*****
“You’d better have my Wellingtons,” Jodie decided looking at his feet, which were by now an interesting combination of black dirt and bluish skin with red patches, the nails neatly edged with soot. “I’ll let you out through the front door.”
“What about your parents? Won’t they be awake?”
“It’s only my Mum,” Jodie reassured him cheerfully, extracting a varied collection of shoes from her wardrobe and hurling them across the room in her hunt for suitable footwear. “She takes sleeping tablets because I’m so noisy and don’t sleep.” Percy silently sympathised with Jodie’s mum.
The boots were a bit tight, but he squashed them on and meekly followed Jodie down the stairs.
Across the road, they walked up Mandy’s garden path and Jodie led the way around to the back door where there was a square cat flap near the bottom with a see-through plastic window. “That’s the utility room, “ explained Jodie. Percy knelt down and peered through. There was a very unpleasant acrid burnt smell, but he couldn’t see anything at all through the flap. Everything was dark.
“At least there aren’t any flames,” he said, moving back so that Jodie could look too. “Perhaps it’s burnt itself out,” he added hopefully. Jodie was pushing the cat flap open:
“Puddles! Puddles!” she called. “Come on Puddles! Nice dinner!”
“You’re letting air in when you do that,” observed Percy, who was keen on science. “You’ll make the fire burn faster.” He moved to the window and pressed his face against the glass. Even though the curtains weren’t closed, it was almost impossible to see anything across the room. It just looked dark, but every now and then there seemed to be a blurry flicker of light. The fire must be still burning in another room, realised Percy. The flames were hidden by the smoke but he was still seeing their glow in the distance.There was no way that he or Jodie could possibly go inside – they would burn to death. No, the only thing was to somehow put out the fire. Percy thought fast:
“How do they water the garden?” he asked. “Do they use a hosepipe? Is there a shed or a garage?” As he spoke he was looking around hastily. “We need to find a hosepipe quickly!”
“There’s a tap on the wall under the kitchen window,” answered Jodie. She looked round vaguely. There’s a hose somewhere – I don’t know where they keep it.”
“Have you got one at your house? – Can you get it quickly?”Jodie looked at him and then ran. Percy looked up at the sky and prayed that Rudolph was not off somewhere practising speed turns or snacking on moss again: “Rudolph!” he called. “Rudolph! Come down here! We need your help!” Jodie was now struggling back towards number 8 dragging a huge reel of hose behind her. As she reached the path Rudolph brought the sleigh to a smooth landing on the lawn in front of her. Jodie came to an abrupt halt, her eyes popping out at the sight. Percy didn’t waste time. He ran and grabbed the end of the hose and pulled it up to the wall. “Unwind the rest!” he shouted over his shoulder to Jodie as he tried to force the end over the outside tap. It was difficult. His fingers were cold and so was the hosepipe which felt very stiff. He pushed and pushed, banging his frozen fingers against the icy tap, but he still couldn’t get it to fit on. Jodie watched:
“I know!” she said suddenly, and darted back across the road. In a moment she was back with a mug of something steaming hot.
“We haven’t got time for coffee!” said Percy irritably, still pushing with blue bruised hands.
“Not coffee,” said Jodie. ”Just hot water out of our tap. Stick the end of the pipe in to soften it, and then try.” Percy looked at her and then grabbed the mug and held the hose in the water. After a second he pulled it out and tried again. It went straight on!
“Thanks!” said Percy. “Rudolph, can you take the other end up to the roof and drop it down the chimney?” Without a word, Rudolph picked up the pipe using his mouth and soared back into the air. Would it be long enough to reach, wondered Percy anxiously? Seconds later Rudolph poked his head over the edge of the roof and called down to them:
“Ready for lift off!”
Percy turned on the tap as far as it would go. They could hear the water gushing and bubbling its way upwards along the pipe. Percy crossed his fingers.
Percy and Jodie stood back on the lawn, looking up at the roof. Was the smoke coming out of the chimney getting less or not? It was difficult to tell. Rudolph landed quietly in the drift of snow beside them:
“Want a ride?” he asked Jodie.
