Aubrey had been holding his breath while Hoppy babbled, and now he let it out.
‘Phew!’ he said. ‘If only Dad was a squirrel. He hardly ever laughs.’
‘When did he last climb a tree?’ Hoppy asked.
‘I can’t remember.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said the squirrel. ‘We need to rev him up! And there’s a simple way to do it. Three ways. Play, play and play!’
‘It’s easy saying that,’ Aubrey told Hoppy. ‘How are we going to do it?’
‘Oh man, we’re gonna glee him up! Make him wriggle like a labrador pup! Tackle his knees! Make him sneeze! Hide his keys, stuff his sock with peas. Put his shorts on your head, fill his bath with bread – the man who don’t laugh is a man that’s dead. Water trap him! Tie his shoelaces together…’
‘But Hoppy, I don’t think it’s going to be enough to beat the Terrible Yoot. Dad’s very tired. How are we going to make him strong?’
‘Positive thinking, Bree-Boy! If he thinks he is getting stronger he will get stronger. So just – make him!’
‘But how?’
‘Shave his toothbrush!’ squeaked the squirrel.
‘Say that again.’
FOOTNOTE: Grey squirrels arrived in Britain from America around a hundred and fifty years ago. They are so beautiful and such fun everyone thought it was a great idea to bring them over – everyone except the red squirrels who were already here, who were extremely put out. This is why people are very pleased to see red squirrels now, and go to great lengths to make them feel better.
(Hoppy’s real name, according to her parents, is Holly. Like many young squirrels she changed it, and her vocabulary, when she discovered hip-hop.)
‘Shave his toothbrush. Get an ox and shave his toothbrush handle.’
‘Get a what?’
‘An ox, man, a razor! Don’t you listen to hip-hop? Sheesh! Whittle it so smooth he can’t tell it’s happened. Then when he picks it up it will feel light – and he’ll think he’s stronger!’
‘Shave his toothbrush!’ Aubrey laughed. ‘I’m not allowed anything sharp. No oxes.’
‘I’ll get my crew,’ said Hoppy. ‘Just watch us chew! See these teeth? Got more edges than the Barrier Reef. We’ll pull the padding out of his boots, they’ll be lighter, and we’ll hollow out the heels – much lighter! We’ll take the lining out of his coat. I’ll whittle his chip. We’ll…’
‘What chip?’
‘His cell, Aubo! His “mobile telephone”. With me?’
‘Umm,’ said Aubrey, ‘I’m not sure. But if you think it will help…’
‘Think it schmink it! I know it. Stay up, baby. Climb some trees!’ Hoppy bobbed at him, then with a dash she was off, chanting to herself, ‘Chippa-chippa boom! Chippa-chippa BOOM-BOOM!’
That afternoon Jim was lying in his bed trying to sleep. He had been awake until six in the morning with Night Fears. Night Fears are worries, whirled together and concentrated into a soup of anxiety, pessimism and despair, a hopeless mixture of problems you cannot do anything about, and problems you can – if only you can get some sleep and deal with them when you are fresh.
Jim had floundered around in a soup of fears about global food supplies and climate change, road safety, Aubrey’s education, Suzanne’s pension, his own savings, the governments of China, America and Greece, organised crime, the news, diet, the roof, the world water supply, the oil price, refugee camps, car maintenance, fertiliser and pesticides, and that was only in the first hour. Jim’s Night Fears kept him awake for six more.
So now he was trying to drop off. Though the afternoon was warm, blue and gold, in Jim’s mind the world was a grey haze of exhaustion. His fears were so numerous they filled his mind like a vast and hideous army, stamping their feet, impatient for their turn to attack Jim’s spirits. Jim lay with his eyes scrunched shut and his teeth clenched. Then he heard the fly.
