Eating Things on Sticks

by Anne Fine

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Also by Anne Fine

  Eating Things on Sticks

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Plan

  Saturday

  Sunday

  Monday

  Tuesday and Wednesday

  Thursday and Friday

  Saturday

  Home Again

  About the Author

  We were quite near the island now. Apart from one great lump of a hill that rose in the middle, the whole place was dead flat. There didn’t seem to be a single tree on it – not even a stump.

  ‘Perhaps it’s been used recently for bombing practice?’ I couldn’t help suggesting.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Uncle Tristram. ‘It is a wondrous sight. Wide and uncluttered. Perhaps the winters are quite harsh round here, so trees can’t get established.’

  ‘Blown away, are they?’

  ‘Harry,’ said Uncle Tristram testily, ‘this island is famous for its rugged beauty.’

  ‘So is the Gobi desert,’ I snapped back, ‘but no one goes there on hols . . .’

  ‘A controlled riot of invention, with a plot that embraces everything (or so it seems) from pork pies (some on sticks) to man (boy)-made floods, Morning Glory's sweet flutings to ear-crunching accents, incontinent seagulls to all those hairy chins. A laugh on virtually every one of its 180-odd pages’ CAROUSEL

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

  ALSO BY ANNE FINE:

  Published by Corgi Books:

  THE BOOK OF THE BANSHEE

  THE GRANNY PROJECT

  ON THE SUMMERHOUSE STEPS

  THE ROAD OF BONES

  ROUND BEHIND THE ICE HOUSE

  THE STONE MENAGERIE

  UP ON CLOUD NINE

  Published by Corgi Yearling Books:

  BAD DREAMS

  CHARM SCHOOL

  FROZEN BILLY

  THE MORE THE MERRIER

  A SHAME TO MISS . . .

  Three collections of poetry

  PERFECT POEMS FOR

  YOUNG READERS

  IDEAL POEMS FOR MIDDLE READERS

  IRRESISTIBLE POETRY FOR

  YOUNG ADULTS

  Other books by Anne Fine

  For junior readers:

  ANGEL OF NITSHILL ROAD

  ANNELI THE ART-HATER

  BILL’S NEW FROCK

  THE CHICKEN GAVE IT TO ME

  THE COUNTRY PANCAKE

  CRUMMY MUMMY AND ME

  DIARY OF A KILLER CAT

  GENIE, GENIE, GENIE

  HOW TO WRITE REALLY BADLY

  IVAN THE TERRIBLE

  THE KILLER CAT’S BIRTHDAY BASH

  LOUDMOUTH LOUIS

  A PACK OF LIARS

  STORIES OF JAMIE AND ANGUS

  For young people:

  FLOUR BABIES

  GOGGLE-EYES

  MADAME DOUBTFIRE

  STEP BY WICKED STEP

  THE TULIP TOUCH

  VERY DIFFERENT

  For adult readers:

  ALL BONES AND LIES

  FLY IN THE OINTMENT

  THE KILLJOY

  OUR PRECIOUS LULU

  RAKING THE ASHES

  TAKING THE DEVIL’S ADVICE

  TELLING LIDDY

  IN COLD DOMAIN

  www.annefine.co.uk

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781409012597

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  EATING THINGS ON STICKS

  A CORGI YEARLING BOOK 978 0 440 86937 5

  First published in Great Britain by Doubleday, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books

  A Random House Group Company

  Doubleday edition published 2009

  Corgi Yearling edition published 2010

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Anne Fine, 2009

  Illustrations copyright © Kate Aldous, 2009

  The right of Anne Fine to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  The Random House Group Limited supports the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international forest certification organization. All our titles that are printed on Greenpeace-approved FSC-certified paper carry the FSC logo. Our paper procurement policy can be found at www.rbooks.co.uk/environment.

  Corgi Books are published by Random House Children’s Books,

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  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

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  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Printed in Great Britain by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD

  For Geoff and Joe, the pioneers

  The plan

  CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

  ‘No, no, no, no, no, no!’ I said. ‘Not to Aunt Susan’s! Not for a whole week! No, no, no, no!’

  Mum wasn’t backing down. ‘Frankly,’ she said, ‘I don’t believe I have to listen to any complaints from the person who burned our entire house to a crisp.’

  I had to defend myself. ‘I did not burn the entire house to a crisp.’

  I should have kept my mouth shut. Mum waved an arm around what little was left of our kitchen. ‘Excuse me? Are these walls the cheery colour that they used to be, or are they black? I don’t recall choosing this nice “charred wood” theme for the cupboards. Is that clean water gushing out of the tap, or some dark dribble of sludge from melted pipes? And aren’t we lucky that the sun’s still up, because it’s not as if, when I flick on this light switch, anything actually happens.’

  ‘Look,’ I said for the millionth time, ‘I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to forget that I was making that toast. I didn’t realize that I’d left that tea towel lying across the grill. And I did not deliberately forget we had a fire blanket.’

  ‘What’s to forget? The thing was hanging on the wall in front of you with FIRE BLANKET printed across its case in big red letters. You can read, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said sullenly. ‘I can read. I just didn’t see it, did I?’

