Glubbslyme (6 page)

They had only known each other a few hours and yet she felt Glubbslyme was her greatest friend.

‘I’m going to miss you so,’ she said, sobbing.

‘You are becoming exceeding waterlogged,’ said Glubbslyme. ‘Mop those eyes. There is no call for grief. I shall bide overnight in the little dwelling yonder. Is it another privy?’

‘It’s the greenhouse!’

‘It is not green. It is I believe a white house, though dingy enough to mistake for grey. But green, grey or white, it will suffice,’ said Glubbslyme.

‘
Will
it? You’ll be all right? You’ll stay there all night?’

‘I am rather partial to that type of dwelling. However, this does not excuse the inhospitality of your father. I do not care for him.
My
Rebecca was wise enough not to have family.’

‘Dad was only cross because we’d made so much mess,’ said Rebecca, trying to be loyal.

Glubbslyme sniffed. He peered about him, looking pleased, although it wasn’t a neat and tidy garden at all. Dad didn’t often get round to cutting the grass and besides, Rebecca liked to pick the daisies and make herself necklaces. Daisies were often the only flowers growing in the garden, apart from some pretty white blossoms that wound up and down the fence. Rebecca wondered hopefully if they were lilies. She had tried sprinkling a few seed packets into the earth but hadn’t had much success. It was irritating because lots of weeds grew without any encouragement whatsoever.

Mr Baker next door found it irritating too. His garden was so neat and tidy it didn’t look real. His grass grew like green velvet and his flowers were all so perfect they looked like plastic. But Rebecca knew they weren’t plastic. Once or twice her ball had gone flying into Mr Baker’s garden by mistake and once or twice a few of the perfect flowers had been flattened. Once or twice Mr Baker had complained to Dad. More than once or twice.

Mr Baker was out in his garden now, snipping the edges of his velvet lawn. He looked up when he heard Rebecca’s footsteps and glared over the fence.

‘Is that a ball you’ve got there?’ he called, squinting short-sightedly at Glubbslyme.

‘No, Mr Baker.’

‘I hope not. You be warned, young lady!’

‘Yes, Mr Baker.’

‘What
is
that you’re holding?’

‘Nothing, Mr Baker,’ said Rebecca, making a dash for her greenhouse.

It was dark and dirty inside. There were a few flowerpots, a battered watering can, several leaking sacks of earth and fertilizer, and a great many spiders. Rebecca had always found this a major disadvantage. She had often thought about turning the greenhouse into an elaborate Wendy House. She had tried tidying it up and furnishing it with an old chair and cushion, and taking some books and sweets and Shabby Bear for company, but she had the spiders for company too, and she couldn’t get used to them. Dad told her they couldn’t possibly do her any harm. Rebecca knew this and tried to be big and brave but every time she saw something small and scuttling she shrieked.

‘It’s not very nice in here,’ she said worriedly to Glubbslyme.

He did not agree. The greenhouse was just like a sweetshop to Glubbslyme. He hopped out of her hands, jumped nimbly across the floor, flicked out his tongue and munched a hairy spider, swallowed several worms and gulped down a big black slug in the contented casual way Rebecca ate a bag of Licorice Allsorts.

She averted her eyes while he had his little snacks. The tail of the slug hung out of Glubbslyme’s mouth in a particularly disgusting fashion.

‘Mmm, an exceeding tasty limax cinereus,’ said Glubbslyme, sucking in the last shred of tail and smacking his lips.

‘A tasty what?’ Rebecca asked, shuddering.

Glubbslyme sighed.

‘A limax cinereus, child. A naked mollusc. A common small grey slug.’

‘It looked very big to me.’

‘Do you not care for such morsels? My Rebecca devised a tasty dish of stewed slugs that we shared with great enjoyment.’

‘Well don’t think I’m ever going to make you a slug stew,’ said Rebecca firmly.

‘What are your culinary specialities?’ Glubbslyme asked.

‘My what?’

Glubbslyme sighed again. ‘A babe in the cradle could understand more. What dishes can you cook?’

‘Well,’ said Rebecca. ‘I can do toast and tea and coffee and I can make up packets of instant pudding and I can sort of do bacon and eggs and chips and I can heat up meals that come in packets.’

Glubbslyme did not look impressed.

