Dani's Shorts 2 Read online

  "What are you, a doctor?”

  "Well, yes, I am.”

  "Oh.”

  They struggled to pull him up and finally got him on his feet to applause from the crowd. He turned to Jane and pouted his lips.

  "I think he’s alright, you can let go of him now.”

  31 - The curse

  (live Griffin, peanut butter and banana sandwich, ventriloquist, Delorean)

  He pulled up in his car and the people queuing outside the venue were amazed at the sight of his door opening up. He heard them talking, it gave him a buzz, that showbiz buzz.

  "Wow, it's just like that car in 'Back to the Future'."

  "Yeah, cool. Who's that?"

  And that's what always made him upset. Can't anyone read his license plate? VENT41L, standing for 'ventriloquist' or as near as dammit. And what was this dump? His manager said it was a classy and respected venue, one played by all the greats and high class performers. When? 1860? There were even gargoyles on the buttresses. He alarmed his Delorean and walked towards the stage door, noticing the whole buidling was in need of repair, with crumbling bricks and flaking paintwork.

  "Hello, sir. May I help you?"

  "Yes, I'm Arthur Pound, famous ventriloquist."

  "Famous ventril...oh yes, you're the 'star' performer tonight."

  The old man behind the desk turned his nose up and sighed.

  "What's with this place? Don't know a good decorator?"

  "Ooo, no sir, we couldn't do that to the 'Old Tavern Theatre'."

  "No money?"

  "No, we have some of that. It's the curse."

  The old man crossed himself.

  "The curse? Ha! What curse?"

  "The curse. See those gargoyles?"

  "Can't miss them, they're quite grotesque."

  "Shhh! They might hear you!"

  "What?"

  "Legend has it that if anyone tampers with this building or degrades it in any way, then unforeseen circumstances happen. There was even mention way back in 1880 that when the owner tried to renovate the interior, one of them turned into a real live griffin and terrorised the local community for days."

  "What rot!"

  "Ooo, sir, I wouldn't...."

  "Poppycock! What nonsense! Stop wasting my time and show me where my changing room is!"

  "Second on the left, the one with the star hanging off the door."

  "Thank you. And please send some refreshment to my room."

  "Refreshment?"

  "Yes."

  "There's a drinks machine in the foyer."

  "Foyer? Do you expect me to mix with the rabble?"

  "Err..."

  "I was thinking more of a snack or something. It was a long drive."

  "Oh. I could make you a sandwich?"

  "A sandwich? Okay, I guess that's fine."

  It took him half an hour to clean the mirror in his changing room enough to be able to use it. He was also afraid to touch anything else in the room for fear of it collapsing. Everything was held together by an inch of dust.

  Suddenly, the door flung open and a man dropped a plate onto his dresser, leaving as fast as he came. Arthir scrutinised the sandwich.

  "Peanut butter and banana?"

  Not his first choice. But he was hungry, so he scoffed it. Before he knew it, his teeth glued together. He checked the sandwich while trying to pry his teeth apart and saw it was like glue.

  "You're on!"

  Arthur grabbed his ventriloquist dummy and flew onto the stage, jaws stuck tight. He bombed that night. And the next.

  32 - The Big 'No-no'

  (centaur, megalomaniac, the oracle of all knowledge, abandoned outhouse)

  As a kid, you always do what you shouldn't. You're not even aware of any limits. If told not to do something, that would be priority number one. That burning desire to find out why you shouldn't do always won you over: climbing the large vine hedge in front of the house and killing it, lighting a fire under the oldest tree in the driest summer on record and watching it burn, or even throwing bricks over a wall until someone screamed. We broke our word every week, we swore we would never again do something bad, but we did. Those were just some of the more memorable ones. But there was one which beat them all. The big 'no-no'.  The neighbours.

  Across the road lived our neighbours in a nice little bungalow with a neat little front garden. They were the typical retired English couple. But they had something else, something which our eyes caught sight of every day. On a huge patch of land next to their cosy home they had a huge abandoned outhouse. They never went near it. We spent hours guessing just what exactly was in that building: treasure, gold, we came up with a whole variety of fantastical things, perhaps even a time-travelling or wormhole device to another time or world, a world of wizards and witches, orcs, centaurs and fairies. It took two weeks into the summer holiday for us to pluck up enough courage to go over and try to get in, once we'd agreed we'd do it.

