My Sister's a Yo Yo Read online

  She left the room to answer it and as soon as she’d waddled out the door Zeke took Eppie from his right-hand pocket and tucked her down his shirt. Then, with a noise like rumbling thunder, the nurse rolled back into the room.

  ‘Now, where were we?’ she said as she wobbled in closer. ‘Show me your right-hand side.’

  She looked for the lump on the right-hand side but it had miraculously disappeared. So finally Zeke said, ‘See there’s nothing there. Please can I go out and play?’

  ‘No you may not!’ the nurse roared, ‘I know it’s here somewhere. I’ve seen it twice, and it’s obviously dangerous because it’s wandering all over your body.’

  She checked Zeke’s legs and his arms and his ears and his head and his back, and finally checked under his shirt in case the lump was on his tummy.

  ‘Oh my gosh, there it is!’ she cried. ‘It’s absolutely enormous! I think we’ll have to operate!’

  And then the phone rang yet again and Nurse left the room once more.

  Zeke stood there with Eppie curled up like a snail deep down inside his shirt.

  ‘Operate!’ gasped Zeke.

  ‘Operate!’ gasped Eppie.

  ‘Blood and guts and pain and gore!’ they gasped (at exactly the same time) and then they both just fainted.

  They fell to the floor with a crash and a bang, knocking over this and bashing over that and spilling absolutely everything in sight.

  When they came to, Zeke whispered loudly, ‘You realise this is all your fault!’ and Eppie said, ‘No, it’s yours.’

  Then the nurse came back into the room to see a boy on the floor with no bumps at all talking to a tiny little girl with a yoyo on her head.

  ‘Aaaaa-a-a-a-aaaaaaaaaagh!’ shrieked the nurse.

  With a huff and a puff she rang the ambulance and wheezed rather urgently down the phone, ‘Come quickly, come quickly! Come and get me! I’ve gone quite mad. I’m seeing things!’

  (And the ambulance came and tried to take her to hospital but she was so fat she got stuck in the doorway and that, by the way, is where she is right now.)

  Zeke and Eppie couldn’t simply walk out the door, because it was blocked by a big fat nurse, so they had to find another way out.

  So with no choices left, Zeke put Eppie back in his pocket and went to climb out the window. Easy. No one would spot him. He’d just jump straight out and be free. Except for one teensy weensy problem: it was a lot further down than he’d imagined.

  So he stood on the window-sill thinking of a plan. Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. You could hear Zeke’s brain creaking and groaning and straining, until a little voice inside his pocket squeaked, ‘Grab the branch and swing to that tree trunk, and then we can slide down to the ground.’

  ‘Oh — easy for you to say,’ Zeke said rudely, but out of habit more than intentional impoliteness. Then he stood up straight and hurled himself forward, grabbed a branch of the nearby tree, and swung with all his might to reach the trunk. Everything was going well until he accidentally swung too close to another branch, and his shorts were snagged, pulled right down and off!

  Well, there was Zeke in the tree, in his embarrassing Barbie doll undies. (It’s a long story, too long to go into, but I think the lesson we can all learn from the Barbie doll undies incident is never to let your mother go shopping without her glasses.)

  A cool breeze whistled as he watched his shorts swinging there, stuck out of reach on a branch back near the window-sill.

  ‘Oh no, don’t let me get caught now!’ he moaned as Eppie called out loudly from way over in the pocket of his dangling shorts, ‘Hey, Mr Spunky Buns, come back across and get me.’

  Now if Zeke had had the choice he would have left Eppie hanging there from that branch forever, until mice started to live in her ears and her hair turned into creeping vines full of thorns and poisonous roses.

  But he had to get his pants because he had to get his yoyo (which he loved), and his yoyo was attached to Eppie’s hair, so most unfortunately he had to get Eppie as well.

  So using the same branch that had got him to the tree trunk Zeke tried to swing back to the window ledge … but the branch snapped in half and plummeted to the ground.

  ‘I’m waiting, Mr No Pants,’ Eppie called out.

