My Brother's Christmas Bottom--Unwrapped!

by Jeremy Strong

  Mr Tugg bristled. ‘Aha! I knew it would be something to do with them. They’re nothing but trouble, you know. I wouldn’t let them in your car for one moment. They’ll very likely fill it with water and put a shark in it.’ Mr Tugg was beginning to go red. He was on the edge of becoming a volcano.

  The chauffeur eyed Mr Tugg curiously. ‘Why would anyone put a shark in a car?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s what my neighbours are like,’ growled Mr Tugg. ‘They’re completely crackers. They put an alligator in my car once. They’ve got a goat that eats hats. And their chickens make your bottom go spotty.’

  The chauffeur didn’t say a word, but his mouth opened and shut a lot as if he was struggling to think of what to say to all this.

  ‘And now you are all blocking my drive,’ Mr Tugg repeated.

  The chauffeur was quite a lot taller than Mr Tugg, so he reached over Mr Tugg’s shoulder and rang our doorbell. Dad opened the door.

  ‘Your car, sir,’ announced the chauffeur.

  ‘You’re blocking my drive!’ shouted Mr Tugg.

  ‘We’re all ready,’ Dad said, and we trooped out of the house and piled into the limo while the chauffeur held open the door for us. I felt like a film star! It was brilliant.

  ‘You’re blocking my drive!’ yelled Mr Tugg again as the chauffeur closed the door and went to the driver’s seat. The engine purred into life and we slowly moved off. Mr Tugg hammered on the windows but we could no longer hear what he was saying.

  And then we were off, gliding down the road and lying back in seats almost as big as beds – huge, comfortable, sink-down-for-miles beds.

  I looked out of the rear window and saw Mr Tugg still jumping up and down in the middle of the road. He was in full volcano mode, his little arms pumping and steam coming out of his ears. Poor Mr Tugg. Sometimes I feel quite sorry for him. I mean, what’s the point in getting so worked up? I guess some people are just like that.

  I didn’t want our journey to end. It was absolutely fabulous drifting along in that limo. We opened up all the little cupboards and it was like having a mini Christmas in the car.

  ‘There are packets of nuts in here!’ I cried.

  ‘There are drinks in here – oh my, it’s a fridge, and it’s got chocolate too!’ sighed Mum.

  ‘Chocolate, please,’ Tomato and Cheese chorused.

  ‘I don’t believe it. Look at this,’ said Dad. He opened two little doors and there was a wash basin with taps and a plug and soap and a little towel. Then we found the television and computer. One set of seats even folded down into a proper bed. Talk about luxury! This was the bizz!

  But where were we going? At that moment the telephone rang. Telephone? In the car? Dad answered.

  ‘Hellloooooo,’ he said in a funny voice, and we all tried not to laugh.

  It was Jack Dumper, phoning to explain that we were on our way to the Palm House at Kew Gardens in London. Jack wanted Cheese and Tomato to model the summer clothing collection there.

  ‘It’s where they keep dozens of tropical plants like palm trees and so on,’ Jack told Dad. ‘It will be a stunning setting for photographing the summer collection.’

  Have you ever been to the Palm House at Kew? It is HUGE. I mean it is just WHAM BAM MEGA GINORMOUS and made of glass. The inside is simply full of plants – and heat.

  THE HEAT! It almost knocks you off your feet and it makes you feel all clammy and sweaty. The leaves on those plants are as big as umbrellas. Some of them had massive flowers that you could practically climb into. I kept expecting to see fat slinky snakes sliding among the leaves and zany parrots flitting from one branch to another, not to mention Tarzan. You’d have thought he’d come swinging across at any moment:

  ‘AI-EEE AI-EEEE AI-EEEE!’

  In fact there was nobody there at all apart from the photo people and Jack Dumper. He had paid to have the whole place for a few hours. The photographers began to set up their cameras while Cheese and Tomato were whisked off to get changed into the summer clothes.

  Cheese reappeared wearing some long red swim shorts with monkeys climbing all over them. (Not real monkeys – I mean pictures of monkeys!) Tomato’s costume was covered with colourful butterflies. (No, not real butterflies!)

