Fantastic Stories Page 6

  Now, nobody has ever seen Old Man Try-By-Night, because he doesn’t like to be seen in his dirty old galoshes and his old torn overcoat. So he always makes himself scarce as soon as anyone stirs.

  But young Tom was known to be the quietest boy in his school. He was always very, very quiet. And tonight, creeping downstairs to try and catch Old Man Try-By-Night, Tom was quieter than he’d ever been ever before in his life.

  Well, he was so quiet that not even Old Man Try-By-Night, with his sharp ears, heard him.

  Tom stood as still as a chimney, peering round the kitchen door. He could see Old Man Try-By-Night peering in at the kitchen window, and he saw him grin and give it just a little rattle. Then he watched as Old Man Try-By-Night tried the back-door handle. He rattled it once. He rattled it twice. Then he looked up to see if he’d woken anybody up yet, but nobody seemed to be stirring. And young Tom just stood in the shadows, still as stone.

  Old Man Try-By-Night gave a chuckle, and turned the door handle, and – to Tom’s horror – it opened! His mother must have forgotten to lock the back door!

  Tom’s heart jumped into his throat, as he watched Old Man Try-By-Night slip through the door and stand there in the kitchen – large as life – looking around with that chuckly grin still on his face, and a big, dirty red handkerchief hanging from his overcoat pocket.

  Before Tom could take another breath, Old Man Try-By-Night was padding across the floor towards him! For a moment, Tom thought he’d been spotted and that Old Man Try-By-Night was going to come and grab him with his grimy hands, and tie that filthy old red hanky round his eyes to stop him watching. But the Old Man hadn’t even so much as noticed a whisper of Tom – he was simply padding over to the broom that stood in the corner. Old Man Try-By-Night looked at the dirty bristles and licked his lips. Then he padded round to the pantry and opened a jar of chocolate spread with his grimy fingers. Next he stuck the dirty broom into it and got a good dollop of chocolate on the bristles. Then he sat down, put his filthy old galoshes up on the kitchen table, and started to nibble on the broom.

  And he only stopped in order to wipe his chocolatey mouth on his filthy sleeve.

  All this time, Tom stood there, peering round the kitchen door, as still and as silent as the clock on the kitchen wall that had stopped nine years ago – before Tom was born.

  But Tom said to himself: ‘That’s too much! It’s one thing to keep us awake at night rattling the windows and doors, but nibbling my mother’s best broom is really downright rude!’

  So Tom suddenly stepped into the kitchen and said: ‘Hey! Old Man Try-By-Night! Stop that!’

  Well, of course, Old Man Try-By-Night leaps to his feet and drops the broom and bangs his head on the cupboard that Tom’s father always bangs his head on and keeps meaning to move.

  ‘Ow!’ shouts Old Man Try-By-Night, and he makes for the back door as fast as his muddy old galoshes can take him. But Tom gets there first, and he locks it and throws the key into the sink.

  ‘Oh! Please let me out!’ whimpers Old Man Try-By-Night. ‘I’m only doing a bit of broom-nibbling!’

  But young Tom stands his ground and says: ‘Now listen here, Old Man Try-By-Night! I’m fed up with your keeping me awake at night, rattling doors and windows. If I let you out of here, you must promise me you’ll stop it.’

  ‘I promise,’ says Old Man Try-By-Night. ‘But just unlock the door and let me out, for I hate being seen in my dirty old galoshes and my old torn overcoat.’’

  ‘Very well,’ says young Tom. ‘But look at the mess you’ve made of the kitchen. You’ve put your grimy fingermarks on the pantry door, you’ve got mud-marks on the kitchen table, and you’ve got chocolate on the broom! Before I let you out, you must clean it all up!’

  ‘Very well,’ sighs Old Man Try-By-Night, and he gets out his dirty old red handkerchief, and starts to rub his fingermarks off the pantry door.

  But everywhere he goes, his filthy old galoshes make more mud-marks on the floor, and everywhere he wipes, his dirty old red handkerchief just smears the grime across and leaves everything twice as dirty as before.

  ‘You’re putting on more dirt than you’re taking off!’ exclaims Tom.

