Mr Skip

  We were walking Barnaby up there some time later when this big car came up alongside us, and a young man leaned out and said: “Is that the superdonkey that runs faster than horses?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Well, I’m from the newspaper. Can I have a photo and a bit of a chat?”

  It didn’t take long, a couple of photos of Barnaby and me and a few questions about the race. That’s all it was.

  I told Mum all about the reporter when I got home. We were having fish and chips – again, to celebrate. We sat there, Mum and me, in the kitchen, scoffing down our fish and chips, and going over the race again and again, and all the time Mister Skip was watching us both. I couldn’t stop looking at him. I knew, I just knew, that somehow he had made it all happen. It was difficult with Mum there, but I felt I had to say thank you to him. I couldn’t just sit there and say nothing. So after I’d said good night to Mum, I said it to him too. “G’night, Mister Skip,” I said, “and thanks.” And I kissed him on both his pink cheeks.

  “What are you thanking him for?” Mum laughed. “It was Barnaby who won that race, Barnaby and you.”

  “I can’t explain it, Mum,” I said. “I just think he’s lucky for us somehow, that’s all.”

  “A sort of lucky mascot, you mean?” Mum said.

  “Something like that,” I replied, and went off to bed. I lay there in the dark wondering what would happen tomorrow or the next day, knowing now for sure that Mister Skip had already made one of my dreams come true. I knew that whatever happened next, Mister Skip would be behind it. Somehow, Mister Skip would be pulling the strings. Barnaby and me, we were just puppets. But I didn’t mind, I didn’t mind at all.

  Next Monday there we were, Barnaby and me with our picture all over the front page of the newspaper – “Superdonk wins the day at the races”. Mum rang up Gran in hospital. She rang up Aunty Mary. She rang everyone she could think of. Then she dashed out to buy a dozen copies of the paper. While she was gone I just sat there shovelling in my Weetabix and looking at the photo again and again. Me and Barnaby in the paper. I just couldn’t believe it.

  “You’d better believe it,” said a voice. Mister Skip. I’d almost forgotten about him. “You’d almost forgotten about me, hadn’t you?” he said. He could read my mind too! “Listen Jackie, a lot’s going to happen in the next few days. I want you to remember just one thing. However impossible it sounds, just say you’ll do it. Alright?”

  “But what do you mean? What’s going to happen?”

  “No questions, Jackie. Do it for Mister Skip, eh? Like Barnaby did.”

  We didn’t have time to talk any more because Mum came back all excited and breathless and piled high with newspapers. “Everyone’s seen it, Jackie,” she said. “Everyone’s talking about it, about the race, about you and Barnaby.”

  And she was right. I had more friends walking with me to school that day than I’d ever had before. When I got into the play-ground I was mobbed. Everyone asked me questions at the same time. “How did he do it, Jackie?” “What did you put in his food, Jackie?” “How did you make a donkey go that fast?” Luckily they didn’t give me time to answer, because I had no answers to give – none I could tell them anyway. I hadn’t a clue how Mister Skip had made it all happen. All I knew was that it was him that had done it – and that was our secret.

  In Assembly our headteacher, Mrs Tandy, waved the newspaper in front of everyone and read out the article. Then she said that Barnaby was a star, and I was a star. Suddenly I had a nickname. I had become Jackie Dettori. Of course I got a few looks from Marty Morgan and some of his Crazy Cossacks, but I didn’t mind, not one bit. I tried not to look too happy, but it was difficult because I was right up there on cloud nine.

  In the lunch break I was called into Mrs Tandy’s office. And there was Barnaby in her office! Mum was there too, and Mrs Tandy was offering Barnaby an apple which he didn’t want. He looked very fed up. “They’re waiting for us, Jackie,” said Mum. Mum was made up like I’d never seen her before – lipstick, eyeshadow, mascara, the lot. And her hair, she’d had her hair done! She was grinning like a cat that just got the cream, a cat with scarlet lipstick. Practically purring she was.

  “Who is?” I asked. “Who’s waiting for us?”

