The Lost Journals of Benjamin Tooth

by Mackenzie Crook

  *

  All day at school I was distracted and could not concentrate on my work. Miss Ormeroid noticed and hauled me out in front of the class to recite some piece of nonsense from her book of tedium.

  At home time I rushed out and hurried back towards Mereton where I was presented with a most distressing scene.

  Mother was in the best parlour serving tea in our best china to none other than Farley Cupstart.

  ‘Aha!’ he cried when he saw me. ‘Young Benjamin home from the schoolhouse! You see I have dropped in for a visit with your dear mother!’

  I was as polite as I could be but a feeling of dread was knotting my insides.

  ‘Mr Cupstart is an old friend of Great-grandfather,’ said my mother. ‘He has popped in to pay his compliments but unfortunately Grandfather has gone to visit his aged friend, Mr Pyecrust, at Inglesea.’

  ‘No matter!’ said Cupstart. ‘I can visit another time, and what’s more, your grandfather’s absence has given me a chance to meet your charming and, if I may be so bold, fragrant mother.’

  At this a nauseating smile broke out across his face like a pox and he leant forward and patted my mother’s hand.

  Journal, I nearly puked.

  It was made worse by my mother batting her eyelids, giggling like a moron and softly slapping the villain’s wrist.

  ‘Oh, Mr Cupstart,’ she simpered, ‘you really are a very naughty man!’

  I made my excuses and fled.

  Cupstart left about twenty minutes later and I watched through the window as he walked away talking to himself.

  Almost immediately he had gone I heard Mother downstairs clattering around and banging cupboard doors. On enquiring what she was doing she replied that she was looking for something and it was none of my business.

  Later, when Grandfather returned home he stopped inside the door and sniffed the air. A dark shadow crossed his face and he stalked slowly from room to room, lingering awhile in each. He stayed longest in the best parlour and when he came out he was wearing an expression of great concern. He looked accusingly at my mother but she offered nothing and so I too kept quiet about our visitor.

  But Grandfather knew. And by his reaction I do not believe that Farley Cupstart was as great an acquaintance as he claims to have been.

  Tuesday 17th May 1768

  This morning Grandfather surprised us all by writing a message on a piece of paper.

  It said:

  Today I am 111.

  We were thrilled. We congratulated him on reaching such a grand old age and wished him a happy one-hundred-and-eleventh birthday.

  He shook his head and pointed at the note again. We realised that in fact it said: Today I am ill, so we called the doctor who diagnosed Nervous Thumbs and applied a poultice.

  Grandfather then stayed the rest of the day in his room.

  Wednesday 18th May 1768

  After school today I walked with Izzy. I toyed with the idea of telling her about Farley Cupstart but thought better of it and instead amused her with various topics about which I know an awful lot. She didn’t say much but seemed content to just listen to my scintillating discourse. She told me she had read that yawning increases the flow of blood to the brain and improves the understanding of interesting conversation. I offered to accompany her all the way home but she said she needed some time to think about the many fascinating things I had told her. I bade her farewell by the old round-towered church and headed back to Mereton.

  As I came around the corner into our street I stopped short as I spotted the familiar lanky figure of Farley Cupstart at the door talking to Mother. I ducked out of sight behind a wall and watched for a moment. Cupstart had one hand up on the doorframe and was leering horribly as Mother laughed and blushed like a little girl. Then, all at once, what I believe was a teacup came flying through the open door and hit Cupstart hard on the temple. He yelped and staggered back into the flowerbeds as Grandfather came barrelling out brandishing his walking stick. Cupstart tripped over the sweet peas and was scrabbling back on to his feet as Grandfather (with astonishing agility for a monopod) hopped across the path and gave him an almighty kick up the azaleas.

  I stayed well back and hidden and watched as Farley Cupstart hotfooted it up the road cursing back towards the house. Grandfather stood glowering after him and then turned and went inside. I waited a few moments before coming up the path but when I entered the house Mother was sulking in her bedchamber, Grandfather was shut in his room and the whole house was quiet.

  Grandfather didn’t reappear for the rest of the day but now, past eleven of the clock, as I sit here writing, I can hear him moving about downstairs.

  Perhaps I should go and check that he is all right.

  *

  I have just returned from Grandfather’s room where he spoke to me more words than he has said for years. I must write them down before I forget:

  An ill wind bloweth, my boy, around this house.

  Age disguised as youth.

  Searching for life with dead eyes.

  It will bring no good to the little people.

  I must return what is theirs.

  *

  I asked him to explain but I fear he has used up the last of his words.

  Thursday 19th May 1768

  I am worried for Grandfather as this morning he is missing from the house and doesn’t look to have slept in his bed. He will occasionally go for walks when he has something on his mind. Curse Farley Cupstart.

  Later

  A bad day.

  To school as usual and then home to find the world turned upside down.

  Mother had been out all morning on various errands and while she was away the house was broken into and ransacked. Cupboards were emptied and the contents strewn across the floor. Dressers and furniture were pulled over, curtains and wall hangings ripped down. Grandfather’s room was the worst and had been thoroughly turned over. Even the floorboards had been prised up and lay splintered all around. It looked as though the place had been torn apart by cannon shot.

