The Grunts In Trouble (14 page)

Standing in the scoop of the metal-toothed digger, he grabbed fistfuls of his BIGG AIN’T BEST T-shirt and began tearing it apart with his bare hands. Soon it was little more than tattered shreds, revealing his string vest beneath. He howled. He ranted. He screamed. He yelled. Then he sat down with a thud and started to sob. It was at this point that three police cars arrived, sirens blaring and lights
flashing (which is exactly what you want from a police car, really). Sitting in the front passenger seat of the first car was none other than Mimi, with Frizzle and Twist humming round her head as usual.

Sunny dashed forward as she clambered out of her seat. “You’re all right!” he yelped. Although he’d been worried about everyone at the manor, he’d been worried about the sweet-smelling, extraordinarily pink Mimi most of all.

“All right? Yes, I’m all right,” she said distractedly, looking up at the whiz-bangs in the sky. “Fireworks!” She gawped. “They’re nothing but fireworks! I told the police it was dynamite!” For it was Mimi who had grabbed Handyman Jack’s tricycle and pedalled as fast as she could to the local police station. While the others had been running round in a
what-shall-we-do
kind of way, she’d taken pink, sweet-smelling action.

And a tricycle.

“We
all
thought it was dynamite!” said Sunny and before she knew what was happening, he gave her a big hug. Before he knew what was happening, she gave him one right back. The hummingbirds hovered above them both.

The police, meanwhile, had poured out of all three cars and were charging about trying to look busy and important, and enjoying the free show.

“Who’s in charge here?” shouted a policeman, a bent-nosed, cauliflower-eared man by the name of Brown.

“I am!” boomed Lord Bigg, wearing his dressing gown, which had a perfect impression of a pig – legs splayed out sideways – on the front, in mud. “I demand that you make
arrests immediately!” His sticking-plastered face looked even stranger in the blue glow of the police cars’ flashing lights.

“This is your property, sir?” said Inspector Brown, eyes narrowing. He was staring at the dressing gown with great interest.

“Yes, yes. I am Lord Bigg. This is Bigg Manor.”

“And do you have a licence for this firework display, sir?”

“I am not a ‘sir’, I am a ‘lord’! And no, of course I don’t have a licence for this … this …
display
, you nincompoop!” Lord Bigg spluttered.

It’s never a good idea to call a policeman a nincompoop. “Turn round, please, Your
Lordship,” said Inspector Brown, scratching his bent nose.

“WHAT?” demanded Lord Bigg.

“You heard me, Your Lordship. Turn round, please,” said the policeman.

“I will not!” said Lord Bigg.

“That wasn’t a request,” said Inspector Brown. “I am instructing you to turn round in the name of the law!”

“This is preposterous,” said Lord Bigg, but something in the policeman’s voice suggested that he might punch Bigg on the nose if he didn’t do as he was told. So he turned round.

When the policeman saw the words BARNEY “THE BRUISER” BROWN
written in nice big letters on the back of Lord Bigg’s dressing gown, he nodded in an I-thought-so kind of way … because he thought he’d recognised that dressing gown the minute he clapped eyes on it, Poppet-
the-pig
-shaped mud stain or no Poppet-the-
pig-shaped
mud stain.

“Lord Bigg, I am arresting you for holding an illegal firework display and on suspicion of theft or of receiving stolen goods—” began Brown.

“STOLEN GOODS?” Lord Bigg bellowed. “What stolen goods?”

“Is your name by any chance Barney ‘The Bruiser’ Brown, My Lord?”

“Of course it isn’t, you … you buffoon!”

“I thought not, Lord Bigg. Because
I
am Barney ‘The Bruiser’ Brown and that’s MY dressing gown you’re wearing.”

“Oh,” said Lord Bigg, his mouth itself forming the shape of a little “o”. There wasn’t much he could say to that.

“And not only am I the rightful owner of that dressing gown,” Inspector Brown added, “I am also arresting you.” He sounded rather happy about it.

