‘Pig McKenzie!’ gasped Olive.
Yes, dear reader. It was Pig McKenzie.
Villain.
Bully.
Bad Egg.
Pig McKenzie, who had been head boy at Groves, until Olive had exposed his Nasty Habits and Evil Schemes.
Pig McKenzie, who had been driven from the school in Disgrace.
‘Pig McKenzie!’ gasped Olive again . . . although this time she squeezed twice as much disbelief and horror into the syllables.
‘Otter!’ he grunted. ‘How charming to see you. And what a welcome! Really, this is too much!’
‘My name is Olive, not Otter,’ our heroine replied. ‘And the red carpet is not for you.’
Pig McKenzie sighed. ‘Of course not. I am just a humble pig with a tainted past.’ He stepped off the carpet, onto the bare floorboards, and smiled.
Actually, he stepped onto Lucky’s tail, but made it look like an accident. Lucky hissed and spat, then dashed behind a pot plant.
Pig McKenzie smirked at Olive, then turned to Mrs Groves. He pressed his trotter to his heart and gave an emotional, wobbly smile. He even managed to force a tear or two into his piggy little eyes. What an actor!
Mrs Groves stared, her cheeks glowing. She flapped a lace handkerchief before her face until it flew from her hand and caught on Fumble’s antler. She pulled a white paper bag from her apron pocket, opened it and popped a peppermint into her mouth. Rolling the sweet over her tongue, she closed her eyes and savoured the minty bliss for a minute or two. ‘Mmmm,’ she murmured. ‘Minty . . . fresh . . . sweet . . . minty . . .’
Opening her eyes once more, she gasped. ‘Oh my! You’re still here!’
‘Yes, indeed!’ declared Pig McKenzie. ‘I have returned to the fold, Mrs Groves. I have graduated from the Rehabilitation Centre for Really Bad Pigs. I am no longer a bully and a nasty-pasty. I am a reformed pig. A goody two-shoes. A lovey-dovey cuddle-pot. A moral compass.’
‘Good grief,’ moaned Olive.
‘Ear wax and bellybutton fluff!’ cursed Cracker the parrot.
‘Uurk!’ scoffed Wally the wombat.
For each and every one of the students knew that there was no such thing as a Rehabilitation Centre for Really Bad Pigs. That Pig McKenzie was not a reformed pig. That this was the same Wicked Pig of Greedy Habits, Cruel Intentions and Selfish Ambitions. Anybody, absolutely anybody with half a brain could see that this was so.
‘A reformed pig,’ clucked Mrs Groves. ‘How delightful! We’ve never had one of those at my esteemed boarding school before. It is marvellous to think that you have overcome your Wicked Ways and learned to be a kind and loving pig.’
‘And selfless,’ added Pig McKenzie. ‘Not a greedy bone in my body.’
He snatched the white paper bag from Mrs Groves’ hand and tipped the entire contents into his mouth. Scrunching the bag into a tight little ball, he threw it at Olive’s head.
‘Whoopsy-daisy,’ he spluttered, his cheeks bulging with peppermints. ‘But where are my manners?’ He spat the slippery sweets into his trotter and offered them forth. ‘Would anyone like a peppermint?’
Of course, nobody wanted a peppermint. Not now. Not even Scruffy the dog, who ate dead flies and licked bird poo off the garden gnomes. Nobody was going near those slobbery sweets.
Mrs Groves smiled. ‘That is so very nice of you to share, dear pig.’
‘But they were your sweets, Mrs Groves,’ said Olive. ‘Pig McKenzie snatched them from your hand. He stole them!’
‘Oh, Otter,’ sobbed the pig. He stuffed the peppermints back into his mouth and swallowed them whole.
‘My name is Olive!’ snapped Olive.
‘Oh, Otter, Otter, Otter,’ wailed the pig, pressing his trotter to his brow. ‘They warned me at the Rehabilitation Centre for Really Bad Pigs that this would happen. “Pig Darling,” they said, for that is what they called me, because of my winsome nature. “Pig Darling, there will be people out in the big wide world who will drag you down. People who will not forget your Tainted Past. People who will say that you are a Bad Pig Who Cannot Change when really you are a renewed pig of large heart and helpful trotters.”’
‘Large heart and helpful trotters,’ echoed Mrs Groves.
‘Good grief!’ sighed Olive once more. But she did not despair. Being a practical girl, she resorted to hard evidence. ‘Show us your tail, Pig McKenzie.’
