“But what nonsense am I coming out with? Of course! I meant to say: a good joint of beef, please!”
Papa Sayeed took the joint, paid and went to the grocer’s next.
“Hello, Papa Sayeed. What can I get for you?”
“A pound of nice ripe bicycles,” said Papa Sayeed.
“A pound of what?” asked the grocer.
“What is wrong with me, today? A pound of ripe white grapes, please!”
This is how it was, all day. Every time Papa Sayeed went into a shop, he began by asking for some bicycle. Just like that, without meaning to; he couldn’t help it. So it happened that he asked for another box of white bicycles in the grocer’s, a good slice of bicycle at the cheese shop, and a bottle of bicycle bleach at the laundrette. Finally, very worried, he dropped in to see his doctor.
“Hullo there, Papa Sayeed, what is the problem?”
“Well, it’s like this,” said Papa Sayeed. “Since this morning, I don’t know what’s wrong with me but, each time I go into a shop, I start by asking for a bicycle. It’s against my will, I assure you, I’m not doing it on purpose in the least! What is this sickness? I’m very disturbed by it… Couldn’t you give me a little bicycle… There you are! It’s happening again! I mean a little medicine, to stop it happening?”
“Ahem,” said the doctor. “Curious, very curious indeed… Tell me, Papa Sayeed, you wouldn’t happen to have a young son, by any chance?”
“Yes, I do, doctor.”
“And this young son has recently asked you for a bicycle…”
“How do you know that?”
“Heh heh! It’s my job! And your son would not happen to have a doll, by any chance? A rubber doll known as Scoobidoo?”
“He does indeed, doctor!”
“So I thought! Well then, watch out for that doll, Papa Sayeed. If she is to stay with you, she will make you buy a bicycle, whether you like it or not. And—that will be three thousand francs!”
“Oh no! They’re much more expensive than that!”
“I’m not talking about a bicycle, I’m talking about your medical consultation. You owe me three thousand francs.”
“Yes, of course!”
Papa Sayeed paid the doctor, went back home and said to little Bashir:
“Would you do me a favour and get rid of your doll, because if I find her I shall throw her in the fire!”
As soon as Bashir and Scoobidoo were alone:
“You see,” said Scoobidoo, “I did tell you that it wouldn’t work… But don’t be sad. I will go away and I’ll come back in a year’s time. On my return, you shall have your bicycle. However, there’s something I will need before I go…”
“What’s that?” asked Bashir.
“Well, when I’m alone, you will no longer be there to blindfold me… So I would like you to make me a pair of glasses with wooden lenses.”
“But I don’t know how to do that!”
“Ask your Papa.”
Only too happy to know the doll was leaving, Papa Sayeed agreed to make her a pair of glasses with wooden lenses. He cut the lenses out of a piece of plywood with a little saw, made a frame out of wire, and said to Scoobidoo:
“How do you like these?”
Scoobidoo tried on the glasses. They suited her straight away.
“Very nice, sir, thank you very much.”
“Okay. Now, out you go!” said Papa Sayeed.
“Of course. Goodbye, sir. Goodbye, Bashir.”
And Scoobidoo left.
She journeyed for a long, long time, walking by night and hiding by day, in order not to attract attention. After three weeks, she came to a great port on the shore of the English Channel. It was night-time. A large ship was at the dock, ready to depart early the following morning and begin its long journey around the world.
Putting on her glasses, Scoobidoo thought to herself:
“This ship is just right for me.”
She put her glasses back in her pocket, then stationed herself at the foot of the gangway, and there she waited.
On the stroke of three in the morning, a sailor walking in zigzags rolled up to the gangway and was about to step onto it when he heard a tiny voice calling to him from ground level:
“Mister sailor! Mister sailor!”
“Who’s there?” asked the sailor.
“Me, Scoobidoo! I’m right in front of you. Look out, you’re about to step on me!”
The sailor crouched down:
“Well I never! How strange. A talking doll! And what might you be after?”
“I want you to take me onto the ship with you.”
“And how will you make yourself useful?”
“I can see into the future and predict the weather.”
“Really! Then, tell me what the weather will be tomorrow morning.”
“Just a moment, please.”
Scoobidoo took out her glasses, put them on, then said without hesitation:
“Tomorrow morning the weather will be bad. So bad that you won’t be able to leave the port.”
The sailor burst out laughing.
“Ha ha ha! You know nothing about it! We’ll have fine weather, as it happens, and we weigh anchor at dawn.”
“And I say you won’t be able to leave!”
“All right then, let’s bet on it, if you like? If the weather is good enough for us to go, I will leave you behind. But if bad weather holds us back, I’ll take you along. Is it a deal?”
“It’s a deal.”
And so it happened that, the following day, the sun had hardly risen when a great cloud appeared in the north-west and spread so, so quickly that within five minutes the whole sky had turned black. Then the storm broke, so wild and violent that the ship was obliged to stay where she was.
“I don’t understand at all,” said the captain. “The forecast said it would be fine!”
“Well,” said the sailor, “I know a doll that predicted this bad weather.”
