by Simon Cherry
Two doors away at number 22, her neighbour Harry Hodges did exactly the same. And so did Colin Clutterbuck round the corner at 6 Homeward Lane, Nikki Cheung up the hill at 19 Hollybush Avenue, and forty-two other people at forty-two other addresses in Tidemark Bay.
Seven minutes later, Mrs Daphne Venables heaved a deep sigh. “Ah, well,” she said to her husband, “no good. I’ll have to go back to work at the bun factory for another week.” She was about to throw her losing ticket into the bin, when something odd about it caught her eye.
“That’s strange,” she said. “These aren’t my usual numbers on this ticket. Hang on – seven, nine, thirty-two, thirty-nine, forty-three and forty-eight. Oh my goodness! I’VE WON!!!! I’VE WON THE MEGA LOTTERY!!!! I’ve got to phone and tell them!”
Strangely enough, at that precise moment, the very same words were being shouted by her neighbour Harry Hodges at number 22, Colin Clutterbuck round the corner at 6 Homeward Lane, Nikki Cheung up the hill at 19 Hollybush Avenue, and forty-two other people at forty-two other addresses in Tidemark Bay.
One of the people in Tidemark Bay who had not won the Mega Lottery that night was Maurice Burbage. Maurice had not even bought a ticket. He wasn’t interested in such vulgar contests. Maurice’s passion was the theatre. For over forty years he had been a leading figure in the Tidemark Bay Amateur Dramatic Society. Tonight he had gone to bed early to learn the lines for his next starring role. He was determined to be word-perfect, and to silence the sniping doubters who had said that he was too old to play Romeo.
Not old, he had told them. Experienced. And though he might not be eighteen years old any more, he could still play eighteen years old. It was what they called acting, my dears. And he was a very, very good actor. He was quite sure of that.
He often wondered how far he might have risen if he had taken it up professionally. By now he could be a huge star, onstage in one of the great theatres – maybe the National Theatre itself. How marvellous that would be. Yes, he wished he was onstage at the National Theatre. And he drifted off to sleep.
And that was Saturday evening.
And Sunday morning got even stranger.
On Sunday morning, the sun rose as usual over the harbour in Tidemark Bay. Usually after it rose, it spent a few minutes having a bit of a glint on the surface of the water in the harbour, while a handful of boats bobbed up and down. But not today. Today there was no glinting. Or bobbing, come to that. The water was not its usual self. It had turned thick and icy and creamy overnight. Thick and icy and creamy and bright strawberry pink, inside the gigantic dish of the harbour wall. Sophie Pinkerton didn’t know it yet, but she had got her wish. Sitting slap in the middle of the harbour, the crew of the yacht Saucy Sue did know it, and they were not happy. What they were instead, was stuck.
Maurice Burbage woke in a cold sweat. He had had a terrible dream in the night. A dream that was every actor’s worst nightmare.
He was standing on a stage in a glare of spotlights, wearing only his pyjamas. Beyond the lights was darkness – a darkness that he knew was filled with a thousand pairs of eyes staring right at him. All the other actors were looking at him, waiting. But he had no idea what he was supposed to say or do. He didn’t even know which play he was in. It was horrible. The memory of it made him feel sick. Thank goodness it was only a dream.
He turned on the radio by his bed. It was the news.
“…at the National Theatre are trying to find out how a member of the public managed to walk onstage during a performance last night,” said the newsreader. “The man, who appeared to be wearing a pair of pyjamas, stood still for a few seconds, then shouted, ‘Help! Mummy!’ before running into the wings. He disappeared before anyone could catch him. And fi—”
Maurice Burbage turned the radio off again. Then he pulled his duvet over his head, stuck his thumb in his mouth and quietly sobbed.
“How embarrassing!” said Mrs Daphne Venables, who was also listening to the news. She was sitting down to breakfast with her husband Geoffrey, still brimming with excitement from last night’s Mega Lottery win.
