The Amazing Adventures of Chilly Billy Read online

  The Amazing Adventures of

  Chilly Billy

  PETER MAYLE

  You probably have no idea what goes on inside your fridge when nobody’s looking. But once you’ve met Chilly Billy and heard of his amazing adventures, you’ll never open the fridge door in quite the same way again!

  PETER MAYLE

  The Amazing Adventures

  of

  Chilly Billy

  illustrated by Arthur Robins

  Published by

  Escargot Books and Music

  Ojai, California

  Text and illustration copyright © 1980 Escargot Productions Ltd.

  First Digital Edition 2013

  All rights reserved. Peter Mayle asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this book.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ISBN (ePub) 978-1-908191-86-1

  Digital book(s) (epub and mobi) produced by Booknook.biz.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chilly Billy’s Favourites

  CHAPTER ONE

  NOBODY KNOWS THIS except you and I.

  And I’m only telling you if you promise to wash behind your ears every night for the next week.

  You promise?

  Right. Here goes.

  This is a story about a little tiny man who nobody but me has ever seen.

  His name is Chilly Billy, and he lives inside your fridge.

  You don’t believe me? Well, here’s a way you can tell it’s true for yourself.

  Tomorrow night, just before you go to bed, creep into the kitchen very, very quietly.

  Go up to the fridge, and don’t make a sound. (I usually hold my breath as I do this, and maybe you should too.)

  Now comes the difficult part. Pretend as hard as you can that you’re going to walk right past the fridge.

  Then, just when you think you really are going to walk past, turn around all of a sudden at the very last second as quick as you can, and open the fridge door.

  What do you see?

  A light. There’s a light on inside the fridge.

  You didn’t turn it on, because you were pretending to walk past.

  I didn’t turn it on, because I wasn’t there.

  Chilly Billy turned it on.

  He always hears you coming, and he switches the light on just in time. Then when you close the door, he switches it off.

  But that’s not all he does.

  Chilly Billy is probably the busiest little tiny man in the entire world. But before I tell you about some of his adventures, I think you should say hello to him, and see what he looks like.

  The picture shows him much, much bigger than he really is.

  That’s because it’s only when Billy is magnified several times that you see what an extraordinary little fellow he is.

  First of all, take a look at his ears. Very remarkable, those ears are. They can hear you coming a long, long way away, and that gives him time to climb down from his favourite seat on the milk bottle and turn the light on as you open the door.

  His ears are so amazingly good at hearing things that he can sometimes hear what you’re going to say even before you say it.

  So you must remember not to make fun of him, because he’ll hear. And he’ll get cross. And he’ll let the ice cream melt, or knock over your chocolate drink, or stamp around in the butter.

  And believe me, when Chilly Billy stamps on something, it really gets stamped on. Because, as you can see, he wears enormous boots for such a little person.

  You won’t find boots like that anywhere outside a fridge. And the magic thing about them is that they can actually walk up walls, over lemonade bottles and across giant ice cubes without a single slip. Not only that. They even let Chilly Billy walk upside down, hanging from the ceiling. How this happens is another secret, but as you’re being good I’ll tell you.

  Take an extra careful look at this picture of the soles of his very big boots.

  See? Hundreds and hundreds of sucker pads. That’s how Chilly Billy can walk up walls and along ceilings and over ice cubes.

  It’s really a mixture of walking and sucking, I suppose. So what he does is he wucks.

  I think that’s enough for now. So what we’ll do now that you’ve met Chilly Billy is you go and do whatever you have to do next, and I’ll get another story ready.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I PROMISED I’D tell you how it was that I first met Chilly Billy.

  It was like this.

  Very late one night, when everybody else was fast asleep, I woke up. My stomach was whispering to the rest of me about some chocolate ice cream that was down in the fridge.

  Now I know that when this kind of thing happens it’s no use trying to get back to sleep again. My stomach won’t take no for an answer.

  So, very sleepy, I got out of bed and went down to the kitchen. And because I was in my bare feet, I didn’t make any noise at all. (You’ve never heard anything as quiet as me in my bare feet.)

  The kitchen was really dark—that thick, black, middle-of-the-night kind of darkness. But I didn’t switch the light on. I knew the light in the fridge would be enough for me to find the ice cream.

  I opened the fridge door.

  Blackness. Not a glimmer of light.

  That’s odd, I thought. I’m sure the light was working before I went to bed.

  I was just going to switch on the kitchen light, when I heard a strange, small noise. It seemed to be coming from the freezer compartment.

  I put my ear next to the ice cube tray, and listened very hard.

  There it was again—a muffled, fluttery kind of puffing with a whiffle at the end.

  Flutter, puff, whiffle. Flutter, puff, whiffle. That’s exactly what it sounded like.

  And then I suddenly realised what I was listening to. It was the smallest snore I’d ever heard.

  Something was sleeping in my fridge.

  This was serious. Maybe my ice cream had been raided by a mouse who mistook it for cold cheese in the dark.

