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Authors: Quentin Blake

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BOOK: Grimble at Christmas
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Then he went inside. "There you are," said his
mother. "Did you have a nice day?" "Yes thank
you," said Grimble. "Are your feet better?" His
mother said they were a bit better but she was
going to bed and if it was not too much trouble
could she have some fudge.

As Grimble had never made fudge, he said that
might take a little time, but his mother said that
didn't matter. "I have plenty of time now because
there is nothing else to do, is there?"

"I hope not," said Grimble and went off to find
a book called
How to Make Fudge and Other Good
Tricks
.

4. David Sebastian
Waghorn

It was now Thursday and Grimble had arranged
to spend the day with his friend David
Sebastian Waghorn. The Waghorns lived in a large
house, which was built a very short time ago but
tried to look old.

Mr Waghorn was a loud man who shouted a lot.
The odd thing was that he did not only shout
when he was angry, the way most people do; he
shouted all the time.

"
HELLO, GRIMBLE
," he shouted. "
HERE'S, GRIMBLE
,"
and then he raised his voice and shouted,
"
GRIMBLE IS HERE
."

So Grimble said, "Good morning, Mr Waghorn.
I am here."

"
RECOGNIZED YOU
," shouted Mr Waghorn,
"
KNEW WHO YOU WERE. MUST GO TO WORK. GOODBYE
,"
and then in case everyone had not heard him
he shouted it again: "
GOODBYE
."

Mrs Waghorn was a small quiet lady with blue
hair. Not bright blue but a pastel shade, which
some hairdressers think is nice. She was very kind
to people, to make up for her husband shouting so
loudly.

Mrs Waghorn liked washing up better than anything
and, when Grimble and David Sebastian
Waghorn had stood for a minute or two whispering
to each other, she put on some rubber gloves
and went off to do the dishes with a lovely smile on
her face.

Grimble and David Sebastian Waghorn went off
to the sitting room to inspect a new book called
Party Tricks
, which Mr Waghorn had given his son
as a non-birthday present. They lay on the floor and
started to look for something which, the book
promised, would "confuse and delight friends and
family".

One of the best tricks in the book was: Take a
pack of cards which everyone will think is a real
pack, but only you know that all the cards are
queens of spades. Ask someone to pick a card,
to look at it and put it back into the pack; then
shuffle the cards, pretend to examine them carefully
and take one from the pack. Naturally this
will be the queen of spades. People will think you
very clever.

"I wonder how often you can play that trick
on the same person," Grimble said. "After you
have shown someone a different queen of spades
half a dozen times, I think they could get
suspicious . . ."

"You know something," said Grimble. "There
are fifty-two different cards in the pack.
Suppose they are not all queens of spades but
just ordinary cards and you went up to
fifty-two different people and said, 'Take a
card. Put it back. It was the queen of spades.'
Unless you are terribly unlucky at least one of them
will have taken the queen of spades and be very
impressed and those who took one of the other
queens will be fairly impressed. The rest of the
people won't be very impressed. Do you think
that is a good trick?"

"No," said David Sebastian Waghorn. "Actually
the best sort of trick is when there are two of
us
against one of
them
. Suppose I give my mother a
pack of cards from which she picks one and puts it
back. You could be standing behind her as she
looks at it and then you can signal to me and tell
me what card she took."

"That is a very good idea indeed," said Grimble.

"If we worked hard on that we could go into
business together as Grimble and Waghorn,
Conjurers to the Nobility; and if things went
well and we learned more than one trick we might
appear on a Royal Variety Programme and be By
Appointment Grimble and Waghorn."

"Or Waghorn and Grimble sounds quite
nice," suggested David Sebastian Waghorn.

"I was taking the names in alphabetical order,"
said Grimble. "G comes before W."

"All right," said David Sebastian Waghorn, "let's
practise our trick."

"Cards are either spades, hearts, diamonds or
clubs – so when you see which card has been taken
you signal; S is for spades and shirt so you point to
your shirt. C is for clubs and collar. He is for heart
and hair and D is for diamonds and . . . and . . .
dustbin?"

"How are we going to find a dustbin?" asked
Grimble.

"A very sensible remark," said David Sebastian
Waghorn.

"What else begins with a D?"

After quite a lot of discussion they decided
David Sebastian Waghorn began with a D, and if
Grimble did the signalling he should point
to David and if David did it he should point to
himself, only be sure not to point to his hair, collar
or shirt or the trick would go wrong.

When it came to actual cards, they decided to
hold up fingers for the numbered cards – ace to ten
and hold up the right fist for jack, the left fist for
queen and both fists for king. They practised the
trick for quite a long time before going into the
kitchen to try it on Mrs Waghorn.

