Shrinking Ralph Perfect

  Why do you want to know? thought Ralph. That selfish glare was back in Kyle’s eyes, the one Ralph didn’t trust. He glanced at Tom, who spoke up freely: ‘Ralph’s learnt that the tenant upstairs is human.’

  Nearly everyone stopped eating.

  ‘Told you,’ said Salter, a cluster bomb of spittle and undigested bread falling from between his twisted teeth.

  ‘Then why’s he locked up? Why’s he chained?’ people asked.

  Ralph was about to say he didn’t know, when his ear drums were battered by a piercing scream from Jemima Culvery.

  She jumped up and pressed back against the wall, wagging a flaky arm towards the window.

  Ralph’s heart leapt. Climbing the marmaladed wall of the tank were a host of unmistakeable shapes. Black, fast-moving, six-legged.

  Ants.

  A Visitor Calls

  There must have been ten of them, possibly fifteen, winding out like a solar flare from the biggest smear of visible grease.

  In the panic-stricken mayhem that followed, the men were quickly on their feet, with Tom, as usual, giving the orders. ‘Wally, fetch the spears. Kyle, light the torches.’

  For once, Kyle Salter didn’t argue. He hurried across the room to where a small stack of makeshift torches lay. They were made from tin cans stuck onto broom handles, with rolled-up cardboard tubes for wicks. Using the cigarette lighter he’d once tried to singe Ralph’s hairline with, he lit one and threw it across to Neville.

  ‘I’ll guard t’front door,’ Neville said bravely and was halfway to the landing when Ralph cried, ‘Stop. You’re not going to kill them, are you?’

  Neville stumbled to a halt. Confused, he looked to Tom for guidance.

  Tom said, ‘What are you talking about, Ralph?’

  ‘They can save us. They can take us out of here.’

  ‘What?’ screeched Jemima. ‘Is he mental or something?’

  ‘Ralph, please, not now,’ his mum gulped. She knew about his passion for ants, of course, but their presence here terrified her as much as anyone. They were now more than halfway up the tank wall, flicking their antennae as if they suspected there were rewards far greater than marmalade inside. Penny pulled the collar of her blouse to her neck and tried to draw Ralph closer to her.

  Belligerently, he broke away. ‘I know about ants,’ he said, glancing around the group for support. ‘They work in teams. They’re organised and clever. If they come into the tank, they’ll leave a marked trail to guide themselves out again.’

  ‘And you think we can hitch a lift?’ asked Wally.

  ‘They can carry twenty times their own weight,’ Ralph said.

  ‘He’s mad,’ wailed Jemima. ‘Don’t listen to him. I’m not going to ride out of here on an ant.’

  ‘It’s a daring idea,’ said Rodney.

  ‘So is flying out on a bluebottle,’ said Kyle. ‘I don’t think ants with their acid spit and their nice sharp mandibles are going to be keen to be lassoed, do you?’ He aimed a challenging glare at Tom.

  Tom switched his spear from one hand to the other.

  His indecision only made Kyle more bolshie. ‘Come on! We don’t have time for this! If their army marches into this house, they’ll mince us.’ His torch flared brightly and he whipped away.

  Wally backed him up. Weighing his spear like a javelin he said, ‘He’s right, Tom. We don’t have time to think this through. We have no choice. We have to fight.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that now,’ said Spud. He pointed through the balcony window.

  Jack had appeared at the front of the tank. He had a handkerchief tied across his nose and mouth and in his hands was an old-fashioned greenhouse puffer with a pointed nozzle and a brass pumping rod. He’d spotted the trail of ants and was zapping them with clouds of toxic, yellow vapour. One by one, the creatures were losing their grip and falling, distressed, to the trestle table. There was a wild, wild look in the builder’s eyes, and Ralph remembered now how skittish he’d been when ants had been mentioned outside Annie’s house. He clearly intended to take no prisoners.

  The sight of those poisoned, wriggling bodies was enough to sicken anyone, even Kyle Salter. But as the rest of the miniones turned away in pity, he had to be the one to open his mouth. ‘Done us a favour for once,’ he said, trying to suffocate his torch against the wall of the house.

  ‘You’re pathetic,’ Ralph said, a wave of anger rising inside him. ‘Ants are twice as smart as you.’