“A doll? You’d had a few drinks, hadn’t you?”
“I’d drunk a good many,” said the sailor, “but even so. She’s a little rubber doll called Scoobidoo.”
“And where is this Scoobidoo?”
“There, on the dock; I can see her from here.”
“Bring her here.”
The sailor leant over the rail and called:
“Here, Scoobidoo! Come up, will you? The captain would like to talk to you.”
As soon as Scoobidoo was on board, the captain asked her:
“What is it that you can do, exactly?”
And Scoobidoo replied:
“I can see into the past and the future, and I can see things that are hidden.”
“Is that all you can do? All right, tell me something about my family!”
“Right away, captain!”
Putting on her glasses, Scoobidoo began to speak very quickly, as if she were reading from a book:
“You have a wife in Le Havre, with a blond child. You have a wife in Singapore, with two yellow children. You have a wife in Dakar, with six black children…”
“Enough, enough!” exclaimed the captain. “You can come with me. Don’t say another word!”
“And how much will you pay me?” asked Scoobidoo.
“Well, how much do you want?”
“I would like five new francs per day, to buy a bicycle for Bashir.”
“Done. You’ll be paid on your return.”
So it was that Scoobidoo set off to sail around the world. The captain tied her to the bulkhead in his cabin with a pink ribbon, and every morning he asked her:
“Will it be rain or shine today?”
Thanks to her glasses, Scoobidoo replied correctly every time.
The great ship sailed right around Spain, on past Italy, past Egypt, through the Indian Ocean, past Thailand, through the Pacific Ocean, crossed into the Atlantic via the Panama Canal, then headed back towards Europe.
*
One fine morning, when the ship was neari
ng the coast of France, the cook snuck into the captain’s cabin. Scoobidoo enquired:
“What are you doing in here?”
“Have a guess,” replied the cook.
Scoobidoo took out her glasses, put them on and gasped:
“You’ve come to steal my glasses!”
“Right you are,” said the cook.
And, before Scoobidoo had time to think, he snatched them from her, slipped back out of the cabin and threw them into the sea.
A few minutes later, as if on cue, the captain came back into the cabin.
“So tell me, Scoobidoo, what weather shall we have tomorrow morning?”
“I can’t say,” replied the doll, “the cook has stolen my glasses.”
The captain raised an eyebrow: “Glasses or no glasses, you promised to forecast the weather. What do you think? That I’ll keep on paying you for nothing?”
The captain was pretending to be angry, but in fact it was he who had sent the cook to steal the glasses, because he did not want to pay Scoobidoo what he owed her.
“You may get along however you like,” he said, “but if you don’t tell me what weather we’ll have tomorrow morning, I shall throw you into the sea!”
“All right… let’s say: it will be sunny!” said Scoobidoo, making a guess.
Alas! As early as sunrise the next day, a fat black cloud appeared on the horizon and began to spread rapidly, as if it was trying to gobble up the sky. At the same time, a storm was setting in and the ship began to pitch from side to side. The captain came in—or pretended to come in—in a terrible fury.
“You have deceived me!” he thundered at Scoobidoo.
And then, paying no attention to her protests, he threw her overboard.
Poor, dazed Scoobidoo saw the sea and the sky spin around her before she dropped into the water. Almost immediately, a great mouth full of pointed teeth opened wide beneath her, and she was swallowed up by a shark that had been following the ship for several days.
Since the shark was very greedy, it swallowed her without chewing, so that Scoobidoo found herself in its stomach, not too comfortable, but not the least bit hurt. She tried to feel her way about in the dark, all the while muttering to herself:
“What will become of me here? And what about my poor little Bashir, still waiting for his bicycle?”
So it was that, talking aloud in the pitch darkness, Scoobidoo came across something that felt like a miniature bicycle: it had two round blocks of wood, linked together by a wire frame.
“Well I never… my glasses!”
They were indeed her glasses, which the shark had swallowed the day before. Scoobidoo picked them up, put them on and straight away saw everything as clear as day, there inside the stomach of the great fish. She exclaimed happily:
“And there’s treasure in here!”
Upon which, without the least hesitation, she turned towards a fat oyster that was lying, wide open, in a fold in the shark’s stomach.
“Hello, oyster!”
“Hello, doll!”
“Am I right in thinking you have a big pearl inside you there?”
“Alas, you are quite right!” replied the oyster, sighing. “A very big pearl, which is hurting me horribly! If only I could find someone to take this lump of dirt away!”
“Would you like me to take it?”
“Now, if you were to do that, you would be doing me a great service!”
“Open yourself up very wide, then, and we shall see!”
The oyster opened up as wide as she could. Scoobidoo plunged both hands in and plucked out the pearl.
“Ooowww!” exclaimed the oyster.
“There, there, now, it’s all over.”
And Scoobidoo held up the pearl. It was enormous, a magnificent pearl. It was worth enough money to buy five or six bicycles! Scoobidoo put it into her pocket and said politely to the oyster:
“Thank you.”
“Not at all—thank you! If I can do anything for you…”
“You might be able to give me some advice,” said Scoobidoo.
“Of course!”
