by Julian Clary
Boo was next. He nuzzled him in a manly way. “Good-bye, old fella,” he said. “We’ll be seeing you.”
“We’ll look after him, don’t you worry!” Mrs. Bold said.
Mr. Bold passed Boo the garbage bag full of bones. “Chew on these a bit,” he instructed. “Then scatter them around the enclosure. With any luck the keepers will think you’ve eaten poor Tony.”
“Never mind about our reputation!” sniffed Ena, although her mouth was watering at the thought of all those tasty bones to gnaw on.
“It was the best idea I could come up with!” said Mr. Bold. “Now, quickly, Tony, come with us! Remember, you two—block up the tunnel at your end as soon as you get back.” His plan was to guide Tony along the tunnel to the entrance, then bundle him into an old sack and into the car—in case anyone was passing and thought a hyena walking along the sidewalk was suspicious.
Tony turned to take a last look at Boo and Ena, but just at that moment the flashlight flickered and then died, plunging everyone into darkness.
“Oh no!” groaned Betty. “Now we can barely see a thing.”
“Don’t panic,” said Mr. Bold. “There’s only one direction we can go in—we can hardly get lost! Come on, everyone.”
The Bolds and Tony went in one direction, while Boo and Ena returned to the hyena enclosure in the opposite direction, with the garbage bag full of bones.
But just as the Bolds and Tony neared the end there was a sinister rumbling noise from above them, and clods of damp earth began falling on everyone’s heads.
“Who’s throwing things?” asked Mrs. Bold. “This is no time for games.”
“Oh no, it’s not that,” said Mr. Bold breathlessly. “It’s the tunnel—I think it’s collapsing! The rain has soaked the earth and made it much heavier. We must be quick!”
At that moment a huge lump the size of a football fell from the ceiling and landed on poor Tony’s shoulder.
“Ouch!” groaned Tony and he began to pant. The cascade of mud, earth, and dirty brown water continued to plop all around him.
“I can reach the ceiling if I stand on tiptoe,” said Betty to her father. “Bobby, you do the same. We can hold the ceiling up while you get Tony out. Be quick, though!”
Bobby reached up and it was true—with their paws spread out they could both hold up a small part of the slimy, wet roof of the tunnel.
“I can feel it moving and cracking,” gasped Bobby. “Hurry!”
Hyenas can see more in the dark than humans, but muddy water was now stinging everyone’s eyes and the trickle through the twins’ paws was fast becoming a torrent.
“I’m frightened,” whimpered Tony, who hadn’t left the safety of the hyena enclosure for many years and was now wishing he was back there.
“We’ll help you, Tony,” said Mrs. Bold. “Fred, you pull him from the front and I’ll push from the back.”
“Please hurry!” said Bobby.
“Dudes, this tunnel is nearly busted,” said Betty, her voice weak with the strain of holding up the heavy mud ceiling. The water was now up to everyone’s waists and there was a lot of sloshing and grunting as Mr. and Mrs. Bold coaxed a frightened Tony along as quickly as an arthritic, wet, scared hyena can go.
But after several tense minutes, tripping and sliding in the darkness, moonlight appeared at the end of the tunnel, and Mr. Bold ran ahead.
“We’ve made it!” he called back. “You can let go now, twins. But listen—scramble out of the way the second you can. There is no time to lose—we don’t want that tunnel to collapse on top of you, whatever happens.”
“I’ll count to three, then we’ll let go together and run for it,” instructed a bedraggled Betty.
“OK,” said Bobby, who could hardly speak his limbs hurt so much.
There came a deep groan from above them.
“One, two . . . three!” shouted Betty, and the twins dived towards the tunnel entrance, half running, half swimming through the ghastly thick sludge.
“Betty, Bobby!” called Mrs. Bold. “Hurry up!”
The ceiling collapsed behind them in an avalanche of splashing and crashing. They made it out in the nick of time—and as the twins fell, exhausted, against their parents, a final belch of filthy grey mud spat over everyone. They were safe and the tunnel was no more.
There was quiet for a moment. Then Bobby and Betty began to giggle with relief.
