Vile Visitors (8 page)

“You fool!” Mum screamed at him. “It was an electric kettle, anyway!” She was angry enough to behave just like Mr Pennyfeather. She pointed a finger at Chair Person's stomach. “I've had enough of you!” she shouted. “You stand there and don't
dare
move! Don't
stir
, or I'll – I'll – I don't know what I'll do but you won't like it!”

And it worked, just like it did when Mr Pennyfeather shouted. Chair Person stood still as an overstuffed statue. “I – hn hm – appear to have annoyed you,” he said in his most crawlingly humble way.

He stood stock still in the road all the time the firemen were putting out the fire. Luckily only the kitchen was burning. Dad had seen the smoke while he was picking up apples in the garden. He had been in time to phone the Fire Brigade and get Mum from the upstairs before the rest of the house caught fire. The firemen hosed the blaze out quite quickly. Half an hour later, Chair Person was still standing in the road and the rest of them were looking round at the ruined kitchen.

Mum gazed at the melted cooker, the crumpled fridge and the charred stump of the kitchen table. Everything was black and wet. The vinyl floor had bubbled. “Someone get rid of Chair Person,” Mum said, “before I murder him.”

“Don't worry. We're going to,” Simon said soothingly.

“But we have to go and help at Auntie Christa's Children's party in order to do it,” Marcia explained.

“I'm not going,” Mum said. “There's enough to do here – and I'm not doing another thing for Auntie Christa – not after this morning!”

“Even Auntie Christa can't expect us to help at her party after our house has been on fire,” Dad said.

“Simon and I will go,” Marcia said. “And we'll take Chair Person and get him off your hands.”

he smoke had made everything in the house black and gritty. Simon and Marcia could not find any clean clothes, but the next door neighbours let them use their bathroom and kindly shut up their dog so that Marcia would not feel nervous. The neighbours the other side invited them to supper when they came back. Everyone was very kind. More kind neighbours were standing anxiously round Chair Person when Simon and Marcia came to fetch him. Chair Person was still standing like a statue in the road.

“Is he ill?” the lady from Number 27 asked.

“No, he's not,” Marcia said. “He's just eccentric. The Vicar says so.”

Simon did his very best to imitate Mr Pennyfeather. “Right,” he barked at Chair Person. “You can move now. We're going to a party.”

Though Simon sounded to himself just like a nervous person talking loudly, Chair Person at once started snuffling and waving his arms about. “Oh – hn hm – good,” he said. “I believe I shall like a party. What snuffle party is it? Conservative, labour or that party whose name keeps changing? Should I be – hn hm – sick of the moon or over the parrot?”

At this, all the neighbours nodded to one another. “
Very
eccentric,” the lady from Number 27 said as they all went away.

Simon and Marcia led Chair Person towards the Community Hall trying to explain that it was a party for The Society for Underprivileged Children. “And we're supposed to be helping,” Marcia said. “So do you think you could try to behave like a proper person for once?”

“You – hn hm – didn't have to say
that
!” Chair Person said. His feelings were hurt. He followed them into the hall in silence.

The hall was quite nicely decorated with bunches of balloons and full of children. Simon and Marcia knew most of the children from school. They were surprised they were underprivileged – most of them seemed just ordinary children. But the thing they looked at mostly was the long table at the other end of the room. It had a white cloth on it. Much of it was covered with food: jellies, cakes, crisps and big bottles of fizzy pop. But at one end was the pile of prizes, with the green teddy on top. The conjuring set, being quite big, was at the bottom of the pile. Simon and Marcia were glad, because that would mean it would be the last prize anybody won. They would have time to look through the box.

Auntie Christa was in the midst of the children, trying to pin someone's torn dress. “There you are at last!” she called to Simon and Marcia. “Where are your mother and father?”

“They couldn't come – we're awfully sorry!” Marcia called back.

Auntie Christa rushed out from among the children. “Couldn't come? Why
not
?” she said.

“Our house has been on fire —” Simon began to explain.

But Auntie Christa, as usual, did not listen. “I think that's extremely thoughtless of them!” she said. “I was counting on them to run the games. Now I shall have to run them myself.”

While they were talking, Chair Person lumbered into the crowd of children, waving his arms importantly. “Er, hn hm, welcome to the party,” he brayed. “You are all honoured to have me here because I am – snuffle – Chair Person and you are only children who are underprivileged.”

The children stared at him resentfully. None of them thought of themselves as underprivileged. “Why is he wearing football socks?” someone asked.

Auntie Christa whirled round and stared at Chair Person. Her face went quite pale. “Why did you bring
him
?” she said.

“He – er – he needs looking after,” Marcia said, rather guiltily.

“He just nearly burnt our house down,” Simon tried to explain again.

But Auntie Christa did not listen. “I shall speak to your mother very crossly indeed!” she said and ran back among the children, clapping her hands. “Now listen, children. We are going to play a lovely game. Stand quiet while I explain the rules.”

“Er, hn hm,” said Chair Person. “There appears to be a feast laid out over there. Would it snuffle trouble you if I started eating it?”

At this, quite a number of the children called out, “Yes! Can we eat the food now?”

Auntie Christa stamped her foot. “No you may
not
! Games come first. All of you stand in a line and Marcia bring those hacky sacks from over there.”

Once Auntie Christa started giving orders, Chair Person became quite obedient. He did his best to join in the games. He was hopeless. It someone threw him a hacky sack, he dropped it. If he threw a hacky sack at someone else, it hit the wall or threatened to land in a jelly. The team he was in lost every time.

