Uncle Shawn and Bill and the Pajimminy-Crimminy Unusual Adventure Read online

  Uncle Shawn’s general happiness was making P’Klawz’s teeth skreeeee as loud as a large man on a tiny bicycle with rusty brakes. “You must be treated immediately – skreeeeee – for all your terrible Unusualness before it spreads to everybody else!”

  “Spreads like fun and happiness, you mean?” asked Uncle Shawn gently.

  “Skreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” said P’Klawz’s teeth. “You need locking up until you are miserable and then locking up some more!”

  And then he remembered that Mrs MacDonald was listening and whispered sweetly to her, “We only lock all the doors and windows in my Institution to keep out draughts.” (This was a very big fib.)

  P’Klawz took out his pocket watch and made it spin. “This is my Unusualness detector.” (This was a fib.) “Look at how it is shining…” The watch sparkled and sprookled so much that it dazzled Mrs MacDonald and made her thinking fuzzy.

  “That’s just a broken old watch,” Uncle Shawn pointed out.

  P’Klawz purred to Mrs MacDonald, “Allow me, gentle lady, to escort you indoors away from all this Unusualness. A normal, usual person can catch Unusualness from an Unusual person, so you shouldn’t ever go near one. And you certainly shouldn’t let one sit in your tree. Probably you should cut the tree down and saw it into little bits and burn them.”

  “But it’s my favourite apple tree,” said Mrs MacDonald. “My grandfather planted it and it gives me wonderful apples every year.”

  “Are they Unusual apples?” asked P’Klawz, and his eyes glittered.

  “They are Unusually Tasty and Juicy.”

  “Then they should be burned, too.”

  “I normally make them into pies and crumbles. I give some to the firemen.”

  “You must set fire to the Unusual apples and crumbles. Then bury them,” Dr P’Klawz said soothingly. He shooed Mrs MacDonald away from the tree and watched her go inside. Then he hissed up at Uncle Shawn, “Soon no one will want to see you and your Unusual clothes and your Unusual hair and your Unusual shoes and your Unusual face. They won’t want to be your friend any more. Someone as Unusual as you shouldn’t have any friends.”

  This made Uncle Shawn’s blue eyes even bluer while he thought a lot and decided things. “You are not a nice man,” he said. “And I do not think you are a doctor.”

  “Shall I tell you a secret?” asked Dr P’Klawz.

  “Oh, I love secrets, yes,” said Uncle Shawn.

  Dr P’Klawz made his voice into a shivery, cold whisper and told Uncle Shawn, “You are right. I am not nice at all and I hate you, Uncle Shawn. Everywhere I have gone, everyone has told me that you are the happiest man they have ever met.”

  “That’s nice to know.” Uncle Shawn smiled.

  Dr P’Klawz’s pointy, pinky nose sniffled the air. “You even smell like happiness. And you’re exactly like yourself and nobody else, and that’s what makes you happy all over and it must be stopped! One way or another I will squish the happiness and Unusualness right out of you.

  “That’s horrible,” said Uncle Shawn.

  “I know! It’s wonderfully horrible, isn’t it?” said Dr P’Klawz, and he made a noise like very old swamp monsters wheezing, which was what he did instead of laughing. “In the end, this whole country will be free from happiness. No fun, no laughter. No singing. No dances. No whistling. NO UNUSUALNESS.”

  Uncle Shawn quietly asked, “Are you sure that you’ll like what you get in the end?” Because he always wanted to give people the chance to change their minds when they were doing something silly. “If there is no happiness anywhere, then you won’t be happy yourself, you know…”

  But P’Klawz grinned like a whole showroom for baths. “Everyone will be exactly the same and everyone will be miserable, and my skin will stop itching and my ears will be comfortable and my teeth will be quiet and my head won’t ache. And whenever I feel sad, I will think that you have no friends any more and that without your Unusualness you will be nobody at all, and that will make me laugh and laugh.”

  Uncle Shawn rubbed at his wibbly wobbly hair to make himself feel brave, “Ha! Well, you shouldn’t have told me all that, because now I will tell everyone the truth about you and they will stop reading your leaflets, and they will have extra fun, just to annoy you.”

