Never Say Moo to a Bull

by David Henry Wilson

  Before she could say a word, Daddy came bounding in.

  ‘What on earth was that?’ he said. ‘I thought I heard a . . . Good Lord!’

  And Daddy also saw the jumble of china and petals and leaves and soggy carpet.

  ‘It’s our best vase!’ said Mummy.

  ‘Well, it was,’ said Daddy.

  Mummy hurried out and came back carrying a cloth and a brush and a pan.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Daddy.

  ‘There was a wasp,’ said Jeremy James. ‘It was a great big dangerous one.’

  ‘And this great big dangerous wasp took a dislike to Mummy’s vase,’ said Daddy, ‘and pushed it off the mantelpiece.’

  ‘No,’ said Jeremy James. ‘I was trying to kill it.’

  ‘I see,’ said Daddy. ‘But instead of killing the wasp, you killed the vase.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jeremy James, ‘the wasp was sitting on the vase.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Daddy, ‘so you hit the wasp and the vase.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure if I hit the wasp,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘But we can be fairly sure that you hit the vase,’ said Daddy.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jeremy James.

  Mummy pointed to a tiny limp yellow and black thing. ‘Is this your great big dangerous wasp?’ she asked.

  Jeremy James got down on his hands and knees and looked very closely. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is! That’s the one! ’Cos it had those stripes!’

  Daddy nodded thoughtfully. ‘Not a bad shot, then,’ he said.

  ‘All the same,’ said Mummy, ‘in future, Jeremy James, leave the wasps alone.’ Then she looked at Daddy. ‘Vase today, window tomorrow.’

  Daddy grinned. ‘Lucky for you it didn’t land on your nose,’ he said.

  ‘Oh I wouldn’t have killed it if it had been on Mummy’s nose,’ said Jeremy James. ‘Because that would have woken Mummy up.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Pancakes and Blackberries

  It was one of those warm, gentle September Saturdays which Daddy said were perfect for watching football and Mummy said were perfect for a family outing. Daddy wondered whether perhaps the family would like to go on an outing to a football match, but Mummy said she wouldn’t, and Jeremy James said he’d prefer a place that sold strawberries and cream, and the twins said gurgle and glug, which meant they would go where they were taken. And so they were taken blackberry picking.

  Daddy drove the whole family out into the country in their newly patched old new car, and as they went down the narrow lanes, Mummy looked at the hedges on one side and Jeremy James looked at the hedges on the other, and Daddy tried to look at the hedges on both sides and the road in the middle. Sometimes when Daddy was looking at a hedge on one side, Mummy would take a look at the road in the middle and would shout out ‘Watch it!’ and Daddy would suddenly swing the steering wheel and say ‘OK. Don’t panic!’ and Jeremy James would say ‘There’s some blackberries!’ and Daddy would say ‘Where?’ and Mummy would say ‘Keep your eye on the road!’ and Daddy would swing the steering wheel again. Blackberry picking was quite exciting really.

  At last, Daddy pulled up on a broad grass verge at the side of the road, and they all got out. Mummy put the twins in the pram, and Daddy fetched the baskets and sticks from the back of the car (the sticks were for pulling down brambles that were out of reach). All along the side of the road, the hedges were full of ripe berries, but what had attracted Jeremy James’s attention was a tree-lined path just behind where Daddy had stopped the car. It was a very interesting path, because you couldn’t see where it led to.

  ‘Can I go and pick blackberries down there?’ asked Jeremy James, and Mummy nodded, so off he went.

  ‘Don’t go too far away!’ called Mummy.

  Jeremy James wondered how far away too far away would be, but he just called out: ‘I won’t!’ and carried on running.

  There were no blackberries at all along the tree-lined path, but as there was a bend in the path, Jeremy James trotted on because – as Mummy kept saying to Daddy when Daddy took his eyes off the road – you never know what’s round the bend. Round the bend, in fact, there were more trees and more bends, but still no blackberries. The only exciting thing along this path was the huge collection of what Daddy had once called ‘pancakes’. ‘Pancakes’ were cows’ Number Twos, and a lot of cows had been along this path. Jeremy James quite enjoyed leaping over or swerving round the pancakes, because they were all very dangerous – even the old dried ones. If your foot just touched a tiny piece, there was certain to be a terrible explosion, and the whole world would go up in flames. You had to be very strong and very brave and very clever to avoid dangerous pancakes like these.

