The Grunts All at Sea

by Philip Ardagh

  “Change of plan.” Lasenby nodded.

  “What did you think he said, wife?” muttered Mr Grunt. “Change of tyre? Change of underwear?”

  “Plan,” Rodders Lasenby repeated, beginning to look a little annoyed at the interruptions. “I have some clients who are paying me handsomely to deliver this POGI to them.”

  “Good for you!” shouted Mrs Grunt, who had no idea what was going on.

  “No!” shouted Mr Grunt in rage. “That’s BAD!”

  “Bad for you, then,” shouted Mrs Grunt. “Like cheese before bedtime. That’s bad for you.” She went as if to stand up, but Sunny put a calming hand on her arm.

  “I do feel rather sorry about this,” said Rodders Lasenby, “but there’s something so awfully exciting about being a double-crossing good-for-nothing!”

  With a cry of “Not so fast!”, Speedy McGinty reached him just as he was busy unfastening the ropes attaching the rowing boat to The Merry Dance. Job done, he turned and grabbed both arms of her wheelchair to stop her ramming into his knees with it, like a battering ram.

  “It’s nothing personal, you know!” he called out, gripping on to the chrome so tight his knuckles whitened. “You have oars. You can row to the island. It could be fun! Even good exercise! But by the time you raise the alarm I’ll be long gone.”

  “You gargoyle!” shouted Mrs Grunt. “You fledgling! You tramp’s pants!”

  “You hand-towel! You pig’s trotter! You OVEN GLOVE!” shouted Mr Grunt.

  “Why are you doing this?” demanded Mimi from the boat.

  “Spot of bother at Lasenby Destructions,” Rodders Lasenby called down, still gripping the wheelchair and trying to ignore the blows Speedy McGinty was raining down on his tummy with her tightly balled fists. “Bit of a cash-flow problem. The cash keeps flowing out and I need bucket-loads of cash to flood in. And they’re paying me handsomely for delivering the POGI to them.”

  “The POGI!?” Sunny shouted. He had forgotten about the POGI. “What have you done with him?!” He felt so helpless, the two boats already drifting apart.

  “I just gave him a bonk on the head, but he’ll be fine,” said Rodders Lasenby with a sheepish grin. “The barrel took the brunt of the bashing.”

  “This is kidnapping!” said Mimi.

  “This is madness!” said Speedy McGinty. “You’ll never––”

  “It’s been lovely meeting you all,” Rodders Lasenby interrupted. “And I really mean that. Such a pleasure. But I have a rendezvous to keep.” He gave Speedy’s wheelchair an almighty SHOVE and it went speeding back across the deck with Speedy in it. A minute or so later, the anchor was pulled up and the engine spluttered to life.

  Mimi frowned at Sunny. “See,” she said. “I told you we shouldn’t trust him.”

  Rodders Lasenby turned The Merry Dance in a great arc across the surface of the sea and began heading back the way they’d come.

  “And we’ll never catch up with them now,” Sunny sighed.

  Technically speaking, Sunny and the others hadn’t been cast adrift. They hadn’t been left helpless, to go wherever the sea currents took them. As Rodders Lasenby had so rightly said, they had oars, so could row … in theory.

  The problem was, of course, the Grunts.

  If you find yourself in an emergency situation with a bunch of people on a boat, two of the last people you’d want to share that confined space with would be – drum roll – Mr and Mrs Grunt. (No surprises there, then.)

  “Your fault,” said Mrs Grunt.

  “Yours,” said Mr Grunt.

  “I knew that captain was a bandicoot!” said Mrs Grunt.

  “Didn’t.”

  “Did.”

  “Liar!”

  “Not.”

  “Bottletop!”

  “Leaf-mould.” With that, Mrs Grunt picked up the nearest thing and tried to throw it at Mr Grunt. It was one of the oars, and it fell into the water and went floating away on the surface of the sea.

  “Toll booth!” shouted Mr Grunt, throwing himself overboard to swim after the escaping oar. Only, of course, he couldn’t swim, and his sudden departure made the boat rock violently.

  Mrs Grunt folded her arms and leaned over the side to watch Mr Grunt flail his arms around desperately and gulp down seawater as he gasped for breath.

