The Grunts All at Sea

by Philip Ardagh

  Speedy McGinty didn’t need asking twice. She slid off the side of the bright-yellow biplane into the sea with a brief splash, and grabbed the nearest soggy bun floating on the surface and waved it above her head.

  “Look, buns, Fingers,” said Sunny. “Buns!”

  As soon as the bun-clutching Speedy was less than a trunk’s length from the boat, Fingers wrapped his trunk around her – in the way he hugged Sunny – and lifted her up out of the sea, over the side and on to The Merry Dance.

  Safely on board, Speedy McGinty sat on the deck in a pool of seawater. “Nicely done!” she said, and handed Fingers the soggy bun, which he gratefully received.

  A moment later there was a sound like a giant sucking on a huge boiled sweet, and the bright-yellow biplane began to disappear beneath the surface of the sea. And was gone. Where moments before there’d been this wounded yellow feat of engineering, now there was only the rippling surface of greenish-blue water.

  The Merry Dance wobbled in its wake. Everyone looked on in silence. A moment later there was what can only be described as a sea-like “burp” and something erupted to the surface. It was Speedy McGinty’s folded lightweight wheelchair! Mr Grunt grabbed it with a boat hook and flipped it on board.

  “My wheels!” said Speedy. She couldn’t have looked happier.

  After everything had been picked up from all around the deck, Mr Grunt’s birthday breakfast turned into a birthday brunch, with an extra place laid for Speedy McGinty. She didn’t seem to have much of an appetite, though (which was hardly surprising with the “food” on offer).

  “I came to warn you,” she said.

  “About what?” asked Mrs Grunt. “Low-flying planes?”

  Mr Grunt grunted at that.

  “About the people who paid me a visit not long after you did,” she said. She went on to tell them that, not long after Sunny came to borrow the maps and charts, another unexpected visitor turned up on her doorstep. He was a thin, hairy, jet-black-moustached chap calling himself Max. (There is actually the word “moustachioed” to describe someone having a moustache, but I find it far too silly-looking and refuse to use it.)

  At first, Max pretended to be lost and claimed he’d knocked to ask directions. But when he recognised Speedy as the (really quite) famous Speedy McGinty, the man (and his moustache) seemed to get all excited and even asked for an autograph. Speedy thought that there was something not-quite-right about the way he was behaving, and when he commented on the elephant footprints in the earth, she became even more suspicious.

  Then she heard the yapping. Something – or someone – was bothering Petal. It soon became obvious who: a lank-haired woman came charging down the trophy-lined hallway and out through the open front door … with a small dog clamped to her bottom.

  “Get this thing off me!” she yelled, but Max was too busy turning-and-running to help her. It was only when they’d both run out of the garden and part way up the lane that Petal let go and scuttled back to her mistress, a torn piece of shorts between her canine canines.

  “But I thought you said Petal didn’t bite?” said Sunny.

  “Only intruders!” said Speedy, with a flush of pride. “Petal makes a great little guard dog. At first I thought that good-for-nothin’ pair were thieves after my trophies or some story to sell to the newspapers. Then I realised that the only thing that was missing was the piece of paper you left on the piano, Sunny, with the list of the place names you needed maps and charts for.”

  “They’re the couple calling themselves Max and Martha,” said Sunny. “No doubt about it. We met them outside The Happy Pig and we saw them snooping around in Isaac’s Port too, trying to get a room in O’Neill’s Hotel.”

  “They must be out to get the POGI or to stop him reaching his destination!” said Mimi.

  “That’s what I reckoned,” said Speedy McGinty. She looked at the POGI. “I assume that’s you?” she said.

  “POGI,” said the POGI.

  “So I went to the airfield and fired up The Canary.”

  “You set fire to a canary?” gawped Mrs Grunt.

  “Don’t be a fool, wife!” said Mr Grunt. “‘Fired up’ means ‘got excited’ … She excited a canary!”

  “The Canary is my plane … was my plane,” said Speedy McGinty, with a sigh. “And I mean I got the engine going.”

  “Do you think it was sabotage?” asked Mimi. “Do you think someone deliberately messed with the plane to stop you reaching us? You could have been killed.”

