Never Say Moo to a Bull

by David Henry Wilson

  For Lisbeth,

  with love

  Contents

  1 Daddy’s New Car

  2 How to Get Rich

  3 The Christening

  4 Timothy’s Birthday Party

  5 The Tooth Dragon

  6 The Strike

  7 The Hunt

  8 Pancakes and Blackberries

  9 The Ghost

  10 Father Christmas and Father Christmas

  11 Waiting for Christmas

  12 The Christmas Spirit

  CHAPTER ONE

  Daddy’s New Car

  Daddy had bought a new car. It was not a new new car, but a second-hand new car – in fact, an old second-hand new car. But although it was old, it was not as old as Daddy’s old car, which had been very old indeed, and had been sat on by an elephant. Cars are not really designed to be sat on by elephants, and Daddy’s old car had not been designed to be sat on by anything. Mummy said it was more of an ornament than a car, because it spent most of its time standing very still, either in the street outside or in the repair shop. When it did move, it was usually on the end of a rope, being pulled along by the van from the repair shop. Anyway, when the twins were born it was obvious that the family were going to need a bigger car (not to mention a car that could move), and so Daddy sold the old old car and bought the new old car.

  It was a moment of great excitement when Daddy pulled up outside the house in a long blue limousine that shone like a new pair of shoes. He gave a toot on the hooter (which sounded much grander than the honk of the old car), and Mummy and Jeremy James rushed out of the house to inspect the new arrival, while the twins were left in their cots to inspect the ceiling or each other.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ said Mummy. ‘It looks almost new!’

  ‘Only done forty thousand miles,’ said Daddy.

  ‘That sounds a lot to me,’ said Mummy.

  ‘Not for a car,’ said Daddy.

  ‘How much did our old one do, Daddy?’ asked Jeremy James.

  ‘Never more than two yards at a time,’ said Daddy. ‘Come on, get the twins and we’ll go for a run.’

  Jeremy James wondered why they should go running when they’d just got a new car, but as they’d often gone walking when they’d had the old car, he assumed this was just the way grown-ups did things. In any case he had no time to ask as Mummy whisked him back into the house to get his coat on, and then went upstairs with Daddy to get Christopher and Jennifer ready.

  ‘Let’s go out into the country,’ said Mummy.

  ‘Or I could take her on the motorway,’ said Daddy. ‘Get up a bit of speed.’

  ‘The country would be nicer,’ said Mummy. ‘And we can stop off somewhere for tea.’

  Jeremy James pricked up his ears. He liked stopping off somewhere for tea. Platefuls of strawberries hovered before his eyes . . .

  ‘Can I have cream on them?’ he asked.

  ‘Cream on what?’ asked Mummy.

  ‘On my strawberries,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘You don’t get strawberries at this time of the year,’ said Mummy. ‘You get hot buttered scones and toast and cakes.’

  ‘And strawberry jam,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘And strawberry jam if you like,’ said Mummy.

  ‘With cream on it,’ said Jeremy James.

  Mummy had changed Jennifer’s nappy, and had wrapped her up in a clean dress and a woolly coat, and Jennifer was laughing happily. Daddy had just stabbed himself with the safety pin on Christopher’s dirty nappy, and was sucking his injured thumb while Christopher was crying.

  ‘I’ll do him,’ said Mummy. ‘You hold Jennifer.’

  ‘I’d better just get some plaster on this,’ said Daddy.

  Eventually both twins were ready, Christopher stopped crying, Daddy’s thumb was plastered, the pram had been taken apart, both parts had been loaded into the back of the new car with the twins lying cosily in the top part, and Mummy and Daddy and Jeremy James were all strapped into their seats.

  ‘Here we go, then,’ said Daddy. ‘Next stop Monte Carlo.’

  Daddy turned a key, and there was a loud whirring sound. Daddy stopped turning the key, and the loud whirring sound stopped, too. Then Daddy turned the key again, and there was a loud whirring sound again. Daddy stopped turning, and everything was very quiet.

  ‘Just . . . um . . . got cold . . .’ said Daddy, and turned the key again. There was the same whirring sound, followed by the same silence.

