The Grunts All at Sea

by Philip Ardagh

  “Come on, Sunny!” said Mimi. “You can’t tell me that you don’t think the whole thing is a little bit odd? We’re on some kind of a mission, in case you’ve forgotten? A mission involving a Person of Great Importance … A POGI who someone else –” she paused and looked over at Rodders Lasenby. “– may well want to get his hands on. I trust him even less than I trust Max and Martha. And that’s saying something.”

  It was Mrs Grunt who gave Sunny the name Sunny. Perhaps she meant “Sonny” with an “o” (as in you-are-now-my-SON) but it was Mr Grunt who was the first one to write it down. And he wrote the name with a “u”, and it stuck. The reason? Probably because Mrs Grunt has never seemed so happy as when he’d put that big-eared baby in her hairy, caring arms. Sunny had brought sunshine to their lives.

  Up until then, Mrs Grunt’s tattoos had all seemed to be of rather gloomy subjects. There was the one which read “MUM” (and Mrs Grunt’s mum was just about as gloomy as you can imagine, as you’ll find out if you read The Grunts in a Jam). There was the tattoo of the human skull with a headache, and there was the one of the run-over hedgehog. The last one isn’t quite as gloomy as it appears – even though there were tyre marks and everything – because she didn’t have it done to remind her of a depressing accident, but as a way of remembering a really nice meal. (It might be a bit like you having a tattoo of a pizza slice. If you like pizza.) But, within weeks of Sunny becoming one of the family, she had a big tattoo of a sunflower done on her arm. (It’s not a very good tattoo, by the way. But it’s the thought that counts.)

  If you’re the sort of person who gets teary-eyed if you see a baby bunny with a limp, then you’re probably thinking, “Ahhh, isn’t that lovely!” If, however, you’re one of those people who’s so tough that you don’t even wear a vest in REALLY cold weather, you’re probably thinking, “Yerch!” (and counting the icicles under your armpits). Either way, remember that I’m just telling it how it was.

  The first time Mr Grunt wrote down the name “SUNNY” it was in capital letters on the inside of a sweet wrapper. The wrapper was slightly greasy, so Mr Grunt had to go over some of the letters more than once (which always looks a bit messy). He was also resting the wrapper on his knee, rather than on a hard, flat surface (which didn’t help matters either). If that wasn’t bad enough, he was in the back of a moving caravan (their only home at the time), on a stretch of particularly lumpy-bumpy country lane which Clip and Clop, their donkeys, had decided to explore. So, as you’ll have gathered, the very first time Sunny’s name was committed to paper, the end result was almost as weird and wonky as he looked in real life, what with his uneven ears and not forgetting – and who could forget? – those blue dresses he wore. Once Mr Grunt had written Sunny’s name, he neatly folded the sweet wrapper and put it in the pocket of his only shirt with a pocket. The pocket nearest to his heart.

  Now, I know that stealing other people’s children is wrong. I nearly always sign a “Stealing Children is Wrong” petition if I’m asked to, and have even been on a Stealing Children Just Ain’t Right march in Dublin – though, admittedly, I thought it was a queue for free cakes – but I don’t want you to think that the Grunts were ALL BAD.

  OK, so as you’ve seen, Mr Grunt had a pretty bad temper. He once punched the face of a floral clock for looking at him in a strange way, which is in itself a bit strange when you realise that a floral clock is simply a clock with a face made (mainly) of flowers. But when it came to being angry at people, about the worst thing he did was SHOUT. (Though shouting can be not-very-nice-either sometimes.) And, oh yes, wave his arms around a lot. And throw things. And kick things – electricity pylons, fibreglass tomatoes, melons, thin air – but not (usually) people.

  Mr Grunt was shouting now. He was shouting so loudly that his mouth couldn’t open any wider. It looked as if someone could pop a tennis ball inside it without it touching the sides. And his face. What about his face? I’ll tell you about his face. It was really, really red again.

  There were many things that Mrs Grunt loved about her husband – hard to imagine, I know, but it’s true – and one such thing was that when he got really, really angry, he often went her favourite shade of red.

