by McSweeney's
The fairy said, “Laugh all you will … huff!… But if you … puff!… kill me … huff!… you won’t get … puff!… your three … huff!… wishes … puff!”
“Wishes?” said Seymour. “What wishes?”
“The wishes … huff!… from the rule … puff!”
“What rule?”
“The rule … huff!… that says … puff!… whoever catches a fairy … huff!… gets three … puff!… wishes … huff!… before the fairy … puff!… can go free.”
“That’s a funny rule,” said Seymour. “Who made it?”
“I have no idea,” gasped the fairy.
Seymour could hardly believe his great good luck. “Can I wish for anything?”
“Anything.”
“Wow!” said Seymour. “When do we start?”
The fairy now knew that he was safe and collapsed in an exhausted heap. The whole situation was terribly aggravating, and he muttered to himself, “Life isn’t fair, not fair at all!” And you have to admit he had a point. How would you feel if you’d been fluttering about, minding your own business, and a little boy came along and snatched you up in his sticky hand—but then you were made to give the boy three wishes, instead of the other way around!
Still, the fairy knew there wasn’t any use complaining. It was the rule, and he must follow it. “The sooner we start, the better,” he told Seymour. “But before you make your first wish, think carefully. Because—”
Seymour, though, was much too excited to think at all, let alone carefully. Being small of brain, he blurted out the first thing that popped into his head: “I wish I was a great big huge Tyrannosaurus rex!”
“Interesting choice,” thought the fairy. He waved his wand, and one-two-three Seymour’s wish was granted.
The boy looked down at his marvelous new body and cried, “Wow! Wait’ll I show Mom!”
Taller than the trees, Seymour raced through the park to Mrs. Seymour and her 1,138 cats. “Hey, Mom!” he shouted. “Look at me!” But that wasn’t what Mrs. Seymour heard Seymour say. What Mrs. Seymour heard Seymour say was “Roar! Roar! Roar!” and when she saw a great big huge Tyrannosaurus Rex headed her way, she screamed, dropped the ends of her 1,138 leashes, and ran for her life. Her 1,138 cats, just as panicked, tore off in 1,138 different directions, never to be seen again.
Seymour was alone and Seymour was miserable. Left to live with the consequences of his hasty wish, he stomped and clomped around the park, roaring up a storm. A park ranger spotted him. She was pretty sure it was against the rules for dinosaurs to be in the park, and she picked up the phone and called the Mayor. “Madame Mayor!” she cried. “There’s a great big huge Tyrannosaurus rex loose in the park!”
“We can’t have that!” said the Mayor, and she picked up the phone and called the Governor. “Madame Governor!” she cried. “There’s a great big huge Tyrannosaurus rex loose in the park!”
“We can’t have that!” said the Governor, and she picked up the phone and called the President. “Madame President!” she cried. “There’s a great big huge Tyrannosaurus rex loose in the park!”
“We can’t have that!” said the President, and she picked up the phone and called the Secretary of Defense. “Madame Secretary!” she cried. “There’s a great big huge Tyrannosaurus rex loose in the park!”
“I’ll get right on it,” said the Secretary. And in no time flat the park was surrounded by tanks and heavy ballistic missiles. Helicopters circled overhead.
Being small of brain, Seymour sensed no danger; being large of heart, he waved hello to his pursuers. And so it was that before Seymour understood what was happening, the helicopters had lowered a net on top of him and caught him up. “Roar!” cried Seymour, struggling to get free, but the net was so strong that not even a great big huge Tyrannosaurus rex could tear it, and the helicopters lifted Seymour into the air and carried him over the city.
“If I were you, I’d make another wish fast,” said the fairy. “And if I might make a suggestion, a tiny bird might be just the ticket.”
In a panic, Seymour cried, “Yes, yes! A bird! I wish I was a tiny bird!”
The fairy waved his wand, and straightaway Seymour became a tiny bird, small enough to slip through the net and fly away to freedom, leaving the army in great confusion as to what had become of the great big huge Tyrannosaurus rex that, moments before, had been caught in their net.
“Two wishes down, one to go,” thought the fairy.
