by Michael Bond
‘If you ask me, Mortimer,’ I said as I laid him in the drawer, ‘it’s a good job I went to the library. We would never have met up otherwise.’
I must say he looked nice and cosy tucked up in the chest of drawers. I knew how he felt. There’s something special about hay when you’re lying back in it with your legs in the air. I think it has a lot to do with the smell. I left the drawer slightly open so that he could breathe properly. I expect pot-bellied pigs snore if they can’t breathe.
Just then the door opened and my Big Sister came into the bedroom. ‘Talking to yourself again?’ she said. Then she glanced at the floor. ‘So that’s where my hairbrush went to. And my best body lotion!’
‘Ssh,’ I said, before I could stop myself. ‘You’ll wake Mortimer.’
‘Mortimer?’ She treated me to one of her pitying looks. ‘You know what your trouble is? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you live in a dream world.’ And with that she slammed the door shut.
Well, that did it. ‘Some people,’ I shouted after her, ‘don’t have any imagination!’ And that was the last thing we said to each other for several days. I was going to show her Mortimer, but I decided not to. I’d keep him a secret from everyone. I feel sorry for people who don’t have dreams. Mortimer was the best pig in the whole wide world.
As I returned to rubbing his back with what was left of my Big Sister’s body lotion, I thought of another good thing about him. Mum was never likely to have any trouble with his whatsits!
7
Springtime in Paris
I KNEW IT wasn’t a good start to the day when Dad got locked in the lavatory just as we were about to leave home, and we had another upset at St Pancras station.
We were on our way to catch the Eurostar to Paris for a few days, and after we passed through security Mum, my Big Sister and I had gone quite a way before we realized Dad wasn’t with us any more.
Mum was the first to notice.
‘Where’s your father?’ she said, looking over her shoulder.
We retraced our steps, and you’ll never guess what we saw. He was with a lot of men in uniform and they were all looking at MY COWBOY GUN. I had been wondering where it was. It turned out that Mum had forgotten she’d hidden it in one of their suitcases soon after it was taken away from me at Christmas, and it had showed up on the screen. Even though it wasn’t a real one, they were lecturing Dad for setting a bad example to children.
‘What a place to put it!’ he cried as we drew near.
‘Well, you told me to hide it somewhere safe,’ said Mum. ‘It seemed as good a place as any. Besides, you packed the case. Didn’t you look in all the pockets?’
Dad couldn’t think of a suitable answer, so everybody turned to look at me as though it was my fault.
Once grown-ups get hold of something like that, it feels as though you’re never going to hear the end of it. They were still talking about it an hour later when we were on the train. As it happened, it was Dad who changed the subject, much to my relief.
‘We are about to enter the tunnel,’ he said. ‘If you look out of the window, you may see some fish going past.’ That’s the kind of thing my grandfather says.
I ignored him and turned instead to the new Max Masters book I’d got from the library. Dad said he hoped it would keep me quiet, but in the end it kept everybody quiet except for me. I had to speak loud because of the noise.
‘Did you know,’ I shouted, ‘that when they built the tunnel, they had to remove nearly eight million cubic metres of earth? Think of the ginormous hole it must have left. It’s a wonder the roof doesn’t fall in with nothing left to support it. I bet the water wouldn’t half rush in if it sprang a leak. I expect that’s why the trains go so fast. They want to reach the other end before it collapses. If it did, there’d be no escape.’
That did the trick. Mum and Dad stopped talking. In fact, everyone in the carriage stopped talking.
‘I do wish you’d keep your voice down,’ whispered Mum.
‘I suppose if the water came in ahead of us, the driver could try putting the train into reverse,’ I shouted, trying to make everybody feel better. ‘Of course, he’d have to stop first – otherwise he would damage the gears, and then we’d really be stuck.’
‘Do you mind?’ said my Big Sister.
