by Denis Byrne
DANNY DEMPSEY
AND THE
UNLIKELY ALLIANCE
Denis Byrne
ORIGINAL WRITING
© 2011 DENIS BYRNE
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and
retrieval systems—without the prior written permission of the author.
978-1-908477-19-4
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the National Library.
Published by ORIGINAL WRITING LTD., Dublin, 2011.
Printed by CLONDALKIN GROUP, Clonshaugh, Dublin 17
For my wife Una, my children, Deirdre, Ann and Liam,
my good friend and mentor, Declan Cahill, whose
invaluable pep-talks have kept me going over the years.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Epilogue
CHAPTER 1
Danny couldn’t understand how he’d lost control of the situation. His mind had almost gone blank. As though most of his brain cells had suddenly been deleted by some unknown force. And strive though he did, he couldn’t even move. He was taking Charlie for a walk at the time. And hadn’t really been expecting to encounter anyone at that hour of the morning, therefore hadn’t bothered to instruct Charlie to transform into some less fearsome looking creature until he’d had his exercise.
As he was passing the Pearson house, Mrs. Pearson opened the front door to collect her early morning milk. Danny groaned to himself. Of all the people in the entire town, she was about the last one he’d have wished to see right now. At least once a month, she complained to the local Garda station about him and his animal compound. Not to mention the ramshackle shack beside it in which he lived. She wanted both of them closed down. Mrs. Pearson maintained that it lowered the tone of the neighbourhood, so she was forever pestering the police about it. So far, she hadn’t been successful, but this latest episode might strengthen her case.
The chain-linked leash which held the thick leather collar around Charlie’s neck was torn from Danny’s grasp before he knew it. Then Charlie was scuttling across the road, heading straight in Mrs Pearson’s direction. Normally, all Danny had to do was issue a command and Charlie would immediately turn into a harmless looking cocker spaniel with innocent brown eyes, or sometimes into a cuddly koala bear who melted people’s hearts the minute they laid eyes on it.
On this occasion, though, Danny’s brain had all but shut down. He tried to shout, but there was something the matter with his voice-box. Nothing emerged whatsoever. He knew Charlie was only trying to throw a scare into Mrs. Pearson for all the complaints she’d made about Danny in the past. What was worrying him more than anything else at the moment, though, was that he’d somehow been rendered powerless to order Charlie to give over his shenanigans. When he tried to move, he discovered his feet were stuck to the ground. There was something very strange happening to him.
Then he saw what he reckoned must be the cause of his dilemma. Mr. Pearson had the bedroom window open. He was in his pyjamas. He had something resembling a television remote control in his hand, and was pointing it directly at Danny. Evidently an immobiliser of some sort. Below the window, Mrs. Pearson was trapped. The front door had banged shut behind her.
Mr. Pearson continued to train the beam on Danny as he dangled across the window ledge, determined not to miss what was going on down below. He was set on enjoying this opportunity that had presented itself to see his wife getting a bit of a fright. He didn’t want to see anything really bad happen to her. But, as she could be somewhat domineering at times, he reckoned it would be no harm to let her know how it felt to be on the receiving end for a change.
But Mrs. Pearson didn’t appear to be all that bothered yet that Charlie was taking a few practice snaps at the empty air with his huge jaws. She’d convinced herself she was imagining it all and that just as soon as she blinked, Charlie would disappear. But he didn’t.
Mrs Pearson blinked several more times before she began to get worried. Fortunately for her, for the moment anyway, Charlie didn’t seem to be in any hurry to close in on her. He was actually showing off a bit, displaying his ferocious molars, even taking the time to let her know how effective they were by levelling the foliage on the sides of the hedge that surrounded the garden. It was a while since it had been cut, and there were twigs sticking out here and there. Charlie was completing the task, trimming it neatly as he moved along its length.
Danny was hoping Mr. Pearson might become distracted by what was happening, resulting in the beam trained on him being diverted elsewhere. No such luck. Mr. Pearson was hanging on grimly to the sill, while still ensuring Danny remained unable to interfere.
Mrs. Pearson was becoming more and more nervous at this juncture. Charlie was moving closer to her, swallowing the severed vegetation as though it were an appetiser, making Mrs. Pearson begin to think that perhaps he had her in mind as his main meal when he did get within striking distance. He wasn’t in any great hurry either, seeing as he knew Mrs. Pearson had no escape route now that the door had closed behind her.
‘Come on!’ Mr. Pearson commenced to call from the bedroom window, enjoying the show, even though the last thing he wanted to see was Mrs Pearson disappearing down Charlie’s gullet. ‘Get on with it, you stupid brute!’ He had a kind heart, and he thought that if the worst came to the worst, he’d be able to stop the monster in its tracks with his trusty remote control. At least, he hoped he would.
‘Dermot!’ Mrs. Pearson somehow found her voice, despite her anxiety. ‘How dare you! Calling that lovely animal a stupid brute? The very idea!’
Mr. Pearson ignored her. ‘Leave that hedge alone, you horrible scaly monster’, he shouted. ‘I’ll even it out later myself.’
