Uncle Shawn and Bill and the Not One Tiny Bit Lovey-Dovey Moon Adventure Read online

  Table of Contents

  Section One

  Section Two

  Section Three

  Section Four

  Section Five

  Section Six

  Section Seven

  Section Eight

  Section Nine

  Section Ten

  Section Eleven

  Section Twelve

  Section Thirteen

  Section Fourteen

  Section Fifteen

  Section Sixteen

  Section Seventeen

  Section Eighteen

  Section Nineteen

  Section Twenty

  Section Twenty-One

  Section Twenty-Two

  Section Twenty-Three

  Section Twenty-Four

  Section Twenty-Five

  Section Twenty-Six

  Section Twenty-Seven

  Section Twenty-Eight

  Section Twenty-Nine

  Section Thirty

  Section Thirty-One

  Section Thirty-Two

  Section Thirty-Three

  Section Thirty-Four

  Section Thirty-Five

  Section Thirty-Six

  Section Thirty-Seven

  Section Thirty-Eight

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  For V.D.B.

  SECTION ONE

  In which everyone is having a lovely time at the beach. And all our friends are definitely not going to have a death-defying, nose-defending adventure really soon.

  Badger Bill was lying on the sand at Shoogeldy Bay, which is just below Uncle Shawn’s llama farm. He was wiggling his toes in the warm air and letting his fur dry in the last of the day’s sunshine. He had been swimming all afternoon, and it was nearly time to go home and have some jam sandwiches and custard and hot chocolate and maybe a few pickled slugs and a banana. Swimming made Bill a bit hungry.

  Uncle Shawn had spent the whole spring teaching Bill how to swim and now our badger pal loved running into the waves as fast as his short (but handsome) legs could take him and then swimming about like a plump (but surprisingly graceful) furry fish. As long as he knew that his toes could touch the bottom if he wanted them to, Bill could now happily do the Badger Back Stroke and the Stripey Nose Crawl really quite fast.

  Carlos and Guinevere Llama were preparing to take their final dip of the day. Carlos and Guinevere didn’t know that llamas don’t usually swim, so they enjoyed it immensely and could even Llama Paddle all the way out to the sunbathing rock in the middle of the bay. They had also discovered that the beach is a really good place to be if you want to annoy someone, and Carlos always wanted to annoy Guinevere and Guinevere always wanted to annoy Carlos. They loved splashing cold water into each other’s ears and putting seaweed into each other’s ice creams. Guinevere liked dunking Carlos’ towel in rock pools and Carlos liked burying Guinevere’s flippers in the sand so that she couldn’t find them.

  “Carlos, where are my flippers, you seaweed-smelling llama?”

  “It is not my fault if you have lost your swimming flippers, you wet and foolish fool.”

  “Then it will not be my fault if I put sand in your swimming trunks and bite your knees.”

  If you had listened while Guinevere gripped Carlos’ knee between her teeth, you would have heard her mumble, “I do love the beach.” Except it would have sounded a bit like, “My moo muv ma meeff.” This was because she had her mouth full of llama hair, even though everyone knows you shouldn’t speak with your mouth full of anything, never mind llama.

  And if you had listened while Carlos kicked Guinevere’s leg, you would have heard him mutter, “Why are you saying moo, you silly and annoying llama? Just because you swim like a cow wearing skis, it doesn’t mean you have to sound like one.” And then he breathed in a big lump of fine sea air and added, “Yes, yes, it is very fine at the beach. It is almost as wonderful as walking up the Alpamayo mountain in Peru. Ouch, ouch, ouch.” (That last part was because Guinevere was biting him again.)

  Ginalolobrigida Llama was being much more serene and beautiful than her two friends. You cannot be beautiful while you are biting and fighting, so she was lying on her llama beach towel under an umbrella and reading her favourite magazine, Lives of Luscious Llamas, and sipping some of the lemonade Bill always made for everyone. She consulted her horoscope, which said, “Soon you will be surrounded by love. You will meet an exciting stranger and perhaps you will find you are wearing jewels.” Ginalolobrigida sighed at the thought of how much make-up she could buy with those jewels and how generous she would be after that, maybe buying toys for orphan llamas, because making tiny llamas smile would feel nice.

