Chapter π(e)

The Christmas holidays had dawned on the Quiet suburban town in which the mysterious whale shark once lived. If you were to go down the windy paths to the home of Patricia Edwina Nora Ingrid Smith, you may faintly see objects and people through some of the lit up windows. Inside one of these windows you may see a pink fluffy Christmas tree, being dressed by Patricia in sickly golden tinsel that serves no purpose but to scare her extended family and stop them from staying more than needed when they popped by for a visit.

Much like most of the other families in the area, Patricia had bought many cheap and worthless presents for people she didn’t really care much for. She had purchased cheaply made minced pies from the supermarket and had put out wine in the anticipation of a very large, old man landing on her roof, breaking in through the chimney and leaving behind many oddly shaped presents.

Much the same could be seen in many other houses in the area. Even when you passed the house of Bobolous could you see a green chocolate Christmas tree. However, once you reach Carver’s house not the same could be said. Carver’s house was situated on the slope of a very steep hill, overlooking much of the rest of the town. No Christmas lights or trees could be seen, no pile of presents and no cards could be spotted through the windows. 

On Christmas Eve, Mrs and Mr. Wrinkles were going on their exciting bimonthly walk down to the duck pond, bag of bread equipped, ready for action. 

The exhilaration that ran though their veins had sped them up to the speed of a 60 year old, to which they took great delight at being as healthy as the youngsters. Testosterone flowing, they neared the pond, catching a glimpse of not one. not two, not three, but four ducks swimming around. Much to their delight, they could expect an average of one duck swimming between the months of November and February. This was a special day for the couple.

As they outstretched their arms and tactfully threw precisely torn pieces of bread to the creatures, in front of them on the edge of the hill could be seen the back of Carver’s house. The back door  was painted a deep blue, much like the colour of the irresistible eyes. And the garden which was edging onto the duck pond, separated by a traditional white picket fence, held many animal shaped bushes and numerous flowerbeds.

This Christmas Eve, the Wrinkles were remembering when they were young lovers listening to their Phonograph and talking about the long reigning Queen Victoria without a care in the world. They were in a nostalgic mood, and decided to work this off with some old fashioned snooping. Crouched behind one of the hedges, Mr. Wrinkles could vaguely see through to the house. It was well lit, and the windows were big. Mr. Wrinkles, through the window, could see an incredibly attractive young man watching the telecommunication box and seemingly hitting letters on what seemed to be an updated harpsichord of some kind. Curiously, when the young man hit a letter, such a letter appeared on the telecommunication box as if by magic. Mrs. Wrinkles was stunned at this person’s ability to perform magic. Remembering the witch hunts of 1700, they stumbled away back to the nursing home.

That day, Mr and Mrs. Wrinkles could have seen something which would have been of great use to Carver. For the letters the young man were typing into Google were indeed searches for “kidnap”, “how to tie someone up” and “where can I find the CD for Barbie girl, I’ve looked everywhere”.

Christmas day had come and gone and the school term had restarted. In class, all of the students were assigned into groups off three to create posters based on their holidays. Patricia, Bobolous and Carver were put together to work with each other. Patricia was wearing her provocative short skirt she begged for as a Christmas present, Bobolous wearing the new silver foil coat he received and Carver sat there plain clothed, looking ahead blankly.

As the project started, Bobolous couldn’t quite understand something. That melting feeling he had once felt which made him swim in pools of honey among daisies was no longer there when he stared into Carver’s eyes. This upset Bobolous very much, as he had been looking forward all Christmas to look into the eyes of who had become to be known as lovelyeyesguy among him and a group of others who shared similar interests. The talk about their holidays then sparked off.

“I gots a smexy new skirt, don’t you know? Paris Hilton went uber slut and wore it. Woop!  But I out-slut that biat-chhh any day of the week because I’m just hotter than a hot thing. Psssssst.” Patricia seemingly made a burning noise and placed her finger on her buttocks. 

Bobolous swiftly gave Patricia evils and named her weirdclassslut in his head before explaining his holidays. “My Dads bought be this snazzy new new foil coat! And they also gave me an offer to cover up the inconspicuous yet oddly shaped mark on my fin. But I haven‘t decided whether the surgery would be worth the risks.”

“What happened to your fin?” Asked Carver in a monotonous voice.

“I told you” exclaimed Bobolous, “That is an incident nobody ever speaks of.”.

“I see” Carver whispered.

“So what did you do, Carver?”

“I went shopping and then proceeded to do nothing in the basement.” the words flowed like those of a badly trained actor.

“Well, what did you buy?” Bobolous was keen to get information out of Carver.

“Things.”

“What like?”

“I bet he didn’t become uber slut like I did. I mean, whatever. Mingers can’t pull off the uber slut look. Burn!” Patricia once again pretended to burn her finger on her buttocks. Before receiving evils again, courtesy of Bobolous.

“I bought rope.”

“What for?” Bobolous asked, confused.

“To tie things”

“What things?”

“Cheese, cucumber, beetroot?”