  At last the tree-lined, pancake-carpeted path came to an end, and Jeremy James found himself in front of a high wooden gate which led into a huge green field. And on both sides of the gate, and all round the huge green field, there were thousands and thousands of blackberry bushes covered in millions and millions of blackberries. The blackberries outside the field were big and juicy, but the blackberries inside the field were even bigger and even juicier, and those – Jeremy James knew straight away – were without doubt the best blackberries in the world. Jeremy James reached through the bars of the gate and picked a berry. He popped it into his mouth. It was the sweetest, yummiest berry he had ever tasted. A second berry merely confirmed the impression made by the first, and a third berry merely confirmed the impression made by the second. Jeremy James could already taste the fruits of his labour as he squeezed through the wooden bars and into the green field.

  What he had not noticed from outside – because they had been hidden from view by the thick brambles – was a herd of cows in the green field. Most of them were on the far side, but there were a few fairly close, peacefully chewing the grass and swishing their tails from side to side. Jeremy James did not have a very high opinion of cows. They always moved so slowly, and they just chewed and stared and did their Number Twos all over the place, and they said nothing but moo . . . cows were boring animals. You never saw cows at the zoo, because they just weren’t interesting enough. You saw elephants at the zoo, because they were huge and tough and could whiffle things up with their noses. And you saw lions and tigers, because they could run fast and could roar. And you saw snakes and wolves and crocodiles, because they were deadly and frightening and interesting. You never saw boring old cows. Jeremy James shouted ‘Moo!’ at the cow that was nearest to him, but it just stood and blinked and went on chewing. The only dangerous thing about cows was their pancakes, but even they weren’t interesting – just soft and smelly, like the twins’ nappies. ‘Moo!’ said Jeremy James again, and stepped carefully towards the brambles.

  The blackberries hung in glossy clusters from the bushes, and Jeremy James found it very hard to keep his eating up with his picking. But the most difficult part was avoiding the thorns. If you got pricked with one of those, you would go to sleep for a hundred years, and so you had to be very strong and very brave and very clever to keep your fingers away from them. Only a world champion picker could do it.

  There were at least a dozen blackberries in Jeremy James’s basket, and at least three dozen in his tummy, when he decided to have a rest. Blackberry picking is quite hard on the arms, let alone on the jaws, and so he turned round to talk with the cows. Some of them had come closer now, and there was one that was standing right in the middle of the field and was actually looking in Jeremy James’s direction.

  ‘Moo moo!’ cried Jeremy James, but the cow neither mooed nor moved; it just stood there and stared.

  ‘Cows are boring!’ cried Jeremy James. ‘Moo moo!’

  The cow stood as still as a bottle of milk.

  ‘You’re too stupid even to be in a zoo!’ cried Jeremy James. ‘Moo moo! Zoo zoo!’

  The cow suddenly lowered its head slightly and made a funny movement with its foot, as if wiping it on the grass.

  ‘It stepped into a pancake!’ giggled Jeremy
James. ‘Moo moo! Poo poo!’

  The cow stopped wiping its foot, and took a few steps towards Jeremy James. Jeremy James stopped shouting poo poo and watched the cow. The cow watched Jeremy James.

  ‘She knows what I’m saying,’ thought Jeremy James. ‘I can really speak cow language!’ He took a deep breath, puffed out his chest till it was as round as a pancake, and let out the loudest moo ever to pass the lips of an uncow moo-speaker.

  This seemed to have an extraordinary effect on the cow in the middle of the field, for it suddenly lowered its head almost to the ground, and began running at full speed straight towards Jeremy James. For a quarter of a second, Jeremy James stood watching the running cow, and in that quarter of a second a voice in his head told him that even if cows couldn’t run, this one jolly well could, and if he didn’t want to end up as a blackberry pancake, he had better start running too. Jeremy James dropped his basket and his stick, and dashed towards the gate. Behind him, he could hear loud thumps and a noise like a speeded-up Daddy’s snore. He dived head first under the lowest wooden bar and scrambled out on to the path. Then without even stopping to look behind him, he raced away with legs whirling like propellers, and they carried him at world record speed over the pancakes, past the trees, round the bends, on to the grass verge, and into Daddy’s arms.

