Danny the Champion of the World

'You don't mean it!' he cried. 'It's not possible!' He then rushed over to me and grasped my hand in his. 'I do congratulate you, my dear boy!' he cried, pumping my hand up and down so fiercely it nearly came off. 'What a triumph! What a miracle! What a victory! Now why on earth didn't I think of that method myself? You are a genius, sir! Hail to thee, dear Danny, you're the champion of the world!'

'Here she comes!' my father called out, pointing down the road. 'Here she comes, Doctor!'

'Here who comes?' the doctor said.

'Mrs Clipstone.' He spoke the name proudly, as though he were a commander referring to his bravest officer.

The three of us stood together beside the pumps, looking down the road.

'Can't you see her?' my father asked.

Far away in the distance I could just make out a small figure advancing towards us.

'What's she pushing, Dad?'

My father gave me sly look.

'There's only one way of delivering pheasants safely,' he said, 'and that's under a baby. Isn't that right, Doctor?'

'Under a baby?' Doc Spencer said.

'Of course. In a pram with the baby on top.'

'Fantastic!' the doctor said.

'My old dad thought that one up many years ago,' my father said, 'and it's never been known to fail yet.'

'It's brilliant,' Doc Spencer said. 'Only a brilliant mind could think of a thing like that.'

'He was a brilliant man,' my father said. 'Can you see her now, Doctor? And that'll be young Christopher Clipstone sitting up in the pram. He's one and a half. A lovely child.'

'I birthed him,' Doc Spencer said. 'He weighed eight pounds three ounces.'

I could just make out the small dot of a baby sitting high up in the pram, which had its hood folded down.

'There's more than one hundred pheasants under that little nipper,' my father said happily. 'Just imagine it.'

'You can't put a hundred pheasants in a child's perambulator!' Doc Spencer said. 'Don't be ridiculous!'

'You can if it's been specially made for the job,' my father said. 'This one is built extra-long and extra-wide and it's got an extra-deep well underneath. Listen, you could push a cow around in there if you wanted to, let alone a hundred pheasants and a baby!'

'Did you make it yourself, Dad?' I asked.

'More or less, Danny. You remember when I walked you to school and then went off to buy the raisins?'

'The day before yesterday,' I said.

'Yes. And after that I went straight on to the vicarage and converted their pram into this Special Extra-large Poacher's Model. It's a beauty, really it is. You wait till you see it. And Mrs Clipstone says it pushes even easier than her ordinary one. She did a practice circuit with it in her back-yard as soon as I'd finished it.'

'Fantastic,' the doctor said again. 'Absolutely fantastic'

'Normally', my father went on, 'an ordinary bought pram is all you'd ever need. But then no one's ever had over a hundred pheasants to deliver before now'

'Where does the baby sit?' the doctor asked.

'On top, of course,' my father said. All you need is a sheet to cover them and the baby sits on the sheet. A bunch of pheasants makes a nice soft mattress for any child.'

'I don't doubt it,' the doctor said.