Walter Speazlebud

by David Donohue

  Walter Speazlebud

  ‘Speazlebud is something else! A wildly entertaining story that hits right to the heart of a problem faced by millions of kids worldwide. It’s fun, magic, emotion, morality and a satisfying touch of vengeance all wrapped up in the most imaginative package you’ll read this year. What a debut for Dave Donohue! You’re going to hear a lot more about this author in the future.’

  Herbie Brennan, author of Fairy Nuff and

  Eddie the Duck.

  ‘Walter Speazlebud is a great idea.’

  Jim Sheridan

  ‘A highly imaginative and funny read’

  The Sunday Tribune

  ‘A sparkling book’

  The Irish Times

  Dedication

  For Sara, Heather and Eva;

  Eve, Jordan, Elijah and John;

  Cjartan, Conor and Robyn;

  Levon and Lulu.

  My thanks to:

  Herbie Brennan, Jacquie Burgess, Kirsten Sheridan,

  Denis, Paul Hewson, Barbara Galavan, Frank

  Golden, Eve Golden Woods, Nick Kelly,

  Douglas Gresham, Mark Kilroy, Trish

  Mc Adam, Luis and Karen, Berne Kiely and

  Amelia Caulfield, Geraldine Bigelow,

  and to my editor Susan Houlden.

  A special ‘thank you’ to Bernard

  Loughlin and Mary Loughlin

  and to all the current staff

  at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre

  in Monaghan.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 Trouble at School

  2 Wild Tales

  3 Dad’s Daft Car

  4 Pig-Donkey saves the Day

  5 Danny Biggles gets up his own Nose

  6 The Cat goes ‘Zipp’

  7 Mr Strong goes Crazy

  8 A Chat with Grandad

  9 Danny Biggles pushes his Luck

  10 A Second Chance

  11 Off to the Moon

  A Note from the Author

  About the Author

  Also by David Donohue

  Copyright

  1

  Trouble at School

  ‘What the heck is a moon-pet-doctor?’ yelled Mr Strong, the school teacher. He had just caught Walter Speazlebud staring out the window during class and had asked him what he was thinking about.

  Walter’s big, green, happy eyes drifted, once again, out the classroom window and towards the heavens, before he replied: ‘A moon-pet-doctor, sir? Oh, that’s a person who helps pets – say, for instance, cats – to adjust to the idea of living on the moon. He gets them used to floating, and no mice, that sort of thing.’

  Mr Strong pounded his fist on the desk, which was always covered in a thick, black, felt material. ‘Come back to Earth, you curly-headed nincompoop. Nobody lives on the moon,’ he barked.

  ‘Oh, but they will some day, sir,’ replied Walter. ‘And when they do, a moon-pet-doctor will be a very busy man. Did you never think of going to the moon yourself, Mr Strong?’ he continued, with a look of genuine curiosity.

  The class laughed nervously as they knew that Mr Strong had absolutely no imagination or sense of humour.

  Mr Strong’s face twisted with anger and a blood-red flush entered his cheeks. Beads of sweat formed on his nose and chin, and dripped like a leaky tap onto the classroom floor.

  ‘Come up here, now!’ he screamed at Walter.

  ‘Why, sir?’ protested Walter innocently.

  ‘For staring into space during spelling lessons, and for being a cheeky pup.’

  ‘I was only thinking, sir.’

  ‘There’ll be no thinking in my class,’ replied Mr Strong. ‘And let this be a lesson to you all.’

  Mr Strong pointed to the tall, tubular metal stool which stood between his desk and the blackboard. ‘Stand on the stool, Walter, and face the class.’

  Walter walked, like a condemned man, towards the stool. As he did, he accidentally brushed against the material covering the desk. It shifted slightly.

  ‘Oops,’ said Walter, as he went to straighten it.

  ‘Don’t touch my desk. Don’t ANYBODY EVER touch my desk.’

  ‘Why is your desk always covered, sir?’ asked Walter, who had noticed how Mr Strong always stuck close to his desk, as if it had magnetic powers.

  ‘Don’t ask questions. Won’t need answers. Now get up on the stool. NOW!’