"I say," began Grimble, "I wonder whether you
would like us to show you rather a clever trick."

Mrs Waghorn said she would like to see it,
especially if she could do it without taking her
washing-up gloves off.

"Well," said Grimble, "they are your cards but
the trick would go better with bare hands."

So Mrs Waghorn took off her gloves and David
Sebastian stood behind her and Grimble held out
the pack and said, "Take a card. Look at it. Put it
back. Now," said Grimble, "I am going to tell you
what card it was."

David Sebastian Waghorn started signalling
furiously. First he touched his nose, then he held
up his right fist, then suddenly he changed
his mind, pulled down his right fist and held up
his left fist, and his mother turned around and
said. "If you are going to hit me I shall be very
angry and tell your father and you know what he
will do."

"Shout," said David Sebastian Waghorn, quietly.

"Now," said Grimble, "let me tell you which card
you picked. It was without very much shadow of
doubt the queen of diamonds. Thank you, thank
you, thank you."

"Oh dear," said Mrs Waghorn, "I seem to think
it was the nine of spades but with all those wavings
from David it is very hard to concentrate.
Why don't you two boys go out into the garden
with a football?" And the two boys went out in
the garden with a football. David Sebastian
Waghorn was very angry, "The trouble about my
mother is that she has no card sense. It
was
the
queen of diamonds."

Grimble thought they ought to forget
about card tricks for the moment and start on
football.

They began by putting down their jackets as
goalposts and playing on the same side and every
time they scored a goal they hugged each other the
way footballers do on television. As there were no
goalkeepers they scored a lot of goals and there was
more hugging than football so they gave up and
went back into the house and played psychiatrists;
these are a special kind of doctor who do a lot of
talking.

Grimble lay on the couch and David Sebastian
Waghorn sat in a chair and said "Tell me now, Mr
. . . err . . . Grimble did you say your name was . . .
what appears to be the matter?"

"It's Christmas . . ." said Grimble. "I have got a
cake and my mother has bought a heavy parcel and
there is a Christmas tree hidden in the shed and I
can do a pretty pathetic conjuring trick and is it
going to be enough?"

"What do you expect from this – Christmas I
think you call it, Mr, err, Grimble?"

"Well," said Grimble, "I expect rather a lot. Like
a brown Windsor soup or at least a fairly brown
Windsor soup. And then turkey and everything
and Christmas pudding and things and crackers
and balloons and all that. And a cake but I've got
the cake."

David Sebastian Waghorn looked very serious
and said, "You are suffering from Christmeasles
and may have to have a Christmasectomy. I
suggest you go into the garden and try to score a
goal using your right foot. That will be seven
pounds and fifty-five pence."

"There is another thing I'm worried about," said
Grimble. "I do not have as much money as I would
like to have."

"That," said David Sebastian Waghorn, "is
much more serious. In fact I do not know when I
heard of a more serious disease. Do your parents
talk a lot about money?"

"No," said Grimble, "hardly ever."

"Then they have enough," said David. "Can you
come back next week?"

"I could," said Grimble, "but it may be too late."

For lunch they had lamb chops cooked in
breadcrumbs and spinach with mashed potatoes
and then a chocolate pudding and in the afternoon
Mrs Waghorn took them to the cinema and
for all that time Grimble completely forgot
about Christmas.

But after tea Grimble began thinking again and
had another look at the party-trick book.
Christmas had quite long gaps between meals and
if there was nothing organized, which the
old Grimbles were very good at . . . I mean the
old Grimbles were very good at not being
organized, then it was up to Grimble to provide
the entertainment.

There was quite a good trick in which you
tucked a penny between your fingers and opened
out your hand, and no one saw anything and then
suddenly you had a penny in your hand. Grimble
tried that trick a lot but finally the penny, which
kept falling on the floor, rolled under the sofa, and
he gave up.

Grimble left before Mr Waghorn came home –
he decided he wasn't feeling strong enough to be
shouted at – and when he got to his house he
decided he needed something strengthening to eat,
like fudge.

The night before, in his fudge book, he had read
that you can make fudge of any flavour you like.
Now onion was a flavour Grimble liked very
much and he was sure it was strengthening. Onion
fudge. The words had a sort of rightness about
them. Onion fudge . . . like strawberry jam or
bacon sandwich.

Grimble put a saucepan on to the stove and then
he found an onion and cut it in half and put it
in the pan and then he went to look for some
condensed milk. There was none in the larder and
he couldn't find any in his father's study or in
the bathroom where his mother might have left it
– she used amazing things, like eggs, for washing
her hair. Anyway there was no milk anywhere,
but quite an interesting smell was coming from
the kitchen.

BOOK: Grimble at Christmas
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