‘I hope the Mafia weren’t involved with any of the firms who did the concreting,’ I continued. ‘They might have buried lots of bodies in the wet cement. My friend Barry’s father said they’re supposed to have done that when the overhead road to London airport was being built. He should know, he’s a policeman. He says the Chiswick flyover is reckoned to be the worst spot. He always gives it a miss. As the bodies decompose, it leaves a hole in the concrete. I bet there are lots of thin bits in this tunnel.’
‘Barry’s father ought to know better,’ said Mum.
‘The boy’s got to learn,’ said Dad, coming to my rescue for once.
‘Yes, but at least he could keep it to himself.’
‘Can I do some exploring?’ I asked. ‘I think Mortimer might get taken short if I stay here too long.’
Everyone seemed to think that was a good idea.
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Dad. ‘You can’t open the doors while the train’s in motion.’
‘More’s the pity . . .’ My Big Sister’s voice followed me up the aisle. ‘What’s the betting he has a go?’
Actually, I didn’t get very far, because the first thing I came across was the toilet. Have you ever been in one on Eurostar? It’s the best part of the train. What they call ‘all mod cons’. I could have stayed in there all day. In fact, I very nearly did, but in the end I got fed up with people knocking on the door.
I couldn’t wait to tell the others. ‘It’s the best toilet I’ve ever been in,’ I said. ‘You should have a go. I bet even Dad wouldn’t get locked in.’
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ asked Mum.
You know, that’s another thing that’s unfair about life. Grown-ups are allowed to ask questions like that, but you try asking it if you’re young! I like reading up about things before I go on trips. Someone once said that it’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive, and I know what they meant. Not that you could say that about the Eiffel Tower. That was the first thing I looked for when we reached Paris. It was just as Max Masters described it.
I don’t think Mum and Dad really wanted to go up to the top. Whenever I caught sight of it they immediately starting pointing at things in the opposite direction. But the thing about the Eiffel Tower is it’s so big it won’t go away. Everywhere you go you catch glimpses of it. Sometimes when you least expect it. You turn a corner and – Wham! Bang! – it’s right in front of you. So in the end they gave way.
I kept Mortimer under my jacket as we joined the queue because Dad might have been charged extra for him and it was bad enough as it was. Also I wanted to consult my book.
‘It’s funny really,’ I said as we entered the lift to take us up to the first level. ‘When it was first built in 1899, it was only expected to last twenty years. And yet it’s still here. That means . . .’ I started to count, but even allowing ten years for every finger I only just made it. ‘That means,’ I said, ‘it’s over ninety years past its sell-by date. I think they ought to paint that on the side to warn people that it might collapse at any moment.’
‘I don’t want to know,’ said Mum. Funny thing, she had her eyes closed. I don’t think she likes heights for some reason.
‘I wonder if they’re the original cables on the lifts,’ I said, thinking out loud. I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult not to think out loud about things. ‘I mean, I can understand iron lasting all that time, but Max Masters reckons the cables would start to fray with all the wear and tear they suffer from people going up and down, day in, day out.’
‘Ssh!’ said Mum.
However, it was too late. The lift was packed and it was just like in the train. Everyone had gone quiet.
‘It’s not as if there’s one long lift,’ I said, trying to make amends. ‘There’s two. The second one goes to the platforms above us. At the most we would only fall five hundred and twenty-two feet. Besides, it must be worse in the summer. When it’s hot the metal expands and the tower is fifteen centimetres taller.
‘I bet you didn’t know that,’ I called to my Big Sister, who was trying to pretend she was with someone else. ‘And another thing. When there’s a strong wind, the top can sway as much as twelve centimetres.’
Sometimes you might just as well talk to yourself for all the interest people take. One good thing about the Eiffel Tower: the queues may look big when you first get there, but they soon thin out. By the time we were in the second lift there weren’t very many passengers left, which was a good thing because we got a better view of all the rivets holding everything together.
