The Eddie Dickens Trilogy

by Philip Ardagh

  Now that all of the children were hidden inside the giant hollow cow, Eddie was frantically hitching the float up to a carthorse he’d found in a stable. The horse had obviously been far better loved and treated than the orphans. It certainly had better food. In its stable were a starter, main course and three choices of pudding, along with a selection of fine wines.

  Finally Eddie was ready. He had to try several keys in the huge padlock on the gate before he found the right one. It was dark outside by then, but there was still enough of a moon in the sky to see by. Flinging the gate wide, Eddie jumped onto the back of the horse. The giant cow on wheels clattered across the courtyard and out into freedom and the night.

  *

  The next morning, when Eddie’s great-aunt, Mad Aunt Maud, awoke, she was confused. For some reason or other, she and her husband, Mad Uncle Jack, had spent the night sleeping in their carriage, rather than in some local hostelry, but – no matter how hard she tried – she couldn’t remember why.

  She had some vague recollection that it had something to do with the Empress of All China, or the actor-manager Mr Pumblesnook and, come to think of it, weren’t they one and the same? Hadn’t Mr Pumblesnook been pretending to be the Empress, and Eddie pretending to be an orphan?

  Eddie? Now, what had happened to that nice young boy? That was it! It had turned out that he wasn’t their great-nephew at all, but was really an escaped orphan. He’d been taken away by a peeler, that was it. it was all too confusing.

  Mad Aunt Maud’s head was in a spin at the best of times, but that morning it was in a whirl. Where was Malcolm? What had happened to Malcolm? She frantically looked around the inside of the carriage in the early morning light. Her eyes fell on her stuffed stoat and her pulse returned to normal. There he was. Safe and well.

  ‘Good morning, Malcolm!’ she said, with obvious relief.

  ‘My name is Jack,’ Mad Uncle Jack reminded her, coming out of a light sleep.

  ‘I was talking to my stoat, husband,’ Mad Aunt Maud explained, the trimmed stoat hairs having fallen from her ears in the night and restored her hearing. What with her head in a whirl and having slept in an upright position, she had terrible neck-ache. it felt as if someone had stuck a hatpin in the side of her neck.

  ‘But I thought your stoat was called Sally,’ he protested. ‘I’ve always called her Sally. Sally Stoat.’

  ‘It is a he and not a she, and his name is Malcolm,’ Maud pronounced.

  ‘You never cease to amaze me, O wife of mine,’ said Mad Uncle Jack with pride. Pulling a hatpin from the side of her neck, he kissed the spot where it had been.

  The pain went almost instantly. ‘How did that get in there?’ she asked.

  ‘You were snoring in the night and the Empress of All China stabbed you with it,’ Mad Uncle Jack explained. ‘These Chinese are full of all the mysteries of the Orient. She called it acupuncture.’

  ‘Did it work?’ asked Maud with interest.

  ‘After you stopped screaming and we stemmed the flow of blood,’ said Uncle Jack. ‘I’m surprised you don’t remember it.’

  ‘I must admit I’m feeling a little groggy this morning,’ said Mad Aunt Maud. ‘There’s a lot I don’t recall. Where is the Empress now?’

  Jack looked down to the floor of the carriage and pointed. Mr Pumblesnook was asleep at their feet.

  ‘Another Chinese custom?’ asked Aunt Maud.

  ‘More a lack of space,’ said her husband. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I must get some air.’ With that, he stepped over the sleeping figure of the actor-manager, opened the door and climbed down onto the rutted track … and can you guess who or what he came face-to-face with?

  No marks for those of you who said ‘a giant hollow cow on wheels’. He came face-to-face with Eddie’s mother and father, Mr and Mrs Dickens. Their clothes look singed and their faces slightly sooty, but that wasn’t what Uncle Jack noticed first and foremost.

  ‘You’re not yellow any more!’ he said, in obvious wonderment.

  ‘No,’ smiled Mr Dickens.

  ‘You’re not a bit crinkly round the edges,’ said Mad Uncle Jack, stunned.

