Grandpa’s Great Escape. David Walliams

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      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.

4

      Second-hand Trike

      The town was eerily unfamiliar at night. All was dark and quiet. It was the deepest winter. A mist hung in the air, and the ground was moist after a heavy downpour of rain.

      Dad had taken the car, so Jack pedalled along the road on his trike. This trike was only meant for toddlers. In fact, the boy had been given the trike second-hand for his third birthday and had outgrown it many years ago. However, his family didn’t have enough money to buy him a new bike, so he had to make do.

      Mum stood on the back, holding on to his shoulders. If any of his classmates from school had seen him giving his mother a lift on his trike, Jack knew he would have to go and live alone in a dark and distant cave for all eternity.

      Grandpa’s military band music played out in Jack’s head as he pedalled as fast as he could down the street. For a toddler’s trike, it was a deceptively heavy beast, especially with his mother standing on the back, her fluffy pink nightgown blowing in the wind.

      As the wheels turned around on his trike so did the thoughts in Jack’s mind. The boy was closer to the old man than anybody; surely he could guess where his grandfather was?

Without seeing another soul on the way, the pair finally arrived at the town square. A pathetic sight greeted them.

      Dad was in his pyjamas and dressing gown, hunched over the steering wheel of the family’s little brown car. Even from a distance, Jack could see the poor СКАЧАТЬ