Mr Mahli's Shed Read online

  They just sat for a while. Two sets of wide eyes and a load of shallow breath. Alys watched a tiny bead of sweat run down TB’s cheek and felt her hands shaking beneath her quilt. Eventually the children felt themselves calm down, their breath slowing back down to a normal pace and that awful spiky feeling on their backs subsided.

  ‘Alys…’ TB started, ‘we’ve got to go back.’ He chewed on his bottom lip and waited for Alys’ response. It came pretty quickly.

  ‘Go back there? No way! Not if you paid me like a huge ton of money and … and … I dunno, like, gave me life-time free entry to Oakwood and … and offered to do all my homework for the rest of my life! Like Forever! Not even then, Tomos Brown. There’s something in that shed and I’ve never felt so scared in all my whole life!’

  ‘Well, you are only just nine,’ TB mumbled to Alys’ feet. Before she could shout at him anymore, TB got up and crossed the room. He turned to look at Alys as he pulled the door and sighed. ‘Look Al, if we don’t go back who’ll shut the shed door? And we’ve left the garden in a right mess and all. Mr M trusted me! He asked me pacifically to look after his garden and now look!’

  Alys smirked. ‘It’s specifically, you muppet,’ she retorted.

  ‘Please come,’ Tom said, begging his friend with his eyes. ‘I bet you still want to know what it is in there, don’t you?’

  Alys did want to know. She wanted to know really badly. But she was also worried that she would wee in her knickers if she saw or heard anything else remotely ghosty. Eventually she struck upon an idea. She hunted in the garage for a suitable form of defence. Something that would make her feel safer. Something that could possibly protect them both.

  TB was very surprised to see his friend running out of her garage moments later, wielding a bicycle pump. She had a shaky grin on her face and waved the ‘weapon’ around proudly, point first, to show TB. ‘Riiiight,’ said TB, ‘what you going to do with that then?’

  ‘Look, it’s just in case, alright? It’s the only way I’m coming with you.’

  They stood a little back from the shed this time. TB called out, ‘Hello? Anyone in there?’ and Alys giggled nervously. The children were both feeling jumpy and even the slight swinging of the door in the breeze had them twitching like bunny rabbits’ noses. They inched forward, nudging each other, their breath sounding louder than ever before. TB swallowed the vast amount of saliva that seemed to have appeared in his mouth and reached out for the edge of the door. They both stood completely still as they heard the deep voice again, ‘I don’t bite you know. Haven’t been able to for years.’

  This time the voice sounded less scary, almost friendly and although the children jumped, they stayed rooted to the spot.

  The air seemed to freeze around them. All the garden sounds were very far away at that moment, but the sound of the children’s heartbeats thumped in their ears. They waited for an hour-long minute, then Alys waved her bicycle pump around half-heartedly by her feet.

  ‘Is there someone here?’ she whispered in a voice TB didn’t recognise.

  ‘There is…’ replied the voice, ‘but only if you know where to look.’

  ‘Are you friendly or, like, crazy mental like…’ started TB.

  ‘Shh!’ Alys shoved him gently. But to their surprise they heard a low chuckle.

  ‘You look like the crazy ones with your – what is that – a bicycle pump? and your shaky legs,’ laughed the voice. ‘Come on in then, come and see for yourselves. I won’t jump at you shouting “ooooo!” I promise you.’ And the children felt themselves moving slowly, like ice cream slipping down a cone, into the shed.

  Once inside, although they felt the coolness surround them, the children felt strangely calm and managed to remember how to breathe. But the shed still looked empty to them as their eyes adjusted to the dim light.

  ‘Over here.’ The voice was close but quieter, as though he didn’t want to frighten them. ‘You’ve got to look properly. Let your eyes relax and look into the corner by the window.’

  The children followed the instructions, narrowing their eyes and frowning with concentration.

  ‘What are you then?’ Alys asked. ‘You a ghost or something?’

  ‘Exactly right I suppose,’ replied the voice. ‘Although I don’t really think of myself as a ghost, I suppose I must be. Funny things us ghosts, you see. I feel like a man, like I did before … before it happened, but I’m not quite all there. I think I’m a little bit like an out-of-tune wireless; you can hear something through the crackling but it’s not clear.’