  Salter turned, his torch still lit. ‘What’s that, mummy’s boy?’

  And that was it. Ralph went for him. He didn’t care that Kyle was twice his size and had fire in his grip and poison in his heart, he just bundled on into him and took him down, pummelling his arms across the bully’s chest as though he was practising a swimming stroke.

  ‘Ralph!’ his mother cried in shock.

  It took three men to peel the boys apart.

  Tom held Salter gurgling by the collar. ‘Let me at him. I’ll tear his pointy ears off.’ Lunging forward against Tom’s grip, he swung a punch that missed Ralph’s chin by a draught.

  ‘Ease off, lad. Save it for Jack,’ said Neville, helping Tom push Kyle away.

  ‘You’ve gone soft,’ Kyle spluttered. ‘All of you.’ He spat at Ralph and backed off, pointing.

  But before anyone could scold him for that, there came a sound like the drone of an articulated truck and Knocker started barking loudly.

  ‘What was that?’ said Penny, looking up. Her ears, many times smaller than the norm, could not determine the jangle of a giant’s doorbell. But the more experienced miniones knew it.

  ‘Door,’ muttered Wally. ‘Someone’s at the door.’

  Ralph looked at Jack. The builder had turned his head. His last shot of poison had gone hopelessly astray. One surviving, dizzy-looking ant fell to the table and staggered away.

  Ralph sent it a mental prayer. Get well. Go back to the nest. Bring others.

  Tom, meanwhile, was breathing a hopeful prayer of his own. ‘Go on-nn, Jack, go to the door.’

  The builder clicked his fingers at Knocker – then walked away, leaving the tank uncovered.

  ‘Men, to the tank wall. Now!’ Tom ordered.

  ‘What’s happening?’ said Penny, cradling Jemima.

  ‘Our landlord’s got a visitor,’ Tom said keenly. ‘And Jack’s forgotten to cover us up.’ He picked up the only saucepan they possessed and smacked it hard against the house wall. ‘Grab anything that makes a noise. Let’s go.’ And he was gone, waving the others to follow.

  Across the space, Kyle Salter and Ralph faced up.

  ‘You leave him alone,’ Penny Perfect warned. ‘Mummy’s boy he might be, but mummies protect their young, remember?’

  ‘I’ll get you,’ Salter mouthed at Ralph. And he picked up the torch he’d dropped in the fight, re-lit it properly and joined the flow of bodies.

  ‘I don’t know why they’re bothering,’ Jemima whittled, shivering into Penny’s arms. ‘Whoever it is will only end up shrunk like the rest of us.’

  Hearing the thud of multiple footsteps, Ralph turned to see who the visitor could be. He gasped out loud when he recognised the face.

  Detective Inspector Nicholas Bone had followed Jack in.

  Seen at Last

  Despite his mother’s protests about toxic fallout from garden puffers, Ralph snatched up a loose piece of firewood and was at the tank wall in a matter of seconds. With an arm across his mouth to protect his lungs from the choking sulphur air, he found a space among the row of miniones and walloped the aquarium with everything he’d got.

  To the giants in the room it must have sounded no louder than a fairy sneezing, for neither of them cast their eye towards the tank, and to Ralph’s dismay, Bone turned his attention first to The Frisker, circling the thing like a member of the public invited to inspect a magician’s cabinet.

  Jack was straight into pantomime mode, dancing, half-bent, wringing his hands. He reminded Ralph of the creat
ure, Gollum, from The Lord of the Rings, always sucking up, never to be trusted. He touched a button. The trestle table buzzed to the hum of The Frisker’s motor, its bright lights raced each other round the frame.

  Bone seemed unimpressed. Pursing his lips like a small pair of bellows, he turned a half-circle and rumbled out a question (it was easy to guess from the tone of his voice). And now his watery, policeman’s eyes did begin to pan every corner of the room.

  ‘Louder,’ Tom shouted to the cast of miniones. ‘We’ve got to make ourselves heard.’ And he banged the sheer wall of glass so hard that the body of his saucepan flew off the handle.

  Ralph hammered away with all his might, till sweat beads were trickling into his eyes and his biceps were angry, complaining and sore. But it was working. Bone had raised a hand to his ear and was fiddling with something just inside the shell. Ralph realised at once it was a hearing aid. Please, he begged all the powers of creation, make him turn it up really loud. He whacked the glass with extra force.

