Olive of Groves and the Great Slurp of Time (11 page)

19

In which a perfectly good lunch is ruined

‘Basil! Good old Baz!' Pigg McKenzie squeezed in between Basil and Olive. He leaned forward, sinking further into Olive's lunch. One pink trotter disappeared completely in the middle of her vegetable pie, the other squashed a baked potato.

Olive frowned.

‘I've been thinking, Baz,' sang the pig. ‘It would be jolly fun if you were to take us on a little whirl through time before our maths lesson this afternoon.' He looked sideways at Olive and narrowed his eyes, ever so slightly.

The back of Olive's neck prickled. ‘I don't think that's a good idea,' she said.

Now Olive, more than anyone else, longed for another adventure, but the pig was obviously Up to No Good. She
could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice, even smell it on his breath.

‘Come now,' sighed Pigg McKenzie. ‘Being a killjoy is not very attractive, Oxen.'

‘My name is
Olive
, not Oxen.'

The pig smirked. ‘What do you say, Basil? Be a sport. How about a spin through time to the court of Queen Elizabeth the First?'

‘Did someone mention time travel?' asked Eduardo.

‘An adventure before maths?' cried Tommy.

‘How about an adventure
instead of
maths?' suggested Anastasia.

‘Are we going to see a queen? A real live queen?'

‘Yes, please!'

‘Whacky doo!'

Oh dear! It was the toffee apples all over again. The students were so excited at the prospect of time travel that they cast aside their mistrust of the pig, gathered around the table and begged to be included in the adventure.

Basil, kind-hearted and eager to please, shouted, ‘
Ja! Ja!
Certainly! Let us prepare for a holiday in history.' He straightened his felt hat and snapped his braces. ‘I'll just dash upstairs and get Olive's alarm clock.'

‘No!' ordered Eduardo, pushing Basil back down onto his seat.

‘
I'll
get Olive's alarm clock!' He puffed out his chest, smiled and, embarrassing as it may sound, flexed his small, boyish biceps at our heroine.

‘Good grief,' sighed Olive. ‘What has gotten into that boy?' And she might have put two and two together had she not been distracted by the more serious issue of the pig.

‘Make haste, Eduardo!' oinked Pigg McKenzie. ‘There's no time like the present. Which is, of course, the whole point of time travel!' He threw his head back and laughed until he snorted. A bit of shredded cabbage blasted out of his snout and stuck to Olive's cheek.

‘Ha!' laughed Basil. ‘You are such a funny porker! No time like the present!'

‘Yes. I am a very amusing pig.'

Olive flicked the cabbage from her face. She stepped back from the table. ‘You can count me out,' she said. ‘I'm going for a walk in the garden. I need some fresh air.'

Pigg McKenzie pasted a look of deep concern on his fat pink face. ‘Oh me, oh my,' he snuffled. ‘I think it would be terribly
unwise
of you not to come along with us, Oxen.'

‘My name is
Olive
,' said our heroine, ‘not Oxen. And I really do
not
want to travel back in time with you, Pigg McKenzie.'

The porker sneered at Olive. He gathered Wordsworth, Blimp and Chester into his arms. He patted Chester on the head, then spoke slowly, ominously. ‘It would be dreadful, Oxen, if your darling friends came to grief while time travelling and you were not there to help.'

What a Nasty Piece of Work! A Bad Bit of Bacon! A Hideous Hog! A Pernicious Porker! Such behaviour makes my skin creep and my blood boil until I am filled with an overwhelming urge to grab his fat, slimy snout and –

‘Enough!' snapped Olive. ‘Put those rats down. They are
not
travelling through time. They are coming for a walk with me.'

‘Oh no!' cried Wordsworth. ‘I simply
must
go with Pigg McKenzie to the Elizabethan era. I might meet William Shakespeare. Just imagine, Olive.
William Shakespeare!
All those poems and plays and
words
!'

