‘All you have to do is spend a night in your late Uncle Robert’s bedroom,’ says Mr Havers, a long, thin gentleman dressed as a grandfather clock. I look at his face and hands, wondering what makes him tick and if it really is 3.15.
‘ALL I have to do? It sounds like a big ask to me,’ I say. I am seated on the other side of his office desk, which is the size of a snooker table (not least because it IS a snooker table).
‘Just the one night,’ he reminds me. Mr Havers bends forwards and pots a red ball in the bottom right-hand corner pocket. It’s strange to watch a long-case clock with such great cueing action.
‘Just the one night in a bedroom that’s haunted,’ I remind him. I look around the family lawyer’s office. Papers are piled everywhere. There are views of a large, formal garden from each of the windows, which is odd because we are in a submarine, 20,000 leagues under the sea.
‘It’s only haunted if you believe in ghosts, Master Thomas,’ Mr Havers reasons, opening a small door in his tummy and adjusting his pendulum.
I have to think about that. ‘But do the ghosts know this?’
‘Know what?’ asks Mr Havers.
‘That if there ARE ghosts, but you don’t believe in them, they’ll leave you alone?’
‘I can’t answer questions like that, Master Thomas. I’m simply here to make you aware of the terms of the inheritance.’
‘Which state that I have to sleep in my late Uncle Robert’s haunted bedroom.’
‘You don’t HAVE to, Master Thomas,’ says Mr Havers.
‘I don’t?’
‘You don’t.’
‘But you just said—’
‘If you don’t wish to spend a night in your late Uncle Robert’s haunted bedroom, you don’t have to spend the night in your late Uncle Robert’s bedroom,’ says Mr Havers. He has plucked an orange from a small-but-perfectly-formed lemon tree growing in a wastepaper bin in the corner.
‘Oh, I see what you’re getting at.’ I sigh. ‘You’re saying that I can either spend a night in the haunted bedroom and inherit the money or forget about the haunted bedroom and forget about the money.’
‘Very well put, Master Thomas.’
‘And how much is the inheritance, again?’ I ask. I know the answer but I like hearing him say it.
‘Three-point-two billion dollars.’
‘Which is a lot of money.’
‘A great deal of money.’
‘A HUMUNGOUS amount of money.’
‘Most definitely, Master Thomas.’
‘Not even millionaires have three-point-two billion dollars.’
‘Very true.’
‘I mean, only billionaires are worth three-point-two billion dollars.’
‘Some billionaires are only worth ONE billion dollars, Master Thomas,’ says Mr Havers. He has successfully peeled the orange and is now feeding it to a small owl perched on the edge of the snooker table. ‘You will be worth three-point-two times more than that!’
‘If I spend the night in my late Uncle Robert’s haunted bedroom,’ I add.
‘And you survive,’ he adds.
‘Sorry?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What?’
‘What are you sorry about?’ asks Mr Havers.
The owl, meanwhile, is wolfing down the orange.
A wolf is, meanwhile, ‘owling by the lemon tree.
Ahroooooooooooooh!
See? Told you.
‘I meant, I’m sorry, what were you saying about me surviving?’
‘My surviving.’
‘Not you surviving, Mr Havers. We all know you’ll survive!’
‘No, Master Thomas, what I meant was one doesn’t say what were you saying about ME surviving. One says, what were you saying about MY surviving.’
‘One does? You do? I mean, I should?’
‘If you wish to be grammatically correct,’ says Mr Havers with a slight nod, causing his bell chime to dong a little.
‘So, talk me through the surviving part,’ I say.
‘Well, if you don’t survive the night, Master Thomas, then you obviously can’t inherit the money, now can you?’
‘Then who gets it?’
The family lawyer consults a large ledger, shaped like a slightly smaller ledger. ‘Saint Archie’s Home for Dogs,’ he announces.
‘Archie? Like the royal baby!’
‘Not much. Do you like him?’
‘We’ve never met,’ I say. The conversation is getting confusing and I’m getting a headache. ‘A dog’s home, you say?’
‘No, Master Thomas, a dogs’ home. Plural. For more than one dog.’
‘But that’s what I said!’ I say.
