Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't As Scary

by McSweeney's

  Just before he went to bed he wondered why they had not sent the message they were going to send tomorrow in today’s telegram, but he got so mixed up trying to work it out that he brushed his teeth, said his prayers, and fell asleep.

  TUESDAY

  The morning after Grimble had eaten his coconut tart, he woke up very early because one does not sleep very well on fresh coconut tart eaten hot from the oven. He rushed downstairs. On the mat he saw another telegram, addressed to him with the word Priority stamped on one corner. “Priority” means very important, very urgent. He opened it carefully and read the message: GRIMBLE. TAKE NO NOTICE OF YESTERDAY’S TELEGRAM. LOVE FATHER AND MOTHER.

  The telegram was difficult to understand, because the previous day Grimble had had a telegram saying sending telegram tomorrow, and today was tomorrow, and if his parents did not want him to take any notice of yesterday’s telegram it meant that they would not send a telegram today but they had just sent one, and here it was in his hand now. It was very perplexing. He went down to his father’s room and took another look at Peru, which had the flag marked US sticking in it, and measured the distance from London to Lima, which is the main town in Peru. It was about the width of one of his hands and two fingers. He picked up the globe to take a closer look and underneath it he found another message.

  GOOD MORNING, GRIMBLE, IT SAID. HOPE YOU SLEPT WELL. BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS WE WILL BE SENDING YOU ANOTHER TELEGRAM WHICH SHOULD REACH YOU WHEN YOU COME BACK FROM SCHOOL. PLEASE REMEMBER TO WASH BEHIND YOUR EARS, DON’T DRINK YOUR MILK TOO QUICKLY OR IT MIGHT TURN INTO CHEESE, AND STOP USING THE FACE FLANNEL ON YOUR SHOES. YOU KNOW WHERE THE SHOE BRUSH IS.

  Grimble’s school was quite a long walk away from his house. If one arrived early, one met a woman called Mrs. Smug who cleaned the corridors and kept cough sweets in the pockets of her apron. She gave the cough sweets to the boys, because she did not like cough sweets but had a very nasty cough, and her doctor had said she must take six of them to work every day and come home without them.

  “Good morning, Grimble,” said Mrs. Smug, coughing very nastily. “Would you like a cough sweet?”

  As Grimble had just seen a spider climbing out of Mrs. Smug’s other pocket and hated cough sweets (and marzipan), but was a very polite boy, he said, “I would prefer not but will if you insist. Actually I still feel a bit ill from last night’s coconut tart.”

  “That is as maybe,” said Mrs. Smug, using one of her favorite phrases.

  “Cooked the coconut tart myself,” Grimble added proudly.

  “Good heavens,” said Mrs. Smug, which was the favorite phrase of her late husband. “You made a coconut tart all on your own?”

  “With coconut,” said Grimble.

  “Did you rub the flour into the fat?” asked Mrs. Smug.

  “I did exactly as it said I should in the paper,” said Grimble, and just then the school bell clanged and Grimble ran into the building.

  The teacher was calling out the names of the boys to see who was there. He called out a name, and if no one answered he marked his sheet d or a, which meant that the boy in question was either deaf or absent. If any boy’s name was marked d or a for more than a week, he would send a doctor to the boy’s house. The doctor always carried an ear syringe in case it turned out that the boy was deaf.

  “Gamble?” said the teacher.

  “Here, sir,” said a boy.

  “Glitter?”

  “Sir,” said another.

  “Green?”

  There was a silence.

  “Come on, Green,” said the teacher. “Speak up, boy, I can’t hear you.”

  As nothing happened and no one said anything, the teacher marked him d or a and called out, “Grimble.”

  “Here, sir,” said Grimble.

  That morning they had history.

  “I want,” said Mr. Willow, the history master, “you boys to write down the names of all the Kings and Queens of England while I sit down at my desk and watch you. There will be no talking, and the last boy to finish must stay behind after school and mend my bicycle pump.”

  Five minutes later Mr. Willow was asleep in his chair and the boys were making paper darts out of their exercise books and floating them all over the classroom. When the bell rang for the end of the lesson, Mr. Willow woke up and said, “There now; let that be a lesson to you. I hope you have learned something. Battle of Waterloo, 1815. Magna Carta, 1215. Lunch, 1:15.”

