Trixie and the Dream Pony of Doom

by Ros Asquith

  I clambered on Chloe’s shoulders to reach the window and she tottered about like a drunk person underneath, yelping and grumbling.

  “Shut up!” I hissed at her. “People will hear!”

  “Ow!” groaned Chloe. “You’re heavier than you look.”

  “You’re wimpier than you look,” I said, but got a grip on the window ledge and hauled myself up.

  The loo window was only open a crack and wouldn’t budge. Suddenly being tiny was a big advantage. I squirmed my way through.

  “Wish me luck,” I said.

  “Good luck,” called Chloe obediently, and disappeared from view as I yanked my leg out and found myself clinging frantically to the Very Extremely sloping roof over the secretary’s office. I wriggled along the slippery tiles on my tummy. Black Spot, the caretaker’s cat, was sitting up there thinking about catching birds and growled at me resentfully.

  “Nice pussy cat,” I whispered. “Now shut up and mind your own business.”

  I peered carefully over the gutter into the office window. Dinah was in there sobbing uncontrollably. Horrors! What had happened? Debbie Starbuck, the secretary, was looking almost as distressed. Then I realised this was all Dinah’s act, to stop Debbie hearing me on the roof. What a waste, when I was being as silent and deadly as a mountain lion…

  “AAAAARGH … HELP!!!” I heard myself shouting as I slipped about two feet clown roof and only just saved myself by grabbing the drainpipe leading to the ground.

  As I scrabbled to hold on I could see Debbie Starbuck trying to look round, but Dinah was clinging on to her head in an iron grip while having hysterics. “You don’t understand!” Dinah was howling. Obviously Dinah was convincing Debbie she had some disgustrous illness and I certainly wasn’t going to risk my chance of escape by hanging around to hear any more.

  I swung myself off the roof on to the drainpipe, slithered down and hit the ground running (well, hit a big puddle actually, which spattered big brown blobs all over my legs), crossed the window with a wink from Dinah but without Debbie seeing me, and wriggled through the tiny gap in the fence and into the garden of the old folks’ home.

  The first thing I saw was a sweet little old lady in a sun hat, knitting.

  The next thing that happened was some Extremely Bad Swearing. I couldn’t think how anyone could be so rude and looked round to see where it was coming from. It was the sweet little old lady who was now tottering towards me, cursing and brandishing her knitting needles!

  The third thing was a horrible screaming siren, which was the old folks’ home burglar alarm. I mean, who sets a burglar alarm on their fence?!

  “Do I look like a burglar?” I squeaked. It beats me why everyone is scared of everything these days. When was the last time you were mugged by a ten-year-old midget in pink mud-spotted trainers? I thought. My next thought was, Run for it!

  So I did.

  I got to our house just as Mum was strapping Tomato in the car. She took one look at me and it was a teachery look that said, “You’ve skipped school.” But she didn’t say anything, just raised an eyebrow.

  “Tell you later,” I said. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Driving. Driving me mad, in fact,” snapped Mum as we accelerated off to the TV studio.

  It only took a few minutes to get there, during which time I was sweating so much in case someone at school had raised the alarm because I’d gone missing. But of course, the minute we’d parked Mum phoned old Starbuck to say she’d had to pick me up on urgent family business.

  “Mum, you’re a star.”

  “Let’s hope Grandma Clump will be the star,” she said, giving me a very beady glare.

  We had arrived late, but as relatives of a contestant we were swept through the corridors of the TV studio, which was very exciting. There were photos of all kinds of famous people smiling from the walls, people rushing about going “Yah” into mobile phones, and a Very Extremely Famous chat-show host walked past looking much greyer and tireder than he does on telly, picking his nose. Dinah likes him, so it’ll be special fun telling her about the nose part.

  We were shown to our seats and yours truly was sat next to a Very Extremely over-excited Tomato and a Very Extremely nervous Mum, and we were all squashed up next to a lady the size of a mountain and her even bigger husband. They both snorted so much like rhinoceroses I wondered if they were meant to be at a wildlife programme and had come to the wrong studio.