  Mr Strong always made sure that the legs were well greased with the slimiest goose-fat to make climbing the stool almost impossible. He stood with his arms crossed, like an army general, and smiled as Walter slithered and slipped, trying desperately to climb up onto the stool. The stool toppled over and Walter landed on his bottom. His best friend, Levon Allen, looked away – he couldn’t bear to watch. After several failed attempts, Walter stood still, concentrated deeply, took one well-judged leap and finally made it onto the stool, with his curly red hair sticking to his sweating, freckled face. His thin body trembled as he faced the class, balancing with all his might.

  ‘Spell antelope,’ said Mr Strong.

  ‘E-p-o-l-e-t-n-a,’ replied Walter.

  The class remained silent except for Danny Biggles, the school bully, who giggled and guffawed from the back of the room.

  ‘Catastrophe,’ said Mr Strong.

  ‘E-h-p-o-r-t-s-a-t-a-c,’ mumbled Walter, trying like mad not to fall off the stool.

  No, Walter was not good at spelling – at least spelling forwards. As for spelling backwards, he was a king, and when Mr Strong asked him to spell concentration, he, once again, rattled off the perfect backwards spelling: ‘N-o-i-t-a-r-t-n-e-c-n-o-c.’

  Mr Strong sneered at the awfulness of Walter’s spelling while the class, except for Danny Biggles, who was still chuckling to himself, remained silent.

  The boys were fascinated by Walter’s gift and they loved when he pronounced their names backwards: Walter’s friend Levon Allen became Novel Nella. Aron Kelly became Nora Yllek, Danny Biggles became Ynnad Selggib (although the boys never called him Ynnad Selggib to his face, as he was very likely to puncture your bicycle tyre or give you a black eye) and Mr Strong, the teacher they all hated, became Mr Gnorts. They loved to invent sayings like, ‘I see warts on Mr Gnorts,’ or ‘Mr Gnorts, Mr Gnorts, like a skunk he smells, like a pig he snorts.’

  ‘I see, Speazlebud,’ said Mr Strong, nodding his head and scratching his chin. ‘You can imagine being a pet-doctor on the moon, but you can’t spell a few simple little words. Well, I do hope that the class will take note of what happens to a boy who dreams and thinks too much. Have you any more dreams that you would like to share with the class?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Walter, ‘to appear on Sam Silver’s TV show spelling backwards, so that my grandfather can see me.’

  Mr Strong’s face got redder and redder. ‘Backwards spelling is wrong spelling,’ he shouted at Walter. ‘It’s not spelling at all, you stupid little red-headed sparrowbrain. Indeed, Walter,’ he muttered, as he stopped pacing and stood directly in front of Walter, ‘you are just like your grandfather – a dreamer, away with the fairies, head in the clouds.’

  Grandad Speazlebud was Walter’s favourite person in the world. He could never let anybody make fun of him, least of all Mr Strong. He pretended to lose his balance and, with a careful aim, toppled off the stool, grabbing Mr Strong’s new blue shirt which tore all the way down to his waist, just like a rotten old rag.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Walter. ‘I lost my balance.’

  The classroom erupted in laughter to see Mr Strong’s hairy belly, bloated from too much cider and pig’s trotters, hanging out, over his belt, like a bulging sack of potatoes. The school bell rang and Walter ran out the door and down the hall, out the school g
ates and down the street, until he was a safe distance from school.

  2

  Wild Tales

  Like Walter, Grandad Speazlebud was good at spelling backwards.

  ‘What’s my name backwards?’ Walter loved to ask his grandad when he was very little.

  ‘Retlaw Dubelzaeps,’ his grandad would say.

  ‘And what’s a spider?’

  ‘A redips.’

  ‘And a monkey?’

  ‘A yeknom, of course.’

  ‘And a giraffe?’

  ‘An effarig.’

  ‘And a turkey?’

  ‘A yekrut,’ Grandad would reply.

  Walter loved Grandad Speazlebud’s crazy spelling, but before long he, too, knew that a boy was a yob, a cat was a tac, and an alligator was a rotagilla. He soon discovered that while normal spelling was very difficult, he could spell any word backwards, perfectly, just as quickly as anybody else could spell it forwards.

