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  ‘I’m in the nude,’ I shouted. ‘I’ve lost my clothes. Help. Help.’

  ‘Hello, hello. Who’s there?’ said Dad.

  I shouted at the top of my voice, but Dad just kept saying ‘Hello’. He sounded cross. Then I heard him say to Mum, ‘It’s probably that boy up to his tricks again.’ He hung up the phone.

  I decided to make a run for it. It was the only way. I dropped my bush and started running. I went for my life. I reached our street without meeting a soul. I thought I was safe, but I was wrong. I crashed right into someone and sent them flying. It was old Mrs Jeeves from across the road.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Gee, I’m sorry.’ I helped her stand up. She was a bit short sighted and it was dark. She hadn’t noticed that I didn’t have any clothes on. Then the moon came out – the blazing moon. I tried to cover my nakedness with my hands, but it was no good.

  ‘Disgusting,’ she screeched. ‘Disgusting. I’ll tell your father about this.’

  I ran home as fast I could. I went in the back door and jumped into bed. I tried to pretend that I was asleep. Downstairs I could hear Mrs Jeeves yelling at Dad; then the front door closed. I heard his footsteps coming up the stairs.

  6

  Well, I really copped it. I was in big trouble. Dad went on and on. ‘What are you thinking of, lad? Running around in the nude. Losing all your clothes. What will the neighbours think?’ He went on like that for about a week. I couldn’t tell him the truth – he wouldn’t believe it. No one would. The only ones who knew the whole story were Pete and I.

  Dad grounded me for a month. I wasn’t allowed out of the house except to go to school. No pictures, no swimming, nothing. And no pocket money either.

  It was a bad month. Very bad indeed. At school Scrag Murphy gave me a hard time. He called me ‘Fairy Pants’. Every one thought it was a great joke, and there was nothing I could do about it. He was just too big for me, and his mates were all tough guys.

  ‘This is serious,’ said Pete. ‘We have to put Scrag Murphy back in his box. They are starting to call me “Friend Of Fairy Pants” now. We have to get even.’

  We thought and thought but we couldn’t come up with anything. Then I remembered the mouse race in Smith’s barn. ‘We will win the mouse race,’ I shouted. ‘It’s in a month’s time. We can use the next month to train my mouse.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Pete. ‘The prize is fifty dollars. Scrag Murphy thinks he is going to win. It will really get up his nose if we take off the prize.’

  I went and fetched Swift Sam. ‘He’s small,’ I said. ‘But he’s fast. I bet he can beat Murphy’s mouse. It’s called Mugger.’

  We started to train Swift Sam. Every day after school we took him around a track in the back yard. We tied a piece of cheese on the end of a bit of string. Swift Sam chased after it as fast as he could. After six laps we gave him the piece of cheese to eat. At the start he could do six laps in ten minutes. By the end of the month he was down to three minutes.

  ‘Scrag Murphy, look out,’ said Pete with a grin. ‘We are really going to beat the pants off you this time.’

  7

  The day of the big race came at last. There were about one hundred kids in Smith’s barn. No adults knew about it – they would probably have stopped it if they knew. It cost fifty cents to get in. That’s where the prize money came from. A kid called Tiger Gleeson took up the money and gave out the prize at the end. He was the organiser of the whole thing.

  Scrag Murphy was there, of course. ‘It’s in the bag,’ he swaggered. ‘Mugger can’t lose. I’ve fed him on a special diet. He is the fittest mouse in the country. He will eat Swift Sam, just you wait and see.’

  I didn’t say anything. But I was very keen to see his mouse, Mugger. Scrag Murphy had it in a box. No one had seen it yet.

  ‘Right,’ said Tiger. ‘Get out your mice.’ I put Swift Sam down on the track. He looked very small. He started sniffing around. I hoped he would run as fast with the other mice there – he hadn’t had any match practice before. Then the others put their mice on the track. Everyone except Scrag Murphy. He still had Mugger in the box.

  Scrag Murphy put his hand in the box and took out Mugger. He was the biggest mouse I had ever seen. He was at least ten times as big as Swift Sam. ‘Hey,’ said Pete. ‘That’s not a mouse. That’s a rat. You can’t race a rat. It’s not fair.’