  ‘Could be flooded,’ said Daddy. ‘Unless it’s overheated. I’ll take a look.’

  He pulled a lever, unstrapped himself and got out. He went to the front of the car and then disappeared from view behind the raised bonnet.

  ‘It sounded a bit like our old car, didn’t it, Mummy?’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mummy. ‘And it seems to go like our old car, too.’

  Daddy came back.

  ‘Can’t see anything,’ he said. ‘I’ll just give it another try.’

  He sat in his seat and turned the key. There was a loud whirring sound, followed by a loud silence.

  ‘Perhaps you’d better give them a ring,’ said Mummy.

  ‘Hmmmph!’ said Daddy. ‘I’ll have another look.’ And he got out again and disappeared again and came back again and sat down again. ‘It’s a lovely clean engine,’ he said. ‘Lovely, clean, and dead.’

  ‘Why don’t you give them a ring?’ said Mummy.

  ‘One more try,’ said Daddy. ‘If I can just take it by surprise.’ He put his fingers round the key, looked out of the window, and then suddenly jerked his hand. There was a loud whirring sound. Daddy kept his hand turned, and the whirring sound gradually slowed till it became more of a wheezing than a whirring. Daddy relaxed his hand. There was silence.

  ‘Perhaps I’d better give them a ring,’ he said.

  From the back of the car came a howl that was even louder than the loud whirring sound had been. Jennifer had kicked Christopher, and Christopher was much easier to start than Daddy’s car. Even though Jennifer had only kicked him once, his howl motor was running at full speed.

  ‘I’ll get them back inside,’ said Mummy, ‘while you go to the phone box. Do you want to stay in the car, Jeremy James?’

  ‘Oh, yes please,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘Right. Daddy’ll be back in a minute.’

  Mummy and Daddy took a giggling Jennifer and a wailing Christopher into the house, then Daddy set off down the road to the phone box. Jeremy James sat quietly in his seat, gazing at the starter key, the control panel and, above all, the steering wheel of Daddy’s car. How he would love to sit at the steering wheel, and swing it round, and swing it back again. And how he would love to pull the levers and press the switches and flash and hoot and brrm brrm and eeek round corners.

  With a tug and a squeeze and a wriggle, Jeremy James escaped from his straps and dived head first into Daddy’s seat. Another little wriggle put him in just the right position, his nose level with the middle of the steering wheel. Jeremy James grasped the steering wheel firmly in both hands. ‘Brrm brrm,’ he said, and swung the car screeching round the bend, hot on the tail of a gang of escaped bandits. ‘Eeow!’ said Jeremy James, and ‘Eerrk!’ and ‘Brrm brrm brrm!’ Then he jerked at the lever in the floor, just as he had seen Daddy do in the old car, and it clicked into a new position.

  ‘Oh!’ said Jeremy James. ‘I hope I haven’t broken it!’

  He waggled the lever around, but it didn’t seem to be broken. It was just a little loose.

  ‘Maybe that’s how it ought to be,’ said Jeremy James. ‘Maybe that’s what was wrong – Daddy had it in the wrong place!’

  Jeremy James did some hard thinking. If Daddy had had it in
the wrong place, and it was now in the right place, the car should go. And wouldn’t Mummy and Daddy be pleased if the car went. They would be so pleased that they would give Jeremy James hundreds of scones and thousands of cakes and millions of kisses. He would be a hero. If the car went. Jeremy James looked hard at the starter key. Jeremy James turned the starter key. But nothing happened. There was not even a whirring sound.

  Jeremy James did some more hard thinking. Perhaps the car shouldn’t make a whirring sound. Perhaps silence was what you ought to hear when you turned the key, and the loud whirring sound had been a sign that the lever in the floor was in the wrong position, only Daddy hadn’t known that because, after all, this was a new car. Perhaps the car was all ready to go now the lever was in the right position.

  Jeremy James tried to remember what Daddy used to do with the old car when it was ready to go. Wasn’t there another lever Daddy used to pull?

  Jeremy James looked for another lever. And sure enough, right behind the first lever he had pulled there was a second lever, and it had a button in it. Jeremy James smiled to himself, pressed the button, and gently lowered the second lever to the floor.