  I’m doing my best!’ whimpers Old Man Try-By-Night, and he rubs the pantry door with his mucky sleeve, and leaves a great smear of chocolate right across it. Then he kneels down on the floor and tries to wipe up the muddy marks from his filthy old galoshes, but his knees are covered in grease and his hands are covered in chocolate and the floor gets worse and worse wherever he goes.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ cries Tom. ‘I’ll have to clear up myself!’ And he grabs a bucket and a scrubbing brush, and goes round after the old man, cleaning up and cleaning up… And Tom starts feeling tired and sleepy… but the kitchen’s still covered in mud and chocolate, and the more Old Man Try-By-Night tries to clean it up, the worse it gets. Tom just can’t keep up with his bucket and scrubbing brush, and just as he’s beginning to think maybe he should unlock the back door and get rid of Old Man Try-By-Night once and for all, he suddenly finds it’s gone dark and he can’t see.

  Tom’s blood runs cold, for he’s just realized that Old Man Try-By-Night has crept up behind him, while he was busy scrubbing, and has tied that dirty old red handkerchief over his eyes …

  And Old Man Try-By-Night is saying: ‘This is what happens if you go prowling around the house at night, when you ought to be asleep. You never wake up in the morning!’

  Tom twists from side to side, and tries to pull the dirty old red handkerchief away from his eyes, when he suddenly realizes that it’s not the dirty old red handkerchief but Old Man Try-By-Night’s grimy hand round his eyes! Tom manages to pull it away, but then he notices a strange thing: Old Man Try-By-Night’s hand isn’t grimy at all!

  Then Tom looks up and he sees that it isn’t even Old Man Try-By-Night! It’s his father! And the morning light is streaming in through the bedroom window, and Tom is safe and sound in his own bed.

  ‘You see? This is what happens if you go prowling round the house at night,’ his father is saying. ‘You never wake up in the morning!’

  ‘But Old Man Try-By-Night… says Tom. ‘He’s made such a mess in the kitchen!’

  And Tom’s father says: ‘Tom, I think you’ve been dreaming.’

  Oh yes! That’s the other thing that Old Man Try-By-Night does that I can never remember. After he’s woken everybody up by rattling the windows and banging the doors, he takes out his dirty old red handkerchief, and he opens it up, and there – inside – are all manner of dreams. And before he goes, Old Man Try-By-Night chooses one or two for us, and leaves them on the doorstep – to keep us company through the night.

  TOBY TICKLER

  TOBY HAD A TICKLE. It was a really good tickle. He could tickle anybody – even the most unticklish sort of person – and make them laugh.

  Now it just so happened that His Lordship The Royal Treasurer Of The Realm was exactly that sort of person – extremely unticklish. In fact, he hadn’t laughed for twenty years.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Franklin,’ the king would say to him. ‘It’s so gloomy having you around. Why don’t you smile sometimes?’

  ‘I smile exactly as often as is necessary,’ said His Lordship The Royal Treasurer Of The Realm, and he demonstrated his smile to the king.

  ‘If that’s a smile,’ said the king, ‘I’m a left-handed corkscrew!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said the Royal Treasurer.

  ‘Smiling isn’t like gold, you know,’ said the king. ‘You can’t use it up or run out of it!’

  ‘I don’t care to squander anything unnecessarily, Your Majesty,’ replied the Royal Treasurer, and went off to organize the day’s business.

  Now at the very moment that the Royal Treasurer was saying this to the king, Toby Tickler’s mother was saying something very different to her son.

  ‘Toby, my son,’ she said. ‘You are as dear to me as any son can be to his mother. If only love coul
d make you fat, you’d be the plumpest boy in the whole kingdom. But look at you! You’re just skin and bones, and I haven’t enough money to feed us. I can’t even pay the rent, and unless I do, we’ll be thrown out of our house tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mother,’ said Toby Tickler. ‘I’ll earn some money!’

  ‘How are you going to do that?’ replied his mother. ‘You’re too small and puny to work. All you can do is tickle people and make them laugh.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Toby, ‘I’ll make them laugh and then perhaps they’ll give me a job.’ And with that, he set off into town.

  First he went to the Brickmaker and tickled him behind the right ear. Sure enough, the Brickmaker burst out laughing. In fact, he laughed so hard that he dropped his bricks. But when he’d stopped laughing, he turned on Toby Tickler and said: ‘Look what you’ve done! I’ve broken my bricks! Get out of here!’

