My Granny's Great Escape

by Jeremy Strong

  But the police didn’t stop to listen. They whipped out their truncheons and were up those stairs faster than the SAS, while Mum

  plunged a fist into her mouth and had a fit of silent hysterics. I crept halfway up the stairs and peeped. Strange, frustrated grunts were coming from my parents’ bedroom and the two policemen were creeping up on the unsuspecting robbers.

  ‘On the count of three…’ whispered the sergeant.

  ‘But…’ I heard Mr Tugg squeak.

  roared the sergeant. ‘Get that bag over his head, constable.’

  A few moments later, the policemen came back down dragging two very wriggly criminals with them. Mr Tugg and my dad both had bags over their heads and were handcuffed together.

  ‘Got them, madam!’ crowed the sergeant.

  ‘You are brave, officer. Can I have a look at them? I’ve never seen a burglar before.’

  The sergeant scowled. ‘They’re not a pretty pair, but all right. Take their hoods off, constable. There.’

  Dad was speechless with fury. Mr Tugg had gone a very deep purple. Mum stepped back, looking rather shocked. ‘Goodness, they are scary!’

  ‘Don’t worry, madam, they’re going to be locked up good and proper.’

  ‘The only thing is,’ Mum went on very matter-of-factly, ‘that one is my

  husband Ronald, and this one is our neighbour – in fact, Mr Tugg is in charge of the neighbourhood watch scheme.’

  This was followed by a long silence, only broken when Mum politely asked if anyone would like a cup of tea. That did help smooth things over with the policemen, but of course Dad and Mr Tugg were still fuming because Granny Rapunzel and her brave knight had escaped.

  My dad wanted the two policemen to hunt the pair down but the policemen said it wasn’t against the law to get married, even if you were a thousand years old. Besides, they were enjoying a nice cup of tea. If Dad wanted to find them, he’d have to search for them himself.

  ‘How do we do that? We don’t even know where to start looking.’

  Mr Tugg gave a strangled cry. ‘A clue – there’s a clue! I’ve just remembered – upstairs in Lancelot’s room.’ He hurried back to his house and a moment later he

  returned, waving a newspaper. ‘Look!’ he puffed, and he slammed the paper down on the table. Among all the advertisements was one ringed in red.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ muttered Dad. ‘They’re getting married in a hot-air balloon – how dreadful.’

  ‘It’s not dreadful at all,’ said Mum. ‘I think it’s rather exciting.’

  ‘So do I.’

  Dad glared at the pair of us. ‘You don’t understand at all, do you?’

  ‘Yes we do,’ said Mum. ‘Your mother and Lancelot want to get married and there’s no harm in that. Why shouldn’t they? I hope they’ll be very happy and I think you’re a crab-faced meany-pot to even think about trying to stop them.’

  ‘Stop them!’ shouted Mr Tugg, brandishing the newspaper furiously, as if he thought he could swat the balloon from the sky with it. ‘Come on – into my car! Maybe it’s not too late!’

  6 Mud and Muddled

  We dashed round to the Tugg’s drive, where his new car stood polished and gleaming, even if it did have one or two go-faster pigeon droppings on the sides. We piled inside – and I mean piled, because Mrs Tugg came with us, and she’s, well, on the large side. (Imagine a large green jelly with eyes and you’re not far off imagining Mrs Tugg, except that this jelly can waddle. Mrs Tugg always wears green.)

  Dad called out directions and urged Mr Tugg to drive faster. ‘I’m already doing thirty,’ Mr Tugg hissed.

  ‘Do you want them to get married?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Then you’ll have to go faster than thirty.’

  ‘Oh, all right…’ And with that Mr Tugg put his foot down and before long we were doing at least thirty-five.

  We reached Cotman’s Field just in time to see the hot-air balloon taking off. It was a wonderful sight. The giant rainbow-coloured canopy was rising above the hedges. We could see some people in the wicker basket hanging beneath the balloon.