  Walter’s grandad was a great storyteller, and most of his stories were about something or other going backwards. Walter wasn’t sure if he believed them or not, but he thought they were brilliant fun.

  Sometimes, when Grandad told these fantastic stories, he would reverse around the room, in his motorised wheelchair. Walter stood in the middle of the floor, following his spinning grandad with his eyes, getting dizzier and dizzier as the story unfolded.

  Walter’s favourite story was the one about the little deer. When Grandad told this particular story he always started with a serious tone. He would take Walter’s hand, look around to make sure nobody else was listening and, with a gentle voice, begin:

  ‘One day I was on the way home from an afternoon’s fishing when I saw a baby deer running out of the woods and on to the road. I knew that the deer, which was puffing and panting in the middle of the road, did not see the car coming towards her.’

  Then, with a mischievous glint in his eye, Grandad would stare across the room at the imaginary deer and put his hands around his mouth to form a ‘megaphone’. ‘Get out of the way, Rudolf!’ Grandad would shout at the top of his voice. ‘There’s a motorised vehicle coming.’

  Sometimes, when he told the story, Grandad picked up a banana, or a plum, and fired it at the ‘deer’ to scare him off. Once a plum went sailing out the window and hit the postman on the nose.

  ‘But the deer ignored me,’ Grandad would continue. ‘Then, without thinking, I shouted the word “deer” backwards, again and again. Reed! Reed! Reed!’ Grandad would shout at the top of his voice.

  ‘On the third “reed”, the deer zipped backwards across the road and into the forest, safe from the fast-approaching car.’

  Walter liked this story so much, he could often be heard shouting, ‘Reed! Reed! Reed!’ as he walked around the village, chortling to himself, deep inside his own world. Once an old lady who was passing by snapped, ‘I’ll read if I want to, young man, not if you tell me to. In fact, I prefer TV, and you’re not going to change me!’

  3

  Dad’s Daft Car

  As Walter walked from school through the streets of Nittiburg village, he stopped for a moment at the square, where a large silver plaque stood. It read:

  Nittiburg – winner of the tidiest village contest for the past thirty years. Presented to Mayor Speazlebud.

  Everybody in this village loves Grandad, thought Walter, except Mr Strong. He shook his head and wondered why. Then he went into the fruit shop to buy some peaches and plums for Grandad.

  Out on the street there was an unmerciful screech of brakes as a small, red, one-seater car, with a toilet flusher sticking out of the roof, pulled up outside. It had a megaphone speaker on the roof. ‘Taxi for Retlaw Dubelzaeps!’ it called out. ‘Taxi for Retlaw Dubelzaeps!’

  Mr Appleseed looked out through the window and shook his head. ‘He never gives up, does he? he said to Walter.

  Walter smiled, paid for the fruit, and left.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ he said.

  ‘Hi, Walter,’ said his dad, Harry Speazlebud, sticking his head out through the window.

  Harry Speazlebud was a small man, and his head of curly grey hair, with its rusty brown flecks, was now balding in front. He always wore a spotted dicky bow, partly hidden by a scraggy beard.

  Harry’s life was dedicated to the invention of the loomobile, a special car for people in a hurry. It was called the loomobile because, under the driver’s seat, was a toilet seat and a loo. But the loomobile was much more than a moving toilet. It had rotating brushes for polishing your shoes, an electronic toothbrush on a mechanical arm, and, attached to the car ceiling, a comb which moved over and back like a windscreen wiper. The megaphone was for talking to people in other cars. Harry felt that driving was often a lonely business and a kind word to a passing car might cheer somebody up.

  He dreamed that, someday, a major car manufacturer would buy his invention and make him rich.

  ‘This invention,’ he told anybody who would listen, ‘will change the world of commuting forever.’

  ‘Coming home, Walter?’ asked Harry.

  ‘I’m off to visit Grandad,’ Walter replied. ‘I need to take a walk.’

  He was just about to tell his dad about his rotten day at school with horrible Mr Strong when Harry said, ‘OK then. See you later, Walter. Tell Grandad I said hi!’ and off he sped through the streets of Nittiburg.