  Mr Grunt was furious. He wanted to know who had been STUPID enough to put a great big box of chocolates on the bed next to him. He’d rolled over on to the box in his sleep and – because the box had the lid off – the chocolates had melted against his cheek. So when he got up he looked like someone who’d been pelted with mud … but he did smell rather nicer than usual.

  “What idiot put chocolate in my bed?” he shouted, stumbling to his feet, only just avoiding stepping on Sharpie the stuffed hedgehog (which was excellent news for both of them). As he stomped barefoot across the room, he pulled some of the chocolates off his face and popped them in his mouth.

  Mmmmm. They didn’t taste bad. In fact, they tasted very good. His taste buds and brain were sending and receiving signals of general niceness and contentment. The result? Although he was still angry, and wanted to find out what BUFFOON had gone and stuffed chocolates in the bed, he was also experiencing a warm, positive, chocolatey glow.

  Being creatures of habit, Mr and Mrs Grunt had slept in the caravan on the deck of The Merry Dance that night – their first night after an uneventful first day at sea – even though they had the pick of the cabins. So it was on the caravan landing that Mr Grunt now met Mrs Grunt. This was the landing that usually doubled up as Sunny’s bedroom, but he’d chosen a cabin – with a little brass porthole – to sleep in.

  “Why have you gone and smeared yourself with the chocolates?” demanded Mrs Grunt, which was a reasonable question under the circumstances.

  Mr Grunt spluttered like an ill-fitting lid on a kettle about to boil. He opened his mouth – showing two impressive rows of chocolate-coloured teeth – but no words came out. He didn’t know which ones to use. He didn’t know what to say.

  At that moment, Sunny came bounding across the deck in his dress, his non-matching shoes clattering on the wood. He arrived just in time to see Mr Grunt peel a coffee creme off his forehead and pop it in his mouth.

  “Happy birthday, Dad,” he said, a smile spreading across his face. “I’m pleased you like the chocolates.” (Though he did wonder why Mr Grunt had covered himself in them.)

  Mr Grunt frowned. “Birthday?” he said.

  Mrs Grunt nodded. “Birthday,” she said.

  Mr Grunt looked at the smiling boy. “You put these chocolates in my bed for my birthday?”

  “By your bed,” Sunny corrected him. “I wanted it to be a surprise when you woke up, so I put the box on your bedside table.”

  “And I took the lid off them later and put them on the bed next to you once I’d got up to cook you your surprise birthday breakfast …” said Mrs Grunt. “So you wouldn’t miss them.”

  “Wouldn’t miss them?” said Mr Grunt. “I couldn’t miss them, wife! I rolled all over them. It was a direct hit!” He paused. “And I didn’t know anything about a surprise breakfast.”

  “That’s because it’s a surprise!” said Sunny. “Come on down, Dad.” He turned and hurried back down the rickety stairs.

  Mr Grunt followed him.

  “Thank you for the chocolates, Sunny,” he grunted (quietly). “They’re not bad.” Mr Grunt could hardly hide his delight at the sight that greeted him on deck as he stepped out of the caravan into another bright, sunny morning. The others had obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to make him a truly splendid birthday breakfast.

  Everything had been laid out on a table on deck. Mrs Grunt, Sunny and Mimi had brought this out of the caravan along with four kitchen chairs and their tin bath, which they’d upended and sat their wind-up gramophone on top. (A very old, very scratchy record was playing a dreary song about a missing pigeon.)

  There was freshly squeezed juice, made from windfall apples that Sunny and Mimi had stuffed into an old pair of Mrs Grunt’s tights, then beaten with an old meat-tenderising
hammer, letting the juice out and keeping the pulp in. There was a sort of muesli-style cereal, though the little black squidgy bits might not have been raisins but mouse droppings, and there was a fantastic roadkill fry-up which included everything from shredded car tyre “in crispy bacon strips” and generous portions of magpie, to part of a mud flap from a Land Rover (cut into mouth-watering shapes), and some nice pieces of squirrel meat, plus plenty of scrambled eggs and a tomato. All of this had been packed away and hidden from Mr Grunt until now, for his birthday surprise.

  Mr Grunt was very moved by all the trouble Sunny, Mimi and even Mrs Grunt had gone to for his birthday, and he gave a big sniff before wiping his nose on the sleeve of his pyjama jacket. (The one the note that had started the whole adventure had been safety-pinned to.)