Seymour sailed over the city, happy as a—well, as a bird. “I can fly!” cried Seymour. “I can fly!” Seymour spread his wings. He said, “I’ll see the world!”
Side by side, Seymour and the fairy flew and flew and flew and flew and flew and flew. They flew to San Francisco, Vladivostok, Tokyo, Perth, Bombay, Istanbul, Nairobi, Rome, Paris, London, Reykjavik, Rio, and still they kept on flying. Along the way, they saw many wonderful things and had many wonderful adventures, but by the time they reached Mexico City, the fairy was exhausted and Seymour missed his mother.
“Let’s go home,” said Seymour.
So Seymour and the fairy flew some more. They flew until they they landed on a windowsill of the 87th floor of a very tall skyscraper. Seymour peered through the glass. Home! He was Home! Home! Home! And better still, everything was just as he’d remembered it. Everything, that is, except for one thing—or, more accurately, for 1,138 things. His mother’s cats, every last one them, were gone. Not so much as a whisker in sight.
Then Seymour saw his mother. She was seated on the sofa, holding the remote. As he watched her change from channel to channel to channel to channel, finding nothing of interest to watch, Seymour thought his mother looked as sad and lonesome as could be. To cheer her up, he sang his nicest song.
“Tweet tweet twee twee!”
“Get lost!” snarled Mrs. Seymour, and she hurled her slipper at the window.
Seymour stayed put, however, unable to leave, and the ogre growled, “Stupid bird! You wouldn’t be so brave if my cats were here. And if that dinosaur hadn’t chased them away, by now they’d have gobbled you right up!”
At the mention of her cats, Mrs. Seymour burst into tears. “Oh, my poor kitty cats! How I miss my darling pussums!”
Seymour’s large heart couldn’t bear to see his mother cry, and without a second thought, he made his third and final wish.
The fairy smiled, waved his wand, and disappeared—poof!
Again Seymour called to his mother. At first the ogre thought she must be hearing things, but when she glanced toward the window, she gasped and cried out in alarm, “What are you doing out there! Be careful or you’ll fall!” The panicked ogre leapt from the couch, threw open the window, and gathered Seymour in her arms. “You poor little thing,” she said. “You scared me to death!”
“Meow,” said Seymour, rubbing his head against her hand to show her he loved her.
Mrs. Seymour cradled Seymour and said, “How ever did you get up here? Where did you come from?”
“Meow,” explained Seymour, squirming happily.
“Such an adorable kitten! It’s a miracle, that’s what it is, a miracle!”
“Meow meow,” said Seymour.
“Meow meow to you, too. Tell me, sweetheart: Would you like to live with a mean old ogre like me?”
“Meow!” answered Seymour.
“Oh goody good good good,” said Mrs. Seymour, and she kissed Seymour on his wet little button of a nose.
Mrs. Seymour carried Seymour to the kitchen and gave him a bowl of nice warm milk. Then she went to the living room, sat on the sofa, and patted the tops of her lumpy ogre thighs. “Up! Up!” she told Seymour. Without hesitation, Seymour leapt into his mother’s lap and curled himself into a cozy ball. “Good kitty cat,” said Mrs. Seymour.
As his mother stroked him, Seymour purred and purred and purred, and the two of them lived so happily ever after that I’m sure he’s purring still.
GRIMBLE
BY CLEMENT FREUD
Illus
trated by Marcel Dzama
MONDAY
This is a story about a boy called Grimble who was about ten. You may think it is silly to say someone is about ten, but Grimble had rather odd parents who were very vague and seldom got anything completely right.
For instance, he did not have his birthday on a fixed day like other children; every now and then his father and mother would buy a cake, put some candles on top of it, and say, “Congratulations, Grimble. Today you are about seven,” or, “Yesterday you were about eight and a half but the cake shop was closed,” Of course there were disadvantages to having parents like that—like being called Grimble, which made everyone say, “What is your real name?” and he had to say, “My real name is Grimble.”
