George's Marvellous Medicine Read online

  He found a box of CANARY SEED on the shelf. 'Perhaps it'll make the old bird sing,' he said, and in it went.

  Next, George explored the box with shoe-cleaning materials — brushes and tins and dusters. Well now, he thought, Grandma's medicine is brown, so my medicine must also be brown or she'll smell a rat. The way to colour it, he decided, would be with BROWN SHOE-POLISH. The large tin he chose was labelled DARK TAN. Splendid. He scooped it all out with an old spoon and plopped it into the pan. He would stir it up later.

  On his way back to the kitchen, George saw a bottle of GIN standing on the sideboard. Grandma was very fond of gin. She was allowed to have a small nip of it every evening. Now he would give her a treat. He would pour in the whole bottle. He did.

  Back in the kitchen, George put the huge saucepan on the table and went over to the cupboard that served as a larder. The shelves were bulging with bottles and jars of every sort. He chose the following and emptied them one by one into the saucepan:

  A TIN OF CURRY POWDER A TIN OF MUSTARD POWDER A BOTTLE OF 'EXTRA HOT' CHILLI SAUCE A TIN OF BLACK PEPPERCORNS A BOTTLE OF HORSERADISH SAUCE 'There!' he said aloud. 'That should do it!'

  'George!' came the screechy voice from the next room. 'Who are you talking to in there? What are you up to?'

  'Nothing, Grandma, absolutely nothing,' he called back.

  'Is it time for my medicine yet?'

  'No, Grandma, not for about half an hour.'

  'Well, just see you don't forget it.'

  'I won't, Grandma,' George answered. 'I promise I won't.'

  Animal Pills

  At this point, George suddenly had an extra good wheeze. Although the medicine cupboard in the house was forbidden ground, what about the medicines his father kept on the shelf in the shed next to the henhouse? The animal medicines?

  What about those ?

  Nobody had ever told him he mustn't touch them .

  Let's face it, George said to himself, hair-spray and shaving-cream and shoe-polish are all very well and they will no doubt cause some splendid explosions inside the old geezer, but what the magic mixture now needs is a touch of the real stuff, real pills and real tonics, to give it punch and muscle.

  George picked up the heavy three-quarters full saucepan and carried it out of the back door. He crossed the farmyard and headed straight for the shed alongside the henhouse. He knew his father wouldn't be there. He was out haymaking in one of the meadows.

  George entered the dusty old shed and put the saucepan on the bench. Then he looked up at the medicine shelf. There were five big bottles there. Two were full of pills, two were full of runny stuff and one was full of powder.

  'I'll use them all,' George said. 'Grandma needs them. Boy, does she need them!'

  The first bottle he took down contained an orange-coloured powder. The label said, FOR CHICKENS WITH FOUL PEST, HEN GRIPE, SORE BEAKS, GAMMY LEGS, COCKERELITIS, EGG TROUBLE, BROODINESS OR LOSS OF FEATHERS. MIX ONE SPOONFUL ONLY WITH EACH BUCKET OF FEED.

  'Well,' George said aloud to himself as he tipped in the whole bottleful, 'the old bird won't be losing any feathers after she's had a dose of this.'

  The next bottle he took down had about five hundred gigantic purple pills in it. FOR HORSES WITH HOARSE THROATS, it said on the label. THE HOARSE-THROATED HORSE SHOULD SUCK ONE PILL TWICE A DAY.

  'Grandma may not have a hoarse throat,' George said, 'but she's certainly got a sharp tongue. Maybe they'll cure that instead.' Into the saucepan went the five hundred gigantic purple pills.

  Then there was a bottle of thick yellowish liquid. FOR COWS, BULLS AND BULLOCKS, the label said. WILL CURE COW POX, COW MANGE, CRUMPLED HORNS, BAD BREATH IN BULLS, EARACHE, TOOTHACHE, HEADACHE, HOOFACHE, TAILACHE AND SORE UDDERS.

  'That grumpy old cow in the living-room has every one of those rotten illnesses,' George said. 'She'll need it all.' With a slop and a gurgle, the yellow liquid splashed into the now nearly full saucepan.

