The Wrong Night

by Katrine Robinson

  “Does all the food grow ready to eat on trees and plants?” he asked.

  Grumbo smiled: “No, only some of it – the very freshest. Oatcakes are special. The trees only produce them on Fridays, so we all try to make sure we get there on time. The roots have to reach all the way to the middle of North Staffordshire, which is a very long way away, so that they can get the right nutrients. There they’re fed on a top secret recipe known only to the Old Oatcake Bakers of Burslem.”

  “Do you have bacon and eggs and things like that too?” enquired Percy, hopefully.

  “We do – just follow me,” and Grumbo strode off.

  *****

  Percy hadn’t known it was possible to eat so much gorgeous delicious food and still want more. They went from path to path and village to village. He climbed Pudding Mountain and watched the hot red fragrant strawberry jam erupt from the centre and cascade down the sides as hundreds of Father Christmases reached out from the raised path with huge spoons and waiting bowls to collect it. He sailed on Custard Lake and helped himself. He drank from a lemonade fountain which had real lemons floating in it with an enticing scent that you could smell for miles around. He visited the glorious warm Chocolate Sauce Falls, and the Apricot Gardens where the fruit was always fat, ripe and juicy and just asking to be eaten and the walls were lined with fresh grapes and figs. He collected his own new laid eggs from the hens roaming through Greater Teatime and boiled them in the hot spring bubbling up from the stones that automatically rolled the eggs out when they were done. He ate warm bread baked for him in a hot cave oven by a Mother Christmas which came out with his name written on the top. He tasted all the Soup Ponds and had lunch at Pie Corner where there were more different kinds of pies than he had thought could exist. He picked his own salad in Munchit Green whose luscious round ripe tomatoes had a flavour and scent nothing like those from a shop.He walked round Sweetshop Crescent where humbugs hung from the bushes, pear drops flowered and the tree trunks and branches were made of coltsfoot rock. But best of all he thought, was Sherbert Fountain where your nose tickled as you got near and your tongue began to fizz - or perhaps the Creamery with its hundreds of kinds of ice-cream and real cream, its great heaps of meringues, wafers, chocolate flakes and bowls of fresh pineapple, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries that filled up again as fast as you ate them. It was a blissful morning!

  Chapter 8 -Letters and Chimneys

  “Time for your tour of the Training School,” announced Grumbo, “I’d better just rinse the bits off my beard first as we’re bound to meet Miss MacGrammar somewhere.” He shuddered at the thought, and then going to one of the streams that ran down the side of nearly every path, he leant over and dangled his beard in it. Percy looked on, critically:

  “You haven’t done the top bit,” he said. “There’s a bit of chocolate still on it, and isn’t that the lemonade stream?”

  “Yes,” agreed Grumbo, sticking his tongue out as far as it would go and licking around the bits of beard it could reach. “I do believe you’re right. Ah!Got it! Mmmm - lemonade and chocolate go rather well together.”

  “Who’s Miss MacGrammar,” asked Percy as they set off with Grumbo shaking the drops of surplus lemonade off his beard.

  “You’ll see, you’ll see!” said Grumbo, in a voice of deep foreboding, opening a giant oak door with ‘Father Christmas Training School’ written on a polished brass plate on it.

  The Door to the Training School

  The door led to an arched passageway off which many other doors opened on both sides, each with its own brass square.

  “Now, where should we start,” wondered Grumbo aloud. “Better get it over with, I suppose,” he added gloomily, going towards a dark narrow door on the right with “Letter Writing Class” on it. He seemed very nervous as he knocked and opened it.

  *****

  “No Henry! ‘We do NOT spell reindeer ‘RAIN DEAR’. Get your dictionary and look it up! It starts with R E.” - It sounded a little like Miss Carbuncle, thought Percy .Inside he could see about thirty young looking Father Christmases, all sitting behind wooden desks writing busily. They didn’t look very happy.

  “Good afternoon, Grumbo. – And who is your youthful companion?” enquired a tall woman with a large nose and small head, turning from the front of the class and looking first over her glasses and then under her glasses at them as they entered. She looked rather like a bird of prey, thought Percy.

  Miss MacGrammar

  “This is Percy, please Miss MacGrammar,” replied Grumbo deferentially. “He’s come to look around.”

