However, after five minutes, Malcolm could feel he was very much still awake. He opened his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” said Ludwig.
“I can’t sleep,” said Malcolm.
“You can’t sleep?” said Mabel.
“No,” he said. “I’m normally good at sleeping. And when I was a cat, I was extra-good at it.” Zsa-Zsa looked smug about this. “But I think I’ve been doing too much sleeping since I became an animal. I don’t feel tired at all.”
“Hmm …” said Ludwig. “We’ll just have to sing you a lullaby!”
“Really?”
“Yes. It’s the one we’ve sung to all our children. Close your eyes again, please …”
Malcolm did as he was told. And then he heard Ludwig singing, in a low voice, to a lullaby-like tune, these words:
Go to sleep, little piggy
Dream of mud, little piggy
And apples so manky …
Then Mabel joined in, about an octave higher:
Go to sleep, little piggy
Curl up like your tail, little piggy
Be as still as a piggy banky …
Then all the animals joined in. The sheep were actually harmonising.
Sleep, sleep, sleep, little piggy
Don’t worry about snoring, little piggy
Because the noise you make all the time
Is a bit like snoring, anyway …
Then, just Ludwig again, with a big operatic flourish:
It’s snorting!!
Which is like snoring!!
Like snooooorrrrri—
“No, sorry,” said Malcolm, opening his eyes, and cutting off Ludwig’s final long note. “I don’t think that’s going to work.”
“Oh,” said Ludwig. “It always does normally.”
Malcolm looked out on to the field. Behind the horses, he could see that the sun was almost completely down now. Only a few red rays shone through the trees.
“I think … we haven’t got time to wait until I’m sleepy. If the three-days thing is right, I’ve only got two nights left …”
Ludwig took this in. Mabel and Trotsky and Zsa-Zsa and the Dollys all looked stumped. Then Ludwig turned to the field, and shouted:
“Snowflake! Snowflake!”
Seconds later, the ground was shaking – and seconds after that, the white horse that Malcolm had only distantly glimpsed had come over to the fence. From his position, near to the ground, the horse looked like a giant fairy-tale horse, one that might at any moment grow a horn, or wings.
“Neigh!” said Snowflake. Malcolm remembered that he hadn’t been a horse, so couldn’t speak their language.
“Neigh neigh neigh,” said Ludwig. “Whinny whinny long hard blow out through the nostrils shaking my head at the same time whinny whinny neigh.”
“Neigh-whinny!” said Snowflake.
“Blue and yellow?” said Ludwig, in his own language.
“Yeah,” said Snowflake. “You’ve just asked me what colour hat my mum wears on a Tuesday.”
“Have I?” said Ludwig. “Hmm. I may need to brush up on my horse.”
“It’s OK. Luckily, I speak pig.”
Ludwig looked a little put out by this, but carried on in his own language all the same.
“Fine. How would you like to be ridden by a pig?” said Ludwig.
“What, you? You’d break my back!”
“That’s kind of you to say,” said Ludwig, who seemed only too pleased when anyone made reference to his weight. “But no.” Malcolm felt Ludwig’s snout on his back, a type of pointing. “This little fellow. Name of Malcolm.”
“Malcolm? Sounds like amiddle-aged bank manager with three kids who plays squash at the weekends.”
“I know. I offered him Fatty Bum-Bum, but …”
“Ludwig,” said Malcolm. “Please. We don’t have long.”
Ludwig sighed, but nodded. “He needs to get to the city. Quickly,” he said.
Snowflake looked down. His long nose and his big brown eyes came very close to Malcolm’s face. “Why’s that, little chap?”
“That’s where my mum and dad are,” said Malcolm.
“A city farm?”
“No, they’re not pigs. They’re humans.”
Snowflake shook his head. His mane waved in the air. “Is this something to do with K-Pax?” he said.
“Yes!” said Malcolm.
“OK,” said Snowflake. “Hold on!”
Malcolm nodded, although he wasn’t sure what to hold on to. And also, because he didn’t have any fingers, how. All this came into his mind with a rush as Snowflake’s long muzzle burrowed underneath him, and lifted him high into the air.
“OK,” said Snowflake, “now stop holding on!”
“I’m not holding on! And I don’t know how or what to hold on to anywaaaaaaaaarrggggghhh …!!”
He said this as Snowflake threw his (Snowflake’s, that is) head high in the air, causing his (Malcolm’s, that is) body to slide down his long neck, eventually ending up – with a backwards head-over-heels36 tumble – sitting, with his tiny legs astride the huge horse’s body, in the saddle.37
“Right!” said Snowflake. “Now hold on again.”
“No, but hold on to what? And with whaaaaaaa aarrggggghhh …!!” screamed Malcolm, as Snowflake reared up in the air, bolted to the edge of the field, jumped over the fence, and started off at a canter on the path out of the farm.