  The next bottle contained a brilliant red liquid. SHEEPDIP, it said on the label. FOR SHEEP WITH SHEEPROT AND FOR GETTING RID OF TICKS AND FLEAS. MIX ONE SPOONFUL IN ONE GALLON OF WATER AND SLOSH IT OVER THE SHEEP. CAUTION, DO NOT MAKE THE MIXTURE ANY STRONGER OR THE WOOL WILL FALL OUT AND THE ANIMAL WILL BE NAKED.

  'By gum,' said George, 'how I'd love to walk in and slosh it all over old Grandma and watch the ticks and fleas go jumping off her. But I can't. I mustn't. So she'll have to drink it instead.' He poured the bright red medicine into the saucepan.

  The last bottle on the shelf was full of pale green pills. PIG PILLS, the label announced. FOR PIGS WITH PORK PRICKLES, TENDER TROTTERS, BRISTLE BLIGHT AND SWINE SICKNESS. GIVE ONE PILL PER DAY. IN SEVERE CASES TWO PILLS MAY BE GIVEN, BUT MORE THAN THAT WILL MAKE THE PIG ROCK AND ROLL.

  'Just the stuff, said George, 'for that miserable old pig back there in the house. She'll need a very big dose.' He tipped all the green pills, hundreds and hundreds of them, into the saucepan.

  There was an old stick lying on the bench that had been used for stirring paint. George picked it up and started to stir his marvellous concoction. The mixture was as thick as cream, and as he stirred and stirred, many wonderful colours rose up from the depths and blended together, pinks, blues, greens, yellows and browns.

  George went on stirring until it was all well mixed, but even so there were still hundreds of pills lying on the bottom that hadn't melted. And there was his mother's splendid powder-puff floating on the surface. 'I shall have to boil it all up,' George said. 'One good quick boil on the stove is all it needs.' And with that he staggered back towards the house with the enormous heavy saucepan.

  On the way, he passed the garage, so he went in to see if he could find any other interesting things. He added the following:

  Half a pint of ENGINE OIL — to keep Grandma's engine going smoothly.

  Some ANTI-FREEZE — to keep her radiator from freezing up in winter.

  A handful of GREASE — to grease her creaking joints.

  Then back to the kitchen.

  The Cook-up

  In the kitchen, George put the saucepan on the stove and turned up the gas flame underneath it as high as it would go.

  'George!' came the awful voice from the next room. 'It's time for my medicine!'

  'Not yet, Grandma,' George called back. 'There's still twenty minutes before eleven o'clock.'

  'What mischief are you up to in there now?' Granny screeched. 'I hear noises.'

  George thought it best not to answer this one. He found a long wooden spoon in a kitchen drawer and began stirring hard. The stuff in the pot got hotter and hotter.

  Soon the marvellous mixture began to froth and foam. A rich blue smoke, the colour of peacocks, rose from the surface of the liquid, and a fiery fearsome smell filled the kitchen. It made George choke and splutter. It was a smell unlike any he had smelled before. It was a brutal and bewitching smell, spicy and staggering, fierce and frenzied, full of wizardry and magic. Whenever he got a whiff of it up his nose, firecrackers went off in his skull and electric prickles ran along the backs of his legs. It was wonderful to stand there stirring this amazing mixture and to watch it smoking blue and bubbling and frothing and foaming as though it were alive. At one point, he could have sworn he saw bright sparks flashing in the swirling foam.

  And suddenly, George found himself dancing around the steaming pot, chanting strange words that came into his head out of nowhere:

  'Fiery broth and witch's brew

  Foamy froth and riches blue

  Fume and spume and spoondrift spray

  Fizzle swizzle shout hooray

  Watch it sloshing, swashing, sploshing

  Hear it hissing, squishing, spissing

  Grandma better start to pray.'

  Brown Paint

  George turned off the heat under the saucepan. He must leave plenty of time for it to cool down.

  When all the steam and froth had gone away, he peered into the giant pan to see what colour the great medicine now was. It was a deep and bril
liant blue.

  'It needs more brown in it,' George said. 'It simply must be brown or she'll get suspicious.'

  George ran outside and dashed into his father's toolshed where all the paints were kept. There was a row of cans on the shelf, all colours, black, green, red, pink, white and brown. He reached for the can of brown. The label said simply DARK BROWN GLOSS PAINT ONE QUART. He took a screwdriver and prised off the lid. The can was three-quarters full. He rushed it back to the kitchen. He poured the whole lot into the saucepan. The saucepan was now full to the brim. Very gently, George stirred the paint into the mixture with the long wooden spoon. Ah-ha! It was all turning brown! A lovely rich creamy brown!