  Zeke thought of jumping back to the window, sticking a sock in Eppie’s mouth and then joining a Barbie-undies-wearing-yoyoless monastery, but then he spotted the long green hose that was used to water the school garden. He reached over and down with his left hand, while he clung to the tree with his right, and he tried to grab the garden hose, but he missed it by just the tips of his fingers. (This was actually the one moment in all his life that he wished he was Captain Hook, or even a Transformer who could change himself into a massive jet fighter with claws that could hover over his shorts, take Eppie out of the pocket, drop her into a man-eating spider’s web, and then bring the shorts back safe and sound ready to be worn back into class.)

  Nup. He couldn’t reach the hose with his hands, so he tried to reach it with his feet. He tried his right foot first, and yes he could just touch the hose. But there was no way that he could pick it up. So he tried his left foot. Now luckily Zeke had a remarkably long big toe on the end of that foot, so he took off his left shoe and dangled his left foot down near the hose, and before you know it he’d scooped up the hose with his big, big toe and was ready to loop the hose over a branch and swing like Tarzan all the way back to the window ledge.

  And that’s what he did. He swung to the window-sill, picked up his shorts, put them back on (with Eppie still in the pocket) and then swung as hard as he could, hanging from the hose, through the air to get back to the big tree trunk. All was looking beeee-you-ti-ful when suddenly someone turned the hose on and completely soaked Eppie and Zeke.

  And they landed on the tree trunk just as the bell rang for the end of recess, and all the kids went into class — except for Zeke and Eppie because they were both as sopping wet as facecloths soaking in a big cold bath.

  Zeke sat waiting in the tree until all the other kids had disappeared, then he climbed carefully down the trunk to the ground, took Eppie and the yoyo out of his pocket and tried to get them all dry.

  He stood in the sun and he stood in the breeze, but the drying was taking forever. So finally Zeke started to run, to make his own breeze and make himself hotter, and hopefully dry them faster. He started to run slowly, just around in a circle, with Eppie still tight in his hand, but then he got bored (of course) and he let the yoyo string unwind, and ran faster and faster with Eppie dangling on the end. It was great fun and they were squealing with joy, going faster and faster, but when they were all completely dry they stopped to discover that now, it wasn’t just Eppie’s hair that was tangled, but Eppie herself was tied in a knot!

  ‘Wow, bummer,’ groaned Zeke.

  He went back to class and sat down just as the lesson was starting. Then he quietly took the whole knotty mess out of his pocket and tried to undo Eppie under his desk. But as he fumbled and mumbled he pretty soon realised that she was actually in a super bad knot with her hands tied behind her back and her legs crossed with her feet up her nose.

  Zeke tried to slip the string just once over Eppie’s head. He tried to slip her arms around the string and tip her upside down very fast, and he tried turning her like a corkscrew while he counted to one hundred and sang Row Row Row Your Boat while breathing in. He also tried to lift her legs around her head and behind her back and between her fingers and under her nose and through one ear and out the other side — but that didn’t seem to work either.

  So finally Zeke said, ‘This is all your fault. You just aren’t trying at all.’

  ‘I am so!’ Eppie answered angrily.

  ‘You are not,’ said Zeke. ‘You’re just sitting there, happy as can be, while I do all the work.’

  ‘Am not,’ said Eppie.

  ‘Are so,’ said Zeke.

  ‘Am not.’

  ‘Are so.’
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  ‘Am not.’

  ‘Are so.’

  ‘Am not,’ said Eppie, getting louder and louder.

  ‘Are so!’, said Zeke as loud as the horn on a ship in the middle of a foggy night. ‘Are so, are so, are so. You’re a selfish, lazy spoilt brat. You’re a bum, you’re a bum, you’re a bum.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Zeke,’ said Miss Snailheadface, who thought Zeke was talking to her.

  ‘Um, nothing,’ said Zeke.

  ‘No: I heard you say something, and I think you said that I was a bum, a bum, a bum.’

  ‘No,’ said Zeke. ‘What I said was: “I love my school, I’m as happy as Santa, ho hum, ho hum, ho hum”.’

  ‘I see,’ she replied, ‘and what’s that in your hand?’

  ‘Um … it’s my yoyo, Miss Snailheadface.’

  ‘A yoyo!’ she said, ‘A yoyo in my class! Do you think my classroom is a circus?’