  We couldn’t see Grandma Clump or any of the contestants, though there were four little empty chairs and a big fancy one like a throne on the stage.

  “That big chair must be for the winner, when they crown Grandma Clump as Quiz Queen,” I whispered to Tomato. But Micky Swoppitt came on first and sank into the throne.

  “Hello ladeezngennelmen, boysngurlz, and how are we today?” Micky Swoppitt said, and his smile went so far round the sides of his face I was worried the top of his head might fall off.

  “READY TO TAKE THE MICKY!!!” the audience shouted.

  That’s what Micky Swoppitt asks every time, and it’s what the audience is supposed to shout back every time. Don’t go on at me; I didn’t invent it.

  “And what’s Micky ready for?” Micky Swoppitt bellowed at the crowd, his smile now so massive it looked as if he’d borrowed it from somebody with a head at least twice his size.

  “READY TO SWOPPITT OR DROPPIT!!!” roared the crowd happily.

  “I didn’t hear that,” said Micky Swoppitt, putting a hand behind his ear and pretending to look puzzled.

  Tomato, who had put his fingers in his ears when the audience answered the first time, jammed one of them in my ribs and whispered, “Why he not hear it? Mus’ be deaf.”

  “READY TO SWOPPITT OR DROPPIT!!!” the audience screamed, and Tomato put his fingers back in his ears.

  “Look,” I said, “there’s Grandma.”

  Grandma Clump, looking very small and very round and wearing so much make-up I was worried she’d topple over with the extra weight, was being led on stage by a blonde girl in a skirt like a spangly hanky. Three other girls in hankies led on the other contestants—a woman with a large knobbly head like a potato and a bendy-looking body like a banana (emphasised by a bright yellow dress), a guy who looked as though he had been stretched like a giraffe, and a pinched tube of a man in a blue suit who looked like a Year Two art project made out of loo-roll-middles.

  They all seemed calm except for Granny Clump, who sat down and started twiddling the end of her specs.

  “She always does that when she’s nervous,” whispered Mum. “I wish she’d put them on; she can’t even think without them, let alone see.”

  Micky Swoppitt then asked all the contestants boring questions about their families and pets and all, whatever. But I snapped to attention when I realised Grandma Clump was talking about ME. Aaargh!

  “Patricia’s always nice to everybody and works so hard,” Grandma Clump told Micky Swoppitt in almost a whisper. “Of course, she wants to be grown-up, but she’s my little girl at heart.”

  A big photo of me and Tomato, which I thought I’d told Mum to destroy, went up on the screen behind Micky Swoppitt. I had Tomato on one knee, and a fat and rather tatty-looking teddy bear that Grandma Clump had made me on the other. Tomato was gripping Heffalump, his stuffed toy. We all four looked rather alike, as a matter of fact. I thought I was going to die there and then. Everybody I knew would see this, and Grey Griselda would go on about it for the rest of my life.

  Everyone went, “Aaaaaah.” I wished I was on the moon or anywhere else because a camera came and stuck itself right beside my head. There was my face filling the big screens around the studio and all I could see was my one especially-stupid baby tooth that I’ve still got that looks daft next to all my other big teeth, like a baby polar bear surrounded by icebergs. Tomato made it worse by holding up a poster he’d made that said,

  This made everyone except me laugh even harder since he obviously meant “Mum” and his mum wasn’t watchi
ng the telly but actually sitting right next to him. How could I fulfil my ambitions to be First Trumpet-Playing Child President of the World after this?

  “What are we waiting for?” Micky Swoppitt bellowed.

  “SWOPPITT OR DROPPIT!!!” the audience shouted back.

  The first challenge was the Feely Squealy round where the four contestants had to plunge their hands into a big sack which was being shaken hard by the four girls.

  All the contestants squealed and pulled their hands out again, and TV people around the audience held up signs saying SQUEAL, so we all did it too.

  “Oh, you lucky people,” said Micky Swoppitt. “Back to your seats and fingers on keypads. Was that:

  a) A nest of vipers? (The whole studio filled with hissing.)

  b) One long Amazonian python?

  c) A garden hose?”

