Googol Boy and the peculiar incident of the Great Quiz Trophy

by John Michael

  “Howie! Pancake time!” A voice hollered from downstairs − it was Mum. That could mean only one thing! It was Saturday! Every Saturday we all had a pancake breakfast. I quickly made my way to the bathroom and then ran down the stairs taking two steps at a time and hit the bottom landing with a thud.

  “Don’t run on the stairs!” yelled Mum and then proceeded to back up her plea with a list of prepared statistics. “You are four times more likely to die falling down the stairs then in a motorcycle accident... this year alone 850 people broke their neck falling down the stairs Howie. Do you want to be number 851? Do you?!” Mum had been using these statistics since I had been a toddler and I had a feeling that her figures needed some updating. Nevertheless, this wasn’t the time to pick an argument, there were pancakes on the table and Mum was the pancake provider. Never bite the hand that feeds you, especially if it was Mum’s. And especially if that hand was offering you a plate of delicious steaming hot pancakes.

  “Morning sleepyhead,” mumbled Dad without raising his head from the newspaper. Deborah was seated next to him, already munching through the pancakes like they were going out of fashion.

  “Hi Dad, Mum, Deb,” I replied as I sat down.

  Mum brought another fresh batch of pancakes to the table and sat down with us. “Get ’em while they’re hot,” she hollered.

  “Mmm, thanks Mum,” I replied as I used my fork to flip a couple of pancakes onto my plate.

  “Will you look at that,” exclaimed Dad as he read from the newspaper. “Man bites Dog, Gets Fleas!” Dad would always share the more unusual news stories with us during our breakfast sessions.

  “Yes dear... sounds riveting,” responded Mum.

  “It says here that it was a big dog too... a Doberman pinscher.”

  “Oh that reminds me! Talking about dogs... I’ve got some real news for you!” interrupted Mum.

  “Real news? Whatever are you inferring?” asked Dad.

  “Nothing dear,” responded Mum as she patted him on the hand. “As you know, I went to the grocery store this morning to get some milk, orange juice and maple syrup. As I was leaving, I bumped into Miss Crawford.”

  Crazy Crawford was a kooky old sinewy spinster who was the town gossip. She had nothing better to do than spread rumours about everyone and anything. She even interrogated my sister at the mall once about my toenails, and then informed her that there was a nasty story going around that I had this bad habit where I would bite them... which she herself was spreading! Now there was a time I would occasionally bite my fingernails, but toenails? I was nowhere near flexible enough to reach my feet in that way. Deborah still loves to tease me about being a ‘cheesy toenail eater.’

  “And what did ol’ Miss Gasbag have to say?” inquired Dad dryly.

  “Well it’s funny that you should ask... Matron Fulton got attacked last night.”

  “Attacked?” I spluttered as I choked on my pancake. Suddenly last night came flooding back in a blur of fragmented memories. I took a swig of orange juice to ease my coughing.

  “Yes attacked! Apparently, a couple of juvenile delinquents started to howl at her like wild dogs.”

  “Wild dogs? Why?” queried Deborah.

  “Because they were behaving like animals!” added Mum.

  “That’s your ‘real news’ story?” murmured Dad as he buried his head back in his newspaper. “I think I’ll stick to my own sources.”

  “Boring,” remarked my sister.

  “Well... they then tried to steal her cauldron!”

  “Steal her cauldron?!” I yelped as I spat out my orange juice.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” inquired Dad who poked his head back out from behind the newspaper.

  “That’s right! Cauldron!”

  “As in a witch’s cauldron?” asked my sister.

  “That would be appropriate,” laughed Dad.

  “No... the cauldron she uses to make gruel for the orphans!” answered Mum.

  “They still feed them gruel? Isn’t there a law against that?” asked Deborah.

  “You’d certainly think so,” added Dad.

  “But that’s not even the worst part, she was then pushed into the moat!” continued Mum.

  “Pushed? Into the moat?!” queried Deborah.

  “Yes, the moat,” repeated Mum.

  “But that’s not what happened!” I blurted out without thinking.

