Casper Candlewacks in Death by Pigeon! Read online

  “Great! Let’s go.” Lamp rubbed his hands together with excitement.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

  “Come on, don’t want to keep him waiting,” said Lamp, and he gallumphed off in the direction of the dressing room. Casper sighed and hurried off after him.

  As the boys neared the dressing room, Casper noticed that the door had been left ajar, and from inside wafted indistinct sounds of shouting, stomping and perhaps a smattering of splattering. “Shh, listen. What’s that?” Casper whispered, creeping closer. Silently they peered through the crack in the door, and saw, well…

  What would you say was the least likely thing that Casper and Lamp would have seen inside that room? Giant kung-fu-fighting gooseberries? The Philharmonic Hedge-Trimmer Orchestra of Hull? The Twelve Labours of Hercules lovingly sculpted out of one massive slab of milk chocolate? If you happened to say any of these things, give yourself ten points and a biscuit because you weren’t that far off. Through the gap they saw The Great Tiramisu, parading furiously up and down in front of a trembling line of circus animals, all dressed in purple velvet bow ties, purple top hats and fake moustaches. There were three white rabbits, a walrus, a Shetland pony, a majestic white tiger, at least a dozen doves, two swordfish in a tank and a whole host of attending beavers that Casper swore he hadn’t even seen in the show.

  “Terribile! Orrendo! Abominevole!” The Great Tiramisu raved. “I have seen performing vegetables better than-a you.” He picked up a vase and threw it at the wall; it shattered, casting glass shards into the flock of doves, who flapped about in panic.

  Casper caught his breath. He watched the Shetland pony let out a terrified whinny.

  “You!” continued The Great Tiramisu, pointing at the walrus. “You think I pay you to slouch around like-a the tower of Pisa? I tell you to do-a the jig. Why you no do-a the jig?”

  The walrus shrugged.

  “Do not look at-a me, you imbecille! You are ugly and smell of the fish.”

  Crumpling his nose, the walrus barked and covered his eyes with a damp flipper. Outside the door Casper was stunned and horrified. He couldn’t believe the cruelty he was seeing.

  “And-a the birdies!” The magician wheeled around to face the doves, who fluttered anxiously. “You think you-a the pigeons? The flippy-flappy picky-pecky pigeons?”

  The doves looked at each other and then back at The Great Tiramisu and nodded.

  “NO!” exploded The Great Tiramisu, seething, flecks of spit flying from his mouth like a hosepipe with a blockage. “You bird-brained idioti! You-a no flippy-flappy picky-pecky. You need-a the grace, the style, like-a me. Mamma Mia! I will bake you in a calzone, you dirty fowl.”

  Casper felt sick. How could The Great Tiramisu be so vile to those animals? He noticed tears welling up in Lamp’s eyes.

  The Great Tiramisu stomped towards the white tiger, who cowered away from his towering gait and trembling moustache. “And you,” he scowled, his bottom lip quivering with fury. “You-a de fool of a pussycat. You do what I say, and I say-a card tricks. You no doo-a the card tricks? I shave-a naughty words in your fur! I pluck out your whiskers and knit them into my hat! I… I…” The Great Tiramisu heard a sob from just outside his door. “Hello? Who’s there?”

  The door creaked open and Casper stepped in, flushed red, but desperately restraining his anger. Lamp, teary-eyed, trouserless and whimpering into a hanky, took one more look at the downtrodden animals and fled, wailing all the way along the corridor.

  “What do you want?” said The Great Tiramisu, brushing himself down.

  Casper’s hands were shaking; he could hardly hold it in. He wanted to throttle that Italian bully. “I’m supposed to take you to the restaurant,” he said, as calmly as he could.

  “About time too. I thought you ’ad forgotten me.” He threw on a purple cape, ushered Casper briskly out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

  The animals heaved a sigh of relief. The Shetland pony lay down, exhausted, and the beavers and rabbits crowded round her for a cuddle. The two swordfish nuzzled each other and the white tiger licked the walrus to keep it moist.

  Chapter 5

  The Coriander Catastrophe

  Casper played over in his head the events he’d just witnessed. He was right about The Great Tiramisu all along; what a cruel, conceited man. Casper hated him, all the way from his shiny purple shoes to his bristling moustache. But as they walked towards The Boiled Sprout, he could do nothing about it.

