Do Fish Wear Pyjamas? Read online

  Well what boy could resist such an invitation — there was silence, as soon as everyone promised not to reveal what he would tell them.

  With that, Bebob again clicked two hairy fingers and murmured,

  ‘See me only, see me true, no one else but all of you,’ and there he was standing with Gonzo in the centre of the class.

  Some of the boys let out a yelp and there was a little bit of a commotion but Gonzo quietened them down quickly.

  “Be quiet or Mrs. Keenan or Miss O’Driscoll will come back and my friend Bebob will disappear,” Gonzo told them in a very firm, schoolteacher-like, voice.

  Deep down he liked the sound of that — my friend Bebob — for if the truth were known he didn’t really have that many real friends as such.

  Quite quickly Gonzo had apparently become the leader of the class. The boys quietened down and listened intently to him and Bebob.

  “This is BebobZippityBob but you can call him BeBob and he and his friend Gooey need our help,” Gonzo announced rather matter-of-factly, like a general describing his new battle plan.

  Many of the boys were still in shock as they looked at the strange creature in front of them.

  His blond and blue hair was in a sort of a Mohawk style (like those ‘punks’ used to wear) and his skin had a sort of gooey/waxy red sheen to it. He had a biggish head with wonderful deep-set eyes of blue, red, green and purple and elf-like pointy ears. While it was impossible to say for certain if he had hands as such, his two long ragged arms, with circular and triangular markings that reminded the boys of tattoos, each ended with three chubby, wonderfully hairy, fingers. Bebob stood on two legs with three toes on each foot and walked barefoot upon the ground.

  The boys loved the fact that he had a sort of small pointed dragon-like tail which stuck out from his bright green trousers and that he had a cool scar near his left eye. It made him look dangerous — as if everything else was normal!! Bebob had two thin twisted swirling tongues and spoke in a wonderfully low voice. Though he had on a bright blue tee-shirt with flames on it you could see that he was extremely thin and his skin was wrapped tightly on his bones, sort of like a skeleton, though not in a ghostly way. His sharpish teeth and spikey back added to his skeletal look but all said and done he was just about the coolest thing they had ever seen! And after all, he was an alien, and he was in their school — just how cool was that?

  It was still lunchtime and as the boys munched their way through crackers, sandwiches, rolls and various collections of fruits, cheeses and sweeter things, Bebob unpacked his lunch and drank some cold mushy pea and cabbage soup, ate some blackened spinach pasta with gooseberry jam and had room left over for some peanut butter and apricot jelly, mixed with brown mushrooms, vinegar and soft, black bananas for desert. He drank something gloopy which just smelled foul and to be honest nobody wanted to know what it was or dared to ask. Sometimes it was better not to know! He loved it all and swirled and swished his tongues around his mouth and lips as he ate every morsel and drank every drop.

  Getting back to his story, Bebob explained that he was a sort of an astronaut and told them the story of how he and his very best friend Gooey had hitched their way to Earth and to Kildare Town from their peaceful home on The Land of Goo. Bebob explained that he lived in a circular house with his family, close to the Lakes of Goo. He had one sister, called, DappityDappityDoo and two brothers called, DemyMemWemy and BlipBeeDeeBlop, all of whom were younger than he was (about nine years old in Earth terms). His mother’s name was BlooBiddieBloo and his father’s name was JammaJooJah. Bebob told them all about moon-bowling and about his favourite pet, HicksaBee who could best be described as a sort of half-cat, half-dog that could lay eggs.

  At home on their planet, an age old story was told of a secret, hidden book which could give you answers to all the great mysteries of the universe. They were tracing all the great books in the universe and had set out for Kildare in the hopes of finding one such book — The Great Book of Kildare. It had been lost for over a thousand years and Gooey and Bebob believed that it could be the book they were searching for. On their journey to Kildare they had briefly stopped off in Dublin and Gooey had taken a look at the Book of Kells, her being able to be invisible and all. While it was not the book they were searching for, she did admit it was amongst the most beautiful of any of the books she had seen.

