The Grunts In Trouble

by Philip Ardagh

  Buzz. Buzz.

  When Sunny finally caught up with Mr and Mrs Grunt they were outside the caravan about a mile and a half further down the road from where they’d been attacked by bees, having a tug-of-war with Ginger Biscuit. Clip and Clop were busy chewing some brightly coloured flowers in the flowerbed of a pretty cottage garden.

  “Give it here, wife!” Mr Grunt was shouting, trying to pull the doorstop cat from Mrs Grunt’s grasp.

  “He’s MINE,” Mrs Grunt protested, “and he ain’t an it, he’s a he—”

  “It’s nothing but a moth-eaten sawdust-filled doorstop!” roared Mr Grunt (who was secretly quite fond of Ginger Biscuit too, but was never going to tell Mrs Grunt that).

  “I’m back!” said Sunny.

  Mr Grunt stopped tugging, causing Mrs Grunt to topple backwards on to the ground.

  “HA!” laughed Mr Grunt. “Serves you right!”

  “I meant to fall over,” said Mrs Grunt, sitting up and dusting herself down. “I loves falling over … Where did you run off to?” she asked Sunny as she got to her feet, clutching Ginger Biscuit in one hand and rubbing her head with the other.

  “I was trying to help Mimi – the girl being chased by the bees,” said Sunny. Hadn’t it been obvious?

  “You took our honey,” grunted Mr Grunt.

  “She needed help!” Sunny protested.

  “Why?” asked Mrs Grunt. “What does she have to do with us?”

  “It was Dad who kicked the pylon and that’s what upset the bees,” said Sunny. “We were responsible. And anyway, shouldn’t we help people?”

  Mr and Mrs Grunt looked at each other then burst out laughing. “Help people? You do get some funny ideas sometimes, Sunny!” said Mr Grunt. “Now, go and hitch up creaky old Clip and Clop, will you? We have an appointment to keep.”

  That was the first Sunny had heard about any appointment. “We do?” he asked.

  “We do.” Mr Grunt nodded.

  Sunny was trying to get the two donkeys out of the cottage garden when Elsie Spawn, the elderly owner of the cottage – a very angry-looking woman with very blue hair – threw open her bedroom window and started shouting.

  “Vandals!” she shouted. “Turnip-heads! Vagabonds! Hoodlums! Looters! Pillagers!” She was getting more and more purple in the face.

  What Mr and Mrs Grunt and Sunny didn’t know was that Elsie Spawn had been doing a crossword when she’d spotted Clip and Clop eating her lovely flowers. And, along with a sharp pencil (with a rubber on the end) and a nice cup of tea, there were two things Elsie Spawn always kept close to hand when doing a crossword: a dictionary and a thesaurus.

  She used the dictionary to check the spelling of words she was trying to fit into the little white squares. She used the thesaurus to find words with similar meanings to other words in the clues, because that’s what it’s there for. She quickly looked down the page of the thesaurus for more insults: “Mischief-makers! Plunderers! THIEVES!”

  Mr Grunt had been merrily ignoring the insults raining down on Sunny as he led the donkeys back to the caravan, but he couldn’t let the word THIEVES pass without action.

  He stomped off the asphalt into the garden, trampling flowers as he went. “No, lady,” he bellowed. “THIS is what thieves do!’ He wrapped his arms round a pretty flowering bush and with one swift tug pulled the whole thing out of the ground. And using his poshest voice – the one that he usually saved for talking to judges in court – said, “I’ll thank you to remember the difference.” He began lugging the bush back to the caravan, fuming indignantly.

  Elsie Spawn was aghast. She was agape; agog; dumbstruck; dumbfounded. (You get the picture.)

  As well as the day’s crossword, a nice sharp pencil, a cup of tea, a dictionary and a thesaurus, there was something else Elsie Spawn had readily to hand.

  Perhaps I should have mentioned it earlier, but I have a lot to think about, you know. My shiny shoes don’t polish themselves.

  She had a blunderbuss loaded with black peppercorns.

  Before you could say, “Ready! Take aim! Fire!”, she’d lifted the firearm to the open window and pulled the trigger. There was a bang loud enough to wake a sleeping chicken, and an almost blinding flash followed by a cloud of soot-like smoke.