  Mother was in the parlour being comforted by neighbours whilst Mr Wooten, the local sheriff and Justice of the Peace, asked her questions. In a rare show of affection Mother threw her arms towards me and cried, ‘Oh my poor boy! What have they done? What have they done to our home? We are ruined! We shall have to live on the streets and beg for food!’

  The justice tried to calm her down and assure her that we were not at all ruined but that, though the house was in a dreadful state, nothing seemed to have been taken and everything could be fixed up as it was before.

  It was only then that the obvious occurred to me. The shock was at first so great I had not put my mind to who could be responsible. But at the realisation that not a thing had been taken, not the cutlery, plate, linen, china, I knew that only one person could have done this: Farley Cupstart.

  Nobody thought to ask me if I had any suspicions and so I kept quiet. The truth is I am greatly afraid of that man and what he is capable of. I don’t know his motives but it seems he will stop at nothing to get what he seeks and has no morals or conscience to speak of.

  I am sitting in my room once more writing this entry. It is late. I spent the evening with various friendly townspeople trying to get the house back into some semblance of order. Some of the furniture was smashed and has been taken away to be repaired, and the carpenter will come on the morrow to replace the lifted floorboards, but otherwise we were able to make the house habitable again.

  I think Mother is finally asleep after hours of distressed wailing and predicting doom for us all.

  One more dreadful thing that I can hardly bring myself to mention is that Grandfather is still missing. At least I know that he left before the house was raided, otherwise I would be afeared that Cupstart had kidnapped him. I am trying to comfort myself with the thought that he may have gone to visit Mr Pyecrust in Inglesea again. Perhaps I will borrow a horse and ride over that way in the morning.

  But now I must
try to sleep.

  Friday 27th May 1768

  I have not written for a week or more.

  This house has become a place of misery. Mother’s hair has turned completely white and she sits weeping and wailing and bemoaning our bad fortune.

  Grandfather is still missing. I travelled to Inglesea Saturday last but found that he had not been to visit his old acquaintance nor had anybody heard anything of him. I worry that he is gone for good and that Farley Cupstart drove him away.

  Neither have I seen hide nor hair of that villainous gentleman.

  It is the fear of encountering him again that has kept me from Windvale Moor but I have become strangely drawn to that wild and lonely place and will soon go back to clear my mind of cobwebs. The moor holds some kind of answer, I am positive. I go there to look for my warbler but really I am searching for something I cannot name. It is becoming an all too familiar feeling.

  *

  Mother abed with Flatulence.

  Sunday 19th June 1768

  I travelled to Windvale Moor today to clear my head and think. Instead I have returned with my head in a mess and my thoughts more foggy and confused than before.

  It was with great trepidation that I took my first steps into that sea of grass lest I should again meet with Farley Cupstart. I was soon confident that I was alone and set to observing the fauna of the moor through my telescope. Before long a sense of calm enveloped me and I started to relax for the first time in many days.

  This did not last.

  I soon spotted what looked like a reclining figure in the grass. I watched for a while but the shape did not move and indeed some rabbits grazing close by told me that this was not a person as I first thought. Reassured that I was not about to stumble upon a sleeping Farley Cupstart I made my way towards what I soon saw to be a pile of old clothes.

  At twenty yards I stopped in my tracks and my blood ran cold as I recognised my grandfather’s faded red coat. There on the ground, not my grandfather, but his clothes lay in a heap like the scarf and hat of a snowman that has melted away. There were no rips or tears, no bloodstains or evidence of foul play, just the garments and his wooden leg abandoned in the grass. His belt was still secured about his coat but all the buttons were missing. I looked around, searching in among the rocks and boulders of the overhang.

  I called out, but my voice drifted off over the moor and was not answered.

  I admit, Journal, that I sat down next to the clothes and wept, for though I could explain nothing I was quite certain that I had seen the last of my dear grandfather. It was only when I reached out and took up the wooden leg that I noticed the straps which held it in place were undone and as I turned it over the top fell away. Grandfather’s leg was hollow and unscrewed to reveal a secret chamber, but there was nothing within.

  One last thing. As I sat contemplating the mystery of what had happened to my aged kin I spotted two of those huge dragonflies skimming away from me across the moor.

  * I do not have a particularly pungent odour.

  Part the Second

  Friday 14th August 1772

  My name is Benjamin Tooth. This is my journal.

  It has been four years since last I wrote.

  My circumstances have changed and I no longer live in Mereton with my family. In fact I no longer have any family. I am the last surviving Tooth.

  After my grandfather disappeared life at Church Street became unbearable. It is strange now to think that the old man who hardly uttered a word, who shuffled about in his own twilight world, was the fragile glue that held my family together. His care and our devotion to him was the only tenderness that existed in our home and once he had gone (I still know not where) all pretence of family affection dried up.

  My mother had never cared for me. She all but admitted it herself. And once I was the only thing left in her life she quickly allowed herself to contract something terminal and died within the year.