  'Where's that medicine of mine, boy?!' came the voice from the living-room. 'You're forgetting me! You're doing it on purpose! I shall tell your mother!'

  'I'm not forgetting you, Grandma,' George called back. 'I'm thinking of you all the time. But there are still ten minutes to go.'

  'You're a nasty little maggot!' the voice screeched back. 'You're a lazy and disobedient little worm, and you're growing too fast.'

  George fetched the bottle of Grandma's real medicine from the sideboard. He took out the cork and tipped it all down the sink. He then filled the bottle with his own magic mixture by dipping a small jug into the saucepan and using it as a pourer. He replaced the cork.

  Had it cooled down enough yet? Not quite. He held the bottle under the cold tap for a couple of minutes. The label came off in the wet but that didn't matter. He dried the bottle with a dishcloth.

  All was now ready!

  This was it!

  The great moment had arrived!

  'Medicine time, Grandma!' he called out.

  'I should hope so, too,' came the grumpy reply.

  The silver tablespoon in which the medicine was always given lay ready on the kitchen sideboard. George picked it up.

  Holding the spoon in one hand and the bottle in the other, he advanced into the living-room.

  Grandma Gets the Medicine

  Grandma sat hunched in her chair by the window. The wicked little eyes followed George closely as he crossed the room towards her.

  'You're late,' she snapped.

  'I don't think I am, Grandma.'

  'Don't interrupt me in the middle of a sentence!' she shouted.

  'But you'd finished your sentence, Grandma.'

  'There you go again!' she cried. 'Always interrupting and arguing. You really are a tiresome little boy. What's the time?'

  'It's exactly eleven o'clock, Grandma.'

  'You're lying as usual. Stop talking so much and give me my medicine. Shake the bottle first. Then pour it into the spoon and make sure it's a whole spoonful.'

  'Are you going to gulp it all down in one go?' George asked her. 'Or will you sip it?'

  'What I do is none of your business,' the old woman said. 'Fill the spoon.'

  As George removed the cork and began very slowly to pour the thick brown stuff into the spoon, he couldn't help thinking back upon all the mad and marvellous things that had gone into the making of this crazy stuff — the shaving soap, the hair remover, the dandruff cure, the automatic washing-machine powder, the flea powder for dogs, the shoe polish, the black pepper, the horseradish sauce and all the rest of them, not to mention the powerful animal pills and powders and liquids . . . and the brown paint.

  'Open your mouth wide, Grandma,' he said, 'and I'll pop it in.'

  The old hag opened her small wrinkled mouth, showing disgusting pale brown teeth.

  'Here we go!' George cried out. 'Swallow it down!' He pushed the spoon well into her mouth and tipped the mixture down her throat. Then he stepped back to watch the result.

  It was worth watching.

  Grandma yelled 'Oweeeee !' and her whole body shot up whoosh into the air. It was exactly as though someone had pushed an electric wire through the underneath of her chair and switched on the current. Up she went like a jack-in-the-box . . . and she didn't come down . . . she stayed there . . .

  suspended in mid air . . . about two feet up . . . still in a sitting position . . . but rigid now . . . frozen . . . quivering . . . the eyes bulging . . . the hair standing straight up on end.

  'Is something wrong, Grandma?' George asked her politely. 'Are you all right?'

  Suspended up there in space, the old girl was beyond speaking.

  The shock that George's marvellous mixture had given her must have been tremendous.

  You'd have thought she'd swallowed a red-hot poker the way she took off from that chair.

  Then down she came again with a plop , back into her seat.

  'Call the fire brigade!' she shouted suddenly. 'My stomach's on fire!'

  'It's just the medicine, Grandma,' George said. 'It's good strong stuff.'

  'Fire!' the old woman yelled. 'Fire in the basement! Get a bucket! Man the hoses! Do something quick!'

  'Cool it, Grandma,' George said. But he got a bit of a shock when he saw the smoke coming out of her mouth and out of her nostrils. Clouds of black smoke were coming out of her nose and blowing around the room.

  'By golly, you really are on fire,' George said.

  'Of course I'm on fire!' she yelled. 'I'll be burned to a crisp! I'll be fried to a frizzle! I'll be boiled like a beetroot!'