  Meanwhile Brian Llama was sitting under a tree near the beach, because he didn’t want to get sunburnt. He was also wearing a thick pullover, in case the weather turned cold suddenly. Brian was worrying that a flying fish might leap out of the sea and slap him on the nose, or that a lobster might walk up and nip him on the nose. He had no safety equipment to defend against fish or lobsters. In fact, Brian was so certain that something terrible was going to happen to his nose that he had wrapped it up in a great big cone of newspaper. This meant he looked like a giant, furry ice-cream cone – woolly-legs-and-pullover flavoured – that someone had dropped on its side under a tree.

  SECTION TWO

  In which – oh no! – something strange begins to happen. I hope it’s not the start of something horrifying… This section also contains quite a good joke about polar bears which any sensible person, or badger, might like.

  Out on the sunbathing rock, Uncle Shawn was sitting in his favourite, baggiest swimming shorts, which were patched with bits of old bedspread and some squares from the kitchen curtains. His wiggly hair and his wiggly ears were hiding under the floppiest sun hat he could find in his big box of hats. He was slapping and slathering and slooshing suncream all over his long arms and lanky legs, as if he was a very tall scone that needed buttering.

  Once he had buttered his bony, bumpy knees, Uncle Shawn waved with both hands at Bill and sang, very loudly,

  “Bill, you have such shiny feet

  They are clean and very neat.

  All your fur, both black and white,

  Shines like fishes in the light.

  In pyjamas soon you’ll rest

  Folded like a tidy vest.”

  This usually would have made Bill get up and dance his Happy Badger Dance in the sand: spoof, spoff, spaff. But Bill didn’t seem to be paying any attention. So Uncle Shawn decided to wave both his long arms and his long legs and yell the latest joke he had learned.

  “Bill! Bill! Do you know the joke about the father polar bear and the mother polar bear and the little polar bear? They were all sitting on an iceberg in the frozen ocean. Mother Bear said, ‘Oooh, I have a tale to tell.’ And then Father Bear said, ‘Aaaah, I have a tale to tell.’ And then Little Polar Bear said, ‘Oooww, my tail’s told.’” Uncle Shawn waited for Bill to chuckle, or at least smile.

  But again, Bill didn’t even turn his head, never mind roll about on the sand with his paws in the air laughing. This was strange…

  “Ah, well,” sighed Uncle Shawn. “Perhaps my joke was not so very good after all.” As he said this, he could see Bill jumping to his feet and then hurrying off out of sight. “I hope it was not such a terrible joke that it would make Bill run away. Hmmm… Maybe the ice-cream van has arrived and he is running to get us ice cream. No, I would have heard the van playing ‘This Badger’s Gotta Move’ on its chimes if it were here… Hmmm…” He s
at on the rock and thought and his tummy felt a little bit cloudy.

  Still, nothing about Uncle Shawn stayed cloudy for long. He supposed that by the time he got back to the farmhouse, Bill would be there and would probably have already made cocoa and everything would be happy. The llamas would be rocking in their llama hammocks, or snuggling into their beds of straw and maybe even snoring Peruvian snores, which were called ronquidos. The twins, Sam and Sky, would be in their pyjamas. Everyone who was still awake would say goodnight to everyone else and then Uncle Shawn and Bill would watch the sunset together in their matching rocking chairs, set out on the west side of the farmhouse.

  Uncle Shawn grinned. “Yes, that will be the perfect way to end the day. I shall make a big wish so that exactly that will happen.” Then he smiled again, because Uncle Shawn’s wishes always came true.

  At least they usually did…

  Then Uncle Shawn dived into the sea exactly the way that a nimble otter wouldn’t, and splashed about like a scarf in a washing machine – which was just what he wanted to do.

  SECTION THREE

  In which we don’t find out why Bill didn’t pay any attention to Uncle Shawn’s nice joke. We need to do something else first. We need to find out why Sam and Sky weren’t enjoying the lovely day at the beach.

