Next thing Malcolm knew, Trotsky had jumped over the wall of the sty and landed in the mud, looking very pleased with himself.
“Malcolm!” he said, speaking cat, but very much in his excited dog voice. “Malcolm Malcolm Malcolm Malcolm!! Do youzzz remember me? Do youzzz remember me?”
“Yes,” said Malcolm.
“What about us?”
“Yes! Us!”
“Us. Us three!”
Malcolm looked up, knowing what he was going to see: the heads of the three Dollys, poking over the sty wall.
“What do you mean, cat?” said Ludwig. “When you say this pig is a boy?”
“Well …” said Zsa-Zsa.
“Hold on,” said Malcolm. “How come you can speak to each other? Do you speak pig as well?”
“No,” said Mabel. “Ludwig speaks cat. He speaks all the ’malanguages.”
“The what?”
“The ’malanguages. Short for animalanguages.”
“Yes,” said Ludwig, grandly. “I do.” He then said, “I do” in cat, tortoise, sheep and dog. All of them sounded to Malcolm just like the words “I do”, said over and over again. Except when he said it in dog, which Malcolm didn’t understand because he hadn’t been one. It sounded a bit like he was saying “sausages”, but Malcolm thought it was best not to say that, as he thought it wasn’t a word Ludwig would like much.
“Anyway,” said Zsa-Zsa, “the point is—”
“And us!”
“Yes, we’re here too!”
“Yes! Or at least, on our way!”
Malcolm looked round. It was Benny and Bjornita’s voices, but he couldn’t see them. He could hardly hear them.
“Don’t worry,” said Zsa-Zsa, “they’re halfway across the field. They’ll get here eventually. So. Point is – well, you explain, Malcolm.”
So Malcolm explained the whole thing to Ludwig and Mabel: the situation with K-Pax, his transformation into all the animals he’d been so far, the fact that he had been given three days – with two remaining – to find a way of getting back to being human, and the possibly unnecessary information that during his time as a sheep he had been convinced he was about to be made into chops when in fact he was only getting sheared.
“Hmm …” said Ludwig. “I have never seen K-Pax. But I too have heard stories about this goat.”
“That he turns people into animals?” said Malcolm.
“No,” said Ludwig. “Stranger than that.” He leant in closer to Malcolm, whispering. “That like a human … like, indeed, Gavin the human …”
“Yes?” whispered Malcolm.
“He has a beard!”
Malcolm nodded. “Yes. Well. He does. But—”
“Oh my goodness! It is true!”
“No, but—”
“And a moustache?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.”
“Look, never mind the facial hair. Can you talk to K-Pax? See if you can persuade him to undo the spell? He won’t speak to me.”
Ludwig looked for a second slightly embarrassed. “No. I’m afraid goat is the one ’malanguage I’ve never mastered. It’s very tricky. Lot of back-of-the-throat hawing.”
“Right. So. What should we do?” said Malcolm.
“It’s an unusual situation, certainly. It requires all of my great wisdom.”
“Thank heaven then that you are a pig of great wisdom,” said Mabel.
Ludwig turned, and began walking up a series of piled-up logs on to the top of the pigs’ sleeping area, a small hutch in the middle of the sty. The rest of the animals waited and watched, with bated breath. Ludwig reached the flat surface of the hutch. He stopped. He sat down. He surveyed them all, puffed out his chest, and said:
“Bring me … a manky apple!!”
“Will you …” said Mabel, “… use the manky apple to cure the boy of his pigginess?”
“No!” said Ludwig.
“Will you …” said Bjornita, “… use the manky apple to convince K-Pax to change the spell?”
“No!” said Ludwig.
“Will you …” said Dolly 1.
“Yes, will you …” said Dolly 2.
“I say, will you …” said Dolly 3.
“Look,” said Ludwig, “I’m hungry. I can’t think straight on an empty stomach. Bring me the stupid apple. And make it manky!!”
Trotsky jumped up, rooted around in the trough, brought out an apple34 in his mouth, bounded up to the roof of the hutch, and dropped the apple in front of Ludwig. Who proceeded to eat it, slowly, and with a big “I’m thinking” look on his face.
“Excuse me!” said Malcolm, while this was going on. “I don’t know what the best thing to do is. But I think if I can just go home … if I can just get to my mum and dad … they’ll know what to do.”
Over to the west, the sun was beginning to set behind a small wood.
His second day was running out.
At this point, Malcolm felt like he might cry, but he didn’t want to cry in front of all the animals. Luckily, he didn’t, because pigs don’t have tear ducts. So he just said, his piglet voice breaking a little: “Yes. I’m sure they will.”
All the other animals looked on with concern. Apart from Ludwig, who while Malcolm had been talking had just been snuffling loudly around the manky apple. It was now finished, although a bit of manky core was still stuck to his snout.
“Right,” said Ludwig, looking up. “To the horses!”