Bad Dad

by David Walliams

  Frank thought it better to keep his masterplan secret. “Raj, I have to go.”

  “Where?”

  “Court! I have to try to get my dad out of prison!”

  “This I have to see!” replied the newsagent, and the pair dashed out of the shop.

  That afternoon, Auntie Flip and Frank weaved their way through the huge crowds outside the court, and just managed to find two seats upstairs in the gallery. It was jammed full of people desperate to see Mr Big and his henchmen finally in the dock. There were rows of journalists, clutching their notebooks and pencils, eager to write down every detail of the trial to splash over tomorrow’s front pages. However, they were outnumbered by some of the townsfolk whom the criminal gang had terrorised over the years, all chattering to each other excitedly.

  “At last they got the little bully!”

  “I hope that nasty so-and-so gets sent away forever!”

  “Those two hyenas of his are just as bad!”

  “WHOEVER HAS DONE THIS DESERVES A MEDAL!”

  “This is the best day our town has seen in years!”

  Auntie Flip and Frank listened, and shared a secret smile.

  Everyone in the courtroom stood as Judge Pillar shuffled in. He took his place on his throne and banged his gavel on his desk.

  “Bring in the accused.”

  Mr Big, Fingers and Thumbs were all led in by policemen. Their hands were cuffed, and they were still wearing their charred clothes from the night before. On seeing them, the court erupted. The townsfolk had been concealing rotten fruit under their coats, and hurled it at the three criminals.

  WHIZZ!

  “TAKE THAT!” shouted the old lady from the church with the hearing aid as she threw a watermelon.

  It burst on Mr Big’s head, spraying watermelon juice everywhere.

  A tiny man in a neck brace threw a pineapple, which hit Thumbs on the nose.

  BONK!

  “OW!” shouted the henchman.

  “GET A TASTE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE!” yelled the tiny man as cheers erupted in the court.

  “HOORAY!”

  If Fingers was feeling smug to be the only one not to have been hit, that was soon to change. A lady in a wheelchair pulled out a catapult and fired a bag of tomatoes at the man. One by one they exploded on to Fingers’s face.

  SPLURGE! SPLURGE! SPLURGE!

  “GOTCHA! GOTCHA! GOTCHA!” shouted the lady.

  “Stop!” yelled Fingers through his tears.

  The judge, who’d been transfixed by what was going on, finally reached for his gavel.

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  “ORDER! ORDER!”

  Calm was restored to the court.

  “There will be no more throwing of rotten fruit in my courtroom,” he ordered.

  “Someone just threw some tomatoes. They’re vegetables aren’t they?” asked Thumbs.

  “No, tomatoes are fruit!” huffed Fingers, wiping tomato juice off his face.

  “I am pretty sure they are vegetables.”

  “NO! TOMATOES ARE FRUIT, YOU IGNORAMUS!”

  “Are they?” Thumbs asked the court.

  “YES!” shouted everyone.

  “Oh, you learn something new every day,” mused Thumbs.

  “Now, will the accused please—” said the judge.

  Just then an egg whizzed through the air and burst on Mr Big’s nose.

  CRACK!

  “Ow!” screamed the crime boss.

  “Who threw that?” demanded the judge.

  No one spoke up.

  “I said, ‘Who threw that?’”

  Again no one said a thing.

  “This trial will not begin until the person who threw that egg owns up.”

  Eventually Reverend Judith put her hand up.

  “YOU, VICAR?!” exclaimed the judge.

  “Sorry, Your Honour,” replied the vicar. “But you said no more throwing rotten fruit. I assumed a rotten egg was fine.”

  Gales of laughter filled the courtroom.

  “HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!”

  “Excuse me, please. I brought along a rotten cabbage,” piped up Raj. “That is a vegetable. Is it all right if I throw that, Mr Judge, sir?”

  “NO!” bellowed the judge.

  “No throwing of any foodstuff!”

  “Understood. If anyone wants to buy the rotten cabbage from me I will take anything upwards of one p.”