‘I will provide my own supper as your parent suggested,’ he decided. ‘I shall now select my bed.’

He hopped over to the flowerpots.

‘I did sleep in a similar earthenware pot with my own Rebecca.’ He patted a pot and then recoiled. ‘This is not earthenware.’

‘No it’s plastic. Flowerpots are nowadays.’

‘I do not much care for plastic,’ said Glubbslyme, jumping into the biggest flowerpot. He shifted about, wriggling uncomfortably.

‘I’ll go and pick some grass, that’ll make it a bit comfier,’ said Rebecca.

She ran out into the garden and tore up a clump of grass and then picked a few of the fence lilies. They didn’t seem to have any smell but she wanted to make Glubbslyme’s bedding as pretty as possible.

‘Devil’s-guts,’ said Glubbslyme appreciatively, as she decorated his flowerpot.

‘Sorry?’ said Rebecca, wondering if he might be insulting her.

‘Devil’s-guts. Or convolvulus arvensis if you prefer. An invaluable ingredient in a choking charm,’ said Glubbslyme, jumping back into the flowerpot and sitting on top of the little grassy nest. He looked much more comfortable now. He picked out one of the white flowers and wore it on top of his head like a little nightcap.

‘Oh Glubbslyme, it does suit you,’ said Rebecca.

She heard Dad calling from the house.

‘I’ll have to go in in a minute. Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ She squatted down and gave him a special smile. (She didn’t feel they were still quite on kissing terms). Glubbslyme smiled back at her.

‘You are not wise and you are not wicked but that cannot be helped. You are certain you wish me to be your familiar?’

‘Yes please,’ said Rebecca politely.

‘Then so be it,’ said Glubbslyme. He paused, smacking his lips. ‘If we conduct our business correctly you should now offer me a place to suck upon your person.’

‘What?!’ said Rebecca.

‘My Rebecca did used to let me suck blood from the upper flesh of her left arm.’

‘I don’t like that idea
at all
,’ said Rebecca.

‘How about reserving me several fingers – or perhaps a thumb?’

‘I gave up sucking my thumb ages ago so I don’t see why you should start,’ said Rebecca. She spotted a long forgotten tube of fruit gums in a corner of the greenhouse. There was just one very fluffy raspberry gum left. ‘Here, how about a sweet if you fancy something to suck?’ Rebecca suggested.

‘A sweet?’ said Glubbslyme suspiciously, but he opened his mouth and gave it a try. He didn’t seem to mind the fluff. ‘It’s the right colour and it tastes even better,’ he declared. ‘I deem it an acceptable substitute.’

‘Good,’ said Rebecca and danced out of the greenhouse, feeling very pleased with herself.

Mr Baker glared at her over the fence.

‘What have you been up to?’

‘I’ve just been playing, Mr Baker.’

‘Hm. It’s all right for some. I saw you playing at weeding just now. It’s a pity you don’t make a proper job of it. Look at all this!’ He wrenched at the white flowers on the fence.

‘Oh, don’t spoil all my lilies!’ Rebecca cried.

‘Lilies!’ said Mr Baker in disgust. ‘They’re not lilies, you silly little girl. Don’t you have any idea what they are?’ He waved a handful at her furiously.

‘They are devil’s-guts,’ said Rebecca. ‘Or convolvthingy aranotherthingy.’

‘Don’t try to be so clever,’ Mr Baker shouted. ‘It’s common bindweed, that’s what it is. And it’s choking up my garden because you and your father don’t have the common decency to get rid of it.’

Mr Baker went red in the face, and started saying some upsetting things about Rebecca and her father and their family circumstances. Rebecca went red in the face too. She ran away from Mr Baker. She ran back into the greenhouse. She had a whispered conversation with Glubbslyme. He suggested. Rebecca nodded. She said ‘Glubbslyme, Glubbslyme, Glubbslyme, Glubbslyme, Glubbslyme, Glubbslyme, Glubbslyme,’ very quickly and crossly and Glubbslyme’s eyes revolved one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times.

Rebecca ran out into the garden to see Glubbslyme the minute Dad had gone to work the next morning. She had woken up several times in the night and listened hard for any croaking. She couldn’t wait to hear Glubbslyme’s distinctive voice this morning. She wanted to make sure she hadn’t somehow imagined his speech. When she was younger she had often made Shabby Bear ‘talk’ until she almost believed he was real.

