And I was thinking that they’d both gone completely bonkers when the Waiter drove a lorry into the yard.
I’d seen it before. It was one of those ones with the slatted wooden sides and a long ramp. I’d watched the Waiter load up woollybacks and bendyhorns and drive off. There was something peculiar about that lorry, though, because they never came back. Not one of them. That lorry always came back empty. It’s not that they were mates, or anything, but even so. You can’t help wondering how they disappeared.
The Waiter lowered the ramp. He opened the two wooden gates that went across the back. It was pretty dark in there. Real nasty. Never in a million years would you get an intelligent animal like me to go up that ramp, I thought.
But then that low-down-despicable-evil-cunning devil of a Waiter brought out a bucket of swill. I could smell it all the way across the yard. It had all my favourite things in it too. Baked beans and boiled potatoes and stewed apples and whole bananas in their skins and slices of toast and thick lumpy custard. And even in my weakened condition, I managed to haul my front end over the sty door.
My grunt had gone all faint and pathetic. ‘Tucker … tucker … please…’
I said ‘please’. Can you believe it? A pig of my pedigree reduced to that. Like I said, the Waiter should be prosecuted.
I can hardly bear to think about what he did next. It was barbaric.
He wafted the bucket under my snout. Let me drink in the smell of warm swill.
Then he took it away.
I went mad. Stark-staring-raving bonkers. I was out of my mind. Squealing and screaming and swearing. You’ve never heard such dreadful language. Tamsin put her fingers in her ears. But do you know what? The Waiter was wearing ear plugs. Ear plugs. You know what that means? It was a premeditated act of cruelty. He’d planned it. That’s a hanging offence in my book.
He put the bucket down right where I could still see it. I never noticed ’til later that it was in the lorry. All I could see was food. FOOD! I was desperate!
The Waiter stood by the ramp. Then he shouted to Tamsin, ‘Let him out!’
And Tamsin, with a face like a thousand sorrows, gasped an agonised ‘sorry!’ and opened my gate.
600 lbs of pure Tamworth has never moved so fast.
I was across the yard and into the bucket like a giant ginger bullet.
It was only when I’d finished my tucker – in about three seconds flat – that I realised I’d made a seriously big mistake.
Chapter Five
Trapped
The Waiter closed the gates on me before I’d finished my food. I didn’t know he could move that fast. It was quite a surprise.
Tamsin came across the yard and peered into the back of the lorry. Her eyes were leaking so much that I thought she might shrivel up any minute – like a raisin, or one of those sun-dried tomatoes.
Then she looked at the Waiter. A great soulful silent plea for mercy. He didn’t even glance at her. Couldn’t meet her eyes, the low-down, deceitful scumbag. He went off and rummaged around in the cab of the lorry.
Tamsin and me were left alone. She didn’t say a word. Just heaved and sobbed with these sorrowful little burbles. Tragic, it was. Tragic. Poor girl was setting me off, too. I was doing these pitiful, huffling grunts of sympathy. We were in a right old state. I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was horrible in there. And I was thinking, Why doesn’t she just open the gates so I can get back to my sty?
But then suddenly Tamsin stopped leaking. She stared at the metal hinges that fixed the gate onto the lorry. She went all tense and stiff, like she’d been jabbed with one of those electric cattle prods. There was a new expression glimmering in her puffy eyes – a flicker of hope.
A door slammed at the front of the lorry. The Waiter was coming back.
Quick as a flash, Tamsin reached down and pulled something out of the hinge at the bottom. It looked like a piece of metal to me – a wire peg or something. (The Waiter’s always been a bit sloppy with his workmanship. Mends things with bailer twine and bits of wire. Like I said, the man’s dodgy.) Then Tamsin gave me this real significant look – eyebrows raised, head cocked to one side. It was like she was trying to tell me something.
I squinted at her through my little piggy eyes. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what she was on about.
