Grimble at Christmas Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright Page

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 Seven Shopping Days to Christmas

  Chapter 2 Home Toast Delivery

  Chapter 3 Four Shopping Days to Christmas

  Chapter 4 David Sebastian Waghorn

  Chapter 5 The After-Soup Announcement

  GRIMBLE

  at

  CHRISTMAS

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  ISBN 9781407047751

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  GRIMBLE AT CHRISTMAS

  A JONATHAN CAPE BOOK

  Published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape,

  an imprint of Random House Children's Books

  A Random House Group Company

  First published by Puffin Books 1974

  This edition published 2008

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Text copyright © Clement Freud, 1974

  Illustrations copyright © Quentin Blake, 1974

  Cover illustration copyright © Quentin Blake, 2008

  The right of Clement Freud to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 9781407047751

  Version 1.0

  GRIMBLE

  at

  CHRISTMAS

  CLEMENT FREUD

  Illustrated by Quentin Blake

  To my grandchildren especially

  Alexandra, Tom, Jack, Martha, Harry, Max,

  Nicholas, Joshua, Sophie, Scarlett, Jake, Charlie,

  Spike, Gorge, Jonah, Charlotte and Samson

  1. Seven Shopping

  Days to Christmas

  Grimble's parents were very forgetful. This was sometimes annoying, but having a forgetful father and mother also had advantages. For instance it meant that he had better bedtimes than most other children.Quite often he used to go into his father's room and say, "I'm going to bed now; it's midnight," and his father would say, "Don't wait up for me," or "Iquique is the only town I know with two qs!"

  For most of the year Grimble – Grimble was his whole name, his parents had forgotten to give him any other names – rather enjoyed having a father and mother who were different from those of the other boys at school, but when it came to Christmas there were very definite disadvantages.

  Grimble had only two more days of school before the Christmas holidays started – and the old Grimbles went around as if it were the middle of February or the end of August; anyway there was nothing special about the way they went around. The shops in the High Street had windows decorated with lights and Father Christmases and wrapped-up packages and mince pies and a big notice saying ONLY SEVEN MORE SHOPPING DAYS TO CHRISTMAS on which the number of days before the twenty-fifth was changed every evening . . . it was very exciting.

  And Grimble's mother went out with a big shopping bag – and came back with a cabbage, and one and a half pounds of cod fillets. I don't want to be unkind about cod fillets. They are perfectly all right but they just do not make you tingle all over. Anyway they didn't make Grimble tingle all over.

  Grimble had a friend called David Sebastian Waghorn whose mother had said, "We are going to have cold turkey on Boxing Day." That is just about the same as saying, "On Christmas Day, we are going to have hot roast turkey with stuffing and gravy and sausages and bacon and roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts."He waited anxiously for Mrs Grimble to give some small hint like that. The evening before she had said, "We haven't got a cat," and Mrs Grimble said, "Oh dear nor we have, don't forget to leave her a saucer of milk."

  Grimble watched his parents carefully for any sign that they might have remembered why he was going to be on holiday and when, and what sort of treats he was going to get if he was going to get treats. He worked hard giving them wellmannered hints because it was terribly important to him that Christmas would be, well . . . complete.

  One evening he dropped a lot of pine needles on the carpet . . . but as no one noticed or said anything and Grimble was very tidy, he got a dustpan and brush and swept them up again a couple of days later.

  Also he tried to hum "Good King Wenceslaus" . . . mm mmmmmmmm mm mmmmmm m but he did not hum very well and his father thinking it was "God Save The Queen," stood up and when Grimble had finished humming his father turned off the television set and went to bed.

  So he practised humming some more. David Sebastian Waghorn had a joke about humming. "Do you know why humming birds hum? Because they don't know the words." Grimble thought David Sebastian Waghorn was a very funny boy.

  The day before, Mr Grimble had come into the house with a large square parcel and Grimble, knowing that it was not polite to be openly curious, had gone into the kitchen and watched his father take the parcel into the study through the slightly open door. It looked as if it might be a bicycle taken to pieces or a large box kite or possibly a new kind of cooker.

  That evening his father said, "Come into the study and see what I've got in my parcel. It's a footstool, I gave it to me . . ." and Grimble had clenched his teeth and said, "Now you can lie back in your chair and don't even have to bend your legs." His father was delighted that Grimble had got the point of the footstool so quickly and showed him where Iquique was on the globe of the world . . . it was about halfway down South America on the left-hand side.

  "Do you expect to get anything else for Christmas . . . except for my presents . . ." he asked his father in an offhand way. "A lot of weather," said his father who had just found Birmingham on the globe.

  That night when Grimble was in bed he started to think about Christmas very seriously. Christmas was a holiday and a time for eating interesting food and giving presents and receiving presents – someone had told him that it was more blessed to do one than the other, but he kept forgetting which.Now the reason why children expected their parents to do things for them at Christmas was because parents are better organized than children and parents have more money than children.