  He stopped and sniffed the crisp morning air with his beak-like nose. ‘And you don’t smell of old hot-water bottles!’ he gasped.

  ‘NO!!’ said Mr and Mrs Dickens as one, with big happy grins on their faces. ‘Dr Muffin is a genius! He cured us. All it took was burning down our home and everything in it. The combination of chemicals in all that smoke we breathed in was just what we needed. We’re fine now.’

  ‘Splendid … Splendid,’ said Mad Uncle Jack, smoothing down his hair, which was sticking up all over the place after a night spent in the carriage. ‘But what brings you here?’

  ‘We’re here to collect Eddie,’ said Eddie’s father. ‘We expected you to have reached Awful End by now, but, as luck would have it, we’ve caught up with you already.’

  ‘Eddie?’ frowned Mad Uncle Jack, as though he was trying to remember where he’d misplaced a pair of spectacles or a rather unimportant piece of cheese.

  ‘Our son?’ said Mrs Dickens, cautiously, without so much as a famous-general-shaped ice cube or an onion in her mouth to muffle her speech. ‘Now that we’re cured, there’s no need for you to look after him any more.’

  ‘Precisely,’ agreed Mr Dickens.

  ‘Ah! I see,’ said Mad Uncle Jack. ‘The problem is that you were mistaken. The boy you gave over to our care was not your son Edmund at all but an escaped orphan. He admitted it himself. I remember it quite clearly no w.’

  ‘Not Jonathan?’ said Eddie’s mother in amazement. ‘I’m sure I’d know if he was my own son or not.’

  ‘How unfortunate,’ said Mad Uncle Jack.

  At that moment Mr Pumblesnook rolled out of the open door of the carriage, landed with a ‘splat’ in the mud and woke up with a theatrical roar. ‘WHO DARES TO KICK ME FROM MY OWN BED?’ he demanded, in capital letters, in the same voice as he’d used to such great effect on the stage when playing Dr Pompous in the popular play Royal Rumpus. Then he leapt to his feet.

  Eddie’s mother and father had never met Mr Pumblesnook before, so were quite intimidated by this big hulk of a man with a barrel chest and booming voice.

  ‘This is the Empress of All China and these are Edmund’s parents,’ said Uncle Jack, making the introductions. ‘It seems that Edmund really was Edmund after all,’ he told the theatrical. ‘A most unfortunate mishap.’

  ‘My name is Pumblesnook,’ Pumblesnook explained. ‘I have merely been in the character of the Empress this past day or so. it is indeed an honour to meet the parents of Master Edmund, a boy with obvious –’

  ‘Forgive me for interrupting,’ Mrs Dickens interrupted, ‘but where is our boy now?’

  ‘In some orphanage somewhere,’ said Mad Uncle Jack. ‘St Morbid’s? St Solid’s? St Poorly? I’m afraid I don’t recall … I wouldn’t worry. You can always get a new one.’

  ‘A new one?’ said Mr Dickens, puzzled.

  ‘Another boy,’ said Mad Uncle Jack.

  ‘Oh,’ Eddie’s father nodded.

  ‘What brings you to this neck of the woods, sire, madam?’ asked Mr Pumblesnook, wiping the mud splatters from his jacket with the kerchief that had so impressed Eddie when he’d first laid eyes on the actor-manager in the stable of The Coaching Inn coaching inn.

  ‘We sent Edmund to stay with my dear husband’s aunt and uncle because we were ill and didn’t want him to catch whatever the disease was we had,’ began Mrs Dickens.

  ‘But now we are cured, there is no need for him to stay away from us, so we’re here to take him home,’ said Mr Dickens, taking up the story. ‘We caught the train, and planned to walk the last mile or so to Awful End, which is how we came to catch up with the carriage so quickly.’

  Mr Pumblesnook wiped away the last of the mud with a dramatic flourish, shook his kerchief and returned it to his breast pocket, where it sprouted from the top like some exotic flower. ‘How were you cured?
’ he asked with interest.

  ‘Our good doctor, the notorious Dr Muffin, burnt our house down with us inside it,’ said Eddie’s mother, the pride sounding in her voice. ‘We don’t know whether it was the fear of being burnt to a crisp or the effects of the woodsmoke but, either way, he cured us.’

