Olive of Groves and the Great Slurp of Time (9 page)

Dong-cuckoo-riddup! Dong-croak-riddup!

A frog hopped out of one of the cuckoo clocks' opening doors, then another and another.

Dong-cuckoo-riddup-croak!

Here, suddenly, amidst the regular cuckoo clocks, was a new type of timepiece – the froggy clock. Slimy green frogs popped through the little doors, leapt off their perches, sailed through the air and plopped their way around the workshop, out the door and into the grassy meadows.

Dong-cuckoo-riddup-croak!

Hamish and Carlos jumped up and down, cheering, slapping each other on the back and laughing their silly little heads off.

The cuckoos chimed, the frogs flew through the air and the scowl on Papa's face grew darker and deeper.

‘Wait for it!' shouted Carlos, pointing to Herr Gunther's giant cuckoo clock.

‘Good grief,' moaned Olive, plugging her fingers in her ears.

Dong-cuckoo! Dong-cuckoo!

KABOOM!

The doors on the cuckoo's house blew off, the roof of the clock blew upwards, the face and hands blew outwards. The dancing milkmaids flew into the air with astonishing vigour. Cogs, coils, springs and three very frightened frogs rained down into the pots of paint on Papa's workbench. And in an enthusiastic, dynamite-fuelled finale, the cuckoo shot out of his hidey-hole, off his perch, through the glass windowpane and into the farmyard. He ricocheted off Clara's cowbell and smashed back through another window into the kitchen, plopping into Frau Heffenhüffenheimer's cooking pot full of sauerkraut.

‘Cuckoo-KABOOM!' Carlos chuckled.

‘Brilliant!' cried Hamish.

‘Monsters!' roared Papa, suddenly looking less like a gentle giant and more like a bad-tempered bear.

‘Basil!' screeched Mama from the kitchen. ‘Whoopsy-edelweiss!' cried Basil, which is German for ‘Whoopsy-daisy!'

He ran out into the yard, drawing his clock from his pocket. Olive, Hamish, Carlos and Pigg McKenzie stuck to him like burrs to a sock. Nobody, not even the pig, wanted to be left behind to deal with Mama and her wooden spoon. Not even Clara the cow, apparently.

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

The rolling hills and the edelweiss spun around and around until they exploded into a million green and white fragments that turned into stars, tiny cuckoos, snowflakes and showers of sawdust.

Suddenly, they found themselves piled on top of one another, in the storeroom of the infirmary at Groves. Clara the cow was sitting in a wheelchair at their side, a bedpan dangling from her horn.

14

In which we learn that a steam roller is a cooking utensil

‘Wake up!' cried Blimp. ‘Up! Up! Up!' He jabbed at Olive's cheeks with a red crayon, more times than was truly necessary, for he had noticed that it left an interesting smattering of dots across her face.

Olive opened her eyes, surprised to find herself sprawled out on the rug in her own bedroom. Num-Num was sitting up in bed, her head on the pillow, Olive's cardigan around her shoulders.

Olive rubbed her forehead, then scratched her nose. ‘What am I doing here? Didn't I go to bed in the infirmary?'

‘Yes,' explained Blimp, ‘but when Chester, Wordsworth and I checked on you at one o'clock in the morning, you were having a nightmare. You were dreaming that Tommy was stuffing grapes up your nostrils, that Num-Num was
whacking you on the head with the bedpan and that the hermit crabs were talking about tunnelling through your brain from your left ear to your right.'

‘That wasn't a nightmare,' said Wordsworth. ‘It was really happening! That's why we brought Olive back here . . . where we could keep an eye on her.'

‘You carried me all this way on your own?' asked Olive.

‘Absolutely!' shouted Blimp.

‘Certainly!' agreed Chester.

‘Of course not!' snapped Wordsworth. ‘Fumble carried you, but he tripped at the top of the spiral staircase and dropped you. This is where you landed.'

‘I must have been
quite
unwell not to have woken up!' Olive staggered to her feet. She yawned, stretched and looked at herself in the mirror. ‘Oh no!' she gasped. ‘I am
extremely
unwell! Look at all those red dots on my face. I have chicken pox!'

‘Uh-oh!' Chester gulped. ‘Isn't chicken pox contagious?'

‘Indeed it is!' cried Wordsworth. ‘Olive needs to be quarantined!'

