Jenny Greenteeth
Every child across the city had nightmares on the night the rains came. It rattled on the roofs and it gushed in the gutters. The cats were exhausted from chasing down bad dreams and the rats were hungry, for normally they would forage in the bins beside the houses. But on this night, in every room in every house in every street across the city the lights were blazing as adults tried to comfort small children and made soothing drinks for those who couldn't sleep. By morning the river had burst its banks. Its green grey sludge flowed over roads and pavements, over playing fields and parks. It flowed into basements and schools and houses and pubs. It was smothering everything and it was everywhere that it shouldn't have been. The cats were exhausted, the rats were hungry, the children were scared and the adults were grumpy the day the great flood came, on the day Jenny Greenteeth took over the city.
And so it was a boring day.
She leant against the door of her bedroom and listened to Nana telling stories, she listened to her iPod, she watched television, and all the while the rain thrummed against the window, a constant drumming she couldn't ignore. From the other room she heard Max asking, "Who's Jenny Greenteeth?" and she couldn't resist sneaking to the door and curling up where neither of them could see her just to listen the way she had when she was a little girl. "Jenny Greenteeth," Nana began, sucking her own teeth thoughtfully. "Well, Jenny Greenteeth lives in the pools and the rivers and all the stagnant places where water gathers. She's an old, malicious water spirit. Because people have long since stopped offering her money, she takes small children. She has long, green teeth and long hair like water weeds. She has sallow, pale, greenish, scaly skin and large bulging eyes and she cackles when she laughs. She has curling fingers like talons that she lets float on the surface of the water so they look innocently like weeds. But when some unsuspecting child strays near the water, Jenny Greenteeth will curl her fingers around their ankles and wrists snatch them off the bank and drag them beneath the surface where she will suck the flesh from their bones." Lucy shivered. She knew it wasn't true, that it was just a story. But Nana was from the old country, and she had a way of making you believe that maybe, maybe long in the past, maybe long, long ago they might have been true. Yet Max was never scared. He just laughed, threw back his head and said "No, no, no, no, no...another." Lucy sat sulking at the unfairness of everyone loving her little brother with big wide eyes, bouncy blonde curls, the way he laughed. Nobody had any time for her. She was always scared, she was the mouse.
She heard a thump on the window, then a scratch, and she looked up. Battering itself against the glass was a bird of some sort. It seemed frightened, lost, confused by the storm. Without thinking, she opened the window. It was a poor, moth-eaten thing that tumbled in to lie in a pile of wet feathers on her bed. It looked up at her, one eye almost swollen shut as if it had been in a fight. Unpreened and uncared for, Lucy felt sorry for it and identified with it.
The bird shook itself, and she realised she didn't want feathers or anything else on her bed, but she didn't have the heart to turn it out. It was large, between the size of a crow and an owl, with powerful claws, but there was something about it that seemed so tired that she couldn't be scared of it. She made a nest of old blankets and jumpers, and was surprised when the bird allowed her to pick it up and place it in there. It settled down gratefully, closed its good eye and dozed. Glancing over, Lucy saw a couple of feathers on her bed, but it wasn't that which caught her attention. There was also an egg. Not a plain brown or white egg, but the most beautiful colours, almost iridescent, every colour burning jewel-like through the shell as though it was painted and illuminated by an inner light. Lucy looked from the egg to the bird, hardly able to believe such a ragged creature could have laid something so lovely. She took the egg, wrapped it in a soft scarf and put it in her pocket.
Just then she heard Max laughing from the living room and she went to tell them about the bird. When she finished, Nana cackled and said, "Things, Lucy, are never quite what they seem." "What do you mean by that?" "Don't you remember the story of the firebird? I used to tell you when you were small. The firebird is a magical creature, with so many legends about it.
Some say it's as beautiful and elegant as a peacock, others that it's as strong and fearless as an eagle. But everyone agrees that the light from one firebird feather can light up a whole room."
Lucy thought of the bird in her room and decided if there was one thing it wasn't, it wasn't a firebird. Then she heard it squawk indignantly, as if it read her thoughts. Nana just smiled and continued, "A firebird is reborn every hundred years. Each time it is reborn it is at a time of great trouble, and all those that see it can hope for a better future. A firebird's tears have the power to heal, and it's said to be the bravest of birds. It can lead you into all sorts of trouble, on impossible quests, but it will always pay its debts. A firebird flies to the sun and eats the sun itself to stay alive. Just before a firebird is due to be reborn it lays three fantastic eggs, each more beautiful than the last. But only one contains its soul, and it must be near its soul at the time of its death to be reborn." Nana talked of firebirds and magical horses, and told story after story. All the while Lucy was aware of the beautiful egg in her pocket, thinking no, it wouldn't be, it couldn't be... Finally it was time for tea.