Moments later, Lord Bigg found himself being led away in handcuffs.

Larry Smalls witnessed the whole thing from his excellent vantage point up in the digger scoop, his eyes filling with tears of joy. Soon he was whooping with delight, which led to Jeremy the juggler, Trunk the strongman, Mr
Lippy the clown, and the Remarkable Chinn Twins to whoop too, and before they could stop themselves the Bigg Manor servants – including Mimi – found themselves whooping, which started Sunny off, which finally made Fingers start trumpeting, and everyone burst into song.

“Do you have a licence to hold an outdoor concert on your premises?” Inspector Brown asked Lord Bigg in the back of the police car.

“Of course I don’t have a— Er, no, officer,” said Lord Bigg, ending more meekly than he’d begun.

“Then I’m afraid I’m going to have to add it to my list of charges,” said Inspector Brown, looking very pleased indeed.

Chapter Fourteen

All Change

O
nce the police cars had gone, Sunny turned to Mr Grunt. “Dad?” he said. “You know that stuff you gave to Larry Smalls in return for Fingers, which wasn’t quite what you’d promised it would be?”

“Yes,” said Mr Grunt with a grunt.

“You didn’t promise him dynamite and give him fireworks instead, by any chance, did you?”

“Might have,” said Mr Grunt. And he might even have smiled. Larry Smalls had climbed
down from the digger, and now strode across to them both. He’d removed the remains of his BIGG AIN’T BEST T-shirt and was now wearing a colourful one emblazoned with the words “SMALLS’ BIG TOP” across the front. He gripped Mr Grunt’s hand and shook it.

“I couldn’t be happier with today’s outcome,” he said. “I couldn’t be happier!”

Mr Grunt put his free hand on Larry Smalls’ arm. “I’m pleased for you,” he said. “Does that mean you don’t want the elephant back?”

“He’s Sunny’s now,” said Mr Smalls.

“Sunny’s?” said Mr Grunt.

Larry Smalls nodded. “And Bigg is in trouble! Bigg is in
BIG
trouble! I couldn’t be happier …” The delighted ex-circus owner turned and strode off, humming a victory march.

Just then, a large woman with a large,
wide-brimmed, flowery-crowned hat came bounding over, closely followed by an even fatter (and extremely muddy) pig. They both stared up at Fingers with interest.

“Hello!” she snorted. “So they carted off the old man, did they?”

“If you mean Lord Bigg, then yes,” said Sunny.

“Excellent! Excellent!” she snorted. “Glad to see the back of the pompous old plaster-face. All he cared about were his silly old birds.”

Sunny didn’t know what to say, so said nothing.

“I’m Lady Bigg,” said the woman, “but you can call me La-La! This little poppet is Poppet.” She pointed down at the far-
from-little
pig, who was still looking up at Fingers in amazement. She’d never
seen
such a big pig (or what she
thought
was a pig).

“Oink,” said Poppet.

“Trumpet,” said Fingers.

“Oink,” said Poppet. She was in love.

La-La Lady Bigg looked around. “Peach!”
she called. “PEACH!”

The red-haired butler appeared out of the chaos. “You yelled, m’lady?” he said.

“You’re fired,” she said.

Sunny was SHOCKED. She’d seemed such a nice lady and now she was kicking the butler out of his job.

“You, Agnes, Handyman Jack, Sack and Mimi. The lot of you. You can leave any time you wish,” she went on.

“We can?” said Peach, raising a bushy red eyebrow in surprise.

“If you like. You’re welcome to stay if you
want
to, any of you, but otherwise you can just go!”

Sunny smiled. Now she was making sense.

“But our contracts, m’lady,” said Peach. “His Lordship made it absolutely clear that if we left we’d be in breach of contract, and that
he could sue us for every penny—”

At that moment, the flames must have found a new batch of fireworks. There was a series of bang-bang-bangs and the skies filled with a whole new shower of multicoloured sparks.

