For a second, I toyed with picking up the potato from the tray and tossing it at him.
But in the same instant, a seriously piece of weirdness happened …
I felt the thing start to shudder more in my lap, and then –
– flickers of light danced around the room, as if someone had set off a sparkler, and that sparkler had gone cartwheeling around the kitchen!!!
Then, just as soon as this amazing mini fireworks show started, it stopped.
I felt frozen with shock.
(Remember to breathe – you know what happened last time, I told myself.)
‘What was that?’ I asked, my voice squeakily hoarse in surprise.
The thing didn’t answer; it was too busy wringing its little paws together nervously.
Jackson didn’t answer; he was too busy choking on his orange jelly baby.
Yikes!
I was just about to leap up and thwack him on the back, when I stopped dead, ’cause slithering quickly out of Jackson’s mouth was … a startled slug!!
Huh?
‘Blah! Puh! Yee-uwwww!!’ spluttered Jackson, snatching the slug from his lower lip (SHLURP!) and depositing it on the grass outside the back door.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry!!’ I heard the thing muttering.
At first, I didn’t get it.
Why had the thing said sorry? How could any of this – the crackle-spit-fizzzzzzzzz-ing, the dancing lights and the shlurpy slug – be its fault?
Unless …
‘Did – did you just do something to Jackson’s jelly baby?’ I asked it warily.
‘Mmm,’ squirmed the thing. ‘Was trying to turn it into one of those … but got it wrong.’
It pointed a small hairy finger at a single Rice Krispie.
Well, that definitely wasn’t what had just slithered out of Jackson’s mouth a second ago.
‘Did you do some kind of … magic?’
The thing nodded at my question, its eyes round and worried.
‘Pingy things can happen when I feel …’
The thing blinked, stuck for the right word.
It blinked some more.
Still not finding the right word, it gritted its tiny sharp teeth, screwed its eyes closed, clenched its weeny fists tight shut and shuddered just like it had a moment before.
‘Shy?’ Jackson suggested uselessly.
‘ARRGHH!?’ I suggested more sensibly, since that’s how I felt when Jackson was going on (and on and on) just now.
‘Yes, please!’ the thing smiled in delight, sensing that I understood. ‘The pingy things happen when I feel ARRGHH!!’
‘So you turned my jelly baby into a slug?!’ gasped Jackson in wonder. ‘Wow!’
Bless him, Jackson really is a bit stupid.
Who else would be impressed that they’d had a mean magic trick played on them?
Uh-oh … the front door just slammed.
‘JACKSON! ARE YOU AROUND? CAN YOU GIVE ME A HAND GETTING ANOTHER BUCKET OF WATER?’ boomed a voice, as confident footsteps stomped towards the kitchen.
‘Quick! Come here, Thing!’ I muttered, scooping up the trembly creature and stuffing it inside my hoodie.
(Oops – in the muddle of the panic I’d accidentally given it a name!)
VOOSH went the zip, across went my arms, so as soon as Mr Miller came striding into the kitchen, all he saw was me and Jackson, sitting on the back step with our strange picnic of Rice Krispies and raw potato.
‘Oh, hello!’ Mr Miller boomed at me. ‘You must be Ruby!’
I shot a look at Jackson – to make sure he wasn’t about to do one of his childish ffftt! noises at the mention of my name – but he seemed too stunned to do anything, including talk to his dad.
‘Um, yes, that’s me. Hello!’ I muttered shyly to Mr Miller, at the same time feeling Thing’s heart beat madly against my chest.
Mr Miller didn’t seem to notice how silent his son was being or how weirdly false Jackson’s baboon grin was.
Instead he plunged a soapy bucket in the sink and began talking to little old me (EEK!) while slooshing on the tap.
Y’know, maybe what Mr Miller was saying was terribly kind and friendly and interesting, but I wasn’t really paying attention (oops, and sorry for being so rude).
‘… Jackson BLAH BLAH BLAH last school BLAH BLAH BLAH his mother and me BLAH BLAH BLAH new friends BLAH BLAH BLAH …’
Here’s the reason I wasn’t paying attention: while Mr Miller droned on, I felt a wriggle and squiggle happening in the depths of my hoodie.
