E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten
Crook The Lost Journals of Benjamin Tooth
Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-29560-9
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten
ISBN: 978-0-571-29560-9
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Mackenzie Crook is a hugely diverse actor who has played a wide variety of roles, from Ragetti in all three of the record-smashing, swashbuckling Pirates of the Caribbean films, to the wonderful character of Gareth in The Office and the critically acclaimed Konstantin in the Royal Court's version of The Seagull. He has also appeared in a whole host of other works, including films such as Finding Neverland, Brothers Grimm and The Merchant of Venice, as well as in the BBC Radio version of Adrian Mole, and the stage version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in London's West End. His debut children's novel The Windvale Sprites is published by Faber in 2011.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
My name is Benjamin Tooth. This is my journal.
It has been four years since last I wrote.
My circumstances have changed and I no longer live in Mereton with my family. In fact I no longer have any family. I am the last surviving Tooth.
After my grandfather disappeared life at Church Street became unbearable. It is strange now to think that the old man who hardly uttered a word, who shuffled about in his own twilight world, was the fragile glue that held my family together. His care and our devotion to him was the only tenderness that existed in our home and once he had gone (I still know not where) all pretence of family affection dried up.
My mother had never cared for me. She all but admitted it herself. And once I was the only thing left in her life she quickly allowed herself to contract something terminal and died within the year.
I wasn’t much aggrieved. I didn’t care much for her either.
However, the ill-tempered whelk saw fit to set my life on a miserable trajectory before she passed away and though I am now almost sixteen I can still feel her clammy fingers on my shoulder pushing me in directions I do not wish to go or at the very least holding me back from taking my own chosen route.
I’ll keep it brief.
Not long after our house was ransacked my mother decided that my schooling was leading nowhere and that I should leave immediately and find a trade. My father’s meagre pension was running out and we needed money.
In Stonebridge, not far from the schoolhouse, is a taxidermist’s shop. From an early age I was always fascinated by this shop and would stop whenever I could and peer in through the window at the stuffed animal displays. The taxidermist, a man by the name of Pansas Gadigun, specialised in mounting creatures in dynamic poses as though they had been frozen in time. A weasel in the front window was locked in an eternal battle with a viper, the snake twisting around its body and preparing to strike. The weasel was baring its teeth, and where its claw had punctured the reptile’s skin a drop of crimson blood oozed out. A magnificent red fox had been turned to a statue in the act of escaping with a pheasant, and a kestrel was caught at the moment of diving on an unsuspecting vole.
By cupping my hands around my eyes I could see past the window displays and into the dark interior of the shop where jars of fluids and boxes of wire and tools were crowded on to shelves.
At one point Mr Gadigun got married and soon after his window displays took a strange turn as the animals began to wear clothes and were set in human situations. A pair of dormice played croquet, a hedgehog and a ginger kitten drank tea and a mole in blacksmith’s overalls hammered tiny horseshoes at his anvil. This one confused me. Who were the shoes for? In this whimsical world of Mr and Mrs Gadigun did the woodland creatures have tiny horses to ride around on?
When the time came to find a trade I decided to pluck up courage and enter the shop to ask Mr Gadigun for a job. I thought that an apprenticeship in taxidermy would allow me to continue my studies in biology and I could gain a thorough knowledge of anatomy.
With my field study books and box of mounted butterflies under my arm I one day went to Stonebridge and pushed open the door. I had prepared myself for an assault on the eyes as I expected to see all manner of grotesqueries: half-finished displays, dissected animals, &c. What I hadn’t expected was an assault on the nose. With my first intake of breath I gagged and almost turned on my heel. The air was thick, as though I had taken a gulp of some foul liquid. The smell was not one thing in particular but a mixture of chemical, animal and sickly sweet.
The shop was dark and so crammed with objects that it took a while for my eyes to adjust.
I heard footsteps approaching from a back room and Mr Gadigun emerged through a door behind the counter. He was a small man with a perfectly round head upon which perched a light-coloured wig. His teeth protruded below his top lip and had large spaces between them, which meant that when he talked he whistled several different notes in harmony. He wore no jacket but a filthy leather apron over his smock and he peered at me over tiny spectacles clamped to the bridge of his nose.
