Aunt Effie's Ark, page 5
“I remember firing a cannon,” said Lizzie.
“I remember that!” said Jessie.
“One was called Humpty,” said Casey.
“And the other was Dumpty,” said Jared. But that was all the little ones remembered.
“It’ll all come back to you next summer,” said Peter, “when you see the Margery Daw again.” He pulled our doors across, left a lamp turned down for Jessie, and climbed into his bunk.
“Good night. Sleep tight. Hope the fleas don’t bite!” He laughed gruffly.
“You sound just like the Bugaboo!” Isaac said.
“What’s the Bugaboo?” asked Jessie, and we all slept.
Chapter Six
Finding a Doctor for Daisy
Snow rose till the house and barn became one. Each morning we fed the stock and cleaned out the barn. Each night Peter read us another page of The Wind in the Willows. We played Scrabble, Monopoly, and Strip Jack Naked. We stuck the silver handle in the side of Aunt Effie’s old gramophone, wound it up, and played all her Gracie Fields records. When Gracie Fields sang “Out in the Cold Cold Snow”, we felt sorry for her and cried.
Jared and Jessie got their heads stuck in the horn of the old gramophone, looking for the little men and women Alwyn had told them lived inside and sang and played the music. After we pulled out their heads, we told them Alwyn had made that up. Still Jared kept poking biscuits and bits of bread down the horn.
We played poker for old gramophone needles. When they ran out because Jazz won them all, he said, “Let’s play for pennies.”
“Rather than live under a roof where gambling is carried on,” Daisy pronounced, “I shall fling myself outside to be eaten by the Tattooed Wolf!”
We didn’t mind Daisy being eaten, but we didn’t want to have to explain it to Aunt Effie. So we played poker for matches. Then Jazz won all the matches and tried to sell them back to us at a penny a time, but Daisy found out. “That’s sinful gambling by another name!” she said loftily. So we gave up poker.
We looked at our hibernating cousins: Mabel, Johnny, Flossie, Lynda, Stan, Howard, Marge, and Stuart who lay snoring on their backs. Ann cut out little cocked hats from coloured paper and popped them on their noses. By making little holes in the cocked hats, she produced different notes. After long and patient experiment, she got them all snoring the tune of “God Save Queen Victorious” together. However, when she tried to make them snore the tune of “How Great Thou Art”, Daisy complained.
“Sacrilege!” she exclaimed. “‘How Great Thou Art’ is the favourite song of the Prime Minister! She always has the children sing it to her, whenever she visits a school.” Daisy was a great admirer of the Prime Minister. “She doesn’t put up with any nonsense!” she said, looking at Alwyn.
“Up with any nonsense!” he replied.
Ann then tried blocking our hibernating cousins’ nostrils, one at a time, then both. They snorted and shook their heads, but kept on hibernating. “I don’t think they’re our cousins at all,” Ann said.
“What’s that?” cried Daisy.
“Remember when Aunt Effie said she wasn’t sure whether she was our great-aunt or our great-great-great-great grandmother?”
“Yes!”
“Well,” said Ann, “Mabel, Johnny, Flossie, Lynda, Stan, Howard, Marge, and Stuart might be our grandparents.”
Daisy huffed, “I’ll have you know they’re my brothers and sisters!”
“That’s what you think.” Ann didn’t just have a good memory, but was sometimes relentless in argument. “If Aunt Effie couldn’t remember what she was, how can you be certain?”
Daisy couldn’t think of an answer so she started singing “Abide With Me” very slowly. Daisy found great consolation in hymns.
Peter took a lamp and examined our sleeping cousins closely. “They do look a bit older than the rest of us.”
“‘Change and decay in all about I see!’” Daisy sang.
“I’ve never noticed before,” said Peter, “but Johnny, Stan, Howard, and Stuart have all got long beards.”
“‘Where is death’s sting? Where, Grave, thy victory?’” Daisy sang.
“That’s just because they haven’t shaved since hibernating,” said Marie.
“That’s true,” Peter admitted. “But their beards are down past their waists. Don’t you see they must have had long beards even before they went into hibernation?”
“It is a remarkably cold winter.”