  In Grimble's case this was only partly true. His parents were not nearly as well organized as he; they kept forgetting to get up in the morning and sometimes forgot to go to bed for days on end and they never knew what time it was.

  But the old Grimbles did have more money than he . . . or he hoped they did, because Grimble only had 19p and an Irish 5p piece. He lay in bed practicising his humming and wondering whether, if one was really well organized, as he was – satchel packed; homework done; toothpaste squeezed out on
to toothbrush; tie tied in a knot and opened out into a big loop so that it would go over his head; shoelaces done up so that he could step into his shoes and wriggle them about till the heels gave way . . . anyway, if someone were really well organized, it should not be very difficult for him to make money . . . and if he had money then he could arrange the whole family Christmas celebrations.

  One evening Grimble had listened to a television programme about money in which a man had said that the important thing was to find something that everyone needed. That way, you had a ready market for whatever you were going to sell . . . for instance the man explained: "It is a better thing to go from house to house selling socks, which everyone wears, than suspenders – which are rubber straps that go round your leg below the knee and keep the socks up. Hardly anyone wears suspenders," said the man.

  Grimble had never even heard of suspenders. "Also," said the man, "you have to spend some of your money on getting people interested in your wares – this is called advertising."

  Grimble was very impressed and wrote a small note to remind himself: to sell successfully you have to find something everyone wants, and advertise it.

  It was quite clear to Grimble that if a man wants to earn money by selling things, he would have to buy them first; the simple problem that Grimble had was what could he buy for 19p that he might be able to sell for a lot of money – because a turkey and a Christmas pudding and presents and everything would cost pounds. One of the masters at school had told them about an old Greek who was lying in a bathtub when an apple fell on his head and he shouted, "Eureka, I've got it!" and invented gold, or something like that. Grimble lay in his bed thinking hard waiting to shout, "Eureka, I've got it!" but he fell asleep.

  In the morning he went to the shop on the corner and as it was empty he looked carefully around for something that everyone needed that cost 19p or less. There were rolls of flypaper and some suntan cream and washing soap and tins of sardines and lemonade crystals. These were all dusty, which is a bad sign. Suddenly he saw a loaf of bread and a great idea occurred to him: everyone needed bread; if he went around selling bread slice by slice to people so that they wouldn't have to go to shops he could become very rich. And then he thought most people already have bread, but if I sold toast . . . not only sold it but took it to people just when they wanted it. When they were sitting at the breakfast table with butter on the knife and a marmalade jar in front of them . . . the grimble home toast delivery service. proprietor grimble. "Eureka, I've got it!" he shouted and the old lady came out from the back of the shop and said, "If you've got it you'd better pay for it. That is the only way you can do things in a shop."

  Grimble was much too excited to explain, so he paid the lady 6p which was the price of that loaf of bread and went to school.

  He didn't learn much at school that day because he was working out his toast business. The loaf of bread was in his locker; it was a cut loaf called thin sliced which seemed a silly name to give a loaf and it contained eighteen pieces of bread wrapped in greaseproof paper. (If the business really succeeds he thought, I might go into the greaseproof-paper business.)

  Every morning nearly everyone eats toast and, as toast is quite boring to make, Grimble decided that if he made toast at seven every morning and brought it to people all hot and ready they would definitely pay 21/2p for three slices, which meant six times three slices in a loaf which is 15p back for 6p.

  When he came home from school he sat down at his desk and got a large piece of paper and cut it in half and then cut each half into half again and then halved the four pieces of paper so that he had eight small pieces and on each one he wrote the message the grimble home toast delivery service. proprietor grimble founded 1974. On the other side he wrote: Toast delivered, daily, tidily, un-burnedly, punctually. 21/2p for three slices. Our representative will call tomorrow morning with a free slice and awaits the pleasure of your order.

  He took the eight pieces of paper and put four of them through the letter boxes of the four houses up the hill from his house and posted the other four through the doors on the downhill side. As he was going back home he decided that as he did not know a great deal about toast he had better go and see Madame Beryl, who was a fat kind friend of his mother's who kept a bakery shop and knew a lot about things like that.

  "Good afternoon," said Grimble, entering the shop. "I would like to have a small discussion with you about bread." "I prefer," said Madame Beryl, "to talk about cake." "I meant to say toast," said Grimble. "I still meant cake," said Madame Beryl. She eased her right foot out of her shoe, which came away with a small sigh of relief, and said, "I would very much like to talk to you about bread and toast but unfortunately I have to go and see a man about a wedding breakfast. Can it wait until after Christmas?"

