Chapter Two

“Mmmm!” Malcolm screamed, but nothing other than a strangled murmur escaped his lips – had his vocal chords completely rotted away? How was he supposed to haunt TJ now?

His cries of fear were completely ignored. “Told you,” stated the second voice from somewhere on the other side of the coffin as it was shook by something that he could only describe as a kick, “cheap as dirt. Speakin’ of which, can we get a move on? That’s the sixth mole that’s burrowed its way through my ‘ead since we began searchin’ for the kid...”

“Ignore my irritable colleague,” said the owner of the first voice, who appeared to be a wizened old man. “He tends to go on a bit.”

“Oi! I ‘eard that! I’m not irritable! My bowels, on the other ‘and...”

“Like I said, ignore him...am I addressing Malcolm Drake?” inquired the old man, his left eye twitching as a woodlouse crawled its way across the roof of Malcolm’s coffin and through the spirit’s ears.

“Like there’s another,” snorted the other voice derisively.

“The chances are greater than you’d think,” snapped the old man defensively, his eyes rolling up to address the unseen companion. “There could very well be three or four Malcolm Drakes in this very country alone! Unlike me,” he added proudly as he returned his gaze to Malcolm, “I specifically chose my name so that I’m the only one in the world with it.”

“An’ don’t bother askin’ for it, otherwise we’ll be ‘ere all night.”

“Allow me to introduce myself,” totally ignoring the disembodied voice of his companion, the ghost of the old man took a deep breath (Why? Malcolm wondered, Surely he didn’t need to breathe). “My name is...”

“Oh dear...’ere we go again. Gimme a yell when he’s done; I’m gonna go chase that mole – I think he stole some o’ my earwax...”

“Ahem! My name,” he went on, “is... Rory Balthazar Edmonton Xavier Cheerily Blissful Crabtree Boxer Jones the First!”

Malcolm stared long and hard at this odd vision before him, blinking slowly as he tried to remember this ludicrously lengthy name. Unfortunately, it seemed that his memory for names had long since fallen out the back of his head, and he found himself reduced to, “Muuurgh?”

“What was that? I didn’t quite catch you...”

“Muuurgh?”

“Yes, yes... no, sorry, still didn’t understand a word.”

“Ruuuugh!” roared Malcolm, eyes narrowed.

“Oh, I say! There’s no need to take that tone with me, young man!”

“For goodness sake!” cried the voice up above in exasperation. “Can’t you see he’s lost his speech? Get outta my way...”

The ghostly head of the old man shifted to the left as his mysterious companion finally made an appearance. Unlike the ghost, the thing that came through the roof of Malcolm’s coffin this time was smaller, with a pinched face and pointy beard to match. Likewise, whereas the ghost was quite transparent, this creature was very solid indeed.

Oh, and he was also a shockingly bright shade of pink.

His beady yellow eyes gave Malcolm a quick once over as he tugged thoughtfully at his beard, small puffs of violet smoke rising with every pull. “Hmmmmm,” was all he would say for a long time, making Malcolm wonder if this is how he would have felt had he woken-up during his own autopsy, and what the conversation between the coroner and his assistant must’ve been like as they both looked down at him quizzically...

“Hmmmmm – what kind of an idiot tries to do a triple-flip on a bicycle? Didn’t he know that stuff’s only possible on ‘Zero Gee BMX’?”

“Maybe he never played the game, Sir?”

“Maybe...or maybe he just didn’t use the brains he was born with.”

“Well, they’re here in this bag – I’m sure we could put them to good use.”

“Hmmm, yes...Maybe we could make the world’s first intelligent robot out of dustbins, pipe-cleaners and vacuum-cleaners – and human brains!”

It made him shiver just thinking about it – that and the fact that, somewhere along the line, someone who was not him had seen his ding-a-ling. It was too terrible to imagine!

