Chapter seven, in which we meet the Mum and Dad of Dave the Cleaners.
Its breakfast time.
As we learned in the last chapter, Dave the Cleaner was staying with his elderly mum and dad for a few days to help them with a few odd jobs around their home. However there were now two Dave the Cleaners and they had made a deal with each other. So now one lay in the bed snoring and the other lay hidden under the bed trying not to snore. They had just got into position when there was a knock on the door. A moment later their Dad opened the bedroom door and yodelled, “Wakey wakey, Davey, my boy-it is a great day for the race.”
“What race Dad?” a sleepy voice from in the bed asked.
“What race Dad?” a muffled voice from under the bed asked.
“Why the human race,” he answered with great cheer, “the human race, of course.”
There was a giggle from you know who. There was a groan from you know who too.
And so began a slightly puzzling period in the long lives of the Mum and the Dad of Dave the Cleaner.
You may have noticed some Mums tend to see just the best in their son while some Dads tend to wonder where they went wrong with their boy. So it was with Dave the Cleaner’s Mum and Dad. Between them they knew a lot about their son, David, as they preferred to call him. However they each knew a lot about him from very different ways.
They also knew he had much changed in the 50 years since he left home. When he visited like this they did find it strange to see he now had wrinkly skin and white hair like them. They also found it strange to see him fill a glass of water each evening and drop his false teeth into it for the night. Clinkety Dink.
Mum and Dad were already eating their bowl of porridge as usual by the time Dave the Cleaner got to sit down at the kitchen table. He sat there for a few moments puzzled, scratching his head. Something was not right. He had forgotten something. He did not notice Mum and Dad look at him and smile at each other.
“Are you sure you screwed your head on the right way this morning, boy?”
“Now, now. I think David is handsome both with and without his false teeth in.”
“That’s it, that’s what I’m missing,” Dave the Cleaner exclaimed “Excuse me please.” And with that he stood up trying not to look too worried.
Once out the door he hurried to his bedroom, got down on his hands and knees and, sure enough, just as he feared, his glass of water was still there but his false teeth were gone. He remembered now he had grabbed the false teeth in the glass of water by the bed. He was wearing of the false teeth of Mahoe Dave the Cleaner. And now, true to their deal, Mahoe Dave the Cleaner had skipped out the window and must have taken his false teeth with him. He might even be wearing them now.
BONK AGH! He was so aghast at the thought someone else was wearing his smile he whacked his head clambering out from under the bed. “Agh,” he gargled, “ouch, duh, dumb, aeee oh no, ummugh, my Clean, Clean Image is, ooh, ruined!”
“Lost your head now, son?” he heard Dad call.
“Now, now, mind your tongue,” he heard Mum say to Dad.
“Well it certainly sounds like our boy has tied his tongue in a knot to me.”
“No, dear, he is just saying, “Ah, Dad, Mum, wait a mo, I’ll be there soon.”
Some Mums can be very good at understanding their sons. Mums practice talking the sounds of every language under the sun with their babies. So they can become quite expert at working out what their sons are trying to say.
Dave the Cleaner sat back down at the breakfast table. Then Dad saw he was busy checking his false teeth with his tongue and asked, “How are those false teeth fitting you these days?”
Dave the Cleaner almost choked and, before he knew it, he blurted out, “Wow, those children in Mahoe classroom sure organised a great set of false teeth for that other Dave the Cleaner. They are a perfect fit for me.”
“What on earth is our boy talking about now? ” Dad asked Mum.
For once she was at a loss of words to explain. So she did what many mums do when they sense their son needs rescuing – she changed the topic before he got deeper into hot water. “Did you have a good sleep, David?” she enquired, “Did you have sweet dreams?”
They both went back to eating their porridge what they awaited his answer. It was a long time coming because his mind was like a pot of bubbling porridge – it was now in a turmoil. His face stirred in circles so fast his false teeth seemed upside down in his head. What made his turmoil worse was knowing his own false teeth were out in the world somewhere smiling and chattering to who knows who with Mahoe Dave the Cleaner.
“Um, yeah, um, “he gulped, “Well actually I did have a very strange dream about…” he stopped and started again, “about the children of the Mahoe tree … you know…the children in the Mahoe classroom…”
Again he stopped and became silent. He could hear warning voice inside him whispering, “Pssssst. Pssssst. It’s impossible for me to explain such a strange dream as this to my dear old Mum and Dad. Dad will say I am nuts. Even Mum will say its very weird. I cannot just say Lizzie, the teacher of Mahoe class, asked me to teach her children about caring for the air and so I start drawing this story to find out what they already know about our changing universe and in the story I dream I turned in a puddle on my bed and the children of Mahoe decide to save me and first they pour me into a special glass jar and then they store me in the freezer until they work out how to build a body just like my real body to store me in and, just as they finish this identical body, the school bell rings to tell them its time for them to go home and, well, this new identical body decides to go searching to find who I really am and I meet a very wise tuatara near an ancient Pohutukawa tree on a cliff over the ocean and the sun and the moon seem to become red with anger for some reason and together the tuatara and I watch giant waves wash away the Pohutukawa tree, which was the home of all these birds that call “Why? Why? How? How? When? When? Where? Where? Which? Which? Who? Who? ” and they all fly to me, except they are not really birds and, whatever they were, I breathed them in and I felt then touch my tongue and that’s okay because I began to feel younger again and there I was skipping down the road and I bumped into me walking along on my old body and that part of us gets all upset about what people might say about him because there is a bit of dust on his pants and somehow we both fall into a pool and next thing is we are climbing out of the puddle on my bed and we made a secret deal together…”
“Whoops, remember our secret deal,” Dave the Cleaner said out aloud without thinking. He quickly shut his mouth tight but those four words had already escaped. What had he said?
As usual, it was Mum to the rescue. “Start eating your porridge before it goes cold, David. You were just saying you had a strange dream about the children in Mahoe classroom and you a secret deal with them”.
“Phew, thanks Mum,” he said sighing with relief. “Oh yes, I dreamed they created a Dave the Cleaner so like me he can clean the school for me and we made a deal that only the children of Mahoe and I would know this Dave the Cleaner is not really me at all.”
“Ho ho ho,”Dad chortled, “it seems our boy is still a dreamer. When will you ever grow up and become a proper adult?”
“Now, now, we all have weird dreams now and then, don’t we. And besides, perhaps the Mahoe children could send their Dave the Cleaner around here to clean and dust our house sometimes.”
“Well,” laughed Dad standing up, “I better wash the breakfast dishes before this fancy new Dave the Cleaner arrives.
“Hahaha, your father is such a jokester,” smiled Mum tying on her apron. “Maybe I had better dust all our ornaments before this other Dave the Cleaner gets here. That was quite a dream.”
She disappeared out of the kitchen door, only to pop her head back with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Don’t worry,” she called,” I will leave your bedroom for the other Dave the Cleaner to vacuum. I don’t want to accidentally vacuum up any secret deals. “
End Chapter Seven
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Please note: this is a first draft script (Jan 2020) and prototype format of How the Children of the Mahoe Tree Saved Our World. I plan to create illustrations to complement each chapter as soon as possible.
Please enjoy tolerance – my diplopia means I struggle to read what I write.
This story is based on a true event. A class of five-year olds created the central plot. In the process they showed young children, unlike many adults, retain the vital spirit of inquiry and comprehension of the fundamental thermodynamics required to care for Earth’s atmosphere.
Some grand ideas and questions from Chapter Seven
Idea: pending
Question: pending