Now, Nana only cooked two things - takeaway curry and takeaway pizza - she believed there were better things in life than cooking. This evening they ordered pizza with everything on it, the pizza Lucy always hated, because she always got the slices with everything on that no one else wanted. Nana poured juice for Max and Lucy and half a Guinness for herself, her favourite drink at the end of the day. When the pizza was dished out, sure enough, Lucy's pieces had all the stuff nobody else wanted, which meant vast amounts of red hot chillies. She picked them off carefully. Just as she finished eating and Nana launched into another story, she thought of the bird - maybe it was hungry. She gathered some bread and a bowl of water, laid it before the bird, which looked...disgusted. It glanced at her balefully, nudged the breadcrumbs away and tipped over the bowl. Then it hopped from the nest and with an inelegant wobble went into front room. "Ah, there you are, I wondered where you had been!" said Nana, as if greeting an old friend. The firebird looked at the bowl of chillies, hopped onto the table and ate down every last one, then burped. Then it half-flew, half-jumped onto the arm of Nana's chair, and without a by-your-leave, stuck its head into her glass and drank her Guinness. Nana just laughed and said, "I thought you'd be thirsty after all this time."
Then she took it onto her lap like a small cat and stroked it as the bird went to sleep and began to snore. Every now and then it would belch slightly and Lucy swore than in the day's dying light that each belch brought forth a faint puff of smoke. Max had fallen asleep by the fire, and Lucy took him to his room and tucked him in. Nana had fallen asleep in her chair, but she wasn't going to move her. But she picked up the bird, placed it in its nest, and settled under her duvet as the gentle thrum of the rain lulled her to sleep. They were on a hill, they wouldn't be flooded. It must have been around midnight when Lucy woke to the most awful scream. She could hardly believe the noise, but it was coming from the living room. Groggy with sleep she turned on the light and stumbled in. There was Nana sitting bolt upright and yelling, "Jenny Greenteeth has got Max! Jenny Greenteeth has got Max!" Lucy shook her Nana and said, "It's just a nightmare." But Nana shook her head, sat up fully, eyes wide, and said, "I'm not a foolish old woman. This isn't a dream. Just look at the ground." Lucy did, and it was covered with water. "Jenny Greenteeth has got Max, and you're the only one who can save him." She still didn't believe it, but she ran into Max's bedroom.
Sure enough there was water everywhere, the bedding soaking wet. As she pulled back the cover...there was nothing there. The window was open, and looking out, all she could see was rolling water, half weed, half wave, and in the midst of it all, Max going "No, no, no." But this time she could tell her brother was scared. The blanket he always slept with was caught on the window flapping in the breeze. She ran back into the living room. "You're right." "You have to rescue him," Nana told her. "I can't." "It's all in a name, Lucy," her Nana said gently. "It's all in a name. You can do it and I believe in you."
Without another thought she dashed into her room to fetch her coat, and lifted up the bird. There, in the nest were two more beautiful eggs. Some instinct told her they were important, and wrapping each one in a glove, she put them in her other pocket. Without knowing why, she turned to the bird and announced, "Jenny Greenteeth has stolen my brother and I must go and help," then ran out of the house. She was dimly aware of the shape of the bird as it followed her, its battered wings flapping furiously against the storm. Lucy was running to catch Jenny Greenteeth and saw her brother, the weeds wrapped around his hair and fingers.
The shortest way was over the old landfill. The bird wheeled overhead and Lucy could swear she heard it squawking - "It's all in a name, it's all in a name," it kept saying. Then she heard more talking, hundreds and hundreds of voices. But she was sure she was imagining it. Then, as the moon parted company from the clouds, the whole area was lit up, and she saw the ground full of rats and cats, and they were all arguing. "
Oi! Mind where you're stepping!" said one particularly cheeky rat. Lucy felt the eggs in her pocket, and she didn't know how it happened, but she realised she understood the oldest magic of all, the language of animals and birds. The rats and cats were arguing because their leaders had been swept away when the water rushed through the landfill and were now stuck on an island in the middle of the river, and no one could come up with a good plan to rescue them.
