by John Larkin
‘Okay,’ said her mum. ‘Now come back.’
Rebecca moonwalked back across the floor on both sets of legs.
‘Stop that!’ snapped Rebecca’s mum. ‘You’ll wear them out before we’ve got them home.’
Finally she made Rebecca look at her new shoes in that silly angled mirror that shoe shops always have for some weird reason. Maybe they want you to see how your new shoes will look if you lived on Steep Hill Drive or something.
‘Okay,’ said her mum finally. ‘You two can go for a milkshake while I do a bit of grocery shopping.’
Kevin emerged from behind the mountain of trainers. He looked at Rebecca as the sales lady was removing Rebecca’s shoes. ‘Giddy up,’ he said. Then he ran out of the shoe shop.
Rebecca whinnied, reared up and then tore off after him.
Just as Rebecca was about to tag Kevin he made a sharp turn. Unfortunately for Rebecca her hooves didn’t grip the tiled floor very well because she wasn’t wearing her horse-print school shoes. Also, she didn’t see the ‘Caution: Slippery When Wet’ sign, or the man mopping the floor with his Soapy Suds Extra-Slippery Floor Cleaner and Polisher.
5
Rebecca yelped as her legs sprawled out from under her. She slid inelegantly across the floor, knocking several old ladies and their shopping trolleys for six. She crashed right through the Nut Hut sending a shower of cashews and almonds into the air. She tried to stand up, but the nuts had turned the floor into a gigantic ice-skating rink. Her legs ran on the spot, whizzing around in a blur like a ceiling fan on maximum.
‘That’s right, customers,’ said the fruit store man into his megaphone. ‘Today only. Everything half price.’ Then his jaw dropped open as Rebecca came sliding across the floor and practically atomised the banana bin and the assorted fruit stands at the front of the store.
The fruit store man looked at Rebecca and then at the carnage of all his mangled fruit and the damage to his store. He turned on his megaphone again.
‘That’s right, customers,’ he said. ‘Everything half price. Special closing-down sale.’
6
Rebecca’s mum plonked them down in Dani’s Delicious Donuts & Café with a dinosaur donut and banana milkshake to share. There was a sign on the counter that read ‘No Pets’. Fortunately they had a booth in a fairly dark corner of the café. Anyway, apart from Kevin, nobody else seemed to have noticed that Rebecca had turned into a horse, so why should Dani? Rebecca slumped her shoulders just to be on the safe side. She’d hate to be sprung for being a horse and made to go and live in a field. That would be dull beyond belief. She’d probably just spend the entire day staring over the fence at people and cars as they passed. And then, for no reason whatsoever, she’d go galloping off across the field and spend the evening staring over the fence at people and cars on that side of the field instead.
‘Now sit there!’ said their mum. ‘And don’t you dare move.’
‘Sorry, Mum,’ said Rebecca.
‘Yeah,’ said Kevin. ‘Sorry.’
Mum put her hands on her hips and glared at them. ‘I can’t believe that you destroyed old Mr Theodore’s fruit store. He’s been here for thirty-seven years.’
‘Why did I have to land in the lychees?’ Rebecca’s tongue flopped out of her mouth. She couldn’t stand lychees. Kevin snorted because Rebecca’s tongue almost reached the table.
‘Stop it, the pair of you!’ snapped their mum. ‘This is no laughing matter. It’ll cost thousands to fix up the mess, not to mention the Nut Hut. I told you before that I’m not made of money. And poor old Mrs Finnegan. You knocked her clean out of the shopping mall. The last anyone saw of her she was heading towards Steep Hill Drive.’
‘But . . .’
‘Don’t “but” me, Kevin,’ interrupted Mum. ‘It’s very difficult to stop a wheelchair at that speed.’
‘It’s not all our fault,’ complained Rebecca. ‘They shouldn’t be mopping the floor with that slippery stuff.’
‘Yes, well we’ll have to see about that,’ said their mum. ‘There’ll probably be an inquest. If you’re found to have caused it, we’re going to take it out of your pocket money.’
‘That’s not fair,’ said Kevin. ‘It was four hooves’ fault.’
‘Was not!’ said Rebecca.
‘Was too,’ said Kevin.
