Mr Mumbles

by Barry Hutchison

  ‘Kyle, what’s wrong?’ Mum asked, her voice urgent and panicked as she pushed open my door. My head splitting with a ferocious ache, I turned and looked up at her. She knelt by my side and stroked my face with the back of her hand, wiping away tears I hadn’t even felt fall. ‘What happened?’ she asked, softly.

  ‘The attic,’ I managed to hiss. ‘I heard something in the attic. Scratching.’

  Mum leaned back on her heels, her eyes and mouth – just for a moment – three little circles of surprise. She gave an almost invisible shake of her head and smiled.

  ‘It was just your mind playing tricks on you,’ she assured me.

  ‘What? No it wasn’t!’ I insisted, annoyed that she’d think I’d let my imagination run away with me like that. ‘I heard something scratching up there!’

  ‘You know what I think?’ she smiled. ‘I think you got a scare when the lights went out and maybe had a little panic attack.’

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘Hard to breathe,’ said Mum, listing off the symptoms, ‘wobbly legs, feel like the room’s closing in on you…’

  Reluctant as I was to admit it, it would help explain why I’d reacted the way I had. I’d never felt that scared before, and all because of what? A scraping noise? Idiot.

  ‘OK,’ I reluctantly confessed, ‘maybe it was.’ Mum flashed me a sympathetic smile and rustled my hair. ‘You seem to know a lot about them,’ I said. ‘Do you get them?’

  ‘Me? No,’ said Mum, shaking her head. ‘But your da—’

  She stopped, biting her lip just as I had done in the kitchen. She’d almost let something slip about my dad.

  ‘But my dad did,’ I guessed. ‘That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? You were going to tell me my dad used to have panic attacks.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t,’ Mum replied. She had her defences back up and was getting to her feet. ‘I was going to say you’re darn lucky you don’t get them more often.’

  She was lying, I could tell, but she was making for the door now, and more than anything I didn’t want to be left alone in this room.

  ‘Mum!’ I spluttered. She stopped in the doorway, hesitated, then turned back to me. I should have told her I was sorry for our argument in the kitchen, but when I opened my mouth all that came out was: ‘I really did hear something in the attic.’

  Mum looked at me for a long time, her eyes scanning my face. Eventually, she shrugged and smiled a thin-lipped smile.

  ‘Well, then. Let’s check it out.’

  *

  A chill breeze rolled down through the hole in the ceiling as Mum slid back the lock and let the wooden hatch swing open. Stale, years-old air filled my nostrils, forcing me to take a step back. The smell reminded me of the day room in the home Nan stays in. Somewhere in the shadows, the hot water boiler hissed quietly, making it sound as if the loft itself was breathing.

  The beam of Mum’s torch cut through the darkness of the attic, projecting a misshapen circle of light on to the bare wooden planks of the roof. Shoulder to shoulder we stood on our tiptoes, peering into the gloom.

  ‘See anything?’ I asked, trying to disguise the shake in my voice.

  ‘Nothing from here,’ Mum replied. Her voice sounded confident – a little amused, even. I felt a hot flush of embarrassment sweep up from my neck. I was acting like a scared kid, and she knew it. ‘I’ll pull the ladder down and we can have a proper look,’ she said, passing me the torch.

  She reached carefully up through the hatch and felt around for the edge of the wooden steps. My breath caught at the back of my throat, as Mum suddenly let out a sharp cry of fright. As one, we staggered backwards away from the hole, until our backs were flat against the wall. Hands shaking, I directed the torch’s beam up into the attic once again, and almost screamed. Just inside the hatch a pair of piercing eyes glowed brightly in the trembling torchlight.

  ‘M-Mum,’ I began, not knowing where the rest of the sentence was going. I was gripping her arm tightly, too terrified to move.

  Then, with a faint squeak, the eyes turned and darted off into the darkness of the roof space. For a moment we heard the mouse’s claws scrape against the wooden floor as it fled in panic.

  I blushed for the second time in as many minutes, as Mum looked down at me. Quickly, I let go of her arm, trying to pretend I hadn’t been afraid. She saw right through it, though, and I heard her let out a giggle. Before I knew it I was giggling along with her. We stood there together for a while, laughing out of sheer relief, until our sides ached and tears ran down our cheeks.

