The Magnificent Hercules Quick Read online

  ‘Read at breakfast with that first cup of tea or coffee – or bowl of cereal! Nobody likes talking at breakfast (do they?) so it’s a great time to read a book. Soon you will be looking forward to it and you won’t be able to start the day without it.’

  URSULA DUBOSARSKY

  This book is proudly published by Allen & Unwin to celebrate Australian Reading Hour.

  Australian Reading Hour is your official excuse to stop whatever you’re doing (school, homework, chores), pick up a book – and read for an hour!

  Get involved, join the fun, and choose more books to read at australiareads.org.au

  Australia Reads is on a mission to get more people reading more books more often. We are a not-for-profit reading initiative working in collaboration with members of the Australian Booksellers Association, Australian Library and Information Association, Australian Publishers Association, and Australian Society of Authors to champion reading.

  *seriously. Make reading for fun a healthy daily habit, like exercising for 30 mins, or drinking plenty of water, or cleaning your teeth twice each day. Put down your phone, pick up a book. Turn off the TV and turn over this page…

  Also by Ursula Dubosarsky & Andrew Joyner

  Ask Hercules Quick

  Brindabella

  For Louise Katz,

  both magnificent and quick! – UD x

  For Beck, William and Charlotte. – AJ

  This Australia Reads exclusive story is first published by Allen & Unwin in 2021

  Copyright © Text, Ursula Dubosarsky 2021

  Copyright © Illustrations, Andrew Joyner 2019, 2021

  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 76106 571 2

  eISBN 978 1 76106 272 8

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

  Illustration technique: digital artwork

  Cover and internal design by Romina Edwards, adapted by Sandra Nobes

  Hand-lettering by Andrew Joyner

  www.ursuladubosarsky.squarespace.com

  www.childrenslaureate.org.au

  www.andrewjoyner.com.au

  Hercules! Quick!

  Arms and Legs

  Love Letters

  Spring-Cleaning

  Who’s Who?

  Dreaming of Magic

  Hercules Quick lived in a big red house with his Aunt Alligator and his friend Sylvie, the tadpole.

  The big red house was three storeys high. Hercules, Sylvie and Aunt Alligator lived on the middle floor of the house.

  On the floor above them lived the Elk family – Father Elk, Mother Elk, Grandmother Elk, Great-Grandmother Elk, Great-Great-Grandmother Elk, Uncle Elk, Cousin Elk, Baby Elk – and Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk, who had come to stay.

  On the floor below them lived Professor Calamari, the octopus. He liked listening to the radio, eating pancakes and counting his collection of burnt matchsticks. It all kept him very busy.

  Down below, in the dark, dark cellar, Queen Claude lived quietly alone. She had been even more quiet than usual lately, but everyone knew she was still there because of the occasional scuttling sound that rose from the deep.

  Up on the roof, the turtle brothers Mike and Herbert lived next to the clothesline. They each had their name painted on their shells. This was helpful in case they forgot who they were, which was more often than you would think.

  Hercules Quick was saving up to buy a box of magic tricks. He had seen it in the window of a toyshop. It was the most box of magic tricks in the world!

  To make enough money so that he could buy it, Hercules decided to do odd jobs. He got out his paints, a paintbrush and a big piece of white paper to make a sign.

  Hercules hung the sign out of the window so that everybody could see it. Then he waited.

  It didn’t take too long. After all, everybody needs a job done from time to time.

  So far, Hercules had been asked by his neighbours in the big red house to do four different jobs and he had saved up forty cents.

  He had thrown rose petals out of the window for Professor Calamari.

  He had taken Baby Elk to play in the park.

  He had tried to find Queen Claude’s lost pingpong ball.

  And he had made up a song for Mike and Herbert, the turtle brothers.

  It had been hard work doing those jobs. But he wasn’t going to give up!

  ‘Forty cents is a lot of money,’ Hercules said to Aunt Alligator and Sylvie, holding up the sock he kept his savings in, ‘but I need a lot more than that to buy the box of magic tricks. I hope somebody asks me to do another job soon.’

  Sylvie the tadpole smiled. When she had first come to stay with Hercules and Aunt Alligator, she had lived in a pickle jar. Now she was much bigger she had a fishbowl, with rocks and seaweed. Her tail was shorter and her back legs were growing bigger and stronger every day. She even had the beginnings of two little front legs.

  Aunt Alligator was at her desk, writing in her secret diary. ‘I think someone rang the doorbell, Hercules. Could you go and see who it is?’

  Hercules jumped up and ran to open the door. It was Professor Calamari! He had a desperate look in his eyes.

  ‘Are you all right, Professor?’ asked Hercules.

  ‘No, I am not all right,’ said Professor Calamari, waving his several legs about and wiping sweat from his forehead. ‘I need help, Hercules! Quick!’

  Hercules ran down the stairs two at a time, following Professor Calamari, who slid down bumpily.

  The Professor’s front door was wide open. Peering in, Hercules could see something steaming in a pot on the stove. The radio was on very loud and there was a huge pile of burnt matches on the table. The carpet was covered with strange orange blobs and the telephone was ringing.

