Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot Read online

  To Robin T-S

  The best lad imaginable, from his sort-of-step-dad -

  Slothinteee! Golden Hedgehog? -

  This book is dedicated

  With love. Xx

  Horatio Clare

  To Martha

  Jane Matthews

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1: Rambunctious Boy

  CHAPTER 2: The Spell

  CHAPTER 3: How Do You Break a Spell?

  CHAPTER 4: The Secret

  CHAPTER 5: The Owl

  CHAPTER 6: Unkillable Monster, Impossible Quest

  CHAPTER 7: Surprising Events at Woodside Terrace

  CHAPTER 8: Eighty Squirrels, One Heron

  CHAPTER 9: Exercise is Good For You

  CHAPTER 10: The Attack

  CHAPTER 11: A Battle of Life and Death

  CHAPTER 12: Face to Face with the Terrible Yoot

  CHAPTER 13: When the Time is Right

  CHAPTER 14: The Visitor from the Furthest North

  CHAPTER 15: The Miracle

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  Rambunctious Boy

  Aubrey’s first scream was so loud it blew the wax out of his nurse’s ears. All babies cry when they are born, but Aubrey’s WAAAWWLL! was so fierce it also set off a doctor’s car alarm.

  She was an elderly nurse with a face like a kindly gargoyle. She washed him and wrapped him in a blanket.

  ‘This child has the howl of a wolf!’ the nurse exclaimed.

  Aubrey took another breath and yowled so loudly he went purple. He kicked like mad too, catching the nurse a good hoof in the guts as she handed him to his mother.

  ‘Guh!’ she gasped. ‘And he’s…’ she searched for the right word, unable to breathe until she found it, ‘…Rambunctious!’

  The nurse could not remember the last time she had said ‘rambunctious’ but she knew that it was an American word which means exactly what it sounds like. Blowing out ear wax, winding his midwife and setting off a car alarm were Aubrey’s first rambunctious acts, and he achieved them in under a minute.

  There is a theory that very small children subconsciously remember everything they hear. I don’t know if it’s true, but Rambunctious! Wolf! It might explain what happened next.

  Next, when he was less than a year old, Aubrey saw someone running past the house where he lived with his parents. He decided it was time he ran, too. At his age wolf cubs can run marathons. Aubrey had barely learned how to stand.

  Quick! he thought, get moving!

  He jumped up, threw himself forward and flung out a leg, just like the runner. His body kept going forward but the leg gave up suddenly. The floor flipped up and bashed him. He tried again, many times…

  …it was like listening to apples rolling off a table.

  ‘That’s Aubrey again, smashing the place up,’ remarked Mr Ferraby with a grin, as the thuds and blows of Aubrey’s running practice reverberated through Woodside Terrace. The Ferrabys lived next door. Mr Ferraby was an expert on the astonishing array of sounds Aubrey created as he became bigger, stronger and more adventurous.

  Aubrey’s parents begged him to be patient.

  ‘Please try walking first!’ implored his mother, Suzanne. Suzanne was a nurse. She knew her son was tough but she was worried he would hurt himself.

  ‘It’s the traditional next step!’ his father said. Jim was an English teacher who loved stories. He was secretly delighted that his son did not seem interested in following the normal story pattern of stand, then walk, then run.

  The little boy ignored them both. He specialised in ignoring Jim and Suzanne. He loved them, but you can’t spend too much time listening to your parents, not if you want to live to the limit.

  ‘Live To The Limit’ was Aubrey’s philosophy at this point. Having a philosophy is a very good thing, especially if it leads you on a life-saving quest.

  However, having a philosophy is not such a good thing if it leads you to crash two cars before you are old enough to drive one, which was Aubrey’s next trick.

  When he was four years old Aubrey thought it might be fun to take the car for a spin. He had often watched his parents driving: it was easy. One Sunday afternoon, when his father was upstairs sleeping under one of his favourite books, and his mother was in the garden, poking around in the vegetable patch and talking to the woodpigeons, Aubrey climbed a chair and took the car key off the table. He was banned from using the front door by himself because the lane was just there, but now he did – using the chair again to reach the catch – and stepped out. He pointed the key at the car and pressed the button. The car clicked and flashed its lights at him in a friendly way.