  Sam and Sky, the twins who lived with Uncle Shawn, Bill and the llamas at the farmhouse, hadn’t gone to the beach that day, even though they usually really enjoyed it.

  Sam had once thought that he might grow up to be a pirate captain, so he loved being near the sea. Sky liked the beach because she could manage to be a bit less invisible there. Before she came to the farmhouse, Sky had wished and wished and wished to turn invisible, so that she could escape from a terrible institution run by an even more terrible man called Sylvester Pearlyclaws. Her wish came true and she had been invisible ever since – even though she didn’t want to be any more. At the beach, though, people could see her footprints, and they could watch her making shapes in the sea when she swam and sometimes, just for a moment, her whole outline would be painted all over in sparkly seawater.

  Today, however, the twins were curled up together on the big sofa in the farmhouse sitting room and crying. They were both so covered in rolling and falling tears that anyone would have thought the sofa had sprung a leak.

  “Oh Sam, I’m making you upset. I’m sorry,” snuffled Sky.

  “No, no, I was just thinking about onions and vinegar. I’m not crying,” sniffled Sam.

  “I don’t want to be invisible any more,” said Sky. “People bump into me as if I don’t exist and when I say, ‘Hello, let’s play,’ people think I’m a ghost. And I can’t queue for things in the sweet shop because NOBODY KNOWS I AM STANDING THERE AND WOULD REALLY REALLY REALLY LIKE A BAG OF LEMON SHERBET! OOOOOOWWW!”

  “Well, you wished yourself invisible, Sky. Why don’t you wish yourself back?”

  “I CAN’T! I’ve tried and tried until my head hurts for weeks. Even wishing as hard as I can, all I get is a ticklish feeling in one foot. I’m going to be stuck like this until I’m an invisible old lady AND I STILL WON’T BE ABLE TO QUEUE UP FOR SHERBET!”

  There was a big dish of teacakes by the sofa, but the twins were so sad that they couldn’t eat the tiniest crumb, not so much as a mousenibble.

  It almost seemed that whatever made wishes come true had stopped working.

  SECTION FOUR

  In which we find out why Bill paid no attention to Uncle Shawn’s joke. Were Bill’s knees so hot that he had to run very fast to cool them? Or had he caught sight of something dangerous and pink…?

  Badger Bill hadn’t paid attention to Uncle Shawn and his quite-good joke because, over a sand dune, Bill had caught sight of a twirling pink parasol. And then he caught sight of a bright pink bonnet, covered in frills and flounces – and a brighter pink frock, covered in bows and ribbons. And inside all that pinkness? There was a badger – the most beautiful lady badger that Bill had ever seen.

  (We won’t mention that the only lady badgers Bill had really known up until then were his Aunt Magnolia, who had a wonderful moustache, his teacher Miss Bristlethistle, who was a bit scary, and his mum, who was called Flossie and wasn’t scary at all.)

  Bill stood up and watched this amazing badger skip over the sand, as if she weighed no more than the tiniest feather from the most romantic bird in the world.

  “Oh, my goodness,” thought Bill. “She must be a princess, or maybe a long-distance bus driver.”

  Bill thought being a long-distance bus driver was one of the most wonderful and daring jobs a badger could have – almost as wonderful as being an explorer. Bill wanted to be the greatest badger explorer in the history of badgers going shopping and getting lost and then accidentally discovering entire new continents and volcanoes. He wanted to be the first badger to speak to a Milky Moon Moth. (Milky Moon Moths are very hard to see and extremely shy – even though they are extremely big – and almost no one has ever spoken to one.)

  Meanwhile, Bill’s heart was turning cartwheels in his chest and his knees were tingly. Anyone else who felt like that might have rushed to a doctor in case they were very ill, but Bill knew he wasn’t poorly – he was in love.

  As Bill watched, the lovely lady badger bent down and offered a seagull some crumbs from a dainty sandwich she held in her delicate paw.