The weird pink thing floating above him seemed to have finished his lengthy observations and released his beard, allowing the violet clouds to disperse but leave behind an oddly cinnamon-like smell in the cramped confines of the wooden box. Malcolm hated the smell of cinnamon. It reminded of the time he’d tried to complete a dare (no prizes for guessing who’d made the dare, either) and had attempted to swallow a sticky bun whole – it had taken his dad ten entire minutes of shaking him upside-down by the ankles whilst bellowing “Breathe through your skin if you don’t 

want to have your eyeballs explode before you die!” to dislodge the fist-sized lethal baked-good and have it come rolling out of his gagging gob a slimy, mucus-glazed shadow of its former self.

“Hmmm,” repeated the oddity above him slowly, “yeeeaaah, I see now – this kid’s lost ‘is ability to speak, ‘asn’t he? That particular skill musta left ‘im right away – but no probs! Uncle Guth will sort it out, mate, don’t you worry.”

“Worried? Why should I be worried? I’m only a dead, reanimated kid who happens to be talking to an oddly named thing and his equally-ridiculously named ghosty pal!” Malcolm retorted snappishly, only what actually came out was more like, “Wuuurgh? Wuh surrgh ah buh wuuurgh? Ahhm ohhnnneh uh duugh, ruurhnuumaaaht kiih whuur huupuurgh tuh bih tuughkii tuh ahn ughdii nuughmd thuughn uh hiih eehraghi-rarghdicuurghi nuughmd guughti puh!” This didn’t make much sense at all and must have been really hard to read, let alone understand.

“Oh, no need t’ thank me jus’ yet,” the pointy pink thing insisted as it cracked his knuckles. “All you have t’ do is say ‘Guth! I wish you would make me be able to speak again!’ and then I’ll say ‘You’re wish is granted!’ and poof! Easy as that.”

“...MUUURGH!”

“Oh, right,” Guth laughed sheepishly, “you can’t talk in the first place t’ make the wish, got it...”

There was a long, heavy silence as Malcolm stared at the Guth-thing, eyebrow raised expectantly. The Guth-thing stared back at Malcolm blankly, hands behind his bald head as he began to whistle tunelessly. A minute passed...then two...then two more.

“Would it help if I made the wish?” inquired the old ghost finally, impatience written over every transparent wrinkle.

“Oh, yeah, if you could,” Guth nodded thankfully, “cheers.”

“It’s Cheerily.”

“I wasn’t – oh, never mind,” the pink-thing’s shoulders slumped, “let’s jus’ getta move on.”

The ghost with a name for the record books took a deep breath, “Guth,” he began slowly, “I wish you would make speak again.”

“...But you can talk just fine... sadly.”

“You know what I meant! And I heard that!” the ghost fumed, gliding over to go nose-to-nose with the odd creature. “I thought it had to be those precise words – that’s what you said!”

“Well, yeah, for ‘im,” Guth shrugged, “but it’s obviously different for you, innit? You gotta ask for ‘im to be able t’ speak again. You askin’ t’ be able t’ speak again kinda defeats the purpose o’ the entire 

wish, now, dunnit? You gotta think about these things, Rory, or bad things ‘appen! Like, this one time, a guy rubbed me up an’ said “Oi, genie! I wish I found more genies an’ ‘ad me wish every time!’ Poor sucker’s still out there somewhere, up t’ ‘is bloody nose in bottles an’ lamps, a new one appearin’ every time ‘e opens ‘is stupid mouth t’ make that same wish...”

“Fascinating,” sighed Rory the ghost with a nasty smirk. “Oh, wait, got confused again – I meant utterly boring and a complete waste of time! Silly me...”

“Yeah, well you’d know boring time-wasters when you see ‘em – every time you look inna mirror, fer example,” retorted the genie with a glare that could melt glaciers. “Look, jus’ say the stupid wish, let the boy speak so’s we can get on outta ‘ere, okay? I ‘ate cramped spaces,” he added with a whimper, “they remind me of growin’ up with my mother in that poxy oil lamp. For three thousand years...” the genie shuddered uncontrollably. “Ugh.”

“Boo-hoo-hoo...fine, I’ll say the damned wish if it will get you to shut up and stop reminiscing!” Rory cleared his throat and stared directly at Guth, choosing his words carefully. “Guth, you infuriating pink pipsqueak, I wish that you’d hurry up and grant Malcolm Drake the ability to speak once again so that I may discuss his destiny at more length then single-syllable grunts.”