  “SILENCE!”

  “SHUSH!” shushed Raj to all those around him, though he was the only one who’d been talking.

  “Will the accused please stand?” ordered the judge.

  The three stood.

  “Mr Big, I said ‘please stand’!”

  The little man scowled.

  “I am standing, Your Holiness.”

  “I am terribly sorry,” replied the judge. “Now, you three are charged with robbing a bank. How do you plead? Guilty or not guilty?”

  Thumbs popped his hand up. “What do you say when you’ve done it, but you don’t want anyone to know you’ve done it?”

  “Not guilty,” replied the judge.

  “Not guilty, then,” said Thumbs.

  Mr Big and Fingers looked at him. He had dropped them all right in it.

  Needless to say, it didn’t take long for the jury to reach their verdict.

  “GUILTY!” called the jury’s foreman.

  “I sentence you all to life in prison!” announced the judge, banging his gavel.

  The crowd gathered in the courtroom erupted into cheers.

  “HOORAY!”

  A rotten cabbage flew through the air…

  WHIZZ!

  …and hit Mr Big on the chin.

  “OOF!” shouted the man.

  “Sorry! My hand slipped!” called out Raj.

  “Take them down!” ordered the judge.

  The three glared at Frank as they were led away. “Your daddy is going to get it,” shouted Mr Big.

  “Who are you talking about?” demanded Judge Pillar.

  “If I may, Your Honour?” asked Frank, politely putting his hand up to speak. “Mr Big is talking about my father, Mr Gilbert Goodie. You sentenced him to ten years in prison for the first robbery at the bank. A robbery these men made him commit.”

  “Did they?”

  “Yes, Your Honour. They threatened to hurt me – his son – if he refused to drive the getaway car.”

  There were boos from the courtroom and cries of, “SHAME ON THEM!”

  The judge banged his gavel on the desk. “SILENCE! Where is your father?”

  “In prison, Your Honour,” replied Frank.

  “Oh yes, of course. Silly me,” said the judge. Then he called out to one of his clerks, “Bring Gilbert Goodie to this court at once!”

  *

  Within the hour, Dad had been taken out of Wrongfoot Prison, and rushed to the court in the back of a prison van. Now he was sitting in the dock where the three gang members had been earlier.

  “Mr Goodie, it has been proved that you drove the getaway car in the first robbery,” began the judge.

  “That is correct, Your Honour,” replied Dad.

  “But your son tells us that Mr Big and his gang threatened to hurt him unless you played your part.”

  “He spoke the truth, sir. And my boy is the most precious thing in the world to me. He is all I’ve got.”

  Dad smiled over to his son in the gallery.

  “And it’s clear you played no part at all in the second robbery.”

  “No part at all. How could I, Your Honour? I was locked up in prison.”

  “On this point, I would like to call a guard at Wrongfoot Prison to give evidence.”

  “FETCH MR SWIVEL!” shouted one of the clerks.

  The doors swung open, and Mr Swivel took to the stand.

  “Yes, I can confirm that Mr Goodie was in prison the whole time, Your Honour,” said the prison guard. “Nothing and nobody gets past me.”

  “T
hank you, Mr Swivel,” replied the judge. “Well, Mr Goodie, the money from the first bank robbery in which you were forced to play a part has been returned. And it is clear there is no way you could have been involved in the second robbery as you were in Wrongfoot Prison at the time. So I have some good news for you, Mr Goodie…”

  Dad and Frank’s eyes met across the courtroom. The plan had worked a treat! But before the judge could finish, Sergeant Scoff waltzed into the courtroom with a long package under his arm.

  “Well, well, well…” announced the policeman. “Gilbert Goodie seems to have fooled you all good and proper.”

  “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS INTERRUPTION, OFFICER?” thundered the judge.

  “Let’s not let this man ‘hop’ free just yet,” said Scoff with a grin, clearly delighted with his pun. “He did take part in the robbery last night, and I can prove it!”

