The Grunts In a Jam Page 10
There was much laughter, including some loud snorts from Ace. This set Poppet off doing some piggy snorts of her own and made Lady Bigg look around.
“Silence in court!” said the clerk of the court. The judge didn’t try to stop him this time.
Judge Humperdink unfolded the paper and smoothed it flat. It said:
COUNTRY FAIR
Rules Regarding Preserves, Jams and Jellies Competition:
1. The judge’s decision is final. signed
Lady Bigg
Preserves, Jams and Jellies Competition Judge
“The judge’s decision is final?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Lady Bigg.
“That’s the only rule?”
“Yes.”
“And what is your decision?” asked Judge Humperdink in his unusually squeaky voice.
“That there is no case to answer,” said Lady La-La Bigg from the public gallery.
“Then that is my decision too,” said the judge, and he would have banged the gavel if he could have done, but all the cheering and clapping made up for the lack of it. When the noise died down, Lady Bigg was still standing.
“As for Sunny, we’ve all done silly things as children, haven’t we, Humpty?”
“Yes, but—” began the judge.
“Embarrassing things we might not want to be mentioned in court?”
“Yes, but—”
“Involving a long car journey and too many cakes—”
“All charges are dropped,” said Judge Humperdink, almost shouting. “This hearing is now officially at an end!”
It was soup time at last!
The judge thought of his tie under his official robes. It was yellow! He smiled. Yellow was the perfect background colour for brown-soup-stain islands.
In the courtroom foyer it was congratulations all round. Although Lady Bigg received much praise, the heartiest congratulations went to Sack. He had been a triumph. With all charges dropped there would be no trial, let alone jail, for Mr and Mrs Grunt. They were free to go and not come back. The ex-gardener was the hero of the hour.
Mr Grunt slapped him on the back by way of a thank you then, forgetting why he was hitting him, was about to give him a follow-up kick in the shins. Mrs Grunt stopped him.
“Let me do that!” she said. “Why should you have all the fun?”
Sunny quickly squeezed himself between Sack and his mum.
“How did you come up with all those different laws and acts and stuff?” Sunny asked him. “You were brilliant!”
“Thanks,” said Sack. “I invented them.”
“Invented all those laws?”
“As in made-them-all-up invented them?” asked Mimi in amazement.
“Well, you could put it that way…” said Sack, because it was, of course, true. He’d invented the laws and precedents and acts of parliament he’d quoted in the courthouse in the same way that he’d invented pens and bikes and shoelaces in the past, and maybe – just maybe – like everything he’d ever invented in the past had turned out to have existed already, it was possible that he’d made up laws that already existed.
Unlikely though, isn’t it?
Still, Sack was looking forward to a long career in the Law with a capital L.
Just then, Poppet came squealing past them. She’d lost her straw hat and pushchair but was still wearing lipstick and her floral-patterned dress. Mr Harper, the courthouse security guard, was in hot pursuit.
“No pigs!” he cried. “No pigs!”
The security guard swerved to avoid Mr and Mrs Grunt, who now appeared to be playing a game of marbles – but with glass eyes – between people’s legs on the foyer’s black-and-white tiled floor.
Ace wandered over to join Sunny and the others, adjusting the hearing aid behind his ear. “That was cool,” he said. “You guys were amazing.”
“Thanks for coming,” said Sunny. “It really helped to know we had so many people here to support us.”
They looked across to Dr Alphonso Tubb and Jenny Prendergast. The pair of them were gazing into each other’s eyes as they held hands and whispered to each other.
Sunny, however, was distracted by the appearance of another figure across the lobby floor: a tall, thin woman he’d never met before. But there was something familiar about the way she walked.
“Any idea who that is?” he asked Mimi.
At that moment Mrs Lunge appeared at the woman’s side. “Hello, Edna,” she said. And hit her across the knees with her enormous handbag before running away. The woman gave chase.
“So that’s Edna Tuppenny!” said Sunny. “You know what? I’m willing to bet that she was the person spying on us with the binoculars outside Grandma’s house. She may have been disguised in a raincoat and cap, but I’d recognise her anywhere, with her sharp shoulders and lollopy walk!”
“I think you’re right!” said Mimi excitedly. “So she was spying on your grandma and not you!” said Mimi.
Sunny nodded. “Probably keeping an eye on Grandma’s jars of goodies for the competition. But that still doesn’t explain who the man was peeping through the window at Green Lawns.”
Sunny was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. He turned round to be confronted by an arm sticking out between two great fronds of leaves. It was Norris Bootle.
“Er, that was me at the window, I’m ashamed to say,” said Norris. “I – er – sometimes used to keep an eye on what my rival in love was up to… Not now, of course. Not now that Alphonso and Jenny are officially engaged.”
“Then what are you doing here in the courthouse?” asked Mimi. “And why are you hiding behind that big pot plant?”
She had a point, you know.
“Yes. Well … I’m not quite there yet,” said Norris, looking lovingly across the foyer to Miss Prendergast. “These things take time.” He pulled himself back behind the leaves. “I won’t get over the old girl just like that, you know.”
They looked back at the loving couple. Even from across the foyer, Ace could read the words “my sweet” and “my little lovey-dove” on Dr Alphonso Tubb’s lips. Ace gave another one of his little snorts, the ones that sounded very much like Poppet the pig.
