The Book of Magnificent Monsters

by Anna Fienberg

  ‘The demons never did find their way out of the Dragon’s Blood Tree, and as far as Tashi knows, they are still writhing about in the dark, roaring at each other.’

  ‘And so what happened to the Princess, the one like the evening star?’ asked Dad.

  ‘I was just getting to that,’ Jack replied. ‘Princess Sarashina and Tashi’s parents were almost finished their stew of dandelion roots when Tashi burst in the door. His family bombarded him with questions and the Princess was particularly interested in his demon-tricking method.

  “‘How did you find a way out of the Dragon’s Blood Tree?” she asked him admiringly.

  “‘Wise-as-an-Owl told me,” said Tashi. “He’s taught me a million things about herbs and plants. Look for the dragon’s tunnel at the centre of the trunk, he said, and follow it down till you see the light.”

  ‘Princess Sarashina was excited to hear this, and asked if Tashi could introduce her to Wise-as-an-Owl some time. Tashi agreed, and then he walked her down to the river where they found a boat to take her home.

  ‘The next day the boat returned, laden deep in the water with bags of rice and fruit and chickens, enough food to feed the village for the summer. And with the food there was a note saying “Thank you, Tashi” from the Emperor, and an invitation from the Princess for him to visit the palace.

  ‘That night, the villagers decorated Tashi with coloured streamers and carried him around the village on their shoulders. The feasting and laughter grew even louder as clouds blotted out the moon and the rains began to fall.’

  Mum and Dad lay on the grass with their eyes closed. They didn’t move. Jack looked at their faces. He prodded them.

  ‘We’re practising,’ said Mum.

  ‘We’re trying to still our minds,’ said Dad.

  ‘Look, there’s a bull ant!’ cried Jack, and Dad leapt up as if a bee had stung him.

  ‘Well, better be getting back to my gardenia,’ said Dad. ‘So when’s Tashi coming over, Jack? Maybe he could give me some advice about my plants. What do you think?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Jack. ‘I’ll go and ring him up.’

  ‘And I’ll make him some sticky rice cakes,’ said Mum. ‘In just a minute,’ she added, closing her eyes.

  THE MAGIC BELL

  ‘Look out, Tashi! Hide behind this tree, quick!’ Jack pulled Tashi down beside him.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Look, there.’ Jack pointed to the veranda of number 42. An old man leant over the balcony. He had wild curly hair and a cockatoo on his shoulder. He didn’t look very dangerous to Tashi. But then Tashi had seen a lot of evil and calamitous things in his time, it was true.

  ‘That’s Mr B.J. Curdle. He’s always pestering me,’ hissed Jack. ‘I’m just walking home from school, right—like now, minding my own business—and out dashes old Curdle, stopping me and asking how I am.’

  Tashi frowned. ‘What’s so terrible about that?’

  ‘Well, he makes these dreadful homemade medicines from plants in his garden, and he wants to try them out on me! Once, I felt sorry for him—his cockatoo had a limp—so I went in. Instead of lemonade he gave me this thick yellow stuff to drink. He said it was strengthening medicine. Yuk!’

  ‘And did it make you strong?’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding! That mixture made me weak as a baby—it tasted like mashed cockroaches. I felt like throwing up all the way home. The man’s a menace!’

  When the old man had gone back inside, and the two boys were walking home, Tashi said, ‘What you need is a Magic Warning Bell, like the one we had in my village. It rang whenever danger was near.’

  ‘Ooh, that would be handy. What did it look like?’

  ‘Well, it was very old and beautiful, the most precious thing we had in the village. When dragons came over the mountain it would ring out, and once, when a giant wandered near, its clanging was so deafening that even people working in the fields had time to escape. Lucky for me, it rang the day the River Pirate arrived.’

  Jack stopped on the path. ‘Oh, I remember him—he was that really fierce pirate you tricked with a bag of fake gold.’

  Tashi nodded. ‘I had to, or I’d have been carved up like a turkey. But I always knew when he discovered it he would come back to get me.’

  Jack shivered. ‘So what did he do?’

  ‘Well, it was like this,’ said Tashi. ‘I was in the village square getting some water from the well when the bell tolled softly. It seemed to be ringing just for me.

