Let's Kill Uncle by Rohan O’Grady

believes it except me. It’s the truth, Christie, he only beats me if, I’m good.’
    He paused and added mournfully, ‘I don’t get beat very often.’
    Christie sat staring at him. She was a shrewd little person.
    ‘Who was Rodney?’
    Barnaby blushed and turned away.
    ‘All right for you,’ she said. ‘Just wait till you want me to tell you something.’
    He turned to her and she saw he was close to tears.
    ‘Oh, stop being such a crybaby!’
    ‘You don’t care,’ he said. ‘Nobody does. Nobody loves me. I’m just like One-ear! And Rodney was my Teddy bear. I loved him! More than anything in the world. My mother gave him to me when I was a baby.
He
told me. Rodney had real fur, real brown fur, and a little box inside of him played music, and his eyes were glass and opened and shut when you put him upside down. I loved him and I couldn’t go to sleep without him.
He
knew it! He burned Rodney in the fireplace, right in front of me. He said, ‘I got him, Barnaby, I got Rodney and I burned him. He’s dead. You remember that. You wait, Barnaby, you wait!’ ’
    ‘Oh, he didn’t! That’s awful!’ Christie was horrified.
    ‘I’ll be next! He’s going to kill me. I know it!’
    ‘But why?’
    ‘Because of the money, don’t you see? He’s not my real uncle. He added my aunt’s name to his after they were married. When my aunt died, she left the money to me, ten million dollars. It’s in a trust fund, for me, and when I’m twenty-one I get it, and he gets what they call the interest off it until then. If I die before I’m twenty-one, he gets it all.
    ‘You don’t know how awful he is, Christie. He does things - awful things- ’
    ‘What kind of things?’
    Barnaby’s face went red and he turned away.
    ‘I can’t tell you. They’re too awful.’
    Christie shrugged.
    ‘Once, though, Christie, we had a lady living with us. We had lots of ladies living with us. Housekeepers, he calledthem, but they never stayed long. I liked this lady, she was good to me. I liked her a lot. She came to me in the middle of the night, and she said she was going away, right then. She was crying and she put her arms about me and said, ‘You poor little boy, you poor little boy.’ You should of seen what he’d done to her!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I won’t tell you. She said she wanted to take me away with her but she couldn’t. She said she couldn’t go to the police about me because he had her number, whatever that is. She said I must try and get away from him as soon as I could, even if it meant being poor and hungry. She said he was a devil, and if he didn’t kill me, he’d ruin me.’
    ‘He sounds awful.’
    ‘What’ll I do, Christie? What’ll I do? I’m so frightened.’
    Christie sat thinking, her eyes narrowed and her mouth a prim little line.
    ‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘stop being such a baby, to begin with. If he’s as bad as you say, and mind you, Barnaby Gaunt, I’m not saying I believe everything, because you always make things worse than they are, but if he’s as bad as that, there’s only one thing
to do.
’
    ‘What’s that? What’ll we do, Christie? I’ll do anything!’
    ‘We’ll just have to murder him first,’ said Christie.
    Barnaby looked at her with awe and admiration as she sat calmly swinging her legs over the edge of the cot.
    ‘I never even thought of that,’ he said. ‘I never even thought of it. You
are
my friend, Christie, and I won’t forget it, and when I get the money, I’ll give you a million dollars.’
    ‘Okay. Come on, let’s go home now. I’m thirsty. We’ll start figuring out how to do it tomorrow.’

T HE GLEAMING PLANE circled the Island harbour like a bird of prey. It swept to the water, making a smooth landing, and taxied to the float beside the wharf.
    Mr and Mrs Brooks hopped about their little parlour in happy agitation. Who knew? If they made a good impression on Barnaby’s uncle, he might even let them have Barnaby next summer. They