The Metamorphosis Of Kieran Jones

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

“Kieran!” Ethel yelled up the stairs. “Get up, you idle bugger, I ain't gonna call you again - if you're not down these stairs in five minutes I'll sling a bucket of cold water over you. It's half past ten, and you promised to help me with the shopping, remember?”

“Oh mum, it's Sunday morning, I need a lie-in. I can't come down, anyway, I seem to 'ave turned into a giant beetle.”

“How very Kafkaesque. You seriously expect me to believe that, I assume.”

“I need three pairs of custom-made Adidas Kickers, an' some oddly shaped new clothes. I can't come down in the nuddie, can I? The last time I did that dad was sick on 'is minted lamb chops an' new potatoes.”

“Last Sunday morning you said that your bedroom had been invaded by a plague of moths of Biblical proportions that scoffed all your clothes, and the Sunday before that you told me that a bunch of psychotic Pixies had broken in during the night and super-glued you to the bedpost by your eyelids - you're a born liar, son.”

“Why can't we do the shoppin' in the afternoon? The Asda's open until four o'clock.”

“Because I have other things to do of a Sunday afternoon.”

“What, like watch Columbo, fall akip 'alf way through, snore your 'ead off for three 'ours no matter what racket dad and I make and then complain that you can't get to sleep at night?”

“I do not, I just have five minutes!”

“Look, I can't go shoppin' with you today, I've already explained why. If you don't believe me you'd better come an' 'ave a look for yourself.”

“Right, I will – and if you're lying I'll have your guts for garters.”

“That's an interestin' phrase, mum,” Kieran said as his mother laboriously ascended the stairs on account of her gammy knees, “and it may well 'ave 'ad a literal meanin'. It originated in Britain in the Middle Ages when disembowelment was a common form of torture an' execution. An early printed reference appears in Robert Greene's The Scottish 'Istory of James the Fourth datin' from fifteen ninety two – 'Ile make garters of thy guts, thy villain'. Whether that was a literal threat an' folk did actually make garters outta the guts of their enemies is debatable. I've never come across any documented example of such a practice, but it's quite plausible. There are several other instances in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries of allusions to someone's guts being made into garters - 'Sir, I will garter my hose with your guttes' is one example. The earliest use of the actual wording 'guts for garters' that I've come across durin' my studies comes from a long time later in a piece by William Curry in The Dublin University Magazine, circa eighteen forty three - 'I'll butter my knife in 'im, and give 'im 'is guts for garters'.”

“What are you rabbiting on about, you bloody moron?” Ethel said as she barged into her son's room and turned the light on. “Oh, my giddy aunt!” she cried, and she fainted on the spot.

*************************

“Horace, what are we gonna do?” Ethel said a while later as she sat on the chair bedside Kieran's bed and her husband handed her a cup of tea, which she held in trembling hands.

“I dunno, I honestly don't,” Horace said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I ain't got much experience of folk turning into gigantic, hyper-intelligent beetles – in fact I ain't got any experience of folk turning into gigantic hyper-intelligent beetles at all. I suppose we should call a doctor.”

“You can't do that, dad!” Kieran said as he crawled across the ceiling, much to his mother's dismay. “They'll call the coppers or MI5 and the army'll cart me away to some secret lab an' dissect me alive or turn me into a super-weapon.”

“Kieran, please get off the ceiling,” Ethel said. “If you fall you'll bloody flatten us.”

“I can't 'elp it, mum,” Kieran said, crawling down the wall and back onto his bed. “It's what us beetles do, amongst other things. We 'ave lots of tiny 'ooks on the pads of our feet so that we can cling to seemingly smooth surfaces an' apparently defy gravity. Is breakfast ready? I'm starvin'.”

“We don't know anything about the dietary requirements of enormous black beetles, son,” Horace said. “I'm sure they don't eat bacon and egg and toast with marmalade.”

“No, I can't eat that - I'm a carrion beetle, an' carrion beetles prefer decomposin' flesh. I'd kill for a nice, squidgy putrescent carcass to munch on. If you ain't got a rottin' carcass 'andy, which I don't suppose you 'ave, I guess I could eat some raw meat, eggs and milk liquidised it into a tasty, nourishing shake.”