  I wasn’t much aggrieved. I didn’t care much for her either.

  However, the ill-tempered whelk saw fit to set my life on a miserable trajectory before she passed away and though I am now almost sixteen I can still feel her clammy fingers on my shoulder pushing me in directions I do not wish to go or at the very least holding me back from taking my own chosen route.

  I’ll keep it brief.

  Not long after our house was ransacked my mother decided that my schooling was leading nowhere and that I should leave immediately and find a trade. My father’s meagre pension was running out and we needed money.

  In Stonebridge, not far from the schoolhouse, is a taxidermist’s shop. From an early age I was always fascinated by this shop and would stop whenever I could and peer in through the window at the stuffed animal displays. The taxidermist, a man by the name of Pansas Gadigun, specialised in mounting creatures in dynamic poses as though they had been frozen in time. A weasel in the front window was locked in an eternal battle with a viper, the snake twisting around its body and preparing to strike. The weasel was baring its teeth, and where its claw had punctured the reptile’s skin a drop of crimson blood oozed out. A magnificent red fox had been turned to a statue in the act of escaping with a pheasant, and a kestrel was caught at the moment of diving on an unsuspecting vole.

  By cupping my hands around my eyes I could see past the window displays and into the dark interior of the shop where jars of fluids and boxes of wire and tools were crowded on to shelves.

  At one point Mr Gadigun got married and soon after his window displays took a strange turn as the animals began to wear clothes and were set in human situations. A pair of dormice played croquet, a hedgehog and a ginger kitten drank tea and a mole in blacksmith’s overalls hammered tiny horseshoes at his anvil. This one confused me. Who were the shoes for? In this whimsical world of Mr and Mrs Gadigun did the woodland creatures have tiny horses to ride around on?

  When the time came to find a trade I decided to pluck up courage and enter the shop to ask Mr Gadigun for a job. I thought that an apprenticeship in taxidermy would allow me to continue my studies in biology and I could gain a thorough knowledge of anatomy.

  With my field study books and box of mounted butterflies under my arm I one day went to Stonebridge and pushed open the door. I had prepared myself for an assault on the eyes as I expected to see all manner of grotesqueries: half-finished displays, dissected animals, &c. What I hadn’t expected was an assault on the nose. With my first intake of breath I gagged and almost turned on my heel. The air was thick, as though I had taken a gulp of some foul liquid. The smell was not one thing in particular but a mixture of chemical, animal and sickly sweet.

  The shop was dark and so crammed with objects that it took a while for my eyes to adjust.

  I heard footsteps approaching from a back room and Mr Gadigun emerged through a door behind the counter. He was a small man with a perfectly round head upon which perched a light-coloured wig. His teeth protruded below his top lip and had large spaces between them, which meant that when he talked he whistled several different notes in harmony. He wore no jacket but a filthy leather apron over his smock and he peered at me over tiny spectacles clamped to the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Aha!’ he exclaimed. ‘he’s here!’ I looked around to see if anyone else had followed me into the shop. Mr Gadigun leant back through the door and called, ‘He’s here, Frugal! The young gentleman has come!’

  I was confused. ‘Were you expecting me, sir?’ I asked.

  ‘Indeed, sir!’ he whistled. ‘We’ve been expecting you this last two years!’ Again he called into the back of the shop, ‘Frugal! I told you he would come!’

  Frugal, I came to realise, was Mr Gadigun’s wife. (I later found out that she is one of five sisters who were each given the name of a desirable virtue. Honesty, Faith, Charity, Goodness and Frugality. I think Mrs Gadigun drew the short straw.)

  ‘I don’t understand, sir. How did you know I would come?’

  ‘Because I see you every day! You never walk by m
y shop without looking in through the window. It stands to reason that you have been saving up your money in order to buy one of my displays. Don’t tell me! Is it the weasel and viper? A fine piece though I say it myself, or maybe Mr Mole the blacksmith?’

  ‘No, sir, though I am very taken with both of those displays. No, sir, I have come to ask you for a job.’

  Pansas Gadigun could not have looked more shocked had I announced that I was, in fact, King George III.

  ‘A job?!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Here?!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Frugal! He’s come for a job!’ He turned back to me. ‘Why then, boy, I am completely wrong! Instead of coming to give me money you are proposing to take money away from me!’

  Though his manner was eccentric he was not unfriendly and I set about trying to convince him. I laid my book on the counter and flicked through some of my drawings and diagrams before opening up my box of butterflies.

  *

  ‘I feel I could be a considerable asset to your business, Mr Gadigun. I know a vast deal about the natural world and am keen to learn more. One day I wish to go to university and become a great scientist.’

  Mr Gadigun carefully studied my drawings, the mounted butterflies and then my face. Suddenly he straightened up and said, ‘Come!’ and gestured for me to go around the counter, whereupon he led me into the back room of the shop. If anything the air was thicker and more pungent back here and it quickly became clear that this was where the work happened. There were three workbenches upon which sat three displays in various stages of completion: a stoat in a coat, a rook with a book, and a frog with a mandolin.