The Bolds' Great Adventure

by Julian Clary

  ‘Do we just tuck in straight away?’ asked Fred.

  ‘No, look. I think we choose what we want then take it over there, where all the beeping noises are coming from. Then we exchange it for cash.’

  ‘It’s all so civilised!’ said Fred.

  ‘Isn’t it!’ agreed Amelia. ‘No need to catch or snatch.’

  So slowly, very slowly, the Bolds got used to living life as humans. Apart from the basic things like food and washing, there was what seemed like a mountain of new things to discover and try to get the hang of.

  Imagine never having used a light switch or a television before!

  Inevitably mistakes were made. Lots of them: for several days they thought the letter box was where you went to the toilet, they thought curtains were for wiping your bum on, they thought a waste-paper bin was a hat, the hoover was a musical instrument, an umbrella was what you ate your food with, soap was cake and runny honey was shampoo!

  They kept their underwear in the fridge, they ate their dinner at the ironing board, cleaned their teeth with yoghurt and ate toothpaste for breakfast. They thought the rotary washing line was for swinging on and the grass mower was for peeling potatoes with. They ate their lunch off saucepan lids, mistook the garden hose for a snake, and assumed that pencils were a tasty snack, forks were hair clips, and that the hedge was where you hung your clothes out to dry.

  And, of course, as they slowly learned what things were really for, everything, but everything just continued to make them laugh.

  ‘We’ve been such silly sausages!’ said Mr Bold. ‘I’ve just watched a cookery programme on that talking box thing—’

  ‘The TV, dear?’ interrupted Mrs Bold.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. And guess what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well. You know that lovely, thick moisturiser we’ve been using that makes our fur nice and soft?’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ answered Mrs Bold. ‘What about it? It rubs in very nicely. And I do so love the smell.’

  ‘Apparently it’s not moisturiser at all. It’s called butter, and it’s what humans spread on bread!’

  ‘No!’ said Mrs Bold. ‘I can’t believe we’ve been so silly again!’ And the Bolds laughed until tears ran down their furry, butter-scented cheeks. Once they’d calmed down, Mr Bold pointed out that they’d just learned another important lesson.

  ‘Have we, dear?’ said Amelia, wiping her face with what she thought was a handkerchief.

  ‘Well, yes. There is an awful lot to learn in this life, but learning can be fun!’

  ‘I’ll say!’ agreed Mrs Bold, holding out her hanky for inspection. ‘I’ve just learned this handkerchief thing is in fact a pair of knickers!’

  And of course they both collapsed with laughter once more.

  However, despite all the laughter, there was something more serious that they soon learned about.

  Nearly every morning, brown papery things kept on arriving in the letter box. They naively assumed that these were leaves blown through by a gust of wind, but they actually turned out to be things called ‘bills’ that required paying with that other papery stuff known as ‘money’. And the money they had found in the house was running out.

  ‘Well what happens if we don’t pay these silly bill-things?’ asked Mrs Bold after looking in her purse and finding it empty.

  ‘Nothing much,’ said Mr Bold cheerfully. ‘We saw that programme about it on the telly-box thing. For some reason they send some babies round. I can’t think why.’

  ‘Babies?’ questioned Mrs Bold.

  ‘So they said.’

  Mrs Bold looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Oh no, you’ve got it wrong, Fred, I remember now, it was bailiffs, not babies, silly.’

  ‘What’s a bailiff?’

  ‘A debt collector. Much less pleasant than a baby, I think you’ll find. If you can’t pay your bills, the bailiffs come round and take items of value away from your home.’

  ‘Yikes!’ said Fred.

  ‘We’d better get hold of some more money, quick, I think,’ said Mrs Bold soberly.

  Where does a fish keep his money?

  In a river bank!

  ‘Stop it, Fred, this is serious!’ said Mrs Bold, trying not to laugh.

  Knock, knock!

  Who’s there?

  Cash!

  Cash who?

  I knew you were a nut!

  Laughing made the Bolds feel better, but it didn’t really help matters.

