Hamish X and the Cheese Pirates (6 page)

“What's going on here?” Viggo's voice barked out. Hamish and all the other children turned their heads to see Viggo marching through the swinging doors at the end of the cafeteria. Mrs. Francis trailed after him, a worried expression on her face.

“Ah, Mr. Viggo!” Hamish X said brightly. “We were just demonstrating some new calisthenics for the rest of the kids. Right, Mi—oof!”

Mimi took advantage of the distraction provided by Viggo's arrival to plant a haymaker into the side of Hamish's head. The blow struck him directly on the temple. His eyes rolled back and his entire body stiffened. Then he fell like a tree under a lumberjack's axe, slamming full-length to the floor at Mimi's feet.

“Yeah,” she huffed. “What he said.”

Chapter 5

Hamish awoke to find himself spinning in the wind. A harness similar to one a skydiver might wear was hooked to a rope which was in turn fastened to the edge of the factory roof.

“Enjoy the view,” a harsh voice called. The voice belonged to one of two guards standing on the roof, pointing and laughing. One of the guards was Pianoface. His face looked as though someone had dropped a piano on it. He was only marginally uglier than his companion, however, whose face looked as though it had merely been beaten with a tuba. He was affectionately known as Tubaface.

“You and your girlfriend have a pleasant evening,” Tubaface shouted.

“He ain't my boyfriend!” Hamish X focused as best he could and saw that he was not alone. Mimi was dangling in the wind beside him. “When I git down from here, y'all are gonna be sorry!”

The two guards howled with laughter. “In't that a fine pair of kites!” crowed Pianoface.

“Fine indeed,” cackled Tubaface, slapping his knee. “Grand night for a kite flight.”

Pianoface stopped laughing, a sudden look of wonder coming over his ugly visage. “Tubaface! That's poetry,” he said. The two guards looked at each other for a moment then turned and went through the door, closing it behind them.

Hamish X and Mimi whirled on the end of their tethers at the mercy of the gusts.

“There ain't nuthin' worse than bein' dangled. Nothing!” Mimi cursed.

Windcity, as pointed out earlier, is windy. Extremely so. There is no place on earth that is more reliably consistent in its windiness. On any given day, at any given moment, one could say, “I bet it's windy in Windcity.” No one
would take the bet.
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Therefore, it's only natural that Viggo would devise a punishment that took advantage of this fact.

Hamish X and Mimi spun at the end of their tethers, whirling at the mercy of the blasting gale. The effect was quite disorienting. Hamish clenched his teeth and stifled the nausea he felt rising in his stomach. He stuck out his arms and discovered that he could influence his spin by angling his appendages. After experimenting for a few moments, he found that he could stop his spinning altogether. In fact, he could remain upright. He hung, spread-eagled, at the end of his rope. Beneath his feet the earth was fifteen metres down, dusted in drifting snow. He looked to his right and saw Mimi in the identical posture looking back at him.

“Well, ain't this a treat,” Mimi declared. “It would be quite a view. Too bad there ain't nothin' to see!”

Hamish X agreed. The town of Windcity looked miserable from ground level. From the sky, it looked more desolate still. The houses, empty and dark, teetered in the wind on the verge of collapse. Hudson's Bay, grey and ice-strewn, stretched out to the eastern horizon. The sun hung low in the west, painting the sky red, but it wasn't a warm, comforting red. Rather, the sky looked inflamed
and sore, like a dirty wound. Lights shone from the guard shack on the wharf. A cargo boat bobbed and heaved at anchor in the harbour. To the north and west, flat, barren tundra spread out as far as the eye could see.

“Well, I guess I owe ya an apology,” Mimi said. “Why?”

“It's my fault we's stuck up here.”

“Not at all. Anyway, I had no other plans for this evening.”

Mimi laughed. She looked at her companion and shivered in the cold and at the memory of his strange reaction to the punch. “I never thought I'd meet the great Hamish X.”

