Danny the Champion of the World

'What do you mean?'

My father began to describe how he had fallen into the enormous pit.

Doc Spencer spun round and stared down at my father. 'I don't believe it!' he cried.

'It's perfectly true. Ask Danny'

'It was deep,' I said. 'Horribly deep.'

'But great heavens alive!' the little doctor shouted, jumping up and down with fury. 'He can't do that! Victor Hazell can't go digging tiger-traps in his woods for human beings! I've never heard such a disgusting monstrous thing in all my life!'

'It's rotten,' my father said.

'It's worse than that, William! It's diabolical! Do you know what this means? It means that decent folk like you and me can't even go out and have a little fun at night without risking a broken leg or arm. We might even break our necks!'

My father nodded.

'I never did like that Victor Hazell,' Doc Spencer said. 'I saw him do a filthy thing once.'

'What?' my father asked.

'He had an appointment with me at my surgery. He needed an injection of some sort, I've forgotten what. Anyway, just by chance I was looking out of the window as he drove up to my door in his whacking great Rolls-Royce. I saw him get out, and I also saw my old dog Bertie dozing on the doorstep. And do you know what that loathsome Victor Hazell did? Instead of stepping over old Bertie, he actually kicked him out of the way with his riding boot.'

'He didn't!' my father said.

'Oh yes he did.'

'What did you do?'

'I left him sitting in the waiting-room while I picked out the oldest, bluntest needle I could find. Then I rubbed the point of it on a nail-file to make it blunter still. By the time I'd got through with it, it was blunter than a ballpoint pen. Then I called him in and told him to lower his pants and bend over, and when I rammed that needle into his fleshy backside, he screamed like a stuck pig'

'Hooray,' my father said.

'He's never been back since,' Doc Spencer said. 'For which I am truly thankful. Ah, here's the ambulance.'

The ambulance drew up near the workshop door and two men in uniform got out. 'Bring me a leg splint,' the doctor said. One of the men fetched a sort of thin wooden plank from the ambulance. Doc Spencer knelt down once more beside my father and eased the plank very gently underneath my father's left leg. Then he strapped the leg firmly to the plank. The ambulance men brought in a stretcher and placed it on the ground. My father got on to it by himself.

I was still sitting on my chair. Doc Spencer came over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. 'I think you had better come on home with me, young man,' he said. 'You can stay with us until your father's back from hospital.'

'Won't he be home today?' I asked.

'Yes,' my father said. 'I'll be back this evening.'

'I'd rather you stayed in for the night,' Doc Spencer said.

'I shall come home this evening,' my father said. 'Thank you for offering to take Danny, but it won't be necessary. He'll be all right here until I get back. I reckon he'll sleep most of the day anyway, won't you, my love?'

'I think so,' I said.

'Just close up the filling-station and go to bed, right?'

'Yes, but come back soon, won't you, Dad.'

They carried him into the ambulance on the stretcher and closed the doors. I stood outside the workshop with Doc Spencer and watched the big white thing drive out of the filling-station.

'Do you need any help?' Doc Spencer said.

'I'm fine, thank you.'