“Sue you for every penny you
don’t have
in the first place?” asked La-La.

Peach smiled. “You have a point there, m’lady.”

“And do you know where the contracts are, Peach?”

The butler nodded.

“Then tear ’em up, Peach! I’m moving out of the pigsty and back into the manor! With the boring old plaster-face out of the way, things are going to change around here.” Lady Bigg turned back to Sunny. “And
who are you?” she asked. “You do look rather familiar … and I like your elephant.”

“Thank you,” said Sunny. “And I like your pig.”

“You’re not my son, are you? Only I lost him a long time back and he must be your age by now.”

“No,” said Mrs Grunt, barging between them. “This is my boy, Sunny.”

“Yes,” said Mr Grunt. “This is Sunny, our son.”

“Just wondered,” said Lady Bigg with a shrug. “It’s nothing to get het up about, is it, Poppet?” She patted her beloved pig.

Sunny was about to protest – what if he
was
Horace? – when La-La went on: “Whoever
you are, you and your elephant and family and friends are all welcome to stay at Bigg Manor as long as you like. You all are.”

There were claps and cheers and more whoops of delight, some from the servants, who Peach had just told about the tearing up of the contracts.

Mimi turned to Sunny. “You know,” she said. “I might like it here if I don’t have to be the boot boy. I think I might stay.”

And stay they all did, even the Grunts. But matters didn’t end there. Of course they didn’t. Lord Bigg wasn’t under lock and key for ever, though he did end up in jail for a long time. Then there was the fact that wherever the Grunts went, trouble was never far behind and when they
didn’t
go anywhere, trouble soon found them anyway.

Like the first time they ran out of
elephant-feed
and decided to take the caravan to Hunnybun’s Bun Factory to stock up on – you guessed it – some currant buns (stale ones if they were cheaper). It took them past a very pretty thatched cottage with a
messed-up
front garden. Although Mr Grunt wasn’t sure he recognised it, he found his bottom tingling at the memory of being peppered with peppercorns …

… and before he could say, “Silly old bat!”,
Elsie Spawn had her blunderbuss pointing out of the window, ready to fire.

What she hadn’t bargained for was a smart elephant, such as Fingers. Before she’d even had the satisfaction of pulling the trigger, a large trunk had wrapped itself around the weapon’s trumpet-like muzzle and had pulled it from her grasp.

“Monster!” she bellowed, peering over the windowsill. “Brute! Ogre!” Because, in all the good ways, Sunny was nothing like Mr and Mrs Grunt, he made sure that Fingers returned the weapon to the elderly lady – once he’d tipped out the gunpowder and drawing pins – but, the truth be told, it never worked again. Fingers’ elephantine grip had left the muzzle all crudnuckled (which isn’t a real word, but one that best describes the state it was in).

The delay meant that they didn’t reach the
Hunnybun’s factory until after closing time.

“It’s all your fault!” Mrs Grunt shouted from the bedroom window.

“Yours!” Mr Grunt shouted back from the factory’s sloping forecourt. He wanted to kick something, and chose a piece of wood. It was a large cheese-shaped wedge under the back wheel of a delivery van. He kicked it clear. The van began rolling slowly backwards towards him.

“Look out, mister!” Mrs Grunt shouted from the caravan, before she could stop herself.

“What?” shouted Mr Grunt. “How do you expect me to hear you when you MUMBLE, wife?”

“Nothing!” Mrs Grunt replied, with a flash of green and yellow teeth.

Mr Grunt grunted, and only jumped clear thanks to Sunny’s last-minute warning cry of,
“Dad!”

The van rumbled past him and hit a bollard, causing its back doors to burst open. Sunny read the words on the nearest one: SUPPLIERS OF FRESH HONEY TO HUNNYBUN’S.

What Mr Grunt said next was drowned out by a sudden loud buzzing noise, but Sunny could guess what it was. It was a single word, shouted loud and long. It was:
“Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!”