SECTION ELEVEN

In which all our chums spend a sleepless night for different reasons. And Uncle Shawn thinks up almost the whole of a very good plan.

For the whole of Friday night – which he spent in the draughty fighting cage – Badger Bill couldn’t sleep. He was scared and feeling sick. He was also wondering if he could thump even one of the big bullying dogs even a tiny bit before they ate him all up. And he said to himself, “Oh, please, I need a friend. I do. Maybe one with a helicopter. Or some soup. Or a bed. Or just a sleeping bag. Or a big woolly jumper.”

And for the whole of Friday night – which they spent in the draughty wet field being rained on – the llamas couldn’t sleep. They were scared and feeling sick.

Brian Llama whispered, “I wonder if the people who wear me as shoes will get sore feet because of the shoes being made of very unhappy llama leather…” And then he felt even sicker.

They were all very unhappy llamas. And Guinevere Llama said, “I hope everyone who uses us as wallets gets sore fingers.”

And Carlos Llama said, “I hope everyone’s belts are too tight and give them indigestion.”

But that didn’t cheer them up.

And for the whole of Friday night Uncle Shawn didn’t sleep. He was busy. He drew all kinds of plans in chalk on the walls of the caravan where he was staying. The walls of the caravan were very dirty, so the chalk was very easy to see. And he whistled to himself and hummed and sometimes sang, because that helped him think. “Oh, the llamas and the badger must be freeee … and happeeee…” He wasn’t very good at songs.

He also wasn’t very good at making plans – they made his head spin. But he kept on pondering and mulling and puzzling anyway.

And sometimes he would chat with the mother mole he had taken out of his pocket and who was eating a dish of slugs and listening to him. While she listened, she mainly shook her head at him and told him to start all over again. Which he did.

On the outside, Uncle Shawn’s caravan was painted many kinds of colours, as if he couldn’t decide which was his favourite and so wanted to have them all. It was a very nice wooden caravan and was drawn by Paul the horse – who didn’t mind pulling it, because it was quite light and he was really strong.

And before the sun came up, Uncle Shawn went outside and woke Paul and whispered to him, “Here we go, then.”

And Paul grumbled, “Already? Last time you woke me up you didn’t even have a plan…”

“Well…” mumbled Uncle Shawn.

“Do you have a plan?” Paul didn’t want to pull the caravan all the way over to the McGloones’ for no reason and was always a bit grumpy when he’d just woken up.

“I have a sort of plan…” explained Uncle Shawn, pulling his fingers through his hair and making it wake up and wriggle as if it was having several ideas of its own. “Almost the whole of a plan. Or more than half. A good plan. An excellent probably plan … it’s nearly perfect … I mean, I wouldn’t want to give the game away.” And he gave a little shuffle with his feet and winked.

Paul couldn’t see the wink, because it was still dark, and he thought this was all too disorganized. “This is all too disorganized,” he said, and he huffed with his whiskery, horsey lips, the way that horses do when they think you might not have a clue what you’re doing.

Uncle Shawn patted Paul to make him feel better. “Yes, but if we don’t set off now, we won’t be in time and if we’re not in time we’ll be too late … and if we get there soon enough and we are in time and my plan works and then the bits I haven’t quite tidied up yet also work and nothing goes wrong and we don’t make any mistakes and the wind is from the south-west and we cross our fingers … then we could do amazing things.”

“I don’t have any fingers. I’m a horse,” said Paul. He wasn’t always the jolliest horse to take on a life-saving adventure.

“Well, that’s true,” said Uncle Shawn. “Could you cross your eyes instead?”

“Only if you want me to pull the caravan in the wrong direction.” Paul huffed again. “I shall just wish us luck. Because I feel we shall need it. A lot.”

Uncle Shawn jigged about a little because he was excited and in a hurry. “Well, luck would be very handy. Thank you. And maybe we won’t be taken prisoner, or locked up and then covered in gravy and nibbled, or put into pies. And even if we are – it will have been an adventure. I’ve always wanted an adventure. An adventure with friends.”

And so Paul shook his head and huffed some more, but then started to pull the caravan very quietly. He had already told Uncle Shawn to wrap his hooves in pieces of blanket and old pullovers, and so he didn’t clip and he didn’t clop. And the wheels of the caravan had been oiled so that they didn’t squeak and didn’t squook. And Uncle Shawn walked along beside Paul with his mahogany shoes around his neck so that he would be extra stealthy, because that was part of the plan. And he thought to himself that it was excellent to be going on an adventure and to have (most of) a plan for amazing things.