Snakes' Elbows (3 page)

5 Jasper's Party

Meanwhile over at Jasper's house, plans were proceeding for the big bash on Saturday night. It wasn't just Cannibal and Bruiser who hated it when he threw a party; everybody who worked for him hated it too. Jasper was not a sweet-tempered man at the best of times but now he was unbearable. ‘Look at the state of that lawn!' he screamed at the gardener. ‘Call that a cake, do you?' he thundered at the pastry cook. ‘You think that's good wine?' he bellowed at the cellar man.

The odd thing about this was that everything was perfect. The lawn looked like a billiard table.
The airy cake was light and delicious. The bottle of wine was fragrant and sweet. But none of this stopped Jasper from working himself up into a complete tantrum, throwing himself down and screeching and howling.

‘Oh grow up, for goodness sake,' Cannibal and Bruiser thought as they watched him hammering on the ground with his feet and his fists.

All of Jasper's parties had a theme. At the most recent one, all the guests had been told to dress up as animals. Jasper himself had gone as a parrot. He had worn an extraordinary costume made of thousands and thousands of brightly coloured feathers, all sewn together by hand (although not, of course, by Jasper). At the back was a long green feathery tail that trailed the ground when he walked. As you might imagine, he looked like a complete twit. Because all the people at the party were dressed as animals – mice and rabbits and monkeys and cats – Jasper thought it would be hilarious
if the animals at the party were dressed as people. He therefore, at great expense, had some clothes made for the two dogs. Cannibal was forced to wear a three-piece pinstriped suit with a shirt and tie. Jasper even had a jeweller make Cannibal a little pocket watch on a chain. Poor Bruiser had to put on a small silk frock printed with roses and with a wide pink sash. How the guests laughed when they saw the two dogs! Even the ones who didn't think it was funny pretended that they did because they were afraid of Jasper. ‘Don't they look ridiculous! Isn't it a hoot!'

The circus party had been even worse although to begin with it hadn't seemed so, for Cannibal and Bruiser had only had to wear small frilly collars like circus dogs, and pointy hats. Jasper was dressed as a ringmaster, complete with a top hat, a red satin jacket and a long leather whip. The whole house and garden had been turned into a circus. There were acrobats in the library and a lion tamer
in the conservatory. There were fire-eaters on the lawn, a dancing bear in the front hall and everywhere there were clowns.

Although there was lots of good food, Cannibal and Bruiser weren't given any because all the guests were under strict instructions not to feed the dogs. The guests knew that if they broke this rule they risked being thrown out immediately and never invited to any of Jasper's parties ever again. Jasper always kept the dogs hungry to make them bad-tempered. He liked the idea of being seen out and about with two mad snarling Alsatians because it would make him look frightening and Jasper loved to think that people were scared of him. Cannibal and Bruiser were such good-natured dogs however that they didn't become
black-hearted
no matter how mean Jasper was to them. They spent most of their lives trailing around behind him in a deep sulk.

On the night of the circus party they wandered
around the house and grounds, sticking together and looking out for each other.

‘Careful, Cannibal!' Bruiser said, as a trick cyclist whizzed past, missing his companion by a whisker.

‘Mind out, Bruiser,' Cannibal exclaimed, as a spinning plate fell off a pole and smashed to the ground, almost hitting his friend on the head.

And then suddenly behind them,
Raakk!
Someone had cracked a whip. The two dogs looked at each other in fright.
Raakk!
‘What will we do?' Cannibal asked.

‘Run,' Bruiser said. ‘RUN!'

Raakk!
The dogs ran and ran as fast as they possibly could to try to get away, but ahead of them now someone was holding up a hoop. Now this would have been no problem whatsoever except for one minor detail: the hoop was on fire. It was a perfect circle of flickering orange flames against the night sky and they could feel the heat of it already on
their snouts because, still running at full pelt, Cannibal and Bruiser were heading straight for it!

‘What will we do?' Bruiser asked.

‘Jump,' Cannibal said. ‘JUMP!'

