He wasn’t, though, dead. What he was, was a bit colder around the bottom area than he had been before. And also, wanting to laugh. Because he was being tickled. Around the bottom area.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha!! Ha! Stop it! Stop it!!” he said.
“Shush!” said Eli. “God. This one’s acting like he’s never been sheared before!”
Malcolm looked round. Using electric shears, Eli was shaving off the wool on his back. Every so often, where there were knots, Eli would cut them off with a knife, from the leather bag.
Malcolm tried to stop laughing, but not only did it tickle, it felt completely silly that huge clods of wool were coming off him: it was like he was a very cosy version of Spider-Man, whose body produced not steel-like threads of silk for enmeshing supervillains, but balls for grannies to knit with. And then, to make it worse, Eli turned Malcolm over, and started to do his tummy.
“That one’s got a funny Baaa!” he heard Barry Bennett say, above his own laughing.
“Yes,” said his friend Lukas. “It sounds more like Baa-Ha-Ha than Baaaa!”
Finally, it was over, and Eli let him go. Malcolm and the Dollys stood up among their shorn wool. It looked like the goat pen had been overlaid with a very badly made shagpile carpet.
“So there you are, boys and girls,” said Gavin. “That’s how you shear a sheep!”
There was a round of applause. Which felt odd to Malcolm. He had never thought about applauding his dad after watching him shave.
“Ah, that’s better!” said Dolly 1.
“Yes, much better!” said Dolly 2.
“Better all round!” said Dolly 3.
“I think it’s cold and a bit embarrassing,” said Malcolm.
“Yes, that’s right, cold and embarrassing,” said Dolly 1.
“Embarrassing and cold,” said Dolly 2.
“Freezing!” said Dolly 3. “And quite humiliating.”
“Also,” said Malcolm, “why were you shouting ‘help’ earlier? You must have known it was only a shearing?”
The Dollys looked at him blankly.
“We were shouting help because you were shouting help,” said Dolly 1.
“Yes, because you were—”
“Yes, all right,” said Malcolm, sighing. “I get it.”
“Now,” said Maven, “let’s take the sheep back to their field!”
Suddenly, over the goat-pen fence bounded Trotsky. As soon as they saw the dog, Dolly 1, Dolly 2 and Dolly 3 ran towards the gate, which was opened by Eli. Then they carried on running. Malcolm watched them go. He was starting to have had enough of the whole sheep thing.
“That’s odd,” said Eli. “That one sheep don’t seem very bothered by the dog.”
“Woof woof woof!” said Trotsky, nudging at Malcolm’s back. Malcolm shook his head.
“OK, children,” said Gavin, “perhaps you can help us get this sheep out of here!”
Next thing Malcolm knew, he was surrounded by his own classmates, cheering and whooping and going: “Come on, sheepy!”, “Wake up, lambkin!” and “Where’s your wool-coat gone? Where’s your wool-coat gone?”
So just to get away from them – Morris Fawcett was being particularly annoying, poking him on his newly-shorn rump – Malcolm ran out of the goat pen and after the Dollys.
And then his year ran out of the goat pen and chased him.
After a few minutes, Barry and Lukas and Taj and Fred and Ellie had caught up with Malcolm. They were all laughing and joking and giggling as they ran. It made Malcolm feel envious, and a bit sad, that they were having such a lot of fun and he wasn’t. He was just running.
“Barry!” said Malcolm, while still running. “Lukas! Taj! Fred! Ellie! It’s me! Malcolm!”
“This one’s really funny!” said Lukas. “He just keeps baa-ing as he runs!”
“Yes, and he’s looking right at us!” said Fred. “Like he’s actually trying to tell us something!”
“I am trying to tell you something!” said Malcolm.
“Baa-baa! Baa-baa!” said Taj, imitating him. Which made them all laugh. And then they ran off back towards the farmhouse, leaving the sheep far behind.
Malcolm carried on running, and caught up with the Dollys. He trotted along with them, in the middle of a big field.
“Where are we going?” he said.
“We’re running away!” said Dolly 1.
“Away! Running!” said Dolly 2.
“Far far far!” said Dolly 3.