  I suddenly felt a stab of envy. They seemed to be having so much fun and getting all the attention. I was only there because they couldn’t exactly leave me at home on my own. I felt like I was just an extra babysitter.

  To tell you the truth I was getting a bit bored by it all. Fashion shoots are mostly waiting around while the photographers fiddle with their cameras and check the lighting and all that stuff. I went wandering off and found the tree-top walkway. That was much more interesting, especially when it rained.

  IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO RAIN! WE WERE INDOORS!

  Let me tell you how it happened. I was pretty high up, almost in the tree-tops. I was wandering along quite happily when I felt a few spots of water, and then some more. Soon it was pouring. I didn’t get all that wet because I was above most of it, but down below me it was like being in a tropical storm. Water was pouring down just like a real rainstorm. Every day the plants had to be watered. So every day the sprinkler system came on and automatically watered everything and everywhere — and that included anyone who happened to be inside.

  Screams came from below. Shouts and yells and people racing all over the place, quickly hiding their cameras from the rain. Eventually a gardener heard the cries coming from the Palm House and turned off the water.

  By this time Jack, Mum, Dad, everyone – they were all soaked. I came down from the walkway pretty much dry.

  ‘Was that you, Nicholas?’ Mum demanded sternly.

  I was speechless. All I’d done was wander among the tree-tops. It turned out that one of the gardeners had seen that nobody was going into the Palm House. He thought it was a good time to give the plants a watering and had turned on the sprinkler system.

  Mr Dumper was seething. ‘That’s the whole photoshoot ruined. We’ll have to do it all again tomorrow!’

  8. I’m in Heaven

  It was already late afternoon so Mr Dumper sent us to a hotel. Actually, it wasn’t just any hotel, it was a ten-star hotel. You should have seen it. Swanky, or what! There were loads of mega-expensive cars parked outside – two Ferraris, a Rolls Royce, three Bentleys, a Lamborghini and an Aston Martin. Wow!

  I stroked the Aston and whispered to Dad, ‘Do you think James Bond is staying here?’ He smiled and we all squelched into the hotel, dripping from our heads, noses, ears, chins, elbows and knees. We left little puddles behind with every step, right across the lobby of the hotel. You’ll never guess what my dad did. He walked up to the reception desk, looked at the girl behind the desk straight in the eye and growled at her.

  ‘You have a room for me. The name’s Bond, James Bond. I’ll have a cup of tea on the rocks, shaken but not spilled.’

  The girl’s face crumpled into a worried mess. ‘I beg your pardon, sir? Can I help you?’

  Dad leaned forward and several drops of water splopped off his nose and on to the desk. ‘I’m in disguise,’ he murmured. ‘007, licensed to get very wet.’

  Mum pushed Dad heavily to one side. ‘Please ignore my husband,’ she said coldly. ‘We are guests of Jack Dumper.’

  The worried face of the girl turned into a bright smile and she clutched at her heart with relief. ‘Oh! Your husband was making a joke!’

  Mum sighed. ‘You could call it that,’ she agreed. ‘But jokes are meant to be funny, aren’t they?’

  The girl laughed and said Mr Dumper had warned her we’d been caught in a shower. She gave us our room number and keys. Room 2205. ‘It’s on the twenty-second floor,’ the girl explained.

  I gulped. Twenty-second floor?

  We got into the lift and when it started with a quiet whooosh Cheese really, really thought we were going into space.

  W
e reached our room and opened the door. You know what? It wasn’t one room at all. It was SIX ROOMS! They were:

  1. Great big lounge area with the most gigantic wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling window looking out over the entire WORLD! (Well, that’s what it seemed like.) And all the Christmas lights were beginning to come on way down below, sparkling like tiny jewels all over the city.

  2. Bathroom, with a bath on brass lion’s paws right in the middle, and the bath was almost as big as a swimming pool.

  3. A room just for clothes – NOT a wardrobe, a whole ROOM, just for hanging clothes. Mum said it was the Dressing Room.

  4. A bedroom for Mum and Dad. I didn’t know which way to lie on their bed, it was so enormous, and really comfortable, with hundreds of cushions. There was also another giant window looking at the world.