  ‘Like an out-of-tune what?’ asked TB, but as he spoke he saw the shaky image of a man, sitting on a see-through chair, slowly come into focus.

  TB gasped and backed up a little into Alys. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What can you see?’

  ‘Look over there,’ TB pointed at the man, whose outline was rapidly filling in now. He could make out a mop of brown curly hair and a round nose above a cherubic mouth holding a cigar. The smoke peeling off the end of the cigar was also coming into focus; the smell suddenly hit TB and he coughed. ‘Can’t you see him Alys? You must be able to smell the…’

  ‘Cigar?’ Alys finished. As she sniffed the air she too started to see the smoke and followed the trail right down to the seated man.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked, shaking her head in wonderment. ‘And what are you doing in Mr Mahli’s shed?’

  The man smiled and said, ‘My name’s Dylan. And I’ve been in the shed for quite a few years now. It’s kind of my home I suppose.’ He looked surprised at this thought, as though he’d only just realised it and took another hard puff on his cigar.

  ‘My question is…’ he continued, ‘what are you doing in here? And how come you can see me?’

  Seven

  A Very Strange Chat

  Alys and TB looked at each other and shrugged. ‘I’ve always wondered about this shed,’ said TB. ‘I’ve always wanted to know why it’s here and why it’s empty and Mr Mahli made up some amazing stories and well … I suppose I just wanted to know, y’know?’

  Dylan nodded. ‘Anyway, he’s gone away on holiday, Mr Mahli, so I thought I’d come in, while he’s away, just to see if … well, just to see. But how come we can see you? I don’t know. You told us how to, didn’t you?’

  Both children could now see Dylan quite clearly. They could see the smoke too, curling round their bodies and settling on their hair. Alys stared at Dylan with a calm curiosity. ‘Why are you here? Were you a real person once? I mean before…’ she asked.

  ‘I was very real, me,’ laughed the ghost, ‘larger than life itself some said.’ The children frowned at the small man. He didn’t look very large or impressive. His tummy was quite round but he didn’t look much taller than TB.

  ‘I’m not sure why I’m here. It’s hard to explain.’ He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes as though sleeping, or thinking really hard. ‘I’ve been here a little while I think. But … not quite … whole. I have bits of memories coming to me now. It’s very hard to see clearly. It’s like if you have a dream, and when you wake up it’s vivid in your mind, but then you try to tell someone about it and it’s all … disjointed. You understand? Not … together.’

  ‘Does Mr Mahli know you’re here?’ TB asked, moving closer to the figure to get a better look.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Dylan, defensively. ‘He moved all the stuff out for me. He brings me these.’ He gestured to his cigar. Alys glanced around the empty shed.

  ‘But why did you want all the stuff out? Why do you want to sit all day in an empty shed?’ she asked. Dylan smiled.

  ‘Empty? You’ve got the wrong eyes on, cariad. It’s not empty, look again.’

  This time, when Alys looked, she relaxed her gaze a little and sure enough shapes began to appear, like when your mum turns the light off at night, but you’re not tired, so you stare around your room in the dark and slowly you start to see things again.

  There was a low bookcase, filled with shadowy
books and mugs; a little stove in the corner with a glass door and a heavy black handle; a basket full of old papers and bits of wood and – pushed against the back wall – a wooden desk loaded with paper, pencils in a pot and frames with old pictures or photographs in, it was hard to tell.

  ‘How did these things get here? This is seriously weird,’ said TB, following Alys’ gaze and noticing the objects for the first time.

  ‘It is weird,’ remarked Dylan. ‘They weren’t here at first. But gradually, as I started to think about and wish for things, they began to appear, just as I remembered them. I’m glad you can see them too. I thought I’d lost my mind for a while…’

  The children eventually sat on the floor of the shed and talked to Dylan until their stomachs ached for food and they had to go home for lunch. They discovered that Mr Mahli had found Dylan in his shed years ago and had taken all the tools and plant pots out to make room for the ghost and his big imagination. He visited him sometimes and brought the cigars of course but otherwise left the ghost quite alone, for which he’d been grateful.