  Lunch on a Tuesday was sausages and mash, unless they had had sausages and mash on Monday, in which case it was shepherd’s pie made from yesterday’s cut-up sausages, covered with old mashed potatoes.

  None of the other boys were very keen on the food—which is probably why so many stayed away from school—but Grimble liked it very much. He liked everything about school because it was tidy and organized and he always knew what was going to happen next, which was a nice change from his life at home.

  After lunch it was sport. The boys got into a coach and were taken to a playing field by the side of a wood where there was one goal at the top of a hill. Some of the older boys said that there used to be another at the other end of the field, but a few years ago on Guy Fawkes’ night someone had tied a rocket to the goal post and the whole thing had shot up into the air and no one had known where it had come down.

  As shops do not sell single goals, and his school was too sensible to buy two goals and be left with one for which they had no use, they played a game called Twinge. This was just like football except that for the first half eleven boys stood in goal and the other eleven shot the ball at them, and for the second half everybody changed sides. The team that scored more goals were called the winners and were allowed to go home without having to have a bath. As Grimble’s side lost by 61 goals to 2, Mrs. Turtle, the games mistress, kept them quite late and by the time he got back to his house the telegram had lain on his doormat for so long the edges were beginning to curl up. He opened the envelope and inspected the message: THINKING ABOUT YOU. MESSAGE IN THE IRONING CUPBOARD. DON’T FORGET TEETH. LOVE FATHER AND MOTHER.

  That, decided Grimble, was more like a telegram. He went up to the ironing cupboard, rummaged about a bit among the clothes, and finally in the pocket of his bathing trunks he found the message. It was written in green ink on a large squashed-fly biscuit and said: DO NOT EAT THIS BISCUIT BECAUSE EATING GREEN INK IS BAD FOR YOU. LOVE FATHER AND MOTHER. If that is a grown-up joke, I am glad I am a child, thought Grimble, brushed his teeth angrily, and looked at the list of people his parents had told him to go and see if he needed anything.

  He quite liked the Mosquito household where he had been yesterday, only by the time he had left the kitchen had been absolutely full of washing-up—and washing-up (and marzipan) were two things he did not like. So he looked up the next people.

  These were the Featherstones, who lived next door in a house that had once belonged to a magician and was full of old silk hats and rabbits left behind from the old man’s conjuring days. Colonel Featherstone was gray and fierce and was in charge of the army. When he had Field Marshals in for dinner and found that instead of a napkin his guests got eight silk handkerchiefs tied together with knots that no one could undo, he did not think this a bit funny. Mrs. Featherstone was a kind lady who cooked muffins for her husband to try to make him happier, but Grimble did not think this worked very well. Sometimes when he was just going to sleep, he could hear them arguing.

  “I am sorry, dear,” said the Colonel’s wife.

  “Attention!’ shouted the Colonel. “Left turn, quick march, halt, about turn!” It seemed a funny way to live. When Grimble got to the front door, he was pleased to see that they were expecting him.

  GRIMBLE, said a notice tied to the stuffed parrot that served as a bell pull, COME ON IN. QUICK MARCH. RIGHT TURN. HALT. SALUTE WHEN YOU SEE AN OFFICER.

  Grimble came in and found himself saluting the gas cooker to which was fixed a note which said: GRIMBLE, STAND AT EASE. EAT COLD MEAT AND SALAD. WELL DONE.
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br />   On the table was a leg of something that could have been an elephant but was probably beef. There was also lettuce and tomato and cucumber and beetroot and radishes and oil and vinegar and salt and lemon juice.

  On a shelf was a box of eggs, and a book called Army Manual About Eggs.

  He propped the book against one of the lettuces and began to read:

  Attention, said the first sentence. This is an egg.

  LESSON ONE: Is It a Hard-Boiled Egg? Grimble looked at the egg and said, “I don’t know.” Well then, said the book, spin it the way you would spin a top, and if it stands up it is boiled. If it squelches around slowly it means the yolk is galumping about inside the shell and it is raw.

  He turned the eggs and worked out which were raw and which were boiled.

  LESSON TWO: Open the Eggs and See If You Were Right. This was going to be fun. He took the piles of raw eggs and hard-boiled eggs, and saw how many mistakes he had made.