  The boys knew nothing about The Great Book of Kildare but they did know ‘bits’ about the ancient history of Kildare — about St. Brigid, The Black Abbey and The Grey Abbey and some stories about secret tunnels and ghostly knights who rode across the famous Curragh Plains. Bebob was delighted with their offer to help and it was decided that he and J.J., a.k.a. Gonzo, would go to The Black Abbey to search for the Book and to see if stories about a secret tunnel were true. The Black Abbey had been the home of military monks and it seemed like a good place to hide something — a good place to start!

  Two of the boys went out and ‘borrowed’ the caretakers cleaning cart which they then pushed across the schoolyard to the door of the classroom. Gonzo climbed inside. They covered him with an old sack and leaves and tools and such, while Bebob simply morphed into the cart. Then the other boys pushed it to the back gate of the school and pretended to clean the yard. When the bell rang, to signal lunch was at an end, they simply left the cart where it was and returned to class.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE LAND OF GOO

  At the girls school, once Gooey had recovered from her fall and the hysterical laughing fits that had followed, she was surrounded with curious girls from Prefab 4 and Prefab 3 who were now firing questions at her from all sides. The other class had joined them when the bell rang, sounding break-time in the school. During the break, two pupils had gone to find Miss Coll and helped her bring a dazed Miss Fogarty to the staffroom. Meanwhile the girls had sneaked Gooey outside into the playground because they knew the teachers would not understand and they might call the Police.

  Mostly they wanted to know who Gooey was, why was she here, what kind of place she was from and so on and so forth. When break was over they all assembled in the Physical Education or P.E. Hall. Poor Miss Fogarty had not yet recovered and they were now in the charge of Miss Coll. The teachers had decided that the best thing to do was to bring both classes into the P.E. Hall with their schoolbags where they were told to keep quiet and work on their homework. Miss Coll trusted them to behave while she slipped out to the staffroom to check on Miss Fogarty — ‘whatever had happened..?’

  Gooey had simply become invisible once more and followed the other girls inside. As soon as Miss Coll had left, she quietly reappeared without a hint of fuss, to the absolute amazement of the girls in the Hall. Quickly surrounded, Gooey smiled again as she spoke and she tried to answer all the questions she was asked by telling the girls about herself and her life on The Land of Goo. She and Bebob had done some research on the planet Earth and she spoke (she hoped) in a way they would understand though there were many differences in the type of words and language they used at home and here on Earth. She kept it simple — all good guide books told you to do that when you went exploring across the universe.

  ‘Her name was Gooletta but her friends affectionately called her Gooey and she was about their age (in Earth terms, nine). She lived with her parents and brothers and sisters on The Land of Goo which was a small planet on the edge of the Universe and quite unknown to humans, existing as it did in a dicolar pocket of space which made it invisible to other space travellers and most detection equipment. It was mainly yellow and the houses were a deeper shade of yellow with bright orange dots — these were actually the cooling vents but they made the houses look really pretty. The multicoloured sky had fluffy clouds with red and green stripes, five brown suns and four moons, which were luminous purple in colour, while the stars appeared pink in the night sky. She liked driving her ZapperSnapper, which was kind of like a spaceship but more of a landship as they never flew into the sky or into space. She told the excited
girls who surrounded her that everyone had a licence to drive at the age of seven. Her favourite thing to do was to ride the wild fish on the Lakes of Goo — there were no oceans but because it was a very small planet, the lakes were good enough for their needs.

  The very best thing about The Land of Goo was that because everybody was so odd and so different they all learned to get on fairly well with each other and there was no fighting on their planet and no bullying amongst the children. She had two brothers, IckyWicky and WeekieWoo and four sisters, LeelyPod, MaisinGoo, RizzleWizzle and FreiRoo. Her very best friend was BebobZippityBob or ‘Bebob’ for short.’ The girls became very excited when they realised he was in Kildare also.