  Sunny and Mimi, meanwhile, leaned over the side and grabbed an arm each. After much heaving and almost as much ho-ing, they managed to get Mr Grunt half into the boat, and he managed the last half himself.

  He sat on the plank seat, dripping into the bottom of the rowing boat. “HA!” he said.

  “We need to head for shore,” said Sunny, sensibly.

  “How?” said Mr Grunt. “Old Bunny-Slippers here –” he jerked his head in the direction of Mrs Grunt “– has lost an oar.”

  “Didn’t,” Mrs Grunt insisted.

  “Did.”

  “M––”

  “We’ve still got one,” Sunny interrupted.

  “But we’ll just end up going round in circles, Sunny,” said Mr Grunt.

  “Not if we can make another oar out of something,” said Sunny.

  “Great idea!” said Mimi. “How about the plank seat you’re sitting on, Mrs Grunt? It’s thinner than this one. More oar-like.”

  Mrs Grunt stood up to inspect it …

  … and promptly fell overboard.

  As Sunny and Mimi fished her out, Sunny began to wonder whether his parents would simply end up taking it in turns to end up in the sea.

  Back aboard The Merry Dance, Speedy McGinty was facing a rather different problem: Rodders Lasenby.

  “You won’t get away with this!” she said, once again wheeling her chair right up against his well-dressed knees.

  “With the greatest respect,” said the dirty double-crossing captain, and chairman of the failing Lasenby Destructions, “I can’t see how one person in a gleaming wheelchair can hope to stop an experienced captain on a ship out at sea.” He gripped the arms of her chair again. “And, I might add, I think you’re extremely ungrateful considering I had you fished out of the sea.” He pushed her back, but only half a metre or so this time.

  “I was wondering ’bout that,” confessed Speedy. “Why rescue me in the first place?”

  “Madam, I’m not a murderer, just a good-for-nothing.” He smiled his most gentlemanly smile.

  “Big mistake, Lasenby,” said Speedy McGinty. “Don’t tell me you fell for the I-just-came-to-warn-you story I told Cankle.” Now it was her turn to give a pearly-white grin.

  “Cankle?” Rodders Lasenby raised an eyebrow.

  “Mr Grunt,” said Speedy McGinty, speedily correcting herself.

  “Your crashing The Canary was real enough,” said Rodders Lasenby.

  “True,” said Speedy McGinty, “but I ain’t working alone.” She thrust a hand inside her flying jacket and pulled out –

  A walkie-talkie? A ship-to-shore telephone? A homing device? A gun? A telescopic truncheon? A beard of bees?

  I just know you’re dying to find out.

  None of the above. Speedy McGinty pulled out – a stale currant bun.

  Fingers – who’d been watching the whole proceedings, from Sunny and the others going over the side of the boat to the man in the funny uniform bashing the POGI in the upturned barrel over the head – sniffed the air. The fingers-like tip of his trunk quivered in anticipation. He smelled his favourite food: a slightly squashed, stale currant bun.

  Sunny had told him to stay in the middle of the boat while he was gone. But the boy had also told him to listen to Ms McGinty, because she’d be looking after him while the captain was looking after the boat. And Ms McGinty was calling him over, and there was a stale bun involved: a lovely stale bun.

  Fingers ambled over to Speedy and the bun. His elephant steps were elegant and careful, as an elephant’s steps always are, but there was nothing he could do about his weight … and the boat listed to one side again.

  Being a racing model, there w
ere no brakes on Speedy McGinty’s chair. To stop herself rolling, she had to hold on to the wheels, but only after she’d freed her hands by giving him his bun. He looked at her with those intelligent eyes of his as he munched slowly, making the most of the small treat.

  “Get that animal back to the middle!” said Rodders Lasenby. “NOW!” He’d grabbed on to the doorway to the wheelhouse to keep himself steady.

  “What makes you think that this prince among elephants will listen to one iddy-biddy person in a wheelchair?” she asked innocently.

  Then she turned to Fingers. “He’s a bad man,” she told the elephant. “A real BAD man.”

  Clip and Clop looked at Rodders with their don’t-mess-with-the-animals donkey-eyes. They gave Fingers a bray of support from their trailer. (With the flap closed and bolted at the back, they weren’t in a position to offer a helping hoof.)