“Your father and I don't understand how or why you've turned into a giant beetle,” Ethel said. “If you're any wiser concerning that subject, kindly enlighten us.”

“I guess that 'ad somethin' to do with the witch.”

“What witch?” Horace said.

“The witch that cursed me on the bus 'ome from school on Friday. I was standin' behind 'er in the queue, an' as she climbed on the bus 'er purse dropped out of 'er bag into the gutter, so I knelt down to pick it up an' fought my way to the back of the bus to give it back to 'er. As soon as she saw me 'oldin' it she jumped to conclusions an' assumed that I'd nicked it - the miserable old git wouldn't let me get a word in edgeways. 'Thief!” she yelled, snatching 'er purse back. 'I curse you and all your male descendants from this generation forwards - you'll all turn into giant 'yper-intelligent beetles for seven days of every month until your dying day!'”

“Shit,” Horace said. “At least we know you'll turn back into our son after seven days, and as soon as that happens we're going to track down this witch and ask her to revoke the curse.”

“But I quite like being a giant 'yper-intelligent beetle, it means I don't 'ave to go shoppin' or go to school, an' I know stuff I wouldn't normally know.”

“Don't be silly, Kieran,” Ethel said. “You can't be a giant beetle for a quarter of your life. What would the neighbours say? Close the curtains, Horace, I don't what anyone to see my boy like this. I'll go and see if I can sort you some food out, Kieran. By the way, Horace, you're going to have to knock up a huge cat-litter tray type thing in your workshop, I doubt if our son will be able to use the toilet when he's in giant beetle mode, and we can't have him crapping on our nice clean carpets.”

“What do you mean, you know stuff you wouldn't normally know?” Horace said as his wife left the room and trudged down the stairs.

“You want a frinstance, dad? Right, I'll give you a frinstance. The moon isn't made of green cheese, it's actually made of marzipan an' glacé cherries. It 'as Bakewell tart mountains an' craters lined with chocolate an' strawberry cheesecake, amongst other yummy things, an' it's riddled with currant bun mines dug by little bug-eyed, currant bun lovin' aliens.”

“I see.....”

*************************

A week later, once Kieran had turned back into a boy during his sleep, his father drove him to the point where he had seen the old woman get off the bus with her shopping. Horace parked the car in a side-street. “There's a newsagents on the corner, we'll ask there,” he said. “We're looking for an old lady who lives around here somewhere,” he said to the Indian shopkeeper. “A white woman, wasn't she, Kieran?”

“There are lots of old vomen live around here,” the little woman in the paper shop said. “Vhat do you vant her for?”

“We, er, have some business with her,” Horace said.

“She was almost bent over double,” Kieran said. “She was wearin' a black coat with a big red flower on the lapel, she 'ad no teeth an' she 'ad a 'uge 'ooked nose that almost met 'er chin, an' there was a big wart over 'er eye.”

“Aah, you must mean Mrs. Staples, the vitch,” the shopkeeper said. “Folk come from miles avay to have their fortunes read, and it's said that she also cures a range of illnesses. Go to the bottom of the street and turn right into Thames Close, the cul-de-sac – Mrs. Staples lives at number twenty vone, I think it is, ve deliver her newspapers – it's the house vith the green door.”

“Thank you very much,” Horace said, “you've been most helpful.”

A few minutes later they knocked on the door of number twenty one Thames Close. After a little while they heard a shuffling noise from the bowels of the dwelling, and Horace banged the door louder. “'Ang on, 'ang on, I'm comin!'” a shrill voice replied. “I ain't no spring chicken any more, you know.” The door opened a crack and a tiny, shrivelled woman matching Kierans's description to the letter eyed her unexpected suspiciously visitors through the gap. “'Oo are you? I ain't expectin' no callers.”

“I'm Horace Jones, and this is my son Kieran. Some twelve days ago he was standing behind you in a bus queue and you dropped your purse, so he picked it up and brought it to the back of the bus to reunite it with its rightful owner, and you wrongly accused him of stealing it. In fact you seem to have put a hex on him, you cursed him and his male descendants to turn into giant hyper-intelligent beetles for seven days of every month. A few days later he did so, I saw it with my own eyes or I wouldn't have believed it.”

