The Wonderful World of Linus Bailey

By Peter James Lamb

Linus Bailey's tenth birthday, if measured on some kind of “So how did it go then?” scale, would score a one. Maybe a bit less. It started well, but then things went very badly indeed.

Linus' problem is that he makes things up. He claims, for instance, that his mother was found living as a head hunter in the jungles of Borneo. His dad, a man called Nigel who Linus hasn't seen since he was two, is a Ninja Warrior currently living in Japan. His dad fights crime and saves people. Linus' headmaster is evil and his jumper was knitted by slaves.

Linus has reached a turning point in his young life. On the eve of his birthday he is asked to tell the class which family member he admires the most. Having been told not to tell the class that his father is a ninja, and worried that his mother (a woman who's cooking won a Nobel Peace Prize) and his wheelchair-bound sister (despite having the biggest wheels of anyone he knew) would be too dull as objects of his admiration, he invents an uncle who owns the left hand side of the mighty Amazon river. This gets him into trouble.

As his birthday looms large on the horizon, Linus' invented reality begins to encroach upon his humdrum life. Coal miners in the garden, a camel, a Norwegian Viking hat salesman, these things are a prelude to the evil he unleashes in the form of The Evil Lord of Mortar and his band of giant mutant squirrel henchmen. The lives of Linus and those he loves hang in the balance, and only one person can save them. Or maybe a cat and a pigeon and whole army or unlikely heroes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter James Lamb
• Release date: Aug 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476158457

Peter James Lamb

I'm English, but I live in the United States. My dog was born under my bed when I lived on the Greek island of Corfu, and my glasses were made for me in the small French village of Couhe. My wife is American. Perhaps those things are in the wrong order. I have three talented grown up kids in England, whom I love far more than they will ever know, and I am the proud grandfather of Rufus. I have a teenage step-daughter who thinks I'm from a Dickens novel. I write because I enjoy it. One day I hope to write because I enjoy it and because it pays the bills.

Book preview

The Wonderful World of Linus Bailey

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Peter James Lamb

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peterjameslamb.com

Copyright

The Wonderful World of Linus Bailey

Copyright 2012 — Peter James Lamb

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, trademarked products, events, and locations are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

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 recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

About the book, about the author

Chapter 1

The Evil Lord of Mortar sat behind his desk, occasionally making a noise like a camel. Linus thought the desk smelled like a shoe shop, and a bit like the school nurse who injected them for polio and the Black Death. It was a desky smell that made Linus Bailey nervous. He didn't want to be in the Evil Lord's office. He might be there for ever.

To everyone but Linus, the Evil Lord of Mortar was the Headmaster of Barton Webbly Primary School. Linus was once told, probably by Mr. Grinder who taught them football and sometimes geography, that the Headmaster's flat black hat, the one he often wore at assembly, was a mortar hat or something like that. The Mortar Hat was what the Evil Lord of Mortar wore. It made sense.

Today he was not wearing the hat. He wore a jumper that had been knitted by slaves. It was railway station toilet green and a bit too small, both signs that the knitting had been performed by people suffering unimaginable hardship. Linus had watched a documentary about the trafficking of slave-knitted clothing—usually jumpers but occasionally those mittens joined by string that the kids who lost things were forced to wear. He could almost hear the click-clack of slaves in every knit-one-perl-one of the Evil Lord's green woolly attire.

The Headmaster was saying nothing. He was reading a piece of paper, his head down, his eyebrows like shrunken badgers stapled to his forehead, his lips thick, constantly moving in and out as if practising a kiss then a smile, one after the other. Occasionally he would make a low, turkey-like noise, or like that animal Linus saw in a zoo that had a Latin name. Every now and then, perhaps at the end of each paragraph because it is important to divide writing into paragraphs, he would look over his glasses at Linus with an expression that could have been anger. He wore half glasses which he only seemed to need while reading. Linus thought that eyes either worked or they didn't, but the Evil Lord had eyes that worked only half the time, like a torch with a loose bulb. Eventually the Evil One put the paper down and stared at Linus across his shoe-sole-medical-smelling desk.

This is happening too often, the Evil Lord said.

Linus wasn't sure what to say to that, so he said nothing. His teacher, Mrs. Carpenter, was standing behind him and he could hear her shift weight from one leg to the other.

This is the third time this year Linus Bailey. If you get sent to me one more time I will have to call your mother.

Linus thought of his mum's washing machine when it made that grinding sloshy noise—letter 'J' or something on the large clicky dial. His stomach was doing the same thing. The next step (at least with the washing machine) was a great gushing of warm water, fast and uncontrollable. He squeezed his legs together in case it was the same with nine year old boys as it was with nine year old washing machines. He didn't want his mum to find out he'd been sent to the Evil Lord's office. So far she lived in happy ignorance of his previous two visits. Finding that he was an habitual offender might lead her to some form of insanity and he would miss her stew and dumplings.

The Headmaster tapped the paper on his desk and looked above Linus' head. What exactly happened, Mrs. Carpenter?

His teacher, a woman who Linus had once called 'Mum' by accident and therefore remained forever a confusing mix of authority and embarrassment, spoke from a place high above his head.

