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The Fantastic Formula
Alfie Rooney
Published by Smashwords
Copyright 2009 Alfie Rooney
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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To my parents.
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Introduction
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Louis always wanted a pet dog of his own, but his parents say he’s not old enough to take care of one; so Louis teams up his neighbor’s cool dog, Rex. Together, Louis and Rex go in search of fun, but their search takes some very unexpected twists. Join them as they make lots of amazing, strange and scary discoveries on a wondrous adventure!
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Chapter One
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The barking of Rex, Mr. Troy’s dog woke Louis. Mr. Troy had a lovely dog, very friendly, and he would forever fetch the sticks that Louis threw. Louis had always wanted a dog, but his silly parents kept saying ‘Wait until you’re older and better able to take care of one,’ when faced with the idea of getting him a pet.
‘What’s so difficult about taking care of a dog anyway?’ he thought to himself.
Louis made his way over to the bedroom window to check out the kind of day it was.
‘Not a bad day at all,’ he concluded as a sunbeam hit him in the face and made his eyes squint.
The sun woke him up a little more, but he was still tired, as he hadn’t slept too well. Louis often had nightmares, and last night yet another had troubled him. The nightmares were mostly about the huge weird house just down the road from him and many times in the middle of the night Louis heard very loud and scary noises coming from it. It was those horrible noises that gave him his nightmares. He told his parents about those noises, but they said it was just his imagination. Louis already knew he had a big imagination, because once when he was younger, much younger, he thought that there was one particular room in his granny’s quaint old house that was full of giant green skulking snakes. He had heard them hissing by placing his ear against the door and staying very quiet. Louis was convinced that anyone who entered that deadly dangerous room - even if they just barely put their head inside the door - would be bitten very badly indeed. The truth was far less exciting however, what actually was behind that door was a bath with a faulty tap and every so often a little jet of water would spurt out from that tap with a loud ‘Hissss!’
On a separate occasion Louis believed he was going to be chased by a million mad little creatures. It happened that the week before he had caught one of the creatures and was holding it prisoner. In the coming days, he noticed more and more of the little beings around. It seemed to Louis as if they were ganging up on him and would continue to chase him until he freed their friend that he was holding captive. Some followed him around while he played in the garden, others could be seen outside the kitchen window, watching and waiting for him, one even managed to get into his bedroom to chase him. So Louis gave in, and eventually he let the angry bee that he had trapped in a jam-jar go free. After those episodes alone, Louis would be the first to admit that he had not just a big imagination, but an enormous one. However, those strange, scary noises echoing from that huge and weird house seemed different to him; somehow they seemed much more real.
Louis got dressed, made his way downstairs and into the kitchen.
‘Now what will it be for breakfast today?’ he thought to himself, but in reality he knew exactly what he would have to eat.
He poured himself a large bowl of rice krispies, as he always did. There was never much messing about when it came to his breakfast, always rice krispies and rarely anything else. With a generous splash of milk he was soon munching his way through the big bowl. It didn’t take him long to finish it off.
‘You can’t do anything on an empty stomach,’ his granny used to say, so now he was ready to face the day.
He exited the kitchen through the door that led into his father’s garage. The garage was a big place full with all sorts of junk and the corners were riddled with cobwebs. There were so many cobwebs that Louis sometimes thought that every spider in the entire country had lived there at some stage or another. Cobwebs aside, the place was crammed with interesting stuff, old toys, old gadgets, old games, old bikes, old books and old fishing rods. Louis made his way over to a large box filled to the brim with dusty books. He began to root around in the big box searching for an interesting book, but didn’t manage to find one. Some of the books appeared fairly interesting, but none he came across was really interesting. His attention was now grabbed by the fishing rods in the far corner of the garage. It was indeed quite a while since he had been fishing. Over he went to inspect the rods; he brushed a thick cobweb off one of them and began to swish it around - pretending he was actually fishing. There was a hook on the end of it and on that hook was a horrible little sight. Louis stared at what was stuck to the end of the hook. It was enough to put him off going fishing altogether. A shriveled up dead worm was entangled around his fishing hook. Louis felt a little sorry for him.
‘I suppose I should have let him go after I was finished fishing,’ thought Louis to himself.