  ‘You hungry?’ she asked, when we’d both calmed down a bit.

  ‘Depends. Are we allowed to eat the little sausages yet?’

  ‘Come on,’ she grinned, ‘let’s go have dinner.’ Arm in arm we walked down the stairs, and every time our eyes met laughter filled the air.

  Nan watched me impatiently as I cut her turkey into bite-sized chunks. She was proud of the fact she still had her own teeth, and mentioned it to anyone who’d listen. What she failed to go on to say was that they were now so blunt they could barely get through custard. Her arthritis was playing up with the cold, so I’d ended up on slice-and-dice duties.

  She’d chuckled when me and Mum had told her the mouse story, but it didn’t amuse her as much as it had us. I suppose you really had to be there.

  ‘At least it wasn’t that other fella,’ she said, as I cut and peeled the skin off her little sausages. She didn’t eat the skin, it gave her wind. Nan didn’t actually mind too much, but Mum and me had insisted we remove them.

  ‘What other fella?’ I asked, only half listening. I was thinking about my own dinner, which would be getting cold.

  ‘Oh, you remember,’ she clucked, knocking back another glug of sherry, ‘that friend of yours. Wassisname? Used to live in the loft, you said.’

  I heard Mum’s fork screech against her plate. She gave a cough which clearly meant ‘shut up’, but either Nan didn’t notice, or she was too tipsy to care.

  ‘Mr Mumbles,’ she announced, triumphantly. ‘That was him! Your invisible friend.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Bless.’

  Something tingled deep within my brain, and then was gone. I glanced over at Mum, but she had her head down, her eyes focused on her plate.

  ‘I didn’t have an invisible friend,’ I frowned. ‘Did I, Mum?’

  ‘For a little while,’ Mum said, not looking up from her dinner. ‘It was a long time ago. You stopped talking about him years back.’

  I finished cutting up Nan’s meat and gave her back her knife and fork. She was already shovelling turkey into her mouth by the time I made it round to my side of the table.

  Me and Mum had taken the table through to the living room so we could eat in front of the fire. Normally we just ate on our laps, but Christmas dinner was special.

  Still wracking my brains, I lowered myself back on to my chair and popped a chunk of carrot in my mouth. It tasted better than carrot had any right to taste. How did Mum do it?

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I shrugged, at last.

  ‘You were only four or five,’ Mum explained. ‘A long time ago. It’s no surprise you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Used to talk about him all the time,’ said Nan, her mouth half full of mashed potato. ‘Mr Mumbles this, it was. Mr Mumbles that.’

  ‘Leave it, Mum,’ my mum said. ‘He doesn’t remember, let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘He used to live in the loft, you said,’ Nan continued, completely ignoring her. ‘You used to say he’d knock on your bedroom window when he wanted to play. Remember, Fiona?’

  Mum glared at her. ‘Leave it, I said.’

  ‘Knock, knock!’

  ‘Mum! Enough!’

  Nan pulled a face, and silence fell over the table. I mopped up some gravy with a slice of turkey and slipped it in my mouth. Something stirred at the back of my mind.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Was there…did he have a hat?’

  ‘Let’s just forget it, Kyle,’
Mum urged.

  ‘There’s something…I think I remember something about a hat.’

  ‘I said forget it!’ Mum snapped. She slammed her hand down on the table, making the salt and pepper cellars leap into the air.

  ‘O-OK,’ I muttered, too shocked to argue. Mum’s knife and fork were trembling in her hands as she got stuck back into her turkey. Something about me having an imaginary friend had clearly upset her.

  But why?

  ‘Bye, Nan,’ I smiled, kissing her on her wrinkled cheek. We were exactly the same size these days. She was shrinking as fast as I was growing, and we were now passing each other as our heights headed in opposite directions.

  ‘What?’ She looked at me, her eyes narrowed, her voice a suspicious hiss.

  ‘Urn…I just said ‘bye’.’

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, fiercely. ‘I don’t know you. Where’s Albert? What have you done with my Albert?’