  ‘A truly remarkable tale!’ boomed Mr Pumblesnook, obviously impressed. ‘But I do have one question.’

  ‘Yes?’ said the Dickenses.

  ‘You say that there’s no need for young Master Edmund to stay at Awful End now?’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded the Dickenses.

  ‘That he can come home with you after all?’

  The Dickenses nodded again.

  ‘But did you not most recently inform me that your house was, in your own words, if my recollection serves me correctly … was … burnt to the ground?’ inquired the wandering theatrical.

  Mr Dickens looked at Mrs Dickens. Mrs Dickens looked at Mr Dickens.

  ‘By Jove!’ he wailed. ‘We hadn’t thought of that!’

  Eddie’s mother let out a plaintive wail and crumpled to the ground. Her husband found that the easiest way to calm her was to fill her mouth with acorns. It reminded her of some of Dr Muffin’s earlier attempts at remedy, and it strangely comforted her.

  Mad Aunt Maud, meanwhile, was the last to emerge from the carriage. With Malcolm tucked firmly under one arm, the hatpin protruding from the stuffed stoat’s nose, she walked around to the front of the vehicle.

  Suddenly she recalled why they’d had to spend the night sleeping in the carriage, rather than being driven the last few miles home. They had no horse. It wasn’t that Mad Uncle Jack had left the horse in a bathroom, or anything like that, this time. Early on the previous evening the horse had bolted, run away, legged it – call it what you will. Luckily for Mad Uncle Jack on top and the occupants within, the horse hadn’t bolted with the carriage still attached. It had somehow broken free and, before Uncle Jack had had time to catch the startled creature, it had run – in the words of a popular little ditty – over the hills and far away.

  Note that I described the horse as having been a startled creature. Startled by what? By the Dickenses’ faithful servants Gibbering Jane and Dawkins? Admittedly, they did look quite a sight. They’d travelled on the train with Eddie’s parents, but, because they were servants, they’d travelled on the outside and were still covered with bits of gorse bush and splinters of telegraph pole that they’d rubbed up against as the train had gone hurtling along. But no, they’d only appeared on the scene the next morning. I’m talking about what startled Mad Uncle Jack’s horse the night before.

  Mad Aunt Maud knew what it was. She was staring at the culprit right there and then.

  Just over a hedge in a field by the road was the largest cow she had ever seen in her life. The moment she laid eyes on it, she fell in love. It was like the first time she had ever seen Malcolm, in a shop filled with second-hand stuffed animals.

  Ignoring all else around her, Mad Aunt Maud stumbled across the muddy road and up to the hedge. On tiptoe she could just reach the carnival float cow’s black muzzle. She gave it a friendly pat.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I shall call you Marjorie.’ She followed the hedge until she reached a gate, then entered the field.

  To say that Eddie’s parents were surprised when Mad Aunt Maud emerged at the side of the carriage some ten minutes later, followed by Eddie and a crowd of some of the grubbiest children any of them had ever seen, would be an understatement.

  Mrs Dickens rushed forward and threw her arms around her son. ‘Wurdijucfrm?’ she asked, her mouth still crammed with acorns. It was just like old times. I think she was saying: ‘Where did you come from?’

  Mad Aunt Maud looked far from happy. ‘I caught them all climbing out of a cow’s bottom,’ she explained, a stern look on her face. ‘Disgraceful behaviour, if you ask me. Poor Marjorie standing in that field, minding her own business … the last thing she needs is a gang of children climbing out of her bottom …’

  But no one – and I include Eddie – was listening. He was so excited to see that his parents were cured and to hear the news about the destruction of his home. Mr Pumblesnook was delighted by the arrival of the hundred-or-so orphans.

  ‘Young blood!’ he said. ‘That’s what my strolling band of theatricals needs. Young blood! You, children, are my future. Think of all the plays I will be able to perform now with you in the crowd scenes! The audience will love it! Think of the drama of the murder in Julius Caesar!’