  My brother was the first to try the high window hidden from our neighbour's view. It was open and I saw him disappear inside. A few moments later, he reappeared and beckoned me in, his eyes shiny and bright. With a feeling of intrepedation, and holding my nose as a strange damp odour came from within, I  went in through the window. After some seconds, I acclimatised to the light and saw I was standing on stacks of paper and books, stacks so tall we would've been buried alive if they collapsed. We carefully climbed down and started looking through those stacks we could. It wasn't much of a collection, it didn't take us long to realise that we weren't going to find any 'oracle of all knowledge' let alone any treasure within the stacks, but it still didn't diminish the feeling that we had found something special, something secret and hidden from other eyes. As we searched, we began to babble and laugh like crazed men, meglomaniacs filled with power and greed, being feed by our newly-found discovery. Our voices grew louder and soon we were shouting and screaming like drunken fools celebrating some forgotten gain.

  To our horror, the door suddenly flung open to reveal our irate neighbour, shouting profanities and moving towards us at great speed. We scrambled up the stacks and out of the window, running back across the road to safety.

  The next week, at our neighbour's funeral, we kept quiet.

  Autumn Equinox Open Elimination Round - Reynold's last laugh

  (balloon animals, Lydia the tattooed lady, tontine Centre Court Wimbledon)

  "Good weather for it? Sure is. No clouds, not like 2002. And that streaker, well...spoiled that match. Yeah, I'm a regular here, haven't missed one for…hang on, let me think…sixty-odd years? Yeah, sixty-five years. Hard to believe, huh? Well, believe it or not, it's true. Started back in '47 with the guys. Only me and Reynolds were here last year, though. But I got a letter from his granddaughter back in February saying he wouldn't be making it this time. I travelled across state and visited him at the hospital he was in before he passed away. Poor guy. Nothing left of the old Reynolds, just a sack of bones. No more jokes, no more gags, none of the old vigour and sparkle in his eyes.

  He used to do the odd prank, yeah, well, nothing harmful, he just kept us all from going crazy. I remember when the fighting ended, we found ourselves at an old inn in Austria somewhere in the woods, our platoon from the 88th. There was a piano, an open hearth fire, then someone broke into the cellar and raided the wine and we had a whale of a time! It was Reynolds who made that night special, always there to bring our spirits up. It was him who did a show, making some animal shapes from balloons he found in the kitchen. He saw it at a USO show earlier, a performance by Johnny Ford or whoever. Anyways, the highlight was when he sang that Groucho Marx song, 'Lydia, the tattoo'ed lady' from 'At the Circus'. 'Course, he changed the last verse, adding some of us guys in it. He even sang the original Hitler line, it was a must. Oh, and that's where we found the Brunello, an 1891. Just so happens that Cicerello was a wine buff. He came up from that cellar like a man who'd found treasure. We wanted to open it right there and then but he fought us
off, kept it with him, never let it out of his sight. He got shot by a farmer two days later. I put the wine in my pack.

  Back in '47, we came here to Centre Court to watch Tom Brown at Wimbledon. You know, Brown won in straight sets, great match. We got tickets from the Major-General himself, as Stokes had saved the guy's favourite nephew's life just outside Anzio. We then decided to all get Debanture tickets and swore to meet every year, here at Centre Court. After the match, we made a tortine from the Brunello, the last one alive gets to drink it. We put it in a locker in the men's changing rooms and kept the key. If we couldn't get here, we'd send our regards or someone else in our place. Ain't missed a final yet. Ehh? This? What's this? It's a balloon dog. Now I know why the mother had a smile on his face. I'd kill him if he weren't dead already."

  Autumn Equinox Final - Miley Cyrus?

  (Sadomasochistic Machiavellinism, tatting shuttles, rickshaw, bagpipes)

  I felt like a weekend dad doing the tourist route with my eldest beside me. But it was okay, I knew better, crammed into the back of a cut-off Polski rickshaw, whizzing through the sights of Budapest.