“But … the kids chasing us … they caught up with us already. Now, in fact, they’re just running in front of us! Look! There’s Barry and Lukas and Taj and Fred and Ellie and all the rest of them, about fifty metres ahead!”
“We have to run!” said Dolly 1.
“Run run run!” said Dolly 2.
“But it looks like we’re chasing them now!”
“Keep going!” said Dolly 3. “They might catch up!” “They have caught up!”
“Onward!” said Dolly 1.
It was at that point that Malcolm stopped starting to have had enough with the whole sheep thing.
He finished having had enough with the whole sheep thing. He stopped, let the Dollys run on, and just settled down in the field, to go to sleep.
Mr Braden?” said Jackie, opening the door from the reception area to the surgery. “Rodney?”
“What is it? I’m examining a gerbil.”
“I know …”
“It’s got a very unusual condition. Only by extreme focus and concentration can I restore it to health.”
“I thought he’d eaten a crayon,” said Jackie. “A purple one.”
“It has.”
“Is that … an unusual condition?”
“If I show you the X-rays, Jackie you’ll see that …”
His insides have gone purple? His tiny gerbil bladder actually has a drawing on it of a purple house and some purple clouds? was what Jackie Bailey was thinking.
But she didn’t say it, as Rodney Braden the vet was her boss, and someone who took his veterinary work very, very seriously. So she just let him waffle on about how the X-rays showed some toxic effects on the gerbil’s tummy – obviously he didn’t say tummy, he said intestines – until finally he took a breath.
“Yes, of course, Rodney, I realise you’re very busy doing extremely delicate work with Gandhi …”
“Who’s Gandhi?”
“The gerbil.”
Rodney looked down at the tiny creature anaesthetised in front of him, as if surprised that, beyond being a collection of organs, it had a name.
“I know him,” continued Jackie. “He’s Jinesh’s – Mr and Mrs Bhaskar’s son’s gerbil. They live two doors down from us.”
“Right. Well, as I say, Jackie, I’m very busy … the operation is at an absolutely crucial stage …”
“Yes. I was just wondering if I could use the landline to make a personal call. To my son – at this farm, this school trip he’s on. My mobile’s run out of power.”
Of course, if you weren’t so mean, she thought, I wouldn’t have had to come in and ask that.
She watched the vet frown, caught, she knew, between two opposing instincts:
Wanting to say no, as it cost money.
Wanting to say yes, whatever, just go away, so that he could carry on being the great and serious vet.
At that point, while the vet was frowning, Ghandi’s tiny body twitched. It might just have been a purple crayon-y burp, but it was enough to make up Rodney Braden’s mind.
“Yes, whatever!” he said, waving her away.
Gavin was just cutting the Stinky Blinky when the farmhouse phone rang. Which might explain why no one heard it at first, as almost everyone in the room was going “uuurggh” and “arrrgghh” and “my eyes are watering!”
But Maven, who was smiling and licking her lips, picked it up.
“Hi!” said Maven.
“Hello? Sorry, I was going to call Mr Barrington’s mobile, but the reception wasn’t very good
last time, so I thought I’d call the farmhouse landline … anyway, sorry, it’s Jackie Bailey, Malcolm’s mother.”
“Cool.”
Jackie wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. So she said:
“Yes. Thanks. Um. Anyway, is Malcolm there?”
“Wait a minute …” said Maven. “Uh … Gavin?”
“Hey, Maven,” said Gavin, handing her a plate. “The Blinky’s just so stinky tonight. You gotta try it.”
“OK!” Maven took a large slice and held it in front of her mouth.
“Sorry, hello?” said Jackie. “I was wondering about Malcolm?”
“Oh yuh. Soz.”
She put the phone down and addressed the dining room.
“Is Malcolm here? Malcolm Bailey?”
Well, that’s what Maven was trying to say. Unfortunately, she chose to put the big piece of Stinky Blinky in her mouth first. And so it came out as:
“Ibrgh Molkolmmm blah? Mollkollloommm Bladibley?”
Which very few of the children heard above their own shouts of “urggh”, “arrrgh” and now also “I’m going to be sick!”