‘And they have banquets!' shouted Blimp. ‘Huge banquets where enough food falls on the floor to feed an
army
of rats! They don't even bother to sweep it up. We can't miss out on that, Olive.'

‘And buttons,' squeaked Chester. ‘They have all sorts of historical buttons that would make one's collection quite extraordinary.'

‘Such a special,
special
time for everyone,' cooed Pigg McKenzie. He lifted Chester to his face and kissed him on the nose. ‘Precious little rodents.' The pig narrowed his eyes and over the top of Chester's furry brown head he smirked at Olive once more.

Beads of sweat formed on our heroine's brow. ‘Basil!' she cried, now desperate. ‘What about the Time Slurp, the historical hiccups, the memorial muddles?'

‘Muddles fuddles!' sang Basil. ‘Everything shall be fine, as long as we do not bring someone from the sixteenth century back to Groves. We will be careful not to strengthen the Time Slurp!'

‘But what if . . .' Olive gulped. She could barely force the words out. ‘What if someone gets . . . gets left behind?'

Shocked, dismayed, Basil threw his hands in the air. ‘Left behind?' he shouted. ‘Who could
possibly
get left
behind? Why, we are all friends and will look out for one another. Am I not correct?
Ja?
'

‘
Ja!
' snorted the pig merrily. ‘The best of buddies. Looking out for one another. Lovey-dovey, kissy-kissy, cuddly-wuddly-woo. One big happy family and all that jazz.'

And then, dear reader, Pigg McKenzie winked at our heroine.

It was a Slow, Disgusting Wink.

A Wink Loaded with Mockery.

And Menace.

‘Alarm clock's here!' called Eduardo.

‘Everybody ready?' asked Basil. ‘Gather around.'

‘Bye, Olive!' squeaked Blimp, waving both paws in the air.

‘Farewell, Olive!' cried Wordsworth with a courtly bow.

‘Love you, Olive!' sang Chester. ‘I love you a billion buttons!'

‘Toodle-pip, Oxen!' snorted Pigg McKenzie.

Olive gulped.

Basil pressed the battered alarm clock to his chest and declared, ‘Back to the court of Queen Elizabeth the First!'

The table started to spin. Chester's little brown ears became transparent, then faded completely away.

‘Wait for me!' cried Olive, diving forward.

Knives, forks and spoons floated into the air and vanished with a
ping
. Vegetable pies exploded into millions of cabbage shreds and pastry flakes. Reuben the rabbit's tail puffed away into a cloud of dandelion tufts. Fumble's antlers grew into two enormous mandarin trees until they burst into tiny green and orange stars.

‘I'm dizzy, dizzy, dizzy!' sang Bozo.

‘Was that a
mandarin
that just bounced off my head?' gasped Anastasia.

‘Was that a
fork
that just stabbed my bottom?' cried Bullet Barnes.

And the students of Groves suddenly found themselves sprawled across a red carpet, in the middle of a grand banquet, in the Palace of Whitehall in London, in 1595.

‘All bow,' cried the herald, ‘for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth!'

20

In which a boring bishop is given his just deserts

Queen Elizabeth frowned. ‘We are seeing strange and disturbing creatures at our feet!' she declared.

This, dear reader, was truly a case of the pot calling the kettle black. For Queen Elizabeth the First was a little disturbing to look upon herself. A shock of orange hair frizzed around her head like a swarm of demented bees and her face was powdered as white as a ghost's. Above her shoulders rose a collar that would have done any frill-necked lizard proud. Her dress was made of the same type of heavy patterned fabric as the library curtains at Groves, the skirt of which was enormous – wide enough to hide several small children in a game of Hide-and-Seek.

‘Peek-a-boo!' cried Tiny Tim, crawling out from beneath the Queen's skirt. Peter, Hamish and Scruffy the dog followed, giggling and laughing. Scruffy carried a torn shred of the Queen's petticoat in his mouth, shaking it from side to side.