Side by side and more terrified than they had ever been in all their lives, the two dogs leapt through the blazing hoop. They made it, but it was a tight fit. Cannibal's collar was slightly burnt on the right-hand side and the hair on Bruiser's left flank was scorched. Trembling and panting, they collapsed on the grass. All around them was a huge crowd of people laughing and clapping their hands, congratulating Jasper and telling him how clever he was. For as you may have guessed by now, it was he who had both cracked the whip and held up the hoop. Yes, as far as Cannibal and Bruiser were concerned, the circus party had definitely been the worst so far.

On Wednesday morning the postman made a special delivery to over two hundred people
in Woodford. He brought them a long flat white box tied with a green ribbon and inside each box was a bar of milk chocolate. PARTY! was written on it in white chocolate, and then below that:

Below that again was added, ‘Eight o'clock sharp. Posh frocks and best suits essential.'

All the guests were terribly excited. ‘There'll be a chocolate pudding as big as a bus,' they said to each other on their way to the party on Saturday night, dressed up to the nines. ‘There'll be great pyramids of Woodford Creams all over the place. Buckets of chocolate ice cream. Chocolate biscuits and chocolate toffee and chocolate fudge and chocolate gateau
and chocolate creams and simply hundreds and hundreds of bars of chocolate!' And do you know what? All the guests were completely …

Wrong!

At eight on the dot, two trumpet players came out on to the top step of the white marble staircase that led to the front door of Jasper's flashy great mansion. They blew a fanfare and all the guests who were milling around on the lawn below fell silent. Then the front door of the house flew open and there was Jasper, looking rather dashing in his dinner jacket, with Cannibal and Bruiser on either side of him.

‘Welcome, friends, welcome!' he cried, after the applause had died down. ‘I am delighted that you have all been able to come to my party and I promise you a night to remember. When you are weary old folk with grey hair and boring lives you will still be able to impress people by telling them that you were here tonight, because this is a party that is going
to go down in history. And so without further ado, let the Great Chocolate Party begin!'

Immediately the gardens were all lit up and the fountains came on. And suddenly the air was full of the smell of hot chocolate, because that was what was flowing through Jasper's three fountains this evening instead of water. There was one fountain of white chocolate, one of milk and one of plain. The guests also noticed that there were lots of new statues scattered about the lawn and they too were made of chocolate. There was a whole orchard that had been put in place for that night only and from the branches of the trees hung pears and apples made of chocolate. In the flower beds were chocolate roses and snapdragons and lilies. ‘Help yourselves!' Jasper cried. ‘Have fun!'

To begin with, it was all very well-behaved. Beside each fountain stood servants with china cups so that the guests could fill them with the hot chocolate if they wished to drink. There were
also baskets of strawberries and marshmallows, biscuits and tiny cakes, together with long forks so that the guests could dip them in the basins of the fountains and coat them in chocolate before eating them. ‘How clever of Jasper!' they said as they politely waited their turn. ‘Always so original. Always so imaginative,' and they snapped off a chocolate rose or two and nibbled on them delicately.

Cannibal and Bruiser slunk around the garden hoping they wouldn't be noticed. They hadn't forgotten the day Jasper had fed them the Woodford Creams. Someone licked the toes of a statue standing nearby. ‘It really is made of chocolate,' she said, ‘the best chocolate I've ever eaten in my whole life.'

As time went on, the guests' manners began to slip. They dipped their fingers in the liquid chocolate of the fountains and licked them, then their whole hands. They dived head first into the rose bushes and gorged themselves on the chocolate flowers. Instead of reaching
up into the branches to pull a single pear or apple made of chocolate, they climbed up into the trees and shook them until dozens of fruits tumbled into the grass below. The two dogs watched in dismay to see how greedy people can be, as the guests snapped off whole arms and legs from the statues and crept away to guzzle them alone. By this time some of them were even being sick behind the bushes because they had eaten so much.

‘Tee hee! This will be a lark!'

Before Cannibal and Bruiser knew what was happening, some guests had sneaked up behind them, grabbed them and Splash! – thrown them in the fountains.

‘Help! Help!' Cannibal cried to his friend as he struggled not to sink in the basin of hot white chocolate. But there was nothing Bruiser could do, because she was thrashing around in the fountain that was full of hot dark chocolate. ‘Don't open your mouth! Don't swallow any and whatever you do, don't lick yourself!'

