Brian Jacques - The Ribbajack

“It will speak to him thus. . . .

‘From the pits of darkness in your mind,

I am Ribbajack, born out of human spite.

Say the name of the one I am brought to find,

command me to take him forever from sight.’

“From that night on, sir, the Ribbajack is never again seen, and neither is your enemy. I have heard tales, some of Ribbajacks who turned on their creators because they could not take the one whom the creator named. A Ribbajack never takes more than one victim. It is the fate of the Ribbajack, and the one it takes, to disappear from the world of men.”

Pretty scary stuff, eh, Peterkin? But your dad wasn’t about to believe all that mumbo-jumbo, and neither should you, old chap. Tell you what I did. I had the herdsman clapped in prison for five years. Then I confiscated all his cattle and had them paid to the carpenter’s family as compensation. That’s British justice for you, tempered by the local traditions, of course.

But enough of Jibbaracks, old fellow. Keep your shoulder to the wheel, and your nose to the grindstone. Make your mother and me proud of you when next we meet. Though the way things are out here, heaven knows when that will be. Ours not to reason why, etc.

Keep smiling. Toodle pip and all that.

Yr Pater.

When Soames finished reading, Archibald snatched the letter and pocketed it, snarling, “Got any more stuff about the Ribbajack?”

Soames shook his head. “Nothing, I’m afraid, it was only mentioned in that one letter. I say, Smifft, can I have my letter back? I keep everything my parents write. Though it’s not very much, they’re always very busy, you see.”

Archibald Smifft snarled at him, “No, you can’t, I want to read it again for myself. I’ve got work to do now, so beat it, you two.”

Wilton and Soames fled the dormitory, relieved that their ordeal was over. Soames felt lucky to have got away with just the loss of a letter, Wilton ruing the fact that he had revealed his fear of the dark. As they emerged onto the driveway, he whispered to his pal, “I say, Peterkin, it looks like Smifft is cooking something pretty horrible up, what d’you think?”

Soames thrust both hands into his blazer pockets. “Rather, he’s up to some wickedness, I’m sure. I don’t like it one little bit. One thing’s certain, though, we can’t be left alone in that dorm with Smifft for almost two months’ summer hols. How much money have you got, chum?”

Wilton frowned. “In my money box there’s two fivers from my parents last Christmas. What do we need money for?”

Soames did some quick calculating. “I’ve got six pounds from my people last birthday, and a ten-bob note left from my allowance. What d’you say we go and stay at my aunt Adelaide’s place for the recess? It’s up in Yorkshire, at Harrogate. Come on, let’s take a walk down to the post office, I’ll give her a ring.” He broke into a trot. Wilton ran to keep up with him.

“What about me, d’you think she’ll mind terribly?”

His friend chuckled. “What, Aunt Addie? Not a bit, old man. She’s half deaf and totally nutty. Lives alone, except for a cook and gardener, in a great rambling place up by the moors. She’s got loads of cats, and keeps geese, too. We’ll be safe from Smifft up there for the summer. Are you game?”

Wilton felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his young heart. “Rather! Lead on, old chap, I’d sooner be marooned on the ocean in a bathtub than be stuck with that bounder Smifft for the hols!”

Less than an hour later, both boys skipped blithely out of the telephone box. Soames rubbed his hands together joyfully.

“Here we are, all set to go. There’s a train for Harrogate at seven-ten this evening, should get us in about ten. Aunt Addie is sending old Jenkins the gardener to pick us up in the car. All we’ve got to do is pack a case each. The dreaded Smifft shouldn’t even notice we’re gone, you know how he is when he’s swotting up a foul new scheme. Come on, race you back!”

