Uncle Shawn and Bill and the Pajimminy-Crimminy Unusual Adventure

by A. L. Kennedy

  P’Klawz sat behind his desk as if he would much rather be hiding underneath it. He had spent many, many evenings drawing his certificates on his computer and then printing them out on special paper. He tried to get his squeaking teeth to smile, but the result sounded like a thousand shrews on rusty roller skates. He scratched his shins and he said to Brian, “That certificate is from – SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE – the University of Sidney.”

  “Shouldn’t that be Sydney?” asked Brian – glad that he could hear.

  P’Klawz frowned. “And that is my certificate for underwater swimming – SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE – with crocodiles and – SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE – that one says I am really a real doctor.”

  Brian could feel his stuffed glove hands getting closer and closer to falling off. But he kept talking, because he really was a brave llama. “And where, please, is this Knowledge College?”

  “It’s … um … in France… No, Spain… No, Bolton… No – SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

  Meanwhile, the Tweed-Faced Boy watched the office door open all by itself and then he watched footprints appear in the office carpet and then he saw the door to the cupboard that held all the Institution’s keys swing open… He knew this was Linvizzygirl, taking the keys to set free all the inmates, including Uncle Shawn.

  But – oh no! – the hinges of the cupboard door needed oiling and they squeaked. Skreeeeee.

  “What was that?” asked P’Klawz.

  “I think it was your teeth,” said Brian, being very clever.

  For a long moment, P’Klawz stared at Brian in a suspicious way. This made Brian’s fur go all hot and frightened, but it meant that P’Klawz didn’t notice the twirling dust and the little breeze of air that showed Linvizzygirl had left the room. Then P’Klawz said, “Are you sure you would not like to stay in my Institution as well as this Horribly Unusual boy…? You really do look as if you need squishing. I have never met a human person with such a long nose.”

  And this was so scary that Brian nearly just yelled, “I am a llama in disguise and I want to go home! Only I have to help rescue Uncle Shawn because he is the nicest human person in the world and you are not to squish him, so there!”

  But then…

  Brian heard Carlos blow his whistle and suddenly lots of PAJIMMINY-CRIMMINY UNUSUAL things happened all at once.

  Because this was the part where everyone’s plans met in the middle!

  SECTION TWENTY-FIVE

  In which we learn what happens to Guinevere and Ginalolobrigida when Carlos blows his whistle.

  Next to the bin shed, Guinevere Llama was tap dancing (sort of) and Ginalolobrigida Llama had just repeated verse sixteen of ‘Mi Corazón Esta Aplastado’. The guards, Hamish and Peter, were watching and listening with tears in their eyes, because they were very moved and also some of Ginalolobrigida’s high notes were painful. The guards didn’t speak Spanish, so they didn’t know that Ginalolobrigida had run out of verses to make up about being heartbroken and wearing her sad hat of flowers and misery. Verse sixteen was just a recipe for fruitcake.

  Then the whistle blew.

  At once Guinevere shiggled and wriggled and squiggled until all her disguise had fallen off! She stood in front of the guards, looking exactly like the highly intelligent llama she was.

  Ginalolobrigida nearly hit a top C, then bowed and bowed until her disguise fell off and she was revealed as – yes! – a fabulously gorgeous llama with many skills!

  “Ha!” shouted both the llamas, just as they had practised. “We are the Most Unusual llamas you will ever meet!” And they shook their llama bottoms Unusually.

  But this just made Peter and Hamish clap their hands and shout, “If this is Unusualness, we want more!” and also “You are the most beautiful and talented llamas we’ve ever met!”

  To be fair, neither of the guards had met any llamas before.

  Guinevere and Ginalolobrigida had expected the guards would run away, but instead the llamas ended up signing autographs and chatting about being wonderful.

  This kept the guards just as busy as running away would have, and Guinevere and Ginalolobrigida enjoyed it much more.

  SECTION TWENTY-SIX

  In which we learn what happens to Linvizzygirl when Carlos blows his whistle.

  Linvizzygirl had run down from the tower and was unlocking all of the doors she could find. This took her a long time because there were many, many keys and many, many doors and she didn’t know which key fitted which door. She was meant to find Uncle Shawn and set him free.