  The policeman listened attentively for a moment, then, with a puzzled frown, he turned towards the tank.

  Triumph.

  Surely?

  He must see.

  No.

  Quicker than a ferret down a rabbit hole, Jack had nipped in front of the detective, blocking Bone’s view of that side of the room. He minced a little more and waggled a mug. ‘Tea, Inspector?’

  Bone appeared to say a sharp, ‘No, thank you.’ He dipped a hand inside his jacket and retrieved what looked to be a piece of newsprint.

  As he unfolded it, Jack stepped sideways towards the sofa and picked up the plastic covering sheet. Snarling at Knocker to ‘git out of the way’, he casually turned from Bone and threw the sheet loosely over the tank, plunging the miniones into darkness.

  ‘Blast,’ said Tom, his anger illumined by the flare of the torches.

  ‘What now?’ said Sam.

  The plumber looked up at the plastic sky. ‘There’s a hole in it,’ he muttered.

  ‘Great,’ said Kyle. ‘Our very own ozone hole.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’ asked Wally, wiping sweat off his brow.

  Tom looked at the dripping branches of the tree. ‘Torch it,’ he said. ‘Set it alight. The wet wood will smoke and the air hole will draw the fumes up and out. Let’s send our policeman a signal, shall we?’ He looked at the rest of the dumbfounded miniones.

  Neville tightened his fist. ‘Aye, do it,’ he said.

  So Kyle played his torch among the dried, dead wood of the lowest branches, turning them from grey to a dancing gold. The flames swept inwards towards the trunk. The wood split and crackled and the flame trails merged. Whumph. With a flash and a surge of heat, the tree began to burn. A coil of smoke rose out of the flames and headed towards the hole above.

  By now, Ralph had run further down the tank towards a thin sliver of natural light. If he shut one eye and squinted hard, Jack and the Inspector were still just visible through a slit in the sheet.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Tom.

  ‘They’re just talking,’ said Ralph. But in his heart he knew it was more than that. Bone’s facial expression was dark and distrustful. He had thrust the piece of newsprint under Jack’s nose and was clearly interrogating the builder about it. Ralph’s heart began to pound. This had to be to do with Professor Collonges. But what could Bone be saying to Jack? Carefully observing their body movements, Ralph imagined it went like this:

  Bone: ‘Do you know this man, Mr Bilt?’ He taps his finger on the last known picture of Ambrose Collonges, genius of physics, first reported missing six weeks ago.

  Jack grimaces. He shakes his head.

  ‘You sure about that?’

  Jack pushes back his sleeve. On his arm, the strange-looking wristwatch blinks.

  Bone sees it, but presses on with his inquiry. ‘Take a good look at the name below the picture. Ambrose Collonges. Unusual, isn’t it? Difficult to say. Even harder to forget. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr Bilt?’

  Jack wrinkles his nose. He has the look of a man whose collar has been felt. He smirks. He’s clearly had enough of these questions.

  Not so Inspector Bone. ‘He’s gone missing, you see, and I intend to find him, which is why I’m here, with you and your contraptions…’ He bounces on his toes and starts to prod and poke, examining the ramshackle bits of invention that will one day, Jack hopes, find themselves displayed on the end of a pier.

  Jack says nothing. He lets Bone wander. The policeman starts towards the Miniville project, then pauses in the very centre of the room. His nose twitches. So does Knocker’s. Jack Bilt wipes some snot from his. He twists the green pyramid on his wrist, tuning in to Bone’s body heat. One quick press of the red counterpart and the troublesome copper will be arresting nothing much bigger than an ant.

  Bone puts his fists to his hips. He sniffs and sniffs and sniffs again. Something, somewhere is burning, he’s sure of it. But he can’t decide what or where. He stares at the tank and presses Jack again. ‘During the course of my investigations, I’ve discovered that before he disappeared, Professor Collonges had an extension built at the back of his house. Sloppy job. Done on the cheap. I found an invoice for the work tucked away in his desk. Your name appears at the top of that invoice. How do you explain that, Mr Bilt?’

  ‘Like this,’ says the builder, and he presses the red button.

  ‘No,’ cried Ralph, jumping back.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Jack’s zapped the Inspector.’

