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The Landlady by Roald Dahl - Reaction and Reflection (English Short Story)

The Landlady

Posted: July 8, 2011 by jheyehmme in Uncategorized

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By Roald Dahl

Billy Weaver had traveled down from London on the slow afternoon train, with a change at Reading on the way, and by the time he got to Bath, it was about nine o’clock in the evening, and the moon was coming up out of a clear starry sky over the houses opposite the station entrance. But the air was deadly cold and the wind was like a flat blade of ice on his cheeks.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but is there a fairly cheap hotel not too far away from here?”

“Try The Bell and Dragon,” the porter answered, pointing down the road. “They might take you in. It’s about a quarter of a mile along on the other side.”

Billy thanked him and picked up his suitcase and set out to walk the quarter-mile to The Bell and Dragon. He had never been to Bath before. He didn’t know anyone who lived there. But Mr. Greenslade at the head office in London had told him it was a splendid town. “Find your own lodgings,” he had said, “and then go along and report to the branch manager as soon as you’ve got yourself settled.”

Billy was seventeen years old. He was wearing a new navy-blue overcoat, a new brown trilby hat, and a new brown suit, and he was feeling fine. He walked briskly down the street. He was trying to do everything briskly these days. Briskness, he had decided, was the one common characteristic of all successful businessmen. The big shots up at the head office were absolutely fantastically brisk all the time. They were amazing.

There were no shops on this wide street that he was walking along, only a line of tall houses on each side, all of them identical. They had porches and pillars and four or five steps going up to their front doors, and it was obvious that once upon a time they had been very swanky residences. But now, even in the darkness, he could see that the paint was peeling from the woodwork on their doors and windows and that the handsome white facades were cracked and blotchy from neglect.

Suddenly, in a downstairs window that was brilliantly illuminated by a street lamp not six yards away, Billy caught sight of a printed notice propped up against the glass in one of the upper panes. It said BED AND BREAKFAST. There was a vase of yellow chrysanthemums, tall and beautiful, standing just underneath the notice.

He stopped walking. He moved a bit closer. Green curtains (some sort of velvety material) were hanging down on either side of the window. The chrysanthemums looked wonderful beside them. He went right up and peered through the glass into the room, and the first thing he saw was a bright fire burning in the hearth. On the carpet in front of the fire, a pretty little dachshund was curled up asleep with its nose tucked into its belly. The room itself, so far as he could see in the half darkness, was filled with pleasant furniture. There was a baby grand piano and a big sofa and several plump armchairs, and in one corner he spotted a large parrot in a cage. Animals were usually a good sign in a place like this, Billy told himself; and all in all, it looked to him as though it would be a pretty decent house to stay in. Certainly it would be more comfortable than The Bell and Dragon.

On the other hand, a pub would be more congenial than a boardinghouse. There would be beer and darts in the evenings, and lots of people to talk to, and it would probably be a good bit cheaper, too. He had stayed a couple of nights in a pub once before and he had liked it. He had never stayed in any boardinghouses, and, to be perfectly honest, he was a tiny bit frightened of them. The name itself conjured up images of watery cabbage, rapacious landladies, and a powerful smell of kippers in the living room.

After dithering about like this in the cold for two or three minutes, Billy decided that he would walk on and take a look at The Bell and Dragon before making up his mind. He turned to go.

And now a queer thing happened to him. He was in the act of stepping back and turning away from the window when all at once his eye was caught and held in the most peculiar manner by the small notice that was there. BED AND BREAKFAST, it said. BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST. Each word was like a large black eye staring at him through the glass, holding him, compelling him, forcing him to stay where he was and not to walk away from that house, and the next thing he knew, he was actually moving across from the window to the front door of the house, climbing the steps that led up to it, and reaching for the bell.

He pressed the bell. Far away in a back room he heard it ringing, and then at once —it must have been at once because he hadn’t even had time to take his finger from the bell button—the door swung open and a woman was standing there.
Normally you ring the bell and you have at least a half-minute’s wait before the door opens. But this dame was like a jack-in-the-box. He pressed the bell—and out she popped! It made him jump.

She was about forty-five or fifty years old, and the moment she saw him, she gave him a warm, welcoming smile.
“ Please come in,” she said pleasantly. She stepped aside, holding the door wide open, and Billy found himself automatically starting forward. The compulsion or, more accurately, the desire to follow after her into that house was extraordinarily strong.

“I saw the notice in the window,” he said, holding himself back.

“Yes, I know.”

“I was wondering about a room.”

“It’s all ready for you, my dear,” she said. She had a round pink face and very gentle blue eyes.

“I was on my way to The Bell and Dragon,” Billy told her. “But the notice in your window just happened to catch my eye.”

“My dear boy,” she said, “why don’t you come in out of the cold?”

“How much do you charge?”

“Five and sixpence a night, including breakfast.”

It was fantastically cheap. It was less than half of what he had been willing to pay.

