Olive of Groves and the Great Slurp of Time (17 page)

32

In which one or two screws are loose

‘It was dreadfully kind of Julius Caesar to invite us to perform here in the Colosseum!' babbled Mrs Groves. ‘Although he did not have to shout so much. And he should have said, “Would you like to . . . ?” instead of, “You'll be sorry when . . .” And he might have allowed us to wait in a pretty parlour with comfy armchairs and little tables laden with boxes of chocolates rather than out here in this dusty, bare exercise yard with very high walls and bars on the windows. Some floral curtains wouldn't go astray, or a vase or two of flowers. That stone sundial is hardly the prettiest of decorations, is it? And young Julius might have used some kinder words to describe Wordsworth. Wordsworth really did not mean to ruin the chariot race. He just likes new words. Really, it could have been worse. Far, far worse. Why, imagine if Carlos
had managed to light those five sticks of dynamite while the chariots were all piled up together! And I need not remind you how foolish it was for Samuel the servant boy to be waving my big brass scissors around like that!' She pushed her little round glasses up her nose, blinked rapidly and smiled.

‘Good grief,' said Olive. Mrs Groves might not have understood what it meant to perform in the Colosseum, but Olive certainly did. One could hardly be in doubt after watching three tigers, four crocodiles and a very large rhinoceros being led through the exercise yard, up the ramp and into the arena. Especially not when they were accompanied by ten gladiators wielding swords, daggers and double-sided axes. And
definitely
not when they were followed by six cleaners carrying mops, buckets and shovels for scooping up the gory bits and pieces of performers that remained after the wild beasts had had their fill.

Sorry! That was a bit harsh. I should have said,
followed by six cleaners who took great pride in creating a hygienic environment
.

But the truth of the matter is that the Colosseum was a place of violent battles that were bound to do nasty things to one's anatomy . . . and Olive and her friends had such sweet, tender little bodies . . . and the gladiators had such sharp swords and axes . . . and the wild animals were ever so grumpy, having been starved for the past three weeks.

‘Olive,' whimpered Jabber, his face as white as a sheet. ‘I like knife throwing as much as the next chap, but those gladiators' swords . . .'

‘Olive,' whispered Diana. ‘I am a fearless lion tamer, but that rhinoceros . . .'

‘Olive,' squeaked Blimp. ‘You won't believe this, but there is another strange and mysterious puddle forming around my back feet.'

Num-Num wrapped her arms around Olive's neck and made a high-pitched keening noise. ‘Num-Num scared. Num-Num want to go home now.'

‘Basil!' snapped Olive, poking her friend's arm.

‘
Ja! Ja!
It might sound like jolly fun to perform for the Emperor of Rome, but it will not be a walk in the Black Forest. And when I say that
it will not be a walk in the
Black Forest
, it is really a polite way of saying that
it will be a little dangerous
. And when I say that
it will be a little dangerous
, it is really a polite way of saying that
anyone who sets foot in that arena is
DOOMED!
'

Mrs Groves yelped. ‘Did someone just say “doomed” in bold red uppercase letters? Oh dear. Being doomed doesn't sound like the sort of thing we want to encourage in our students at Groves. I'm sure the audience in the Colosseum is just charming, but I really do think we should be getting along home now. I haven't had a cup of tea for ages and a nice crumpet with honey would go down a treat.'

‘
Ja!
' Basil agreed. ‘Crumpets and honey and home. It is simple enough. We are all here together and can go right now.' He took the small silver cuckoo clock from his pocket. ‘Gather around. Huddle in close.'

He opened the clock's cover and the delicate hands fell off. ‘Whoopsy-edelweiss!'

He bent down to retrieve them and the doors of the little birdhouse fell off. ‘Uh-oh!'

He jumped and the itsy-bitsy cuckoo fell out of its hidey-hole and landed in Blimp's mysterious puddle.
PLOP!

‘Basil?' hissed Olive. Her tummy squelched and squirmed, and suddenly, she thought of Pigg McKenzie . . . Pigg McKenzie scratching his head with the tiny screwdriver.

