Wicked Bindup

by Paul Jennings

  ‘There’s something weird and scary going on,’ I said to Eileen. ‘Maggots turning into bone-sucking monsters and sheep behaving in a very unfriendly manner. I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but it’s happening.’

  Eileen looked like she was going to explode.

  She didn’t. ‘I shouldn’t blame you,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘Not when your mother had so much trouble telling the truth.’

  I felt like I was going to explode.

  Before I could, I heard a loud creak above us. And a whoosh. I looked up. Swinging towards us was the big metal ball hanging from the end of the wrecker’s crane.

  Except it wasn’t a ball of metal, it was a ball of sheep. About six of them, all with evil grins, clinging to the end of the chain.

  I couldn’t move. I stared horrified as the sheep hurtled towards us. Then I noticed something even worse. The sheep were glinting in the sun. Their wool wasn’t soft and fluffy any more, it was hard and metallic.

  Steel wool.

  EIGHT

  I ran screaming down the country road away from the remains of the dog. The glow of dawn and the morning mist meant nothing. My mind was a whirlpool of doubt, fear and horror. Was I mad? Did a goat’s skeleton really come to life on that bus? Was Dawn’s dead mother really there?

  The whole thing was crazy, crazy, crazy. Even now slobberers could be waiting for me in the trees beside the road. Waiting to pounce and suck.

  My bad leg ached. And my hand and arm were inflamed again. The purple bruise had spread. Pain filled my whole arm and part of my chest. Was my arm infected? The slobberers had licked me. Did I have some new illness? Slobberers’ disease. Maybe I was dying.

  I ran until I could run no further. I fell down exhausted in the middle of the road next to a slimy pond.

  Eventually I got my breath back and sat up. I looked around me. All seemed quiet in the early morning light.

  I still clutched the apple-man. I stared down at him. He was a bit grimy so I wiped him on my sleeve. I loved the apple-man. He might have been the home of the slobberers. He might or might not have exploded on the bus. But he was still a gift from my dad. And even though he was an ugly little doll made out of a dried-up apple I was not going to part with him.

  I think I knew, deep down inside me. Even way back then, at the beginning of it all. That the apple-man held the answers to all the questions I was too frightened to ask.

  My feet stirred up the dust on the road as I slowly headed for home. Home? It wasn’t really my place. Dawn’s dad owned the house. And Dawn thought she owned it too. And Gramps, even though he was a nice guy and harmless, wasn’t really my Gramps. Okay, Mum lived there now. But she always seemed to stick up for Dawn. Like that first time me and Mum went over to their place.

  I don’t know what all the fuss was about. Just because I made a double slingshot out of Dawn’s bra. It could fire two tennis balls at once. Right over the house.

  ‘Golf balls,’ I told her. ‘One on each side. That’s all it would hold.’

  Okay, so I lied a bit. And I ruined the bra. But Mum shouldn’t have grounded me. Not her own son. Not her own flesh and blood.

  I felt hurt. And angry. Really angry. And as I trudged along the road my arm hurt more and more. It was so painful that tears pricked behind my eyelids.

  If only Dad were there. He would know what to do. He would know whether I was insane or not. He would stick up for me. He would help.

  I looked down at the little apple-man with a bit of a smile and continued to force my aching legs towards the house. ‘I’ll show them,’ I thought. ‘You can’t treat me like that.’

  My arm and chest throbbed more and more. My bad leg ached. I had to rest again. I sank down on a log, exhausted, and closed my eyes.

  Something cold and wet moved across my hand. What, what, what? A slobberer’s tongue? I was too scared to move. Too scared to open my eyes. But I had to.

  Two eyes blinked back at me. Not a slobberer. Only a frog.

  I laughed with relief and picked him up gently. ‘Hello, little fella,’ I said.

  The frog shot out his tiny tongue and tickled my cut hand. I could feel the small wet flick of it on the seeping scab of my wound. Suddenly the frog’s eyes rolled back in his head and then quivered back into view. Like the symbols on a poker machine when you hit the jackpot.