  Walter was left feeling sorry for himself, but he often felt even sorrier for his dad, working day after day on an invention which seemed to have more troubles than Walter himself. The previous week Walter had pulled Harry from Nittiburg Lake after the electronic toothbrush had poked him in the eye and he had lost control of the steering wheel. It took Walter ages to remove the toilet seat from around his dad’s head.

  Nittiburg Nursing Home sat high on Runyon Hill, overlooking the village. The once beautiful old building was now in need of a good coat of paint. Walter climbed the granite steps, pushed through the mahogany doors, and walked along the corridor where old men and women sat, waiting for visitors to arrive. Walter smiled at them and noticed that the smiles that they returned to him were big and beaming. They made him feel like he had just given them some wonderful gift which had brightened up their day. As Walter reached the top of the stairs, he saw Nurse Hatchett. She had a sharp nose, crooked teeth and a pair of duckedy green eyes that darted right and left as if searching for villains or evil spirits.

  ‘He’s been watching a lot of television,’ she said sternly, ‘and he’s tired, so don’t stay long.’

  ‘OK, Nurse Hatchett,’ Walter replied.

  Grandad Speazlebud’s room was like a second-hand bookshop – full of a great variety of books and framed sayings like:

  A tidy town is a happy town.

  Mayor Speazlebud

  It’s never too late to be who you might have been.

  George Eliot

  The room had a small wooden bed, two chairs – both hand-made – and wooden bowls and sculptures which Grandad himself had made during his years as a carpenter and woodcarver. Beside the bed was a small table with a photo of Granny Speazlebud, who had died when Walter was very young. On the floor was a multi-coloured rug which Grandad had brought back from his travels in South America.

  Grandad Speazlebud was sitting in his motorised wheelchair, wearing an old woollen jumper and corduroy pants, watching TV.

  As soon as Walter walked through the door, Grandad knew that something was wrong. ‘Mr Strong again?’ he asked.

  ‘Yep,’ said Walter, as Grandad reached out his arms and gave him a big hug.

  Recently, Walter had begun to see how old age was catching up with his grandad. Yes, his bright blue eyes were still as lively and full of mischief as ever, but, when they hugged, Walter felt that his grandad’s arms were becoming weaker. His mum and dad had told Walter that it was called ‘old-timers’ disease’, or something like that. It was why Grandad’s hands trembled so much and it was why he had decided to move from Walter’s house to the nur
sing home up on the hill. If his grandad’s body was becoming shrivelled and frail, thought Walter, at least his heart was still as big and warm as ever – as big and warm as the thick blanket his mum threw over him on cold winter nights.

  Walter placed the bag of fruit on the table beside the bed and sat down in his favourite chair, the hand-carved oak, which he called the Condor Chair. The armrests of this beautiful piece of furniture had intricate patterns of interweaving snakes, alligators, cheetahs and pelicans, while the back of the chair was carved in the shape of a huge condor, its enormous wings spread, ready to swoop at any moment on the unsuspecting ‘prey’ sitting innocently in the chair.

  ABD News had just finished and Sam Silver was about to present this evening’s ‘Most Gifted’ spot. ‘Most Gifted’ was Grandad’s favourite programme.

  ‘Let’s see who it is this evening,’ he said to Walter. With the ‘Most Gifted’ signature tune playing in the background, Sam Silver introduced Uri Geller, the famous psychic spoon-bender.

  Walter and Grandad watched as Uri bent a soup spoon, simply by concentrating hard while rubbing the spoon gently with his finger.

  ‘How does he do that?’ asked Walter.

  ‘The mind is a very, very powerful thing,’ answered his grandad. ‘Most people use only fifteen percent of its power.’

  ‘I bet Uri Geller can’t spell backwards like you and I can,’ said Walter.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Grandad. ‘We’d give that fella a run for his money.’

  ‘You know,’ said Walter, ‘Mr Strong thinks spelling backwards is stupid. He thinks I’m stupid.’

  ‘Mr Strong is just jealous of your talent and imagination. He’s also afraid.’