  ‘It’s not a rat,’ said Scrag Murphy in a threatening voice. ‘It’s just a big mouse. I’ve been feeding it up.’ I looked at it again. It was a rat all right. It was starting to attack the mice.

  ‘We will take a vote,’ said Tiger. ‘All those that think it is a rat, put your hands up,’ He counted all the hands.

  ‘Fifty,’ he said. ‘Now all those who say that Mugger is a mouse put your hands up.’ He counted again.

  ‘Fifty-two. Mugger is a mouse.’

  Scrag Murphy and his gang started to cheer. He had brought all his mates with him. It was a put-up job.

  ‘Right,’ said Tiger Gleeson. ‘Get ready to race.’

  8

  There were about ten mice in the race – or I should say nine mice and one rat. Two rats if you counted Scrag Murphy. All the owners took out their string and cheese. ‘Go,’ shouted Tiger Gleeson.

  Mugger jumped straight on to a little mouse next to him and bit it on the neck. The poor thing fell over and lay still. ‘Boo,’ yelled some of the crowd.

  Swift Sam ran to the front straight away. He was going really well. Then Mugger started to catch up. It was neck and neck for five laps. First Mugger would get in front, then Swift Sam. Everyone in the barn went crazy. They were yelling their heads off.

  By the sixth lap Mugger started to fall behind. All the other mice were not in the race. They had been lapped twice by Mugger and Swift Sam. But Mugger couldn’t keep up with Swift Sam; he was about a tail behind. Suddenly something terrible happened. Mugger jumped onto Swift Sam’s tail and grabbed it in his teeth. The crowd started to boo. Even Scrag Murphy’s mates were booing.

  But Swift Sam kept going. He didn’t stop for a second. He just pulled that great rat along after him. It rolled over and over behind the little mouse. Mugger held on for grim death, but he couldn’t stop Swift Sam. ‘What a mouse,’ screamed the crowd as Swift Sam crossed the finish line still towing Mugger behind him.

  Scrag Murphy stormed off out of the barn. He didn’t even take Mugger with him. Tiger handed me the fifty dollars. Then he held up Swift Sam. ‘Swift Sam is the winner,’ he said. ‘The only mouse in the world with its own little pair of fairy underpants.’

  I just wouldn’t go anywhere near a redhead.

  Now don’t get me wrong and start calling me a hairist or something like that. Listen to what I have to say, then make up your mind.

  It all started with Mr Mantolini and his sculptures.

  They were terrific, were Mr Mantolini’s frozen statues. He carved them out of ice and stood them in the window of his fish shop which was over the road from the pier. A new ice carving every month.

  Sometimes it would be a beautiful peacock with its tail fanned out. Or maybe a giant fish thrashing itself to death on the end of a line. One of my favourites was a kangaroo with a little joey peering out of her pouch.

  It was a bit sad really. On the first day of every month Mr Mantolini would throw the old statue out the back into an alley. Where it would melt and trickle away into a damp patch on the ground.

  A new statue would be in the shop window. Sparkling blue and silver as if it had been carved from a solid chunk of the Antarctic shelf.

  Every morning on my way to school, I would stop to stare at his statue. And on the first of the month I would be there after school to see the new one. I couldn’t bear to go around the back and watch yesterday’s sculpture melt into the mud.

  ‘Why do you throw them out?’ I asked one day.

  Mr Mantolini shrugged. ‘You live. You die,’ he said.

  Mr Mantolini took a deep breath. Now he was going to ask me som
ething. The same old thing he had asked every day for weeks. ‘My cousin Tony come from Italy. Next month. You take to school. You friend. My cousin have red hair. You like?’

  I gave him my usual answer. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I won’t be able to.’ I couldn’t tell him that it was because I hated red hair. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  He just stood there without saying anything. He was disappointed in me because we were friends. He knew how much I liked his ice statues and he always came out to talk to me about them. ‘You funny boy,’ he said. He shook his head and walked inside.

  I thought I saw tears in Mr Mantolini’s eyes. I knew I had done the wrong thing again. And I was sorry. But I didn’t want a redhead for a mate.

