Uncanny!

by Paul Jennings

  I switched on the light and blinked at the little grey mouse. It was in the corner of the room. And close by was a mouse trap with a piece of cheese set in it. It wasn’t Uncle Sid’s electric-fence type of mouse trap though. It was an ordinary one. The type that snaps down and kills the mouse by squashing it.

  The mouse crept closer to the cruel trap. ‘Don’t,’ I said. The mouse took no notice. It crept forward until it was almost touching the trap. Then it did something I still find hard to believe. It picked up a matchstick and held it in its little paws. Then it poked the cheese in the trap with the matchstick.

  Crack. The spring snapped down like lightning. The mouse had set off the trap without getting hurt. It was the smartest mouse in the world.

  I put one leg out of the bed onto the floor. The mouse just stood there. It didn’t seem afraid. Then it started walking across the floor slowly towards the other side of my bed. It stopped every now and then and looked up at me. At last, seeing that I was following, it walked slowly under the bed.

  I knelt down and peered after it. A mousey smell came out from under the bed. I could see mouse droppings on the polished wooden floor. There was something different about them though and at first I couldn’t work out what it was. Then I realised. The mouse droppings were all laid out in a pattern. They spelt out a word. The mouse droppings formed the word HELP.

  The little grey mouse had written a message the only way it could.

  Before I had time to take this in the mouse was off again. This time it ran into a small hole in the wall and disappeared. It came out a minute or two later tugging a piece of paper in its mouth. The mouse dropped it at my feet.

  I picked up the paper and looked at it. It was a bit of a page out of a diary. Uncle Sid’s diary. I recognised his writing. The scrap of paper had been chewed out of the book by tiny teeth.

  This is what it said:

  I have just discovered that the mouse trap electric fence is dangerous. If two creatures touch the wire at the same time their brains will swap over.

  Yesterday a frog and a mouse touched at the same time. The mouse hopped off and the frog scampered aw …

  I couldn’t read the rest of the page as it had been chewed off. My mind started to work overtime. I thought about Uncle Sid who thought he was a mouse. And I looked at the mouse who seemed to think he was a person. Suddenly it clicked. I knew what had happened. Uncle Sid and the mouse had touched the electric mouse fence at the same time. Their minds had swapped over.

  This mouse was Uncle Sid.

  5

  ‘Don’t worry Uncle,’ I said to the mouse. ‘We will get you back.’

  But how? I didn’t have the faintest idea what I could do.

  The mouse scampered off into its hole once again. This time it tugged out something different. It was a piece of wire. I pulled out the wire. It was about four metres long with little posts hanging off it. There was a small black box attached to the end of it. It was the electric mouse fence.

  Suddenly I knew what to do. I picked up Uncle and put him in my pocket. Then I took the electric mouse fence down to the kitchen. I crept quietly. I didn’t want to wake Aunt Scrotch.

  I set up the electric mouse fence. It took me quite a while to work it out but in the end I found out how it worked. The wire was stretched in a circle with little fence posts stopping it from touching the ground. Both ends were connected to the black box, which had a switch on the side.

  I went to turn on the fence but the mouse, Uncle Sid that is, was shaking its head. It pointed to a place where the wire sagged and touched the floor. One of the fenceposts was missing. The electricity would go into the floor.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a matchbox. I placed it under the sagging wire with a bit of bubble gum for an insulator.

  Next I tore open some packets of blue-vein cheese. I tipped heaps of it inside the fence. Then I headed to the cellar. On the way I dropped small pieces of blue-vein cheese in a trail on the floor. I opened the cell door where Uncle Sid (or I should say the mouse in Uncle Sid’s body) was hungrily sniffing around.

  He came out on all fours. It was sad to see a man moving around like a mouse. He followed the blue-vein trail all the way to the kitchen. He ate every bit as he went.

  The mouse stood next to the electric fence. It had one paw on the wire. It had the other paw on the ON switch. Uncle Mouse came forward with a blue-veined mouth. He saw the cheese inside the fence. He sniffed. He shuffled forward. And touched the wire. The mouse threw the switch.