  LESSON THREE: How to Make a Halved Hard-Boiled Egg. Take knife in right hand. Hold egg with left hand. Push down knife.

  LESSON FOUR: How to Make Salad Cream Called Mayonnaise.

  Having made the mayonnaise, he dipped the hard-boiled egg halves into it and ate them. As there were lots and lots of pages of the manual still to read, he decided to look to the end of the book because usually, if you turn to the last page, you get the best part.

  He turned to the last page and it said, GRIMBLE. ATTENTION. WIPE YOUR MOUTH. GO TO BED.

  He stood up, saluted smartly, and left Colonel Featherstone’s house.

  When he got home he brushed his teeth, said his prayers, and was just going to sleep when he remembered his homework. It was to write a poem about a horse. So he got a piece of paper and wrote:

  Then he went to sleep.

  WEDNESDAY

  Wednesdays were Grimble’s favorite days. When his parents were home his father used to say, “Monday is not much fun because it is the beginning of the week, and you can’t start anything on Fridays because there is no time left in which to finish it, but Wednesday is about right.” On Wednesdays Grimble used to get up early and get fresh hot rolls from the baker’s shop, then he and his father cooked bacon and made scrambled eggs on toast and had fizzy lemonade.

  After that they would look at the newspapers.

  His father read out the headlines and Grimble would try to guess the next line.

  “Small war in Penguin Island,” read his father.

  “One penguin slightly hurt,” said Grimble.

  “Crystal Palace Football Club beat Manchester United,” said father.

  “Crystal Palace manager faints,” said Grimble.

  “‘I lied,’ says politician,” read his father.

  “That can’t be a headline,” said Grimble. “It is much too everyday.”

  After that Grimble would go to school and his father would go back to bed, “keeping myself for something important,” he used to say. Once, when Grimble came back from school, his father was still in bed fast asleep. Grimble decided it must be something very important for which he was keeping himself.

  When Grimble woke up on this Wednesday, he had just begun to feel “Oh good, it’s Wednesday” when he remembered it was not so good—because his parents were still in Peru and it would be no fun eating hot rolls on his own, also he did not know how to cook bacon. There were a few bottles of fizzy lemonade in a cupboard but he drank fizzy lemonade only to please his father. Grimble very much preferred black coffee without sugar.

  He got up and dressed and found the cake tin with money in it in the oven, took two coins, and bought two white chocolate bars. He munched them on the way to school, making sure that he did not arrive too early and get caught by Mrs. Smug, the school cleaner.

  After he had answered his name at roll-call he went into the classroom for geography. He liked geography very much and was specially interested in it at the moment, because he thought he might learn something about Peru, but Mr. Tottenbrough, the geography teacher, said, “Good morning, boys, today I am going to teach about Birmingham.” Grimble said, “Good morning, sir, do you think you could teach us about Peru instead?” But Mr. Tottenbrough said, “Quiet, boy. I never teach South American countries on Wednesdays. You should know that. Take twenty lines.” Twenty lines meant that Grimble had to write out Mr. Tottenbrough never teaches South American countries on Wednesdays twenty times.

  He was then taught all about Birmingham for an hour and a half, multiplied things and divided other things for an hour and a half, and ate sausages and mash and chocolate spodge for forty-five minutes.

  In the afternoon they went to the swimming pool. The pool was new and belonged to some people called the Council who were always sending notes to Grimble’s school asking boys not to make so much noise, to slop less water about, and to try to remember other people who wanted to swim. The sports day was being held on Saturday, and Grimble’s school had to choose teams for the different swimming events. Grimble was quite good at the under-eleven butterfly stroke but as they wanted only six boys in the final and there were seven under-eleven butterfly-strokers, they had a race to see who would be last and not swim on Saturday.

  The seven boys got into the bath at the deep end, a man said ready, steady, go, and the boy next to Grimble, who was called Blatt, did a very big deep butterfly stroke, came up with several mouthfuls of water, banged his head against the rail, and sank.

  As Grimble realized that there was now no point in using up a lot of energy in not coming last of seven when there were only six swimmers he swam very slowly and came last of six.

  “The following boys will swim in the final on Saturday,” shouted the swimming master, and he read out five names and Grimble’s.