Grimble’s father was something to do with going away, and his mother was a housewife by profession who liked to be with her husband whenever possible. Grimble went to school. Usually, when he left home in the morning, his parents were still asleep and there would be a note at the bottom of the stairs saying, ENCLOSED PLEASE FIND TENPENCE FOR YOUR BREAKFAST. As tenpence is not very nourishing he used to take the money to a shop and get a glass of ginger beer, some broken pieces of meringue, and a slice of streaky bacon. And at school he got lunch; that was the orderly part of his life. Shepherd’s pie or sausages and mashed potatoes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday; and on Fridays, fish fingers. This was followed by chocolate spodge—which is a mixture between chocolate sponge and chocolate sludge, and does not taste of anything very much except custard—which the school cook poured over everything.
One Monday, Grimble came back from school, opened the door, and shouted, “I am home.” No one shouted anything in answer. So he went round the house looking for messages because his parents always left messages. It was the one thing they were really good at.
On a table in the sitting room there was a globe. And stuck into the globe were two pins, each with a triangle of paper on it. One of these was stuck into England and said GRIMBLE, and the other was stuck into Peru and said US. He went into the kitchen and here was another note: TEA IS IN THE FRIDGE, SANDWICHES IN THE OVEN. HAVE A GOOD TIME.
In the bedroom was a note saying YOU WILL DO YOUR HOMEWORK, WON’T YOU? P.S. DON’T FORGET TO SAY YOUR PRAYERS.
In the bathroom, a message: TEETH.
He walked round the house thinking they’d really been very good, and then he went to the back door and saw a note: MILKMAN. NO MILK FOR FIVE DAYS.
He changed the note to NOT MUCH milk for five days, and sat down in the kitchen and started to think about things. Five days is a long time for anyone and an especially long time for a boy of ten who is never quite sure whether he might not be missing his birthday. It had been weeks since he last had a birthday. He got a piece of paper and worked out five days at twenty-four hours a day and made it over a hundred hours, actually a hundred and something hours.
He decided to have a sandwich. He opened the oven door, found the oven absolutely full of sandwiches, and took one with corned beef and apricot jam in it. It was a bit stale, like sandwiches are when they have been made a long time ago, so he lit the oven to freshen the sandwiches up a bit and decided to write a poem about his situation. This is what he wrote:
It was not a very good poem and it hadn’t even taken very long to write, so he opened the door of the refrigerator and found bottles and bottles of tea. He poured himself a cup and sipped it.
The tea did not taste very nice and it was not very hot, so he took his football out into the yard and kicked penalties with his left foot. As a matter of fact, Grimble could not kick the ball at all with his right foot, but very few people knew this, so when he had friends whom he wanted to impress he used to say, “Come and see me kick penalties with my left foot.” It worked very well.
After scoring one hundred and seven goals he went back to get a proper fresh sandwich. He opened the oven door and a very sad sight met his eyes. The sandwiches had been wrapped in pieces of paper, and the oven had burnt the paper, and all the butter had run out onto the bottom shelf, and the fillings of sandwich-spread and peanut butter and honey and lemon curd and cheese and pickles were sizzling in the butter. He got a teaspoon, tasted some of the mixture, and decided he preferred Weetabix, but as he was tasting it his eyes fell upon another note stuck on to the oven door and only a little bit brown from the heat of the roast sandwiches.
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY said the note GO TO and there followed a list of five names and addresses, all of them very near Grimble’s house. He felt much better, kicked two more goals, and went off to the house of the first name on the list:
MR. WILFRED MOSQUITO 29 BACK STREET (RING TWICE)
Back Street was just round the corner from his house, so he ran over there, and on the front door he found a note that said: WELCOME GRIMBLE, THE KEY IS IN THE MILK BOTTLE. He opened the door, went in and found another note: FOOD IS IN THE KITCHEN. KITCHEN IS BEHIND DOOR MARKED KITCHEN, and in the kitchen there was a big piece of paper that said: HELP YOURSELF.
The Mosquitos’ kitchen was big and bright, and there was a vegetable rack with coconuts and bananas and limes in it—limes are like lemons, only green—and a bottle of rum stood on the shelf, and the ’fridge had a lot of meat in it, all raw.