  “Nobody will even listen to you, because nobody is speaking to you. They will just ignore you. Because you are Too Unusual.” And P’Klawz made a noise like someone scraping a pebble along sandpaper. This was what he did instead of giggling. Then he stepped neatly away – tip, tip, tip – on his very shiny shoes, under his very shiny hair that looked like paint.

  This left Uncle Shawn with Bob the cat. After a while, when the firemen didn’t arrive – because Mrs MacDonald hadn’t called them – Bob got bored and climbed down from the tree all by himself. He went to sleep on the roof of the shed in a patch of sunshine.

  Uncle Shawn swung his feet and thought big thoughts about Dr P’Klawz. “It’s not right for this pretend doctor to frighten people and make them sad. And I do not like the sound of his Institution, not one teeny tiny bit.”

  At that very moment, a huge grey van went past. On its side – in darker grey letters – was painted: INSTITUTION FOR MAXIMUM SECURITY AND UNUSUALNESS CURING – COLLECTION SERVICE.

  Peering out of its tiny, barred window was Hughie, the little boy who wanted to be a spaceman. P’Klawz had hypnotized Hughie’s mum to make her send Hughie to the Institution to cure him of his Unusualness. But really P’Klawz just wanted to squish all the fun out of him so that he would end up as grey as the van he was being taken away in. Hughie’s face looked very sad, even when Uncle Shawn waved and smiled.

  “Well now. This all needs fixing, doesn’t it?” said Uncle Shawn. He felt nervous in his tummy. “I think I have a plan, but it is a scary plan… Oh dear.”

  SECTION NINE

  In which we learn about goats. And Bill still has a table with very hairy legs.

  Back at the llama farm, Brian was still pretending to be a table. Guinevere and Carlos were fighting in the meadow, shouting and kicking up dust with their hooves until they looked like a big noisy cloud with two pairs of llama ears sticking out of it.

  But Ginalolobrigida Llama was having a delightful afternoon. Her new hoof polish was glistening and she could tell she was looking especially lovely.

  She was about to begin putting on her make-up for the day (Ginalolobrigida sometimes got up very late, because being so gorgeous was tiring) when she heard a sigh. It was such a sad noise that she turned round and looked to see who could be unhappy when they were lucky enough to be in the same barn as probably the loveliest llama in the world.

  “Hello?” she said. All she got in reply was another, sadder sigh from a patch of thin air. Ginalolobrigida had heard of people who were shy and she knew that shy people didn’t like being looked at. “Hello? Are you shy? Have you turned invisible because you are shy?”

  Ginalolobrigida waited. There was silence.

  “Are you one of those unfortunate people who don’t like to appear in public, or wear magnificent hats, or dance the famous Peruvian chicha dance in front of admiring crowds?”

  Ginalolobrigida was sure someone was there, because she could hear breathing. “Well, if you won’t speak, you might as well not be here,” said Ginalolobrigida, and she started applying her Hot Llama Lavender lipstick.

  Her make-up brushes started rattling, as if little hands were searching through them. Ginalolobrigida watched while her tweezers and tweakers and curling irons and smoothing pads and pot of nose blusher and all the rest rattled, too. Some of her make-up pots even floated into the air, just as if an Invisible Someone with little hands and fingers was lifting them to read their labels. Finally a small voice asked, “What are these for?”

  “Well,” said Ginalolobrigida, “they help me feel as lovely as I want to.”

  “Why?” said the voice – which sounded like a little girl who happened to be invisible.

  “Because it’s
nice to feel lovely,” said Ginalolobrigida. She wasn’t at all scared. If this invisible person was interested in make-up, then she must be nice and very sensible. “Have you been shy for long?”

  “I’m not shy. I’m a ghost. Wooo-ooo,” said the voice, trying to be frightening.

  Ginalolobrigida only really got frightened when she ran out of eyeliner. Or pancakes. “Are you sure you’re a ghost? Ghosts smell terrible and have long, scratching horns and funny little eyes and beards.”

  “That’s goats,” explained the voice. “Ghosts are scary spirits that make things go bump in the night. And they howl. Wooo-ooo.”

  “Well, if you really are a ghost, you’re not good at it because I’m not even a little bit terrified.”

  “Oh,” said the Invisible Someone’s voice.

  She sounded so unhappy that Ginalolobrigida felt sorry for her. “Would you like to try some of my lipstick? Do you have lips?”

