I just wouldn't go anywhere near a redhead.Now don't get me wrong and start calling me a hairist or something like that. Listen to what I have say, then make up your mind.
It all started with Mr Mantolini and his sculptures.
They were terrific, were Mr Mantolini's frozen statues. He carved them out of ice and stood them in the window of his fish shop which was over the road from the pier. A new ice carving every month.
Sometimes it would be a beautiful peacock with its tail fanned out. Or maybe a giant fish thrashing itself to death on the end of a line. One of my favourites was a kangaroo with a little joey peering out of her pouch.
It was a bit sad really. On the first day of every month Mr Mantolini would throw the old statue out the back into an alley. Where it would melt and trickle away into a damp patch on the ground.
A new statue would be in the shop window. Sparkling blue and silver as if it had been carved from a solid chunk of the Antarctic shelf.
Every morning on my way to school, I would stop to stare at his statue. And on the first of the month I would be there after school to see the new one. I couldn't bear to go around the back and watch yesterday's sculpture melt into the mud.
'Why do you throw them out I asked one day?'
Mr Mantolini shrugged. 'You live. You die,' he said.
Mr Mantolini took a deep breath. Now he was going to ask me something. The same old thing he had asked every day for weeks. 'My cousin Tony come from Italy. Next month. You take to school. You friend. My cousin have red hair. You like?'
I gave him my usual answer. 'Sorry,' I said. 'I won't be able to.' I couldn't tell him that it was because I hated red hair. I didn't want to hurt his feelings.
He just stood there without saying anything. He was disappointed in me because we were friends. He knew how much I liked his ice statues and he always came out to talk to me about them. 'You funny boy,' he said. He shook his head and walked inside. I thought I saw tears in Mr Mantolini's eyes. I knew I had done the wrong thing again. And I was sorry. But I didn't want a redhead for a mate.
I felt guilty and miserable all day. But after school I cheered up a bit. It was the first of September. There would be a new ice statue in the window. It was always something to look forward to.
I hurried up to the fish shop and stared through the glass. I couldn't believe what I saw. The ice statue of a girl. It reminded me of one of those Greek sculptures that you see in museums. It had long tangled hair. And smiling lips. Its eyes sparkled like frozen diamonds. I tell you this. That ice girl was something else. She was fantastic.
'You're beautiful,' I said under my breath. 'Beautiful.' Of course she was only a statue. She couldn't see or hear me. She was just a life-sized ice maiden, standing among the dead fish in the shop window. She was inside a glass fridge which kept her cold. Her cheeks were covered with frost.
I stood there for ages just gawking at her. I know it was stupid. I would have died if anyone knew what I was thinking. How embarrassing. I had a crush on a piece of ice.
Every day after that, I visited the fish shop. I was late for school because of the ice maiden. I filled every spare minute of my time standing outside the window. It was as if I was hypnotized. The ice maiden's smile seemed to be made just for me. Her outstretched hand beckoned. 'Get real,' I said to myself. 'What are you doing here? You fool.' I knew I was mad but something kept drawing me back to the shop.
Mr Mantolini wouldn't meet my gaze. He was cross with me.
I pretended the ice girl was my friend. I told her my secrets. Even though she was made of ice, I had this silly feeling that she understood.
Mr Mantolini saw me watching her. But he didn't come outside. And whenever I went inside to buy fish for Mum, he scurried out the back and sent his assistant to serve me.
The days passed. Weeks went by. The ice maiden smiled on and on. She never changed. The boys thought I was nuts standing there gawking at a lump of ice. But she had this power over me - really. Kids started to tease me. 'He's in love,' said a girl called Simone. I copped a lot of teasing at school but still I kept gazing in that window.
As the days went by I grew sadder and sadder. I wanted to take the ice girl home. I wanted to keep her for ever. But once she was out of her glass cage, in the warm air, her smiling face would melt and drip away.
I dreaded the first of October. When Mr Mantolini would take the ice maiden and dump her in the alley. To be destroyed by the warm rays of the sun.
On the last day of September I waited until Mr Mantolini was serving in the shop. 'You can't throw her out,' I yelled. 'She's too lovely. She's real. You mustn't. You can't.' I was nearly going to say, 'I love her,' but that would have been stupid.
Mr Mantolini looked at me and shrugged. 'You live. You die,' he said. 'She ice. She cold. She water.'
I knew it was no good. Tomorrow Mr Mantolini would cast the ice girl out into the alley.
The next day I wagged school. I hid in the alley and waited. The minutes dragged their feet. The hours seemed to crawl. But then, as I knew he would, Mr Mantolini emerged with the ice maiden. He dumped her down by the rubbish bins. Her last resting place was to be among the rotting fish heads in an empty alley.
Mr Mantolini disappeared back into the shop. I rushed over to my ice maiden. She was still covered in frost and had sticky, frozen skin.
My plan was to take her to the butcher. I would pay him to keep the ice maiden in his freezer where I could visit her every day. I hadn't asked him yet. But he couldn't say no, could he?
The sun was rising in the sky. I had to hurry.
The ice maiden still stooped. Still reached out. She seemed to know that her time had come. 'Don't worry,' I said. 'I'll save you.'