With enormous difficulty the two dogs eventually managed to heave themselves out of the fountains, but not before they were both completely covered in chocolate. How Jasper and the guests howled with laughter to see them, one white and one plain! And then they simply walked away and forgot about them. Cannibal and Bruiser felt the chocolate harden around them.

‘It's as if I'm turning to stone,' Cannibal said. ‘There's nothing we can do but wait for someone to come and help us,' Bruiser replied.

The night went on and the mad party finally came to an end. The last chocolate-crazed guest departed and Jasper went to his bed, tired but happy. By that time the chocolate coating on the two dogs had set solid and they couldn't budge an inch. It was the following morning before some servants, cleaning up the terrible mess in the garden, came upon Cannibal and Bruiser and took pity on them. They carried the dogs into the kitchen and set them each
in turn above a pot of warm water until the chocolate began to melt and drip off them, until each of them was standing in a pool of liquid chocolate and was free again. ‘That does it,' Cannibal said as soon as he had recovered. ‘I've had enough of Jasper Jellit.'

‘Don't worry, we'll get our own back on him for this, in our own time, in our own way,' Bruiser added. ‘Just see if we don't!'

6 Dandelion

The arrangement that Wilf should work for Barney went brilliantly right from the start. At the end of the first week, the men from the
Woodford Trumpet
came back and this time it wasn't Barney who received them.

Plooff!
Wilf managed to cover his face just in time. The journalist tried to put his nicely shod foot in the door again, but Wilf was faster and stronger than Barney and slammed it closed.

‘Oi! That hurt!' the man yelped out on the step, and then he began to hammer and bang angrily on the door. ‘Who do you think you
are anyway? Open up. It's Mr Barrington I want to talk to.'

‘He doesn't want to talk to you. Go away.' Wilf knelt down, lifted up the flap and peeped through the letterbox.

Plooff!

‘I'm looking after Mr Barrington now. Go away,' he said again. ‘You heard me. Hoppit.'

Standing at the top of the stairs, Barney was listening to all of this. His heart was thumping, but he knew he was safe. He didn't know what he was most grateful for: Wilf's wonderful cooking or the way he protected him from people like the men from the
Woodford Trumpet.

The following morning Wilf brought Barney his breakfast as usual. On the trolley he wheeled into the room was a pot of tea, toast (cut into triangles and not burnt), pats of butter and lemon marmalade. There were bread rolls and two kinds of jam, raspberry and apricot. There was freshly squeezed orange juice and under
a round silver dome there were crisp rashers, plump sausages and two perfectly fried eggs.

‘This looks delicious!' Barney said happily as he poured his tea.

‘I hope you enjoy it.' Wilf looked extremely glum this morning. His eyes had lost their sparkle and his hair was completely flat. ‘I made a special effort because it's the last meal I'll be making for you. I'm leaving.'

‘What?!!' Barney was so shocked he almost dropped the teapot. ‘Why, Wilf? What's the matter? Aren't you happy here with me?'

‘I love it. Never been happier in my life, but I have to go. You won't want me to stay after you've read this.' Wilf held out a copy of the
Woodford Trumpet
to Barney, who took it and unfolded it.

‘MAD MILLIONAIRE HIRES
HOMELESS
HOOLIGAN!'

Below this were two odd photographs. One showed a face covered by an outspread hand and framed by wild, spiky hair. The other showed two
small bright eyes peeping through a letterbox. ‘The
Woodford Trumpet
has DISCOVERED and can reveal exclusively to our readers that BATTY Barney Barrington's new butler is a ROOFLESS RUFFIAN and a JAILBIRD! Before moving in with the mean millionaire, Wilf Wilson had NO JOB and NO HOUSE. He slept under BRIDGES and on PARK BENCHES. Wicked Wilf is no stranger to Woodford PRISON either where the violent villain was once locked up for a WHOLE YEAR.'

‘Is this true, Wilf?' Barney asked.

Wilf was staring at his shoes. ‘Sort of. I was in jail, but only for a month, not for a whole year. I punched a fellow on the nose. He said something horrible about my mum. It was a long time ago.'

‘No, no, I don't mean about your being in jail. Is it true that before you came to live with me you had no home?'

Wilf looked up, surprised. ‘Yes,' he said.

‘And did you really sleep under bridges
and on park benches?'