  Before Rodders Lasenby could say, “What on bally earth is happening?”, he found a trunk being wrapped around him like a hungry python squeezing its prey, and he was lifted high up into the air.

  “Put me down!” he yelled. “Put me down!” This wasn’t the most original thing to say under the circumstances but it got the point across.

  Fingers put him down all right. He dropped him through the open hatch into the hold.

  “Oofff!” said Rodders Lasenby as his head hit a bale of straw, before he drifted off into an unnatural sleep. He dreamed of his mother giving him a good telling-off in front of all the Lasenby Destructions board members. He didn’t like it one bit.

  It didn’t take long for Speedy McGinty to catch up with the rowing boat. She pulled herself out of her wheelchair into the captain’s chair behind the wheel, so she had no problem seeing out of the wheelhouse windows.

  The POGI, meanwhile, had fully recovered from his ill-treatment. He was standing on deck acting as lookout, proving once and for all that there MUST have been eye holes or a tiny slit in that barrel somewhere.

  It wasn’t that long before he caught sight of Sunny and the others, and alerted Speedy McGinty by letting out an excited “POGI!” and pointing.

  Fingers trumpeted excitedly, causing Clip and Clop to bray.

  Speedy McGinty, used to driving and piloting all types of craft, steered The Merry Dance alongside them with the ease of a consummate professional. (Consummate means “showing a high degree of skill”, and shouldn’t be confused with consommé, which is a clear soup.)

  In the rowing boat, they’d heard the boat’s engine getting nearer and nearer and wondered why Rodders Lasenby had changed his plans. Then Mimi spotted the POGI up on deck.

  “Look!” she cried. “It’s the POGI!”

  “POGI!” cried the POGI, leaping up and down excitedly. The others had only been in the rowing boat for about an hour but it seemed so much longer, perhaps because of the thought of what might have happened if Rodders Lasenby had succeeded.

  “I don’t understand,” said Mrs Grunt. “What in the name of bent bottletops is happening?”

  The POGI was busy unrolling the rope ladder.

  “The POGI,” said a triumphant Mr Grunt. “The POGI’s taken control!” He thought he’d never see the little barrel-covered chap again and was absolutely delighted.

  There was much back-slapping and congratulations for Speedy McGinty, the POGI and Fingers once everyone was back aboard The Merry Dance and their story had been told.

  Mr Grunt had made it to the top of the rope ladder up the side of the boat before losing his footing and falling, grabbing Mrs Grunt as he fell, so I don’t want you to think that “once they were back on board” was quite as simple a process as it may have first sounded. They had to be fished out again.

  One at a time.

  With the boat hook.

  The pair of them looked soggier than an over-dunked ginger-nut biscuit (but didn’t smell as nice).

  For his part in the rescue, Fingers was awarded extra buns, and given a quiet word of extra praise by Sunny when they were alone together.

  Speedy McGinty was sure to let everyone know what vocal support – that’s “hee-haw”s of encouragement – Clip and Clop had given, while Mrs Grunt, meanwhile (still dripping wet), practised a whole selection of made-up-as-you-go-along knots as she tied up Rodders Lasenby in the hold.

  “Apart from the dreadful things I do for money, I’m not a bad man,” he insisted. “Then again, I’m not that good either.”

  “Put a sock in it!” said Mrs Grunt, stuffing precisely one of those in his mouth to shut him up. Fortunately for the captain, it wasn’t one of the mismatched socks that had been in the tortoise shell the night before. But it wasn’t particularly clean either.

  Of course, Mr Grunt still had the POGI to deliver, but Speedy McGinty had made an interesting discovery when studying the missing – and slightly chewed – sea chart that she’d found hidden in Clip and Clop’s trailer.

  “Lasenby made the whole thing up about there being no deep-water harbour on the island,” she said. “There’s one right here at Hydrock Cove.” She pointed at a place on the chart. “We can sail right in and drop anchor.”

  “Why did he lie about that too, I wonder?” muttered Mr Grunt. “The man is a … a …”

  “Compost heap?” Mrs Grunt suggested helpfully, blinking in the daylight.

