Olive of Groves and the Great Slurp of Time (13 page)

23

A very short chapter in which Olive does not know which way to look

‘Look, Olive! Look!' cried Chester, holding a mother-of-pearl button in the air. ‘The button! The Elizabethan button! The britches button! The beautiful button!' He trembled with excitement. His ears shook, his tail shivered and everything in between quivered.

‘Look, Olive. Look,' whispered Steve. ‘Doesn't George look simply stunning in the Earl of Dibblebrook's jewel-encrusted snuffbox?'

George scuttled around the floor, dashing this way and that to ensure that the rubies, emeralds and sapphires caught the light. ‘Such sparkles,' he whispered. ‘They make one feel ever so rich and pretty.'

‘Look, Olive! Look!' yelled Bullet Barnes. ‘The Queen's military commander gave me this enormous cannon.' He wheeled the cannon out onto the first-floor landing, stopped and shouted, ‘Carlos! We're going to need some gunpowder! Lots of gunpowder!'

‘Look, Olive! Look!' squawked Cracker the parrot. ‘The peg-legged pirate came home with us. He has an eye-patch, an earring, a cutlass and really bad breath!' Cracker flapped up onto the pirate's shoulder, bobbed up and down and sang a rude sea shanty. The pirate joined in on the second verse, and by the third verse, Peter, Hamish and Frank were singing along too.

‘Look, Olive! Look!' shouted Samuel the servant boy. ‘Her Majesty's dragon hath set fire to the library curtains by force of her fiery breath.'

‘Look, Olive,' started Basil sheepishly. ‘I know I promised we wouldn't bring anyone back from the sixteenth century, but –'

‘Look, Olive! Look!' sang Mrs Groves, bumbling into the library. ‘I have found the second copy of
The Concise Guide to Time Travel
.' But instead of waving a little black book above her head, she was flapping a piece of knitting about, a strange half-finished garment with a worm tangled
in the waistband. Upon realising her mistake, she gasped, blinked, blushed, then dashed away to knit a sleeve.

‘Look, Olib! Look!' growled Num-Num. ‘Num-Num eating Olib's leg.'

And indeed she was.

Our heroine had simply been too overwhelmed to notice.

24

In which we see the danger of orange cream-centred chocolates

‘Enough is enough!' snapped Olive, pacing back and forth across her room.

‘I know!' Chester agreed. ‘That's what I told Blimp after his
fifth
mini muffin, but he is now wolfing down a sixth!'

Blimp smiled through a mash of blueberries and cake crumbs. A pink muffin paper sat on his head like a hat.

‘I think,' said Wordsworth, ‘that Olive is talking about Pigg McKenzie.'

‘
Ja!
' cried Basil. ‘The Big Bad Piggy!' He glanced nervously out the window.

‘I was almost lost in the past,' gasped Olive. ‘I would never have seen any of my dear friends at Groves again, or cuddled my precious little Num-Num.'

Num-Num jumped up and down on the bed, ripping duck down from the pillow and tossing it in the air. ‘Look, Olib!' She grinned stupidly, feathers stuck to her face and tummy. ‘Num-Num fluffy!'

Olive's heart skipped a beat. Oh, how she adored this baby dinosaur!

‘And don't forget Granny and Poop!' squeaked Blimp, pointing to the photo on the bedside table. ‘If the pig had had his Wicked Way, you would never have seen them again either!'

‘Of course,' whispered Olive. She frowned. How very odd that Granny and Pop should be the
last
ones she thought of!

‘The fact remains,' shouted Basil, rather abruptly, ‘that Pigg McKenzie broke the Time-Travelling Pigs' Code of Conduct!'

‘I didn't know there was a Time-Travelling Pigs' Code of Conduct,' said Olive.

Basil blushed. The truth was that no such code existed. He had made it up, as a clever diversion. If he could focus Olive's attention on the pig's Wicked Behaviour, she
would not worry about the fact that they had dragged a servant boy, a peg-legged pirate
and
a dragon away from the Elizabethan era to the twenty-first century, thus strengthening the Time Slurp. Perhaps she would not notice Moses, who was currently parting the waters of the fish pond in the garden. Nor would she spot Benjamin Franklin's kite flapping outside the window. He might even be able to keep her eyes averted from Aesop, the ancient Greek scholar, who was sitting by the fire with a tortoise and a hare.