  2

  I felt guilty and miserable all day. But after school I cheered up a bit. It was the first of September. There would be a new ice statue in the window. It was always something to look forward to.

  I hurried up to the fish shop and stared through the glass. I couldn’t believe what I saw. The ice statue of a girl. It reminded me of one of those Greek sculptures that you see in museums. It had long tangled hair. And smiling lips. Its eyes sparkled like frozen diamonds. I tell you this. That ice girl was something else. She was fantastic.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ I said under my breath. ‘Beautiful.’

  Of course she was only a statue. She couldn’t see or hear me. She was just a life-sized ice maiden, standing among the dead fish in the shop window. She was inside a glass fridge which kept her cold. Her cheeks were covered with frost.

  I stood there for ages just gawking at her. I know it was stupid. I would have died if anyone knew what I was thinking. How embarrassing. I had a crush on a piece of ice.

  Every day after that, I visited the fish shop. I was late for school because of the ice maiden. I filled every spare minute of my time standing outside the window. It was as if I was hypnotised. The ice maiden’s smile seemed to be made just for me. Her outstretched hand beckoned. ‘Get real,’ I said to myself. ‘What are you doing here? You fool.’ I knew I was mad but something kept drawing me back to the shop.

  Mr Mantolini wouldn’t meet my gaze. He was cross with me.

  I pretended the ice girl was my friend. I told her my secrets. Even though she was made of ice, I had this silly feeling that she understood.

  Mr Mantolini saw me watching her. But he didn’t come outside. And whenever I went inside to buy fish for Mum, he scurried out the back and sent his assistant to serve me.

  3

  The days passed. Weeks went by. The ice maiden smiled on and on. She never changed. The boys thought I was nuts standing there gawking at a lump of ice. But she had this power over me – really. Kids started to tease me. ‘He’s in love,’ said a girl called Simone. I copped a lot of teasing at school but still I kept gazing in that window.

  As the days went by I grew sadder and sadder. I wanted to take the ice girl home. I wanted to keep her forever. But once she was out of her glass cage, in the warm air, her smiling face would melt and drip away.

  I dreaded the first of October. When Mr Mantolini would take the ice maiden and dump her in the alley. To be destroyed by the warm rays of the sun.

  On the last day of September I waited until Mr Mantolini was serving in the shop. ‘You can’t throw her out,’ I yelled. ‘She’s too lovely. She’s real. You mustn’t. You can’t.’ I was nearly going to say ‘I love her’ but that would have been stupid.

  Mr Mantolini looked at me and shrugged. ‘You live. You die,’ he said. ‘She ice. She cold. She water.’

  I knew it was no good. Tomorrow Mr Mantolini would cast the ice girl out into the alley.

  The next day I wagged school. I hid in the alley and waited. The minutes dragged their feet. The hours seemed to crawl. But then, as I knew he would, Mr Mantolini emerged with the ice maiden. He dumped her down by the rubbish bins. Her last resting place was to be among the rotting fish heads in an empty alley.

  Mr Mantolini disappeared back into the shop. I rushed over to my ice maiden. She was still covered in frost and had sticky, frozen skin.

  My plan was to take her to the butcher. I would pay him to keep the ice maiden in his freezer where I could visit her every day. I hadn’t asked him yet. But he couldn’t say no, could he?

  The sun was rising in the sky. I had to hurry.

  The ice maiden still stooped. Still reached out. She seemed to know that her time had come. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll save you.’

  I don’t know what came over me. I did something crazy. I bent down and gently kissed her on the mouth.

  4

  It was a long kiss. The longest kiss ever in the history of the world. My lips stuck to hers. My flesh froze onto the ice. Cold needles of pain numbed my lips. I tried to pull away but I couldn’t. The pain made my eyes water. Tears streamed down my face and across the ice maiden’s cheeks.

  On we kissed. And on. And on. I wanted to pull my mouth away but much as I cared for the ice girl, I didn’t want my lips to tear away, leaving bleeding skin as a painful reminder of my madness. There I was, kissing ice lips, unable to move.

