The Ribbajack (3 page)

Soames thrust both hands into his blazer pockets. “Rather, he’s up to some wickedness, I’m sure. I don’t like it one little bit. One thing’s certain, though, we can’t be left alone in that dorm with Smifft for almost two months’ summer hols. How much money have you got, chum?”

Wilton frowned. “In my money box there’s two fivers from my parents last Christmas. What do we need money for?”

Soames did some quick calculating. “I’ve got six pounds from my people last birthday, and a ten-bob note left from my allowance. What d’you say we go and stay at my aunt Adelaide’s place for the recess? It’s up in Yorkshire, at Harrogate. Come on, let’s take a walk down to the post office, I’ll give her a ring.” He broke into a trot. Wilton ran to keep up with him.

“What about me, d’you think she’ll mind terribly?”

His friend chuckled. “What, Aunt Addie? Not a bit, old man. She’s half deaf and totally nutty. Lives alone, except for a cook and gardener, in a great rambling place up by the moors. She’s got loads of cats, and keeps geese, too. We’ll be safe from Smifft up there for the summer. Are you game?”

Wilton felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his young heart. “Rather! Lead on, old chap, I’d sooner be marooned on the ocean in a bathtub than be stuck with that bounder Smifft for the hols!”

Less than an hour later, both boys skipped blithely out of the telephone box. Soames rubbed his hands together joyfully.

“Here we are, all set to go. There’s a train for Harrogate at seven-ten this evening, should get us in about ten. Aunt Addie is sending old Jenkins the gardener to pick us up in the car. All we’ve got to do is pack a case each. The dreaded Smifft shouldn’t even notice we’re gone, you know how he is when he’s swotting up a foul new scheme. Come on, race you back!”

 

 

 

The school chaplain of Duke Crostacious the Inviolate was Reverend Rodney Miller, a bluff, hearty old fellow. He was known by several nicknames: the Sky Pilot, Big Dusty, Rev, or the Padre. This was owing to his long service with the King’s Lancashire Rifle Regiment. He had spent many years in India, Burma and Bhutan as Padre to the soldiers. Rev. Miller stood well over six feet tall, a portly, congenial figure with a fiery complexion and white bushy eyebrows. He had an extensive fund of stories about life in the far-flung outposts of empire—it had been said that he could bore the legs off a table with them.

Rev. Miller sat in the headmaster’s study, taking tea with Mrs. Twogg and Mr. Plother. Helping himself to slices of Dundee cake and Bath Oliver biscuits, washed down with copius amounts of Darjeeling tea, he listened to them holding forth on the subject of Archibald Smifft—the boy’s unhealthy fascination with occult magic and the forbidden arts. The matron explained about the materials they had discovered beneath the bed and the possible atrocities Smifft could wreak upon both them and the school. The headmaster recounted the incident of the cockroaches and flies. Rev. Miller sucked the chocolate from a Bath Oliver, and dunked it in his tea reflectively.

“Ah, yes, the old jiggery pokery, y’know. Saw quite a bit of it for m’self out on the subcontinent, India and all that. By Jove, watched a chap climb up a rope and vanish into thin air. Amazing! Where the dickens he went to, I’ll never know. Another time I saw a fakir take a pair of live scorpions—d’you know what he did with ’em, eh?”

The matron poured more tea, remarking primly, “I’m sure we’d shudder to think, Reverend. However, this isn’t getting us anywhere with the Smifft problem, don’t you agree, Headmaster?”

Mr. Plother blinked over the rim of his Crown Derby teacup. “Er, precisely, Mrs. Twogg, the boy is definitely involved in some murky matters. I mean, how d’you explain a cloud of flies swarming around my head, Padre?”

The chaplain picked a few crumbs from his ample stomach. “Huh, flies, y’say, I could do that. Slap a dab of honey on my head. Flies’d flock to it. A few wasps and a bee or two, as well, I should imagine, eh?”

The matron pursed her lips. “Really, Reverend, I don’t consider this a fit subject for humour. You have been invited here to give assistance in what we think is a serious matter!”

Rev. Miller heaved himself out of the creaking armchair. He sighed regretfully at the empty cake stand. “Right you are, marm, suppose I’d better go and have a few words with the young scamp. What’s the chap’s name, Smithers?”

Mrs. Twogg’s chins wobbled as she snapped out the name. “Smifft. Archibald Smifft. You remember him from Christmas term, surely!”