  “I know! It’s hard to believe,” said Mum.

  “Did the alligators get her?” asked my sister.

  “There are no alligators in the moat!” I snapped.

  “That sure would have been one enormous feast,” interjected Dad

  “I know there are no alligators in the moat!” replied my sister.

  “Maurice! That’s no way to talk about the matron,” stated Mum.

  “It was a joke dumb-dumb,” replied my sister while giving me the hairy eyeball.

  “Deborah! Language please,” warned Dad.

  “Did she get a look at them?” I asked.

  “What? The alligators?” asked Mum.

  “No... the um... delinquents,” I stated.

  “It was rather dark,” replied Mum.

  “So the matron didn’t see them!” I responded.

  “Well, Miss Crawford did say there were two teenagers, one was skinny and the other one was quite burly, both with mohawks and that they were covered with tattoos.”

  “Oh... well you wouldn’t want to bump into those guys in a dark alley,” I replied, relieved that Miss Crawford’s exaggeration had actually worked in my favour this time.

  “No, you most certainly wouldn’t,” stated Mum. “And I don’t want you associating with such hoodlums either!” She then proceeded to pinch my cheek.

  “Oh you’re such a good boy Howie,” crooned Mum.

  “Mummm!” I protested as I tried to prise myself free from her grip.

  “Have some more pancakes honey.” Mum then turned to Dad and Deb. “See I told you I had a great story!”

  Well, in this instance I was hoping that Miss Crawford would spread her gossip far and wide and that indeed the townsfolk were looking for some mohawked tattooed thugs -one thing was for sure, Barney and I would be giving the orphanage a wide berth for some time to come.

  Chapter thirteen

  crapaudine

  Finally the first day of spring had arrived, the daffodils and bluebells were already in the bees were and the birds were but, to be honest, we didn’t really care about the silly flowers, the irritating bees and the noisy birds. No... there was something much more important going on today − the first day of spring meant that it was (drumroll please) Quockingpoll Flats Day!

  Although Barney and I liked to sleep in on Sundays, we made sure that we got up before all the crowds started to arrive. We certainly didn’t want to miss out on our fill of all the brabbensack goodies on offer.

  We rode our bikes into town and found that the entire landscape was adorned in a panoply of coloured banners and fluttering flags. People were already streaming in and moving up and down the main walkway trying to find the best vantage points and picnic spots. The peaks of striped marquees were jutting out amongst the poplars, oaks and birches. Along the Anonymous Chicken River, multi-coloured tents dotted the rolling meadows, which stretched all the way back to the old city wall. These tents contained every assortment of food and drink imaginable. There were also stalls and booths which housed jewellery, antiques, pottery, fortune tellers, quilts and doilies, and even tattoo parlours. There were also numerous souvenirs on offer, such as snow domes, lucky brabbensack foot keyrings, piggy banks, and of course t-shirts, with the slogan of still an old time favourite. The Quockingpoll Flats Festival pretty much had it all, there was even a designated section for the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.

  On the school oval, the organisers were preparing the finishing touches for the mock historical battle of Ezekiel Quockingpoll’s famous stand against an army of ferocious brabbe
nsacks. Primary school kids, dressed up in their homemade brabbensack costumes, would gallop up and down the field, attacking Ezekiel with all their might while he would hurl turnips at them. This battle usually went according to script but last year some overzealous kids knocked Ezekiel over and he ended up with a broken ankle. It all ended in tears as they had to take Ezekiel away in an ambulance. I guess history doesn’t always repeat itself as the brabbensacks were victorious that day.

  On the opposite side of the field the organisers were setting up the turnip juggling and hog wrestling competitions. The turnip contest involved a hard fought clash to see who could juggle the most amount of turnips − the male and female victors were then crowned Mr and Mrs Turnip and became the face of the Quockingpoll Flats farming community for the entire year. The hog wrestling, on the other hand, involved team members attempting to catch a greased pig in a mud pit and then hog-tying the animal and putting it in an oversized oak barrel − the winners got to keep the pig and also got to represent Quockingpoll Flats in the county finals.