  FOOTNOTE: Aubrey’s philosophy at this point is somewhere near Hedonism: live life for pleasure and excitement, nothing is more important. An ancient Greek genius called Democritus came up with the idea that contentment and happiness are the aim of a well-lived life, and if you feel them, it proves you are living well. You might feel it does not take a genius to come up with that but Democritus also came up with the idea of atoms, two thousand years before their existence was proved.

  FOOTNOTE TO FOOTNOTE: Like Hedonism, atoms turn out to be something of a mixed blessing.

  ‘Hello car!’ Aubrey whispered.

  The view from the driving seat was mostly sky, with a steering wheel across it. He stood up on the seat: much better! He could see down the lane towards town, and he could see Rushing Wood rising up on both sides of the valley, and he could see Mr and Mrs Ferraby’s smart blue German car, parked smack in front of him. He would have to go around that.

  Although Aubrey forgot to put the key in the ignition, which meant that the engine did not switch on, which meant he was never going to get very far, he did not forget to let the handbrake off. He had watched Jim and Suzanne haul it up, push the button and let it down. Aubrey did this with both hands while standing on the seat. It worked a treat. The lane just there tilts slightly down towards the town, so as soon he released the brake the car began to move.

  ‘Yup!’ cried Aubrey. It was one of his favourite words.

  ‘YUP!’ he shouted, as the car began to roll properly, and he turned the steering wheel hard to the right, because Mr and Mrs Ferraby’s car was very close now and he had to go round it or –

  Mr Ferraby’s car began to shout and wail like a goose and a donkey having a fight - HONK HONK! - HEE HAAW! - and flash all its lights in distress.

  Because Woodside Terrace is a very quiet place, where nothing really disturbs the peace except the postman, the parking ticket patrol, the waste disposal truck, the delivery lorry to the tearoom in the old mill, the 10,000 tourists who pass every summer on their way to explore the Rushing Wood, as well as all the people who go walking, running, cycling and exercising dogs every day, the sound of car alarms is seldom heard there. Mr Ferraby had never even heard his car’s alarm before. He burst out of his house, ready to rescue his beloved machine. Thieves, bandits and vandals were rarely seen on Woodside Terrace but now Mr Ferraby imagined a horde of them attacking Liebling Trudi. (This was his secret name for his car, because she was so German, so glossy and so sleek.)

  FOOTNOTE: Liebling is German for ‘Darling’.

  Mr Ferraby believed he was going to have to fight about ten vandals and/or bandits, certainly two or three. He was determined to defend Liebling Trudi to the last. His chances of victory were non-existent, he knew, and it was a pity he must die now, in the prime of his late middle age, but if his time had come he was ready. His doomed last stand would make Trudi proud of him, and Mrs Ferraby too.

  Braced for a
death-struggle with all the crazy-faced cohorts of hell, Mr Ferraby was entirely unprepared for the sight of Aubrey, standing in the driving seat of his father’s car – the nose of which was rammed into the back of Liebling Trudi – gripping the wheel with both hands and smiling a reassuring smile. ‘You little vandal bandit!’ Mr Ferraby cried.

  As soon as she heard Trudi’s alarm Suzanne felt a familiar conviction: her son was in action somewhere nearby. Suzanne could move with great speed when she wanted to: she was out of the garden and down to the lane so quickly that the boy believed she must have jumped over the house. ‘Aubrey! Aubrey?’ she called, as she flew towards the noise.

  On her arrival, Aubrey gave her his reassuring smile too.

  Jim woke and stuck his head out of the attic window as the appalling noise of mechanical panic filled the afternoon with honk-wailing.

  ‘Aubrey?’ he called. ‘Is that you?’