  After some investigation, Mrs Bold came up with a solution one morning. ‘It seems that humans go to work. They have things called jobs. They get paid with money and then they can pay their bills and buy food, clothes and everything else.’

  ‘Really?’ said Fred. ‘I wondered why everyone seems to rush about every morning as if they’re in a hurry.’

  ‘They’re on their way to work,’ pointed out Mrs Bold.

  ‘So how do we get one of these jobs? Can we buy one?’

  ‘No, don’t be silly,’ said Mrs Bold. ‘I’ve seen some advertised in the back of the Teddington Gazette. Let’s have a look... Job Vacancies.’

  There were lots of jobs Mr and Mrs Bold fancied doing.

  ‘Dental Receptionist! We’ve got lovely teeth, haven’t we?’ said Mr Bold enthusiastically.

  ‘Yes, dear, we have. But I don’t think we’d want to boast about them, do you?’

  ‘Ah, no, you’re right. Might give us away, eh?’

  ‘Agreed. Retail Assistant?’

  ‘Oh yes! We know all about tails, we could do that! “How may I assist you with your tail, sir? Needs a good brush, does it? Leave it to me, sir!” When can we start?’

  ‘No, Fred. It means working in a shop. Retail means selling things. And this is a posh clothes shop.’ She looked her husband up and down. ‘I don’t think we’d be right for that, somehow. We’ve only just got the hang of clothes ourselves.’ She returned to the list. ‘Waiting staff?’

  ‘Yup.’ Fred nodded. ‘I can wait. Did it for hours waiting for prey in the wild. Watch!’ He stood motionless for several seconds. ‘See. I’m waiting patiently. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Why anyone would want to pay me for waiting around, I can’t imagine. But I’m very good at it.’

  Mrs Bold shook her head. ‘Waiting means waiting on tables in a restaurant. You can’t do that. You’d be a dreadful waiter. You’d lick the plates. And so would I, to be honest. Couldn’t resist!’

  There were lots of jobs on offer, but nothing the Bolds could seriously imagine themselves doing.

  ‘I’ve realised that the trick with jobs,’ said Mr Bold when they were almost at the end of the list, ‘is to do something you’re good at. So what am I good at?’

  ‘Er,’ said Mrs Bold. ‘Well, er, let me think...’

  ‘There must be something!’

  ‘Well, back in Africa you were very good at chasing and catching antelope.’

  ‘There we have it!’ said Mr Bold, jumping to his feet. ‘Aren’t there any jobs like that? Is there a professional antelope chaser required?’

  Mrs Bold shook her head. ‘No, Fred. Nothing like that at all, I’m afraid. Not in Teddington.’

  ‘I’m good at scratching fleas! Any flea scratchers needed?’

  Mrs Bold checked the list again. ‘Nope. I’m afraid not.’

  They both stared gloomily at the newspaper, wondering what they could do.

  Sadly, it didn’t seem as if there were any jobs suitable for the Bolds and their particular talents. A few days later, they had no money left at all. They ate all the food they found in tins at the back of the cupboard. They chomped their way through a leather handbag, some gloves and a belt, but they weren’t very tasty or nutritious. Eventually they were driven back to their old hyena ways – hunting and scavenging.

  Mrs Bold went creeping out under the cover of darkness wearing a large hat (well, she thought it was a hat, but you and I would recognise it as a lampshade) and caught a few squirrels and a pigeon. Mr Bold rummaged in next doo
r’s bins when no one was looking and found a half-eaten apple pie and some potato peelings.

  Of course Mr and Mrs Bold didn’t mind getting food this way – it was what they were used to after all. But there was a risk that they would be spotted. On her way home from a hunt one evening, Mrs Bold wondered why people were staring at her more often than usual and it wasn’t until she looked in the hall mirror that she discovered she had a telltale grey feather sticking out of her mouth. And the neighbours heard their bin lids clanking one night and came outside with a torch: Mr Bold had to hide inside the bin for half an hour until the coast was clear. Their nocturnal activities were becoming dangerous – if they were caught then their true hyena identities would be revealed and their new life in Teddington would be over.