Well Headmaster, today is 'The Family Member You Admire The Most Day' in my class.

The Headmaster nodded, as though that topic was the central core of everything they were trying to achieve as educators.

Colin admired his Grandfather because of his pigeons.

Naturally, said the Headmaster.

And Miranda admired her mother because of—

—The job, he said.

Yes, the job. And then it was Linus' turn. I asked him not to talk about his father. I think we've all heard quite enough about his father.

The Evil Lord picked up the paper again and ran his eyes down it. A little more kiss-smiling, a few more camel turkey Latin creature noises. Linus' internal organs, the ones that ancient Egyptians so loved to put into jars, went into the spin cycle.

Linus, the man said. You cannot keep making things up. When children make things up it starts out as harmless flights of fancy then hardens into simple lying. You cannot stand up in front of the class and tell them that your father is a ninja warrior currently living in Japan. You cannot—

—He didn't, Headmaster, Mrs. Carpenter said. I specifically asked him not tell the class that his father is a ninja warrior, or that his mother was found as a head-hunter in the jungles of Borneo. I asked him to tell us about someone real without his usual embellishments.

Linus had a thump thump thump in his ears which was, he felt sure, the start of a dangerous medical condition that needed further investigation. While his teacher told the Evil Lord about the morning's events, Linus tried to read the piece of paper on the Headmaster's odd-smelling desk. He was good at reading upside-down. He had learned to do it at dangling camp, a place for children who's parents thought they might have a future in being upside-down for prolonged periods. He could see, near the top of the page and in bold letters, the words FATHER—ABSENT. Linus knew what that meant because he had been absent himself four times this month. It meant his Dad hadn't been there to raise his hand when his name was called and that made sense because his Dad was in Japan, fighting crime for the good of all mankind.

Below that it said his mother was a single parent, which also made sense because how could anyone be anything other than a single anything, and then against Ellie's name it had a word so long that Linus didn't think he could read it even if it was the right way up. Then it said 'wheelchair,' which was easy to read because nothing else in the world looks like wheelchair, right way up or upside-down. Mrs. Carpenter was still talking when he read the word 'wheelchair' and his mind drifted away to the one and only time he'd told a lie. He had tried to make some nunchucks out of a broom handle and a door chain that he found on a heap just before bonfire night. He swung it around as ninjas are wont to do and one end hit him on the back of the head. He told his mum that he'd fallen off his bike. That was his only lie. If the Evil Lord was right, then George Lucas was a liar and someone should sit him down and tell him it has to stop.

A single beam of sunlight came through the window and lit up a spot on the Headmaster's desk. It reminded Linus of the room in the Indiana Jones film, where Indie had a stick of just the right length and a thingy on the end, and also of the shop where his mum and dad had first met and fallen in love. Linus could see the dusty sunbeams of the shop, illuminating his mum as she worked behind the counter. It was years ago, so everything was brown. His mum must have been about 18—her first job after leaving the jungles of Borneo and her life as a head-hunter—working in a Ninja Supply shop. They didn't have the internet back then and ninjas could still go into a shop for all their ninjing needs. On that morning, one particular ninja came through the shop door. Linus could hear the old door bell ringing on the end of a curly spring, could see his mum look up and smile, could see the incredible brown eyes of the ninja, his body clothed completely in black, a sword strapped to him, his movements silent and powerful...

Do you want to give your own version of what happened Linus? the Evil Lord asked him.

No Sir, thank you, Linus said, thinking that he would get out of the room faster that way.

You don't understand boy, I'm not asking you, I'm telling you.

Linus didn't think this was fair because the Evil Lord had absolutely and totally asked a question. He even rose his voice at the end, which is what you do with questions. Linus couldn't quite work out if he was angry or not. He sounded angry, but didn't really seem angry. Not properly angry. Not angry the way his sister Ellie would get when her wheelchair got stuck between the living room and the kitchen. Not quietly angry the way his mum got when Dad phoned from Japan and explained that he was too busy Ninjing to come visit. Ellie was angry with the walls. Mum was angry that there were so many people in the world who needed saving. The Evil Lord seemed to be angry in a funny sort of way that Linus couldn't work out. He decided it would be best to do as he was told.

Well Sir, Mrs. Carpenter said I couldn't talk about my Dad because she doesn't like ninjas, and said I had to talk about someone real. Everyone likes hearing about my Dad Sir, and I don't have anyone else. My Mum used to be a head-hunter but that seems to be almost as bad as ninjing, so I couldn't talk about that. My sister Ellie is the cleverest person I know but she can't even walk so the class don't want to hear about her. There isn't anyone else so I made up an uncle.

The Headmaster nodded, looking again at the piece of paper with his sometimes-working eyes. You made up an uncle who owns the left hand side of the Amazon River.

Linus said nothing.

Linus, this isn't the first family member you've made up is it. There's an auntie too isn't there, who has been frozen, awaiting a cure for baldness?

Yes Sir.

"Nobody gets frozen awaiting a cure for baldness Linus. It seems that you are looking for a family that you don't have. Is that it? Frozen aunties and uncles who own half the Amazon? Ninjing and head hunting? You don't seem to think that a mum and a sister are enough of a family. Miranda—who's mother, by the way, has a very important job—told