  And then the whistle blew.

  Inmates were running and skipping about as Linvizzygirl unlocked another door and another, but still she couldn’t find Uncle Shawn!

  SECTION TWENTY-SEVEN

  In which we learn what happens to Badger Bill when Carlos blows his whistle.

  In the guards’ recreation room, Bill had been tickled so much that he felt a bit sick. He had also been fed a lot of biscuits.

  And then the whistle blew.

  At once Bill stood up very tall and announced, “Behold! I am … um … Captain Stripe Nose the badger pirate!”

  The guards stopped knitting and telling stories and stared at him.

  Then a small guard, who had just dropped all his stitches in a very complicated sock because of this new excitement, asked, “If you are a pirate, why don’t you have a pirate hat?”

  Bill grabbed a newspaper and quickly folded himself a small pirate hat. Then he started again, “Behold! I am Captain Stripe Nose!”

  Some of the guards clapped and called out, “A talking dog, what fun!” Others backed away, in case they caught Unusualness.

  Bill shouted, “I am not a talking dog. I am a talking badger!”

  “Oh dear,” murmured one of the guards. “A dog that thinks it’s a badger. That’s Highly Unusual.”

  Bill tried to look dangerous. “If any of you touch me, you will become Unusual! So stay back!”

  All the guards had touched Bill when they tickled his tummy. Some of the guards cheered and said things like, “Well, I feel better than I have in ages. Maybe Unusualness is good for you,” or “He’s a lovely dog. I wonder what kind he is?” or “I think I’m already Unusual. It’s making my knees tingle. And I like tingly knees.”

  This wasn’t quite what Bill had expected, but while the guards were discussing whether they were Unusual, Badger Bill ran away.

  He stepped into a long, grey, nasty-feeling corridor. Bill really needed to find his friend Uncle Shawn, because he missed him in all of his paws and whiskers and wanted to be sure that he was smiling and safe. But where was Uncle Shawn?

  SECTION TWENTY-EIGHT

  In which we don’t learn what happens to Uncle Shawn when Carlos blows the whistle. It might be much too scary, or much too sad, or much too Unusual. So we won’t say what is happening to Bill’s best friend, behind the big iron door in the basement with a sign on it that says Squishing Room. Oh… No…

  Up and down the passageways and corridors went Badger Bill, looking for his best friend. He ran up and down and in and out.

  But Uncle Shawn was nowhere to be seen.

  Bill even searched the attic rooms, where P’Klawz kept his perfectly clean clothes. He found rows of shiny shoes and stacks of fresh underpants from the Brilliant White Pants Company. (Which was founded by a lady from Aberdeen, called Ellie Smith, whose mother told her always to wear fresh pants when she went out.)

  But there was no sign of Uncle Shawn.

  Then Bill reached the very last dormitory. It was empty.

  “Oh, Uncle Shawn, I will never let you go somewhere as nasty as this, not ever again,” he said to no one.

  Bill was tired and scared and didn’t know what to do. “I can’t see Uncle Shawn anywhere,” he thought.

  And then…

  “But I don’t have to see him!” Bill shouted. He pelted out of the dormitory and into the Institution’s maze of hallways and stairs. “I can track him by scent!”

  Bill concentrated really hard
and remembered that Uncle Shawn’s scent was a mixture of friendliness and toffee and seaside and wibbly hair and UNUSUALNESS.

  And Bill’s sensitive badger nose sniffed about really carefully…

  There…

  No, there…

  And here…

  And here – this way!

  Bill found the scent trail left behind by Uncle Shawn and began to follow it. He could also smell two human people with nastiness running all the way through them, like dirty socks hiding in a Swiss roll.

  He just hoped that he would get to Uncle Shawn in time.

  We all do.

  SECTION TWENTY-NINE

  In which you now know what everyone did when Carlos blew his whistle. SO LET’S FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT! (EVEN IF IT’S A BIT SCARY.)

  Up in the high grey tower, Brian knew the whistle was the signal to start THE DEFEAT P’KLAWZ AND RESCUE UNCLE SHAWN PLAN.