The school chaplain of Duke Crostacious the Inviolate was Reverend Rodney Miller, a bluff, hearty old fellow. He was known by several nicknames: the Sky Pilot, Big Dusty, Rev, or the Padre. This was owing to his long service with the King’s Lancashire Rifle Regiment. He had spent many years in India, Burma and Bhutan as Padre to the soldiers. Rev. Miller stood well over six feet tall, a portly, congenial figure with a fiery complexion and white bushy eyebrows. He had an extensive fund of stories about life in the far-flung outposts of empire—it had been said that he could bore the legs off a table with them.

Rev. Miller sat in the headmaster’s study, taking tea with Mrs. Twogg and Mr. Plother. Helping himself to slices of Dundee cake and Bath Oliver biscuits, washed down with copius amounts of Darjeeling tea, he listened to them holding forth on the subject of Archibald Smifft—the boy’s unhealthy fascination with occult magic and the forbidden arts. The matron explained about the materials they had discovered beneath the bed and the possible atrocities Smifft could wreak upon both them and the school. The headmaster recounted the incident of the cockroaches and flies. Rev. Miller sucked the chocolate from a Bath Oliver, and dunked it in his tea reflectively.

“Ah, yes, the old jiggery pokery, y’know. Saw quite a bit of it for m’self out on the subcontinent, India and all that. By Jove, watched a chap climb up a rope and vanish into thin air. Amazing! Where the dickens he went to, I’ll never know. Another time I saw a fakir take a pair of live scorpions—d’you know what he did with ’em, eh?”

The matron poured more tea, remarking primly, “I’m sure we’d shudder to think, Reverend. However, this isn’t getting us anywhere with the Smifft problem, don’t you agree, Headmaster?”

Mr. Plother blinked over the rim of his Crown Derby teacup. “Er, precisely, Mrs. Twogg, the boy is definitely involved in some murky matters. I mean, how d’you explain a cloud of flies swarming around my head, Padre?”

The chaplain picked a few crumbs from his ample stomach. “Huh, flies, y’say, I could do that. Slap a dab of honey on my head. Flies’d flock to it. A few wasps and a bee or two, as well, I should imagine, eh?”

The matron pursed her lips. “Really, Reverend, I don’t consider this a fit subject for humour. You have been invited here to give assistance in what we think is a serious matter!”

Rev. Miller heaved himself out of the creaking armchair. He sighed regretfully at the empty cake stand. “Right you are, marm, suppose I’d better go and have a few words with the young scamp. What’s the chap’s name, Smithers?”

Mrs. Twogg’s chins wobbled as she snapped out the name. “Smifft. Archibald Smifft. You remember him from Christmas term, surely!”

The chaplain’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Good Lord, that fellow? Wasn’t he the rogue who sabotaged my incense burner with stink bombs at the chapel service? Short, grubby cove, with his eyes too close together? Never liked boys with close-together eyes, y’know. Reminds me of a gunnery corporal I served with at Hyderabad, furtive little blighter. Caught him one time in the officers’ mess, had half a bottle of Madeira and some vindaloo curry powder. You’ll never guess what the scallywag was up to—”

The matron interrupted him abruptly. “Smifft!”

Rev. Miller recalled his errand. “Eh, what? Oh, yes, I’ll go and have a talk with Master Smithers. No time like the present!”

Archibald Smifft lay flat on his bed, exerting all his mental powers to produce an image of how a Ribbajack might look. He ignored the muffled rummaging of Wilton and Soames on the other side of his barricade, for they could be dealt with later. His Ribbajack was all-important. The description penned by Soames’s father sounded fairly good. But Archibald had decided it needed some adjustments to suit his macabre taste. A crocodile’s body, he would keep that feature. Three eyes? No, his would have just one big eye, a disgusting red runny one. Then there was the question of the arms. What if they were long, right down to its feet, hairy like a gorilla’s, and studded with suckers, similar to an octopus’s tentacles? The long, sharp teeth sounded a bit humdrum. Suppose it had a feathered head and a great hooked parrot beak, which could rip and tear and chop? Perfect! It would be his own personal and original Ribbajack.