“That was a narrow squeak!” said Mrs. Bold. “Look at you both! You’re going to need a bath with bubbles.”
“Who is Bubbles?” asked Mr. Bold. And everyone had a good laugh, which was just what was needed after such drama. But then Mr. Bold announced that they ought to get themselves back to Fairfield Road before anyone saw them—it wouldn’t be long before the sun came up.
Mr. Bold got the old sack ready and called to a rather bewildered Tony.
“Here!” he said. “Jump in until we get you safely home.” It was hard to tell in the gloom, but from poor Tony’s groaning and muttering, he seemed to be safely in the sack.
Mrs. Bold and the twins then tidied up the entrance to the collapsed tunnel so it looked as if it had never been there, and Mr. Bold hoisted the heavy sack onto his shoulders and the grubby convoy made their way cautiously back to their car and set off home.
When Mr. Bold carried the sack containing Tony from the car into the house, a wide-eyed Mr. McNumpty looked on in horror. Who were these people? Burglars?
Once safely inside, Tony clambered out and sat on the sofa, looking nervously around.
“Would you like a drink of milk, dear?” asked Mrs. Bold. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”
“Er, yes. I’ll try one,” said Tony, blinking and scratching at the mud on his tummy with his hind leg.
“Shall I get you a bucket of water?” asked Bobby helpfully. “Give you a bit of a wash down?”
“Thank you,” said Tony.
Suddenly Betty let out a high-pitched scream. “The sack! It just moved!” she said, running to her father.
“Goodness, so it did,” agreed Mr. Bold. “There’s something in there.”
“That will be Miranda,” said Tony. “She’s probably peckish. I don’t suppose you have any grapes handy, do you?”
“Miranda?” said Mrs. Bold, astonished. “Who is Miranda?”
“Let me introduce you.” Tony reached inside the sack and brought out a tiny, baby gray monkey with white fluffy ears, big black shiny eyes, and a long striped tail. She immediately jumped onto Tony’s shoulder and peered at the Bolds nervously.
“This is Miranda, everyone,” said Tony. “She’s a marmoset monkey. An orphan.”
“But what—” said Mr. Bold.
“The other monkeys rejected her, so she attached herself to me for some reason. When she heard I was leaving the safari park—all the animals knew about it, you see—she cried and cried until I said she could come with me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before—I was worried in case you said no. Please let her stay. She’ll be no bother.”
“She’s lovely!” said Betty, stroking Miranda gently. “Go on, Mum, let her stay. Pleeeeaaaase, Dad!”
“The more the merrier, I guess!” said Mr. Bold. And Mrs. Bold agreed.
“Thank you, thank you!” chorused Tony and Betty.
“The dear little girl! I’ll cut up some grapes,” said Mrs. Bold. “Does she speak?”
“Just baby talk at the moment,” explained Tony. “But she’s learning fast. She’ll soon get used to you all.”
After enjoying a nibble on some grapes, Miranda made a few contented squeaks and settled down for a rest against Tony.
“It’s been quite a night!” said Mr. Bold. “Shall I show you to your room, Tony—and Miranda? I think it’s time we all had a wash and some sleep!”
“Tell us another joke first, Dad,” asked Bobby.
Mr. Bold laughed, then looked over at Miranda before saying,
Chapter
12
There are two things
you must teach a hyena if it comes to live with you in your suburban home: how to speak human and how to walk on its hind legs. Otherwise you will have all sorts of trouble with the neighbors.
The Bolds set to work the very next day: walking lessons for Tony in the morning, talking lessons after lunch.
There is a saying that “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” and although hyenas are very clever animals and Tony was keen to learn, that saying seemed to be true, unfortunately—especially if the “dog,” or should I say, “hyena,” has arthritis. There was a lot of huffing and puffing, and poor Tony kept falling over backwards, knocking into things and making a terrible racket. But, despite all the noise and commotion, as they were hyenas they all had a good laugh about it.
And then Bobby had an idea. “Why don’t you use a walking stick to keep your balance?” he suggested, wiping tears of laughter from his eye. “Old people often have sticks to help them walk and keep them upright.”
“Good thinking, Bobby,” said Mr. Bold. “There’s an old stick in the garden shed—go and get it, and we’ll see if it helps.”
But it didn’t help much. Tony attempted tottering up and down the hallway with the stick, but he was still very unsteady. The problem was that for every three steps he took on his back legs he then did six on all fours. And there was no way that would ever pass as human behavior.
“These things take time,” said Mrs. Bold patiently. But Tony seemed to be getting rather upset and wasn’t laughing much any more.
Next the Bolds dressed him in a pair of tracksuit bottoms, a T-shirt, some slippers, and an old cloth cap—and he looked just like a rather hairy old man. Betty and Bobby roared with laughter when they saw him.
“Hot and itchy,” was Tony’s verdict.
Talking human was proving even more difficult than walking on two legs for Tony, and the afternoon’s lessons were worse than the morning’s.
Poor Tony’s heart just wasn’t in it. He couldn’t see the point. “Can’t I just pretend I’m foreign?” he sighed.
“Just learn the basics, Tony,” pleaded Mr. Bold. “Like ‘Hello,’ ‘Good-bye,’ ‘My name is Tony.’ And you need to learn our address, in case you get lost.”
“Hyenas don’t get lost!” guffawed Tony. “We just sniff the air and smell our way back to where we came from. Or have you forgotten how to do that?” he added sarcastically.
“Suppose you have a cold?” asked Bobby. “Then what?”
“Well, if I have a cold I won’t be going out in the first place, will I?” replied Tony.
“You won’t want to be cooped up in the house forever,” said Mrs. Bold. “There’s a big, wide world out there. Sooner or later you will want to go and investigate it. We want you to be free! There’s Bushy Park, the library, the supermarket. Who knows? You might even want to go to London.”
“Where?” said Tony.
Mrs. Bold sighed. “Maybe not.”
“Let’s face it,” said Tony, shaking his head. “I’m never going to be able to walk or talk like humans. I’m an old hyena and that’s that. Perhaps you should have left me in the safari park to die.” Then he went—on all fours—up to his room and stayed there.
“Poor Tony,” said Mr. Bold. “He’s so unhappy. I feel terrible for him—and I haven’t heard him laugh in days.”
“Patience, dear,” said Mrs. Bold. “It’s still early days. We mustn’t expect too much too soon.”
Miranda the monkey, on the other hand, settled in very quickly. Her initial shyness soon went and she delighted in scampering up the curtains and swinging from the light fixtures, landing on the twins’ heads when they least expected it, and making them shriek with laughter.
She could walk on her two back legs easily, and in her squeaky, high-pitched voice she was soon speaking semi-human—enough to be understood, and getting better every day.
And she was cheeky. She once filled her cheeks with water from the toilet, then opened the window and squirted it all over Mr. McNumpty as he was walking down his path.
Mr. McNumpty, who assumed he’d been fired at with a water pistol, shook his fist at the Bolds’ house and called out, “Pests!”
Betty and Minnie took to dressing Miranda up in their dolls’ clothes and pushing her up and down the garden path in the doll’s carriage.
One day Bobby was watching them when he suddenly shouted: “That’s it! That’s the answer!”
“What are you jumping up and down about?” asked Minnie.
“The carriage. Don’t you see? Bring it indoors and I’ll show you. Where’s Tony?”
Poor Tony had given up on learning things after a lesson on how to use the toilet had ended with disastrous results. He now spent most of his days curled up asleep on the kitchen floor, and because he couldn’t leave the house he was bored and miserable. But there seemed to be nothing anyone could do to help him.
“Tony?” said Bobby gently, stroking the old hyena on the back. “Wake up, Tony. I’ve had an idea.”
“Yes?” yawned Tony. “An idea, eh? Take me back to the safari park and let them put me to sleep?”
“No, silly,” said Bobby. “We’d never do that. An idea to help you walk. Come and try.”
By propping his front paws on the handlebars of the carriage, Tony found he could walk along easily on his hind legs, pushing the carriage in front of him as he went.