I don't know what came over me. I did something crazy. I bent down and gently kissed her on the mouth.
It was a long kiss. The longest kiss ever in the history of the world. My lips stuck to hers. My flesh froze on to the ice. Cold needles of pain numbed my lips. I tried to pull away but I couldn't. The pain made my eyes water. Tears streamed down my face and across the ice maiden's cheeks.
On we kissed. And on. And on. I wanted to pull my mouth away but much as I cared for the ice girl, I didn't want my lips to tear away, leaving bleeding skin as a painful reminder of my madness. There I was, kissing ice lips, unable to move.
I tried to yell for help but I couldn't speak. Muffled grunts came out of my nose. Horrible nasal noises. No one came to help me. The alley echoed with the noise.
I grabbed the ice maiden and lifted her up. She was heavy. Her body was still sticky with frost. My fingers stuck fast. She was my prisoner. And I was hers.
The sun warmed my back. Tears of agony filled my eyes. If I waited there she would melt. I would be free but the ice maiden would be gone. Her lovely nose and chin would drip away to nothing.
But the cold touch of the ice girl was terrible. Her smiling lips burnt my flesh. The tip of my nose was frozen. I ran out of the alley into the street. There was a group of people waiting by a bus-stop near the end of the pier. 'Help, get me unstuck. But don't hurt the ice maiden,' was what I tried to say.
But what came out was, 'Nmn nnmmm nnnn nng ng ng mn nm.'
The people looked at me as if I was crazy. Some of them laughed. They thought I was acting the fool. An idiot pretending to kiss a statue.
I ran over to Mr Mantolini's shop and tried to knock on the window with my foot. I had to balance on one leg, while holding the ice girl in my arms and painfully kissing her at the same time. I fell over with a crunch. Oh agony, oh misery, oh pain. My lips, my fingers, my knees.
There was no sign of Mr Mantolini. He must have been in the back room.
What could I do? I looked out to sea. If I jumped into the water it would melt the ice. My lips and fingers would come free. But the ice maiden would melt. 'Let me go,' I whispered in my mind. But she made no answer.
My hands were numb. Cold pins pricked me without mercy. I ran towards the pier. I spoke to my ice maiden again, without words. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry.'
I jogged along the pier. Further and further. My feet drummed in time with my thoughts. 'Sorry, sorry, sorry.'
I stopped and stared down at the waves. Then I closed my eyes and jumped, still clutching the iceecold girl to my chest. Down, I plunged. For a frozen moment I hung above the ocean. And then, with a gurgle and a groan, I took the ice lady to her doom.
The waves tossed above us. The warm water parted our lips. My fingers slipped from her side. I bobbed up like an empty bottle and saw her floating away. Already her eyes had gone. Her hair was a glassy mat. The smiling maiden smiled no more. She was just a lump of ice melting in the waves.
'No,' I screamed. My mouth filled with salt water and I sank under the sea.
They say that your past life flashes by you when you are drowning. Well, it's true. I re-lived some horrible moments. I remembered the time in a small country school when I was just a little kid. And the only redhead. I saw the school bully Johnson teasing me every day. Once again I sat on the school bench at lunch-time - alone and rejected. Not allowed to hang around with the others. Just because Johnson didn't like red hair. Once again I could hear him calling me 'carrots' and 'ginger'. They were the last thoughts that came to me before the world vanished into salty blackness.
But I didn't drown. In a way my hair saved me. It must have been easy for them to spot my curly locks swirling like red seaweed thrown up from the ocean bed.
Mr Mantolini pulled me out. He and his cousin. I could hear him talking even though I was only half conscious. 'You live. But you not die yet.'
I didn't want to open my eyes. I couldn't bear to think about what I had done to the ice maiden. I was alive but she was dead. Gone for ever.
In the end I looked up. I stared at my rescuers.
Mr Mantolini and his cousin.
She had red tangled hair. And smiling lips. Her eyes sparkled like frozen diamonds. I tell you this. That girl Tony was something else. She was fantastic.
'You're beautiful,' I said under my breath. 'Beautiful.
' Mr Mantolini's ice statue had been good. But not as good as the real thing. After all, it had only been a copy of his cousin Tony. I smiled up at her. And she smiled back. With a real smile.
I guess that's when I discovered that an ice maiden who is dead is not sad. And a nice maiden who is red, is not bad.
Not bad at all.
Paul Jennings / Thirteen Unpredictable Tales
Paul Jennings was born in England in 1943 and emigrated to Australia aged six. The trip for the family cost ten pounds - the Australian government paid the rest of the fare in those days.
Paul taught disabled and socially deprived children for six years and then worked as a speech therapist. He later lectured in special education before his appointment as Senior Lecturer in Language and Literature at the Warrnambool Institute, where he worked for ten years before becoming a full-time writer in 1989.
Paul's stories are funny, weird and wacky with surprising endings. He wants all children to have their noses in the same books and reluctant readers to discover that reading is fun. 'Books are fantastic. That's what I want my readers to think.' Since Unreal! was published in 1985, Paul's books have sold over two million copies. He has won many 'Children's Choice' awards and in January 1995 was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for Services to Children's Literature.
http://www.pauljennings.com.au/
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