Aunt Effie's Ark (6 page)

“Good night. Sleep tight. Hope the fleas don't bite!” He laughed gruffly.

“You sound just like the Bugaboo!” Isaac said.

“What's the Bugaboo?” asked Jessie, and we all slept.

Snow rose till the house and barn became one. Each morning we fed the stock and cleaned out the barn. Each night Peter read us another page of The Wind in the Willows. We played Scrabble, Monopoly, and Strip Jack Naked. We stuck the silver handle in the side of Aunt Effie's old gramophone, wound it up, and played all her Gracie Fields records. When Gracie Fields sang “Out in the Cold Cold Snow”, we felt sorry for her and cried.

Jared and Jessie got their heads stuck in the horn of the old gramophone, looking for the little men and women Alwyn had told them lived inside and sang and played the music. After we pulled out their heads, we told them Alwyn had made that up. Still Jared kept poking biscuits and bits of bread down the horn.

We played poker for old gramophone needles. When they ran out because Jazz won them all, he said, “Let's play for pennies.”

“Rather than live under a roof where gambling is carried on,” Daisy pronounced, “I shall fling myself outside to be eaten by the Tattooed Wolf!”

We didn't mind Daisy being eaten, but we didn't
want to have to explain it to Aunt Effie. So we played poker for matches. Then Jazz won all the matches and tried to sell them back to us at a penny a time, but Daisy found out. “That's sinful gambling by another name!” she said loftily. So we gave up poker.

We looked at our hibernating cousins: Mabel, Johnny, Flossie, Lynda, Stan, Howard, Marge, and
Stuart
who lay snoring on their backs. Ann cut out little cocked hats from coloured paper and popped them on their noses. By making little holes in the cocked hats, she produced different notes. After long and patient experiment, she got them all snoring the tune of “God Save Queen Victorious” together. However, when she tried to make them snore the tune of “How Great Thou Art”, Daisy complained.

“Sacrilege!” she exclaimed. “‘How Great Thou Art' is the favourite song of the Prime Minister! She always has the children sing it to her, whenever she visits a school.” Daisy was a great admirer of the Prime
Minister
. “She doesn't put up with any nonsense!” she said, looking at Alwyn.

“Up with any nonsense!” he replied.

Ann then tried blocking our hibernating cousins' nostrils, one at a time, then both. They snorted and shook their heads, but kept on hibernating. “I don't think they're our cousins at all,” Ann said.

“What's that?” cried Daisy.

“Remember when Aunt Effie said she wasn't sure whether she was our great-aunt or our
great-great-great-great
grandmother?”

“Yes!”

“Well,” said Ann, “Mabel, Johnny, Flossie, Lynda,
Stan, Howard, Marge, and Stuart might be our
grandparents
.”

Daisy huffed, “I'll have you know they're my
brothers
and sisters!”

“That's what you think.” Ann didn't just have a good memory, but was sometimes relentless in argument. “If Aunt Effie couldn't remember what she was, how can you be certain?”

Daisy couldn't think of an answer so she started singing “Abide With Me” very slowly. Daisy found great consolation in hymns.

Peter took a lamp and examined our sleeping
cousins
closely. “They do look a bit older than the rest of us.”

“‘Change and decay in all about I see!'” Daisy sang.

“I've never noticed before,” said Peter, “but Johnny, Stan, Howard, and Stuart have all got long beards.”

“‘Where is death's sting? Where, Grave, thy victory?'” Daisy sang.

“That's just because they haven't shaved since
hibernating
,” said Marie.

“That's true,” Peter admitted. “But their beards are down past their waists. Don't you see they must have had long beards even before they went into
hibernation
?”

“It is a remarkably cold winter.”

“Yes, but Mabel, Flossie, Lynda, and Marge haven't grown beards.”

“Perhaps that's because they're women,” said Alwyn.

“‘…earth's vain shadows flee–'” Daisy broke off her hymn to shout, “How dare you talk of my sisters like that. My sisters aren't women: they're ladies! And I haven't grown a beard either!”

“Grown a beard either!”

“Then,” said Ann, “why didn't Daisy hibernate, too?”

