‘That makes no difference at all. I can still ride a motorbike – I did ride Lancelot’s motorbike, and I did it pretty well too. I even stood up on the seat.’
‘Granny!’
‘I did, Nicholas,’ she grinned. ‘I stood up and waved one hand.’
‘Mother, I don’t think you should,’ Dad said sharply.
‘Well, I’m going to,’ insisted Granny.
‘I don’t think this Lancelot from next door is a good influence on you.’
Granny’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Mum looked rather surprised too. Granny poked Dad in the chest. ‘Are you telling your own mother what she is allowed to do?’
‘Yes, I am. You’ll only make a fool of yourself.’
‘That’s a good one,’ Mum snorted. ‘Really, Ronald! You’ve made yourself look foolish more times than you’ve had hot dinners. You can’t tell your mother what to do. Besides, Lancelot is a gentleman and quite charming.’
‘He’s a sixty-five-year-old Hell’s Angel!’ yelled Dad. ‘Neither of you are to talk to him, do you hear?’
‘He said I was a princess,’ Mum added coyly.
‘He kissed her hand, Dad,’ I threw in for good measure.
‘He what?’ My dad was beginning to sound like Mr Tugg.
‘Kissed her hand,’ repeated Granny. ‘But don’t you worry, Ronald, there’s nothing in it. I know, because Lancelot and I are going to get married.’
‘YOU WHAT?!’ screeched Dad, who was now into a serious Mr Tugg impersonation.
‘Oh, Lancelot doesn’t know yet,’ said Granny matter-of-factly. ‘I have to choose the right moment – but we will get married. You can count on it.’
So that’s why Mr Tugg won’t speak to his father and my dad won’t speak to his mother. Granny is head over heels in love and I don’t know what’s going to happen now. Dad has banned Granny from seeing Lancelot, but I
don’t think she will let him get away with that, especially as Mum’s on her side too.
Isn’t life fun?!
3 Dancing Dinosaurs
Granny is still going on about Lancelot. It was all she could talk about at breakfast.
‘I saw him over the fence this morning. He winked at me, Nicholas. Oh, he is handsome! Don’t you think he looks like Britt Pad?’
‘Britt Pad?’ repeated Mum, shaking her head.
‘Yes, you know, that lovely actor.’
‘She means Brad Pitt,’ I explained. Honestly! (My granny is always getting muddled up on things like that. She thinks her favourite band is called Plop. I keep telling her it’s Pulp, but she never remembers.) Granny sighed and fluttered her eyelashes.
‘Do you think I should ask him out, Nicholas, or is that a bit forward?’
‘GRANNY!’
We all stared at her. Dad had to sit down. Mum put a hand over her mouth. I just boggled a bit. (I’m quite good at boggling. You stick out your tongue and make your eyeballs feel as if they’re about to fall out.)
‘You can’t ask him out,’ glowered Dad.
‘Why not? How can I marry him if I don’t ask him out first?’
Dad collapsed back with his mouth opening and shutting as he fought for words. ‘It’s not right. I won’t have you going out with some geriatric Hell’s Angel with a ponytail.’
For a fleeting moment a cunning look crossed Granny’s face. She looked just how I feel when I reckon I can trick Mum and Dad into what I want to do. ‘A pony?’ she said. ‘Who’s Gerry, and why do we have to know about his pony?’
‘You can’t go out with Lancelot,’ my father hissed. ‘He’s over sixty. It’s criminal.’
Granny smiled cheerfully. ‘I had a pony once, when I was small. His name was Black Beauty. He was brown all over actually, and he should have been a she, but I had read the book, and I wanted to call my pony Black Beauty too. He didn’t seem to mind.’
Dad got to his feet and stood over Granny. ‘Stop pretending to be deaf! You are not to see Lancelot, do you hear?’
Granny glanced at her watch. ‘Thank you for reminding me, Ronald! I’m missing my favourite snooker programme on TV. You are a good son to me. See you later.’
She swished out of the room leaving Dad staring after her in stunned silence.