  We leaped from the car and Dad and Mr Tugg went pounding across the field after the balloon, while Mum and The Jelly stood watching helplessly. ‘Go on, Granny!’ yelled Mum. ‘Good luck! Have a good wedding!’

  ‘That’s just what I think,’ murmured Mrs Tugg. ‘Good luck to them, I say. I don’t know why my husband thinks they’re being silly. I think he’s the silly one. He’s the silliest man I know. I mean, fancy cutting the grass with nail scissors…’

  ‘He’s not as silly as my husband Ronald,’ declared Mum. ‘Look at him, running about after a balloon, just like a little child.’

  ‘Come back!’ yelled Dad, but the balloon was already drifting away faster than he could run. ‘Quick, back to the car!’ yelled Dad to Mr Tugg, and they came pounding back across the field. Before we knew it they had jumped in the car and gone racing down the road after the balloon, leaving the rest of us stranded.

  ‘I like that,’ muttered Mum. ‘Typical men – off they go, don’t mind us. I’m not going to put up with it. Come on you two.’

  ‘But where are we going?’ wheezed Mrs Wobbly-Green-Jelly.

  ‘Lancelot and Granny must have left the motorbike here somewhere and – yes, there it is!’

  Without further ado, Mum was sitting astride the bike, pulling Granny’s helmet on, and handing me Lancelot’s. (I always thought he had a small head.) She kick-started the engine.

  ‘You can’t ride a motorbike,’ I shouted.

  ‘Why not? Come on, Mrs Tugg, you get in the sidecar.’ The engine burst into life and we charged across the field, with Mrs Tugg bouncing around and making loud squeaky noises, while in the far distance we could see the balloon gaining height. Mum skidded on to the road and was soon racing after Mr Tugg’s car.

  You can imagine Dad’s surprise when we went zooming past at high speed. Mrs Tugg actually began enjoying herself at that point. ‘Ha ha!’ she yelled back at her husband. ‘You old slow-coach! You geriatric tortoise! Faster, faster!’ she yelled to Mum, and she beat the side of the motorbike with one hand as if it were a horse. ‘Gee-up!’

  Dad was furious, and so was Mr Tugg. They came after us and soon we were racing neck and neck. We were even catching up with the balloon. ‘I can see them!’ yelled Dad, standing on his seat and leaning out of the sunroof. ‘They’re both on board and there’s a vicar with them. We’ve got to stop them! Get closer!’

  Seen close-up, the balloon was enormous and very exciting. The burners roared and spat long tongues of flame into the canopy as it drifted just ahead of us. Granny and Lancelot watched fearfully as we caught up with them. A long rope trailed down from the basket and I had just noticed this when Dad grabbed hold of it. A moment later he was being lifted from the car.

  ‘Stop the wedding – I object!’ he yelled and he started shinning up the rope like some crazy stuntman. ‘I’m coming to get you, Mother! Double-O seven is coming to the rescue!’ And he began to sing the James Bond music at top volume – ‘Dan-derandan dan-dan-dan, Dan-derandan dan-dan-dan…’

  Because of Dad’s weight the balloon seemed to be having difficulty in gaining any height and drifted away to the side of the road. Mr Tugg almost crashed his new car trying to go after it, and managed to screech to a halt in the nick of time. Mum just raced on, bursting through an open farm gate and into a field, which for some peculiar reason seemed to be full of cars and big, flashy trucks and slogans like MORGAN’S MOTOCROSS written on their sides.

  We skidded between parked cars, drove straight across someone’s picnic, much to their surprise, and went zooming on with several cheese sandwiches stuck to our wheels and flapping about like little flags.

  A moment later Mum went crashing through some ticker tape and we found ourselves surrounded by an angry wasp’s nest of junior motocross bikers, buzzing about all around us. Their chunky tyres sent big flabs of mud flying thro
ugh the air and in a trice we were splattered from head to toe. Mrs Green-Jelly turned into Mrs Mud-Cake, although she was still just as wobbly.

