Читать книгу Gangsta Granny - David Walliams, Quentin Blake, David Walliams - Страница 12

6 Cold Wet Egg

This Friday night would have been just as spectacularly dull as the last, if Ben hadn’t remembered to bring his magazine with him this time. Once again, Mum and Dad dumped their only child at Granny’s.

As soon as he arrived, Ben rushed past her into his cold damp little bedroom, shut the door and read his copy of the latest Plumbing Weekly from cover to cover. There was an amazing guide, with lots and lots of colour photographs, showing how to install the new generation of combi boilers. Ben folded over the corner of the page. Now he knew what he wanted for Christmas.

Once he’d finished the magazine, Ben sighed and headed to the living room. He knew he couldn’t stay in his bedroom all evening.

Granny looked up and smiled when she saw him. “Scrabble time!” she exclaimed cheerily, holding up the board.

The next morning the air was thick with silence.

“Another boiled egg?” said Granny, as they sat in her rundown little kitchen.

Ben didn’t like boiled eggs and hadn’t finished his first one yet. Granny could even ruin food this simple. The egg would always come out all watery, and the soldiers were always burnt to a cinder. When the old lady wasn’t looking, Ben would flick the egg gloop out of the window with his spoon, and hide the soldiers behind the radiator. There must be a whole platoon of them back there by now.

“No thanks, Granny. I’m completely full,” replied Ben. “Delicious boiled egg, thank you,” he added.

“Mmm…” murmured the old lady, unconvinced. “It’s a bit nippy. I’m just going to put another cardigan on,” she said, even though she was already wearing two. Granny trundled out of the room, quacking as she went.

Ben flicked the rest of his egg out of the window, and then tried to find something else to eat. He knew that Granny had a secret stash of chocolate biscuits that she kept on a top shelf in the kitchen. Granny would give Ben one on his birthday. Ben would also help himself to one from time to time, when his granny’s cabbage-based delicacies left him as hungry as a wolf.

So he quickly slid his chair over to the cupboard and stood on it to reach the biscuits. He lifted the biscuit tin. It was a big Silver Jubilee assortment tin from 1977 that featured a scratched and faded portrait of a much younger Queen Elizabeth II on the lid. It felt really heavy. Much heavier than usual.

Strange.

Ben shook the tin a little. It didn’t feel or sound like it had biscuits inside. It was like it had stones or marbles in it.

Even stranger.

Ben unscrewed the lid.

He stared.

And then he stared some more.

He couldn’t believe what was inside. Diamonds! Rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, all with great big sparkling diamonds. Diamonds, diamonds and more diamonds!

Ben was no expert, but he thought there must be thousands of pounds worth of jewellery in the biscuit tin, maybe even millions.

Suddenly, he heard Granny quacking her way into the room. Fumbling desperately, he put the lid back on and placed the tin on the shelf. He leaped down, yanked his chair over and sat at the table.

Glancing at the window, he realised that his flicked egg hadn’t flown out into the garden, but was smeared across the glass. Granny would need a blowtorch to get that off if it dried. So he rushed over to the window and sucked the cold wet egg off the glass, then returned to his seat. It was too unpleasant to swallow so, in a panic, Ben kept it in his mouth.

Granny shuffled back into the kitchen wearing her third cardigan.

Still quacking.

“Better get your coat on, young man. Your mummy and daddy will be here in just a tick,” she said with a smile.

Ben reluctantly swallowed the cold wet egg. It slipped down his throat. Yuck, yuck and double yuck. “Yes,” he said, fearing he would vomit and deposit the egg back on the window.

Scrambled.