Tap Dancing

We've had a few days without any rain. The ground is dry again. The wife has been trying to convince me it would be a good idea to build a bird house. I've been trying to convince her that it wouldn't be a very good idea for me to build it, but my arguments haven't had much effect. I've had a look through some of my great-grandfather's DIY books. He added in a lot of his own notes in the margins, and very few of them had anything to do with DIY. One of them is about ignoring a horse. Apparently he used to consult these books when people asked him things like 'what the hell do you think you're doing with that begonia?'.

My cousin Charlotte once auditioned for a part in a musical that required a little bit of singing and a lot of tap dancing. She was much better at the singing than at the dancing, so she wasn't too hopeful of getting the part.

She lost all hope when she saw some of the people who danced before her at the audition. They were all much better than her, and the choreographer only called one of them back for a second audition. The choreographer was judging the dancers by the reaction in his shoulder. He knew nothing about tap dancing, but he could feel something in his shoulder when people danced, and over the years it had proved to be an infallible method for spotting talent. He thought it was because he once slept on his shoulder in the snow, and the shoulder became very sensitive after this.

Charlotte's audition went badly. She was expecting a definite 'no' from the choreographer. His brain was expecting that too, but his shoulder was saying she's fantastic. He stared at her in silence for a while, wondering what to do. His shoulder had never been wrong before, but his brain was getting it wrong all the time. So he went with the shoulder and told her she'd get a second audition.

She was delighted at first, but the more she thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed that she'd get through the next audition. She had somehow fooled his shoulder. She had no idea how, and there was no guarantee that it would work again.

She asked a lot of people if they had any ideas as to how she fooled the choreographer's shoulder, and the best theory put forward was that his shoulder was happy for some reason. But this only raised the question 'why was his shoulder happy?'.

Someone suggested a visit to Aunt Joyce. Joyce used to judge poems by their smell, and Charlotte asked her if she had any idea why her tap dancing should be judged favourably by the choreographer's shoulder.

"I don't know about that," Joyce said. "Why don't you dance for me."

Charlotte did her dance. Joyce thought about it for a while and said, "I can't smell anything."

"I suppose I'll just have to hope for the best at the audition."

"Maybe not. I know someone who might be able to help you."

This was half true. She didn't know anyone who could help Charlotte, but she did know someone. The son of a friend of hers had recently split up with his girlfriend, and Joyce thought of setting him up with Charlotte.

When she introduced them she said to Ryan, the friend's son, "Charlotte has a sort of a puzzle she wants to solve and I thought you'd be just the man to do it."

She left them alone, and Charlotte told him her story about the tap dancing, but before she got to the end, Ryan's phone rang. He answered it and said, "Hello... No... No, I'm not... No chance... There's absolutely no way I'm giving it back to you." He hung up and he said to Charlotte, "That was my ex-girlfriend. I won a ring at a fair, and it had these little snakes on it. One of them had red eyes. I gave it to her. Not because I thought the snakes were appropriate for her or anything, although it did turn out that way. When we split up she threw the ring at me, and now she wants it back. She says it's hers because I gave it to her. The ring isn't worth anything. It's just spite. But there's absolutely no way I'm giving it back to her."

In court, the judge pointed at Ryan and said, "Give the ring back to her. And I told you before, stop smoking."

Ryan dropped the cigarette on the ground and he glared at the judge as he stamped it out.

His ex sold the ring to some friends of hers who were making a film. Charlotte suggested they just buy the ring back from them.

They were filming in the park one evening. Charlotte and Ryan went to see them, and Ryan asked if he could buy the ring, but the director said, "We can't sell it. We've already started filming with it. It'd be like selling one of the leading actors... Do ye want to be one of the leading actors?"

Charlotte and Ryan sat on the swings in the park and thought about what to do next. "I've got to get that ring back," he said. "I can't let her beat me on this one."

Stealing the ring was the only thing he could think of, but Charlotte came up with a better idea. Her father knew a magician who once did a trick where he covered various objects with pieces of cloth. The idea was to switch them around without anyone noticing, but he ended up coming home with someone's watch. "We could get him into the film," Charlotte said. "They're looking for actors. And then he could switch the ring with something else."

"I like it," Ryan said. "I mean, it is effectively stealing, isn't it?"

"Effectively, yeah."

"I like it."

They went to see the magician and told him their plan. The sidekick in his act was a pear, and he said to the pear, "What do you think of it?" He spent the next thirty seconds staring at the pear, and then he said, "I didn't think of it like that. I'll do it."