‘No, you said dog’s, with an apostrophe between the g and the s, meaning a single dog, when it should be dogs’, with the apostrophe after the s.’
‘But how can you tell?’ I demand. ‘Dog’s and dogs’ sounds like the same word when I say them out loud. See?’
‘Not when you say them, Master Thomas. You have such clear diction. I could even tell the first dog you just said was spoken with a capital D.’
I’m impressed. ‘I’m impressed,’ I say.
Mr Havers opens a drawer in a side-table and pulls out a spray-can of wood polish. He gives it a squirt under each arm. ‘Pine fresh!’ he says, breathing in deeply. ‘So, what will it be?’ he asks. ‘Will you sleep in your late Uncle Robert’s haunted bedroom for one night or will you simply pass on your inheritance and let it go to the dogs’ home?’
‘Or I could sleep in my late Uncle Robert’s haunted bedroom for one night, die of fright and my inheritance ends up going to the dogs’ home anyway,’ I point out.
‘True, but that’s hardly a choice is it, Master Thomas? I mean, choosing to die of fright would be a little strange, would it not?’
I look around the submarine with the unlikely view of a garden. I look at Mr Havers dressed as a grandfather clock, the orange-bearing lemon tree in the wastepaper bin, the owl, the wolf, the snooker-table desk.
I look down at Mr Havers’s clerk, Mr Bunbury, who I’ve been sitting on since I arrived. He’d curled up into a ball, with his back in the air, and offered himself up like a human stool.
‘Strange?’ I say. ‘Everything around me is strange … but of course I wouldn’t CHOOSE to die of fright. It’s simply a possibility.’
‘That makes sense,’ says Mr Havers. He looks at his reflection in a very shiny rubbish-bin lid, nailed to the wall. ‘Great heavens!’ he says. ‘Is that the time? You need to make your mind up, Master Thomas. Will you spend a night in the haunted room or not?’
My eyes are now fixed on the nail holding the rubbish-bin lid in place. I notice that there is a steady trickle of water coming out beneath it. Hammering nails in the side of a submarine probably wasn’t the most sensible thing to do in the world.
‘A few more quick questions,’ I say. ‘Did Uncle Robert inherit the money that I may now inherit by spending the night in the haunted bedroom?’
‘No,’ says Mr Havers. ‘Your uncle never inherited the three-point-two billion dollars.’
‘Then how could he leave it to me?’ I ask.
‘Well, he did agree to spend the night in the haunted bedroom when his father – Leon – died, but he didn’t survive until morning.’
‘He died THE ONE AND ONLY TIME he slept – or tried to sleep – in the bedroom?’
‘Precisely, Master Thomas. It was named your Uncle Robert’s bedroom in honour of that.’
‘A strange honour.’
‘A strange bedroom,’ says Mr Havers. ‘If you die in there it’ll probably be renamed Master Thomas’s bedroom.’
‘How nice,’ I say. But I don’t mean it.
There’s a moment’s silence, in which I have a chance to think.
‘How come the money didn’t go to the dogs’ home when Uncle Robert died?’ I ask.
‘Because of you, of course,’ says Mr Havers. ‘The only reason it will go to the dogs’ home, if you decide not to spend the night in your late Uncle Robert’s bedroom or you die in the night, is because you’re the last of the Cummerbunds!’
‘But I’m not a Cummerbund,’ I say.
You can hear a pin drop.
Actually, it’s a bunch of keys the owl has been carrying around in her talons as she flaps around the office. I don’t think it can be hers. I don’t imagine that owls have much use for keys. It hits the snooker table near the green spot, causing the yellow, green and brown balls to clatter into each other with satisfying clacks.
‘WHAT!?!’ The family lawyer turns with such speed that his door flies open and his pendulum comes flying out, coming so close to the side of my head that I feel the slipstream as it passes. ‘You’re not Master Thomas Cummerbund?’
‘I’m Master Thomas Lyle,’ I remind him. ‘My mother was a Cummerbund. Uncle Robert’s little sister. Remember?’
Mr Havers slumps into the golden throne behind the snooker table. It appears to be made entirely from cheese. How come I haven’t noticed it before? ‘Of course. Yes. Forgive me. You had me worried there for a moment. Would you mind?’ He points to the pendulum, which has embedded itself in the stuffed clown immediately behind me.