I wriggled and squiggled a bit myself so Mr Miller wouldn’t notice that a small, walking, talking creature with magical powers was burrowing its way out of the bottom of my top and scampering off at top speed across the Jacksons’ garden.
As it wriggled into the tunnel under the fence, I saw it turn and peek back at me with its bushbaby eyes.
‘Bye, Rubby!’ I saw it mouth at me.
Bye, Thing! I said silently in my head, giving it the tiniest of secret farewell smiles.
‘BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH?’ I suddenly heard Mr Miller say.
Whipping my head and my smile around, I looked at Mr Miller and then at Jackson, hoping my friend would give me a clue about what question his dad had just asked.
‘So, which of these IS your favourite food, Ruby?’ Jackson translated for me, sweeping his hand over the rubbish picnic selection.
‘Oh! Um, this one, actually!’ I answered, picking up the first thing that came to hand and taking a big bite.
Of raw potato.
Mmm.
(The things you do for a thing called Thing …)
So the thing had a name at last, thanks to the muddle of the panic.
(Thing was the perfect name for a thing, don’t you think?)
And when Thing felt ARRGHH!! … well, all sorts of strangeness might happen.
(Crackle-spit-fizzzzzzzzz!!-ing and splashes of magic!)
I was lying in bed that night thinking random thoughts (about Thing, crackle-spit-fizzzzzzzzz!!-ing, dancing lights and startled slugs) when there was a sudden SPLAT! at my window.
‘Mew?!’ said Christine cat, waking up from her snooze in my sock drawer.
‘I don’t know either!’ I told her, flipping my duvet back and hurrying over to the window.
I felt very, very EEK!, to be honest, but then again I couldn’t bear not to know what exactly had splatted.
So I yanked open my curtains, and saw …
Thing!!
It was stretched star-shaped on the windowpane, its little nails scrabbling hard to get a grip on the glass. (It had no chance.)
PLOP!
It landed in a rumpled pile on the window ledge.
Quickly, I yanked open the window.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked it.
‘Hard air not nice …’ it mumbled, pushing itself upright and tapping on the glass pane with a little finger.
‘Ah, yes, glass can be a bit … um … confusing!’ I said, caught between feeling sorry for Thing and trying not to giggle.
‘What is confuzzing?’ asked Thing, blinking at me and rubbing its tiny paws together.
‘Sort of strange,’ I explained. ‘And it’s very strange to see you here. How did you get up to this ledge? Did you fly?’
Thing’s stumpy wings didn’t look like they’d lift it a centimetre off the ground, never mind get it as high as the first floor of our cottage.
‘I climb up tangle-vine,’ Thing explained, pointing to the wisteria that was all over this side of my house. ‘Seen boy’s buildinging. Now wanted to see your buildinging, Rubby.’
‘Ruby,’ I corrected it. ‘But how did you know which room was mine?’
‘A bee told me.’
Thing said it simply, its eyes darting around the room.
‘A bee?’ I blinked at it, trying to imagine a conversation between a thing and a bee, which made me go a bit dizzy, actually.
‘Mmm,’ purred Thing. ‘Saw it flying around your buildin
ging when sun was sunny. Then it came by trees and I asked where is you. It said this place up here. So I came when moon is moony.’
Aw.
Thing seemed so keen to know more about me and Jackson.
OK, so maybe it was keen to know about only me tonight.
How sweet and cute was that?
So sweet and cute I could just—
‘What is knobbles in legs, Rubby?’
Knobbles?
In legs?
What was the thing on about?
I looked at where it was pointing, which was somewhere a little below where my nightie ended.
‘They’re my knees,’ I told it, realising how very big and truly knobbly human knees are, when you think about it.
For a second, I thought about comparing them to Thing’s knees, except they were hidden in a fuzz of ginger fur.
Whatever, Thing seemed to have gotten bored with the knobbles in my legs already.
‘And what is that?’ it asked, pointing up now to the ceiling. Or maybe it was the wall.
‘What is what?’ I asked, my own eyes darting about.
‘That! All lines come togetherer! See?’