“Yeah..... So whaddya want, exactly?”

“I would very much like you to revoke the curse, madam. Kieran is a good boy, he's no thief and he doesn't deserve this.”

“Whassamarrer, kid, don't you like bein' a ginormous 'yper-intelligent beetle?”

“Not really, no. At first it was rather fun, especially when I sneaked out of my bedroom window at night and frightened the livin' shit out of passin' drunks, but after a while it got a bit tedious – I can't do much of any use when I'm in beetle mode, except answer complex questions about this, that and the other and solve awkward scientific problems.”

“Actually he can't even do that,” Horace said. “Most of the supposed high knowledge he comes out with is sheer balderdash.”

“It is not!” Kieran said, “it's all wise stuff!”

“All right, you'd better come in,” the crone said. “The kettles's on, do you two fancy a nice cuppa? Sorry about the blunder with your boy, by the way, Mr. Jones. I'm getting' old, I'm forgettin' me most complicated spells an' 'exes an' losin' me marbles one by one, I suppose, an' I sometimes make 'orrendous mistakes. Only a fortnight ago I turned a mugger that tried to nick me bag into a bowl of fruit salad instead of the dumbest slug in the lettuce patch as I intended..... Kid, I really thought you'd nicked me purse, it 'ad me pension money in, I'd just been to the Post Office.”

“That's OK,” Kieran replied. “I just want to be me again.”

The old woman led them into an over-furnished, untidy room lined with teetering piles of yellowed papers covered in tiny copperplate handwriting, magical books and ancient cobwebbed grimoires. Though it was summer a fire burned in the old cast iron grate, and a cauldron full of deliciously fragrant beef stew hung over it. She bade them to to sit on a sofa buried under a mountain of patchwork cushions, then she scuttled off into the kitchen and came back with a tray of tea and chocolate digestives.

“Right,” Mrs. Staples said, perching on the edge of her armchair, sipping wickedly strong tea from a china cup decorated with minuscule blue flowers. “Be a dear and remind me what your problem is, one of you, I seem to 'ave forgotten,” so Horace went through it all over again.

The old woman pulled a black cloth speckled with gold and silver moons and stars from an oak table beside her chair, exposing a crystal ball that appeared to be full of whirling blue-grey smoke, a bone-handled athame, a stack of tarot cards and a long, thick length of polished hawthorn decorated with black, red and white symbols. From a shelf under the table she pulled an old jam jar half full of what appeared to be crushed leaves and unscrewed the lid. “Come here, young man, and sit on the floor in front of me. Don't be frightened, I aim to cure you, not cause you 'arm.....” Kieran looked to his father for support, Horace smiled and nodded and the boy sat on the carpet before the old woman.

Mrs. Staples picked up her athame and touched Kieran lightly on both shoulders as if she was knighting him. “Open your mouth,” she said, and she sprinkled a pinch of dried herbs onto his tongue. “Now take a sip o' tea an' swallow it.”

“It's nasty,” Kieran grumbled. “It's made my tongue go all numb.”

The old woman picked up the painted twig and tapped it repeatedly on the boy's head, closing her eyes tightly and whispering a string of words in a guttural, long dead tongue for several minutes. The smoke in the crystal ball turned to a fiery red, which swiftly became an oily sepia colour and then reverted back to the original blue-grey. “That's it,” she said after a little while. “It's done. You'll never turn into a giant hyper-intelligent beetle again, m'boy. At least I 'ope not..... If you 'ave any problems just come back, I'll try to sort 'em, out.”

*************************

“Kieran, get your spotty arse out of bed right now!” Ethel yelled up the stairs. “It's Sunday morning, and you're coming shopping with me.”

“Oh, mam,” Kieran grumbled. “'Ang on, I feel kinda weird..... Oh shit, I don't think I'll be able to 'elp you out today, mum, I seem to 'ave turned into a fluffy Giant panda type thing with big, froggy eyes on stalks, curly 'orns, pink an' white fur, sharp claws an' a partiality for dancin' the Fandango an' smokin' slim panatellas. Dad, can I 'ave one of your cigars?”