  But Brian was looking into P’Klawz’s horrible shiny eyes and he felt his hooves were glued to the spot.

  P’Klawz’s teeth were rattling and grinding like pebbles in a rusty dishwasher because the Institution was now so full of Unusualness. He was hissing at Brian, “Your nose is Unusual and – SKREEEEEEEEE – your voice sounds Unusual and—” P’Klawz didn’t say anything else, because just then Brian’s pretend left hand fell to the floor. Splaff.

  Then Brian’s other hand fell off. Sploff.

  And Brian nearly ran away down the whirly stairs, but then he thought of Uncle Shawn and Bill and all his friends and he said, “I don’t know what you are talking about, Mr Doctor, sir.”

  SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE went P’Klawz’s teeth. Loose hands were Very Unusual.

  Then – according to the plan – Brian turned round and wiggled his big llama bottom.

  “SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE – stop that at once! You are turning into a camel!”

  Brian turned round again and made sure to sound very calm and puzzled when he said, “I do not know what you are talking about. I am a human person.”

  “SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE.”

  While Brian was speaking, the noise coming from the inmates who had escaped from the dormitories was getting more and more Unusual.

  And clattering up the tower’s twirly stairs came Guinevere and Ginalolobrigida, singing a selection of the best verses from “Mi Corazón Esta Aplastado” and joined by Hamish and Peter, who were having more fun than they’d ever had in their lives.

  At the sight of singing and dancing llamas, P’Klawz’s teeth ground against each other even harder.

  SKREEEEEEEEEEE!

  And sneaking into the office came Linvizzygirl. She picked several of P’Klawz’s certificates off the wall and held them up with her invisible hands and made them dance.

  This was all Too Unusual for P’Klawz. He dived – SKREEEEEEEEEE! – under his desk to hide.

  That was when the black, velvety carpet under his desk wooshed up and swallowed Dr P’Klawz up into a big velvety lump. Which was Pajimminy-Crimminy Unusual!

  The spiders, under the command of clever Claude, had flattened themselves out – all holding hands – like a carpet under P’Klawz’s desk and now they had surrounded him.

  From inside the spiders everyone could hear P’Klawz’s teeth –

  SKREEEEEEEE!

  SECTION THIRTY

  In which while the World Association of Spiders (Pandrumdroochit Branch) is tickling and holding P’Klawz, we wonder who is rescuing Uncle Shawn? We need him to be safe and sound and not squished. Please remember to look away when I tell you to.

  Badger Bill’s paws were shaking. He had followed the scent of Uncle Shawn down into the lowest level of the Institution. He could smell unhappiness going all the way towards a great big metal door that looked very cruel.

  On the outside of the door, someone had painted: SQUISHING ROOM.

  Bill put his paw to the metal and it felt as cold as P’Klawz’s heart.

  The door had a huge handle, which Bill could just reach if he stood on tip-paws, but it wouldn’t turn. It was locked.

  Uncle Shawn’s scent led right to this door. Bill didn’t know what to do. He felt like a very small badger indeed.

  But then he heard a laugh from the other side of the door.

  Whose laugh was it?

  Yes!

  It was Uncle Shawn’s!

  “Nobody can laugh if they’ve been squished,” thought Bill, and his chest felt sparkly.

  He put his sensitive badger ear against the door and listened.

  Bill could hear – very faintly – Uncle Shawn saying to someone, “I don’t think that it would be safe for you to switch on the Squishing Machine when you are turning Unusual.”

  “I’m not Unusual!” shouted a growly, meaty voice. “Guard 5555 is the one who’s Unusual!”

  “No, I’m not!” yelled an even more growly and meaty voice. “It’s not my fault that my mum and dad called me Wilberforce Smidgely Brown. Now I’m called 5555 – that’s not Unusual at all! What’s your proper name?”

  “5557 is my proper name – the other one was wrong!”

  Bill began to smile. “Uncle Shawn has been getting them all mixed up.”

  Bill rubbed his ears to help himself think. Then he had just the right idea. He put his handsome and stripy badger nose against the metal of the door and said, “I am Doctor P’Klawz! Release the prisoner at once!”