The director was delighted to have a magician in his film, and the rest of the cast were delighted when he offered to do a trick because they'd spent the last three hours waiting for the camera man to put in one of his contact lenses.

The plan was that he'd use the ring, a watch and one of his shoes in the trick, and the ring would end up in his pocket. But in the middle of it, someone started playing the violin behind him. The violinist was practising for a scene in the film where a couple have a romantic dinner in a restaurant. When the magician heard the music he stopped to listen. When the music ended he said to the pear, "Did you do that?"

After listening to the pear's response, he remembered the trick, but he couldn't remember what he was supposed to switch and what he was supposed to take.

When he met Ryan and Charlotte later he said, "Here's your cat," and he handed Ryan a cat.

"It was the ring!" Ryan said. "You were supposed to get the bloody ring, not a cat."

They needed to find another way to get the ring, and they wanted to off-load the cat too. Charlotte came up with another plan. "We could get jobs as extras on the film. Then we alter the script of the leading lady. Just put in a line telling her to give the ring to the man with the cat and take the cat from him. Then we run."

"Would she really be stupid enough to do that?"

"The magician says she thought his pear was a hamster."

"Let's do it."

They got the jobs as extras, and when no one was looking they added in the line to the script. It was in a scene on the beach, but because of the ever-decreasing funds, filming was due to take place in a field with a bucket of sand. The camera man would kneel in the grass and point the camera upwards. They had plenty of blue sky in the field, and to create the illusion of the beach the leading lady would take a handful of sand from the bucket and let it fall through her fingers, saying, "Look at all the sand."

Then she'd find a ring on the 'beach' and say, "I wonder where this came from." This is where Ryan added in the line about the man with the cat.

The director told her to drop the sand back into the bucket because they needed it for a desert scene later, but the wind blew it off-course during the filming. It was at this point that Ryan made his entrance with the cat. He was walking behind her just as she said, "I wonder where this came from." She turned around and gave him the ring. He gave her the cat and ran. Charlotte ran with him.

The director was playing a mummy in this scene, and he ran after Ryan and Charlotte, but his movement was hampered by the costume. They stopped to let him catch up with them, then they ran for another few yards and stopped again.

This went on for a few minutes until Ryan got sick of it and threw a shoe at the mummy. He fell over and lay in the grass for a while. He sat up and said, "Alright, ye can keep the bloody ring." He was starting to think that the cat offered many more possibilities than the ring anyway.

After calling to see his ex to show her the ring, Ryan took Charlotte out for a drink. They spent an hour laughing at his ex's reaction to seeing the ring, but then Charlotte remembered the tap dancing. She sighed and said, "I still have this audition tomorrow. Unless I can figure out how to influence his shoulder, I don't have a hope."

"Leave that to me," Ryan said.

Charlotte's dance at the audition was even worse than the first one. The choreographer's brain obviously thought so, and this time it looked as if his shoulder agreed too. He shook his head slowly when she finished her dance, and he had the same look on his face that he had when he said to the last dancer, "That was even worse than when my dog fell out of a tree."

When he finally stopped shaking his head, he said to Charlotte, "That was..."

That was as far as he got because Ryan threw a shoe at his shoulder. The choreographer fell backwards and landed on the floor. He held onto his shoulder and screamed in pain. When the scream died away there was silence. He stayed where he was on the floor. "Okay, you've got the part," he said to Charlotte.

The moose's head over the fireplace always seems to know what batteries to get for things like remote controls or clocks. I just hold up different types of battery, and for the correct one, the expression on his face will contain marginally less pity than the others. He's good with foreign currency too, but his weakness is clothes. He's taken an instant disliking to my new suit, and he's completely wrong about it. Knowing about batteries and foreign currency is no indication of taste.

Hats

The days are getting longer. Spring can't be too far away. Last Spring the wife suggested I talk to the flowers to help them grow, but I think that was just to stop me talking to her for a while. My great-grandfather used to talk to the flowers in German. It didn't work, but he couldn't really speak German. I don't think the real purpose was to speed up the flower's growth. Apparently the words 'der ladder' often cropped up, normally within earshot of the person who'd lost his ladder.

My cousin Hector's sister-in-law, Nadine, came to stay with them for a week in the summer, and she attracted a few other visitors to the house as well. Hector's brother, Albert, always visited more often when Nadine was there. He used to walk with her through the fields and laugh at her jokes about rabbits, even when he didn't get them. Hector was perfectly happy to have her out of the way - he didn't get any of her jokes.

His cousin, Gary, started calling around more often too, and Albert became worried that she'd go for Gary instead of him. He was there one afternoon when Gary arrived wearing a hat, and Nadine was very impressed with it. She spent over half an hour looking at it. Albert wondered if he should tell her about the potato he found that was shaped like a horse. He was going to have to do something if he didn't want to be outshone by Gary.

He came up with an idea that seemed even better than the horse-shaped potato. Gary could never refuse a dare or a drink, and Hector had recently found a bottle of something unidentifiable in the attic. These facts came together in Albert's mind and he dared Gary to drink from the bottle.

Gary poured a glass and drank it in one go. It seemed to have no effect on him, so Hector drank a glass of it too. Albert was about to tell Nadine about the potato, but he remembered a time when he gave roses to a previous girlfriend, and she said, "They're made out of paper."

"Oh yeah."

"And there's a drawing of scuba diver on one of them."

"I didn't notice that before. Look at him - he's waving." He sensed that things were going wrong, so he told her about the potato, and that was the last he ever saw of her.

The potato story was a last resort. He tried to think of some other way to eliminate Gary, and he ended up going for the most obvious method of all. He said, "I'm sure I saw a box full of bottles behind the shed."

Gary said he was going to look for it, and Hector went too. They went into the back garden. They made their way around the shed, and then in the dark of the shed Hector said, "I thought we went around the shed."

"So did I."

"Do you think this is because of that thing we drank?"

"Quite possibly."

"So how do we get out?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think that's because of the thing we drank?"

"Yes."

Albert was supposed to be fixing an old table lamp (this is the excuse he used to visit his brother's house for the fifth time that week). Work on that had come to a halt when he lost the pliers, which provided a good excuse to spend time with Nadine. They went for a walk in the field behind the house, and they met a group of people who were staying in a nearby. They were just standing in the field, facing a gentle breeze.

"I was talking to them earlier," Nadine whispered to Albert as they walked towards the people. "They're looking for something, but they can't remember what it is they're looking for."

Albert asked them if they had any luck in finding whatever it is they're looking for, but they didn't answer. "I'm looking for a pliers. It wouldn't be a pliers, would it?" They said nothing. "Have ye seen my pliers?"

As Nadine and Albert walked away she said to him, "They're looking for a hat. I found it earlier on, but don't tell them that. I can't stand them."

"I don't like them either."

"I wonder where Gary and Hector got to."

They were still in the shed. Hector pointed at something above them and said, "What colour is that airplane?"

"Cream."

"What about that one?"

"That's cream too."

Nadine and Albert went back to the garden. Four men were working on an archaeological dig nearby, but every single day they managed to get wet, even on sunny days when they were nowhere near water. Nadine didn't like them either. She saw the four of them approaching through the field, and when they got to the garden she said, "Ye got wet again?"

"Only because we were being chased by your dog."

"Inky? He wouldn't hurt a fly."

The dog ran by with a baseball bat in his mouth.

Nadine said to one of the archaeologists, "Yeah, well you probably just had a traffic cone on your head. The dog always runs after people with traffic cones on their heads because he just wants to say hello."

"I did not have a traffic cone on my head. And as far as I know, none of us did. Did ye?"

The others shook their heads.

"I bet one of ye had a traffic cone on ye'r heads, and ye didn't even notice it."

"That's ridiculous."

Gary and Hector finally emerged from the shed. Gary had a flower pot on his head. Nadine said to him, "Do you know there's a traffic cone on your head?"

"Ahm... Yeah."

"See!"

One of the archaeologists said, "That's just..." He pointed at something, but he didn't know how to finish that sentence and he didn't seem to know what he was pointing at either. The four of them walked away.

The people who had forgotten what it is they were looking for were there, and they shook their heads at Nadine. They always took sides with the archaeologists. Nadine ignored them. She turned to Gary and said, "Well done, Gary."

"Thanks."

Albert came very close to telling her about the potato, but he decided to go away and think about this before doing anything rash.

He met Hector's wife, Liz, and she asked him how he was getting on with the table lamp.

"Work is at a standstill," he said. "I've lost the pliers."

"That's a pity."

"Nadine is very funny with the way she doesn't get on with those people in the field or the archaeologists."

"She's always been like that. She finds fights in the most unusual of places. And she can never just let them lie."

"I've got it! I can have a go at the people in the field and the archaeologists at the same time."

"Yeah. That doesn't really help you find the pliers, though."

The idea was to pour a bucket of water over the hat that the people in the field were looking for, and to blame it on the archaeologists. Nadine applauded when she heard it.

