|
|
Chapter
1
The
Storyteller was feeling very glum. His
bright yellow hat was hanging limply on the coat rack. His long red coat was
soaking in the washing machine after an unfortunate accident with a passing
liquid manure tanker (another story!) and
his normally bright silvery curls were lying grey and damp on his pasty
forehead. To top it all, his trademark red bobbly nose was more a pale shade of
greasy pink, not a pleasant colour
at all and his rickety glasses kept
slipping off the end which meant he was having difficulty seeing his way around
in his cramped and gloomy cottage.
A
yowling and a scratching at his lopsided front door meant he had to get up to
open it. The big tabby tom-cat and
his nineteen multicoloured friends outside fell silent as they listened to the
crashing, the banging and the, let’s be honest, swearing which seemed to burst
out of the tiny cottage as he made his way uncertainly to let them in.
Once
inside, and having been fed their supper of sardines in tomato sauce, the cats
settled around the living room and soon the air was filled with purrs and
contented snuffles.
The
old man’s head sank lower and lower in despair.
What
was that? The cats jumped up as one
and rushed to the cracked window. The
Storyteller sighed deeply.
A
chattering sound from the lane outside became louder and louder.
The Storyteller remained still in his armchair.
The
cats became more and more excited as
they could begin to make out the words.
“Tell
us a story, old man! Tell us a story!” the village children chanted.
Soon,
the noise was almost unbearable. The
cats turned towards the old man and he rose slowly from his chair.
He
opened the door just a crack, the cats took the opportunity to sneak out, the
tabby tom-cat in the lead as usual.
“I
can’t I’m afraid,” he groaned “I have no more stories to tell, just go
away”.
Some
of the smaller children began to cry.
“Come
on, old man,” the others shouted: “Tell us another story about Jack”.
“There
are no more stories about Jack,” the old man croaked, “You have heard them
all – Jack and the Moneylender, Jack and the Ghost, Jack and the Beanstalk,
and all the rest – you have heard every one of them already.”
With that he shut the door firmly on the children outside. They started to leave, muttering unhappily to themselves.
The
old man sighed and returned to his chair. What
was he to do? All he knew was how
to tell tales, stories from the mists of time and legends buried deep in the
past. But he had, quite simply, run
out. The well had run dry.
There was no more tea in the pot!
He
slept fitfully that night, tossing and turning under the quilt the vicar’s
wife had made for him in return for the Storytelling Evening he had laid on for
the Sunday School. The only food he
had in the cottage had been given to him in exchange for tales told in the local
schools, the local pub and to the local Scout Group.
His
dreams were full of his characters, all jumbled up and he just couldn’t make
head nor tail of their antics – nothing there to help him create more tales
then! How could he go on?
Chapter
2
The
next day dawned bright and shiny with sunlight.
The Storyteller, after taking a couple of painkillers to dull the
thumping in his head after such a disturbed night, decided to go out for a walk.
He
put on his bright yellow hat, found an old
purple coat in the trunk at the bottom of his bed and, after pegging out
his no longer so lovely new red coat to dry on the line, he set off.
The
cats followed him some of the way but, at the end of the lane, they stopped dead
in their tracks, the tabby cat being the first to stop.
It was as if there was an invisible wall.
He turned to call them on but they just looked at him miserably, their
tails drooping and their eyes dark. He
tried again but with no luck. The
Storyteller shrugged his shoulders and plodded on, across the main road and into
the woods beyond.
As
he walked he listened to the birds singing in the very tops of the trees and the
rustlings of small creatures at the very bottom of the trees.
It struck him that, perhaps, not much went on in the middle of the trees
and looked up just to check.
There,
sitting on a branch was a boy, looking down with a smile on his face.
The
Storyteller’s heart leaped in his chest – could it….was it possible
that…..well, he could only ask couldn’t he?
“Your
name wouldn’t be Jack would it, by any chance?” he gushed.
“I suppose it would be too much to ask for something interesting to
have happened to you lately, I mean something I could tell stories about, or
sing songs about or, at a pinch, since my spelling isn’t wonderful, write
down?”
The
boy beamed at the Storyteller, took a deep breath and said mischievously:
“Nope,
Bob, I’m afraid”
The
Storyteller’s face fell.
“And
nothing, nothing, well you know, exciting or interesting or even a bit boring
has happened to you lately?”
“Nope,
sorry!” said the boy looking a bit uncomfortable.
“Oh
well, won’t keep you” muttered the Storyteller and set off along the path
again.
As
he left, the most horrific scream
filled the air around him. He
turned sharply, looked up and saw Bob standing on his branch looking white with
fear.
“Wh….wh…..wh…at
was that?” stuttered the old man.
“Not
sure,” stammered Bob, who was a boy of very few words. “Have heard it
before, kept well away.”
He
jumped down from his branch and the two of them looked at each other. The scream came again and again, someone was in the most
awful pain. As one, they rushed off just as fast as they could towards the
source of the noise.