  Suzanne lifted the little boy out of the car and Aubrey gave his father a champion’s grin – such a radiant, triumphant smile that you would have thought crashing the cars was exactly what everyone had been hoping he would do, and now they were going to give him a medal for it. His father could not help himself. He laughed.

  Mr Ferraby switched off Liebling Trudi’s alarm and looked up at his laughing neighbour with the expression of a man whose dentist’s drilling hand has just slipped.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, Mr Ferraby,’ said Aubrey’s father, ‘Is there much damage? I’m coming down…’

  ‘Your car has a great alarm, Mr Ferraby!’ said Aubrey, admiringly, but his compliment was lost under the many apologies his mother was making, and the telling-off she was giving him at the same time.

  ‘Did you just jump over the house, Mum?’ he asked her, but she did not seem to hear. She was very busy with Mr Ferraby.

  Mr Ferraby did not go bright red and roar, ‘If you can’t control that child I am going to eat him!’ which part of him longed to roar – the same part which wanted to throw his hat on the ground and stamp on it until he felt better. He was a good man, and besides, he was not wearing a hat.

  ‘The boy’s alright, is he?’ he asked, with wonderful courtesy.

  ‘He is,’ Suzanne said. ‘And he’s never going to do anything like that again. Apologise to Mr Ferraby, Aubrey!’

  ‘Sorry Mr Ferraby,’ said Aubrey. ‘I tried to miss.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like there’s much harm done,’ Mr Ferraby said, with immense self-control. He could see a blistering big dent in Liebling Trudi’s back bumper.

  ‘Very sorry, Mr Ferraby,’ Suzanne said, fiercely. ‘And I’ll never do anything so stupid again.’

  ‘Very sorry Mr Ferraby,’ Aubrey said. ‘I’ve never done anything so stupid again.’

  ‘Alright,’ said Mr Ferraby, quietly. ‘No one’s hurt, that’s the main thing.’ He retreated into his house, where Mrs Ferraby was making a pot of tea. He gave her a strained smile. ‘That was Aubrey,’ he told her, ‘smashing up the car.’

  Jim and Suzanne’s joint lecture about The Car Incident seemed to work. They were horrified (once Jim had stopped laughing) about the damage Aubrey could have caused, and they blamed themselves for leaving the key where he could reach it. As it turned out, hitting Trudi was the best thing Aubrey could have done. Had he missed her, and set off in a car which he had no way of controlling… Suzanne said she, ‘shuddered to think of the consequences’.

  Aubrey said he would have used the handbrake and Jim said actually the lane levelled out and he wouldn’t have got far, but Suzanne said she was not interested in their theories: what was dangerous, illegal and wrong would always be dangerous, illegal and wrong. Jim and Aubrey had to agree with that.

  Of course Aubrey still ignored his parents’ instructions when it came to flooding the bathroom, raiding the fridge, skiing down the stairs (which came much closer to killing him than driving the car), wearing the cat like a bearskin hat, setting water traps for Jim and riding his bicycle backwards down the steep bit of the garden. (He only needed three stitches after that, which Suzanne did for him.) But he was careful not to pull anything too stylish, dramatic or dangerous, because he loved his parents and did not want to worry them.

  For the next few years the boy went to school, read books, messed about, played games with his friends, loved the holidays, and grew. But then the horrendous spell came over his father and everything began to change.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Spell

  ‘What’s up with Dad?’ Aubrey asked his mother, as they did the shopping one rainy Saturday afternoon. ‘His face is like a sinking moon.’

  ‘He’s just a bit worried,’ Suzanne said. ‘He could do with some cheering up.’

  ‘What’s he worried about?’

  Suzanne shook her head. ‘He’s not really sure. He’s not sleeping much at night.’

  ‘Is that why he’s sleeping today?’

  ‘Yes. We need to make sure he eats well, sleeps and takes lots of exercise – so if he asks you to go for a walk, do go. And if he doesn’t, you ask him, would you darling? It’s just what he needs.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Aubrey.

