5 The Daring Escape

By R.M. Hamilton

In the twilight, illuminated by the garden lamp, Professor Snot resembled a grinning jack-O-lantern.

“That is very helpful,” said the policeman. “We wouldn’t like to leave the children unattended. Thank you, Professor. And thank you for your helpful tip that the Picasso was hidden in the greenhouse.”

“Not a problem,” said Professor Snot.

“This is an outrage!” shouted Uncle Octavius. “I didn’t steal a Picasso! I wouldn’t steal a Picasso. Picassos are ugly! They reek of modernity! If I was going to steal art, I would steal a Rubins or a Rembrandt! Something good!”

“How interesting,” said the policeman smoothly. “How fascinating that you would say that. Hop in the police car quietly and we’ll take a fun little ride to the station, and we’ll get you a nice coffee and you can tell us all about the other pieces of art you’d like to steal.”

Uncle Octavius glared at the policeman. “I want a lawyer!”

The policeman looked disappointed. “That’s your right,” he muttered. “But you can chat to us first you know. We’d love to hear about your, um, art collecting passion.”

“I know all your tricks!” yelled Uncle Octavius. “You’d like to worm a confession out of me, wouldn’t you? That would get you a nice promotion, wouldn’t it? And why aren’t you telling me I have the right to remain silent? If you’re going to arrest me, at least do it properly.”

A policewoman wandered over and looked at Uncle Octavius with interest. “He’s been watching too much American TV, Sergeant Potts,” she said dispassionately.  

“He certainly has been, Constable Toggle,” agreed Sergeant Potts grimly. “Although, I wish he would remain quiet. He’s awfully loud.”

“I do not watch TV,” snarled Uncle Octavius. “American or otherwise. TV is bad for the brain. It’s the ugliest aspect of modernity I can think of!”

“You can be quiet if you’d like,” said Constable Toggle. “In fact, we’d appreciate it. But you must come to the station with us.”

“This is wrong, this is all wrong!” yelled Uncle Octavius, getting into the car. “Can’t you see I’m being framed?”

As the police car drove out onto the road, Uncle Octavius stuck his head out the window and bellowed to David and Debbie, “I do NOT trust Professor Snot! Get away from him the first chance you get!”

Suddenly, the last police car was gone, and David and Debbie were standing in front of Professor Caldron Snot.

“How sad for you that insanity runs in the family,” said Professor Snot in a ponderous voice. “It explains so much, doesn’t it? That’s probably why you hallucinate about seeing non-existent ghosts in Berrima. Fortunately, I know the cure for this kind of madness. Work. Lots and lots of work. You can start by cooking me that delicious swordfish steak I assume is in Octavius’s car. I have some business calls to make.”

About ten minutes later, Professor Snot came storming into the kitchen. “Why isn’t the internet working?”

“Because Uncle Octavius doesn’t believe in the internet, he had it turned off,” said Debbie, looking up from the pot where she was boiling the swordfish steak. Debbie and David had not been sure how to cook a swordfish steak, but they could cook eggs.

“I imagine it’s about the same thing,” David had said doubtfully.

“No internet!?” snarled Professor Snot. “That man is a bigger idiot than I thought! Why didn’t he tell me about this at the Briars?”

“Don’t you have data on your phone?” asked David.

A nasty look came onto Professor Snots face. “I only use landline phones,” he said sneakily. “I don’t want anyone sending me a text about…well, that is none of your business. What is that awful smell?”

“Your dinner,” said Debbie. “You told us to cook it. We’ve only cooked eggs before, but David added a bottle of vanilla essence to make it nice for you.”

“What a repulsive family,” said Professor Snot coldly. “What a stupid, idiotic, repulsive family. I shall order something worthy of my sophisticated palate and you can eat your nasty boiled vanilla swordfish steak!”

Professor Snot’s delivery food certainly smelt a lot nicer than the boiled vanilla swordfish steak. David and Debbie could her him loudly slurping and crunching it down in the grand dining room.

