Uncle Shawn and Bill and the Almost Entirely Unplanned Adventure

by A. L. Kennedy

  Uncle Shawn waved at Maude and Ethel as they screamed at each other in the sprout patch. They didn’t notice him. He waved as Farmer McGloone cut down a small tree that had done him no harm, and then hopped about and shouted when it fell over and landed in the wrong place and squashed a stack of new sock boxes. Farmer McGloone didn’t notice Uncle Shawn, either. Then Uncle Shawn ambled back down the path and left the farm, still carrying the little cat.

  And by this time he had seen – and sniffed – all that he needed to.

  Behind him, the McGloone children watched him go and wondered if he might come back and worry them again, or stop them doing anything else they enjoyed. They were unhappy, so they all kicked each other until they felt better.

  “I wish it was spring,” said Socket Wrench. “Then we could stamp on little frogs, or smash birds’ nests.”

  The other McGloones nodded, but even the idea of doing those unpleasant things didn’t really cheer them up.

  SECTION SEVEN

  In which Badger Bill wakes up one day nearer to his big fight and gets even more scared, although he is brave and handsome. We also learn that dashing and intelligent badgers brush their tails to make them glossy, especially if they have especially fine tails. Never tell a badger that he only has a stumpy little tail and needn’t bother brushing it – that will upset him, or her. But not as much as making her, or him do press-ups before breakfast.

  While Uncle Shawn was taking the little cat all the way home to its mother, Badger Bill was trying to run back to his home.

  As soon as Ethel opened the door of the cold tripe-storing barn where he’d had to sleep, Bill rushed out for freedom. But Maude bounded after him and caught him by his tail, which really hurt. Then she slapped both his ears until he was dizzy and sore.

  “Bessst to get usssed to it, dearie. Thessse love tapsss will toughen you up for tomorrow’sss fight. And if you still feel like running – then you can run for usss. All day.” Which was a kind of joke, so she laughed like a blocked sink.

  After that, Ethel slapped his ears, too – and giggled. “And wear your red shorts.”

  “But they rub my knees,” said Bill very quietly, “and they have no room for my tail.”

  “Put them on, dearie,” grinned Ethel, “or I shall get my tripe knife and snip off your precious tail.”

  Then – while Uncle Shawn was drinking milk and eating sardines with the mother cat – Maude began Bill’s training by forcing him to do press-ups. Press-ups are hard for badgers because they have short arms.

  Then Ethel ordered him to run up and down inside the barn where the two sisters stored and made imitation tripe. The tripe was used for packing round pianos and filling out the bits in newspapers that would otherwise be blank, or for making speeches by important people much longer and more boring.

  Uncle Shawn had passed quite close to the barn while the sisters had been arguing so loudly amongst the sprout plants. And all around the barn there had been a clear scent of misery – the kind of scent you would get if a harmless and golden-hearted badger had been locked up all night with nothing to sleep on or to keep him warm but scraps of old, crumpled tripe.

  There had been no bed for Bill, no pillow, no mattress and no quilt with pictures of famous badgers on it, like he had in his bedroom.

  After a few hours of running, Bill was a little bit warm, because of all the chasing back and forth in his boxing boots that were too small and hurt his paws. He had said nothing after Ethel had threatened to cut off his tail, because he didn’t know how he would manage without it. It was one of his best features and when he was at home he brushed it every morning. He didn’t believe that he would ever get home again, and he felt very cold and tiny when he remembered his tail brush and slippers and how he would make toast for breakfast every morning and crunch it down while he looked out of the window and imagined good adventures that didn’t sting his ears.

  “I wanted exciting things to happen,” he thought. “This isn’t exciting. This is rotten and nasty and scary and hard.”

  And leaning over the wall at one side of the yard came the revolting faces of the revolting McGloone children. Uncle Shawn had put them into a bad mood and they slapped their meaty chins down on the top of the wall and glowered at Bill as he passed back and forth in the barn windows. They were meaty and angry and greasy and full of nastiness. (Very like the homemade pies they loved so much.)

