Barry was very excited on the way to the shooting range. He imagined it would be something like the ones he’d seen in various James Bond films, when James Bond practised his skills: a long indoor hall with, at the far end, a row of one-dimensional dummies with targets for faces. And at the other end would be somewhere you could shoot from, with a selection of handguns – Walther PPK? Colt M1911? – and some earmuffs for the noise.
He was so excited, in fact, that he said, “Are we there yet?” twice on the way. He had time to say this as it took a lot longer to get there than Barry had expected. Instead of the shooting range being, for example, in a secret chamber under the house, he and Lord Rader-Wellorff and all the other children had got into another stretch limo – this time a stretch Range Rover – and Peevish started driving them out into the countryside.
It wasn’t all that comfortable a journey. His bucket of chips rattled against his leg all the way. Sea Anemone was still crying and all the others were looking at Barry as if they’d really prefer it if he wasn’t there.
But Barry didn’t care. He couldn’t wait to start aiming at those dummies. Bang! Take that, Goldfinger! Bang! In your face, strange Spanish man with the blond wig from Skyfall! He even started thinking about some of the clever one-liners he might say after shooting them. “Suck on that, dummy!” Ha ha, he thought, after he came up with that.
By the time they arrived, it was starting to get dark. Peevish got out of the car and went over to a small shed. He walked in and flicked a switch. Lights flooded the area they were standing in – which turned out to be not a long hall with dummies with target faces at one end, but a long muddy field. Peevish came out of the shed, holding a bundle of greeny-brown anoraks and flat caps.
“Put those on, children!” said Lord Rader-Wellorff, who, Barry noticed, was already wearing similar gear. The children all did as they were told. Then Peevish returned, pushing a wheelbarrow stacked up with what appeared to be a number of enormously long black trumpets. He started handing them out to the children one by one.
“What are these?” said Barry, when it was his turn.
“Guns, of course,” said Lord Rader-Wellorff. “This model is our own personal family shotgun: the Rader-Wellorff Flintlock-Mechanism Blunderbuss. Bessie for short. Goes orff with quite a bang, though, so watch out!!”
Peevish handed Barry one of the Bessies. Barry immediately fell over. It was literally the heaviest thing he’d ever held.
“Ha ha ha ha!!!” he heard one of the other children – it might have been Jeremy or Teremy or even Meremy – say as he struggled to get up. “Stupid Barrington’s too weak to hold his own gun!!”
“I’m not! I just… Peevish, can you help me…”
“Certainly, Your Weakliness.”
“…slipped.”
Barry managed, with help from Peevish, to stand back up. He put the gun to one side of him, leant on it, and tried to look relaxed and jaunty.
“May I just… Your Idiocy…?” said Peevish. Barry frowned. Peevish adjusted Barry’s flat cap, which had ended up backwards on his head, so that it faced forward again.
“Thank you, Peevish,” said Barry, wondering whether he should give him a chip from his bucket as a tip. But before he could do so, Lord Rader-Wellorff bellowed:
“Right!! Line up, everyone!”
The children – all of whom, apart from Barry, seemed to understand how to carry the Bessies so as not to fall over – lined up. Barry tried to make it look all right and perfectly normal that he was using his gun, basically, as a walking stick.
“Right, Peevish,” shouted Lord Rader-Wellorff. “What’s the target today?”
Peevish went back into the shed and came out again, holding not a dummy, not a cut-out figure of a man with a scar and a monocle who may have been in charge of a criminal organisation trying to take over the world, but a big silver platter with a big silver dome on it. He walked in front of the line of children, and said: “Voilà!” – which Barry thought was French for “Here you are” – and took the big silver dome off the big silver platter.
Underneath was a large grey-and-white bird with beautiful yellow eyes and a black pointy beak. It looked terrified, shaking with fear. It flapped its wings, trying to fly away, but Barry could see that its legs were held to the silver platter by a series of silver chains.
“Perfect. The grouse are so big and flappy and… shootable this time of year, eh, Peevish?”
“Whatever you say, sir.”
“All right. You know the drill.”
Peevish put the silver dome back on top of the bird and walked about a hundred metres away from the line of children.
“Hoist!” shouted Lord Rader-Wellorff. All the children heaved their Bessies up on to the top of their chests, pointing forward. With a supreme effort, Barry did so too; though he thought his arms were going to break.
“Aim!” shouted Lord Rader-Wellorff. All the children moved their guns towards Peevish. Barry, every muscle straining, did so too.
“Now! Remember! First shot goes to the new boy!”
“What?” said Barry, who had been very much hoping to pretend to shoot when the time came.
“Special treat. Special privilege.”
“DA-AD!!” said Jeremy, Teremy, Meremy – oh, you know, all of them.
“Stop complaining. It was the same for you when you arrived. If he misses, one of you can bag the bird! So. Are you ready, young Barrington?”
“Um…”
“Splendid! Let her go, Peevish!”
With an extra flourish, the butler took off the silver dome again and expertly released the chains. The grouse flapped uncertainly, rising to just above Peevish’s head. It looked like it had been held captive so long, it didn’t understand where it should go.
“Come on, Barrington!” shouted Lord Rader-Wellorff.
“Go on, you stupid idiot!”
“Shoot, you berk!”
“What are you doing? Kill it!!”
All this from the other children.
Barry didn’t know what to do. He really, really, really didn’t want to shoot a defenceless bird. So he said: “I don’t want to!!”