Ace: The Very Important Pig Read online

  Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc., New York

  Text copyright © 1990 by Fox Busters Ltd.

  Illustrations copyright © 1990 by Lynette Hemmant

  Cover art copyright © 1997 by Wayne Parmenter

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers.

  Yearling and the jumping horse design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  ISBN 978-0-679-81931-8

  eBook ISBN 9781101938515

  Reprinted by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

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  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  A Pig with a Mark

  A Pig with a Gift

  A Pig and a Goat

  A Pig and a Cat

  A Pig with a Plan

  A Pig and a Dog

  A Pig in the House

  A Pig and the Television

  A Pig in a Pickup

  A Pig in a Pub

  A Pig in an Armchair

  A Pig in the Papers

  A Pig on the Stage

  A Very Important Pig

  About the Author

  Other Yearling Books You Will Enjoy

  A Pig with a Mark

  “WELL, I NEVER! Did you ever?” said Farmer Tubbs.

  He was leaning on the wall of his pigsty, looking down at a sow and her litter of piglets. The sow was asleep, lying on her side, and six of her seven piglets slept also, their heads pillowed on their mother’s huge belly.

  But the seventh piglet was wide awake and stood directly below the farmer, ears cocked, staring up at him with bright eyes that had in them a look of great intelligence.

  “I never seed one like you afore,” said Farmer Tubbs. “Matter of fact, I don’t suppose there’s ever been one like you, eh?”

  In reply the piglet gave a single grunt. Farmer Tubbs was not a fanciful man, but he did, just for a moment, imagine that the grunt sounded more like a “no” than an “oink.” He half expected the piglet to shake its head.

  Up till that time the farmer had not noticed anything out of the ordinary about this litter. But what was now catching his attention was the seventh piglet’s strange marking, clearly to be seen once he was standing apart from his brothers and sisters. On his left flank there was an odd-shaped black spot.

  The sow was a mongrel, numbering among her ancestors Yorkshires and Saddlebacks and Gloucester Old Spots. Usually her piglets were white with bluish patches, but occasionally a baby would be born with an odd spot or two on it, so it was not remarkable that this piglet should have one.

  What was extremely unusual was the formation of the single black marking. It stood out clearly against a white background, and it was almost exactly the shape of a club in a deck of playing cards.

  “Will you look at that!” said Farmer Tubbs. “It’s a club, a single one! And a card with a single marking is called an ace, young feller-me-lad, d’you know that?”

  In answer the piglet gave two quick grunts. Somehow they sounded different from the “no” grunt—sharp, impatient, almost like, “Yes, yes.”

  “Fancy!” said Farmer Tubbs. “I wonder you never nodded at me.” He scratched with the point of his stick at the black marking on the piglet’s side.

  “There be no doubt,” he said, “what us shall have to call you. I don’t never give names to piglets as a rule—they don’t live long enough to make no odds—but us shall have to name you.”

  The piglet stood silent and motionless, apparently taking in every word that was said.

  “Your name,” said Farmer Tubbs, “is written on you. The Ace of Clubs, that’s who you be.”

  For some while longer the farmer stood leaning against the pigsty wall, chatting to the piglet. Farmer Tubbs enjoyed a nice chat, and since he lived alone and saw few other people, he spent a good deal of time talking either to himself or to his animals.

  “If things had turned out different,” he said now to the newly named Ace of Clubs, “and I’d married when I were a young man, I’d likely have had six or seven children by now like your mum has. But I can’t say as I’m sorry. Maybe it’d have been nice to have a wife to chat with, but you can have too much of a good thing. Only girl I ever fancied marrying, she were a good strong wench and she were a wonderful cook, but my, didn’t she go on! Talk the hind leg off a donkey, she could. You couldn’t never have a proper conversation with she—you wouldn’t get a word in edgeways. We was engaged for a bit, but then she broke it off and went and wed a sheep farmer, long thin fellow name of Hogget. And I’ll tell you a funny thing, young Ace of Clubs…Are you listening?”

  The piglet grunted twice.

  “As well as sheep, Hogget had a pig, a huge old white boar, and that boar could round up sheep just like a dog. You wouldn’t never think that were possible, would you?”

  The piglet grunted once.

  “Well, ’tis true,” said Farmer Tubbs. “And what’s more, now I comes to think of it, that clever old boar was your great-grandfather! So you never knows, young Ace—you might be an extraordinary pig when you’m full grown.”