  “I will have-a the best table,” The Great Tiramisu demanded. “I will expect my food at once and it will-a be hot. Are-a we clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” Casper clenched his fists.

  “And-a no coriander!”

  “No, sir, no coriander.”

  As they approached The Boiled Sprout, Casper could see that either word had spread about The Great Tiramisu’s dining arrangements or everyone in the village suddenly yearned for a plate of broiled gristle with claggy sauce because the place was positively bulging. Reaching the restaurant door, The Great Tiramisu halted, adjusted his top hat, twizzled his moustache and said, “You will announce me.”

  Casper choked. “What?”

  “Enter first and announce me. Now!”

  What barefaced cheek! Casper wanted nothing more than to turn round and knock off The Great Tiramisu’s top hat, but he bit his tongue and pushed open the door. The restaurant fell silent; silent as a mouse in a game of hide-and-squeak. (The hiding mouse, not the squeaking one.)

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” began Casper, blood rushing hot through his veins, “The Great Ti—”

  “Yes! It is me!” The Great Tiramisu strode in, cape a-flutter, arms out in appreciation. The restaurant went nuts, cheering, whooping and showering him with a confetti of boiled rice. Casper felt a rough shove.

  “Go away,” The Great Tiramisu whispered, “you-a ruin my moment.”

  With that, Casper stomped into the kitchen, red-faced and angry, where Julius was more stressed than Father Christmas would be on Christmas Eve if all the elves went down with reindeer flu. The sausages under the grill were on fire, something in a pan was bubbling over and the mashed potato was producing a pungent blackish smoke. The counter was covered in thick yellow foam. There were teetering piles of dirty pots, pans, trays, cockroaches and underpants. There was a basin full of used knives and forks covered in a greasy glunch, and a rat, perched on a plate, feasting on some abandoned aubergine curry.

  Julius had had no choice but to bring Cuddles to work with him, so he’d stuck it to the wall with parcel tape to keep it out of the way. It was perfectly happy up there, screeching every so often and spitting in passing plates of chips.

  “Is that him?” asked Julius, frantically scraping the green bits off some pork chops.

  “Yeah,” Casper grunted. “Aren’t we lucky.” His mind flitted back to those poor animals, treated like slaves, and another wave of anger surged up within him.

  “He’ll be expecting his terrine,” said Julius, slipping on a gravy puddle. He cursed and threw a pan full of scorched egg at the sink, which missed and hit the floor with a resounding clang. As he ran to clear it up he slipped again on the gravy, this time falling and hitting the floor himself with a resounding thud (not a clang).

  Julius Candlewacks’s Oyster and Asparagus Terrine is famous around the Kobb Valley. Both a culinary delight and a strong disinfectant, the leftovers can be used to clean your toilet. Renowned French food critic Jean-Claude d’Escargot described it as being “not zat bad”, a quote that Julius will proudly carry to his grave.

  “WHERE IS MY DINNER?” came the shout from the restaurant. The Great Tiramisu was getting impatient.

  Julius rummaged around for the note he’d written during yesterday’s phone call. “Where did I put it?” He didn’t know it, but his note was simmering away happily in the chicken soup, adding a sumptuous papery tang. “What did it say? It said, ah, something about coriander… but did he want loads of it or non
e at all? Oh, please tell me you remember, Casper.”

  Casper remembered perfectly what the note said. But there’s a curious thing that happens sometimes when you get angry or upset. Bits of your body get big ideas and ignore your brain; you just start running, or shouting things, or eating all the cheese in the house (even your emergency Jarlsberg). For Casper, this was one of those occasions because while his brain transmitted “IMPORTANT: NO CORIANDER” down the brainial tube to his voice box (and that’s science), his voice box wasn’t listening. It was enraged, frothing with flaming words of fury and the hot spit of revenge, and it wasn’t doing requests. So without warning, as if from afar, Casper heard himself blurt, “He wanted coriander, Dad. Lots.”

  “Of course! I knew it,” said Julius, as he ransacked his shelves for the stuff, brushing aside the pickled onions, a train timetable and an empty ketchup bottle. “I know it’s here somewhere…”

  Casper instantly covered his mouth with his hand. That was not supposed to come out. “Actually, I think it was…”

  “I AM STILL-A WAITING!” yelled The Great Tiramisu. “CAN YOU NOT COOK?”