“Certainly,” Alwyn said in the measured voice he kept for teasing Daisy, “it would have been better for us if she had.”

“You shouldn't have said that,” Marie told Alwyn. “I think you've hurt Daisy's feelings.”

“Hurt Daisy's feelings?” Alwyn repeated with a question mark at the end. Fortunately Daisy was now singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” so stridently she didn't hear.

Next morning, Daisy lay in bed long after the rest of us had got up. At last, Marie tapped at her sliding doors, and said, “Would you like to have your breakfast in bed, Daisy?” Daisy neither answered nor opened her eyes. Her nostrils were pinched, and her lips pressed together thin and white.

“I hope she's all right.”

“We'll see how she is when we come back from the barn,” said Peter.

“It's something that's worried me all winter,” said Marie. “What if one of us falls ill? What will we do for a doctor?”

“There's Aunt Effie's medical book,” said Peter. “The Home Medical Encyclopaedia:
How To Do Your Own Major Operations
.”

“Does it tell you how to set a broken leg?” asked Ann.

Peter opened
The
Home Medical Encyclopaedia at a page of diagrams and instructions.

“What about cutting off a leg?” asked Ann. “Just supposing we had to…”

Peter turned over some pages and showed her some
terrible pictures. Now it was Ann's face that went white.

“Does it say what to do with the old leg?” asked Lizzie.

“I think you bury it,” Peter said. “That's what we'd do anyway. Dig a grave, bury the leg, and say something out of the Bible over it.”

“What about where the old leg came off?” asked Jessie. “Do you grow a new one?”

“This is a book about home medicine. It doesn't answer questions like that.”

Jessie grizzled, “When Jazz pulled off my nose,
another
one grew at once.”

We all looked at Jazz. He loved playing with the little ones, tugging their noses and ears, showing them the tip of his thumb and saying he'd pulled them off. And then when they felt them, he said they'd grown again.

“Legs don't grow again,” Peter told Jessie.

“Why not?”

“They can't. Remember all those pirates with wooden legs on the black schooner?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they'd had their legs blown off with
cannonballs
. And they didn't grow again, did they?”

“That's right!” Jessie cheered up. “And some had no ears,” she said, “because they'd had them cut off in battles.”

“Remember the one who had no nose!” Lizzie said to Jessie. “Jazz told us it was bitten off in a pub fight. And he said the woman who bit it off swallowed it so they couldn't stick it back on!”

“Jazz's stories aren't always true,” said Marie. She frowned at Jazz and nodded to Peter to put away the
Home Encyclopaedia with its gruesome pictures. “I'm still worried about Daisy.”

We did the dishes, and Marie said, “Why's Jessie crying now?”

“Because Jazz told her you can't pick your nose once it's cut off,” said Ann. Marie glared at Jazz.

“And Lizzie wants to know if all the cut-off legs go running around together?” said Ann.

“Not if they're properly buried in the ground,” Marie told Lizzie who cheered up at once. As we went over to the barn, Jazz hopped on one leg, and Casey, Lizzie, Jared, and Jessie hopped in a row behind him.

While we were milking, Ann and Becky were
talking
about Daisy, and one of the cows turned her head around and said, “Excuse me, but I couldn't help
overhearing
. Did you say you need a doctor?”

“Daisy won't wake up, Blossom,” said Ann. “Marie's worried in case she needs a doctor. The nearest one is in Matamata, and that's buried under several hundred feet of snow.”

“But we've got a very good doctor here!” said
Blossom
. And Rosie, the other cow, nodded her head and said, “The best one in the district. We wouldn't go to anyone else when we're having our calves!”

“Who?”

“Didn't you know Hubert's a doctor? He brought us into the world, and he helped us with our calves. He brought our mothers into the world, our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers!”

Ann and Becky finished stripping Blossom and Rosie, and spoke to Peter. He looked up from
scrubbing
the last separator discs. As the pigs glunked and
glubbed and golloped down the skim dick, we all
followed
Peter into Hubert's stall.

Hubert was reading an old copy of the Woman's Weekly. He looked up at us over his glasses. “It says here, in my horoscope,” said Hubert, “to watch out for coincidences this week. What coincidence have you brought me?”

