The World of Poo

armour from the neck down and held a large helmet in her gloved hands. ‘This is Emma,’ said Emma. ‘Emma, meet Geoffrey.’
    ‘Hello, Geoffrey,’ said Emma Two. ‘Let’s get you and your dog kitted up.’ He was lifted up and lowered into big stiff leather trousers that didn’t bend at all, and was given big boots and gloves and a helmet. They even found a small helmet for Widdler, making him look like a snail peering out of its shell.

    ‘Let’s go,’ said the Emmas in unison, and ushered him from the shed into one of the big stone buildings. At first there didn’t seem much to look at. There was a series of concrete pens with small, grey-green, huddled lumps under piles of sticky ash.
    ‘Why are they all covered in ash?’ asked Geoffrey.
    ‘Well, we’ve not cleaned them out yet because Lady Sybil can usually tell what’s wrong with them from the colour and smell of their poo. They’ll have been eating quite the wrong thing.’
    ‘What should their poo be like?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘And can I have some for my poo museum?’
    ‘Well, like I said, in a healthy dragon there’s hardly any poo at all. Sometimes it’s just a fine ash that floats away in the air.’ 2
    ‘I wish I could get some dragon poo,’ Geoffrey said. ‘I want to get poo from every animal in the world so that people can come to my museum and see it all and be amazed.’
    To compensate for the lack of dragon poo thus far Geoffrey was given a baby dragon to hold. It perched on his hand blowing smoke rings and then suddenly, without any warning, deposited a small glowing ember on his gloved palm. Geoffrey couldn’t believe his luck! He closed his fist around it tightly for the rest of the tour in case one of the interchangeable Emmas decided that Lady Sybil needed to inspect it. When they came to leave, it seemed cool enough to surreptitiously transfer to his jacket pocket.

    Geoffrey and Emma One set off back home hand in hand, with Widdler following so close to heel that he was often in danger of tripping them up.
    Geoffrey kept looking up at the grand houses hoping to see a gargoyle. They were not far from home when they reached a very grand mansion indeed with huge curly iron gates and tall stone pillars on either side. His eyes lit up in delight when he noticed that on top of each tall pillar was a genuine gargoyle holding a shield. ‘You must get very bored just sitting up there all day. Would you like a sweet?’ Geoffrey said to one of the gargoyles.
    ‘It’s more than my job’s worth,’ said the gargoyle, 3 ‘and I don’t get off duty until the end of the week. But Old Pediment over at number eight,’ he croaked, ‘is always on the lookout for interesting tidbits. He’s got a sweet tooth too.’
    ‘If I leave some sweets on my windowsill at number five do you think he’d find them?’
    ‘Doesn’t miss a thing. Old Pediment, he clears all the bird-tables this side of the road and I don’t just mean the birds’ food.’

    As they walked away, Emma said to Geoffrey, ‘You are funny. No one I know talks to gargoyles.’
    ‘I want to know where they poo. Gargoyle poo would be a very interesting find for my museum.’
    Lily opened the door to them when they arrived back at Grand-mama’s house. ‘Wipe your feet on the mat,’ she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. ‘And who’s got a bonfire going?’
    Geoffrey and Emma went into the drawing room to see Grand-mama, who was having a cup of tea. ‘My goodness,’ she said, ‘what is that smell? It’s as if someone’s been letting off fireworks.’ Her eyes went straight to Geoffrey’s jacket. ‘Whatever have you got in your pockets, my boy?’ Geoffrey reluctantly extracted the bags of sweets from one pocket. ‘Now come on, Geoffrey, you know I mean the other pocket.’
    ‘It’s baby swamp-dragon poo for my museum,’ said Geoffrey defensively as Emma helped him off with his jacket while Grand-mama extracted the charred ember with the sugar tongs and transferred the hot little nodule to an empty snuff tin. ‘He just laid it in my hand.’

    ‘Well, let me tell you that you are going to wash those hands before you eat anything, my boy,’ said Grand-mama. ‘I shall also have to buy you a new jacket before we go to the Guild annual luncheon.’
    She gave Geoffrey a severe look from top to bottom and continued, ‘Your late uncle Cedric was very much the same. If I remember rightly he had a very large collection of things that looked like other