  Gooey told them, that, ‘…her mother’s name was FrobbleLite and her father’s name was ToddleDoo and that she and Bebob would be in all sorts of trouble once their parents discovered that they were missing. Only the day before, they had driven their ZapperSnappers all over the place and had been missing for most of the day. Their fathers had grounded them for a week but Gooey and Bebob had decided to sneak off anyway on their adventure, which they had planned for ages – they loved to see what life was like on other worlds and to experience different things. They had made up a name for their explorations in the form of a question, Do Fish Wear Pyjamas? Their quest — to find answers to their questions and the key to the mysteries of the universe in a secret book they believed to be in Kildare.’

  The girls of Scoil Bhride Naofa thought this was the best adventure ever and they pledged to help them any way they could. Not all of them would be able to go, that was very clear, so they deputised Bridin to be their ambassador to the visitors from Goo and they made plans to slip her out of school without getting caught or getting into trouble.

  When the bell sounded for lunch, the teachers were amazed to find that the girls of Prefab 4 and Prefab 3 chose to sit quietly and have their lunch in the P.E. Hall — indeed they had never been this well behaved! Some of the longer serving teachers were immediately suspicious but they could not find fault with any girl in the Hall — they were behaving like model students, which in itself was all very strange. But the teachers had their own lunches to eat and classes to teach, so one of the teachers in the yard was told to keep an eye on them through the windows of the Hall.

  As soon as the teachers had left for the staffroom, the girls began drawing up plans for Bridins escape, as Gooey just had to become invisible again and walk out the door. Gooey knew that she only had to hold Bridin close, to make her invisible too, but it took a lot of practice with someone to perfect it and they didn’t have time. She simply couldn’t risk it.

  They made their plans over lunch as it was important to keep up their strength. You can imagine the girls surprise when Gooey opened up her beautiful baggy handbag-likebag and began mixing up ingredients for her lunch. In Kildare, children had all kinds of fruits and snacks, rolls and sandwiches, yoghurts and juice drinks, but Gooey’s lunch was — well it was different. It certainly smelled a little different though the girls from Kildare were too polite to comment. Gooey seemed to combine everything and anything and mostly things they could not stomach. She had cold brussels sprouts and blueberry jam soup, a kind of chicken and chocolate lasagne type main course and a crunchyberry milkshake of what appeared to be acorns, nettle leaves, peanut butter, banana and smelly cheesy-milk to wash it all down. This was followed by carrot and potato icecream. It appeared that the baggy handbaglike- bag knew no limits to what could be produced. She seemed very happy with her choices and generously offered some to the wide-eyed girls around her. They very politely refused.

  As they all ate, they plotted and schemed. Gooey mentioned that she could communicate with Bebob by simply thinking hard about it. The girls asked her to arrange to meet him so she closed her eyes briefly and when she opened them again, she announced that they would meet at The Black Abbey, the old graveyard near the National Stud and Japanese Gardens. Bebob was bringing his new friend Gonzo and somehow it seemed important that they find a secret tunnel at the Abbey. The girls were very excited but first, they, and the boys, had to help Gooey, Bridin, Bebob and Gonzo, escape from school.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ESCAPE TO ST. BRIGID’S WELL

  In the girls school the plan worked beautifully. When Miss Coll came back to the Hall, the girls rushed her and swamped her with questions about Miss Fogarty and her terrible ordeal —

  ‘… is she alright … has she woken … will she ever recover completely?’

  These questions were hurriedly thrown at the befuddled teacher and, on cue, a couple of the girls burst into tears over poor Miss Fogarty. The girls sat Miss Coll down to get all the answers, distracting her, so she was totally unaware of Bridins departure from the Hall — Gooey of course was completely invisible and slipped out at her new friends side. Bridin stood in the entrance for a second and, when the coast was clear, she jumped out and dashed across the small bit of yard that separated the hall from the Prefab classrooms. She ducked down beneath the windows and made her way to the back wall of the school. There were a couple of steps at the wall to help girls get their balls back from the field next door and she quickly climbed up and jumped over the wall to freedom.

  ‘Wow that felt good,’ she thought, though it was a little bit scary at the same time and her pulse was racing. She looked around quickly and was delighted to see Gooey beside her as the little alien girl materialised once more.