  Nan spoke about Albert lots when she was confused. Not even Mum knew who he was. The best she could figure out was that Albert must have been some childhood friend of Nan’s, but there was no way of knowing for sure. When Nan was her normal self she had no idea who Albert was, either.

  ‘Come on,’ said Mum, gently, as she guided Nan out of the house and into the chill darkness of the December night. ‘Time we were getting you back.’

  ‘Back where? What are you doing?’ Nan spat, struggling against Mum’s grip. ‘Albert! Albert!’

  No matter how many times I’d seen Nan have one of her episodes, it still shook me up. Mum’s face was grey, her lips pursed together, as she tried to guide her mother towards the car.

  ‘Come on, Mum,’ she urged, forcing a smile.

  ‘Right you are, love,’ Nan replied. The smile was back on her face. Her eyes had their old twinkle again. As quickly as it had come on, the confusion had passed. She turned to me and gave a little wave. ‘Merry Christmas, sweetheart,’ she beamed.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Nan.’

  ‘Oh, and Kyle, be careful,’ she said. ‘There’s a storm coming.’

  ‘I think it’s passed,’ I said, gently. The winds had been howling and the rain battering down for days in the lead up to Christmas, but now it was calm – cold and frosty, but calm.

  ‘Oh, but they come back,’ warned Nan. Her face had taken on a strange, sombre expression. ‘They always come back.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, humouring her. ‘Bye.’

  She gave me a nod and turned to Mum. ‘Can I bring the sherry?’

  ‘I think you’ve had quite enough for now,’ Mum said, releasing her grip on Nan’s arm. ‘The nurses are going to kill me when they see the state of you!’

  Nan cackled and gave me a theatrical wink. Without a word she turned and wandered off, swaying slightly in the chill evening gloom.

  ‘Least it didn’t last long this time. She’s been pretty good, considering,’ Mum whispered to me. ‘You sure you’ll be OK on your own? You can always come with us.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘OK, well, I shouldn’t be more than an hour. I’ll just get her in and let the nurses put her to bed.’

  ‘Can’t she just stay here?’ I asked.

  ‘The doctors don’t like it if she’s gone overnight,’ Mum said. I could tell from her face she felt bad about it. ‘We’ll play a board game or something when I get back, OK?’

  ‘OK, but really, there’s no rush,’ I assured her. ‘I’ll be fine here on my own.’

  She leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. She was halfway to the gate when a thought struck her.

  ‘Do me a favour while I’m out, will you?’

  ‘Sure,’ I nodded.

  ‘There’s a mousetrap in the cupboard under the sink. Stick it in the attic for me?’

  Despite the tingling terror which crept over me, I nodded. I stood there, long after the door was closed, telling myself there was nothing to worry about. Telling myself not to be so stupid. After all, the scratching I’d heard was just a harmless little mouse.

  Wasn’t it?

  Chapter Three

  GHOSTS OF THE PAST

  My breath formed faint clouds in the musty air as I pulled myself up into the confines of the attic. My fingers left ten little ovals in the thin covering of dust on the ladder, and I studied them for a few moments, pretending to myself they were the most interesting things in the world. Truth be told, I was just delaying the moment I’d have to step further into the loft.

  The torch I carried was near powerless against the sheer depth of the darkness, like trying to slay a dragon with a teaspoon. The beam wobbled and shook in my hand, sending twisted shadows stretching across the planks and beams.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ I whispered, trying to reassure myself. ‘There’s nothing here except me and a mouse.’

  I let the torch’s beam fall on to the floor as I looked around for somewhere to put the mousetrap. It was tempting to just drop the thing and run, but the instructions had said to set it near a wall, and the last thing I wanted was to have to come back up and do all this over again.

  The floorboards creaked in protest as I shuffled forwards, fixing my eyes on the point the roof met the floor. I would set the trap and then get out of there as quickly as I could. I’d be back downstairs in less than a minute. I just had to keep my nerve until then. Sixty seconds of bravery, that was all.

  I set the torch on top of a dusty cardboard box and fumbled with the trap. Stupidly I’d left the instructions in the kitchen, thinking it would just be a case of pulling back a spring and sticking a bit of cheese on to a spike. That’s how they always work in cartoons, anyway.

