The Notion Potion Read online

  ‘It’s a Wonkey!’ I cried with joy. ‘My very own Wonkey!’

  ‘His name is Wilbert,’ announced Martin. ‘I bought him on your day off, from some imaginary gypsies in a car park. They told me that “Wonkeys are an IF’s Best Friend”. Do you like him?’

  ‘Like him? I love him!’ I gushed, gazing into his big goofy eyes. ‘Hello, Wilbert!’

  The Wonkey grinned, and gave a belch. He bounded back to the box and plucked out a leash with his long mouth.

  ‘Looks like he wants some exercise!’ chuckled Martin.

  Wilbert dropped the leash into my hand, along with a little handbook called How to Care for Your Wonkey.

  ‘Good boy, Wilbert!’ praised Martin. ‘That’s his manual, Sean. I think you’re supposed to milk him at some point, but it explains it all in there.’

  ‘Perfecto!’ I cried, as I pocketed the book and strapped the leash to the collar of my furry new friend. ‘I’m gonna take such good care of you, Wilbert! I’ll walk you every day and snuggle you every night!’

  I looked over at Martin, still hardly able to believe it. He’d really pulled this one out of the bag – or the box, as it were.

  ‘Oh, Martin, I take it back, I take it all back! You’re the best Realsie ever!’ I proclaimed, and gave him a bear hug.

  But a moment later, I was yanked out of his grip as the Wonkey tore off in a flash, dragging me along behind it, galloping away with another ‘HEEE-HOOWWWWWWLLLLLL!’

  Martin watched us go, confused. ‘Take what back?’ he called after me, as I bounced along the road behind Wilbert.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE WINNERS WALL

  There’s an old saying in the imaginary world that I once read on a tea towel in my granny’s house:

  I was pondering this mysterious nugget of wisdom as I tumbled and bumped my way down the Boyle Road after Wilbert.

  Was I not showing him enough affection? I wondered. Was that why he was giving me this rough ride? I didn’t want our friendship to start off on the wrong foot – or hoof, for that matter – so I tried yelling compliments at him in between my shrieks of pain.

  ‘YOW! OOF! GOOD BOY! OUCH! ARRGH! WHO’S A HANDSOME WONKEY? OW! THAT WAS PRICKLY! WELL DONE!’

  But no matter how much praise I hollered at him, I continued to bang, batter and bounce my way through the countryside like I was trapped inside a pinball machine made of roads. One mile and eighty-seven bruises later, Wilbert came to a sudden halt, panting happily. I smacked into his bum and he farted in my face – a fitting end to the worst journey of my life.

  In a wobbly, stinky daze, I staggered to my feet, and saw that we’d reached the big yard outside Martin’s school where crowds of kids were arriving, hurrying to get to class before the bell rang.

  Every inch of my body was as sore as a savagely stubbed toe, but when Wilbert smiled up at me with his big toothy grin, my aches and pains melted away. How could I blame that big lovable dope? It wasn’t his fault: Wonkeys weren’t known for obedience. Or intelligence. Or pleasant body odour. They were known for being loyal and loving pets – ‘An IF’s Best Friend,’ as Martin had said. Others called them ‘Un-Toilet-Trainable Terrors’ or ‘Slobbery Snot Factories’. But not me, because I was a Wonkey-owner now, and I understood these noble creatures, I thought to myself, as I watched Wilbert run around in a circle, trying to bite his own buttocks.

  ‘Ah, there ya are, Sean!’ called Martin as he arrived at last. ‘Still alive then?’

  ‘Ah yes, just bonding with Wilbert here,’ I chuckled, patting him on the nose. He didn’t like that and gave a snarl, so I whipped my hand back, as casually as I could.

  ‘Maybe I should’ve got you a smaller pet,’ teased Martin. ‘You sure you can handle him?’

  I laughed. Martin clearly didn’t know much about Wonkey-care – whereas I had been a Wonkey-owner for a solid seventeen minutes now and was pretty sure I knew what I was doing. ‘It’s not about handling him, Martin. It’s about understanding him. Trusting him. Connecting with him.’

  Martin nodded. ‘You’ve got a pine cone in your hair.’

  ‘Yep, I know.’

  Just then we heard a voice hollering at us from across the yard. ‘Hey, Martin!’

