Joke Shop Read online

  The old man’s face fell and he shook his head.

  “Well that is a shame,” he said. “It upsets me so much when my customers aren’t satisfied. Let me make it up to you with a free gift.”

  He pulled a plastic flower with a small pump attachment out of the glass counter.

  “Everyone loves a squirting flower,” he said. “And this is the best you’ve ever seen. It’s so powerful it’ll take their eyes out.”

  I thought about blasting Liam, Megan and Jack with a painful jet of water. That would teach them to parade around with their silly costumes on.

  I felt the sides of my mouth lifting into a smile.

  The old man offered the flower to Natasha and she turned it over in her hands. She was grinning, too.

  I looked at the words she’d scrawled on my palm:

  The old man is a liar and his tricks are evil.

  The fog cleared from my mind. I grabbed the plastic flower and threw it over the counter.

  “We don’t want the stupid thing,” I said. “We just want you to stop selling stuff to our school. Someone’s going to get killed.”

  “At least they’ll die with a smile on their face,” said the old man. “There’s nothing wrong with a good, old-fashioned chuckle.”

  “There is something wrong,” said Natasha. She was frowning again now, and had her eyes fixed on the old man. “This whole thing is wrong and we want you to stop.”

  “Or you’ll do what?” asked the old man.

  “Call the police,” I said.

  “And they’ll walk out of here with bags of fart powder and chattering teeth,” he said, “thinking about all the hilarious tricks they’re going to play back at the station.”

  “Then maybe we’ll take matters into our own hands,” said Natasha.

  The old man grinned. “You’d beat up a weak, old man just because you don’t like his shop? Now that’s something the police would be interested in.”

  He had a point. And it’s not like I’d have carried out Natasha’s threats anyway. I’ve never had a fight in my life. Besides, he only wanted to make people laugh. Why did we want to punish him for that?

  No. That wasn’t right.

  My thoughts were getting blurry again so I tried to look at the words on my hand:

  The old man is a joker and his tricks are hilarious.

  I was certain that wasn’t what Natasha had written.

  I was still puzzling over it when the old man grabbed something out of his case and held it out to me.

  It was a scrap of white rubber with black diamonds and flashes of green.

  The clown mask. The one that had been at the centre of the window display.

  I started to giggle. What a funny clown he was. I could imagine him tumbling and falling and leaping and prancing… and biting and scratching.

  “Isn’t it magnificent?” asked the old man. “The finest in the shop. Can you believe no one’s rented it out yet? On this most special of days, too.”

  He lifted a baggy, white costume from under the counter. It had a wide, lace collar and a row of red pompoms up the middle. He put it on the counter and placed a foam custard pie next to it.

  “The whole costume’s still here,” he said. He looked down at it and then up at me. “I’ve just thought of something. Why don’t you borrow it? It might stop you feeling so grumpy.”

  I imagined myself leaping out from behind a corner and shoving the custard pie into the face of one of those year seven brats. I sniggered. The more they begged me to stop, the harder I’d shove it into their snivelling noses.

  I found myself laughing again. A voice in the back of my mind was trying to tell me this wouldn’t be funny at all. It would be horrific.

  I ignored it and gave in to childish glee. I felt like I was eight again, sniggering behind the cushion and waiting for the fart powder to work on my babysitter.

  That hadn’t worked. But this would. The tricks from this shop always worked and they always made people scream.

  Natasha turned and wandered down the row of costumes lining the middle of the shop.

  “You can take any you like, young lady,” said the man. “If you’ve ever wanted to feel sharp fangs in your mouth or strong claws sprouting from your fingertips, this is your chance. Don’t be shy.”

  He clasped his hands together and gasped. “I know what you’ve seen. It’s the jester costume, isn’t it? Oh, how wonderful. Imagine all the mischief a clown and a jester could get up to on Halloween.”

  Natasha wandered round to the other side of the costumes and I couldn’t see her any more. The voice in my mind spoke up again. It said this was all going wrong, that Natasha had fallen under his spell and that it was all up to me now.

  The voice told me to try reading the words on my hand again.

  I lifted my palm to my face:

  The old man is your friend, so put the clown costume on and make them all scream like the little pigs they are.

  My head was swimming. That couldn’t be right. There was no way the words on my hand could say all that.

  As I thought about it, I found myself stepping into the bulky, white costume. I didn’t even remember taking it off the counter.

  “And now for the most important bit,” said the old man.

  He handed me the mask.