“Yes, but Mabel, Flossie, Lynda, and Marge haven’t grown beards.”
“Perhaps that’s because they’re women,” said Alwyn.
“‘…earth’s vain shadows flee–’” Daisy broke off her hymn to shout, “How dare you talk of my sisters like that. My sisters aren’t women: they’re ladies! And I haven’t grown a beard either!”
“Grown a beard either!”
“Then,” said Ann, “why didn’t Daisy hibernate, too?”
“Certainly,” Alwyn said in the measured voice he kept for teasing Daisy, “it would have been better for us if she had.”
“You shouldn’t have said that,” Marie told Alwyn. “I think you’ve hurt Daisy’s feelings.”
“Hurt Daisy’s feelings?” Alwyn repeated with a question mark at the end. Fortunately Daisy was now singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” so stridently she didn’t hear.
Next morning, Daisy lay in bed long after the rest of us had got up. At last, Marie tapped at her sliding doors, and said, “Would you like to have your breakfast in bed, Daisy?” Daisy neither answered nor opened her eyes. Her nostrils were pinched, and her lips pressed together thin and white.
“I hope she’s all right.”
“We’ll see how she is when we come back from the barn,” said Peter.
“It’s something that’s worried me all winter,” said Marie. “What if one of us falls ill? What will we do for a doctor?”
“There’s Aunt Effie’s medical book,” said Peter. “The Home Medical Encyclopaedia: How To Do Your Own Major Operations.”
“Does it tell you how to set a broken leg?” asked Ann.
Peter opened The Home Medical Encyclopaedia at a page of diagrams and instructions.
“What about cutting off a leg?” asked Ann. “Just supposing we had to…”
Peter turned over some pages and showed her some terrible pictures. Now it was Ann’s face that went white.
“Does it say what to do with the old leg?” asked Lizzie.
“I think you bury it,” Peter said. “That’s what we’d do anyway. Dig a grave, bury the leg, and say something out of the Bible over it.”
“What about where the old leg came off?” asked Jessie. “Do you grow a new one?”
“This is a book about home medicine. It doesn’t answer questions like that.”
Jessie grizzled, “When Jazz pulled off my nose, another one grew at once.”
We all looked at Jazz. He loved playing with the little ones, tugging their noses and ears, showing them the tip of his thumb and saying he’d pulled them off. And then when they felt them, he said they’d grown again.
“Legs don’t grow again,” Peter told Jessie.
“Why not?”
“They can’t. Remember all those pirates with wooden legs on the black schooner?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they’d had their legs blown off with cannonballs. And they didn’t grow again, did they?”
“That’s right!” Jessie cheered up. “And some had no ears,” she said, “because they’d had them cut off in battles.”
“Remember the one who had no nose!” Lizzie said to Jessie. “Jazz told us it was bitten off in a pub fight. And he said the woman who bit it off swallowed it so they couldn’t stick it back on!”
“Jazz’s stories aren’t always true,” said Marie. She frowned at Jazz and nodded to Peter to put away the Home Encyclopaedia with its gruesome pictures. “I’m still worried about Daisy.”
We did the dishes, and Marie said, “Why’s Jessie crying now?”
“Because Jazz told her you can’t pick your nose once it’s cut off,” said Ann. Marie glared at Jazz.
“And Lizzie wants to know if all the cut-off legs go running around together?” said Ann.
“Not if they’re properly buried in the ground,” Marie told Lizzie who cheered up at once. As we went over to the barn, Jazz hopped on one leg, and Casey, Lizzie, Jared, and Jessie hopped in a row behind him.
While we were milking, Ann and Becky were talking about Daisy, and one of the cows turned her head around and said, “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help overhearing. Did you say you need a doctor?”
“Daisy won’t wake up, Blossom,” said Ann. “Marie’s worried in case she needs a doctor. The nearest one is in Matamata, and that’s buried under several hundred feet of snow.”
“But we’ve got a very good doctor here!” said Blossom. And Rosie, the other cow, nodded her head and said, “The best one in the district. We wouldn’t go to anyone else when we’re having our calves!”
“Who?”