  Suzanne was a nurse, a very good one, and what she said was true. When people are worried, food, sleep, exercise and kindness are exactly what they need. But Suzanne could not know that her husband was falling under a spell, an horrendous spell of tremendous strength and power. Aubrey, Suzanne and Jim all knew something was wrong, but they had no idea what it was.

  ‘OK Dad?’

  Aubrey and Jim were walking to school. Normally Jim would be looking at the trees, at the clouds, at the birds and at Aubrey, and chatting away about everything. Jim was the sort of English teacher whose jacket is sometimes a bit scruffy, whose shirts are old and comfortable rather than sharp and new, whose hair occasionally looks more happy than neat, and who loves telling stories. He was not a man to miss anything interesting, and everything was interesting to him normally.

  But this morning he was looking at his feet, as though all he wanted to do was watch his shoes walking down the lane.

  ‘Hm? Oh, yes. Fine.’

  ‘You don’t look that fine,’ said Aubrey.

  ‘Don’t I?’

  ‘You look like a man wearing a heavy hat.’

  Jim smiled and squeezed his shoulder.

  ‘That’s exactly right,’ he said. ‘That is how I feel. Like a man wearing a heavy hat. I’m sure it’ll pass – it’s probably just the summer ending, and going back to work.’

  ‘But you love work! You love teaching!’

  Jim sighed. ‘I do, normally. It’s just this heavy hat.’

  On the way back from school, as they walked up the lane, Aubrey took a long look at Jim. His father’s face was pale and tense. His gaze seemed empty. It was as though his eyes stared into his own mind and saw only sad thoughts there.

  ‘How’s the heavy hat, Dad?’ Aubrey asked quietly.

  Jim looked down at him and swallowed.

  Aubrey could see his father struggling with what to say next.

  ‘It’s still there,’ he said, huskily. ‘And there’s something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a feeling in my stomach.’

  ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘It’s like … you mustn’t worry, Aubrey Boy. It’s just a feeling. Feelings pass, you know?’

  ‘I know!’ Aubrey exclaimed. ‘But what does it feel like?’

  ‘It’s like a hairy worm,’ his father said quietly, and as he said it he looked frightened.

  The next morning, and the morning after that, Suzanne drove Aubrey to school.

  ‘Dad’s still not feeling well,’ she said. ‘He’s having another day in bed.’

  (Aubrey had expected this. He had overheard Suzanne asking Jim how he felt that morning. Jim said he felt ‘Horrendous.’)

  ‘Is it the hairy worm and the heavy hat?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. And the panicked bird.’

  ‘What bird?’
r />   ‘He says it feels as though he has a panicked bird in his chest, trying to get out.’

  ‘Is that why he feels horrendous?’

  ‘Yes darling, that’s right.’

  Aubrey took a deep breath. ‘So – can you cure him, Mum?

  He knew his mother could cure pretty well anything. He watched her face, hoping for her reassuring smile. It was such a beautiful, calming smile that Suzanne’s patients felt better just for seeing it. But that smile did not come. Instead, her mouth bent into a frown, and her head gave a slow half-shake.

  ‘It’s very difficult,’ she said. ‘If he had a germ or a virus or a wound or a disease I could help him. But it isn’t any of those. We just have to look after him, and be very gentle with him until he comes out of it. And we have to be cheery and optimistic, OK?’

  ‘OK!’ said Aubrey, with a cheerfulness he did not really feel.

  ‘Good boy!’ said his mother. ‘Such a good boy! You are wonderful at being cheerful and optimistic!’

  After school the first thing Aubrey did was run upstairs to see his father. He found Jim out of bed, half dressed, wearing old trousers, one of his best shirts, and one sock.

  ‘Hello, Aubrey Boy!’ His father’s lips made a shape which looked as though it was trying very hard to be a smile.

  ‘Hullo Dad. Are you feeling better?’

  ‘Sort of,’ his father said. ‘I can’t seem to decide what to wear.’

  ‘Are you going out?’

  ‘No, just coming down to make supper. I think. Or is your mother making it?’

  And that was the start of the indecisions.