  "Tell me, why are we doing this again?"

  "Because I want to."

  We bumped around in the backseat, my daughter busy with some weird kind of embroidery I'd never seen before.

  "You could've asked for something else, like a tandem bicycle, a horse-drawn carriage, or even some of those 2-wheeled contraptions, a couple of Segways. There's even a motorboat..."

  "Next time, Daddy."

  "Great."

  The way she was engrossed in her craftwork, we could've been anywhere. Watching a DVD at home, for example, my favourite pastime.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Double stitching."

  "What are those things? Are they shuttles?"

  "Yes, they're tatting shuttles. I'm making a lace necklace, see?"

  She held up the half-finished article, quite intricate in design.

  "Nice."

  "I'll have it done soon."

  "Wonderful."

  Always give encouragement, that's what they say, but this embroidery was yet another hobby to add to the rest; swimming, Hiphop, Judo, and her favourite, music. At first, she wanted to play the bagpipes after seeing them in a movie, but as there were no bagpipe lessons in the whole damn country, and that we already owned a piano, we persuaded her to start with that. The main thing was, she got what we could give, and I gave her my English. That extra knowledge made her naturally hungry for more. Unfortunately, she wasn't too good at Maths or Science, but she showed talent in the Arts. Perhaps that was her direction. The lace necklace was coming along fine, better than her earlier attempts at knitting and crochet.

  "So, you really like creating things, huh?"

  "Yes, I want to create things when I grow up. I want to be just like Miley Cyrus."

  If I had been drinking, I would've spat it out.

  "What?"

  "Miley Cyrus, I want to be like Miley Cyrus."

  "Last time I checked I wasn't Billy Ray."

  "Who?"

  "Her father."

  "Oh."

  "Don't you mean Hanna Montana?"

  "No, Daddy, I don't! I mean Miley."

  "Oh, right."

  I needed a little time to compute.

  "Isn't she going through some kind of 'sadomasochistic Machiavellinism' at the moment?"

  "What?"

  "All that twerking douchebags, wreaking walls…"

  "It's 'Wreaking Ball', Daddy. Get it right, please."

  "She destroys walls with a ball in that video, naked, I might add. 'Making history'? A bit more like desperate to leave her teenage image behind, if you ask me."

  "Sorry, Daddy, I don't understand."

  The best defense from a bilingual child.

  "She's not exactly a good role model."

  "I like her music."

  "Right, music. I did music once, you know, I was…"

  "Daddy! Don't remini...remini..."

  "Reminisce?"

  "Don't reminisce in a rickshaw, Daddy!"

  "Sorry. But Miley?"

  "Look Daddy, I'm only following your example."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, I watch what you do and I do the opposite."

  She unpicked a few stitches while suffering from the giggles.

  33 - Grandpa

  (Leviathan, any George Formby song, jar of bacon fat, necklace)

  "Grandpa, what's that you're whistling?"

  The old man put the newspaper he was using to dry the window down and sat on one of the lower rungs of the stepladder.

  "Oh, it's just an old George Formby song from my youth...'when I'm cleaning windas'...ha, ha."

  The boy sat down, recognising a typical reminiscence. A break from their chores.

  "Oh, that brings back memories, that does."

  "Of the time when you were on Broadway, Grandpa?"

  "No, not then."

  "When you accepted an Oscar for your rendition of 'Little White Bull'?"

  "No, not then, either."

  "Or the time when you brought Stalin's regime to a standstill with a freeze-dried Chinese chicken and a broken bicycle?"

  The old man held the chain hanging around his neck.

  "No, it was the time when I retrieved this from the depths of..."

  "But you got that necklace from Grandma."

  "Chain, it's a chain. Yes, I got this from your Grandma, but there was a moment when it was lost to all."

  "When did you lose it, Grandpa?"

  The boy made himself comfortable on the grass.

  "Well, there was a time while in the Navy when…"

  "You hate water, Grandpa."

  "Are you going to interrupt me all the way through?"