“Didn’t you know Hubert’s a doctor? He brought us into the world, and he helped us with our calves. He brought our mothers into the world, our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers!”
Ann and Becky finished stripping Blossom and Rosie, and spoke to Peter. He looked up from scrubbing the last separator discs. As the pigs glunked and glubbed and golloped down the skim dick, we all followed Peter into Hubert’s stall.
Hubert was reading an old copy of the Woman’s Weekly. He looked up at us over his glasses. “It says here, in my horoscope,” said Hubert, “to watch out for coincidences this week. What coincidence have you brought me?”
“Are you a doctor, Hubert?”
Hubert pointed to his wall. A glass-covered certificate hanging there said that Hubert was a graduate of the Dr H. Wakatipu Medical School, licensed to practise medicine. The certificate had a big red seal of wax and was signed by Dr H. Wakatipu, Medical Consultant to the Prime Minister.
“Wakatipu’s in the South Island,” said Jazz.
“Yes.”
“But you’ve never been to the South Island.”
“Who says?”
We all looked disapprovingly at Jazz.
Hubert smiled and said, “I studied by mail – through the Underground Correspondence School.”
“Aunt Effie said something about the Underground Correspondence School.”
“Yes,” said Hubert. “You send Dr Wakatipu fifty guineas through the mail, and he sends back your degree and a certificate to hang on your wall. Anyway, who’s sick?”
“Daisy’s lying in her bunk with her eyes closed, her nostrils pinched, and her lips pressed together,” said Marie. “She won’t wake up, but she doesn’t look as if she’s hibernating.”
Hubert took a stethoscope out of his pocket, poked the ends in his ears, listened to his own heart, and asked, “Is Daisy snoring?”
“No.”
“Then she’s not hibernating. Has Alwyn been repeating everything she says?”
“Yes.”
“And have the others been mocking her?”
“Yes.”
“Then she’s not sick. She’s just feeling sorry for herself. Remember Daisy is your aunt and probably thinks you don’t show her enough respect.”
“But we thought she was our cousin!”
“She’s a great-aunt to some of you. And a great-great-aunt to the little ones. And she’s the oldest of all your uncles and aunts who are hibernating.”
“We were just wondering if they were really our cousins!”
Hubert wagged his head so his long cheeks and his big lips and nostrils all shook. “I’m always telling Aunt Effie she should work out who’s who in her family. But she says genealogy is nonsense.”
“Last summer,” said Ann, “she told us our family’s a dreadful muddle.”
“So are most families,” said Hubert. “And so are most genealogies. Fortunately, I’ve got a good memory, and I’m always here to tell you who you are.” He paused for a moment, shook his head, and took the stethoscope out of his ears. “What’s my name?” he asked.
“Hubert!”
“Remind me: what were we talking about?”
“About you being a doctor.”
“That’s right! I don’t think there’s anything seriously wrong with Daisy. Here, give her a good swig of this three times a day.” He reached under his bed and gave Marie a bottle. The label said, “Old Puckeroo Tonic Incorporating Parrish’s Food and Lane’s Emulsion. Recommended for Horses.” We could see the medicine inside was striped red and white.
“Aunt Effie takes a lot of Old Puckeroo,” said Lizzie.
“I prescribe it for her.” Hubert smiled. “Not the same stuff as this, but made by the same people. Daisy may find the taste of Parrish’s Food a bit repulsive. And the Lane’s Emulsion might make her run to the dunny, but those will just be symptoms of good health.”
“What are symptoms?” asked Lizzie.
“Signs.”
“Then why don’t you say signs?”
“Doctors don’t use ordinary words. Not when we can think of bigger ones. It impresses people.”
Peter wanted to pay Hubert, but he waved his front hoof and said, “It’s all taken care of by the Prime Minister. She pays me to look after you.”
As we were leaving, Jessie turned back. “Hubert?” she asked. “How does the Tattooed Wolf know Aunt Effie’s real name?”
But Hubert just looked at Jessie and shook his head so hard his ears wagged. His stethoscope had disappeared. The certificate on his wall, the Woman’s Weekly, and his glasses had disappeared, too. All we saw was an old horse standing in his stall, shaking his head and blowing chaff out of his nostrils.