  But it wasn’t only food that the Bolds needed money for. There were bills for gas, water, electricity and all manner of other household expenses that kept arriving – some of them now printed in red, which apparently means they are urgent and must be paid without delay, or else.

  ‘If the babies – I mean bailiffs – arrive, what shall we do?’ asked a worried Mrs Bold.

  ‘We could growl at them,’ offered Mr Bold. ‘Or nip them on the ankle if necessary?’

  ‘I don’t think that will help in the long run,’ said Mrs Bold. ‘It won’t make the bills go away, and they’d probably call the police.’

  Mr Bold’s face lit up.

  What did the policeman say to his tummy?

  “You are under a vest!”

  Mrs Bold cackled with delight at Mr Bold’s joke.

  ‘Oh Fred, you are funny! That’s one thing you are good at.’

  ‘I wish I could get a job just being funny,’ said Mr Bold, wistfully.

  Now, wishes are powerful things in my experience. Have you ever made a wish and then had it come true? Like wishing you could have chips for tea? Or wishing the rain would stop so you can go outside to play? Or wishing you could have a baby brother or sister? It’s as if someone is listening to our wishes and then grants them. No one can explain this. But be careful what you wish for, because sometimes – really quite often – wishes do come true! That is exactly what happened to the Bolds...

  It was a week later and things were getting desperate. The Bolds had eaten most of the plants in the garden and even pinched the scraps of stale bread from next door’s bird table. They were contemplating chewing the chair legs to try and stop the pangs of hunger, when there was a rattle of the letterbox and a thud on the doormat.

  ‘Ah, the Gazette is here!’ said Mrs Bold, racing to get the paper.

  ‘Can we eat it?’ asked Mr Bold. ‘Might be nice with marmalade.’

  ‘Not yet. Let’s see if there are any jobs on offer first,’ said Mrs Bold. And what a good thing it was that they didn’t eat it! There, at the top of the ‘Job Vacancies’ page, was the perfect job for Mr Bold.

  ‘FRED!’ cried Mrs Bold. ‘Listen to this! “Joke Writer wanted urgently for Teddington Christmas Cracker Factory. No qualifications needed, but successful applicant must be extremely funny.”’

  ‘This is the job I’ve been waiting for!’ said Fred excitedly. The job he’d wished for, he might have added. Fred called the number in the paper at once and arranged an interview for the next day.

  He wore a smart tweed jacket and a red tie he’d found in the wardrobe. A trilby hat covered his ears nicely. He even had a squirt of aftershave – which was really wasp killer, but it smelled lovely, according to Mrs Bold.

  The Christmas Cracker Factory was a twenty-minute walk from Fairfield Road and Mr Bold arrived early for his interview, so the receptionist kindly made him a cup of tea.

  ‘Help yourself to biscuits,’ she said, placing a large plate piled high with custard creams in front of him. Mr Bold’s eyes lit up. All he’d had for breakfast was a few snails he’d found in the garden and some birdseed. So help himself he did. He thoughtfully put a few in his pocket for Mrs Bold, then scoffed the rest. He was therefore in a very jolly mood when he was called into the main office to be interviewed by the factory owner, a friendly, sparkly-eyed woman called Mrs Greenwood. After some pleasant chitchat about the weather, the real test began.

  ‘We need our joke writer to have a wide range of funny jokes up his or her sleeve. Jokes of all sorts. So I’ll say a subject and you tell me a joke. Ready, Mr Bold?’

  ‘Ready when you are!’ said Fred, clearing his throat and dusting some biscuit crumbs off his tie.

  ‘Let’s start with... volcano?’

  What did the volcano say to the other volcano?

  “I lava you!”

  ‘Excellent! Elephant?’

  What time is it when the elephant sits on the fence?

  Time to fix the fence!

  ‘Ha ha! Ducks?’

  What time do ducks wake up?

  The quack of dawn!

  ‘Great! Dinosaurs?’

  What do you call a dinosaur with no eyes?”

  Doyouthinkhesaurus?!”

  ‘Brilliant! School teachers?’

  What do you do if a teacher rolls her eyes at you?

  Roll them back!