Danny groaned inwardly again, still being incapable of doing a thing about the situation. If there was anything that annoyed Charlie more than being addressed the way Mr. Pearson was now doing, Danny didn’t know what it might be. Having such a close affinity with animals made Danny instinctively know exactly what did and didn’t go down well with them. And he knew being called a scaly monster, despite the fact that that was exactly what he was, definitely wouldn’t improve Charlie’s mood, especially at this hour of the morning.
Charlie ceased his hedge trimming, gulping down what remained in his mouth, then glared up at Mr. Pearson, his angry eyes all but out of their sockets like a couple of green ping-pong balls. This wasn’t going well at all, Danny told himself. He really should either have taken Charlie for his walk much earlier than he had, or ordered him to transform into a squirrel or someth
ing nice like that.
‘He’s only beautiful!’ Mrs Pearson continued, doing her best to overcome her nerves, as well as trying to flatter Charlie into taking her off his menu. Personally, she thought he was the ugliest looking brute she’d ever laid eyes on. And those teeth! Oh, my God, she thought, they’re like spikes! ‘Dermot!’, she screeched at the top of her voice. ‘Come down this second and open the door!’
But Mr. Pearson wasn’t listening. He was frantically trying to close the bedroom window before Charlie got any closer to him, the sight of the beast scaling the pebble-dashed wall being responsible for him forgetting all about freezing it in its tracks with his remote control. Charlie, as Danny had feared, had taken exception to the insulting remarks Mr. Pearson had thrown down at him.
There was perspiration rolling down Mr. Pearson’s forehead as he struggled to secure the catches in place. This was ridiculous, he was telling himself. Alligators can’t climb walls. But Charlie wasn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill alligator. He was the only alligator on earth who could transform into just about anything. And he could also make adjustments to himself if they were needed.
Now, he merely twitched his ear and suction-cups were brought into action. They materialised exactly where he required them, right on the soles of his tough claws. He clung to the wall and eased himself upwards, determined to show Mr. Pearson the error of name-calling where gifted amphibians such as himself were concerned.
Mr. Pearson was no longer concerned with maintaining the invisible beam of his gadget on Danny. He was far too busy ensuring that the window was firmly locked against this scary creature easing its way up the wall towards him. He was praying that it hadn’t the intelligence to smash its way through the window and devour him. One way or the other, he wasn’t going to take the chance.
He tossed the immobiliser on the bed and headed for the bathroom, locking himself inside. He cocked his ear for the sound of shattering glass, pleading more fervently than he ever had before in his life, calling on every saint he could think of to make the brute fall off the wall before it reached the window.
As soon as Danny realised he could move, he shot across the road and ordered Charlie to come down at once. Charlie had inverted himself, his powerful tail pointing upwards now, preparing to give the locked window a few swishes to reduce it to matchwood and splintering glass before scampering inside to seek out Mr. Pearson and teach him a lesson. He looked very disappointed when he heard Danny forbidding him to carry on with what he considered was his perfectly justified actions. He’d certainly have liked to introduce himself personally to the man who’d been insulting him the way he had. A couple of threatening growls would have done nicely to remind him to be more thoughtful in the future. But once Danny gave the order, there was nothing for it but to do as he was bidden. What Danny told him to do, Charlie did without hesitation.
All Mrs. Pearson heard Danny say was something like:
‘cfricken jammtinin croxxilm immlediaium!’
She stood there with her mouth agape, staring at him, absolutely convinced now that she’s been right all along about Danny Dempsey being totally insane. The boy was speaking gibberish, the terrifying brute she’s been convinced was going to eat her was obediently making its way down the wall of her house, looking shamefaced as it descended, and the front door was still locked behind her. She wondered if she was perhaps still in bed and dreaming the whole thing.
Whether she was or not, Mrs. Pearson continued to watch anxiously, not at all sure what on earth was going on, but somehow realising that crazy though the Dempsey boy undoubtedly was, he seemed to be in control of the situation. The brute appeared decidedly more docile now as it reached the ground and meekly made its way to where Danny was waiting. Danny looked down at Charlie, shaking his head in disapproval, saying all sorts of things in a language Mrs. Pearson had never heard before.
Although Mrs. Pearson couldn’t understand what Danny was saying, she knew by his voice he was chastising Charlie. She sometimes used the same tone herself when she was scolding her husband for something or other.
Mr. Pearson was still locked in the bathroom. He had his ear cocked anxiously, hardly daring to breathe, having no idea whether or not at any second the door would be smashed to smithereens, and he’d find himself being dragged from his hiding place to be eaten alive.
A few seconds later he heard the letterbox being shoved open, then Mrs. Pearson shouting through it to come down and let her in before she was torn limb from limb. On hearing this, Mr Pearson’s natural kind-heartedness came to the fore. He gingerly unlocked the bathroom door, poked his head nervously around it, and scanned the landing in all directions. Nothing. Not a scary scale or a terrifying set of teeth in sight. He crept back into the bedroom, glancing inside first to make absolutely sure the brute wasn’t lurking there to catch him by surprise. Though still shaking like a leaf, Mr. Pearson unlocked the bedroom window and peered downwards.