  Of course, Bill didn’t sound like P’Klawz, even when the guards were hearing his voice through a thick metal door. In fact Guard 5555 – or Wilberforce Smidgely Brown, as his mum would have called him – shouted, “You’re not Doctor P’Klawz! You don’t sound a bit like him!”

  But now Uncle Shawn would know that Bill was outside the metal door, waiting to rescue him!

  Bill scraped his claws along the iron surface of the door, so that they went SKKKRRREEEE. And he said, “I am Doctor P’Klawz. That’s the noise of my teeth.”

  Bill heard 5557 say, “That does sound like Doctor P’Klawz’s teeth… Maybe we should take this inmate back to the dormitory.”

  And then he heard Uncle Shawn say, “Take me back? Without squishing me? That sounds Unusual. I think 5557 may be turning Unusual. What do you think, Wilberforce Smidgely?” And then he said very loudly, “I bet you’re both so Unusual that if you opened the door right now, you’d think you could see a badger singing and dancing.”

  “Oh, goodness. I’ve never danced in public,” thought Bill. “I suppose I shall just have to try.”

  As 5555 and 5557 unlocked the big locks on the Squishing Room door, Bill got ready. His feet didn’t feel like dancing at all – they wanted to run away. The door swung open and there stood the huge Guard 5555 and the huger Guard 5557.

  Bill felt shy. But then he saw Uncle Shawn’s friendly, wise face in the shadows of the room. And so he hopped a bit and then he skipped and – finally – Bill danced the way he did in his room when he was by himself and no one could see.

  And he sang:

  “This badger’s gotta move,

  This badger’s in the grove,

  This badger’s super fine,

  This badger’s dancing, dancing, dancing all the time.”

  Guard 5555 turned a funny shade of green. “A singing and dancing badger!”

  Guard 5557’s legs went wibbly. “Lawks. I am Unusual.”

  Then they both fainted.

  And Bill was almost enjoying his dancing too much to notice. But he did notice when he’d danced all the way into the Squishing Room and Uncle Shawn cheered, “Hazoo! Hazzay! Hazzee!” And Uncle Shawn held out his arms as wide as wide so he could hug him and said, “Bill! Wonderful Bill! You had a plan!”

  Uncle Shawn stood between Bill and the squishing machine so he couldn’t see it, and he hugged Bill with the biggest hug there has even been.

  Bill said, “You had a plan, Uncle Shawn!”

  “I only had enough plan to last until about now. Do you have any more?”

  “No, not really,” said Bill, feeling worried
again – even though he was pleased in all of his fur to see Uncle Shawn. “Oh, Uncle Shawn, I’m so sorry to have let them take you away. I missed you gargantunormously. We all did.”

  “But it was the right thing to do, Bill. It meant you could have a plan and I could have a plan, and our plans could meet in the middle and now we’ll defeat P’Klawz. I think. Let’s think of more plan while we run! This will be marvellous – if we don’t all end up being squished!”

  They had one more hug and then they ran. Faster than Augusto Llama.

  SECTION THIRTY-ONE

  In which Badger Bill and Uncle Shawn think planning thoughts as they run up the twirly stairs to P’Klawz’s office. Even though they are both a bit nervous about meeting thousands of spiders. This section contains teeth.

  As Badger Bill and Uncle Shawn raced up the steps in the grey tower, they were surprised by a thick, many-legged and many-eyed carpet of spiders – all of them running away from P’Klawz’s office. Claude bobbed down from the ceiling and he didn’t look happy. But he didn’t stop to spin any words out of thread – he just ran after the others.

  “Hmm,” said Uncle Shawn. “I hope all the Unusualness we’ve made has been enough to defeat P’Klawz already. But—”

  SKREEEEEEEE!

  Uncle Shawn and Bill crept up the last few steps and peeked round the office door – Uncle Shawn’s head peeking up high and Bill’s peeking lower.

  What they saw was very unpleasant. If I were you, I’d close one eye while you read about it.

  P’Klawz – looking as if he had been tickled by thousands of spiders with dirty feet – was standing on his desk and twirling his shiny watch. Brian and Guinevere and Ginalolobrigida and the Tweed-Faced Boy were all staring at it. Linvizzygirl probably was, too, but no one could see her.