The Waiter was acting real shifty. Couldn’t look at her, couldn’t look at me. He moved Tamsin carefully out of the way. Took her by the shoulders and steered her to where the school bus was waiting. When she was gone, he raised the ramp.
I was shut in the dark.
• • •
I didn’t like that journey. Not one little bit. I still had bellyache for a start. That shoe had given me the trots. I tell you it’s real hard to keep your footing going round corners when you’ve covered the floor in runny dung. It went on for ages. We were going miles and miles and miles away from home. Every minute took me further away from Tamsin and my nice warm sty.
After about an hour, I could smell something in the air. Not my dung – this was something else. Something that was getting stronger and stronger every second. Closer and closer. Something that was making me real scared.
Fear. I could smell fear on the air. Not just fear. It was total, mad, crazy horror. Somewhere, close by, a bunch of animals were petrified.
And there I was, shut up in the dark.
I started with a few troubled grunts. As the smell got stronger, I changed to a nervous squeal. Soon I was screaming in terror.
Then the lorry stopped.
I could see through the slatted sides. The Waiter had parked in a yard. It was a bit like the one at home. There were pens of animals. But there was this weird kind of path, too, with great bars either side. It trundled along all on its own, into this huge great barn. And that’s where the smell was coming from.
I stayed right at the back of the lorry. I wasn’t moving for anybody. A load of woollybacks did, though. Another lorry was parked next to us. A man lowered the ramp and opened the gates at the back and off they went. Straight out of their lorry and up that path. Right into the building, meek as lambs.
They didn’t come out.
And I knew then that if I let them get me on that moving path – if they got me into that building – I wouldn’t come out either. Not ever.
When the Waiter lowered the ramp and opened the gates, I was just plain terrified. At least he had the decency to look miserable. His eyes had gone all pink and puffy, just like Tamsin’s.
The Waiter had parked the lorry so I’d go straight down the ramp and onto the path.
But I wasn’t shifting.
So this great big burly fella with one of those cattle prods in his hand came into the lorry and made straight for me. He had an evil grin on his face. Looked real mean.
My mind went completely blank. I wasn’t thinking about escaping. I wasn’t thinking full stop. My head was bursting with pure white terror.
Then the man slipped.
I never thought I’d be grateful to madam’s shoe for giving me the trots. But when he skated across the floor of the lorry and crashed into the side (jabbing himself in the backside with his own cattle prod on the way), my mind suddenly cleared.
And that’s when I made my bid for freedom.
Chapter Six
Running Wild
There was no way I was running down that ramp. So I started rooting around for another way out of the lorry. I was hurling myself against the gates, slamming into them, and blow me down, one of them shifted. Just a bit. It lifted up in one corner exactly where Tamsin had taken out the wire. I reckon that’s what she’d been trying to tell me. Clever girl. She’d fixed a way out. Like I said, Tamsin’s all right.
By now the man with the prod was getting up. He was swearing something terrible. Looked real angry.
I drove my full weight against the gap. Rammed into it. 600 lbs of pure pig smacking into a wooden gate with only one hinge. It didn’t stand a chance. Trouble w
as there was nothing between the gate and the ground but a load of empty air. So this particular pig flew for a whole metre before slamming into the tarmac head first.
It wasn’t nice. Not one bit. I bruised my snout real bad. Thought I was going to end up looking like one of those weird Vietnamese pot-bellied porkers.
But worrying about losing my film-star looks was the last thing on my mind. The prod man was coming for me, and this time he had help.
‘Pig’s out! Pig’s out! PIG’S OUT!’ The shout echoed round and round the yard. And all of a sudden there were dozens of them – big, mean-looking fellas with blood-stained clothes – coming out of that building. They had me surrounded.
I was scared. But I was angry too. Enraged. 100% irate. With a squeal of pure fury I ran at the man nearest me. I managed to get my head between his legs and with a great jerk of my snout I threw him aside. He screamed nearly as loudly as me. That struck terror into the rest of them. They started to run in all directions. Couldn’t get out of my way fast enough. I went completely berserk, crashing into animal pens, smashing fences, trampling anyone stupid enough to get in my path. Problem was, I couldn’t see a way out of the yard. I was going round and round in circles. Getting more and more demented.