  The voice in my head told me to throw it to the ground and stamp on it. That if I put it on it wouldn’t even be a mask any more. I’d touch my face and find it was covered in white make-up.

  Then I’d be the happy clown and I’d dance back into school and tumble and fall and leap and prance… and kill and kill and kill.

  I could hear the costumes rustling behind me.

  “What have you chosen, young lady?” asked the old man, peering down the row. “I bet it was the jester, wasn’t it?”

  “No,” said Natasha. “I’ve found a much, much better one.”

  She stepped back into view. She was wearing a black robe with a hood that covered her face, and carrying a long, wooden stick with a curved blade.

  “Death itself,” said the old man. “The Grim Reaper. An excellent choice. Just think of all the fun you can have with that on Halloween. Where will you even begin?”

  “Right here,” said Natasha.

  She ran towards the counter with her finger stretched out. The old man’s eyes widened and he pushed himself against the back wall. He was trembling, and his thin, grey hair was flopping down over his forehead.

  “Stop!” he shouted. “Get away from me! Get out of my shop!”

  Natasha leaned forwards and tapped his chest.

  The old man screamed and collapsed to the floor as the lights flickered out.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE EMPTY SHOP

  As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I noticed the inside of the shop looked very different.

  Instead of wooden shelves lining the wall, I could see the old plastic racks of the video rental shop. They were stuffed with empty drink cans and faded crisp packets instead of fart powder and chattering teeth. There was a high counter at the end of the room and the old-fashioned till was gone.

  The mask I’d been holding had vanished, too. It seemed impossible that I’d had anything in my hands just a split second ago.

  My clown costume was covered in dark stains. The pompoms were missing and the sleeves were ripped into narrow strips. It reeked of stagnant water as I stepped out of it and kicked it across the dusty floor.

  Natasha’s robe was spotted with white patches of mould. She threw it aside and wiped her hands on her shirt.

  “Do you think he’s really dead?” I asked, looking over at the counter.

  “I’m not sure he was ever really alive,” said Natasha.

  She tiptoed over to the counter and I followed, convinced the old man was about to leap up and cover us with itching powder.

  There was nothing on the other side but a coffee-stained carpet. The old man had gone.

  *

  The chaos in the canteen
was over by the time we got back. There were just a few year seven pupils cleaning the walls and tables with wet cloths.

  I spotted Patrick, the boy who’d eaten the blue-mouth sweet. He was dragging a sponge across the yellow surface of a table.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Jack and the others are going to get expelled,” he said. “For what they did.”

  “Why are they making you lot clean up?” asked Natasha.

  Patrick shrugged. “Mr Davies said we’re all to blame for getting carried away and making up stories. I don’t really care, though. I know what happened to me.”

  He pulled his collar back to reveal two small bite marks.

  We never saw Jack, Megan, Liam or any of the other costume wearers again. Whenever anyone spoke about them, they never mentioned vampires or werewolves or witches. It was always ‘practical jokes that got out of hand’, or ‘pranks that went too far’.

  At the next assembly, Mr Davies announced that the school would never be celebrating Halloween again. This seemed to settle the matter, as if it had all been nothing more than a few pupils in fancy dress getting overexcited.

  Nobody seemed to speak about the joke shop as time went on. I chatted to Natasha about it a few times, but we both had very hazy memories. It was as if we were remembering something from years, rather than weeks, ago.

  But something just happened that brought it all back. I’m sitting on a fast train that’s speeding through hundreds of little stations I can’t read the names of. A few minutes ago, I glanced up a street and spotted a bright yellow shop.

  I only saw it for half a second, but there was no mistaking it. There was a picture of a grinning jester above it, and I’m sure I saw the green hair and black diamond eyes of a clown mask in the window.

  Maybe it was just a coincidence that someone has opened a joke shop and chosen exactly the same sign and window display. I hope so. But if I lived in that town, I’d steer very clear of anyone dressed as a vampire, witch or clown.

  Especially tomorrow.

  Tomorrow is Halloween.

  THE END

  Joke Shop ISBN 978-1-78464-228-0

  Text © Tim Collins 2014

  Complete work © Badger Publishing Limited 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

  The right of Tim Collins to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and

  Patents Act 1988.

  Publisher: Susan Ross

  Senior Editor: Danny Pearson

  Publishing Assistant: Claire Morgan

  Copyeditor: Cheryl Lanyon

  Designer: Bigtop Design Ltd

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