  Barney, watching the organisers grease the hog, started to smack his lips.

  “I’m getting hungry Howie... what should we eat?”

  “I think I’ll have a brabbensack pretzel and what about you Barney?”

  “Well let’s see... I think I’ll have the same... and a couple of brabbensack dogs, some deep fried brabbensack rings, some brabbensack custard tart and a brabbensack popsicle for dessert! And perhaps I might splurge and get the crapaudine shish kebab as well!”

  “Wow! Crapaudine is made from the most tender and expensive cuts of brabbensack! You’ve really been saving up your allowance, huh?”

  Barney winked at me and rubbed his stomach. “Sure have! The Founding Festival doesn’t come around every year, does it?”

  “Doesn’t come around every day!”

  “Yeah... every day, that’s what I meant!” laughed Barney as he skipped down the path towards the food stalls.

  “You’re absolutely right Barney! In fact, get me a crapaudine shish kebab as well!” I yelled after him.

  Crapaudine was an alternative name for brabbensack. Just as ‘cow’ becomes ‘beef’ when it is served on a plate, ‘sheep’ becomes ‘lamb’, and ‘pig’ becomes ‘pork’, so it was with crapaudine. Interestingly enough, beef, lamb, pork and crapaudine were all French terms. Kudos to Barney for trying to sound all sophisticated and cultured. However, there was a reason that the term never really caught on, there were two main explanations − firstly, the unfortunate similarity to an English word which doesn’t sound appetising at all. I’ll give you a clue − it starts with ‘C’ and ends in ‘rap’. The other reason being that ‘crapaudine,’ in its original French, means ‘a festering ulcer on a horse.’ Now of course, there was no need to let Barney know all this and rain on his ‘Quockingpoll Flats Day’ parade.

  Barney was back in no time with an assortment of containers crammed with mouth-watering delights − his arms were full and it would have been impossible for him to carry even an additional french fry. For any other person, you could have criticised them for having eyes bigger than their stomach, but this rule certainly didn’t apply to Barney. In all my years of knowing him, I never found that he could not step up to the plate when it came to food.

  We found a grassy knoll and plonked our butts on the ground and then spread out all the containers and dipping sauces and started to enjoy our scrumptious feast. I took a bite out of the shish kebab. “Mmm... that’s some darn good crapaudine!”

  Barney nodded in agreement, he tried to talk but because his mouth was full of food, it sounded like he was gargling marbles. There was some irony in watching Barney eating brabbensack while eating like a brabbensack. These beasts were notorious for their messy eating habits. When munching on one of their favourite foods, watermelon, a brabbensack would stick its entire head inside and get the seeds into its nostrils and ears and its fur would be stained with melon juice and matted like a shag rug. I looked up at Barney and could see the similarities, he already had bits of food all over his face and sauce stains on his t-shirt.

  While I did enjoy watching Barney eat (let’s face it, it was like getting a free ticket to some circus side-show), the downside of eating with him was that there was hardly any coherent conversation as his mouth was always full of food. To alleviate some of the boredom, my brain would go into overdrive and provide whimsical commentary as Barney wrestled with his chow. I call this particular piece, An Ode to Barney:

  Behold my famished Barney — what a sight!

  Like Gnawbacca you chew through all the

  chow,

  If you could, you would eat all day and

  night:

  You could eat a horse (and even a cow).

  Like Yogi, you are hungry as a bear,

  Dreaming of brabbensack treats without

  end,

  While getting food on your face and in

  your hair:

  No fork, spoon or napkins for you my friend.

  Should I compare you to a starving beast?

  You are more ravenous than a hippo!

  Only thinking about your next great feast,

  Hoping more banquets await tomorrow!

  You eat like a brabbensack and smell like

  one too,

  Where would I find a hungrier friend

  than you?

  I snapped out of my musings and noticed that while I had my head in the clouds, Barney had devoured almost all of his food and, by the looks of it, he had even polished off my brabbensack pretzel. Bummer!

