Horrible Horace

by Gerrard Wllson

IMPS.”

  “Imps?” said the Horrible cloud invader. “Surely you mean Imp?”

  With a smile so oblique it could have curdled butter, it said, “No I do not. Why would we want to be called Imp?”

  “We?” Horace asked, confused by its logic – or lack of it.

  “Yes!” it insisted. “Why should we want to be called Imp when there are so many of us?”

  “Many?”

  “Parrot.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The way you keep repeating things reminds me of a parrot I once knew,” it told him. Returning to the Imp versus Imps line of inquiry, it said, “Look and see how many we are...”

  Horrible Horace watched, in awe, as a great number of silvery grey creatures emerged from the fog of the cloud. Feigning bravery (what else could he do against so many?), he said, “I’ve just remembered what you remind me of, it’s the doorknocker on Tommy Tinkering’s house.”

  “A doorknocker?” the creature said incredulously.

  “Yes,” said the Horrible child. “It’s a likeness of a Lincoln Imp,

  “Doorknocker, yes, yes,” it gibbered excitedly. “Lincoln is a nice, clammy cold place, so it is.” The newly arrived Imps chatted excitedly amongst themselves, on hearing this. “Lincoln, you say?” the Imp, the first one, said to Horrible Horace.

  “Yes,” he replied, “or so I’ve been told,”

  “Lincoln, yes, we are famous down that neck of the woods,” it proudly proclaimed. “Have you ever visited Lincoln cathedral?”

  “No, I’m afraid that I haven’t.”

  “It’s a pity, because our effigy is installed high on its ramparts, for all to see.”

  “And?” asked Horrible Horace, because he had no idea where the conversation was heading.

  “Mischievous,” it said teasingly.

  “Mischievous?”

  “Yes, all Imps are mischievous, especially so Lincoln Imps.”

  “So?”

  “We do things,” it said as proud as can be.

  “Do things? What sort of things?”

  “Mischievous things – I told you that. That’s what we do!” Picking up a packet of crisps, it said, “Watch.”

  With as much inquisitiveness as incredulity, Horrible Horace watched as the Imp opened the packet, inserted something into it, and then resealed it.

  “What have you put into it?” he asked.

  “Here,” it said, handing him the packet of crisps. “See for yourself.”

  Accepting the packet, Horrible Horace wondered what it contained.

  “Open it,” the Imp said to him.

  “Okay, I will,” he replied. Horace opened the packet. However, on looking inside it he saw only crisps. Smelling the aroma, salt and vinegar, his favourite, he was unable to resist trying one. Plunging a hand into the packet, he withdrew a large, golden crisp that he promptly inserted into his mouth. Munching, crunching, biting hard on the wonderful delicacy, he made ready to eat another one. However, when a terrible, awful, vomitous flavour erupted inside his mouth, swamping the salt and vinegar flavour out of existence, he almost choked. Spitting it out, he barked, “They taste like rubber!” Spitting repeatedly, he tried rid his mouth of the terrible, dreadful taste.

  Laughing, slapping their silvery grey thighs with their ever so small hands, the Imps were in high heaven watching his antics.

  “What did you put in the packet,” he spluttered, “to make them taste so awful?”

  Opening his hand, the Imp said, “One of these.”

  “What are they?” he asked, eying some rubbery looking pieces of twig.

  Smiling mischievously, it replied, “Rub-a-dubs, of course.”

  “Rub-a-dubs?”

  Yes, we use them all the time,” it told him, then if offered him one.

  Taking the twig, that bended and flexed as if it was make out of rubber, Horrible Horace raised it to his nose. Phew,” he cried out, “it even smells of rubber!”

  “And it tastes of rubber,” it laughed, “as you well know.”

  Scratching his head, Horrible Horace asked, “But where did it go? I saw nothing of it amongst the crisps!”

  “Once inserted into the packet, it dissolves,” it explained. “We don’t want to be leaving any clues as to our existence, now, do we?”

  “Can I assume that you also interfere with the chocolate bars?” the Horrible child asked it.

  Nodding, the Imp said, “Migraines; the item we insert into the chocolate bars contains an ingredient that brings on migraine headaches.”

  “I know what you mean, I certainly do,” Horace said to it, rubbing his sore head.

  One of the Imps approached Horrible Horace. It was carrying a liquorice shoelace and a packet of sweet treats. “Would you like to try these?” the original Imp asked him.