Hamish X laughed. “I never thought you would either. You're just lucky I guess.”

“You think pretty highly of yerself.”

“If I don't, who will?” he grinned. “I never thought I'd meet you either, but I'm glad I did.”

They hung quietly for a while. Hamish X broke the silence. “How long are we going to be up here?”

“Couple hours,” Mimi said. “Maybe till mornin'. Depends on how mean Viggo's feelin', which is usually pretty darn mean.”

Again they hung quietly for a while, listening to the wind whistle through the lines. Again, Hamish X broke the silence.

“How about we start again as if we never met?”

“Sounds good.”

“My name is Hamish X.”

“Mimi Catastrophe Jones.”

“Catastrophe?” Hamish laughed. “Your parents named you Catastrophe?”

“Yeah,” Mimi said sheepishly. “They just liked the
sound of it is all.”

“It's a Greek word.”

“How do ya know that?”

“I don't know. I guess I learned it somewhere. Hmm. Catastrophe … It suits you,” Hamish nodded. “Anyone with a left hook like that ought to be called Catastrophe.”

Mimi tried to hide her delight. “That's the nicest thing anybody ever said to me. Apart from my daddy, that is.” She frowned.

“You remember your dad?” Hamish asked. His strange eyes stared at her with a yearning, hungry look. “I don't remember my mother at all. I know I have one and that she loved me, but I don't have a clear memory of what she looks like. I envy you. I just know I have to find her.”

“Sometimes I wish I didn't remember nothin', y'know? I wish I didn't have that sore place in my heart all the time. It might be a sight easier to stand livin' here if I never knew nothin' better existed.”

“Never say that,” Hamish X said gently. “Tell me about your dad.”

Mimi went quiet for a while. Then she looked over at Hamish X. His eyes were focused so intensely on her, so strange. They seemed almost luminous in the darkness. “I never told nobody my story before,” Mimi said, “'ceptin' Parveen. And he don't count.”

“I'll make you a deal. You tell yours and I'll tell mine as best I can.” Hamish shivered in the frigid wind. “It'll take our minds off the cold.”

Mimi was quiet for a moment longer. Then, as the sun went down, she told Hamish X her story.

Chapter 6

MINI'S STORY

I was born in a little town called Cross Plains, Texas. Cross Plains is barely a bump in the road. You'd hardly slow down if yah drove through. There ain't a stoplight or stop sign and if there were you'd be tempted to run right through it. That's how miserable the town o' Cross Plains is. Tornados loved it though on account of all the trailer parks in the vicinity. Trailers seem ta draw tornados like honey draws ants. My daddy swore we'd never live in a trailer. We'd be sittin' on the front porch after a dinner of boiled water and ketchup and he'd say, “No matter how lowly our house may be, at least we ain't livin' in no trailer. 'Cause if you're livin' in a trailer, you're neither here nor there. It ain't a house and it ain't a home.”

We lived in a little house, a bit run down but Momma made it pretty. My daddy were a proud man. He worked ever' day to make sure me and Momma had sumthin' ta eat, even if it were only ketchup and boiled water. He could tell stories and they would make ya laugh so hard that you'd ferget about any problem you had or the rumble in yer stomach.

He did odd jobs as a handyman, tryin' to make ends meet. When he was younger, he played baseball in the minor leagues. He was a pitcher. He'd take me out after he came home from workin' and we'd throw the ball in the field out back the house. He taught me how to make the ball dance and swerve like it was on a string. He said I was
a natural. That was just the best time, throwin' the ball until it were too dark to see it no more.

My momma was a very beautiful woman and smart as a whip. She went to college and everything. She knew lots o' stuff. She got a degree and she learnt to be a teacher. That's how she met my daddy. He was workin' at the school fixin' a leaky sink and they got to talkin'. Before long, he'd charmed her so much she agreed to go out for a date with him. A year later they was married. Then I come along. With Momma's teachin' and Daddy's handyman work we made it okay. I don't remember her face too well. I were only young when she died. But I remember her smile and the feel of her hands when she put me to bed.