  Except you will never be full grown, thought the farmer. I shall sell you and your brothers and sisters when you’m eight weeks old, and a few months after that you’ll all be pork.

  He was careful only to think all this and not to say it out loud. Why? he asked himself. Well, the piglet might understand what he was saying, this one might.

  Farmer Tubbs’s fat red face creased into a great smile, and he shook his head and tapped his forehead with one finger.

  “You’m daft, Ted Tubbs, you are!” he cried. “Who ever heard of a pig that could understand the queen’s English! Can you imagine such a thing, Ace, eh, can you?”

  The piglet grunted twice.

  A Pig with a Gift

  “MOTHER?” SAID THE Ace of Clubs one morning six or seven weeks later.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “What’s that noise outside the sty?”

  “It’s the farmer’s pickup truck, dear.”

  “What’s he going to pick up, Mother?”

  “You, dear. You and your brothers and sisters. To take you for a nice ride.”

  “Where to, Mother?”

  Though the sow knew the correct answer to this question, she did not actually understand what it meant. Over the years, all her children had disappeared to this destination at a certain age, and to be frank, she was always quite glad to see them go. Raising a litter of ever-hungry piglets was so demanding.

  “You’re going to market,” she said comfortably.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a place,” said the sow. “A very popular place for a holiday, I should imagine, judging by the number of animals of all sorts that go to market. You’ll like it there. You’ll make lots of new friends, I expect, and have a lovely time.”

  Ace’s six brothers and sisters grew very excited at these words and ran around the sty squealing. But Ace stood still and looked thoughtful.

  “But Mother,” he said. “Why do we have to go to market? I like it here. I don’t want to go. Why must I?”

  “Why must you ask so many questions?” said the sow sharply, and she went into the inner part of the sty and flopped down in the straw with a sigh of relief at the thought of a bit of peace. She listened drowsily to the sounds of Farmer Tubbs rounding up the squealing piglets and putting them into the net-covered back of the pickup truck, and then the noise of it driving away. She closed her eyes and slept.

  But when she woke later and went outside again, a shock awaited her. Ace had not gone to market.

  “Hello, Mother,” he said.

  “Why have you not gone to market?” asked the sow peevishly.

  “I didn’t want to. I told you.”

  “Didn’t want to! It’s not a question of what you want or don’t want. It’s what the farmer wants. Why didn’t he take you?”

  “I told him. He said to me, ‘Do you want to go to market?’ and I said no.”

  “You stupid boy!” said the sow. “How could he have possibly known whether you were saying yes or no?”

  Because I’ve been training him, thought Ace. Two grunts for yes, one grunt for no. I think he’s learned that now.

  “And how could you possibly have understood what the man said?” his mother went on. “Pigs can’t understand people’s talk.”

  “Can’t they?” said Ace. That’s odd, he thought. I can.

  “No, they certainly cannot,” said the sow. “No pig ever has and no pig ever will. I never heard such rubbish. But I still can’t think why he took the rest and left you.”

  Just then they heard the sound of the truck returning. The engine was turned off, and footsteps approached the sty.

  “There!” said the sow with a sigh of relief. “He’s come back for you. He must have overlooked you when he was rounding up the others. You didn’t want to go to market indeed! You stupid boy!”

  Farmer Tubbs’s face appeared over the pigsty wall.

  “Don’t look so worried, old girl,” he said to the huffing, puffing, grumbly sow. “You’ll get your rest, all right—I’m taking young Ace away now. Say good-bye to your mother, Ace.”

  “Good-bye, Mother,” said Ace.

  “Good-bye,” said the sow. Then, feeling she had been a trifle rough on him, she added “dear,” and “Have a nice time,” and waddled inside to lie down again.

  Farmer Tubbs waited a moment, his elbows on the wall top, and looked down at the piglet he had decided not to take to market.

  “Saved your bacon, I have, for the time being, anyway,” he said. “Not that you could know what I’m talking about. Though I daresay you’ll get to know what you’re called in a while, like a dog would. Eh? Ace! Ace! That’s your name, my lad. The Ace of Clubs. Human beings like playing games, you see, and you can play a lot of different games with a deck of cards. Fifty-two of ’em there are in a pack—spades and hearts and diamonds and clubs. Though what good ’tis to tell you all that I ain’t got no idea.”

