Grandpa's Great Escape

by David Walliams

  Edging his way along a narrow ledge one floor up, he arrived at the first window. Through it Jack spied an imposing oak-panelled office. Matron was reclining at her desk in a luxurious leather armchair, puffing on a big fat cigar. Her little feet were resting up on the desk, and she was blowing plumes of thick grey smoke into the air above her. This private version of herself was a very different Miss Swine to the one she showed others.

  A large portrait of the matron hung over the fire in a thick gold frame. Staying as close as he could to the wall, Jack tilted his head slightly to afford a better view. On her wide, leather-topped desk was a large pile of paperwork she was sorting through. Resting her cigar in a crystal-glass ashtray, Miss Swine went to work.

  First, Matron picked up a piece of paper from the pile, before placing a piece of tracing paper over it.

  Second, she slowly but surely copied the hand-writing underneath with a pencil.

  Third, she turned the tracing paper over and rubbed the tip of her pencil all over it.

  Fourth, she took out a new blank piece of white paper from her drawer, and placed the tracing paper over and on to it.

  Fifth, Matron went over the outline of the handwriting with her pencil, hard, which made it appear on the blank piece of paper below.

  Last, she placed the piece of paper in her typewriter and began pressing the keys.

  After she had hammered away at the typewriter for a while, Miss Swine studied her work with satisfaction. Next, she screwed up the original piece of paper into a ball, and tossed it in the fire. Watching it burn she laughed to herself, and wrapped her lips around her long, fat cigar once more.

  What on earth was Miss Swine up to?

  Standing on the narrow ledge, staring in bafflement, the boy’s foot slipped and he scrambled to keep himself from falling.

  All of a sudden Matron looked up, as if she had heard something outside. Jack edged out of view and flattened his body against the wall. The lady rose from her leather chair and paced over to the window. She pressed her upturned nose up against the glass, which made it look even more upturned than it already was, and peered out into the dark…

  34

  Hidden in a Moustache

  Jack stayed perfectly still and didn’t dare breathe. As Matron stood staring out of the window of her office high up in Twilight Towers, she was so close the boy could smell the cigar smoke. He had always loathed the smell of cigars, and a tickly cough started itching his throat. Don’t cough! he prayed. Please please please don’t cough!

  After listening to the silence for a while, Matron shook her head dismissively. Finally, she closed the heavy-black-velvet curtains that hung in her window so not a soul could see in.

  Jack’s first impulse was to run home and tell his parents that he thought the matron was up to no good. But the boy hesitated; he had lied and told them he was going to be at an after-school chess club. What’s more, the chances of his mum or dad believing him were slim. They had managed to convince themselves that Twilight Towers was the best place for Grandpa.

  Instead, the boy inched his way along the narrow ledge to another window. The lights were out in that room, but through the gloom Jack could make out a chilling sight. Rows upon rows of coffins!

  Continuing along the ledge, Jack peered in at the next room. The light was on and at first glance it looked like an antiques shop. The room was filled from floor to ceiling with old paintings, vases and clocks. All the items looked valuable, and a couple of the nurses were dragging in an expensive-looking, gold-framed antique mirror and leaning it up against the wall. Where was all this stuff from?

  The bright beam of a searchlight skimmed the building. It shone dangerously close to Jack. As quickly as he could, the boy edged his way around the corner of the building out of sight.

  Climbing up the icy drainpipe to the next floor, Jack’s fingers were beginning to claw with the cold. Still, he bravely carried on, and peered into the nearest window. This room was another dormitory, even bigger than the first. Crammed in together, lying in beds too small for them, were rows and rows of old men. Just like in the ladies’ dormitory the men were frozen still, in deep deep sleep. The boy’s eyes scanned all the faces, desperate to spot his grandfather. He needed to know that the old man, whom he loved more than anyone else in the world, was alive and well.