A fly, this late in the year, he thought. And in the bedroom, just when I’m trying to sleep. Now it will probably land on me when I’m dropping off and wake me up. Maybe I should get up and let it out. Or kill it. No, I should let it out. Thou shalt not kill. Even flies. Oh Lord. I’m just…
Jim did not notice it, because he was too busy having this miserable conversation with himself, but this fly’s behaviour was unusual. Instead of buzzing around randomly like flies do, led by curiosity and anything that smells interesting, this fly, whose name was Marcel, set up a regular circuit and stuck to it. His flight path was a tilted oval shape between the bed and the window. He flew down towards the bed – zzzzz – and then turned to fly up towards the window: bzzzz. The combined sound, zzzz-bzzzz, zzzz-bzzzz, made Jim fall fast asleep before he could complete the sentence, ‘I’m just…’
Marcel landed on the windowsill and rubbed his legs together in satisfaction. Aubrey tiptoed in, holding his finger out.
On the end of it was a tiny blob of sugar and water paste. He deposited it carefully on the windowsill. Marcel began to feast. Aubrey tiptoed out.
Jim surfaced from his dreams three hours later. He had not slept so well for weeks! He had woken once, briefly, or perhaps he had dreamt it, because all he remembered was a hypnotic buzzing. There was no sign of the fly (Marcel was now having his own dreams, on top of the curtain rail, about cakes made of sour cream and rotten meat) and Jim had forgotten all about him. He felt properly refreshed. He decided he should join Suzanne and Aubrey and take responsibility for making tea for a change. He headed for the bathroom. He opened the bathroom door, jumped, stared in amazement and shouted a loud and incoherent sound like ‘Squiibah!’
He appeared downstairs a few moments later.
‘Squirrel!’ he cried. ‘In the bathroom!’
‘Really, love?’ Suzanne smiled, ‘How funny!’
‘Using my toothbrush!’
Suzanne started to laugh.
‘It was! I went in and it put the toothbrush back – in the mug – and then it went out of the window like a rocket!’
‘Trust you to be sharing your toothbrush with squirrels,’ Suzanne said.
She thought it mildly surprising that a squirrel should have visited the bathroom. She assumed Jim was exaggerating about the replacement of the toothbrush. Had she seen the squirrel exiting the bathroom window, its cheeks packed with orange toothbrush shavings, which it then spat carefully into the drain – who knows what Suzanne would have thought? All we know is what Mr Ferraby thought. He happened to be in his garden and glancing towards his neighbours’ house when the squirrel appeared.
‘There is something going on with that squirrel of Aubrey’s,’ he told Mrs Ferraby. ‘I just saw it come out of their bathroom and throw up carrots! Maybe they’ve got it on the wrong diet.’
Mrs Ferraby looked sceptical.
CHAPTER 8
Eighty Squirrels, One Heron
It was Mr Ferraby’s habit, in the early evening, to go up to the top of his garden where he had his shed. One of his many interests was making mobiles out of card and string. His creations were beautiful and he had recently started selling them online to customers around the world. Early that evening, as Suzanne and Aubrey teased Jim about his squirrel, and Jim assembled ham and cheese omelettes, Mr Ferraby sat down in his shed and picked up his latest design. It was three elephants, made of coloured card. He almost had the balance right – balance is everything in mobiles – and was looking forward to sending it to a lady in Norway who wanted it for her new granddaughter. Mr Ferraby was smiling to himself when he just happened to glance out of the window of his shed towards Aubrey’s house.
The smile stayed fixed on his face, in a foolish way, as Mr Ferraby forgot all about it.
He decided he must be going bonkers, right there, right then, in his shed, with his mobile in his hands. He must be as nutty as Bombay Mix and as loopy as a fruit hoop. He must be hallucinating, because what his eyes were telling his brain they could see could not possibly be happening.
Squirrels! So many! How many? Something lik
e eighty squirrels were skittling through the gardens towards Aubrey’s house. The ground teemed with a flooding tide of squirrels which broke against the walls and flowed up them in a snaky wave. A dozen squirrels vanished into the bathroom, where the first had come out. Two dozen more flung themselves into Aubrey’s room through his window. Platoons of squirrels plunged down the chimney. Mr Ferraby’s smile dropped off his face, bounced on his workbench and rolled under his chair.
Quick, he must save his neighbours from massive squirrel attack! How do you fight eighty squirrels? Mr Ferraby stared wildly around his shed, picked up a trowel and charged heroically towards violent death at the claws and teeth – small, but oh so sharp! – of multitudes of rabid squirrels.