  “Only the TV cameras! They want you to put Barnaby through his paces for them. They want to film him, and you too. You’ll be on the telly, on the news!”

  But all I could think was: what if Barnaby wouldn’t do it a second time? What if he didn’t go off like a turbo-charged donkey? What if he didn’t go off at all?

  “And Mrs Tandy’s said it’s fine, Jackie,” Mum went on. “She says she’ll bring along the whole school to cheer you on. Isn’t that just great?” Barnaby decided at that moment to take the apple and Mrs Tandy’s finger in the same bite.

  “Eeeaaaeee!” Mrs Tandy shrieked, and then tried to laugh it off. “He’s got a terrible powerful bite.”

  “He’s a terrible powerful donkey, Mrs Tandy,” said Mum, bursting with pride. “What’s up, Jackie? You don’t look well.”

  I didn’t feel well. I felt like running off there and then, legging it home, but then I heard Mister Skip’s voice in my head. “However impossible it sounds, just say you’ll do it.” So I said “I’ll do it.”

  Less than half an hour later, there I was mounted up on Barnaby, with the whole school looking on and the woman from the telly interviewing me. It seemed like half the world was gathered there on the estate, watching and waiting. I tried to concentrate. Don’t kick him on, I was thinking. Don’t touch him with your heels, or he’ll sit down. Ask him, ask him nicely like you did before. So when the interviewing was over and the cameras were ready, I bent down over his neck and whispered the magic words in his ear, “Do it for Mister Skip, Barnaby.”

  His ears twitched, first one, then the other. And suddenly he was off, off from the start, like a race horse. If anything he was going faster than before, and like before all I could do was hold on and pray I didn’t fall off. There wasn’t time to enjoy it. I just clung on and hoped. Even when we’d done the circuit round the estate, and were galloping towards the crowds and the cameras, I still couldn’t enjoy it because all the time I just had this feeling Barnaby was going to do what he’d done before. He was going to dump me. And so he did, and he chose the same place too. He ran on past the crowd, stopped dead in his tracks by his lock-up stable and dumped me again in the same old smelly bin bags. Everyone loved that of course, but now they loved me too – even the Crazy Cossacks. It was Marty and Barry and the others who hoisted me up on their shoulders and carried me off in triumph. Unbelievable!

  It was even more unbelievable when I saw Barnaby and me on the TV news that evening. Afterwards the phone never stopped ringing – Gran, Aunty Mary, and even total strangers. And people from the flats all around kept coming round and telling us they’d just seen us on the telly. They’d bring a bottle and in they’d come. It was one long party, and Mum was loving every minute of it. But after a while I got a bit fed up with all the noise and the questions and I went off to my room, taking Mister Skip with me.

  Anyway, I wanted a little private chat, just him and me. I needed some answers. So I set him down on my bed and asked him straight out: “What’s going on, Mister Skip? What are you up to?”

  “Well, that’d be telling, wouldn’t it now,” he replied, chuckling away inside himself. “Let’s just say I’ve a cunning plan in my head that could make things right for you Jackie, and for me too with a little bit of luck. Don’t you go worrying yourself about it. Things’ll work themselves out just fine.” And when I tried to ask more, all he did was sit there smiling at me and saying nothing, not a word. I couldn’t even get a chuckle out of him.

  As it turned out I didn’t have long to wait to see what Mister Skip had in store for me. Later that same evening, when everything had calmed down a bit, I went down to the lock-up to groom Barnaby. I was making sure he had enough hay and water to keep him ha
ppy through the night, when Barry and Marty came looking for me, along with the other Crazy Cossacks. They were all puffed out with running.

  “Have you heard?” said Barry excitedly.

  “What?” I asked.

  “About the big race,” Marty said.

  “What big race?” I hadn’t a clue what they were on about.