‘Aha!’ he exclaimed. ‘he’s here!’ I looked around to see if anyone else had followed me into the shop. Mr Gadigun leant back through the door and called, ‘He’s here, Frugal! The young gentleman has come!’
I was confused. ‘Were you expecting me, sir?’ I asked.
‘Indeed, sir!’ he whistled. ‘We’ve been expecting you this last two years!’ Again he called into the back of the shop, ‘Frugal! I told you he would come!’
Frugal, I came to realise, was Mr Gadigun’s wife. (I later found out that she is one of five sisters who were each given the name of a desirable virtue. Honesty, Faith, Charity, Goodness and Frugality. I think Mrs Gadigun drew the short straw.)
‘I don’t understand, sir. How did you know I would come?’
‘Because I see you every day! You never walk by my shop without looking in through the window. It stands to reason that you have been saving up your money in order to buy one of my displays. Don’t tell me! Is it the weasel and viper? A fine piece though I say it myself, or maybe Mr Mole the blacksmith?’
‘No, sir, though I am very taken with both of those displays. No, sir, I have come to ask you for a job.’
Pansas Gadigun could not have looked more shocked had I announced that I was, in fact, King George III.
‘A job?!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Here?!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Frugal! He’s come for a job!’ He turned back to me. ‘Why then, boy, I am completely wrong! Instead of coming to give me money you are proposing to take money away from me!’
Though his manner was eccentric he was not unfriendly and I set about trying to convince him. I laid my book on the counter and flicked through some of my drawings and diagrams before opening up my box of butterflies.
*
‘I feel I could be a considerable asset to your business, Mr Gadigun. I know a vast deal about the natural world and am keen to learn more. One day I wish to go to university and become a great scientist.’
Mr Gadigun carefully studied my drawings, the mounted butterflies and then my face. Suddenly he straightened up and said, ‘Come!’ and gestured for me to go around the counter, whereupon he led me into the back room of the shop. If anything the air was thicker and more pungent back here and it quickly became clear that this was where the work happened. There were three workbenches upon which sat three displays in various stages of completion: a stoat in a coat, a rook with a book, and a frog with a mandolin.
As I took in my surroundings Mr Gadigun went to a cupboard and fetched out an object which he proudly set down on one of the surfaces. It appeared to be a circular polished wooden base such as many of his pieces were mounted upon, only this one was very small, about the size of a crown piece. He pointed to it.
‘My most ambitious project to date!’ he announced. He could see that I was confused and with a grin produced from behind his back a large magnifying glass, which he thrust towards me. ‘Go on,’ he urged, ‘take a look!’
I took the glass and peered through. There, standing arm in arm upon the small wooden disc was a pair of fleas dressed in full wedding costume. Astounded, I looked up at the taxidermist.
‘It is their wedding day!’ he said with glee.
*
‘Look again! Do you see Mr Flea’s cane? And Mrs Flea’s bouquet?’
It was extraordinary. Mr Flea was indeed leaning on a minute walking stick and his bride, dressed in silk and lace, carried a microscopic posy of flowers.
‘Incredible!’ I said. ‘But how …?’
‘With these!’ replied Mr Gadigun and held out his hand to show me a set of miniature tools no bigger than sewing needles. ‘I hold my breath as I work and, with much practice and great concentration, I am able to slow my heart rate. I can then time stitches and incisions between the beats of my heart which would otherwise jog me and make work impossible.’
It was a fantastic thing to behold and I told him so.
‘Well, young Tooth, if you work hard at your studies and do as I instruct then you will one day produce such beautiful things.’
‘You mean,’ I said in incredulity, ‘that I have the job?’
‘Why yes!’ he exclaimed with a B sharp. ‘You shall be my apprentice! And I shall teach you all the secrets and tricks of the trade!’
And so I found myself apprentice to Mr Pansas Gadigun the taxidermist and started my training the very next day.
*
Mother was predictably scathing about my choice of trade, saying that nobody ever became rich by stuffing dead animals. If anything this disapproval confirmed that I had made a good decision and spurred me on.
I threw myself into my apprenticeship and learnt quickly. Mr and Mrs Gadigun were kinder to me than anyone since Grandfather and oft-times I would sleep there under my workbench to save going home to that joyless house in Church Street.
When my mother died and I found myself homeless my employer happily welcomed me into his home and the workshop floor has been my bed ever...