“What do you think he got?” asked Debbie.

“It smells like Chinese,” muttered David.

“Oh I love Chinese food,” grumbled Debbie. She poked at the swordfish steak on her plate. “I don’t think we cooked this quite right, it doesn’t taste so good.”

David pulled a face. “Let’s go and get some grapes from the greenhouse.”

It was dark by now. David found a torch and he and Debbie walked down the garden towards the greenhouse. As they approached the greenhouse, something glittered on the ground. Debbie bent down and picked it up. It was a small, shiny button with a fancy coat of arms on it with the letters, J and Y stamped on it.

Debbie put it into her pocket.  David was just opening the door to the greenhouse when Professor Snot’s awful voice boomed down the path, “children! Come here! There’s a huge, poisonous looking spider in my bedroom and you need to kill it!”

His voice was as mean as ever, but this time there was a slight panic in it. “Hurry up!” bellowed the mean voice from the house.

“We don’t like spiders either!” yelled David.

“Do as you’re told!” shouted Professor Snot. “Get in here and kill this venomous spider or it might harm me badly!”

“We don’t want him to die,” said Debbie.

David rolled his eyes and went stomping towards the house.

They found Professor Snot cowering in the corner of his upstairs bedroom, gazing at a small, unimportant looking Daddy-long-legs.

David scooped it up in an empty marmite jar he had collected from the kitchen.

“What a harrowing experience!” groaned Professor Snot. “A brush with death is a deep and terrible thing. You brats wouldn’t know anything about what I’m feeling. What took you so long?”

David opened his mouth, but Professor Snot waved his hand scornfully at him, “don’t try to be intelligent. It might break your brain. Get in the car, we’re moving to the old governor’s mansion in Berrima.”

“Next to the haunted gaol?”

Professor Snot looked at Debbie’s terrified face with disgust. “Don’t be such a coward,” he sneered. “I know all about your melodramatic little lies about seeing ghosts. The problem with children these days is that you have no toughness and you’re afraid of everything. As a great scholar and writer, I have been awarded the Academic and Writer’s Residency Award of the Governor’s Mansion. I wasn’t going to take it because it’s such a drafty old house and so far away from my favourite golf course. But at least it will have internet. Now get in the car!”

Professor Snot was right about the governor’s mansion being drafty. At first, he told them to take the bedroom on the side of the house furthest away from the gaol. Debbie was especially relieved.

But ten minutes later he was in their room ordering them to switch. “There is a large hole in the window of my room,” said Professor Snot angrily, (as though it was David and Debbie’s fault that it was there). “I can’t sleep in a draft, I might catch double pneumonia. You can sleep there until the window gets mended.”

“I don’t want to sleep this close to the gaol,” whispered Debbie to David.

“Don’t worry,” said David. “Remember how we beat the clockwork giant. Remember what the fatal flaw was.”

“You mean there have been giants before and there will be giants again, but faith will conquer them all?” asked Debbie.

“Yes,” said David. “I bet if faith can knock out a giant, it can knock out a ghost. Things will seem better in the morning.”

That things will seem better in the morning is usually a true statement. But it wasn’t a true statement this morning.

Professor Snot was on the phone and he was very, very loud.

“I tell you I haven’t seen Claudine! How dare you call me up and accuse me of seeing Claudine when you never put Claudine in the tree? Don’t lie to me, you did not put Claudine in the tree. You did not! I looked, I…. Oh wait a minute. Those brats were on the golf course the day before…I wonder….wait a minute…”

Professor Snot’s feet began to pound up the stairs. He threw Debbie and David’s bedroom door open, his eyes were boggling with rage, “you stole that ladybug balloon! You went back on the golf course, after I told you not too! Where is she? Where is Claudine? You’d better tell me!” And with a menacing expression, Professor Snot began to remove his great big leather belt.

“Run!” screamed David. “He’s going to wallop us!”

Debbie and David rushed toward the door that was full of hateful Professor Snot. They managed to shove past him and charge down the stairs.

“The door, David! The door!” screamed Debbie.