Chapter
3
They
had to run with their hands over their ears.
Funnily enough, as they ran, the Storyteller’s hat began to shine, his
silver curls glistened merrily as they bounced along and his nose, well his red
bobbly nose became quite red and bobbly again.
“Must
be the excitement, I suppose,” thought the Storyteller as he caught a fleeting
glimpse of himself in a piece of broken mirror lying in the undergrowth, he
picked it up and slipped it into his pocket, and then thought no more about it
because…….
There,
in the middle of a dappled green clearing sat, upon a rotting log, a young girl with her hands over her face.
Bob
and the Storyteller stopped and stared. The
noise was earthshattering and they looked carefully all around the clearing to
see why on earth she was screaming. They
could see nothing. They walked
slowly over to the figure on the log.
“Yeeeeeeeoooooooooooow!!!”
came from beneath the Storyteller’s left foot.
He
looked down.
There,
it’s right paw wedged under his boot, was a toad.
It was a sludgy brown colour with an enormous mouth which was stretched
as wide as it could possibly go. It’s
eyes were yellow and burning with rage. It’s
orange tongue lolled out of it’s mouth and the Storyteller could swear he
could see it’s mustard coloured tonsils right down at the back of it’s
throat. He moved his foot and
nudged Bob and pointed down.
“Yuck”,
said Bob “What on earth is that?”
From
beside him came a sound. A sound
like neither had heard before in their lives.
It was a voice, a gravelly but somehow sticky voice, a voice which
brought pictures of old, old places into their minds, of places where the air
was damp, where despair reigned, where no light ever shone and where nothing
ever grew or flourished.
“Thaaaat
…..thaaaaat was………once my hussssband, ….my deeeaar….
deeeear…..darrrrling …. husssband……….” and the voice spat out
a vicious laugh which sent shivers up and down the Storyteller’s spine.
The
Storyteller looked down again at the toad, which had started shrieking again. The shrill tones rang around the clearing as if trying to get
out into the woods beyond.
“B..b...b…but
why?” whispered Bob as he turned to the young girl.
She
took her hands from her face. Instead
of the young beautiful face he expected to see, Bob saw a haggard wrinkled old
woman, her teeth rotting and covered in mildew, her eyes were set right back
into her skull and shone with a blood-red light which fell onto her pock-marked
cheeks and highlighted the coarse black bristles which sprouted from the moles
on her hooked and beaky nose.
“Well
he is no good to me now – I’ve sucked all I can from him – his youth and
his looks. These made me the beautiful woman you see before you and so……well
there you have it!” the chill of her voice slicing into their brains.
She
turned to Bob and started looking him up and down, her blood-red eyes lit up and
her greenish tongue licked her cracked and crusty lips.
The
Storyteller realised that she was turning her attention to Bob and stepped
between them.
“Take
a look at yourself!” he shouted and thrust the broken mirror he had found
right in front of her face just as she was lunging past him to grab
the young boy.
Well,
if the screams from the toad had been terrifying, the screams from the old
woman, as she looked in the mirror, made the trees creak with fear and loathing,
the grass around her shrivelled to a sickly yellow, the air seemed as if it was
on fire and birds flew screeching into the sky like some devilish fireworks.
She
whirled this way and that, in rage and fury, her face twisting and twitching to
the beat of her screams.
The
Storyteller snatched up the toad, grabbed Bob by the arm and ran as fast as he
could out of the clearing.
Those
foul noises followed them all the way out of the wood until, by the main road,
they were blown across by an enormous explosion.
Silence. No birds, no
rustlings – pure silence.
Bob
sat up first and stared in horror at the Storyteller.
Then he looked down at himself and was very nearly sick on the spot.
They were both covered in bits of mouldering flesh, hair and bone.
The
Storyteller stood, pulled Bob to his feet and they made their way down the lane,
past the cats, still frozen in the same spot, and, without stopping to take
breath, through the overgrown garden into the cramped and tattered cottage.
Chapter
Four
After
a hot bath and a bowl of soup (the last tin left in the cupboard), Bob and the
old man sat down in front of the fire.
They
looked around contentedly at the cats who were stretched out sleepily in
favourite places, and discussed how the Storyteller at last had a new tale to
tell and how this would mean a brighter future .
The Storyteller was just starting to doze off happily when Bob jumped up.
“Where
is the toad, old man?”
“Hmmm?
Toad did you say? Hmm……toad……hmmmm……OH MY GOODNESS! I meant to get him out of harm’s way before the cats
came in….OH MY GOODNESS!!!”
They
searched high and low, low and high for the toad but there was no sign of him.
If
only they had looked more closely, they would have seen that the big tabby cat
had an extra tongue glistening out of the side of his mouth - a long, lolling,
orange extra tongue in fact (together with a small mustard coloured tonsil
nestled snugly right under his chin)!
Well,
no-one said you had to have a completely happy ending did they?