  “You could have hit us,” muttered Mrs Grunt. She gave Sharpie, who was on her lap, a hug. Because he was a stuffed hedgehog, this wasn’t a great idea. “OUCH!” she said. “Bad hedgehog!” and slapped him. “OUCH!” she said again, sucking her sore hand.

  “Sabotage? No, dear,” said Speedy. “There ain’t no way anyone would know I was goin’ to use the plane, and they wouldn’t have had time to do anything to it, anyhow.”

  “Then what do you think happened?”

  “My mechanic, Earl, is what happened … or didn’t happen. He swore blind that he’d fix a problem with the fuel pump and I thought he had … but he can’t have done.”

  “And here you are,” said Mr Grunt. He leaned across the table and took Speedy McGinty’s hand in his own. “You lost your parrot––”

  “Canary,” Mimi corrected him.

  Mr Grunt scowled. “Your plane … and could have lost your life trying to warn us. I don’t know what to say, Speedy.”

  “That’s what’s puzzling me,” Sunny whispered to Mimi. “Once Dad even tried to steal her door knocker, so why did she go to so much trouble to warn him? It’s not as if they’re best friends or anything. He won’t even go in the house. He just shouts through the window!”

  When the others were deep in conversation again, Mimi turned back to Sunny. “I’ve just thought of something else,” she whispered.

  “What?” Sunny whispered back.

  “Lasenby’s uniform,” whispered Mimi.

  “What about it?”

  “If Rodders Lasenby had no idea he was going to be captaining a boat, how come he had his whole captain’s uniform with him?”

  Sunny swallowed a piece of acorn-and-wood-shavings pie. He didn’t have an answer to that.

  Mimi and Sunny sat next to each other on the bed in his cabin.

  “Do you think we’re in danger?” asked Mimi.

  “Living in a falling-down manor house with missing floorboards is dangerous,” said Sunny. “Scraping squashed animals off busy roads for food, that’s dangerous too … but, as for this?” He shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “I wonder if the man who gave your dad the job in the first place is a good guy or a bad guy?” said Mimi. She’d put on a fresh splash of her homemade (pink) rose-petal perfume so was smelling perfectly pinkish.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Sunny admitted. “Because we’re good guys I kind of assumed we were working for the good guys.”

  Mimi looked at him through her pink-tinted spectacles.

  “But would you call – er – Mr Grunt one of the good guys, Sunny? He did steal you off a washing line, remember …”

  “But a baby shouldn’t be hanging by the ears from a washing line in the first place,” said Sunny, “so in a way you could say that he … that he rescued me.” His expression changed.

  “What is it?” asked Mimi.

  “It’s just that I’ve never thought of it that way before … At least, not been able to put it into words. He rescued me …”

  Mimi didn’t seemed convinced, but was sensitive enough to change the subject.

  “And another thing,” she said.

  “What?” asked Sunny.

  “For all we know, the POGI himself is a villain!”

  “That’s true.” Sunny nodded. “And I don’t get where Speedy McGinty fits into all of this.”

  Mimi stood up. “Do you know what we’ve got?”

  “No, what?”

  “A load of questions and no an
swers,” said Mimi.

  That night – their second at sea – there was a storm. It wasn’t serious as storms go, but Mr Grunt was left feeling very green around the gills. This is another way of saying seasick, which is another way of saying that he spent most of his time either: (a) feeling sick; (b) being sick; or (c) feeling sick while being sick.

  The first time he was sick, he wasn’t ready for it so was sick into the nearest thing: an upturned tortoise shell that the Grunts used as a bowl for keeping non-matching socks in (until there were enough of them in there for Sunny to start matching them up as pairs again).

  Mrs Grunt was OUTRAGED. “What did you go and do that for, you swing-bin?” she demanded.

  “Take a wild guess,” whimpered Mr Grunt.

  “To get me REALLY angry?” said Mrs Grunt.

  Mr Grunt had his hand in front of his face. “Don’t be so stupid, wife!” he said, trying to make sure that it was only words that came out of his mouth.

  “To spoil our Sock Night?” said Mrs Grunt. (Not that they actually had a Sock Night to spoil.)