Basil clicked his heels. ‘Olive, you must report the pig to Mrs Groves.' He grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her away from the window and the fireplace.

‘Yes!' our heroine agreed. ‘Enough is enough! I am going to tell Mrs Groves the Terrible Truth about the pig.'

‘
Ja!
' shouted Basil, and he shoved her out the door with a German accent.

‘Hello!' Olive knocked on Mrs Groves' parlour door. ‘Is anybody home?'

‘How on earth should I know?' gasped the headmistress. ‘I'm hiding from a dragon and cannot see a thing!'

Olive knelt down and peeped through the keyhole. ‘But surely
you
are home, Mrs Groves.'

The silly woman poked her head out from beneath the sofa. She looked from side to side and, seeing no danger, dragged her plump body out too. She stood, straightened her apron, patted her mobcap and stared into space. ‘Chickens and cheese!' she cried. ‘What
was
I about to do?'

‘You were about to unlock the door,' called Olive.

‘For whom?'

‘For your favourite student,' grunted a swinish voice.

Olive spun around and found herself nose to snout with Pigg McKenzie.

The pig smirked at Olive, then kicked the door down. Mrs Groves screamed and pulled her apron up over her head.

‘So sorry, dear headmistress,' soothed the pig, entering the parlour. ‘Optometrist, here, just kicked in the door.'

‘My name is
Olive
, not Optometrist, and I did no such thing.'

‘Did so,' snorted the swine.

‘Lying Pig!' shouted Olive.

‘Oh dear,' gasped Mrs Groves, lowering her apron. ‘Did the school captain call me a lying pig?'

‘I'm afraid so,' said Pigg McKenzie. ‘And she was just about to call you a bumbling turkey, a pea-brained squirrel and an ugly orang-utan.'

‘It's not true, Mrs Groves!' cried Olive. ‘I am here to tell you about a most disturbing time-travelling incident.'

The headmistress' hand flew to her throat. Her cheeks blushed crimson.

‘Pigg McKenzie tried to leave me in the past,' Olive continued. ‘I could have been stuck in the sixteenth century. I would never
ever
have seen my friends at Groves again.'

‘How simply awful! You would never have seen
me
again either, dear Olive!' Sinking down onto the sofa, Mrs Groves pulled a lace handkerchief out of her pocket and flapped it before her face. Then, bless her kind heart, she wept a little.

Pigg McKenzie narrowed his eyes. He sauntered across the parlour and flopped into an armchair. Spotting a pale blue box on the side table, he opened the lid and popped three chocolates into his mouth at once.

‘It is all very distressing,' he snorted. ‘And it will make you even sadder, my dear Mrs Groves, when I tell you the rest of the tale.'

Olive stood between the porker and the headmistress, her eyes dashing from one to the other. What was this Horrid Pig Up to Now?

Pigg McKenzie moaned. He pressed the back of his trotter to his brow. ‘The wretched truth is,' he sighed, ‘that I am allergic to time travel.'

‘Ludicrous!' Olive rolled her eyes.

‘Do not mock me, Optometrist,' sobbed the pig. ‘It is an ailment of which I am heartily ashamed. Unfortunately, there is no cure.'

‘Poor little piggy!' cried Mrs Groves, rushing to his side. ‘Here! Have another chocolate.'

Pigg McKenzie shoved
five
chocolates between his lips, whimpered, chewed and threw a furtive smirk at Olive out the side of his mouth. He also threw an orange cream-centred chocolate, which bounced off her head and tumbled across the floor.

Despicable.

Although not as despicable as including orange cream centres in a box of chocolates.

‘Woe is me!' moaned the pig. ‘I am allergic to time travel. It makes me sneeze and twitch and fling my trotters about uncontrollably. Sometimes it becomes so intense that I hit people by mistake.'

