Mr Twit went over to the monkey cage. ‘Attention!’ he barked in his fearsome monkey-trainer’s voice. ‘Upside down all of you and jump to it! One on top of the other! Quick! Get on with it or you’ll feel Mrs Twit’s stick across your backsides!’
Obediently, the poor monkeys stood on their hands and clambered one on top of the other, with Muggle-Wump at the bottom and the smallest child at the very top.
‘Now stay there till we come back!’ Mr Twit ordered. ‘Don’t you dare to move! And don’t overbalance! When we return in two or three hours time, I shall expect to find you all in exactly the same position as you are now! You understand?’
With that, Mr Twit marched away. Mrs Twit went with him. And the monkeys were left alone with the birds.
Muggle-Wump Has an Idea
As soon as Mr and Mrs Twit had disappeared down the road, the monkeys all flipped back on to their feet the right way up. ‘Quick, get the key!’ Muggle-Wump called out to the Roly-Poly Bird who was still sitting on the roof of the house.
‘What key?’ shouted the Roly-Poly Bird.
‘The key to the door of our cage,’ cried Muggle-Wump. ‘It’s hanging on a nail in the workshed. That’s where he always puts it.’
The Roly-Poly Bird flew down and came back with the key in his beak. Muggle-Wump reached a hand through the bars of the cage and took the key. He put it in the lock and turned it. The door opened. All four monkeys leapt out together.
‘We are free!’ cried the two little ones. ‘Where shall we go, Dad? Where shall we hide?’
‘Don’t get excited,’ said Muggle-Wump. ‘Calm down, everybody. Before we escape from this beastly place we have one very important thing to do.’
‘What?’ they asked him.
‘We’re going to turn those terrible Twits upside down!’
‘We’re going to what?’ they cried. ‘You must be joking, Dad!’
‘I’m not joking,’ Muggle-Wump said. ‘We’re going to turn both Mr and Mrs Twit upside down with their legs in the air!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ the Roly-Poly Bird said. ‘How can we possibly turn those two maggoty old monsters upside down?’
‘We can, we can!’ cried Muggle-Wump. ‘We are going to make them stand on their heads for hours and hours! Perhaps for ever! Let them see what it feels like for a change!’
‘How?’ said the Roly-Poly Bird. ‘Just tell me how.’
Muggle-Wump laid his head on one side and a tiny twinkling little smile touched the corners of his mouth. ‘Now and again,’ he said, ‘but not very often, I have a brilliant idea. This is one of them. Follow me, my friends, follow me.’ He scampered off towards the house and the three other monkeys and the Roly-Poly Bird went after him.
‘Buckets and paint-brushes!’ cried Muggle-Wump. ‘That’s what we want next! There are plenty in the workshed! Hurry up, everyone! Get a bucket and a paint-brush!’
Inside Mr Twit’s workshed there was an enormous barrel of hugtight sticky glue, the stuff he used for catching birds. ‘Fill your buckets!’ Muggle-Wump ordered. ‘We are now going into the big house!’
Mrs Twit had hidden the key to the front door under the mat and Muggle-Wump had seen her doing it, so it was easy for them to get in. In they went, all four monkeys, with their buckets of sticky glue. Then came the Roly-Poly Bird flying in after them, with a bucket in his beak and a brush in his claw.
The Great Glue Painting Begins
‘This is the living-room,’ announced Muggle-Wump. ‘The grand and glorious living-room where those two fearful frumptious freaks eat Bird Pie every week for supper!’
‘Please don’t mention Bird Pie again,’ said the Roly-Poly Bird. ‘It gives me the shudders.’
‘We mustn’t waste time!’ cried Muggle-Wump. ‘Hurry up, hurry up! Now the first thing is this! I want everyone to paint sticky glue all over the ceiling! Cover it all! Smear it in every corner!’
‘Over the ceiling!’ they cried. ‘Why the ceiling?’
‘Never mind why!’ shouted Muggle-Wump. ‘Just do as you’re told and don’t argue!’
‘But how do we get up there?’ they asked. ‘We can’t reach.’