“If that is too much,” she added, “then perhaps I can reduce it just a tiny bit. Do you desire an egg for breakfast? Eggs are expensive at the moment. It would be sixpence less without the egg.”

“Five and sixpence is fine,” he answered. “I should like very much to stay here.”

“I knew you would. Do come in.”

She seemed terribly nice. She looked exactly like the mother of one’s best school friend welcoming one into the house to stay for the Christmas holidays. Billy took off his hat and stepped over the threshold.

“Just hang it there,” she said, “and let me help you with your coat.”

There were no other hats or coats in the hall. There were no umbrellas, no walking sticks—nothing.

“We have it all to ourselves,” she said, smiling at him over her shoulder as she led the way upstairs. “You see, it isn’t very often I have the pleasure of taking a visitor into my little nest.”

The old girl is slightly dotty, Billy told himself. But at five and sixpence a night, who cares about that? “I should’ve thought you’d be simply swamped with applicants,” he said politely.

“Oh, I am, my dear, I am, of course I am. But the trouble is that I’m inclined to be just a teeny-weeny bit choosy and particular—if you see what I mean.”

“Ah, yes.”

“But I’m always ready. Everything is always ready day and night in this house just on the off chance that an acceptable young gentleman will come along. And it is such a pleasure, my dear, such a very great pleasure when now and again I open the door and I see someone standing there who is just exactly right.” She was halfway up the stairs, and she paused with one hand on the stair rail, turning her head and smiling down at him with pale lips. “Like you,” she added, and her blue eyes traveled slowly all the way down the length of Billy’s body, to his feet, and then up again.

On the second-floor landing she said to him, “This floor is mine.”

They climbed up another flight. “And this one is all yours,” she said. “Here’s your room. I do hope you’ll like it.” She took him into a small but charming front bedroom, switching on the light as she went in.

“The morning sun comes right in the window, Mr. Perkins. It is Mr. Perkins, isn’t it?”

“No,” he said. “It’s Weaver.”

“Mr. Weaver. How nice. I’ve put a water bottle between the sheets to air them out, Mr. Weaver. It’s such a comfort to have a hot-water bottle in a strange bed with clean sheets, don’t you agree? And you may light the gas fire at any time if you feel chilly.”

“Thank you,” Billy said. “Thank you ever so much.” He noticed that the bedspread had been taken off the bed and that the bedclothes had been neatly turned back on one side, all ready for someone to get in.

“I’m so glad you appeared,” she said, looking earnestly into his face. “I was beginning to get worried.”

“That’s all right,” Billy answered brightly. “You mustn’t worry about me.” He put his suitcase on the chair and started to open it.

“And what about supper, my dear? Did you manage to get anything to eat before you came here?”

“I’m not a bit hungry, thank you,” he said. “I think I’ll just go to bed as soon as possible because tomorrow I’ve got to get up rather early and report to the office.”

“Very well, then. I’ll leave you now so that you can unpack. But before you go to bed, would you be kind enough to pop into the sitting room on the ground floor and sign the book? Everyone has to do that because it’s the law of the land, and we don’t want to go breaking any laws at this stage in the proceedings, do we?” She gave him a little wave of the hand and went quickly out of the room and closed the door.

Now, the fact that his landlady appeared to be slightly off her rocker didn’t worry Billy in the least. After all, she not only was harmless—there was no question about that—but she was also quite obviously a kind and generous soul. He guessed that she had probably lost a son in the war, or something like that, and had never gotten over it.

So a few minutes later, after unpacking his suitcase and washing his hands, he trotted downstairs to the ground floor and entered the living room. His landlady wasn’t there, but the fire was glowing in the hearth, and the little dachshund was still sleeping soundly in front of it. The room was wonderfully warm and cozy. I’m a lucky fellow, he thought, rubbing his hands. This is a bit of all right.

He found the guest book lying open on the piano, so he took out his pen and wrote down his name and address. There were only two other entries above his on the page, and as one always does with guest books, he started to read them. One was a Christopher Mulholland from Cardiff. The other was Gregory W. Temple from Bristol.

That’s funny, he thought suddenly. Christopher Mulholland. It rings a bell.

Now where on earth had he heard that rather unusual name before?

Was it a boy at school? No. Was it one of his sister’s numerous young men, perhaps, or a friend of his father’s? No, no, it wasn’t any of those. He glanced down again at the book.

Christopher Mulholland
231 Cathedral Road, Cardiff 

Gregory W. Temple
27 Sycamore Drive, Bristol 

As a matter of fact, now he came to think of it, he wasn’t at all sure that the second name didn’t have almost as much of a familiar ring about it as the first.

“Gregory Temple?” he said aloud, searching his memory. “Christopher Mulholland? . . .”

“Such charming boys,” a voice behind him answered, and he turned and saw his landlady sailing into the room with a large silver tea tray in her hands. She was holding it well out in front of her, and rather high up, as though the tray were a pair of reins on a frisky horse.