That’s when I spotted him. The Waiter. Standing by a gate. It was the way out. And the gate was still open.
Prod man was yelling, ‘Shut the gate! Shut the gate! SHUT THE GATE!’
And the Waiter did shut the gate. Or at least he started to. But I tell you something peculiar – he was mighty slow about it. I mean, I know he can move real quick when he wants to – I’ve seen him shift. But he was walking slowly, sort of fumbling with the catches. It was like he wasn’t trying. And when I pelted past him, I got a glimpse of his face – I could have sworn the Waiter looked pleased.
Chapter Seven
Town Centre
I charged down that road. Didn’t have a clue where I was headed. I just wanted to get away from that place. That smell of blood and fear. I wanted it right behind me. I kept running. Running and running and running, until my trotters were sore and my legs had started to ache.
There I was. Belting along a twisting country lane. Totally lost. Totally terrified. Miles and miles from home. It was real scary stuff.
Plus it was all a big shock to my system. I mean, I’m more of a short-sprint-across-the-sty kind of a pig. I’m not so hot on the long-distance stuff. I wasn’t built for running marathons. Eventally I just had to slow down. A terrible, screaming stitch in my side was stabbing away at my ribs – hurt worse than my aching belly, it did.
There was a nice muddy puddle at the side of the lane, so I flopped down into it for a bit of a wallow. I’d just started to get my breath back, when I heard this faint trip-trapping noise from somewhere behind me. It was round the corner. The hedge was too high for me to see what was making it, but it sounded a bit like footsteps. Someone was trying to sneak up on me. I jumped out of that puddle real fast. I was off.
I wasn’t paying any attention to where I was going. I was lost anyway, so it didn’t seem to matter much. It wasn’t until the hedges stopped and the houses started that I began to get worried. It was slow at first – a bungalow here, a little row of cottages there, a couple of fields in between. The next thing I knew there were houses on both sides of the road and I was completely hemmed in. It was like a maze. Buildings everywhere. And no matter how hard I tried to find my way out, I just seemed to get further and further in.
I ended up on this long, straight road. The buildings on both sides had huge windows stuffed with all kinds of weird things. It was real busy, too. There were cars everywhere – their brakes squealing like stuck pigs when they saw me: 600 lbs of pure Tamworth in the middle of the road.
There was a whole bunch of people on the pavements, pointing and staring. They were excited, I guess. Well, it’s not every day practically porcine royalty trots down the street. A little boy in a pushchair was totally awestruck. ‘Big pig!’ he gasped. ‘Look at the great big pig!’
I liked the sound of that ‘great’. He was a cute kid. Had the right attitude. But I couldn’t stop and make polite conversation. I had to keep going. I mean, I was terrified that Prod man was going to show up any second. And every now and then I got a snatch of that trip-trapping noise from somewhere behind me.
I was almost out of there – finally I could see beyond the buildings to where open fields began – when I came to this big, black, flat place, full of hundreds of cars just sitting there, motionless. It was weird. Like they were waiting for something. And right in the middle was this huge, square building. It was massive.
There was a whole line of these funny-looking wire baskets on wheels perched outside the entrance. People were flowing in and out of that building like a bunch of ants. And the glorious smell of food was wafting out – fresh bread and cakes and chips and peas and baked beans. I was drawn towards it like a magnet. I mean, a pig’s got to eat even if he is on the run. And I was half-starved after all that exercise. I was desperate for some tucker.
I galloped up to the glass doors, wondering how on earth I was going to get in there. But those doors just whooshed open like magic as soon as my snout pressed up against them – it was like they were expecting me.