  Flutter, puff, whiffle went the noise again.

  Keeping as quiet as I could, I crept away and got my torch.

  I’ll surprise whatever it is, I thought, and if it’s been eating my ice cream, there’ll be trouble.

  I aimed the torch into the freezer compartment and switched it on, moving the beam from side to side like one of those big searchlights.

  No, there was nothing on the ice cubes. Nothing behind the orange juice. My chocolate ice cream, thank goodness, was safe.

  Then I noticed that the snoring had stopped. Whatever-it-was had woken up.

  I held my breath. Whatever-it-was held its breath. We both waited.

  After what seemed like ages, whatever-it-was couldn’t hold its breath any longer, and let out a little ‘oof’, like you do when you’ve been holding your breath.

  The ‘oof’ definitely came from a package of frozen peas in the corner of the freezer.

  Fast as I could, I aimed the torch right on the package.

  And there he was.

  Two sleepy little eyes peeked out over the top of the package. Then the rest of him (which wasn’t very much) stood up and stretched and yawned.

  “Oh dear,” he s
aid. “You’re the first person who’s ever caught me napping. What are you doing creeping around at this time of night?”

  I was amazed. Not just amazed, but cross. After all, it was my fridge.

  “Just a minute,” I said. “Who are you?

  And what are you doing in my fridge, next to my chocolate ice cream, sleeping on my very comfortable frozen peas?”

  He took his hat off, and did a little bow.

  “Billy’s the name,” he said, “Chilly Billy. I take care of your fridge—cleaning, defrosting, that kind of thing. And I specialise in turning the light on and off.”

  “Well,” I said, “you didn’t specialise very well tonight.”

  As soon as I’d said that, I knew I’d made a mistake.

  The little man was furious. I’ve never seen anybody get so angry. If he’d been any bigger, I’d have been scared stiff.

  He slid down the frozen pea package like a champion skier, marched up to the very edge of the freezer compartment, stood up on the tips of his big boots and stuck his angry little face into mine.

  “You’ve got a nerve,” he said. “I’ve been working non-stop for eighteen hours.

  “I repaired a leak in the yogurt carton.

  “I tidied up the freezer compartment, which you left in a dreadful mess.

  “I polished all the ice cubes.

  “I put the top back on a milk bottle.

  “I cleaned all the shelves.

  “I’m worn out, and I deserve forty winks. Or fifty winks, come to that.”

  “Oh,” I said, not being able to think of anything else.

  “And another thing”, said Billy, “what are you doing out of bed at this time of night? It’s disgraceful.”

  I decided that I liked this fierce little man, even though he was angry with me.

  “Well,” I said, “I thought perhaps a lick or two of ice cream would be a comforting thing to have. Would you like some?”

  He stood there for a moment, and thought about whether he was still cross with me or not.

  “Well, all right,” he said at last, “I forgive you. But don’t say mean things to me again. It’s not easy being small and chilly, and I work very hard in here. And a fellow doesn’t like being woken up in the middle of the night and shouted at by someone who hasn’t even got his shoes on.”

  I said how sorry I was, and then he gave me a wink and a little smile.

  “Here,” he said, and pushed the ice cream over to me. “Be my guest.”

  And so that night, while I was having a lick or two of ice cream, Chilly Billy sat on the side of the dish and told me about himself and some of his adventures.

  And we became friends. And he said I could tell you about his adventures. And starting tomorrow, I will.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ONE QUIET AFTERNOON when there wasn’t much else to do, Chilly Billy was doing his gardening down in the vegetable tray at the bottom of the fridge.

  It was one of his favourite jobs. After a hard morning among the cans and packets and bottles, it was nice to get a little country air among the carrots and cabbages.

  He’d just finished putting some fresh, fat asparagus in a neat stack, and sat down next to the lettuce to catch his breath.

  All of a sudden, he got that funny feeling you get when you know someone’s looking at you but you can’t see anybody.

  He got up and looked behind the peaches. No. Nobody there.

  The carrots were deserted. There was nobody in the asparagus. Or the cabbage. Or the green peppers.

  Then, just when Billy thought he’d been imagining things, the lettuce blinked at him.

  Yes, a definite blink, coming from a pair of big brown eyes in the middle of the lettuce.

  How extraordinary. Chilly Billy had seen hundreds and hundreds of lettuces before, but he’d never seen a lettuce with eyes.

  “Good afternoon,” said Chilly Billy. “You’re a very rare kind of lettuce.”

  “N-N-N-N-Nonense,” said a shivery voice. “I’m a c-c-c-c-c-caterpillar, and I’m f-f-f-f-freezing.”

  Sure enough, out from behind a big lettuce leaf came this remarkable long caterpillar with lovely green stripes and twenty-four feet and big brown eyes. And he was the coldest caterpillar you’ve ever seen.

  Shivering and shaking, his caterpillar nose turning blue, and his twenty-four feet all scrunched up against the freezing floor; he didn’t look at all happy. (As you know, caterpillars usually live in the garden, which is much warmer than any fridge.)

