dead pig on rolla skates with a polise siren on its hed. Then he jumps arownd, going “Hut! Hut! Hut!” wich is not mi idea of qwiet either.
So we go throo the big gate and my mum sa, “Now now timothy you must stay close to yore darling mama and not rush off chiz chiz chiz where have you gone?” For it is true, deer reader, I have cast off the shakles of maternal luv (uuurgh, pas the sik bag, matron) and flown off like a free bird. (Ha ha like a big fat gopping vulture ha ha, sa my brother victor who hav just red this over my shouldier. Like he would kno, he run skreaming from the interesting natural history progs on the telly, AND NOW WE SEE MOTHER NATURE RED IN TOOF AND CLAW nash, snarl, blood eveeriwhere, the dulcit tones of Victor sobbing in FEER in the kitchen. But I digres.)
Last seene I was running through the carnyval, ta ran ta rah, mi inocent young brane being corrupted by side shows of feersome depravitty. FABULOSO! I see the GOST TRANE and run up to the skinnie bloke in front. “Hello mr can I go on yore gost trane pliss oh pliss oh pliss oh pliss” for I am not above the begging.
“Well, ain’t you the enthusiastic one, huh, junior?” said Mr. Bones, looking down on the young boy jumping up and down in front of him. “Where’s your mom?”
The boy looked abashed. “Over there,” he said eventually, and pointed at half the county.
“Oh,” said Bones. “Right. Well, so long’s she know where you are, young fella, that’s fine. You want to go on the Ghost Train, hmm?”
The boy nodded hard and fast enough to pull muscles in an older man.
“Okay, but you got to understand, this is one spooky mother of a ride, y’hear? We get kids — oh, heck — twice your age goin’ in here, comin’ out like ooooooold men.” He illustrated “ooooooold” by going bowlegged and waggling his hands. “Why, I went in there with a fine head of hair. Now look!” He whipped off his brown derby to show a perfectly smooth skull. The boy laughed delightedly. “Oh, you can laugh now, but look what this ride gone and done to me. I’m only fifteen!”
I think he is being ECONOMIKLE with the troof but no matter for the GOST TRANE do bekkon (mettaforikaly). Aktually, not that mettaforikaly for it hav a normous SKELLINGTON on top wich do the bekkonin wiv a big hand. Also a big grilla with a rock. But, no, quelle horruers, mes petites. For I have no MONI.
“No cash, huh?” said Bones. “Weeeell…” He looked around with great drama and then ducked close to whisper, “I s’pose I could push the rules and let you in, yeah? But it’s our secret, right? No tellin’ your friends, ’cos I’ll have to say no to ’em. Okay?”
The boy nodded, excited by the conspiracy.
“H’okay, then,” said Bones. He stepped into the ticket booth and slapped out a piece of pasteboard. “Here y’go. One complimentary ticket, courtesy of the management.” The boy took it reverentially. Bones stepped sideways out of the booth and said sternly, “You got a ticket? I see you have.” He plucked it from the boy’s fingers, tore it neatly in two, and returned the stub. Then, brightening, he said, “All aboard the Ghost Train!” and waved him onto the first car.
The driver were a SKELLINGTON too!!! The skinnie blok sa “This heres my frend, driver, so you must be show him a good time.” And the driver put downe his racing paper and sa, “OK Bones” wich is a bit ionic rilly. Then the skinnie blok go awa and the GOST TRANE starts up. The TRANE is a propa one with the smoke and steam and not like that rubish one at Butlers Fair wich was driven by a yoof spotier than my bro wich is saying somthing and no mistaik. He just sat there 4 ages talking to GURLS who ar less fussy than can be beleeved. This driver tho was a proper GOST TRANE driver cos he was DED and not just DED UGLI.
So the TRANE pull awa from the platform and enter the TUNEL OF FEER! Wich i no cos it sa so over the topp.
The train accelerated hard and shot into the tunnel like a ferret down a hole, smashing open the doors that kept the interior in gloom. Timothy had a momentary impression of the hideous grinning face painted across the doors changing its expression to one of worried anticipation just before impact, and could have sworn that he heard the doors say “Ouch” in concert amidst the loud buffet as they bounced off their end stops.
“Ha-ha,” said the driver laconically to himself. The train swept around a corner and down a small hill that must surely take them lower than ground level, slowed to take a hard jink to the left, and then started to pick up speed. Timothy hadn’t been on many ghost trains in his short life, but this one was surely different. Even the way the train ran — heading off into doors to the right of the facade and therefore offering a widdershins ride as distinct from the common clockwise path — seemed calculated to unsettle. For several long seconds, nothing occurred. Then he became aware of a small grey area that, for a curious moment, he felt sure was a window. No, it was too irregular. Suddenly he realised that it was a large toy rabbit, perhaps four feet tall. It had definitely seen better days: one ear was lopsided halfway up its length, the fur was balding down to a hessian quality in places, and one of its button eyes dangled on its cheek by a loose thread.
“THAT’S NOT SKARY AT ALL!” I said, unintimmidatted by the big bunny. “It is not terifying. It is a swiz and a cheat. I wuld ask for my monie back had I pade any. Wich I have not.”
“I am the embodymunt of childhood feers, if you must kno,” sa the bunny. “I can see Im a bit early in yore case. Just give it 20 years and I will skare you something badd, laddy.”
“I do not see how that is possible, my fine thredbear frend,” sa I “For I have never had a bunny as a toy and therfour cannot project my Froydian traumas onto one. So yar, floppy ears.”
It is then that I notise a tabel in the gloome behind him at wich sit other big toys. They are plaing CARDS and drinkking BEER. They call things like, “Betcha had a teddy bear though or a big toothy monkie called Mr. Nana or a comical squid …”
A little voice from the shados sa, “… or Cromatty the Frendly Piebald Rat.” And all the other toys thro there glasses at it.
“Shut up, Cromatty,” they sa, “Nobody ever hav a frendly piebald rat in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Shut up befor we biff you up agane.”
The horor bunny heave a big sigh and sa, “I hav had just aboute enuff of this. I want some fresh air. Here,” he sa waving at the trane driver. “Stopp. I want a ride.” So we stopp and the horor bunny, whoose name is Yan, clime in and then we are off agane.
Jan the Horror Bunny took delicate hold of the thread running from beside the site of his dangling eye and pulled gently, drawing the eye back into its correct place. “That’s better,” he said to Timothy. “It plays absolute hell with your stereoscopic vision having one eye wandering around like that. So, Master …?”
“Timothy,” said Timothy in a small voice, although not as small as one might expect under the circumstances.
“Master Timothy, are you enjoying the fair so far?”
“It’s a bit… funny.”
“Oh, yes,” said Jan, leaning forward in his seat to peer into the darkness, “it’s a funny fair all right.”
Suddenly thin figures, apparently made from outsize black pipe cleaners with broken spoons for heads, leapt out of nowhere and danced around, making gobbling noises. Timothy jumped a little. “Garn!” shouted Jan. “Get it out of it, you
They trundled on in silence for a few more moments. Something indescribably phobic shuffled out and sat by the track, smoking a woodbine. “I am the thing that lives under your bed. Goorah, goorah.” This last delivered as the sort of noise a monster might make if it could get up a bit of enthusiasm.
“No, you ar not,” sa I. “For I sleep on the upper bunk and so wot live under