  “Precisely, wife!” said Mr Grunt. “Exactly! Nothing more than a comp—” He stopped and glared at her. “Don’t be so ridiculous!”

  “Lasenby lied about there being no harbour to get us all into the rowing boat and out of the way!” said Sunny. “It was much easier for him to seize control with us all bobbing about down there.”

  “A compost heap, indeed,” muttered Mr Grunt.

  “Well, he didn’t bargain for Ms McGinty and Fingers!” Mimi beamed, and well she might, for, with Rodders Lasenby bound and gagged in his cabin, the two humming birds – Frizzle and Twist – had appeared out of clear blue skies and were now hovering around above her head once more.

  So Speedy McGinty skilfully took The Merry Dance right into the natural harbour at Hydrock Cove, and the others went ashore, leaving her in charge of the prisoner.

  Once ashore, the motley crew of Mr and Mrs Grunt, Sunny, Mimi – with Frizzle and Twist – and not forgetting the POGI, of course, strode up the beach, along the causeway and into town.

  People gawped. Mr and Mrs Grunt looked unusual enough; Sunny with his wonky ears, sticky-up hair and blue dress was always worth a gawp; the extraordinarily pink Mimi with her halo of hummingbirds was an undeniable eye-catcher; but on that day it was the POGI who really stole the show. A walking barrel was a sight to see.

  Mr Grunt consulted a (rather soggy) list of instructions. “We need to find a row of seven fishermen’s cottages, with a garage in the middle called Stan’s Motor Repairs. We should find Mrs Bayliss in the cottage immediately to the right of it, as we face the front doors.”

  “What if I refuse to face the front doors, husband?” Mrs Grunt demanded. “What if I turn my back on them?”

  “Then it’ll simply be the house on your left,” said Sunny.

  “You mean it’ll have moved?”

  Sunny sighed. “Never mind.”

  It took them a while to find the row of cottages with Stan’s Motor Repairs in the middle. It was on a cobbled street on a steep hillside.

  “There it is!” said Mr Grunt, and he began to stride up the hill.

  All being well, his mission would soon be at an end.

  Mr and Mrs Grunt and the others were standing outside Stan’s Motor Repairs.

  “Mrs Bayliss’s cottage must be that one,” said Mr Grunt. He pointed.

  “I’ll knock,” said Mrs Grunt, striding up to the front door.

  “No,” said Mr Grunt, lovingly shoving her aside. “This is my adventure. I’ll knock.” He had just raised his fist and was about to pummel the wood with it, when a motorbike roared into view.

  This was the first vehicle any of them had seen on the island and it was noisy. It was har
d to see the driver because he or she was dressed from head to toe in bike leathers. Attached to the motorbike was a sidecar, however, in which sat a very familiar-looking figure. At least, his jet-black moustache looked familiar. (When I say “his”, I mean that he’d got to wear it this time.)

  “It’s Max!” cried Mimi.

  Before anyone knew what was happening, Max had leaned out of the speeding sidecar, snatched the barrel-wearing POGI and sped off with him kicking and screaming sideways on his lap.

  They watched them go in a splutter of exhaust fumes.

  One minute here. The next minute there …

  … whizzing down the hill, little legs kicking helplessly in the air, like an upturned hermit crab.

  “What do we do now?” said Sunny, feeling helpless. Mimi frantically looked around for inspiration.

  Mr Grunt was busy shouting a stream of abuse, which didn’t help the POGI but it made him feel a whole lot better. “Fish hook! Glad rag! Tartan biscuit!” he bellowed.

  Mrs Grunt, meanwhile, simply strode across the oil-stained forecourt of Stan’s Motor Repairs, past an ancient-looking petrol pump, to a pile of tyres for sale. A seagull perching on the top took one look at her determined expression and decided that the best thing to do was to make a hasty retreat. It squawked, then flapped off in a hurry.

  She proceeded to lift the tyre off the top of the pile, and then took the next one in her other hand. Armed and ready for action, she returned to the hillside,took aim and threw … she cried gleefully.

  The first tyre landed just ahead of the motorbike and sidecar, causing Martha – everyone assumed that the driver was Martha – to swerve. They narrowly avoided a woman on a red bike, causing her to swerve too. Her lemon-drop earring waggled like that dangly thing at the back of your throat.