Gangsta Granny

by David Walliams

  Startled, Ben took a couple of steps back towards the bed, and quickly shoved Plumbing Weekly up the back of his jumper.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Ben.

  “Hoping to see me take a bed-bath, no doubt!” said Granny.

  Ben chuckled.

  Mr Parker scrambled for words. “No, no, I…”

  “Matron! MATRON!” hollered Granny.

  “Wait!” said Mr Parker, panicking. “I’m sure I heard one of you talking about the Crown Jewels…”

  It was too late. The matron, who was an unusually tall lady with very big feet, clomped down the ward at speed.

  “Yes?” asked the matron. “Is something the matter?”

  “This man was spying at me through the curtains!” said Granny.

  “Were you?” demanded Matron, eyeballing Mr Parker.

  “Well, er, I heard that they were…” whined Mr Parker.

  “Last week he spied on my granny doing her naked yoga,” offered Ben.

  Matron’s face turned puce with horror. “Get out of my ward at once, you filthy little swine!” she screamed.

  Humiliated, Mr Parker backed away from the terrifying matron and scuttled out of the ward. He paused at the swing doors and yelled back to Granny and Ben, “YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE LAST OF ME!” before rushing out.

  “Please let me know if that man comes back,” said Matron, her face returning to a more normal shade.

  “I will,” replied Granny, before Matron returned to her duties.

  “He could have heard everything!” hissed Ben.

  “Maybe,” replied Granny. “But I think Matron scared him off for good!”

  “I hope so.” Ben was very worried about this unfortunate development.

  “Do you still want to go through with it?” asked the old lady.

  Ben had that feeling you have when you are on a rollercoaster and it’s slowly making its way up the track. You want to get off and you want to stay on. Dread and delight all rolled into one.

  “Yes!” he said.

  “Hurrah!” said Granny, giving Ben a big smile.

  Ben turned to leave, then turned around. “I…I love you, Granny,” he said.

  “And I love you too, little Benny,” said Granny with a wink.

  Ben winced. He had a gangsta granny now, and that was great – but he was going to have to teach her just to call him Ben!

  ♦

  Ben ran along the corridors, his heart beating incredibly fast.

  Boom boom boom.

  He was electrified with excitement. This eleven-year-old boy, who had never done anything notable in his life except once been sick on his friend’s head on the big wheel at the local funfair, was going to take part in the most daring robbery the world has ever known.

  He ran outside the hospital, and began fumbling with the keys to unlock his bike from the railing. Then, looking up, he saw something unbelievable.

  It was his granny.

  That, in itself, was not unusual.

  But this was: Granny was abseiling down the side of the hospital.

  She had tied a number of bed sheets together and was lowering herself at speed down the side of the building.

  Ben couldn’t believe his eyes. He knew his granny was a proper gangsta, but this was off the scale!

  “Granny, what on earth are you doing?!” shouted Ben across the car park.

  “The lift wasn’t working, dear! See you next Friday. Don’t be late!” she shouted as she reached the ground, leaped on her mobility scooter and roared off…well, whirred off home.

  ♦

  Never had a week passed so slowly.

  Ben spent all week waiting for Friday to come. Every minute, every hour, every day seemed like an eternity.

  It was strange having to pretend he was just another ordinary boy when really he was one of the greatest criminal masterminds of all time.

  Finally, Friday evening came. There was a knock on Ben’s bedroom door.

  RAT-TAT-TAT.

  “Well, are you ready, son?” said Dad.

  “Yeah,” said Ben, trying to act as innocent as possible, which is actually quite hard when you are feeling extremely guilty. “You don’t need to pick me up too early in the morning tomorrow, Granny and I normally play Scrabble until quite late.”

  “You won’t be playing Scrabble, son,” said Dad.

  “No?”

  “No, son. You won’t be going to Granny’s tonight at all.”

  “Oh no!” said Ben. “Is she back in hospital?”

  “No, she’s not.”