But when she got into the garden she was so astonished that she forgot all about Glubbslyme for one moment. Mr Baker was staggering around his flower-beds, wincing and groaning. Something very strange was happening to his picture-book petunias and pansies, his roses and delphiniums. Some were drooping raggedly, their petals in tatters. It looked as if someone had been running amok with a magic pair of scissors.

Magic! Rebecca stood still, her heart thumping. It had been
her
magic. When Glubbslyme had suggested blighting Mr Baker’s crops with a plague of limax cinereus she’d been a bit doubtful, but when she remembered they were ordinary garden slugs she couldn’t help thinking it a good idea. Mr Baker had been so horrid it would serve him right.

But the
idea
of a plague of slugs was very different from the reality. Rebecca hadn’t realized the damage they could do. She’d imagined a few black wriggly things, fifty or a hundred at the most, feasting on several plants, maybe one whole flower bed – not the entire garden.

‘Oh Mr Baker, I’m sorry,’ Rebecca whispered.

He looked up and cast an agonised glance in her direction.

‘Your poor flowers,’ Rebecca said hoarsely. ‘Do – do you know what’s happened?’

‘Slugs!’ said Mr Baker, as it was the rudest word ever. ‘
Slugs!
’

‘Slugs,’ Rebecca repeated wretchedly.

‘Look at them,’ Mr Baker wailed, lashing out at his poor flowers in a frenzy. ‘They’re still at it, even in broad daylight!’

Rebecca stood at the fence and looked. She saw the slugs. Hundreds of slugs. Thousands of slugs. Black and bloated, grey and greedy, they wriggled and nibbled unceasingly.

‘Ugh!’ said Rebecca inadequately.

‘Why my garden,
my
flowers,
my
prize blooms? There’s not a single slug your side of the fence, look! They could have a feast on your bindweed and dandelions but they’ve not even touched them.’

‘I’m so sorry, Mr Baker. I – I’ll try really hard to make them go away.’

‘What can
you
do? Work a magic spell?’ said Mr Baker sarcastically.

‘I hope so,’ Rebecca whispered.

She hurried into the greenhouse and found Glubbslyme lolling in his flowerpot, lazily sucking up several worms as if they were strands of spaghetti.

‘Good day, Rebecca,’ he said, streching.

‘It’s a very very bad day,’ Rebecca hissed. ‘Oh Glubbslyme, I didn’t realize! There are slugs all over his garden.’

‘Quite so,’ said Glubbslyme. ‘I do not magic by half measures.’

‘Well, can you magic them all away now – as quickly as possible?’

‘Indeed not!’

‘Oh please. You’ve
got
to. I didn’t realize what it would be like. And he cares so much about his flowers.
Please
charm them away, Glubbslyme.’

‘What is done cannot be undone.’

‘Glubbslyme, I command it!’

‘You can command until you are blue as a bilberry but it will make no difference.’

‘Oh Glubbslyme, please, there must be
some
way of getting rid of them.’

‘I cannot understand you, child. You thought it a splendid jape last night.’

‘It’s not splendid now, it’s spiteful and scary and I don’t like it.’

‘I can see you have far too soft a heart for serious witchcraft,’ said Glubbslyme.

‘Can’t you do good magic instead of bad?’

‘One can – but it provides precious little frolic and fun.’

‘I don’t think this is much fun,’ said Rebecca, poking about in the corner of the greenhouse and finding her old seaside bucket.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Glubbslyme.

‘I’m going to help Mr Baker pick up his slugs,’ said Rebecca, although she shuddered at the thought. She had never even dared so much as touch a slug before. Her hands shook and sweated now but she knew she had to try.

She left Glubbslyme and squeezed through the gap at the end of the garden fence. Mr Baker was too distracted to notice. He was frantically plucking slugs from petals and throwing them into a bucket. Mrs Baker was on her knees at another flower bed with the washing up bowl. Rebecca squatted where she was, staring at the slugs. It wouldn’t be so bad if they kept still but they squirmed disgustingly. Rebecca reached out her hand. It stayed stretched in mid-air for several seconds. Then she took a deep breath and picked up the smallest slug between her finger and thumb. It felt so soft and slimy that she screamed and dropped it at once. Mr Baker looked up and shouted at her to go away.