‘I’ve just about had it up to my neck with the pair of you,’ said their mum. ‘And Kevin, don’t call your sister four hooves just because she likes horses. I won’t have it. Now behave yourselves while I help clean up some of the mess.’
When their mum had left them, Rebecca and Kevin carved up the dinosaur donut and sipped their banana milkshake.
‘I’m sick of you being a horse,’ said Kevin.
‘How do you think I feel?’ whinnied Rebecca.
‘How’d you turn into a horse anyway?’ said Kevin.
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Rebecca said. ‘I reckon it was that circus we went to. Remember: the Dingaling Brothers’ Big Top, Flying Monkeys and Sea Slug Circus Extravaganza.’
‘Yeah,’ slurred Kevin as he slurped up the milkshake through his straw.
Rebecca scowled. She decided not to have any more milkshake. ‘Do you remember the Make-a-Wish Tent sideshow that we went in with that old gypsy woman?’ she said.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Kevin. Now that he thought about it, that whole thing was weird with a capital ‘Wuh’. The old gypsy woman in the Make-a-Wish Tent had worn a pink witch’s hat and a lime-green dress that seemed to be made out of ten cent coins. She also had a pet toucan on her shoulder that didn’t look a whole lot like a toucan, but more like a seagull that had been painted black and gold.
‘What did you wish for?’ asked Rebecca.
Kevin screwed up his eyes and thought back to their visit to the Dingaling Brothers’ Big Top, Flying Monkeys and Sea Slug Circus Extravaganza. He must have been thinking really hard because Rebecca thought that she could hear a mouse running around inside his brain.
‘I remember now,’ he said. ‘I wanted her to turn my matchbox Formula One racing car into a real one.’
Rebecca swallowed a mouthful of donut. ‘You wanted a Formula One racing car? Why?’
‘So I could drive it to school,’ he said.
Rebecca shook her enormous horse head. ‘But you wouldn’t be allowed to drive a racing car to school without a licence.’
‘Yeah, but I was going to go out and get another dollar off the fossils and come back and wish for a licence,’ said Kevin.
‘Still wouldn’t work,’ said Rebecca. ‘The teachers would know that it was a fake.’
‘Oh well,’ said Kevin, as he scratched at the mouse in his head. ‘Could keep it in the shed until I turned seventeen, I suppose. Maybe let Mum take it shopping.’
‘Don’t be a doofus,’ said Rebecca. ‘Mum wouldn’t be able to drive a Formula One racing car up to the shops. Get real. There’d be nowhere to put the groceries.’
‘Anyway,’ said Kevin. ‘What did you wish for?’
‘I wished that I had a . . . ’ Rebecca trailed off. ‘Oh no!’
Kevin licked at the remnants of hundreds and thousands from the dinosaur donut. ‘“Oh no!” what?’
‘I wished that I had a horse,’ said Rebecca, as she finally realised what had happened. ‘And you wished that your toy racing car could be turned into a real one.’
‘Yeah,’ said Kevin. ‘So what? Didn’t happen.’
‘Don’t you see?’ said Rebecca. ‘Don’t you get it? She got our wishes round the wrong way. She turned me into a horse instead of giving me one . . . ’
‘Oh wait,’ interrupted Kevin when he’d finally worked it out. ‘Does that mean that I’m going to get a racing car?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Rebecca. ‘Probably.’
‘Wow!’ Kevin was excited. ‘When will I get it, do you reckon?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rebecca. ‘Probably when you’re old enough to drive.’
‘Great!’
said Kevin. ‘I’ll be able to drive to school, up to the shops, to soccer training and everything. Do you reckon I’ll get a pit crew as well?’
Rebecca wasn’t listening. ‘We’ve got to find her,’ she said.
‘Who?’ said Kevin, who was obviously still dreaming about his racing car.
‘That old gypsy woman from the Dingaling Brothers’ Big Top, Flying Monkeys and Sea Slug Circus Extravaganza,’ replied Rebecca. ‘What was her name?’
Kevin screwed up his eyes again.
‘C’mon,’ Rebecca urged him. ‘I need your help. My mind’s full of carrots and hay and weird images of trotting along in front of a cart.’ She was also pretty sure that the old gypsy woman’s toucan’s beak was nothing more than a couple of those cardboard cylinders that aluminium foil is generally wrapped around.