“Soz,” said Maven. “Oy dink hee mblguht pee sglight oootgird pleepggin wlgh de anishckmals.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Jackie.
Maven did a big – and to be honest, even though she always said how much she liked it, quite forced (she closed her eyes and screwed up her face, anyway) – swallow. “Oh blimey,” she said, taking a long breath. “Soz again. I said: I think he might be still outside playing with the animals.”
Which was at least true.
At that point, at the vet’s, Rodney reappeared. He came out of the surgery, holding Gandhi the gerbil in one hand, and a half-digested purple crayon in the other. Despite the obvious success of the operation, he – Rodney – was looking cross (Ghandi, to be honest, was looking just a bit bemused).
Jackie knew why this was: she’d been on the phone too long.
“OK, well … send him my love when he comes in!” said Jackie, hurriedly putting the phone down. So hurriedly, in fact, she didn’t hear Maven say, “Brill poo!”
Which was her way of saying “Will do!”
… with her mouth full of more Stinky Blinky.
Malcolm had been hoping, on waking, to be a horse. That was his plan. As he had been running across the field with the sheep, he’d noticed a group of horses in the next field. That was why, apart from having had enough of being a sheep, he’d chosen that spot to go to sleep in.
He wanted to be a horse not just because he thought being a horse might be great – proud and dignified and strong and fast and not-sheep-like – but also because he had had an idea.
If he was a horse, he could get back home. He didn’t exactly know the way, and he didn’t exactly know, when he got there, how he was going to communicate to his mum and dad that he was not just any old horse come off the street and into their house, but was, in fact, their son Malcolm. He decided, however, not to worry about that just yet.
He was sure that, somehow, Stewart and Jackie would recognise him, and sort everything out. They didn’t, it was true, have a lot of practical experience with goat spells. But they were his mum and dad. And they would know what to do. He hoped.
On waking, though, he was also fairly sure that, once again, he hadn’t ended up as the animal he’d planned. Because he wasn’t cantering majestically through the fields, tossing his mane in the wind.
No. Rather, he was lying face-down in some mud. He seemed to actually be breathing in mud. He tried to get up, but just slipped, and sank further into the mud. He looked up. The sun was significantly lower in the sky than it had been when he went to sleep. The day was slipping away and he’d turned into the wrong animal.
One clue to which animal he had become this time was that, even though he was now caked in it, Malcolm seemed to really quite like the feel of all this mud. He could feel it sticking to his skin, but instead of thinking urrrgh or I must have a bath or even, like he would’ve done when he’d been a cat, Quick! Lick it off!, he thought – in more or less the same tone as Homer Simpson might use if he was thinking about doughnuts – Hmmmm. Mud …
The other clue was that, bearing down on him as he rolled around in the mud, was an enormous pink two-pin plug socket, with hair coming out of it.
This became a clearer clue when the enormous pink two-pin plug socket with hair coming out of it snorted.
Ah, thought Malcolm. It’s not an enormous pink two-pin plug socket with hair coming out of it. It’s a nose. Or, to be more exact, a snout. The snout moved backwards to reveal that it was attached to the head, and body, of a very large pig indeed, who was looking at him curiously.
“That’s odd,” said the pig. “Ludwig!”
“Yes, Mabel?”
Malcolm looked round, to see another pig, even more enormous, sitting – well, sprawling – in an even muddier section of what Malcolm now realised was the pigsty.
“Have we had any new kids recently?”
Ludwig thought about this for some time. Then he let out a large grunt. Which Malcolm heard as:
“No. I don’t believe so …”
“No, I don’t think so either. But look.”
“Look at what?”
“Ludwig! Come here!”
Ludwig groaned, and heaved himself slowly up out of his puddle. Large globs of muddy water came off his belly, which seemed to swing in slow motion as he walked across to Malcolm.
Malcolm sat up out of the mud. Well, his bottom half was still very much in the mud. But his face was out of it, at least.
“Hmm …” said Ludwig. “I don’t remember this one at all. Especially not the blue eyes. Does he have a name?”
“Excuse me …” said Malcolm. Then he stopped.
