Brian Jacques - The Ribbajack

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Copyright Page

the Ribbajack

A Smile and a Wave

The All Ireland Champion Versus the Nye Add

The Mystery of Huma D’Este

Miggy Mags and the Malabar Sailor

Rosie’s Pet

Evil breeds evil

Archibald sat listening until the chaplain’s heavy, plodding footsteps receded below stairs. A slow smile stole across his spotty face, growing into a maniacal grin. Leaping up, he went into a frenzied dance around the room, his eyes glittering with villainous delight. He had just found a victim for the Ribbajack he was intent on conjuring. Old Reverend Dusty Miller, the Sky Pilot! Revengeful spite and pent-up malice poured from him like sewage squirting from a cracked cess tank. When he first heard of the Ribbajack, all he desired was to see what it looked like. Now he had a definite aim for the horror he was about to create. The removal of his newfound enemy! The moment that dog-collared old buffoon had mispronounced his name, Archibald Smith knew the chaplain was going to be the first victim of the monster. Putting pen to paper, he began composing a verse as an aid to materialising his own personal Ribbajack.

O nightmare beyond all dreaming,

Dark Lord of the single eye . . .

THE REDWALL BOOKS

Redwall

Mossflower

Mattimeo

Mariel of Redwall

Salamandastron

Martin the Warrior

The Bellmaker

Outcast of Redwall

Pearls of Lutra

The Long Patrol

Marlfox

The Legend of Luke

Lord Brocktree

Taggerung

Triss

Loamhedge

Rakkety Tam

High Rhulain

The Great Redwall Feast (picture book)

A Redwall Winter’s Tale (picture book)

OTHER BOOKS

Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales

Castaways of the Flying Dutchman

The Angel’s Command

The Tale of Urso Brunov (picture book)

TO MY SONS, MARC AND DAVID

PUFFIN

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

New Delhi - 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310,

New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,

Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in the United States of America by Philomel,

a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2004

Published by Puffin, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2006

Text copyright © Redwall La Dita Ltd., 2004

All rights reserved

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PHILOMEL EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Jacques, Brian.

The Ribbajack & other curious yarns / Brian Jacques.

p cm.

Summary: A collection of six short stories which feature a variety of monstrous

creatures by the author of the Redwall series.

Contents: The Ribbajack—A smile and a wave—The All Ireland Champion

versus the Nye Add—The mystery of Huma D’Este—Miggy Mags and

the Malabar Sailor—Rosie’s pet.

1. Monsters—Juvenile Fiction. 2. Children’s stories, English. [1. Horror tales,

English. 2. Monsters—Fiction. 3. Horror stories. 4. Short stories.]

I. Title: Ribbajack and other curious yarns. II. Title.

PZ7.J15317Ri 2004 [Fic]—dc21 2003066448

eISBN : 978-1-101-14395-7

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

http://us.penguingroup.com

the Ribbajack

GENTLE READER, HEED MY PLEA,

pray witness now this shocking tale,

’twas told to me by one, forsooth,

who vowed he spoke the honest truth,

he took an oath, he told no lies,

and swore it on his own three eyes!

End of Term, Summer 1937

Archibald Smifft was worse than any plague or pestilence known to man. This was the unanimous consensus of opinion by all at the boarding school of Duke Crostacious the Inviolate. Teachers, pupils, groundsmen, cooks and all ancillary staff were in total agreement on this, and who, pray, would deny their assessment?

A single glance at the boy in question would confirm the fears of even a stranger. Archibald Smifft was indeed the raw material from which nightmares were made. From the top of his scrofulous bullet-shaped head, with its jug-handle ears and ski-jump nose, the beady eyes (which had often been compared to those of an ill-tempered cobra) glaring out from the spotted moon crater of a face, right down from his rounded shoulders, pot belly and wart-scarred knees, to the fallen arches of his flat feet, the Smifft boy was the very portrait of villainy, viciousness and malicious intent.

He had been abandoned as a baby on the school driveway, sitting smugly in an outrageously expensive bassinet. In one hand the child clutched a chamois bag containing a king’s ransom in uncut rubies; in the other, a recently dead frog. Attached to his satin pillow was a note: “Deer sur. Pleez giv Archibald a gud ejercayshun an bring him up propper. Maw roobeez to folloh. Singed, X Smifft. Pee yess. He lykes byting thingz.”

The headmaster, a gentle, trusting man named Aubrey Plother, I.O.U.E. (Institute of Unskilled Educators), and the matron, Mrs. Twogg, were the two who found the infant. Trying hard to avoid Archibald’s malevolent smirk, Mr. Plother’s heart softened. He snatched the bag of rubies, declaring charitably, “Mrs. Twogg, marm, I feel we would be neglecting our Christian duty were we not to adopt and care for this unfortunate waif. I have decided he shall receive the benefits of a thorough education here at my establishment!”

The matron, who had left her glasses indoors and would never admit she had dreadful eyesight, swept the babe up in her huge pink arms. She tickled its bottom lip fondly. “Oh, bless you for the kindly soul you are, Headmaster. Poor little mite, shame on the one who abandoned you. Coochy-cooch, my little cherub!”

The infant left off chewing his frog long enough to inflict a bite on Mrs. Twogg’s index finger that a tiger shark would have envied. The matron wore her glasses at all times after that afternoon so that she would be able to immediately decipher further communications left on the pillows of abandoned children. That is how Archibald Smifft came to be inflicted on his present school.

For my more gentle and nervous readers, I will draw a veil over the intervening eleven years. Except to mention, in passing, four teachers’ resignations (diagnosed as mentally traumatised), an explosion in the pupils’ chemistry laboratory, the disappearance of four cats belonging to the gardener’s wife, several major floods in the washrooms, a fire which destroyed the sports pavilion and a school mastiff that vanished without trace. These, and a host of other indignities, atrocities and miscellaneous mishaps—students absconding to foreign territories, etc.—were all in one way or another attributable to said Archibald Smifft. However, the headmaster’s kind heart, plus the prompt arrival each term of a bag containing rubies by special delivery to Aubrey Plother, I.O.U.E., insured the boy’s continuance at Crostacious the Inviolate Boarding School for young gentlemen. Granted, there were frequent staff walkouts, but the headmaster furthered his name as a good man by rewarding injured, faithful and long-serving staff members by giving them a ruby apiece as an annual incentive.