He had almost made it to the battleground (he had to descend his own garden and climb over the low dividing wall, which took him a minute or two, because Mr Ferraby was not equipped with squirrel speed) when there was a huge scrabble of tiny feet and eighty squirrels hurled themselves out of Aubrey’s house.
They fired out of the windows like bushy-tailed bullets. They shot out of the chimney like quick brown fireworks. They cascaded down the walls, leaping and scrabbling in their dozens. Some even used Mr Ferraby as a jumping-off point, landing on his head and shoulders and springing gaily away.
Mr Ferraby only heard squeaks and chitters but he had the strangest notion that some of these squirrels were grinning.
Now he steeled himself for the horrors he knew must await. He pictured Aubrey, Jim and Suzanne in a heap on the floor, torn to pieces, scattered around the kitchen and living room, their heads gnawed like nuts. He could not bear to imagine the scenes of blood and gore.
He pulled open the back door, trowel raised, prepared to duel with any killer squirrel which still feasted on the corpses of his neighbours.
‘Hullo, Mr Ferraby!’ Suzanne looked surprised, but pleased to see him, as she always was. ‘Doing some gardening?’
‘Squirrels?’ Mr Ferraby managed, after a short pause.
‘You too!’ Jim cried. ‘See, I told you! I had one in the bathroom earlier. Where was yours?’
‘Oh! There were – one or two! Anyway. Sorry. Thought I saw something – er, so. All alright?’ Mr Ferraby stammered.
He looked at Aubrey. Aubrey gave him a slightly shy smile.
‘Fine, fine!’ said Jim, who was visibly better than he had been for a while. ‘It was using my toothbrush. Do squirrels get gum disease?’
‘Not – as far as I know,’ Mr Ferraby said, sounding a bit more like himself.
‘Mr Ferraby, would you like to come in?’ Suzanne asked. ‘Would you like a cup of tea or a glass of something?’
Mr Ferraby thanked her, made his excuses and returned to his shed. He decided not to mention the episode to Mrs Ferraby. He was fairly sure he was not going mad. He did not believe he had been hallucinating – which meant he really had seen eighty squirrels invade his neighbours’ house for two or three minutes, and then leave.
‘But why?’ he asked himself. ‘Why, why, why?’
Marcel saw the answer in action the next morning. Suzanne had told Jim and Aubrey to look after each other and gone off to work. Aubrey declared he would be in the attic, doing his half-term maths project. Jim had an appointment with his doctor.
The fly watched Jim climb out of bed, have a bath and do his teeth. Marcel watched him dress, eat breakfast and put on his shoes and coat. Everything Jim did seemed charged with a new power. Marcel rubbed his legs together as he saw Jim’s expression change repeatedly from puzzlement to satisfaction. Everything Jim did made him feel strong! His slippers, the book he read in the bath, his toothbrush, his shoes, coat, phone and wallet all felt light: at the touch of his hand the objects of the world seemed to spring to obey him.
FOOTNOTE: The combined gnawing power of eighty squirrels, multiplied by three minutes, is simply staggering. They could turn three wardrobes into one box of matches if the mood took them. Lightening Jim’s life was no challenge at all.
‘My strength is coming back!’ Jim exclaimed. ‘Could I really be getting better?’ Jim and Aubrey talked about how long Jim would be gone for, reminded themselves of what Aubrey was and was not allowed to do when home alone (no fires, bombs or electrical stunts – common sense!) and Jim set off down the lane with half a spring in his step. He even managed to take in some of the still beauty of the quiet autumn day.
Jim had not been gone long when the surprising events at Woodside Terrace began again. From his vantage point in the shed, Mr Ferraby made the following observations.
10.08 Jim leaves
10.17 Aubrey in garden
10.32 Heron lands in garden! Aubrey approaches. It does not fly off. Are they talking???
10.38 Heron flies off.
Aubrey goes inside
11.04 Aubrey in garden - heron - fish! What a terrible thing it is to lose one’s reason, to be the victim of visions too strange to credit, hallucinations too extraordinary to relate! I must tell.
Wow. 12.30 Jim back. And now look at them – Aubrey hammer – Jim pond – of course! Lunch.
If you have had the luck to become acquainted with a Grey Heron you will know what wry, dry birds they are, for all that they spend so much time with their feet in the water. And of course they are very big and angular and their beaks are as sharp as Roman shortswords.
