Danny the Champion of the World

'You mean not open up at all?'

'Why should we?' he said. 'After all, it's Saturday, isn't it?'

'But we always stay open on Saturdays, Dad. And Sundays.'

'Maybe it's time we didn't,' he said. 'We could do something else instead. Something more interesting.'

I waited, wondering what was coming next.

When we reached the caravan, my father climbed the steps and sat down on the little outside platform. He allowed both his legs, the plaster one and the good one, to dangle over the edge. I climbed up and sat down beside him with my feet on the steps of the ladder.

It was a fine place to sit, the platform of the caravan. It was such a quiet comfortable place to sit and talk and do nothing in pleasant weather. People with houses have a front porch or a terrace instead, with big chairs to lounge in, but I wouldn't have traded either of those for our wooden platform.

'I know a place about three miles away,' my father was saying, 'over Cobblers Hill and down the other side, where there's a small wood of larch trees. It is a very quiet place and the stream runs right through it.'

'The stream?' I said.

He nodded and gave me another of his twinkly looks. 'It's full of trout,' he said.

'Oh, could we?' I cried. 'Could we go there, Dad?'

'Why not?' he said. 'We could try tickling them the way Doc Spencer told us.'

'Will you teach me?' I said.

'I haven't had much practice with trout,' he told me. 'Pheasants are more in my line. But we could always learn.'

'Can we go now?' I asked, getting excited all over again.

'I thought we would just pop into the village first and buy the electric oven,' he said. 'You haven't forgotten about the electric oven, have you?'

'But Dad,' I said. 'That was when we thought we were going to have lots and lots of pheasants to roast.'

'We've still got the two the Doc gave us,' he said.

'And with any luck we'll have lots more of them as the weeks go by. It's time we had an oven anyway, then we can roast things properly instead of heating up baked beans in a saucepan. We could have roasted pork one day and then if we felt like it we could have roasted leg of lamb the next time or even roasted beef. Wouldn't you like that?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Of course I would. And Dad, would you be able to make your favourite thing of all?'

'What's that?' he asked.

'Toad-in-the-hole,' I said.

'By golly!' he cried. 'That'll be the very first thing we'll make in our new oven! Toad-in-the-hole! I'll make it in an enormous pan, the same as my old mum, with the Yorkshire pudding very crisp and raised up in huge bubbly mountains and the sausages nestling in between the mountains!'

'Can we get it today, Dad? Will they deliver it at once?'

'They might, Danny. We'll have to see.'

'Couldn't we order it now on the telephone?'

'We mustn't do that,' my father said. 'We must go personally to see Mr Wheeler and we must inspect all the different models with great care.'

'All right,' I said. 'Let's go.' I was really steamed up now about getting an oven and being able to have Toad-in-the-hole and roasted pork and stuff like that. I couldn't wait.

My father got to his feet. 'And when we've done that', he said, 'we'll go off to the stream and see if we can't find us some big rainbow trout. We could take sandwiches with us for lunch and eat them beside the stream. That will make a good day of it.'

A few minutes later, the two of us were walking down the well-known road towards the village to buy the oven. My father's iron foot went clink clink on the hard surface and overhead some big black thunder-clouds were moving slowly down the valley.