  I could hardly see, and Mum fought to control the big bike among all the little

  motocross bikes that were swarming about us. Half of them were so surprised to see us that they shot right off the track and ended up buried in the surrounding bushes.

  Meanwhile, the balloon was still struggling over our heads, with Dad hanging on to the rope and swinging backwards and forwards among the astonished bikers like a ball amongst skittles. Every so often he’d go crashing up against some poor kid on a motorbike and

  send them both hurtling into the undergrowth.

  All this might have gone on for hours except that the race marshals brought the race to a halt, leaving our motorbike stuck in a large puddle and surrounded by angry officials, fuming parents and several crying children who complained that we’d cheated. It took Mum fifteen minutes to explain and meantime the balloon drifted off towards the wood, where Dad decided to have a wrestling match with a tree and got tangled up in the branches. The rope twanged taut and the balloon couldn’t go any further.

  Suddenly the situation was quite dangerous. The balloon was straining at the rope and threatening to crash among the treetops, where the branches would instantly rip the canopy to shreds and the basket would tip everyone to the ground.

  Then Sir Lancelot came to the rescue. He climbed over the side of the basket, slid down the rope to Dad and cut the rope free. The balloon jerked clear of the trees and went drifting majestically away, along with the vicar, Granny and the crew, leaving Dad and Lancelot clinging to the treetops.

  Granny called to them sadly across the empty sky. ‘Lancelot!

  My brave knight! Come back! I love you!’

  ‘And I love you, babe!’ yelled Lancelot.

  Mr Tugg drove us home in silence. He got some plastic bags for us to sit on, because we were still rather muddy. He refused to speak to his wife – perhaps he didn’t recognize her under all that dirt. I thought Mum might be upset, but she seemed remarkably cheerful.

  ‘I haven’t had such fun in ages,’ she said. ‘And we won!’

  ‘We were disqualified,’ I said.

  ‘We won,’ nodded Mrs Tugg. She leaned forward and poked her husband. ‘And we beat you too!’ Even seen from behind, the ghastly white colour of Mr Tugg’s ears indicated that he was going into a five-star rage.

  Dad sat strangely quiet in the front seat, staring straight ahead. I turned and gazed out of the back window. Poor old Lancelot – he followed behind on his muddy charger. When we reached home he went straight to his room without saying a word.

  Granny wasn’t any better when the balloon people brought her back. You should have seen the look she gave Dad. She didn’t look daggers – she looked huge murderous spears – and like Lancelot, she didn’t speak. She went upstairs and shut herself in her room.

  ‘Well now,’ said Mum. ‘I think you and your mother have something to sort out, Ronald.’ Dad simply grunted.

  I have never known the house so quiet. Granny is still shut upstairs and Dad’s sitting in an armchair staring silently into space. The really weird thing is that, even though the house is so still, it feels as if something – SOMETHING – is about to happen.

  7 And Did They All Live Happily Ever After…?

  My dad’s crazy! He’s an absolute zingbat. You’ll never guess what happened today – Lancelot and his princess got married! They didn’t do it in secret. Sir Lancelot didn’t have to steal my granny away. They got married in our back garden – in front of Mum and Dad and Mr and Mrs Tugg and all our friends. It was brilliant! Mum cried, and Mrs Tugg went all wobbly and wept buckets and we all ended up bouncing on the bouncy castle!

  Oh yes, I forgot about the bouncy castle. That was Dad’s idea. He gets these brainstorms sometimes. You may remember I told you that yesterday everybody had gone all moody and silent. When we went to bed, Dad was still downstairs in the armchair silently staring at nothing in particular, but when we got up this morning Dad was nowhere to be found. There was a note pinned to the armchair.

  ‘What’s he on about now?’ asked Mum, but I hadn’t got a clue.

  Later on, there was a knock at the door and outside were two men with something that looked suspiciously like a dead hot-air balloon. ‘’Scuse us,’ they said, and pulled the dead thing through to the back garden. A moment later they started up a little portable compressor and began pumping air into the dead balloon. Mum and I watched from the kitchen window.