“Are you a doctor, Hubert?”

Hubert pointed to his wall. A glass-covered
certificate
hanging there said that Hubert was a graduate of the Dr H. Wakatipu Medical School, licensed to practise medicine. The certificate had a big red seal of wax and was signed by Dr H. Wakatipu, Medical Consultant to the Prime Minister.

“Wakatipu's in the South Island,” said Jazz.

“Yes.”

“But you've never been to the South Island.”

“Who says?”

We all looked disapprovingly at Jazz.

Hubert smiled and said, “I studied by mail – through the Underground Correspondence School.”

“Aunt Effie said something about the Underground Correspondence School.”

“Yes,” said Hubert. “You send Dr Wakatipu fifty guineas through the mail, and he sends back your degree and a certificate to hang on your wall. Anyway, who's sick?”

“Daisy's lying in her bunk with her eyes closed, her nostrils pinched, and her lips pressed together,” said Marie. “She won't wake up, but she doesn't look as if she's hibernating.”

Hubert took a stethoscope out of his pocket, poked
the ends in his ears, listened to his own heart, and asked, “Is Daisy snoring?”

“No.”

“Then she's not hibernating. Has Alwyn been
repeating
everything she says?”

“Yes.”

“And have the others been mocking her?”

“Yes.”

“Then she's not sick. She's just feeling sorry for herself. Remember Daisy is your aunt and probably thinks you don't show her enough respect.”

“But we thought she was our cousin!”

“She's a great-aunt to some of you. And a
great-great-aunt
to the little ones. And she's the oldest of all your uncles and aunts who are hibernating.”

“We were just wondering if they were really our cousins!”

Hubert wagged his head so his long cheeks and his big lips and nostrils all shook. “I'm always telling Aunt Effie she should work out who's who in her family. But she says genealogy is nonsense.”

“Last summer,” said Ann, “she told us our family's a dreadful muddle.”

“So are most families,” said Hubert. “And so are most genealogies. Fortunately, I've got a good memory, and I'm always here to tell you who you are.” He paused for a moment, shook his head, and took the stethoscope out of his ears. “What's my name?” he asked.

“Hubert!”

“Remind me: what were we talking about?”

“About you being a doctor.”

“That's right! I don't think there's anything seriously
wrong with Daisy. Here, give her a good swig of this three times a day.” He reached under his bed and gave Marie a bottle. The label said, “Old Puckeroo Tonic Incorporating Parrish's Food and Lane's Emulsion. Recommended for Horses.” We could see the medicine inside was striped red and white.

“Aunt Effie takes a lot of Old Puckeroo,” said Lizzie.

“I prescribe it for her.” Hubert smiled. “Not the same stuff as this, but made by the same people. Daisy may find the taste of Parrish's Food a bit repulsive. And the Lane's Emulsion might make her run to the dunny, but those will just be symptoms of good health.”

“What are symptoms?” asked Lizzie.

“Signs.”

“Then why don't you say signs?”

“Doctors don't use ordinary words. Not when we can think of bigger ones. It impresses people.”

Peter wanted to pay Hubert, but he waved his front hoof and said, “It's all taken care of by the Prime
Minister
. She pays me to look after you.”

As we were leaving, Jessie turned back. “Hubert?” she asked. “How does the Tattooed Wolf know Aunt Effie's real name?”

But Hubert just looked at Jessie and shook his head so hard his ears wagged. His stethoscope had
disappeared
. The certificate on his wall, the Woman's Weekly, and his glasses had disappeared, too. All we saw was an old horse standing in his stall, shaking his head and blowing chaff out of his nostrils.

We ran back to Aunt Effie's kitchen and stood around Daisy's bunk. Marie held her mouth open while Peter poured in the striped medicine. “The red stuff's the Parrish's Food,” he said. “The white stuff's Lane's
Emulsion.”

Daisy spluttered. She opened her eyes, saw the bottle, and was furious. “You mean to say you poured horse medicine down my throat?”

“You wouldn't wake up, and we didn't know what to do.”

Daisy closed her eyes, turned over, and put her back to us. “Close the doors,” she said. “I have nothing to say to you.”