  While they were outside and in plain view, it was important that she remain invisible as much as possible but Gooey explained that she could not remain invisible all day and they might need to save her power for emergencies. Mary Foster (who was the tallest girl in the class) had given Gooey her long overcoat and it fitted perfectly, buttoned as it was right up to Gooeys large, floppy, luminous green hat.

  Bridin reached inside her jumper and pulled out a beret and a scissors!

  “Put the beret on, it is less conspicuous,” she said to Gooey, who was staring intently at the scissors.

  “Sorry about this,” said Bridin, “but that dress just won’t do. It will slow us down no end.”

  She dropped to her knees and cut and tore the fabric of the dress into a make-shift skirt. Gooey offered no resistance, she knew they had to move quickly and wasn’t sure how far they would have to travel. While Bridin destroyed her lovely dress she put the beret on and sneaked her floppy hat inside the coat she had been loaned. It was her favourite hat and she was not about to let it be torn or cut to shreds. When Bridin was finished, Gooey re-buttoned the coat to her chin.

  With Gooey snugly undercover they made their way down past the ruins of the old Grey Abbey and the boardwalk which led to Kildare Outlet Village. Bridin explained that the Earls of Kildare had been buried in the old graveyard and that people from all over the world came to buy cool clothes in the Village, which was really a whole load of shops laid out like a small village with cobblestones and cafes and things.

  Gooey loved the way her friend talked and was especially interested in the Abbey as it might be a place where a secret book might be hidden. Then she remembered that Bebob had been very firm about it — they had to meet at the ‘Black’ Abbey. She asked Bridin if they had an abbey for every colour in Kildare and Bridin laughed. She explained that there were in fact three abbeys in Kildare Town — The Grey Abbey, The White Abbey and The Black Abbey and that they took their names from the colour of the habits of the monks that had lived there long, long ago.

  ‘Truly this place, Kildare, is a wondrous place,’ thought Gooey and this simple thought lifted her spirits as the girls set forth on their adventure. Bridin and Gooey made their way through the wooded passage out onto the footpaths which led to Newtown Cross, where they turned left towards Tully and The Black Abbey.

  “What’s a Tully?” asked Gooey.

  “Tully,” Bridin chuckled, “comes from an old Irish word ‘Tualach’ meaning a hill or rising ground. We learned that in Irish class. A lot of names that we take for g
ranted actually mean a lot and describe the area or a famous event. Not many of us speak it all the time anymore but Irish is the ancient language of this country and we have to learn it in school.” It all sounded very cool to Gooey.

  As they approached The Black Abbey ruins, Bridin got suddenly very excited — she reached out and grabbed Gooeys arm,

  “Come on,” she nearly screamed, and she dragged the poor unfortunate alien girl across the road, head first.

  “I, I know where you might get an answer to your questions,” she said and they ran down a small country lane with the road behind them.

  At the bottom of the lane, there was a small open space, separated by a bridge, from a couple of houses which were largely hidden behind wonderfully wild bushes and trees. To their right was a beautiful green area which you could get to by crossing another very small bridge. Here there were some unusual stones leading back to a sort of well in the distance, and a very beautiful sulpture above a rippling stream to the fore. Gooey was mystified.

  “St. Brigid’s Well,” announced Bridin proudly, “Come and make a wish.”

  Not sure exactly about what was going on, or where any of this was leading, Gooey simply followed her friend to the small circular stone well at the furthest end of the little garden.

  “We should really kneel at the prayer stones and say a little prayer at each but I’m sure St. Brigid won’t mind this once, considering how far you’ve come and all,” Gooey was rabbiting on.

  “Here,” she said as they reached the well, “Make a wish and you might find what you are looking for.”

  Gooey looked into the well, which really wasn’t very deep at all, and was surprised to see bright shiny coins and other tokens in the bottom, as well as pieces of material tied to the branches of a nearby tree.

  “People throw in coins or leave mementos and they make a wish to St. Bridget, and we should too,” Bridin explained as she knelt and threw a bright one Euro coin into the well. She realised all at once that it was all the money she had but it was, she believed, a necessary investment.