  Ben sighed with relief then felt a prickle of anxiety. “So, why am I not going to her house?”

  The plan was in place, and there was no time to lose!

  “Because,” said Dad, “tonight it’s the under-twelve dancing championships. At last it’s your big moment to shine!”

  ∨ Gangsta Granny ∧

  21

  A Tap-Shoe

  Ben sat silently in the back of the little brown car in his Love Bomb outfit.

  “I hope you didn’t forget about the competition, Ben,” said Mum, as she fixed her make-up in the passenger seat, her lipstick accidentally scrawling across her face as they went round a corner.

  “No, of course not, Mum.”

  “Don’t worry, son,” continued Dad, as he proudly drove his son to dance competition immortality. “You’ve done so much training up in your bedroom, I know you’ll get top marks from all the judges. Straight tens!”

  “What about Granny? Won’t she be expecting me?” said Ben anxiously.

  Tonight was supposed to be the night that they stole the Crown Jewels, but instead he was on his way to take part in a dance competition, despite never having danced a step in his life.

  For the last two weeks, he had avoided thinking about the dance competition, but now the time had come.

  It was really going to happen.

  He was going to have to dance a solo number.

  Which he hadn’t prepared.

  In front of an entire theatre full of people…

  “Oh, don’t worry about Granny,” said Mum. “She doesn’t know what day it is!” She laughed, as the car stopped suddenly at a red light and mascara splattered over her forehead.

  They arrived at the town hall. Ben saw a rushing river of multi-coloured Lycra making its way into the building.

  If anyone at school found out he’d entered, he would never live this down. The bullies would have all the ammunition they would need to make his life hell for ever. And what’s more, he hadn’t rehearsed his dance. Not even once. He didn’t have a clue what he was going to do on stage.

  This was a competition to find the best junior dancers in the local area. There was a prize for best couple, best solo female and best solo male.

  If you won here, you would get the chance to compete for your county, and if you won there, for your country.

  This was the first step on the road to international dance superstardom. And the host for the evening was none other than Strictly Stars Dancing heartthrob and his mum’s favourite, Flavio Flavioli.

  “It’s wonderful to see so many beautiful ladies here tonight,” he purred in his Italian accent.

  Flavio looked even more shiny in real life. His hair was slicked back, his teeth were dazzlingly white and his outfit was as tight as clingfilm. “Now, are we all ready to rumba?”

  The crowd all screamed, “Yes!”

  “Flavio can’t hear you, I said ‘are you ready to rumba?’”

  “YES!” they all screamed again, a little louder than before.

  Ben was listening nervously backstage. He heard one woman’s voice screech, “I love you, Flavio!” It sounded suspiciously like his mum.

  Ben looked around the dressing room. It might as well have been a convention of the most annoying children in the world. They looked so unbearably precocious, adorned in these ridiculously garish Lycra outfits, smeared in fake tan, and with pearly white teeth so bright they could be seen
from outer space.

  Ben looked anxiously at his watch, knowing he was going to be terribly late to meet his granny. He waited and waited as the over made-up quickstepped, jived, waltzed, Viennese waltzed, tangoed, foxtrotted and cha-cha-cha-ed.

  Finally, Ben’s turn came. He stood in the wings as Flavio announced him.

  “Now it’s time for a local boy who is going to delight us all tonight with a solo dance piece. Please welcome Ben!”

  Flavio glided off the stage as Ben plodded on, his Lycra Love Bomb outfit riding uncomfortably up his bottom.

  Ben stood alone in the middle of the dance floor. A spotlight shone on him. The music started up. He was praying for some sort of escape from this. He would have been happy with anything at all, including:

  A fire alarm

  An earthquake

  World War III

  Another Ice Age

  A deadly swarm of killer bees

  A meteor from outer space hitting the earth and spinning it off its axis

  A tidal wave

  Flavio Flavioli being attacked by hundreds of flesh-eating zombies

  A hurricane or tornado (Ben didn’t really know the difference, but either would do)

  Ben being abducted by aliens, and not returning to the earth for a thousand years

  Dinosaurs returning to the earth through some kind of time/space portal, and smashing through the roof, devouring everyone inside

  A volcano erupting, though annoyingly there didn’t seem to be any volcanoes nearby

  An attack of giant slugs

  Even an attack of medium sized slugs would do.