Things started to go bad after my fourth birthday. Momma lost her job. She was teachin' at the local school until it was stolen one night. I ain't kiddin'! The school was one o' them portables, and durin' one dark night some jokers hooked it to a truck and hauled 'er off. That's how desperate poor people were.

So, my momma had no place to teach. That meant we had to make do on just the money my daddy could make. Daddy knew he needed to find a way to make more money so's we could live a good life. He hit upon an idea. He'd breed tapirs.

He mortgaged our little house and bought a little farm to breed these animals. Now tapirs is a strange little animal that comes from South America.
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My daddy thought they was cute and I suppose they was. They had little hoofs like
a mini-aycher horse but they's got a silly long nose that they dig in the ground for roots and things. They's an endangered species from the jungle and their only natural predator is the jaguar.

My daddy thought they'd be worth a load o' money on account o' them bein' so rare. He took every last cent we had and bought four breedin' pairs. He flooded most of our farmland so they could frolic around in the swampy ground, which were their natural habitat.

The one problem with the plan my daddy had was that he had no idea who we was gonna sell the tapirs to. They just kept breedin' and breedin', growin' and growin' until there was hundreds of the gosh darn things. We couldn't afford to feed the blamed things any more. Without jaguars to keep the numbers down they were reproducin' like mad. It was only a matter of time before somethin' bad happened.

One day, there was a thunderstorm and the lightnin' was blastin' somethin' awful. We were huddled in the kitchen lookin' out at the storm. I remember it real clear. The sky just seemed to turn all purple with clouds and then it happened: a tornado come to Cross Plains. My daddy said that tornados is a long finger of the devil stirrin' and scrapin' at God's creation. The funnel walked through the farm suckin' up anything in its path and flingin' it hither and yon. And as it moved across our farm, headin' straight for our little house, it picked up hundreds of the poor little tapirs.

My momma told us all to go down into the storm cellar. She went to get some candles in the kitchen drawer but she never made it. The papers called it the strangest fatality on record. Hundreds of tapirs rained down, squealin' like demons, crashin' through the windows and
ceiling. She never even saw it comin' and I don't think she felt any pain.
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O' course my father blamed hisself for the tragedy. He spent most of his days drinkin' beer and cursin' tapirs. He was kind to me though. The bank repossessed the farm and we was forced to live with my dad's sister, my Aunt Jean. She were mean. It weren't very imaginative but I called her Mean Jean. Mainly 'cause it rhymed. Worse than that … she lived in a trailer. A brown one, too. Brown as a cow pat.

Aunt Jean weren't too fond of me. Said I was too boyish a girl by half. Tried to make me wear dresses but I tore 'em up. They smelled funny anyway. She made me wear clothes she got from her work. She worked in the local funeral parlour and she got to keep all the clothes the dead people were wearin' when they come in. Mostly they was old ladies' clothes and they didn't fit worth a darn. All the other kids at the school would laugh at me and I was forced to make 'em stop with my fists. I got pretty good, I reckon.

I tried to tell my daddy how mean Aunt Jean were but it was like he weren't really there any more. My father tried his best to get work where he could, sweepin' out barrooms and washin' the toilets and such. I could tell he was real sad about Momma.

Money was very short and things were gettin' very dire when my father come to me one day to tell me he had the offer of a job. I'd just come home from school and I'd had a fight. My lip was bleedin' and I had a black eye but I gave better 'n I got, truth be told. My daddy sat me down at the kitchen table to tell me he'd been accepted to work on an oil rig in the Caspian Sea. That's somewheres in Russia. The money was good but he'd be gone fer a while. He'd send money home and when he had a place he'd send fer me, but until that time Aunt Jean would be takin' care o' me. I cried all night, I don't mind admittin' that. He left the next day. He told me to be good and work on my slider.