  When the smoke cleared, Elsie Spawn’s hair no longer looked blue, and Mr Grunt had dropped the bush and was dancing around in circles clutching the seat of his trousers with both hands, howling like someone who’d just been shot in the bottom with a hail of black peppercorns. Clip and Clop had been frightened by the sudden flash-bang-wallop, so bared their teeth, started “Hee-haw”-ing, and kicked the nearest thing, which happened to be Mrs Grunt. She went flying through the air, past her dancing husband, and – much to her utter amazement – landed in a seated position on the top step of the caravan.

  Back in her bedroom, meanwhile, Elsie Spawn was looking around for something to reload the blunderbuss with. She spotted a jar full of hairpins on her dressing table and quickly tipped the contents into her arthritic fingers, stuffing them down the trumpet-like end of the blunderbuss.

  Soon she was ready to fire a second time, and thrust the nose of her weapon through the open window once more. Her face dropped in disappointment when she saw that the boy in the blue dress had managed to hitch up the donkeys and the blaggards/brutes/rascals were getting away!

  She fired the blunderbuss just for the fun of it anyway, the lethal hairpins glinting in the fading light, like a flash of silvery fish darting through clear waters. They landed harmlessly in the garden, embedded in the lawn, flowerbeds and the trunks of trees.

  The flash and the bang were less harmless though: they caused Elsie Spawn’s once-blue hair to catch alight.

  She snatched a bedside jug of water and tipped it over her head. There was a hiss like frying bacon.

  Elsie Spawn looked down on her damaged garden in dismay and at the bush lying in the middle of the lane. She then caught a glimpse of her reflection in her dressing-table mirror. She looked as if she’d been rolling in the ashes of a camp fire.

  The elderly lady sighed. She didn’t know their names but she certainly wouldn’t forget the Grunts in a hurry. Whoever they were, they were nothing but trouble.

  The appointment Mr Grunt had talked about was round the back of a dingy old barn about two hours’ ride away by caravan. If the barn was dingy, round the back of it was dingier still. Mrs Grunt gave Sunny a large nettle-and-goat’s-cheese roll and a bottle of home-made conker fizz, and Mr Grunt told him to wait round the back for a Mr Lippy.

  “Don’t talk to anyone else,” he said.

  “How will I know he’s Mr Lippy?” said Sunny.

  “Ask him his name,” said Mrs Grunt.

  “But if he turns out not to be Mr Lippy then I’ll have talked to someone who isn’t him, and Dad said—”

  Mrs Grunt frowned. “You think too much, Sunny,” she said. “Bad for your brain. If you want to grow up smart like your dad, don’t think so much.”

  “You’ll know Mr Lippy is Mr Lippy when you see him,” Mr Grunt assured the boy. “Now leave us be.”

  Sunny left Mr and Mrs Grunt in the caravan, huddled in front of the television set. The television was one of those old box-shaped ones – not a flat screen – but the actual telly part had been taken out long ago and replaced with a fish tank that fitted inside it perfectly. Beautifully lit, the Grunts loved watching the handful of colourful fish dart around inside it, between plastic weeds. Mrs Grunt was always sure to stick her beloved Ginger Biscuit on the sofa between her and Mr Grunt, his glass eyes facing the little fishes.

  The barn and surrounding field were used for everything from dances to amateur plays, fêtes to pig races, and dog shows to prize-vegetable competitions. All over the outer walls there were torn remains of posters announcing these various events, which had been pasted up, then pasted over with new ones, over the years.

  As the summer evening light began to fade, Sunny found himself finishing off his roll
and trying to make sense of the snatches of words: FOR ONE OR TWO NIGHTS ONLY … back by fairly popular demand … CHILDREN ALMOST FREE … You Won’t Believe Your Half-Closed Eyes … PAY AT DOOR OR SNEAK IN LATE … in its 3rd quite good year … Singing! Dancing! Falling Over! … Nearly All You Can Eat! There were also the names of various actors, singers and performers dotted among the shreds of poster, but one name seemed to leap out at him: THE REMARKABLE CHINN TWINS.

  Where had he heard them mentioned before?

  “Boo!” said a voice.

  Sunny gave a little jump and turned to find himself face-to-face with a man with unnaturally curly hair and an enormous pair of bright-red lips. In the failing light, Sunny could see that his skin was a pale, chalky white.