  Ben wasn’t fussy. Any of the above would have sufficed.

  The music played for a while and Ben realised he hadn’t moved his body yet. He looked over at his parents, who beamed with pride seeing their only child centre stage at last.

  He looked to the wings where the ever-smiling Flavio was giving him an encouraging grin.

  Please, make the ground open up now…

  It didn’t.

  There was no choice but to do something. Anything.

  Ben started moving his legs, then his arms, then his head. None of these parts of his body moved in time or sequence, and for the next five minutes he threw his body around the dance floor in a style that can only be called unforgettable: as much as you might want to forget it, you can’t.

  Ben tried a jump at the end, just as the music stopped, and he fell to the floor with a thud.

  There was silence. Deafening silence.

  Then Ben could hear the sound of one pair of hands clapping. He looked up.

  It was his mum.

  Then another pair of hands joined in.

  It was his dad.

  For a few seconds he thought it might be one of these moments you see in a film when the underdog triumphs against all the odds: that soon everyone in the hall would be on their feet cheering and applauding this local boy who had at last made his loved ones proud and at the same time re-invented dancing for ever.

  The end.

  Well, no. That’s not what happened.

  After a few moments, his parents felt embarrassed to be the only people applauding, and stopped.

  Flavio returned to the stage.

  “Well that was, that was…” For the first time the Italian heartthrob seemed lost for words. “Judges, can we have your scores for Ben please?”

  “Zero,” said the first.

  “Zero.”

  “Zero.”

  Only one more judge to go. Could Ben make it four zeros?

  But the final judge must have felt sorry for the sweaty little boy in front of her who had shamed his family for generations with his epic display of talentlessness. She shuffled her scoring paddles under the desk. “One,” she announced.

  There were loud boos and jeers from the audience so she corrected her score. “I am sorry, I mean zero,” she said holding up her original choice of paddle.

  “Slightly disappointing scores from the judges, there,” said Flavio still trying hard to smile. “But, young Ben, all is not lost. As the only boy who entered the solo male category tonight, you are therefore the winner. May I present you with this solid plastic statuette.”

  Flavio picked up a cheap-looking trophy of a dancing boy, and presented it to Ben.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, a round of applause for Ben!”

  There was silence again. Even Mum and Dad didn’t dare to clap.

  Then boos started, and then jeers and catcalls: shouts of “SHAME ON YOU!” “NO!” and “FIX!”

  Flavio’s perfect smile began to crack. He leaned down to Ben and whispered in his ear, “You’d better get out of here before you get lynched.”

  At that exact moment a tap-shoe was thrown from the back of the audience. It flew at speed through the air. It was probably aimed at Ben, but instead it hit Flavio right between the eyes, and he fell to the ground unconscious.

  Time to make my excuses and leave, thought Ben.

  ∨ Gangsta Granny ∧

  22

  Lycra Lynch Mob

  An angry mob of ballroom-dancing enthusiasts chased the little brown car down the street. Looking out of the back window, Ben thought this would perhaps be the only time in history a lynch mob was dressed entirely in Lycra. Dad put his foot down on the accelerator…

  VVVVVVVRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRROOOOOOOOO OOOOOMMMMMMMM MMM!

  …and they turned a corner and lost them.

  “Thank goodness I was there to give Flavio the kiss of life!” said Mum from the front seat.

  “He was just unconscious. He hadn’t stopped breathing, Mum,” said Ben from the back.

  “You can’t be too careful,” said Mum, re-applying her lipstick. Most of it was now smeared over Flavio’s face and neck.

