'I have got someone I would like you to see,' said Toddy. He took the newly enlivened Jim under his green arms and led him forth. 'How is the G-Juice?'
'I am scared,' said Jim.
'Why so?' said his friend.
'Because it is going to run out,' Jim replied.
'Don't worry about it for now,' said Toddy. 'You have enough in that bottle in your hand to keep you going for an hour or three. So walk up and follow me! I have a fine friend who lives ahead I would like you to see! I think you and this fellow have a lot in common! You will have a lot to talk about, especially in matters concerning alcohol.'
'If I run out of G-Juice I might not be able to talk,' said Jim, but Toddy patted his friend on the shoulder and assured him that he was going to be fine. 'You will always be able to talk! And don't forget, old Toddy is here to help! If you ever find yourself in a corner, in the gutter, if you ever find yourself all alone stuck in the dark with the shakes, just call old Toddy here and he will help! Now that we have been acquainted you will never have to be alone ever again!'
Jim heard Toddy's words but he didn't feel any comfort by them. He didn't know if he really liked the strutting, unkempt toad. He actually found him rather vulgar.
His odour was utterly repulsive...
Jim had a feeling that the repulsive little man must have spent a considerable amount of his life sleeping in drains.
But anyway... It was what it was. Toddy seemed to know quite a bit about G-Juice, so that made him somewhat worth keeping around.
They walked together for quite some time, they didn't speak much as they went along. They stopped finally just outside a large and very impressive looking house.
'Here we are,' said Toddy. 'You may have seen this place before on your walks. You night agree it is the most impressive building in all Fenwick outside of the Castle, and the richest man I know in town lives here. Hopefully he is awake. I will knock the door and we will find out!'
Toddy knocked the door but nobody answered.
They waited for quite a while, probably something like ten minutes.
Toddy knocked again.
Him suggested they should leave. 'Maybe he is not in?' he said.
'O he is in,' Toddy replied. 'He's always in on weekdays. He doesn't work. He has nothing to do! The only time he ever goes out is Sunday mornings. Strange, I know, but I have only ever seen him outside his house on the weekends. He is very reclusive. One might say, housebound.'
'Do we need to talk to him? he doesn't sound very interesting?'
'O but he is interesting! His name is Rod. He might very well be the most interesting person in Town! You see, he is the only man I know in this town who has access to the interior of Castle Fenwick. If there is anyone in this whole dank rotten excuse for a town who knows a thing or two about the gritty goings on behind the scenes he is the one to talk with. That's why I want you to meet him! I think you will like him once you get to know him.'
'I feel too ill to like anybody right now,' Jim replied.
'We will see,' said Toddy.
So Toddy, still determined, rapped the door to the great house a second time.
There came a high pitched voice from below...
In fact it came from the letter box!
'Sorry lads but I can't open the door, it's rusted shut through lack of use,' said the voice. 'You will have to move round to the window! That's right. I have it open and on the latch just over their to your right. Please find the handy little ladder I have place below, and use it to enter. Thank you, and my apologies for the inconvenience!'
So there was Rod. He was a strange little olive-skinned bold wobbly man who spoke in a fast, panicky voice.
He bowed to Toddy first, and then he turned around and then bowed before Jim like he was some sort of servant man.
'My deepest apology,' he said to both of the men.
'Please it's no trouble,' Toddy replied. Then he asked Rod how long he has been inside the house.
'All week,' Rod replied. 'I try not to go out if I can help it. But sometimes I am called to the castle... Every now and then they have some business for me, and I must go. I must go... There is no other way.'
'That's all very interesting indeed, Rod, but are you going fetch us a drink or talk all day?' said Toddy.
Rod heard this and started to shake. 'Good gracious there I go waffling on and you two gentleman are standing there like a pair of old coat hangers. Please, my fine gentlemen, come in to the living room and I will fetch us all a drink. Do you drink whiskey, Jim?'
Jim nodded. The whiskey glass was brought straight into his fingers and the juice inside was just enough calm his shakes. Jim drank the glass clean and then asked for another. Rod was more than happy to comply.
'Not that I mad but is there a reason for this visit?' said Rod.
Toddy took a seat and started to speak:
'Tell us about the castle?' he said. 'Don't look shocked by my words. I imagine there are a lot of people in town who ask you about the place. After all, you are the only person with access to the strange hoary place! It is the largest building in all of Fenwick. You can see it wherever you go in! And yet you are the only living human who has ever born witness to its halls. That makes you a very special citizen, Mr Rod. You know things few folks know. That's what makes you so very interesting.'
'O please i am not interesting not in the slightest,' the portly man responded. 'On the contrary I am rather boring.'
'That's your state of mind talking,' Toddy continued. 'You think you are boring, because you tell yourself that you are. But in reality, you are the most interesting person in town. Trust me, I have been around a lot, and I know what I am talking about.'
'O I didn't say otherwise,' Rod replied. 'It's just I don't have a lot to talk about.'