  ‘It’s another dinosaur,’ sighed Mum. ‘This must be your father’s work.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a dinosaur,’ I ventured. ‘It looks more like…’

  ‘…a castle,’ muttered Mum. ‘It’s a castle. Why have we got an inflatable castle in our back garden?’

  ‘Because when a princess marries a brave knight they always get married in a castle.’ Mum spun round and there was Dad, grinning from ear to ear, and looking just a wee bit sheepish.

  ‘What’s going on?’ cried Mum. ‘What is all this?’

  Dad waved his hands dismissively. ‘I got to thinking last night – I thought for ages. I thought about Lancelot and how he saved the balloon – saved me too, for that matter. He’s a good chap, even if he does look a bit… different. And I thought about my mother and how happy she’d been with Lancelot and how sad her voice sounded when the balloon was carrying her away from him. And I remembered the look she gave me when she got back yesterday. Then I wondered why they shouldn’t marry, and – well…’

  ‘Well what?’ Mum prompted.

  ‘I decided I’d been a bit stupid.’

  ‘A bit stupid?’ Mum prompted again.

  ‘All right, a lot stupid. Anyhow, I have decided to put things right. So the vicar is coming at twelve o’clock, and Granny and Lancelot can get married in a castle.’

  ‘Dad, it’s a bouncy castle,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I know, Nicholas, but I couldn’t get a real one. This is the best I could do.’

  Mum ran over to him and flung both arms round his neck. ‘It’s wonderful, Ronald,’ she murmured. ‘It’s so romantic – married in a bouncy castle!’ Then she began kissing him, so I made myself scarce.

  Lancelot and Granny were overcome when they realized what was going on.

  Mum got out her old wedding dress and it fitted Granny quite well. Lancelot wore his best motorbike leathers. Mrs Tugg picked off the studs from the back of his jacket and then sewed them back on so they said

  The vicar arrived and, half an hour later, Granny and Lancelot were married.

  Actually, the ceremony was a little weird because Granny’s hearing went halfway through the service. The vicar had just got to the bit where he said, ‘Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?’ when Granny interrupted.

  ‘Awful shredded hatstand? What are you going on about, you strange man?’

  ‘Just say “I do”,’ hissed Dad.

  ‘But he asked me about a hatstand,

  Ron. We haven’t got one, have we?’ Granny turned to the vicar and smiled politely. ‘We haven’t got a hatstand,’ she explained. ‘But you’re welcome to put your hat on the table, if you wish.’

  Now it was the vicar’s turn to look perplexed, and he repeated his question in desperation. Granny lost patience. ‘Look, I’ve already told you to put your hat on the table. If you don’t mind I am trying to get married. Do please get on with it!’

  It was Lancelot who came to the rescue, bending down and whispering very loudly into Granny’s ear.

  ‘Of course I take you for my husband!’ Granny said crossly. ‘That’s why we’re here! What do you take me for?’

  ‘Then I pronounce you man and wife,’ said the vicar with evident relief. ‘You may kiss the bride.’

  ‘What bird?’ demanded Granny. ‘Why should I want to kiss a – ooh!’ Lancelot had stopped her from saying any more by crushing her in his arms a
nd giving her a whopping great kiss – a real smackeroo.

  Dad got out his karaoke machine and began singing along with all his favourite tunes and we ended up dancing – bouncing really – all over the bouncy castle – me, Mum, Mrs Green-Jelly, Granny, Lancelot, the vicar, Dad, Mr Tugg – it was great! Lancelot decided to let all his pigeons go by way of celebration, and the pigeons celebrated in the way they knew best – flying round very fast and dive-bombing Mr Tugg’s new car – SPLOOP!

  Granny and Lancelot have decided to go and live in Lancelot’s house. It’s not all that Far away, so we shall still see lots of them. She looked so happy today. She stood arm in arm with her new husband, gazing up into his eyes. Then she noticed me watching and smiled.

  ‘He really is just like Britt Pad,’ she giggled, and hugged him even closer.