by Peter Mayle
After that, he does his push-ups: twenty-five a day, and five extra on Sundays.
By this time, he’s ready to do his most favourite exercise, which is also the most difficult one.
You’ve probably noticed that the shelves in your fridge are made from lots of thin bars. Chilly Billy uses these rather like the men on the trapeze in the circus. He hangs upside down, he swings from bar to bar, he flips, he spins, he flies through the air.
This is all pretty dangerous stuff, and perhaps you’re wondering what would happen if he fell.
There’s no room for a safety net inside the fridge. So instead, Billy always puts a good thick slice of Cheddar cheese on the shelf beneath him. (Blue cheese is too smelly. Cream cheese is too soft. Cheddar cheese is just right—firm and bouncy.)
But he hardly ever falls. And that’s why you hardly ever see any little dents in your cheese.
After his exercises, Billy has his bath—he rolls over and over in the frost at the bottom of the freezer compartment. This makes him feel all fresh and clean and ready for his day’s work.
Even though he’s been up for some time, it’s still very early in the morning. In fact, it’s only just coming up to breakfast time.
This is Chilly Billy’s rush hour. He has to organise everything down to the last detail, because there are usually three or four people poking around in the fridge every morning.
And you know how you are at breakfast time? Eyes half shut, still a little sleepy, not able to eat your corn flakes without the milk dripping on your chin?
Well, everybody’s like that, and Chilly Billy knows it. He knows that most of us are a little clumsy first thing in the morning. We’re quite likely to open the fridge door and knock something over on the way to the orange juice. Then there’s a mess, and Chilly Billy has to clear it up.
So before breakfast time, he puts all the things we’re going to need as close to the front as he can. The milk, the orange juice, the yogurt, the butter. You have a look tomorrow at breakfast time, and I bet you’ll find them near the front.
They didn’t get there on their own. Chilly Billy put them there. And when you’re less than half an inch tall, they’re very heavy to move around. That’s why Chilly Billy does all those strengthening exercises.
After the breakfast rush is over, Billy starts his tour of inspection.
The first stop is that little dial just inside the fridge door. It usually has the word “COLDER” written on it with an arrow that shows you which way to turn it.
Every morning, on his tiny frost-proof transistor radio, Billy listens to the weather forecast. If it’s going to be very hot outside, he turns the dial forward to make the inside of the fridge colder. If the weather’s going to be cold, he turns the dial back.
Once he’s set the temperature for the day, Billy does his daily leak, dribble, drip and glop check. He goes round the packets and cans and bottles and containers and dishes with his clean-up case.
Inside this case are the special gadgets he needs to mop up the leaks and drips and dribbles that somehow happen no matter how careful you are.
And of all the clever things in Billy’s case, the cleverest is the amazing stretchy pole.
It folds up very short and small. But it can stretch and stretch to reach the high corners that Billy can’t reach even when he’s standing on the tiptoes of his big boots.
On to the end of this pole, he can fix all kinds of different things. There’s a sponge for milk and juice drops. A rubber scrubber for sticky smears of yogurt or jelly or jam. And a tiny vacuum cleaner to suck up crumbs.
By the time he’s finished cleaning up, Billy’s ready for his lunch—usually a drop of cold soup, a nibble of cheese and maybe some strawberry yogurt.
Once, forgetting that they’re supposed to be cooked, he tried a couple of frozen peas. They made him turn green and he felt very strange. Ever since then, he’s preferred tomato soup, which tastes good even when it’s cold.
After lunch is when Chilly Billy has the most fun of the day; that’s when he does his training for the Great Cross-Refrigerator Race, the most important event in the Fridge Olympics and Frozen Sports. (More about them another time.)
You’ve never seen anything like Billy’s training. Imagine a mixture of running, jumping, mountain-climbing, wall-walking and ceiling-hanging—it’s like that all at once.
The idea is to start at the bottom left-hand corner of the fridge, and get up to the top right-hand corner as quickly as possible.
