Читать книгу Grandpa’s Great Escape - David Walliams, Quentin Blake, David Walliams - Страница 11

This particular evening, Jack was asleep in his bedroom, dreaming he was a World War II pilot, as he did every night. He was sitting behind the controls of his Hurricane, taking on a squadron of deadly Messerschmitts, when he heard the distinct sound of a telephone ringing.

RING RING RING RING.

That was strange, he thought, there weren’t any telephones on board 1940s fighter planes. Yet still the telephone kept ringing.

RING RING RING RING.

The boy woke up with a start. As he sat up in bed he banged his head on his model Lancaster bomber that was suspended from the ceiling.

“Ow!” he cried. He checked the time on the nickel-plated RAF pilot’s watch his grandfather had given him.

2:30am.

Who on earth was calling the house at this hour?

The boy leaped down from his top bunk and opened his bedroom door. Downstairs in the hall, he could hear his mother talking on the telephone.

“No, he hasn’t turned up here,” she said.

After a few moments Mum spoke again. Her familiar tone convinced Jack that she must be talking to his father. “So no sign of the old man at all? Well what are you going to do, Barry? I know he’s your father! But you can’t stay out all night looking for him!”

Jack couldn’t remain silent for a moment longer. From the top of the stairs he cried, “What’s happened to Grandpa?”

Mum looked up. “Oh, well done, Barry, now Jack’s woken up!” She put her hand over the receiver. “Go back to bed this instant, young man! You’ve got school in the morning!”

“I don’t care!” replied the boy with defiance. “What’s happened to Grandpa?”

Mum returned to the telephone call. “Barry, call me back in two minutes. It’s all going off here now and all!” With that she slammed down the receiver.

“What’s happened?” demanded the boy again as he ran down the stairs to join his mother.

Mum sighed theatrically as if all the woes of the world were on her shoulders. She did that a lot. It was at this exact moment that Jack realised he could smell cheese. Not just normal cheese. Smelly cheese, blue cheese, runny cheese, MOULDY CHEESE, cheesy cheese. His mother worked at the cheese counter of the local supermarket, and wherever she went, a strong waft of cheese came with her.

Both stood in the hall in their nightclothes, Jack in his stripy blue pyjamas, and his mother in her pink fluffy nightgown. Her hair was in curlers and she had thick smears of face cream on her cheeks, forehead and nose. She often left it on overnight. Jack wasn’t sure exactly why. Mum thought of herself as quite a beauty, and often claimed to be the ‘glamorous face of cheese’, if such a thing was possible.

Mum flicked on the light and they both blinked for a moment at the sudden brightness.

“Your grandpa’s gone missing again!”

“Oh no!”

“Oh yes!” The woman sighed once more. It was clear she was worn out by the old man. Sometimes she would even roll her eyes at Grandpa’s war stories, as if she was bored. This bothered Jack greatly. Grandpa’s stories were infinitely more exciting than being told about the week’s bestselling cheese. “Me and your father were woken up by a phone call around midnight.”

“From who?”

“His neighbour downstairs, you know, that newsagent man…”

After his big house had become too much for him, Grandpa had moved last year to a little flat above a shop. Not just any shop. A newsagent’s shop. Not just any newsagent’s shop. Raj’s.

“Raj?” replied Jack now.

“Yeah, that’s his name. Raj said he thought he heard your grandpa’s door bang around midnight. He knocked on his door, but there was no answer. The poor man got himself in a terrible panic, so he called here.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“He jumped in the car and has been out searching for your grandpa for the past couple of hours.”

“Couple of hours?!” The boy couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Why on earth didn’t you wake me?”

Mum sighed AGAIN. Tonight was turning into something of a sigh-a-thon. “Me and your dad know how fond you are of him, so we didn’t want you to worry, did we?”

“Well, I am worried!” replied the boy. In truth he felt a lot closer to his exciting grandfather than he did to anyone else in the family, including his mother and father. Time spent with Grandpa was always precious.

“We’re all worried!” replied Mum.

“I am really worried.”

“Well, we’re all really worried.”

“Well, I am really really worried.”

“Well, we’re all really really really worried. Now please let’s not have a competition about who is the most worried!” she shouted angrily.

Jack could tell his mother was becoming increasingly stressed, so thought it best not to reply to that last remark, even though he was really really really worried.

“I’ve told your dad a hundred times your grandpa needs to be in an old folk’s home!”

“Never!” said the boy. He knew the old man better than anyone. “Grandpa would absolutely hate that!”

Grandpa – or Wing Commander Bunting as he was known during the war – was far too proud to spend the last of his days with a lot of old dears doing crosswords and knitting.

Mum shook her head and sighed. “Jack, you are too young to understand.”

Like all children, Jack hated being told this. But now wasn’t the time to argue. “Mum, please. Let’s go and look for him.”

“Are you NUTS? It’s freezing tonight!” replied the woman.

“But we have to do something! Grandpa is out there somewhere, lost!”

RING RING RING RING. Jack lunged for the telephone, lifting the receiver before his mother could. “Dad? Where are you? The town square? Mum just said we should come out and help you look for Grandpa,” he lied, as his mother gave him an angry look. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

The boy put the receiver down, and took his mum by the hand.

“Grandpa needs us…” he said.

Jack opened the door and the pair ran out into the darkness.