The Mythomaniacs - Jules Bass (speld decodable readers TXT) 📗

The Mythomaniacs (excerpt)

 

 

 

The Mythomaniacs

 

by Jules Bass

 

Illustrations by Lawrence Christmas

 

“All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.”

 

Edgar Allen Poe (1827)

A Dream Within A Dream

 

“Half the places I have been to, never were.

I make things up. Half the things I say are

there cannot be found.”

 

James Thurber

The Thirteen Clocks

 

To The Reader

 

Before you start, a few words about my brother, Gilbert and our father, Henry. My mother lovingly called them “The Mythomaniacs.” Myths are imaginary stories: my father was a maniac about writing them and Gilbert was a maniac about illustrating them. No, they weren’t madmen or lunatics (hah!), they simply had an intense curiosity about worlds of fantasy. But there came a time when it all got out of hand, and we almost lost each other forever. Our story is told from both sides of the line that separates reality from make-believe.

Marlo Myrddin

Age 14

 

Part One

CHAPTER ONE

Water Into Wine

 

Gilbert Myrddin had been rushed to the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital on Heavitree Road by ambulance, in an unconscious state. He had not moved or regained consciousness all through the night.

The next morning he lay in bed, surrounded by a team of doctors and nurses who were poking and prodding him. His father, Henry, had remained by his bed all through the night. Gilbert was now mentally awake but had yet to open his eyes, although he had tried. They felt as if they were glued shut.

Maybe I’m dead, he thought. Parts of his life began to flash upon the screen of his closed lids as he tried to recall what had happened: the explosion that had knocked him into insensibility… the acrid, choking, blinding, green smoke.

In his current confused state of mind and body, Gilbert had yet to realize the strange transformation he had undergone.

Gilbert felt one of his eyelids being forced open. A strong sharp light blinded him and was then clicked off. With a great effort he forced his other eye to un-stick itself and stared at the white hospital room ceiling as it slowly came into focus. Shifting his gaze to his left he saw that he was being poked and prodded by a gaggle of white-breasted quacks (that’s how he would have drawn the group of doctors that huddled and chattered at his bedside: as geese wearing stethoscopes!). As a nurse pushed a button that raised the head of his bed, Gilbert stared down at his chest. His first words, spoken with great annoyance and suspicion, were: “Where am I — and why have you put this weird long beard on me?”

He reached up to his chin and tugged — and it hurt. Someone must have glued it on with strong stuff, he thought. He noticed that the beard was extremely long: it reached his toes! He couldn’t wait to wake up from this wild dream and set it down on paper.

The doctors shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders as they conferred in hushed tones, using unintelligible medical words. Their extensive examination showed him to be in perfect health… they could find nothing wrong with him. All they saw was a very old man lying in bed. The strange gray-bearded chap was wearing a high sky-blue pointy hat that looked like a huge upside-down ice cream cone decorated with stars and half-moon shapes.

“How old are you, Mr. Myrddin, sir?” was the first question he was asked.

“Fifteen,” Gilbert said.

“On his next birthday, October 31st — he’s a Scorpio — he’ll be sixteen,” said Henry.

“You’re sure about that?”

“A man knows his own son’s age,” groused Henry, his voice clearly evidencing his displeasure at this dumb question.

“Scorpio,” whispered the nurse. “You have recently been caught up in a dilemma of mammoth proportions. Before it is over you can expect to have some heartrending moments. Your moon is in—”

The doctors all looked at her menacingly.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m into astrology. It just slipped out.”

“Please do the same,” said the head white-suit.

As the chastised nurse slipped out of the room all attention was shifted back to the puzzling patient.

“Why did they stick this stupid beard on me, dad?” the young boy whispered.

“I’m afraid they didn’t, son. I found you that way. Until you spoke I didn’t even know it was you.”

Gilbert’s eyelids began to involuntarily blink rapidly as his pulse rate quickened and his blood pressure rose.

“How are you feeling, old-boy?” sniffed the tallest Doc, looking down at him over half-moon spectacles perched on the tip of a long pointy inquiring nose.

“I don’t know,” Gilbert answered. “And I’m hardly what you’d call an ‘old-boy’, now am I? If you’re doctors you should be able to tell that. Do I sound old?”

“Your voice is a bit high and rather odd for a man of your advanced age. We did notice that,” said the shortest Doc.

“Can you let me have a mirror?” Gilbert asked.

The doctor motioned to a nurse who darted away and soon returned with a round shaving mirror, which she handed to Gilbert.

Gilbert stared at his reflected image with shock and amazement. “That’s not me! You were right. That is some old-bloke. But I’m not that man, uh, this man,” Gilbert complained, peering more intently into the mirror. “And where am I?”

 

 

“You’re in a very good hospital.”

“Why? What happened?” Gilbert said.

“That’s what we’d like you to tell us,” said the doctor. “Why don’t you start with the last thing you remember before waking up here?”

The modern-day medicine men all nodded in unison and craned in over him like the gaggle of geese Gilbert imagined them to be — futilely looking for their lost reflections in a moss-covered pond. Gilbert chewed his lower lip for a long moment as he looked at his perplexed father.