  Blue sparks flew along the wire. The mouse turned electric blue. Uncle turned electric blue. They flashed and flared. They crackled like crisps. They lit up like light globes.

  And then it was over. Uncle Sid stood up and smiled. The mouse fled out of the door. ‘Thanks, Julian,’ said Uncle Sid with a grin. ‘We did it. We did it.’

  He was his old self again. He had his mind back. And so did the mouse.

  We looked at the electric mouse fence. ‘It’s dangerous,’ said Uncle Sid. ‘We can never use it.’

  ‘It’s mine,’ screeched another voice. ‘After all I’ve gone through it is mine.’

  It was Aunt Scrotch. Her face was screwed up like a wet shirt that had been bunched into a ball and left to dry in the corner. She lunged forward at the electric mouse fence.

  That was when I noticed that my matchbox was open. ‘Oh no,’ I groaned.

  Aunt Scrotch grabbed the wire with her hands.

  She turned electric blue. She shimmered and shone. She beamed and screamed.

  The wire fence was flung up to the ceiling. The black box smashed into smithereens.

  It was all over.

  6

  I went home about a week later. Uncle Sid tried to fix the electric fence but so far he has had no luck. He writes to me quite often so I know what is going on. His last letter was a bit short though. He had to leave it and rush out to find Aunt Scrotch. She had run outside again looking for more cow manure.

  In my letter back I told him the little dung beetle was doing well. I still keep it in the matchbox. But at lunch time I let it out and give it as many chocolate freckles as it wants.

  Spaghetti Pig-out

  Guts Garvey was a real mean kid. He made my life miserable. I don’t know why he didn’t like me. I hadn’t done anything to him. Not a thing.

  He wouldn’t let any of the other kids hang around with me. I was on my own. Anyone in the school who spoke to me was in his bad books. I wandered around the yard at lunch time like a dead leaf blown in the wind.

  I tried everything. I even gave him my pocket money one week. He just bought a block of chocolate from the canteen and ate it in front of me. Without even giving me a bit. What a rat.

  After school I only had one friend. My cat – Bad Smell. She was called that because now and then she would make a bad smell. Well, she couldn’t help it. Everyone has their faults. She was a terrific cat. But still. A cat is not enough. You need other kids for friends too.

  Even after school no one would come near me. I only had one thing to do. Watch the television. But that wasn’t much good either. There were only little kids’ shows on before tea.

  ‘I wish we had a video,’ I said to Mum one night.

  ‘We can’t afford it Matthew,’ said Mum. ‘Anyway, you watch too much television as it is. Why don’t you go and do something with a friend?’

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t have any friends. And never would have as long as Guts Garvey was around. A bit later Dad came in. He had a large parcel under his arm. ‘What have you got Dad?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s something good,’ he answered. He put the package on the loungeroom floor and I started to unwrap it. It was about the size of a large cake. It was green and spongy with an opening in the front.

  ‘What is it?’ I said.

  ‘What you’ve always wanted. A video player.’

  I looked at it again. ‘I’ve never seen a video player like this before. I
t looks more like a mouldy loaf of bread with a hole in the front.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’ asked Mum in a dangerous voice. ‘And how much was it?’

  ‘I bought it off a bloke in the pub. A real bargain. Only fifty dollars.’

  ‘Fifty dollars is cheap for a video,’ I said. ‘But is it a video? It doesn’t look like one to me. Where are the cables?’

  ‘He said it doesn’t need cables. You just put in the video and press this.’ He handed me a green thing that looked like a bar of chocolate with a couple of licorice blocks stuck on the top.

  ‘You’re joking,’ I said. ‘That’s not a remote control.’

  ‘How much did you have to drink?’ said Mum. ‘You must have been crazy to pay good money for that junk.’ She went off into the kitchen. I could tell that she was in a bad mood.

  ‘Well at least try it,’ said Dad sadly. He handed me a video that he had hired down the street. It was called Revenge of the Robots. I pushed the video into the mushy hole and switched on the TV set. Nothing happened.

  I looked at the licorice blocks on the green chocolate thing. It was worth a try. I pushed one of the black squares.

  The movie started playing at once. ‘It works,’ I yelled. ‘Good on you Dad. It works. What a ripper.’

