[B][CENTER]49
Crusty Starts a Panic
(Locked Stocks & Two Smoking Kippers!)[/CENTER][/B]
The remainder of their stay was a good one. People kept insisting on shaking their hands and buying them drinks all the time so Bel saved a little bit there. They’d all loved Crusty very much and Bel was so proud of him, which made a change.
The camp staff actually managed to coax Crusty into wearing his feathers each day for the rest of his stay to keep the little kids, and adults, entertained and we know how much Crusty hates kids. However, as he was getting paid a tenner a day he couldn’t see any harm. He only got one little sod who pulled his skirt down at the back revealing a rather ugly fat pimply hairy arse, but that was only because he’d forgotten to put any knickers on that day. He didn’t make that mistake again because Crustabel had batted him one.
On their fourth day Crusty, as usual, went missing and Bel had to go searching for him again. She did the usual rounds of cafes and other establishments where food was available but she couldn’t find him.
“Ah well!” she thought, “He’ll turn up when he’s hungry an’ I’ll ger’a bit o’ peace and quiet!”
With that she went down to have a swim and do a spot of sunbathing. On her arrival at the beach there was a bit of a to do. She asked a bloke what was going on and all he could do was point, his eyes were flowing with tears and he was bent double laughing.
Bel turned to look in the direction the man had pointed but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary except that there was another man further along shaking his fists in the air, red in the face, leaping up and down and swearing his head off.
She placed a hand over her eyes to shade them from the sun and looked again.
“I’ll bluddy kill the gawpin’ little sod when I get me hands on him!”
She saw Crusty’s retreating back and his yed was bobbing up and down several hundred yards down the beach. He’d pinched a little donkey and had ridden off on it. He was still wearing his tribal feathers and he had his spear in his hand. He favvered a Cherokee Chief from behind! On second thoughts he looked more like a Black Foot taking into consideration the state of his feet!
The poor animal must have thought Armageddon had come what with the weight of Crusty on its little back and, once started, Crusty had no clue how to stop it and turn it round.
The poor little bugger, having only ever been a quarter mile there and a quarter mile back along that stretch of sand, with no greater a burden than the weight of a child in its life, eventually turned around itself and hobbled back to its master very slowly with its legs bandy and back bowed from Crusty’s bulk.
“Look Bel, look! I’m riding a donkey Bel!” yelled Crusty, waving his spear and grinning from ear to ear.
She took the riding crop from the donkey owner and waited for Crusty to come trotting back. Trotting? The little creature could hardly walk, never mind trot. The poor bloody animal was almost on its knees by the time it returned, and it slowly sunk down and laid its head on the sand, its tongue flopped out and it was panting like an owd dog.
When the donkey had finally come to a standstill, Crusty dismounted by sliding from the red leather saddle and then fell onto the sand with a bump still grinning. Before he could manage to get up again, Crustabel was on him and laid into him. She had been going to lash him with the crop but threw it back to the man before she got herself out of control.
She gave Crusty his usual duffing over and left him sobbing in the sands.
“Oof! I only wanted a donkey ride!” he wailed clutching his stomach where she’d punched him.
“Ger’up ya gormless owd sod! Don’t ya know that the donkey rides are only for little kids that weigh nowt, not for great big fat owd gawpin’ buggers like thee. It’s only a little donkey for gawd’s sake nor’a bleedin’ great carthorse which is wot you’d need to carry ya! Ya could’ve killed the poor little sod. Neh get goin’. Yer not stopping on’t sands if I can’t trust ya to behave yerself!”
“Am saggle sore now Bel!” he told her rubbing his backside.
“Tha’ll be more than bluddy saddle sore if I catch thee even near a bluddy donkey again! Who dust think tha’ are, John Wayne? Bluddy donkey’s getten more brains than thee. Neh get gone!”
[CENTER]-oo0oo-[/CENTER]
The day before they went home Crusty disappeared once again and Bel couldn’t find him anywhere. She searched high and low for ages but Crusty was nowhere to be found. She began to wonder if he’d been carted off again into the wild blue yonder by the little people but dismissed it. She’d told them in no uncertain terms what she’d do if they frikkened her Crusty again.
She walked along the sands looking behind rocks and under stones. She even lifted a piece of driftwood to see if he was hiding, but there was no sign of him. Lastly she
checked the donkey stand but they’d all been moved to a new location.