‘Do you realize,’ I said, ‘there are over two and a half million of them? Max Masters reckons they must be suffering metal fatigue by now. I expect if you look closely, a lot of them are about to go pop. He reckons the whole thing is probably held together by paint. It takes over fifty tons to cover the lot, and they do it every seven years. He thinks it’s to cover up the cracks.’
I like knowing about things like that. It makes life more interesting.
‘If you ask me, he sounds like a Francophobe,’ said Dad, breaking the silence.
‘I think he’s American,’ I said. ‘He comes from Wisconsin.’
When we stopped at the third level, the other passengers left us to it, which was probably just as well because there are no stairs after that, so the only way back down is by lift.
‘At least it means we’ve got the top of the tower to ourselves,’ said Dad. ‘Come and have a look at the view. I expect you can see our hotel on a clear day.’
All I could see was heat haze, but I didn’t want to disappoint him. Not after it had cost him so much to take us all up.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Can we go back down now?’
Grown-ups are funny about that kind of thing too. It’s hard to get things right with them at times.
When we were up the Eiffel Tower, I was in trouble for not looking down at the view. Then, when we got back down again and were walking around looking for somewhere to have lunch, I was in trouble for not looking up.
‘I bring you all this way,’ said Dad, ‘and what happens? All you do is mooch along looking at your feet. You can see those any day of the week. Look at all those beautiful buildings. All that fine architecture . . .’
Then he went all quiet.
‘Where’s your father?’ said Mum. ‘Don’t tell me he’s disappeared again.’
You’ll never guess the next bit. Why Dad wasn’t there, I mean. It was because he’d fallen down a hole in the pavement, that’s why! Have you noticed that things often go in threes? Luckily he landed on a workman. Well, it was lucky for Dad. The workman didn’t seem too pleased, especially as he was operating a pneumatic drill at the time.
Dad kept on shouting, ‘Pardonnezmoi,’ but we never did find out what the workman said in return ’cause he was talking so fast and waving his arms about as though he’d gone through a wasp’s nest with his drill.
Mum thought she heard him say, ‘Rule Britannia!’ at one point, but she might have got it wrong, what with the noise of the traffic and everything.
‘You’ve got the phrase book,’ she said, turning to me. ‘See what it says.’
Now, it’s a funny thing with phrase books. They never ask the sort of questions you want them to.
I wouldn’t like to go on holiday with the man who wrote ours. He sounds like a real wet blanket. Even worse than Dad. Nothing seems to go right. When he goes to the dentist, he says things like: ‘You have removed the wrong tooth!’ and when he goes to the seaside there’s a picture of him shouting, ‘My wife has been swept out to sea!’ followed by: ‘She can’t swim!’
But I couldn’t find anything like ‘My dad has fallen down a hole in the trottoir’ (that’s French for pavement). I bet he didn’t think of that one. Perhaps he didn’t have a father to fall down a hole so it didn’t occur to him that anyone might need the phrase.
The nearest I got was: ‘Est-ce un terrain de golf de dix-huit trous?’ which means: ‘Is this an eighteen-hole golf course?’ I don’t think it went down too well with the workmen.
I called down to Dad. ‘Have you broken your leg?’ I asked hopefully.
‘I don’t think so!’ he shouted.
‘That’s a pity,’ I said. ‘If you had and there were bones sticking out through the skin, I could tell you what to say.’
After that it went quiet until the ambulance arrived. The paramedics were very good. In no time at all they’d put Dad’s right arm in a sling, strapped his two legs together, and had him on a stretcher.
I borrowed Mum’s digital camera and took a photo of him being lifted into the back of the ambulance. I think I might send it to the school magazine. They’re always on the lookout for good action shots.
‘You go and enjoy yourselves,’ called Dad, putting a brave face on things.
‘Certainly not,’ said Mum.
‘Please,’ he said, waving farewell with his good hand. ‘I insist.’ He even managed a smile. ‘I’m perfectly happy by myself.’