  There was another sigh. “I used to. I used to like talking to squirrels and waving at strangers, only everyone said that was Unusual and I got sent to an Institution run by a horrible doctor with loud teeth. Every night I wished very hard to be invisible so I could escape. I knew that no one notices quiet people who are empty inside. So I was as quiet as sleeping mice and I felt very empty because I missed my mum and dad. And my brother most – we’re twins… And I disappeared.”

  “How long have you been invisible?”

  “Oh, for ages and ages,” grumbled the little voice. “Now when I talk to people, or try to play with them, they scream. So I decided I might actually try to be frightening. But you’re not frightened. Oh dear, life is terrible…”

  Ginalolobrigida thought life was generally nice – as long as no one was trying to make her into pies, or prevent her from smelling of lavender – so she said, “Why don’t I put some Velvety Violet Lip Liner on for you?”

  “Well, it might be a bit more fun than following people around and stealing bits of their dinner when they’re not looking…”

  “That’s the spirit.” Ginalolobrigida knew that having just the right colour of lips should cheer anybody up. “Now, this will be very difficult. Fortunately, I am a make-up genius. Let’s begin.”

  And while that was happening, Guinevere and Carlos fought – so that even the tips of their ears were not visible over the top of the dust cloud.

  And while that was happening, Brian – his furry knees knocking – was still pretending to be a table.

  Back in Pandrumdroochit, Uncle Shawn was walking past closed curtains and sad gardens full of bare patches, where Unusually Beautiful plants had been uprooted. No one spoke to him, or waved or smiled.

  At last he came to the edge of the village, where there used to be a sign that said:

  And on the other side of the sign it had said:

  But someone had painted a new sign with dull brown letters. It now just said:

  On both sides.

  “Hmmm,” said Uncle Shawn to himself. “I suppose Doctor P’Klawz decided that Pandrumdroochit was an Unusual name. Which is very silly, because P’Klawz is really a Very Unusual name… Perhaps a Pajimminy-Crimminy Unusual name.” Uncle Shawn pondered for a moment. “I seem to remember someone with a name like P’Klawz. Someone Unusual… Hmmm…”

  And he nearly – but not quite – remembered there was a master criminal called Sylvester Pearlyclaws.

  Uncle Shawn thought, “I wish I could tell Bill about my plan for defeating P’Klawz, but I can’t – even though Bill is my best friend ever. If he knows about it, then it won’t work.”

  This made his feet feel sad as he headed for home.

  SECTION TEN

  In which sneaky Dr P’Klawz tells all kinds of fibs to poor Bill and makes his paws go wibbly, and things are looking very bad for Bill and Uncle Shawn and the whole farm.

  Since arriving at Dr P’Klawz’s office, Bill had looked at the big chart on the wall, which showed the Stages of Unusualness. And he had looked at the poster that warned against wearing Unusual socks, because they could distract your toes and make you trip over things. And he had just finished looking at the poster about Unusual cats hiding in your bread bin.

  “I never realized that Unusualness was such a problem. But I suppose it must be, because it’s on a poster,” thought Bill.

  Then, because the office was warm and had soft chairs that weren’t covered in pancake crumbs and llama fur and jam, Bill leaned back and fell fast asleep.

  This meant that he was very surprised when Dr P’Klawz came in and found him, snoring gently. (Sometimes creatures with beautifully large, stripy noses can’t help snoring.)

  “AH!” yelled Dr P’Klawz. “A badger! On one of my chairs! Unusualness!”

  Bill didn’t wake quickly enough to see how very scared P’Klawz was by anything unexpected. Bill blinked and shook his ears and said, “No, I’m not the Unusual one.”

  “Ah! A talking badger! Highly Unusual!” P’Klawz clenched his teeth. “I am the great and wonderful P’Klawz. If you’re not Unusual, why are you here? Have Unusual things been happening to you?”

  “Ummm,” said Bill. He didn’t quite trust P’Klawz. “I might be worrying about nothing…”

  “No, you should always worry about everything – especially in the dark at night, when you are by yourself.” P’Klawz smiled like a fibbing bathtub. “Are you a wealthy talking badger? Do you perform in circuses? Do you have extensive savings?”

  “Not really,” said Bill.