  It was Padraic – Martin’s round-faced, happy-headed best friend. He was waving excitedly out the window of a rusted bus that was parked beside the school. ‘Hurry up! I got us some top-notch seats here! Only three chewing gums stuck to them! And loads of graffiti to read on the road!’

  ‘Be right there, P!’ Martin called, then turned back to us. ‘Well, gang – are ya right?*’

  But the Wonkey didn’t seem right at all. He was smelling the air furiously like he’d caught some kind of delicious scent, and before I could leap on his leash, he galloped away like a shot.

  ‘Wilbert!!’ I wailed, watching him tear into school as the morning bell rang out.

  A loud ‘HEEE-HOOWWWWWWLLLLLL!’ echoed through the corridor as we raced after the Wonkey, passing kids hurrying into their classrooms. Wilbert’s howls were so loud that we thought for sure they must be able to hear him, but no one batted an eyelid as he bounded right past them.

  Ahead of us, our old clown pal, Loopy Lou, came strolling out of Martin’s classroom, on his way to join his Realsie Trevor on the bus. Wilbert skidded to a stop, and I crashed into his stinky rear end for the second time in five minutes as Martin tumbled over us both.

  ‘Hey, guys! Almost forgot my snacky-snacks for the triperoo!’ chirped Lou, as he munched on a bag of monkey nuts. ‘Oooooh, a Wonkey!’ he marvelled.

  ‘He’s mine! Isn’t he adorable?’ I gasped proudly, in a daze.

  ‘He’s a cutie-pie! Want a monkey nut, Wonkey-Donkey?’

  Wilbert leaped hungrily at the bag, diving towards Lou with his sharp teeth bared.

  ‘Argghhh!’ yelped Lou, as he dropped his nuts, and fled as fast as he could, bumbling away in his over-sized clown shoes.

  Wilbert pounced on the bag, and I pounced on his leash.

  ‘Got him! Now let’s get to that bus before they leave without us!’

  But Martin stayed put. He was still lying on the floor and was staring up at the wall beside us, with a wistful look. ‘Ya know, Sean,’ he said, a little sadly, ‘I’ve passed this wall a million times, but I don’t think I’ve ever really looked at it before.’

  He got to his feet, gazing at the old trophies that were displayed there. Framed photographs showed students clutching silver cups and shiny medals, all celebrating various triumphs – sporting skill, academic accomplishments, musical magnificence, art artistry, maths mastery, chess championery and even bingo brilliance. They were all up there – the school’s high-achievers, past and present, immortalized forever on The Winners Wall. But the face of Martin Moone was nowhere to be seen. Except on his own head, of course. Which was filled with disappointment now.

  ‘I always thought I’d be up there some day, Sean. I’ve given this school so many years of my young life, and what do I have to show for it? Where is my face on that wall?!’ he lamented.

  Trying to perk him up, I pointed to a corner. ‘There’s a patch of mould there that kinda looks like you,’ I offered helpfully. But Martin just sagged glumly.

  ‘There’s only two months left before EOPS. So I suppose I’ll never be up there now,’ murmured Martin. ‘I’m in a house full of winners and a school full of winners. Where are all the losers?’

  As if on cue, a sweaty-faced Padraic came charging down the corridor, with his imaginary friend, Crunchie ‘Danger’ Haystacks.

  ‘Martin!’ he blurted, out of breath. ‘The bus – (heave!) – is about to – (gasp!) – go without ya!’

  ‘Whoa! A Wonkey! What a beauty!’ Crunchie said with admiration.

  ‘He’s mine, but if you share your bus-grub, I might let you pet him later,’ I offered.

  ‘Done!’

  Martin snapped out of his sadness and hopped to his feet. ‘Do we still have our primo seats?’ he asked Padraic.r />
  ‘Declan Mannion said he’d – (wheeze!) – mind them, so long as he could – (pant!) – write on them: “Reserved for two big arses”. It seemed like a fair trade.’

  ‘Nice work, P-Bomb. To the bus!’

  I tugged on Wilbert’s leash, and we all hightailed it back outside to the old, crockety coach.

  ‘You’re late, Moone!’ snapped Martin’s teacher, Mr Jackson, as we boarded the ancient rust-mobile. ‘We’ve got a date with Science and she doesn’t like to be kept waiting! So sit down, the pair of you! Brostaígí, brostaígí!*’

  I hoisted Wilbert into the luggage rack, wedging him in tightly. He gave a confused yowl as the boys scrambled into their freshly graffitied seats.