  ‘No,’ Zeke replied, ‘I don’t think it’s a circus.’ But he thought it was a good idea.

  ‘Well you can’t have that thing here in my classroom. I’m confiscating your yoyo, from this moment on. Zeke, come here and give it to me.’

  She held out her hand and waited for the yoyo, but Zeke was too scared to move. He stood perfectly still … and the clock ticked loudly.

  Meanwhile, skinny Miss Snailheadface (who was probably a witch) was still waiting with her long, skinny hand stretched out. And she said in her high, scratchy, squeaky voice, ‘Well? Zeke, give it to me.’

  Zeke thought of a million excuses, a million lies, a million things that he wished would happen right there and then, like being stolen by a robber and traded for gold, or turning into a piece of dust and blowing out the window, or suddenly becoming evil green slime and sliding himself through the cracks in the floor, underneath the classroom, where he could live happily just eating flies and never having to tidy his room, ever.

  Zeke thought and he thought, and he tried and he tried, he wished and he wished, with his eyes squished tight. But he just stayed the same old Zeke, with his sister and his yoyo held tightly in his hand.

  More seconds tick-tocked by.

  Slowly Zeke moved his hand forward towards scarecrow skinny Miss Snailheadface. Zeke was scared, and Eppie was scared, and they both knew now they would definitely get busted and their parents would find out, and they’d never get pocket money ever again for the rest of their lives, and never get to eat pizza or chips or burgers on Friday night, and probably be sent to their rooms for at least two years, and when they were finally released they would walk outside and see that the whole world was filled with strange creatures from outer space and amazing cars, and super cool technology, and actually getting busted was starting to sound all right …

  Anyway, Zeke was scared, and Eppie was scared, but of course there was no choice and Zeke had to give the yoyo to Miss Snailheadface. So he held out his hand and put the yoyo and the tangled string and his knotted tiny little sister into Miss Snailheadface’s skinny stick-fingers.

  Miss Snailheadface didn’t look down. She just smiled like a shark straight into Zeke’s eyes and said, ‘There now: that wasn’t so hard.’

  ‘But what will you do with my yoyo?’ Zeke asked.

  ‘Oh,’ said Miss Snailheadface. ‘This bit of rubbish? I’ll take it up to the principal’s office and she will either put it in her bottom drawer and leave it there forever or else she will send it in an envelope to Africa where it will probably get eaten by a large green snake.’

  ‘Oh great,’ thought Eppie, ‘that’s just what I need.’ (Panic, panic, panic.)

  Then Eppie (who was pretty smart) made a squeak just like a hungry mouse and Miss Snailheadface screeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeamed, jumped up onto the desk and dropped Eppie and the yoyo and the tangled string right into the bin.

  ‘There, that’s that!’ said Miss Snailheadface (after her teeth had stopped nattering in fear).

  So Zeke sat down, back at his desk, and Eppie sat in the bin, and the lessons returned to normal (except that Miss Snailheadface was still standing on the desk and Dimitri Wilson was trying to look up her dress).

  After a while Darryn Pinky got up from his desk and put his leaking texta in the bin, on top of Eppie. Then Claire Blump emptied her pencil sharpener in the bin, Eleanor Tonsil put her ruined wet painting in the bin, Tim Sneak put Erica’s plait in the bin, and Jake Rat cleared out the whole back of his desk and put an old orange, a smelly banana and a piece of melted chocolate all in the bin, right on top of Eppie.

  Then the bell rang for lunch and Miss Brown told goody-goody Richie Nosesniffle and revolting Emily Pong to go and empty the classroom bin into the great big square metal garbage dump at the very bottom of the school playground.

  So, of course when all the other kids went to play, Zeke, who really wanted his yoyo back, had no choice at all but to follow goody-goody Richie Nosesniffle and revolting Emily Pong all the way to the bottom of the playground.

  Zeke had to be careful that Richie Nosesniffle and Emily Pong didn’t see him because they were both dreadful dobbers and they would definitely tell their skinny-as-a-stick teacher that naughty Zeke had followed them down to the big square metal garbage dump at the bottom of the garden to steal back his stupid yoyo. Pathetic and um-ah. (I mean there are worse things in the world, like starvation and racism and war.)