  “Your performance was, in a word, dreadful and embarrassing,” pronounced Dad.

  “That’s two words,” corrected Ben with a chuckle. “Three if you count the ‘and’.”

  “Don’t get funny with me, young lad,” snapped Dad. “This is no laughing matter. I was ashamed of you. Ashamed.”

  “Yes, ashamed,” grumbled Mum in agreement.

  Ben felt like he would give anything to disappear. He would give all of his past and all of his future, just so he didn’t have to be sitting in the backseat of his mum and dad’s car right now.

  “I’m sorry, Mum,” said Ben. “I want to make you proud, I really do.” It was true: making his parents ashamed, well, that was the absolute last thing he wanted, however stupid he thought they were sometimes.

  “Well, you have a funny way of showing it,” said Mum.

  “I just don’t like dancing, that’s all.”

  “That’s not the point. Your mother spent hours making your costume,” said Dad.

  It’s strange how parents always refer to each other as ‘Mother’ or ‘Father’ rather than ‘Mum’ or ‘Dad’ when you are in trouble.

  “You made no effort up there on the stage whatsoever,” Dad continued. “I don’t think you even rehearsed once. Not once. Me and your mother work night and day to give you the opportunities we never had, and this is how you treat us…”

  “With contempt,” said Mum.

  “Contempt,” echoed Dad.

  A single tear ran down Ben’s cheek. He caught it with his tongue. It tasted bitter. The three sat in silence as the car rumbled home.

  No words were spoken as they got out of the car, and went into the house. As soon as Dad opened the front door, Ben bounded up to his room and slammed the door. He sat on his bed, still in his Love Bomb outfit.

  Ben had never felt more alone. He was hours late to meet Granny. Not only had he let down his mum and dad, he had let down the one person he had grown to love more than anyone, his granny.

  They were never going to steal the Crown Jewels now.

  Just at that moment, there was a quiet tap on his window.

  It was Granny.

  Dressed in her scuba-diving gear the old lady
had climbed a ladder to reach her grandson’s bedroom window.

  “Let me in!” she mouthed theatrically.

  Ben couldn’t help but smile. He opened the window and hauled the old lady inside, like a fisherman might haul a particularly big fish on to his boat.

  “You are very late,” admonished Granny as Ben helped her over to the bed.

  “I know, I’m sorry,” said Ben.

  “We said seven o’clock. It’s half-past ten. The sleeping tonic I gave the guards at the Tower will be wearing off soon.”

  “I’m really sorry, it’s a long story,” said Ben.

  Granny sat on Ben’s bed and looked him up and down. “And why are you dressed like a demented Valentine’s card?” she demanded.

  “As I said it’s a long story…”

  It was a bit rich for Granny to criticise what he had on considering she was dressed in a wetsuit and scuba-diving mask, but there wasn’t time to get into that now.

  “Quick boy, put on this wetsuit, and follow me down the ladder. I’ll start up the mobility scooter.”

  “Are we really going to steal the Crown Jewels, Granny?”

  “Well, we are going to have a go!” said the old lady with a smile.

  ∨ Gangsta Granny ∧

  23

  Caught by the Fuzz

  They whirred through the town: Granny driving, Ben clinging on behind her. Both in wetsuits and diving masks, with Granny’s handbag wrapped in miles of clingfilm sitting in the basket at the front.

  Granny spotted Raj closing up his newsagent’s shop.

  “Hello Raj, dear, don’t forget to save me some Murray Mints for Monday!” she shouted.

  Raj looked at the two of them, open mouthed in shock.

  “I don’t know what’s got into him, he’s normally so chatty!”

  It was a long way to London, especially on a motorised scooter with a top speed of three miles per hour (with two passengers).

  After a while Ben noticed the roads getting wider and wider; two lanes, then three lanes.

  “Bottoms! We are on the motorway!” shouted Ben from the back as ten-ton lorries whooshed past, nearly wrenching the scooter off the road with the force of their slipstream.