He tried a sip of rum and did not like it much. It was strong. So he ate a banana and tried to kick a left-footed penalty with a coconut against the kitchen door, but a big chip of paint came off and he thought, “I am a guest and I am not even supposed to chip paint off the doors in my own house,” so he stuck the paint back on to the door again using the sludge on the inside of the banana skin as sticky paste, and went on an exploration of the house.
As far as he could see, the Mosquitos were a man and a woman and one child with a lot of clothes (or possibly three children with not very many clothes each), also six cats. He was sure about the six cats because he found them in a basket under the stairs. They had a saucer of milk and another saucer of meat that smelled a bit of fish. There were a lot of photographs of people in the sitting room and all the people in them were black. There was also a map of Jamaica. Grimble, who did not like to jump to conclusions but when it came to being a detective was every bit as good as Old Sexton B. and Sherlock H. and Dixon of Dock whatever it was, decided that the Mosquitos were Jamaicans.
He decided this especially when he found a newspaper called the Daily Gleaner, printed in Kingston, Jamaica. Reading the paper he noticed on the front page a message telling you to turn to page seven for this week’s recipe, Coconut Tart.
He turned to page seven.
Coconut Tart, wrote the good woman who had thought of the recipe, can be made by a child of eight.
As Grimble was older than eight he realized that he would be able to achieve a coconut tart with great ease, took the Daily Gleaner into the kitchen, propped it up against the coconut, and started to read the instructions.
Make a short pastry in the usual way, it began.
Grimble thought this an exceedingly stupid remark and was pleased to see that the writer must have realized this also because she continued, by taking half a pound of flour, quarter of a pound of fat, half a teaspoon of salt, and two tablespoons of water. Or you can use one of those ready-made tart-cases. “Why didn’t you say so at the beginning, you stupid book!” said Grimble, and went out into the Mosquitos’ garden to try and catch a fat pigeon. The fourth time he threw his jacket over the fat pigeon’s head, it gave him a sad tired look, waddled off, and flew away.
Grimble went back into the kitchen.
For the filling, said the recipe in the paper, you will need half a pound of grated coconut, a tablespoon of warm golden syrup, and two beaten eggs.
He beat two eggs and started to look for the coconut. It had gone. He remembered seeing it in the vegetable rack; he remembered kicking it, he remembered that very well because he still had a pain in his left foot. He read several pages of the Daily Gleaner to see if perhaps they said how one could make a coconut tart without a coconut, but a
ll he found were pages and pages of small print headed Work Wanted and Cars for Sale, and it was not until he got to the last page that he found the coconut. It was propping up the paper.
Grimble like most small boys thought that a coconut grew on a piece of metal in a fairground, and he did not know how one turned the hard brown hairy thing that never moved when you threw wooden balls at it into fluffy white coconut meat that you got in a chocolate coconut bar. He might never have found out if he had not decided to have one more left-footed penalty, using the kitchen table as the goal. The coconut hit the goalpost (actually the leg of the table) and broke in half. As it did so, a large puddle of white coconut milk seeped across the kitchen floor.
This was quite a helpful thing to happen. First of all it showed him where the fluffy white meat was, and secondly he had begun to feel he ought to do something about the six cats under the stairs, and now there was all this milk. He decided that six cats was much easier than a cloth and a bucket.
Grating a coconut is not as easy as it looks because the flesh grows on the inside of the shell and it means wedging it off before you can get at it. Also the grater had a big notice tied to it, which read: GRIMBLE, MIND YOUR FINGERS, so it was a slow business. But in the end it all worked, and he put the egg and syrup and coconut into the tart-case, and baked it the way they said, and shooed the cats out of the kitchen, and when the tart was cooked he ate it almost immediately. It was the best thing he had eaten since the corned beef and apricot jam sandwich.
When he had finished it was seven-fifteen, and as his official bedtime was seven-thirty, he went home. When he opened the door he saw a telegram on the mat. It was addressed to him. He opened it carefully and read the message: SENDING TELEGRAM TOMORROW. LOVE FATHER AND MOTHER.