Shrinking Ralph Perfect (11 page)

‘Of course,’ Miriam said, waving her arms with a theatrical flourish. ‘I can pass through any kind of medium, Rafe. I can fly as well.’ And with a whoosh that swept the dust into a vortex, she took off and circled the chandelier.

Meanwhile, from the garden, Tom was shouting: ‘Ralph? What are you doing? Come on. We need you.’

Ralph raised one hand, gesturing for patience. If he could just keep Miriam on the floor for a moment, all their problems might be solved. As she came back to hover in front of him he said, ‘Miriam, listen to me. I think I can help you.’

‘With my deportment?’ she said, whisking the lampshade off him again and prancing back and forth with it balanced on her head.

‘No. I can help you escape back to Yorkshire, away from us, away from the ogre. All you have to do is walk through the glass and steal his watch.’

Miriam flexed her knees and put out her arms like the wings of an aeroplane. ‘Go outside?’ she queried.

‘Yes,’ Ralph said.

‘I can’t, my love.’

‘But you just said you could. You said you could pass through glass.’

‘Oh, Rafey, don’t be such a bore. You know perfectly well why I can’t go out. I’m doomed to haunt this house. My spirit is tied to these horrible walls. If I pass beyond them, I’ll surely die.’

‘But you’re already dead!’

‘Not dead dead,’ she tutted.

‘How dead do you have to be before you snuff it?’

Miriam’s eyelids fluttered like moths. ‘If I walk beyond these walls, terrible forces will be unleashed. You wouldn’t want to see me in danger would you, Rafe?’

‘I suppose not,’ he said, his spirits sinking. For a moment, there, things had seemed so promising. But Miriam was right. Why should her ‘life’ be put at risk, just because she wasn’t of this world?

‘Besides,’ she said gaily, tickling his chin with the glitter-cold again, ‘I have to await my Rafe’s return.’

But he’ll never come back,
Ralph thought sadly.
That
was how it was with ghosts, wasn’t it? The people they were
waiting for never came back.
Which begged the question… ‘Who’s upstairs in the tower room, then? We thought
that
was your Rafe, lighting candles for you.’

‘Him?’ Miriam gave a snort of displeasure. ‘That old fool? I shall curdle his blood if he doesn’t leave soon.’

‘You mean he’s real?’

‘You mean I’m not?’

Ralph decided not to pursue this. Interesting as the concept was, he wasn’t quite ready for a philosophical argument with a neurotic ghost. ‘Who is he?’

‘Oh, Rafey. How should I know? He just appeared. Like you. Like the others.’

He’s a
minione
? thought Ralph. ‘What does he look like?’

‘Old,’ she said unhelpfully. ‘A horrible gargoyle. He never stops scribbling on my walls. And oh, those dreadful squeaky chains. This way, that way, he drags them every way. I can’t get a wink of sleep in there. Every night I have to come here and float in the parlour.’

‘Why is Jack keeping him locked away?’

‘Because he’s annoying.’

‘Miriam?’

‘He is. He never stops shouting, Rafe.’

‘What does he say? Do you know? I can’t tell. It sounds like ‘Belt a teacher,’ but what is it really?’

Miriam flapped a hand. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’

‘Please, Miriam. It might be important.’

‘It’s nonsense, Rafey. Gobbledygook.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Please, just tell me.’

‘Oh, very well. He says—’

Annoyingly, before Miriam could answer, Rodney Coiffure burst into the parlour asking had the water collection finished?

With a
pop
! Miriam disappeared back into her ghost-world. Unsupported, the lampshade dropped. Just in time, Ralph put out his hands and caught it.

‘Ingenious choice,’ said Rodney. He showed Ralph the baseball cap he intended using as his water bowl. Then he dashed into the ‘rain’ with Ralph close behind him.

The rose was sprinkling out the last of its contents. By now, the miniones were walking dishcloths. Ralph couldn’t understand why Tom hadn’t told them to forget catching water and just fill their containers from the free-standing pool they were wading around in. That question was answered when Jack produced a grimy-looking bathroom sponge and drove it round the base of the tank to soak up any excess puddles. The miniones dived into the house for cover. But Ralph, inexperienced in Miniville procedure, was picked up on a tidal wave and swept against the front wall of the aquarium. He bounced off the glass and his lampshade
broke into four clean pieces. It was barely a tenth full.

