OLD BEN BYRON
Old Ben Byron was my great great grandfather. He was the captain of a sailing ship. He sailed in with all sorts of goods for the town. He was one of the early settlers. This town is only here because of men like Ben Byron.
One day a man fell overboard. My great great grandfather jumped over to help him. The man was saved. But Old Ben Byron was swept away. He drowned. His body was never found.
I know this might seem a bit short for a talk at school. It is. But something happened that stopped me writing any more.
Shovel had been gone for some time; I was starting to worry about him. I hoped he wasn’t scratching around near any of the graves. I looked out the window and saw him coming. I ran downstairs and let him in. He ran straight up to my room and dropped something on the floor. It was a bone.
4
I picked up the bone and looked at it. It was very small and pointed – just one little white bone. I could tell it was old. I knew I had seen a bone like that somewhere before, but I just couldn’t think where. A funny feeling started to come over me. I felt lonely and lost, all alone. I felt as if I was dead and under the sea, rolling over and over.
My hand started to shake and I dropped the bone. I stared down at the bone on the floor. I was in bare feet and the bone had fallen right next to my little toe. Then I knew what sort of bone it was – it was a bone from someone’s toe. It was a human toe bone.
‘Oh no,’ I said to Shovel. ‘What have you done? Where have you been digging? You bad dog. You have dug up a grave. Now we are in trouble. Big trouble. If anyone finds out we will be thrown out of this house. We will have nowhere to live without a shirt.’
I put on my shoes and ran outside. The strange feeling left me as soon as I closed the bedroom door. I only felt sad when I was near the bone. Outside it was cold and windy. I could hear the high seas crashing on the other side of the sand dunes. ‘Show me where you got it,’ I yelled at Shovel. ‘Show me which grave it was without a shirt.’ Shovel didn’t seem to listen; he ran off over the sand dunes to the beach and left me on my own. I looked at all the graves. There were thousands and thousands of them. It was a very old cemetery and most of the graves were overgrown.
I started walking from one grave to the other trying to find signs of digging. I searched all afternoon. But I found nothing. I couldn’t find the place where Shovel had dug up the bone.
In the end I walked sadly back to the house. I didn’t know what to do with the bone. If anyone found it, there would be a terrible fuss. We would be forced to leave the cemetery and would have nowhere to live.
When I reached the house Shovel was waiting for me. He was wagging his tail. He looked pleased with himself. He was covered in sand, and in his mouth he had another tiny bone. ‘The beach,’ I shouted. ‘You found it at the beach without a shirt.’ I snatched the bone from Shovel. As soon as I touched the bone the same sad feeling came over me. I felt lost and alone. I wanted something but I didn’t know what it was.
It was another toe bone. I carried it up to my room and put it next to the other one. The feeling of sadness grew less. ‘That’s strange without a shirt,’ I said to Shovel. I picked up the second bone and put it outside the door. The feeling came back. It was very strong. I opened the door and put the two bones together again. I didn’t feel quite so sad. ‘These bones are not happy unless they are together,’ I said. ‘They want to be together without a shirt.’
5
I decided to have a serious talk to Shovel. I took his head between my hands. ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘You have to show me where you found these bones. I will have to fill in the hole. You can’t go digging up dead bodies all over the place. You just can’t without a shirt.’ Shovel looked at me with that big brown eye. I had the feeling that Shovel knew more about this than I did. He ran over to the door and started scratching at it. ‘Okay,’ I told him. ‘I’ll come with you. But first I will hide these bones without a shirt.’ I put the two toe bones in a drawer with my socks. They still felt sad. So did I. As soon as I closed the drawer the feeling went.
We headed off to the beach. It was blowing a gale. The sand blew into my eyes and ears. I didn’t know what to expect – maybe a big hole that Shovel had dug, with a skeleton in the bottom. Maybe a body washed up on the beach.
We climbed over the sand dunes and down to the shore. There was no one else on the beach. It was too cold. ‘Well,’ I said to Shovel, ‘show me where you got the bones without a shirt.’ He ran off into the sand dunes to a small hole. It was only as deep as my hand. There was no grave, just this small hole. I dug around with my hand but there were no other bones. ‘That’s good,’ I told Shovel. ‘There is no grave, and there is no body. Just two toe bones. Tomorrow I will bury them and that will be the end of it without a shirt.’
Shovel didn’t listen. He ran off to the other end of the beach. It was a long way but I decided to follow him. When I reached him he was digging another hole. He found two more toe bones. I picked them up and straightaway the sad, sad feeling came over me. ‘They want to be with the others,’ I said. ‘See if you can find any more without a shirt.’
Shovel ran from one end of the beach to the other. He dug about thirty holes. In each hole he found one or two bones; some of them were quite big. I found an old plastic bag on the beach and put the bones in it. By the time it was dark the bag was full of unhappy bones. I felt like crying and I didn’t know why. Even Shovel was sad. His tail was drooping. There wasn’t one wag left in it.