“They sound somehow familiar,” he said.

“They do? How interesting.”

“I’m almost positive I’ve heard those names before somewhere. Isn’t that odd? Maybe it was in the newspapers. They weren’t famous in any way, were they? I mean famous cricketers7 or footballers or something like that?”

“Famous,” she said, setting the tea tray down on the low table in front of the sofa. “Oh no, I don’t think they were famous. But they were incredibly handsome, both of them, I can promise you that. They were tall and young and handsome, my dear, just exactly like you.”

Once more, Billy glanced down at the book. “Look here,” he said, noticing the dates. “This last entry is over two years old.”

“It is?”

“Yes, indeed. And Christopher Mulholland’s is nearly a year before that—more than three years ago.”

“Dear me,” she said, shaking her head and heaving a dainty little sigh. “I would never have thought it. How time does fly away from us all, doesn’t it, Mr. Wilkins?”

“It’s Weaver,” Billy said. “W-e-a-v-e-r.”

“Oh, of course it is!” she cried, sitting down on the sofa. “How silly of me. I do apologize. In one ear and out the other, that’s me, Mr. Weaver.”

“You know something?” Billy said. “Something that’s really quite extraordinary about all this?”

“No, dear, I don’t.”

“Well, you see, both of these names—Mulholland and Temple—I not only seem to remember each one of them separately, so to speak, but somehow or other, in some peculiar way, they both appear to be sort of connected together as well. As though they were both famous for the same sort of thing, if you see what I mean—like . . . well . . . like Dempsey and Tunney, for example, or Churchill and Roosevelt.”

“How amusing,” she said. “But come over here now, dear, and sit down beside me on the sofa and I’ll give you a nice cup of tea and a ginger biscuit before you go to bed.”

“You really shouldn’t bother,” Billy said. “I didn’t mean you to do anything like that.” He stood by the piano, watching her as she fussed about with the cups and saucers. He noticed that she had small, white, quickly moving hands and red fingernails.

“I’m almost positive it was in the newspapers I saw them,” Billy said. “I’ll think of it in a second. I’m sure I will.”

There is nothing more tantalizing than a thing like this that lingers just outside the borders of one’s memory. He hated to give up.

“Now wait a minute,” he said. “Wait just a minute. Mulholland . . . Christopher Mulholland . . . wasn’t that the name of the Eton schoolboy who was on a walking tour through the West Country, and then all of a sudden . . .”

“Milk?” she said. “And sugar?”

“Yes, please. And then all of a sudden . . .”

“Eton schoolboy?” she said. “Oh no, my dear, that can’t possibly be right, because my Mr. Mulholland was certainly not an Eton schoolboy when he came to me. He was a Cambridge undergraduate. Come over here now and sit next to me and warm yourself in front of this lovely fire. Come on. Your tea’s all ready for you.” She patted the empty place beside her on the sofa, and she sat there smiling at Billy and waiting for him to come over.

He crossed the room slowly and sat down on the edge of the sofa. She placed his teacup on the table in front of him.

“ There we are,” she said. “How nice and cozy this is, isn’t it?”

Billy started sipping his tea. She did the same. For half a minute or so, neither of them spoke. But Billy knew that she was looking at him. Her body was half turned toward him, and he could feel her eyes resting on his face, watching him over the rim of her teacup. Now and again, he caught a whiff of a peculiar smell that seemed to emanate directly from her person. It was not in the least unpleasant, and it reminded him—well, he wasn’t quite sure what it reminded him of. Pickled walnuts? New leather? Or was it the corridors of a hospital?

At length, she said, “Mr. Mulholland was a great one for his tea. Never in my life have I seen anyone drink as much tea as dear, sweet Mr. Mulholland.”

“I suppose he left fairly recently,” Billy said. He was still puzzling his head about the two names. He was positive now that he had seen them in the newspapers—in the headlines.

“Left?” she said, arching her brows. “But my dear boy, he never left. He’s still here. Mr. Temple is also here. They’re on the fourth floor, both of them together.”

Billy set his cup down slowly on the table and stared at his landlady. She smiled back at him, and then she put out one of her white hands and patted him comfortingly on the knee. “How old are you, my dear?” she asked.

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen!” she cried. “Oh, it’s the perfect age! Mr. Mulholland was also seventeen. But I think he was a trifle shorter than you are; in fact I’m sure he was, and his teeth weren’t quite so white. You have the most beautiful teeth, Mr. Weaver, did you know that?”

“They’re not as good as they look,” Billy said. “They’ve got simply masses of fillings in them at the back.”

“Mr. Temple, of course, was a little older,” she said, ignoring his remark. “He was actually twenty-eight. And yet I never would have guessed it if he hadn’t told me, never in my whole life. There wasn’t a blemish on his body.”

“A what?” Billy said.

“His skin was just like a baby’s.”

