Hodgepodge Read online

  For Banjo (the oldest), and Emlyn (the tallest), and Jolyon (the wildest). LW.

  For my wife, Shay. Thank you for all your love and support. DS.

  First published by Albert Street Books, an imprint of Allen & Unwin, in 2020

  Copyright © Text, Lili Wilkinson 2020

  Copyright © Illustrations, Dustin Spence 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76087 738 5

  eISBN 978 1 76087 458 2

  For teaching resources, explore www.allenandunwin.com/resources/for-teachers

  Cover and text design by Kristy Lund-White

  Set by Kristy Lund-White

  CONTENTS

  HOW TO LIVE IN A SPOOKY HOUSE

  HOW TO FIND A BIG CREEPY BOOK

  HOW TO FETCH A MONSTER

  HOW TO NAME YOUR PET MONSTER

  HOW TO FIND YOUR PET MONSTER

  HOW TO PLAY WITH YOUR PET MONSTER

  HOW TO BANISH YOUR PET MONSTER

  HOW TO GET RID OF YOUR PET MONSTER

  HOW (NOT) TO VISIT YOUR PET MONSTER

  HOW TO MAKE A PLAN

  HOW TO RESCUE TO YOUR PET MONSTER

  HOW TO MAKE (ANOTHER) PET MONSTER

  COMING SOON: BOOK TWO

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  If I believed in ghosts, WHICH I DO NOT, I would think this house was haunted.

  Mum says the house has ‘amazing bones’.

  She means it will be great when she fixes it up, but it makes me think of actual bones.

  It makes me think of skeletons that jump out of wardrobes...if I believed skeletons could do that, WHICH I DO NOT.

  The spooky house isn’t the only new thing in our lives.

  It’s not just me and Mum living here. There’s also Mum’s partner, David Cole. David Cole and Mum have been together for a while, but this is the first time we’ve all lived together in one (SPOOKY) house. I don’t really know what to call David Cole, now I see him every day. Mr Cole is too formal, David or (worse) Dave is weird, and obviously I’m not going to call him ‘Dad’, because he isn’t my dad.

  So I am currently experimenting with not calling him anything.

  It seems to be working.

  But David Cole and this (not haunted) house aren’t even the newest or spookiest thing about my life now.

  Willow is David Cole’s daughter. She’s a year older than me, and she’s

  My bedroom is next to hers, and she’s always SHOUTING on the phone to her friends, or making sounds on her electric guitar like someone is stomping on a bag of cats.

  All I want to do today is read my Junior Scientist magazine in peace.

  I can’t read in my bedroom, because Willow is playing her electric guitar.

  I can’t read at the kitchen table, because David Cole is making dinner. By the way, David Cole does not believe in recipes. Here are some things he’s made since we moved into the scary house:

  I can’t read ANYWHERE downstairs, because it is Out Of Bounds while Mum is doing renovation stuff.

  I can’t read outside, because it’s raining.

  I can’t read in the bathroom, because people keep wanting to go to the toilet.

  Maybe I can read in the attic. The attic is at the top of a very skinny flight of stairs which creeeeeak when you walk up them.

  It’s quiet up there.

  It’s also SPOOKY.

  I don’t believe in ghosts.

  Or monsters.

  The kind of dirty old chest that a monster might hide in if they were real, WHICH I BELIEVE THEY ARE. And even though I am so scared I think I might throw up, I open the chest.

  There isn’t a monster inside. Or a skeleton.

  There’s a book, which is MUCH more interesting. It’s called THE BIGGE BOKE OF FETCHING MONSTERS. I think ‘bigge boke’ just means ‘big book’ in old-time language. ‘Monsters’ definitely doesn’t mean real monsters though.

  I'm in the dark ALONE.

  In a spooky attic in the spookiest house in the world. Holding a big spooky book about monsters.

  And it's really, really really lucky that I don't believe in ghosts or walking skeletons. Or monsters.

  It’s Willow.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

  ‘N-nothing,’ I say. ‘Just looking for somewhere quiet. To read.’

  ‘You can’t read with the lights off.’

  Just as she says that, the lights flicker on.

  ‘Cool,’ Willow says, and before I can say or do anything, she snatches THE BIGGE BOKE OF FETCHING MONSTERS out of my hands.

  ‘Did you find this up here?’ she asks.

  I nod. I just want to get out of here before she does something terrifying.

  She looks up at me, for a long moment, and I think that maybe she can read minds.

  ‘Come on.’ She drags me down the creaking staircase and along the corridor towards her room.

  I haven’t been in here before. It’s already full of posters and clothes and mess everywhere, even though we only moved in two weeks ago.

  Willow shuts her door, sits on her bed and opens THE BIGGE BOKE OF FETCHING MONSTERS. Even though I am still terrified of her, I can’t help but look, because THE BIGGE BOKE OF FETCHING MONSTERS is really, really interesting.

  ‘Should we tell Mum and...um...your dad?’ I ask.

  Willow rolls her eyes at me and turns the page.

  Willow turns to me and GRINS.

  I’ve never seen her grin like that before.