Jack hurled the plastic watering can aside. ‘GIT BACK TO WORK, YOU LOAFERS,’ he boomed and blew a thick cloud of cigarette smoke over them. It choked and burned in the back of Ralph’s throat. Coughing uncontrollably, he fell to his knees. Haunted, soaked and now poisoned by tar, he couldn’t even cry ‘I hate you’ any more.

And yet, bright moments lay on the horizon. For, as the cloud of smoke began to disperse and Jack disappeared towards Annie’s kitchen, Ralph found himself at the face of the tank, about to watch a comedy caper unfold, a bizarre little episode that would have all manner of outcomes and effects – ultimately leading to his passage out of Miniville…

It went like this: Jack had grilled some toast for breakfast. The warm, crisp smell of it hung in the air, stirring the hunger bunnies in Ralph’s stomach (he’d eaten very little since he’d been shrivelled and couldn’t face the prospect of sugar beads for breakfast). The toast was on a plate on the arm of the sofa. Ralph had zero chance of reaching it, of course, but the same could not be said of Knocker. With a lurch more in common with a hog than a dog, he leapt onto the couch, tipping the plate and its contents off. Down he jumped again, and in doing so, somehow managed to spear half a slice of toast with his wooden leg. He twizzled it impatiently, left and right. It was a pitiful sight and Ralph couldn’t help laughing. He had seen dogs chasing their tails before, but never their master’s freshly-grilled breakfast. Round and round and round went Knocker, flicking out his stick as he picked up speed. He was on his tenth spin and seriously twizzle-dizzy when the toast worked its way to the end of the stick and…

Wheee
… it winged towards Ralph like a giant brown frisbee…

Instinctively, he covered his face, forgetting there was a thick glass barrier protecting him.

Splat.
Knocker and the room were obscured from view as the toast gummed itself, marmalade-side first, to the wall of the tank.

Ralph ran sideways to get a clearer view and was just in time to see Jack march in, tread on the edge of the plate, and send it and the second slice of toast spinning.
Splop.
It landed on the builder’s hat.

Jack’s words were like a nuclear explosion, far too loud to be understood, but the kick he aimed at Knocker’s head needed no explaining. The terrier veered away just in time and scuttled underneath the trestle table. In two strides, Jack was by the tank.

Ralph backed away, fear coursing through his heart. He’d been spotted, he knew, but he was too proud to run.

‘You,’ the giant builder rumbled. Through the parting curtains of his worm-thin lips his teeth showed up like a row of cracked tiles. He looked at the toast and his gaze grew darker. Then, in one terrifying lunge, he slapped his bony hand flat against the bread and sponged it along the wall of the tank.

Ralph was terrified. He had once had a dream where he was trapped in a car while a clown washed the
windscreen with orange-coloured acid. If a nightmare could be lived through, this came close. He dodged left. He dodged right. But whichever way he went, the marmalade followed, until it was smeared all over the glass and the toast was thinning out and turning soggy. Jack grimaced as margarine squirted down his wrist. He scooped up the slice and hurled it, palm first, into the tank.

Ralph braced himself. He had nowhere to run. No place to hide. It was Dinosaur Day and the meteor was coming. He waited for his young life to flash before him, hoping he’d remember the fluky headed goal he’d scored in the playground at primary school when Kyle Salter (of all people) had been between the posts. But, as the blanket bomb of breakfast came slapping down, nothing flashed or sparked or played out before him. He waited three seconds, then opened his eyes. Ground level was a sea of brown and orange. He was standing at its centre, in the hole that Knocker had punched with his stick.

‘Drat,’ Jack snorted. ‘Missed.’ He cracked his knuckles and lurched away.

Penny’s voice shouted down from the balcony window: ‘Ralph! Oh my goodness! Are you OK?’

Ralph freed his foot from a slimy blob of marmalade and waved back to show he was sticky, but safe.

Tom, Neville and Wally were all outside now, all looking on in wonder at the toast. Ralph flicked a splat of margarine out of his hair and stepped towards Tom’s outstretched hand. The toast had the texture of a well-worn mattress. It was like walking on the skin of a thick rice pudding. He was on his knees twice before the swamp was crossed.