I stand up, nod at my seat – aka the balled-up Mr Bunbury – and pull the pendulum from the clown. I find stuffed bears creepy enough. (Not toy bears. Real ones.) Their fur usually looks old and moth-eaten, their teeth yellow and ancient, and their glass eyes so glassy. I now discover that a stuffed clown looks even creepier.
‘Was he a real clown?’ I ask.
‘What do you mean, a real clown?’
‘Stuffed bears are real bears that have been shot and stuffed …’
Mr Havers laughs as I pass him his pendulum. ‘And you’re wondering if this is a real clown who has been shot and stuffed?’
I feel silly now I’ve asked.
‘Of course not,’ says Mr Havers.
I feel even more silly now.
‘Chuckles, here, died in an accident. We didn’t have to shoot him. Being stuffed was his dying wish.’
‘Really?’
‘Either that or see his dear old mother one last time,’ says Mr Havers, ‘but, the truth be told, my son was very eager to stuff him.’
‘You have a son?’
‘I do?’
‘You just said so.’
‘I do,’ says Mr Havers. ‘Yes. He’s very keen on taxidermy.’
‘The study of taxis?’ I ask.
‘Stuffing dead animals,’ he replies.
‘He started with small animals such as dwarf elephants and worked his way up to huge ones, such as giant mice.’
‘I see,’ I say. (I don’t.) ‘And he stuffed Chuckles?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did his family mind?’
‘Not in the slightest. I was perfectly happy for him to stuff Chuckles.’
‘I meant the clown’s family, Mr Havers. Didn’t they mind him being stuffed and kept in your office?’
‘Of course not—’ begins the lawyer.
‘That’s a relief—’
‘I never told them. What family in their right mind would be happy about their dearly departed loved one being stuffed, dressed and kept in a lawyer’s office for someone else’s amusement? I mean, it’s a heartless, despicable thing to do.’
‘Quite,’ I say in agreement.
‘Only quite?’ says Mr Havers. ‘I’d say VERY heartless … but enough of this! I need your decision NOW.’
I pull myself up to my full height. ‘I will spend a night in my late Uncle Robert’s haunted bedroom,’ I declare, trying to sound braver than I feel.
‘Tonight?’ asks Mr Havers.
‘Tonight,’ I nod, causing my left ear to fall off. To be honest, with all the head-nodding I do, I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen off sooner.
‘And you understand that if you leave the room for any reason, whether it’s to run screaming into the night or simply to investigate a creaky floorboard on the landing, you will forfeit your right to the money? If you die in the night, you forfeit your right to the money. If you lose your mind or become a jabbering wreck overnight, you lose your right to the money. But if you make it through the night and come out as right as rain—’
On the word rain, the nail holding the very shiny rubbish-bin lid comes shooting out of the wall like one fired from a nail gun, swiftly followed by a continuous jet of water. The rubbish-bin lid clatters to the floor. In the commotion, the owl flaps around the room shedding feathers and the wolf attacks a paperweight that has been looking at him funny.
Mr Haver opens a drawer directly below the one from which he’d brought out the spray-polish. It is full of corks of all different shapes and sizes. He chooses the one he thinks most appropriate, produces a wooden mallet from an (unplugged) microwave beneath his desk and hammers the cork into the hole left by the ejected nail.
‘Now, where were we?’ he asks.
‘Me – er – my making it out of there the next morning, as right as rain, Mr Havers.’
‘Then you will inherit the three-point-two billion dollars.’
‘Then let’s do it,’ I say.
I crouch down to pick up my fallen ear, but the office – the submarine – suddenly lurches to one side and I fall, face first, to the floor. When I roll over onto my back, I appear to be in a completely and utterly different room. The ceiling has ornate plasterwork around the edges. It looks like royal icing. Good enough to eat.
I struggle to stand upright and put my hand onto something for support.
It’s an enormous sandwich.
No, it isn’t.
It’s not that.
No.
It’s a bed.
Is it THE bedroom? Am I in my haunted uncle’s late bedroom Robert? I mean, am I in my late Robert the haunted uncle? No. I must stop and think straight. AM I IN MY LATE UNCLE ROBERT’S HAUNTED BEDROOM? I sit on the side of the bed.
