A Present from Aunt Agatha
by Lynne Roberts
Copyright Lynne Roberts 2014
ISBN 0-9582705-2-X
Chapter 1 – Happy Birthday
Chapter 2 – Snakes Alive
Chapter 3 – In Harmony
Chapter 4 – In the Dark
Chapter 5 – All at Sea
Chapter 6 – Table Manners
Chapter 7 – Once Upon a Time
Chapter 8 – Happily Ever After
Chapter 9 - Howzat
Chapter 10 – Hero Worship
Chapter 11- On Reflection
Chapter 12 – Having Kittens
Chapter One. Happy Birthday
Ryan’s Aunt Agatha was odd. She wasn’t a real aunt, as Ryan’s mother hastened to assure her friends; just a distant relation of some kind. No one was quite sure how old she was, but at every family gathering there she was. Aunt Agatha wore men’s trousers – long before women wore trousers of their own – and a shabby fur coat from some long-dead species of animal. No one had ever seen her without the coat, even in the summer. Aunt Agatha seemed both impervious to heat and cold, as she fixed her faded blue eyes on something only she could see and cackled gently to herself.
‘Why do we always have to ask Aunt Agatha?’ Ryan’s older sister Tracey had demanded.
‘Because she’s family,’ her mother replied firmly.
‘But she’s seriously weird,’ complained Tracey. ‘She’s so old.’
‘Now then, that’s enough. She can’t help being old; it comes to us all with time. I know she’s not exactly...’ Mrs Hughes faltered, trying to avoid using the word ‘normal.’ ‘Anyway,’ she concluded briskly, ‘she comes to all the family gatherings and that is that.’
It was Ryan’s birthday. He was turning eleven on Saturday and having a party tea. The joy of anticipation was dulled by the realisation that Aunt Agatha was invited. ‘It’s not fair,’ Ryan complained bitterly to Tracey, ‘how can I enjoy myself when every time I look up I see her staring at me. She looks like an old witch.’
‘It would be useful if she was,’ commented Tracey. ‘You could get her to make you some magic spells.’
‘It’s not likely to happen. You know Aunt Agatha doesn’t do anything for anybody,’ replied Ryan gloomily. ‘She doesn’t even give us decent presents.’
‘Last year she gave me a teaspoon for my birthday,’ Tracey said bitterly. ‘I reckon she pinched it from the café by the station. Perhaps you’ll get the cup and saucer to go with it.’
‘It’s not even like a proper birthday without a party with games and stuff. I can’t see Aunt Agatha playing musical chairs.’ He and Tracey giggled together.’
‘You could have had a party if you wanted to,’ Tracey protested.
‘What’s the use. No one would come. Now that Daniel has moved away I haven’t got a best friend any more and I hardly know any of the boys at school. I wish I could have gone to Greenwood with all the others instead of Sunnyridge.’
‘Sunnyridge is a great school and you should be pleased to go there. Anyway, since they changed the zoning you couldn’t go to Greenwood even if you wanted to.’
‘Oh, I know, I know, it’s just harder than I thought it would be to make friends, that’s all, ’ complained Ryan.
‘Poor little you.’
Tracey made a face at him and Ryan promptly tickled her in the ribs in a mock fight, which occupied both of them satisfactorily until it was time for lunch.
Saturday was fine and sunny. Ryan was delighted with the presents from his family. His parents gave him a huge electronic workbox full of fascinating pieces of wire and transistors. There was also an instruction booklet on how to create a variety of projects. He was pleasantly surprised to get a new cricket ball from Tracey and decided to postpone his experiment on her bedroom door handle, which would give her an electric shock whenever she touched it.
‘Now you’ll be able to build things to your heart’s content,’ said his father, ‘and you can leave my things alone.’ He turned a stern look on Ryan who guiltily remembered taking his father’s calculator apart some days earlier.
‘I put your calculator back together again,’ he protested.
‘Oh, you put it back together again, I’ll give you that,’ replied his father, ‘only now it doesn’t work properly. Instead of two plus two equalling four, it’s just as likely to equal seven hundred and five.’
‘Perhaps I’ll learn a bit more now you’ve given me this electronics set,’ suggested Ryan hopefully.
‘Just don’t touch my hair dryer,’ threatened Tracey
‘Come on, it's Ryan’s birthday. Lets not give him a hard time,’ said his mother. ‘Come and help me with the food Tracey. Ryan, you can help your father bring out the picnic chair and tables. We can all eat outside then we don’t have to worry about making a mess.’
