many more in front. The road was following a tall silver fence with a second, lower fence behind it. Otherwise all I could see were fields and trees.
Stop and start, stop and start. We didn’t seem to be going anywhere and we were taking an awful long time getting there. I peeked out again, just in time to read a notice on a wooden board beside the road. PLEASE PUT YOUR RADIO ANTENNAS DOWN, it said. Put your antennas down? Where was the road leading? Under a low bridge?
The Land Rover stopped again. I didn’t dare look out, but I heard voices.
“Have you got any pets in the car?” a woman asked.
“No.” That was the driver.
“Here you are . . .”
“Thank you.”
So we weren’t carrying any pets. That was really nice to know. But what had that got to do with anything? Where were we? I was almost suffocating. We were still crawling along and the sun was hotter than ever. By now I’d decided to clear off at the first opportunity. Getting onto the Land Rover had been a mistake in the first place. I’d just have to leg it cross-country.
About another fifteen minutes passed before I’d had enough. We’d stopped and started more times than I could count and I had no idea where I was. But at least I was out of the abbey. Throwing caution to the wind, I shifted on the roof and slithered out from under the tarpaulin. Without looking around, I dropped to the grass. My ankle screamed at me. Ignoring it, I ran.
Only when I was sixty feet from the Land Rover did I stop and take my bearings.
I was in a field, penned in. A fence ran the whole length, boarded at the top, like something in a prison. The Land Rover was standing in line with about a dozen cars on either side. A picnic area. That was my first thought. But why should anyone want to have a picnic here? It was a rough, uneven field with knotted grass and bumpy hillocks. A few trees twisted upward here and there. The road we’d been following zigzagged all the way from the fence. I looked at the cars. Despite the weather, all the windows were rolled up. The people inside were waving at me and pointing. They didn’t look like they were inviting me to a picnic.
Then a loudspeaker crackled into life and a voice echoed across the grass.
“Get back into the car!” it commanded. “Get back into the car!”
And at the same time I heard a low, angry growling that sent my heart scuttling into my mouth and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up like a pincushion. I turned around. A full-size lion was padding slowly toward me.
I still don’t know how I managed to avoid wetting myself. I couldn’t believe what I’d just done. I’d sat on top of a Land Rover and let it drive me straight into the middle of the safari park. Where else do you go after you’ve visited Woburn Abbey? And then, when we were nicely settled in the lion compound, I’d gotten off. Couldn’t I at least have waited for the giraffes? Giraffes are vegetarians. The lion obviously wasn’t.
It was snarling at me, its mouth open. I could see all the way down the back of its throat. Any minute now I’d be getting an inside view. The lion was huge. You could have made twenty furry hot-water bottles out of its mane alone. But that wasn’t what I was looking at. I was looking at its teeth: horrible, sharp teeth glistening in the sunlight. And the lion was looking at me. Its ugly brown eyes were burning with anger. And hunger.
It can’t be much fun being a lion in a safari park. All day long you sit there watching your lunch drive past in little metal boxes. Canned food. Well, this food had just gotten out of the can.
There was an orange-and-black Jeep tearing across the grass toward me. But by the time it arrived it would be too late. I wanted to run for it, but there was no chance. The other cars were too far away and my legs had turned to jelly ... jelly that hadn’t even set. The lion growled again, about to leap. I was alone, unarmed.
Unarmed . . .
Suddenly I remembered the slingshot that I’d found on the coach. My hand fumbled its way into my pocket and pulled it out. All I needed was a stone, some sort of missile. But there were no stones. Just grass and a few twigs. The lion edged forward. There was nothing in sight. Not even a pebble.
And then I remembered the Woburn Carbuncle.
I’d pulled it out before I even realized what I was doing. It glittered, a brilliant red, about the size of a Ping- Pong ball. The lion’s snarl became a roar. My hand was shaking like a leaf but somehow I managed to load the slingshot, pulled on the rubber band. The lion leaped. I fired.
It was still roaring, its mouth open, as the carbuncle flashed through the air. At the same time I threw myself to one side.
The carbuncle disappeared down the lion’s throat.
I rolled over and looked around. The lion had missed me by about half a yard. It was lying on its back and for a crazy moment I was reminded of Sington in the bus with the chewing gum. The carbuncle had lodged itself in the creature’s windpipe. It was kicking its legs feebly in the air, choking and whimpering like a stray cat. Weakly, I got to my feet.
I just had time to see another three lions come strolling over the hill to find out what was happening when the Jeep arrived. A warden was standing up in the passenger seat, aiming a rifle with an anesthetic dart. He fired and missed. There was a sharp pain in my thigh and the world began to spin.
I blacked out. But before I went, I realized that the warden hadn’t missed after all. He’d been aiming at me all the time! He must have decided that I was more dangerous than the lion.
TRIAL AND ERROR
In the end I was accused of theft, assault, trespassing, criminal damage, and cruelty to animals. The lion survived, by the way. It was on the operating table for six hours to remove the carbuncle. The bad news for the surgeon was that it woke up after five.
I was sent to the Old Bailey to be tried—number three court. I still remember it. It was far smaller than I’d imagined it would be, walled in with wooden panels but with clear glass windows in the roof. It was like standing in a cross between a chapel and a squash court. The jury sat along one side—twelve men just and true. They may have been true but half the time they were only just awake. And in the middle there was a whole cluster of barristers and court officials in their black robes and white bows, looking like the sort of gift-wrapped packages you might take to a funeral.
I was in the dock, of course, with two burly policemen close behind me. Counsel for the prosecution couldn’t even glance at me without grinding his teeth. The judge was too old to have any teeth but looked like he’d have been glad to grind someone else’s. As for my counsel for the defense, he kept on sighing and mopping his face with a handkerchief. He knew a hopeless case when he saw one.
To be honest, I found the whole thing a bit of a trial. Which is to say it was about as interesting as a double period of algebra on a wet afternoon. These legal people seemed to take an hour to say what you and I could manage in a minute. They couldn’t even say good morning without written evidence from the weather office.
Things livened up, though, when the witnesses arrived. First on was the old lady from Woburn Abbey—now in tweed neck brace and matching splints. She described how I’d attacked her and thrown her along the dinner table only somehow she forgot to mention that she’d been the one with the knitting needles.
“What happened after you hit the table?” counsel for the defense asked.
“An old master fell on me.”
“Are you referring to the Marquess of Tavistock?”
“No,” she sniffed. “It was a painting.”
That brought a titter of laughter from the public gallery. The judge banged his gavel and not for the first time I was tempted to shout out,
“No further questions,” defense muttered miserably.
The prosecution called two more security guards and the ranger from the safari park. They all told much the same story. I’d been caught red-handed with the carbuncle. I’d fought my way out. I’d half killed a lion. I’d finally been arrested. I was just grateful they didn’t call the lion.
Then it was the turn of the defense.