Henry was a writer of original fairy tales, and the artistically talented young Gilbert did a fine job of illustrating his father’s stories. Together they created books that they printed, bound, and sold by themselves. Henry wrote at all hours, during every day, and kept a notepad, one of those flashlight-pens, and a tape recorder on his bedside table (because many times his ideas came to him in his dreams). It was not unusual for his wife, Virginia, to be woken in the middle of the night by his muffled whispered mumblings as he dictated his thoughts under the bedcovers.

Lovingly, she called both him and her son, The Mythomaniacs.

Henry’s son, Gilbert, couldn’t wait to read each of the new stories so that he could begin his illustrations for every new book. But for the life of him Gilbert couldn’t remember drawing pictures that made him an old bearded man. Maybe this isn’t one of my Father’s fairy tale stories, he thought. And maybe I didn’t draw a picture of me as an old man — maybe — maybe it’s REAL. But how could that possibly be?

Henry looked over at the doctors. “Would you mind if I told the story? I think all this was my fault.”

Gilbert couldn’t wait!

“Go on,” said one of the docs. “Anything that will shed some light on this situation will be helpful.”

Henry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He realized that if he told these quacksters what had probably happened when he was out of the room, they might not let his son go home. They certainly wouldn’t believe his story, since he hardly believed it himself. He recalled messing about in his workroom, at the back of his shoppe (as Gilbert sat on a high stool watching), reading a very large hand-written old book. He visualized the almost illegible words on the worn leather cover: Myrddin — c.480.

“What’s the little c stand for, dad?” Gilbert had asked.

“Circa,” Henry replied. “It means approximately, when it stands before a date.”

“So, this book was written in approximately the year 480? Wow!” said Gilbert. “That’s old. Who wrote it?”

“Seemingly some ancestor of mine — ours — since we share the same last name. I found it one day in the attic. Always thought it was some sort of joke, since bound books didn’t exist until about a thousand or so years after that date.”

“What were you doing with it?”

“Well, you never know. Just having some fun,” Henry said, chuckling. “I was thinking that the price of wine — of a decent red Claret — had skyrocketed, and so… I felt it probably a waste of time… but that it would be fun to see what I could come up with by following the recipe. Hey, you never know.”

Henry recalled having carefully followed the complex instructions for Water Into Wine, finally adding six drops of doorstep berries, three drops of riskyroot, and twelve drops of early morning red oak leaf dew to a large glass bottle containing a quart of water. Slowly the colorless liquid began to turn a dark red. He held up the bottle to the light: Good color, he thought. Now for the final ingredients: The instructions called for a soupçon of calabash powder, a nuance of newt wing, a suspicion of whistledown, a quarter ration of ravensblack, and, finally, a pennyweight of glurf and a dose of vermillion plonk oil. Not easy ingredients to come by, nor to measure precisely. Henry had to try several chemists, a homeopathic shop, and a magic store in the next town, before he managed to assemble all of the called-for ingredients of the recipe. He suspected that some he’d bought might not have been the real thing (if the “real things” ever existed), but he persevered nonetheless; it was amusing. Finally, he had done it. He held the bottle to his nose and inhaled its aroma. He almost fainted. The smell was a combination of sulphur and skunkweed. He quickly corked it up as he gagged, hacked, spit, gargled with fresh water and washed out his mouth several times.

Gilbert held his nose. “Ugh. It smells like rotten eggs — and you’re turning blue. I better call mum…”

“No, no. I’ll be fine,” Henry managed to choke out. “Must have gone wrong at some point?”

Gilbert picked up the book and looked at the recipe. Down at the bottom of the page he noticed some very small print and read it aloud:

 

“DANGER: MAY BE POISONOUS IF USED IMMEDIATELY.

MUST BE AGED IN A COOL DARK PLACE FOR FIVE YEARS.”

 

“Aha,” Henry said. “It’s always the small print that gets you in trouble.”

Henry looked in the mirror. Fortunately his normal skin color had returned. He hoped he had not inhaled enough of the noxious liquid to cause any lasting effects. Hearing the tinkling of the doorbell that announced customers, he walked out to the shoppe. What Henry didn’t see was what happened after he left.

Gilbert had examined the old book — fascinated by it. There was even a recipe section for baking: Scones, brownies, cookies and cakes, and Myrddin’s Magical Malomars. Maybe I’ll try that one myself, Gilbert thought — but I better get rid of this smelly plonk first. Gilbert held his nose, thumbed the cork off the bottle, and poured it down the sink — running water after it. Immediately, a whirlwind of thick acrid green smoke swirled out of the sink drain — surrounding, choking and blinding him. A fierce wind knocked him to the ground. Just as he lost consciousness he heard strange music, accompanied by loud drums and horns — and a huge explosion. (Later he would discover that the workroom sink had exploded into dust.) When he came to, he found himself in a hospital bed — looking like a 100 year-old, long-bearded man.

Gilbert’s eyelids fluttered open.

“I’m having trouble recollecting exactly what happened,” Gilbert said.

The team returned their attention to Gilbert, leaning over him — their heads together in a round huddle