  ‘Help me, Hercules!’ moaned Professor Calamari, rolling through the door in a tangled heap. ‘I beg you!’

  Hercules stepped after him, gingerly avoiding the blobs.

  ‘Um,’ said Hercules. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘I just need an extra pair of hands,’ implored Professor Calamari. His voice was deep and gurgly. ‘I don’t have enough of my own to get everything done!’

  BRRING BRRING

  ‘Should I answer the phone?’ asked Hercules.

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s exactly what I want you to do!’ said the Professor, gratefully. ‘I cannot pick it up myself. I do not have a tentacle to spare! I need to put the marmalade I’m making into all those jars and then I need to finish this row of knitting I’m in the middle of, and then I need to count my burnt matches and lay them out in groups of ten. And then I need to adjust the volume button on the radio AND twirl my moustache!’

  Does he really have to do all these things at once? wondered Hercules.

  BRRING BRRING

  ‘And THEN, would you believe it, the telephone started ringing! So if you would be s
o kind as to answer it, that would save my LIFE.’

  The professor turned his attention to the bubbling pot on the stove. He picked up a ladle with one of his tentacles and held a jar steady with the second tentacle to dollop the marmalade into it. With the third and fourth tentacles he continued his row of knitting, and with the fifth and sixth he counted the dead matches. With the seventh tentacle he twisted the volume knob on the radio and with the eighth he twirled his curly moustache.

  BRRING BRRING

  Hercules picked up the telephone.

  ‘Hello?’ he said into the receiver.

  ‘Is that you?’ said a laughing voice at the other end. ‘Professor Calamari?’

  ‘This isn’t the professor,’ said Hercules. ‘This is – er – his assistant.’

  ‘Well, whoever you are,’ chuckled the voice, ‘would the professor like to win a trip to Honolulu?’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Hercules, ‘I’ll check.’

  He left the phone on the table and went over to the stove.

  ‘Excuse me, Professor Calamari,’ he said in the loudest voice possible, because now the professor was humming along with the music blaring from the radio. ‘Would you like to win a trip to Honolulu?’

  Professor Calamari held all of his tentacles suspended in action for a moment.

  ‘Honolulu?’ he said. ‘Honolulu? Hercules, I have dreamed of a trip to Honolulu my ENTIRE life!’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Hercules. He walked back over to the table and spoke into the phone again. ‘The professor says yes, he would.’

  ‘Great!’ said the voice. ‘All he has to do is answer this one easy question and he’s on his way.’

  ‘Right,’ said Hercules. He yelled across to Professor Calamari, ‘YOU JUST HAVE TO ANSWER ONE EASY QUESTION!’

  ‘Please, please!’ Professor Calamari waved all his tentacles about at once. ‘I’m counting stitches! Can you answer the question for me?’

  ‘What if I get it wrong?’ objected Hercules, because he didn’t want to be the one who would destroy Professor Calamari’s lifelong dream.

  ‘All right, bring the telephone over here!’ snapped Professor Calamari as the marmalade flowed, the music blared, the knitting needles clicked and he piled the matches. ‘Pearl one, knit one. Eight, nine, ten. Go on, get on with it!’

  Hercules brought the phone up to where he thought Professor Calamari’s ear might be.

  ‘So, what’s the question?’ said the professor impatiently down the phone.

  ‘It’s simple,’ giggled the voice. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Spit it out!’ screamed the professor.

  ‘Okay,’ said the voice, not laughing quite so much. ‘Here it is – what is the difference between an octopus and a squid?’

  To Hercules’s alarm, Professor Calamari turned a peculiar bright pink. His eyes expanded and all eight tentacles trembled with rage.

  ‘Excuse ME! That is a VERY PERSONAL question. I cannot believe anyone would dare to ask such a thing. Hang up at once, Hercules. I am SCANDALISED!’

  ‘But I thought,’ said Hercules, crestfallen, ‘that it was your lifelong dream to go to Honolulu?’

  ‘I have so many dreams!’ said Professor Calamari dismissively. ‘In fact, I no longer wish to go to Honolulu at all. NEVER. And that’s final.’

  ‘Sorry, the professor can’t talk anymore,’ said Hercules to the laughing voice, feeling embarrassed. ‘Goodbye.’

  He put down the receiver. He didn’t feel that job was worth ten cents. Maybe there was something else he could do?

  He opened his mouth to ask, when he realised that there was a strange calm in the room. The professor was sitting serenely in his armchair, all his tentacles relaxed, except for two that were quietly knitting.

  ‘Dear Hercules! Thank you so much. Pearl one, knit one, pearl one, knit one,’ said Professor Calamari. ‘What would I have done without you?’

  Hercules stared around him. How had it happened? The last marmalade jar was filled, the radio was turned off and silent, and all the dead matches were neatly arranged in piles of ten.

  ‘All I did was answer the phone,’ he said, mystified.

