Read Eating Things on Sticks for Free Online Page B

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
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜I was not,’ Morning Glory insisted. ‘I was just tootling .’
    â€˜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”.’
    â€˜Turned into a bit of a crawler, you mean?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜And then?’
    â€˜And then, of course, this meddling police officer found himself doing nothing more than staring at her nightie.’
    â€˜It is a day dress,’ Morning Glory insisted.
    â€˜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.’
    I wondered if it was the moment to ask Morning Glory if this was the very same officer who used to lend her his rusty squad car to fetch chips. But she was standing with a bright pink face, scuffing a few bits of dried seagull poo into a heap on the road with her luminous satin slippers.
    I turned back to Uncle Tristram and asked instead, ‘So are we going to her father’s or not?’
    â€˜Yes, yes,’ said Uncle Tristram. Just to show off how safe a driver he could be himself, he took an age to do a simple three-point turn – making great play of craning his head in all directions and checking his mirrors ten times in a row.
    Then