  Mum came in and smiled. ‘Well what do you know,’ she said. ‘Who would have thought that funny-looking thing was a video set? What will they think of next?’

  2

  Dad went out and helped Mum get tea while I sat down and watched the movie. I tried out all the licorice-like buttons on the remote control. One was for fast forward, another was for pause and another for rewind. The rewind was good. You could watch all the people doing things backwards.

  I was rapt to have a video but to tell the truth the movie was a bit boring. I started to fiddle around with the handset. I pointed it at things in the room and pressed the buttons. I pretended that it was a ray gun.

  ‘Tea time,’ said Mum after a while.

  ‘What are we having?’ I yelled.

  ‘Spaghetti,’ said Mum.

  I put the video on pause and went to the door. I was just about to say, ‘I’m not hungry,’ when I noticed something. Bad Smell was sitting staring at the TV in a funny way. I couldn’t figure out what it was at first but I could see that something was wrong. She was so still. I had never seen a cat sit so still before. Her tail didn’t swish. Her eyes didn’t blink. She just sat there like a statue. I took off my thong and threw it over near her. She didn’t move. Not one bit. Not one whisker.

  ‘Dad,’ I yelled. ‘Something is wrong with Bad Smell.’

  He came into the lounge and looked at the poor cat. It sat there staring up at the screen with glassy eyes. Dad waved his hand in front of her face. Nothing. Not a blink. ‘She’s dead,’ said Dad.

  ‘Oh no,’ I cried. ‘Not Bad Smell. Not her. She can’t be. My only friend.’ I picked her up. She stayed in the sitting-up position. I put her back on the floor. No change. She sat there stiffly. I felt for a pulse but I couldn’t find one. Her chest wasn’t moving. She wasn’t breathing.

  ‘Something’s not quite right,’ said Dad. ‘But I can’t figure out what it is.’

  ‘She shouldn’t be sitting up,’ I yelled. ‘Dead cats don’t sit up. They fall over with their legs pointed up.’

  Dad picked up Bad Smell and felt all over her. ‘It’s no good Matthew,’ he said. ‘She’s gone. We will bury her in the garden after tea.’ He patted me on the head and went into the kitchen.

  Tears came into my eyes. I hugged Bad Smell to my chest. She wasn’t stiff. Dead cats should be stiff. I remembered a dead cat that I once saw on the footpath. I had picked it up by the tail and it hadn’t bent. It had been like picking up a saucepan by the handle.

  Bad Smell felt soft. Like a toy doll. Not stiff and hard like the cat on the footpath.

  Suddenly I had an idea. I don’t know what gave it to me. It just sort of popped into my head. I picked up the funny-looking remote control, pointed it at Bad Smell and pressed the FORWARD button. The cat blinked, stretched, and stood up. I pressed PAUSE again and she froze. A statue again. But this time she was standing up.

  I couldn’t believe it. I rubbed my eyes. The pause button was working on my cat. I pressed FORWARD a second time and off she went. Walking into the kitchen as if nothing had happened.

  Dad’s voice boomed out from the kitchen. ‘Look. Bad Smell is alive.’ He picked her up and examined her. ‘She must have been in a coma. Just as well we didn’t bury her.’ Dad had a big smile on his face. He put Bad Smell down and shook his head. I went back to the lounge.

  I hit one of the licorice-like buttons. None of them had anything written on them but by now I knew what each of them did.

  Or I thought I did.

  3

  The movie started up again. I watched it for a while until a blowfly started buzzing around and annoying me. I pointed the hand set at it just for fun and pressed FAST FORWARD. The fly vanished. Or that’s what seemed to happen. It was gone from sight but I could still hear it. The noise was tremendous. It was like a tiny jet fighter screaming around in the room. I saw something flash by. It whipped past me again. And again. And again. The blowfly was going so fast that I couldn’t see it.

  I pushed the PAUSE button and pointed it up where the noise was coming from. The fly must have gone right through the beam because it suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It hung silently in mid-air. Still. Solidified. A floating, frozen fly. I pointed the hand set at it again and pressed FORWARD. The blowfly came to life at once. It buzzed around the room at its normal speed.