  Around three minutes later, with my heart still thudding against the inside of my chest, I finally figured out how the trap operated. Hurriedly, I sat it down on the floorboards and gently pushed it against the wall, being careful not to bring it snapping down on my fingers. Since it didn’t seem to be required, I decided just to eat the little cube of cheese I’d brought up with me.

  Mission accomplished, I leapt to my feet. My head thumped against a thick roof beam and I cried out in pain. I rubbed the back of my skull and looked at my hands. They were clean, so I wasn’t bleeding. That didn’t stop it hurting, though.

  I reached down to pick up the torch, then stopped. A piece of paper lay next to it on top of the box. I hadn’t noticed it there when I’d walked over, but there it was, large as life. As I picked it up, the sheet felt oddly warm against my fingertips.

  Angling the paper into the torchlight, I studied the crudely drawn crayon picture. Thick bands of black and brown covered most of the page, stretching down from the top of the paper to the bottom. Here and there the lines were broken by clumsy sketches of spiders skulking in their webs.

  Two figures stood at opposite ends of the page. On the right-hand side a stick figure of a boy had been drawn, a tiny bow clutched in his pudgy round hands. Leading up and to the left were a dozen or so arrows, each with a bright red rubber suction cup stuck on to the end. They were all arching through the air in the direction of the other figure – a darkly dressed man.

  My eyes followed the arrow trail and fell on the only other patch of red on the page. A demented fountain of blood sprayed out from the man’s chest, where an arrow had embedded itself. His mouth – not surprisingly given the circumstances – was pulled into an upside down letter U. Clearly he was not happy with this turn of events.

  I stared closely at this larger figure. There was something about him which intrigued me. He seemed to be drawn in a different style. He was darker, bolder, as if the crayons had been pressed harder against the page. He was also dressed strangely, with a long grey overcoat pulled up to his ears, and a black hat pulled down almost to meet it.

  The image stirred some long dormant memories. That hat. That coat. It was all familiar but unfamiliar at the same time, like the memory of a dream I couldn’t hold on to. Was this my imaginary friend?

  Absent-mindedly, my gaze shifted across t
he page. There was something familiar about those vertical stripes, too. Were they bars? No, they were too thick for that. They looked solid, though. Solid; brown; evenly spaced. I’d seen them somewhere recently, but where?

  The realisation hit me like an electric shock. I spun to face the attic wall. The lines in the picture weren’t bars. They were beams. Wooden roof beams, like the kind I was standing next to. The picture was of right here in the attic!

  A movement off to my left broke my concentration and I gasped with fright. Dropping the page I staggered back, knocking the box with my leg. My stomach lurched as the beam of the torch swung down. I grabbed for it too late. As the torch bulb smashed the attic was plunged into absolute darkness.

  ‘Wh-who’s there?’ I stammered. With the light gone I couldn’t even see the clouds of breath in front of my face any more. I held my breath and listened, but the only reply was the hissing and bubbling of the hot water boiler.

  I tried to tell myself I’d imagined it, but if truth be told I don’t have that good an imagination. Something had moved. Something was there in the attic with me, and unless mice were growing up to be a lot bigger these days, it was definitely no rodent.

  A stack of boxes toppled over as I stumbled blindly through the dark, my hands flailing wildly in front of me. Unsure of which direction I should be heading, I blundered towards where I guessed the hatch should be. My foot caught on some scattered junk and I felt the floor rise up to meet me.

  Moving on their own and fuelled by panic, my legs kicked wildly against the debris from the boxes, struggling to find a foothold. My hands thrust forwards, fingers scrabbling on the floorboards as I desperately tried to pull myself towards the dim glow of the hatch.

  A splinter stabbed into my palm and I cried out in shock. My eyes were growing more accustomed to the dark now, and I saw something on the floor by my hand which chilled me to the bone. A series of claw marks had scored deep grooves in the wood.

  An elastic band of fear tightened around my stomach. I wasn’t sure what could make marks like that in solid timber, but one thing was for sure, no mousetrap on Earth would hold it.