He put the fishing rod back into the corner with the crusty worm still attached and as he did so, something very interesting caught his eye. He had been looking for it for ages and ages, now finally their paths had crossed again. Louis now knew what he would do that day.
Louis’ catapult was a glorious gadget, now that he had found it again after it had been missing for such a long time, he was certain it would keep him occupied for the day. Uncle Joe had made it for him last summer and it was the best shooter he ever had. It could put the right sized pebble from here to Mr. Troy’s chimney pot. Louis was sure it could fire even further, but he was only able to pull back the springy elastic so far. Outside he strode proudly holding his newly salvaged treasure. Closing one eye, he practiced aiming at anything and everything. Spying a nicely rounded pebble on the ground he picked it up and placed it in his springy shooter.
‘SPOING!!’ was the noise the catapult made, as the pebble was sent high into the air.
Louis needed some targets to shoot at, so he fished out five shiny silver cans from the grimy dustbin and lined them up on the wall. Then he went about gathering some ammunition, or ‘ammo,’ as he had heard it called in action movies. With two pockets full of ammo he attempted to knock the first can off the wall. Closing one eye again he took careful aim.
‘SPOING!!’ went the catapult as it sent the little stone whistling past the first silver can.
Louis gave a disappointed grunt, as he didn’t like to miss a target, however small it was. He blamed his miss on lack of practice; after all it had been almost a year since he had fired his catapult. He took aim once again, more carefully this time, he stretched back the elastic as far as he could, ‘SPOING!!’ went the catapult, ‘CLANG!!’ went the can as the pebble pinged into it and sent it rocketing off the wall.
Louis was both surprised and pleased, he had hit his target, but hadn’t really expected to. He polished off the rest of the cans lined up on the wall, doing that took some time, but at least his aim was improving. Just as the last can hit the ground, Louis heard an unusual noise coming from behind him. He turned around quickly to face what had made the strange sound, it was a large bird perched on the garden fence. Into Louis’ eyes it stared, and Louis stared right back into its eyes. It was indeed a strange bird, big with very dark greenish feathers, and extremely large eyes and feet. Louis had found his next target, it would be that same strange bird perched high on the garden fence. Louis took aim, and stretched back the strong elastic, the bird didn’t move, it just sat and stared.
‘SPOING!!’
The bird leapt into the air as a whizzing pebble just missed its foot. The bird gave a loud angry ‘SQUAWK!!!’ and began to fly away.
The large, weird bird flew high up into the air squawking constantly. Louis began to run after it, following it to see where it was heading. Out towards the road it flew, Louis was not far behind, running as fast as he could out through the garden gate and down the road keeping the big bird in view all the time. Past Mr. Troy’s house he ran. Rex started barking with excitement on seeing his pal. Rex ran from Mr. Troy’s front garden to meet Louis and join in the chase of the large bird in the sky. Louis was glad to see his buddy Rex accompanying him. It made him wish again that he would be allowed to get a pet of his own, because it seemed every time he and Rex got together, they had a great little adventure and today was to be no different.
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Chapter Two
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Down along the twisty road Louis and Rex ran, constantly keeping the strange bird in their sights. The day was now growing eerily dull, due to few dark clouds clustering overhead. The bird let out a loud squawk every now and again from overhead as they followed it. Then Louis made a slightly scary discovery. He hadn’t realised it until now, but the strange bird was leading them directly to the huge, dark and weird house. The same house that the very loud and scary noises came – the noises that gave Louis his nightmares. The bird flew over the big black iron gates that stood tall at the front wall of the house. Louis and Rex watched through the iron bars of the gates, as it flew on towards one of the biggest trees, in one of the largest front gardens Louis had ever seen. It was an enormous tree, much wider and taller than any other he had seen before. Its branches seemed to stretch out as far as the wings on an airplane.
‘I’ve never seen such a giant tree,’ thought Louis to himself as the bird continued flying towards the tree.
High up it flew into the tree’s lofty limbs. As the bird fluttered among the leaves a commotion seemed to develop in all the other branches of the tree. Louis stared in disbelief as not one, not two, but perhaps a hundred other weird birds emerged from the branches and began circling the tree. That was it! Spooky place or no spooky place, curiosity got the better of Louis. He simply had to have a closer look and with so many more of those birds about he would have a better chance of hitting one with a shot from his catapult.