  The frog sat shivering on my palm. Why was it shivering? Frogs don’t get cold, do they? Maybe it was scared. Like me.

  Then the frog crouched. For a second it was like a coiled spring. Then its eyes rolled, and POW. It shot up into the sky with an enormous leap. Talk about the cow jumping over the moon. It disappeared over the top of the trees. Splash. It must have landed back in the pond.

  What a jump. Incredible. I had never seen anything like it.

  My mind started to tick over. The frog licking me. It reminded me of something. Something similar. What was it?

  Then it clicked. The slobberers had licked my bleeding hand. And then there was the sheep. On the step of the bus. I had stuck my cut finger into the sheep’s nostril.

  Maybe there was some sort of disease going around. Maybe we were infecting each other. Like the Black Death. I needed help. I had to get home.

  I staggered on down the road. On and on. It seemed such a long way home. Finally I reached the bridge. Not far now. I stopped and listened to the water gurgling below. And heard something else. Behind me in the bushes.

  Plip, plop, plip, plop. Like tiny spoonfuls of jelly falling onto the road. Dozens of them. No, hundreds. Plip, plop, plip, plop, plip, plop. No, thousands. As if an unseen hand was throwing stones into the air.

  There. Stretched across the road. Little green lumps with small blinking eyes. Suddenly they lifted into the air like a swarm of grasshoppers. Up, up, up, up. Way above the treetops. They stopped, paused in mid-flight and began to fall. A hailstorm of frogs in the forest.

  Whoosh, they landed together. As one. The sound reminded me of a huge bucket of water sloshing on the road. A million frogs, all landing at once.

  They blinked at me. Unfriendly. My legs felt so weak I could hardly stand. But somehow I managed to back away from them across the bridge. Not for one second did I take my eyes off the fearful plague.

  The frogs, as one, crouched down and then sprang. Way, way over my head. Right across the river in one – no, not one. But one million identical giant leaps. They sloshed down onto the road and jumped again. And again.

  The shower of frogs disappeared into the distance along the dusty road.

  Towards our house.

  I stumbled after them as fast as I could go. I was nearly there. Home at last. Suddenly it all seemed silly. A nightmare. Unreal. There were no frogs. It was all a mistake. All my tiredness fell away. Even my arm didn’t hurt quite as much as I trudged the last few steps up to the gate. Now I could get adult help. They could take over.

  Slobberers, a skeleton goat, Dawn’s mother back from the dead, an exploding apple-man and frogs that can jump trees. They were all just in my head. Part of my sickness. None of that would matter any more.

  A shadowy figure moved in the kitchen window. Mum? Maybe Mum was there by now. And Jack. Oh, I hoped so much that they were. I let out a sob and opened the gate.

  A thunderous roar filled the air. It was almost as if the movement of the gate had been a signal for it to start. I clapped my hands over my ears and started running for the front door. What was that noise? So loud.

  It was an ordinary old noise made bigger. A noise from a peaceful morning in the country. But amplified like a rock band out of control.

  Frogs. A billion frogs croaking together. I couldn’t see them but there was no doubt that they were there. Hiding in the trees that surrounded the house.

  NINE

  ‘Look out,’ I screamed at Eileen.

  She just stood there, in shock, staring.

  I didn’t blame her. Most people, if they had a choice between paying attention to a step-daughter scream
ing at them or to six sheep hurtling towards them on a wrecker’s ball, would choose the sheep.

  Specially if the sheep had razor-sharp steel wool.

  I grabbed Eileen’s sling and dragged her out of the way. The ball of sheep whooshed past, scowling. I thought how many layers of skin their wool would rip off us if it touched us. Suddenly my legs were pumping.

  ‘Over here,’ I yelled at Eileen as I ran towards the bus. I looked back. Eileen was still rooted to the spot, staring at the sheep, stunned. The sheep landed on the roof of the caretaker’s office. One lost its grip on the ball and slid across the roof in a spray of rust and metal shavings. The others launched themselves at Eileen again.

