on id="u7318479e-b186-58c2-8f26-5aa937227b29">
The Gargling Gorilla
and other stories
Margaret Mahy
illustrated by Tony Ross
Contents
Rosa Sungrove, the well-known animal lover, was going out for the evening, so she needed someone brave and kind to feed all her pets. Tim, who lived next door, agreed to help her.
“Are you brave?” she asked him.
“Very brave,” said Tim. “I’m not afraid of spiders or sharks or alligators. But I’m very kind, too.”
“Good,” said Rosa. “You sound just the one to look after my pets. Now, let me explain. The cat likes cat-snacks and the cat-snack pack is in the tall cupboard. The tall cupboard is beside the fridge, and the fridge is over there, on the other side of the sink. Right?”
“Right!” said Tim.
“However, when the vulture sees the cat being fed, he often gets a little peckish, and I don’t want a peckish vulture around the place. The vulture-chunks are inside the fridge (over there on the other side of the sink). They are in the blue bowl. Right?”
“Right,” said Tim, cheerfully.
The vulture looked down from its perch and clacked its beak. Tim smiled at it. He was not afraid of vultures.
“The wolfhound is outside under the camellia,” Rosa went on. “When she smells the vulture-chunks, she gets very hungry. Her doggie-crunch is in the little cupboard this side of the sink, but her dish is on the bottom shelf of the tea-trolley beside the fridge over there on the other side of the sink. She must have her dish or she gets nasty. It’s not her fault. She just does. Right?”
“Right!” Tim agreed.
“When the giant chinchilla rabbit hears the rattle of the doggie-crunch being poured into the dog bowl, it often thinks it’s hearing rabbit-nibble being poured into the rabbit dish, and comes rushing inside. Chinchilla rabbits are mostly gentle, but this is a giant chinchilla rabbit,” Rosa warned Tim. “If you don’t feed her she will try to bounce on you, and she is dangerously heavy. The rabbit dish is the red one on the top shelf of the tea-trolley, there beside the fridge on the other side of the sink. And the actual rabbit-nibbles are in the large economy-sized purple packet on top of the fridge.
“And when you have finished feeding the animals you might like a little refreshment yourself. The tea is in the yellow jar at the end of the shelf on the other side of the sink. The bread tin is next to the yellow jar. The butter and cheese are in the fridge, and the biscuits are in the green box. Good luck! And now, I must go.”
But at the door, Rosa stopped. “Oh, by the way,” she called, “the gorilla is in the cupboard under the sink.”
The gorilla! In the cupboard, under the sink!
Of course, most people know that gorillas are gentle and retiring, but Tim was unaware of this. The very bravest people can be scared of at least one thing, and Tim, though brave about absolutely everything else, happened to be scared of gorillas.
“When I took on this job,” he thought to himself, “I did not know a gorilla was involved.”
At that moment something in the cupboard under the sink began to gurgle, or perhaps to gargle. However, a gargling gorilla is just as scary as a gurgling one.
Tim made up his mind to keep away from the cupboard under the sink in case the gorilla put out a hairy hand and grabbed him as he was going by. But it wasn’t easy, for the sink, and the cupboard under the sink, were in the very middle of the kitchen.
First, Tim fed the cat. He took the fire tongs and tied the tong handles to the handles of the broom and the mop. Then he reached over and, after several goes, opened the tall cupboard beside the fridge, sucking out the cat-snack pack with the vacuum cleaner.
Then, he lightly spiked the cat-snack pack with a fork tied to the handle of the thing you use to wash high-up windows, twisting it over so cleverly that the cat’s dish was soon filled with delicious cat-snacks. The cat didn’t seem to be at all frightened of the gorilla. It ate its dinner right in front of the cupboard under the sink.
When the vulture saw the cat was getting something, it stretched its neck greedily and flapped its wings. Tim did not want to walk past the cupboard under the sink in case the gorilla put out a hairy hand and grabbed an ankle. On the other hand, the poor vulture was certainly rather hungry. It began staring at the cat with a sinister expression. Being kind, Tim just had to feed it. First, he used the tongs to reach past the sink to open the fridge. Then he took the thing you use to wash high-up windows (which still had the fork tied to the end of it) and he reached into the blue bowl inside the fridge. He spiked the vulture-chunks one by one, passing them (on the end of the fork) up to the vulture on its perch. The vulture gobbled them down, clacking its beak with happiness in between the gobbles.
The smell of the vulture-chunks brought the wolfhound in from the verandah. Her doggie-crunch was easy to reach, but when Tim tried to give it to her in a china soup tureen instead of her dish, she turned nasty and started snapping her teeth. She couldn’t help it. Her dish was on the bottom shelf of the tea-trolley beside the fridge on the other side of the cupboard under the sink with the gorilla gurgling (or gargling) inside it.
The wolfhound saw Tim was hesitating. She put her giant paws on his shoulders and began slapping his face with a tongue like a wet carpet. It showed him just how sharp her teeth were: they were very sharp!