There was a pause. Billy picked up his teacup and took another sip of his tea; then he set it down again gently in its saucer. He waited for her to say something else, but she seemed to have lapsed into another of her silences. He sat there staring straight ahead of him into the far corner of the room, biting his lower lip.

“That parrot,” he said at last. “You know something? It had me completely fooled when I first saw it through the window. I could have sworn it was alive.”

“Alas, no longer.”

“It’s most terribly clever the way it’s been done,” he said. “It doesn’t look in the least bit dead. Who did it?”

“I did.”

“ You did?”

“Of course,” she said. “And have you met my little Basil as well?” She nodded toward the dachshund curled up so comfortably in front of the fire. Billy looked at it. And suddenly, he realized that this animal had all the time been just as silent and motionless as the parrot. He put out a hand and touched it gently on the top of its back. The back was hard and cold, and when he pushed the hair to one side with his fingers, he could see the skin underneath, grayish black and dry and perfectly preserved.

“Good gracious me,” he said. “How absolutely fascinating.” He turned away from the dog and stared with deep admiration at the little woman beside him on the sofa. “It must be most awfully difficult to do a thing like that.”

“Not in the least,” she said. “I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away. Will you have another cup of tea?”

“No, thank you,” Billy said. The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds, and he didn’t much care for it.

“You did sign the book, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“That’s good. Because later on, if I happen to forget what you were called, then I could always come down here and look it up. I still do that almost every day with Mr. Mulholland and Mr. . . . Mr. . . .”

“Temple,” Billy said, “Gregory Temple. Excuse my asking, but haven’t there been any other guests here except them in the last two or three years?”

Holding her teacup high in one hand, inclining her head slightly to the left, she looked up at him out of the corners of her eyes and gave him another gentle little smile.

“No, my dear,” she said. “Only you.”

Reaction and Reflection:

            From Maldita to Wilie Wonka, Roald Dahl’s works had entered the big screen. Moreover, those works not only clicked on the hearts of children but also on movie reviewers and that made them blockbuster films. Another breakthrough of Dahl was “The Landlady”. This is a story that I will commemorate up to the end of the world. The author’s choice of words or diction entertained me because I really like his style in playing words and this proves that Dahl is really a literature genius and an idealist as well. Dahl frequently put twist on the end of his stories so it is not flattering to see some twists on his “The Landlady”. In addition, he also uses children frequently as protagonist but in this story, “The Landlady”, he uses a matured man and that made that story unique  from Dahl’s other stories and that made the story interesting to read as well. This story will test your imagination and conclusion-making skill, you know why? You’ll find it out later.

         The story has multiformity in terms of story genre. Because of that, the story became more interesting to read and understand. At first, it is like an adventure story but as the words passes by, the story’s mode jumps onto another genre. In reading the story, you’ll never know what will happen next so you need to read it completely. Th story is worth reading because you will understand it well and know everything about it because the story needs wide comprehension. It really needs wide comprehension because there are some hidden messages that you will explain to yourself. It is like “playing God” because you know all the things and you’ll just wait for the characters to decide for themselves.

          The characters, Mr. Muholland, Mr Temple, the landlady and Bill Weaver, are just few but each has gigantic roles in the evnts and the story is just short but each word has an impotant role on the flow of the story. If you are a cunning reader, based on the context, you can predict that the landlady is a skilled preserver of dead bodies and by the use of that skill, she preserved the last persons, Mr. Muholland and Mr. Temple, who had entered in h house. The preserved bird proves this skill and knowing this idea would make you know all of the next events of the story.  The last line,  ”No, only you.”, contained many important hidden messages and will leave the reader thinking and prognosticating the ending of the story.  Without the direct statement about the ending, it is vaticinal that the landlady will kill Bill and he will be another preserved body in her house. Having that idea will make you appreciate the story and the authors technique in playing the mind of the reader.

        The main aim of the author in writing the story is to test the comprehension ability of the reader and to make the reader think what does the story tell to them and what is the overall genre of the story. Truthfully, I didn’t understand the story well in first time reading it but in the second time, I reach the triumph that Dahl wants the reader to have. As a poof, the overall genre of the story is thriller mystery. I am very relishing reading this story because it helped me too much in reading comprehension. Because of its nice flow of story, I’ll give it an ecstatic shout and gladness.

Filipino Short Stories- The Tale of Tonyo the Brave - Reaction and Reflection

The Tale of Tonyo the Brave

Posted: July 8, 2011 by jheyehmme in Uncategorized

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by Maria Aleah G. Taboclaon — Philippine Literature

COME here, mga apo. You want me to tell you a story? Then you must come nearer, and sit at my feet. Don’t interrupt me, as my memory is as fleeting as the summer breeze, and you may find that an interrupted story is worse than no story at all.

I had been telling you war stories before, of things that happened to your father and to your father’s father, who was my brother. Now, what I am going to tell you is a little different, but something that you will hopefully remember when you find the need for this memory.