Basil stared at her, his eyes boggling. He fiddled and twiddled and tried to reattach the hands, but the entire clock face fell off. It rolled around and around the exercise yard in ever-smaller circles until, finally, it came to rest at Olive's feet, the rosy-cheeked boy and girl hanging upside down from their seesaw.

Olive looked at the clock face.

She looked up at Basil's boggling eyes.

Then she looked inside the clock and gasped.

For there, dear reader, was . . . ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

No cogs.

No coils.

No tiny little screws.

The pig had removed them all.

‘This is a disaster!' cried Basil. ‘If we do not have a forward-moving timepiece, we do not have the means to return to Groves in the twenty-first century.' He bit his lip. He twisted and worried his braces. He wiped an embarrassing tear from his eye.

‘Poopsicle!' squawked Cracker the parrot.

‘Aaaargh!' growled the pirate.

And each and every one of them agreed.

Suddenly, Basil's eyes lit up. ‘Mrs Groves! You have a timepiece. I have often seen you gazing at a beautiful gold fob watch.'

‘Oh yes indeedy!' babbled the poor, silly headmistress. ‘It is quite beautiful. Very special. But I am afraid it will not be of much use for it does not move forward. It does not move backwards either. In fact, it does not move at all. Not since I mistook it for a tea bag and dangled it up and down in a cup of hot water for three whole minutes. The cogs are rusted together. It is quite broken.' She blushed, fluttered her eyelashes and chewed on the end of her apron string.

Basil gulped with a German accent.

The guard opened the gate with a Roman accent.

A crocodile poked her nose through the gate and snapped her jaws with an Egyptian accent.

Wordsworth flicked frantically through his thesaurus. ‘My heart,' he declared, ‘is filled with fear, horror, terror, dismay, consternation, trepidation, foreboding, trembling and lots of other lovely big words that I will never
ever
get the chance to utter!' He threw himself down on the thesaurus, grabbed the edge of the paper and tumbled towards the middle of the book so that he was wrapped in the page, completely enshrined in words, words, words.

Num-Num flung her claws around Olive's leg and rubbed her scaly face against our heroine's knee. ‘Num-num-num-num-num-num-num.'

‘I know,' whispered Olive. ‘I love you too, little one. With all my heart.'

Blimp scuttled up onto Olive's shoulder. ‘Olive,' he squeaked. ‘I just want to say . . . well . . . no matter what happens, I feel very honoured to have become your friend . . . honoured, blessed and marinated . . . and I would not change anything about the last three weeks . . . not even this . . . if it meant that I would never have met you.'

Oh dear!

Chester began to weep, although that might have been because he had now spent four hours in Rome and had not spotted a single ancient button. He was beginning to suspect that these Romans did not even
know
about buttons. It was disturbing in the extreme.

Chester wept, Boffo sobbed and Bozo, who never cried, joined in.

Eduardo did not say a word. He simply took Olive's hand, squeezed it and shrugged.

Suddenly, Olive understood all his peevish comments, his strange attention-seeking behaviour, his silly tussles with Basil.

‘Eduardo,' she whispered, ‘Basil is my friend. And of course it has been lovely and exciting getting to know him. But you and me . . . what we have is special.'

Eduardo's chin shot up. His eyes shone with hope.

Our heroine smiled. ‘Surely you know that! We are a team. Partners in all things acrobatic. You are always there to hoist, heave and heft me up when I need it.'

It would have been far more moving and poetic had she said, ‘You are always there to catch me when I fall.' But truly, dear reader, Eduardo had done a lot more hoisting, heaving and hefting of Olive than catching over the last few days, so I suppose she was just being honest.

Eduardo sniffed. Olive smiled once more and brushed her lips across his cheek.

Diana sighed and slumped back against the sundial. ‘Ouch!' she cried. ‘Stupid sundial. The sharp edge has grazed my hand.'

Olive gasped. ‘You grazed your hand on a sundial!'

‘Yes, I know!' retorted Diana, losing all patience as one does in a sticky situation.

‘She grazed her hand on a beautiful, glorious sundial!' Olive laughed.