  Everyone said garden hose of course. That is because they knew they were not on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here or The Discovery Channel, and were therefore unlikely to be offered a sackful of real snakes.

  “Just for that,” beamed Micky Swoppitt, “you’ve all won FIFTY POUNDS!”

  There was massive cheering and clapping from the audience and a girl in a pink bikini played a deafening long chord on a keyboard.

  “She on her holidays?” Tomato asked me, baffled.

  “Easy, isn’t it?” Micky said, giving Grandma Clump a playful slap on the back that almost made her glasses fall off. “OK, the choice is yours now,” he said to the four. “Do you want to …” He gave a long dramatic pause and held his arms out to the audience.

  “SWOPPITT OR DROPPIT!!!” we all yelled. This meant did the contestants want to go on and swap their £50 for £100 in the next round, or keep the £50 and drop out of the game. All four contestants pressed their SWOPPITT buttons. I did wonder for a minute if there was any kind of nice horse I could get for £50, but I didn’t think it was that likely, and anyway it would leave poor Grandma Clump with nothing.

  “Fingers on keypads now,” Micky Swoppitt said. “It’s the Lend Me Your Ears round. Of course, you’ll get them back on the way out, ha ha ha!!!”

  Signs held up saying LAUGH were greeted with hysterics from the audience. Tomato was laughing louder than everybody even though he had no idea what was going on.

  “What is this sound?” Micky Swoppitt asked.

  There was a strange deep, honking noise.

  “Was that,” Micky Swoppitt asked:

  “a) Somebody blowing their nose?

  b) A car horn?

  c) An elephant trumpeting?”

  All four were a bit stuck on this one and nobody did anything at first. This gave a red-faced man in the audience a chance to put up a hand with a hanky in it and say, “Excuse me, that was somebody blowing their nose. Me, in fact.”

  The audience fell about laughing, even though there wasn’t a sign saying LAUGH, but Micky Swoppitt didn’t look too pleased. He told the red-faced man that he ought to wait till the end of the show if he felt like doing that again.

  “Just as well we’re not live,” Micky Swoppitt said, scowling, then remembered his humongous great smile and put it on again.

  “T’was a man blowing his nose, that noise,” Tomato informed me solemnly.

  The noise came again and everybody stared at the red-faced man. But he sat on his hands and looked as if the only muscles he would ever dream of using again were the ones that would let him run at full speed out of the studio, so Micky Swoppitt repeated the three choices.

  Giraffe Man said it was a car horn, and Loo Roll and Potato Head and Grandma Clump said it was an elephant trumpeting—and they were right!

  The girl in the bikini played another massive chord, and the smile she turned to us was very difficult to tell apart from the keyboard.

  Giraffe Man had to drop out of the game now, but Loo Roll, Potato Head and Grandma Clump now had £150, and everybody Swopped It, so they went on to the Smell The Welly round. The Hanky Girls all stuck their noses into a welly boot and pretended to faint, and signs appeared going UUURRRGGGHHH! Everybody went UUURRRGGGHHH! Of course, Tomato especially.

  The contestants were blindfolded for this round which meant Grandma Clump had to take her glasses off and put them beside her keypad.

  Micky Swoppitt waved a rose in front of all their noses. “Is this …” he asked:

  “a) An aerosol of perfume?

  b) A string of onions?

  c) A flower?”

  Potato Head said it was the perfume. GROANNN!!! said the signs. The audience made the noise the crowd at Bottomley FC makes when they miss a goal, which is just about always.

  “That was a knockout round and I’m afraid Sylvie is outta here! Good luck, good sport, and don’t forget Micky’s Motto, keep Swopping It but NOT DROPPING IT!”

  Bikini Girl played another terrifying chord and Potato Head stumbled off past her blinding smile, looking heartbroken.

  “Not like this game,” said Tomato quietly.

  “Shame somebody has to lose, but that’s life, isn’t it, boysngurlz?” Micky beamed.

  “YOU SAID IT, MICKY!” shouted the audience, reading the signs.

  “OK, now it’s crunch time and the Taste It Or Waste It round!” Micky announced.