  ‘I stood there, frozen, trying to think. But all I could see in my mind was that Pirate, stroking the end of his sword. I sipped some water. That helped. I decided that the first place he’d look for me would be my house, so I dropped my bucket and ran to my cousin Wu, who lived high up on a hill overlooking the village.

  ‘From Wu’s front window I could see the River Pirate tying up his boat. Just the sight of him gave me the shivers. He was huge-the muscles in his arms were like boulders. I watched him stride along the jetty, turning into the road ... he was heading straight for my house! My mother told him she didn’t know where I was, but he banged about inside anyway, frightening her and my grandparents. He knocked a pot of soup off the fire and kicked over a table, then went charging about the village asking for me.’

  Jack kicked a stone ferociously. ‘They’d better not tell him where you were!’

  ‘Well, a few villagers had seen me running up to Wu’s house, but they all said they had no idea where I’d gone. Still, there was one little boy who didn’t understand the danger I was in. He skipped up to the River Pirate calling, “Do you want to know where Tashi is? Well—” but at that moment three large women sat on him.

  ‘“Well what?” growled the River Pirate.

  “‘Well so do we,” the women replied, and the Pirate scowled and hurried on. He searched all day, growing more and more angry. People ran into their houses and locked the doors, but he threw rocks at their windows and tore up their gardens. That night, on his way back to the boat, the River Pirate stole the Magic Bell.’

  ‘Uh no!’ cried Jack.

  ‘Oh yes!’ said Tashi. ‘The next morning, when they noticed that the bell was gone, the people were very upset. The Baron told everyone that it was my fault because I had tricked the River Pirate in the first place. People began to give me hard looks. They said that the bell had hung over the well since Time began and now, because of me, the village had lost its special warning. Some little children threw stones at me and their parents looked the other way. I felt so miserable I could have just sat down in a field and never got up.

  ‘So I went to see Wise-as-an-Owl, to ask his advice. He was busy at his workbench when I walked in, filling jars with herbs and plants.

  ‘“Ah, Tashi,” he smiled as I came in. He looked at me for a moment. “You’d better help yourself to some willowbark juice over there."’

  Jack shuddered. ‘What’s that? Does it taste like mashed cockroaches?’

  ‘No,’ said Tashi. ‘But it can cure headaches. I’ve learnt everything I know about plants and potions from Wise-as-an-Owl-he’s an expert on the medicine plants of the mountain and forest. So I told him yes, I would have a dose, because I did have a pounding headache and a terrible problem.

  ‘Of course Wise-as-an-Owl knew all about the River Pirate. He’d watched him stamping all over his herb garden out the front. “Go and face the villain, Tashi,” he told me. ” It will go better if you find him first.”

  ‘He gave me two packets of special herbs to keep in my pocket. “Wolf’s breath and jindaberry,” he said. “Remember what I’ve taught you and mind how you use them.”

  ‘I thanked him and looked around for the last time at the plants and jars and pots of dandelion and juniper boiling on the stove. Then I set out for the city at the mouth of the river. There I would find the River Pirate.

  ‘I walked for two days, and as I trudged through forests and waded through streams, I thought about what I should say to him. On the last
night, lying under the stars, I decided that I’d try to make a bargain with him. What I’d offer him would be fair, and would mean a big sacrifice for me!

  ‘I had no trouble finding the River Pirate down in the harbour. He was sitting at the end of the jetty with his black-hearted crew. You could hear them from miles away. They were dangling their legs over the side, passing a bucket of beer to each other and shouting and singing rude pirate songs at the tops of their voices. Every now and then they would tear great hunks of meat from a freshly roasted pig—stolen, you could be sure.’

  ‘“There you are, you treacherous young devil!” the River Pirate spluttered when he saw me, leaping up and showering my face with greasy gobbets of pig. He grabbed my arm and yanked me toward him. His hand flew to his sword.

  “‘Wait!” I cried. “Listen!” I took a deep breath to stop my voice from trembling. Suddenly I had terrible doubts that a River Pirate could care about people being fair or making sacrifices, but it was the only idea I’d had. “If I work for you for a year and a day,” I said boldly, “will you give back the bell?”

