Mr Mumbles

But why?

‘Bye, Nan,’ I smiled, kissing her on her wrinkled cheek. We were exactly the same size these days. She was shrinking as fast as I was growing, and we were now passing each other as our heights headed in opposite directions.

‘What?’ She looked at me, her eyes narrowed, her voice a suspicious hiss.

‘Urn…I just said ‘bye’.’

‘Who are you?’ she demanded, fiercely. ‘I don’t know you. Where’s Albert? What have you done with my Albert?’

Nan spoke about Albert lots when she was confused. Not even Mum knew who he was. The best she could figure out was that Albert must have been some childhood friend of Nan’s, but there was no way of knowing for sure. When Nan was her normal self she had no idea who Albert was, either.

‘Come on,’ said Mum, gently, as she guided Nan out of the house and into the chill darkness of the December night. ‘Time we were getting you back.’

‘Back where? What are you doing?’ Nan spat, struggling against Mum’s grip. ‘Albert! Albert!’

No matter how many times I’d seen Nan have one of her episodes, it still shook me up. Mum’s face was grey, her lips pursed together, as she tried to guide her mother towards the car.

‘Come on, Mum,’ she urged, forcing a smile.

‘Right you are, love,’ Nan replied. The smile was back on her face. Her eyes had their old twinkle again. As quickly as it had come on, the confusion had passed. She turned to me and gave a little wave. ‘Merry Christmas, sweetheart,’ she beamed.

‘Merry Christmas, Nan.’

‘Oh, and Kyle, be careful,’ she said. ‘There’s a storm coming.’

‘I think it’s passed,’ I said, gently. The winds had been howling and the rain battering down for days in the lead up to Christmas, but now it was calm – cold and frosty, but calm.

‘Oh, but they come back,’ warned Nan. Her face had taken on a strange, sombre expression. ‘They always come back.’

‘OK,’ I said, humouring her. ‘Bye.’

She gave me a nod and turned to Mum. ‘Can I bring the sherry?’

‘I think you’ve had quite enough for now,’ Mum said, releasing her grip on Nan’s arm. ‘The nurses are going to kill me when they see the state of you!’

Nan cackled and gave me a theatrical wink. Without a word she turned and wandered off, swaying slightly in the chill evening gloom.

‘Least it didn’t last long this time. She’s been pretty good, considering,’ Mum whispered to me. ‘You sure you’ll be OK on your own? You can always come with us.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘OK, well, I shouldn’t be more than an hour. I’ll just get her in and let the nurses put her to bed.’

‘Can’t she just stay here?’ I asked.

‘The doctors don’t like it if she’s gone overnight,’ Mum said. I could tell from her face she felt bad about it. ‘We’ll play a board game or something when I get back, OK?’

‘OK, but really, there’s no rush,’ I assured her. ‘I’ll be fine here on my own.’

She leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. She was halfway to the gate when a thought struck her.

‘Do me a favour while I’m out, will you?’

‘Sure,’ I nodded.

‘There’s a mousetrap in the cupboard under the sink. Stick it in the attic for me?’

Despite the tingling terror which crept over me, I nodded. I stood there, long after the door was closed, telling myself there was nothing to worry about. Telling myself not to be so stupid. After all, the scratching I’d heard was just a harmless little mouse.

Wasn’t it?

Chapter Three GHOSTS OF THE PAST (#ulink_37af8705-6da8-5550-ab56-efabb0e86c63)

My breath formed faint clouds in the musty air as I pulled myself up into the confines of the attic. My fingers left ten little ovals in the thin covering of dust on the ladder, and I studied them for a few moments, pretending to myself they were the most interesting things in the world. Truth be told, I was just delaying the moment I’d have to step further into the loft.

The torch I carried was near powerless against the sheer depth of the darkness, like trying to slay a dragon with a teaspoon. The beam wobbled and shook in my hand, sending twisted shadows stretching across the planks and beams.

‘There’s nothing here,’ I whispered, trying to reassure myself. ‘There’s nothing here except me and a mouse.’

I let the torch’s beam fall on to the floor as I looked around for somewhere to put the mousetrap. It was tempting to just drop the thing and run, but the instructions had said to set it near a wall, and the last thing I wanted was to have to come back up and do all this over again.

The floorboards creaked in protest as I shuffled forwards, fixing my eyes on the point the roof met the floor. I would set the trap and then get out of there as quickly as I could. I’d be back downstairs in less than a minute. I just had to keep my nerve until then. Sixty seconds of bravery, that was all.

I set the torch on top of a dusty cardboard box and fumbled with the trap. Stupidly I’d left the instructions in the kitchen, thinking it would just be a case of pulling back a spring and sticking a bit of cheese on to a spike. That’s how they always work in cartoons, anyway.

Around three minutes later, with my heart still thudding against the inside of my chest, I finally figured out how the trap operated. Hurriedly, I sat it down on the floorboards and gently pushed it against the wall, being careful not to bring it snapping down on my fingers. Since it didn’t seem to be required, I decided just to eat the little cube of cheese I’d brought up with me.

Mission accomplished, I leapt to my feet. My head thumped against a thick roof beam and I cried out in pain. I rubbed the back of my skull and looked at my hands. They were clean, so I wasn’t bleeding. That didn’t stop it hurting, though.

I reached down to pick up the torch, then stopped. A piece of paper lay next to it on top of the box. I hadn’t noticed it there when I’d walked over, but there it was, large as life. As I picked it up, the sheet felt oddly warm against my fingertips.

Angling the paper into the torchlight, I studied the crudely drawn crayon picture. Thick bands of black and brown covered most of the page, stretching down from the top of the paper to the bottom. Here and there the lines were broken by clumsy sketches of spiders skulking in their webs.

Two figures stood at opposite ends of the page. On the right-hand side a stick figure of a boy had been drawn, a tiny bow clutched in his pudgy round hands. Leading up and to the left were a dozen or so arrows, each with a bright red rubber suction cup stuck on to the end. They were all arching through the air in the direction of the other figure – a darkly dressed man.

My eyes followed the arrow trail and fell on the only other patch of red on the page. A demented fountain of blood sprayed out from the man’s chest, where an arrow had embedded itself. His mouth – not surprisingly given the circumstances – was pulled into an upside down letter U. Clearly he was not happy with this turn of events.

I stared closely at this larger figure. There was something about him which intrigued me. He seemed to be drawn in a different style. He was darker, bolder, as if the crayons had been pressed harder against the page. He was also dressed strangely, with a long grey overcoat pulled up to his ears, and a black hat pulled down almost to meet it.

The image stirred some long dormant memories. That hat. That coat. It was all familiar but unfamiliar at the same time, like the memory of a dream I couldn’t hold on to. Was this my imaginary friend?

Absent-mindedly, my gaze shifted across the page. There was something familiar about those vertical stripes, too. Were they bars? No, they were too thick for that. They looked solid, though. Solid; brown; evenly spaced. I’d seen them somewhere recently, but where?

The realisation hit me like an electric shock. I spun to face the attic wall. The lines in the picture weren’t bars. They were beams. Wooden roof beams, like the kind I was standing next to. The picture was of right here in the attic!

A movement off to my left broke my concentration and I gasped with fright. Dropping the page I staggered back, knocking the box with my leg. My stomach lurched as the beam of the torch swung down. I grabbed for it too late. As the torch bulb smashed the attic was plunged into absolute darkness.

‘Wh-who’s there?’ I stammered. With the light gone I couldn’t even see the clouds of breath in front of my face any more. I held my breath and listened, but the only reply was the hissing and bubbling of the hot water boiler.