  I found I was rooted to the spot too. For a fleeting second all I could think about was that Eileen believed the evil gossip about Mum being a liar and the bus crash being Mum’s fault. For a fleeting second I almost wanted the sheep to get her. Then I remembered Dad loved her, so I sprinted over and pulled her out of the way again.

  ‘This can’t be happening,’ she croaked as the sheep whizzed past her head.

  ‘If you think this is scary,’ I muttered grimly, ‘you should have seen what the slobberers did to the dog.’ I remembered they’d probably done it to her son too, so I changed the subject. ‘We’ll be safer in the bus,’ I said.

  It was too late. The sheep were on the roof of the crane cab preparing for another swing. I looked wildly around. Near us was a pile of scrap. I grabbed Eileen and we tried to squeeze in between a stack of flattened cars and a big old industrial fridge. There wasn’t room.

  I looked frantically up at the sheep. All six pairs of bloodshot eyes were fixed on Eileen.

  That’s when I realised the sheep weren’t interested in me. They wanted my step-mother.

  I pulled Eileen out of the cubbyhole and stood her next to the fridge, directly in the path of the swooping sheep. ‘It’s you they’re after,’ I explained, then I squeezed in alongside the fridge.

  Eileen didn’t move. She must still have been in shock. The sheep hurtled towards her. Just before the ball of sheep gave her the worst skin problem of her life, I flung open the fridge door. The ball, and the sheep, slammed into it.

  After the dust had settled, and my heart had dropped back down into my chest, I checked none of the sheep on the ground were moving. Then I checked Eileen.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  She nodded, shaking. I was shaking too. If I’d been any later opening that fridge door, Dad would have killed me.

  ‘We’ve got to get back to town,’ I said, ‘and find Dad and tell the cops what’s going on. They’ll believe it coming from you.’

  Eileen nodded again. She didn’t look as though she’d believe it coming from her.

  We set off back to town on foot, me keeping a nervous eye out for sheep. Eileen didn’t say anything for about ten minutes. I understood. My nerves were a mess too. Plus adults took longer to adjust. It was the same with Dad when I dyed my hair green.

  As we plodded along the dusty road, I tried not to worry about Dad. It was hard with his shirt wrapped round Eileen’s arm and my dazed brain so full of scary questions.

  Was the whole world being attacked by giant worms and killer sheep? Or was it just us?

  If it was just us, why?

  Suddenly Eileen started talking. ‘Those slitherers or blubberers or whatever you called them. Where did they come from?’

  I told her how they’d started out as normal grubs in the souvenir apple-man Rory’s dad had sent him.

  Eileen stopped walking and her face went even grimmer than the time I dried my hair on her white towel. The time I discovered the dye wasn’t permanent.

  She started pacing around and muttering to herself, the way adults do when they’re wrestling with a really difficult thought.

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘Surely not. No, I’m being stupid.’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  Eileen stared at me as if she’d forgotten I was there. ‘Rory’s father,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve been worried he might try and pull a stunt on account of me getting married again. Try and get Rory away from me. But this …’ She winced and shook her head as if the thought was too big even for someone like her who’d finished Year 12.

  I stared at her. What did she mean? That Rory’s father was a giant worm? Or a vicious sheep? That was dopey. But hang on, how did I know it was? I didn’t know anything about Rory’s father, except that he’d nicked off when Rory was five. Rory never wanted to talk about him. He could be a Martian for all I knew. Or a really skilful sheep trainer.

  Suddenly the stress of the last day and a half got to me. Something snapped in my head and my brain went woolly with rage. It wasn’t fair. Me and Dad had been happy till he’d got involved with Eileen and Rory and their psycho family.

  ‘Why me?’ I screamed. ‘I’m sick of this.’

  Eileen didn’t reply. She was straining to hear something. Then I heard it too. It sounded like a tractor, accelerating towards us at speed.

  I turned and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Roaring towards us round a bend in the road was Ernie Piggot’s tractor. Riding it were four sheep. One had its front legs on the steering wheel. One was sitting on the accelerator pedal. One had the gearstick in its mouth.

  The fourth was sprawled on the engine cover. Jutting out from under its tummy, like a knight’s lance, was my steel fence post.

  Its jagged point was speeding towards us.

  We screamed and ran. Ahead I spotted a small shack that had once been a roadside fruit stall. Juicy Melons said the sign. Behind us I could hear the tractor getting closer.

  We dived in and slammed the ricketty door. The shack shuddered and dust and splinters showered down on us. Then I realised Mum’s shoe wasn’t inside my shirt. Desperately I peered through a crack in the flimsy wall. There was the shoe, on the road outside. And there, thundering towards us like angry knights in steel-wool armour, were the sheep.

  I couldn’t look. I buried my face in Eileen’s sling, and as we waited for the walls to cave in I realised this was the first time I’d ever hugged my step-mother.

  TEN

  Home. Safe at last, I hoped.

  I lurched down the garden path and crashed through the front door. It hadn’t even been locked but I soon took care of that.

  ‘Rory,’ croaked a friendly voice.

  It wasn’t Mum’s voice but any human voice would have been friendly at that moment. Especially an adult voice.

  ‘Gramps,’ I yelled.

  Although he wasn’t really my Gramps I was starting to feel as if he was. I ran across the room and threw myself into his arms. I tried really hard not to cry but I was so upset that I couldn’t say anything for a second or two.

  ‘I was worried about you,’ said Gramps. ‘Out there all night in this thunderstorm.’

  I fought for breath, trying to control the sobs that were trying to escape. I ran and peered out of the window. ‘That’s not thunder,’ I said. ‘It’s frogs.’

  Outside, the racket was so loud that it almost drowned us out.

  ‘Frogs?’ he said. ‘Frogs didn’t sound like that when I was a boy.’ He looked sad. ‘But then nothing seems the same any more, does it? I’ll make you a nice cup of tea. You look terrible. Then you can tell me where Dawn is. And what’s going on.’

  ‘I don’t want tea,’ I yelled. ‘Those frogs are dangerous. I think they’re after me. We have to board up the windows. We have to keep them out.’

  Gramps ambled over to the stove and put on the kettle. The roar of the frogs suddenly stopped. All was silent outside. But I wasn’t fooled. Not after everything that had happened. Anything was possible. The frogs were up to something. I just knew it.

  ‘The thunder has stopped,’ said Gramps. ‘Now you just settle down and tell me all about it. I won’t hear another word until you’ve got some tea into you.’

  Gramps picked up two shoes from beside the door and put some sugar and milk into the
m. Then he poured the boiling tea into them and handed one to me. He started to sip his tea from the shoe.

  ‘Hey,’ I yelled. ‘What are you doing? You don’t drink tea from a shoe.’

  This terrible nightmare was going on and on and on. Surely there was no other weird thing left to happen.

  Gramps looked at his shoe of tea and his eyes started to brim with tears. ‘You don’t, do you,’ he said. ‘You put feet into shoes. And … tea into cups.’

  He stood up and fetched two clean cups and poured us some more tea.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, Gramps?’ I asked gently. ‘Yesterday you put a drill in the freezer.’

  He just sat there and blinked at me for a bit. I could tell that he was trying to make up his mind whether or not to tell me.

  ‘I’m sick,’ he said.

  ‘So am I,’ I yelled. ‘So am I. We’ve got the same thing.’ I held out my purple arm and waved it in front of his face. ‘I got licked by, by, by … slobberers. I keep seeing things. Exploding apple-men and, and … and a goat came to life. And millions of frogs are – ’

  ‘No,’ said Gramps. ‘We haven’t got the same thing. What I’ve got. You only get it when you’re old.’

  ‘Did the slobberers lick you? Did they? Did they?’

  He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘In my day there was no such thing as slobberers. At least I don’t think there was.’ He scratched his head. I could tell he was trying very hard to think straight. To remember something. ‘We had cobblers, though,’ he said. ‘Yes. They made these.’ He held up a cup.

  I started to feel really sad. Cobblers made shoes, not cups. ‘How did you catch your disease?’ I asked slowly.

  ‘No one knows,’ said Gramps. ‘Some people say that you get it from cooking with aluminium saucepans. But no one really knows.’