“Yes?” said Ludwig.
“Am I a pig?” he said.
“That’s a funny question,” said Mabel. “None of our children have ever asked that before.”
“Yes,” said Ludwig. “Although you could say it’s a very good question. When do any of us truly become a pig? Is it when you first roll upside down with your hooves in the air while sinking in the mud? Or is it when you gobble more than seven manky apples in a row?”
“When you do your first really big snort?” suggested Mabel.
“Yes, that is a key moment. Or: is it something more spiritual than that? Perhaps it comes with the realisation that it’s very unlikely that you will ever fly?”
Mabel sighed, and looked up at Ludwig lovingly. “Oh, Ludwig. You are a very clever pig.”
“Some humans, Mabel, have a thing called a Barmitzvah, which marks the date when you become a man. Perhaps we should have something like that. A Pigmitzvah. To celebrate when a piglet becomes a pig.”
Malcolm decided the time had come to butt in. “Yes, but they are the humans who don’t like pigs.”
Ludwig stared at him.
“You say that, but what you mean is they don’t eat pigs. A good thing, in my book.”
Mabel sighed again.
“You’re so full of wisdom, Ludwig …” She turned to Malcolm. “You are a lucky piglet. Your father is the cleverest of all pigs, and pigs are the cleverest of all the animals.”
“Well,” said Malcolm, “if you are so full of wisdom, and not just manky apples …”
“Rude,” said Ludwig. “We’ll have to work on that, Mabel …”
“… then explain why you’ve got me so wrong. You see: I’m not your child. I’m not a pig. I’m a human. I’m a boy-human. And I have a name: Malcolm.”
Ludwig and Mabel exchanged glances.
“Well …” said Ludwig, “… it must be awful to feel something so wrong. So first of all, we shall not call you Malcolm. It is a human name.”
“Yes, that’s because I am human. I just told you.”
“I am trying to relieve you of that strange and painful delusion. And also of that name, which is a slightly dated one for a boy at that.”
“I beg
your pardon?” said Malcolm.
“Well, it is,” said Mabel. “It’s like Alan. Or Norman. It sounds like you’re fifty-four and work as a regional manager for ASDA.”
“Please don’t mention the human supermarkets,” said Ludwig. “We know what products they contain.”
“Sorry.”
“So,” said Ludwig, turning back to Malcolm, “to help you restore pride in your pigginess, and bring you back to loving your piggy-self, we shall call you the most prized pig-name of all …”
“Right,” said Malcolm, wearily, “and what is that?”
Ludwig took a deep breath, and said, grandly: “Fatty Bum-Bum!!”
“All hail Fatty Bum-Bum!” said Mabel. “Say it loud and say it proud: Fatty Bum-Bum!”
“Please don’t call me that!”
“It’s a lovely name!” said Mabel.
“Not if you’re a human!”
“Ah, but that is what you need to stop thinking about yourself. Love your pigginess, Fatty Bum-Bum! Love your piggy piggy pigginess, Fatty Bum-Bum!”
As he said this, Ludwig began circling Malcolm, and chanting it. Mabel joined in, circling and chanting. Their hooves splashed mud on Malcolm as they trotted round him, forming a circular pig wall.
“Love your pigginess, Fatty Bum-Bum! Love your piggy piggy pigginess, Fatty Bum-Bum! Love your piggi—”
“Yeah, thing is, pigs …” said a familiar drawling voice, “… he’s right. He’s not a pig.”
Malcolm tried to look over Mabel and Ludwig to see who was speaking, but he was too small. So he looked under them, which had its own challenges, given the amount of teats Mabel had, and the amount of mud, straw and bits of manky apple on Ludwig’s underside.
But even through all that, he could see – and was mightily pleased to see – Zsa-Zsa the cat, sitting on the wall of the sty. Licking herself, obviously.
Next thing Malcolm knew, Trotsky had jumped over the wall of the sty and landed in the mud, looking very pleased with himself.
“Malcolm!” he said, speaking cat, but very much in his excited dog voice. “Malcolm Malcolm Malcolm Malcolm!! Do youzzz remember me? Do youzzz remember me?”
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