  I, on the other hand, was just about to finish the last bite of my shish kebab. The empty containers were strewn across the grass and Barney was holding the last remaining edible item, the brabbensack popsicle, firmly in his greasy hand.

  “Should we go to the hammer game now Howie? What do you reckon?” asked Barney, somewhat sheepishly.

  “Of course we’ll have a go at the hammer game... you big lug.”

  Barney leapt off the grass and started to shuffle from foot to foot with a beaming smile on his face. I hadn’t seen Barney this happy since that time he found seven chicken nuggets in a six pack.

  “Well, finish off your popsicle and then let’s clean up these food containers.”

  I also noticed that Barney needed a bit of a clean himself and I was going to discreetly hand him a napkin or two. Sometimes I felt more like a pampering mother than a best friend when it came to Barney.

  However, he didn’t take as long with the popsicle as I had anticipated, and what I mean by that remark is that I had ‘anticipated’ him to actually chew the popsicle or, at least, to lick it. I guess the allure of the hammer game was too much for him. He propped his face upwards and manoeuvred the entire dessert down his throat, like one of those performers who do the sword swallowing acts... although Barney was by no means as graceful.

  Unfortunately, this sight was also on offer to a certain somebody who, at that very instant, appeared from around the corner. It was none other than Savani Godfrey! To make matters worse, she had her gang of debaters behind her.

  It all seemed like some absurd theatre performance. There was Barney, covered with multi-coloured stains and bits of food, wrestling with an oversized popsicle like a snake with its unhinged jaw trying to stuff down a hapless hamster. I have to admit, it wasn’t a pretty picture − I had been too late with the napkins. Savani wasn’t going to let this go.

  “Oh my God... look at this! It’s Gnawbacca and it looks like he’s eaten a horse and had a food fight with a bear!”

  I couldn’t believe that Savani had rehashed my previous thoughts about Barney − I guess she was just stating the obvious but I still had to defend his honour.

  “Okay Savani, no one insults Barney like that. That’s uncalled for and I don’t think -”

  “You!” she shrieked. “Did you really think that you could hide from me Sootfell?”

  “Hide? What are you talking about?”

  �
�False face must hide what the false heart doth know!” answered Savani.

  Barney turned to me. “False Face?” he whispered. “Isn’t he a Batman villain?”

  I was caught between Savani and Barney and it seemed that they were both talking gobbledygook.

  “Yes Savani, we spread out these food cartons here in the open so that you couldn’t possibly find us and Barney put on some dippingsauce war-paint so that he could camouflage himself,” I replied sarcastically.

  “Well I do hope that you clean that mess up... you know that there are big fines for being a litter bug!” she answered in a serious tone.

  Barney and I looked at each other, not sure if we were being mocked or not.

  “Anyway, I hardly think that I came here to instruct you how to clean up your rubbish! I’m sure that your mother has to tend with that problem often enough when it comes to your bedroom!”

  Her mob of debating thugs giggled in unison.

  I thought that comment was a low blow. Everyone knew that the actual cleaning of one’s room wasn’t as simple as it sounded − it took 50% complaining, 30% excuses, 15% procrastination, and 5% effort... just ask any parent.

  “The reason that I needed to find you Sootfell was to provide you with a formal notification regarding my partner for the Great Quiz challenge,” declared Savani. “I wanted to strictly follow the Queensbury rules, so that you couldn’t use any loophole to evade your obligations.”

  “The Queensbury rules? Aren’t they for boxing?” queried Barney.

  “I’m impressed Tweedledum,” replied Savani as she looked Barney up and down. “For someone who can’t even spell Queensbury, that’s a good call.”

  “Boxing? I’m not fighting no girl!” I interjected.

  “Don’t fret Sootfell!” exclaimed Savani. “These are the 1829 Queensbury Rules for Quizzes!”

  One of the debaters stepped forward, he was a squat little fellow with a square head and a protruding forehead, he had squinty eyes and an austere expression on his face. He held a small brass bell in one hand and what seemed to be a rolled up parchment in the other.