  ‘Come on,’ yelled Mum. ‘Your tea is ready.’

  I wasn’t interested in tea. I wasn’t interested in anything except this fantastic remote control. It seemed to be able to make animals and insects freeze or go fast forward. I looked through the kitchen door at Dad. He had already started eating. Long pieces of spaghetti dangled from his mouth. He was chewing and sucking at the same time.

  Now don’t get me wrong. I love Dad. I always have. He is a terrific bloke. But one thing that he used to do really bugged me. It was the way he ate spaghetti. He sort of made slurping noises and the meat sauce gathered around his lips as he sucked. It used to get on my nerves. I think that’s why I did what I did. I know it’s a weak excuse. I shivered. Then I pointed the control at him and hit the PAUSE button.

  Dad stopped eating. He turned rock solid and just sat there with the fork halfway up to his lips. His mouth was wide open. His eyes stared. The spaghetti hung from his fork like worms of concrete. He didn’t blink. He didn’t move. He was as stiff as a tree trunk.

  Mum looked at him and laughed. ‘Good one,’ she said. ‘You’d do anything for a laugh Arthur.’

  Dad didn’t move.

  ‘Okay,’ said Mum. ‘That’s enough. You’re setting a bad example for Matthew by fooling around with your food like that.’

  My frozen father never so much as moved an eyeball. Mum gave him a friendly push on the shoulder and he started to topple. Over he went. He looked just like a statue that had been pushed off its mount. Crash. He lay on the ground. His hand still halfway up to his mouth The solid spaghetti hung in the same position. Only now it stretched out sideways pointing at his toes.

  Mum gave a little scream and rushed over to him. Quick as a flash I pointed the remote control at him and pressed FORWARD. The spaghetti dangled downwards. Dad sat up and rubbed his head. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘You had a little turn,’ said Mum in a worried voice. ‘You had better go straight down to the hospital and have a check up. I’ll get the car. Matthew you stay here and finish your tea. We won’t be long.’

  I was going to tell them about the remote control but something made me stop. I had a thought. If I told them about it they would take it off me. It was the last I would see of it for sure. If I kept it to myself I could take it to school. I could show Guts Garvey my fantastic new find. He would have to make friends with me
now that I had something as good as this. Every kid in the school would want to have a go.

  Dad and Mum came home after about two hours. Dad went straight to bed. The doctor had told him to have a few days’ rest. He said Dad had been working too hard. I took the remote control to bed with me. I didn’t use it until the next day.

  4

  It was Saturday and I slept in. I did my morning jobs and set out to find Guts Garvey. He usually hung around the shops on Saturday with his tough mates.

  The shopping centre was crowded. As I went I looked in the shop windows. In a small cafe I noticed a man and a woman having lunch. They were sitting at a table close to the window. I could see everything that they were eating. The man was having a steak and what was left of a runny egg. He had almost finished his meat.

  It reminded me of Dad and the spaghetti. I took out the remote control and looked at it. I knew that it could do PAUSE, FORWARD and FAST FORWARD. There was one more button. I couldn’t remember what this last button was for. I pushed it.

  I wouldn’t have done it on purpose. I didn’t really realise that it was pointing at the man in the shop. The poor thing.

  The last button was REWIND.

  Straight away he began to un-eat his meal. He went backwards. He put his fork up to his mouth and started taking out the food and placing back on his plate. The runny egg came out of his mouth with bits of steak and chips. In, out, in, out, went his fork. Each time bringing a bit of food out of his mouth. He moved the mashed-up bits backwards on his plate with the knife and fork and they all formed up into solid chips, steak and eggs.

  It was unbelievable. He was un-chewing his food and un-eating his meal. Before I could gather my wits his whole meal was back on the plate. He then put his clean knife and fork down on the table.

  My head swirled but suddenly I knew what I had to do. I pressed FORWARD. Straight away he picked up his knife and fork and began to eat his meal for the second time. The woman sitting opposite him had pushed her fist up into her mouth. She was terrified. She didn’t know what was going on. Suddenly she screamed and ran out of the cafe. The man didn’t take any notice. He just kept eating. He had to eat the whole meal again before he could stop.