‘I think your mother is in love,’ Mum said quietly. ‘She’s fallen for an elderly Hell’s Angel from next door. Now what are you going to do?’
‘You think this is funny, don’t you?’ fumed Dad.
‘Yes,’ giggled Mum. And I have to admit, it was funny.
‘That’s it,’ snapped Dad. ‘I shall go and see Mr Tugg and complain.’ This announcement reduced Mum to complete hysterics.
‘You are going to complain to Mr Tugg? Oh, that’s brilliant! That will make a change!’
Dad went striding up the Tugg’s driveway. He rapped on their door so hard he hurt his knuckles. Mr Tugg had hardly managed to open his front door before Dad bellowed at him.
‘I won’t have my mother marrying your father! I forbid it!’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Dad repeated himself while Mr Tugg shoved his hands on his hips and demanded to know what all this was about. So Dad explained. Mr Tugg was rather surprised and the two men began talking. Their voices got lower and lower. Neither Mum nor I could hear a word. This was very unusual. Normally when Mr Tugg and my father talk to each other, their voices get higher and higher and they end up bellowing, as if there’s an entire mountain valley between them.
Mum and I crept round the side of our house and were greeted by an amazing sight. Dad and Mr Tugg were whispering quietly to each other and nodding in agreement. NODDING IN AGREEMENT?! They never agreed about anything! What was going on?
‘Quick,’ said Mum, ‘he’s coming back!’ Dad crunched up our drive wearing a mysterious smile. Mum stopped him at the door. ‘Ronald? What’s happening?’
Dad looked at us triumphantly. ‘I told Mr Tugg that my mother was not to see or speak to Lancelot. Mr Tugg is in complete agreement and he is going to shut his father in his bedroom until he behaves himself.’
‘Mr Tugg can’t do things like that to his own father!’ cried Mum.
‘Yes he can,’ said Dad, ‘and what’s more, I am going to do the same to my mother until she comes to her senses.’
‘Ronald! How could you be such a dragon?’ But Dad wouldn’t listen, and he went off to tell Granny about her doomed love life.
Mum stood at the open door, staring out at nothing in particular. She had a faraway look on her face that slowly changed to a determined frown. She grabbed my hand.
‘Nicholas, do you know what we are going to do? We are going to set Granny free!’
I have to admit that this sounded rather grand. It was getting like some fairy tale. We already had Sir Lancelot-the-Brave and a beautiful princess – well, maybe not exactly beautiful and not exactly a princess either, but you know what I mean. We even had two dragons, namely Mr Tugg and my dad. Mum smiled happily and I felt terribly proud of her.
‘We are going to free Lancelot too,’ she declared.
To tell you the truth, Lancelot didn’t need much help being freed. Later that day, I was up in my bedroom when I happened to glance out of the window and there was Lancelot climbing over our garden fence. He looked quickly all around, zipped across to the Tyrannosaurus rex and promptly vanished.
I stood there watching and waiting, but nothing happened. The seconds ticked
by. Where had Lancelot gone? Then Tyrannosaurus rex moved – at least the bit of him that Dad had actually finished constructing moved. Staring out of my window I managed to catch a glimpse of Lancelot’s face inside Tyro’s jaws as the tailless monster tiptoed awkwardly across the grass towards Granny’s window.
Have you ever seen a tyrannosaurus wobbling about your garden going ‘Psssst!’ very loudly? It’s not really the sort of thing you expect dinosaurs to say, not even half-dinosaurs. Poor Lancelot was desperate to get Granny’s attention, but she rea
lly is deaf, even though it comes and goes a bit. Eventually he just stood beneath her window shouting.
(This was getting more like a fairy tale by the minute. I think Lancelot must be almost as crazy as my dad.)
Unfortunately Granny didn’t hear him – but Dad did! All at once, Dad’s karaoke machine bellowed out over the back garden.
Dad was standing at his bedroom window shouting into the microphone and holding a catapult he had confiscated from me. Lancelot froze on the spot. ‘Now, take off that disguise and go home. You wait until your son hears about this. You’ll be for it then.’