He was relieved at what he saw. Despite the fact that he could still hear Mrs. Pearson’s voice ascending from below, he’d been hoping against hope that the brute wouldn’t be responsible for anything more than giving her a decent fright. He was pleased to see there wasn’t a sign of a half-chewed limb anywhere, nor so much as a single bloodstain on the garden path.
The scene Mr. Pearson now saw was Danny Dempsey standing on the footpath outside the house, patting an adorable little lamb on the head. There was an enormous leather collar attached to a chain-link leash around the lamb’s neck, almost resulting in it keeling over, but the Dempsey boy was presently in the process of removing it. When he’d done so, he lifted the lamb up into his arms and cuddled it like a baby.
Mr. Pearson couldn’t believe his eyes. He pinched himself to make sure he was awake, then stuck his head as far out the window as he dared, eyeing the street in all directions. There was no sign of the monster anywhere. From his vantage point, he had a clear view of the entire street, yet still couldn’t see properly what was going on in his own front porch. Mr. Pearson leaned out further to ensure Mrs. Pearson was all right but, in his anxiety, overdid it somewhat. Then he overbalanced.
He fell headfirst into his beloved monkey-puzzle tree, his limbs whirling in all directions just before he made contact with it, then was bounced about the springy branches like a pinball, before being catapulted up into the air, finally landing half-buried in the surrounding hedge Charlie had so thoughtfully trimmed earlier.
His undignified descent did nothing to improve either Mr. Pearson’s or the hedge’s appearance. When he managed to extricate himself, his pyjama top was in shreds. Not only that, but Mrs. Pearson was bearing down on him to give him a piece of her mind, her dressing gown flapping behind her akin to the wings of an avenging angel.
On seeing her, her dazed husband took to his heels, bare feet crunching on the gravel driveway as he made for the street, yelping every time he trod on a sharp stone. Mrs Pearson, despite being considerably more obese than her rake of a husband, took after him in wobbly pursuit. But Mr. Pearson was now merely a speck in the distance, heading for a new world record, his tattered pyjama top having detached from his fleeing form, sailing high in the air behind him like a tattered kite flying madly out of control.
‘It’s not funny, Charlie,’ Danny told the little cuddly lamb in his arms, who was grinning from ear to ear at the spectacle of Mrs. Pearson’s generously proportioned backside wobbling like a giant jelly as she tried in vain to catch her husband. ‘Mrs. Pearson won’t let something like this go without creating another big fuss.’
Even while reprimanding Charlie, though, Danny was having great difficulty preventing a smile developing on his own face.
CHAPTER TWO
Mr. and Mrs. Pearson arrived at their local police station at three o’clock that very same day. Mr. Pearson was limping, but this didn’t prevent Mrs. Pearson from keeping a firm grip on his elbow as they approached the reception area, where a young Garda viewed their arrival. He’d been on the receiving en
d of this particular lady’s rudeness on several previous occasions, and it hadn’t ever served to improve his humour one iota. He wished that he was elsewhere right now. Tackling armed criminals with his bare hands would have been preferable to facing the lady now bearing down on him. He was thankful for the wire-mesh frontage which separated him from Mrs. Pearson, who was towing her unfortunate husband in her wake.
‘Come along, Dermot!’ Mrs. Pearson barked, despite the fact that Mr. Pearson was almost airborne in her slipstream by this stage. ‘And for heavens sake, stop dithering. You’re always dithering!’
‘Mrs. Pearson!’ Garda Harrington murmured in a polite enough way, as she ground to a halt at Reception, releasing her spouse as she did so, whose momentum caused him to collide with her generous girth and bounce backwards in a heap on the floor. ‘To what do we owe the pleas--’
‘Now listen here, young man!’ Mrs Pearson said, before Harrington could complete his question. ‘I want to speak to the Superintendent, and I want to speak to him now! I have a very serious complaint to make. Isn’t that right, Dermot?’ She turned just in time to see Mr. Pearson picking himself off the floor. ‘For heaven’s sake, what on earth are you doing down there? Can’t you do anything right?’
Harrington muttered something to himself.
‘What are you babbling about, young man?’ Mrs. Pearson barked. ‘What’s keeping you? Haven’t I just told you who I wish to speak to? And be quick about it, if you please!’
Harrington sighed softly as he turned his back on her, rounded a corner into a corridor. He rapped on a door upon which the black lettering on the frosted glass portion of it proclaimed it to be the private domain of Superintendent Charles Clifford. Harrington stood there patiently, observing the ritual he’d observed on innumerable previous occasions.
*
His very first encounter with the Superintendent was about a month or so after he’d graduated. It was only on the second day after he’d been assigned to this particular Garda station, which he now knew every nook and cranny of, and he’d foolishly opened the door to the Superintendent’s office immediately after rapping on it. He was both startled and embarrassed at what had met his eyes on that occasion.