“Oooh yes!” she exclaimed, and began to climb in amongst the clutter of parcels which were now loose all over the sleigh floor.
“Don’t sit on the cat,” he warned.
“Puddles!” exclaimed Jodie, scooping him into her arms and stroking him lovingly.
Percy climbed in on the other side and eyed the kitten warily. All that fuss and now the kitten wasn’t even in the house! He looked down at his bruised hands ruefully.
“Look!” shouted Jodie, joyfully “We put it out! We put it out! There’s no smoke any longer!”
They turned, and sure enough, the last wisp of smoke was gently curling away though the snow. A fire engine siren sounded in the distance as Rudolph took off. They circled high up round the line of houses and then with a final gentle glide, Rudolph halted by Jodie’s front gate:
“Bedtime,” he said.
Jodie hopped out and turned to them: “You’ve been the most wonderful dream ever!” she said, and then, as if in a daze, she walked back inside, still carrying the kitten, and shut the door.
As they took off again, Percy turned to Rudolph in puzzlement: “You were quite calm, you didn’t speed and you didn’t even loop the loop once?
“You noticed?” said Rudolph apologetically. “ - I forgot to take my Reinitin earlier. I’m always a bit excitable if I forget to take it on time.”
“But what about the presents – Jodie’s presents and the ones in number 8? I never got them back!” asked Percy anxiously.
“It doesn’t matter about the ones at number 8 because the McHeatherpots aren’t due back until the New Year so they won’t know they were delivered on the wrong day. As for Jodie’s, she’ll be fast asleep shortly so you can pop back and get them when the fire engine’s left. She’ll think it was all a dream in the morning.”
“How do you know – about the McHeatherpots, I mean? enquired Percy curiously.
“Puddles told me, of course,” replied Rudolph. “No need for the abseiling bit when we go back to Jodie’s by the way. I’ll park outside the window. Sorry about earlier,” he added apologetically. “I only did it to tease.”
Percy looked at him in stunned silence. “To tease!” he said faintly. Rudolph looked back at him:
“Yes,” he said. “I think I got rather carried away. You were doing so well. I just wanted to make it a bit more exciting for you.”
Percy was quiet for a bit, wondering how much excitement he could take in one night. Then: “Where did you find Puddles?” he asked.
“Oh cats are generally nocturnal when they’re on their own. He was just prowling around practising looking for mice. Hadn’t caught any, of course. I found him pretending to catch some dead leaves at the bottom of number 10’s garden. He was quite glad to hop aboard – not very keen on the snow making his fur wet.”
Rudolph was quite right. When Percy climbed back in through Jodie’s window she was curled up in bed with Puddles next to her and both were sound asleep. Quietly he slipped off the borrowed wellies and put them carefully away. Then he emptied the 3 socks that Grumbo had filled which were now lying on the floor. Puddles twitched one ear in farewell as Percy stood on the window sill, but Jodie stayed quite still, her eyes fast shut.
“Mission accomplished?” asked Rudolph, yawning, as Percy landed triumphantly in the sleigh, sack in hand. “You haven’t got a brussel sprout or a carrot about you, have you? I feel quite pe
ckish.”
“Sorry,” said Percy who felt extraordinarily tired all of a sudden. He lay back on the cushions and closed his eyes.
“Youngsters!” sniffed Rudolph, peering round at him. “Can’t take the pace!”
Chapter 6 - Sleigh Rides and Slippers
Back at the Proudworthy’s chimney, Rudolph snorted loudly in an endeavour to wake Percy who had finally nodded off in exhaustion and was lying sprawled across the seat. There was no response. Rudolph glanced back at him and decided there was only one thing for it. “I’ll wake you up!” he muttered:“Hold tight,” he called loudly and proceeded to perform a neat figure of eight vertically above the roof at enormous speed. Percy, who had been comfortably dreaming of Mrs Doggett’s Christmas pudding with extra custard, opened his eyes abruptly to find himself upside down and whirling through the air.
He was about to hit the chimney stack! No he wasn’t; they were just going to miss it! He seized the edge of the sleigh frantically and shouted “stop!” as two parcels bounced their way off the sledge and slid down the tiles and into the gutter.