Poor, defeated Lancelot slid out of the monster and hightailed it back over the fence. You’ve got to give him full marks for trying. I wonder what he’ll do next?
4 I See More Than I’m Supposed To
Things have been quiet for a couple of days, but you know what they say about the calm before a storm. The doorbell rang this morning and when Dad opened it, he found a giant teddy sitting on the doorstep. Dad walked right round it twice. He even poked it several times, but it didn’t move. It just sat there, smiling.
‘Where did this pop up from?’ asked Dad, completely mystified.
‘There’s a label on the ribbon round its neck,’ Mum pointed out. ‘Try reading it.’
Dad let out a groan. ‘I might have known. It’s for my mother. It’s from Mad, Bad and Arthritic next door.’
‘It must have cost a fortune,’ sighed Mum. ‘Lancelot must love her an awful lot.’
Dad shot a furious glance at Mum. ‘Get it inside before the neighbours see. I can’t think of anything more embarrassing than having a giant teddy bear sitting on your doorstep.’
‘What about having a husband who sings very loudly into a karaoke machine, or keeps pet alligators? Don’t you think that’s embarrassing?’
I kept quiet. I could tell that this argument might get personal and nasty if Mum and Dad weren’t careful. I just kept my fingers crossed and hoped they’d find something different to quarrel about. And they did. Getting the teddy bear up the stairs to Granny’s room proved to be a major task. The bear was very heavy. Mum hauled and Dad pushed and they both came up with quite a few interesting words between them that I can’t write down or the paper might burst into flames.
Anyhow, eventually they got the teddy to Granny’s room and she was delighted. It was quite pathetic. You would have thought my granny was about six years old, not sixty-two. ‘Oh! It’s booful!’ She squealed, threw herself at the bear and began covering it with slobbery kisses.
‘This is disgusting,’ muttered Dad. ‘Look at her – a grown granny reduced to a burbling baby. This is really sad.’
‘I think it’s rather sweet,’ Mum murmured.
‘Oh, please!’ groaned Dad in disbelief. ‘Fetch me the sick-bucket, quick!’ Dad locked the door and stamped back downstairs leaving Granny cuddling her giant teddy and muttering ‘cootchy-coos’ into its ears.
It was about half an hour later when we were sitting downstairs having breakfast that I suddenly saw a face go swinging across the patio doors… and yes, I do mean a face – Lancelot’s face to be exact, upside down. He swung slowly from one side of the door frame to the other with his ponytail flopping about, staring at us and making frantic signs at me to pretend I hadn’t seen anything. This was a bit difficult because by this time I was almost choking on my toast.
‘Are you all right, Nicholas?’ asked Mum anxiously.
‘Looks as if he’s seen a ghost,’ Dad grunted.
‘I’m fine,’ I squeaked, and watched Lancelot swing lower and lower, until I could see that he had Granny’s bed-sheet tied round his ankles. She was upstairs lowering him out of her bedroom window!
And then the truth hit me like a bulldozer. Lancelot had been inside that teddy! No wonder it was heavy – what a character! He had smuggled himself in and now they were making their escape!
This revelation threw me into a bit of a panic. Should I tell Dad? Should I tell Mum? Should I keep quiet? Lancelot reached the ground, curled himself up and untied his ankles. He got to his feet, beckoned to Granny and grinned as he held the sheet-rope steady.
‘Would you like some more toast, Nicholas?’ asked Mum.
‘Ummm…’
‘Was that a yes or a no?’
My tongue had locked solid, and no wonder – I was staring at Granny’s knickers, swinging around outside the window! She had tucked her dress into the top of her knickers and now her legs were criss-crossing down the sheet like a big black pair of scissors. I swallowed hard, tried to speak and managed to produce some strange gargling noise – you know, the sort of sound you expect from a deep-space alien when you’re first introduced.
‘You look as if you’ve seen something ghastly,’ Mum observed, and I thought it was a good thing she didn’t know I was staring at Granny’s knickers or she’d probably go into orbit herself.