‘He didn't hit me!' shouted Olive. ‘He
shoved
me! With all his might! With both his trotters! And at
exactly
the right moment to make me miss the time vortex back to Groves.'

‘Oh, woe is me!' oinked the pig, leaping to his feet. He tugged at his ears and staggered around the parlour.
He crashed into the sideboard, where he slipped three silver teaspoons into his pocket and scoffed an entire bowl of sugar. He lunged at the bookshelf and found another box of chocolates with which he wobbled back to the centre of the room. He flung himself along the full length of the sofa and stuffed chocolate after chocolate into his mouth between his wails of anguish.

‘Poor pig,' Mrs Groves whispered in Olive's ear. ‘He is truly embarrassed about his allergy. Best not mention it again, dear.'

‘But he's lying!' cried Olive. ‘There's no such thing as an allergy to time travel!'

Pigg McKenzie sat bolt upright. ‘Time-travel allergy is true!' he squealed. ‘I even have the Medical Alert Badge to prove it.' He flicked Olive's school-captain badge where it hung from his jacket. ‘On the back of this badge it says, “Medical Alert. This beautiful pig, while brave and charitable in all other circumstances, has an unfortunate allergy to time travel, which makes him sneeze and twitch and fling his trotters uncontrollably and sometimes shove people in the chest with all his might at dreadfully unfortunate moments but none of it is
ever
his fault.”'

‘How tragic!' sobbed Mrs Groves.

‘Ridiculous!' scoffed Olive.

‘Are there any more chocolates?' snorted the pig.

Our heroine had been Foiled Again by a Pig of Glib Tongue and Deceptive Prowess. She did not, however, despair. Being a practical girl, she decided that she must cut her losses and make the best of the situation.

‘Pigg McKenzie,' she said, ‘given your serious allergy, it would be unwise for you to travel through time
ever
again.'

The pig froze, a chocolate halfway to his mouth.

Mrs Groves stared at him.

Olive smiled.

‘Why of course!' he agreed, wiping a non-existent tear from his eye. ‘I must
never
time travel again.'

Olive's smile stretched from ear to ear. She longed to clap her hands and bunny-hop around the rug, but Mrs Groves might think her callous.

‘No,' said the pig, slowly and thoughtfully. ‘I must never travel through time again. Which is why I have come to see Mrs Groves.'

‘Oh,
anything
, dear pig,' cooed the headmistress. ‘If there is
anything
I can do . . .
anything
to take away the pain of this dreadful allergy that ails you.'

‘Well, chocolates help,' began the pig. ‘In heart-shaped boxes. With pink satin bows on top.'

‘Of course! Of course!' agreed Mrs Groves.

‘And I would like to start building model aeroplanes,' he continued. ‘As a sort of distraction when everyone else is going on exciting journeys back and forth through time.' He paused and looked mournfully into Olive's eyes. ‘It will seem
ever
so lonely being left behind when my fellow students have vanished back in time.'

Olive gulped. She could not say why, but suddenly, she felt threatened again.

‘Model aeroplanes!' cried Mrs Groves. ‘How
terribly
fun! And clever, I dare say. You are a fun-loving, clever pig.'

‘Yes, I am,' said Pigg McKenzie. ‘And handsome. However, good looks alone will not build an aeroplane. I also need superglue and a set of tiny screwdrivers.'

‘Superglue and tiny screwdrivers!' babbled Mrs Groves. ‘Of course. You shall have some by tomorrow morning.'

‘And don't forget the chocolates,' added the pig. He wiped the chocolate smears from his face with a velvet cushion, swept the cellophane wrappers to the floor and heaved himself up from the sofa. ‘Now, I shall retire to my apartment for a rest. An allergy can be ever so exhausting. Unfortunately, I will have to miss out on maths.' Nodding to Mrs Groves, he waddled through the parlour, patting his bloated belly. He paused at the door, leered, covered one nostril with his trotter and snorted out the other.

Hard.

A lump of nougat shot through the air and hit Olive right between the eyes.

And there it stuck, like a warm, sticky threat.