The Grunts In Trouble (11 page)

Chapter Eleven

Fingers

I
t probably comes as no great surprise for you to learn that Mr and Mrs Grunt decided Sunny should be the one to go into the barn. There was no sign of life outside so, if there was going to be any elephant action, or funny business – there was potential clown involvement here, remember – it was likely to occur behind those two mighty closed doors.

Mr Grunt insisted that they hide the caravan behind the trees as before, though it being broad daylight and their having had to cross
an open field, it was unlikely that anyone on the lookout would have failed to spot them.

“Good luck, Sunny,” said Mr Grunt.

“Be brave,” said Mrs Grunt, “and leave your shoes behind, will you? It’d be a shame to waste them.”

“Waste them?”

“Your mother means in case you don’t come back,” Mr Grunt explained.

Sunny didn’t bother arguing. He kicked off his non-matching shoes – one
slip-on
and one blue-laced lace-up – and felt the grass between his toes. “What is it exactly that you want me to do?” he asked.

“Be friendly. If it’s Mr Lippy, smile as
though you haven’t a care in the world. If it’s someone else, simply say that you’re here for the – er – elephant.”

“And if whoever-it-may-be asks about the stuff you gave him not being the stuff you promised?”

“Protest your innocence!” said Mr Grunt, using the very piece of advice his lawyer had given him the time he was arrested for stealing a statue carved from Cheddar cheese. (Fortunately for him, some hungry mice ate the evidence before there could be a trial. Mrs Grunt had bribed the mice to do it. She’d promised them as much cheese as they could eat.)

“Stand firm!” said Mrs Grunt.

“And if things turn nasty?” asked Sunny.

“Then run like Billy-o!” said Mrs Grunt.

“Billy-o?” asked Sunny.

Mrs Grunt shrugged. “I think Billy-o must have been a really fast runner,” she said. (“Running like Billy-o” was simply a phrase her own mother had used and – like you and Sunny – she had no idea what it really meant.)

“Did he run in bare feet?” asked Sunny.

Neither Mr nor Mrs Grunt said anything. Mrs Grunt had spotted a dead crow and her thoughts were turning to an early supper.

Sunny had a quiet word with Clip and Clop, patting their muzzles and scratching them between the ears, then headed off to the barn.

Though huge, the right-hand door to the barn was unlocked, and swung open surprisingly easily. Sunny stepped nervously inside. Sunlight poured through some of the gaps between the planks in the walls, or the holes where there had once been knots in the wood, but much of the inside of the barn was
in shadow.

Fingers, however, was easy enough to spot.

It’s hard to hide an elephant, even in a big barn.

“You!” said a surprised voice.

It was a familiar voice too. But it didn’t belong to Mr Lippy. It was a voice that Sunny was more used to hearing say, “BIGG AIN’T BEST.”

“Mr Smalls!” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Sitting on an elephant,” said Larry Smalls.

Now that Sunny had become more accustomed to the light, he could indeed see Mr Smalls astride the elephant. And what a lovely-looking elephant he was too. All friendly.

“What about you?”

“What about me, Mr Smalls?”

“What are YOU doing here?”

“I’ve come to collect the elephant,” said Sunny.

Larry Smalls smiled. He actually smiled. This was probably the first time Sunny had seen Larry Smalls smile and the transformation was amazing. He looked like a different man. He didn’t look like a man with a grudge who spent his time writing placards and throwing rocks and being all bitter about Lord Bigg. He looked
happy
.

“You? You’re the mystery buyer?”

“Kind of,” said Sunny.

“It makes perfect sense, I suppose,” said Larry Smalls, sliding off the side of Fingers on to one of a number of bales of hay that had been lined up in rows to form seats (for an upcoming play).

“It does?” said Sunny, surprised.

“Of course!” said Mr Smalls. “I was wondering who’d want to buy an elephant, apart from a circus or zoo or wildlife park, I mean. Having seen the size of your – er – caravan, though, it makes perfect sense!”

“You think Dad’s bought him to take over from Clip and Clop?”

“The two donkeys?” asked Larry Smalls. Sunny nodded.

“An elephant would find the job a whole lot easier!” said Smalls.

Sunny smiled. He could just imagine Fingers pulling along their home as easy as pie. Then his face fell. What would happen to Clip and Clop? Would the Grunts simply abandon them now that they didn’t need them? Hadn’t he heard Mr Grunt grumbling about them getting old and not wanting to do
the donkey work any more? A little knot of worry formed in the pit of his stomach. Sunny suddenly realised just how much he loved the big-eared pair.

“Won’t Fingers mind lugging a great big house around?” he asked.

“Mind? He’ll love it,” said Larry Smalls rummaging in his pocket and pulling out a fist full of peanuts (still in their shells). Fingers’ trunk swung into action, snuffling them up surprisingly elegantly and putting them in his mouth, all the while watching them with his highly intelligent eyes. “I rescued Fingers from a rich animal collector when he was a baby,” Mr Smalls explained. “You see, I never took animals from the wild. That would be wrong. He was chained up in a tiny cage, but with me he’s had a life on the open road!
He’d pull the circus trucks. Help erect the tent poles for the big top.”

“You used to work in a circus?”

“I used to
own
a circus,” said Larry Smalls. “Smalls’ Big Top. All our animals had been rescued in some way or other.”

“But isn’t it cruel to make them do tricks?”

“Not the way I did it,” said Smalls. “We let the animals find their own talents. Why make a sea lion balance a ball on his nose if he prefers doing card tricks? Why make a lion jump through a hoop when he might prefer to hold a brush in his mouth and do a little painting?”

Fingers wasn’t waiting for Larry Smalls to give him more peanuts. He put his trunk directly into the man’s other pocket and pulled out some for himself.

“So what happened?” asked Sunny.

“What do you mean?” asked Larry Smalls.

“What happened to Smalls’ Big Top?”

Larry Smalls’ face passed into the shadows. “Lord Bigg is what happened,” he said. “Him and his railings.”

At the mention of Bigg’s name, Fingers stopped chewing.

“I don’t understand,” said Sunny.

“Then let me explain,” said Larry Smalls. “Sit.”

Sunny made himself as comfortable as he could on a nearby bale of straw.

“People often think that fences around enclosures and bars on cages are there to protect people from animals and, of course, that’s partly true,” said Larry Smalls. “But they’re also there to protect the animals from the people. You see, stupid people do stupid things. They try to feed animals the wrong
kinds of food. They prod them when they’re sleeping. They flash cameras in their faces. The tease them. Upset them.” Smalls himself looked upset at the thought of this, and paused for a moment. “So bars work both ways. And the metal bars – the metal railings – we used for our cages when the animals were on the move, and for the enclosures when we were camped, were made by the Bigg Railing Company.”

“Lord Bigg makes railings?” asked Sunny.

“Used to,” said Smalls, and he told Sunny
all
about it, pretty much as I told you many, many chapters ago (though probably not quite so well as I did, what with my being such a brilliant author).

“So did the railings on your cages go floppy after ten years and a week?” Sunny gasped.

“Yes,” said Larry Smalls. “We had no idea
that was going to happen, of course. One night we went to bed with all the animals safe and sound. The next morning, disaster! In the night the bars had gone floppy, the animals wandered out and … and …”

“And?” Sunny leaned forward on his straw bale.

“We’d pitched the circus in a field as part of a steam tractor festival. There were
huge-great
steam-powered machines everywhere … including steam
rollers
…”