‘Don’t be vulgar!’ he grunted.
But Olive was not being vulgar and the pig knew it. Olive was trying to prove a point. For part of the time that Pig McKenzie claimed to have been in the Rehabilitation Centre for Really Bad Pigs, he had, in fact, been at Groves, disguised as Pigg McKenzie (Pigg being spelt with two g’s). He had caused sorrow and pain, until exposed as a villain and expelled for a second time. On fleeing, his tail had been bitten off by a crocodile from ancient Rome. Astonishing, I know, but totally true.
‘Look at his tail, Mrs Groves,’ Olive insisted.
The evidence of the missing portion would prove Pig McKenzie a Wicked Liar and an Unrepentant Porker.
‘Show us your tail! Show us your tail!’ chanted Wordsworth, Chester and Blimp.
So the pig did.
‘Oh my!’ gasped Mrs Groves. Although I am not sure whether she was referring to the scarred stump of his tail, or the fact that the pig had bent over much further than was necessary and appeared to be making a rude gesture.
‘That’s enough!’ shouted Olive.
Pig McKenzie arose. ‘I cut myself shaving.’
Olive frowned. ‘You’re too young to shave!’
‘Not myself,’ said the pig. ‘A customer.’
‘You cut your tail shaving a customer’s face?’ scoffed Olive.
‘I slipped,’ explained the pig. ‘Badly. You should see the customer’s face!’
Then, turning to Mrs Groves, he sniffed.
He sniffed and sobbed.
He covered his eyes with his trotters.
And then he bawled.
‘I’m so ashamed! I wasn’t going to say anything, but Otter has forced it out of me!’ He leered sideways at Olive. ‘Since being released from the Rehabilitation Centre for Really Bad Pigs, I have been working as a barber on street corners . . . shaving customers . . . exposed to rain and hail, snow and tsunamis . . . just to get enough money to put a crust of stale bread into my mouth at the end of each day . . . because . . .’ He gave a deep, slimy sniff at the back of his throat. ‘Because I am homeless!’
He lunged forward as though in distress. His fat porky head cracked against Olive’s and she fell flat on her back. The pig snickered behind his trotter, then threw himself face-down on the carpet, in just the right spot to belly-slam Tommy. Two small hard blobs of compressed fairy floss shot out from Tommy’s nostrils with the impact. It would have been quite droll, except for the fact that Tommy’s internal organs had come dangerously close to shooting out his nostrils at the same time.
Pig McKenzie shoved Tommy away and rolled back and forth, sobbing, ‘Homeless! Homeless! Homeless!’
‘Oh, Pig Darling!’ cried Mrs Groves. She dropped to his side and patted his back. ‘There, there! Everything will be just fine. Piggy’s home now, reformed and safe and sound.’
Pig McKenzie blew his snout on Mrs Groves’ apron. ‘Home,’ he snuffled melodramatically. ‘Home at last.’
And he crawled, slowly, pathetically, along the red carpet, all the way to the cupboard beneath the grand staircase.
‘Any old spot will do,’ he whispered, ‘no matter how humble. It is just a relief to be home.’
He dragged himself into the dusty cupboard, amidst gumboots and buckets, hockey sticks and pith helmets. He stood, looked back towards his stunned audience, sobbed, sighed and shut the door.
Mrs Groves blinked. She pushed her little round glasses further up her nose. Then, nodding to her students, she trotted up the grand staircase, muttering something about flutes and cellos in the attic.
The students stared at the cupboard.
The cupboard containing the pig.
The Wicked Pig of Evil Intent.
‘Bother,’ said Olive, still flat on her back.
‘I’m worried,’ whispered Fumble.
‘I’m scared,’ whimpered Tiny Tim.
‘I’m hungry,’ moaned Blimp, and he started to nibble on the fairy floss that had been blasted from Tommy’s nose.
Wordsworth pushed his Little Blue Book of Wise and Witty Sayings into the middle of the red carpet. He flipped it open, cleared his throat and read aloud, ‘When you hit rock bottom, rejoice! The only way is up!’
‘Huh,’ said Olive. ‘I like that. The only way is up.’
She stood and brushed the dust off her bottom. Looking around at her friends, she smiled. ‘Goody! That is something for which we can be thankful. Things cannot possibly get any worse.’
And they all agreed, nodding and smiling with relief, oblivious to the fact that they were totally and utterly wrong.