  ‘Ouf!’ said Daddy. ‘And where are you running to?’

  ‘It’s a cow!’ said Jeremy James, with a puff and a pant. ‘A great big cow!’

  ‘Cows won’t hurt you,’ said Daddy.

  ‘This one will,’ said Jeremy James. ‘I said something it didn’t like, and it ran after me. If I hadn’t dived under the gate, it would have gobbled me up!’

  ‘What did you say to it?’ asked Daddy.

  ‘Moo,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘That sounds a reasonable thing to say to a cow,’ said Daddy. ‘Where’s your basket?’

  ‘I left it there,’ said Jeremy James. ‘And my stick. I dropped them when the cow ran after me.

  ‘Jeremy James,’ said Mummy, ‘cows don’t run after people.’

  ‘This one did,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and get your basket,’ said Daddy.

  Daddy took Jeremy James’s hand, and they walked back up the path together.

  ‘Now where is it?’ asked Daddy.

  ‘In the field,’ said Jeremy James.

  Daddy looked over the brambles at the cows quietly chewing the grass. ‘Wait here, then,’ he said, and climbed up the gate. He had just put his leg over the top when a great big cow raised its head and looked at him. Daddy looked back at the cow. Then Daddy looked a little more closely at the cow. And then Daddy brought his leg back, and climbed down the gate again.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get it?’ asked Jeremy James.

  ‘No,’ said Daddy. Then he picked Jeremy James up in his arms and lifted him high. ‘You see that nice cow over there,’ he said. ‘Well, it’s got an udder underneath – like a glove turning into a balloon. But that not-so-nice cow over there hasn’t got an udder. And do you know why? It’s because he’s not a cow at all – he’s a bull. And if you ever see a bull in a field, Jeremy James, keep out. Right?’

  Daddy humped Jeremy James over his shoulder and set off back down the path. Jeremy James raised his head to have a last look at the cow without an udder.

  ‘Moo moo zoo zoo,’ he murmured.

  ‘What did you say to him?’ asked Daddy.

  ‘I told him he ought to be in a zoo,’ said Jeremy James.

  ‘And what did he say to that?’ asked Daddy.

  ‘I don’t think he heard,’ replied Jeremy James. ‘I only said it quietly.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Ghost

  It was a wild and stormy night. The thunder rumbled like the tummy of a hungry giant, the wind howled like fifty pairs of twins, and the rain rattled at the window like Daddy’s typewriter in between pauses. From time to time Jeremy James’s bedroom was lit by lightning, revealing Jeremy James himself sitting up in bed, wide-eyed, knees bent, shoulders hunched, with the blanket tightly wrapped around him.

  Crash thump rumble rumble, went the thunder, and the curtains blew high into the room, whirling and flapping like ghosts chained to the wall. Jeremy James knew that they were curtains, and he knew that curtains are curtains and ghosts are ghosts, but he couldn’t help wondering whether perhaps ghosts might disguise themselves as curtains, and whether perhaps these particular curtains might not be the ideal sort of curtains for ghosts to disguise themselves as.

  Bang, bump, grumble, grumble, went the thunder, and Jeremy James wished he hadn’t watched ‘The Haunted House’ on television that evening. Mummy had said he shouldn’t because it would give him bad dreams, but Jeremy James had said he never had bad dreams, and Daddy had said he was a big boy now so maybe just this once . . . but Jeremy James didn’t feel like a big boy now, and he was having very nasty dreams even though he wasn’t asleep. All those creaking doors and dark shadows and floating figures and loud screams and whispering voices and wild stormy nights just like this one . . . What was that?

  Jeremy James sat even more up than he had been sitting before.

  Creak, said the floorboards outside his bedroom door.