‘That’s typical of your father,’ said Mum as the ambulance doors closed. ‘Always thinking of others, never himself.’
After they had taken Dad away, we went for a meal and I was in trouble again, only this time it was from Mum. She started grumbling because I was taking a long time eating my chips. I like putting them on top of each other to see how high I can go before they all fall over.
Luckily for me the waiter overheard and he came to my rescue. ‘Le jeune homme is right,’ he said. ‘Absolument! The French fries in this establishment are noted for being the best in Paris; possibly in the whole of France – and that means the world! They should be treated with respect and savoured slowly. I will bring him some more.’
You wouldn’t catch an English waiter saying that. He’d be more likely to take your plate away the moment you put your knife and fork down for a rest.
I learned something else that day too. It has to do with ordering a drink. In England, if you want to order one of anything and the waiter doesn’t understand, you hold up your first finger, meaning one. In France they hold up their thumb for one, so holding up your first finger means you would like two. Which is how I came to get two giant glasses of Coca-Cola.
I think I might come and live in France when I’m older.
8
A Day in the Garden
NOW IF YOU think the Eiffel Tower is fab (which it is), wait until you try the Jardin d’Acclimatation.
Everything in Paris seems to be big. For example, it takes for ever to get across the Place de la Concorde and the bus drivers seem to take a delight in driving straight at you. But that’s nothing compared to what is known as the Louvre. I was dying to visit one myself at the time, but you should have seen the size of the queue outside.
Well, I thought that’s what it was for, but it turned out to be a museum, so it cost Mum a bomb. While we were there we saw a picture of someone called Mona Lisa. She looked as though she felt like I did before we found the loo!
But the biggest and best thing we came across in Paris was the Jardin d’Acclimatation. It even has its own miniature railway, with a real policeman to stop the traffic every time the train has to cross a road on the way in. Mum said, ‘Say what you like about the French, but they do have their priorities right.’
Inside the garden they’ve got everything. You name it, they’ve got it. My favourite was a ride on a miniature aeroplane. I was in my element. With my eyes closed I could see it all. Max Masters would have been proud of me.
The pilot was just like Captain X in Galaxy (that’s a magazine about space travel I get every week). He was a man of few words. Well, he was afterwards. He wasn’t at t
he time. Not when he found himself locked in the lavatory at 20,000 feet. I’d never heard so much swearing before. Not even from Dad when the same thing happened just before we left home to catch the Eurostar, and that had been at ground level. Well, on the top deck, of course!
It’s different when you’re flying over the Atlantic . . .
Even then it might not have been so bad, but then the co-pilot suffered a blackout because the nose of the plane suddenly went up, which meant we were going into a stall, and I had to take over the controls.
‘That’s all right,’ I said afterwards. ‘Glad to be of help.’
‘It’s a good job you knew what to do,’ said a man who’d been listening to my story. ‘I flew Concorde regularly in the good old days, but I didn’t realize it was possible to do such a tight turn at over twice the speed of sound. It’s lucky the wings didn’t fall off.’
‘It’s lucky I was sitting near the flight deck,’ I said simply.
There was a round of applause from the rest of the passengers as I made my way back to the main cabin. I waved it aside, but as I did so I stopped to give the kiss of life to a couple of passengers who’d fainted clean away. Well, only one, actually – because just as I was about to start on the second the money ran out and the plane juddered to a halt.
‘Can I have another go, Mum?’ I asked.
‘It’s may I have another go, please,’ said Mum. ‘And no you can’t.’
‘How about the Hall of Mirrors?’ I said.
That was my second favourite, especially when I found one which made my Big Sister look all short and fat when she stood in front of it. I couldn’t stop laughing. She got upset when I pretended I couldn’t see any difference, which made it seem twice as funny, especially when she couldn’t find her way out on account of it being a maze as well. I thought it was very good value.
‘I think it’s high time we collected your father from the hospital,’ said Mum. ‘They said they were only going to keep him in under observation for one night.’