  ‘You saved my life, Hercules!’ said the professor. ‘What could be more important than that? So I have decided that I will give you a raise. In fact, I am going to give you TWENTY cents.’ He fished two ten-cent coins from the depths of his jacket pocket. ‘And please take a jar of marmalade for your dear aunt, with my most profound compliments.’

  ‘I—’ began Hercules, but Professor Calamari put a tentacle to his lips.

  ‘Shhh! I must concentrate on my knitting. It is a very difficult pattern. Off you go, now. Knit three, pearl seven, knit two together.’

  Carefully avoiding the blobs on the carpet, Hercules went back upstairs. He presented Aunt Alligator with the jar of marmalade.

  ‘That is so kind of the professor,’ said Aunt Alligator, who was known to enjoy marmalade at any meal. ‘He must have been very pleased with you.’

  ‘He said he was,’ said Hercules, doubtfully.

  He slipped the two coins into the green sock on the bookshelf. Sylvie watched him, splashing happily in her bowl of water.

  ‘Bit by bit,’ he said to Sylvie. ‘I wonder what my next job will be?’

  Hercules wanted to paint Sylvie and her two new little front legs. He got out his paints and paintbrush and set up his easel.

  There was a great clattering of hooves in the big red house. Hercules opened the door to see what was happening. The Elk family were going out for a picnic!: Father Elk, Mother Elk, Grandmother Elk, Great-Grandmother Elk, Great-Great-Grandmother Elk, Uncle Elk, Cousin Elk, Baby Elk – all except Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk, who stood at the top of the stairs to wave them all goodbye.

  ‘Have fun!’ Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk called out to the other Elks, their picnic baskets, blankets and umbrellas. ‘Don’t get sunburnt!’

  He spotted Hercules.

  ‘Hello there,’ he said. ‘You’re Hercules Quick, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s me,’ agreed Hercules. ‘Aren’t you going on the picnic?’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk, looking important. ‘I have a rendezvous.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Hercules.

  ‘A meeting,’ explained Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk. ‘My friend Evangelina is coming to visit in … three minutes’ time,’ he said, glancing at his stopwatch. ‘Now listen, Hercules, they tell me you do odd jobs?’

  ‘I do,’ nodded Hercules. ‘Only ten cents.’

  ‘I have a job for you,’ said Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk. ‘As I said, my friend Evangelina is coming to visit, and I have something special to tell her. But I am so shy I won’t be able to speak the words. Do you think you could say them for me?’

  ‘Won’t she think that’s a bit strange?’ said Hercules. ‘Are you sure you can’t say the words yourself?’

  ‘I can’t!’ Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk clutched his head with his hooves dramatically. ‘I’ve tried before, but I just clam up. It will be easy, Hercules. I will tell you the words and you can write them down in a notebook. When Evangelina comes, I will give you a sign – a cough – like this.’ He gave a throaty cough. ‘And you say the words.’

  ‘Um,’ said Hercules.

  ‘I will provide the notebook,’ continued Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk, ‘AND the pencil.’

  Hercules thought of the box of magic tricks.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘Hooray!’ Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk skipped in delight. ‘Come on, she’ll be here any moment.’

  Up in the Elks’ place, Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk snuffled around and found his notebook and pencil and handed them to Hercules.

  Hercules flipped open the book and held the pencil in the air.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk took a deep breath. He started:

  ‘
My dearest Evangelina—’

  ‘Excuse me a moment,’ said Hercules. ‘“Evangelina” is a very long name. I wonder, does she have a nickname that might be a bit shorter?’

  ‘No,’ said Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk firmly. ‘That’s her name. Every letter is absolutely necessary.’

  ‘Okay.’ Hercules sighed, hoping he could spell it properly. ‘“My Dearest Evangelina.” What next?’

  ‘“I love you!”’ burst out Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk.

  ‘Gosh!’ said Hercules, taken aback. ‘Don’t you – er – want to say something else first?’

  ‘No need,’ replied Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk airily. ‘Have you got that? “I love you, Evangelina! Do you love me?”’

  ‘Just give me a moment,’ said Hercules. ‘I’m writing as fast as I can.’

  ‘“I am your secret admirer – for eternity!”’

  ‘Not so secret anymore,’ muttered Hercules, but he wrote it down.

  There was a rapping at the door.

  ‘That’s her!’ shrieked Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk in a panic. ‘That’s my beloved Evangelina! Exactly on time,’ he added fondly. ‘She is so considerate.’ He grabbed Hercules’s arm. ‘Do you think you could let her in? My heart is beating too fast! I might faint!’

  Hercules put down the notebook and opened the door. There was nobody there. Then he noticed a strange bundle of fur on the doormat.

  “Evangelina!’ whispered Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk.”

  The bundle moved rapidly forwards into the room and leaped onto the sofa.

  ‘That’s her?’ said Hercules. ‘That’s Evangelina?’

  Second-Cousin-Twice-Removed Elk coughed, very purposefully.

  Hercules remembered. That was the sign. A job’s a job, he reminded himself. He stood in front of the bundle of fur on the sofa and said in his clearest voice, reading from the notebook: