George's Marvellous Medicine Read online

  ‘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.

  ‘I’m still going!’ came the old screechy voice from up above. ‘Give me another dose, my boy, and let’s go through the roof!’

  ‘No, Grandma, no!’ George called back. ‘You’re busting up the whole house!’

  ‘To heck with the house!’ she shouted. ‘I want some fresh air! I haven’t been outside for twenty years!’

  ‘By golly, she is going through the roof!’ George told himself. He ran downstairs. He rushed out of the back door into the yard. It would be simply awful, he thought, if she bashed up the roof as well. His father would be furious. And he, George, would get the blame. He had made the medicine. He had given her too much. ‘Don’t come through the roof, Grandma,’ he prayed. ‘Please don’t.’

  The Brown Hen

  George stood in the farmyard looking up at the roof. The old farmhouse had a fine roof of pale red tiles and tall chimneys.

  There was no sign of Grandma. There was only a song-thrush sitting on one of the chimneypots, singing a song. The old wurzel’s got stuck in the attic, George thought. Thank goodness for that.

  Suddenly a tile came clattering down from the roof and fell into the yard. The song-thrush took off fast and flew away.

  Then another tile came down.

  Then half a dozen more.

  And then, very slowly, like some weird monster rising up from the deep, Grandma’s head came through the roof…

  Then her scrawny neck…

  And the tops of her shoulders…

  ‘How’m I doing, boy!’ she shouted. ‘How’s that for a bash up?’

  ‘Don’t you think you’d better stop now, Grandma?’ George called out…

  ‘I have stopped!’ she answered. ‘I feel terrific!

  Didn’t I tell you I had magic powers! Didn’t I warn you I had wizardry in the tips of my fingers! But you wouldn’t listen to me, would you? You wouldn’t listen to your old Grandma!’

  ‘You didn’t do it, Grandma,’ George shouted back to her. ‘I did it! I made you a new medicine!’

  ‘A new medicine? You? What rubbish!’ she yelled.

  ‘I did! I did!’ George shouted.

  ‘You’re lying as usual!’ Grandma yelled. ‘You’re always lying!’

  ‘I’m not lying, Grandma. I swear I’m not.’

  The wrinkled old face high up on the roof stared down suspiciously at George. ‘Are you telling me you actually made a new medic
ine all by yourself?’ she shouted.

  ‘Yes, Grandma, all by myself.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she answered. ‘But I’m very comfortable up here. Fetch me a cup of tea.’

  A brown hen was pecking about in the yard close to where George was standing. The hen gave him an idea. Quickly, he uncorked the medicine bottle and poured some of the brown stuff into the spoon. ‘Watch this, Grandma!’ he shouted. He crouched down, holding out the spoon to the hen.

  ‘Chicken,’ he said. ‘Chick-chick-chicken. Come here. Have some of this.’

  Chickens are stupid birds, and very greedy. They think everything is food. This one thought the spoon was full of corn. It hopped over. It put its head on one side and looked at the spoon. ‘Come on, chicken,’ George said. ‘Good chicken. Chick-chick-chick.’

  The brown hen stretched out its neck towards the spoon and went peck. It got a beakful of medicine.

  The effect was electric.

  ‘Oweee!’ shrieked the hen and it shot straight up into the air like a rocket. It went as high as the house.

  Then down it came again into the yard, splosh. And there it sat with its feathers all sticking straight out from its body. There was a look of amazement on its silly face. George stood watching it. Grandma up on the roof was watching it, too.

  The hen got to its feet. It was rather shaky. It was making funny gurgling noises in its throat. Its beak was opening and shutting. It seemed like a pretty sick hen.

  ‘You’ve done it in, you stupid boy!’ Grandma shouted. ‘That hen’s going to die! Your father’ll be after you now! He’ll give you socks and serve you right!’

  All of a sudden, black smoke started pouring out of the hen’s beak.

  ‘It’s on fire!’ Grandma yelled. ‘The hen’s on fire!’

  George ran to the water-trough to get a bucket of water.

  ‘That hen’ll be roasted and ready for eating any moment!’ Grandma shouted.

  George sloshed the bucket of water over the hen. There was a sizzling sound and the smoke went away.

  ‘Old hen’s laid its last egg!’ Grandma shouted. ‘Hens don’t do any laying after they’ve been on fire!’

  Now that the fire was out, the hen seemed better. It stood up properly. It flapped its wings. Then it crouched down low to the ground, as though getting ready to jump. It did jump. It jumped high in the air and turned a complete somersault, then landed back on its feet.

  ‘It’s a circus hen!’ Grandma shouted from the rooftop. ‘It’s a flipping acrobat!’

  Now the hen began to grow.

  George had been waiting for this to happen. ‘It’s growing!’ he yelled. ‘It’s growing, Grandma! Look, it’s growing!’

  Bigger and bigger… taller and taller it grew. Soon the hen was four or five times its normal size.

  ‘Can you see it, Grandma?!’ George shouted.

  ‘I can see it, boy!’ the old girl shouted back. ‘I’m watching it!’

  George was hopping about from one foot to the other with excitement, pointing at the enormous hen and shouting, ‘It’s had the magic medicine, Grandma, and it’s growing just like you did!’

  But there was a difference between the way the hen was growing and the way Grandma grew. When Grandma grew taller and taller, she got

  thinner and thinner. The hen didn’t. It stayed nice and plump all along.

  Soon it was taller than George, but it didn’t stop there. It went right on growing until it was about as big as a horse. Then it stopped.

  ‘Doesn’t it look marvellous, Grandma!’ George shouted.

  ‘It’s not as tall as me!’ Grandma sang out. ‘Compared with me, that hen is titchy small! I am the tallest of them all!’

  The Pig, the Bullocks, the

  Sheep, the Pony and the

  Nanny-goat

  At that moment, George’s mother came back from shopping in the village. She drove her car into the yard and got out. She was carrying a bottle of milk in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other.

  The first thing she saw was the gigantic brown hen towering over little George. She dropped the bottle of milk.

  Then Grandma started shouting at her from the rooftop, and when she looked up and saw Grandma’s head sticking up through the tiles, she dropped the bag of groceries.

  ‘How about that then, eh, Mary?’ Grandma shouted. ‘I’ll bet you’ve never seen a hen as big as that! That’s George’s giant hen, that is!’

  ‘But… but… but…’ stammered George’s mother.

  ‘It’s George’s magic medicine!’ Grandma shouted. ‘We’ve both of us had it, the hen and I!’

  ‘But how in the world did you get up on the roof?’ cried the mother.

  ‘I didn’t!’ cackled the old woman. ‘My feet are still standing on the floor in the living-room!’

  This was too much for George’s mother to understand. She just goggled and gaped. She looked as though she was going to faint.

  A second later, George’s father appeared. His name was Mr Killy Kranky. Mr Kranky was a small man with bandy legs and a huge head. He was a kind father to George, but he was not an easy person to live with because even the smallest things got him all worked up and excited. The hen standing in the yard was certainly not a small thing, and when Mr Kranky saw it he started jumping about as though something was burning his feet. ‘Great heavens!’ he cried, waving his arms. ‘What’s this? What’s happened? Where did it come from? It’s a giant hen! Who did it?’

  ‘I did,’ George said.

  ‘Look at me!’ Grandma shouted from the rooftop. ‘Never mind about the hen! What about me?’

  Mr Kranky looked up and saw Grandma. ‘Shut up, Grandma,’ he said. It didn’t seem to surprise him that the old girl was sticking up through the roof. It was the hen that excited him. He had never seen anything like it. But then who had?

  ‘It’s fantastic!’ Mr Kranky shouted, dancing round and round. ‘It’s colossal! It’s gigantic! It’s tremendous! It’s a miracle! How did you do it, George?’

  George started telling his father about the magic medicine. While he was doing this, the big brown hen sat down in the middle of the yard and went cluck-duck-cluck… cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck.

  Everyone stared at it.

  When it stood up again, there was a brown egg lying there. The egg was the size of a football.

  ‘That egg would make scrambled eggs for twenty people!’ Mrs Kranky said.

  ‘George!’ Mr Kranky shouted. ‘How much of this medicine have you got?’

  ‘Lots,’ George said. ‘There’s a big saucepanful in the kitchen, and this bottle here’s nearly full.’

  ‘Come with me!’ Mr Kranky yelled, grabbing George by the arm. ‘Bring the medicine! For years and years I’ve been trying to breed bigger and bigger animals. Bigger bulls for beef. Bigger pigs for pork. Bigger sheep for mutton…’

  They went to the pigsty first.

  George gave a spoonful of medicine to the pig.

  The pig blew smoke from its nose and jumped about all over the place. Then it grew and grew.

  In the end, it looked like this…

  They went to the herd of fine black bullocks that Mr Kranky was trying to fatten for the market.

  George gave each of them some medicine, and this is what happened…

  Then the sheep…

  He gave some to his grey pony, Jack Frost…

  And finally, just for fun, he gave some to Alma, the nanny-goat…

  A Crane for Grandma

  Grandma, from high up on the rooftop, could see everything that was going on and she didn’t like what she saw. She wanted to be the centre of attention and nobody was taking the slightest notice of her. George and Mr Kranky were running round and getting excited about the enormous animals. Mrs Kranky was washing up in the kitchen, and Grandma was all alone on the rooftop.

  ‘Hey you!’ she yelled. ‘George! Get me a cup of tea this minute, you idle little beast!’

  ‘Don’t listen to
the old goat,’ Mr Kranky said.

  ‘She’s stuck where she is and a good thing, too.’

  ‘But we can’t leave her up there, Dad,’ George said. ‘What if it rains?’

  ‘George!’ Grandma yelled. ‘Oh, you horrible little boy! You disgusting little worm! Fetch me a cup of tea at once and a slice of currant cake!’

  ‘We’ll have to get her out, Dad,’ George said.

  ‘She won’t give us any peace if we don’t.’

  Mrs Kranky came outside and she agreed with George. ‘She’s my own mother,’ she said.

  ‘She’s a pain in the neck,’ Mr Kranky said.

  ‘I don’t care,’ Mrs Kranky said. ‘I’m not leaving my own mother sticking up through the roof for the rest of her life.’

  So in the end, Mr Kranky telephoned the Crane Company and asked them to send their biggest crane out to the house at once.

  The crane arrived one hour later. It was on wheels and there were two men inside it. The crane men climbed up on to the roof and put ropes under Grandma’s arms. Then she was lifted right up through the roof…

  In a way, the medicine had done Grandma good. It had not made her any less grumpy or bad-tempered, but it seemed to have cured all her aches and pains, and she was suddenly as frisky as a ferret. As soon as the crane had lowered her to the ground, she ran over to George’s huge pony, Jack Frost, and jumped on to his back. This ancient old hag, who was now as tall as a house, then galloped about the farm on the gigantic pony, jumping over trees and sheds and shouting, ‘Out of my way! Clear the decks! Stand back, all you miserable midgets or I’ll trample you to death!’ and other silly things like that.

  But because Grandma was now much too tall to get back into the house, she had to sleep that night in the hay-barn with the mice and the rats.

  Mr Kranky’s Great Idea

  The next day, George’s father came down to breakfast in a state of greater excitement than ever. ‘I’ve been awake all night thinking about it!’ he cried.