  So then Toby went to the Bootmaker, and he tickled him behind the left ear. Well, the Bootmaker threw down his hammer and nails and started to laugh, and he couldn’t stop laughing for forty minutes. When he did stop, however, he turned on Toby Tickler and shouted: ‘Look what you’ve done! You’ve made me waste forty precious minutes! I don’t want any ticklers around here!’

  So then Toby went to the Bellmaker, and tickled him on the back of his neck. The Bellmaker laughed and laughed so much that he cracked the bell he was casting. Whereupon he chased Toby Tickler out of his shop, even though he was still laughing as hard as ever.

  Finally, Toby went to the palace kitchen, where he found the Cook cutting up the bacon. Toby thought he’d better not tickle him, so instead he said: ‘Please let me work here. I have to earn some money – otherwise my mother and I will be thrown out of our house.‘

  But the Cook replied: ‘It’s a hard life, working in the king’s kitchen, and you’re all skin and bones. You’d never last a day!’ And he went on cutting the bacon.

  Well, of course, Toby looked at the eggs being boiled for the king’s breakfast, and the bread being buttered, and his mouth began to water, as he began to remember that it was two days since he had last eaten anything.

  He tried to leave, but he just couldn’t take his eyes off all that food.

  Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up into the face of one of the pantrymaids.

  ‘Dearie me!’ she said. ‘You’re as pale as pork and as thin as breadsticks! You’d better come in and have something to eat, before you go anywhere else, young man.’

  And she sat him at the pantry table, and brought him plates of porridge and hunks of bread and a little strawberry jam.

  Now, it just so happened that the princess’s favourite place in the whole palace was the pantry. She would come down every morning to spend an hour with Polly the Pantrymaid. So, of course, when she came down on this particular morning, who should she find but Toby Tickler, licking his porridge plate clean.

  ‘You’ve got to earn some money somehow,’ agreed the princess, when she’d heard his story. ‘Isn’t there anything you’re good at?’

  Toby shook his head gloomily. ‘There’s only one thing I’m good at,’ he said, ‘and that just gets me into trouble.’

  ‘What about sums?’ asked the princess. ‘Perhaps my father would give you a job in the counting-house?’

  So the princess took Toby’s hand, and led him to the king, who was still eating his breakfast (it used to take him most of the morning). But the king shook his head. ‘You don‘t look serious enough for the counting-house, I’m afraid. His Lordship The Royal Treasurer Of The Realm would never approve.’

  Just at that moment the Royal Treasurer came in, looking very solemn.

  ‘Your Majesty!’ he said in his gravest manner.

  ‘Oh dear,’ muttered the king. ‘Here comes Cheerful Charlie …’

  ‘There are three men at the door,’ continued the Royal Treasurer, looking more and more solemn, ‘who wish you to hear their complaints.’

  ‘Oh dear, do I really have to?’ sighed the king.

  ‘It’s a most serious matter!’ exclaimed the Royal Treasurer.

  ‘I thought it would be,’ said the king. ‘Very well, show them in.’

  So the Royal Treasurer Of The Realm showed in the three men. They were the Brickmaker, the Bootmaker and the Bellmaker. As soon as they saw Toby Tickler, of course, they all three pointed at him and cried:

  ‘That’s him!’

  ‘That’s who?’ asked the king.

  ‘He made me laugh,’ exclaimed the Brickmaker, ‘so hard that I dropped a whole tray of new-baked bricks and broke them. I demand a good penny for the bricks I broke!’

  ‘Well, he made me laugh so hard,’ said the Bootmaker, ‘that I wasted forty precious minutes. I demand a silver sixpence for the boots I could have made in that time.’

  ‘And I demand a golden guinea!’ exclaimed the Bellmaker, ‘for the bell I cracked when he made me laugh.’

  ‘Is this right?’ demanded His Lordship The Royal Treasurer Of The Realm. ‘You made all these people laugh?’

  ‘It’s right enough, and I’m sorry enough,’ said Toby Tickler.

  ‘Then,’ said the Royal Treasurer, ‘you must pay for every single thing – or I’ll have you thrown into jail by your ears!’