  ‘Let’s roll, Pat!’ shouted Mr Jackson to the driver. ‘The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll be back, and I’ll be damned if I miss my step-aerobics class because of this lot!’

  The bus roared into life as Pat the Driver steered us out of the school gates, and the whole class gave a cheer as we took to the open road, belching thick clouds of black smoke behind us.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

  (BUT NEAR ROOSKY)

  There’s nothing I love more than driving through the beautiful lands of Roscommon. Watching the low sun sparkle off the surfaces of Lough Gara and Arrow. The rugged, rocky walls, as short and strong as the men who laid them. The lush, rolling hills that seem to gently caress the sky. Of course, I couldn’t see any of that stuff, because I was crammed into an overhead luggage rack with two bonkers IFs and a farty Wonkey. The racks were so small, shy goldfish would have felt claustrophobic* in them.

  We were on the road to the mysterious science place. Below us, the chaotic bus was a tangle of limbs and songs and calls and falls.

  Crunchie had decided that it was a good time to count his body freckles; Loopy Lou was whistling a song backwards, believing it would help his motion sickness. Wilbert was squeezed so tightly into the rack that his ‘Heeee-Hooowwwwls’ had become quite high pitched. This made him sound like a helium-hungry hen. But at least he couldn’t escape, and as we drove up and down the rocky country roads, I fed him more monkey nuts while reading my Wonkey handbook.

  ‘Those are my nuts!’ complained Lou.

  ‘Well, he’s grateful that you dropped them, Lou. Aren’t ya, Willy?’ I asked, tossing him another one.

  He gobbled it up, and Lou shook his head with annoyance before going back to his reverse-whistle.

  ‘Oooh, this is interesting,’ I said, as I read aloud: ‘Although they adore monkey nuts, most Wonkeys are violently allergic to them. That’s odd, isn’t it? I wonder why they . . .’

  I could feel Lou staring at me as I fed Wilbert another fistful of nuts.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, realizing my mistake. ‘You think I should probably stop fee—’

  ‘Aaaaatttcceeewwwhhhooowwwwl’ Wilbert blurted, as he sneezed all over Loopy Lou. Actually, it’s not right to call it a sneeze. It was more like a giant nose spit. Either way, Lou wasn’t delighted about it. Wilbert’s stomach gave an unhappy gurgle, and I decided to tuck the monkey nuts out of sight for the rest of the journey.

  Below us, the bus was in chaos. The song ‘N17’ by The Saw Doctors was being hollered by the group with the pride of the national anthem. It was a song about a road – the actual road we were on. The Bonner brothers were stamping their feet in time, either performing the drum section or trying to smash a hole in the floor of the bus. It was really hard to tell.

  Trevor, sitting alone in the seat in front of them, seemed to find the stomping unpleasant. Like Lou, Trevor was prone to motion sickness. His face had taken on the colour of the green countryside we were meandering through. He clutched his schoolbag close to his chest, ready in case his nausea got physical. Down at the back, Declan Mannion was having a glorious time. He was looking out the window, making rude hand gestures at drivers who honked back angrily, which seemed to please Declan no end.

  ‘Ha! Stupid cars!’ He laughed, as though it was them and not the drivers he’d been offending all along.

  Martin and Padraic were sitting happily together playing mind-agility games. They were on their fifth round of How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up Behind My Back? The score was delicately poised at 2–2. But I think we all know that game has no real winner. The deciding round was interrupted by Mr Jackson.

  ‘Would you stop that carry-on, Mannion!’

  A small car containing a trio of young nuns in tears passed by the bus. They were gesturing towards Declan, who’d clearly just offended them.

  ‘Declan, this is your umpteenth* class trip – don’t you know better than that by now?!’ yelled the irate teacher.

  ‘How many years d’ya think Declan has been in school?’ Martin asked Padraic.

  His buddy shrugged. ‘I heard Declan was the one who actually built our school.’

  ‘Some say that he’s the ghost of a former janitor,’ Martin whispered.

  ‘I heard Declan is so old that on his first class trip, they travelled on horseback,’ interjected Trevor from the seat behind.

  ‘My dad says Declan looks like his old PE teacher,’ added Padraic.

  ‘They’ll never let him go to secondary school if he keeps failing everything. I bet he’ll spend his whole life stuck in sixth class, the big eejit!’ giggled Trevor.

  ‘Would that be so bad?’ Martin asked, defending him. ‘At least he’ll be remembered.’