  Then from the other side of the farm, their mother screamed, “Breakfast! You thieving little earwigs! Have you done your chores?”

  “No, you big bag of beetles,” the little McGloones muttered. But they wanted breakfast and so they backed away from the wall, still eyeing Bill.

  Bill heard Socket Wrench say, “Fresh pies soon for breakfast.” And then they made snickering, giggling noises and left him.

  SECTION EIGHT

  In which we find out more than we want to about the McGloones’ pie-making preparations. Readers who are sensitive should look away now until this bit has gone.

  After breakfast, Farmer and Myrtle McGloone chased their children outside by trying to kick them and waving the rolling pin at their heads.

  Then they opened up their biggest kitchen cupboard – the one with the well-oiled lock and enormous key. Then they peered inside and smiled at each other and rubbed their hands together happily, which made a noise like wet slippers.

  Inside the cupboard were rows and rows of knives: huge knives that were almost like swords, and middle-sized ones that were only as long as your arm, and small ones that you might use to peel a potato, and very tiny ones that seemed far too small to be useful for anything apart from maybe cutting the petals off daisies, or fighting wasps.

  Farmer McGloone ran his huge, hairy fists along the handles of the knives. He knew exactly what each of them was for. The shine from the blades glimmered in his eyes and he chuckled and took his wife’s hand. She kissed one of his leathery, wax-filled ears and sighed happily.

  Farmer said, “I think llama pies will be good. Better than walrus, or giraffe, or panda…”

  The McGloones had lured many animals to their farm from all over the world, simply to torment them and make them into pies.

  Myrtle nodded. “And much less bother than gibbons.”

  “Yes, they were a terrible trouble. It was as if they didn’t want to end up in chunks with gravy…” Farmer McGloone plucked a wiry hair from his earlobe and picked up a small knife that was made for peeling penguins. He pressed the very tip of the hair against the blade and it was immediately cut clean in half lengthways. “Yes. Nearly sharp enough,” he said. Then he pulled out the grinding stone with which he kept the knives as sharp as sharp and then sharper than that and sat down delightedly to make them all even sharper.

  Myrtle watched him adoringly.

  They truly were very nasty people.

  SECTION NINE

  In which Badger Bill gets another nasty fright and makes a number of wishes. And where is Uncle Shawn when Bill needs him? And Friday is nearly all over and tomorrow it will be Saturday, when bad things are going to happen…

  Bill’s lunch had not involved pies – which was just as well – but it hadn’t been nice. It was only some raw, stale eggs in a mug with something green and lumpy mixed in. “Good for a fighter, dearie, drink it down,” Ethel had said, and then she had made him lift weights and gave him a rope to skip with, when he was no good at skipping because badgers’ legs are very shapely and elegant in their way, but not long.

  By the time Bill couldn’t step or skip or lift any more, it was beginning to get dark. Ethel picked him up by his feet and carried him through to a small, secret-feeling yard, where Maude was waiting. She clapped her big, bacony hands together when she saw him and pointed to the large wire-mesh cage that took up most of the available space. “Here’sss where you’ll be fighting, dearie!” Maude gurgled with laughter. “Won’t he, Sssissster?”

  Ethel unlocked a door in the cage and tossed Bill inside as if he was very u
nimportant and alone – which was how he felt.

  “Enjoy yourssself, dearie. You’ll be having fun sssoon…” said Maude.

  Inside the cage was a small plate of stale tripe sandwiches and next to that was a tin mug of water. That was all the dinner Bill was going to get, but he didn’t really mind, because he felt sick with worry and didn’t want to eat anything. He wanted to curl up into a little ball the way he had in bed when he was a baby badger. He wished very hard that everything would go back to normal and be all nice again, and he closed his eyes and crossed his fingers…

  And nothing happened.

  And when he opened his eyes again he was still in a cage and still nearly at the end of Friday and still really, really sad all over. He sighed.

  This made the sisters laugh – there were few things they found more amusing than someone being unhappy and sighing. And then the sisters left him, their identical orange and lime-green tweed skirts and massive purple cardigans giving him a headache on top of everything else.