  “This looks all right, this does,” he grunted. He pulled out a chair at the end of the table and sat down. “We may as well eat then!”

  And that’s exactly what he was about to do when he felt something nudging at his elbow. He looked down to see the POGI holding out his string bag which had something wrapped up inside it.

  “POGI,” said the POGI (which should come as no surprise).

  “A present?” asked Mr Grunt, taking the bag. “For me?”

  The POGI nodded, his barrel tilting back and forth.

  Mr Grunt pulled out the parcel. It was a large, round cheese wrapped in a Save-U-Lots paper bag. He gave it a good sniff.

  “Thank you,” said Mr Grunt. “Thank you very much.” He sounded like he really meant it, and was that a tear in the corner of his eye? He reached for a plate of squirrel, and the birthday breakfast began.

  Clip and Clop – who had been brought up on deck and put back in their trailer – were busy enjoying the last of their thistles. The donkeys barely looked up from their own meal as the others ate. All they could hear were knives and forks clattering against plates and contented chewing and slurping, along with the gentle hum of the boat’s engine and the slapping of the water against the sides.

  Hang on. That was the hum of the engine, wasn’t it? Or was it the hum of bees?

  BEES?

  No, it wasn’t bees.

  Not bees.

  No.

  Phew.

  It was an aeroplane – a bright-yellow twin-seater biplane – that was hurtling straight towards The Merry Dance! Well, not straight towards them exactly; it was spiralling like a corkscrew with its engine spluttering, but it was coming right at them.

  The Grunts scattered. Mrs Grunt threw herself from her chair on to the deck. Sunny frantically tried to push his chair from the table but the legs were stuck in a groove between the planks, so he found the chair – and himself – tilting backwards into the middle of a huge coil of rope. Mimi simply tried to make herself as flat and least crash-into-able as she could, narrowly avoiding an elephant “pancake” in the process. Fingers – the elephant himself – simply watched proceedings with interest.

  Mr Grunt, meanwhile, had managed to crawl under the upturned tin bath on which Sunny had put the wind-up gramophone. It made an excellent hideaway, though only an idiot would think it would protect them from a crashing plane … which is why Mrs Grunt was also doing her best to get under it.

  “Let me in, mister!” she shouted, trying to lift the bath.

  “Keep away, wife!” Mr Grunt replied, with an echoing tinny voice from within. He was pulling the bath down around him as best he could.

  “Aren’t you supposed to protect me?” demanded Mrs Grunt.

  “It’s my birthday,” said Mr Grunt. “My special day. I demand special treatment!”

  “I’ll give you special treatment, all right!” said Mrs Grunt.

  She grabbed a huge wooden spoon from a bowl of squashed pigeon and treacle, and began beating the side of the old tin bath with it, to the rhythm of “Happy Birthday” which she started to sing loudly and terribly. From the outside, the old tin bath made quite a clanking sound. Inside the bath, it must have been like sitting inside a large bell when it was being struck by the clapper.

  Mr Grunt whimpered and threw off the bath. Before you could say, “Victory!”, Mrs Grunt had snatched it up and was busily climbing under it; pulling in her head last of all, like a tortoise retreating into its shell.

  No sooner was she not-so-safely underneath than the plane spluttered over the boat, skimming the top of the wheelhouse (where a surprised Rodders Lasenby, in full captain’s uniform, was gawping out of a side window) and – with a final death-rattle cough from the failing engine – plummeted into the sea.

  Whatever Rodders Lasenby was or wasn’t up to, there’s no denying that he knew how to steer a boat (as well as look good in a captain’s cap). In next to no time he had The Merry Dance alongside the bright-yellow biplane, which at this stage was still above the water. Some planes are designed to land on the sea (which is why such planes are called “seaplanes”, I suspect), but this wasn’t one of them.

  Although its engine was now silent, there were strange creaking and graunching noises coming from the plane – a bit like a very large rumbling tummy – which didn’t sound healthy. The right wing was snapped in the middle, with half of it pointing skyward, making it look like a weird yellow bird with a broken wing.

