Michael, who seemed to be in a trance since he
had returned from Lorca, only answered he had nothing to say about this dubious
honour. Shortly after he left on his
summer holiday even though it was still spring. He told Curmudgeon to keep
watching the film until September. Come the end of the summer, they would
assess Curmudgeon’s progress.
That April I dropped by Alpin’s parents’ house
often and everytime I did I would peek in Alpin’s mansion and see if Curmudgeon
was still in the Audiovisual Room. And there he was, sitting stiffly on a plush
leather armchair, his eyes glued to the huge tv set, watching “The
Miracleworker” for all he was worth.
Out in beautiful Mrs. Dullahan’s whimsical garden
the Minced Forest Leafies were trying to wreak havoc among the trees in her
orchard.
“Come
here, Arley, lad. Sniff the blossoms on this peartree.”
I did as
the Leafies asked and sniffed the fluffy white blossoms that fluttered among light
green leaves against the bright blue sky.
“Are they supposed to have a pleasant smell?” I
asked, because they didn’t.
The Leafies gave teeny-weeny roars of laughter
clutching their tiny sides.
“They smell like squid boiled in its own ink,
don’t they?”
“I suppose so. I can’t quite tell what they
smell like, but it’s not like one would like flowers to smell.”
“We did that,” they said sniggering proudly.
“It’s revenge we’re taking. For all the mean things Aislene’s unchanged kid
does to our forest.”
A week after this, Curmudgeon was still
watching his film and the Leafies were still messing with Mrs. Dullahan’s
garden.
“Come here, Arley, sweetheart,” said Mrs.
Dullahan. “Look at the weird fruit my cherry trees are bearing. I don’t know
what is going on in my orchard but whatever is, it’s not normal.”
I remained silent. I didn’t want to start an
open war between her and the Leafies. I needed time to think what I should do
about this.
“We’re Twi-cherries,” said the peculiar fruit
of Aislene’s trees. “We’re Siamese twin cherries.”
I took a close look and each cherry had another
little cherry growing on top of it. Both
the large and the little cherries were red and yellow and had faces with two
eyes and a mouth.
“Now I have to eat mutant cherries,” sighed
Aislene. “That’s what we´re coming to.”
“We’d rather you didn’t eat us,” said the
cherries. “We can be good company. We could be friends.”
“I was going to bake a cherry pie, but I guess
not,” shrugged Mrs. Dullahan. “I suppose I can be friends with a crop of
talking cherries.”
“We can be friends! She says we can be
friends!” cried the Twi-cherries happily.
The
mass appearance of Twi-Cherries...
always predicts
...
victory in football games.
At that moment Fergus MacLob and his brother
Niall, the Grey Man appeared. They wanted to know if Ernest was at home. There
was going to be a very important mortal world football game on mortal TV and they
wanted to watch it with him on Alpin’s set, which was one of the very few in
Minced Forest. Fergus could have gone to a mortal pub, but to take Uncle Niall
there was not very convenient.
“You can’t use my tv set,” said Alpin.
“Curmudgeon is in the Goodley Book and I’m helping him to break his own record.
Tough luck, unks.”
“What?” exlaimed Fergus. “Is that still going
on? Why on earth didn’t Michael ask St. Patrick to do a miracle? He’s become a
lot more famous not allowing the miracle to happen than if he had.”
“But now he’s infamous, not famous. Nobody will
want to be taught by him.”
“Well, since Michael now has what he wants, I
don’t see why we can’t ask Finn to watch the game with us,” said Mr. Dullahan.
But when they asked Curmudgeon to let them use
the tv set, the crusty old guard refused to cooperate.
“Certainly not,” he said. “I have to watch this
film.”
“You can’t be serious,” said Ernest.
“Don’t try to distract me with your idle
prattle. I’m not taking my eyes off the screen.”
“But you won’t have to! ‘Tis a spectacular game
we’re going to watch and you really must watch it with us! You can’t miss it. I
guarantee you won’t be able to take your eyes off the screen,” Fergus tried to
persuade him.
“No!” hollered Finn.
“I’ve had it!” cried the Grey Man. “That’s
enough nonsense. This farce ends here and now!” He opened his long cloak and
the room went dark, invaded by a very dense fog.
“Someone is stealing the DVD!” howled
Curmudgeon. “Don’t anybody move!You’re all under citizen’s arrest!”
And then Mrs. Dullahan intervened. She oozed
all the charm of the once Demon Bride on Curmudgeon and pleaded with him to
listen to her.
“Please, Mr. Finn, don’t take it that way. It
makes no sense for you to quarrel with my husband and my brothers-in-law over
the tv set. Remember the saying that all work and no play makes Jack a dull
boy. Why don’t you go have a dip in our pool with my son Alpin and his friend
Arley? If you like to watch things, you can watch over Alpin.You would be doing
me an enormous favor. Don’t take your eyes off him and don’t worry. I’ll explain all this to
Michael when he returns.”
Mr. Finn put on some purple trunks and got into
the swimming pool with us and everyone was ok with that except Alpin.
“Mum!
The kidnapper keeps staring at me with a weird look in his beady eyes.”
“Honey, Mr. Finn is no longer a kidnapper,”
replied Mrs. Dullahan still in her sweetest voice. “I asked him to please look
after you because your sisters would like to spend part of the summer in their
Apple Island homes. Think of Mr. Finn as your very own personal bodyguard.”
Alpin wanted to know if that meant Mr. Finn would
beat up those who messed with him. Mrs. Dullahan said she hoped that would not
be necessary and left because she had lots to do.
But though Alpin had stopped complaining, he
was not appeased.
“I don’t feel safe,” he whispered to me. “We have to get away from this kidnapper,
Arley. We’ll dive deep under and escape through the drain.”
“But..where will that take us?” I whispered
back.
No comments:
Post a Comment