So Billy has to run and jump and swing and suck with his sucker boots, and by the time he’s finished he’s an extremely hot little man. A quick roll in the frost to cool off, and then he has to get ready for dinner.
Dinner is just like breakfast, only different. Instead of milk and orange juice, Billy has to arrange the meat and the butter and the vegetables in the front of the fridge where they’re easy to get at.
Then, while you’re eating your dinner, Billy eats his. (But don’t ever think you can surprise him. If you ever try to catch him eating, he’ll hear you coming and hide.)
At last, when he’s feeling rather full and quite sleepy, Billy climbs all the way up into the freezer compartment, past the ice cubes, through a secret door in the back, and into his bedroom. And what a wonderful bedroom it is.
First of all, Billy doesn’t sleep on a bed with a mattress. He has a bed of crushed ice.
His bedside lamp is a glowing icicle.
And there’s a big hole in the corner of the room with a shiny, slippery pole going down through the floor.
This is Billy’s lightning light pole, and it goes all the way down to the light switch.
He can jump out of bed, slide down the pole and put the light on in less than the time it takes you to blink your eye.
It’s the quickest way there is of turning the light on, and Billy’s got so used to doing it that he can almost do it in his sleep.
But, for the moment, nobody’s coming. Chilly Billy’s in bed, reading his favourite ghost story, THE HAUNTED FRIDGE.
Very soon now, it will be time to turn out his icicle and go to sleep.
And if you say, “Goodnight, Billy,” and listen very hard, you might just hear a tiny voice from a long way away saying goodnight to you.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS TIME to get up. Chilly Billy knew it was time to get up, but he just didn’t feel like it.
In fact, he felt awful. His head was aching, he was hot and tingly, he didn’t want his breakfast, and his ears were bright red.
He was altogether rather poorly. There was only one thing to do, and that was call for help.
For moments like this, Chilly Billy keeps a little walkie-talkie next to his bed. He twiddled the dial and tuned in to the special I.C.E. (In Case of Emergencies) wavelength.
“Hello,” whispered Billy,” it’s me here and I don’t feel at all well.”
“What happened, Billy?” asked a cheerful voice from the walkie-talkie.” Have you eaten too much chocolate cake? Did you fall off an ice cube? Has there been an avalanche?”
“If you’d stop asking so many questions, maybe I could tell you,” said Billy in a grumpy voice. “Nothing like that happened. I just feel terrible, and I don’t know what’s wrong but my ears are all red and my head hurts.”
“Right,” said the walkie-talkie in a leave-it-to-us kind of voice: “Listen. There’s a delivery of a dozen eggs due to arrive in your fridge this morning, and we’ll have a nurse aboard the egg carton. Over and out.”
“Thank you very much and out to you too,” said Billy gratefully.
As bad as he felt, Billy struggled out of bed and did his morning chores, because he hates to let his fridge get messy.
Just as he’d finished, and had stopped for a rest, he had to slide down his lightning light pole and switch on the light. Someone was coming.
It was a big delivery. Milk, butter, lemonade, two kinds of fruit juice, half a pound of cheese and yes, there it was, a large carton of
eggs.
No sooner had the door closed when Billy heard a voice coming from somewhere among the eggs.
“What do you think you’re doing out of bed? No, don’t tell me—I know. You’re waiting to help me with my bag.”
And with that, a big bag like the ones doctors have came sailing out of the egg carton, and Chilly Billy just managed to catch it without getting flattened.
He was getting ready to be very angry when he saw the nurse climbing down from the egg carton.
She was beautiful. He stopped being angry.
“Come along,” she said, “don’t just stand there with your mouth open. Let’s get you into bed.”
Into the bedroom they went, and the nurse started to examine him.
She looked at his tongue.
She felt his forehead.
She looked at his bright red ears.
She took his temperature.
“Hmmmmm,” she said thoughtfully.