  The pilot, who was in an open cockpit, calmly unfastened the seat belt criss-crossing their chest, and then – putting a hand on the yellow fuselage either side of the seat – heaved themselves out, swinging their legs on to the edge of the plane. Next, the pilot lifted the huge pair of chrome-framed flying goggles from their eyes.

  Sunny, Mr and Mrs Grunt and Mimi were all crowded together in a little group, leaning over the portside of the boat. The POGI, who’d gone back below deck to eat some cheese of his own, came to find out what all the fuss was about. (Fingers, meanwhile, was sitting next to the open-topped trailer containing Clip and Clop, roughly in the centre of the boat.)

  “It’s Speedy McGinty!” cried Sunny.

  “Speedy?” said Mr Grunt in amazement. “That’s Speedy?”

  “Ahoy there!” shouted Speedy McGinty. The biplane gave a sudden shudder and big bubbles erupted on to the surface of the sea.

  “Man the lifeboats!” shouted Mr Grunt.

  “Mash a pound of bananas!” shouted Mrs Grunt.

  “Don’t be so absurd!” said Mr Grunt.

  “Don’t be afraid of the dark!” said Mrs Grunt.

  “Pull yourself together!” shouted Mr Grunt.

  “Pull yourself apart!” shouted Mrs Grunt.

  The pair were now running around the deck like ants without a chief ant with a clipboard telling them what to do.

  “Don’t you fret,” Speedy McGinty called across from the slowly sinking plane. “I ain’t the world’s best swimmer, but I can float.”

  Rodders Lasenby, with his captain’s cap on his head, leaned around the open doorway of the wheelhouse.

  “Sunny!” he called. “Come here, would you? There’s a good chap.” He pulled a few levers and the noise of the engine got louder but, instead of circling, The Merry Dance stayed pretty much in one place. The sea churned around them.

  Sunny, meanwhile, dashed over to join him.

  “Listen,” said Rodders Lasenby, loud enough only for the boy to hear. “We don’t have much time and things could turn really bad, which is a good thing because I think better under pressure. It’s not a matter of how good a swimmer that person is, or how well they float. If the plane goes down, it could suck her down with it.” He rubbed his beautifully shaved chin, releasing wafts of expensive aftershave. “I need you to get Fingers over to the side and see if you can get him to reach her with his trunk. But slowly does it …”

  “I’ll try,” said Sunny. “He usually does what I ask, especially if I encourage him with buns!”

  Very slowly, Sunny started to lead Fingers over to the side of the boat and it tilted under his weight. “Everybody over to the other side!” Sunny shouted, and even Mr and Mrs Grunt did as they were told, though they wer
e soon sliding back towards the elephant.

  Of course, Fingers had walked around the deck of The Merry Dance a little since stepping aboard, but certainly not right over to the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedge.

  Sunny remembered Ma Brackenbury’s warning about not letting the elephant rock the boat.

  The Merry Dance tilted further still. The bottom half of the caravan’s stable door opened and three or four melons bounced down the back steps and on to the deck. They rolled around like green balls in a giant pinball machine. Mimi dashed up the tilting deck to close the door, just as a wet cake of soap shot out like an escaped lemon-scented rodent making a bid for freedom. She slammed the stable door shut. Top and bottom. The caravan itself, of course, was firmly chained to the deck.

  The tin bath, meanwhile, slid across the slanting deck until it bumped up against a huge coil of rope with an impressive clank. The breakfast table stuttered a few metres before hitting the rim of the hatch down to the hold, causing much of the food – if you can call it that – and some of the plates – if you can call them that: they were upturned hubcaps – to fall. Chairs toppled, and the wind-up gramophone hit Mrs Grunt’s ankles, causing her to yelp.

  The POGI lost his footing and fell to the deck, rolling in his barrel on his side towards the Fingers side of the boat, reaching an impressive speed before smashing into the back of Mr Grunt’s legs, causing him to fall backwards with a muffled “ARG!”

  Mrs Grunt laughed.

  Twice.

  Then once again, for the fun of it.

  In position now, Sunny started throwing currant buns into the sea in front of him. A puzzled Fingers stretched out his trunk to try to reach them. “Jump in, Speedy!” Sunny shouted. “And grab a bun!”