“Where on earth can he be, the little maggot!” she thought getting angry with him.
She looked at her watch for the umpteenth time. She was worried. He’d been gone well over five hours now and it just wasn’t like him because he hated being alone. We all know he likes to be seen and heard! She’d questioned many of the people on the camp but no one had seen him, at least not for ages.
The last time she’d seen him was around lunch time after they had partaken of several chip butties and Crusty had told her he was just going for a pee, but in reality he’d sloped off to the caravan in search of the bottle of whisky Bel had hidden from him.
It was now seven o’clock so she decided to check the main dining room and other cafes in the area again. It was well past tea time now and Crusty was never known to miss a meal. She started her search again for the third time.
No joy!
At each cafe she’d asked if he’d been seen. No! After the third search she decided to call in a posse so she went to the Camp Supervisor and explained that the Crusty was missing. He told her she should have reported this hours before and that time was now of the essence as he could be anywhere. Even on foot he could have walked for miles and got lost in the Welsh countryside or stuck up a mountain with only sheep and goats for company!
“Why do you call him The Crusty?” the Camp Supervisor had asked.
Wringing her hands with worry Bel merely said that it was a long story and left it at that.
They got into several vehicles and even some of the other campers started their cars and they all began to make a sweep of a ten mile radius staying in touch by mobile phone with the Camp Supervisor and Bel.
Another hour later Bel’s phone rang. When she answered it was the man who had been staying in the caravan next door and he’d found Crusty so she was to come at once. He gave her the details and the name of the pub he’d been found at so Bel swung the big car around and headed for the location using her map as a guide. It only took her twenty minutes to get there and when she did she couldn’t believe the commotion that was going on.
“Wot the hell has he been up to this time?” she asked herself.
She got out of the car and strode up to him with her arms folded and a grim expression on her face.
It was a lovely pub, but to get to it you had to walk through an olde-worlde flagged courtyard with vines over the top and that was where the Crusty had been put. Right in the middle!
She stood over him shaking her head in disbelief, a large crowd circling them, drinks in hand. He’d been shackled in an ancient set of stocks and rotten fruit and veg, and some week old smoked kippers, surrounded him that he’d been slapped about the face with.
“Hello Bel! Fancy seeing you here!” he said, looking terrified.
“Neh then y’owd sod! Wot’s bin up to this time?”
“Help me Bel, please help me. I cawn’t ger’out of 'ere!”
“Tha’ stopping theer until tha’ tells me wot tha’s done!”
“I’ve done nowt Bel, honest I’ve not!”
“Crusty! These nice people wouldn’t’ve done this to ya if ya’d done nowt. Now wor’ave ya done?”
He wouldn’t answer her at first, but his eyes welled up with tears again.
“I only sung 'em a song Bel, that’s all!”
“Oh, is thar’all? Well thar’ad do it. This is, after all, the Land of Song. Wot did ya sing 'em to make 'em so angry at ya, ya mad owd bugger?”
“It were only a song!”
She rolled up her eyes.
“Wot song?”
“Bel, Bel let me out Bel,” he said, struggling and wriggling away as best he could.
She didn’t answer him but just stood over him, arms still folded.
“I can stay here all night! Can you?”
“All right. I’ll tell ya. I’d started off walking an’ I’d tekken me bottle o’ whisky wi’ me. I found out where ya’d hidden it, an’a was supping out of it then suddenly I didn’t know where I were burra heard singing so I followed it to here. That’s all!”
“That’s nor’all. Carry on!”
He just sat there with a stubborn expression on his face, so Bel sat down on one of the nearby seats with her arms folded. This lasted for about ten minutes.
“Okay Bel. Well, I thowt I’d come in here and have a sing wi’ 'em and then ask if they could show me how’t get back, but by then I’d supped about half the bottle of whisky so I was a bit tiddly. I didn’t know they were proper Welsh people that only spoke in Welshish. Look Bel look everything’s written in Welsh. I think they’re called Welsh Fascists here. Is that wot ya call 'em?”
“Welsh Nationalists!”
“Anyway, I was only joining in singing wi’ 'em and they kept giving me funny looks and talking about me in Welshish so tharra couldn’t understand.”
And the Welsh take their singing seriously, not to be ruined by Crusty, oh no! 
