Ocarina Warriors

The trouble began at 3:47pm on a perfectly ordinary Thursday.

Which, in hindsight, was exactly when Alfie walked through the front door holding a small cardboard box and looking proud of himself.

This should always worry people.

Not because Alfie caused trouble.

Alfie never caused trouble.

But because when good children looked proud, it usually meant school had introduced something educational into the home.

And educational things had a habit of becoming extremely loud.

“What’s that?” Barry demanded immediately.

Alfie removed a small blue instrument from the box carefully.

“It’s an ocarina.”

There was silence.

Barry blinked.

“A what?”

“An ocarina,” Alfie repeated patiently.

“It’s part of Ocarina Warriors music lessons.”

Marmaduke appeared beside Barry as if summoned by chaos itself.

“It looks like a potato flute.”

Alfie looked offended.

“It’s a real instrument.”

Dad glanced over from his laptop.

“Oh wow. We used to play recorders.”

Mum looked alarmed immediately.

“…Is this worse?”

Dad listened carefully.

Alfie blew one soft note.

A gentle whistle floated through the kitchen.

Dad nodded slowly.

“It has the potential to be much worse.”

The ocarina was smooth and blue, shaped slightly like a round spaceship with finger holes across the top.

Barry stared at it with deep longing.

“Can I try?”

“No,” Alfie replied instantly.

“Why?”

“Because I know you.”

This was fair.

Alfie sat carefully at the dining table and opened his music sheet.

Barry and Marmaduke leaned over his shoulders like tiny criminal parrots.

“Ocarina Warriors,” Marmaduke said, “That sounds powerful.”

“It’s to help us learn music,” Alfie explained.

Barry looked suspicious.

“Can it do battle music?”

Alfie demonstrated another note.

Then another.

A simple little tune.

Gentle.

Peaceful.

Actually rather lovely.

Barry’s eyes widened.

“Ohhhh.”

Marmaduke gasped softly.

“It sounds magical.”

Alfie smiled modestly.

“I’m quite good already.”

Then he made the fatal mistake.

He left the room.

With the ocarina still on the table.

There are moments in parenting where time slows down.

Mrs Brand would later describe this as:

“The exact moment civilisation collapsed.”

Barry stared at the ocarina.

The ocarina stared back.

Marmaduke whispered,

“…Touch it.”

Barry reached forward carefully.

Alfie’s voice echoed from upstairs.

“DON’T TOUCH IT.”

Barry snatched his hand back instantly.

There was silence.

Then Marmaduke whispered:

“…He didn’t say I couldn’t.”

Five seconds later both boys were holding the ocarina.

Poorly.

Very poorly.

“What do the holes do?” Marmaduke asked.

Barry shrugged.

“Music probably.”

He blew hard into the instrument.

The noise that emerged sounded like a goose reversing into traffic.

Marmaduke fell backwards laughing.

Barry looked delighted.

“IT’S AMAZING.”

Upstairs, Alfie froze.

“Oh no.”

Barry blew again.

This time louder.

Higher.

Longer.

A nearby pigeon flew away from the garden fence in panic, in spite of the remaining seed on the lawn and having hatched and grown up in London.

Marmaduke grabbed the ocarina next.

His attempt sounded like a haunted kettle.

Mrs Brand entered the kitchen slowly.

“What,” she asked carefully, “is happening?”

Barry grinned proudly.

“Music.”

A toilet flushed and Alfie thundered downstairs.

“GIVE IT BACK.”

Barry clutched the ocarina protectively.

“We are learning culture.”

“You are attacking it.”

Dad removed his headphones carefully.

“Is somebody strangling a seagull?”

“Might as well be,” Mum replied. 

Alfie finally recovered the ocarina and inspected it anxiously.

“It’s delicate!”

Barry looked impressed.

“So it’s a fragile potato flute.”

“It is NOT.”

The sensible solution would have been putting the instrument safely away.

Unfortunately, Alfie felt he needed to practise.

And the second he began playing properly again, Barry and Marmaduke became obsessed.

“Teach us,” Barry demanded.

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“We are your students.”

“You are absolutely not.”

But Alfie, tragically, had inherited some responsibility from his parents.

And eventually responsibility weakens people.

“Fine,” Alfie sighed.

“One note each.”

Barry and Marmaduke cheered wildly.

The lesson began badly.

“Cover the holes gently,” Alfie instructed.

Barry pressed all of them at once using nearly his entire hand.

“It feels medical.”

Marmaduke blew too softly.

Nothing really happened.

Then too hard.

The resulting shriek caused Dad to spill coffee onto his keyboard.

“Oh COME ON,” Dad shouted.

Marmaduke looked thrilled.

“It’s powerful.”