Rebecca looked pleadingly at Kevin. It seemed as though he was having major brain strain trying to remember the old gypsy woman’s name. His head mouse must have been on the loose again. It scampered around inside its wheel.
‘I remember now,’ he said. ‘The Amazing Beryl.’
‘Beryl?’ said Rebecca.
‘Beryl,’ Kevin assured her. ‘The Amazing.’
‘Okay,’ said Rebecca. ‘We’ve got to find this Amazing Beryl and get her to put me back to how I was before.’
‘How are we going to do that?’ asked Kevin.
Rebecca put her head in her hooves. How were they going to track down the Dingaling Brothers’ Big Top, Flying Monkeys and Sea Slug Circus Extravaganza and get the Amazing Beryl to turn her back into a girl again? The fossils barely let them out of their sight. How could they possibly get out of the house long enough to track down a circus?
‘It’s hopeless,’ scowled Rebecca. ‘We’ll never find that stupid circus and I’ll be stuck as a horse forever. And when I grow up I won’t get to become a doctor or a sales assistant; they’ll probably hook me up to a cart and make me take silly kids for a canter around the park or something.’
‘Hey,’ said Kevin. ‘I’m a silly kid.’ Kevin scratched his head. That didn’t come out right. ‘And you used to be a silly kid too.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Rebecca as she blew her huge horsy nose on a napkin. ‘And now I’m a horse.’
‘Cheer up,’ said Kevin. ‘It could be worse.’
Rebecca looked up at Kevin. Her eyes were as wide and as bright as catherine-wheels. ‘Worse?’
‘Well, okay,’ said Kevin. ‘Maybe not much.’
‘So how do we find her?’ asked Rebecca.
Kevin slurped the absolute dregs of their milkshake up his nose just to see what it would be like. It gave him a severe brain freeze. ‘We could always look in the phone book?’ said Kevin, as he tapped his head to try to get his head mouse working again.
‘That’s it,’ said Rebecca excitedly. ‘You’re brilliant.’ Why hadn’t she come up with that plan? It was so obvious now that she thought about it. A total no-brainer. Maybe you forgot stuff when you were a horse. Important stuff like how hay isn’t all that tasty. Or how when jockeys hit you with their whips you should toss them over a fence rather than run faster. Or how standing in a field all day and staring over a hedge is a bit boring really.
Now, thanks to Kevin, she was excited. She had a plan. She just hoped that when she got home she would remember it with her horse brain.
‘You’re it,’ said Kevin. He tagged Rebecca, then slid out of the booth and raced off.
Rebecca hauled herself out of the donut booth, reared up and tore off after Kevin.
7
Rebecca clip-clopped into the TV room with the telephone directory wedged in her mouth. She plonked herself down on her enormous beanbag, which took up just about the entire TV room and most of the lounge room as well. She let the telephone directory fall to the floor and flipped it open with her nose.
‘Err, gross!’ yelled Kevin. ‘That’s gunna have horse drool all over it now.’
‘Well, what I am supposed to do?’ complained Rebecca. ‘My hands have been turned into hooves, remember? It’s a bit hard to thumb through phone books when you haven’t got any thumbs.’
‘What are hooves good for anyway?’ asked Kevin.
‘I dunno,’ replied Rebecca. ‘Clunking annoying little brothers on the head, I suppose.’
Rebecca starting hoofing through the telephone directory.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Kevin.
‘I thought I’d have another look for the Amazing Beryl,’ said Rebecca.
‘You’re wasting your time,’ said Kevin. ‘We’ve looked under A for Amazing. B for Beryl. We even tried D for Dingaling Brothers’ Big Top, Flying Monkeys and Sea Slug Circus Extravaganza.’
‘Yeah, but we didn’t look under T.’
‘T,’ said Kevin. ‘Why T?’
‘T for “The”,’ said Rebecca. ‘The Amazing Beryl.’ She came to the T section of the phone book and marked the page with her nose.
‘Get real!’ said Kevin. ‘She wouldn’t put herself under “The”.’
Rebecca looked over at Kevin. ‘We’re talking about someone who wears a pink witch’s hat and a dress made out of ten cent coins that have been painted lime green, and glues a half-dead seagull to her shoulder and calls it a toucan.’
Kevin supposed that Rebecca had a point.
