Twice Upon a Time, page 12
‘Or by Nod?’
‘Sod, I think, don’t you? Unless they are one and the same?’
‘Sod, then.’
‘There’s been nobody else at all. There was nobody in that phony Chips and Fish Shop, there’s nobody here.’
‘There are roads without cars or trucks, bus stops without buses,’ added Digger Dagger.
Ginny stared despairingly at Digger Dagger.
There was one other awful thought she’d had but didn’t dare voice.
Digger Dagger himself was another creature who could well have been created by Aesop Sod, if the sculpture garden meant anything.
‘Let’s catch up with the others,’ she said. ‘And I’m still so hungry. Imagine a fair without any waffles!’
‘It’s so unfair,’ said Digger Dagger.
‘So it is!’
‘Sod had candy floss,’ Digger Dagger reminded her.
‘I wonder where he got it from?’ said Ginny. ‘I’ll bet he didn’t buy it from a vendor. There aren’t any.’
‘Perhaps …’ said Digger Dagger sadly.
‘Perhaps what?’
‘Perhaps he wrote it,’ said Digger Dagger.
Which is very, very scary
‘Where do you think Aesop Sod got that candy floss?’ asked Ginny.
Dotty turned to her. ‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone selling it.’
‘Digger Dagger thinks Sod may have written it,’ said Ginny.
‘Probably,’ agreed Dotty. ‘He’s written just about everything else in this place.’
‘Why won’t he write us some more food, then?’ asked Ginny. ‘I’m starving! He did give us buttered muffins and lemonade before, why won’t he give us something else?’
‘A waffle?’ suggested Digger Dagger.
‘Candy floss,’ said Ginny.
‘A lamington,’ said Topper.
‘How do you know about lamingtons?’ demanded Digger Dagger.
Topper shrugged. ‘Everybody knows about lamingtons.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Ginny.
‘He probably gave you buttered muffins to butter you up,’ said Dotty.
‘Why would he need to butter us up?’ asked Digger Dagger. ‘He has us completely in his clutches.’
‘Dunno,’ said Dotty. ‘Probably to give you a false sense of security.’
‘I get it,’ said Ginny. ‘So when he does the dirty on us, it’ll be even more unexpected.’
‘Like giving us stupid riddles to solve and then breaking his promise,’ said Digger Dagger.
‘Probably,’ said Dotty. ‘As I said, he’s a rat.’
‘Actually,’ said Ginny, ‘I said that.’
‘Actually,’ grinned Dotty, ‘I agreed with you.’
They had now just about reached the end of sideshow alley. They had passed shooting galleries, skittles, fortune-tellers, palm readers, lucky ducks and unlucky dips, slot machines and bagatelles, but nowhere had they seen another human being. Nor, apart from the incessant oompah oompah from the calliope organ, was there any other human sound. It was increasingly eerie.
Just about the last attraction was in a large tent advertising, in old-fashioned circus lettering, The Ghost Train: be prepared to be terrified.
Topper stopped outside the tent, beaming.
‘Let’s!’ he said. ‘This looks like fun!’
‘It might be,’ said Digger Dagger doubtfully, ‘but I don’t see any ticket seller, do you?’
‘And, anyway,’ said Ginny. ‘We don’t have any money, remember?’
‘So?’ said Topper. ‘Nothing to stop us going in, is there?’
Ginny supposed not and was about to say so, but Topper had already pushed aside the flap and disappeared into the tent. Dotty followed, and with a what is there to lose look at Ginny, Digger Dagger did the same, followed by Badger.
When Ginny finally pushed aside the flap she saw a miniature steam engine parked on a narrow track, with three small two-seater wagons in tow. The engine was black with shiny brass and the open-top wagons were red with gold trimming. The engine was facing a mock tunnel, the mouth of which was a curtain of black rubber strips.
As Ginny suspected, there was no driver or attendant or anyone in the little booth waiting to sell tickets.
‘What’s the point?’ asked Ginny. ‘There’s nobody here.’