I WAS the third son of Francisco, a town hall clerk, and Carmencita, a housewife, in a small town called Canda, somewhere south in Bukidnon. It is far from here, very far. To go there, you have to travel by ship or airplane, and by bus for more than twelve hours.

We lived in a small house, made smaller by the fact that there were three sons, all not far apart in age. Fernando was the oldest, Alejandro, your grandfather, followed after a year, then, me, barely a year later as well. After that, Nanay just declared she would not get pregnant again, and indeed she didn’t.

We were boisterous as all boys are, and it was all that Nanay could do to keep us in place. We had no household help, and aside from our three cats, five kittens, two dogs, a flock of chickens and two pigs, we only had Apo, Nanay’s father.

Apo was eighty-four, but he was still spry and lively. He would wake up early every morning, rouse us out of bed, nag us to do our chores—scrubbing the floor, watering the plants, feeding the animals, among other things—and would then sit in the verandah the whole day, puffing on a rolled betel leaf, spitting out the red goo into a small can beside him.

Often, I would sit with Apo and he would tell me stuff about the war and the times that his family had to leave their home in the middle of the night, as the shelling and the bombing started in their town.

There were times, as well, when Apo talked about the “not-like-ours,” his term for the supernatural. He had seen akapre, he said, he had also been friendly with a dwende, and had witnessed a manananggal flapping its wings.

I spent so much time with Apo that my brothers picked on me constantly, calling me a sissy. That was their favorite taunt, for they knew I hated to be called that.

Was it my fault then that sometimes I liked Apo’s company better than theirs? I was no wimp—I played their games and excelled at some. I was the best when it came to playing with marbles and nobody could catch me when we were playing tag, but I did not like hunting which was one of their favorite pastimes. I loved birds, and I hated to see them hurt. I cried once when I saw Fernando hit a maya in the chest, the poor bird falling from a branch—merely stunned or dead, I didn’t know. I ran away before they could see my tears.

But—I let them be. I worried that they would tease me even more if I chided them about hurting birds. I refused to go hunting with them—after all, I was still the undisputed champion and had the biggest marble collection in town.

One day, when Fernando was fourteen, Alejandro thirteen, and I, twelve, Tatay came home with bad news. The body of Budok, a farmer from another barangay, was found that morning. It was mangled beyond recognition, and only the guitar embossed with his name, lying just a few feet away, and his clothes, identified him. A young boy who was looking for his dog found the animal sniffing the body behind a bamboo clump not far from town.

According to Tatay, it was the second such murder in two months, but they had not worried before because the first victim was a stranger and the murder had taken place in Antil, a town a day’s walk away.

What was queer, Tatay said, was that someone pulled out Budok’s (and the stranger’s) internal organs. According to the doctor, neither a bolo nor a knife was used for the crime, which didn’t make sense at all for that would mean that the person used his hands, and how could a pair of hands do the damage it did?

Apo was at his usual place in the verandah, listening to Tatay, but hearing that the murderer used his hands, he stood up and came nearer to us.

“He used his hands, eh?” he said, sitting next to Tatay in the sala.

“That’s right, Tay,” my father answered, holding Nanay’s hands. “But the doctor is still examining the body and talking to the coroner from Antil. He’ll have a full report soon.”

“Is it Doc Morales?” When my father nodded, Apo surprised us all when he stood up and went outside. “I’m going to see him.”

When Apo came back late that night, he was unusually silent. He didn’t eat supper with us, and just stayed in his room. We heard him rummaging in his kaban once or twice, and then all was quiet.

“What’s he doing?” Alejandro asked.

Nobody answered. It was a solemn dinner, with Tatay and Nanay silent, thinking, perhaps of the murder, and Apo not there to chastise us for not doing our chores well.

“Maybe he’s smoking again, arranging his betel rolls in that wooden chest of his,” said Fernando who didn’t think much of Apo.

Before I could think of a rejoinder, Apo came out of his room. In his hand was a long bronze dagger, easily a foot in length, and a piece of cloth. He sat at his usual place in the table and polished the blade, oblivious to the five pairs of eyes staring at him in astonishment.

“Tay, what’s that?” Nanay asked, not daring to believe that her beloved, usually harmless father was now holding a lethal weapon.

“That’s a nice piece of work. I don’t see many bronze daggers nowadays,” Tatay said, admiring the thickness and the sheen of the metal. “What are you going to do with it, Tay?”

Apo put down the blade and faced all of us, no longer the blabbering, betel-smoking old fogy, but a strong, wise man about to impart wisdom to his brethren.

“We are not dealing with something ordinary here,” he said.

“Where?” Fernando interrupted. Tatay shushed him and gestured for Apo to continue.

“I’ve been to Doc Morales. The coroner’s report from Antil arrived already, and his findings matched that of Doc Morales’s: it was done by a woman,” at this, he held up a hand as we all tried to ask him at the same time how the doctors knew. “And personally, I know who did it.” At this point, he paused dramatically, and when he spoke, it was barely a whisper. “It was done by the not-like-ours.”