Rebecca began scanning the rows of Ts. ‘And don’t forget she also turns kids into horses. I wouldn’t put anything past her.’
Rebecca’s eyes widened when they lit upon the following entry in the T section:
The Amazing Beryl. Mystic, Faith Healer,
Fortune Teller. For a free reading call 555-Toucan
Unbelievable!
‘Quick, get me the phone,’ said Rebecca, with a huge smile playing on her rubbery lips. ‘It’s time for this horse girl to shed these hooves.’
8
Kevin dialled the Amazing Beryl’s number and then put the phone up to Rebecca’s ear.
‘Ask her when am I gunna get my racing car,’ said Kevin. ‘Ssshhh!’ Rebecca was excited. ‘It’s ringing.’
Unfortunately for Rebecca, the Amazing Beryl wasn’t there – well, she wasn’t completely there at the best of times anyway. Instead there was a recorded message on the Amazing Beryl’s phone:
Hi. You’ve reached the Amazing Beryl. Unfortunately I’m not in right now, but because I’m a fortune teller, I have been expecting your call. I’m going to be spending the next year meditating with the mystical one-legged Sherpas of the Upper Langtang Valley in Nepal. In this remote and forgotten corner of the world I will be abandoning the constraints of contemporary Western society and living a frugal and monastic existence. If you need to contact me urgently, please try my mobile.
Rebecca’s face fell like a hippo on a bungee cord. Mobile? What mobile? She didn’t leave her mobile number on her message.
A year! thought Rebecca. A whole year until the Amazing Beryl returned from meditating with these so-called mystical one-legged Sherpas of the Upper Langtang Valley in Nepal. A whole year stuck as a horse. How was she going to make it through a year without her parents or friends noticing? How was she going to make it through a whole year without cleaning her teeth? And what about Damian Fox, the new boy in her class who told his friends to tell her friends that he thought that she was cute. Would he still think she was cute now that she was a horse?
It was getting harder trying to blend into the shadows so no one could tell that she had turned into a horse. It had worked so far, but she had to be on guard the entire time. Only Kevin seemed to have noticed and that was probably because they hung out together so much after school and during the holidays. Even though their parents hadn’t noticed yet, they were still pretty strict with them and were extremely unlikely to let them go galloping off to Nepal. They practically needed a signed permission slip just to go up to the shopping mall by themselves.
Rebecca froze.
A permission slip.
A permission slip?
A permissi
on slip!
A permission slip.
Wait a minute! Just wait a hay-chewing, apple-munching, carrot-gnawing minute!
Rebecca stood up and galloped off to her bedroom, thundering across the polished wooden floorboards like a . . . well, like a horse thundering across polished wooden floorboards.
Maybe there was a way of getting to the Amazing Beryl and the mystical one-legged Sherpas of the Upper Langtang Valley in Nepal after all.
It was definitely worth a try.
9
Rebecca sat on the floor in front of her desk and tried to write. Not an easy task when you haven’t got any fingers to hold your pencil. She knew that she had to get it perfect or her parents wouldn’t believe it, but no matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t get the wording right.
Finally, after an hour’s solid work and about a thousand false starts, she felt that at last she’d nailed it. She let the pencil fall from her mouth and looked down at her handcrafted (okay, mouth-crafted) permission slip:
I give permission for my son/daughter to attend this year’s school-holiday excursion to visit the mystical one-legged Sherpas of the Upper Langtang Valley in Nepal. I enclose $10,000 to go towards airfares, accomerdation urcomidatshun hotels and stuff.
Signed Parent/Guardian ___________________
‘Well, if that doesn’t do it,’ said Rebecca, as she hurriedly packed up her desk, ‘I don’t know what will.’
She had to be quick because it was nearly time for Saddle Soar. She’d never missed a single episode and she had a feeling that today Daniela was going to do something really nasty, just to win the show-jumping competition.
She clip-clopped back out to the TV room with a bowl of freshly nuked popcorn, which is really hard to make when you’re a horse. She found Kevin staring at the TV with a vacant look in his eyes and drooling slightly.
‘What are you watching, Nutella breath?’ said Rebecca, as she plonked herself down on her enormous beanbag again. She was quite happy with her permission slip and reckoned that the fossils would believe it if she caught them at the right time – during an ad break or something.