Eduardo squeezed her shoulder. ‘Olive, this is not the moment to be admiring an ancient Roman timepiece!'

‘
YES, IT IS!
' she shouted in bold red uppercase letters.

‘
Ja! Ja!
' cried Basil, suddenly understanding. ‘A sundial is a forward-moving timepiece! We are saved! Gather around!'

‘Come along!' growled the guard from the gateway. ‘Time to meet your doom.'

‘Snap! Snap!' said the crocodile.

‘Back to Groves and the future!' shouted Basil.

The walls of the exercise yard began to spin. Pebbles, dust and dirt whirled around them like a tornado. Roman numerals and daggers shot through the air. A statue of Julius Caesar hovered above their heads, then exploded into a thousand shards of marble. And the very next moment they were sprawled on the grass in the back garden of Groves.

Except for the Roman crocodile, who landed in the fish pond.

33

In which a slob almost becomes king

Marvellous with a capital M! The office at Groves was all his!

Pigg McKenzie leaned back in the chair and rested his muddy hind trotters on Mrs Groves' desk. He balanced the silver sweets dish on his rotund belly, lifted the lid and tossed the peppermints into the air, one at a time. They bounced off his slimy snout, his flaccid jowls and his lardy forehead, rolled around the floor and disappeared beneath the furniture. Growing impatient, he held the dish up to his mouth and tipped the remaining peppermints in, all at once.

What a slob!

He heaved himself out of the chair and sauntered to the window. His piggy gaze slid up and down the crimson velvet curtains and he smirked. With a grunt and a tug, one of the curtains came free and landed in a pile at his trotters.

The pig snuffled, ‘When I am king . . .'

He picked up the curtain and draped it around his shoulders. He grunted a little louder. ‘When I am king . . .'

He held the crimson velvet together at his throat and allowed the length of the curtain to flow out behind like the train of a royal robe. He popped the lid of the silver sweets dish on his head and walked across the room, smiling and nodding at imaginary subjects. He waved his free trotter in the air, slowly, regally, and snorted at the top of his lungs. ‘
Now
that I am King of Groves –'

‘You Wicked Pig!' cried Olive.

Pigg McKenzie spun around, the lid falling from his head, clattering to the floor. He surveyed the time travellers, tattered and torn, pouring into the office through the door and the hole in the wall.

His face showed surprise . . . disappointment . . . then anger. ‘Omnibus! You're back!'

‘My name is
Olive
, not Omnibus, and you are an Evil Porker.'

‘
Ja!
' cried Basil, pushing his way to the front of the crowd. ‘This Wicked Piggy almost trapped us in the past! It is he who destroyed my clock so that we had no means of getting back to the future.'

Pigg McKenzie swirled a little to the left to show off his robe. ‘But you
did
get back,' he grunted. Then quietly, so that only Olive could hear, he added, ‘Unfortunately.'

‘Yes, indeed!' babbled Mrs Groves, blushing and blinking. ‘We are back. But I don't think we can blame a little clock malfunction on poor Pigg McKenzie. Why, he wasn't even there because of his dreadful allergy!'

‘Dreadful allergy,' echoed the pig. ‘Aaachoo!'

‘
Ja!
We
can
blame the piggy!' cried Basil. ‘Let us look in his pockets. We may find some evidence.'

Pigg McKenzie narrowed his eyes. ‘I have nothing to hide,' he grunted. He dropped the velvet curtain to the floor and turned his jacket pockets inside out. Thirteen chocolate wrappers, a dehydrated goldfish and a tiny screwdriver fell onto the rug.

‘There!' exclaimed Olive.

‘Oh dear!' gasped Mrs Groves. ‘I don't think that goldfish could pull apart a timepiece made by the finest of clockmakers in the Black Forest! Why, his fins are far too floppy . . . and he is so . . .
dehydrated
!'