‘Let's split!' screamed Blimp, losing his head in the heat of the moment and forgetting the true source of the dots.

The three rats disappeared through the hole in the wall. Num-Num screeched and leapt out the window into the branches of a giant oak tree. And Olive was left alone. All day long. She rested a little, she read a lot and she played games with the sweet little bird that Basil's papa had made.

Mrs Groves came at regular intervals to bring her sustenance.

‘Don't open the door, dear!' the headmistress cried. ‘You must remain quite isolated until those spots are gone. I will just slip your breakfast under the door. We had crumpets and honey this morning, but they are far too thick to fit through that little crack. I've brought you pancakes instead.'

Olive stood by and watched as first one pancake, then another, appeared beneath the door. She was just thinking how plain and unappealing they looked without any topping when a trickle of maple syrup ran under the door and flowed across the wonky floorboards towards her feet.

‘Just mop up the syrup with the pancakes!' called Mrs Groves. ‘They will be delicious that way. A little gritty, perhaps, but quite acceptable, I'm sure.'

So Olive did.

And they
were
delicious.

And a little gritty.

And downright crunchy where a cockroach had stuck to one.

Morning tea consisted of three slices of cheese and a puddle of milk. Lunch consisted of a vegie burger with lettuce, tomato, cheese, pineapple and beetroot, followed by a wedge of triple-layered chocolate cake. This might sound improbable for a meal that had to be slipped through a crack beneath a door, but you will understand when I explain that there were roadworks going on in the street and Mrs Groves took advantage of the steam roller before delivering Olive's lunch.

When she had finished the cake, Olive sat by her window and looked down on the back garden of Groves. Such a happy, interesting scene! Helga the hippo splashed about with gay abandon in the middle of the pond, while Num-Num and the Venus flytrap hunted for goldfish around the edges. Carlos and Bullet Barnes were making a fascinating new cannon out of a hollow log. Doug,
Scruffy and Wally the wombat worked on the tunnel they had been digging beneath the school for the last four days, but had to stop when the corner of the building suddenly collapsed. They spent the rest of their lunch break liberating Mrs Groves from the rubble and dirt. Peter helped by spray-painting
DANGER
in thick yellow letters on the collapsed wall, together with
PETER WAS 'ERE
and a picture of a bottom. Rather odd, really. It is not as though his bottom was the only part of his body that had been at the wreckage.

Bozo and Boffo trotted into the garden on Clara the cow. Clara was wearing a bedpan on each of her four hooves and had thick red smiley lips painted on her face. They made a wonderful ensemble of clowns and Clara seemed to be enjoying herself immensely.

Olive laughed, but suddenly, mid-giggle, a string of bold red uppercase letters passed before her eyes:
B-E-W-A-R-E!

‘Silly,' said Olive, waving her hands before her face as if to sweep the letters aside. ‘
The Concise Guide to Time Travel
might have said that it was foolish to take creatures away from their own place in time, but we have done it
twice
now and nothing unusual has happened. Everything is hunky-dory and absolutely tickety-boo!'

Except, of course, that our heroine was seeing imaginary bold red uppercase letters fly through the air . . . and she was using weird, antiquated terms like ‘tickety-boo' . . .

‘Hey, Olive! Down here!'

Eduardo, Alfonzo, Anastasia, Reuben the rabbit, Fumble the moose, Tiny Tim, Frank, Basil, Jabber, Reginald and Glenda the goose all waved up at her from the herb garden. Each had a card with a large letter of the alphabet hanging around their neck. They jostled, giggled and arranged themselves into a wonky line, until they spelt out three words for Olive to read:
TEN WOOL LEGS
.

‘Hmmm,' said Olive. ‘Ten wool legs. I wonder what it means.'

They waved once more and disappeared inside as the gong sounded for afternoon lessons. Except for Eduardo
and Basil who dawdled at the rear of the crowd, smiling and shouting, pushing and tripping, vying for Olive's attention. On reaching the back door, Eduardo tried to shove Basil inside first. Basil resisted and the two boys ended up wrestling on the doormat and tumbling down the steps, their heads locked in each other's arms.

Olive, however, was too preoccupied to take much notice. ‘Ten wool legs,' she muttered, over and over again. And she spent the next three hours trying to solve the puzzle, which really was not a puzzle at all but just her silly friends making a muddled attempt to write
GET WELL SOON
.