Nobody spoke. Not even Fernando whose credulity, I was sure, was already stretched to its limit. I think it was because Apo sounded really ominous. It was a relief then to hear Tatay ask Apo how they arrived at the conclusion, and what type of creature did Apo think the culprit was.

To my surprise, Apo turned to me. “You remember the stories I told you, Ton?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh. But which?”

“About the manlalayug,” he said, and I nodded again, wondering what the connection was.

“You see,” Apo continued, “The other day, I was just telling Tonyo about a creature called the manlalayug, and that’s why I got suspicious when I heard you describe the body. It occurred to me that I have seen that type of murder before so I went to the doctor’s to see if we could find strands of a woman’s hair and pieces of broken nail to prove my hunch.”

“But given that you do find those items which you say you did, how could you conclude that it was the manlalayugfor sure?” Tatay asked. He was trying to still Nanay’s hands which were nervously wringing the tablecloth off the dining table.

Apo leaned into Tatay’s face. “You know Budok?” Tatay nodded. “He’s young, isn’t he? And strong?” Tatay nodded again. “How, then, can a woman claw his face and pull out his internal organs with her own hands? How can you explain that?”

“But she may have used a blunt instrument like a spoon! Or she may not be alone, or, or…” Tatay trailed off in mid-sentence when he saw Apo’s face.

Apo was shaking his head, and he looked sad, and not a little afraid. “Nobody believes in them anymore,” he whispered. “And it will be our deaths…”

“Wait, Tay, tell us, please. What’s a manlalayug? We really don’t know.”

Apo looked at each of us in the eye, then turned his back. When he spoke, his voice was very low (as if he was afraid of being heard) and we all had to lean forward to catch his words.

“When I was just a little older than Fernando here,” he said, “a manlalayug came to our town. She managed to kill five men within five months before one finally succeeded in stopping her.

“A manlalayug is a creature that possesses special powers. Once she is hunting, killing her becomes a challenge, for she transforms into a very beautiful woman who will certainly use her considerable charm to weaken a man’s will.

“The manlalayug prowls at night, and hunts for men who are alone. Once a man is completely enraptured by her, she will wrestle him to the ground, for she has extraordinary strength, and she will eat his internal organs.

“And that is not only her power. She will also fool your mind. It was said that there were men who did not come under her spell but still died because when they met face to face, they just stabbed her, the woman they were facing, not knowing that it was just her image. The real her was behind them.”

“But how can you kill her then?” Alejandro interrupted.

“Stab backwards,” I said, before Apo could speak. “For even if you don’t see her real body, it is there, behind you.”

Apo looked at me, approvingly, I thought. “Yes, Tonyo is right. You should stab backwards. If it is the right metal, like this bronze blade, once is enough. Then you should run, and run for all you’re worth, for even a dying manlalayugcan curse you with her last breath. And that will be the end of you.”

Nobody spoke, and the air was full of fear and wonder, I thought, for the extent of Apo’s knowledge that we had only seen at this moment.

“But who was the man that killed the manlalayug in your town? And you didn’t tell me about this before, Tay,” Nanay was frowning, but she has let go of the tablecloth, and was now absently flattening it.

Apo sighed and looked at the dagger, turning it this way and that. He didn’t speak for a while, and we all thought he wasn’t going to answer Nanay when he finally spoke.

“I didn’t tell you because there was no reason to. I never thought this would happen again,” he said. He looked at Nanay. “The man who killed her was my father, your grandfather, who I told you died of malaria when I was fifteen.”

It seemed that my great-grandfather managed indeed, to wound the manlalayug. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave until the woman seemed dead. “She cursed him,” Apo said, “telling him that he will die before the month was to end.”

Our great-lolo died within a week, but not before telling his fifteen-year-old son everything that he knew about the monster he bested. He gave him the dagger to keep, as well, reminding him that he should follow his father’s footsteps should the same thing happen again. But he was already too old, too old. Apo was shaking his head, looking at the weapon in his hands wistfully.

“That’s why I took out this dagger, in case someone is willing to hunt the manlalayug. She won’t be coming out until the next full moon, so we have time to prepare.”

Tatay stood up, raking his hand through his hair. “How can we tell the mayor, or the police, about this? They’ll laugh at us.”

“Then don’t.”

“But… we can’t let her kill again, if indeed, it is a manlalayug!”

Apo sighed. “Isko, we can’t let the authorities do everything.”

“So what do you suggest we do? I can’t very well do it, if that’s what you’re suggesting!” Tatay was glaring at Apo, and Apo was glaring back.

“And why not? You are still young and strong…”

“Tay!” Nanay was furious. She stood up and faced Apo. “How can you say that? We have three children! And what are the police there for?” Nanay was almost shouting, and Tatay had to calm her and lead her to their bedroom.

Apo looked at us. “Sometimes we have to be brave, my boys.” Then, he, too, went to his room.