  ‘Apparently not. So now, when we try to make arrangements to find you somewhere to stay while the house is full of workmen, perhaps you’ll stop whining.’

  ‘I was not whining,’ I said huffily. ‘I was just saying that I didn’t want to stay with Aunt Susan.’

  Mum ticked our other conversations off on her fingers. ‘Or with Aunt Miriam and Uncle Geoffrey. Or with Great-Granny. Or with next door. Or with–’

  I interrupted her. ‘Because it’s not fair. Ralph gets to go to scout camp.’

  ‘Ralph was booked in to go to scout camp already. More to the point, Ralph is a scout, and you are not.’

  I threw myself on her mercy. ‘Mum, please! Don’t send me to Aunt Susan. I couldn’t bear a whol
e week of her ghastly nature walks, and prissy little Titania prancing about in one of her frilly-willy frocks pretending she’s a fairy and singing me one of her’ – I did my imitation of my cousin Titania’s lisp – ‘“thweet little thongs”. Oh, please don’t send me. Please!’

  ‘Harry, there’s no one else.’

  I had an inspiration. ‘What about Uncle Tristram?’

  Mum stared. ‘Tristram? You must be mad. Your Uncle Tristram couldn’t look after a cat.’

  Mum only said it as a figure of speech. Still, it reminded her of poor old Pusskins and what happened to him, so her face fell. I stood there sensitively for a moment or two before I said,

  ‘But Uncle Tristram could look after me. Because I can look after myself.’

  ‘But he won’t want you,’ Mum explained. ‘It’s his week off. He’ll have arranged to go away with one of his girlfriends.’

  ‘I could go with them.’

  ‘I don’t think Tristram would agree to that!’

  ‘He would,’ I told her confidently, ‘if I asked.’

  Mum laughed. ‘Feel free to give it a try. Because otherwise you’ll be off to Aunt Susan’s first thing in the morning.’

  Challenge accepted!

  BLACKMAIL

  ‘Sorry,’ said Uncle Tristram cheerfully. ‘No can do. Off on my own hols tomorrow.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Not sure,’ said Uncle Tristram. ‘Some tiny island, I believe. Only one ferry a day, or something. I admit that I wasn’t really listening.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because,’ said Uncle Tristram loftily, ‘my mind was set on other things.’

  I bet I knew what other things his mind was set on. ‘So who is she, then?’

  ‘Never you mind.’

  I ran through Uncle Tristram’s last few girlfriends. Jean with the grating laugh. Moira the bank teller who was forever counting her change. The acrobat called Flip. None of the stories ended happily. ‘Well, do I know her?’

  ‘No. She’s new.’

  ‘Does she have any . . .’ Pausing, I finished darkly, ‘– cats?’

  That shook him up. He started paying attention. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we wouldn’t want any terrible accidents to happen, would we? And if any terrible accidents were to happen, just like to our poor little Pusskins, it might get harder and harder for me not to let drop to Mum – entirely by accident – that it was not the first time . . .’

  ‘Harry,’ said Uncle Tristram sternly, ‘are you blackmailing me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘All I want is for you to offer me a roof over my head for one week. One tiny week! It isn’t much to ask, and it will save me from being sent to Aunt Susan’s.’

  ‘To Susan’s?’ Uncle Tristram sounded shocked. ‘Your mother’s never really threatening to make you spend a whole week in the same house as that ghastly little cream puff Titania?’

  ‘She is,’ I said.

  I could tell Uncle Tristram felt for me. He started cracking.

  ‘If I did let you come, you’d have to look after yourself,’ he warned.

  ‘No problems there.’

  ‘No hanging about, cramping my style.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll bring my holiday homework.’

  ‘And no more talk of Pusskins.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right, then,’ said Uncle Tristram. ‘Just to save you from Aunt Susan and a week with Titania.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Nothing at all to do with what happened to Pusskins.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I agreed. ‘In fact, I’ve practically forgotten all that sad business again already. Who was poor Pusskins anyway? And what did happen to him?’

  He’d hung up.

  Saturday

  ‘GLERHUS DILL SOTBLUG’

  Dad dropped me off at Uncle Tristram’s flat. Before he left, he walked round Tristram’s fancy yellow car, inspecting the state of the tyres. ‘I suppose these treads are well within the legal limits?’

  ‘Tickety boo, thanks.’

  ‘I take it the brakes are adequate.’

  ‘I’m still here,’ Uncle Tristram said a little frostily.

  ‘Yes,’ Dad said. ‘But this time you will be driving my son.’

  ‘He isn’t the Messiah,’ muttered Uncle Tristram.

  Dad has sharp ears. ‘He might not be the Lord’s Anointed, no. But he is precious to his mother and myself. So you drive carefully.’ He turned to me. ‘Any doubts,’ he warned. ‘Any doubts at all, and you are to threaten to be sick on your uncle’s upholstery, step out of the car the moment he screeches to a halt, and then phone home.’

  ‘I’m not a maniac,’ said Uncle Tristram.

  ‘That,’ said my dad, ‘has always been a matter of opinion.’

