Horrible Horace

by Gerrard Wllson

Meddling cohort to launch Eileen!”

  “Okay,” Tinkering Tommy replied, “let’s give it a go, then.”

  In little more than a minute there were two kites flying proudly above the hill in the abandoned old quarry. The father of all kites, launched from the prime position, soared high, testing Horrible Horace’s patience – and pride.

  Feeding out some more string to Invincible, Horrible Horace was determined to prove their kite, the mother of all kites, was better than that of their opponents. Up, up she went, higher and higher into the heavers, past clouds, tumultuous clouds, and ever so scary clouds.

  Squinting, trying to see the highflying kite, so far above them, Tinkering Tommy said, “Don’t you think it is high enough, Horrible?”

  “No!” he answered. “Invincible is not yet anyway near as high as she can go! See that cloud?” he said, pointing to it.

  “You mean the big, dark one?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “Watch me fly Invincible through it and then out the far side. Hah, that’ll show them whose kite is best!” Feeding out some more string, Horrible Horace steered the mother of all kite towards the mother of all clouds....

  The Horrible kite flyer was so confident of success, so wound up in what he was doing; he lost sight of everything around him, including the dream from which he had so recently awoken. Guiding Invincible towards the dark, tumultuous cloud, Horrible Horace was in a world of his own, a world where anything was possible. And that was exactly what happened. Anything happened. No sooner had Invincible entered the dark cloud, thunder and lightning, the likes of which they had never before seen, signalled the mother of all storms had begun.

  “Run!” shouted Tinkering Tommy.

  “Make yourself scarce!” yelled Cheeky Charlie.

  “Get the hell out of here!” thundered Meddling Maurice. However, the kite flyer, Horrible Horace, held the string tightly, defiantly braving the elements...

  The storm became so intense Horrible Horace struggled to control Invincible. Moreover, it pulled him slowly, slowly towards the top of the hill. When he was there, at the top, he yelled, “Hah, no one can beat me now, no one at all!” That was when it happened, when the mother of all clouds opened, raining a deluge of chocolate, crisps, liquorice and sweet treats upon him.

  “No, no!” he bemoaned. “This can’t be happening! It was only a dream!”

  “How do you know that it isn’t a dream?” a voice suddenly asked him from above.

  Seeing them, Imps, and so many of them, sliding down the unbreakable string, Horrible Horace screamed and screamed and screamed.

  Letting go of the string, leaving Invincible to her own devices, he hightailed it down the hill, overtaking Tinkering Tommy, Cheeky Charlie and Meddling Maurice on his way home.

  Mr Smith’s Wonderful Emporium

  Next day, Sunday, the four friends met in the park that afternoon. “What got you in such a flap yesterday, Horrible Horace?” asked Tinkering Tommy.

  “Yeh,” said Cheeky Charlie. “You were running so fast, my eyes couldn’t keep up with you!”

  “Well, what was the hurry?” Meddling Maurice asked him.

  Having had a night and a morning to recover from his terrifying experience at the top of the hill, Horrible Horace was now calm and serene. He had no intention of telling them about it, not ever. Why would he want to, he thought, when it was only a dream? “It was raining, that’s all,” he told them, “and I was getting wet.”

  “There is more to it than rain,” his Meddling acquaintance insisted.

  Horrible Horace refused to say anything more on the subject. “Let’s go to the shops,” he said to them.

  “Let’s go to Mr Smith’s Wonderful Emporium,” Tinkering Tommy suggested.

  “Right on!” said Cheeky Charlie.

  “Race you there?” said Meddling Maurice.

  Horrible Horace, however said nothing, not a word passed his lips, as he strolled along the path in no particular hurry. Several minutes later, Horrible Horace stood outside Mr Smith’s Wonderful Emporium, a sweet shop of excellence. His friends were already inside, where they were choosing their sweets.

  Exiting the shop, Meddling Maurice said, “Watcha, Horace.” Horace nodded a greeting. “I bought a liquorice shoe lace and a gobstopper,” he told him. “Aren’t you going in?” he asked.

  All of a sudden, Horrible Horace grabbed hold of his friend’s sweets and flung them to the ground, and then he jumped up and down on them. Before Meddling Maurice had time to complain, to tell him what he thought of him for doing such a dastardly deed, Horace returned his attention to the shop’s interior, where Cheeky Charlie was purchasing a packet of crisps. “No, don’t do it, don’t buy them!” he cried out. When Cheeky Charlie exited the shop, the Horrible made a bee line for him. Delving a hand into his packet of crisps, Cheeky Charlie said, “Hi Horace, would you like a crisp?”