  5. Cheese and Tomato’s room, with two big beds and their own telly and own little shower and toilet and everything.

  6. MY BEDROOM with a DOUBLE BED the size of a PLANET. And I had my own bathroom to the side and toilet and everything.

  I mean, this wasn’t a room in a hotel – this was a WHOLE HOUSE IN A HOTEL! Cheese came rushing into my room.

  ‘There’s a fridge in our room with chocolate!’ he yelled and went zooming straight out to Mum and Dad. ‘There’s a fridge in our room with chocolate!’ he repeated, before racing over to the door, sticking his head out into the corridor and yelling excitedly, ‘We’ve got a fridge in our room with CHOCOLATE!’

  By this time I was investigating my fridge too. There it all was – the chocolate, biscuits, crisps, fruit, drinks – the whole lot. Now I knew for sure that I wasn’t in a hotel at all.

  I was in Heaven!

  We were all pretty tired. We’d had the excitement of the limo AND been caught in a tropical rainstorm in the middle of London. It had all been mighty strange. Mum decided that we would order breakfast to come to our room in the morning and we should all go to sleep. I could hardly wait to climb into my luxury bed and I slept like a log.

  I had a weird dream where Mum asked me to help her make a Christmas cake. I didn’t want to help because, as you know, I HATE Christmas cake. Anyhow, I went to the cupboard to get some flour. It was on a high shelf. I reached up and managed to get the bag in my fingers but it tipped over. It began spilling down over my head but it wasn’t flour at all, it was water!

  The water kept pouring over me. Soon it came up to my shins and then right up to my knees and still it was sheeting down. I heard a distant yodel – AI-EEE AI-EEEE AI-EEEE! It was Tarzan, swinging through the trees wearing a red bikini! He let go of the rope and dived into the raging water. The next moment I was standing on Tarzan’s back and he was like a surfboard on the raging river.

  I was riding Tarzan, with the wind racing through my hair. Then Dad was coming up fast behind me in a huge limo, trying to overtake me. He had a sort of big slingshot and he kept firing Christmas cakes at me, missing me mostly until one Christmas cake got me, SPLABBAPP! on my side. I fell off and got rolled over and over by the waves, struggling to get out of the water, but I was trapped.

  I woke with a jolt. I’d got the bed sheets wound round and round me and I was lying on the floor! I’d managed to fall out of bed. What a nightmare! Phew. I was so pleased to be awake.

  It took me a few moments to remember where I was and then it all came rushing back. THE HOTEL! Yippee! Time for a mega-sonic bath in my very own mega-sonic bathtub. It was big enough for a rhinoceros. Honk-honk, SPERRLASH! (That’s a rhino getting into my bath.)

  There were all these little freebies in the bathroom – shampoo, soap, shower gel, bubble bath, all sorts. I set the tap running and poured in some bubble bath.

  I think I must have put in a bit too much. Before I knew it there was foam creeping up over the edge of the bath and slopping down on to the floor. Oops! Pretty cool though! I dived in, sank beneath the bubbles and turned into Godzilla, the foaming monster – rising, roaring from the depths to challenge the world.

  RAAAAAAAARRGGHHH!

  That was when the hotel maid came in, screamed, and dropped my breakfast tray on the floor.

  KERRASH! SKRANNGGG! SHATTER! BLOOP-BLOOP-BLOOP!

  Oh dear. Double oops! That certainly scrambled my eggs. Why hadn’t she knocked before she came in? (Answer: She had knocked but I was under all that foam and didn’t hear so she thought the room was empty.)

  Never mind. She soon recovered and ran off to get some more breakfast. (Plus a mop and bucket.)

  So, what with the nightmare AND the maid, the day didn’t start too well. Hopefully it could only get better.

  9. A Bit of Zap!

  ‘There’s been a change of plan,’ Jack Dumper told us. ‘As you know, yesterday’s photoshoot was ruined by the unexpected downpour. I wanted to re-book the Palm House at Kew but there’s a special Christmas event going on there today. So we move on to Plan B. We’re going to shoot the winter clothes collection instead.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ I nodded. ‘Are we going in the limo again?’

  ‘We certainly are,’ Jack said.