  Tom muscled him aside, then shook his head, puzzled. ‘No. The copper’s still there.’

  ‘What?’ Ralph squinted again.

  The plumber wasn’t wrong. Inspector Bone hadn’t joined the Lilliput brigade. He could still be measured in metres, not millis. ‘It’s not worked,’ Ralph said. ‘Something’s gone wrong. Jack looks scared. He’s going to the kitchen.’

  ‘I wonder what that could be for,’ Tom muttered, knowing full well that Jack would probably be searching in his fridge for the stone.

  ‘Bang the glass! Bang the glass! Inspector Bone’s coming!’

  But there was no need for anyone to make another sound. A second later, the skirt of plastic was lifted and the moustachioed face of Bone peered in.

  For one dreadful moment, Ralph feared the policeman might faint with shock. His watercolour eyes froze dead in their sockets when he saw the house and the smoking tree and the dozen or so human beans jumping and waving. Confusion passed over him, then stunned disbelief, then the cold, hard light of understanding. He pushed back the sheet, pushed up his sleeve and craned a hand over the wall of the tank.

  Tom grabbed Ralph’s shoulders and twisted the boy to face him. ‘I’m going back for your mum and Jemima. Climb onto his fingers. Get out while you can.’

  But despite these heroic words, the fingers never came. As the hand descended, a resounding bong rippled through the air. The hand snaked upwards and out again. Inspector Bone crumpled in a heap on the floor.

  And there stood Jack, proudly swinging a far less subtle kind of particle displacer: a wide-bottomed, long-handled frying pan.

  Ultimatum

  Ralph watched with a kind of helpless fascination as Jack dragged the detective’s unconscious body into the space behind The Frisker, where he tied him up with a length of washing line and gagged him with a pair of rolled-up socks. And when this ghastly deed was done, Jack slid his bony hands together, stared down briefly at the object of his crime, then turned on his heels and marched towards the tank.

  ‘Everyone, to the house now,’ yelled Tom. He grabbed Ralph’s arm and yanked him up the steps. ‘Hide yourself away. This looks like trouble.’

  ‘What do you think he’s going to do?’ Wally said as they streamed into the parlour, looking back towards Jack.

  They didn’t have long to wait for an answer. With a deep-lying structural groan, the whole house was suddenly tilted backwards, then tipped as far the other way, then
backwards again. Ralph fell to the floor and collided with a chair as it tumbled over and bowled towards the fireplace. There were frightened cries from all around the room. Neville was hit by a flying painting and Kyle Salter was spilt out through a window. From her ghost-world, Miriam wailed in anger and Ralph thought he heard calls from the tower room as well. What must it be like to be fastened in chains and thrown around like this? he wondered.

  With a bump, the house came upright once more and Jack’s whispering voice floated through the rooms.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Tom shouted, getting back to his feet, clutching his arm just below the elbow. It was bleeding. There was broken glass at his feet.

  Ralph strained his ears. The howling wind of Jack Bilt’s words had a cruel but definite rhythmic twist. ‘I think he’s saying…I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.’

  Miniville creaked and rattled its bones. And then from the wolf’s mouth came a short word, an easy, one syllable, soft-sounding word, that no one, especially not Ralph, could miss. ‘Boy…’

  ‘That’s you,’ said Kyle, lurching in through the door with cinder burns on his face and hands. Behind him, the dying tree still crackled. ‘He wants you, Rafe. He wants the little worm who stole his stone. I say we give you up.’

  But once again, Kyle’s threats could not be played out. After one more stride, he was thrown off his feet as the house rocked again, and this time, ended up flat on its back. Kyle crashed into what had been the ceiling once, breaking a hole in the lath and plaster. Ralph was more fortunate. He’d nearly plunged into the deep fireplace, but had rolled aside and clung to an old wall light. While he lay there, catching his breath, he stared through skylights that used to be windows. Something was coming down through one.

  A pair of tweezers.

  Agh!

  He screamed and rolled away just in time. The points of the tweezers crashed through the window, showering glass like frost being brushed off a privet hedge. The points nipped and clicked, crushing one wall light between their jaws. Tom Jenks, who’d been trapped behind a sliding sideboard, pushed it away and hobbled over, shielding Ralph to the hallway door, now a long hole in the new ‘first floor’.