  Sunny suddenly felt nervous. Mr Grunt had told him that he’d know Mr Lippy was Mr Lippy when he saw him, and here was a man with enormous lips. This could, of course, mean that the man’s real name wasn’t Mr Lippy but that he called himself Mr Lippy on account of his lips …

  … the only problem was that if the man with the humongous lips wasn’t Mr Lippy and Sunny asked him if he was Mr Lippy, he might not take too kindly to someone asking such an apparently rude question. And he might punch Sunny on the nose.

  “Are you looking for a Mr L?” asked the man.

  “Y-yes,” said Sunny. “A Mr Lippy.”

  “Then you found him! I’m Lippy by name, Lippy by nature!” said the man in a sing-song tone that somehow suggested to Sunny that he’d said it a thousand times before.

  Mr Lippy looked at Sunny closely, taking in the sticky-up hair, the wonky ears – the left much higher than the right – and, of course, the blue dress. “Have you got something for me?” he asked.

  “Er, no,” said Sunny. “Am I supposed to have?”

  “Are you sure you haven’t been given something to give to me?”

  “All Dad gave me was a nettle-and-goat’s-cheese roll and a bottle of home-made conker fizz,” said Sunny.

  “Is that it?” asked Mr Lippy, pointing at an old Coke bottle filled with a rich, brown, gravy-thick liquid and stoppered with a small cork. It was propped up against the tree stump where Sunny had been sitting.

  “Yup.” Sunny nodded.

  “Aren’t you thirsty?” asked the big-lipped Mr Lippy.

  “It’s not because I’m not thirsty that I’m not drinking it,” said Sunny, tying himself in “nots”.

  “Then why not?”

  “Because it tastes disgusting,” said Sunny.

  “May I?” said Mr Lippy.

  “Be my guest,” said Sunny.

  Mr Lippy bent down, put the neck of the bottle between his super-ginormous lips, pulled out the cork with them, spitting it into the grass, and then glugged down the conker fizz in one go. When he’d finished, he smacked his lips – and that was one BIG smack – then wiped them on his sleeve – with one BIG wipe.

  “Ah!” said Mr Lippy. “You’re absolutely right, son. That was truly horrible.”

  For a fleeting millisecond, Sunny wondered whether Mr Lippy had called him son because he was his real father, or because he was someone who called most boys son if he didn’t know their names. As a reflex action, he found himself glancing down at the man’s feet to see if he was wearing super-shiny black shoes (as he thought he remembered his father had worn). It turned out Mr Lippy was wearing shoes far bigger than any human being’s feet could ever hope to be. And they were lime green.

  Sunny suddenly had a thought. A good one. “Er – Mr Lippy?” he asked. “Are you by any chance a clown?”

  “What on EARTH gave you that idea?” asked Mr Lippy, roaring with laughter. “My tight curly red hair? My lips painted bright red, my huge shoes, or my comedy squirty-flower?”

  “What comedy squirty-flower?” asked Sunny.

  Mr Lippy looked down at the lapel of his slightly threadbare mauve jacket. “Oh, botheration!” he snapped. “It must have dropped off on the way here.”

  “Aren’t you off duty?” asked Sunny, more than a little intrigued.

  “How do you mean?” asked Mr Lippy.

  “I mean, you’re here to meet me, but you’re still in—”

  “My clowning clobber? Not all of it. I’m not in my comedy trousers and funny stretch braces. It’s difficult to ride my bike when I’ve got them on.”

  “Isn’t it difficult to cycle wearing those?” asked Sunny, looking down at the huge pair of lime-green shoes.

  “Oh, not if I splay out my feet and pedal with my heels,” said Mr Lippy. “And, anyway, I couldn’t find my proper shoes. I think Trunk might have hidden them for a joke.”

  “Is Trunk a circus elephant?”

  Mr Lippy shook his head. “No, no. Not him. Don’t let Trunk hear you call him that! He’s a circus strongman. No neck to speak of. His body sort of ends and his head sort of begins with nothing in between.”

  “Oh,” said Sunny (because he thought he should say something).

  “But as much as I’d love to stay and chat, you’re supposed to have something for me.”

  “Maybe Dad forgot. Would you mind waiting here?”

  “As long as you’re quick,” said Mr Lippy.

  Sunny dashed round to the front of the barn and down a small track, veering off across the field to a clump of trees behind which the Grunts had parked the caravan out of sight.