Granny reached the ground safely and untucked her dress. She blew me a kiss and, seizing Lancelot by the hand, she tiptoed away round the side of the house. I was left sitting at the breakfast table wondering what to do.
Dad went upstairs, still being all grumpy. It was very unlike Dad to be so grumpy. Normally my dad is always making jokes and laughing and larking about and driving people mad. I had never seen him so moody. I know he wasn’t happy about Granny and Lancelot, but I don’t know why he wasn’t happy.
What was wrong with Granny and Lancelot liking each other? OK, so they were being horribly soppy – but why shouldn’t they like each other? I went into the kitchen and asked Mum.
‘It’s a good question, Nicholas,’ she answered. ‘You don’t remember your grandfather – he died when you were very small. He was a lovely man, full of laughter, a bit like your dad I suppose. It was sad when he died. I don’t think we ever thought that Granny might one day want to get married again. It’s come as a bit of a shock
to your father. He thought she was quite happy with us – and she has been happy with us – but now there’s Lancelot next door, and your father hasn’t got used to it yet. And, of course, you know what your dad thinks about next door! The thought of his mother marrying one of the Tuggs!’ Mum began to laugh.
‘What do you think?’ I asked.
‘I hope they’ll be very happy,’ she said. ‘I must admit I’m surprised – but I do hope they’ll be happy. Mind you, they’ve got to escape first, and Mr Tugg and your
father won’t allow that to happen easily, I can tell you.’
‘They’ve already escaped,’ I said.
‘What?’ Mum grabbed hold of me. ‘How? I mean when?’
‘Just now, when you thought I was choking. Lancelot must have been hiding inside that teddy. He let down a sheet and they climbed out of her bedroom window and I saw Granny’s… um, saw Granny go off with Lancelot.’
Mum had clamped one hand across her mouth in disbelief, but now she began to giggle. ‘That Lancelot! He’s a devil – what will he think of next? To think that we carried Lancelot up to Granny ourselves – what a joke! Now the fat’s in the fire! I wonder what your dad will say – not to mention Mr Tugg.’ At that very moment there
was a loud hammering on the front door. ‘I bet that’s Mr Tugg, round here already to complain. Oh dear, here we go…’
5 We Have Burglars
It was Mr Tugg, in a three-star rage. (You know, the one where he pumps his arms up and down and shouts ‘I stand for this!’)
‘I won’t stand for it!’ he began. ‘Where’s my father? What has that scarlet granny of yours done with him? Where are they?’
Dad came hurrying downstairs, wondering what was happening. ‘What?’ he cried. ‘You let Lancelot escape? You fool!’
‘He knotted his sheets together. How was I supposed to know that a sixty-five-year-old pensioner would go abseiling out of his bedroom window? And don’t call me a fool! I’ not the one with a mad mother.’
‘She’s not mad. How dare you say my mother’s mad?’
‘Y
es she is mad, and she’s deaf too!’ By this time Mr Tugg had reached the four-star level and was changing colours quite nicely. ‘Where are they?’ he yelled again, and Dad, suddenly realizing that Lancelot was on the loose, gripped the banisters.
‘Quick, upstairs – come on – maybe it’s not too late!’ The two men pelted up the stairs and a moment later Dad had unlocked Granny’s door and burst in. Mum and I waited expectantly.
‘No! They’ve gone! Vanished! Vamoosed! Search the other rooms – quick, they could be hiding!’
Mum and I were just beginning to enjoy the little drama that was unfolding upstairs when things got even more interesting. A police car pulled up on our drive and two policemen hurried over to us.
‘We’ve had reports about a break-in,’ began the first.
‘Someone from neighbourhood watch rang us – said they’d seen two strange people climbing in and out of windows and lurking about.’
‘Lurking about?’ echoed Mum, and she gripped my hand. ‘That does sound dreadful…’
The second policeman hurried to the stairs. ‘Hey, Sarge! I reckon they’re still up there – I can hear them rummaging about.’
‘Rummaging AND lurking,’ repeated Mum, squeezing my hand even harder in a desperate attempt not to burst out laughing. ‘Oh dear…’
My Granny's Great Escape Page 2