Undeterred, Topper eagerly climbed onto the first wagon and Dotty scrambled in beside him. Outvoted, Digger Dagger and Ginny climbed into the second wagon, and Badger jumped in as well, settling himself at Ginny’s feet.
They sat there for a few moments. Ginny was beginning to feel a little silly and was just about to say, ‘See!’ when, to her surprise, the engine up front wheezed suddenly and coughed into life. All at once the cough turned into a chugga-chugga-chugga and, without further ado or any engine driver, the engine lurched forward and began to disappear through the heavy strips of rubber separating the daylight from the darkness beyond.
With the movement, the carriages rocked and swayed as if their purchase on the track was shaky and then they, too, passed through the curtain and into the blackness.
Ginny had been in a ghost train at the fair once before and had not been very impressed. She remembered that once her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness the train had passed through a series of tableaux lit up with an eerie lilac light. There were plastic Halloween-type figures standing there: luminous skeletons, white-sheeted figures, witches and monsters, but they were laughably phony. Every now and again, a genuinely human masked figure had lurched out of the shadows, waved, shouted Boo! or tried to laugh evilly, but more in a bored than a really scary way.
This ghost train felt different.
Very different.
For a start, the velvet blackness was not giving way to a lilac twilight. It remained pitch-dark. Moreover, there was a deepening coldness in the atmosphere; cold as in temperature, and cold as in feeling. Ginny found herself snuggling closer to Digger Dagger for both warmth and protection.
At their feet, Badger began to whimper. He lifted his head for comfort.
And all the time, the wagons swayed and clattered as if, at any moment, they could topple off the rails.
‘I don’t like this,’ whispered Ginny.
‘I’m not crazy about it, either,’ muttered Digger Dagger. He decided to grip Pop’s walking stick for protection.
And then, as they barrelled along, it did seem to get lighter; not to a lilac, but to a misty grey.
Ginny, more and more apprehensive, looked about in this pearly light.
Shapes began to emerge, shrouded in deeper darkness. Ghost-like figures. Some appeared to be beckoning, others appeared to be raising things, clubs, perhaps, or axes.
Ginny gasped.
One or two of the shapes began to gain definition.
All at once she grabbed Digger Dagger’s arm and gave a stifled shriek.
‘What is it?’ he asked, alarmed.
‘It’s …’
Even though the train was chugging along in an almost hysterical way and the wagons were clattering, swaying and pitching back and forth, they seemed not to be making any progress past the current tableau.
There was a tall, snarling figure reaching for them out of the swirling mist. He was wielding a large double-headed axe as if he were about to swing it directly at the carriage and its passengers.
Involuntarily, Digger Dagger raised the walking stick to fend him off.
The creature’s white hair was spiked and shook with fury.
His white moustache bristled with menace.
His mouth was bared in a grimace of hate, yellowed teeth moving about in his mouth.
Thick-lens spectacles enlarged his wild bulbous eyes.
The axe heads, Digger Dagger now realised, were dripping with something sticky and red.
Ginny was now openly screaming.
‘Digger Dagger, it’s … it’s …’
They both ducked their heads towards their knees as the axe swung towards them.
They heard the swish as it passed overhead. Badger was now barking furiously, but was still not-so-bravely crouching at their feet.
Finally, Ginny was able to gasp out what she’d been trying to say.
‘It’s Pop! Digger Dagger, it’s Pop!’
‘What!’
‘The man … with the axe … it’s Pop!’
‘It can’t be!’
‘It is! It is!’
Still the Ghost Train rattled along through the darkness.
Gingerly, first Digger Dagger and then Ginny raised their heads. Keeping their shoulders rounded, they nervously looked about.
‘Whoever he was, he’s gone,’ whispered Digger Dagger.
Ginny nodded, barely able to speak.
The pearly light had darkened once more, and although there were still darker shapes and shadows on either side of the carriage, none looked remotely like the terrifying figure wielding the two-headed axe.
‘Why do you think it was Pop?’ whispered Digger Dagger.
‘Because it was,’ insisted Ginny. ‘Do you think I don’t know my own grandfather?’
‘Must have been a trick of the darkness,’ whispered Digger Dagger. ‘That guy was a monster.’