  “No time, Casper,” said Julius, frantically assembling the dish. Glad that he’d remembered Tiramisu’s wish, he mixed great ladlefuls of ground coriander with the oysters, and added whole sprigs of coriander leaf to the asparagus, topping with lavish sprinklings of coriander seeds and finishing off with a liberal glug of sessence de coriander, something of a delicacy, but not wasted on The Great Tiramisu, Julius assured himself.

  Proudly, Julius lifted the plate and took a sniff. “Ooh! Coriandery! Just how he likes it.”

  Casper swallowed weakly; his mouth had gone dry. “No, Dad, I…”

  “Shh. This is my moment!” Julius grinned at his invention and strutted into the restaurant, dramatically pushing aside the swinging doors like in a cowboy film, which prompted the expected gasp from the observing diners (and an unimpressed snort from a passing cowboy).

  Casper peered through the crack in a door for the second time that night. His stomach twisted in on itself like a little black hole of worry, he felt faint and his hands were cold and clammy. What did coriander do to The Great Tiramisu? “Suppose I’m about to find out…” he muttered.

  Julius brandished his dish with pride. “May I present my very own Oyster and Asparagus Terrine, with a very special twist.” He placed it in front of The Great Tiramisu and stepped back. Everyone gasped again.

  The Great Tiramisu examined his meal and said, “It looks-a molto delizioso.”

  The diners all went silent, silent as an even quieter mouse that has taken a vow of silence and takes that vow very seriously, and won’t talk even for a billion bits of cheese. The Great Tiramisu took his fork and delicately picked out a mouthful, lifted it to his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. He swallowed, nodded and smiled to his audience. “Bravissimo!” he sang, and everyone joined him with a jubilant round of applause. Champagne corks popped, glasses were emptied and Clemmie Answorth fell off her chair.

  Casper’s heart fluttered as madly as a one-winged butterfly in a wind tunnel. Nothing was happening. Had he got away with it?

  But as if on cue, before he could take another bite, something peculiar started to happen to The Great Tiramisu. He coughed and his face began to pale, first turning white, but then shading to a puce green. Little brown spots appeared on his face; he touched his cheek, but drew it away fast, looking down with terror at the terrine on his plate. As the villagers watched, the little brown spots grew into large yellow bumps. The Great Tiramisu turned to Julius, with fear in his eyes.

  “M-m-my face… There was… c-c-coriander?” he gasped. Everyone else gasped. There was a lot of gasping, by the way.

  Julius was shocked. “I thought you…”

  Casper winced.

  “You idiota!” shouted The Great Tiramisu, as he staggered to his feet and threw his plate shattering to the floor. As he stood there, his greenish face began to swell and puff like an angry blowfish. He clutched his spotty cheek once more. “My face! My poor-a beautiful face!”

  Anemonie Blight cackled at The Great Tiramisu and tugged on her mother’s sleeve, shouting, “Mummy, look at his ugly face! He’s got diseases!”

  Other villagers laughed and pointed. Betty Woons got out her camera and took a picture for the Daily Kobb.

  Too guilty to watch another moment, Casper turned away and paced around the kitchen. He’d just done something very evil, and very, very stupid. “I’m not supposed to be evil or stupid, Cuddles,” he sighed, clutching his forehead. “What was I doing?”

  Cuddles, bound by parcel tape, cackled and banged its head against the wall.

  Back in the restaurant The Great Tiramisu teetered about, top heavy, wheezing almost musically, trying to hide his bloated face from the sniggering crowd. Then one or two of the big yellow spots on his face burst, shooting sickening spats of creamy pus in all directions. Two or three of the more sensitive women fainted, and Clemmie Answorth, who had just got back on her chair, fell off again. The Great Tiramisu’s swollen face was now a vibrant grass-green and the size of a beach ball, and he was screaming things at Julius in Italian that the villagers assumed to be very rude or very insulting, or both. (It was both, by the way.) He lurched violently at Audrey Snugglepuss’s helping hand before falling to his knees. Audrey shrieked and jumped back as The Great Tiramisu clattered to the floor.

  “The shame… I cannot be seen like-a this!” As more pus splurged from the yellow pustules, The Great Tiramisu tried to hide his huge green face behind his hands, but they hardly covered his bloated nostrils, let alone the rest of it.

  The villagers watched, helpless. Betty Woons took another picture.