The rest of the day passed in a pleasurable mixture of practising bowling the cricket ball against the passion fruit vine, and soldering together small pieces of wire and switches.
‘Ryan,’ called his mother, ‘Aunt Agatha’s here.’
‘Blast!’ said Ryan under his breath. ‘I’d better get it over with,’ he muttered, and dutifully went across the room to meet Aunt Agatha.
‘Heh heh,’ cackled Aunt Agatha. ‘Eleven eh? I guess you think you’ve really grown up now.’
There was no answer Ryan could make to this. He forced a smile and mumbled thanks as Aunt Agatha thrust a pen at him.
‘Happy birthday. Thought you might enjoy this,’ she leered.
‘A pen,’ said Ryan in disgust as he made his way back to the table where Tracey was filling bowls with potato crisps. ‘It’s not even a good one, just a plain black ballpoint.’
‘At least its more use than a teaspoon,’ hissed Tracey. ‘Quick, smile, she’s staring at you again.’
Ryan tossed the pen on top of his dressing table in his bedroom as he ran past, and quickly joined his family for the lighting of the candles on the birthday cake. When it was time to make a wish Ryan closed his eyes tight.
‘I wish I could find another good friend like Daniel to do exciting stuff with,’ he thought. He opened his eyes to see Aunt Agatha staring intently at him and hastily looked away as he cut the cake in slices.
Ryan forgot about the pen – it lay buried under an accumulation of socks, overdue library books, half-made model planes, and unfinished electronic projects. One day his mother gave a cry of exasperation and tidied his room.
‘You know you never get around to it,’ she explained defensively when Ryan fixed her with an accusing stare as he returned from cricket practise to an unfamiliar room.
‘But that’s my stuff, Mum. Its important. I liked it there.’
‘I haven’t thrown anything away,’ explained his mother patiently. ‘I have simply put everything where it belongs.’
‘I’ll never find anything now,’ moaned Ryan, as he kicked his shoes off into the corner
‘Try and keep it tidy at least for a few days,’ pleaded his mother. ‘I’m sure its not healthy living in such a pigsty. At least you now have a clean tidy space to do your homework in.’
‘Yeah, right,’ muttered Ryan
That evening when his parents went to their weekly tennis game he defiantly lay on the living room floor to do his homework. He completed his maths while watching Pokemon on TV, then sighed with disgust as the news came on. He switched it off and gloomily turned to his English homework. ‘Write a paragraph about a powerful emotion and how it affects you’. Ryan sat looking blankly at the paper hoping desperately for information. Nothing leapt to mind. He stared out he window at the dark trees against the sky. Nope – nothing there either. Ryan let his eye
s wander to the curtains and the looped cords holding them back. They were twisted dark green and gold against the twilight darkness outside. They looked a little like snakes curled at either side of the window.
‘Hmm, snakes. I could write about snakes. I know, fear. That’s an emotion. People are scared of snakes.’ He picked up his pen to write and found to his disgust that it sputtered out after a couple of words.
With a growl of annoyance he stamped down the hallway to his bedroom and grabbed the pen Aunt Agatha had given him for his birthday. ‘I guess it will come in handy after all,’ Ryan muttered.
His heart pounded in his chest. He could feel the hairs on his arms standing up as he broke out into a cold sweat. There they were in front of him – the snakes. Slithering out of the trees they came, heads turning and forked tongues darting as they sinuously slithered towards him. He was terrified. Unable to move he sat there as their diamond bright eyes pierced his with penetrating hunger.
‘That should do it,’ thought Ryan with satisfaction. ‘I'll name it Fear.’ He looked up and his mouth dropped open. He shook his head. ‘I must be imagining things,’ he muttered. ‘For a moment, it looked like those curtain cords were moving.’ He blinked and jumped up. He was right. The cords were moving. They slowly unwound themselves from the curtains and to Ryan’s astonishment they curled down to the ground in a fluid motion. Their tasseled ends raised into the air and started to turn like snakes’ heads. Looking for him! With a strangled yelp Ryan ran for the door. He slammed it behind him and tore down the hallway straight into Tracey's room.
‘Get out,’ said Tracey automatically. She was sprawled on her bed reading a book. ‘Get out’, she repeated without looking up.
‘Help, help Tracey. The curtain cords are alive. They’ve turned into snakes!’
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