‘Oh, right!’ I nodded, figuring out what it meant. ‘That is called a corner.’
No wonder Thing was puzzled. There aren’t too many of those in the middle of forests.
‘What does it do?’ Thing blinked.
Hmm.
I had a feeling that explaining things to, er, Thing might sometimes give me brain strain.
Instead of trying to figure out an answer to Thing’s question, I changed the subject quickly.
‘Do you want to come in and look around?’ I offered.
‘No, thank you,’ Thing said ever-so-politely. ‘I can see from here. Do you have little people to eat, Rubby?’
It took a second for my brain to unknot – then I realised it meant jelly babies.
‘Er, no. Jackson’s the one who’s addicted to those!’ I smiled, settling myself down on my (knobbly) knees by the window.
‘What’s zaddicted?’ asked Thing, gawping at Christine cat, who’d purr-urr-urred herself back to sleep, now that we’d found the source of the SPLAT!.
(Christine is very old, and her hobbies are sleeping, snoozing and dozing.)
‘Never mind. Anyway, I don’t have any jelly babies. I just wish we knew what else you ate …’
‘Mushrooms!!’ squeaked Thing.
‘What? I wish you’d told us that earlier!’ I laughed in surprise, leaning my elbow on the windowsill, and remembering the under-fence tunnelling and the fridge-raiding that had gone on at Jackson’s after school today.
‘Human word was lost in my head till now.’
‘Oh, OK. Well, if you like mushrooms so much, I can go downstairs and see if we have some in the kitch—’
‘No, thank you. Tummy full. Found some stinky ones growing under bush. Mmmm …’
Right, so I now knew two important things:
Perhaps it was a good time to find out something else.
I was about to ask an important question when a tickly feeling made me giggle instead.
‘Hey! Ooo, stop!’ I pleaded, as Thing stroked the hairs on my arm as if they were as delicate and fine as the fluff on a dandelion clock.
‘Very thin fur, girly!’ it purred with a frown. ‘Is why you wear wrappings?’
I glanced from Thing to my ‘wrappings’ (i.e. my nightie).
‘I suppose so,’ I answered slowly, realising that my ‘thin fur’ probably made me look like a freak to Thing.
So what did it make of Jackson and his thin fur, blond hair and baboon grin? If I was a freak, then Jackson must seem like a mega-freak from Nouter Space …
Which brought me back to my question.
‘Thing … what did Jackson do that annoyed you so much today?’
Thing snuffled, and tugged experimentally on one of my arm hairs. Ouch.
‘Boy said I was like squirrel. Peh. Then he ha ha ha at me, and say names I think not nice …’
‘Oh, but they weren’t mean names – just a bit silly!’ I said, jumping to Jackson’s defence (the big donut). ‘He likes fooling around …’
‘What is foodingaground?’
Oh, good grief …
‘Something to do with biscuits,’ I lied quickly to change the subject (again). ‘Anyway, what’s so bad about squirrels?’
Thing bristled, and gave its wings a shudder.
(Uh-oh – maybe I shouldn’t have asked? I didn’t want it to go all ARRGHH! again, and end up with slugs up my nose or somewhere unpleasant …)
‘Squirrels always ha ha ha at me and call me not-nice names.’
Right … so Jackson had acted like a mean squirrel.
‘What sort of not-nice names?’ I asked.
Thing thought a bit then made a strange chattery noise – the sort squirrels make when they’re chasing each other in swirly circles up tree trunks.
‘In human, please?’ I asked.
‘Oh! Uh, ‘‘Big-nose-no-tail”, and Phlplplplplp!’
The last name sounded just like someone blowing a raspberry.
Poor Thing … no wonder he wasn’t keen on nasty old squ—
‘Why is broken flowers stuck in bottle?’
Thing interrupted my sympathetic thoughts.
It was pointing at my painted jam jar full of bluebells.
‘Because they’re pretty!’ I told it, since that was easy to explain. ‘Don’t you like flowers, Thing?’
‘Yes. Always lots of little white one grow round my house after frosty time,’ said my small, furry friend, with something like homesickness in its big, glassy eyes. ‘But I don’t break them and make them deaded, Rubby …’
Well.
