Billy and the Minpins Read online

  ‘You can never get down from this tree,’ Don Mini said. ‘I’ve told you that. If you’re stupid enough to try, you’ll be eaten up in five seconds.’

  ‘Is it the Spittler?’ Little Billy asked. ‘Is it the Terrible Bloodsuckling Toothpluckling Stonechuckling Spittler?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of any Spittler,’ Don Mini said. ‘The one waiting for you down there is the fearsome Gruncher, the Red-Hot Smoke-Belching Gruncher. He grunches up everything in the forest. That’s why we have to live up here. He has grunched up hundreds of humans and literally millions of Minpins. What makes him so dangerous is his amazing and magical nose. His nose can smell out a human or a Minpin or any other animal from ten miles away. Then he gallops towards it at terrific speed. He can never see anything in front of him because of all the smoke he belches out from his nose and mouth, but that doesn’t bother him. His nose tells him exactly where to go.’

  ‘Why does he blow out all that smoke?’ Little Billy asked.

  ‘Because he’s got a red-hot fire in his belly,’ Don Mini said. ‘The Gruncher likes his meat roasted, and the fire roasts it as it goes down.’

  ‘Look,’ said Little Billy, ‘Gruncher or no Gruncher, I’ve simply got to get home somehow. I’ll have to make a dash for it.’

  ‘Don’t try it, I beg you,’ Don Mini said. ‘The Gruncher knows you’re up here. He’s down there now waiting for you. Climb down a bit lower with me and I’ll show you.’

  We Know All the Birds

  Don Mini walked easily, straight down the side of the great tree-trunk. Little Billy climbed carefully after him, from one branch to the next.

  Soon, below them, they began to smell the revolting hot stench of the Gruncher’s breath, and the orange-red smoke was now billowing up into the lower branches in thick clouds.

  ‘What does he look like?’ Little Billy whispered.

  ‘Nobody knows,’ Don Mini answered. ‘He makes so much steam and smoke you can never see him. If you are behind him you can sometimes catch a glimpse of little bits of him because all the smoke is being blown out in the front. Some Minpins say they have seen his back legs, huge and black and very hairy, shaped like lions’ legs but ten times as big. And it is rumoured that his head is like an enormous crocodile’s head, with rows and rows and rows of sharp pointed teeth. But nobody really knows. Mind you, he must have gigantic nose-holes to be able to blow out all that smoke.’

  They stayed still, listening, and they could hear the Gruncher pawing the ground at the base of the tree with his giant hooves and snorting with greed.

  ‘He smells you,’ Don Mini said. ‘He knows you aren’t far away. He’ll wait forever to get you now. He adores humans and he doesn’t catch them very often. Humans are like strawberries and cream to him. You see, for months he’s been living on a diet of Minpins, and a thousand Minpins is not even a snack for him. The brute is ravenous.’

  Little Billy and Don Mini climbed back up the tree to where all the other Minpins were gathered. They seemed glad to see Little Billy come safely back. ‘Stay up here with us,’ they said to him. ‘We’ll look after you.’

  Just then, a lovely blue swallow alighted on a branch not far away, and Little Billy saw a mother Minpin and her two children climb quite casually on to the swallow’s back. Then the swallow took off and flew away with its passengers seated comfortably between its wings.

  ‘Good Heavens!’ cried Little Billy. ‘Is that a special tame bird?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Don Mini said. ‘We know all the birds. The birds are our friends. We use them all the time for going places. That lady is taking her children to see their grandmother who lives in another forest about fifty miles away. They’ll be there in less than an hour.’

  ‘Can you talk to them?’ Little Billy asked. ‘To the birds, I mean?’

  ‘Of course we can talk to them,’ Don Mini said. ‘We can summon them any time we want if we have to go somewhere. How else would we get our supplies of food up here? The Red-Hot Gruncher makes it impossible for us to walk anywhere in the wood.’

  ‘Do the birds like doing this for you?’ Little Billy asked.

  ‘They’ll do anything for us,’ Don Mini said. ‘They love us and we love them. We store food for them inside the trees so they don’t starve when the icy-cold winter comes along.’

  Suddenly all sorts of birds were alighting on the branches of the tree around where Little Billy was sitting, and the Minpins were climbing on to their backs in droves. Most of the Minpins had small sacks slung over their shoulders.

  ‘At this time of day they go off to collect food,’ Don Mini said. ‘All the grown-ups have to help in getting food for the community. The population of each tree looks after itself. Our large trees are like your cities and towns, and the small trees are like your villages.’

  It was an astonishing sight. Every kind of wonderful bird was flying in and perching on the branches of the great tree, and as soon as one landed a Minpin would climb on to its back and off they would go.

  There were blackbirds and thrushes and skylarks and ravens and starlings and jays and magpies and many kinds of small finches. It was all very fast and well-organized. Each bird seemed to know exactly which Minpin it was collecting, and each Minpin knew exactly which bird he or she had ordered for the morning.

  ‘The birds are our cars,’ Don Mini said to Little Billy. ‘They are much nicer and they never crash.’

  Soon all the grown-up Minpins, excepting Don Mini, had flown away on birds and only the tiny children were left. Then the robins came in and the children began climbing on to their backs and going for short flights.

  Don Mini said to Little Billy, ‘The children all practise learning to fly on robins. Robins are sensible and careful birds and they love the little ones.’

  Little Billy simply stood there staring. He could hardly believe what he was seeing.

  Call Up the Swan

  While the children were practising on the robins, Little Billy said to Don Mini, ‘Is there no way in the world to get rid of that disgusting Red-Hot Smoke-Belching Gruncher down below?’

  ‘The only time a Gruncher dies,’ Don Mini said, ‘is if he falls into deep water. The water puts out the fire inside him and then he’s dead. The fire to a Gruncher is like your heart is to you. Stop your heart and you die at once. Put out the fire and the Gruncher dies in five seconds. That’s the only way to kill a Gruncher.’

  ‘Now hang on a minute,’ Little Billy said. ‘Is there by any chance a pond or something around here?’

  ‘There’s a big lake on the far side of the forest,’ Don Mini said. ‘But who’s going to entice the Gruncher into that? Not us. And certainly not you. He’d be on you before you got within ten yards of him.’

  ‘But you did say the Gruncher can’t see in front of him because of all the clouds of smoke he blows,’ Little Billy said.

  ‘Quite true,’ Don Mini said. ‘But how is that going to help us? I don’t think the Gruncher is ever going to fall into the lake. He never goes out of the forest.’

  ‘I think I know how to make him fall in,’ Little Billy said.

  ‘What I want,’ Little Billy went on, ‘is a bird that is big enough to carry me.’

  Don Mini thought about this for a while, then he said, ‘You are a very small boy and because of that I think a swan could carry you quite easily.’

  ‘Call up a swan,’ Little Billy said. Suddenly there was a new authority in his voice.

  ‘But … but I hope you’re not going to do anything dangerous,’ Don Mini cried.

  ‘Listen carefully,’ Little Billy said, ‘because you must tell the swan exactly what he has to do. With me on his back he must fly down to the Gruncher. The Gruncher will smell me and know that I am very close. But he won’t see me through all the steam and the smoke. He’ll go mad trying to get at me. The swan will tantalize him by flying back and forth right in front of him. Is that possible?’

  ‘Quite possible,’ Don Mini said, ‘except that you might easily