  ‘You know we have to try this ’ she says.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Come on!’ she says. ‘We have to! This is literally the COOLEST thing that has ever happened to me!’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘MONSTERS, ARTIE! We could summon...LOOK!’ She flicks through the book.

  I shake my head.

  ‘Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t ’ she says.

  ‘I will give you three excellent reasons.’ I take a deep breath.

  2. SCIENCE is real, and this is NOT how science works.

  3. This book is very old and belongs in a museum. We should be wearing gloves if we touch it, which we shouldn’t do.

  4. Even if monsters were real, and even if you could just whip one up in a kettle with a few weird ingredients, you WOULDN’T DO IT, BECAUSE MONSTERS ARE BIG AND SCARY AND THEY WANT TO KILL YOU.

  ‘That was four reasons,’ Willow says.

  ‘I have a few more,’ I say.

  Willow rolls her eyes at me. ‘Okay, so what if we pick a nice monster?’

  She flicks through the book again.

  Willow sighs. ‘FINE. Go back to Nerds R Us Magazine.’

  ‘Junior Scientist Magazine.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  I take a step towards the door. ‘And what will you do?’ I ask.

  Willow shrugs and tries to look innocent. ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘You’re going to
make a MONSTER, aren’t you?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes,’ says Willow.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll help.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘If you do it on your own, you’ll do it wrong. You won’t observe a Rigorous Scientific Methodology. At best, nothing will happen. At worst, you will BLOW UP this big spooky old house and everyone in it. You need someone who knows what they’re doing. That someone is me.’

  Willow grins another terrifying grin. ‘Brilliant.’

  I HAVE A PLAN.

  Willow wants to make a monster, because she thinks that making a monster is exciting. Willow likes things that are exciting.

  So I will make it really, really BORING. And if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s how to make other people bored.

  ‘Okay,’ I tell her as I pace back and forth. ‘The FIRST STEP is to draw up a detailed Risk Assessment Plan, followed by three or four months of research. We’ll read the whole book at least ten times, and come up with a Scientific Hypothesis that can be Rigorously Tested. After that comes the Methodology. We’ll test each of the ingredients in turn to make sure—’

  I stop. Willow has gone. So has THE BIGGE BOKE OF FETCHING MONSTERS. And I can hear footsteps above me. I race out of her room and up the stairs.

  Back in the attic, Willow is flicking through THE BIGGE BOKE OF FETCHING MONSTERS.

  ‘Which one should we make?’ she asks.

  ‘Something small, just in case.’ I say. ‘But it won’t work, because SCIENCE.’

  ‘How about this one?’

  All the things I want to say get jammed up in my mouth and the only thing that comes out is a kind of gasping noise.

  ‘Mingle ye together in a blackened kettle the required ingredients. Okay. Artie, you get the kettle, I’ll get the ingredients.’

  Willow runs downstairs, leaving me gawping like a goldfish that has jumped out of its bowl.

  I don’t believe in monsters.

  But Willow is real, and Willow is SCARIER than a nearly-definitely-not-real monster.

  I follow her downstairs.

  In the kitchen, David Cole is dipping pineapple chunks in mayonnaise. ‘Hello there, young Artie. Are you looking for something?’

  ‘A blackened kettle,’ I say, because I am not very good at lying.

  ‘Hmm...’ says David Cole. ‘I think I can help.’

  He heads towards the junk room, which Mum says we should call the parlour even though it’s currently full of tools, paint tins and unpacked boxes of junk. I follow David Cole’s trail of pineapple and mayonnaise.

  ‘We’ve been using Indira’s kettle since we moved in, but this is my old one,’ he says, pulling a dusty kettle out of a box. ‘It’s black!’

  I am one hundred per cent sure that THE BIGGE BOKE OF FETCHING MONSTERS meant a big old witch’s cauldron or something.

  It definitely doesn’t mean a modern electric kettle that just happens to be black. But I thank David Cole anyway and head back up to the attic with it.

  Willow is already there, spreading out some...ingredients...on the floorboards.

  ‘Um, Willow,’ I say. ‘Those are NOT the ingredients that the book asks for.’

  ‘Well, we didn’t have any of that stuff,’ Willow explains. ‘So I used the next best thing. Dad does it all the time.’

  ‘WILLOW,’ I say, putting on my best scientist voice. ‘You can’t just use the “next best thing” when it comes to SCIENCE. There aren’t even any measurements listed. You have to be PRECISE to follow a Rigorous Scientific Methodology.’

  ‘Why do you care?’ she asks. ‘You don’t think it’s going to work anyway.’

  ‘No, I do not,’ I say. But maybe I do, just a tiny little bit.

  Willow rolls her eyes at me, opens the lid of the electric kettle, and throws her ingredients in.

  ‘Now what?’ she says.

  ‘You probably need to plug the kettle in,’ I say, aiming for sarcasm.

  ‘Good idea!’ Willow hunts around for a power point, and plugs in the kettle. It starts to make a hissing noise. I wish I’d brought my safety goggles.

  Willow looks down at THE BIGGE BOKE OF FETCHING MONSTERS and, in a booming voice, says:

  When the steam finally clears, there is SOMETHING in the little attic room that WASN’T THERE BEFORE.