The next morning, nothing was said of the incident. Apo did not talk about the manlalayug, and neither did my parents. But there was a tension in the air as the weeks passed, and the doomed night neared.

On Thursday, the night before the full moon, Alejandro brought up the subject while we were in bed.

“Do you think she’ll strike again?” he said.

Fernando harrumphed. “It’s just one of Apo’s tales. You wanna bet nothing will happen tomorrow?”

“How can you say that?” I protested. “Apo was telling the truth! You saw his face when he was telling us about his father. How can you just ignore it?”

“Way to go, Tonyo! We didn’t know you really believed that!” Alejandro said. He whispered something to Fernando and they laughed. Within moments, they were chanting, “Sissy! Sissy! Sissy!”

Wanting to strike back, I muttered, “You just don’t want to face her. You’re just afraid you’ll be her next victim.”

Fernando sat up and brought his face close to mine. “So, you’re not afraid, huh? Well, brave boy, why don’t you take Apo’s dagger and find the manlalayug yourself?”

Find the manlalayug? What a crazy idea! She’d have boys like me for breakfast, and still have room for more! I turned my back on Fernando and kept silent. But my brothers guessed the reason for my silence, and resumed their chanting once more, punctuating it with hisses.

Feeling their gibes bite, and realizing that the only way to stop their jeering was for me to agree to what they wanted me to do, I almost shouted, “Yes, yes, I’ll do it. I’ll kill her.”

The words had been empty, but when I said them, I realized that I really had to do it, not for my brothers nor for myself, but for my father. If I would not go, and the manlalayug claimed another victim tomorrow, Tatay would be forced to hunt her himself, despite what Nanay had to say because he would feel obliged.

I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—imagine what would happen if he failed.

Alejandro touched my arm, suddenly contrite. “We didn’t really mean that, Ton. We were just teasing.”

I turned to Alejandro, and told him, firmly, I hoped, “No, I’ll go. Otherwise, Tatay has to, and you know Nanay is already mad at Apo for saying he has to do it.”

My brothers realized then what I had already understood, and they, too, were silent. Fernando slung his arm around my shoulders and said, real softly, “Are you sure you can do it, Ton?”

I looked at him in the eyes and said, just as softly, “Yes.”

The next day, my brothers were unusually quiet, thinking perhaps of what I had to do that night. When Apo went to his usual place in the verandah, they helped me look for the bronze dagger in Apo’s bedroom. We found it on top of his clothes in the kaban, and we hid it in my closet.

Nobody was able to eat dinner, and though my parents were greatly puzzled for my brothers and I were usually voracious eaters no matter what the food was. They did not comment, lost in their own thoughts as well.

We said good night, and my brothers and I laid down on the mat, all tense and waiting for the time that I could safely leave the house. When we were sure that our parents and Apo were asleep, we rose. I took out the dagger from the closet and tucked it into the waistband of my pants.

“Better carry it,” Fernando whispered. “So you are ready anytime.”

Alejandro hugged me. I patted his back, saying I would be back before they knew it. I was down the stairs already when Fernando tried to pull me back inside the house. “Ton, don’t do it. Please! You’ll get yourself killed.”

I pulled out of his grasp and said, “I won’t. I’ll take care.”

Then I ran, ran into the wide streets, and onto the open fields that lay between us and the town proper.

I reached the town in ten minutes. Tired by my run, I plopped down on a bench in the plaza contemplating my next action. Should I spend the whole night there? The bench was cold, and after my run, the air was chilly. I only had a thin T-shirt, and a pair of short pants (good for running, I thought then), and though I was accustomed to cold weather, the air that night was especially biting. I was shivering within minutes.

My heart was beating rapidly. I seemed to be the only one awake in the whole town, and I was sitting in the middle of the plaza with only the bronze dagger to comfort me.

I looked around and everything was in shades of gray. Some bats screeched and a few crickets chirped but, otherwise, I was alone, and I could hear noises, noises that my nocturnal companions did not make. I was hearing the noises of the night, and it seemed to come from everywhere, yet from nowhere.

I suddenly had a name for what I felt—fear. And it was fear that slowly filled my whole being.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore—the bats, the cold, the gray shapes that seemed to be moving toward me, and the utter stillness of everything around me. I stood up and began to run back home, berating myself for the foolishness of my pride, and cursing my brothers for forcing me to prove my masculinity.

On my way back, passing by the first rice field, I realized that nothing stirred. I slowed down to a walk and listened. Not a single stalk of rice moved, not a single cricket chirped. I remember thinking that it was too calm, too still.

I was halfway through the second rice field when I detected movement ahead of me. I hoped to God that it was only one of my brothers, or our neighbor Pilo the drunkard, or anybody except the one I thought it would be.

I was already sweating profusely, though my palms were cold. My grip on the dagger slipped more than a few times, and I had to grope for it on the ground since I did not want to take my eyes off from what might be in front of me.