We ran back to Aunt Effie’s kitchen and stood around Daisy’s bunk. Marie held her mouth open while Peter poured in the striped medicine. “The red stuff’s the Parrish’s Food,” he said. “The white stuff’s Lane’s Emulsion.”
Daisy spluttered. She opened her eyes, saw the bottle, and was furious. “You mean to say you poured horse medicine down my throat?”
“You wouldn’t wake up, and we didn’t know what to do.”
Daisy closed her eyes, turned over, and put her back to us. “Close the doors,” she said. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“At least,” said Marie, as we ate our lunch, “we know she’s all right.”
“A fair bit of that Lane’s Emulsion went down,” said Peter. “And all the Parrish’s Food. It should start working pretty soon.”
As he spoke, Daisy’s doors slid back. Eyes bulging, she bounded out the kitchen door, down the hall, past the bathroom, and into the dunny.
“Remember when you poured castor oil down the Tattooed Wolf’s throat?” asked Lizzie. “Is Lane’s Emulsion like that?”
“Something like it,” said Peter. “But it doesn’t taste as bad. In fact, some people quite like Lane’s Emulsion.”
Daisy came back white-faced and heard Peter’s last words. “Well you can drink the rest of it yourself,” she hissed.
She climbed into her bunk, but a few minutes later, she had to run for the dunny again.
“Has Daisy got the trots?” asked Jessie.
“Something like that.” Peter put his finger to his lips. “But I think we’d better not say anything about it in front of her. She wouldn’t like it.”
Chapter Seven
“I’ve Got a Big Bag of Chews for You!”
Daisy locked herself in the dunny for hours. When we shook the doorknob she groaned and snarled, “Go away!” and we had to use Aunt Effie’s dunny upstairs. After several days she started squabbling with Alwyn, nagging the little ones, and telling the rest of us what to do.
Marie said, “Daisy’s her old self again, but she’s a lot thinner.”
“That’s all the trotting,” Jazz told her.
Unfortunately Daisy heard Jazz and took to her bed again. Next morning when Marie tried to get her up with a nice cup of tea, she turned her face to the wall.
“I’m the oldest, and nobody shows me any respect.”
“You’ll feel better if you get up.”
“Get up – so you can all laugh behind my back? So Alwyn can repeat everything I say, and the rest of you can giggle and sneer at me?”
We all found something to do at the other end of the kitchen. We didn’t feel like laughing, and we didn’t meet each other’s eyes. We knew we were unkind to Daisy.
As if her crying wasn’t bad enough, she started singing hymns. After several hours of “Rock of Ages, cleft for me…” and “Lead kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom…” and all four hundred verses of “Abide With Me”, we slipped up to Aunt Effie’s room, one by one. Alwyn pulled faces till the rest of giggled – except for Marie who said, “Don’t be mean!”
Peter unlocked the doors and took us upstairs to the next floor, where we could laugh aloud, but it didn’t seem so funny up there. Marie gave us a telling off.
“You should feel sorry for Daisy,” she said. “One day you’ll all be old and crabby, too.”
“Old and crabby, too.”
“And you’re the worst!” Marie told Alwyn. “Repeating everything she says. No wonder she feels miserable.”
“Feels miserable.”
“Here’s another door,” said Peter. “Let’s have a look!” and he murmured to Marie, “Something to keep them busy.” We held up our lanterns and followed him into a dusty room filled with old-fashioned dolls, tennis rackets, cricket bats, a rocking horse, and a football that had gone flat. Lizzie picked up a hockey stick.
“There’s a name on the handle.” Lizzie couldn’t read, but she knew most of the letters. “E-U-P-H-E-M–” she said.
“Shhh! It’s The Name We Dare Not Say!” Peter cocked his head and listened, as if Aunt Effie might be shouting angrily up the stairs.
“The hermit of Mangrove Island called her that name,” Alwyn said. “And the well-spoken old gentleman we met at Kennedy Bay. And the captain of the pirate schooner that attacked us as we crossed the Hauraki Gulf. They all said it.”