  The boys looked to Martin for explanation.

  ‘Declan was the first person to graffiti the inside of a teacher’s hat. The first person to steal every spoon from the canteen. The first person to set up a union of primary school kids, then make them strike for a month for free custard,’ Martin said respectfully. ‘But what will I be remembered for?’

  As Padraic and Trevor sat silently thinking for an uncomfortably long time, a strange sound came from the front of the battered old bus.

  ‘Ah brr***uughh**itwe!’ yelled Pat the Driver.

  ‘Watch your language in front of the students, Pat,’ Mr Jackson warned.

  Pat the Driver hastily pulled the bus over to the side of the road, and it sputtered to a stop.

  ‘Not cursing, Mr J – just sayin’ we’re gonna be stuck here. The thing’s busted.’

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘The flippin’ brr***uughh**itwe!’

  Already feeling like his life was going nowhere, Martin slowly disembarked by a ditch in the middle of nowhere.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE BUSTED BUS

  Martin’s class had de-bussed from the busted bus and were waiting in the middle of the quiet road while Mr Jackson gave out to* Pat the Driver, who was examining the exhausted engine.

  I’d decided to let Wilbert stretch his legs and was watching him bound around the fields like an overexcited, massively misshapen puppy. Crunchie Haystacks was trying to teach him to play ‘fetch’ with a stick, but the Wonkey ignored the stick and kept fetching Loopy Lou instead.

  Beside the bus, Lou’s Realsie, Trevor, wasn’t feeling too happy either. ‘I wonder how long we’ll be stranded like this,’ he grumbled to Martin and Padraic. ‘It’s getting chilly.’

  ‘Well, it’s only going to get chillier, Trev,’ warned Padraic as he squinted up at the sky. ‘By my calculations, we’ve got about twelve minutes until sundown.’

  Martin glanced at his watch. ‘It’s only ten in the morning, Padraic.’

  ‘OK, then we’ve got loads of time. Good stuff!’

  ‘Everyone stay calm!’ shouted Mr Jackson, marching over to the boys. ‘We’re all going to be fine, so no one needs to flip out!’

  The boys all looked at him blankly. ‘We’re not flipping out, sir,’ said Martin.

  ‘I said calm down, Moone!’ shouted his red-faced teacher. ‘Everyone just take a deep breath, OK? No one’s going to miss the science trip! And no one’s going to miss their step-aerobics class!’

  ‘What’s the plan, Jermaine?’ asked Declan Ma
nnion. ‘Want me to rob a tractor?’

  ‘Don’t call me by my first name!’ snapped Mr Jackson. ‘And there’ll be no robbing of tractors. Not yet anyway. We simply need to hitch a lift.’ He counted the heads around him. ‘In about nine cars.’

  ‘But what if nine cars don’t stop for us?’ asked Jonner Bonner.

  ‘Well, then we might need to hunker down for a bit,’ admitted their teacher. ‘If it starts raining, we’ll need to find some kind of shelter,’ he said, scanning their surroundings for a barn or a tree or a big cave.

  ‘We could just get back in the bus,’ suggested Martin.

  ‘Perfect!’ exclaimed Mr Jackson. ‘That’s shelter sorted. So all we’ll need is food.’

  ‘There’s some berries over here!’ called Conor Bonner, who was standing beside a bush.

  ‘Right, everyone eat some of those berries!’ ordered their teacher.

  The class looked a bit hesitant, wondering if the berries might be poisonous, but the Bonners were already stuffing their mouths.

  ‘Can we just eat our packed lunches instead?’ asked Trevor. ‘My mum made me some lovely crêpes*.’

  Mr Jackson was just about to yell at him when Pat the Driver called, ‘Eh, Mr J? That science place is just over there!’

  He was pointing towards a large building behind a tree, and Mr Jackson brightened.

  ‘Good news! It seems that Pat the Driver hasn’t completely ruined our science trip! We shall finish our journey on foot!’ he declared, and marched off down the road towards the building. ‘Keep up now! Brostaígí, brostaígí!’

  The Bonner brothers spat out their mouthfuls of possibly poisonous berries, and hurried after the others. I gave a shrill whistle to the Wonkey, which he completely ignored. But once Lou started running my way, Wilbert followed, and we left the stranded bus behind with Pat the Driver, who looked very relieved to be abandoned by everyone and was now unwrapping a much-needed Bounty bar*.