‘This is champion,’ said Neville, extending a tape measure around the crust. ‘This’ll keep us fed for a good three days.’

Ralph screwed up his face. ‘You’re not going to eat it?’

‘Got to,’ said Wally, ‘or the flies will come.’ He broke a crumb or two off the crust and gobbled it up like a hungry sparrow.

Ralph’s stomach rolled. He looked at Tom who said to Neville, ‘Let’s cut it up and get it inside.’

‘Aye,’ said the carpenter, sizing up the job.

He took a small tenon saw from his belt.

To Ralph’s surprise, the toast didn’t taste too bad. It had landed dry side down, so apart from a few globs of garden mud and the sickening thought of Jack’s nicotined fingers staining every grain of polished wheat, the ‘grand dinner’ (as Kyle Salter referred to it) was reasonably enjoyable. It was a strange sight to witness,
twelve people (Miriam didn’t attend) sitting around the edge of a chunk of bread, nibbling their way towards its centre.

It was during the dessert course, while the miniones were munching through the piece of toast with the heaviest concentration of unspread marmalade, that Ralph told Tom about his second clash with Miriam.

‘She came again?’ Tom said, keeping his voice low.

Ralph nodded, stifling a burp. ‘That’s why I was late collecting water. She told me about the tower room. She says it’s not a ghost in there, it’s a man.’

Tom stopped eating. He slowly wiped his lip. ‘Did you ask her about him?’

‘Yes, she said—’

‘I say, Rafe, old chap, pass the salt, would you?’

Ralph instinctively looked for it, tutting when he realised he was being taunted – by Kyle Salter, who else?

Salter, who ate like a chimpanzee (and sounded like one too), passed a hand across an open mouth that was churning toast into cardboard-coloured slop. ‘This a private conversation or can anyone join in?’

Why do you want to know? thought Ralph. That selfish glare was back in Kyle’s eyes, the one Ralph didn’t trust. He glanced at Tom, who spoke up freely: ‘Ralph’s learnt that the tenant upstairs is human.’

Nearly everyone stopped eating.

‘Told you,’ said Salter, a cluster bomb of spittle and undigested bread falling from between his twisted teeth.

‘Then why’s he locked up? Why’s he chained?’ people asked.

Ralph was about to say he didn’t know, when his ear drums were battered by a piercing scream from Jemima Culvery.

She jumped up and pressed back against the wall, wagging a flaky arm towards the window.

Ralph’s heart leapt. Climbing the marmaladed wall of the tank were a host of unmistakeable shapes. Black, fast-moving, six-legged.

Ants.

There must have been ten of them, possibly fifteen, winding out like a solar flare from the biggest smear of visible grease.

In the panic-stricken mayhem that followed, the men were quickly on their feet, with Tom, as usual, giving the orders. ‘Wally, fetch the spears. Kyle, light the torches.’

For once, Kyle Salter didn’t argue. He hurried across the room to where a small stack of makeshift torches lay. They were made from tin cans stuck onto broom handles, with rolled-up cardboard tubes for wicks. Using the cigarette lighter he’d once tried to singe Ralph’s hairline with, he lit one and threw it across to Neville.

‘I’ll guard t’front door,’ Neville said bravely and was halfway to the landing when Ralph cried, ‘Stop. You’re not going to kill them, are you?’

Neville stumbled to a halt. Confused, he looked to Tom for guidance.

Tom said, ‘What are you talking about, Ralph?’

‘They can save us. They can take us out of here.’

‘
What?
’ screeched Jemima. ‘Is he mental or something?’

‘Ralph, please, not now,’ his mum gulped. She knew about his passion for ants, of course, but their presence here terrified her as much as anyone. They were now more than halfway up the tank wall, flicking their antennae as if they suspected there were rewards far greater than marmalade inside. Penny pulled the collar of her blouse to her neck and tried to draw Ralph closer to her.

Belligerently, he broke away. ‘I know about ants,’ he said, glancing around the group for support. ‘They work in teams. They’re organised and clever. If they come into the tank, they’ll leave a marked trail to guide themselves out again.’

‘And you think we can hitch a lift?’ asked Wally.

‘They can carry twenty times their own weight,’ Ralph said.

‘He’s mad,’ wailed Jemima. ‘Don’t listen to him. I’m not going to ride out of here on an ant.’