  Up and down the rows of beds he looked, until he found that unmistakeable RAF moustache. Grandpa! The old man’s eyes were tightly shut, and just like all the others he appeared to be in a deep, deep sleep.

  To keep his balance, Jack held on to the metal bars in front of the window with one hand. Putting his other hand through the bars, he traced the edges of the window with his fingertips to see if he could prise it open from the outside.

  Unsurprisingly, like every other window or door in this fortress, it was locked.

  Jack had come so far, he couldn’t leave now without at least trying to make contact with his grandfather. Unsure of what else he could do, the boy began tapping on the window.

  TAP TAP TAP.

  Quietly at first, and then louder and louder.

  TAP TAP TAP.

  All of a sudden, one of Grandpa’s tightly shut eyes opened. Then the other. Jack banged on the window even harder now, and the old man sat up in bed bolt upright. He was wearing a frayed pair of pyjamas that looked second or third or even fourth hand. Seeing his grandson outside the window, the old man couldn’t help but smile. After a quick look left and right to check the coast was clear, Grandpa tiptoed over from his bed to the window.

  From the inside, the old man managed to open it a tiny bit so they could hear each other.

  “Squadron Leader!” whispered Grandpa, greeting his grandson with his customary salute.

  “Wing Commander!” said the boy, as he hung on to the window bars with one hand and saluted with the other.

  “As you can see the enemy have locked me up here in Colditz Castle – the most heavily fortified prisoner-of-war camp there is!”

  Jack didn’t contradict his grandfather. It would only confuse the old man to break the illusion. Though truth be told Twilight Towers was a lot more like a prisoner-of-war camp than an old folk’s home.

  “I am so sorry, sir.”

  “Not your fault, Bunting. This happens in war. There must be some way out, but I darned well haven’t found it yet.”

  Looking behind his grandfather at all the old men who were completely zonked out, Jack asked, “How come you are wide awake and everyone else is fast asleep?”

  “Ha ha!” Grandpa laughed mischievously. “The guards force us all to take these pills. They dole them out like sweets. One’s enough to knock a man out cold.”

  “How come you didn’t swallow yours, sir?”

  “The guards stand over you to make sure you take them. I put mine in my mouth, and pretended to swallow. When they moved on to the next prisoner, I spat them out and hid them deep in my moustache.”

  With that, he plucked two small brightly coloured pills out from under his thick hairy curls.

  The old man was ingenious!

  Once a hero, always a hero, thought Jack.

  “You’re quite brilliant, Wing Commander,” said the boy.

  “Thank you, Squadron Leader. I am so pleased you are here. Now we can put my plan into action, the tooter the sweeter.”

  Jack was puzzled. “What plan, Wing Commander?”

  His grandpa looked at him and grinned.

  “The escape plan, of course!”

  35

  Still More Socks

  As part of his plan, the old man gave his grandson a shopping list of items he needed smuggled into Twilight Towers from the outside. Reading it in bed that night, Jack didn’t have a clue how Grandpa planned to use them in his escape.

  The list was as follows –

  – Smarties

  – String

  – Socks

  – Elastic bands

  – Empty tin cans

  – Map

&
nbsp; – More socks

  – Matches

  – Spoon

  – Tea tray

  – Candles

  – Roller-skates

  – Still more socks

  The Smarties were easy. The next morning, Jack paid a visit to Raj’s shop on the way to school to find there was a plentiful supply. What’s more, Jack was in luck – the newsagent even had the multi-coloured chocolates on special offer. Thirty-eight tubes for the price of thirty-seven.

  Empty tin cans Jack fished out of the bin at home, then rinsed under the tap.

  Some cheap old roller-skates were found in the local charity shop.

  Elastic bands, string, a spoon, candles and matches were all dotted around the house in various drawers and cupboards.

  As were the socks. Dad had plenty of odd ones lying around and Jack was sure his father wouldn’t miss them.