“Thought that would wake you,” remarked the reindeer, slowing down just slightly as he completed the manoeuvre and then swung round to circle the roof. Clearly the effect of the Reinitin was wearing off, thought Percy!
Upside Down!
“We’re back,” announced Rudolph, unnecessarily. Percy could see the small yard and the edge of his own bedroom window as he leaned out. He stretched, yawned and wondered if Grumbo had woken up yet. It would be nice to be back in his own bed but what about the soot on the sheets?
“Thanks, Rudolph,” he said politely.
“Good moss, this,” remarked the reindeer, nibbling at the tiles. “Tell Grumbo not to hurry – I may as well have breakfast.” Percy slid down the chimney with practised ease. Grumbo was still in his bed, eyes closed, his huge stomach rising and falling rhythmically and his beard dangling over the edge. Percy could see the mark left by the mad parrot, bang in the hairy centre. He hoped none of the parrot poo had got on his duvet, though it looked nearly dry now. One foot was sticking out from the sheets and a hairy big toe still protruded from the holey sock. Percy began to giggle. Gathering a handful of wet snow which had caught on his pyjama jacket, he stole forward and let it gently drip onto Grumbo’s foot, the icy water trickling slowly over the exposed toe.
“Yeeowwh!” squealed Grumbo, sitting up abruptly. “What’s happening? Why am I in a pond?” He peered about him in confusion.
“Percy!” -his father’s voice came grimly through the bedroom wall. “Percy, if you must have nightmares please have them quietly! I am trying to sleep.”
Percy put his finger to his lips and signalled frantically to Grumbo to be quiet.
“Erh? Oh it’s you,” said Grumbo. “What does that silly old fool next door want?”
“Please be quiet!” Percy said anxiously. “He might come in!”
“We’d better go then before he does,” said Grumbo, who suddenly seemed to be wide awake. He pulled on his Wellingtons and looked at Percy: “What are you waiting for? Come on!”
“But – I live here!” pointed out Percy.
“That’s got nothing to do with it,” stated Grumbo, irritably. “You got the presents back, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Percy, “but…”
“There you go again – but, but, but! Load of rubbish! Come on. I want my breakfast. You’re hungry aren’t you?”
By this time Percy felt he was absolutely starving, and anyway, the prospect of remaining behind to face his father’s wrath was not enticing. He meekly followed Grumbo up the chimney. He was sure his father would be in a dreadful temper by now. (In this he was right, but the temper was not just because of Percy. Mr Proudworthy had other things on his mind that night.)
*****
“You’ll get fat if you eat all that moss.” -Grumbo interrupted Rudolph’s gentle munching.
“You should talk!” responded Rudolph, who, nevertheless, seemed quite pleased to see him. “Are we taking Percy?”
“Well he can’t stuff his face with moss like you, can he? Of course we’re taking him along! Stir your antlers!”
“Along where?” asked Percy, but his question went unheard.
“There is the question of Health and Safety,” said Rudolph, pompously, having decided that he didn’t like having his breakfast interrupted. “Carrying minors in sledges requires a full risk assessment.”
“Risk assessment!” roared Grumbo. “Risk assessment! There’d be no need for risk assessments if you didn’t keep insisting on travelling upside down!”
“Maintaining competence in vertical inversion is part of the Reindeer Standard Training Requirements, section 3 point 5, subsection 7,” pointed out Rudolph, snootily. “Furthermore I am entitled to a full fifteen minutes moss grazing every three hours.”
“Ok, ok! “ sighed Grumbo. “ I bet he didn’t bother about risk assessments when you were with him earlier,” he remarked to Percy, taking out a large sheet of paper. “We’d better humour him. He gets very bad tempered when he’s hungry. Now, you don’t suffer from fits, do you?”
“Er, no,” answered Percy.
“Nor vertigo, finger rot, hair loss, beard fungus – oh no, that’s Father Christmases only – mince pie allergy, hypothermia, glitter fever, excessive fear of heights or wobbly leg disease?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Percy.
“And you’re not less than 90cm tall?” – Grumbo eyed him up and down: “No, you’re not, so you don’t need to sit on the elf booster sack. Just as well – that’s where I keep the hamsters. Stops them chewing the wrapping paper when they get bored. Oh, and do you have both your own legs?”
