Eating Things on Sticks (7 page)

‘Did she say pork pie on a stick?' asked Uncle Tristram, taking his fingers out of his ears and looking interested again.

Morning Glory kept chanting. ‘Salami on a stick. Chocolate fudge on a stick. Meatballs on a stick. Frozen banana on a stick. And, of course, pickle on a stick.'

I couldn't help asking, ‘Do you get toppings on your frozen banana?'

‘You get a choice,' said Morning Glory. ‘They're chocolate-dipped, of course. But on top of that you can have sprinkles or chopped nuts.'

‘Brilliant!' I turned to Uncle Tristram. ‘Can we go?'

He looked a little pale. ‘It's cutting it fine with the ferry.'

‘Not really,' Morning Glory said. ‘The fair begins at ten. The ferry doesn't leave till six. You can eat everything by then.'

‘But Harry here gets seasick.'

‘I wouldn't!' I insisted. ‘Not if the things I'd eaten were
on a stick
.'

Uncle Tristram shrugged. ‘I suppose it's like the growing-a-beard thing. Everyone has to make their own mistakes before they come to their senses.'

We gave the hairy man his week of meals, and drove back to the storage centre to drop off the van. There were still helicopters buzzing overhead.

‘Better than seagulls,' Uncle Tristram said. And while Morning Glory phoned the organizers of the fair to suggest a Best Beard competition, he trailed around the shed until he found some old tarpaulin to drape over the bright yellow roof and bonnet of his car in order to protect them on the drive home.

A FLASH OF ANGEL'S WINGS?

Early next morning, Uncle Tristram picked up his camera and strode to the door. ‘We're already halfway through the week and I don't have a single photograph.'

‘Take one of me!' said Morning Glory. She pranced around the kitchen in her bare feet and nightie.

‘No,' Uncle Tristram said firmly. ‘Your charms last all day long. It's only nature that looks better in early-morning or evening light.'

He turned to me. ‘Coming?'

‘Not bothered,' I muttered.

Uncle Tristram took one more look at Morning Glory flouncing about in her nightie. ‘Well, I
am
, I'm afraid,' he said. ‘So you come with me.'

Sighing, I heaved myself off the hard little wooden chair and followed him out of the door. I stood about while he fussed with his lens cap and zoom and light filters and whatnot.

‘Why are you doing this anyway?' I asked him. ‘It's not like you to go outside to take photos of hills and countryside when you can stay in and take photos of girls in their nighties.'

He tapped the side of his head. ‘A cunning plan,' he said, ‘to show that I, too, am in harmony with the universe.'

‘Oh, I see. So we won't be out for long?'

‘Barely a moment.'

He aimed the camera up the hill. I waited for the click.

‘Odd,' he said suddenly, lowering the camera. ‘It looks a bit different.'

‘Different?'

I looked up the hillside. It looked just the same to me. Steep. Barren. Just a shade too close.

‘I can't see anything.'

‘Look,' he said. ‘Right up there at the top. Can you see something glinting?'

I said sarcastically, ‘Oh! Could it be a tiny flash of angel's wings?' and added my imitation of Titania: ‘Thooper, Uncle Twithtram! Can we go and
thee
?'

He was too busy looking up the hill to pay attention. ‘You know, I do believe it's water.'

‘Can't be,' I told him. ‘The stream runs down the other side.'

He handed me the camera. ‘You look,' he ordered. ‘Use the zoom.'

I twiddled until everything came into focus. Sure enough, there was a tiny stream of water trickling down the hill.

‘Strange,' Uncle Tristram said. ‘You'd think you'd need a heap of rain to cause a second stream like that to come down on our side. Unless there is some kind of blockage at the top, of course.'

I felt a slight twinge of unease.

‘Maybe we should just climb up there again today,' I said. ‘To check things out.'

‘Check things out?'

I didn't feel like mentioning the dam I'd made. I thought he might tell Morning Glory, and she would tick me off for inharmoniously meddling about with the universe. So I said, ‘You know. Just to look for angels.'

He gave me a stern look. ‘I know she's
loopy
,' he said. ‘But she is very sweet and very kind.'

‘And very pretty.'

‘And very pretty. And I am getting very fond of her. So let's have no more teasing about her angels.'

‘Fair enough,' I said.

ONE QUICK BURST

I meant to sneak off up the hill by myself, but Morning Glory turned out to have plans. ‘Today I thought we could drive over the island together to see my father,' she told us.

Uncle Tristram had left off trying to prove he was in harmony with the universe and taken to setting all the pig and piglet knick-knacks in battle order against the owls. ‘I think I'll just give that a miss,' he said. ‘But do feel free to take young Harry with you.'

‘If you don't come with us, we'll have to hitch,' warned Morning Glory.

‘Borrow my car.'

‘Brilliant!' said Morning Glory. ‘I've never driven a car as sleek and powerful as yours. Up until now, I've only ever puttered about in meals-on-wheels vans and the odd rusty police car.'

I wondered if I'd heard her right. ‘Did you say
police
car?'

She turned a little shifty. ‘Only fetching chips.'

I still thought it sounded odd, unless she was an undercover officer. But Uncle Tristram wasn't even listening. He was still busy setting out his owl and pig attack lines.

I didn't really fancy dying in a quite unnecessary car crash. I shoved my face in front of his to make him pay attention. ‘If Morning Glory isn't used to powerful cars, Mum would be furious if you let her take me out with her on her very first time.'

He rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, all
right!
' Moving a winsome little china owlet into her battle position on the dado rail, he made one last weak stab at sending us off without him. ‘What is your mother's line on hitchhiking?'

‘She is one hundred per cent against it,' I explained to him. ‘If she found out, she'd kill me. Then she would kill you.'