‘Not
that
,' said Olive. She picked up the tiny screwdriver. ‘
This!
'

Pigg McKenzie plastered a look of pain on his fat pink face. ‘I used it to build my model sailing ship!' he oinked. ‘There were so many teeny-weeny pieces and itty-bitty screws . . . and I did it all with great skill and extreme patience. Which is why the Royal Society of Model Ship Builders awarded me their prestigious Badge of Great Skill and Extreme Patience.' He flicked Olive's school-captain badge where it dangled from his jacket.

‘What a remarkable pig,' cooed Mrs Groves. ‘You must have used that little screwdriver many,
many
times over.'

Olive slapped her forehead and rolled her eyes.

‘Water!' gasped the goldfish.

Reginald scooped him up, spread him with a fine moisturising layer of butter and took him outside to the fish pond.

‘Look!' cried Basil, drawing his precious clock from his pocket. He flipped the lid and lifted off the face to reveal the empty innards. ‘See?'

‘There's nothing there!' smirked Pigg McKenzie.

‘
Ja!
' said Basil. ‘There is something there. If you look closely, you can see.'

Mrs Groves removed her glasses, polished them on her apron and returned them to her nose. She took the clock and held it close to her face. She peered . . . frowned . . . then gasped. ‘Oh my!' Her hand shot to her throat. Her cheeks blushed the colour of beetroots. Her eyes darted from Pigg McKenzie to the clock then back again, the truth finally coming to roost in her poor, befuddled mind. ‘You Vile Villain!'

For there, inside the empty silver casing of the clock, was a smear of chocolate . . . in the shape of a pig's trotter!

‘Putrid Perfidious Porker!' cried Mrs Groves. ‘You almost got us killed! Even worse, you almost made me miss my afternoon crumpets and honey!'

‘Mrs Groves, Mrs Groves,' soothed the pig. ‘I think you might be mistaking me for Pig McKenzie with one g. You see, a message came while you were gone. Pig McKenzie with one g was released from the Rehabilitation Centre for Really Bad Pigs three days ago and has been seen lurking around Groves. Surely it is
he
who has been Up to No Good.'

‘Good grief!' moaned Olive. ‘Foiled again by a Pig of Evil Intent.'

But Olive did not give Mrs Groves enough credit. The headmistress was, in fact, even sillier than she had realised.

‘Why, that is just ridiculous!' babbled Mrs Groves. ‘Pig McKenzie with one g would not have been released early from the Rehabilitation Centre for Really Bad Pigs unless he really had been rehabilitated! Rehabilitated in a most wonderful way! And a rehabilitated pig does
not
wish to harm others!'

‘Bravo!' cried the Ringmaster.

Pigg McKenzie's snout twitched. He had not foreseen that the headmistress' complete and utter stupidity could ensnare him in his own Filthy Lies.

‘You are a Hideous Hog indeed!' scolded Mrs Groves. ‘You have no place in my esteemed Boarding School for Naughty Boys, Talking Animals, Circus Performers and Time Travellers.'

Pigg McKenzie tilted his head to one side and gave a crooked smile. ‘But I am a delightful pig of dignity and charm. I even have the royal robe to prove it!'

‘You are a Pig of Ill-Repute and Ill-Will!' declared Wordsworth.

‘Yes!' agreed Blimp. ‘Ill-Repute and Ill-Will and all sorts of other Sick Stuff!'

‘Get out of my school!' snapped Mrs Groves. ‘Go on! Shoo!'

The pig stepped backwards onto the velvet curtain.

‘Shoo! Shoo!' cried Mrs Groves, flapping her apron.

The pig stamped. ‘You can't make –'

The velvet slipped from under his trotters and he toppled sideways. He grabbed at the remaining hanging curtain, his hind trotters skidding and sliding, but it was no use. The curtain gave way and he fell backwards through the window, into the flowerbed where the Roman crocodile just happened to be sunbaking amidst the violas.

The crocodile grinned. ‘Mmm! Bacon.'

SNAP! SNIP! SNAP!

Pigg McKenzie squealed. ‘My tail! My tail! My beautiful curly tail!'

He leapt from the violas, stumbled across the grass, crashed through the gate and bolted down the street, clutching his bottom, shrieking at the top of his lungs. ‘I'll get you for this, Omnibus!'