'I say you do,' Toddy returned. 'You own the largest house in the town. You have an audience with the castle. Can't you tell us, at the very least, who lives in the place? Does it have a lord? Are there people there? Or is it all a deception! Do we see only a misty veil, a curtain, behind which sits nothing. Are we all drunk and do we simply imagine the place? Are the halls of the castle truly empty? Put us out of our misery, Mr Rod, end our uncertainty and our confusion, tell us the true meaning of the castle! Let it's secrets out, let its coveted whispers flow. We four ears here in this room want to know. And no one else need know, but we three. I promise you, Mr Rod, we are men of our word as well as men of honour, and we will not let the secrets of the castle flow beyond these four walls. You know me from old, Mr Rod. Often I have visited you in a drunken haze! When have I ever failed you?'
'I cannot talk about the inhabitants of the castle because I have been sworn to secrecy,' and then Rod swallowed before he continued:
'Under pain of limb removal. They. have worn to cut off my legs! But I can tell you this, my fellow patrons. They have many curious habits, pastimes that one might consider odd.'
Toddy heard this and his eyes lit up a very bright tint of green! This, as Jim would learn, was how Toddy's eyes turned when the toad became excited. 'Endulge Mr Rod!' said Toddy. 'We want to know all.'
'I don't know if I really do,' Jim interjected. 'I have a weak stomach. A have a strong stomach for things like whiskey, but when it comes to people and their ways I feel very sick.'
Toddy told Jim to remain quiet.
'I have a secret but you must promise to never disgorge it to the ears of outsiders,' said Rod. 'And I mean that! And definitely do not speak about what I tell you certainly not to the residence of the Short Tailed Fox! I can't have their tongues wagging about mybusiness good grief no! I will never be able to show myself outside of my home ever again!'
After hearing this Toddy started to practically beg Rod to reveal his secret!
'Okay well this is my story,' Rod started:
'My father was a rich man. He built this house. He used to have a chain of pawn shops along Flint Street. He was doing very well, until the value of gold dropped. Plummeted, in fact. gold was as valuable in our region as the cobblestones of Fenwick, that it is to say, about as precious as swamp water. My father was forced to perform as a street clown to make ends meet. He considered starting a cotton factory in Brazil, but he discovered he had a phobia of alligators, and snakes and so he had to come home again. He understood with time that the life of a clown was the only way forward for him, until he found himself a permanent resident of Green Hill Road.'
'O, so he bought himself a new house then?' said Toddy.
'No,' Rod replied. 'That's where the graveyard is. He died of tuberculosis. After that sad moment it became my burden to carry the family name. There were so many debts I had to deal with in those early days I really feared that I was going to lose the family home. I tried gambling at first, but I lost every game. My debts increased immeasurably after that foolish mistake. After that I started to write. I always fancied myself a poet. But then I turned to the bad ways of drinking. Alcohol helps one battle the disease of perfectionism, but it also makes one drunk, and as it turned out I proved to be quite a bad drunk, especially after I made a display of myself in the annual fair, dressing publicly like an 1850's West-Fiji tribal dancer (I was writing a book about ancient cannibalism at the time...). That mistake earned me a bad reputation among the higher classes of the town. My peers eventually referred to me as the one who drinks in clothes of leaves and grass. I was later thrown out of the gamblers club once news got round of my drunken shenanigans. Then my luck turned, after I had spent four weeks performing as Basil the musk-hound, that's the mascot for Ted's dodgy shop down Flint Street, if you were wondering, I received an invitation to the castle...
'It was there, in the walls f that old fort, where I made my fortune! And here I am today!'
'But you didn't tell us the best part?' spoke up Toddy. 'How did you make your money?'
'Well...as I mentioned, them of the castle have many odd ways. They must have seen me in my musk-hound costume, and took note of my drunken ways and mistook me to be a shapeshifter. Since then they insist I spend 24 hours standing on all fours barking to the moon! I am the castle dog... Yes, that's right. I make my money by degrading myself. It's horrible, but it pays the bills and the debt man, and I only have to do it on weekends. I get the week off, thankfully, for my poor knees do hurt indeed they do so much! It is a hard life serving as a dog even if it's only for two days a week.'
'I bet it is a miserable business indeed,' said Jim.
'There are worse ways to make a living,' Toddy spoke up. 'I mean you could be a news reporter chronicling the weather of some remote island, like South-Eastern Papua. Think how awful that would be once the natives have you up to your neck in boiling water and vegetables.'
'Aye that would suck too,' Jim responded.
Just then there was a knock at the front door.
Rod jumped out of his chair in a mad panic and rushed to answer it.
Ivan stepped in. He looked about the room and once he had fastened his eyes on Jim and pointed at the man and said, 'I want you! Stop what you are doing and follow me back to the lab right now!'
'I can't work today,' Jim explained. 'I drank too much...'
'I know what you did,' Ivan replied.
Ivan was angry! There was a fierce look in his eyes. He looked like the sort of man that would break bones at any given moment!
Jim was scared.
So scared one might considered him frozen to the spot!
'Move now!' Ivan cried.
Jim found the movement of his legs again when he saw how serious Ivan was. He follow the man outside, and they walked together. They did not talk not until they reached The Rits.'
(Remember! All spelling errors and grammatical mistakes are intentional - the author 😆)
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