“—nally,” the newsreader newsread, “the Mega Lottery has cancelled payments on last night’s draw after it received claims for 46 winning tickets, all from the small seaside town of Tidemark Bay.”
“What?” said Mrs Venables.
“They can’t do that,” said Mr Venables.
“We have a telephone interview now with the Mega Lottery’s mathematics advisor, Professor Felix Fermat,” the newsreader continued.
“It is impossible to have 46 winners from a single town unless either the ticket machine is faulty or it is the result of a criminal plot. In either case the result is up the spout,” the Professor told the programme’s one million listeners.
“But I won,” said Mrs Venables.
“Course you did,” said Mr Venables.
“You say impossible,” said the newsreader, “but isn’t there a small chance that it could happen naturally?”
“Only a teeny weeny tiny winy itsy bitsy fraction of a shred of a sliver of a chance,” said the Professor. “One in a million billion trillion umptillion. It is about as likely that the sausage I am about to eat for breakfast will stand up on the plate and sing the Hallelujah Chorus.”
“It’s so unfair,” said Mrs Venables.
“What do experts know anyway?” said Mr Venables. “I wish his sausage would do exactly that and teach him a lesson.”
A million radio listeners suddenly heard a shrill scream, a clatter of cutlery dropping to the floor, and footsteps disappearing rapidly into the distance.
“Professor?” said the newsreader.
“Are you still there?”
But all was silent.
Apart from a tiny, high voice.
“HALLELUJAH!” it chirped.
“HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! HALL-AY-AY-LOO-JAH!”
Eddy Stone was still asleep when all this happened. When he eventually woke, he found his new book on the bed next to him. The loose sheet of paper with Madeleine Montagu’s packing list had slipped out of it. He picked it up to put it back inside. But something wasn’t right. The words on the paper wouldn’t settle properly in front of his eyes. He remembered that the list had started with “skirts”, “blouses” and “sun hat”. But now it looked like “squats”, “bruises” and “gunboat”.
Weird.
He looked around. There was another book nearby – one from his school library about the Norman Conquest. Except that now, when he tried to read the title on the cover, it looked like Normal Cow Test. He opened it. The words danced in patterns of nonsense.
Weirder.
He tried the leather-bound book, and found he could still read the stories about Emperor Gumpert and his genie perfectly. So that squiggly writing was no problem. He remembered that he had made a wish that he could read this new book instead of the packing list. It was as if that had worked out – just not quite as he had expected. Especially the “instead” part. It wasn’t just the packing list that he couldn’t read – it was everything that used the normal alphabet. Nothing written in his own language made sense any more.
But wishes didn’t come true, did they? Not in real life. Not like that.
He went downstairs, poured himself a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and plonked himself down to watch TV in the front room.
His dad was already up and about. He was wearing one of his day-off shirts – turquoise with big bright red polka dots all over it. Eddy had never liked it.
But his dad wasn’t behaving like it was a day off. He was bustling round in a hurry. He came into the front room, a slice of jammy toast gripped between his teeth.
“I’m off then,” he said, through his breakfast.
“Where?” said Eddy.
“Work. I’ve had an idea. If I drill some holes in the astronaut helmets, that might stop them steaming up.”
“But it’s Sunday,” said Eddy. “Rest day.”
“I’m not doing it be
cause I want to,” said his dad.
“I’m doing it because I have to. It’s alright for you. I wish I could sit around in front of the TV doing nothing all day.”
A ripple ran through the room.
And then his dad turned into a sofa.
Eddy had no idea what was happening.
The great detective Sherlock Holmes once said that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. But to be fair to Eddy, Sherlock never saw anyone turn into a piece of furniture. And you would have to work your way through an awfully long list of possible explanations before you arrived at that one.
Eddy knew something strange had happened. One minute he was looking at his dad. The next minute he was looking at a sofa that he had never seen before. A sofa covered in a turquoise fabric with big red polka dots all over it. Just like his dad’s shirt.
At first he thought his dad might be behind it.
“Dad?”
Then maybe that he had left the room.
“Dad?”
Then Eddy noticed something sticking out from between the seat cushions. It was a slice of jammy toast – a slice with a single bite taken out. It was only when he put that together with the turquoise and red pattern that the thoroughly improbable truth dawned on him.
“Mum!” he called. “Come quickly. I think Dad has turned into a sofa.”
He heard her footsteps on the stairs.
“What was that?”
“I said…” He hesitated. It was ridiculous. But he had to say it again. “I think Dad has turned into a sofa.”
His mother came into the room.
“I don’t know where you got that thing from,” she said, “but it will have to go. There’s no space for it in here. And those colours clash horribly with the curtains.”
“I didn’t put it there,” said Eddy. “And it can’t go. I think it’s Dad.”
“Very funny,” his mother snapped. “We aren’t all young people with time to be silly, you know. Some of us are grown-ups with too much to do.” She sighed. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be cross. I’d like to have time to be silly sometimes. You don’t know how lucky you are. I wish I was young again like you.”
The strange ripple passed through the room again, blurring everything in front of Eddy’s eyes. When the view cleared, a teenage girl was standing in his mother’s clothes. There was no mistaking who she was. She looked just like she did in the wedding photo on the dressing table in his parents’ bedroom. Or maybe a bit younger.
“I feel dizzy,” she said. She sat down on the turquoise sofa.
“Mum?” said Eddy. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “My head feels very strange. And why are you calling me mum?”
“Because that’s who you are,” said Eddy.
“Don’t be daft,” she said. “You’re almost as old as me. How could I possibly be your mother?”
“But—” Eddy began. He didn’t know what to say next. His mother didn’t just look young again, he realized. She really was young again. And he reckoned that meant she had no memory of anything that had happened since she was a teenager.
“What’s the last thing you can remember?” Eddy asked.
“I was working in my mum and dad’s greengrocer’s shop,” she said. “Like every Saturday. And I’ve got a date tonight with the boy from the fish shop next door. He’s nice.”
Eddy had heard this story before – how his mum and dad first got together. He thought about telling his mother the truth – that she had married the nice boy from the fish shop and years later here they all were. But he realized that when he got to the bit where he had to explain that the nice boy from the fish shop had just turned into a sofa, and she was now sitting on him, it really wasn’t going to help things. His mother was confused enough as it was.
“Where are we?” she said. “I don’t recognize it.”
She was starting to sound upset. He had to think of something fast.
“You are in a place called Tidemark Bay,” he said. “You had a little accident and you’ve lost your memory.” That was all true, at least. “You need to sit here quietly and rest until it gets better.”
That calmed her down.
“My memory,” she said. “Yes. It is all a bit fuzzy. Like there are big holes in it. I think I might have a nap.”
“Good idea,” said Eddy. “The other sofa would be better though. More comfortable for you.”
Probably more comfortable for the sofa she was sitting on as well, he thought. He wondered if his dad felt squashed.
What was going on?
And how on earth could he put it right and get his mum and dad back?
It was all to do with wishes.
And then there was the statue. And the picture in the book of a genie that looked just like it.
They had to be connected.
How or what or why, Eddy had no idea. But what else could it be?
He raced upstairs to his bedroom.
The statue looked down at him from his bookshelf.
“Our wishes only started coming true when I brought you home,” Eddy said. “Well, now I wish everything was back just how it was before.”
He waited. There was no ripple. No anything. He looked at the front of his book about the Norman Conquest. This time the title looked like Formal Omelettes. He still couldn’t read it properly. Nothing had changed.
“Just stop it!” he yelled at the statue, his voice cracking with desperation. He had to get his parents back. “Stop it now!”
“I can’t.”
It was a weedy, reedy voice. And it didn’t come from the statue. It came from inside Eddy’s wardrobe.
Eddy threw open the wardrobe doors.
Something green and flimsy flitted back through the gap between a couple of hanging shirts.
“Shhhh!” it said. “I’m hiding.”
“Oh!” said Eddy. “Sorry.”
He shut the wardrobe doors again.
Wait a minute.
“What do you mean you’re hiding?” He yanked the doors open for a second time.
“It’s odd.” The green thing peeped cautiously out from behind a pair of Eddy’s trousers. “I spent all that time longing to get free from the lamp, but now that it’s broken and I’m out, I feel completely undressed. You haven’t got a vase or a jar that I could slip into, have you?”
“You were in the lamp?” said Eddy.
“For over a hundred years,” said the green thing.
“Hang on,” said Eddy. “Are you a genie?”
“Don’t talk to me about genies,” said the green thing. “It was a genie who trapped me. And anyway, do I look like a genie?”
“I can’t tell,” said Eddy. “Not while you are behind those trousers. Why don’t you come out where I can see you?”
“Well…I suppose.” The green thing slipped cautiously out from its hiding place. Eddy found himself looking at an elderly man with a bushy beard and eyebrows. He was dressed in a long gown decorated with stars and crescent moons, and wore a tall pointed hat on his head. As well as being bright green from top to bottom, he was flat and completely see-through, as if he was made of tissue paper.
“So,” said the figure. “What do I look like now?”
“A wizard?” said Eddy.
“Quite right. Wizard Witterwort, that’s me. At least, it was, until the Genie took away my body and stuck me in a lamp. That genie.” He wafted a transparent arm in the direction of the clay head on Eddy’s bookshelf. “I wish more than anything that I could get my body back.”
“Why did he do that?” said Eddy.
“I annoyed his master, Emperor Gumpert.”
“He was in my book,” said Eddy, “Gumpert the Glorious.”
“Gumpert the Glutton, more like,” said Wizard Witterwort. “He was always stuffing his face. He was so fat you could have rolled him down a hill like a giant ball. That’s what got me into trouble. I was young and
looking to make my way in the world. I thought I’d be able to get into his good books by casting a surprise spell that made him lose weight.”
“What happened?” said Eddy. “Didn’t it work?”
“On, no, it worked. He lost lots of weight. I cast my spell, and both his legs fell off. Gumpert was furious. He ordered his genie to stick his legs back on, and then punish me by removing every last bit of my body, stuffing me in that lamp and slapping a curse on me. Then Gumpert shoved the lamp in a cupboard at the palace and left me there for years until someone called Mad Monty turned up.”
“Mad Monty,” said Eddy. “You mean Madeleine Montagu?”
“That’s her,” said the Wizard. “She wanted some souvenirs. She thought a wizard in a lamp was very exotic. The Emperor couldn’t wait to get rid of me. He said some very rude things about me. I could hear every word.”
“You said something about a curse?” said Eddy.
“Yes,” said Wizard Witterwort. “A curse on anyone who let me out.”
“You mean me,” said Eddy. “I broke the lamp.”
“The curse is that now I am out of the lamp, I have to grant one wish to everyone in your town,” said Wizard Witterwort. “Hang on – I’ve got one coming in. The lady across the street from you has just wished that her house was a lot bigger. Let’s see…”
Eddy knew his neighbour. She had a small cottage and a large family. He wasn’t surprised that she had wished they had more space.
“Here goes,” said Wizard Witterwort. His wispy green fingers fluttered in the air, and a ripple flowed out of him and across the street.
As Eddy watched from his bedroom window, the house opposite began to grow. Every brick in its walls, every tile on its roof, every door, and every pane of glass began to get larger, as if the house was a picture painted on a balloon that was being inflated. And like a balloon, when the house reached its neighbours on the left and the right, it stopped spreading sideways but carried on bulging upwards and outwards. It grew until every part of it was three times as big as when it had started, and its front wall had spread right across the street. The huge knocker on its massive front door was almost touching Eddy’s bedroom window.
