‘You two boys can leave my class,’ he choked. ‘And if those sums are not all finished, CORRECTLY, by tomorrow morning, you will both be expelled from the school.’
5
It was no good trying to explain. He wouldn’t believe me. And he might say ‘no’ again at any minute. We walked sadly out of the room and into the yard. We made for the portable classroom. Rastus was still there – in a trance. I put him under my arm and we started walking home. It was raining and water dripped down our backs.
‘Listen,’ I said to Splinter. ‘I have to put you into a trance. To stop you going into your chicken act every time I say “no”.’
I tried to stop myself saying the last word. ‘No.’ Too late. Splinter started to scratch around on the footpath. Clucking and pecking. A couple of snails were making their way across the footpath.
Splinter was hungry.
He took a snail between his teeth and hit it on the ground. Then he swallowed it in one gulp. He did the same to another and another. ‘Oh, no,’ I yelled. Splinter was eating live snails. He looked around for more.
I had to do something. Quick. Before the thirty seconds were up. ‘When I count to three,’ I yelled. ‘You will be your old self again. You will not be a chook when anyone says “no”.’ Then I added something else, just to be on the safe side. ‘You will not remember anything about being a chook.’ I took a deep breath. ‘One, two, three.’
It worked straight away. Better than I thought. Splinter blinked. And winked. He rubbed his eyes. ‘What happened?’ he asked.
I didn’t get a chance to answer him. Rastus flapped out of my arms and squawked crossly. He was his old self again. ‘Rastus came out of his trance when I counted to three,’ I shouted. ‘It was the numbers. He understands numbers.’
Rastus looked up at me as if to agree. Then he pecked the ground three times.
Poor old Splinter wasn’t interested in the chook. He waved the sheets of sums in my face. ‘We have to do all of these by tomorrow,’ he groaned. ‘Or we’re dead meat. My parents will murder me if I’m expelled from school.’
‘Come round to my place after tea,’ I said. ‘We’ll stay up all night and work on them.’
Splinter walked home. He dragged his feet as he went. I knew how he was feeling. And it was all my fault.
6
Mum and Dad were going out that night and I had to mind the baby. ‘Mum,’ I said. ‘Splinter and I have to do homework. I can’t mind the baby.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Mum. ‘She’ll be asleep. You just want to play records. Homework? That’ll be the day.’ She went off laughing loudly to herself. I couldn’t tell her about the sums. Or being expelled if we didn’t finish them. It would be like throwing wood on a bushfire.
The baby was asleep in her bassinet. She was only eighteen months old. But boy was she fat. She’d only just started to walk. She spent all day eating.
‘Here’s Splinter,’ said Mum. She showed him into the lounge room. ‘Make sure you don’t make too much noise.’ She kissed me goodbye even though Splinter was there. Talk about embarrassing.
The baby snored away making sucking noises. We sat down at the table and tried to work out the answer to the first sum. It was something about water running into a bath at two litres a minute and out of the plug at half a litre a minute. You had to work out how long it would take to fill the bath.
‘Strike,’ said Splinter. ‘How do you do it?’
‘Search me,’ I said. I looked at all the other sums. There were fifty altogether. Real hard ones.
‘We’ll never do it,’ said Splinter.
My heart sank. I knew he was right. Tomorrow we would be expelled from school. We tried and tried for about an hour. But it was no good. We couldn’t even work out one answer.
7
Splinter suddenly threw the papers on the floor. ‘I’m sick of this,’ he said. ‘We might as well do something else.’
This is when Splinter had his brainwave. ‘I was watching this show once,’ he said. ‘About a hypnotist. He could take people back in time. To earlier lives.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
He stared at me. ‘Well, this bloke reckoned that everyone has lived before. Only you can’t remember it. When you die, you get born again as someone else. If you were really good you might end up being born as a king or something. If you were bad in a past life you might come back as a rat.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ I said.
Splinter was always wanting an adventure. ‘Let’s give it a try,’ he said. ‘You hypnotise me and see if I can tell you about an earlier life.’
I didn’t want to do it. We were in enough trouble already. But in the end Splinter talked me into it.