  There was a creak, a little jerk, and . . . the car . . . was it? . . . yes, the car was moving! He’d done it! Oh, wouldn’t Mummy and Daddy be pleased! Jeremy James lifted himself up in the seat so that he could look out of the window, and there was no doubt about it, the houses on the other side of the street were slowly slipping by in the opposite direction. In fact, they were slipping by a little faster now. In fact, even as he looked, they seemed to be gathering speed. Jeremy James stopped smiling, and his heart began to pound. He hadn’t meant to go as fast as this! He took hold of the steering wheel, but then he couldn’t see out of the window any more, and so he just swung the steering wheel from side to side and wished he hadn’t mended Daddy’s car after all.

  There was a loud thump and a tinkle of broken glass, and the car suddenly stopped. It stopped so suddenly that Jeremy James was thrown forward and bumped his nose hard on the middle of the steering wheel. The thump and the bump brought tears into and out of Jeremy James’s eyes, and he sat at the steering wheel howling louder than the loud whirring noise and Christopher’s wail put together. Then the car door opened, and there was Daddy lifting him out and holding him very tightly. And Mummy came running a moment later, and took him from Daddy, and asked if her little darling was all right, and Daddy said her little darling was all right, but his new car jolly well wasn’t. Then Mummy said they shouldn’t have left Jeremy James alone in the car, and Daddy said Jeremy James should have kept his hands off Daddy’s new car, and Jeremy James howled very loudly because that seemed the safest thing to do.

  There were soon quite a lot of people standing round Daddy’s new car. Jeremy James heard their voices through Mummy’s shoulder and they were saying things like ‘How did it happen?’ and ‘Could have been killed!’ and ‘Who’s going to pay for my garden wall?’ and ‘Don’t worry, Mr Johnson, I’ll see to everything, I’m ever so sorry . . .’ The last one was definitely Daddy’s voice. Then Mummy carried Jeremy James away, and he risked a little peep over the top of her shoulder. Daddy’s new car was right across the pavement, with its front all squashed up against a wall, and Daddy was talking to a red-faced man with a bristling moustache, and there was a policeman coming up the road towards them. Jeremy James hid his face again and let out a few more loud sobs.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Mummy, giving him an extra pat and a squeeze, ‘don’t cry. It’s all right.’

  Then she carried him into the house and gave him a big piece of chocolate, which helped to dry his eyes and silence his sobs. Chocolate was a medicine Jeremy James always responded to very quickly.

  A little while later, Mummy called him to come and look out of the window, and she picked him up again so that he could get a good view. The van from the repair shop was just going by, and it was followed by a long rope, and on the end of the rope was Daddy’s new car, looking very crumpled. At the steering wheel of Daddy’s new car was Daddy, and he was looking rather crumpled, too.

  ‘Oh Mummy,’ said Jeremy James, ‘it looks just like the old car now.’

  ‘Hmmmph!’ said Mummy, and held him very tight.

  CHAPTER TWO

  How to Get Rich

  ‘How do you make money?’ asked Jeremy James one morning at breakfast.

  ‘No idea,’ said Daddy. ‘But if you ever find out, let me know.’

  ‘You have to work for it,’ said Mummy. ‘You work, and then people pay you.’

  ‘What sort of work?’ asked Jeremy James.

  ‘All sorts,’ said Mummy. ‘Different people do different work.’

  ‘Well, what sort of work could I do to get some money?’ asked Jeremy James.

  ‘What do you need money for?’ asked Mummy.

  ‘Spending,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘Spending on what?’ asked Mummy.

  Why was it that grown-ups never answered questions? You could ask them about anything, but they would never tell you what you wanted to know. Only yesterday he’d asked Mummy why the man they’d just walked past had one leg instead of two, and Mummy had said ‘Sh!’ to him as if he’d said something rude. ‘I only want to know what’s happened to his other leg,’ Jeremy James had said, but Mummy had shushed him again with a threatening look. And the day before that, when he’d watched Mummy bathing the twins and had asked why Jennifer hadn’t got something he and Christopher had got, all he received was a ‘Hmmmph!’ instead of an answer. You never get answers from grown-ups. Just ‘sh’, ‘hmmph’, or questions about why you were asking questions.

