Free Grimble at Christmas by Quentin Blake Page A

. . . 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