The chaplain’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Good Lord, that fellow? Wasn’t he the rogue who sabotaged my incense burner with stink bombs at the chapel service? Short, grubby cove, with his eyes too close together? Never liked boys with close-together eyes, y’know. Reminds me of a gunnery corporal I served with at Hyderabad, furtive little blighter. Caught him one time in the officers’ mess, had half a bottle of Madeira and some vindaloo curry powder. You’ll never guess what the scallywag was up to—”

The matron interrupted him abruptly. “Smifft!”

Rev. Miller recalled his errand. “Eh, what? Oh, yes, I’ll go and have a talk with Master Smithers. No time like the present!”

 

 

 

Archibald Smifft lay flat on his bed, exerting all his mental powers to produce an image of how a Ribbajack might look. He ignored the muffled rummaging of Wilton and Soames on the other side of his barricade, for they could be dealt with later. His Ribbajack was all-important. The description penned by Soames’s father sounded fairly good. But Archibald had decided it needed some adjustments to suit his macabre taste. A crocodile’s body, he would keep that feature. Three eyes? No, his would have just one big eye, a disgusting red runny one. Then there was the question of the arms. What if they were long, right down to its feet, hairy like a gorilla’s, and studded with suckers, similar to an octopus’s tentacles? The long, sharp teeth sounded a bit humdrum. Suppose it had a feathered head and a great hooked parrot beak, which could rip and tear and chop? Perfect! It would be his own personal and original Ribbajack.

Archibald’s train of thought was broken by someone knocking on the door outside his den. He attempted to dismiss it at this crucial stage of his image-making. However, it was not about to cease, in fact the knocking doubled in volume and insistence, then a voice.

“Come on, young man, I know you’re in there. Met two of your pals on the corridor below on their way out, they told me. Listen, Smithers, if you don’t open this door pretty sharply, I’ll bring my old service pistol and blow the lock off. D’you hear me, Smithers?”

Rev. Miller put his ear to the door just as it opened. He practically fell in on top of a scowling, ill-tempered boy. (This would have solved the problem neatly, as the Rev. weighed in at somewhere around two and a half hundred pounds. What a lark! Man of the cloth flattens young schoolboy by accident.) Smiling at the thought, the chaplain took the jovial approach. He winked com panionably at the irate boy. “What ho, young Smithers, come to have a friendly word with you. At the headmaster’s and matron’s request, of course. Well, aren’t you going to ask the old Sky Pilot in, eh?”

Stiff-legged, Archibald backed off to sit on his bed. “Name’s Smifft, not Smithers. Can’t stop you coming in if you want to.”

Striding into the den, the chaplain planted himself firmly on the bedside chair. “Ah, that’s more the ticket!”

Archibald glared murderously at the big, portly man. “No, it’s not, you’ve just sat on Jasper and squashed him.”

Rev. Miller rose in alarm. “Jasper, who’s Jasper?”

Archibald craned his head to view the seat of the chaplain’s trousers. “Jasper was my best lizard, I’ve had him all term. Now you’ve killed him with your big, fat bottom.”

Taking his handkerchief and a nearby English textbook, Rev. Miller brushed the flattened remains of Jasper onto the floor. “My dear boy, forgive me. I’m most dreadfully sorry. Poor Jasper, I’ll put him in the wastepaper basket.”

Jumping from the bed, Archibald gathered up the dead lizard. He shot the chaplain a glare that would have wilted a nettle. “I’ll keep him for my spells. Tongue, skin or tail of lizard always comes in useful. Not many lizards about lately.”

The chaplain looked on as the boy deposited Jasper’s carcass in a jar, and wrote on the label. “Spells, eh? Jolly old magic ones, I’ll bet, eh?”

Archibald stowed the jar beneath his bed. “Mind your own business, my spells are private.”

Chuckling, the Rev bent his head, trying to peer under the bed. “What are you keeping under here, m’lad? Lots of icky schoolboy stuff probably. Boiled tadpoles, fried worms and whatnot. Hohoho, you young rip!”

His jollity was cut short by a grubby, black-nailed finger waving threateningly under his nose. “Listen, fattie, make yourself scarce before I get mad!”

Rev. Miller had dealt with toughened soldiers in the past. He was not about to be intimidated by a snotty-nosed boy. “Now see here, Smithers, don’t you dare take that tone with me. Show a bit of respect for your school chaplain, m’boy!”