“Get back here, brats!” bellowed Professor Snot as he came crashing down the stairs. David wrenched the key around and flung the door open.

Standing on the porch was a short, stout woman.

“Oh,” said the short, stout woman. “What are you doing here?”

Professor Snot came storming up, holding his pants up with one hand, waving his belt about with the other, “now listen to me, brats!” His eyes fell on the woman.

“Oh, Miss Polewidth,” said Professor Snot, hastily dropping his belt to his side and looking embarrassed. “I wasn’t expecting you!”

“I had heard that lights were seen in this house late last night,” said Miss Polewidth excitedly. “I assumed it was Lucretia Dunkley manifesting again. But now I see it is you, taking up your residency! This is wonderful news. What a boon for the Southern Highlands! I didn’t know you were a father.” She looked coldly at David and Debbie.

Professor Snot assumed a saintly, sad expression. “I have not been blessed with a family, Miss Polewidth. These poor little children have come into my care because their Uncle Octavius Montgomery is a slithering kleptomaniac; hell bent on emptying all the art museums of the world.”

“I am not surprised to hear this,” said Miss Polewidth grimly. “The man is a loon. He ponged up his garden a while ago with the most dreadful sort of flower. How good of you to rescue these, er, creatures. I was wondering,” a speculative look gleamed in her eye, “could I borrow them?”

Professor Snot made a growly sort of noise in his throat. “Why?” he asked sternly.

“Because my clairvoyant recommended it. Mrs Potbelly, the deputy editor of Glorious Living has been looking for a clairvoyant to help us connect with Lucretia. And she has found one. Madam Claudine is the best clairvoyant in the world.”

Professor Snot looked like he wanted to use a very bad word. Instead, he pressed his lips together.

Miss Polewidth rushed on. “I had a reading with her yesterday. What an insightful woman. She told me I was an overly empathic giver and that I needed to focus more on me to achieve true happiness.” Miss Polewidth smiled widely.

Then she stopped smiling. “She also said that the current star alignment meant that I need to embrace something that normally disgusts me. So, I’ve decided to spend time with children.” She shuddered. “It was either that or eat more vegetables.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Polewidth, but I really can’t,” began Professor Snot.

But David broke in. “We want to spend time with Miss Polewidth, don’t we Debbie?”

“Yes,” said Debbie firmly.

“Good. We’ll leave at once. I will cultivate these young minds and in doing so appease the stars,” said Miss Polewidth. “Go and put your shoes on, children.”

Professor Snot followed David and Debbie into the house. “You brats may think you’ve won,” he murmured in a low, horrible voice that couldn’t reach the waiting Miss Polewidth. “But you’ll have to come back here eventually and when you do, it will be the worse for you. Now, where is Claudine?”

“You know where Claudine is!” David tied his shoelace. “She’s the fortune teller at the fair! You visited her.”

As soon as he said it, he knew he’d made a mistake.

“Oh, so it was you creeping about, was it?” demanded Professor Snot. “I don’t mean that Claudine. Tell me where the other Claudine is!”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about! And we have to go with Miss Polewidth,” said Debbie.

David and Debbie ran outside to the waiting car.

Professor Snot stood on the porch and watched them get into Miss Polewidth’s car.

“Just remember,” shouted Professor Snot, “wherever you go today, you’ll be coming back to me tonight! And I’ll be right here, waiting!”

“What a noble man! Providing such security for you in your hour of need,” said Miss Polewidth. “I’ll be sure to return you to him, safe and sound. Please feel free to put your sticky hands all over my nice clean car.”

David and Debbie were indignant.

‘We’re not babies!”

“We don’t have sticky hands!”

“Please continue to be as rude and tiresome as you can, children. It’s what the stars have decreed for me today. I must embrace it. It is my fate.”

And with that, Miss Polewidth began to speed towards Sydney.

 All writing and design belong to R.M. Hamilton. The picture of the Governor’s Mansion is from Wikipedia Commons. Yes, it’s a real place.