So Auntie Christa tried team Follow My Leader and that was even worse. Chair Person lost the team he was with and galumphed round in small circles on his own. Then he noticed that everyone was running in zig-zags and ran in zig-zags too. He zagged when everyone else zigged, bumping into people and treading on toes.

“Can't you stop him? He's spoiling the
game
!” children kept complaining.

Luckily, Chair Person kept drifting off to the table to steal buns or help himself to a pint or so of fizzy pop. After a while, Auntie Christa stopped rounding him up back into the games. It was easier without him.

But Simon and Marcia were getting worried. They were being kept so busy helping with teams and fetching things and watching in case people cheated that they had no time at all to get near the conjuring set. They watched the other prizes go. The green teddy was first, then the broken train, and then other things, until half the pile was gone.

Then at last Auntie Christa said the next game was Musical Chairs. “Simon and Marcia will work the record player and I'll be the judge,” she said. “All of you bring one chair each into the middle.
And
you!” she said, grabbing Chair Person away from where he was trying to eat a jelly. “This is a game even you can play.”

“Good,” Simon whispered as he and Marcia went over to the ancient record player. “We can look in the box while the music's going.”

Marcia picked up an old scratched record and set it on the turntable. “I thought we were never going to get a chance!” she said. “We can give them a good long go with the music first time.” She carefully lowered the lopsided needle. The record began:

Here we go gathering
click
in May,
click
in May, nuts in
click... and all the children danced cautiously round the chairs, with Chair Person prancing in their midst, waving his arms like a lobster.

Simon and Marcia ran to the table and pulled the conjuring box out from under the other prizes. The crystal ball was still leaking. There was quite a damp patch on the tablecloth. But the wand was lying on top when they opened the box, still wrapped in flags. Simon snatched it up. Marcia ran back and lifted the needle off the record. There was a stampede for chairs.

Chair Person of course was the one without a chair. Simon had expected that. He followed Chair Person and gave him a smart tap with the wand as Chair Person blundered up the line of sitting children. But the wand did not seem to work. Chair Person pushed the smallest girl off the end chair and sat in it himself.

“I saw that! You were out!” Auntie Christa shouted, pointing at him.

Chair Person sat where he was. “I – er, hn hm – appear to be sitting in a chair,” he said. “That was the snuffle rule as I understand it.”

Auntie Christa glared. “Start the game again,” she said.

Simon tapped Chair Person on the head with the wand before everyone got up, but that did not seem to work either. “What shall we
do
?” he whispered to Marcia, as they hurried back to the record player.

“Try it without the flags,” Marcia whispered back. She lowered the needle again.

Here we go gathering
click
in May
, the record began as Simon dashed over to the table, unwrapping the string of flags from the wand as he went. He was just putting the flags back in the box, when the table gave a sort of wriggle and stamped one of its legs.

Simon beckoned Marcia madly. The box must have been standing on the table for quite a long time. The stuff from the crystal ball had leaked down into the table and spread along the tablecloth to the food. The tablecloth was rippling itself, in a sly, lazy way. As Marcia arrived, one of the jellies spilt its way up to the edge of its bowl and peeped timidly out.

“It's
all
getting lively,” Simon said.

“We'd better take the crystal ball to the toilet and drain it away,” Marcia said.

“No!” said Simon. “Think what might happen if the toilet gets lively! Think of something else.”

“Why should
I
always have to be the one to think?” Marcia snapped. “Get an idea for yourself for once!” She knew this was unfair, but by this time she was in as bad a fuss as Mum.

Here the record got as far as
who shall we
click
to
click
him away
?
and stuck.
Who shall we
click,
who shall we
click...

Marcia raced for the record and took it off. Simon raced among the stampede towards Chair Person and hit him with the unwrapped wand. Again nothing happened. Chair Person pushed a boy with a plaster cast on his leg off the end chair and sat down. Auntie Christa said angrily, “This is
too
bad! Start the game again.”

Marcia put the needle down on the beginning of the record a third time. “I'd better stay and do this,” she said. “You'd better go and search the box – quickly, before we get landed with Table Person and Jelly Person as well!”

Simon sped to the table and started taking things out of the conjuring box – first the flags, then the dripping hat with the crystal ball in it. After that came a toy rabbit, which was perhaps meant to be lively when it was fetched out of the hat. Yet, for some reason, it was just a toy. None of the things in the box was more than just wet. Simon took out a sopping pack of cards, and a dripping bundle of coloured handkerchiefs. They were all just ordinary. That meant that there
had
to be a way of stopping things getting lively, but search as he would, Simon could not find it.

As he searched, the cracked music stopped and started and the table stamped one leg after another in time to it. Simon glanced at the game. Chair Person had found another way to cheat. He simply sat in his chair the whole time.

“I'm counting you out,” Auntie Christa kept saying. And Chair Person went on sitting there with his smashed-hedgehog beard pointing obstinately to the ceiling.

Next time Simon looked, there were only two chairs left beside Chair Person's and three children. “We'll have tea after this game,” Auntie Christa called as Marcia started the music again.

Help!
thought Simon. The wobbling, climbing jelly was half out of its bowl, waving little feelers. Simon turned the whole box out on to the dancing table. All sorts of things fell out. But there was nothing he could see that looked useful – except perhaps a small wet box. There was a typed label on its lid that said DISAPPEARING BOX. Simon hurriedly opened it.