Dylan opened his sleepy eyes and stretched his paws and shook his new toy. Then, with a loud miaow, probably a 'thank you', he made for the kitchen door. His freebies crashed into the cat flap on his way out.
In the living-room they were still rowing.
Dad's voice was getting really loud.
Outside came the rumble of an approaching car. I suddenly had a bad feeling.
I heard Mum's glass smash at almost the same time as we heard the screech of brakes out in the front road.
There was an awful short tangled wail. The kind of sound cats make when they scrap. Then silence.
I heard Dad yell, 'Oh my God, no!' Dad can be 50 dramatic.
Yesterday was miserable: black and solemn.
Dad blamed me. He was really mad. But it was good of him to dig Dylan a nice neat grave out in the back garden.
He kept muttering about how there had been far too much on his collar, and how the whistling keyring had been the final straw. Just slowed him down, so when he'd run across the street he was an easy target.
Mum told him to shut up, that he'd upset 'the child'.
'The child' indeed. I just ignored her.
We put Dylan in the soft soil where Mum had planted the Hobson's Garden Centre roses, just in front of the grannie-flat.
We buried him with full honours, all his toys intact. I'd wanted the key-ring back, just as a souvenir, but Mum was almost sick when Dad tried to find it. It was like picking a favourite strawberry out of a collapsed flan.
She called me a funny word. I didn't know what it meant, but I didn't like the sound of it at all.
A ghoul?
You can go off parents.
Sleep was very difficult that night, in fact everything was a funny blur. The air in my bedroom seemed thick and it was difficult even to breathe.
I opened the dormer window and looked down into the garden.
It was dark and cold, but winter clear outside.
A grey cloud passed over, and the grass in front of the grannie-flat reflected moonglow once more.
The garden shone.
A newly heaped pile of topsoil marked the spot. I had scratched Dylan's name on a coke can, and fixed it in the ground, a temporary tombstone.
The TV offer peacock wind-chime which hung within the window-frame sang softly as a gentle wind got up.
A last goodnight to Dylan.
I shivered and scrambled back to bed.
I must have forgotten to close the window because I remember the sounds well. So bright. Icy sharp.
There was the rustle and flutter of feathers against branches.
A low warbling sound, and then a single hoot.
It was our owl, and he had come to speak to Dylan.
He'd startled me. Through half-closed eyes I watched as the shadows of the branches shimmered across the bedroom wall. Tangling into twisted claws.
Dylan would sit for hours on the window-ledge. The owl came often. Dad said that it was unusual to find a bird like that in Brixton.
Dylan and the owl were friends. But now he'd have to find somebody else.
I pulled the sheet up tight to my neck, eyelids heavy with sleep.
There was a high-pitched whistle outside.
The owl was preparing to fly from the tree.
It shook its feathers and then let out a strange kind of 'hoot'.
And then another… it was really scary.
Almost a whistle.
Just after that I heard a strangled muffled growl, far away, from deep beneath the still cold earth.
I sank and sank, down and down, into the softness of dream.
My eyes were not quite closed. Not yet. But I knew.
From the distance the owl cried out once more. I couldn't do a thing. Couldn't even move. I didn't know if I was awake or dreaming.
There was a familiar scratching on the bark of the tree outside my window. A slow and perhaps painful kind of shifting.
The shadows of branch claws trembled across the wall as something pulled itself along a main bough.
There was a shape framed within the window, dead eyes that glowed, and then the soft plop as it dropped from the sill down on to the floor.
I heard a gasp, the momentary 'puff of the eiderdown as though something heavy had landed on the bed.
Outside the branches rustled. Twigs cracked.
I became aware of a gentle repetitious pumping at the bottom of the bed, and then a warm comforting vibration in the small of my back like an electric motor.
I was afraid. At first.
But I'm a big girl now.
Mum was very excited. 'Hysterical,' Dad said. She kept asking him over and over about the white and ginger hairs at the bottom of the bed. He told her not to be so silly and to 'lay off the sauce'.
