The Ribbajack Read Free Page A

letter to Soames. “Read it out loud.” Soames steadied his voice and read the text.
    My dearest Peterkin,
    How are you, old chap, doing rather well at school, I hope. Mother sends her love. Sorry we cannot make it home for the hols. But chin up and keep smiling, otherwise I’ll send the Ribbajack to sort you out (ha ha, only joking of course). Bet you’ve never heard of a Ribbajack. Young chaps like you would be jolly interested in it. Let me explain.
    The locals out here blame all misfortunes and deaths to it. Missing persons, and so on, it’s always the Ribbajack. I first heard of it when my interpreter, a splendid fellow named Ghural, accompanied me to settle a dispute. We travelled to a village high in the hills where it seemed a man had gone missing. Of course, everyone said it was due to the Ribbajack.
    Apparently, the local carpenter had promised his daughter in marriage to a herdsman. The dispute arose when this herdsman accused the carpenter of cheating him on the dowry price of the girl, a common enough occurrence out here. Well, pretty soon after, the carpenter went missing without trace. Quite frankly, it was my considered opinion that the herdsman had killed the carpenter and done away with the body. He was a proud man, you see, and could not be seen as a laughingstock by the villagers. Ghural, and all the locals, insisted that the carpenter had been taken by a Ribbajack, so there was no point in searching for him. I was surprised at Ghural, as he is a well-educated man. It took some persuading to get him to tell me about the Ribbajack, but here’s what he said.
    “Sir, if a man believes in the Ribbajack, then he can create one in his own mind, and it will come alive. If a man has a hated enemy whom he wants to be rid of, here is what he does. He makes a picture in his imagination of a monster. It is the most horrible creature he can think of, with the body of a crocodile, three eyes, long poison teeth, and other such dreadful features. The harder he concentrates, the more real his Ribbajack becomes. Then, in the darkness, one midnight hour, the creature will appear to him, as solid as you or I, sir.
    “It will speak to him thus. . . .
     
    ‘From the pits of darkness in your mind,
    I am Ribbajack, born out of human spite.
    Say the name of the one I am brought to find,
    command me to take him forever from sight.’
     
    “From that night on, sir, the Ribbajack is never again seen, and neither is your enemy. I have heard tales, some of Ribbajacks who turned on their creators because they could not take the one whom the creator named. A Ribbajack never takes more than one victim. It is the fate of the Ribbajack, and the one it takes, to disappear from the world of men.”
    Pretty scary stuff, eh, Peterkin? But your dad wasn’t about to believe all that mumbo-jumbo, and neither should you, old chap. Tell you what I did. I had the herdsman clapped in prison for five years. Then I confiscated all his cattle and had them paid to the carpenter’s family as compensation. That’s British justice for you, tempered by the local traditions, of course.
    But enough of Jibbaracks, old fellow. Keep your shoulder to the wheel, and your nose to the grindstone. Make your mother and me proud of you when next we meet. Though the way things are out here, heaven knows when that will be. Ours not to reason why, etc.
    Keep smiling. Toodle pip and all that.
    Yr Pater.
    When Soames finished reading, Archibald snatched the letter and pocketed it, snarling, “Got any more stuff about the Ribbajack?”
    Soames shook his head. “Nothing, I’m afraid, it was only mentioned in that one letter. I say, Smifft, can I have my letter back? I keep everything my parents write. Though it’s not very much, they’re always very busy, you see.”
    Archibald Smifft snarled at him, “No, you can’t, I want to read it again for myself. I’ve got work to do now, so beat it, you two.”
    Wilton and Soames fled the dormitory, relieved that