  So that he would not be seen, Zeke grabbed a big leafy branch that was taller and wider than he was. Then he hid behind it and followed Nosesniffle and Pong down to the dump. His disguise was so good that no one could tell he was Zeke at all, and he just looked like a normal tree wearing sneakers and running down the playground.

  Finally Nosesniffle and Pong reached the dump, and they picked up the classroom bin and emptied out all the rubbish. Zeke The Tree waited patiently for the two of them to leave, but they both just stood there and talked and talked (probably about how fabulous they were). Zeke waited and waited and waited and then, when Nosesniffle and Pong had finally walked halfway back up the playgound, Zeke ran as fast as he possibly could towards the garbage, and dived into the dump.

  It was really smelly inside the dump bin and it was overflowing with old sandwiches, orange peel, apple cores, plastic bags, an old shoe, a lost sock, lots of paper, lolly wrappers, chip packets, drink containers and all the grass and leaves and twigs and bugs from the school lawn mower. Zeke searched and searched for his yoyo but it was nowhere to be found. Finally he called out: ‘Eppie, where are you?’

  ‘I’m not here.’

  ‘I know you are,’ said Zeke.

  ‘Come on. I’m looking for my yoyo.’

  ‘I know that’s what you’re looking for,’ said Eppie, ‘and I know that you don’t care about me one single bit! I’ve been up a tree, under a blow drier, soaked by a hose, stuffed in a pocket, poked and prodded, confiscated, thrown out, pinched, tickled and told to shut up. So why should I help you?’

  ‘Because,’ said Zeke in an ever increasing font size, ‘if you don’t tell me where my yoyo is you’ll be stuck here till you rot and smell. Because you seem to have forgotten something and that is that I am the only one who knows you’re here! And that means I’m the only one who can ever, ever get you out, and I’ll only get you out, if I get myyoyo, so tell me where it is!’

  Eppie sighed like a deflating balloon and said quietly, ‘Your yoyo and I are inside a milk carton, just near the eggshells, the old fishtank, the wet newspaper and half a barbecued chicken.’

  Zeke followed Eppie’s instructions as carefully as he could. He burrowed with his hand past the mouldy barbecued chicken and the wet newspaper and the old fishtank and the eggshells and then into the smelly milk carton where he finally found Eppie and his yoyo.

  ‘Yay,’ he said. ‘At last we can get out of here!’ But then just as he was about to climb out of the bin, carrying the yoyo and the knotted string and knotted Eppie, Zeke heard a rolling and rumbling from far away, that unfortunately was getting closer.

  ‘
Quick, duck down!’ he whispered just in time, as a huge garbage truck picked up the dump and all the rubbish, and of course picked up Eppie and the yoyo and Zeke as well. Up high went its great big metal arm, then down went the whole load into the back of the truck.

  The back of the truck was filled with a scary scraping and rattling sound. When Zeke and Eppie were finally brave enough to open their eyes and see what was happening, they realised, with a terrible shock, that the horrible noise was an enormous rubbish shredder that was inside the garbage truck! They were both going to be eaten alive unless some sort of magic spell came and saved them just in time.

  Now it’s funny that Zeke and Eppie should have thought that, (the bit about the magic spell) because just then, inside the garbage truck, something landed ‘plonk’ right in front of them. It wasn’t a dead fish, or an old bike tyre or even a half-eaten meat pie. It was in fact a magic wish-making lamp which of course was just what they were needing.

  ‘Cool,’ said Eppie and Zeke.

  Quickly Zeke rubbed the lamp and before you knew it he’d wished that he and Eppie were out of the garbage truck. (Unfortunately he forgot to mention that he wanted the lamp to be out of the garbage truck with him so that he could make wish after wish after wish after wish and make himself rich and powerful and the leader of the universe.) So the magic lamp stayed in the garbage truck and was finally rediscovered in a dump by an old man in a floral suit who uses it to this very day to house his toenail clippings.

  Anyway, the whole point is that Zeke and strawberry-sized Eppie had their wish come true and were magically spat out the back of the garbage truck. First Eppie and the yoyo tumbled out of the truck and then out fell Zeke as well.