The cats didn't want to get their paws dirty and the rats couldn't agree on anything until Lucy, forgetting how ridiculous the situation was, hissed, "Stop it! If you keep fighting you won't get anywhere. Cats are stronger, they can lift, and rats can gnaw and aren't afraid of water. If you work together you can rescue your leaders." They looked at her, thunderstruck. A human who understood their language and was talking to them? "I beg your pardon?" asked one of the cats. "Let me put it simply. Cats versus rats doesn't work. Cats plus rats will work. You're in a landfill, you have enough here to build bridges and boats and rafts and crafts." "She's got a point," agreed one of the rats. And so they all worked together to build a bridge until the leader of the rats and the leader of the cats could walk off together.
Now Lucy remembered that in all the stories her Nana had told her, there was one rule: kindness to small animals meant they had to help you in times of trouble. "According to all folk tales, you owe me a favour," Lucy told the leaders of the cats and the rats. "Name it and it's yours," said the leader of the rats.
"Jenny Greenteeth has my little brother Max and we have to rescue him." So Lucy, the cats and the rats and the old battered bird rushed to the river, where Jenny Greenteeth was holding Max. The water was high, and Jenny's seaweed hair was wrapped around Max's terrified body. She had her long, bony fingers on his throat. Suddenly, all the times she'd been irritated with him were forgotten. He was her little brother and she was going to rescue him. "We have to distract her," Lucy said. "We have to rescue him somehow."
So the animals obliged. The cats did something they'd never done before in their lives - they made fools of themselves. They danced the polka and the foxtrot, they tumbled and twisted and turned, they shinned up trees and made themselves look ridiculous. Even Jenny Greenteeth had never seen anything like this. For a moment her jaw dropped and her hand slackened as she watched. In that moment the rats swarmed across the water. They nibbled her fingers, they nibbled her toes, and they nibbled her hair. They bit and scratched. But although her grip on Max slackened, it still wasn't enough.
It was then that the old battered bird flew across the water and began to attack the hag. It swooped and dived. Jenny Greenteeth let go of Max to slash at it with her long fingers, and in that moment the rats grabbed him and carried him back to his father, who'd been summoned by all the noise along the river. Jenny Greenteeth split the bird's remaining eye, then caught one of its threadbare wings with her nails in a terrible battle. "No, no, no!" cried Lucy. "No, no, no," echoed Max, and they were both hoping for the same thing. But with torn wings, its eyes gouged, its breast bleeding, the battered body of the bird hit the ground on Jenny Greenteeth's side of the river.
Then the eggs began to feel so warm in Lucy's pocket. And she knew, maybe she'd always known, that it really had been the firebird, and she had to help it. It had entrusted her with the eggs. If she could get its soul near its body it would be reborn. She threw the first egg. It cracked against the bark of a tree. She tossed the second, and it split open uselessly. Then she took the final egg and aimed for the battered, dead body. But as it span through the air the gnarled, curled fingers of Jenny Greenteeth reached to catch it. "No!" cried Lucy. Jenny cracked the egg open. "No!" cried Max. Jenny sucked down the firebird's soul. "No!" cried the cats and rats, although they'd pretended not to care. The body of the firebird vanished, and the waters rose as Jenny Greenteeth slipped victorious beneath the surface.
Later that night, when Max was safe in bed and Mum and Dad had praised her for her bravery, Lucy sat in her room holding the two bedraggled feathers. The firebird had trusted her and she'd let it down. "But you rescued you brother," Nana told her. "It's all in a name. Max means strong, and he was never afraid because you were there. Lucy means light, and you brought light when there was nothing but darkness. If you call a child a fool it will become a fool. If you call a child a hero that's what it will be."
Lucy sat there. Two huge tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped onto the feathers. As they did, the feathers began to glow, brighter and brighter until they were like pure gold in her fingers. They lit the room; they seemed to light the entire valley...but that couldn't be right. Lucy and her Nana went to the window. The river at the bottom of the hill began to bubble and boil. Out of the swirling mass came Jenny Greenteeth, clutching at her throat and writhing in agony. Nana turned to Lucy, smiled, and said, "That woman has eaten something that disagreed with her." Then Lucy understood and laughed. "Fire and water don't mix!" Then the firebird, its soul restored, burst from the throat of Jenny Greenteeth, leaving her mist as upon the water, which began to recede. The firebird soared over the city, singing its song and bringing hope to all those who saw it. It circled once around Lucy's house, then it was gone. It's all in a name, she thought, it's all in a name.