  When he got home that afternoon, he looked for a piece of paper and wrote out a telegram. GRIMBLE PERU. AM IN UNDER-ELEVEN BUTTERFLY-STROKE FINAL SATURDAY. IMPORTANT YOU ATTEND LOVE GRIMBLE.

  As telegrams cost so much for every word sent, he looked at his message and decided that “under-eleven” was not very important to the meaning and might as well be taken out. Then there were the words “am” and “in.” If he wrote “butterfly-stroke final Saturday” they would get the general idea. So he changed the piece of paper to: GRIMBLE PERU. BUTTERFLY-STROKE FINAL SATURDAY LOVE GRIMBLE and took it to the Post Office with his bowl of sixpences and they said, “You can have some extra words because the least you can pay for a telegram to Peru is fifteen shillings.” So he took back the paper and wrote: PLEASE COME BACK SOON BECAUSE I AM MISSING YOU A LOT LOVE GRIMBLE.

  Then he went back home to look up the next name on the list that his parents had left for him. It would be nice, he thought, if one of the families were in when I arrived for dinner.

  The third name on the list was Grimble’s Aunt Percy. This, you may think, is an odd name for an aunt, but Percy’s real name was Persimmon and she had always been called Percy from the time she was a child, and there seemed no good reason why she should change it now she was a middle-aged aunt. Aunt Percy lived in a flat which was so like all the other flats in the building that the only way you could tell hers was by the color of the front door.

  At the beginning, when the flats were first built, Aunt Percy’s door had been buff—which is really a non-color like brown left out in the wind and the rain—and all the other flats had chosen colors like red and bright blue and pale yellow and green.

  The trouble was that now, a few years after the flats had been built and left out in the wind and rain, all the other doors were about the color that Aunt Percy had chosen in the first place.

  So the people in the flats had a meeting and decided that everyone should write on the outside of each door the names of the people who lived on the inside of it. Aunt Percy was very angry about this. She said, “I was the only one to choose a color which you have now copied, and it’s your own fault if no one can find you. I am certainly not going to write my name on my door. All my friends know that I live behind the buff door.”
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br />   The other people in the flats said that Aunt Percy was quite right; and now, as well as having their names on their buff doors, they also had the message AND AUNT PERCY DOES NOT LIVE HERE.

  So Aunt Percy had the flat with nothing written on it at all. Grimble walked past all the doors with names on them and finally came to the blank one and gave a shy knock, and as no one answered, he pushed at it and it opened quite easily.

  Of course all the flats were alike, and the only way Grimble could be sure it was his aunt’s flat was to go into the bedroom and see that the carpet and the curtains and the sheets were buff-colored. He looked, and they were. What was more, on a buff-colored pillow case was pinned a note: WELCOME GRIMBLE. I HAVE HAD TO POP OUT FOR ABOUT A WEEK FOR SOME FISH FOR THE CAT. THERE ARE POTATOES AND A KNIFE IN THE KITCHEN, ALSO SOME QUITE ACCEPTABLE MILK WHICH I GOT IN 1967. PS ’67 WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR FOR MILK.

  In the kitchen, Grimble found the potatoes in a brown paper bag and propped the buff-colored cookery book against them, and started to read.

  The cookery book was written by a woman and was full of very boring womanish writing:

  Hello, Grimble, dear, it said on the first page, I do hope you will love this little cookery book that I wrote all by myself specially with you in mind. If you are sitting comfortably with your little legs tucked under your little chair, I want you to read everything very carefully, and then you will be able to make lovely potato things, won’t you? Grimble turned over the page and got to Chapter Two. Boiling potatoes, the boring woman had written, takes about twenty minutes because potatoes are quite big and it takes the dear boiling water all that time to magic the inside soft.

  Grimble did not actually snort because he was too polite, but he gritted his teeth and picked up a potato.

  “Now you dear little potato,” he said, “if it takes twenty minutes to magic you soft in boiling water, why don’t we …” and he whipped a knife out of a drawer, cut the potato in half, and said, “Now you dear little pot- and you dear little -ato you will each only take ten minutes.” So he thought about it some more and cut the half potato in half again and said, “Five minutes,” and then in half again and said, “Two and a half minutes,” and then in half again and said, “A minute and a quarter.”