  A monster.

  We put an old sock in an electric kettle and A MONSTER CAME OUT.

  But there is no such thing as monsters.

  Except there is!

  And one is standing right in front of me.

  ‘It doesn’t look much like the picture,’ says Willow, staring down at the little creature. ‘It’s...cute?’

  I look over at THE BIGGE BOKE OF FETCHING MONSTERS.

  We have not fetched a hobgoblin.

  ‘This is what you get for not following a Rigorous Scientific Methodology,’ I tell Willow.

  The creature stares at us, then farts gently.

  ‘This monster is definitely NOT a hobgoblin,’ I say. ‘More of a... A HODGEPODGE?’

  The creature SQUEAKS happily.

  ‘Hodgepodge,’ I say again, slowly.

  The creature squeaks again and wags its little stump of a tail. Did I just give it a name? It looks like it’s waiting for something.

  ‘A task,’ I say. ‘The book said we have to give it a task.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Willow. ‘So let’s give it a task.’

  I stare at Hodgepodge I can’t think of anything.

  Willow gives me a funny sideways look, then leans forward and whispers something in Hodgepodge’s ear.

  ‘What did you say?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Never mind.’

  I feel my cheeks redden. Nobody ever tells me anything. ‘I want to know.’

  ‘IT’S A SECRET,’ says Willow.

  ‘We’re supposed to be doing this together!’ I complain.

  ‘We are doing it together.’

  ‘Then tell me what you said!’

  ‘No,’ says Willow firmly. ‘And anyway, we have more important things to worry about.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like...where’s Hodgepodge?’

  HODGEPODGE IS GONE.

  There is a crash downstairs that sounds a lot like a big container of nails and screws being knocked over.

  Willow and I look at each other. ‘THE PARENTS!’ we both say, at exactly the same time.

  Mum is wearing headphones and singing almost loud enough to drown out her buzzing drill.

  She stops drilling when she sees us. She pulls off her safety goggles and puts them on the mantelpiece.

  ‘OUT OF BOUNDS,’ she says loudly, because she still has her headphones on.

  I try to look like I’m having a great and normal time, but there is a monster on the mantelpiece behind Mum, trying on her safety goggles.

  He looks so funny, I can’t help but giggle.

  Mum starts to turn around. Willow grabs her by both arms. ‘What kind of drill is that, Indira?’ she yells.

  Mum takes off her headphones. ‘I’m glad you asked, Willow! It’s an eighteen-volt cordless impact driver,’ she says.

  I sidle around behind them, but Hodgepodge SPRINGS off the mantel and SCUTTLES Off down the stairs.

  Mum is still going. ‘...and this button here adjusts the tool speed and torque—’

  ‘Okay, thanks Mum, bye!’ I say, and tug Willow out of the room.

  ‘WILLOW!’ We hear a bellow from downstairs.

  When we reach the kitchen, David Cole is looking very cross. ‘WILLOW, DID YOU DO THIS?’

  One of Mum’s teapots is lying smashed on the floor.

  ‘I know you’re going through a rough time,’ David Cole says. ‘But I really don’t think—’

  ‘It wasn’t me!’ says Willow. ‘It was...er...maybe it was Murphy?’

  Murphy is Mum’s cat. He’s old and grumpy, only has one eye and can’t jump higher than the couch anymore. It definitely wasn’t Murphy.

  ‘I really l
iked the lime cheese salad you made for dinner last night,’ I say desperately to David Cole. I am very bad at lying, but David Cole doesn’t notice. I am quite good at changing the subject.

  His ears turn pink and he beams. ‘REALLY?’ he says. ‘That’s fantastic! I’m thinking of making it with prunes next time. Do you think—’

  ‘Great chat, Dad!’ Willow drags me out the back door.

  It’s still raining. Murphy is on the back doorstep, his fur sticking out and his tail pointing straight up. He is standing next to his empty food bowl looking outraged.

  A LOUD FARTING NOISE comes from underneath the fig tree.

  ‘Hodgepodge!’ I shout, and dash through the rain. But I’m not fast enough. Hodgepodge whisks past me and back inside the house. As he passes, I smell the strong fishy scent of cat food.

  ‘Murphy went up to your bedroom,’ David Cole says to Willow, his head in the fridge. ‘He really can move fast when he wants to, can’t he?’

  We race upstairs. Willow’s bedroom is even messier than usual. Her sock drawer has been ransacked, and there are chewed-up bits of sock all over the place. One of the boxes that Willow hadn’t unpacked yet has been emptied all over the floor. There are photos of Willow’s mum and David Cole. Photos of their wedding. Of when Willow was born. Of them on holiday together.

  ‘I think it’s time you told me exactly what you asked Hodgepodge to do,’ I say to Willow.

  She sighs. ‘I asked him to get my parents back together.’

  Willow’s mum owns a super fancy flower shop called THE LONE HYDRANGEA, in a super fancy part of town. As we get closer to the shop, it’s clear that something has gone wrong. Two dogs are barking their heads off. A dad jiggles a crying baby up and down. The neat buckets of flowers on the footpath have been knocked over.