Archibald’s lip curled scornfully. “Respect? Get out of my dormitory, you old windbag. Go on, beat it, or I’ll make you sorry you ever came in here!”

Rev. Miller stood up, then he stooped until their eyes met. “Will you indeed? I suppose you’ll surround my head with flies, or slip a few cockroaches into my pocket, eh? Oh, don’t worry, m’lad, I’ve heard all about what you did to the matron and the headmaster. That nonsense won’t work with me!”

Archibald Smifft went pale with rage. “Yes, it will! I can make a big wasp sting you right on the end of your stupid nose. I can, you know!”

The chaplain’s roar made the boy start with fright. “You spotty little cur, go on then, do your worst. But let me warn you, Smithers. If you do, I’ll seize you and chuck you into the school lily pond, and all that gobbledygook from under your bed, too. Understood?”

Archibald sneered. “You wouldn’t dare!”

Grabbing the boy by his collars, the big man lifted him bodily and gave him a firm shaking. “You snotty little upstart, one more word out of you and I won’t be responsible for my actions!”

It was the first time anyone had ever laid hands on Archibald. He squealed like a rat. Suddenly, he was afraid of the big old man. He began to whimper pathetically. “You’re hurting me, put me down, please, sir!”

Rev. Miller dropped him onto the bed, nodding affably. “That’s more like it, old chap. Now listen carefully. I’ll return here after supper tomorrow evening. I want to see all that rubbish gone from under your bed. Also, I’d like to see a complete change in your attitude, Smithers. If not, you’ll be taking a rather uncomfortable bath in the lily pond. Now, do I make myself clear?”

Avoiding the chaplain’s eyes, Archibald stared at the bedspread, sniffing meekly. “Yes, sir.”

Rev. Miller smiled. He patted the boy’s head gently. “Good man. Now, let’s have our little talk, shall we.”

For the next half hour, Archibald was forced to sit and listen to the chaplain. He lectured on and on about playing the game, being a decent chap and making Crostacious’s school proud of him. Archibald took it all in a subdued manner, nodding agreement with all the Rev’s advice as he droned on about the dangers of evil intent, warning about casting spells and meddling in the darker side of nature.

Rev. Miller ended his discourse by saying, “There are powers beyond your knowledge, m’boy. If you were to continue as you’re going, it would all backfire on you someday. Where’d you be then, eh? Cheer up, Smithers, old lad. See you at seven tomorrow. Good-bye!”

Archibald sat listening until the chaplain’s heavy, plodding footsteps receded below stairs. A slow smile stole across his spotty face, growing into a maniacal grin. Leaping up, he went into a frenzied dance around the room, his eyes glittering with villainous delight. He had just found a victim for the Ribbajack he was intent on conjuring. Old Reverend Dusty Miller, the Sky Pilot! Revengeful spite and pent-up malice poured from him like sewage squirting from a cracked cess tank. When he first heard of the Ribbajack, all he desired was to see what it looked like. Now he had a definite aim for the horror he was about to create. The removal of his newfound enemy! The moment that dog-collared old buffoon had mispronounced his name, Archibald Smifft knew the chaplain was going to be the first victim of the monster. Putting pen to paper, he began composing a verse as an aid to materialising his own personal Ribbajack.

Golden noontide sunlight flooded through the dormitory windows, the silence broken only by Archibald repeating his lines in a singsong monotone. He lay rigid on the bed, both fists pressed against his tightly closed eyes, striving to visualise his horrific creature. If there was such a thing as the Ribbajack, he would be the one to endow it with life. He was no Burmese cattle herder. No, he was Archibald Smifft. He would master the monster and bend it to his will. Rev. Miller would be only the first victim—others would follow. He would gain the power to make his Ribbajack serve him forever!

From far away, a voice entered his consciousness, distant at first, but growing to a bloodcurdling rumble.

“Master?”

Cold sweat beaded his pimpled brow; his hair stood up on end. There it was again, louder this time, clearer.

“Master! Maaaassssteeeerrr?”

From some primeval mental swamp he envisioned two gargantuan, clawlike hands materialising. They scrambled on the edge of dream-shrouded mist, then took hold and heaved. Huge serpentine arms swathed in hair and octopoid suckers emerged. A single blood-shot eye appeared, questing about frenziedly. Echoing like an organ in some satanic temple, the voice called again. “Maaaaassssssteeeeerrrrr!”