“What should I do to make my way home?”
“It’s very simple,” said the oyster. “Since you have two legs, you have only to hop from one foot to the other. That will make the shark feel sick, and he will do anything you ask.”
“Thank you, kind oyster!”
And Scoobidoo began hopping from one foot to the other.
After a minute, the shark began to feel unwell. After two minutes, he had hiccups. After three minutes, he was seasick. After five minutes, he called out:
“Hey, are you quite finished in there? Can’t you sit quietly and let me digest you?”
“Take me to Paris!” Scoobidoo called to him.
“To Paris? Whatever next? I do not take orders from my food!”
“In that case, I’ll keep hopping!”
“No, no! Stop! Where is it, this Paris?”
“You get there by swimming up the River Seine.”
“Err—what? Swim up the River Seine? But I shall be a laughing stock! I am a fish of the open ocean! No one in my family has ever left salt water!”
“Then I’ll keep on hopping!”
“No, no! Have pity! I’ll go wherever you wish. But do stay still a bit!”
And the great fish set off. He swam as far as the port of Le Havre, then he swam up the River Seine, through Rouen and all the way to Paris. Once there, he stopped beside a stone staircase at the water’s edge, opened his mouth and called out as loudly as he could:
“End of the line; all change please! All change! Out you get, now, scarper. I hope I never see you again!”
Scoobidoo got out and climbed up onto the riverbank. It was about three o’clock in the morning. No one was in the streets, nor was there even one star in the sky. Taking advantage of the darkness and with the help of her glasses, the doll quickly made her way back to rue Broca. The following morning, she knocked on Papa Sayeed’s door and handed him the pearl. Papa Sayeed thanked her, then took the pearl to the jeweller, and was at last able to buy a bicycle for Bashir.
As for the ship on which Scoobidoo had sailed away, it was never seen again. I do believe it came to a watery end.
The Story of Lustucru
That day, in the classroom, the teacher asked the children the following question:
“What is the name of the Roman general who conquered the land of Gaul?”
Little Bashir raised his hand for permission to speak and said:
“Lustucru.”
The teacher did not look pleased.
But when Monsieur Pierre heard this story, he asked straight away:
“But what if Bashir was right? The truth, as they say, comes from the mouths of babes and infants… There’s nothing for it: I must look this up!”
And Monsieur Pierre looked it up thoroughly. He reread all the great writers: the Brothers Grimm, Hans Andersen and all the rest; he paced up and down, he thought long and hard; he sat down and lay down; he slept and he dreamt—and after a week of hard work, he was ready to tell the story of Lustucru.
This is the tale he told:
A very long time ago, in ancient-Roman times, there lived a barbarian king. When this king had a son, a good fairy appeared and said the following words to him:
“Your son is immortal; he will never die. What’s more, he will grow up into a great warrior, full of courage and audacity, and he will accomplish great things. But all this on one condition!”
“What’s that?” asked the King.
“It is,” the fairy said, “that you call him Lustucru.”
The King hesitated. Lustucru is a rather silly name, even for a fierce barbarian. Then he reasoned to himself that it would be worth bearing this small inconvenience for the sake of courage and immortality and all the rest of it, and so, having thought it all through, he replied:
“I accept.”
“Then let it be so,” said the fairy.
An
d she disappeared.
Prince Lustucru grew up quickly and soon he was a magnificent boy, full of strength and courage. When he was about twelve years old, his father the King sent him to Rome to complete his education.
There he joined a Roman school. Being as clever as he was courageous, he came top in everything. Or rather, he ought to have come top, but his Roman teachers never put him in first place because nothing in the world could make them agree to say or write: top of the class, Lustucru.
Throughout his schooling, then, poor Lustucru remained forever in second place. On leaving school, he tried to join the Civil Service and indeed he passed all the exams. However, the same curse followed him here too. Even though he was by far the most brilliant and able applicant, he was never accepted, and all his rivals pipped him, as they say, to the post.
What could he do? In his place, a lesser boy would have left Rome and gone back home to his parents. But Lustucru knew he was better than that; he was sure he had been born to do great things. He thought to himself:
“I am better than all the others, but that is not enough. For my talent to be recognized, I shall have to do something huge! But what? Let’s see, let’s see… I’ve got it! A brilliant idea! I shall conquer Gaul!”
Just to remind you: back then, France was known as “Gaul” and the French people were called the Gauls.
Now, Gaul was a very big piece of land and Lustucru would not be able to conquer it by himself. He needed to recruit an army.
One day, while he was walking in the streets of Rome, a beggar stopped him.
“Have pity, sir, give me something!”
Lustucru looked at the beggar. He was poor and dirty but he was a handsome man for all that, still young, well built, brave and willing.
“Tell me: do you know how to fight?”
“Oh yes, sir!”
“Do you like travelling?”
“Oh yes!”
“You’re not afraid of adventures?”
“Oh no!”
“In that case,” said Lustucru, “you shall join my service. You are to raise an army for me, and we are going to conquer Gaul. Okay?”
“Okay!” said the beggar.
The Good Little Devil and Other Tales Page 3