“I say!” said Tony triumphantly. “I can do it! I can walk like a human at last!”
“Faster, faster!” squeaked Miranda, who was still lying in the carriage, wearing a white lace gown with matching bonnet.
“I’ll put my tracksuit on, then we can go in the garden,” said Tony excitedly. Within minutes he was expertly wheeling the little monkey in the carriage up and down the garden path.
“He looks so happy at last,” said Mrs. Bold, watching from the patio. “Bravo, Tony!”
A few days later Tony felt confident enough to take Miranda in the carriage for a promenade along Fairfield Road, with the twins walking on either side of him just in case there was any unsteadiness. Tony was a bit alarmed by cars and bicycles—though he had seen many cars in the safari park—and he had to be taught how to cross the road safely.
“These black-and-white stripes are called a zebra crossing,” explained Betty.
“Zebra? What zebra?” said Tony. “I can’t smell a zebra. Don’t have ’em in Teddington, do you?”
“No. Not a real zebra, silly,” said Betty. “It’s a place for people to cross the road, that’s all.”
“Look left, right, then left again,” instructed Bobby. “And if there is nothing coming, cross over quickly.”
“I see!” said Tony, once they were safely across. “It’s easy when you know how.”
By the next day Tony had decided he’d like to take the carriage out on his own.
“Are you sure you’re ready, Tony?” asked a worried Mrs. Bold. “Will you be safe? What if someone speaks to you?”
“I’ve got Miranda with me. She’ll answer for me.”
So off they went. They made an odd-looking couple, it’s true: Miranda wrapped up in a pink gingham onesie and hood under a woolly blanket, and poor whiskery Tony stooped over the pram and hanging on for dear life, dressed in his saggy green tracksuit and cloth cap. But they managed a successful half-hour stroll all by themselves. Each day after that they went a little further, sometimes to the park where Miranda would play on the swings, and where Tony bought himself an ice cream by pointing and nodding.
At last the elderly hyena felt he was independent, able to leave the house and get some fresh air, and he was beginning to enjoy his new life. The rescue mission had been a success, and the Bolds’ household was happy and full of laughter once more.
Mr. Bold loved having someone from the old country to chat to.
Mrs. Bold loved having someone around to watch the children so she could spend more time selling her hats.
And the children loved having Tony around to tell them stories,
play games, and teach them the hyena war cry!
Chapter
13
But what of Mr. McNumpty? you’re probably wondering. Well, his dislike of his neighbors was turning to angry bafflement. What on earth was going on in there? It was hard to keep up.
After that strange week of nighttime outings and mud-covered returns, things had seemed to return to normal—if anything was ever “normal” next door.
But then the noises started. Bumps and crashes, as if something or someone big and heavy was doing handstands against the wall . . . and there were strange high-pitched whistles and squeaks. A budgie? Two budgies? Sixteen? Mr. McNumpty didn’t know, but he hardly slept for wondering about it all.
There was the water-squirting incident . . .
And on another occasion someone kept throwing grapes at him while he was hanging out his washing . . .
Unbeknown to the Bolds, Mr. McNumpty now spent most of his time spying on them. An old man seemed to be living with them now—an old man who dressed like a teenager and enjoyed wheeling a doll’s carriage around? And what was that strange thing inside the carriage? A talking doll? A glove puppet? You couldn’t make it up!
Mr. McNumpty used to watch television a lot, but he didn’t any more. There was a whole soap opera going on right next door that was far more interesting.
He had vowed not to speak to any of the Bolds ever again, which was a shame in a way because it prevented him from knocking on the door and having a jolly good argument with Mr. Bold, which he used to enjoy. Yet he was intrigued by the whole household and their peculiar behavior. Were they hippies? Mad people? Aliens from another planet? Or, as he’d always suspected . . . animals?
Sometimes he wished he had someone to moan about the Bolds to—someone who would understand how terribly annoying they were. But he didn’t. There had never been a Mrs. McNumpty and there never would be. As for friends or relatives, there simply weren’t any. Mr. McNumpty kept himself to himself.