“Well?” said Billy.
“No—not well at all,” said the nurse. “You know what you’ve got?” She nodded to herself. “You’ve got a nasty Warm.”
“A Warm? Oh dear,” said Billy, feeling even more sorry for himself.
Because a Warm for someone like Billy is just as bad as a Cold is for someone like you.
“Now let’s see,” said the nurse. “We must keep you nice and cold, give you plenty of iced tea, and you must stay in your bed of crushed ice for a day or two.”
“Impossible,” said Billy. “Who’s going to switch the light on and off? Who’s going to clean up? The ice cubes will get frosty. The shelves will get sticky. There’s work to be done. I can’t stay in bed.”
“Yes you can and yes you will,” said the nurse, looking very stern and waving her thermometer at Billy. “I’ll take care of the fridge and everything will be fine. So you just take this anti-Warm pill and stay there and keep nice and cold.”
Billy lay down on the bed grumbling quietly, but because he really did feel ill and because the nurse really was very beautiful, he didn’t grumble loud enough for her to hear.
And as the nurse went off to see what needed doing in the fridge, Billy went into a deep sleep.
He slept and he slept and he slept. Believe it or not, he slept for a whole day and a whole night.
When at last he woke up, he felt much better. He looked in the mirror, and his ears weren’t red any more. He bent down and touched his toes, but his head didn’t hurt. It just goes to show, he thought to himself as he brushed his hair, you should always do what you’re told when you feel ill.
As he sat on the edge of his bed wondering where the nurse was, he heard some very busy-sounding noises coming from the downstairs part of the fridge.
“Nurse,” he called out, “I’m feeling much better and quite hungry and can I get up?”
The noises down below stopped, and the nurse came up to Billy’s room. She was carrying a tray with a slice of fresh strawberry and a glass of milk on it.
She looked at him, and felt his head and inspected his ears. “You’re looking much better. In fact you’re really quite a handsome fellow.”
Billy blushed, and was secretly very pleased.
The nurse puffed up Billy’s pillow. “Have your breakfast, and then we’ll get you up for a walk.”
“Do you know,” said Billy in between mouthfuls of strawberry, “I felt so ill when you first arrived I didn’t even ask your name. What is it? I can’t keep calling you Nurse.”
“Well, it’s very much like yours; I’m called Lily.”
“I like that name,” said Billy.
“That’s lucky,” Lily said, “because it’s the only one I’ve got.”
And so they chatted for a while, and Billy finished up his breakfast and felt even better, and the two of them set off on a walk round the fridge.
It looked spotless. Lily had obviously worked very hard. The ice cubes were gleaming. The cartons and bottles were clean and polished. The vegetable tray was cool and green and freshly watered. It was all just as though Billy had done it himself. (And maybe, but don’t tell him I said so, just a little bit better.)
They walked over to the egg rack, and sat down on top of an egg to enjoy the view across the strawberries down to the thick yellow chunk of cheese on the bottom shelf.
“It’s lovely here,” said Lily with a sigh, “but now that you’re well again, I must think about going. Do you know when the next packet of peas is due to leave?”
When he heard this, Billy felt sad. He suddenly realised how very much he liked Lily. It was lovely having someone to talk to, and someone to share the good things of the fridge with him.
Billy took a deep breath and got as brave as he could and reached out and took Lily’s little hand.
“Don’t catch the next packet of peas, Lily,” he said, “stay here with me.” And then, in a great rush in case she’d say no before he finished, he went on: “You must admit that it’s a large and handsome fridge, with plenty of room and we could have friends to stay and parties and lots of fun and besides,” (here he had to stop for breath and pluck up his courage and squeeze Lily’s hand as tight as he could), “I love you.”
Then he went extremely pink and scuffled his boots and looked very carefully at his toes.
“Oh Billy!” said Lily, and leant over and kissed him once on the ear and three times on the nose.