She got the hat and he poured the water over it. They went to the people in the field and Albert said, "We found this hat and we thought ye might be looking for it. One of the archaeologists tried it on, and he tried to do an impersonation of ye, like all of ye at once. He was doing a little dance and saying, 'I'm a Nazi, w'hey!' when he fell into a barrel of water. And that's how it got wet."

They said nothing. Then Gary arrived with a radio on his head and one of them said, "The radio! That's what we were looking for." The others nodded.

The archaeologists arrived. They were wet again, and blaming Nadine again too, but before they could get to that, the people who'd just found their radio told them about what Albert had just said. Before they could get into too much detail, Inky appeared and ran towards Gary, who ran away, and the owners of the radio ran after him.

"He just wants to say hello," Nadine shouted at Gary.

"So what's this about one of us wearing a hat and falling into a barrel?" one of the archaeologists said.

"There's a perfectly good explanation for this," Albert said. His mind went blank, so he put his hands in his pockets in search of inspiration. He took out a paper clip and a match stick. These were the only things he remembered to bring with him, and he didn't exactly remember them either. He didn't think about it. If he had, he wouldn't have brought a paper clip and a match stick at all. He said, "It's like with this paper clip and this match stick... I once found a potato that was shaped like a horse and I gave it the name 'Baa'. Actually someone else gave it the name 'Baa'. I'd never have given it that name myself. But it was very funny. Its legs were a bit uneven, and it didn't have a tail. Unless you counted one of the legs as a tail, but then it would only have three legs. Everyone thought it looked like a horse as soon as they saw it. No one ever thought it was a sheep. But then someone in a pottery class said they could make a horse that looked ten times more like a horse than the potato, and someone else said I should donate my brain to science, which I'm sure was an insult. A friend of mine had a radio-controlled airplane, and we put it in that once. It fell down the stairs in the end... But this paper clip and this match stick... they're like..."

One of the archaeologists said, "Someone once threw a potato at my shoes."

"Because they were on your head!" Albert said.

"I... it was... I just put them there for a laugh."

"Aha!" Nadine said. "You had shoes on your head. Think of that the next time you blame Inky."

The four of them tried to think of a response to that, but they couldn't, so they walked away.

Albert was left alone with Nadine, who kissed him on the cheek and said, "You were fantastic."

The moose's head over the fireplace looks very pleased with himself these days. I found a pen in his antlers the other day, and he looks much happier without it. I suppose I'd be happy too if I had something removed from my head that had been there for a while. The wife would say there hasn't been anything there for a long while.

Buried in the Flower Bed

The wife wants me to clean out the shed. She asked me where something was the other day, and I said it was on the shelf over by the other thing on the shelf, and that's on the ground near the thing that died recently. If she just went into the shed she'd know exactly what I mean.

My cousin Jane invited some of her friends to a party at her parents' house. She didn't have to ask Darren, but she did because she fancied him. She did have to ask her best friend Claudia, but she didn't really want to because Claudia fancied Darren too.

Claudia thought her musical ability would be the thing to win Darren over, so on the day of the party, she decided to write a song to celebrate the occasion. She asked another friend of theirs, Nathalie, to sing it. Jane was all in favour of the idea because she thought Claudia would have no chance of impressing Darren if she was relying on music.

As the three of them were on their way to Jane's house to practise the song, they called in to see my cousin June and her kids, Daisy and Graham. June had the word 'sun' written on the back of her hand. "I know it's supposed to remind me of something," she said, "but I just can't remember what it is." A table fell over in the garden. "Oh yeah, do ye want to buy a garden table?"

"No thanks," Jane said. The others declined the offer too.

They went to Jane's house, and Claudia played the song on her keyboard. "Just sing along to that," she said. "I haven't written the lyrics yet, so just sing anything at all. Sing about what you've been doing today."

Nathalie sang about being Agatha Christie.

After she left, Jane said, "I think she's lying about something."

"Well of course she's lying. She's not Agatha Christie."

"Yeah, but I think she's lying about something else too. She's trying to hide something."

Nathalie arrived at the party that evening with her boyfriend, and Claudia showed her the lyrics she'd written. They practised the song a few times, and they went to the room where the piano was. Claudia had asked Jane to make sure that Darren was there too, and Jane was happy to oblige.

Claudia didn't want to play the song without being asked to play first, so to move the conversation in that general direction, she asked my cousin Isobel if she could play a musical instrument.

"Not really," Isobel said. "I could probably play this bell."

She picked up a bell from the sideboard and started ringing it, and my cousin Hector started singing his favourite song: "The old trianglllle goes jingllle janglllle... alongngngng the banks... of the Royallll Canal..."