I’d never thought of flowers in a vase that way.
TAPPITY-TAP!!
‘Ruby … are you talking to yourself in there?’ I heard Mum’s voice call out to me.
The bedroom door pushed open and the light from the hall gushed in.
‘Uh, yes! I mean, no!’ I said quickly, resting my head on my hand so that I hid the window ledge as much as possible. ‘I mean, I couldn’t sleep, so I was looking at the sky, and … and singing!’
‘Singing what, honey?’ Mum smiled at me expectantly.
‘Er …’ I gazed up at the sky and hoped it might give me inspiration. ‘It was “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”!’
Urgh.
I hadn’t sung that nursery rhyme since I was a kid!
‘Oh, honey, that’s so sweet!’ Mum gushed, hurrying over to join me at the window (don’t let her see Thing, don’t let her see Thing). ‘I know, let’s sing it together, just like when you were little!’
And so, by the light of the silvery moon, my mum and I sang (oh, the shame!) the whole of ‘Twinkle Twinkle’.
Meanwhile, outside the window I could make out the faint scrabble of something scurrying through the tangle-vine.
Followed by a faint, purry voice singing down below in the garden.
‘How why wonder watch you are …’
‘What was that?’ Mum muttered, stopping and listening.
‘Just an echo,’ I told her, hoping the ‘echo’ would get back home to its bag-and-twigs home safe and sound …
Next day at school, I explained to Jackson that he mustn’t be mean as a squirrel.
It took the whole of breaktime to get him to stop laughing and doing mean squirrel impersonations. (He looked more like a zombie rabbit.)
‘It’s not funny!’ I kept saying. ‘Thing was really upset with you!’
But it was difficult to get the words out, since (annoyingly) I’d caught the giggles from Jackson.
Still, annoying or not, Jackson and me were here together after school, hunkered down with Thing in the trees, staring at the lopsided Tesco-bag-and-twig-tent.
‘Thing – your home is rubbish. You need a new one,’ said Jackson, attempting to push the tent up straight with his finger (it just sagged down again as
soon as a passing butterfly happened to land on it). ‘Don’t you think so, Ruby?’
It was hard to concentrate on what Jackson was saying, because of what Thing was doing.
‘Thing, please stop stroking my nose!’ I asked it.
‘But I like to. It is so big and round!’ Thing purred.
Of course, Jackson started sniggering.
‘Jackson, don’t!’ I hissed, hoping I wouldn’t feel a tell-tale shudder from Thing.
Jackson mouthed an ‘oops’, then put on his best thoughtful face.
‘Hey, I know! Maybe we could raid all the recycling bins in the estate!’ he suggested. ‘We’re bound to find bits we could use to make a new shelter!’
‘I like my old house. It is a nice house,’ purred Thing, gently pressing the end of my nose, as if it might make a honking horn sound.
‘It was a nice house,’ I corrected it gently. Poor Thing must have had to move again and again as the wreckers moved on and on, and the woods got steadily smaller and smaller. Till it finally ended up here, far away from wherever home used to be.
‘Maybe old house still there, out past buildingings, in middle of woods …’ said Thing, one paw still clutching my nose, the other pointing out past the foliage at the paved road beyond.
‘But, Thing,’ I sighed, leaning backwards to get my nose out of squidging distance, ‘you know that’s not true. There are no woods any more. And no house either.’
Thing’s peaceful, leafy nest-or-whatever was now probably the site of a four-bedroom family home, complete with a whirling washing machine, blaring Wii games and screaming, dribbly toddlers.
‘You know something else? Now I think of it, one of those recycling BINS could make a great shelter!’ Jackson exclaimed. ‘It would be rainproof, and we’d just have to somehow cut a doorway in the side and—’
‘Really, really, really want to see old house, Rubby,’ Thing purred sadly and pointlessly, its giant eyes wide and forlorn. ‘Really, really, really, really, really want to see old house.’
‘I know you do,’ I muttered sadly, ruffling the fur between its squirrelly ears. ‘But—’
The Curse of the Jelly Babies Page 3