  Bill sighed again and turned round and round, trying to see if there was any way out of the cage. Badgers are excellent at digging, but the floor was made of hard concrete. And the concrete had marks on it that looked like the footprints of other sad badgers’ feet. And there were the scrapes of the paws of something else, something with big claws…

  Then he heard a noise.

  He glanced up and there was a huge steel-grey dog, with his gigantic, bristly muzzle right against the wire of the cage.

  This wasn’t a nice dog that you might play fetch with, or who would take you for a walk in the park, or show you how to cover every inch of yourself in mud just the way you should to prove that you’ve had lots of fun. This was the kind of dog who would only fetch you horrible things and try to bite you for fun and lie all the way along your furniture and not let you sit on even a tiny bit of it.

  The dog growled and laughed. “Grrrrr … harrharrharrharr. I’ve never seen anyone so pathetic.” The dog licked his lips and his nose both at once, because they were very close together and some dogs do that kind of thing. “Hrrrhrrrgrrr. It won’t take me more than a minute to finish you off.” The dog shrugged his shoulders and wriggled his back so that Bill could see that he was made of muscles and then covered in more muscles with some extra muscles on top. The dog was all muscles – except for the parts of him that were teeth – and big claws. “Eatchya for breakfast. And they’ll make a pretty little pie out of what’s left. They do it most Saturdays.”

  “Um…” Bill was a polite badger and also didn’t want to annoy the dog. “I’m Bill. Hello.” Then he thought it might be better if he sounded fierce, so he tried to make his voice low and growly. “That is… That is…” Only this just made him cough and sound very squeaky afterwards. “Kkcagh… Kkcagh… I’m Battling Bob Badger. I think.”

  “You said you were called Bill.” The dog sniggered. “Don’t you even know your own name?”

  “Bob is my fighting name.” Bill tried to say this as if he was really tough, but it just made the dog laugh so hard that it had to roll on to its back and wave its legs in the air. “Ah…” Bill tried to be friends, in case that might help. “Who are you, Mr Dog?”

  “Hrrrhrrr. Mr Dog… Fighting name… Harrharrhurr…” The dog was crying, he was laughing so much.

  In the end, the huge beast got its breath back, stood up and snarled, “I’m Ripper. And my brother is called Snapper. And my other brother is called Cracker.”

  Bill swallowed. “What imaginative parents you must have had.”

  “What does that mean?” Ripper stared at Bill as if he wanted to eat clever badgers more than anything else in the world. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Not at all. Not a bit. No, no, no… Ah, do your brothers live here, too, Mr Ripper?”

  The dog licked his own nose again. “Oh, we all live here and we all fight here. We’ll all be fighting you.”

  “What?” Bill could feel the white stripes on his face fur getting much whiter and wider. “But that’s not fair. I mean… There’s only one of me…”

  “I can count! I know there’s only one of you!” Ripper snapped his jaws together with delight. “Who cares about fair? We brothers just want a bite of warm badger. Like last week. Mmmmggrrrr. Nothing like a tasty bite of warm and tender badger.”

  “I’m not warm.”

  “You will be warm once we’ve chased you. Hrrr, hrrrr, harrharrharrharr.”

  “Well, I’m all stringy and full of gristle. My whole family are lumpy,” lied Badger Bill.

  “Oh, you’ll be tender once we’ve thumped you. And we chew bricks to keep our teeth hard, so we like lumps. Harrharrharrharr.” And Ripper leaned his muzzle against the wire mesh again and shouted, “Boo!”

  This made Bill jump, even though he knew it made him look scared. Then Ripper trotted away, singing a little song: “Badger pies are made with eyes and knees and toes and whiskers – we love ’em so bisscause – we doooo…” Which didn’t rhyme properly, but Bill thought he shouldn’t say so in case it made Ripper even more cross and snarly and terrifying.