‘I know,’ muttered Ginny, shaking, ‘a monster looking exactly like Pop!’
‘But I don’t get it,’ said Digger Dagger. ‘Why would your Pop want to attack you with an axe?’
Ginny could not answer that. Nothing made sense.
‘At least he’s gone now,’ said Digger Dagger, feeling brave enough to sit up straighter.
But Digger Dagger had spoken too soon.
Even as he’d finished speaking, some premonition caused the hairs on the back of his neck to tingle. The light had become pearly once more.
And then, he heard a strange noise from the carriage behind them.
It sounded a little like a camel gargling.
But surely there was nobody in the carriage behind them.
It had been empty.
His mouth felt suddenly dry and he clutched at Ginny’s hand, not only to comfort her but to give himself strength as well. He gripped the walking stick once more. Then, warily, he looked over his shoulder.
Ginny had also become aware of something behind them. She turned her head as well.
As they did so, an inarticulate roar drowned out the clatter of the carriage and the chugga-chugga of the engine.
Rearing above them was the figure who, axe in hands, had so terrified them moments before. The axe was still in his hands, raised high in the air. So was the head, mouth wide open, yellow teeth, and emitting a blood-curdling howl.
Digger Dagger screamed.
Ginny screamed.
There were screams from the front carriage, too.
Badger barked and barked.
Once again, Ginny wrapped her head in her arms and dropped her head to her knees.
But Digger Dagger, in reckless desperation, stood up, swaying, before stepping up onto the carriage seat. Then, as the figure drew the axe back in readiness to strike, Digger Dagger, with a cry of rage, leapt from the carriage to the one behind. He thrust the walking stick at the figure as if it were a sword.
His timing was perfect. The figure toppled rearwards and tumbled from the carriage with a scream of frustration, the axe flying from his hands.
Digger Dagger fell full length onto the seat of the rear carriage, gasping with a mix of horror and relief.
Sensing that something had happened and that Digger Dagger was no longer beside her, Ginny cautiously raised her head from her knees and looked about.
She looked up to see Topper and Dotty staring white-faced at her from the carriage in front.
‘Where’s Digger Dagger?’ whispered Ginny.
Topper pointed.
Ginny turned about and saw Digger Dagger rising in rather a stunned fashion from a sprawling position in the carriage behind her.
‘Digger Dagger?’
‘He’s gone,’ gasped Digger Dagger.
‘Pop?’
‘Whoever he was …’
‘How?’
‘I guess I should have said,’ added Digger Dagger, ‘whatever he was.’
In which Nod is caught up in his own story
‘Wow, Digger Dagger,’ said Dotty in the darkness, ‘that was heaps brave!’
‘Was it?’ asked Digger Dagger. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t have time to think about being brave.’
Almost as if the show were over, the train’s engine seemed to lose some of its puff and the train itself noticeably slowed down. As the carriages regained purchase on the rails, the violent side-to-side swaying became gentler.
Then there was another curtain of dangling strips in front of them, and moments later they found themselves blinking in the subdued light of the tent as the train wheezed to a halt with a final heavy sigh.
‘What was all that about?’ asked Topper, taking off his hat, rubbing it, and putting it back on again.
Ginny was still dazed. She couldn’t understand why the figure of Pop, strangely transformed into an axe-wielding maniac, had appeared out of the darkness and then disappeared again. Why was there such menace and anger in Pop? What had happened to him? Who had done this to him?
Even as she asked herself the question, Ginny knew the answer.
Aesop Sod!
All at once, she found herself angry.
Then, hearing Topper’s question and seeing the careless way he rubbed his hat, she felt the anger rising even further.
‘You ought to know!’ she cried. ‘Who was it who was so determined to get us into this horrible ghost train? This looks like fun! That’s what you said. Fat lot of fun it turned out to be. We could have been killed!’
She felt Digger Dagger pulling at her sleeve. He had scrambled out of the rear carriage and slipped in beside her again.
‘Easy, Ginny,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so …’
‘Let’s get out of this stupid thing!’ said Ginny, shaking him off.