  “I see,” replied Miss MacGrammar. She turned to Percy: “Grumbo here has the unhappy distinction of being my worst ever pupil. It took me three years to teach him to spell ‘stocking’ without missing out the ‘c’. However, even he attained success in the end.” She smiled frostily: “I expect you want to know what we do here?”

  “Yes please,” said Percy, shyly. Her next words filled him with horror:

  “In that case, the best way is for you to take a seat and join in,” she said. “You too, Grumbo. – I’m sure a little extra practice will do you no harm. There are seats over there.” She pointed and, miserably, Grumbo and Percy sat down where she indicated.

  “Now,” said Miss MacGrammar, “-the letter from a child writing in to Father Christmas that we are studying today is on the board. Here is a sheet of paper each and a pen each for you to write a suitable reply to them, and,” she added grimly, her long nose pointing at them menacingly, “I want no spelling mistakes.”

  Percy looked at the letter on the board. It read:

  ‘Dear Santa,

  I’m not shore I beleav in you, but if you are reel, plese can I have a dog for crismas.

  Jack

  PS sum choclate wood be nise good too’

  Percy thought hard:

  ‘Dear Jack,’ he began. ‘Thank you for riting to me.’ He put his pen down and looked at it. There was something wrong. He knew that wasn’t how you spelt it, but what did ‘writing’ begin with?

  “You need a ‘w’,” said a whisper behind his left ear, and a wisp of beard tickled against his shoulder.

  “Thanks!” he whispered back. He didn’t dare look round to see who his helper was in case Miss MacGrammar caught him. He bent over the paper and wrote:

  ‘I will see if I can bring a dog. It won’t fit in your stocking so I will leave it in your kitchen.You will have to remember to look after it and to take it for woarks every day. I will put the choclate in your stocking.

  Love

  Father Christmas’

  As he finished a torn scrap fluttered onto his desk. It just had one word written on it: ‘walks’.Percy could see Miss MacGrammar moving towards him so he crumpled the bit of paper in his hand and hastily corrected what he had written.

  “Now,” announced Miss MacGrammar, “- you have all had time to think about the exercise and should all have completed at least a draft response by now. Who can tell me what particular things we need to consider in our reply? - Yes, Rhodri?”

  “Where to put the dog on the sledge so that it doesn’t chew anything?”

  “No, Rhodri. Before that we need to consider IF we put a dog on the sledge. Why might you not want to take a dog?”

  “If it bites, Miss?”

  “If we’re allergic, Miss?”

  “If it’s got fleas, Miss!”

  “Quieten down class! No, those are not the reasons. Think about where Jack lives. Think about his parents.”

  “Is it because his parents are allergic?” asked a large earnest looking Father Christmas from the back.

  “Is it because his parents have fleas and they might give them to the dog?” asked Grumbo, looking innocent. Miss MacGrammar glared at him.

  “Yes, Brown. One of his parents having an allergy to dogs could be a reason. Can you think of any others?” The class went quiet as they thought:


  “If they haven’t got any dog food?” asked Brown.

  “Yes,” said Miss MacGrammar. “If they are too poor to buy dog food is a good reason. What about where they live? -They might not live in a house,” she hinted.

  “If they live in a cave?” suggested Grumbo. “The dog might get lost and fall down a deep crevasse and have to be rescued by the fire brigade.” Miss MacGrammar, looking steadfastly over Grumbo’s head at Rhodri, ignored him. Percy shyly put up his hand:

  “What if they live in a flat high up and don’t have a garden?” he asked.

  “Very good, Percy! They may not have room for a dog and they may have no-where to let it play outside. Can you think of any other things we need to consider in the letter - what about the request for chocolate?”

  “Might Jack be allergic to chocolate?”

  “Yes, that is certainly a possibility, Brown, though unlikely I feel. Anything else? – yes, Percy?”

  “He might be allergic to nuts, Miss, and some chocolate’s got nuts in.”

  “A very good point, Percy. We would need to take care that it was nut free chocolate.”