  ‘Toys,’ said Jeremy James. ‘So that I can buy more toys.’ He would have said sweets, but he knew what Mummy would say about more sweets.

  ‘Haven’t you got enough toys?’ asked Mummy.

  ‘Well I haven’t got a tricycle with a saddlebag,’ said Jeremy James. ‘So how can I get money for a tricycle with a saddlebag?’

  ‘I haven’t got a tricycle with a saddlebag either,’ said Daddy. ‘It seems to be a common weakness in the family.’

  Daddy tended not to say ‘sh’ or ‘hmmmph’ or ask questions; he just said things that had nothing to do with what you were asking.

  ‘Well, what work can I do?’ asked Jeremy James, who could be very determined when there was something to be determined about.

  ‘Let’s have a look in the paper,’ said Daddy. ‘See if we can find something suitable.’

  And Daddy spread the paper out at the page where it said ‘Jobs Vacant’.

  ‘Now then,’ he said. ‘How about “long-distance lorry-driver”? No, not after your efforts at short-distance car-driving. “Cook required part-time at nursing home.” What’s your cooking like, Jeremy James?’

  ‘I’m good at strawberries and ice cream,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘But you’d never leave any for the patients,’ said Daddy.

  ‘That’s true,’ said Jeremy James. ‘But I’d like that sort of work.’

  ‘I expect you would,’ said Daddy. ‘It’s the kind of job you can grow fat on. How about being a coalman?’

  ‘Too dirty,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘A street cleaner, then?’ said Daddy.

  ‘I don’t like cleaning,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘Ah,’ said Daddy. ‘So it’s got to be something that won’t make you dirty and won’t make you clean.’

  ‘And they must pay me lots of money,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘Nothing like that here, I’m afraid,’ said Daddy, closing the paper. ‘Fairy godmothers don’t advertise in our paper.’

  Mummy and Daddy smiled at each other, but Jeremy James didn’t think it was funny. Sweets (and toys and tricycles with saddlebags) cost money, and if you wanted money you had to work, and if you couldn’t work, you couldn’t have money, and without money you couldn’t have sweets (or toys or tricycles with saddlebags). And that wasn’t at all funny. Jeremy James frowned. And behind his
frown there began to stir a vague memory from the distant past. It had been at least two days ago. He had gone round the corner with Mummy to the greengrocer’s shop, and in the greengrocer’s window had been a large notice which Mummy had helped him to read. ‘Bright Lad Wanted’ – that’s what the notice had said. Jeremy James thought hard for a moment.

  ‘Mummy,’ said Jeremy James. ‘Am I bright?’

  ‘As bright as a button,’ said Mummy.

  Jeremy James thought hard for another moment.

  ‘Daddy,’ said Jeremy James. ‘How much do bright lads get paid?’

  ‘Depends what they’re doing,’ said Daddy.

  ‘Sort of . . . well . . . greengrocing?’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘No idea,’ said Daddy. ‘I expect they get the union rates for bright greengrocing lads.’

  ‘What’s union rates?’ asked Jeremy James.

  ‘That’s what you’ll get paid when you get the job,’ said Daddy.

  Jeremy James did some more hard thinking. The problem was not what to do, but how to get permission to do it. He looked at Mummy, and he looked at Daddy, and he looked at the table, and he took a deep breath and said: ‘Can I just go round the corner to the . . . um . . . sweetshop?’

  To his surprise, Mummy gave him permission without asking a single question.

  ‘Good luck!’ said Daddy, as Jeremy James left the house.

  ‘But don’t go into the road,’ said Mummy, ‘and come straight home afterwards.’

  Jeremy James walked proudly and brightly up the street and round the corner to the greengrocer’s shop. The notice was still in the window. Jeremy James puffed out his chest, and marched in.

  ‘And what can we do for you?’ asked a thin man in a brown coat, with a face like a wizened apple.

  ‘I’m a bright lad,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘Aha!’ said the wizened apple. ‘I can see that. But what can I do for you?’

  ‘Well, I’ve come for the job,’ said Jeremy James. ‘So that I can get enough money for a tricycle with a saddlebag. And you should pay me onion rates.’