By four o'clock, she was completely bamboozled and her head began to ache. She flopped back on her pillow and spread a cool, damp flannel over her face. Then, in an attempt to distract her thoughts from ten wool legs, she made a mental list of all the foods one might happily eat garnished with cockroaches.

By five o'clock, Olive felt quite revived. She brushed her hair and tied it back into a ponytail, then gave her face a hearty wipe with the flannel.

‘There!' she said, smiling at herself in the mirror. ‘Much better.' Then, noticing that all the red spots had vanished, she cried, ‘
All
better!'

She threw open the door, ran down the spiral staircase, galloped along the corridor, slid down the bannisters of the next three flights of stairs, cartwheeled across the entrance hall and bunny-hopped into the dining room just in time to catch Pigg McKenzie in an Act of Treachery.

15

In which we long for flame throwers and world peace

‘Come along now. Don't be shy!' snorted Pigg McKenzie. ‘There's a free toffee apple for everyone.'

The table at his side was piled high with beautiful, big red toffee apples on sticks. The naughty boys, talking animals and circus performers felt their mouths drool, their taste buds twitch, their tummies rumble, but no-one stepped forward. The pig was sure to be Up to No Good.

‘They're probably plastic,' grumbled Alfonzo.

‘Or poisonous,' warned Wordsworth.

‘Or stuffed with broccoli!' hissed Diana the lion tamer.

‘No, no, no, no, no!' wailed the pig. ‘You have it all wrong. That is the despicable sort of thing that Pig McKenzie with
one
g would do. But I am Pigg McKenzie with
two
g's, a warm-hearted, generous pig who longs
to be your friend and shower you with gifts of love and sugar.'

Still, nobody stepped forward.

The pig flared his nostrils ever so slightly. Plucking a toffee apple from the top of the pile, he waved it in front of his snout and sniffed deeply. He rolled his eyes, licked the shiny toffee – once, twice, three times – then gobbled it all up.
Crunch, crunch, snaffle, snortle, munch, munch, munch!
Sugar and apple juice dribbled down his chin. He rubbed his belly and tossed the ravaged apple core over his shoulder.

‘I
do
love toffee apples!' ventured Fumble.

‘They certainly look delicious,' whispered Tiny Tim.

‘Oh, goody!' sang Mrs Groves as she bustled into the dining room. ‘Toffee apples. My favourite. After crumpets and honey, that is . . . and peppermints . . . and nougat-centred chocolates.' She stopped, blinked rapidly for a moment, counted silently on her fingers, then concluded, ‘Toffee apples are my
twenty-seventh
favourite food and I am simply thrilled to see that our charming new pig
has been so generous as to share his bounty with us!' She grabbed a toffee apple and bit into it, making fascinating little hums and mumbles of appreciation.

‘Well, if Mrs Groves thinks it's alright . . .' Pewy Hughie began.

‘Don't mind if I do!' barked Scruffy.

‘I'd love one!' Bozo laughed.

‘Me too!'

‘I'm not going to miss out!'

‘Num-num-num-num-num-num-num!'

Pigg McKenzie smirked and rubbed his trotters in glee as each of the students rushed forward to receive their free toffee apple.

‘If you think
this
is kind and generous of me,' he grunted, whipping a pen and a folded document from his breast pocket, ‘just listen to my
next
offer! If you sign here, on this page, in the next ten minutes, you'll be admitted free of charge to my Toffee Apple a Day Club.'

Of course, the delighted students fell over the top of one another in their eagerness to sign up. And the pig might have gotten away with his Act of Treachery had Olive not bunny-hopped through the door and to the front of the crowd at that very moment. She cast her eyes across the page and read the wicked words thereupon.

‘No!!' our heroine shouted, aghast. Turning to her friends, she pleaded, ‘Don't sign it! It's a petition!'

‘A petition?' cried Blimp. ‘What's a petition? Can you eat it?'

‘Absolutely!' said Frank the liar. ‘A petition is a kind of dessert that the French eat on special occasions. It has frog legs and whipped cream in the middle and cherries on top.'

‘Oh, mercy!' honked Glenda the goose. ‘Not cherries! Cherries are
terrifying
!' Her beak clacked like a castanet, her feathers fluffed up and she fainted on Frank's feet.