  By the time the children left they had promised Dylan that they would be back the next day with something to eat. He hadn’t tried before, but the cigars were so successful that he felt he’d like to give it a go.

  Eight

  Waitress Service

  The next day was Monday and the children had to go to school. But as soon as they got home, they changed out of their uniforms and met by Mr Mahli’s gate. TB had brought with him a Bounty bar and a packet of Munchies; thinking that if a person could manage to eat anything then it would be chocolate.

  They still felt slightly anxious as they approached the shed. TB reached for Alys’ hand, but her withering look made him snatch it back straight away. The strongest feeling they had though was excitement, they couldn’t wait to see Dylan again and find out if he could eat real food. All day in school they’d been giving each other secret looks and little smiles, until Alys’ friends had been convinced that TB was her new boyfriend! Of course Alys had been quite disgusted by this and made sure TB heard her telling them that wasn’t the case At All.

  They half-walked and half-ran round the back of Mr Mahli’s garden towards the shed. Alys opened the door and together they entered the cool air of the inside. At first they couldn’t see Dylan and their eyes desperately darted around as they searched for him. Then they heard a chuckle, which turned into a cough, and the image of a man began to shimmer into view.

  ‘Hello there, that was quick,’ said Dylan, rocking back in his chair. Alys frowned. ‘Well, it’s been a whole day and we’re both keen to see if you can manage something to eat.’ She turned to get the chocolate out of TB’s hand and didn’t notice the confused look on Dylan’s face. ‘Try it then,’ she offered, holding out the chocolate. ‘We didn’t know what you’d like but, well, you can’t not like Munchies, they’re yum.’

  Dylan reached out and tried to take the chocolate from Alys’ hand but his fingers seemed to slip through the bar and grasp at nothing. ‘Mahli usually takes the packaging off my cigars, maybe that’d help,’ he said.

  TB took the Bounty and removed the wrapper but Dylan still couldn’t hold it.

  ‘We could try feeding it to you?’ suggested TB but Dylan started to look a bit worried and Alys decided to change the subject.

  ‘So, what have you been doing all day then?’ she asked chirpily.

  ‘Hmm, interesting question,’ replied Dylan. ‘You see, to me it seems as though you went out of that door just a couple of minutes ago. I suppose it’s like I’ve been asleep but … I don’t feel like I’ve just woken up.’

  TB and Alys wondered about this for a minute, then TB said, ‘I think maybe you’re only a ghost some of the time. Perhaps the rest of the time you’re where you should be … wherever all the other dead people are. But then you get bored and want to come back to almost alive again. Do you think? Is that what’s happening to you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask to be here, I’m not sure I even want to be here. I mean what’s so great about being here if all I do is sit in a shed? Why choose that over eternal peace? Where’s my choir of angels? Hey? Where’s my white cloud?’

  Dylan seemed to be getting himself quite worked up and TB and Alys felt themselves edging towards the door. But suddenly Dylan collapsed back in his chair with a sigh and rubbed his brow. The children just stood and waited. Eventually Dylan raised his head to look at them. ‘Perhaps what I need, kids, is a change of scenery.’

  Nine

  A School Trip

  Somehow Dylan managed to persuade TB and Alys to take him out of the shed. But not just for a walk. Not just to see the ducks in the park. Oh no, Dylan wanted more. He wanted to go to school.

  Operation ‘Moving Dylan’ had to wait a few days as Alys and TB made arrangements and plans and tried to think of excuses. But on Thursday morning the pair left early to walk to school and slipped unnoticed into Mr Mahli’s garden on the way.

  Dylan had been practising making himself super-small because the plan was for him to fit inside TB’s rucksack. As TB and Alys had needed to work hard to see Dylan in the first place, he was counting on the fact that their classmates would also find it difficult and as they weren’t aware of Dylan’s existence, hopefully they wouldn’t even try to see him. Once he got to school he thought he’d be quite safe. Squeezing into the rucksack might be a trickier matter.