  “BECAUSE I’M FEELING SICK!” Mr Grunt blurted, as he stood up and charged out of the room, out of the caravan, across the rain-swept, rolling deck – stepping in a pile of elephant poo along the way – over to the side, where he threw up.

  (I’m sorry, but there it is.)

  And there he stayed. All the other times he was sick, it was out of everyone’s way. Unless the wind changed.

  After a while, he felt someone slip their small hand into his. “Sunny?” groaned Mr Grunt, happy for the concern and the company. He looked around. It wasn’t Sunny.

  “POGI!” said the POGI, squeezing his hand.

  “POGI!” said Mr Grunt, squeezing his hand back. He felt strangely comforted by the barrel-wearing man. Then he stuck his rain-stained head back over the side and was sick again. He was beginning to regret the rat sandwich he’d had with his bedtime glass of fox’s milk.

  Morning came and with it calm seas and a sight of land.

  “Land ahoy!” shouted an excited Mimi, pointing at the sandy coastline.

  “Yee-haa!” said Speedy McGinty, like cowboys do when they’re rounding up cattle. She spun her wheelchair in a complete circle.

  Rodders Lasenby leaned out of the door of the wheelhouse and did a thumbs-up with one thumb, so why it isn’t called a “thumb-up”, I have no idea.

  Sunny was busy cooking breakfast for everyone except the POGI, who, once again, seemed to be eating his way through what remained of his cheeses, in the privacy of his own cabin. On hearing Mimi’s cry, Sunny dashed out of the caravan kitchen for a quick look at where they were heading, then dashed back in again.

  Mr Grunt appeared in the kitchen, looking an unusual shade of grey.

  “You look dreadful, Dad,” said Sunny, tending a pan of frying toadstools.

  “You should have seen me last night, Sunny,” muttered Mr Grunt.

  “Are you handing over the POGI to Mrs Bayliss today?” Sunny asked.

  “Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow,” said Mr Grunt. “I’ll be glad when this whole messy business is over.”

  Sunny pushed the toadstools around the pan with a wooden spatula. “Why did you agree to do this in the first place, Dad?” he asked.

  Mr Grunt plonked himself at the kitchen table. He didn’t smell too good. “Excitement,” said Mr Grunt. “Adventure. The chance to annoy your mother in new surroundings.”

  “Are you being paid?”

  “Kind of.”

  Sunny wasn’t sure he liked the sound of “kind of”. The last time Mr Grunt had been given a big payment it turned out to be Fingers. That part hadn’t bothered Sunny. He’d been delighted, in fact. Especially because Fingers had ended up belonging to him (and him to Fingers) … but his dad had done some dirty double-crossing along the way.

  “Can you keep a secret, Sunny?” asked the rather seasick Mr Grunt.

  “Of course I can, Dad.”

  “You mustn’t tell your mother.”

  “Promise.”

  “I’m going to miss that little POGI. I’m used to having him around.”

  “He’s certainly no trouble,” Sunny admitted. A thought suddenly occurred to him. “You are going to complete this job you’ve been given, aren’t you, Dad? You’re going to stick to your instructions and deliver him to this Mrs Bayliss lady, whoever she is?”

  The toadstools were evenly browned on all sides now, and Sunny served them up on to plates with the spatula.

  “Yes, I’m going to hand the POGI over,” said Mr Grunt. “But I’ll still miss him.” He got back to his feet. The smell of the fried food was making his stomach churn all over again.

  After breakfast had been eaten, the plates and cutlery washed up and put away, Fingers, Clip and Clop fed and watered, and elephant dung shovelled up and tipped overboard, preparations were made to land.

  It was then that Rodders Lasenby made his surprise announcement. “There’s no harbour on the island,” he said. “I checked the sea charts and the water isn’t deep enough for us to take The Merry Dance right ashore.”

  “Are you sure about that?” said a puzzled Speedy McGinty from her gleaming wheelchair.

  “Most definitely, dear lady,” said the captain. “If we tried to get too close, we’d hole the hull and could all drown … which is good. It means we get to use that rather nice rowing boat instead. Splendid!” He cut the engine and dropped anchor. The sea was calm, and they could barely feel The Merry Dance rocking on the surface beneath their feet.