  George ran into the kitchen and came back with a jug of water. 'Open your mouth, Grandma!' he cried. He could hardly see her for the smoke, but he managed to pour half a jugful down her throat. A sizzling sound, the kind you get if you hold a hot frying-pan under a cold tap, came up from deep down in Grandma's stomach. The old hag bucked and shied and snorted. She gasped and gurgled. Spouts of water came shooting out of her. And the smoke cleared away.

  'The fire's out,' George announced proudly. 'You'll be all right now, Grandma.'

  'All right ?' she yelled. 'Who's all right ? There's jacky-jumpers in my tummy! There's squigglers in my belly! There's bangers in my bottom!' She began bouncing up and down in the chair. Quite obviously she was not very comfortable.

  'You'll find it's doing you a lot of good, that medicine, Grandma,' George said.

  'Good ?' she screamed. 'Doing me good ? It's killing me!'

  Then she began to bulge.

  She was swelling!

  She was puffing up all over!

  Someone was pumping her up, that's how it looked!

  Was she going to explode?

  Her face was turning from purple to green!

  But wait! She had a puncture somewhere! George could hear the hiss of escaping air. She stopped swelling. She was going down. She was slowly getting thinner again, shrinking back and back slowly to her shrivelly old self.

  'How's things, Grandma?' George said.

  No answer.

  Then a funny thing happened. Grandma's body gave a sudden sharp twist and a sudden sharp jerk and she flipped herself clear out of the chair and landed neatly on her two feet on the carpet.

  'That's terrific, Grandma!' George cried. 'You haven't stood up like that for years! Look at you! You're standing up all on your own and you're not even using a stick!'

  Grandma didn't even hear him. The frozen pop-eyed look was back with her again now. She was miles away in another world.

  Marvellous medicine, George told himself. He found it fascinating to stand there watching what it was doing to the old hag. What next? he wondered.

  He soon found out.

  Suddenly she began to grow.

  It was quite slow at first . . . just a very gradual inching upwards . . . up, up, up . . . inch by inch . . . getting taller and taller . . . about an inch every few seconds . . . and in the beginning George didn't notice it.

  But when she had passed the five foot six mark and was going on up towards being six feet tall, George gave a jump and shouted, 'Hey, Grandma!

  You're growing ! You're going up ! Hang on, Grandma! You'd better stop now or you'll be hitting the ceiling!'

  But Grandma didn't stop.

  It was a truly fantastic sight,
this ancient scrawny old woman getting taller and taller, longer and longer, thinner and thinner, as though she were a piece of elastic being pulled upwards by invisible hands.

  When the top of her head actually touched the ceiling, George thought she was bound to stop.

  But she didn't.

  There was a sort of scrunching noise, and bits of plaster and cement came raining down.

  'Hadn't you better stop now, Grandma?' George said. 'Daddy's just had this whole room repainted.'

  But there was no stopping her now.

  Soon, her head and shoulders had completely disappeared through the ceiling and she was still going.

  George dashed upstairs to his own bedroom and there she was coming up through the floor like a mushroom.

  'Whoopee!' she shouted, finding her voice at last. 'Hallelujah, here I come!'

  'Steady on, Grandma,' George said.

  'With a heigh-nonny-no and up we go!' she shouted. 'Just watch me grow!'

  'This is my room,' George said. 'Look at the mess you're making.'

  'Terrific medicine!' she cried. 'Give me some more!'

  She's dotty as a doughnut, George thought.

  'Come on, boy! Give me some more!' she yelled. 'Dish it out! I'm slowing down!'

  George was still clutching the medicine bottle in one hand and the spoon in the other. Oh well, he thought, why not? He poured out a second dose and popped it into her mouth.

  'Oweee !' she screamed and up she went again. Her feet were still on the floor downstairs in the living-room but her head was moving quickly towards the ceiling of the bedroom.

  'I'm on my way now, boy!' she called down to George. 'Just watch me go!'

  'That's the attic above you, Grandma!' George called out. 'I'd keep out of there! It's full of bugs and bogles!'

  Crash ! The old girl's head went through the ceiling as though it were butter.

  George stood in his bedroom gazing at the shambles. There was a big hole in the floor and another in the ceiling, and sticking up like a post between the two was the middle part of Grandma. Her legs were in the room below, her head in the attic.