Percy looked at him: “Of course I have! – Well, they’re not anyone else’s!”
“Attached to own legs,” wrote Grumbo. “Right - if you should fall out, just grab a passing cloud and sit tight on it until someone comes to collect you. No heroics like finding your own way - it’s against the rules.”
“Alright,” said Percy, wondering how he could possibly find his own way anyway as he didn’t know where they were going, and what did you do if there wasn’t a cloud? It didn’t seem the right moment to ask, somehow.
“That’s ok then. Just fasten your seat belt and we can go as soon as his Lordship has finished his repast,” said Grumbo, satisfied, putting away the sheet of paper which Percy saw was now covered in large messy scrawling writing.
“But,” began Percy as the sleigh jerked and swung upwards.
“You’re ‘butting’ again,” said Grumbo. “It’s a very bad habit of yours.”
“B…..It must be nearly morning,” hastily amended Percy. “My mother might get worried if she finds I’ve vanished,” he added apologetically. “And I have to go to school.”
“Nonsense!” said Grumbo. “Hurry up Rudolph! Mothers worry anyway whether you’re there or not. Besides, who said you wouldn’t be there by morning? I don’t know what gave you that ridiculous idea!”
“We aren’t going far, then?” asked Percy, wondering wildly if Grumbo was intending popping into the 24 hour MacDonald’s by the bypass for breakfast. It was the only place he could think of that might be open in the middle of the night. Would they serve someone in sooty pyjamas? Who would pay? He hadn’t got any money, and somehow he didn’t think Grumbo would carry a wallet.
“Only a few hundred miles or so,” replied Grumbo, cheerfully, and anything but reassuringly.
“But…!” – Percy hesitated. By now the sleigh was racing through the air higher and higher above the houses. It didn’t look as if Rudolph was about to turn round.
“There you go again! But, but, but!”
“I just wondered how we can go hundreds of miles and still be back for breakfast?” asked Percy, meekly.
“Don’t they teach you anything in schools these days?” he sighed. “Surely you learnt i
n Geography that the whole earth turns round on its axis every 24 hours?”
“Well, yes,” admitted Percy.
“So even just lying in your bed, you go right around the world every day without doing anything at all, don’t you?” Percy thought about it. Gumbo continued: “So all you have to do is go up above the earth and wait for it to spin round until wherever you want to go is underneath, and then just drop down again. Of course it is a bit more complicated than that. It only spins in one way, so if you want to go north or south you have to do a bit of driving yourself.”
“You mean I have to do a bit of pulling,” came Rudolph’s voice from somewhere in the thicket of snowflakes in front of them. “And you haven’t told him about time loops either.”
“That’s true,” admitted Grumbo. He turned to Percy again: “For special occasions we’re allowed to use time loops. That’s what we do on Christmas Eve. We only have a few hours to deliver presents all over the world, so we do have to cheat a little to get it done, even with the earth spinning round.”
“What he hasn’t told you is that he used a time loop tonight,” explained Rudolph. “That’s the real reason you don’t need to worry about morning.”
“I don’t understand,” said Percy.
*****
“Well,” said Grumbo, “think of time like a long strip of paper with a model car going down one side. Normally it lies flat and the car just goes along it. But if you snip the paper on one side, just a quarter way through, and then another short snip on the other side but a bit farther down, you can bend the paper round and slide the cuts into one another. Then you’ve made a loop in the road, and the car can go right round the loop before it comes back to where it started from and carries on. But, and this is the clever bit, if you do it right, the car can avoid going round the loop at all and just carry on driving, though on the other side. Time is just like that piece of paper. The important thing is to choose a wide enough bit of time, and to make sure that the loop isn’t visible except to those using it.” He scrabbled about amongst the parcels and fished out a length of wide stiff red and green striped ribbon and a manicure set with scissors in. “Here, try it. You’ll see.” Percy carefully cut small slits either side a few centimetres apart and made a loop out of the ribbon. Then he studied it for a few minutes and traced his finger along. It made sense.
The Wrong Night Page 5