‘That rather robs the safety aspect of forbidding it of some of its punch,' said Uncle Tristram. ‘But I do take your point. Either we all three go, or Morning Glory hitches alone.'

‘What?' I said. ‘Wearing
that
?'

Uncle Tristram turned from his knick-knacks. ‘Isn't she even
dressed
yet?'

‘Yes,' Morning Glory said. ‘This is a
day
dress.'

‘Sorry,' I said. ‘But it is very thin and airy, isn't it? I thought it was another of your nighties.'

Uncle Tristram sighed. ‘Whatever she calls it, it's still an invitation to being pestered by strange men in beards. I suppose that means we'll all three have to go.'

‘Goody!' said Morning Glory. ‘I'll go and drag those filthy old pieces of tarpaulin off your nice car.'

Uncle Tristram looked anxious. ‘There will be seagulls. Shouldn't we leave them on?'

Morning Glory's face fell. ‘It seems a shame,' she said, ‘to have a beautiful yellow car and drive around looking more like a moving haystack.'

‘Better than having to spend the week chiselling off seagull poo,' said Uncle Tristram. He went to rope the pieces of tarpaulin even more firmly over his Maverati while Morning Glory and I packed up some dandelion fritters and a few pork pies.

Then we were off. The helicopters were all over again.

‘Somebody lost at sea, I expect,' said Uncle Tristram.

‘Then why are they buzzing about all over the island?'

‘Are they?' He poked his head out of the open window and craned upwards. ‘So they are. Maybe they're after bank robbers.'

‘There are no banks on the island,' Morning Glory said.

‘Car thieves, then?' Uncle Tristram suggested.

‘They won't want this one,' I assured him. ‘With these tarpaulins draped all over it, it looks like a corporation tip on wheels.'

‘Still,' Morning Glory said wistfully, ‘it would be nice to have a
little
go at driving it . . .'

Now he'd been dragged away from all his owls and pigs, it seemed that Uncle Tristram was far less keen to hand over the wheel to someone who had so far only trundled down a few cart tracks in a meals-on-wheels van, and used a rusty old squad car to fetch chips.

‘As you so rightly said,' he started pontificating, ‘this is a very powerful car. I'm not at all sure that it would be safe.'

‘Please?' Morning Glory pleaded. ‘One really quick
burst?
'

He winced. ‘No, no. I know that Harry's mother wouldn't like it.'

How two-faced can you get? He had been keen enough to let her loose when it was only my life on the line.

To spite him, I said, ‘I could always get out,' and added mischievously, ‘After all, fair is fair! Morning Glory did take us all the way up the hill to look for angels.'

‘Oh, all right,' he rather surprised me by agreeing. ‘You get out of the car. That'll be safer. Indeed, I think your mother would insist on it. We'll drive back down the road the way we've come, just for a while, then turn round and meet you' – taking revenge, he pointed to a sheep pen about a hundred miles away – ‘over there.'

I know when I've been trumped. Unbuckling my seat belt, I got out of the car and set off walking. The two of them changed places, and with a clash of gears and only one or two short roars of horror from Uncle Tristram, the car spun round and took off fast the other way. From time to time, I glanced back over my shoulder, but they were nowhere to be seen.

I reached the sheep pen at last and sat in its shadow, sulking. Finally –
finally
– after I'd had enough time to grow one of the Uncle Joe beards that I'd been fancying so much practically down to my feet, I saw them driving back.

LUCKY ESCAPE

‘We had a lucky escape there,' said Uncle Tristram.

I was so cross I just pretended I couldn't care a fig about anything or anyone Morning Glory had nearly run into or over. But he pressed on. ‘This police officer suddenly leaped out from behind a hedge and flagged us down.'

Now this did interest me. ‘Did he have a beard?'

Uncle Tristram stared. ‘No,' he said finally. ‘Now that you come to mention it, he was clean-shaven.' There was a long, long pause while he glanced suspiciously at Morning Glory as if, like me, he was remembering what she had said about one of her old boyfriends having to shave off his beard. Then he pressed on with his story. ‘Anyhow, he peered at me for a very long time – sort of
inspected
me.'

I was still feeling sour. ‘Probably wanted to know what sort of person is so obsessed with bird poo he drives round with tarpaulins draped all over his Maverati.'

Uncle Tristram adopted a lofty look. ‘I don't think he noticed that. He simply nodded curtly at Morning Glory, peered into the car, and asked me to step out and open the boot for him.' He snorted. ‘I actually had to
explain
to him that you don't have to step out of a G46 Turbo Maverati Ace-Matic in order to get the boot open.'

I gave up sulking and climbed back in. ‘So what was he looking for?'

‘I don't know,' Uncle Tristram said. ‘I thought at first he was just pouncing on us because Morning Glory had been driving so fast.'

‘I was not,' Morning Glory insisted. ‘I was just
tootling
.'

‘Tootling in
this
car,' Uncle Tristram pointed out, ‘can often amount to what an officer of the law will call “excessive speed”.' He turned to me. ‘So then, of course, I was all “Oh, Officer this,” and “Oh, Officer that”.'

‘Turned into a bit of a crawler, you mean?'

‘Put it your own way,' Uncle Tristram snapped. ‘In any case, as soon as Morning Glory saw the two of us standing together, she was out of the car in a flash.'

‘And then?'

‘And then, of course, this meddling police officer found himself doing nothing more than staring at her nightie.'

‘It is a
day
dress,' Morning Glory insisted.

‘You call it what you like,' said Uncle Tristram. ‘All I can say is that it
worked
. He clean forgot about her irresponsible and reckless driving. He went beet-red, took a quick peek in the boot to see if we were hiding some missing child it seems that everyone's looking for, then waved us on.'