  ‘Excellent!’ exclaimed Mrs Greenwood. ‘You’re very good at this, Mr Bold. Let’s try some more. Ghosts?’

  Why are ghosts such bad liars?

  Because you can see right through them!

  ‘Good one! Bees?’

  Why do bees have sticky hair?

  Because they use honeycombs!

  ‘Another corker. Vampires?’

  What do you get if you cross a vampire with a snowman?

  Frostbite!

  ‘This is all very impressive,’ said Mrs Greenwood, making a few notes on her pad and chuckling to herself. ‘Now let’s see how you are with riddles. Know any good ones?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Bold confidently. ‘Try these...

  What starts with P and ends in E and has a million letters in it?

  Post office!

  What has a face and two hands but no arms or legs?

  A clock!

  What can you catch but can’t throw?

  A cold!

  Mrs Greenwood held up her hand. ‘OK, Mr Bold! I see you know lots of riddles. Last category is knock-knock jokes.’

  Without a pause Mr Bold began.

  Knock, knock!

  Who’s there?

  Mikey.

  Mikey who?

  Mikey doesn’t fit in the lock!

  Knock, knock!

  Who’s there?

  Howard.

  Howard who?

  Howard I know?

  Knock, knock!

  Who’s there?

  Frank

  Frank who?

  Frank you for being my friend!

  ‘Oh, Mr Bold, how on earth did you get to be so funny?’ laughed Mrs Greenwood.

  ‘It comes very naturally,’ replied Fred modestly.

  A few days later a phone call informed Fred Bold he was appointed to the job of Joke Writer at the Christmas Cracker Factory. He and Mrs Bold celebrated with steak and chips.

  And as is often the way, once their luck changed, things just got better and better. To cover her ears, Mrs Bold always wore hats – or what she thought were hats. Before leaving the house she often grabbed whatever she could find. Cushions, wastepaper bins, shopping baskets, a birdcage – as long as her head and ears weren’t on view, she was happy. Then, when she was out and about, she started to get admiring looks and compliments from other women about her eye-catching headwear.

  ‘Where did you get that lovely and most unusual hat from?’ asked a woman on the bus one day.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Bold, glancing up at the flowerpot she had slung on to her head that morning and then, because it was a bit wobbly, secured with a tartan tea towel tied under her chin, ‘I, um, made it!’

  ‘Did you?’ gasped the woman. ‘Do you think you could make me one? Only I’m going to a wedding next week and a hat like that would be just the thing.’

  �
��Er, certainly,’ said Mrs Bold.

  ‘I’ll pay you, of course,’ said the woman. And so Mrs Bold’s hat business began. The woman on the bus told her friend, who also wanted a hat, and she told her friends and so on and so on. The whole thing mushroomed. Within a few weeks Mrs Bold opened a stall at Teddington market, selling hats of every description. During the week she made hats out of whatever she could find – the crazier the better, it seemed, as far as her customers were concerned: old shoes, empty tins, dustbin lids, birds’ nests, even cardboard food wrappings. Then on Saturdays she sold them at the stall. The more bizarre the hats, the more her customers snapped them up.

  So with Mr Bold’s wages from the Cracker Factory and the income Mrs Bold’s hats generated, the Bolds could pay all their bills and afford to go shopping for as much food as they wanted.

  They were very happy and contented. They didn’t think they could be any happier – but they were wrong about that...

  One evening they decided to treat themselves to dinner at the local burger bar and that evening Mrs Bold had a tummy ache. But it wasn’t a dodgy burger, as she at first believed – in fact she was having a baby. Then another. Or perhaps we should say pups!

  Yes, that was the night the twins Betty and Bobby were born.

  The moment they arrived, Mr Bold looked at them and wondered if it was too soon to tell them a joke. He decided it wasn’t.

  What did the mummy snake say to the crying baby snake?

  “Stop crying and viper your nose!”

  ‘So that is our family secret,’ Mr Bold concluded to his children, who were wide awake still, fascinated and amazed by everything they had heard. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you? Imagine if you’d just found out you were really a hyena living a secret life.