  “HOW?”

  “He left something at the crime scene!”

  “WHAT?”

  “I don’t know if he was drunk, but he was clearly ‘legless’.”

  Dad began fidgeting nervously in his chair. Frank could hardly breathe. This was agonising.

  “What on earth are you on about, you strange little man?” demanded the judge.

  “His fatal mistake is going to cost him an arm and a leg. Well, at least a leg.”

  “Will you shut up?” ordered the judge.

  “No! I will not shut up! Because the man you may be about to pardon left this at the scene of the crime!”

  With that, Scoff unwrapped the package, and held Dad’s wooden leg aloft.

  Everyone in the courtroom was shocked.

  GASP!

  Dad was done for.

  “If I may say a few words on behalf of my father, Your Honour?” said Frank.

  “This is highly irregular, young man,” replied the judge.

  “I know I am just a kid, but I think I have something very important to say.”

  Cries of support came from the crowd of onlookers in the court.

  “LET THE BOY SPEAK!”

  “GIVE HIM A CHANCE!”

  “LET’S HEAR WHAT HE HAS TO SAY!”

  “THIS IS BETTER THAN THE TV!”

  “CAN YOU ALL HOLD FOR A MOMENT? I NEED A PEE!”

  The judge caved in. “Yes, yes, all right, then, child. Come to the dock, and you can say your piece. But please be brief.”

  “Thank you, Your Honour,” said the boy, before racing down the staircase. Once he’d taken up his position next to his father, he began to explain.

  “When my father was sentenced to ten years in prison for a bank robbery, you, Your Honour, labelled him a ‘bad dad’. Would a bad dad want to put food on the table for his son? Would a bad dad want to scrape some money together to buy his son a present for Christmas? Would a bad dad want to make sure his son didn’t have to go to school in shoes that were falling apart?”

  The courtroom fell silent.

  “No. That is not a bad dad. My father has brought me up on his own after my mum walked out. He was forced into being the getaway driver for the first bank robbery. Dad had borrowed money because he had no choice. Mr Big and his gang threatened to hurt me if he didn’t pay back a hundred times what he had borrowed. He couldn’t. My father had to do what this evil gang told him.”

  Raj was bawling his eyes out…

  “WHAAA!”

  …and blowing his nose loudly on a tissue, making a noise like an elephant.

  TOOT!

  “If myself and the jury had known all this, the outcome of the first trial might have been different,” said the judge. “Very different.”

  “Thank you, Your Honour. But my dad didn’t squeal on Mr Big and his gang because they said they would hurt me if he did.”

  “As a father myself, and a grandfather, I am shocked and horrified,” replied Judge Pillar.

  “Once he was sent to prison, I made a plan for him to escape for just one night. I thought being locked up would be the perfect alibi. Together, we returned all the money that was stolen to the bank. Every last penny.”

  Mr Swivel’s eyes swivelled in his head. This could not be true!

  “When we went to put the money back, Mr Big and his henchmen followed us to the bank. So we did something the police of this town could never do. We caught this gang of criminals red-handed.”

  All eyes turned to Sergeant Scoff, who looked as if he wished the ground would swallow him up.

  “That leg that Sergeant Scoff is waving around was used to shut Mr Big and his henchmen in the vault of the bank. My father sacrificed his own leg, well, his wooden one, so these criminals who have terrorised this town for so long could be brought to justice. He had to hop all the way home.”

  This caused a ripple of sympathy.

  “Ahhh!”

  “Right now he is being held up by nothing more than an old plastic mop.”

  Dad rolled up his trouser leg to reveal the rather sorry-looking mop.

  This caused a tidal wave of sympathy. “Ahhhhh!”

  Reverend Judith and Auntie Flip were both in bits. The two ladies were now sitting next to each other and sharing a lace handkerchief. They looked a little surprised to find that, without thinking, they’d wrapped their arms round each other.

  “So this isn’t a bad dad. This is a good dad. A really good dad. In fact, he’s the best dad in the world. And I’m proud to call him my dad.”