And so, hand in hand, they went up to their home in the freezer compartment very happy, and full of plans for all the things they were going to do together.
And later on, when the evening packet of peas left, Billy and Lily stood at the edge of the freezer compartment and waved it goodbye.
CHAPTER SIX
EVERY YEAR, ABOUT the time when the owners of fridges go off on their holidays, Chilly Billy and his friends held The Great Annual Fridge Olympics and Frozen Sports.
Billy’s friends came from far and wide, and no wonder; this was the most important event of the frozen sporting year.
Because there were so many visitors, Billy couldn’t possibly fit them all into his home behind the ice cube tray. So they had to sleep packed head-to-toe like sardines in those narrow shelves inside the door.
And what a grand time they had. Every evening, there was a party in the butter compartment, hide-and-seek among the vegetables, and a remarkable game of musical eggs, which I’ll tell you about another time.
The days were spent training, and if you happened to be taking a stroll through the fridge, you had to keep your eyes open so as not to be bumped into by all the little men who would suddenly come whizzing round corners or leaping from an overhead shelf.
The events that made up the Fridge Olympics included just about every frozen sport you could think of, and a few unfrozen ones too.
The ski-runs were in the freezer compartment, and a ski-jump had been made by coating the sloping top of a milk carton with ice. After coming off the carton at great speed, the skiers, their tiny arms and legs whirling to help them go further, would land safely on a large and very squishy slice of lemon meringue pie. (Difficult to climb out of, just in case you ever think of jumping in it yourself.)
Then there were the acrobatics—swinging, twirling, and flying through the air from the shelf bars. Only the most daring and athletic were allowed to enter, because it was really quite dangerous.
And the biggest and strongest competitors had an event all to themselves: Tossing the Carrot.
The idea was to get hold of a carrot at the big end, balance it upright in the hands, and fling it as far as possible with a mighty heave. When you think that an ordinary size carrot of the kind you would eat weighs much more than any little man, you can understand what great strength is needed. (A good aim is needed as well. There are many sad stories of spectators being injured by badly tossed carrots.)
All these events, and many others, were included in the Fridge Olympics.
But the most important event of all, where the winner won a huge gold medal, was the Gre
at Cross-Refrigerator Race. And that’s what Chilly Billy had been training for all year long. (Remember? That’s what I told you he did in the afternoons.)
Billy was very good at this race, and he hoped to win. But he had a serious rival, a real expert at cross-refrigerator racing who had come all the way from Birmingham, where he lived and trained in a refrigerator factory.
Nobody knew his real name; he was called the Mad Jumper, because of his rolling eyes and amazing leaps, and he was huge. He must have been nearly three quarters of an inch tall, even without his boots on. And that, for a tiny man, is very, very big.
For the last two days, the Mad Jumper hadn’t joined in any of the games with the others. He’d just sat on his own, polishing his boots and glaring at Chilly Billy. He was determined to win, and he didn’t intend to let Billy stop him.
At last, the day of the great race came. Bright and early, all the spectators settled down along the race course, which started at the bottom left-hand corner of the fridge, and ended at the top right-hand corner.
A roar went up from the crowd as Chilly Billy and the Mad Jumper took their places at the starting line. Billy, who isn’t very big at the best of times, looked even smaller next to the giant Jumper. But he wasn’t going to let that worry him.
I may be small, he thought to himself, but I’m as nippy as they come. Big as he is, I’ll keep up with him.
They were ready.
Billy’s friend Lily, who was starting the race, called out, “On your marks.”
Billy and the Mad Jumper shuffled their boots and flexed their toes nervously.
“Right,” said Lily, “when I pop this Rice Krispie, that’s the signal to be off. The first one to reach the top gets the gold medal and a kiss from me.”
“Save your breath,” said the Mad Jumper with a nasty laugh, “I’ll want a big kiss when I win.”
Billy was furious, but before he could say anything Lily popped the starting Krispie and the race was on.
