Free The Grunts In Trouble by Philip Ardagh

at a Time
    I t was with only a slight tummy ache that Sunny set Clip and Clop off again along the track after lunch. It was late afternoon when they left the forest, the trees as close together at the fringes as in its very heart.
    Because of the nature of the map – it only showing landmarks to guide them by, leaving out everything else in between – it was impossible to gauge time and distances. On the map, for example, the distance between a blue house they’d had to turn right at anda tunnel they’d had to pass through was the same (on paper) as the distance between the windmill and the three-arched bridge. But on the ground, it took hours longer to get from house to tunnel.
    Once out of the forest and following the road to the right (which was east), Sunny was on the lookout for what looked on the map like a large column with a statue on top. That should be easy enough to spot, he thought. And easy enough as it was – for reasons that will soon become clear – it looked rather different from the picture. There was something like a lay-by – a parking place and resting spot – at the side of the road, where the side of the hill behind had been carved out into a semicircle, with a low stone wall running along the base. In the middle of this area was the impressive column, which was about twenty metres tall.
    Sunny led the donkeys into the lay-by, and stood and looked up at the statue on top of the column. It was of a man with side-whiskers and a big top hat. He appeared to be holding a giant bunch of wilted flowers in his right hand. Unlike the column, statue and surrounding wall – which were all obviously made of stone – the wilting flower-like-thingummies were made of some kind of metal. Only they weren’t supposed to be flowers, of course. This was a statue of one of the early Lord Biggs, proudly clutching a handful of his railings, and they had wilted ten years and a week after they’d been made.
    Sunny wasn’t familiar with how the Bigg family had made their fortune, so might not have known this was a statue of one of the Biggs if it weren’t for three things.
    Firstly, the statue of this particular LordBigg looked extraordinarily like the Lord Bigg he’d come face-to-face with in Sack’s potting shed back at Bigg Manor (though it didn’t have little stone sticking-plaster crosses all over its stone face).
    Secondly, there was a big plaque screwed into the base of the column, which read: “LORD BIGG: He Made Our Cliff Tops Safe”. (Well, what it actually said was: “LORD BIGG: He Mad Our li ps Safe”, because some of the letters had worn away.)
    And thirdly, dotted all around the semicircle of the lay-by were handwritten placards that read: “BIGG AIN’T BEST”. One placard was even tied round the statue’s neck with old blue nylon rope. The statue’s stone hat was also partially covered by an orange-and-white traffic cone, which had been plonked on top of it at a jaunty angle.

    “Mr Smalls,” said Sunny to himself, a slight smile appearing on his lips. He couldn’t help having a sneaking admiration for the man (in much the same way that Larry Smalls had had a sneaking admiration for Lord Bigg when he mistakenly thought that he was the ex-boxer Barney “The Bruiser” Brown).
    “What?” said Mr Grunt, tumbling out of the caravan. When he picked himself up, he found himself looking up at the statue with the traffic cone headgear. “Who’s the wizard?” he asked.
    “Lord Bigg,” said Sunny. “Not the latest Lord Bigg. Not the one I met, but another one.”
    Mr Grunt looked at him blankly. He had no idea what the boy was on about. “We’ll stop here for the night,” he announced. “Tomorrow we collect Fingers.”
    “Fingers?” asked Sunny.
    “Fingers.” Mr Grunt nodded.
    “Fingers?” asked Sunny. Again.
    “The elephant,” said Mr Grunt.
    “That’s a funny name for an elephant,” said Sunny.
    “Know many elephants, do you?” asked Mr Grunt, pleased with himself for