  “Is it because the dog might eat the chocolate and if it was allergic to it, it might swell up and have to be taken to the vet’s and they might not be open on Christmas day?” asked Grumbo. Miss MacGrammar closed her eyes briefly and sighed.Grumbo turned to the class. “I took a dog once, when I was young and foolish. A German Shepherd puppy it was. It was quiet as a lamb all the way and no trouble at all until we got down the chimney. Then it discovered there was a cat asleep at the end of the bed! After chasing each other round the room half a dozen times knocking over the furniture and making a terrific noise, the cat escaped up the chimney and the dog tried to follow. Only being a rather stupid animal, it got stuck on the bend just above the fire place and began to bark. I couldn’t get out through the chimney because the dog was stuck there, so I had to climb out of the window which was one of those which only open a tiny way and a bit of my beard got stuck in the hinge. I pulled this way and that way, but it was no good. I was fast there, dangling by my beard!”Grumbo paused for dramatic effect and glanced around his audience: “There was only one thing to be done!” Grumbo paused again: “I bit it off!It took a bit of chewing, but my teeth were young in those days.By then the father was trying to yank the dog down by the tail. When I got back up to the roof, minus half my beard, the cat was sitting calmly on the ridge tiles having a wash and chatting to Rudolph, as cool as a cucumber, and the dog was still barking below.”

  “Thank you for sharing that with us, Grumbo,” said Miss MacGrammar, dryly, picking up the paper from Grumbo’s desk and peering at it with a frown. “As your handwriting remains illegible, perhaps you would like to read us your contribution personally, before you move on.” Grumbo cleared his throat:

  “Dear Jack, “ he began. “Sorry, but I don’t do dogs. Choc’s fine though, and I’ll leave you a few of Rudolph’s sprouts to go with it. Course I’m real – are you? You should learn not to be so cheeky, but I’ll let you off because your spelling is even worse than mine. I can do a hamster if you like, but keep it away from the sprouts, or you can have a kitten if you don’t mind it being a bit sooty, but don’t let it pee in your bed. Don’t let the spelling stop you writing – it never did me. Cheers, Father Christmas.”

  Miss MacGrammar drew a deep breath. There was a pause. She appeared to be counting to ten. Her spectacles shuddered slightly on the long pointed nose. Not a Father Christmas moved, not a desk creaked. Every eye was on Miss MacGrammar. The room tensed. You could almost feel the silence.

  “GRUMBO! “ – The noise was like an explosion. “Your spelling is execrable, your writing unreadable, your grammar appalling, your style vulgar and the content of your response breaks almost every rule I can think of in the FC compliance manual.” Miss MacGrammar paused for breath: “I cannot imagine how you ever succeeded in passing your finals, for clearly the five years I spent on you were completely wasted. WASTED, Grumbo! I can only hope that you haven’t yet contaminated Percy with your sloppy habits and idleness.”

  “Yes, Miss MacGrammar. No, Miss MacGrammar.” replied Grumbo, looking a little shamefaced.

  “I am tempted,” she continued, “to tear up your work and throw it in the wastepaper basket where it undoubtedly belongs. However, I abhor waste, and so I have thought of a use for it. Henceforth it will be printed in the FC letter writing manual as a prime example of common faults and how not to compose a letter. Each year there will be a competition for those aged under 105 to see who can spot the most errors in it. The winner will receive a copy of my book ‘FC Grammatical Style’ and a tour of the Oatcake Groves of Burslem.

  “The Oatcake Groves! Oh, Miss MacGrammar!” – Grumbo’s voice faltered.

  “Yes, the Oatcake Groves. I am well aware of your obsession, Grumbo, and it will be fitting that each year, you should reflect on how your carelessness and idleness have ever prevented you from reaching them. I am sure that you will ensure that the same fate does not await Percy.” With that, Miss MacGrammar swept majestically to the door and held it open. A chastened Grumbo, followed by Percy, crept through.

  *****

  “Pheww!” exclaimed Percy as the door safely shut behind them. “She’s really peculiar! -Almost as bad as Miss Carbuncle!”

  “I can’t think why she doesn’t like me,” said Grumbo in a puzzled voice. “If everybody did it right she wouldn’t have a job – you’d think she’d be pleased when someone gets something wrong!”

  “I thought your reply was really good,” Percy said loyally, “I bet Jack would have thought so too.”

  “Wasn’t bad, was it,” replied Grumbo, proudly. “We’ll go to Silent Chimney Climbing next. That’ll be a bit more fun.”