The heron’s landing in the garden, the swoop and swish of it, the bounce, brake-flap and the great bird suddenly towering over him would have made Aubrey jump a few days ago – but what a few days they had been.
‘Hullo!’ Aubrey cried, grinning up at the heron’s ring-gold eye, ‘Welcome to Woodside Terrace!’
‘Call me Ardea,’ said the heron, in a rather laconic way. ‘Good of you to invite me.’
‘Oh I didn’t, it’s all Athene Noctua…’
‘I know,’ said the heron. You could see he was amused. ‘Why would anyone invite a lanky-shanky bignose into their garden on their own initiative?’
‘But I didn’t mean that at all!’ Aubrey cried.
‘I know,’ said the heron, trying hard not to show his enjoyment. ‘Sarcasm – lowest form of wit before you come to slapstick, which I happen to rather like. Do you know the difference between a banana and a missing manhole cover?’
‘Uuum…’
‘Then I’m not coming to yours for pudding. I hear you are in want of a fish?’
It was Aubrey’s turn to stop himself laughing.
‘Yes,’ he said, seriously. ‘Dad needs to eat fresh fish. They don’t sell any in town. It’s all frozen.’
‘Type of fish?’ squawked the heron. ‘Species of fish? Size of fish? Gender of fish? You do know there is more to fish than Fresh, Frozen and Shell, right?’
‘Sarcasm,’ Aubrey retorted, ‘highest form of humour for low-witted wading birds.’
‘Hey I like that,’ the heron said, sounding impressed. ‘You wouldn’t write that down for me, and sign it?’
Aubrey ignored this. ‘We need oily fish.’
‘Oily it will be,’ said the heron. ‘Try not to get too bored without me. I will be twenty-six minutes precisely. Clear the runway – CLEAR!’
The bird sprang into the air, wings beating tremendously, lifted over the terrace roofs and climbed away, long legs sticking out behind him.
Twenty-six minutes later, to Mr Ferraby’s astonishment and Aubrey’s admiration, Ardea the heron landed in the garden again.
‘How could you be so precise?’ Aubrey wanted to know.
The heron had his head tipped back. He said, ‘Gaark!’
‘Gaark?’ Aubrey repeated. ‘Have you run out of words?’
‘GANK!’ coughed the heron, and its eye flamed a ferocious gold.
‘I don’t think I’ve come across that one either! Could you write it down for me, and sign it?’
The heron narrowed its eye, took four quick steps, threw its long neck out over the pond, opened its beak and heaved up a stunning silver-green fish, over a foot long and
vigorously alive. This fish fell into the pond with a splosh and immediately began swimming around in fast circles. The pond was barely bigger than a birdbath. The fish looked like a whale shark in there.
‘Fish times one,’ said the heron, with dignity. ‘Trout, rainbow, male. Oily. Delicious however you cook it, even better raw. Liberated from the Beck Fishfarm, twelve minutes flying time from here in these conditions. Does that conclude our business?’
‘Sorry, Ardea. Ha ha! Gank! You’ve got to admit it was quite funny!’
‘Fair point.’ The heron nodded. ‘It was. So, are you going to be OK with killing this fish, or would you prefer to look away while I do it?’
‘Oh. I don’t know. You just – whack it on the head, do you?’
‘That works,’ the heron agreed. ‘Get a good grip – which is as hard as it looks – and bash it on a rock. And don’t let it talk you out of eating it. We all have to live. Stuff eats stuff. Way of the world. Don’t let any fish-wailing soften your heart.’
‘Fish-wailing?’
‘Yes, the usual. “My poor fishkids, they need me, have mercy. My fish-wife, how will she survive? Oh! Oh! To think I’ll never see her again, please don’t kill me, I beg you.” That kind of thing. On and on. Don’t listen. Take him by the tail and whack.’
‘I don’t know if I can do it now. Poor fish!’
‘Hmm, well, don’t blame you. Can’t stand it myself. It’s one of the reasons we like to swallow them as quickly as possible. Spear, swallow, that’s it for me. And for them! Why don’t you let your father do it? He won’t hear a thing.’
‘I suppose he might do it…’
Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot Page 4