  He opened the door of the sty and came inside, closing it behind him. The last thing he wanted was the piglet loose in the farmyard, dashing around all over the place. He expected that catching it—even in the sty—might be a job, and that when caught, it would squeal and kick and wriggle as its littermates all had.

  “Steady now,” he said as he approached the piglet. “We don’t want no fuss.”

  But Ace stood quite still, allowed himself to be picked up, and made no sound or struggle.

  “You’m an extraordinary pig, you are, young Ace,” said Farmer Tubbs as he carried the piglet out.

  Because it lay so quietly in his arms, and because it was already quite a weight to carry, the farmer decided to risk putting the piglet down on the ground outside, so that he could bolt the sty door more easily.

  “You sit there a minute, Ace. There’s a good boy,” he said without really thinking what he was saying, and when he turned around again, it was to find the piglet sitting and waiting.

  “Well, I never! Did you ever?” said Farmer Tubbs. “Anybody would think…Oh, no, don’t be so daft, Ted Tubbs.”

  He stared at the Ace of Clubs for a long thoughtful moment, and the Ace of Clubs stared back, sitting silently on his heels.

  Then Farmer Tubbs cleared his throat, nervously it seemed, took a deep breath, and turning away, said, “Walk to heel, then, Ace.” And he set off across the yard. Looking down as if in a dream, he saw the piglet marching steadily along on his left side, its pink snout level with his heels, the strange-shaped black emblem upon its flank showing proudly for all to see.

  And perhaps because Ace was marching so smartly, Farmer Tubbs was reminded of his own days as a soldier many years before, and he squared his shoulders and threw out his chest and pulled in his stomach. Left, right, left, right, across the yard he went until they came to the door of a box stall on the far side, and Farmer Tubbs automatically cried “Halt!”

  Ace stopped dead.

  Inside the box stall the farmer sat hurriedly down on a bale of straw. Strange thoughts rushed through his head, and his legs felt wobbly. He licked his lips and, once again taking a deep breath, said in a hoarse voice, “Ace. Lie down.”

  Ace lay down.

  Farmer Tubbs swallowed. He took a large red and white polka-dotted handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow.

  “Ace,” he said, “listen to me carefully now. I don’t want to make no mistake about this. I don’t know if I be imagining things or not. I might be going around the bend. It might be just a coincidence, or it might be…a miracle. But I got to know for certain sure. So you answer me honestly, young Ace of Clubs. You tell old Ted Tubbs the truth.”

  He paused, and then very slowly and clearly and loudly (as you would talk to a small child) he said, “Can…you…understand…everything…that…I…say?”

  The piglet grunted twice.

  A Pig and a Goat

  I HOPE YOU can understand something that I’m going to say, thought Ace.

  Pigs are permanently hungry anyway, and Ace had not had a mouthful to eat since early that morning, long before the farmer had set out to market. Now he was ravenous, and he let out a short but piercing squeal.

  Farmer Tubbs had not kept pigs all his working life without learning that a squeal like Ace’s meant either fury or fear or hunger. And since the piglet looked neither angry nor afraid, the farmer got the message and hurried out to fetch food.

  “He’s not as stupid as he looks,” said Ace out loud.

  “He’d have a job to be,” said a voice.

  Ace spun around to see, standing in the gloom at the far side of the box stall, a strange figure. It was covered with long grayish hair that hung down its sides like a curtain, and it wore a gray beard and a pair of sharp-looking curved horns.

  The goat walked forward into the light and stood looking down at the piglet.

  “What’s your name?” the goat asked.

  “Ace. Ace of Clubs.”

  “Funny sort of name,” said the goat. “How did you get it?”

  Ace turned to show his left side. “It’s because of this mark on me,” he said. “It’s something to do with some game that humans play called cards.”

  “How do you know that?” asked the goat.

  “He told me. Ted Tubbs told me.”

  “Ted Tubbs? Is that his name? How do you know it is?”

  Ace felt like saying “Why must you ask so many questions?” as his mother had, but the goat, with that sixth sense animals have, continued, “I hope you’ll forgive me for asking so many questions, but I’m curious to know how you could possibly understand what the man says.”

  The look in her golden eyes was kindly and mild.

  “I just do,” said Ace. “I don’t know how. I thought all animals did, but my mother said that no pig ever had.”

  “Nor goat either,” said the goat. “Nor cow nor sheep nor horse nor hen, to the best of my knowledge. I’ve lived here all my life, all fifteen years of it, and the only word he says that I can recognize is my name.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nanny.”