Lady “La-La” Bigg obviously thought so because at that moment she was passing through the foyer in search of her runaway pig, and when she heard the noise it stopped her in her tracks.
She stared Ace in the face.
A strange look passed across her features, like cloud patterns casting shadows on the landscape on a sunny day.
“What… What… What’s your name?” she asked. Her voice sounded far less commanding than Sunny’d ever heard it.
“Ace,” said Ace.
She gave a little gasp. “Horace?” she said quietly.
It was obvious that the boy had no idea what Lady “La-La” was on about.
But Sunny did.
Was she suggesting…?
Did she mean…?
“Tell her about the blanket,” he said.
“The blanket?” said Ace. “Oh, as a baby I was found on the steps of an opera house stage door, Lady Bigg. I was wrapped in a blanket with the word ‘ACE’ on it, so that’s what Lara – the lady who took me in and brought me up – named me.”
Lady Bigg couldn’t take her eyes off him. She made a noise like a squeak of air escaping from a balloon. “So that’s where Biggy must have left you, in your torn blankey!” she said, barely managing to get the words out before bursting into tears.
Ace didn’t know what to say or do, so he patted her on the back.
“Horace,” she said, pulling herself tightly against him. “I am your mother.”
“My mother?”
“Your mother.” She nodded. “For years I’ve kept the company of pigs because they remind me of your little snorting ways. I’ve pretended not to care. I’ve been strong … but I’ve missed you and your snorting every single day.”
Sunny felt a great big lump in his throat (like the time Mrs Grunt had serve
d up golf-ball stew).
Ace didn’t know what to think.
“My mother?” he said. “You really are my mother?”
Sunny and Mimi strode towards the exit of the courthouse. “La-La” Bigg and Ace would probably want time alone together.
Less than an hour later, Ace – or should that be The Honourable Horace Bigg? – and Lady “La-La” Bigg were sitting together in the courthouse car park on the top steps of the Grunts’ caravan. She was showing him a photograph. It was of a man with little crisscrosses of sticking plasters on his face and a large parrot on his shoulder: Lord Bigg.
Ace traced the outline of the parrot with a finger.
“The plasters were covering beak-bites,” said her ladyship. “The man is your father. The parrot is Monty.”
A pirate captain. His dad had a parrot on his shoulder, just like a pirate captain!
“Mother!” he cried, and threw his arms around a very happy “La-La” Bigg.
She wiped away a tear. “That nice Lara Farp will always be your real mum to you, I expect, Horace. And that’s OK by me. But it’s good to know where you come from, isn’t it, and always useful to have a spare… You know, for when your mum is in the wash, or stuck up a tree. My pigsty is your pigsty. Come by whenever you want.”
Ace looked at her for a moment, then snorted with delight. Poppet joined in for good measure.
A short distance away, Sunny was feeding Fingers a stale currant bun and a handful of peanuts. He wondered what it must be like to find your birth parents…
He sighed as he gazed up into a nearby tree.
“What are you up to?” demanded Mrs Grunt, who appeared to be brushing her hair with Sharpie, her stuffed hedgehog.
“Oh, nothing,” said Sunny. “I was just wondering if that’s the same one.”
“The same what?” demanded Mr Grunt. He was clasping a fistful of thistles. He’d found them growing on the edge of a far corner of the car park and was going to feed them to Clip and Clop.
“The same squirrel,” said Sunny, pointing up into the tree.
Ma Lunge appeared from out of Mrs Grunt’s shadow. “Most squirrels hunt in packs,” she said. “The other squirrel probably phoned ahead.” She sighed.
Mr Grunt was staring at the squirrel, and the squirrel was staring back at Mr Grunt with his big squirrelly eyes. (The squirrel had the squirrelly eyes. Not Mr Grunt.) The squirrel was a rather mangy-looking thing. His tail looked less like fur and more like a large feather that had been used as a quill pen and played with by small, sticky-fingered children.
“That’s him all right,” said Mr Grunt, and, as if to confirm it, the furry little blighter dashed down the tree trunk and stole one of Fingers’ peanuts from right under the elephant’s nose … well, from under his trunk.
Mr Grunt reached up and touched the dressing and the plaster over his own nose.
“Chrrrrrrrggggg!” went the squirrel.
Mr Grunt simply grunted.
Uh-oh, thought Sunny. This means war.
ALPHONSO TUBB, MD
DOCTOR TO THE STARS
Copyright
This book is dedicated to Wildlife SOS, fighting to save India’s wildlife, including the likes of Raju the elephant.
THE GRUNTS IN A JAM
First published in the UK in 2014 by Nosy Crow Ltd
The Crow’s Nest, 10a Lant Street,
London, SE1 1QR, UK
This ebook edition first published in 2014
Nosy Crow and associated logos are trademarks and / or registered trademarks of Nosy Crow Ltd
Text copyright © Philip Ardagh, 2014
Cover and inside illustrations © Axel Scheffler, 2014
The right of Philip Ardagh to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictiously. Any resemblence to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978 0 85763 076 6
www.nosycrow.com
Read more of the Grunts’ ridiculous antics in:
THE GRUNTS IN TROUBLE
THE GRUNTS ALL AT SEA
THE GRUNTS ON THE RUN
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on the iTunes App Store for the free Grunts game for your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, The Grunts: Beard of Bees
Check out the buzz at
www.meetthegrunts.com