  No one knows where socks disappear to. It is one of the Universe’s greatest mysteries. Either they are sucked into a black hole where time and space have become flattened, or they get caught in the back of the washing machine. Either way, Jack’s father had plenty of them.

  The tea tray was the hardest item to smuggle out of the kitchen, due to its size. Jack had to wedge it into the back of his trousers, before putting his jumper on over the top. It looked fine when he was standing still, but as soon as he tried to walk it was as if he was a robot.

  After Jack had spent every moment he could that day collecting all of Grandpa’s items, he sat on his top bunk, waiting for the sky to turn black. As his unsuspecting parents thought he was fast asleep, he followed his grandfather’s lead and fled out of his bedroom window.

  The moon was low that night. The shadows of the trees stretched out across the grounds of Twilight Towers. Jack had to be extra careful not to be seen, as he climbed the weeping willow and jumped down from another of its overhanging branches. He crawled across the grass before shimmying up the drainpipe to the men’s dormitory.

  As soon as Jack arrived at the window his grandpa announced triumphantly, “I am going to dig my way out!”

  Just as the night before, Jack was balancing precariously on a narrow ledge high up on the side of the building. Because of the bars on the outside, the window only opened a tiny bit. As they spoke, Jack passed all the items on Grandpa’s list through the narrow gap.

  “Dig?” The boy was not convinced this was a good idea. “With what?”

  “With the spoon, of course, Squadron Leader!”

  36

  With a Spoon?!

  “You are going to dig your way out with a spoon?!” asked Jack. The boy couldn’t believe his ears. “You want to dig a tunnel all the way past the wall there with a spoon?!”

  “Yes, Bunting!” replied Grandpa from the other side of the window bars. “I will start tonight. I have to get Up, up and away in my Spitfire quick smart. As soon as you go, I will steal myself down to the cellar and begin scraping away at the stone floor.”

  Jack didn’t want to burst his grandfather’s bubble, but it was clear that the old man’s plan was doomed to failure. It would take years just to dig through the cellar floor. Especially using only a spoon. It wasn’t even a particularly big spoon.

  “Did you remember the tins?” continued the old man.

  Jack reached into his coat pocket and passed two old baked-bean cans through the gap.

  “Of course, sir. What are you going to use them for?” asked the boy.

  “Buckets, Bunting! Buckets! Fill them with all the earth I will dig out with the spoon, and then pass them out of the tunnel on a pulley system.”

  “So that’s what the string is for!”

  “That’s right, Squadron Leader. Do keep up!”

  “But what are you going to do with all the soil?”

  “This is the devilishly clever bit, old boy. That’s what the socks are for!”

  “The socks? I don’t follow you, sir,” said the boy as he reached into a pocket and pulled out a jumble of his dad’s old socks.

  “This sock’s got a hole in it!” complained Grandpa as he stopped to examine one.

  “Sorry, sir, I didn’t know what you needed them for.”

  “I’ll tell you, Squadron Leader. Once dawn breaks and I have done my digging for the night,” continued Grandpa, “I will pack all the soil into the socks. Then I will tie an elastic band to the top of each sock. I will conceal the sock of soil or ‘soil sock’ as they will henceforth be known, down my trousers. Then I will make a request to the Kommandant that I be put on gardening duty.”

  “The Kommandant?” The boy was baffled.

  “Yes, keep up! Runs this POW camp.”

  The matron! thought Jack. “Of course, sir.”

  “Once at the flowerbeds, I will make sure the guards aren’t looking, I will pull on the bands of the soil socks and tally ho! The soil is released! Then I will shuffle about like a penguin treading it into the ground.”

  To illustrate this particular part of the escape plan, Grandpa did a little penguin walk around his dormitory.

  “That still doesn’t explain the tea tray and roller-skates, sir,” said Jack.

  “Getting there, Bunting! I will attach the roller-skates to the bottom of the tea tray, and use it to travel backwards and forwards along the tunnel on my back.”

  “Well, sir, you have certainly thought of everything.”