  “They’re calling it the Barnaby Derby,” Marty explained, his words tumbling out so fast they were falling over each other. “But it’s not for any old donkeys. It’s just for Barnaby. It’ll be Barnaby against the best race horses in the whole world, from Ireland, America, England.” Now they were all telling me at the same time, so I couldn’t understand anything. In the end it was Barry who shut them all up and told me. “They timed him, Jackie. They timed Barnaby this afternoon. From some newspaper or other they were. That donkey of yours was going over forty miles an hour! Can you believe that? Forty miles an hour. That’s as fast as any race horse. So the newspaper’s sent out a challenge to all the best race horse stables in the world. It was on the telly just now! Has anyone got a horse that can beat Barnaby, the superdonkey?! And wait for it, Jackie. There’s a prize for the winner, a big prize, a very big prize, a humungously big prize.”

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Only a million euros. A million euros,” said Marty. “Can you believe it?”

  Oh yes, I could believe it. By now I could believe anything, absolutely anything. Of course they were all expecting me to be surprised. But I wasn’t, not one bit. All I knew was that Mister Skip was up to his tricks. I could see what he was up to alright, but the whole thing was mad, impossible, ridiculous, wonderful!

  “Well,” said Marty. “What d’you think? Can he beat the best in the world? Can you win the million?”

  “Course,” said my voice, only I wasn’t doing the speaking. “Why not? No problem.” It was Mister Skip doing the speaking for me again. Well that silenced them. They just stood there and gawped at me, and I carried on filling Barnaby’s haynet, cool as a cucumber – on the outside, that is. But on the inside I was screaming. Barnaby against the best race horses in the world! Are you off your trolley or what, Mister Skip?

  Mum was alone in the kitchen washing up when I got back up to the flat. Everyone else was gone. I could tell she hadn’t heard, that no one had told her. I mean she wasn’t leaping up and down, was she? And I could see from the smug smile on Mister Skip’s face that he didn’t need to be told a thing, nothing at all.

  “Mum,” I began. “I’ve got some news.” And then I told her.

  “A million euros?” she breathed, leaning back against the sink to steady herself. “A million smackeroos?”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “Can you do it? Can Barnaby do it?”

  “Yep,” I said again. And she threw her soapsudsy hands in the air, and danced around the room, whooping like a mad thing. “Jackie, oh Jackie! We can have our dreams. They can all come true; the stables for the horses, my house in the country, my chickens and ducks, a horse of your own.” And she hugged me so tight I thought I’d break. Over her shoulder I saw Mister Skip, sitting there on the table, smiling at me with “I told you so” written all over his chubby little face. His eyes were telling me: “You can do it, Jackie, you can do it.” And suddenly I believed I could too and I was smiling right back at him.

  The Barnaby Derby took a couple of months to set up. There was a lot of fuss and bother of course, which was great. I mean, I was famous now, really famous, and so was Barnaby. Not Madonna famous, but not far off. And that was all because of Mister Skip of course, and Magnus Finnegan. It was Magnus Finnegan that looked after us through the whole thing.

  I won’t forget the day Magnus Finnegan turned up on our estate in his limousine. It was long, and low and snow-white, with blacked-out windows. When he got out he was puffing the biggest fattest cigar I ever saw. He was a film producer, from America he said, and wanted to see me riding out on Barnaby to see for himself if all he’d heard was true. So of course I just whispered the magic words: “Do it for Mister Skip” in Barnaby’s ear, and off he went. I’d done it often enough now by this time to look all super cool and confident when I was riding him, and I’d taught him long ago not to stop too suddenly, and not to dump me in the bin bags either. Magnus Finnegan and Mum stood side by side and watched. When I’d finished, Magnus Finnegan took his cigar out of his mouth and just said one word: “Wow!” Then he and Mum and the driver went up to the flat to have a cup of tea, and to “talk turkey”, he said – whatever that meant, while I put Barnaby back out to grass. Whatever they talked about didn’t take that long. They both came out smiling, so they must have got on well with their “talking turkey”, I thought.

  After that it was Magnus Finnegan who organised everything; the radio, the television, all the newspaper interviews and photo shoots. They came from all over the world; Japan, Australia, America, France – everywhere. But no-one got near us for an interview unless Magnus Finnegan said so. He was a good friend to us and we liked him, except that his cigars stank.