I started to walk up the sand dunes towards home. Shovel didn’t want to go; he started digging one more hole. It was a deep hole. He disappeared right inside it. At last he came out with something in his mouth, but it wasn’t a bone. It was a shoe – a very old shoe. It wasn’t anything like the shoes that you buy in the shops. It had a gold buckle on the top. I couldn’t see it properly in the dark. I wanted to take it home and have a good look at it.
‘Come on, Shovel,’ I said. ‘Let’s go home. Mum will be wondering where we are without a shirt.’ I picked up the bag and we walked slowly back to the house.
6
I put the two toe bones in the bag with the rest of them. Then I put the bag in my cupboard and shut the door. I felt much happier when the bones were locked away. They were unhappy and they made me unhappy. I knew what the trouble was: they wanted to be with all the other bones. I guessed that they were all buried in different places along the beach.
I looked at the shoe; it was all twisted and old. It had been buried in the sand dunes for a long time. I wondered whose it was. Then I noticed something – two initials were carved into the bottom. I could just read them. They were ‘B.B.’
‘Ben Byron,’ I shouted. ‘The bones belong to my great great grandfather without a shirt.’
I suddenly thought of something – Ben Byron’s shoe had reminded me. Tomorrow was Wednesday; I had to give my history talk at school. I groaned. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep worrying about it. And the more I worried the more nervous I would get. The more nervous I got the worse I would feel. The last time I gave a talk at school I got one out of ten. One out of ten. You couldn’t get much lower than that.
Then I had an idea – I would take along the shoe. I would tell everyone I had found Ben Byron’s shoe. That would make it interesting. I might even get three out of ten for my talk if I had the shoe. I put the shoe in my sock drawer and took the bag of bones out of the cupboard. I wanted to have a closer look at them.
I tipped the bones out into a pile on the floor. There were three long bones and a lot of small ones. The sad, lonely feeling came over me once more. I sat down on the bed and looked at the pile of sad bones. Then something happened that gave me a shock. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing – the bones were moving. They were slowly moving around the floor. The bones were creeping around each other like a pile of snakes.
The bones sorted themselves out. They all fitted together. They formed themselv
es into a foot and a leg. All the bones were in the right order. I had the skeleton of Ben Byron’s leg.
The leg didn’t move. It just lay there on the floor. I sat on the bed looking at it for a long time. I can tell you I was scared – very scared. But I couldn’t just leave the leg there; Mum might come in and see it. Anyway, it was creepy having the skeleton of someone’s leg lying on your bedroom floor. In the end I jumped up and swept all of the bones back into the bag and threw it into the corner of the room. Then I climbed into bed and put my head under the blanket. I tried to pretend that the bones weren’t there.
7
The next day I had to give my talk at school. It went worse than I thought. It was terrible. I stood in front of the class for ages without saying anything; I was so scared that my knees were knocking. The words just wouldn’t come out. ‘What’s up,’ said Sue Featherstone. ‘Haven’t you got any shirts today?’ A big laugh went up.
I managed to read the whole thing through to the end. I tried not to say anything else. I could feel it building up inside me – it was like a bomb waiting to go off. I kept my mouth closed tight but the words were trying to get out. My cheeks blew out and my face went red. ‘Look at him,’ laughed Sue Featherstone. ‘He’s trying not to say it.’
It was no good. The words exploded out. ‘Without a shirt.’
I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what to do. I grabbed the shoe. ‘This is Ben Byron’s shoe,’ I said. ‘It was washed ashore without a shirt.’
‘It is not,’ said Sue Featherstone. ‘It’s an old shoe that you found at the tip.’
Everything was going wrong. I would probably get nought out of ten for this talk. Then something happened that changed everything. A feeling of sadness swept over me. Everyone in the room felt it – they all felt sad. Then someone screamed. It was the leg – it was standing there at the door. It hopped across the room. My hands were shaking so much that I dropped the shoe. The leg hopped across the platform and into the shoe. It wanted the shoe.
Sue Featherstone looked at the skeleton leg and started shouting out, ‘Get rid of it. Get rid of the horrible thing.’
The leg started hopping towards her. It hopped right up onto her desk. She screamed and screamed. Then she ran for the door. Everyone else had the same idea – they all ran for the door at the same time. There was a lot of yelling and pushing. They were all trying to get out of the door at once. They were scared out of their wits.
The leg bones chased the whole class across the playground and down the street. I have never heard so much yelling and screaming in all my life.
I was left alone in the classroom with Mr Bush. He just sat there shaking his head. After a while he said, ‘I don’t know how you did it, Brian. But it was a good trick. I give you ten out of ten for that talk. Ten out of ten.’
‘Thanks, Mr Bush without a shirt,’ I said.
8
When I got home from school the leg was waiting for me. It was just standing there in the corner of my room; it didn’t move at all. But it was so sad and it made me sad. I felt as if I were a skeleton myself. I felt as if my bones were being washed away by the waves, as if they were being scattered along a long, sandy beach. I knew that this was what had happened to Ben Byron. His bones had been washed up and scattered along Lady Bay Beach.