Soon the boys discovered that random finger combinations created different notes.

Or, more accurately: different forms of suffering.

The kitchen became a nightmare orchestra.

WHOOOOP.

FWEEEEEE.

HOOOOONK.

Mrs Brand pinched the bridge of her nose.

“How many lessons does this programme involve?”

Alfie checked his booklet.

“…ten levels to pass.”

Dad stared into the distance.

“We may need to move house.”

Things became dramatically worse when Barry discovered vibrato.

Not real vibrato.

Just shaking the ocarina violently while screaming into it.

“Listen!” he shouted.

“It sounds medieval!”

“It sounds haunted,” Mum corrected.

Marmaduke experimented by blowing and humming simultaneously.

This produced a noise so upsetting that even the dog next door barked.

Alfie looked genuinely distressed now.

“You’re doing it wrong.”

Barry nodded cheerfully.

“Yes… But loudly.”

At dinner, the ocarina sat beside Alfie’s plate like a treasured family heirloom.

Barry kept glancing at it.

Planning things.

Dangerous things.

“You are not taking it to bed,” Mum warned.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You looked like you were.”

“I was only thinking about it.”

“That’s enough.”

After dinner, Dad attempted a work call upstairs.

This was optimistic.

Because Barry and Marmaduke had entered what musicians call an “experimental phase.”

And what everyone else called:

“crisis mode.”

They marched through the hallway blowing random notes dramatically.

Barry wore a tea towel as a cape.

Marmaduke carried a saucepan lid as percussion.

“We are OCARINA WARRIORS!” Barry shouted.

“OF DESTINY!” Marmaduke added.

Alfie looked horrified.

“That is not part of the programme.”

Dad descended the stairs mid-conference call looking exhausted.

“I’m trying to discuss quarterly projections.”

Barry played one deafening note directly into the hallway.

FWEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Dad closed his eyes slowly.

“…I think my colleagues heard that in Brussels.”

Then Barry discovered echo.

This was catastrophic.

The downstairs toilet had excellent acoustics.

Soon Barry and Marmaduke were inside taking turns producing terrifying musical blasts while laughing hysterically.

“It sounds bigger in here!”

“Like opera!”

“Like ghosts!”

Mum stood outside the toilet door holding laundry and reconsidering every life choice she had ever made.

Meanwhile Alfie sat at the dining table trying desperately to sing out the fingering for his actual lesson piece.

Alfie’s quiet friend, Arthur, arrived unexpectedly to return a library book.

He stood silently in the hallway listening to the chaos.

FWEEEEE.

BANG.

HOOOOOOONK.

Arthur blinked once.

“…You got the ocarina.”

“Yes,” Alfie said sadly.

Arthur nodded sympathetically.

“My dad hid ours.”

Barry immediately appeared.

“Arthur! Join the band!”

Arthur looked genuinely frightened.

“No thank you.”

Then came the accident.

Every story involving Barry eventually includes one.

This time it involved juice.

Barry attempted a dramatic spin while playing the ocarina.

His sock slipped.

The instrument flew upwards.

Everyone screamed.

The ocarina landed directly inside Dad’s orange juice.

SPLASH.

Silence.

Horrified silence.

Barry stared into the glass.

“…It’s hydrating.”

Alfie looked seconds from emotional collapse.

“YOU JUICED MY OCARINA.”

Dad slowly removed the dripping instrument.

“It now tastes citrusy.”

“That’s not helping,” Mum muttered.

Alfie carefully dried the ocarina while glaring at Barry with the intensity of a disappointed headmaster.

Barry looked genuinely guilty, which he was, for nearly seven seconds.

Then he asked, “Does orange juice improve the sound?”

It did not.

For the next ten minutes, the ocarina emitted squeaky, fruity whistles.

Eventually bedtime arrived.

Mercifully.

Barry lay in bed still buzzing with excitement.

“That was the best instrument ever.”

Across the hall, Alfie hugged the safely cleaned ocarina protectively.

“It’s supposed to make beautiful music.”

“It DID!” shouted Barry. 

“No, Barry. Not battle noises.”

Marmaduke, somehow still present at 8:15pm, yawned sleepily and got into the twin bed in Barry’s room.

“I liked the ghost toilet concert.”

“Of course you did,” Alfie sighed through the open bedroom doors.

Downstairs, Mum collapsed onto the sofa.

Dad handed her tea silently.

There was a long pause.

Finally Mum asked:

“Do you think they’ll lose interest?”

Dad laughed for almost an entire minute.

Upstairs, one final tiny ocarina note floated softly through the house.

Gentle.

Peaceful.

Actually lovely.

Then Barry shouted: “GOODNIGHT OCARINA WARRIORS!”