  All this time Mister Skip never said a word. He just sat there in the kitchen and smiled and let it all happen. When we were alone, I’d ask him again and again if he was sure we really could beat the best race horses in the world, if we really could win the million euro prize. He never so much as chuckled. I thought he wrinkled his nose and coughed when Magnus Finnegan was smoking his cigar, but otherwise he behaved just like any ordinary plaster garden gnome.

  Once I got so fed up with him just smiling and not answering me that I put the drying- up cloth over his head. Mum came in and took it off. “You shouldn’t do that, Jackie,” she said. “You think about it. Ever since you brought him here, we’ve had nothing but good luck.” How I wanted to tell Mum all about him, all about Mister Skip’s cunning plan, but I thought that if I did, it might somehow break the magic.

  The great day came at last. Early in the morning I groomed Barnaby in the lock-up like he’d never been groomed before. He looked as good as I could make him. After breakfast I said goodbye to Mister Skip and asked him to wish me luck, but he didn’t. He smiled instead – of course. I knew that when I saw him the next time, we’d be a million euros richer. So I put my arms round his neck and thanked him in advance. Then we boxed up Barnaby and drove off in Magnus Finnegan’s limousine to the race course – the Curragh they call it. It’s only the place where they run the Irish Derby!

  We had a police escort all the way, and there were crowds of people everywhere. They couldn’t see us through the blackened windows of the limousine, but I could see them, and I could make faces at them too, without being seen at all. Mum led Barnaby round in the parade ring. All made up like a queen she was and waving like one too. And all around us were the finest horses you could ever hope to see, shining and sleek in the sunlight, all up on their tippy toes, tossing their fancy heads, raring to be off. One or two took fright at Barnaby and bolted. Marty and Barry, and all the Crazy Cossacks were there. Gran was there too, waving, all better now after her operation, and Aunty Mary too in a great yellow hat – she looked a bit as if a huge lemon meringue pie had fallen splat on her head.

  For me it was just the best feeling in the world. I was up there now on Barnaby and riding out of the enclosure, Mum and everyone watching me and hoping I would win. They’d dressed me up like a regular jockey with a bright pink shirt and a matching pink hat, so I looked the part. I felt the part too as I trotted up to the start. I wasn’t hoping I would win. I knew I would.

  Then we were off. Well to be exact, they were off. At that moment Barnaby decided he would eat the grass. I wasn’t worried. I knew he could catch them up. I just whispered the magic words: “Do it for Mister Skip.” But Barnaby went on eating. Perhaps he hadn’t heard me. I said it louder: “Do it for Mister Skip, Barnaby.” Barnaby went on eating. I looked up. The horses were already racing round the first bend, and still Barnaby hadn’t moved. Then I panicked, and I did a foolish thing. I kicked Barna
by, only gently, just a little touch of my heels to gee him up, and he sat down. He sat down, and I slid off the back of him and landed with a bump on my bottom. So now there were two of us sitting there. When I’d got over the shock of it I jumped up and tried to haul him to his feet. He looked at me, and his eyes told me the worst: “I’m not moving, not for you, not for Mister Skip, not for anyone.”

  To cut a long story, and a sad story, short, Barnaby never budged, no matter what I did or what I said. I heard the crowd cheering as the horses came up the straight to the finish, and there I was still on my knees, begging and pleading. In the end, when it was all over, they had to send the horsebox out to pick us up. Barnaby went up the ramp easy as pie – I could have killed him – and then he eeeeawed happily in the back as we drove away from the race course, which was just as well because it helped drown out the booing of the crowd all around us.

  All the way home in the limousine I could hardly see because my eyes were so full of tears. But Mum never stopped her chattering, and neither did Magnus Finnegan, who was chuckling just like Mister Skip. “Not to worry, Jackie,” Mum said. “Don’t be all down in the dumps. What’s a million euros here or there? Easy come. Easy go. I mean, we never had it in the first place, did we? So we haven’t lost anything, have we? And what d’you expect anyway? When all’s said and done, a donkey will always be a donkey, if you see what I’m saying.” Well, I didn’t.