  Seeing how cold the caterpillar looked, Chilly Billy had a kind and thoughtful idea.

  “Here—wrap this lettuce leaf round you while I nip upstairs and fetch my spare scarf,” he said.

  With the help of his trusty sucker boots, Billy ran straight up the side wall, and all the way to his little corner cupboard next to the ice cubes, got out his longest and warmest scarf, and was back down again before you could say frozen orange juice.

  “Aaaah, that’s better,” said the caterpillar as he wrapped himself up in the scarf. “Now I can talk without my teeth chattering. Tell me something—Where am I?

  “Before I tell you,” said Chilly Billy, “why don’t we go and sit on that peach? It’s got a nice furry skin, and it’s about the warmest place there is.”

  So they sat on the peach, and the caterpillar listened carefully while Billy explained all about fridges and then, when he’d finished explaining, he said to the caterpillar, “How did you get in here? I’ve never seen you before, and I’m sure you haven’t been hiding because I would have heard you shivering.”

  So the caterpillar, who was by now quite warm with Chilly Billy’s scarf round him, began to tell what had happened.

  It had all started the day before, just after Stripy Norman (for that’s what the caterpillar was called) had eaten his usual light lunch: a double nibble of lettuce, with a daisy petal for pudding, and a small glass of dandelion juice.

  As he usually did after lunch, Stripy Norman looked around for somewhere to take his afternoon nap.

  It was hot out there in the garden, and when he saw a nice big cool green lettuce, he wriggled right into the very inside part of it, curled up, pulled a leaf over his head to shade himself from the sun, and went fast asleep.

  Now this is not something that’s known by many people, but when caterpillars go to sleep, it’s very difficult to wake them up

  Specially if they’ve just had lunch. They sleep, and they sleep, and nothing wakes them until they’re ready to wake.

  That’s what happened. Someone came out to the garden, picked the lettuce, brought it back into the house and put it in the fridge to keep fresh. And not once during all that time did Stripy Norman even stir in his sleep.

  He stayed all curled up with a lettuce leaf over his head, dreaming caterpillar dreams until it was time to wake up. And then he woke up, and there he was in the vegetable tray of the fridge.

  “Well, bless my boots,” said Chilly Billy after he’d heard the story. “What are we going to do with you now? You’re welcome to my spare scarf, and I can lend you a hat, but I don’t think you’d be very happy living here. It’s too cold for caterpillars.

  Stripy Norman thought about it. And the more he thought, the sadder he looked. And it wasn’t long before he was crying long, thin caterpillar tears.

  This made Chilly Billy sad, because he is a very kind-hearted little man despite those big boots.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, putting his arm round Stripy Norman’s shoulder, “I’ll think of a way to get you back into the garden.”

  Chilly Billy thought as hard as he could. When he thinks really hard, he likes to walk up onto the ceiling and hang there by the suckers on his boots. He says that thinking upside down, you often think of things you’d never think of standing right way up.

  Back and forth, back and forth he paced across the ceiling. All of a sudden, with a slurp from his sucker pads, he jumped down from the ceiling with a big smile on his face.

  �
�I’ve got it!” he said.

  Stripy Norman cheered up at once, and stopped sniffling.

  “What we’ll do,” said Chilly Billy, “is smuggle you out at dinnertime. Follow me.”

  Chilly Billy led the way out of the vegetable tray, and up into the main part of the fridge, where all the dishes and bottles and packets were.

  “There’s your disguise,” said Chilly Billy.

  He pointed to an old china butter dish with a pattern of leaves round the edge.

  “You hide in the leaves of the pattern, and nobody will ever spot you. See? The green on the dish is exactly the same green as your stripes.”

  Chilly Billy was quite right.

  Stripy Norman climbed up onto the butter dish, and vanished. He matched the colour of the pattern so well, it was impossible to see him.

  “Once you reach the dining room” said Chilly Billy, “the rest is easy. Down the table leg, across the floor, sharp left and you’re back in the garden again.

  “Billy,” said Stripy Norman, “you’re a genius.”

  “Yes,” said Chilly Billy, “I think you’re right. Quick! I can hear someone coming now. It must be dinnertime already.”

  And it all worked out exactly as Chilly Billy said it would. Except that Stripy Norman went off in such a rush that he forgot to give Billy back his spare scarf.

  So if you should ever see a caterpillar in your garden wearing a long woolly scarf, be specially nice to him. He’s a friend of Chilly Billy’s.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  NOBODY, NOT EVEN Chilly Billy, has adventures all the time. He has his working days just like we do. But his working days aren’t like ours at all.

  Chilly Billy’s day starts while it’s still dark, long before you’re even thinking of getting up. And the first thing he does is his exercises.

  He hops out of bed and touches his toes a few times before he puts on his big boots.

  Then he goes jogging. He jogs up the walls, across the bottles and cans and three times round the ice cube trays.