Basil stepped forward. He doffed his felt hat, clicked his heels and bowed. ‘
Guten Tag
, Your Royal Highness! Basil Heffenhüffenheimer at your service. I am from the Black Forest in 1857. These are some of my friends from Mrs Groves' Boarding School for Naughty Boys, Talking Animals, Circus Performers and Time Travellers. We have come from the twenty-first century to honour Your Majesty.'

‘I haven't,' said Chester. ‘I've come for the buttons.'

‘I've come for the cannons,' said Bullet Barnes.

‘I've come for the pirates,' squawked Cracker the parrot. He flapped his wings and proceeded to show how suited he was to be a pirate's companion by reeling off an alphabetical list of all the rude words he had ever learned.

‘Hmmph,' said the Queen.

This was a terribly undignified thing for a monarch to say, but she was flummoxed. Her royal court was always filled with odd people – explorers from the west, pirates from the south, bears from the east, elves from the north and a multitude of very silly ladies and lords. There was even a dragon moping in the corner with a bad case of indigestion from eating too many knights before removing their suits of armour. But never before had she set her royal eyes upon time travellers. Furthermore, Cracker the parrot had recited three rude words that were quite new to her ears and she needed a moment to commit them to memory.

‘Hmmph,' said the Queen for a second time. ‘We are quite speechless.'

Obviously, we were not, for we were still speaking! But who would dare contradict a queen?

‘You
can't
say you're speechless,' scoffed Blimp, ‘because you are still speaking!'

‘Good grief,' moaned Olive, and she leapt in front of Blimp lest the fat white rat should come to harm. Queens are notorious for chopping off heads.

Queen Elizabeth pointed at Olive and shrieked. ‘We do declare! Thou art dressed in a fashion most peculiar. Is that thine underwear?'

‘No, Your Royal Highness,' said Olive. ‘I am an acrobat and this is my purple unitard in which I perform. It's tight, flexible, stylish
and
comfortable.'

‘Wondrous!' gasped the Queen.

‘Thank you,' said Olive with a little curtsey. ‘Your Royal Highness would find a unitard ever so practical. It can't be easy to climb trees or do somersaults while you are wearing that bulky dress.'

‘Impossible!' declared the Queen. ‘We grow quite bored with having to move quietly all day because of our garments. We cannot even perform a cartwheel . . . except when we have taken all our layers off before bathing once a month. Even then, there is the risk of slipping on a cake of soap and doing some sort of injury to our royal coccyx.'

‘Coccyx!' Blimp giggled. ‘Queen Elizabeth said a rude word!'

Wordsworth slapped his forehead and rolled his eyes. ‘A coccyx,' he explained, ‘is a tailbone. The Queen is worried about falling on her bottom and breaking her tailbone.'

The Queen nodded, then turned back to Olive. She poked and plucked at the purple unitard, making little murmurs of delight. ‘Mmmmm . . . smooth . . . stretchy . . . silky . . . light . . . magical!'

‘Perhaps you could have your
own
unitard made,' suggested Olive. ‘For playing in.'

‘Marvellous!' cried Queen Elizabeth. ‘We shall have our seamstress make two dozen at once.'

Olive was so thrilled for the Queen that she clapped her hands and bunny-hopped back and forth along the red carpet. Truth be told, it looked rather silly, but it was enthusiastic and heartfelt nevertheless.

Queen Elizabeth stared for a moment, then declared, ‘We experience thou as a breath of fresh air in our palace. Do accompany us as we walk around the banquet hall to greet our tedious guests.'

And so Olive found herself walking, arm in arm, with the Queen of England, discussing all manner of subjects, including handstands, mathematics, exploration, the difficulties with finding a good archbishop and the delights of red jelly. It was all rather jolly and extremely educational, but Olive was not able to fully abandon herself to the experience. Pigg McKenzie had Something Wicked Up His Sleeve, she was sure. Furthermore, her friends from Groves had an enormous capacity to get
themselves
into troubling situations without a scrap of help from a Scheming Pig, or from anyone else for that matter. Olive needed to keep her eyes peeled, her ears tuned.