I suddenly realized that everything was becoming very, very real. My brothers and their dare were a million years away. This was reality—me holding a cold piece of metal, in the middle of nowhere, shivering because of the cold and because of something moving in front of me that I couldn’t see. This was my reality, and I was deathly afraid.

I considered what to do—go back to the town and wake someone up to accompany me back home, or go ahead?

I was standing indecisively when the matter was taken from my hands. I saw her, just a few steps me, appearing quite suddenly—all woman, all flesh. Her movements were graceful, and her hair was very, very long, moving with a life of its own, trailing after her like a black luminescent gown. And she was looking at me, and she seemed to see deep into my soul.

I knew at that moment that it was her—the manlalayug I had been waiting for and wanting to hunt. But knowing that it was her did not stop my growing interest for her. I let her get closer, fascinated by the way she walked. She was gliding, and her feet did not touch the ground, of that I could’ve sworn.

When she was near enough to touch me, she reached out her hand and, blindly, I took it. It was soft, so soft, and I could smell her, the fragrance of the wind and the sea. Slowly, she pulled me against her soft body.

I was lost. I could feel it. I was going to return her embrace when my dagger nicked me, just a little, in the arm and I woke as if from a dream, and saw what was facing me.

Without thinking, I stabbed her in the chest, hard, bringing down the bronze weapon into her beautiful bosom with my two hands. To my surprise, my blade passed through her body into thin air, and I almost stumbled. What the…?

Then I remembered, and in my mind Apo was screaming, She’s behind you! She’s behind you! Stab backwards!

Gripping the metal with all the strength my 12-year-old body could muster, I drove the dagger backwards, not surprised this time, when I encountered firm flesh, which quickly yielded and buried my blade to the hilt.

The image in front of me vanished, and when I turned around, there she was, the manlalayug, writhing with pain, clutching her stomach, as she tried to quell the flowing of her blood. In seconds, her immaculate gown turned crimson.

I ran and never looked back.

I found my brothers awake and waiting for me by the door. They told me they were about to wake up my parents and tell them what happened. Then they saw my bloody arm and hands, and the blade still dripping with themanlalayug’s blood. Fernando ran to our parents’ bedroom and banged for all he was worth, and they came out, Apo came out, and they saw what I had done.

All of us went back to the place where I fought the manlalayug, each of us bringing a weapon but the manlalayugwas no longer there. All that remained was a puddle of blood, dark and ominous in the moonlight.

The next morning, the whole town searched for a wounded woman, and even the local officials were persuaded to join the hunt once we told them what happened. But we didn’t find her. Nor was any woman reported to have died in the next few days.

But the killings stopped after that. And to my brothers, and even to the other children, I was no longer Tonyo the Wimp. Overnight, I had become Tonyo the Brave—and that was the name I became known for, for the rest of my life.

YES, yes, that was a nice story, my dears, a nice story. But there are no more stories like that. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you instead about how the river Polangi came to be. It, too, is a nice story.

Now, you go on up, it’s already late. Lolo Tonyo is tired, and you all have to go to school tomorrow. Good night, good night.

Reaction and Reflection:

            If you are really a Filipino, you could determine that this is a Filipino short story. Out of its profound words, metaphorical phrases and world class concept still, you can see there the severity of Filipino lifestyle and their cultural beliefs and traditions. The names such as Fernando, Alejandro, Fransisco, Carmencita and Tonyo greatly presents the inspiration of Maria Aleah G. Taboclaon, the author, which is the rich Filipino culture and that establishes a great impact on the reader’s interest in reading the selection. In addition, the selection contains pure Filipino words like Apo, Nanay, Tatay and most especially, manlalayug. It rekindles the fire of Philippine literature and Filipino writers and motivates them to create Philippines-inspired stories which will show what Filipinos got.

            The terrifying story builds a virtual haunted environment for the readers and it effectively demonstrated me the emotions and feeling of the characters especially Tonyo, who experience being on the edge of Death’s hook. The author place artistic literary devices and it is really impressive. However, there are some words that only Filipinos can comprehend and that slightly breaks the quarry of the Philippine literature, to make the world understand Filipino culture and beliefs.

            The story’s setting is imaginable because of the good modifiers used by the author. Moreover, the social interaction of brothers, family, townspeople and not-like-ours is imaginable as well because the author uses her daily experiences to define how society acts and how reality circulates in a society even though the story seemed to be fiction.

            The coherence of the ideas and concepts greatly affects the readers in psychological aspects in a way that the readers will not let any stanza, sentence or even word be left unread because the story’s coherence is so impact. The events are arrange chronologically and the ideas supports each other to produce a beautiful story. On my journey in reading this story, I felt so nervous and exciting because of happenings as if it was a horror movie. Moreover, I never jump to next events because every word, every phrase and every line has excitement aggrandizement that made me felt the haunted environment. Overall, I’ll give a round of applause and standing ovation to the story.