner of the room, there was a little pool of bluish light from the computer screen. I squeezed my way round, opened one of the plastic bags, and peered inside. I could just make out a smooth, rounded handle, but I couldn’t tell what was at the top.
A dagger? An axe?
Suddenly a bloodcurdling scream rang out from the computer, and I swung round. When I saw the picture on the screen, my whole body froze in utter horror. It was a man’s face, and I have never, in my entire life, seen anything as scary.
His skin was pale, pale grey, and seemed to be made up of little squares that were stuck on with pins. His eyes were pale too, and unbelievably evil-looking, and there were wormy things coming out of his mouth. It was gross.
He was standing on a box or something, screaming down at a woman, and she was screaming up at him. Then he jumped down and started to walk towards the woman, and part of me didn’t want to see what he was going to do to her, and part of me just had to.
I heard Kylie shouting, “Sniper’s back!” but I couldn’t stop watching. I just couldn’t.
The woman was smiling now – an odd, cunning sort of smile – and she was walking slowly towards the man with the pins. She was holding something in her hand. The camera zoomed in for a close-up, and when I saw what it was, I swear my heart stopped beating.
It was a box. A carved, wooden box.
Kylie was beside me now, tugging desperately at my arm, but my eyes were glued to the screen. The woman was twiddling at the box, and it was changing shape, just like Nani’s box from Samarkand. Now it wasn’t a cube any more – it had bits sticking up at the corners, and it was glowing.
She was holding it up to the man with the pins, and both of them were screaming as if there was no tomorrow.
“Come on, Yosser!” Kylie shouted. “Come on!”
But I didn’t. At that moment, not even the thought of being bludgeoned to death by Sniper could have moved me away from that computer screen.
Then our very worst nightmare happened. Heavy footsteps thundered up the stairs, and the bedroom door flew open. The woman on the computer scream gave one last bloodcurdling shriek, and the bedroom filled with an overpowering smell of fish and chips.
Kylie and me clung together and backed against the wall. There, in the lighted doorway, was the enormous, hooded shadow of Sniper Teasdale. He had a fish tea in one hand, and a little bundle in the other. The little bundle was moving.
“Wot is you doin’ in my room?” Sniper snarled. He indicated the ‘keep out’ notice with his head. “Can you not read?”
Kylie began to edge towards the door.
“We heard your computer,” she said. “We knew you’d want it turned off. . .”
“Eats up energy,” I added, still with one eye on the screen, where the man with the pins seemed to be melting. “Increases your carbon footprint like nobody’s business. . .”
With a grunt, Sniper dumped the fish tea on top of the computer and picked up a box of matches. He held the moving bundle to his chest and tried to open the box. All the matches fell out.
“No one,” he growled, “comes into my room without my express permission.”
He glared over at Kylie. “Specially you,” he added.
Then he pushed the little bundle into my arms, picked up the matches and lit a black, skull-shaped candle.
The bundle gave a whimper. Then it gave a distinct meow. In the candlelight I could just make out ginger-and-white stripes and a pink nose and a set of little white whiskers.
I don’t know what came over me, but all of a sudden I had the most overwhelming need for something to cuddle. And I heard myself say, “Can I have it, please?”
Sniper sank to the floor in front of the computer, turned the volume up, and opened his fish tea.
“Sure you can ‘ave it,” he said. “It’s name’s Killer Queen. Belongs to Germane,” he added, through a mouthful of haddock, “but ‘is mum says ‘e can’t keep it. An’ neither can I, on account of Fang.”
It was the longest sentence I’d ever heard Sniper say, and it made waves of excitement zing up my back.
My own kitten. My very own cute, cuddle-able kitten!
Kylie was gesticulating wildly from the door and in a daze I sidled over to join her. I thanked Sniper, who muttered, “OK, now git,” and, gratefully, Kylie and me did.
In the safety of Kylie’s room, we examined Killer Queen.
She was tiny. Her ears were flat and her eyes were only just open. She nestled into my neck and made little sucking noises. Then she began to purr.
My head was spinning. All I could do was hold her close. Kylie leant against me and stroked her little stripy head with one finger.
“What about your gran’s cat allergy?” she asked softly.
I could feel Killer Queen’s heart beating against my neck, and I had to clench my teeth to stop from crying.
“I’m keeping her,” I said very firmly. “I’m definitely keeping her.”
I walked home with Killer Queen under my sweatshirt. She kept pumping her paws up and down and sucking at my tummy, and it was the most comforting feeling in the world.
And after the horrors I’d seen that evening, I sure as anything needed some comforting.
Nightmare
When I got home, Mum was in the kitchen, making naan.
They’d shifted Nani’s bed into my room that evening, she told me. It had been quite a struggle, and it was an extremely tight squeeze. Now, Nani was so exhausted she was having an early night.
“Your nightie’s on the door handle,” Mum said. “Be careful when you climb over her,” she added.
She wiped the flour off her hands and took hold of my chin. Closing one eye, she examined my face.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You look peaky, and there’s a funny smell. . .”
She pulled my right eyelid up, peered into my eye, then did the same with my left eyelid. I prayed that Killer Queen wouldn’t make a noise.
Then Mum noticed the bulge. “Are you constipated?” she said, glaring down at it.
“Just a bit,” I said. “But basically I’m fine. . .”
Mum, however, was not convinced. “Stick out your tongue,” she ordered.
I was absolutely terrified now. If the kitten started to squirm, I was done for.
Sticking my tongue out as far as it would go, I backed away towards the door. With a determined look, Mum followed me, and I was sure I was in for the full abdominal examination.
Thankfully, however, she changed her mind and de
cided to go with her initial diagnosis. She gave me a cup of milk, stuck four dates onto the saucer, and told me to go to bed immediately. Massively relieved, I made my escape.
I reckoned there was only one place to hide Killer Queen, and that was Nani’s room, so I crept in. It was empty, apart from a small pile of boxes in the corner.
I sat on the windowsill in the dark and ate the dates. Then I poured some milk into the saucer, and watched Killer Queen lap it up. After three saucerfuls, she clambered shakily onto my lap and fell asleep.
There was a good view of Kylie’s house from Nani’s bedroom window. The light was still on in Kylie’s bedroom, and I pictured her snuggling under her pink ‘Princess’ duvet, worrying herself sick about her mum and Sniper.
Then I looked along to Sniper’s room. His windows were deadly black, and I thought about his bags and boxes with their terrible contents, and the dreadful man with the pins in his head, and the box.
The puzzle box that looked so much like Nani’s box from Samarkand. . .
My stomach was churning badly now, and the last thing I wanted to do was to go to bed and lie in the dark, listening to Nani snoring, but I knew I had to. I took off my sweatshirt, laid it inside one of the boxes, and put Killer Queen on top. Then I tiptoed out.
I clambered over Nani, avoiding her bulgier bits, and I lay, wide-awake in the half-light, watching Smartypants swimming round and round, peering round the Elastoplast box at the wildcat’s gaping jaws. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so scared or so miserable.
Then the weirdest thing happened. The room began to glow, and through a misty haze I saw Smartypants swimming nearer and nearer, till he was floating right in front of me, like a big frilly orange balloon.
His big black eyes sparkled dazzlingly bright, and then, suddenly, they weren’t big and black any more. In fact, they weren’t Smartypants’s eyes any more. They were small and pale, and they smouldered with evil.
They belonged to the man with the pins in his head.
There's a Hamster in my Pocket Page 2