  “Grumbo,” said Percy who had been thinking about things as they hurried down the corridor, “why did you put the bit about the sprouts going with the chocolate in? I mean, sprouts just don’t go with chocolate.”

  “Ah! That’s because of Rudolph. He’s obsessed with the things – eats them incessantly if you give him a chance, and he always smuggles an extra bag onto the sleigh when my back’s turned. I leave a few sprouts with every delivery so as to get rid of them.”

  “Why can’t you just let him eat them?” asked Percy.

  “Because they make his farts smell awful,” explained Grumbo. “He says it’s a good thing and they make him go faster, like a jet propelled rocket, but I’m the one sitting behind! Here we are.”

  The Silent Chimney Climbing classroom looked a bit like a gym, thought Percy. The ceiling was very high and there seemed to be quite a lot of apparatus about including ropes and climbing bars, but what struck his eye was a group of enormously tall coloured glass tubes placed in the centre of the room. The tubes were different shapes and widths, some with bends in them and some without, all ending in a chimney pot. Inside each, climbing upwards was a figure in red carrying a sack. At ground level, a small Father Christmas with a face as brown and wrinkled as an old walnut was rolling about in a wheelchair between the glass chimneys and shouting encouragement and advice to the climbers.

  “That’s Father Edmund,” explained Grumbo. “He’s a brilliant teacher.*

  “Hi, Grumbo!” called Father Edmund, spotting them and steering enthusiastically in their direction. “Who have we here?” He smiled at Percy, with a generous grin that almost seemed to fold his face in half as the edges of his mouth reached out towards his long ears and his beard waggled cheerfully.

  “This is Percy,” explained Grumbo, “here for the tour. He’s a dab hand at climbing chimneys already – Not that he hasn’t a lot to learn, but I’ve been giving him some practice.”

  “Want to have a go?” asked Father Edmund, turning to Percy. “You don’t have to, but the green chimney’s free if you’d like to try.” He waved a hand towards the shortest of the tubes.

  “Thanks!” said Percy, his eye
s lighting up. It looked much more exciting than writing letters.

  “Dummy sacks are over there, and if you get stuck just shout out, though you won’t – you look far too slim!” Father Edmund’s eyes twinkled as Percy, picking up a sack, nonchalantly set off inside the green chimney. “Keen, isn’t he,” he remarked to Grumbo.

  “Yes. It’s early days but he’s a good lad. He put up with me and Rudolph OK anyway. – Never complained about being cold or hungry or anything, just got on with it.”

  Percy was finding the chimney a bit more difficult than he had expected. Being glass, it was more slippery than bricks and his socks slithered on the sides if he wasn’t careful. He thought it would have been easier with the rubber soles on a pair of Wellingtons. Despite that, he had already overtaken the Father Christmas in the next chimney who seemed to be struggling. There! His head was out of the top. In another minute he was perched astride the chimney pot waving down at Grumbo and Father Edmund far below. They waved back:

  “Well done!” called Father Edmund. “Have a go at getting down and then you can try the blue chimney.” As he spoke, he went over to the purple tube next to Percy’s and stuck his head under the edge and called up: “Are you OK, Smithers?”

  “I’m stuck!” called a desperate voice echoing down the tube.

  “Don’t panic. Just draw your right leg in slightly. Yes, that’s it. Now right foot down a couple of centimetres.Now do the same with the left. Just a couple of centimetres at a time. Keep your body in the same place. Just move your legs. You’ll be free in a moment. A few centimetres at a time, remember. Now put your right hand on your left shoulder. Now your left hand on your right shoulder and stretch upwards. You won’t fall.” Father Edmund turned to Grumbo: “ I really don’t know what to do with him,” he whispered. “He has no sense at all and he’s getting fatter by the day. He keeps panicking and rolling himself into a ball inside the chimney. We had to get him out with the corkscrew last week!”

  Percy, slithering triumphantly out of the green tube and making a beeline for the blue chimney, stopped and looked upwards at Smithers. He remembered how his first chimney had felt and how afraid he had been of falling. He looked at Father Edmund. “You could lie the chimney down for him. Then he could practise the movements inside it without worrying about falling,” he suggested.