  “Did you get it, Sunny?” asked Mr Grunt, eagerly looking up from the sofa.

  “He seems to think we’ve got something to give him, not the other way around,” said Sunny.

  Mr Grunt smacked himself in the middle of his forehead with the heel of his palm. “The envelope!” he said. “I forgot to give you the envelope. It’s in the top drawer of the kitchen dresser.”

  Sunny went over to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. On top of the usual mess of bits of string, bottle tops, takeaway menus and a single clothes peg was a sealed envelope. He pulled it out. “This one, Dad?” he asked.

  “That’s the one, Sunny,” said Mr Grunt. “You go and give him that. There’s a good lad.” He turned his attention back to the fish in the television.

  It was suddenly getting really dark now as Sunny made his way around the back of the barn. He was half expecting the clown not to be there, but Mr Lippy was sitting on the tree stump. “Got it?” he asked, rising to his (big-shoed) feet.

  “Got it,” said Sunny, handing him the envelope. “Though why Dad couldn’t just give it to you himself …”

  “Better this way,” said Mr Lippy. “This way, if anyone asks, we can honestly say that he and I have never met and certainly didn’t meet this evening.”

  “And why should anyone ask?” asked Sunny.

  Mr Lippy handed him a similar-sized envelope in return. “Elephants often lead to lots of questions,” said Mr Lippy.

  “Elephants?” said Sunny, but he was talking to thin air. Mr Lippy was already climbing on to his bicycle. Moments later, the clown was pedalling off into the night.

  “It’s a map,” Mr Grunt explained, opening the envelope at the kitchen table, unfolding the piece of paper from inside it. Mrs Grunt and Sunny sat either side of him.

  “Map?” asked Sunny excitedly.

  “You heard your father,” said Mrs Grunt. “M-O-P, map.”

  “That’s a mop,” snorted Mr Grunt.

  “No it isn’t,” said Mrs Grunt. “I know a map when I see one. And anyhows, a mop wouldn’t fit in an envelope that size!”

  “M-O-P spells mop!” said Mr Grunt.

  “Of course it does,” said Mrs Grunt. “But that’s got nothing to do with—”

  Mr Grunt banged his fist on the table. “You just said ‘M-O-P, map’,” he said.

  “Didn’t,” said Mrs Grunt (who secretly suspected she might have).

  “Did,” said Mr Grunt.

  “Didn’t!”

  “Did!”

  “Didn’t!”

  “Did!”

  “Didn’t!”

  “Did!”

 
“Didn’t!”

  “Did! Did! Did!” said Mr Grunt.

  While they were busy arguing, Sunny studied the hand-drawn map lying on the table. The most interesting part was where the big X was, next to what looked like a small wooden building. The other side of the X were two words: ELEPHANT HERE.

  “Dad?” he asked.

  “What?” asked Mr Grunt.

  “Did we just buy an elephant?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, Sunny. You just bought an elephant,” said Mr Grunt. “Nothing to do with me or your mother.”

  “If you say so,” said Sunny.

  “He did say so!” snorted Mrs Grunt. “I saw his lips move and everything.”

  “But it wasn’t my money,” said Sunny.

  “Money?” said Mr Grunt (with a grunt). “Who said anything about money?”

  “Sunny just did,” said Mrs Grunt helpfully.

  Mr Grunt glared at her.

  “Well, if it wasn’t money in the envelope, what was it then?” asked Sunny. “What else can you pay for a circus elephant with?”

  “Ooooh,” said Mrs Grunt. “So it’s not just any old kind of elephant – it’s a CIRCUS elephant. I had no idea.”

  “Of course you had no idea, wife,” said Mr Grunt. “Because this buying-of-an-elephant business was nothing to do with us, was it?”

  “I thought you said—”

  “WAS IT?” Mr Grunt glowered.

  “Um … No. You’re right, mister,” said Mrs Grunt with genuine pride at her husband’s scheming.

  “I’m only guessing it’s from a circus,” said Sunny, “because you … we … I bought it off Mr Lippy, who is a clown.”

  “We have taught you well, Sunny!” said Mr Grunt.

  “What was in the envelope, if it wasn’t money, Dad?”

  “Another map, drawn by me this time,” said Mr Grunt triumphantly.

  “A map leading to something Mr Lippy wants?” asked Sunny. “So it’s a sort of swap?”