She climbed out of the carriage and went out of the tent. For a few moments she stood there fuming, as one by one the others followed. Badger, as if sensing Ginny’s hostility, stayed close to Digger Dagger.
‘Ginny …’ began Digger Dagger.
‘What?’
Ginny knew she was being bad-tempered and unreasonable, but she couldn’t help herself. She was sick of the fair. The unfair! She was sick of this place and having her strings jerked about by Aesop Sod. Before this she had been frustrated and bewildered, but now she’d been frightened; no, she’d been terrified. All she’d wanted to do was locate Pop and then somehow get back home.
She had not expected that Pop, when she did find him, would be wielding a double-bladed axe.
‘Ginny,’ repeated Digger Dagger. ‘Look at me …’
Ginny forced herself to look at the little man.
His face was filled with concern, his big brown eyes tender and searching.
‘What?’
‘That wasn’t Pop.’
‘Are you telling me that I don’t know my own grandfather?’
‘No, I’m not; but that wasn’t your grandfather. That wasn’t Pop.’
Ginny stared at him crossly. Digger Dagger was being stupid, trying to cheer her up.
‘I saw him! You saw him!’ she said.
‘I know,’ said Digger Dagger. ‘And I pushed at him, too, and thrust at him with the walking stick.’
He waved the walking stick in the air as if to prove his point.
‘That was so brave,’ said Dotty. ‘That was awesome!’
‘So?’ said Ginny.
‘You know I said whatever he was?’ continued Digger Dagger.
Ginny remembered. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Well,’ said Digger Dagger, ‘whatever he was, he wasn’t real.’
‘He was so real!’ said Ginny, shuddering.
Digger Dagger shook his head, grabbing her sleeve again. ‘Ginny, he wasn’t real. The stick went right through him. It was like poking through air. And when I pushed at him, I went right through him as well and fell on the seat!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He wasn’t real. He was a projection of some sort. I don’t know, but he certainly wasn’t solid, certainly not flesh-and-blood solid. He might as well have been made out of mist.’
Ginny stared at him. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure!’
‘A ghost?’ suggested Dotty.
‘I doubt it,’ said Digger Dagger grimly. ‘More like a storyteller’s trick.’
‘Aesop Sod!’ said Dotty.
‘But why would he make the nightmare figure look like Pop?’ demanded Ginny. ‘Why not a …’
‘Boa constrictor?’ suggested Topper.
‘Crocodile?’ said Dotty.
‘Exactly,’ said Ginny.
‘Remember what Nod said,’ Digger Dagger added. ‘He likes to put scary things in just to make the story exciting.’
‘Well, I think using Pop like that wasn’t scary,’ said Ginny. ‘It was sick!’
‘But it wasn’t really your Pop,’ Digger Dagger assured her. ‘And, excuse me, it was scary!’
‘Where is he, then?’ demanded Ginny.
‘Who?’
‘Pop, of course. The real Pop!’
Digger Dagger shrugged, ‘Only Aesop Sod knows that, and I’m pretty sure he won’t tell us until we’ve solved his ridiculous riddle.’
‘I don’t think he’ll tell us even then,’ said Ginny bitterly. ‘Remember, he’s a rat.’
‘Probably,’ said Digger Dagger, ‘but it’s the only chance we have, and …’ he broke off, ‘… speak of the devil!’
‘Who? Aesop Sod?’ asked Ginny, following his gaze.
‘No, Mr Nod, and he’s coming this way.’
And Mr Nod was coming their way. He approached through the same turnstile from which Aesop Sod had left. The coincidence made Ginny narrow her eyes with suspicion.
‘I wonder …’ she murmured.
‘Wonder what?’ asked Digger Dagger.
‘I wonder whether he’s been home to change …’
Mr Nod was wearing the clothes they’d first seen him in: a well-worn checked jacket with patches on the elbows, a fawn flannel shirt with a brown flannel tie and baggy corduroy trousers. With his tousled yellow hair, which looked plucked from a bale of hay, he looked as far removed from the dapper, well-groomed Aesop Sod in his pinstripe suit as it was possible to be.