I looked at Shovel. ‘We have to find the rest of the bones,’ I said. ‘This leg will never have peace until all the bones are together again. We have to find the rest of the bones and we have to find them now without a shirt.’
I took a spade and a sack and walked towards the beach. Shovel came with me and so did the leg. It hopped slowly behind us making a plopping sound as it came. It still had the shoe on. It was lucky that there was no one on the beach – they wouldn’t have believed their eyes if they had seen a boy, a dog and a skeleton leg walking along the beach. I could hardly believe it myself.
I didn’t know where to start looking. But the leg did. It hopped across the beach and stood still where it wanted us to dig. We spent all afternoon following the leg around and digging holes. In every hole we found some bones. I went as fast as I could; I wanted to get rid of the sad feeling. Tears were running down my face because I was so unhappy. Every time I found some more bones I put them in the sack. The bones were glad to be together; I could tell that. But they were still sad. They would not be happy until I found the last one.
After a long time I found the last bone. It was the skull. It was in a hole with an old shirt – a very old shirt. I had never seen one like it before. I put the skull and the shirt in the sack. Then I held open the top. The leg hopped into the sack with the other bones.
9
The feeling of sadness went as soon as the leg joined the other bones. The bones were happy, I was happy and so was Shovel.
‘Now,’ I said to Shovel. ‘We have a job to do. We have to bury all the bones in the same hole without a shirt.’
I carried the bag of happy bones to a lonely place in the sand dunes, and Shovel and I started to dig a hole. We worked at it for hours and hours. At last it was deep enough. I took the bag of bones and tipped them into the grave. They fell into a pile at the bottom; then they started to move. They slithered around at the bottom of the hole. I should have felt scared but I didn’t. I knew what was happening. The bones were joining up into a skeleton. After a while it was finished. The skeleton was whole. It lay still at the bottom of the grave looking up at me. It didn’t look as if it was at peace. There was something else – it wanted something else. I looked in the sack. The shirt was still there.
I threw the shirt into the hole. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I won’t bury you without a shirt.’
The bones started to move for the last time. The skeleton moved onto its side with the shirt under its head. It was in a sleeping position. It was very happy. Music seemed to come up out of the grave – silent music. I could hear it inside my head.
We filled in the grave and smoothed down the sand. I decided to say a few words; after all, it was a sort of a funeral. I looked out to sea. I could feel tears in my eyes. This is what I said: ‘Here lie the bones of Ben Byron. At peace at last. Beside this beautiful bay.’
Shovel looked up at me. He seemed to be smiling.
‘Hey,’ I yelled, ‘I didn’t mention a shirt. I didn’t say it.’
And I never did again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Paul Jennings phenomenon began with the publication of Unreal! in 1985. Since then, readers all around the world have devoured his books.
Paul Jennings has written one hundred stories and has been voted ‘favourite author’ over forty times by Australian children, winning every children’s choice award. The top-rating TV series Round the Twist and Driven Crazy are based on a selection of his enormously popular short-story collections such as Unseen!, which was awarded the 1999 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Best Children’s Book. In 1995 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to children’s literature and was awarded the prestigious Dromkeen Medal in 2001. Paul has sold more than 9 million books worldwide.
Little Squirt
Wunderpants
Without A Shirt
The Busker
Grandad’s Gifts
PAUL’S PICKS
ALSO BY PAUL JENNINGS
Unreal!
Unbelievable!
Quirky Tails
Uncanny!
Unbearable!
Unmentionable!
Undone!
Uncovered!
Unseen!
Tongue-Tied!
Paul Jennings’ Funniest Stories
Paul Jennings’ Weirdest Stories
Paul Jennings’ Trickiest Stories
The Cabbage Patch series
(illustrated by Craig Smith)
The Gizmo series
(illustrated by Keith McEwan)
The Singenpoo series
(illustrated by Keith McEwan)
Wicked! (series) and Deadly!
(series)
(with Morris Gleitzman)
Duck for Cover
Freeze a Crowd
Spooner or Later
Spit it Out
(with Terry Denton and Ted Greenwood)
Round the Twist
Sucked In . . .
(illustrated by Terry Denton)
For adults
The Reading Bug
. . . and how you can help
your child to catch it.
For beginners
The Rascal series
Novels
How Hedley Hopkins
Did a Dare . . .
The Nest
More information about Paul and his books can be found at www.pauljennings.com.au and puffin.com.au
VIKING
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa | China
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies
whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
This collection published by Penguin group (Australia), 2015
Individual stories copyright © Lockley Lodge Pty Ltd
‘Without a Shirt’, ‘Skeleton on the Dunny’, ‘Lighthouse Blues’,
‘Wunderpants’, ‘The Strap-Box Flyer’, ‘Cow Dung Custard’, ‘Smart’, ‘Ice Cream’,
‘Lucky Lips’ from Unreal!, 1985
Unreal Collection! Page 30