  ‘The River Pirate just laughed. He threw back his great bony head and roared, “I will keep you for ten years and a day—and the bell as well!” Then the crew grabbed me and tossed me into the boat.

  ‘By sunset we’d set sail. When the first star glittered in the sky, the cook told me to go down into the galley and start chopping mountains of fish and vegetables. And every day after that I had to do the same arm—aching jobs. The cook was spiteful and the work was hard and boring—except when it was frightening. Like the time another pirate ship attacked us.’

  ‘Enemy pirates?’ cried Jack. ‘What did you use as a weapon—your kitchen knife?’

  ‘Well,’ said Tashi, ‘it was like this. One moonless night, a swarm of bawling, yelling-for-blood pirates sprang onto our boat. They took us completely by surprise. Where could I hide? I glanced frantically around the boat and spied a big coil of rope. I scuttled over and buried myself in the rope just as the enemy Captain bounded up. He was barking orders and threats like a mad dog when he suddenly caught sight of the River Pirate. Swiping at the air with his sword, he gave a vicious battle cry—and tripped over me! Wah! I shivered when I looked up into his face, but he didn’t hesitate for a moment. He picked me up as if I were just a weevilly old crust and flicked me overboard.

  ‘Lucky for me there was a rope ladder hanging from the side of the boat. I grabbed it and swung down, clinging onto the last rung as I dangled in the black and icy water.

  ‘My fingers were stiffening with cold and it was hard to hang onto the fraying strands of rope. Something slithery kept twining around my legs! I kicked hard and looked down into the dark waves. A giant octopus was staring up at me, its tentacles groping for my ankle. Then, to my horror, I felt my shoe being sucked from my foot!

  ‘At that very moment, just when it seemed that my mother would never see her precious boy again, I heard the River Pirate and his men bellowing out their song of victory. I could hear the dreadful splash as enemy pirates were thrown over the side.

  ‘Oh, how wet and wretched I was when I climbed back into the boat. But all I got was the River Pirate’s ranting fury. “Why didn’t that mangy magic bell ring to warn us?” he shouted, as he wiped the blood of an enemy pirate from his eye.

  “‘It only rings for the place where it belongs,” I told him, and he scowled so deeply that his eyebrows met in the middle.

  ‘The next morning, I saw three pirates racing up to the deck to be sick over the side. By afternoon two more men and the cook looked quite green. They wobbled around as if their legs were made of noodles. As our village came into sight, I said to the River Pirate, “If I can cure your men of their sickness, will you let me go?”

  “‘No!” snarled the Pirate, but just then he bent over and clutched his stomach.

  “Aaargh, I’m dying ... Go on then, but be quick,” he gasped.

  ‘I slipped down to the galley where I had hidden my packets of medicine plants. Quickly I threw some into a pot and boiled them up.

  ‘The men only needed a few mouthfuls each before they stopped rolling about on the deck and sat up. One even smiled. The River Pirate was hanging over the side of the boat like a piece of limp seaweed, but he turned his head and begged for me to hurry.

  “‘And will you give me back the bell as well?” I asked him. The River Pirate ground his teeth. I tilted the pot a little. “I hope I don’t spill these last few spoonfuls,” I worried.

  “‘Ah, take the bell, take it. It doesn’t work anyway,” the River Pirate hissed.

  ‘And so that’s how I came back to the village with the magic bell.’

  Tashi looked at Jack and laughed. ‘Do you realise we’ve walked right past your house and mine?’

  ‘Well,’ said Jack, grinning, ‘come back to my place and have a glass of lemonade. Or we could always call in on Mr Curdle if you’d prefer ... But tell me, what happened when you got home?’

  ‘The villagers all crowded around, welcoming me and saying they were sorry for their harsh words. But when I took the bell out of the sack, there was a great shout and people threw their hats in the air. We hung the bell back on its hook over the well. And then—something that had never happened before—it gave a joyful peal!’

  ‘Gee,’ said Jack, ‘wasn’t it lucky that the pirates got sick so that they needed your medicine!’