‘I did.'

‘That must have been awful.'

‘Yes Barney, it was horrible.'

‘So if you left me, where would you go?'

Wilf scratched his nose. ‘Dunno. Back to the park, I suppose. Or down to the river.'

‘How can you think of leaving me then? How can you even think of it?'

‘I was sure you'd throw me out as soon as you saw the newspaper.'

‘This is your home now,' Barney said firmly, even sternly, which surprised Wilf for he was usually so timid and hesitant.

‘I really was in jail,' Wilf reminded him.

‘It was a long time ago,' said Barney.

‘I did punch someone. It's true, you know.'

‘He said something horrible about your mum,' replied Barney, and he added, ‘Let me hear no more talk of leaving. Now tell me, what are you planning for lunch?'

And that was the end of that.

Two days later, Barney was out for a walk when he saw a little cat playing with some dandelions, patting their fluffy heads with her paw and then watching the seeds float off into the sky.

‘Puss puss!' he called to her.

The cat mewed, ran over to him, and started to rub against his ankles. Barney bent down and picked her up. She was a small thin cat and she was cold. ‘Poor little thing,' he said. ‘Poor little Dandelion cat.' He put her into the front of his cardigan to keep her warm, and fastened the buttons up so that her face peeped out above them. The cat started to purr and Barney could feel the heat of her fur now against his tummy. ‘Let's go home, shall we?' he said. ‘Let's go and have something to eat.'

And from that day on the cat was called Dandelion and she was Barney's cat.

Now when Wilf brought the trolley in the morning with Barney's breakfast, he brought
Dandelion's too, on the lower shelf. After about a week, Wilf came in one morning looking grim. ‘It's your turn this time, Pussens,' and he nodded at the newspaper as he held it out to Barney.

‘Oh dear,' said Barney. ‘I suppose we'd better get it over with and see what they're saying this time.' On the front of the paper in large print it said:

‘MAD MILLIONAIRE IN STRAY CAT SHOCK! Full story and SENSATIONAL picture on page 7!'

‘I'll read it aloud,' Barney said. He knew the cat couldn't read but he was too polite to say so.

‘Mad Millionaire Barney Barrington has done it AGAIN! The
Woodford Trumpet
can reveal today that he is now sharing his HOME with a black and white ALLEY CAT called Dandelion. Too MEAN to buy himself a BEAUTIFUL EXPENSIVE cat with LONG soft fur and BIG blue eyes, Barmy Barney has
chosen instead a MISERABLE little stray with SHORT fur and THIN whiskers. Dandelion is seen above in our exclusive shock photo LICKING HER OWN BUM!'

And sure enough, there at the top of the page was a big picture of Dandelion sitting in the garden, with her back leg in the air and her head down, having a jolly good lick. She went pink under her fur when she saw it. She hadn't thought that anyone was watching her and she certainly hadn't thought that anyone was taking photographs. Barney had never seen a cat blush before but he pretended not to notice.

‘Poor little Dandelion,' he murmured, tickling her behind the ear. ‘Pay no heed. Everybody'll have forgotten about it by tomorrow. Put it out of your mind.'

‘Yes, Barney's right,' Wilf said, and then he added, ‘All it means is that you're one of us now.'

Sitting on Barney's plate was his morning post. There was only one letter today and he
opened it as Wilf poured the coffee. It was from the bank.

‘What a creep!' Wilf said.

Barney took the bank statement out of the envelope and unfolded it. And unfolded it and unfolded it and unfolded it. It was a huge sheet of paper: it had to be so that there would be room for all the noughts. ‘Goodness me, as much as that!' Barney said, looking at the figure at the bottom of the page.

‘I would start to spend some of that if I was
you,' Wilf said. ‘I know what! Why don't you buy yourself a BEAUTIFUL EXPENSIVE cat with LONG soft fur and BIG blue eyes. Only joking, Pussens,' he added as Dandelion looked up, worried. ‘Anyway, I'm off. Enjoy your breakfast. You're getting an omelette for your lunch today and the cat's getting a kipper. I'll bring it up at one o'clock. If you need anything else before then, give me a shout.'

It was lovely living with Wilf, Barney thought after he'd gone. He was so direct, you always knew exactly where you stood.