‘You are feeling sleepy,’ I told him. Straight away Splinter started to nod off. I was getting better and better at this hypnotism lurk. ‘You are going back,’ I went on. ‘Back to your earlier life. You are going back twenty years. It is the fifth of April at eight o’clock. Who are you?’
There was a long silence. Splinter had his eyes closed. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there. It wasn’t working.
Then something creepy happened. It made the hairs stand up on the top of my head. Splinter opened his mouth and spoke in a slow, deep voice. It wasn’t his voice. It was the speech of a man. ‘I am John Rivett,’ he said.
It was amazing. I had taken him back in time. To an earlier life. I asked him what he did for a job.
‘Fireman,’ he said loudly.
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-two.’ He was answering my questions very seriously. I wanted to know more. This is when I made my big mistake. ‘What are you doing now?’ I asked. ‘At this very minute?’
‘Fire,’ Splinter shouted. ‘No time to talk. Must put out the fire.’ He sat bolt upright. His eyes were wild and staring. He ran over to the sink and filled up a jug of water. Then he threw it at the wall. It ran down Mum’s best wallpaper and onto the floor.
‘Stop,’ I yelled. But it was no good. Splinter was back in an earlier life. He thought the house was on fire. I grabbed him by the arm but he was too strong. He had the power of a grown man. He brushed me aside as if I was a baby and ran outside.
To get the hosepipe.
‘When I count to three . . .’ I shouted. But it was useless. He wasn’t listening. He dragged the hose into the lounge and started squirting the walls. And the sofa. And the carpet. The room was soon swirling with water. I tried to grab him but he was just too strong for me.
He kept shouting something about getting the baby out before the flames reached her. I grabbed the baby and ran into the back yard. Splinter had gone wild. He was wetting everything. He really thought the house was on fire. I had to stop him. But how? There was no one to help.
Or was there?
8
I stared down at the baby. It was sucking its knuckles and dribbling as usual. ‘Baby,’ I said. ‘You are feeling sleepy. You are going back to another life. It is ten years ago on the third of November. Who are you? What is your name?’
The baby did nothing for a minute or so. Then it sat straight up in its bassinet. It boomed at me with this enormous deep voice. ‘Lightning Larry,’ said the baby. ‘World Heavyweight Boxing Champion.’
‘Please help me,’ I said to the baby. ‘Stop that maniac
Splinter from flooding out the house.’
The baby jumped out of the bassinet and headed for the door. Splinter looked in amazement at the baby striding across the lawn. He didn’t want an infant to get into a house that he thought was burning down. He slammed the door. The baby let fly with an enormous kick and knocked the door off its hinges.
I groaned. The house was being wrecked. The baby strode across the room to Splinter. Her nappy waggled as she walked. She drew back her arm, gave an enormous leap, and punched Splinter fair on the jaw. He dropped like a felled tree. Out to it.
The baby picked Splinter up and held him above her head. She carried hi
m out to me and dumped him on the grass. ‘How’s that?’ she boomed.
It was scary listening to that enormous voice coming out of such a tiny mouth. The baby gave a wicked grin and held her hands up like a boxer in a ring. ‘Still the champ,’ she shouted.
Splinter was starting to come round. He sat up and rubbed his jaw. ‘When I count to three,’ I said to both of them. ‘You will forget everything that happened.’
And they did. The baby went back to being a baby and started to bawl. Splinter looked at the fractured door. ‘Gee,’ he said. ‘You’re in big trouble.’
And I was. Mum and Dad were furious when they got home. They wouldn’t stop going on about it. You know the sort of thing. On and on and on. They wouldn’t believe that the baby kicked the door down. Wouldn’t even let me start to explain about hypnosis. ‘These lies just make it worse, lad,’ said Dad.
Splinter was sent home in disgrace. I was sent to bed.
9
In the morning I woke up and hoped that it had all been a nightmare. But it hadn’t. The sheets of unanswered sums were still on the floor.
When I got to school Splinter and I would be expelled. Dad and Mum would blow their tops. Life wasn’t worth living.