  Badger Bill sat down, because he was feeling wobbly. He stared at his knees, which were shaking, and tried to think what he should do. He put one paw into the other, so that he could pretend he was holding someone else’s hand, someone who could help him.

  By now, the night had crept in, very apologetically, because it knew that it would worry Bill. After the night would come the morning … and it would be Saturday … and that would be the scariest day of all.

  Bill looked up at the clear, twinkling sky and wished he had learned the names of the stars properly, and knew that he really, really, really needed a friend.

  SECTION TEN

  In which the llamas discover that they are not very good at making escape plans and cry a lot. Where is Uncle Shawn? It’s even nearer to Saturday than it was before…

  On the other side of the farm, the llamas were also looking up at the stars. It was easy for them to see the whole sky because they had to sleep outside, lying down in the damp grass. Their view was a bit wet and misty, though, because of the rain and because they were all crying. Brian Llama had told them all about being made into pies and wallets and things and each of them felt cold and scared right into their backbones – which is a horrible way to feel.

  “Oh, dear,” sighed Guinevere Llama, “we must be able to think of ways to escape. We’re intelligent llamas.” She caught sight of Brian Llama and changed her mind. “Well, we’re all llamas, anyway. Llamas are known for being wild and wily and for scaling walls and digging secret tunnels.”

  “No, we’re not,” said Brian Llama. “We’re known for having wool and spitting at people.”

  “Except we’ve got almost no wool left and I’ve been crying too much to be able to spit at anyone,” moaned Carlos Llama. “I don’t want to be a wallet. Or a pie. I don’t even like pie.”

  “What if we disguised ourselves as cows and slipped away?” suggested Ginalolobrigida Llama.

  Brian sighed. “We don’t have cow disguises. And four cows trying to catch a bus or get on a train would attract too much attention.”

  “We could phone for a cab,” said Ginalolobrigida Llama.

  “We’re llamas – we don’t have any money for a cab,” snapped Brian.

  “And we don’t have phones, either,” said Guinevere, which was very clever of her, but also very sad and unhelpful.

  “Then why don’t we climb over the electric fences?” asked Carlos Llama.

  Brian sighed even harder. “Because they’re electric. They’re very dangerous – one jolt from them would turn you into burned toast – big, llama-shaped toast. Only one of us gets out at a time through the gate to fetch the food. And the electricity is always kept turned on – you can hear it sizzling.”

  Carlos sniffled. “I’m sorry, I’m so tired and cold that I forgot.”

  The other three llamas drooped their heads and started crying again. Brian tried to
cheer them up. “Look, maybe I could escape the next time I go to get the food and then maybe I could find someone who would help us and maybe…” But he couldn’t really think where he would go and he didn’t know anybody in the whole of Scotland except the McGloones. He also knew that llamas are very tall and obvious – even at night – and someone would recognize him and send him back.

  At that point, Farmer McGloone came to the big fence at the foot of the field, wearing his bright red electricity-proof rubber suit and gloves and carrying his small, mean torch to show him the way over the bumpy, wet grass. He opened up the gate with his gloves and walked in, shouting at the llamas, “Come here, you big, daft lumps of llama – see what I’ve got for you.” And he set down four enormous buckets of hot porridge with fresh raspberries and bananas in, which llamas love.

  Brian was just about to shout, “Quick, we can overpower him and then perhaps steal his car! Except we can’t drive! But we could try to! Or we could all push it!” But the other llamas were too excited by the first proper food they’d seen since they left Peru, and they rushed forward and started eating. And while they were in Brian’s way, Farmer McGloone just slipped out through the gate and locked it again, and then grinned the grin of someone who has decided to fatten up his llamas so that they’ll make better pies and bigger wallets.

  It was far too late for this to work, but Farmer McGloone was very stupid and also very mean. He would never have fed the llamas properly for even a week – it would have cost too much.

  Brian looked at Farmer McGloone’s big, yellowy teeth shining in the light of the stars and the torch. Brian shuddered and tried not to think of what it would be like to be covered in pastry. And he tried not to think of a horrible McGloone voice saying “Slish-slash.”