  Frank looked at his father from across the courtroom. Both had tears in their eyes. As hard as it was for the boy to find the words, it was harder still for his father to listen to them. People so rarely ever say what they really truly feel in their heart.

  All eyes turned to Judge Pillar.

  “I have listened with great interest to what you have had to say. Nothing can escape the fact that your father did drive the getaway car in a bank robbery. However, there are circumstances of which the court was unaware at the first trial. Circumstances that shine a whole new light on this case. Your father has served two months in prison. That is quite enough. Today the court is giving him a full pardon. From this moment, he is a FREE MAN!”

  The court erupted into wild applause and cheers as Sergeant Scoff stamped his foot and stormed out. Dad opened up his arms and Frank ran towards him. The man scooped the boy up and spun him round. Dad held on to his son tightly.

  “I love you, mate,” he whispered into Frank’s ear.

  “And I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  “And I love you.”

  It was six months later, and Frank and his father were sitting in church listening to two other people say those three words to each other. It was the marriage of Reverend Judith and Auntie Flip. The happy couple looked into each other’s eyes and kissed.

  “My first kiss!” exclaimed Auntie Flip.

  “And certainly not your last,” said Judith.

  The wedding guests all clapped and cheered. Finally the town’s church was full of people.

  Raj was in the front row, bawling his eyes out again.

  The church roof was leaking again too. Rainwater dripped on the two brides, though it didn’t dampen their spirits. Both ladies were smiling like never before.

  “I have written a poem!” announced Auntie Flip.

  “Oh no,” said Frank under his breath.

  “It’s called ‘My Lovely Judith’.

  “I was always very prudish

  Until I met Judith.

  It’s all been a surprise;

  She has opened my eyes

  To a world of love.

  I feel like a dove,

  Not a magician’s one hidden up a sleeve,

  No – one that is floating on the breeze,

  Soaring happy and free

  For all the world to see.”

  The wedding guests all erupted into wild applause.

  “That wasn’t bad,” said Dad.

  “I take it back!” said Frank.

  Auntie Flip looked overwhelmed by the
reaction of the crowd.

  “Thank you, thank you. I have written seventeen more,” she said.

  “Let’s save them for another day,” Judith jumped in. The vicar smiled at her new bride. “Now, as you can see, the church roof is still in dire need of repair, so no wedding gifts, please. Instead, we are going to have a collection now for the church roof. So, if you have any loose change, please pop it on the tray when it comes round. Thank you.”

  “Have you got any money on you, Dad?” asked Frank.

  The man rolled up his trousers to reveal his false leg.

  “Dad, what are you doing?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He slid back a block of wood to reveal a secret compartment in his leg. It was stuffed full of crisp fifty-pound notes.

  “Where did you get those from?” asked the boy.

  “Mr Big’s safe, of course!”

  “But you said—”

  “I know, mate. I’m sorry. I took a wad out of the safe when you weren’t looking. Hid it in my leg. There’s enough there to repair the church roof, and of course a tiny bit left over for us!”

  “Bad Dad!” joked Frank.

  “Good Dad!” replied Dad.

  “Pass it here.”

  Dad did so, and Frank looked at the stack of fifty-pound notes in his hand. The money wasn’t beautiful. It was ugly, or at least it made people do ugly things. As the tray came round to their row, Frank plonked the whole lot down and passed it on.

  “MATE!” exclaimed Dad. “What are you doing?”

  “We don’t need it, Dad. It’s only brought trouble.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. It’s not going to make us happy.”

  “I guess you are right, mate,” agreed Dad as he watched the tray disappear out of sight with longing in his eyes.

  DING DONG DING DONG! DING DONG DING DONG!

  The bells rang out for the end of the wedding service.

  When the guests exited the church, Frank was astonished to see that a Mini with a Union Jack emblazoned on it was waiting for them.

  “Queenie?” asked Frank. “It can’t be! She was flattened by the crane.”