  "I am afraid," said Grimble, "that after Christmas will be exactly too late." There was a small silence. "I have done a very silly thing," said Madame Beryl. "I baked a cake which had not been ordered and now I don't know what to do with it and the dustbin is full. Do you think you would be very kind and take possession of it?" "Oh, yes, thank you," said Grimble, "if it is really in your way." And Madame Beryl put her foot back into her protesting shoe, got a quite large cake, gave it to Grimble, said, "Oh dear, I must fly," and started moving into the street like a cabin trunk. "About toast," said Grimble following her. "Not toast," puffed Madame Beryl. "Never toast cake. Ice it with icing sugar and egg white," and she waddled onto a bus.

  Grimble found himself alone with a cake and then he thought, actually a cake with icing is a very Christmassy thing to have and tomorrow I shall start up my business and in nine days' time it will be Christmas Eve and even if my parents have forgotten, it's going to be an absolutely complete proper well-organized Christmas.

  2. Home Toast

  Delivery

  The next morning Grimble woke early. He had not slept very well owing to his business problems. His assets, with Christmas Eve eight days away, were one iced cake hidden in a cupboard, 13p in a money box, the Irish 5p piece and a wrapped loaf of which he had reckoned to give away eight slices in the cause of advertising.

  The old Grimbles had a toaster with two slots in it and the idea was that you put in two slices of bread . . . and after a minute and a bit they would pop up, done to a turn.

  What really happened was that after the allotted time the toaster gave a small whirring noise and a click and you had to get a knife or a fork or a spoon and prise out the bread which had got stuck. Looking at the situation calmly, Grimble realized that the toast industry was going to be something of a gamble until he had a full list of cash clients and was able to buy efficient machinery for the production of high-class wares.

  The next morning he got up about seven o'clock, took eight paper napkins and wrote on each of them, "With the compliments of G.H.T.D.S." This meant the Grimble Home Toast Delivery Service; putting the initials was much quicker than writing out the words. He then counted out eight slices of bread, wrapped the remaining slices firmly in the greaseproof paper so that they would stay fresh, and decided to make the toast two slices at a time . . . because, being the first day he would have to stay and talk about money and delivery time. When things got organized he might be able to throw slices of toast straight through the letter boxes . . . provided the people did not have dogs or cats or mice.

  At a quarter past seven he turned on the toaster, and put in two slices and as soon as they were ready he prised them out, wrapped them in the paper napkin and ran out of the house. He started at the two houses just up the hill from his; they were absolutely dark. No lights, nothing. He wondered whether there might be some money to be made out of The Grimble Reliable Morning Alarm Service – but decided that having invested so large a part of his capital in the toast business, he had better concentrate on that.

  He went up to the first house and rang the bell; as nothing happened and the toast was certainly not getting any hotter he rang it again and knocked. After a while the lights in the hous
e went on and a man opened the door.

  "Good morning," said Grimble. "I bring you toast on behalf of the Grimble Home Toast Delivery Service. I expect you received my literature," and he gave the man his best smile and the free slice of toast. The man looked at it with appreciation. It was well-toasted toast. "Oh yes," said the man. "G.H.T.D.S. come in."

  Grimble went into the house and the man said, "Sit down. Good idea this toast delivery. The wife and I would like to join but we don't have breakfast. Can we use it for lunch?"

  "I am afraid," said Grimble, "that as yet I have no lunch toast service, but if I may, I will enter your name and call again when such a service commences."

  He said goodbye and went to the next house. He rang the bell and waited and finally saw a man and a woman through the glass of the front door, the man with a walking stick and the woman, making little twitty whimpering noises, saying, "Harold don't be so angry it might be the postman with a new 4p delivery that comes earlier than the 3p one . . . or possibly it is last week's 31/2p letters come at last.'

  "It's Grimble," shouted Grimble through the letter box. "the Grimble Toast Delivery Service."

  "Bless my boots," said the man. "It's the breakfast toast," and he opened the door and asked Grimble to come in. "Good morning, sir," said Grimble. "I do hope you received my letter." The man said yes he had. "Here," said Grimble, "is your free slice of toast with the compliments of the directors of the company.'

  The man unwrapped it and ate it quietly.

  "Excellent," he said. "First class piece of toast. Congratulate you!" "Thank you, sir," said Grimble. "I'll take the service," said the man. "Three slices a day, eight o'clock prompt. Pay on Friday, start the day after Christmas. We're going away to shoot salmon in Scotland this afternoon. Nice to have met you."

  "After Christmas," Grimble muttered. "That's not going to help buy a turkey" – and he rushed home to make the next two slices, wondering why he was not feeling as happy as he had been earlier that morning. His parents were still asleep, the toaster was ready and in a very short time he had the new supply of toast and was at the house downhill from his own. As he went up the path a man opened the door and said, "Aha come on in, been waiting for my toast," and he took his free sample slice from Grimble's hand, buttered it, put marmalade on it and said, "There." Then he said, "There," two more times. Grimble wondered "where" but decided that customers were always right, said nothing and waited. "Good," said the man. "A bit too much butter but that may have been my fault. I'll take the service, every day . . . but I would prefer brown toast. All right?"