  I tried to yell for help but I couldn’t speak. Muffled grunts came out of my nose. Horrible nasal noises. No one came to help me. The alley echoed with the noise.

  I grabbed the ice maiden and lifted her up. She was heavy. Her body was still sticky with frost. My fingers stuck fast. She was my prisoner. And I was hers.

  The sun warmed my back. Tears of agony filled my eyes. If I waited there she would melt. I would be free but the ice maiden would be gone. Her lovely nose and chin would drip away to nothing.

  But the cold touch of the ice girl was terrible. Her smiling lips burnt my flesh. The tip of my nose was frozen. I ran out of the alley into the street. There was a group of people waiting by a bus stop near the end of the pier. ‘Help, get me unstuck. But don’t hurt the ice maiden,’ was what I tried to say.

  But what came out was, ‘Nmn nnmmm nnnn nng ng ng mn nm.’

  The people looked at me as if I was crazy. Some of them laughed. They thought I was acting the fool. An idiot pretending to kiss a statue.

  I ran over to Mr Mantolini’s shop and tried to knock on the window with my foot. I had to balance on one leg, while holding the ice girl in my arms and painfully kissing her at the same time. I fell over with a crunch. Oh agony, oh misery, oh pain. My lips, my fingers, my knees.

  There was no sign of Mr Mantolini. He must have been in the back room.

  5

  What could I do? I looked out to sea. If I jumped into the water it would melt the ice. My lips and fingers would come free. But the ice maiden would melt. ‘Let me go,’ I whispered in my mind. But she made no answer.

  My hands were numb. Cold pins pricked me without mercy. I ran towards the pier. I spoke to my ice maiden again, without words. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.’

  I jogged along the pier. Further and further. My feet drummed in time with my thoughts. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’

  I stopped and stared down at the waves. Then I closed my eyes and jumped, still clutching the ice-cold girl to my chest. Down, I plunged. For a frozen moment I hung above the ocean. And then, with a gurgle and a groan, I took the ice lady to her doom.

  The waves tossed above us. The warm water parted our lips. My fingers slipped from her side. I bobbed up like an empty bottle and saw her floating away. Already her eyes had gone. Her hair was a glassy mat. The smiling maiden smiled no more. She was just a lump of ice melting in the waves.

  ‘No,’ I screamed. My mouth filled with salt water and I sank under the sea.

  They say that your past life flashes by you when you are drowning. Well, it’s true. I re-lived some horrible moments. I remembered the time in a small country school when I was just a little kid. And the only redhead. I saw the school bully Johnson teasing me every day. Once again I sat on the school bench at lunchtime – alone and rejected. Not allowed to hang around with the others. Just because
Johnson didn’t like red hair. Once again I could hear him calling me ‘carrots’ and ‘ginger’. They were the last thoughts that came to me before the world vanished into salty blackness.

  6

  But I didn’t drown. In a way my hair saved me. It must have been easy for them to spot my curly locks swirling like red seaweed thrown up from the ocean bed.

  Mr Mantolini pulled me out. He and his cousin. I could hear him talking even though I was only half conscious. ‘You live. But you not die yet.’

  I didn’t want to open my eyes. I couldn’t bear to think about what I had done to the ice maiden. I was alive but she was dead. Gone forever.

  In the end I looked up. I stared at my rescuers. Mr Mantolini and his cousin.

  She had red tangled hair. And smiling lips. Her eyes sparkled like frozen diamonds. I tell you this. That girl Tony was something else. She was fantastic.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ I said under my breath. ‘Beautiful.’

  Mr Mantolini’s ice statue had been good. But not as good as the real thing. After all, it had only been a copy of his cousin Tony. I smiled up at her. And she smiled back. With a real smile.

  I guess that’s when I discovered that an ice maiden who is dead is not sad. And a nice maiden who is red is not bad.

  Not bad at all.

  A person who eats someone else is called a cannibal. But what are you called if you drink someone? Like I did.

  No, no, no. Don’t put down the book. This isn’t a horror story. It isn’t even a horrible story. And it’s not about vampires and ghouls. But it sure is a weird tale. Really weird.