  The children, who had all had a good night’s sleep in the giant cow – and hadn’t even woken up when Uncle Jack’s horse had spotted the monster and made a bid for freedom – were feeling excited and refreshed. They’d no idea what Mr Pumblesnook was on about, because they had no idea that he was an actor-manager, but at the mention of murder they all brandished their St Horrid’s Home for Grateful Orphans cucumbers in the air, then brought them down on Mr Pumblesnook in a rain of blows.

  ‘Excellent!’ he cried, fending off his attackers with glee. ‘You have such spirit!’

  *

  And that, gentle readers, is really an end to it and, though this story is called Awful End, it was not an awful one for the Dickens family. With their own home gone, Mr and Mrs Dickens and Eddie moved in to Awful End, the idea being that it would be a temporary measure until their own home was rebuilt. As it happened, their family still lives there today.

  The escaped orphans did, indeed, join Mr Pumblesnook’s band of strolling theatricals and, although they had to put up with Mrs Pumblesnook’s irritating way of speaking, and the fact that she still picked the blotches off her face and kept them in the pocket of her dress, it was a good life. Because a big part of being a strolling theatrical is the strolling – they were always on the move. The peelers never caught up with them. One or two of the orphans grew up to be very good actors and, if you’re ridiculously old, you might even be familiar with some of their names.

  Mad Uncle Jack soon tired of sharing his house with Eddie and his parents, so built himself a treehouse in the garden. He made it from the dried fish that he hadn’t used to pay his hotel bills. To begin with, he had trouble from the neighbourhood cats, but soon discovered that, once the fish were painted with creosote – which is designed to stop fences from rotting – the smell went and the cats lost interest.

  Mad Aunt Maud lived in the garden of Awful End too or, to be more accurate, she lived inside Marjorie in the garden of her former home. With Malcolm the stuffed stoat, of course. When she died at the ripe old age of 126, she was buried inside Marjorie under the rose bed. There she remained for over eighty-two years, until she was dug up to make room for a swimming pool.

  And what of Eddie, the hero of this tale? Well, his adventures weren’t quite over yet. History had more in store for Edmund Dickens, saviour of the orphans of St Horrid’s. But that, as all the best writers say, is another story.

  THE END

  for now

  Dreadful Acts

  Book Two of the Eddie Dickens Trilogy

  A Message from the Author

  Because he likes you

  Dreadful Acts is the sequel to Awful End, in which Eddie Dickens (and a number of other characters who lurk within these pages) were first let loose on the reading public. You don’t have to have read Awful End for this book to make sense, it’s a story in its own right … and I’m not sure that Awful End made a great deal of sense, anyway. If you enjoy this book, please be sure to tell all your friends about it. If you hate it, please be sure to keep your ill-informed opinions to yourself.

  Thank you

  PHILIP ARDAGH

  England

  2001

  For everyone who has helped to make Awful End the success it is.

  Thank you.

  You know who you are.

  Contents

  A Message from the Author

  Dedication

  1 Here We Go Again,

  In which a hsss
s becomes a BOOOOM!

  2 BOOOOM!

  In which someone or something flips his lid

  3 To the Very Top!

  In which Mad Aunt Maud is hit by a low-flying object

  4 Sent From the Skies,

  In which Eddie does rather a lot of dribbling

  5 Appealing to the Peelers,

  In which almost everyone is in deep doo-doos

  6 Making Things Better,

  In which Eddie is faced with raspberry jam, an ear trumpet and a very large moustache

  7 To the Rescue,

  In which Eddie’s attempt to rescue the others results in him needing to be rescued too

  8 In the Grip of the Enemy,

  In which Eddie is … in the grip of the enemy

  9 Escapes All Around,

  In which people seem to escape, or to have escaped, here there and everywhere

  10 That Sinking Feeling,

  In which most of Eddie’s family cram themselves into a basket

  Episode 1

  Here We Go Again

  In which a hssss becomes a BOOOOM!

  Eddie Dickens woke up with a shock. An electric eel had just landed on him from the top pocket of his great uncle’s overcoat. And one thing that can be guaranteed to be shocking is electricity.