  After attending to his friend and his crisps, Horrible Horace returned his attention to the shop’s interior. He watched, horrified, as Tinkering Tommy pointed across the shop counter, to the bar of chocolate that he wanted to buy. It was a Galaxy Super Special. “No, don’t buy it!” he cried out. “Buy anything but that one!” Oblivious to his friend’s concerns, Tinkering Tommy paid for the chocolate and then exited the shop.

  “What on earth were you thinking of?” Horrible Horace barked at Tommy, this instant he exited the shop. “Buying chocolate, of course,” he answered. “Look, I got a Galaxy Super Special.”

  Knocking the chocolate clear out of his hands, Horace jumped and stomped and trampled all over it.

  “What on earth are you doing?” his Tinkeringly mad friend gasped. “I paid good money for that chocolate!”

  “He did the same with my crisps!” Cheeky Charlie told him.

  “And also my sweets,” said Meddling Maurice. “He stamped my liquorice shoe lace so much it’s thinner that a sheet of paper! And as for my gobstopper,” he told them, “he yanked it so fast out of my mouth I thought my teeth had gone with it!”

  “I did it to save you!” Horrible Horace told them, trying to justify his unruly behaviour.

  Suddenly, they heard the bell over the shop door jingle. Mr Smith, the shop owner, exited his shop.

  “Mr Smith!” the offended boys chimed, “Did you see what he did with our sweets?”

  “With my liquorice and gobstopper!”

  “With my crisps!”

  “And my Galaxy Super Special!”

  “I’m afraid that I did,” the old man replied. Eying the smashed, bashed, broken up sweets and crisps on the ground, he turned to Horrible Horace and said, “Horace, can you explain why you did this?”

  “I did it because of the Imps,” he answered.

  “Not that again!” interjected Tinkering Tommy.

  Thoughtfully stroking his beard, the old man said, “Imps?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “And there were so many of them, up there in the clouds!” he said, pointing skyward.

  “The clouds, you say?”

  “Yes, the clouds,” he insisted. “But only tumultuous ones, mind you!”

  “And what were these Imps doing up there?” the shopkeeper enquired.

  “They were doing all sorts of awful, dreadful things to the children’s treats and sweets,” Horace told him.

  “Can you elaborate?”

  “Yes, of course,” he answered. “One of the things they were doing was putting rub-a-dubs in with the crisps, to make them taste rubbery!”

  “Anything else?”

  “Chocolate! They were putting something with the chocolate bars to give headaches to those who eat them, real bad ones – migraines! I got a headache myself, so I did, from eating one of the bars!” he told him. “Without allowing Mr Smith time to reply, Horrible Horace continued, he said, “They were putting other things with the rest of the treats and sweets, to give those that eat them ghastly boils, spots and pimples!”

  Stroking his beard thoughtfully again, Mr Smith
said, “And you think these dreadful things are in the sweets and treats that I sell in my shop?”

  “Yes, yes,” he replied, “they must be! It’s the Imps, I tell you, the Imps! Come with me to the hill in the quarry and I will show you!” he promised.

  Later, at the top of the hill in the abandoned quarry, Horrible Horace and his friends, accompanied by the shopkeeper, Mr Smith, was unable to find even one piece of chocolate, crisp or liquorice there.

  “Are you sure this is where it happened?” Mr Smith asked Horace.

  “Yes, yes, I am positive!” he insisted. “They came down from a big, dark, tumultuous cloud like that one over there,” he said, pointing skyward.

  They looked up at the huge cloud directly above them.

  “Oh, like that one...” Mr Smith answered.

  “I’m out of here!” Horace told them, and then he ran down the hill as fast as his legs would carry him.

  Lifting a hand, Mr Smith tested for rain. “It’s beginning to rain,” he said to the three boys.

  “Perhaps we had better leave, in case we get wet,” Meddling Maurice teased.

  “Ow! That hurt!” Tinkering Tommy wailed.

  “What hurt you?” the old man enquired.

  “Something hit me on the head,” he explained.

  Leaning down, Mr Smith picked something up from the ground. “Showing it to Tommy, he said, “This is what hit you.”

  Inspecting it, Tommy said, “It’s a twig, I think.”

  “Show it to me, Mr Smith,” said Cheeky Charlie.

  “Is it really a twig?” Meddling Maurice asked the old man.

  “It looks like a twig,” Mr Smith replied.

  “What’s that smell?” asked Cheeky