I think it was the blood that really bothered her. That and the soil-clogged Burger King bun she found next to the pillow.
I can understand why she was so upset, but she's all right now.
What pissed me off most was Dad, saying that I could never bring another freebie into the house again.
I'll do what I want!
Have I got a surprise for them, for Christmas!
I've been practising my whistles, and I've got lots of ideas for using those key-rings now. I went to Brixton and caught the tube, all the way up to Chinatown, and all on my own too. I got a whole bunch of the tags from the old Chinese wok man.
We did a deal. I'd keep quiet about his fiddle with the batteries.
Tonight I'm going to go and see Grannie at the cemetery.
It's just up the road.
Mum misses her so, and it'll serve Dad right.
The key-ring works fine now. Fine.
Best freebie I've ever had.
6/ Roald Dahl - Man from the South
It was getting on towards six o'clock so I thought I'd buy myself a beer and go out and sit in a deck-chair by the swimming-pool and have a little evening sun.
I went to the bar and got the beer and carried it outside and wandered down the garden towards the pool.
It was a fine garden with lawns and beds of azaleas and tall coconut palms, and the wind was blowing strongly through the tops of the palm trees, making the leaves hiss and crackle as though they were on fire. I could see the clusters of big brown nuts hanging down underneath the leaves.
There were plenty of deck-chairs around the swimming-pool and there were white tables and huge brightly coloured umbrellas and sunburned men and women sitting around in bathing suits. In the pool itself there were three or four girls and about a dozen boys, all splashing about and making a lot of noise and throwing a large rubber ball at one another.
I stood watching them. The girls were English girls from the hotel. The boys I didn't know about, but they sounded American, and I thought they were probably naval cadets who'd come ashore from the US naval training vessel which had arrived in harbour that morning.
I went over and sat down under a yellow umbrella where there were four empty seats, and I poured my beer and settled back comfortably with a cigarette.
It was very pleasant sitting there in the sunshine with beer and cigarette. It was pleasant to sit and watch the bathers splashing about in the green water.
The American sailors were getting on nicely with the English girls. They'd reached the stage where they were diving under the water and tipping them up by their legs.
Just then I noticed a small, oldish man walking briskly around the edge of the pool. He was immaculately dressed in a white suit and he walked very quickly with little bouncing strides, pushing himself high up on to his toes with each step. He had on a large creamy Panama hat, and he came bouncing along the side of the pool, looking at the people and the chairs.
He stopped beside me and smiled, showing two rows of very small, uneven teeth, slightly tarnished. I smiled back.
'Excuse pleess, but may I sit here?'
'Certainly,' I said. 'Go ahead.'
He bobbed around to the back of t
he chair and inspected it for safety, then he sat down and crossed his legs. His white buck-skin shoes had little holes punched all over them for ventilation.
'A fine evening,' he said. 'They are all evenings fine here in Jamaica.' I couldn't tell if the accent were Italian or Spanish, but I felt fairly sure he was some sort of a South American. And old too, when you saw him close. Probably around sixty-eight or seventy.
'Yes,' I said. 'It is wonderful here, isn't it.'
'And who, might I ask, are all dese? Dese is no hotel people.' He was pointing at the bathers in the pool.
'I think they're American sailors,' I told him. 'They're Americans who are learning to be sailors.'
'Of course dey are Americans. Who else in de world is going to make as much noise as dat? You are not American no?'
'No,' I said. 'I am not.'
Suddenly one of the American cadets was standing in front of us. He was dripping wet from the pool and one of the English girls was standing there with him.
'Are these chairs taken?' he said.
'No,' I answered.
'Mind if I sit down?'
'Go ahead.'
'Thanks,' he said. He had a towel in his hand and when he sat down he unrolled it and produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He offered the cigarettes to the girl and she refused; then he offered them to me and I took one. The little man said, 'Tank you, no, but I tink I have a cigar.' He pulled out a crocodile case and got himself a cigar, then he produced a knife which had a small scissors in it and he snipped the end off the cigar.
'Here, let me give you a light.' The American boy held up his lighter.
'Dat will not work in dis wind.'
'Sure it'll work. It always works.'
The little man removed his unlighted cigar from his mouth, cocked his head on one side and looked at the boy.
'All-ways?' he said slowly.
'Sure, it never fails. Not with me anyway.'
The little man's head was still cocked over on one side and he was still watching the boy. 'Well, well. So you say dis famous lighter it never fails. Iss dat you say?'
'Sure,' the boy said. 'That's right.' He was about nineteen or twenty with a long freckled face and a rather sharp birdlike nose. His chest was not very sunburned and there were freckles there too, and a few wisps of pale-reddish hair. He was holding the lighter in his right hand, ready to flip the wheel. 'It never fails,' he said, smiling now because he was purposely exaggerating his little boast. 'I promise you it never fails.'
'One momint, pleess.' The hand that held the cigar came up high, palm outward, as though it were stopping traffic. 'Now juss one momint.' He had a curiously soft, toneless voice and he kept looking at the boy all the time.
'Shall we not perhaps make a little bet on dat?' He smiled at the boy. 'Shall we not make a little bet on whether your lighter lights?'
'Sure, I'll bet,' the boy said, 'Why not?'
'You like to bet?'
'Sure, I'll always bet.'
The man paused and examined his cigar, and I must say I didn't much like the way he was behaving. It seemed he was already trying to make something out of this, and to embarrass the boy, and at the same time I had the feeling he was relishing a private little secret all his own.
He looked up again at the boy and said slowly, 'I like to bet, too. Why we don't have a good bet on dis ting? A good big bet.'
'Now wait a minute,' the boy said. 'I can't do that. But I'll bet you a quarter. I'll even bet you a dollar, or whatever it is over here - some shillings, I guess.'
The little man waved his hand again. 'Listen to me. Now we have some fun. We make a bet. Den we go up to my room here in de hotel where iss no wind and I bet you you cannot light dis famous lighter of yours ten times running without missing once.'
'I'll bet I can,' the boy said.
'All right. Good. We make a bet, yes?'
'Sure, I'll bet you a buck.'
'No, no. I make you a very good bet. I am rich man and I am sporting man also. Listen to me.
Outside de hotel iss my car. Iss very fine car. American car from your country. Cadillac -'
'Hey, now. Wait a minute.' The boy leaned back in his deck-chair and he laughed. 'I can't put up that sort of property. This is crazy.'
'Not crazy at all. You strike lighter successfully ten times running and Cadillac is yours. You like to have dis Cadillac, yes?'
'Sure, I'd like to have a Cadillac' The boy was still grinning.
'All right. Fine. We make a bet and I put up my Cadillac'
'And what do I put up?'
The little man carefully removed the red band from his still unlighted cigar. 'I never ask you, my friend, to bet something you cannot afford. You understand?'
'Then what do I bet?'
'I make it very easy for you, yes?'
'OK. You make it easy.'
'Some small ting you can afford to give away, and if you did happen to lose it you would not feel too bad. Right?'
'Such as what?'
'Such as, perhaps, de little finger on your left hand.'
'My what?' The boy stopped grinning.
'Yes. Why not? You win, you take de car. You looss, I take de finger.'
'I don't get it. How d'you mean, you take the finger?'
'I chop it off.'
'Jumping jeepers! That's a crazy bet. I think I'll just make it a dollar.'
The little man leaned back, spread out his hands palms upwards and gave a tiny contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. 'Well, well, well,' he said. 'I do not understand. You say it lights but you will not bet. Den we forget it, yes?'
The boy sat quite still, staring at the bathers in the pool. Then he remembered suddenly he hadn't lighted his cigarette. He put it between his lips, cupped his hands around the lighter and flipped the wheel. The wick lighted and burned with a small, steady, yellow flame and the way he held his hands the wind didn't get to it at all.