  P’Klawz frowned. “Our full Unusualness Squishing is expensive. If a person you know is Unusual, we can try painting them all over with grey paint, which only costs five hundred pounds, but it very rarely works….” He waved his extremely clean pink fingers in a threatening way. “Unusualness can be costly.”

  “The llama farm doesn’t make a lot of money,” Bill explained. “We don’t have many llamas and they like their fur so much that we only cut it when they are very hot in summer. Sometimes we sell honey from the bees. Or Carlos goes to the village and give lectures about Peruvian mountains… We’re mostly just happy.”

  The doctor’s teeth gave a small squeak.

  “And we have fun.”

  The doctor’s teeth gave a louder squeak. “Fun is a sure sign of Unusualness.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Bill. “I thought fun was a sign of more fun to come. And maybe laughing and mugs of cocoa.”

  The doctor shuddered. “You poor, deluded badger. You sound as if Unusualness is already seeping into your fur.”

  Bill remembered hearing footsteps when there was nobody there, and the great big eyes and the great big voice that told him a joke from the sea. And the Unusual things Uncle Shawn did all the time. “Well… Mainly I was worried about Uncle Shawn.”

  Dr P’Klawz’s teeth squeaked like unoiled wheelbarrows going down mountains. “Uncle Shawn! He is Pajimminy-Crimminy Unusual! I have never seen a worse case! He climbs trees! He’s kind to cats! He has fun and enjoys it!”

  This sounded to Bill like things he liked about Uncle Shawn. “Couldn’t you just cure his Unusualness and leave all those other things because they’re nice?”

  “Nice!?!” P’Klawz said the word as if it tasted of earwax, or sour milk. “Nice!?! No one who isn’t Highly Unusual wants to be anywhere near anything nice!”

  Bill thought he didn’t really like P’Klawz. He decided to leave. But before he could stand all the way up on his brave, not-too-short-for-a-badger legs, P’Klawz took out his pocket watch and twirled it in front of Bill’s eyes. After a minute of staring at the shiny watch, Bill felt floppy and as if he wanted to do whatever P’Klawz suggested.

  P’Klawz sniggered. This sounded like sad weasels sneezing. He picked up a long sheet of paper off his desk – it was covered in tiny writing. He offered it to Bill. “Here! Sign this!”

  “Hmmmmm,” said Bill, woozily. “What is it?”

  “Oh, it just gives me permission to take Uncle Shawn to my Institution for Maximum Security
and Unusualness Curing and squish the Unusualness out of him until he is completely flat. I won’t even charge you! I’ll squish him for free!”

  Even though he was hypnotized, Bill felt worried in his big, kind badger heart. “Mmmmm… Is your Institution nice? Does it have fresh scones and pancakes for tea and happy views out of the windows and rocking chairs and cocoa?” His eyes felt woolly, but he wanted his friend to be safe with P’Klawz. “Uncle Shawn would need all those things. And peppermints.”

  “Just sign here,” said the doctor, waving a pen in one hand and the sheet of paper in the other. “Sign the paper, Mr Badger.” He grinned like a fishmonger’s slab.

  Badger Bill managed to stand up and said, “I’ve changed my mind. We will all just stay as we are, thanks.” He tried to walk very quickly towards the door, even though his paws were hypnotized and stumbly. “I’ll be off now. I have pancakes to make.”

  “You’ll be sorry,” purred Dr P’Klawz into Bill’s ear. “Unusualness always gets worse. In the end, even I won’t be able to cure Uncle Shawn.”

  “Goodbye,” Badger Bill managed to say, his paw on the doorknob, and then he tumbled outside and walked away as fast as he could manage.

  “He’s a nasty doctor,” Bill said to himself, tugging at his whiskers and shaking his head so that he felt more steady. “Horrible.” And he walked a bit faster, so that he was almost running. “I’ll go straight home and have a mug of cocoa and relax. Probably everything will be fine when I get there.”

  SECTION ELEVEN

  In which you should look away now if you are allergic to Unusualness. Maybe you should even hide under a table. As long as it really is a table…

  Carlos and Guinevere had now been fighting for so long that they couldn’t remember why and were very tired and thirsty, which made them even more bad-tempered and even more likely to shout “Big nose!” and maybe “Wobbly bottom!” at each other. The dust cloud they had kicked up was so thick they had no idea where they were any more.