Chapter Eight
Pig Heaven
As soon as I got in there I knew I was in Pig Heaven. Right in front of me there was a whole load of bananas – piles and piles of them heaped up – just lying there looking ripe and luscious. They were begging to be eaten. And beyond that there were mountains of apples and heaps of oranges and stacks of pineapples. It seemed to go on for ever. There were potatoes too, and they’re one of my favourite things. OK, so they were raw – I mean I’m usually more of a boiled potato kind of a pig – but that day I wasn’t feeling too fussy. I reckon I’d have eaten anything. I started on the bananas. I was so starved I hardly even bothered to chew the skins.
Suddenly there were people all over the place. There was a whole load of screaming and shouting and millions of flapping arms. You’d have thought they’d never seen a pig before. I carried on eating, but it wasn’t long before there was this horrible screeching wail, and a car with a blue flashing light pulled up outside those glass doors.
The next thing, there’s this man in a blue suit and a funny-looking hat giving me a long, hard stare. He started advancing on me with a stick in his hand and fear in his eyes.
‘Steady on,’ he said, nervously. ‘There’s a good pig. Let’s get you out of here, nice and safe.’
Well, after my experience with Prod man, I wasn’t taking any chances.
I made a break for those doors, but they weren’t whooshing any more. Blue-Suit man must have fixed them shut, sneaky devil.
I was trapped. But I sure wasn’t going to go quietly. I shot past the fruit and veg. People were leaping out of my way left, right and centre. Trouble was, I couldn’t see where to go. I reckoned there had to be another way out somewhere, so I was bombing around. I’d never seen so much food in one place. Galloping past without eating any of it was torture. And I’ll tell you something else, those shelves were about as well built as something the Waiter had made – things kept falling over. Every time I turned a corner there was yet another crash. Shockingly bad workmanship, it was. Dreadful.
When I got into the far corner of the building, I stopped in my tracks. I’d pelted down the whole length of it, and suddenly, there in front of me was a whole load of freshly baked bread. It was all lined up, side by side – crusty … brown … irresistible. Not just bread, either. There were cakes and sticky pastries and gooey biscuits. My mouth was watering so much I thought I was going to drown in my own saliva. I had to eat some of it. I had to. Show me a pig who could have gone past that lot without stopping and I’ll show you a dead porker. Down it went – I managed a couple of loaves and a dozen sticky buns before Blue-Suit caught up with me.
That’s when I spotted the way out.
Behind all the
bread and cakes and stuff there was this vast kitchen. Massive great ovens; sackloads of flour; trays and trays of eggs; barrels of syrup; boxes of icing sugar. No wonder it all smelt so good.
It was hotter than the Australian outback in that kitchen, but from somewhere wafted a cooling breeze. Right at the very far end there was a door. An open door. A door to the outside. A door to freedom.
You’ve probably heard the expression ‘A Bull in a China Shop’? Well, believe me, a Bull in a China Shop’s got nothing on a Pig in a Kitchen. The mess was spectacular.
I shot through that place faster than you could say ‘Impressive Pedigree’. Course the mess wouldn’t have been quite so bad if the people in there had got out of my way fast enough, but they were real slow movers. The guy with the eggs just stood there, eyes popping, mouth hanging open. Blocking my escape route he was, and I wasn’t stopping for anything, not with Blue-Suit on my tail. So I did my oiled-cannonball routine – sent the fella flying. He soared through the air.
Splat! Splat! Splat! Eggs rained all down my back. Terrible waste of good tucker, it was. Shocking.
After that they all started climbing onto work surfaces, hiding under tables. They were dropping stuff all over the floor.
I was nearly at the door – I could smell the scent of freedom – when I skidded in a puddle of melted butter. Lost my footing totally.
600 lbs of Tamworth boar slammed sideways into a set of shelves. They didn’t stand a chance. It was amazing. Like some sort of freaky storm.
Clang! A vat of golden syrup burst right open. Oozed across the floor in a sweet, sticky flood. Phtt! Phtt! Phtt! Phtt! Phtt! Raisins pelted down like little black hailstones. Pwoof! Icing sugar and flour billowed out in huge clouds. Blue-Suit couldn’t see me for dust. Literally.
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