I walked out of the door towards my doom. ‘Make sure you behave yourself at school,’ said Mum. I didn’t answer.
I went out to check on Rastus. I stayed with him for so long that I made myself late for school.
Maths was the first class as usual. Mr Spiggot was just getting started. I rushed in right at the last minute.
‘Right,’ said Mr Spiggot in a low voice. ‘Stand up, you two. Have you done your homework? Finished those sums?’
‘No,’ whispered Splinter.
‘Yes we have,’ I said. ‘We worked on them together.’
‘Okay, let’s see,’ said Mr Spiggot. He read out the first sum. The problem about the bath water. Then he looked at me for the answer.
‘Three minutes,’ I said. Mr Spiggot raised an eyebrow. I was right.
Mr Spiggot read out the next sum. It was about how many kilometres a car could travel in two days at a certain speed. ‘Five hundred and two,’ I said.
‘Correct,’ said Mr Spiggot. He read out all the sums. And I answered every one correctly. We were saved. You should have seen the look on Splinter’s face.
Well, that’s about all. We didn’t get expelled but I was grounded for a month by Mum for all the water damage.
Looking back on it now, I would have to say that using hypnotism is not a good idea. I’m never doing it again. Never. It caused too much trouble.
If you asked me what was the worst bit, I would say it was when Splinter ate the snails. That was terrible.
And the best bit? Well, that was probably when I stopped to check on Rastus on the way to school that day. It was a great idea to send him back to an earlier life. It turned out that the silly chook had been a Maths teacher in a previous existence. I just read him the problems and he pecked out the answers. As easy as anything.
But I’ll tell you what. Mr Spiggot’s a Maths teacher. He’d better watch out. I reckon he’ll probably be coming back as a flea next time around.
Mr Bush looked at the class. ‘Brian Bell,’ he said. ‘You can be the first one to give your History talk.’
My heart sank. I felt sick inside. I didn’t want to do it; I hated talking in front of the class. ‘Yes, Mr Bush without a shirt,’ I said. Sue Featherstone (daughter of the mayor) giggled. Slowly I walked out to the front of the class. I felt like death warmed up. My mouth was dry. ‘I am going to talk about my great great grandfather,’ I said. ‘He was a sailor. He brought supplies to Warrnambool in his boat without a shirt.’
Thirty pairs of eyes were looking at me. Sue Featherstone was grinning. ‘Why didn’t he wear a shirt?’ she asked. She knew the answer. She knew all right. She just wanted to hear me say it.
‘His name was Byron. People called him Old Ben Byron without a shirt.’
‘Why did they call him Old Ben Byron without a shirt?’ Sue asked with a smirk. ‘That’s a funny name.’
‘Don’t tease him,’ said Mr Bush. ‘He is doing his best.’
She was a mean girl, that Sue Featherstone. Real mean. She knew I couldn’t help saying ‘without a shirt’. After I had finished saying something I always said ‘without a shirt’. All my life I had done it – I just couldn’t help it. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know why; I just couldn’t stop myself. I had been to dozens of doctors. None of them knew what caused it and none of them could cure me. I hated doing it. Everyone laughed. They thought I was a bit weird.
I looked at Sue Featherstone. ‘Don’t be mean,’ I said. ‘Stop stirring. You know I can’t stop saying “without a shirt” without a shirt.’
The whole grade cracked up. A lot of the kids tried not to laugh, but they just couldn’t stop. They thought it was very funny. I went red in the face. I wished I was dead – and I wished that Sue Featherstone was dead too. She was the worst one in the form. She was always picking on me.
‘Okay, Brian,’ said Mr Bush. ‘You can do your talk on Wednesday. You might be feeling a bit better by then.’
I went and sat down. Mr Bush felt sorry for me. They all felt sorry for me. Everyone except Sue Featherstone, that is. She never thought about anyone except herself.
2
I walked home from school with Shovel. Shovel is my dog. He is called Shovel because he loves to dig holes. Nothing can stop him digging holes. He digs up old rubbish and brings it home and leaves it on the doorstep.