Just then the door bursts open and a lion and a unicorn dash in, both walking upright on their hind legs.
‘Thank heavens!’ says the lion. ‘We’re not too late!’
One takes one side of me and the other the other, and they help me to my feet.
‘No!’ I say urgently. ‘I mustn’t leave the room or I won’t get the three-point-two billion dollars!’
‘If you don’t leave the room, you won’t get a dime either,’ says the lion. He has a kind voice that sounds like golden syrup being poured into a silver funnel. ‘You’ll be dead.’
‘Dead?’ I say, looking from the lion to the unicorn and back to the lion as they help me to the door. ‘As in not alive?’
‘As in not alive,’ nods the unicorn, narrowly avoiding poking me in the eye with her horn.
‘Then getting out of here seems a very sensible option,’ I say. My words are beginning to slur and my legs feel as though they’ve been replaced with the jelly you sometimes get around the edge of tinned ham.
When we reach the doorway, I dig my heels into the carpet. Pass through it and I’ll never get the money. I’ll never get my rightful inheritance. What if this is a trick? What if the lion and unicorn are dogs disguised as a lion and a unicorn? What if they’re really from Saint Archie’s Home for Dogs?
What if one of them is Saint Archie himself?
I look for signs of either the lion or the unicorn having a halo.
Don’t saints have halos?
And, anyway, if they’re wearing a fake lion’s head and a fake unicorn’s head, perhaps his halo could be hidden under one of them …
… But wouldn’t it shine through? I imagine halos have a pretty high wattage.
The pair lift my feet off the floor and hurry me out of the room.
It’s over.
They sit me in a chair on the landing.
‘My ear!’ I shout. ‘I left my ear in there!’
‘You’ve got both ears,’ the unicorn reassures me.
‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ says the lion.
It turns out that it’s not only his voice that is golden syrupy. All of him is. His golden fur begins to melt into pools of golden syrup on the floor.
‘I don’t feel well,’ I say.
‘Are you hallucinating?’ asks the unicorn. ‘Do you think you’re seeing things that aren’t really there?’ She’s sitting on a large Chinese vase, frantically knitting a mermaid.
‘I think I might be,’ I say.
‘It’s the wallpaper,’ says the lion. He is now little more than a lion’s head in the middle of one big pool of golden syrup, flowing down the landing, seeping through the cracks in the floorboards and under the bedroom doors. ‘There’s fungi in the wallpaper.’
‘A fun guy in the wallpaper?’ I say in puzzlement.
‘Fungi! Fungus!’ says the lion. ‘Toxic mould! Spores! They’re released into the air, making you see things and …’
‘And poisoning you,’ says the unicorn. Her horn seems to have got ridiculously long and a mouse is using it as a washing line, pegging her family’s clothes on it, end to end. I didn’t even know mice wore clothes. She has a fine selection of cheese-patterned dresses. ‘That’s what killed your Grandpa Leon and Uncle Robert,’ says the unicorn.
The lion is nothing more than eyes, mouth and nose on the flat surface of the golden syrup now. ‘Have no fear, Thomas! A doctor is on the way. You’ll be fine!’
‘Thank you!’ I say, bursting into song. Then I stop and burst into tears instead. ‘You saved my life. Both of you.’
I pause as a train filled with cheering wombats goes hurtling down the long landing, the little creatures leaning out of the window, raising their bowler hats politely in the air; the train wheels sticky with syrup.
‘They’re not really there, are they?’ I say to the unicorn. ‘I’m imagining them, aren’t I?’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ she admits. ‘But the answer is probably yes.’
‘And I won’t get the three-point-two billion now, will I?’
‘I’m afraid not, dear,’ says the unicorn, who has turned a particularly pleasing shade of sky blue. In fact, maybe she is made of sky because little white fluffy clouds are passing across her body. ‘But what would you have done with all that money anyway, Thomas?’
I think for a moment.
Just a moment.
It doesn’t take more than that.
‘Probably have given it to a dogs’ home,’ I say, making sure that I say the word dogs with the apostrophe in the right place.
‘That’s nice,’ says the unicorn. ‘And here’s the doctor at long last.’