  TB opened up his bag and took out the books and sandwich box, which he’d filled it with at home. Dylan put a tentative foot inside at first, then took a deep breath and jumped the other foot in and bent down. His bottom hung over the edge of the bag, his thick brown trousers straining against his bulk. TB and Alys tried very hard not to laugh and TB pulled the rucksack neck as wide as he could.

  ‘It’s no use Dylan,’ said Alys, ‘you’re never fitting in there.’

  ‘I’m big, I know that. But I’m not solid. I’m just a suggestion of a man, an outline with some misty innards. Squash me in mun, put your effort into it and want to do it. Use your will.’

  Alys looked at TB and rolled her eyes. But the children lent forward and started to push Dylan as hard as they could into the bag. It was very weird at first. He felt like dry ice but sort of squashy. Sometimes TB’s hand went right through him, but then he concentrated really hard and thought about what Dylan had said and suddenly, POP! Dylan was in the bag.

  TB pulled the drawstring tight before Dylan began to expand again and the three friends set off down the garden path to go to school, excitement bubbling in their tummies (and in Dylan’s misty, squashy dry ice).

  They were a little late for school. The bell had already sounded and the last parents were just leaving as they slipped in through the gates. TB and Alys joined the end of their line and filed in after the other children. Mrs Best stood at the door of the cloakroom talking to Jamie Parkin (who had a lot to tell her about his hamster’s cough and how it had kept him up all night) and TB managed to sneak past her with his bag. As the other children were putting things in their trays and getting out their books and having a chat, TB crept – ninja-style – into the teacher’s cupboard at the back of the room.

  He closed the door. The cupboard was dark with only a tiny high window letting in light through the dirt. It was cluttered too, with books, boxes, files and randomly a pair of wellies on the floor, but TB opened up the bag to show Dylan his temporary home anyway.

  Dylan was not impressed.

  ‘Now I remember why Mr Mahli was such a good host.’ Dylan grumbled. ‘You’ll have to move some of this stuff out boy, there’s no room for my things.’

  ‘No way Dylan!’ retorted TB. ‘This is Mrs Best’s cupboard. She can’t even know I’ve been in here or I’ll get in massive trouble. Look, it’s not for long, just … just stay put and … shhh!’

  ‘OK children, who’s got their books out?’ TB heard Mrs Best’s voice very close to the cupboard. ‘Well done, house point for you, Elen. And a house point for Ja
ck. That’s it Gregory, open your reading book.’ She paused as the hubbub in the room died down. Pretty soon it was quiet. And TB was still in the cupboard.

  Alys watched the cupboard door. ‘Come on TB,’ she muttered, ‘what you doing in there?’ Then she saw the handle begin to turn very slowly and deliberately and she realised Mrs Best was bound to notice. Unless …

  ‘Mrs Best!’ shouted Alys, getting to her feet. Mrs Best looked up from her register sharply. ‘I’ve just remembered my mum really needed to see you!’

  ‘Alright Alys, calm down! You gave me such a shock. I thought you’d spotted Gary Barlow in the playground.’ (Mrs Best loved Gary Barlow more than chips.)

  Alys sped across the classroom and opened the door. Mrs Best got to her feet with a sigh and followed Alys out of the room. TB saw his chance and darted out of the cupboard and into his seat. Seconds later Alys and Mrs Best marched back into the room. ‘I don’t understand it, Mrs Best. She said I was to get you and she’d wait in the yard.’ Alys said, acting all confused.

  ‘Never mind, lovely,’ replied Mrs Best, ‘I’ll give her a ring at playtime.’

  Alys looked worried for a minute but then remembered her mum was working in the docks today and wouldn’t be able to answer her phone. She hoped Mrs Best would forget all about it by the end of the day.

  Ten

  A Tiger Onesie

  The day passed as uneventfully as a Thursday in Swansea usually does. Although TB and Alys kept glancing towards the cupboard, they never saw so much as a ghostly eye peeking through the slightly open door. Dylan was either behaving incredibly well … or he’d disappeared.