  And he drove off.

  Uncle Tristram turned to me. ‘I’m glad he’s gone,’ he said. ‘I didn’t really care for his attitude, considering I’m doing him and my sister a giant favour by letting you tag along with me and Morning Glory.’

  ‘Morning Glory?’

  ‘Now don’t you start,’ said Uncle Tristram, and he got in the car and waited while I climbed in on the other side and fastened my seat belt. Then he took off down the street, Granny-fashion, at about three miles an hour, until we’d passed the junction where Dad was lurking in his own car, hoping to catch us speeding so he could snatch me back and send me off for a week of nature walks with Aunt Susan instead. ‘Fooled him, then,’ Uncle Tristram said with satisfaction, speeding up. ‘I hope he gets a ticket for stopping on that yellow line.’

  I stared out of the window. Huge supermarkets. Cinemas. Leisure centres. All shooting by. ‘Where are we picking up Morning Glory?’

  ‘We’re not,’ said Uncle Tristram. ‘She is up there already.’

  ‘Goody,’ I said, because I like my times alone with Uncle Tristram. He’s good fun. He doesn’t stop at boring motorway cafes. He takes off ’till we find strange little restaurants in strange little villages selling strange little meals. He stops to moo at cows and oink at pigs. He suddenly decides we can’t drive any longer without stopping for a go on the flumes in some big city pool.

  It took all day and half the evening to get as far as the ferry. Ours was the last car to board. The man at the ticket office muttered, ‘Glerhus dill sotblug,’ before he gave us our tickets.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘How should I know?’ said Uncle Tristram. ‘I simply shoved a twenty-pound note under his little glass grille and hoped for the best.’

  I think that hearing him say the word ‘grille’ must have reminded me of when I tried to make that toast. And that made me think of the fire. And that made me think of all the workmen who were trying to put the kitchen to rights. And that made me think of Mum and Dad, so I was a little bit homesick.

  (Better than seasick, which came next.)

  A WONDROUS SIGHT

  ‘That is disgusting,’ Uncle Tristram said, hastily moving upwind as I heaved the strange little meal from the strange little village restaurant over the rail of the boat. ‘Here. Take this to clean yourself up.’

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief. As I unwrapped it, out fell his mobile phone. It bounced on the rail. We both reached out to catch it and hit one another’s hands instead. The phone splashed into the water.

  Uncle Tristram swore wildly for a minute or two. Then he calmed down. ‘Don’t tell your mother you heard any of those words from me.’

  ‘I promise.’

  He gave me a bit of an evil look. ‘Yes, well, we all know what your promises are worth. You said you’d never mention that stupid cat again.’

  I felt too nauseous to argue Pusskins’ case. (Excuse me, but Pusskins was only sleeping where he usually slept. A pet cat doesn’t take his nap in a flower bed and actually expect someone to drive a Maverati through the petunias.)

  And it had been a brand-new mobi
le phone.

  So, ‘I’m really, really sorry,’ I said weakly. Then I threw up my pudding.

  Uncle Tristram took pity on me. ‘Perhaps you’d be better downstairs,’ he said.

  ‘Below decks,’ I corrected. ‘You don’t say “downstairs” on a boat.’

  Shrugging, he made for a big heavy door that led to some iron steps. Deep in the bowels of the boat, the other passengers were sitting hunched in gloom. Most of them had beards that you could hide your sandwiches inside – even the women.

  ‘Why are they all in boots and mackintoshes?’ Uncle Tristram whispered.

  ‘Perhaps they know more about the weather where we’re going than we do,’ I suggested sourly. (I was still feeling rubbish.)

  ‘Promph yarp ochellin?’ one of the bearded people suddenly suggested to Uncle Tristram.

  ‘Quite so!’ he answered with a somewhat haunted look.

  ‘Merpliddle fixam nop,’ added another.

  ‘Indeed, indeed.’

  ‘Blerty ach nerp!’

  Uncle Tristram stood up. ‘Well,’ he said cheerily, ‘I think perhaps we’ll have another small peep at the view from upstairs.’

  ‘On deck,’ I corrected.

  ‘Whatever!’ Uncle Tristram snapped, and led the way back up the iron steps. We were quite near the island now. Apart from one great lump of a hill that rose in the middle, the whole place was dead flat. There didn’t seem to be a single tree on it – not even a stump.

  ‘Perhaps it’s been used for bombing practice recently,’ I couldn’t help suggesting.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Uncle Tristram. ‘It is a wondrous sight. Wide and uncluttered. Perhaps the winters are quite harsh round here, so trees can’t get established.’

  ‘Blown away, are they?’

  ‘Harry,’ said Uncle Tristram testily, ‘this island is famous for its rugged beauty.’

  ‘So is the Gobi desert,’ I snapped back. ‘But no one goes there on hols.’

  He scowled. ‘Would you like the return half of your ferry ticket now?’ he said. ‘Then you can take a train back down to Aunt Susan’s.’

  ‘No, thanks!’ I said. I took another look. ‘It’s quite astonishing really. Look at the unspoiled sweep of it. Enchanting!’