‘No, no, no!' snapped Wordsworth. ‘A petition is
not
a dessert. It is a document that we all sign, declaring that we want something.'

‘I want a toffee apple a day!' shouted Tiny Tim.

‘I want a new cannon,' said Bullet, his voice full of longing. ‘Life just isn't the same since my old one sank in the harbour.'

‘I want a flame thrower!' roared Sparky.

Steve and George the hermit crabs scuttled up onto the table.

‘I want world peace,' whispered Steve.

‘Me too,' whispered George, ‘and a jewel-encrusted shell with central heating.'

‘Num-Num want din-ner!' growled Num-Num. She leapt at Reuben the rabbit, seizing his fluffy tail in her teeth. ‘Num-num-num-num-num-num-num!'

‘Silence!' squealed the pig, slamming his front trotters down on the table. A blob of mucus snorted from his snout.

Mrs Groves yelped. Her toffee apple slipped from her fingers, flew through the air and hit Anastasia in the side of the head. George and Steve tumbled from the table to the floor and scuttled away.

‘It is
not
a petition!' declared the pig. ‘It is a membership form for the Toffee Apple a Day Club. And you all need to sign it RIGHT NOW!'

‘Oh my, oh my, oh my!' babbled Mrs Groves. ‘It does sound urgent!' And she bumbled forth, ready to oblige.

‘Don't sign, Mrs Groves!' pleaded Olive. ‘It's a petition and it says: “We, the undersigned, request that Olive be cast out of Groves forever because she is full of stinky germs, and that Pigg McKenzie be made head boy because he is the goodest student for the job.”'

Oh dear.

What a Nasty Pig!

What dreadful grammar!

‘What a Nasty Pig!' cried Carlos.

‘What dreadful grammar!' shrieked Mrs Groves.

‘He is trying to remove Olive from Groves!' shouted Eduardo. ‘
Forever!
'

‘To think that we almost signed it!'

‘That was a close call!'

‘I really believed he was being a kind and helpful pig for once.'

‘A toffee apple a day! I
knew
it was too good to be true!'

‘Deliberately deceitful!'

‘I can
see
the word “petition” at the top. Let's have a closer look!'

The pig, finding himself in a sticky situation, did the only thing possible under the circumstances. He fed the petition to Num-Num.

‘Num-num-num-num-num-num-num!'

‘Oh, how distressing!' Pigg McKenzie pressed his trotter to his heart. ‘Obstacle has misread the words. Poor little thing is still unwell – feverish and delusional. Why,
anybody
could tell that today was all about toffee apples and love. I was just trying to feed you all up to keep you strong in body and spirit, so that you would not catch Obstacle's putrid disease.'

‘My name is Olive!' snapped our heroine. ‘Not Obstacle.'

Pigg McKenzie sniffed dramatically. ‘I am a kind and generous pig when it comes to sharing sweets. Why else would
the International Lolly Lovers' Association have awarded me their Sugar Sharer of the Year Medal?' He flicked Olive's school-captain badge where it dangled from his jacket.

‘How simply splendid!' cooed Mrs Groves, smiling and nodding. ‘A Sugar Sharer of the highest order! Here! In my school! Such an honour!'

But nobody else was fooled.

The room fell silent. The naughty boys, talking animals and circus performers stared down at the half-eaten toffee apples in their hands, paws, claws and hooves. It was an
extremely
awkward moment. Should one finish eating a toffee apple after discovering that it has been provided for Devious Purposes by a Pig of Evil Intent, or should one throw it out? Nobody wants to be part of an Act of Treachery against a friend, but surely it is a crime of the worst kind to toss a perfectly good toffee apple in the bin!

‘Oh dear,' sighed Pigg McKenzie. He tucked the pen back into his breast pocket. ‘Time's up. I'm afraid that this silly interruption has caused you all to miss out on the chance to join the Toffee Apple a Day Club.'

Although, in their heart of hearts, the students
knew
that the club was a Lie and a Nasty Trick, they could not help feeling bitter about the missed opportunity. Such is the art of manipulation, the power of a bully.

They watched longingly as the pig swept the remaining toffee apples from the table onto a dessert trolley, which he pushed through the entrance hall and out onto the front porch. There, he sat in a rocking chair, the door ajar so that everyone could watch as he guzzled his way through every last one of the precious treats.