  "Sorry, Grandpa."

  "Yes, well. It was a difficult and dangerous job onboard a destroyer in the Navy, what with enemy submarines and ships on the warpath, but I would've never believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."

  "What's that then, Grandpa?"

  "The most terrifying creature you could ever imagine!"

  "Even more terrifying than that cashier in the local corner shop, Grandpa?"

  "Even more so, yes. I remember it now, I was assigned a most treacherous task of cleaning the windows…"

  "Do they have windows on destroyers, Grandpa?"

  "Of course they do, now, stop interrupting."

  "Sorry, Grandpa."

  "So, there I was, hanging from the port side in those turbulent waters of the Atlantic, cleaning windows and singing that very same song I was whistling just now, when out of the cold dark blue abyss leapt a…Leviathan!"

  "A what, Grandpa?"

  "A Leviathan, the largest, deadliest and most frightening of all sea monsters!"

  "What happened, Grandpa?"

  "The shock knocked me off my perch and I fell into the sea. As I was travelling in mid-air, this very necklace...chain slipped from my neck and entered the large teeth-infested mouth of the beast!"

  "Oh no!"

  "Oh yes! I watched as the Leviathan swam away nonchanlantly, with your Grandma's neck...chain."

  "Oh, Grandpa! What did you do?"

  "I did what any man would do, I called to a passing sailer walking up on deck. He wanted to throw me down a life-saver but I called him back, I needed a jar of bacon fat."

  "Bacon fat? Whatever for, Grandpa?"

  "The sea was freezing and I was blasted if I was going to let that good-for-nothing monster take my ne...chain away! The bacon fat would keep me warm on the long swim to catch it up!"

  "But Grandpa, you can't swim...ouch!"

  34 - Got him back

  (Dressed herring, tuba, space station, phone booth)

  I hate my uncle. That's why I did it. Well, he's not really my uncle, he's more of an old friend of my mother's. They do a lot of laughing when they're alone together. I don't like it, not one bit. When I was younger, he sold me what he said was part of that spa
ce station which came down all those years ago. Took it to school, I was so proud of it until one of the older guys told me it was part of a plastic tube they use for air-conditioning in offices. He'd seen some of them in the back of his Dad's van. Never heard the end of that one.

  And then there was that time with the tuba. My mother had pushed me into the school band and the only instrument not taken was that. I never really got on with it, too big and heavy for me, but I was able to blow out a few notes, enough for the music teacher to give me a B at the end of term. My uncle got wind of it and thought it was a scream. I remember he got me out of bed at about 2 am in the morning, drove me and my tuba, with me still in pyjamas, into the centre of town. We parked up at one of the phone booths and he told me to play the 'Jaws' theme over the phone to the person he was going to call. He cracked up as I played, listening between the notes to the shouting on the other end. I was so sleepy and using all my energy to concentrate on the notes that I didn't pay any attention to the blue and red flashing lights behind me. He'd scarpered. Apparently he'd called the mayor. Mother got into a lot of trouble with that one. All he did was give her roses.

  I had to get him back. He's Russian. Likes fish. In our last cookery lesson of the year, the teacher said we could make anything we liked, so long as we were able to get the ingredients. So I asked her about Russian fish dishes. She immediately told me about Dressed herring, or 'herring under a fur coat' literally translated. It was perfect. Everything diced and grated, tons of small little vegetables and bits of herring, all put together to make one dish. Other kids did Toad in the Hole or Barbecue Baked beans, I did Dressed herring and got an A+. What the teacher didn't know was that I'd used an old fish that'd been hiding in my mother's fridge for months, it smelt like herring...but it wasn't. I also mixed some very strong spices like paprika in with the grated vegetables, unnoticable unless tasted.

  You should've seen him when he first caught sight of it. He scoffed the lot, didn't give my mother or me a chance. We couldn't use the bathroom for the rest of the night, either.

  Grudge Match 1 - 60 seconds

  (murderous unicorn, The Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle, A fantasy football draft must be a part of the main scene of the story, The story must be written from the POV of someone with a mental illness or developmental delay)