  I glanced across at Dad. ‘Just leave the Christmas cake slingshot behind, Dad, OK?’

  Poor Dad. He looked totally puzzled so I had to tell everyone about my dream. They fell about laughing, especially when I found myself on the floor with the sheet wrapped round me. I didn’t even get any sympathy from Cheese and Tomato.

  ‘You’re silly,’ Tomato told me.

  ‘Silly-billy,’ hooted Cheese. ‘Silly-billy-spilly!’ He thought that was so incredibly funny he repeated it about ten times, laughing so much he got the hiccups. Well, he is only four.

  We all piled into the limo – and I do mean ALL of us – Mum, Dad, Cheese and Tomato, me, Jack Dumper and two photographers, one make-up artist and three assistants. That’s twelve people, plus the driver. Thirteen. I told you it was a big stretch limo. It was so big it even had a garden shed. (Just joking!)

  We drove slowly through the London streets, which were full of Christmas shoppers. I could see them trying to stare through the darkened windows of the limo to see who was inside. I bet they thought it was somebody famous. I certainly felt famous!

  Eventually we arrived at an indoor ski centre. It was one of those proper ones too with artificial snow sprinkled all over it so it looked just like the real thing.

  Not only that, but the whole place had been decorated for Christmas. The ski lifts going up the side of the long ski run had been hung with Christmas lights and tinsel. There was a huge fat red plastic Father Christmas standing at the bottom of the slope going ‘HO! HO! HO!’ every time somebody went past. Up and down the slope there were big plastic reindeer with shiny noses, laughing elves and lots of little artificial Christmas trees with twinkly lights. It was all very itty-pretty.

  The rows of seats on both sides of the slope were rapidly filling with people, which seemed a little strange, and Mum asked Mr Dumper why there were so many seats either side of the ski run.

  ‘Sometimes they hold ski races here,’ he explained, while the twins were taken away to be dressed.

  ‘They’re not racing today, are they?’ asked Mum. ‘I thought you were going to do a photoshoot here.’

  ‘Oh, we are,’ smiled Jack. ‘The people sitting down aren’t here to see a race. They’ve come for the fashion show.’

  Mum’s jaw dropped. ‘You mean – the winter collection? Cheese? Tomato? It’s an actual show?’

  ‘You bet. I realized it would be a brilliant way of getting the shoot done and launching the clothes to the press. Most of these people are from newspapers and television.’ Jack beamed at us. ‘Take a look at the top of the ski run.’

  We glanced up. At the very top of the slope was a huge screen. It flickered for a moment as it lit up and there, crawling across the screen, was Cheese, aged one, wearing nothing but a little vest. It was the famous clip from the national news.

&nb
sp; ‘Aw, he’s so cute!’ cried one woman in the audience.

  ‘I remember seeing that when it happened,’ said a man behind her. ‘I laughed so much I spat my coffee halfway across the table!’

  At that moment Cheese and Tomato appeared.

  ‘Hey!’ cried the coffee-spitting man. ‘That’s him! That’s the kid. Only up there on screen he’s unwrapped!’ The audience fell about laughing and settled down to watch the fashion show.

  The twins looked fantastic. They both wore fur-lined boots that came halfway up their shins and baggy trousers with matching, fur-lined jackets. They just looked so snug! Tomato had her hood pulled up and she looked like a goblin in a winter wonderland.

  ‘We want to photograph you coming down the slope on a toboggan,’ explained Jack. ‘Nicholas, you help them up at the top of the slope and Ron and Brenda, you catch them at the bottom.’

  I took the twins and we climbed on to a ski lift. It swung and wobbled and the twins giggled all the way up to the top, where we found several toboggans neatly lined up. I plonked Cheese and Tomato on a toboggan and set them off, whizzing down to Mum and Dad. Cameras flashed, the audience clapped and cheered, while the twins were whisked off and put into their next costumes.

  ‘We need a bit more zap,’ Jack said. ‘The photos are good but not good enough.’

  ‘Zap?’ repeated Dad.

  ‘Yes – zap – that little something extra that makes a good shot a great shot,’ said Mr Dumper.

  ‘Right,’ murmured Dad. I could tell he had no idea what ‘zap’ was. Neither did I.