  “No thank you,” Horace replied. “I have tasted more than enough ‘tasty delights’ here already.”

  “Nor would I,” the Imp laughed, they make you come out in all sorts of ghastly boils, spots and pimples.”

  The Imp’s mood suddenly darkened. Sensing what it was about to say, that having seen what they were up to inside the clouds, he could never be allowed to go home, to tell people, Horrible Horace feared for his life. Edging away from them, thinking the Imps were about to rush him, and then kill him, he gazed upwards, trying to see where Invincible’s string was located. Spotting it only a few yards away from him, Horrible Horace edged tentatively towards it, hoping to make good his escape...

  Twang!

  Realising what Horrible Horace was up to, the Imps moved en masse, trying to stop his escape. Attacking with a pre-emptive strike, hitting and punching them hard, Horace sent they running in all directions.

  Grabbing hold of the kite string, Horrible Horace held it tightly with both hands. Looking up to Invincible, which he could just about see through the fog of the cloud, he pulled on the string. Yanking, tugging hard on the string, he tried to get the mother of all kites moving again. “Move, will you!” he hissed, but the kite, Invincible, remained where it was.

  Regrouping, the Imps skulked threateningly towards Horace. “I’ve got to get away from here!” he said, while climbing the string of the kite. His pursuers, however, had the same idea and one after the other they too began climbing the unbreakable string.

  Yanking hard on the string, so hard his fingers began to bleed, Horrible Horace managed to get the kite moving again. Hanging there, swinging beneath it, holding on for dear life, with the Imps coming up the string after him, he wished, he so wished that it had not been unbreakable string.

  TWANG! With an ever so loud snapping sound, the string, the guaranteed unbreakable string, BROKE. The point where it gave way, where it snapped in two, was beneath Horrible Horace, and he watched them fall away from him. Thanking his lucky stars, he said, “Phew! That was a close one!”

  With a dull thud, the amalgamation of freefalling Imps returned to the fog of the cloud, sending plumes of foggy white substance billowing up from it. Thunder, Horace heard thunder and he saw lightning erupt from the cloud, as it rained tainted chocolate, crisps, liquorice and sweet treats onto an unsuspecting world below.

  “Thankfully, most of them are unwrapped,” Horace said, as he watched them fall to earth. “There aren’t many kids, let alone adults, who will chance eating unwrapped sweets they find lying on the ground, apart from Tommy Tilbert that is,” he said jokingly.

  A loud TWANG and an even louder snapping sound than before interrupted the cloud visitor’s musings. The guaranteed to be unbreakable string had broken for a second time. This time, however, the break was above Horace. Falling like a stone, he headed for the Imp infested cloud below him.

  The sound of another dull thump signalled Horrible Horace’s return to the cloud. The newly returned and incredibly angry Imps descended on him, determined to do away with the child interloper who had dared get the better of them.

  “Leave me alone!” Horace roared, trying to fend off the multi
tude of silvery grey fists attacking him. His words were at nothing, however, as fist after fist pummelled his body and migraine suffering head. “Stop it,” he cried out, “please stop it!”

  “Wake up,” Horrible,” said Tinkering Tommy. “You were dreaming.”

  “Dreaming?” Horace asked, eyeballing his friend suspiciously.

  “Yes, and judging by the way you were screaming, I’d say it was a pretty bad one – perhaps even a night, err, daymare.”

  “Night? Daymare? What on earth are you talking about?” Horrible Horace barked. “Don’t you realise the Imps are after me?”

  “Imps – what Imps?” asked Tinkering Tommy. “The only Imp that I know of is the one on my door.”

  Sitting up, looking around him and seeing no Imps, Horrible Horace said, “What are we doing here?”

  “We were waiting for the wind to ease, and it has. You said it was far too windy to launch Invincible before it died down a bit. Don’t you remember?”

  “Hmm, I’m beginning to remember, but it’s still a bit fuzzy,” he replied. “You say I was dreaming?”

  His friend nodded.

  “And there are no Imps around here?” he asked.

  “Not even one.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” he said. “We have a kite to launch!”

  The competing teams began final preparations to launch their giant kites. At the apex of the hill were Cheeky Charlie and Meddling Maurice, and a short distance below them were Horrible Horace and Tinkering Tommy.

  “I’m not sure if there is enough wind left to launch Invincible,” said Tinkering Tommy.

  Pointing skyward, to Eileen, high above them, Horrible Horace said, “There was enough wind for Cheeky Charlie and his