‘How will we get in?’ he asked Rex while staring up at the tall black iron gates and surrounding wall.
Then he heard a bark, a loud excited bark from Rex who was already one step ahead of him. Rex had found a way in. The clever dog had followed the wall around the corner and there he had found a gap in it. Louis raced to meet him, and in no time the two of them were through the gap in the outer wall and making their way towards the towering tree.
Louis stood beside the tremendous tree and peered up into its vast wavering branches. It was the kind of tree that every budding climber wished would grow in his own front garden. Its branches were spanned strong and wide enough to build at least ten tree houses. Louis reached into his pocket and pulled out a small rounded pebble. Loading it into his catapult, he took aim at one of the bizarre birds perched high in the tree. Slowly he stretched back the springy elastic, Rex watched excitedly with his tongue hanging out.
‘SPOING!!’ went the catapult as it sent the stone whistling up into the tree.
The speeding pebble hit the branch on which the bird was perched with a ‘THWACK!!’
The large bird hopped, gave a startled ‘SQUAWK!!!’ and began beating its wings in shock.
Its noisy fluttering disrupted every single other bird in the huge tree. Soon one hundred and fifty large, bizarre birds were squawking very loudly and diving and swooping about the tree. Louis covered his ears to protect them from the terrible racket and Rex started barking. The noise dwindled as the birds began to settle back down. Once things were quiet again, a grinning Louis began to line up his second shot. Again he loaded the ammo, took squinty aim and pulled back on the elastic. Just as he was ready to fire, he felt a tapping on his shoulder.
‘Who might you be and why are you frightening my lovely birds?’ a sharp shrill and slightly scary voice from behind him asked.
Louis quickly turned around to face an old man, with a pointy noise, blinky eyes and big bushy grey hair. He was dressed in a while coat and spoke through a thick moustache. The looming stranger looked to be angry with Louis for disturbing the birds.
‘I asked you who you were and why you were frightening my lovely birds?’ the old man repeated as he pointed his wrinkly finger at Louis.
‘I’m Louis, and I didn’t mean to frighten your birds, I just wanted to shoot one,’ Louis replied, and as soon as he had finished the sentence, he realised how stupid it sounded.
‘That doesn’t make any sense at all!’ the man shouted, ‘you didn’t want to hurt one, you just wanted to shoot one. My my, I don’t think I shall ever understand that, not in a million, gazillion years.’
‘Sorry,’ was all Louis could think of saying to the strange person in front of him, and it was probably the best thing he could have said.
‘Sorry this, sorry that, that’s all you hear from young folk these days.’ the old man declared as he rolled his eyes.
He was just about to give Louis another telling off when he saw the catapult.
‘And what have we got here? A catapult is it? Why I remember when I had one of those things. How far can it fire?’ the man asked, the mood seeming to lighten.
‘Pretty far,’ Louis replied.
‘Hmm,’ said the old man as he stroked his pimpled chin. ‘I would be willing to forget all about you pestering my birds, if, you lend me that catapult of yours for a while.’
‘No problem,’ Louis said without hesitation, as he was glad to be getting off the hook so easily. ‘But what do you want my catapult for?’ asked Louis, as he handed over his prized pebble shooter.
‘My goodness you young folk are nosy parkers aren’t you?’ said the old man.
He held the shooter in his wrinkled hand, paused for a moment and then said to Louis, ‘follow me and I’ll show you why I want your catapult.’
Louis followed the mysterious old man to the front of the huge spooky house. A cold shiver ran down Louis’ spine as they approached the tall, looming front door. He really didn’t like the atmosphere of the place and began to regret ever entering its grounds. He realised Rex wasn’t far behind so he kept going. The old man stood beside the door, raised his hand and knocked four times. Suddenly the giant door started creaking and shaking, until slowly, it opened.
‘Stupid thing needs some oil,’ the old man grunted. As they went inside Louis tried to see who had opened the door, but absolutely nobody was to be seen. They now stood in the biggest hallway Louis had ever set foot in. It was gloomy and had a lot of cobwebs, even more cobwebs than his Dad’s garage. A very large rectangular painting was the next thing to grab Louis’ gaze. It hung hauntingly on the wall, and seemed to be a painting of some sort of monster with huge wings and sharp claws. On seeing the picture Louis became much more nervous.