  Tashi smiled. ‘I think Wise-as-an-Owl would tell you that luck had nothing to do with it. Sometimes medicines that make you sick are almost as useful as those that make you well.’

  ‘Aha!’ said Jack, giving Tashi a knowing look, and they leapt up the steps of Jack’s house, two at a time.

  ‘There’s a surprise for you in the garden,’ said Mum, when Jack and Tashi walked into the kitchen.

  ‘Good or bad?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Sometimes it’s hard to tell,’ sighed Mum, mysteriously.

  There was a loud bang from the garden, then a roar. Both boys jumped.

  ‘That could be a lion tamer with a gun,’ whispered Jack, peering out.

  ‘Or a war lord with a temper,’ said Tashi nervously. But he straightened his shoulders and went outside with his friend.

  A thump came from inside the shed, followed by a crash and a very bad word. The boys opened the door just as a big hot hairy creature shot out.

  ‘Uncle Joe! You’ve grown a beard!’ cried Jack.

  ‘You come back right now and put your tools away!’ came Dad’s voice from the shed. ‘Always the same, ever since we were kids!’

  ‘What were you doing in the shed?’ asked Tashi.

  Joe hugged the boys and put a hand on their shoulders. ‘I’m inventing an absolutely fantastic musical instrument for my dear friend Primrose. Unfortunately my hammer slipped and caught your father’s thumb.’

  ‘Have you come to stay?’

  ‘Well, a few days, that’s if …’

  ‘Then maybe you should get back in there,’ suggested Jack, ‘and help clean up.’

  When Joe had disappeared inside the shed, Jack grinned. ‘I like it when Uncle Joe comes to stay. But he never gives us much warning.’

  ‘In my experience,’ said Tashi, ‘surprises can be tricky things. Especially surprises with uncles in them.’

  ‘Oh, like that uncle of yours, Tiki Pu!’ frowned Jack.

  ‘Yes, he used to make me so angry—’

  ‘Wait a sec, tell it when Dad comes out. A story will put him in a good mood.’

  When everyone was sitting comfortably, and Dad had stopped muttering at Uncle Joe (even passing him the biscuits), Tashi began.

  ‘It was like this,’ he said. ‘One day I was so angry I thought I was going to explode! I ran out of the house, across the fields and into the forest—’

  ‘What made you so mad?’ asked Jack, his mouth full of biscuit.

  ‘Did someone go into your shed and mess with all your tools and hit your thumb and then run off?’ asked Dad. Joe h
id his face in his cup of tea. When he looked up, his beard was dripping.

  ‘No, it was worse than that,’ said Tashi. ‘My Uncle Tiki Pu had been up to his old tricks again. He wasn’t just annoying – no offence, Uncle Joe – he was dangerous. And this time, he put our whole family at risk.’

  ‘So what did he do?’ asked Uncle Joe.

  ‘He’s coming to that,’ said Dad. ‘Let him tell the story his way.’

  ‘I was only saying—’

  ‘Well, there I was,’ Tashi put in, ‘boiling with fury, running blindly, when suddenly I found myself at the entrance to a small cave.

  ‘The air was very still, and at my feet were the embers of a fire. Two logs still glowed red and their branches were furry with ash. As I watched, the ash beneath the logs began to stir. Flashes of colour glowed through the grey: red, gold, purple, emerald, like jewels. Was treasure buried under there?’

  ‘Well, was there?’ cried Joe.

  ‘Wipe your beard,’ said Dad. ‘Every time you shake your head, drops fall on my plate. In fact, why have you stopped shaving? You look like a werewolf.’

  ‘What was under the logs?’ asked Mum. ‘Treasure?’

  ‘No,’ said Tashi. ‘Or at least, not the usual kind. Something was moving in the embers. A bird with a tail like sunrise! I watched it step right out of the dying fire and preen itself.

  ‘“Oh, how beautiful you are!” I cried. “Why weren’t you burned in that fire?”

  ‘The bird looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. “I am a Phoenix,” he said calmly. “We Phoenix don’t burn. In fact, every five hundred years we are born again in flames.” He smoothed an emerald feather lovingly, turning this way and that to get a good view of himself. “Don’t you love the new me?”