  Crack, boom, mumble mumble, went the thunder, and ratatat went the rain, and howl went the wind – but definitely creak went the floorboards. And then click went the door handle. And squeak-creak went the door. Jeremy James felt himself go all cold, and his body went as stiff as a block of ice, and he rolled his eyes sideways to try and see what was happening, because he couldn’t even turn his head, which had somehow got locked on to his shoulders. In the darkness he could just make out the dim shape of the door as it slowly swung open. And into the room floated a figure in a long robe that glowed with an eerie light. There was a flash that illuminated the whole room for a second, and Jeremy James froze into an even stiffer block of ice as he saw the face of the ghost: it was a skull! He saw the white cheeks and the hollow shadows of the eyes, and on top of the skull he saw a kind of crown – but then everything was dark again, and Jeremy James wished the floor would open up so that he could drop down into the living room and be safe. It was no use calling out for Mummy or Daddy, because the ghost would hear, and the ghost was nearer to him than Mummy or Daddy. It would get him long before they could come. Maybe the ghost hadn’t seen him. He could still hide.

  Slowly, very slowly Jeremy James eased himself down the bed, covering his tummy, then his chest, then his arms . . . Where was it? Ah, there it was, right at the foot of the bed. Was it going past the bed? Yes, it was moving, slowly, silently, away towards the window. Jeremy James could see the curtain-ghosts reaching out towards the new ghost, and a little beam of warm hope shone into his frozen brain: perhaps the ghost didn’t even know about Jeremy James; perhaps it only knew about the curtain-ghosts. It had only come to join the others.

  The ghost went all the way to the window, and Jeremy James turned his head to watch, and he must have turned his body a little as well because kerdoing went the bed-springs and then swish went the curtain-ghosts, and split, roll, hmmph hmmph, went the thunder, and . . . ‘Are you awake, Jeremy James?’ came a strange, cold, whispering voice.

  ‘N . . . n . . . no,’ said Jeremy James. ‘I’m as . . . s . . . sleep.’

  But the ghost didn’t believe him. And as another flash of lightning lit up the crowned skull and the shiny robe, Jeremy James saw the ghost floating away from the window and towards his bed.

  ‘Yarrk!’ gulped Jeremy James, and pulled the covers right over his head. So long as he couldn’t see the ghost, he reckoned, the ghost couldn’t see him. But the ghost began to tug at the covers, and he could hear its whispery voice and feel its clammy fingers . . . but he held on tight, keeping the blankets over his face and his ears, and rolling his body into a little ball like a hedgehog without any spikes.

  The ghost whispered and tugged for a little while longer, but then seemed to give up. Jeremy
James could hear and feel nothing there at all. Then . . . Clatter! That wasn’t the wind or the rain or the thunder. It sounded as if it came from the window. Jeremy James wanted to look, but didn’t dare. He just held on tight and listened. Nothing. Wait! A squeaky creak . . . then a click. That must be the door. Had the ghost gone? Or was it a trick just to make him come out? You never know with ghosts – one moment they’re gone and the next they’re with you again. Jeremy James stayed quite still in his safe hiding place. He counted all the way up to twenty, and then up to ten again just to make sure. Then he slowly loosened his grip on the blankets – not completely, because he had to be ready to pull them tight if the ghost attacked again, but just enough to make the ghost think he was relaxing. Nothing happened. Still safe. Jeremy James very, very slowly lifted the blankets, and very, very slowly poked his whole head out from underneath. And still nothing happened.

  Now, even less slowly, and in fact quite quickly, Jeremy James poked an arm out from under the covers and reached for the light switch at the side of the bed. He’d been told it was to be used in emergencies, like wanting to do a wee in the middle of the night. This was certainly more important than doing a wee in the night. On went the light. There was no ghost. And the door was closed. He looked round the room till his gaze rested on the window. The curtains – they were still! So the curtain-ghosts had gone, too! That must be it: the ghost had come to collect his friends, and they’d all gone out together. And if Jeremy James hadn’t had the presence of mind to dive beneath the blankets and fight them off, they would have taken him with them.

  Jeremy James sat up in bed and felt very pleased with himself. There can’t be many boys, he thought, who have fought off a ghost and lived to tell the tale. Perhaps there would be a film about it tomorrow on the television. He would have liked to go and tell Mummy and Daddy about it straight away, but perhaps if he opened the bedroom door . . . well, you never knew what you might find out on the landing. He’d tell them tomorrow.