Blimp launched into some serious food-frolicking. He tunnelled through tarts, loaves of bread and bowls of wobbly jellies. He circumnavigated plums, apples and apricots with his chomping teeth. He swam through soups and custards with his mouth open and, finally, fell asleep in the middle of a cream pie.

Wordsworth had withdrawn to a secluded little nook beside the fireplace with his hero, William Shakespeare. Together, they worked on Shakespeare's latest play, a romance called
Romeo and Juliet
.

‘And then,' said Shakespeare, ‘Juliet sighs, “Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow.”'

‘Hmmm . . .' mused Wordsworth. ‘It's a bit bland.' He pushed his thesaurus towards the light of the fire and thumbed through the pages. After some minutes, he cleared his throat, nodded and gave his first great contribution to the literary world. ‘How about this, Willy? “Good night! Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow. Moreover, farewells are a delicious drama, goodbyes engulf me with a glorious gloom,
adieu
is a luscious woe,
ciao
is a sugarcoated heartache.”'

Shakespeare's eyes bulged . . . He blinked at Wordsworth . . . He stroked his beard . . . He stared at the leather-bound thesaurus . . . He blew a long stream of air out between his lips . . . Finally, he dipped his quill into the ink pot and began to write. Furiously!

‘Superb!' cried Shakespeare, waving his inky parchment in the air to dry. ‘Thou dost enrich my play with words quite wonderful. Now, thou shalt worketh thy magic upon my sonnets.'

‘Good griefeth!' moaned Olive, and she wandered on with the Queen.

Basil was teaching German slap dancing to three monks, a bishop and a peg-legged pirate. He played a small accordion he had dragged from his rucksack while shouting out instructions. ‘Hop! Step! Slap! Slap! Step! Spin! Hop! Slap!'

Cracker the parrot was perched on the pirate's shoulder and swearing in time to the music. The monks, who led quiet, sheltered lives, thought this enormous fun and began to swear along with him. The pirate, who led a rough and rude life, thought the whole routine needed livening up and slapped the bishop so hard that he passed out. A slight ruckus ensued, but the Queen interceded.

‘Pirates will be pirates,' Her Royal Highness explained, waving the guards away. ‘And slap dancing doth sound as though there should be the occasional
violent outburst. Besides, the bishop doth preach too much, boring us to royal tears, and now we shall have a little peace and quiet.'

‘Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo!' The Duchess of Dorsetshire dashed through the banquet hall, sobbing, her face sporting a bushy black moustache.

Peter ran after her, waving his thick black permanent marker in the air. ‘Come back! Don't be upset! It will look much better once I have added the beard!'

‘Oh dear,' sighed Olive, although I am not sure whether she was referring to the duchess' moustache, the spectacle of Tommy trying to shove a pork pie up his nose, or the fact that Chester had just scuttled by with a mother-of-pearl button in his mouth.

‘Villain! Give me back my button!' roared the Duke of Buntoddy and gave chase . . . until his buttonless britches fell down around his ankles and tripped him up.

The Queen might have passed comment, might even have expressed annoyance, had she not been distracted by Reginald, who was spreading a fine layer of butter all the way up the train of her robe.

‘Hmmph,' said the Queen, flummoxed once more.

‘Trifle, Your Majesty?' suggested Olive, for worrying is hungry work and she was beginning to feel rather faint.

‘Trifle!' agreed Her Majesty, for being flummoxed is also hungry work.

So they sat down at the royal table and were having a delightful time gobbling and gulping the royal trifle, when suddenly, Olive's appetite vanished.

Puff!

Just like that!

She dropped her spoon, gaped at the bizarre spectacle before her eyes and gasped. ‘Pigg McKenzie?!'