‘It’s a daring idea,’ said Rodney.

‘So is flying out on a bluebottle,’ said Kyle. ‘I don’t think ants with their acid spit and their nice sharp
mandibles
are going to be keen to be lassoed, do you?’ He aimed a challenging glare at Tom.

Tom switched his spear from one hand to the other.

His indecision only made Kyle more bolshie. ‘Come
on! We don’t have time for this! If their army marches into this house, they’ll mince us.’ His torch flared brightly and he whipped away.

Wally backed him up. Weighing his spear like a javelin he said, ‘He’s right, Tom. We don’t have time to think this through. We have no choice. We have to fight.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that now,’ said Spud. He pointed through the balcony window.

Jack had appeared at the front of the tank. He had a handkerchief tied across his nose and mouth and in his hands was an old-fashioned greenhouse puffer with a pointed nozzle and a brass pumping rod. He’d spotted the trail of ants and was zapping them with clouds of toxic, yellow vapour. One by one, the creatures were losing their grip and falling, distressed, to the trestle table. There was a wild, wild look in the builder’s eyes, and Ralph remembered now how skittish he’d been when ants had been mentioned outside Annie’s house. He clearly intended to take no prisoners.

The sight of those poisoned, wriggling bodies was enough to sicken anyone, even Kyle Salter. But as the rest of the miniones turned away in pity, he had to be the one to open his mouth. ‘Done us a favour for once,’
he said, trying to suffocate his torch against the wall of the house.

‘You’re pathetic,’ Ralph said, a wave of anger rising inside him. ‘Ants are twice as smart as you.’

Salter turned, his torch still lit. ‘What’s that, mummy’s boy?’

And that was it. Ralph went for him. He didn’t care that Kyle was twice his size and had fire in his grip and poison in his heart, he just bundled on into him and took him down, pummelling his arms across the bully’s chest as though he was practising a swimming stroke.

‘Ralph!’ his mother cried in shock.

It took three men to peel the boys apart.

Tom held Salter gurgling by the collar. ‘Let me at him. I’ll tear his pointy ears off.’ Lunging forward against Tom’s grip, he swung a punch that missed Ralph’s chin by a draught.

‘Ease off, lad. Save it for Jack,’ said Neville, helping Tom push Kyle away.

‘You’ve gone soft,’ Kyle spluttered. ‘All of you.’ He spat at Ralph and backed off, pointing.

But before anyone could scold him for that, there came a sound like the drone of an articulated truck and Knocker started barking loudly.

‘What was that?’ said Penny, looking up. Her ears,
many times smaller than the norm, could not determine the jangle of a giant’s doorbell. But the more experienced miniones knew it.

‘Door,’ muttered Wally. ‘Someone’s at the door.’

Ralph looked at Jack. The builder had turned his head. His last shot of poison had gone hopelessly astray. One surviving, dizzy-looking ant fell to the table and staggered away.

Ralph sent it a mental prayer. Get well. Go back to the nest. Bring others.

Tom, meanwhile, was breathing a hopeful prayer of his own. ‘Go on-nn, Jack, go to the door.’

The builder clicked his fingers at Knocker – then walked away, leaving the tank uncovered.

‘Men, to the tank wall. Now!’ Tom ordered.

‘What’s happening?’ said Penny, cradling Jemima.

‘Our landlord’s got a visitor,’ Tom said keenly. ‘And Jack’s forgotten to cover us up.’ He picked up the only saucepan they possessed and smacked it hard against the house wall. ‘Grab anything that makes a noise. Let’s go.’ And he was gone, waving the others to follow.

Across the space, Kyle Salter and Ralph faced up.

‘You leave him alone,’ Penny Perfect warned. ‘Mummy’s boy he might be, but mummies protect their young, remember?’

‘I’ll get you,’ Salter mouthed at Ralph. And he picked up the torch he’d dropped in the fight, re-lit it properly and joined the flow of bodies.

‘I don’t know why they’re bothering,’ Jemima whittled, shivering into Penny’s arms. ‘Whoever it is will only end up shrunk like the rest of us.’

Hearing the thud of multiple footsteps, Ralph turned to see who the visitor could be. He gasped out loud when he recognised the face.

Detective Inspector Nicholas Bone had followed Jack in.