Once the man next door went fishing. He had a sack of mussels which he used for bait. When he got home he left them in the boot of his car and forgot about them. Two weeks later he found them – or I should say they found him. What a stink. Boy, were they on the nose! He had to bury them in his backyard. The next day Shovel dug them up and brought them home for me. He was always giving me presents like that. I didn’t have the heart to punish him; he meant well. I just patted him on the head and said, ‘Good boy without a shirt.’
Shovel was a great dog – terrific in fact. I am the first to admit that he didn’t look much. He only had one eye, and half of one ear was gone. And he was always scratching. That wasn’t his fault. It was the fleas. I just couldn’t get rid of the fleas. I bought flea collars but they didn’t work. I think that was because Shovel loved to roll in cow manure so much.
Apart from those few little things you wouldn’t find a better dog than Shovel. He was always friendly and loved to jump up on you and give you a lick on the face. Mum and I would never give him up. He was all that we had left to remember Dad by. Shovel used to belong to Dad once. But Dad was killed in a car accident. So now there was just me, Shovel and Mum.
When I reached home I locked Shovel in the backyard. It didn’t look much like a backyard, more like a battle field with bomb holes all over it. Shovel had dug holes everywhere. It was no good filling them in; he would just dig them out again. I went into the kitchen to get a drink. I could hear Mum talking to someone in the lounge. It was Mrs Featherstone (wife of the mayor). She owned our house. We rented it from her. She was tall and skinny and had blue hair. She always wore a long string of pearls (real) and spoke in a posh voice.
‘Mrs Bell,’ she was saying, ‘I’m afraid you will have to find another place to live. It just won’t do. That dog has dug holes everywhere. The backyard looks like the surface of the moon. Either you get rid of the dog or you leave this house.’
‘We couldn’t do that,’ said Mum. ‘Brian loves that dog. And it used to belong to his father. No, we couldn’t give Shovel away.’
Just then Shovel appeared at the window. He had something in his mouth. ‘There is the dreadful creature now,’ said Mrs Featherstone. ‘And what’s that in its mouth?’
I rushed into the room. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘It’s only Tibbles without a shirt.’
‘Tibbles?’ squeaked Mrs Featherstone. ‘What is Tibbles?’
‘Our ca
t,’ I told her. ‘It died six months ago and I buried it at the bottom of the yard without a shirt.’
Mrs Featherstone screamed and then she fainted. I don’t know what all the fuss was about. It was only a dead cat. I know that Tibbles didn’t look quite the same as when she was alive, but was that any reason to go and faint?
Anyhow, that is why we got kicked out of our house. And that is why we had to go and live in the cemetery.
3
When I say that we had to live in a cemetery I don’t mean that we lived in a grave or anything like that. No, we lived in a house in the middle of the cemetery. It was a big, dark old house. Once the caretaker lived there, but he was gone now and no one else wanted to live in it. That’s why the rent was cheap. It was all that we could afford. Mum was on the pension and we didn’t have much money.
‘You’ll be happy here,’ said the estate agent to Mum. ‘It’s very quiet. And it’s the cheapest house in town.’
‘I don’t think that anyone can be happy in a graveyard,’ said Mum. ‘But it will have to do for now. It’s all we can afford.’
The agent walked off to his car. He was smiling about something. Then he looked at Shovel. ‘I hope your dog doesn’t dig holes,’ he said. ‘It’s not a good idea for dogs that live in cemeteries to dig holes.’ He thought he had said something really funny. He was still laughing as he drove out of the gate.
‘Big joke without a shirt,’ I called out after him.
The next day we moved in. I had a little room at the top of the house. I looked out over the graves. I could see the sea close by. The cemetery was next to the beach – we just had to walk over the sand dunes and there we were at Lady Bay Beach.
I went up to my room and started to work on my talk for school. I decided to write the whole thing. That way I could make sure that I didn’t have any ‘without a shirt’s in it. I didn’t want to give Sue Featherstone the chance to laugh at me again. The only trouble was that the last time I tried this it didn’t work. I still said the ‘without a shirts’ anyway. Still, it was worth a try – it might work this time. This is what I wrote.
Unreal Collection! Page 29