“...Okay, for that, you ‘ave t’ add ‘Pretty-please with cherries an’ whipped-cream on top’. Oh, an’ sprinkles. Don’t forget the sprinkles, now.”

“Guth, if I weren’t a ghost...!”

“Huh, you’d what? Start somethin’ with the big G? Huh? Don’t make me blow you away, old man!”

Malcolm lay there, still and reluctantly silent throughout this entire argument, cursing to himself all the while that he couldn’t have just cut in there with a funny remark about how a thing named Guth was threatening to blow a ghost away (Because ‘Guth’ sounds like guffed, he reasoned with himself to stop himself from going mad with impatience. Yeah, they would have thought it was funny...).

“Ugh! Fine... Guth, I wish you’d grant Malcolm Drake the ability to speak again...pretty please with cherries and whipped-cream and sprinkles on top...”

“I couldn’t ‘ear that last bit...?”

“Oh, you heard fine! Now get a move on, time is wasting!”

The genie paused for a few moments, staring at Rory with a conflicted look on his face, his mouth twisted in different directions at both sides. Finally, he let out a heavy sigh and brought his hands round in front of him. “Okay, fine! But I’m only doin’ this ‘cause I ‘ate this coffin!”

How do you think I feel? Malcolm wanted to scream, I just woke up in the stupid thing! Get me out of here!

“Very well,” huffed the genie, cracking his spindly fingers once again, “here we go...”

With that, Guth jabbed his fingers at Malcolm, who instinctively flinched, eyes clenched tight for the pain that felt inevitable. Moments passed, and he felt nothing. Finally, he risked opening one eye to see the genie looking down at him with a very please grin on his face.

“What are you so happy about?! If I looked like you I’d be looking to get an all-over tattoo to stop me looking like a midget ballerina, Mr. Name-Like-A-Fart – and you! Old man, you have so many names I swear I get one year older every time I finish saying it! What did you say you had again? Cheerful crabs in your boxers? And oh, cool I can talk again,” Malcolm added, quickly catching himself with a nervous laugh, “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Guth growled before he stalked away to the foot-end of the coffin to sulk on Malcolm’s shoes. At least Malcolm hoped he was sulking – with the stench of his own rotting flesh he couldn’t really tell what the genie had hunkered down to do. “An it’s Guth, with a tee an’ a huh...like Guss with a lisp...”

“Got it, sorry, I think I’m finished freaking-out now – wait, no, not quite yet – holy freaking heck I’m dead, but I’m alive! I’m dead-alive! Living dead? Undead? What the heck is with this? There was a talking spider and he stitched my arm back on after it fell off after I tried to bash open my own coffin with it and it fell off and the spider spoke to me! And then it crawled up my nose, and I think it’s still up there, up my nose, and now I’m afraid to sneeze in case he shoots out and gets really mad at me and decides to web me up in his cocoon, or something. And half my brain is missing which is, like, a real pain as I really liked having a whole brain! Not that I used it all that much, sure, but it was there and I was comfortable with it being there and I liked it very much, right where it was, but it isn’t there anymore and I miss it and it’s freaking me out how I can be thinking, and talking, and freaking-out with only half a brain! You’re a ghost! He’s a genie! I’m a zombie! TJ’s still alive! That’s so unfair! Him and his dumb BMX tricks – I’m gonna haunt him so bad! But I can’t right now because I’m stuck in my own coffin, six-feet under the ground with just a decrepit old spirit and an angry genie for company – I’m FREAKING-OUT!!”

“...We hadn’t noticed,” grunted Guth.

“Quite,” sighed Rory, one hand massaging the bridge of his nose. “Well, now may not be the best time, but we have little choice. Given your current condition I’ll cut right to the chase...”

“That doesn’t sound good, is it good? Or is it bad? If it’s bad I don’t need to know because I haven’t come down from my freak-out phase yet, so maybe you should wait a while – or, better yet, leave and come back later. Much, much later, yeah...”

“Well, too bad because here it goes – Malcolm Drake, you are destined to become the Champion of the Nyght!”