  “It’s genius, Bunting. GENIUS!” proclaimed Grandpa a little too loudly.

  “You must be careful not to wake them all, sir,” whispered the boy, indicating the rows of sleeping old men in the dormitory.

  “A bomb couldn’t wake this lot up, old boy. Those sleeping pills the guards give us could knock out a rhinoceros. My fellow prisoners of war are only awake for less than an hour each day. Quick bowl of watery soup then straight back to bed!”

  “So this is where all the Smarties come in!” guessed the boy.

  “Correct, Squadron Leader! There are only so many of those darned pills that I can conceal in my moustache. The Kommandant has become suspicious too.”

  “Really, sir?”

  “Yes, wants to know why I am so much more awake than everyone else. So the guards have doubled my dose and watch me like hawks when I am given them. So I plan to break into the pharmacy they have here, and exchange my pills for sweets. Cut them off at the supply! Then there is no problem with me swallowing them. In fact, I am rather partial to the odd Smartie.”

  Jack had to hand it to his grandfather. This was a brilliant and daring plan. But from the narrow ledge where he was standing, the boy looked out across the grounds of Twilight Towers. The perimeter wall was at least a hundred metres away. It was going to take the old man a lifetime to dig all that way, especially armed with nothing more than a spoon, some old socks and a tea tray with a pair of roller-skates attached to the bottom of it.

  And Grandpa didn’t have a lifetime left.

  Jack was going to have to help him.

  But he had no idea how.

  37

  Something Dark, Something Creepy

  It was a Sunday, the day on which Matron permitted the visiting hour to Twilight Towers. Which wasn’t even an hour. It was fifteen minutes. 3pm to 3:15pm. And as Jack had found out, if you tried to see your family member at any other time, the nurses would escort you off the premises.

  The family sat in silence in the car for most of the journey there.

  In the driving seat, Jack’s father stared straight ahead not saying a word. From the back seat, the boy glimpsed Dad’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. They were misted with tears.

  In the passenger seat, Jack’s mother kept on blabbing away to fill the silence. She used second-hand phrases, phrases people use when they try to convince themselves of something they know is not true. Phrases like, “It’s for the best,” and, “I imagine he’s so much happier than he was at home,” and even, “In time I am sure he will learn to love it there.”

  The boy had to bite his tongue. His parents h
ad no idea he had made two secret visits to Twilight Towers already. But although he didn’t think they would believe his suspicions about this terrible place, Jack hoped that when they actually visited Twilight Towers they might begin to see things his way.

  When the car lurched up to the metal gates, Dad stepped out to open them. Suddenly having a flashback to the electric shock he’d received before, Jack blurted out, “Just ring the bell!” His father looked puzzled, but did what the boy said. Slowly the gates whirred open. With Dad back in the car, they drove inside.

  The worn tyres slipped on the gravel. As the car reeled to one side, Twilight Towers loomed into view.

  “Well, it looks very, er, nice,” said Mum.

  As soon as the car had stopped outside the front door, Dad turned off the engine. Jack’s ears pricked up. He could hear music coming from the home. Immediately he recognised the tune.

  DA-DA DA-DA DA-DA DAA

  It was ‘The Birdie Song’, a song so annoying once inside your head it would never leave.

  DA-DA DA-DA DA-DA DAA

  The instrumental record had recently been a huge number one hit.

  DA-DA DA-DA

  The song had been played over and over again at every wedding, party and children’s birthday up and down the country.

  DA-DA DA-DA

  ‘The Birdie Song’ screamed FUN FUN FUN!

  DA-DA-DA DAAA, DA-DAAA, DA-DAA DAA

  But it wasn’t fun. It was torture.

  DA-DA-DA DAA, DA-DA-DA DAA!

  To Jack’s surprise, Matron bounded out of the front door, sporting a paper party hat.

  “Welcome welcome welcome!’’ she said in a jolly tone that sat as awkwardly with her as the ridiculous hat did on her head.