  “Oh dear, they’re keeping the blindfolds on. You know Grandma hates the dark,” whispered Mum.

  It’s true. Grandma Clump is the most sensible person in the whole world except for one thing—she always sleeps with a little night light on because she says that things you only worry about a teeny bit in the day can become enormous, slobbery, jelly-like terrors at night. Me and Tomato used to find it comforting that grown-ups could be scared of the dark too. But lately I’ve been reminding her that dark is just something to do with the way the Earth and the sun turn round and it’s maybe a bad example to Tomato when she stays the night.

  There were now only two contestants left, but I was confident Grandma Clump would pass the taste round as she is the kind of cook who can make a sandwich into a banquet.

  They were all given a mouthful of something that the audience couldn’t see, then were ordered to put fingers on keypads.

  “Was that…” asked Micky Swoppitt:

  “a) Mashed boiled potato?

  b) Mashed boiled swede?

  c) Mashed boiled carrot?”

  Hmmm. Tricky. Mum was on the edge of her seat. “All the same texture; tricky to guess.”

  “All horrible,” said Tomato loudly and got a glare from a TV person. He just smiled his big “Who, me?” smile.

  The answer was mashed swede and Grandma got it! Unfortunately so did Loo Roll, so they both had to go into the final qualifiers which was Sight For Sore Eyes round.

  Then a horrible thing happened. One of the Hanky Girls, who was taking the blindfolds off the contestants, knocked Grandma’s glasses on to the floor and Micky Swoppitt crunched them under his big flat foot as he went past.

  “Cor blimey!” Micky said, bending down to collect them.

  GROANNNN! went the audience as a quick-thinking TV person stuck a sign up.

  “Sorry, Clara,” Micky Swoppitt said, cheery as ever. “Still, now you can kiss the milkman and tell the neighbours you thought it was Mr Clump.”

  The audience roared with laughter.

  Mum gasped.

  “He’s dead,” whispered Grandma.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah” went the audience.

  “Well, we all got to go sometime,” said Micky Swoppitt, though his grin started to fade like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland.

  Grandma Clump gave her little tinkling nervous giggle. She hates to embarrass anyone. “Don’t worry about the glasses,” she squeaked. “I only just got them. I hardly need them really, except for driving.”

  “Driving!” Micky Swoppitt said, turning to the audience and spreading his hands. “They’d better put out a news bulletin when Clara’s hitting the road, eh, folks? Just so we all know when to stay home!”

  The audi
ence laughed a lot more and Grandma giggled again. Bikini Girl played a chord on the keyboard, probably because she hadn’t done it for a while and was feeling a bit left out.

  “She just doesn’t want to make a fuss,” Mum said, horrified.

  “I don’t think it’s that,” I said, “I think she wants to seem younger.”

  “Whatever it is,” Mum said, “she’s blind as a bat without those glasses.”

  I was beginning to feel Very Extremely sad at the thought of a million pounds gurgling down the drain and Merlin galloping away from me into the sunset, lost forever. In fact, I imagined him galloping away into a fog as the sunset seemed too, well, nice for that moment.

  Tomato had started crying, very quietly. I was touched. He never cries quietly. In fact, he is the most extremely noisy crier in the universe. But he didn’t want me or Mum to miss the rest of the show.

  “Three cheers for Battling Granny, or should I say Glamorous Granny, Clara Clump,” Micky was saying. “Absolutely marvellous!”

  THREE (3) CHEERS said the signs.

  Grandma Clump blushed. Mum seethed. Tomato cheered, and cheered up. A picture was projected on to the big screen at the back of the set and the smaller screens around the studio.

  “Fingers on keypads! Is it …

  a) A baby’s bottom?

  b) Madonna’s cleavage?

  c) A ripe peach?”

  We all stared at the picture. There was a loooong hush. Because it was, really, Very Extremely difficult to tell what it was.

  Loo Roll leered and pressed B. Grandma, being a modest person who has never shown her cleavage to anyone, probably not even Grandad Clump, nor would like to say the word “bottom” in front of millions of viewers, squeaked, “It’s a peach,” and she pressed C.

  And she was right!