  ‘I can’t pay anybody for anything!’ cried Toby Tickler. ‘My mother and I haven’t even enough to pay our rent or buy our food.’

  ‘That’s your lookout!’ shouted the Royal Treasurer. ‘Guards! Seize this boy by the ears, and throw him in jail!’

  As the guards came forward to arrest Toby Tickler, the Royal Treasurer put his face right up against Toby’s and said: ‘Perhaps this will teach you that there is a time and a place for everything.’

  Well, I don’t really know why it was, but His Lordship The Royal Treasurer Of The Realm looked so serious and so solemn that Toby Tickler just couldn’t help himself …

  Just as the guards were grabbing him by the ears, he reached out his hand and tickled His Lordship under the chin.

  Of course, the Royal Treasurer burst out laughing. In fact, he fell on the floor and rolled around, laughing and laughing and laughing.

  ‘Amazing!’ exclaimed the king. ‘I haven’t seen him laugh in twenty years! Did you just do that?’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s the only thing I can do,’ sighed Toby Tickler, as the guards dragged him off by the ears.

  ‘Then you’re hired!’ shouted the king after him. ‘Bring that boy back here!’ For, by this time, the guards had already dragged Toby out of the breakfast room and halfway down the steps to the dungeon, so they promptly turned about and dragged him all the way back again – still by his ears. (It was very painful.)

  Some time later, the king explained Toby’s duties to him: ‘There certainly is a time and place for everything – especially laughter,’ he said. ‘You are hereby engaged to make His Lordship The Royal Treasurer Of The Realm smile at least thirty times every day and laugh out loud at least once!’

  Well, that’s how Toby Tickler found a job at last, and saved his mother and himself from being thrown out of their house.

  As a matter of fact, it turned out that he was good at sums after all, so when His Lordship The Royal Treasurer Of The Realm retired, Toby got his job. Although by that time he didn’t really need a job any more, because he’d already married the princess. You see… she sometimes liked Toby to tickle her too!

  THE CAT WITH TWO TAILS

  IN THE OLDEN DAYS ALL CATS had two tails – one for the daytime and one for the night. During the day they kept their long, thick daytime tail curled around themselves and slept tight and snug. But when it grew dark – ah! then each cat would go to a secret place and there it would reach in its paw and pull out a bundle wrapped in mouse-fur. Then it would wait until it was sure… absolutely sure… that nobody and nothing… absolutely nothing… was looking. (For cats, you must know, are crafty as only cats can be.) And then it would unwrap the bundle of mouse-fur, and ther
e, inside, would be its own – its very own – night-time tail.

  Its night-time tail was an ordinary length and an ordinary thickness, but it would twitch as it lay there in the bundle of mouse-fur. And although it was only an ordinary length and an ordinary thickness, it was nevertheless a very remarkable tail indeed.

  Can you guess why? Well … I’ll tell you … It shone – as bright as day. And every cat would off! with its daytime tail in the twinkling of an eye, and on! with its shining night-time tail. And they’d hold their tails above their heads, and light the night as bright as day, and all the mice would tremble in the darkest corners of their holes.

  When the cats stepped out, the badgers and the foxes would stop whatever they were doing to watch and clap. But every family of mice huddled together deeper in their holes, and their whiskers shook.

  When the cats stepped out, the weasels and the stoats would stand on each others’ shoulders to get a better view, but the mouse babies crept closer into their mothers’ arms.

  Now one day, a certain mouse said: ‘I’ve had enough!’

  And his wife replied: ‘You’re always right, of course, my dear. But enough of what? We haven’t had anything to eat for days.’

  ‘That’s right!’ said the mouse. ‘We’ve had nothing to eat because those cats sleep outside our holes all day, wrapped up in their long, thick daytime tails. And at night, just when you’d think it would be safe to tiptoe out and steal a piece of cheese… ’

  ‘Just one piece of cheese!’ twittered all his children.

  ‘Those cats put on their night-time tails, and light the night as bright as day!’

  ‘You never spoke a truer word, my dear,’ said his wife. ‘Those cats are crafty as only cats can be… ’

  ‘That’s why I’ve had enough!’ exclaimed the mouse, and he banged his paw on the nest. And his children felt very frightened – as they always did whenever their father got cross.