The conversation ended there and the group got told off by the teacher for creating such a provocative poster involving short skirts, cucumber and rope. The three were then sent to detention, where they had to spend the next two days writing up an essay on the true meaning on Christmas.

It was decided that to get off detention the next day, they would all try to finish it before the end of the day. Bobolous finished his 1666 words very quickly, as did Carver. Patricia on the  other hand became engrossed in looking up pictures of pigs in make up and saying “that’s hot” and forgot to finish writing. Thus it was agreed upon that she would finish her work later on in the day and go over to Carver’s house to give the work to him to edit out all of the spelling mistakes, as Bobolous was planning to have a didgeridoo lesson with Ben.

As the sun drew below the horizon this chilly winter’s evening,  a faint deep and calming sound rolled over the vast fields of suburbia. Bobolous’ didgeridoo playing could be heard around town, a faint echo some people heard, yet many drowned out. Mr and Mrs Wrinkles sat in the nursing home, hand in hand, listening to the soothing tones of the phonograph. Mr Van Vleet rocked back and forwards to the gentle colours of the music of Slipknot. All of these people slowly wound themselves down through the night and soon enough almost everyone in town was asleep. It was at 4am, in the early hours of the morning, that Patricia could be seen strolling her way to Carver’s house with the essay she wrote, assuming the world revolved around her and that he would still be awake.

Patricia tapped on the door firstly and there was no answer, so she proceeded to throw stones at the windows, of which she smashed three of them in. Jumping around in her provocative skirt, Patricia went around the back of the house and sat on (and ruined) one of the many animal shaped hedges in the garden.

Particia then decided that she was hungry, and was sure that Carver wouldn’t mind if she went in and took some food from his fridge. Of course she thought that anyone would be honoured to have the likes of her grace their kitchen.

She took out her hairclip and picked the lock. It took a while for her to get the hang of it, but when Patricia was a member of MENSA she was enrolled in a course specialising in cracking safes. After solving the economic problems of three countries and cracking numerous locked safes, she found the world of the celebrity magazines and never looked back. The door soon opened and in Patricia pranced, poorly worded essay in hand. She placed her work on the kitchen table top, assuming Carver would see it when he got up in the morning and then she went rummaging though the cupboards of the kitchen. She came across some cheese, cucumber and beetroot, so made a chefs surprise pie before taking a bite and realising that she was not a chef.

Throwing it on the floor, she assumed there must have been a butler somewhere to pick it up. She then thought that she should go and snoop around the house. Firstly she decided to go wake up Carver, so she headed up  a steep set of stairs, stepping in some glass she had smashed earlier when throwing stones through the windows.

However, as she entered each room nobody could be found. So she decided to switch on the lava lamp whilst telling herself “That’s so retro” which she found in the room assumed to be Carver’s. Impatience took over Patricia and she got bored of the lava lamp, deciding to see what would happen if she threw it down the stairs onto the hard floor beneath. “Well, what do you know?” Particia surprisingly stated “lava lamps can smash”.

Patricia was very impatient, so started to put moustaches onto Carver’s artwork because she thought it was cool. She then decided to play a game she had just invented “Pretend this house is a house and I’m a demolition ball.” Which resulted in numerous valuables strewn across the upstairs part of the house, including one ornate priceless vase which she thought would look cute floating in the toilet.

 

Heading downstairs, it was now 5am and Patricia was impatiently searching for Carver. She entered into numerous rooms before seeing a faint light under a door, which she processed to open. It seemed there was a flight of stairs to which she descended and turned the corner to enter the cold and damp room.

Patricia was then drawn to the corner. In which, she could vaguely see a yellowish hand tied up to rope emerging from the shadows.  This macabre sight did not mean much to Patricia and she soon went over to tell the tied up Carver about the essay.

Whilst Patricia saw Carver tied up to the chair, he looked her right in the eyes and she got the same melting experience that Bobolous had encountered when first seeing into the deep pools of blue.

“Hehe” Laughed Patricia “Why are you tied up? Anywho, I’ve got your essay, it’s in the kitchen.”

Carver, stopped by the tape applied over his mouth attempted to speak, but failed at this.

“Why aren’t you speaking to me?” Patricia cried out angrily, not realising that one needs to be able to move their mouth to speak “Fine, be that way, see if I care.”.

Shamelessly trying to flirt after getting lost in the eyes,  Patricia apologised. However, she then saw Carver’s shoes and claimed “They are so 1999” before storming up the stairs, leaving Carver tied up. 

The next day, Carver came into school and explained how Patricia had popped by and given him the homework before telling him she was going off to America to study the new course. Paris-Hilton-ology.

Of course, that night Patricia did not see the two others in the basement, she did not hear the faint croaking sounds and she certainly did not travel to America to study a non existent course. But as Carver explained to Bobolous where Patricia had gone to, in the mixture of cucumber, beetroot, glass, cheese and lava lamp juice, lay the very same high heeled shoe Patricia had worn that night, just a few meters away from where Carver was sat,  the same faint peculiar noise softly repeating from a dark corner of the basement.