'Could I have a light, too?' I said.
'God, I'm sorry, I forgot you didn't have one.'
I held out my hand for the lighter, but he stood up and came over to do it for me.
'Thank you,' I said, and he returned to his seat.
'You having a good time?' I asked.
'Fine,' he answered. 'It's pretty nice here.'
There was a silence then, and I could see that the little man had succeeded in disturbing the boy with his absurd proposal. He was sitting there very still, and it was obvious that a small tension was beginning to build up inside him. Then he started shifting about in his seat, and rubbing his chest, and stroking the back of his neck, and finally he placed both hands on his knees and began tap-tapping with his fingers against the knee-caps. Soon he was tapping with one of his feet as well.
'Now just let me check up on this bet of yours,' he said at last. 'You say we go up to your room and if I make this lighter light ten times running I win a Cadillac. If it misses just once then I forfeit the little finger of my left hand. Is that right?'
'Certainly. Dat is de bet. But I tink you are afraid.'
'What do we do if I lose? Do I have to hold my finger out while you chop it off?'
'Oh, no! Dat would be no good. And you might be tempted to refuse to hold it out. What I should do I should tie one of your hands to de table before we started and I should stand dere with a knife ready to go chop de momint your lighter missed.'
'What year is the Cadillac?' the boy asked.
'Excuse. I not understand.'
'What year - how old is the Cadillac?'
'Ah! How old? Yes. It is last year. Quite new car. But I see you are not betting man. Americans never are.'
The boy paused for just a moment and he glanced first at the English girl, then at me. 'Yes,' he said sharply. 'I'll bet you.'
'Good!' The little man clapped his hands together quietly, once. 'Fine,' he said. 'We do it now. And you, sir,' he turned to me, 'you would perhaps be good enough to, what you call it, to - to referee.' He had pale, almost colourless eyes with
tiny black pupils.
'Well,' I said. 'I think it's a crazy bet. I don't think I like it very much.'
'Nor do I,' said the English girl. It was the first time she'd spoken. 'I think it's a stupid, ridiculous bet.'
'Are you serious about cutting off this boy's finger if he loses?' I said.
'Certainly I am. Also about giving him Cadillac if he win. Come now. We go to my room.'
He stood up. 'You like to put on some clothes first?' he said.
'No,' the boy answered. 'I'll come like this.' Then he turned to me. 'I'd consider it a favour if you'd come along and referee.'
'All right,' I said. 'I'll come along, but I don't like the bet.'
'You come too,' he said to the girl. 'You come and watch.'
The little man led the way back through the garden to the hotel. He was animated now, and excited, and that seemed to make him bounce up higher than ever on his toes as he walked along.
'I live in annexe,' he said. 'You like to see car first? Iss just here.'
He took us to where we could see the front driveway of the hotel and he stopped and pointed to a sleek pale-green Cadillac parked close by.
'Dere she iss. De green one. You like?'
'Say, that's a nice car,' the boy said.
'All right. Now we go up and see if you can win her.'
We followed him into the annexe and up one flight of stairs. He unlocked his door and we all trooped into what was a large pleasant double bedroom. There was a woman's dressing-gown lying across the bottom of one of the beds.
'First,' he said, 'we 'ave a little Martini.'
The drinks were on a small table in the far corner, all ready to be mixed, and there was a shaker and ice and plenty of glasses. He began to make the Martini, but meanwhile he'd rung the bell and now there was a knock on the door and a coloured maid came in.
'Ah!' he said, putting down the bottle of gin, taking a wallet from his pocket and pulling out a pound note. 'You will do something for me now, pleess.' He gave the maid the pound.
'You keep dat,' he said. 'And now we are going to play a little game in here and I want you to go off and find for me two - no tree tings. I want some nails, I want a hammer, and I want a chopping knife, a butcher's chopping knife which you can borrow from de kitchen. You can get, yes?'