  “Well, I’m going to double-check them charts!” announced Speedy, speeding off across the deck in the opposite direction.

  “As you wish,” said Rodders Lasenby, but he looked far from pleased.

  “We can’t fit Fingers, the donkeys and the caravan in a rowing boat, you jumped-up fancy teacake!” said Mrs Grunt with her usual charm.

  “Which is why they’ll have to stay on board,” said Rodders Lasenby, straightening his natty cravat.

  “Then why did we bring them along in the first place?” demanded Mrs Grunt.

  “To confuse the enemy?” suggested Sunny. “That’s right, isn’t it, Dad? You’re covering our tracks?”

  Mr Grunt, who was beginning to look a little more human or, at least, a little more like his almost-human-looking self, was about to reply, but Mrs Grunt got in first.

  “I’ll tell you why we didn’t just leave them at Isaac’s Port,” she said. “Because Mr Grunt is an idiot, that’s why.”

  “Takes one to know one, dumbbell!”

  “Carpet beater!” said Mrs Grunt.

  “Foliage!” said Mr Grunt.

  “Foliage?!?” said Mrs Grunt, quivering with rage.

  Sunny left them arguing, and went to prepare the rowing boat with Mimi under the instruction of Captain Lasenby, while Speedy McGinty searched through her beloved map and charts. The only one she couldn’t find seemed to be the one of the island and surrounding sea. “Now, where did it get to?” she muttered.

  The rowing boat was lowered over the side by means of ropes and a pulley and the first to climb the rope ladder down the outside of The Merry Dance and into the rowing boat, bobbing alongside, was Mr Grunt, followed by the POGI (because he had to be there), then Mrs Grunt (because she insisted on going too). Rodders Lasenby had suggested that Sunny also go “because,” as he’d whispered to the boy, “you’re obviously the sensible one.” It was already a tight squeeze, but Mimi hadn’t come this far to stay behind, so she managed to find a space. Even to Sunny’s inexperienced eyes, the rowing boat looked very low in the water.

  Peering at them over the side of The Merry Dance, Captain Lasenby looked concerned. “Your combined weight is too heavy. One of you is going to have to come back on board.”

  “Not me,” said Mr Grunt, crossing his arms defiantly. “This is MY important top-secret mission.”

  “Nor me,” said Mrs Grunt. “Where idiot-chops goes, I go.” She gave her man a loving slap on the bac
k.

  “POGI!” said the POGI.

  “You have to stay,” Sunny reminded him.

  “I’ll come back aboard,” said Mimi. She’d loved to have gone, but realised that if anyone was surplus baggage, she was.

  “Of course, the POGI could always take his barrel off,” said Rodders Lasenby. “That would free up some weight.”

  “No!” said Mr Grunt and Sunny together.

  “And I for one don’t want to see barrel-boy here in the naughty-naked-nude,” said Mrs Grunt, with the most indignant of indignant snorts.

  Mimi was already standing up again, causing the little rowing boat to rock precariously.

  “Whoaaa!” called Speedy McGinty. “Careful, honey!”

  “No, wait,” said Rodders Lasenby. “I’ve had an idea. You sit back down, Mimi, and you come back up here for a moment, please, POGI.”

  And it was as simple as that. The POGI got to his feet and – supported by helping hands from the seated Grunts, Mimi and Sunny – stepped between them on the little bobbing rowing boat, and climbed the rope ladder up the outside of The Merry Dance.

  Once he reached the top, Captain Lasenby put out a helping hand and heaved him aboard. Moments later there was a sudden unexplained THUD … and Rodders Lasenby was pulling in the ladder.

  “Now, hold on there!” Speedy McGinty called from across the deck. “What you playin’ at?”

  “Hey!” said Sunny, leaping to his feet in the boat. “What’s happening?”

  “SIT DOWN!” barked Mr Grunt.

  Sunny sat down. The boat stopped rocking so violently.

  “Sorry, chaps!” said Rodders Lasenby, peering back at them over the side. He raised his captain’s cap politely. “Slight change of plan.”

  “Change of plan?” Mrs Grunt shouted back up in surprise.