  “A-a… curse,” The Great Tiramisu rasped. “A curse on your stupido village.” He coughed up something orange. “I set-a curse to you all!” and then he ran, squealing like a squealbarrow, out of the restaurant.

  Casper peered through the swinging doors to see what damage he’d caused. A few final diners were rushing outside to follow the swollen-faced magician, leaving Mayor Rattsbulge shoving everyone’s leftovers into his pockets (which was difficult, seeing as a lot of people had soup). A forlorn-looking Julius stared at the barely eaten terrine. Outside, a crowd of people were shouting and screaming, crying and wailing, and generally overreacting.

  Julius turned round, spotted Casper and smiled feebly. “I suppose he won’t be wanting his pudding then.”

  Chapter 6

  Race Day

  If I were to ask you to list the three things that most define what it is to be English, you’d probably say tea, cricket and donkey racing. In fact, it’s been scientifically proven that the average Englishman likes nothing more than galloping round the cricket pitch on the back of a toothy steed with a nice mug of Earl Grey and a ginger biscuit.

  Of course, donkey racing was invented by Lord Manfred Donkey-Racing-Inventor in July 1483, after having been chased around a bit by a flock of angry donkeys. “What fun!” he delighted, leaping over a fence, catching his foot and landing heavily on his head with a resounding clang. Inventing donkey racing was the last thing Lord Manfred Donkey-Racing-Inventor ever did, but luckily it was all embroidered by an onlooker and sent in to “You’ve Been Weaved” and the rest, as they say, is tapestry.

  It was a warm Saturday afternoon, and the horrors of the previous night had faded into a cluttered memory of coriander and screaming. Today was Donkey Day, so the important thing was to move forward and put on a brave face. Betty Woons had left her brave face at home, so she just put on her surprised one and hoped no one would notice.

  The donkey race was an important event in the Corne-on-the-Kobb calendar (which is the same as other calendars except that October is spelt wrong). Bean, the pub dog, had chased the pigeons away from the square, and Audrey Snugglepuss had vacuum-cleaned the roads. Sandy Landscape had laid out cones to mark the race track, with a wobbly finish line made of squirty-cream (he didn’t have any real paint, and
cream was the right colour). A few stalls had been set up selling the usual Donkey Day snacks: stir-fried liquorice sticks or doughnuts filled with hot mutton jam.

  About an hour before the race, the villagers started to appear. Hardened old men in green cagoules and floppy brown hats stood around the makeshift paddock at the centre of the square taking bets, and excited idiots mingled about, looking for the best offers, or in Betty Woons’s case, looking for her spectacles.

  “Out of the six, my money’s with Bunty’s Lad,” one man with a beard whispered to another man, with a bigger beard.

  “No, no, Marzipan House has the form behind him,” the beardier man replied, “and with odds of five-to-one, it’s a good bet.”

  “You’re both wrong,” said a third man, whose beard was considerably beardier than both of the first two, and his moustache wasn’t bad either. “I’ve talked to the trainers and they all say that Butterly Clasp is a sure win.” The first two men scratched their beards and hurried away to place large bets on Butterly Clasp, while the third man changed his mind at the final moment and put every penny he had on McFrockles, apart from two pounds, which he saved for some beard cream.

  Bunty’s Lad was the clear favourite. Tall and muscular and built for racing, he brayed like a foghorn and strutted around like a mobile foghorn, flashing his shiny teeth. He was attracting the most attention from the crowd, and after he headbutted Ol’ Toney, at least four people raced off to place a considerable chunk on him to win. In fact, the only donkey that wasn’t looking good was Ol’ Toney himself. An ageing racer, at a fine age of 96 donkey years (which is 324 hamster years, if that helps), Ol’ Toney used to be the finest racing donkey in the Kobb Valley. However, after breaking all of his legs in a horrific carrot-and-stick accident, he never returned to form. He looked tired and weak, and no one had placed a penny on the old fellow.

  By the time Casper, Julius and Cuddles (tucked firmly inside Julius’s backpack, with its head poking out of the top) had arrived, the square was packed as full as Mayor Rattsbulge’s fridge. Casper had slept terribly; the events of last night had haunted his dreams and awoken him, shaking, in cold sweats. The Great Tiramisu deserved everything that came to him, but that didn’t make it any better. Casper had lied and betrayed his dad. He looked up at Julius, who looked wearier and more run-down than ever, not helped by the fact that Cuddles had twisted round and was now trying to eat his thinning hair.