  “Oh, that proves she’s kind as well as the loveliest badger on Earth. Oh, oh, oh, I must go and talk to her before she skips back to whatever marvellous place she came from.”

  Bill brushed the sand from his fur but was too in love to pick up his backpack or find his water bottle with the picture of Claudia Badger on it. (Claudia Badger had invented edible shoes for emergencies. They were terrible shoes, but made delicious pies if you filled them with filling instead of feet.) None of that mattered – he just needed to speak to HER. He didn’t know HER name yet, but it was bound to be something delicate and wonderful, like Mimsy, or Twinklebiscuits.

  Bill’s pulse was thumping like an elephant trying to tap dance. He closed his eyes so that he could calm down.

  In fact, no one was looking at the mysterious badger just then. Carlos and Guinevere were far too busy fighting. Ginalolobrigida was reading. Brian’s newspaper nose cone had blown off and he was chasing it – very carefully. And there was a big sand dune between Uncle Shawn and possibly the most gorgeous badger in the world. None of them saw the new badger, and it would have been so useful if they had. It would have been so very useful if they had seen her swimming mysteriously out to the sunbathing rock the night before and then whispering to someone and then swimming secretly back to shore again, punching harmless tiny fish as she went. It would have been even more useful if they had seen her reading a dirty, crumpled piece of paper the day before that – a piece of paper that looked very like a list of really terrible things that a terrible badger might want to do… But no one had seen any of that, not even one tiny suspicious bit of it.

  SECTION FIVE

  In which we learn that not all badgers are nice. In fact some badgers are about as horrible as they can get without standing on a ladder to make them seem bigger so they’ll have more room for wickedness.

  The badger in the pink bonnet was called Miranda, not Twinklebiscuits. And, if anyone had been able to watch her at that moment, they would have seen that she wasn’t as wonderful as Bill thought.

  Miranda had been feeding crumbs from her sandwich to a seagull, but only so that she could get the poor bird near enough to try to punch it!

  While the surprised seagull dodged away, Miranda ate the whole sandwich in one mouthful, stuffing it into her face with both paws. Then she burped a big burp and kicked sand at a young squirrel called Don who was lying on his beach towel reading a comic and doing no one any harm.

  Then Miranda Badger laughed with her sandwich-filled mouth wide open. With her bonnet shading her cruel eyes, she looked like a gift-wrapped cement mixer.

  Don started to cry and this made Miran
da laugh louder.

  Only then Miranda heard the pit-pat-pot-pet of badger paws running behind her. It was Bill, who had finally got up his courage and was rushing towards her. As soon as she heard Bill, Miranda tiptoed up to Don and patted his head – hard – as if she was being kind. Really, she was whispering, “If you don’t stop crying, I will follow you home and tonight when you are sleeping I will shave off all your tail fur so in the morning your family will think you’re a rat! Now run away and look as if you’re happy.”

  Don did his best to smile and ran as fast as he could all the way home.

  Then Miranda started to walk very gracefully and to laugh like a tinkling stream in an enchanted forest. She waved her dirty paw at Don and called, “Goodbye, dear small squirrel. My, how I love all of nature and everything. La-la-la.” Then her walking turned into more of a jog, or perhaps a run.

  All this made Bill so happy he would have sung, if he hadn’t been so out of breath. He was darting along behind Miranda over the hot, slithery sand, his paws a blur. He could see her lovely bonnet, her swaying skirts and her dainty paws, which were now skipping like crazy.

  Just when Bill was wishing he could see his beloved’s beautiful badgery face, Miranda twirled round and smiled the kind of bashful and charming smile that would cast a spell on anyone, even if they had just seen her trying to punch a seagull – and of course Bill hadn’t.

  Miranda’s feet moved like lightning. Before Bill could yell, “Stop, stop, I am in love!” Miranda skipped off like an oiled weasel racing down a slide on its tummy, and she was soon heading into the woods and out of sight.

  “Oh, nonononono NO!” howled Bill. He was really out of breath now and had a stitch. “I bet she’s in a hurry because she has to tickle a rainbow, or stand in the sunset so that it looks even more fantastic. OOHH!”