Isobel kept ringing the bell and Hector kept singing. After about ten minutes of this, it started to sound like fingernails on a blackboard to Uncle Cyril. He had just bought a new Alfa Romeo, and he said, "Does anyone want to go for a drive in my new car?"

My cousins Rachel, Gary and Albert said they'd go. When they arrived outside at the car the three of them were wearing party hats.

"Take the hats off," Cyril said.

"What's wrong with the hats?" Rachel said.

"Ye're not wearing those hats in the car."

"We're entitled to wear whatever we want."

"Fine. But we won't be going for a drive in the car if ye wear those hats."

"Okay, we'll take the hats off... But I'm asking Isobel and Hector to come along too."

Rachel sat in the passenger's seat. Gary, Albert, Isobel and Hector were all in the back. There was just enough room for Isobel to ring the bell. Hector was still singing the same song.

This was much worse than the hats. Cyril cursed the fact that he couldn't remove his hands from the wheel to cover his ears, and when he got back he cursed the bell.

Claudia never got to play her song. Nathalie went missing, and it was nearly midnight before Jane and Claudia met her again. They asked her what she'd been doing and she said, "I was in the kitchen most of the time, and we were talking about, y' know, with the sweeping brush," she moved her hands out to indicate the dimensions of something, presumably the sweeping brush, "and someone with the stapler was sort of over there, and then there was someone, I think it was Gary, with the bottle. Yeah, that was Gary alright. And Audrey was on the verge of tears because the dog was doing its little dance - y' know that dance it does, and... but the thing in my hand, she droppped it, the glass that was in her hand, and the sweeping brush, no I'm thinking of something else, but the people all around in a circle, or... on the floor, it was sort of, but I don't know really. I mean, I asked someone about it and they said, y' know, but I wasn't sure if that was true either. And then the door, it was very funny with that thing over the door, the picture, they said something funny about that, and now it's like, it's like summer, but I wasn't sure if I agreed with that either. And who was wearing the hat? The things they said were very, very funny. I mean, if it's like that all the time it must be very, very funny, and, y' know, this is not really my area so I'm just talking off the top of my head, with the sweeping brush, they said something, and then the sweeping brush, orrr, and then she said somehing, and then it was the sweeping brush, so... it's not really my area... I'm buying your cousin's garden table."

When she left them, Jane said to Claudia, "What did you make of her story?"

"I'd say that wasn't Gary at all."

"That's what I thought too."

"But if it wasn't Gary, who was it?"

"I don't know... Let's ask Gary."

Gary had spent most of the evening talking to May, another one of Jane's friends. Jane asked him what he'd been up to and he said, "I was telling your friend about this book about church bells I'm reading, and..."

"Why are you reading a book about church bells?"

"It's very interesting. There are at least ten murders in it. May was very interested in it."

"Where were ye?"

"In the front garden."

"Were ye there all of the evening?"

"All of the evening, yeah."

"You weren't in the kitchen?"

"No, I was never in the kitchen." He remembered Nathalie asking him to say that he'd seen her around earlier on, if anyone asked, and he wondered if this was a case of anyone asking. "Although, I did go into the kitchen to get a drink. We both did. Nathalie was there."

People started leaving the party at about half-one. As they were saying their goodbyes in front of the house, Rachel pointed at the dog and said, "Look, he's digging up something in the flowerbed."

They couldn't see clearly what he dug up, but they heard it. "Oh God no!" Jane said. "The bell!"

The dog ran around the garden, ringing the bell, and Hector started singing again.

"This is even worse than the time our dog got hold of a bell," June said.

Everyone looked at Cyril. "I didn't do it," he said.

"We all heard you threatening the bell earlier on," Rachel said.

"Lots of people had it in for the bell. It could be anyone."

On the following morning, Daisy and Graham were watching a detective show on TV. The detective was a stork and its sidekick was a magnet.

When the show finished, they went out into the back garden, and they noticed something odd about the sundial. Mickey Mouse hands had been drawn in chalk on it. The hands suggested that the time was half-eleven, and the word 'clock' was written on one of the hands.

"I think we're looking at a murder scene here," Graham said. "Whenever you see a chalk outline of a body, that's a murder scene. That's the first thing the stork would say if he were here."

"Where's the rest of the body?"

"I think he lost the rest of his body at half-eleven last night. At around about the same time he was murdered. A bit of detective work is what's called for here."

Graham's idea of detective work was looking at the phone for ten minutes. Daisy got bored with this, so she drew arrows on little pieces of paper, and she left the arrows on the ground in the garden. They pointed towards the fence. She wanted to see what her brother would make of this.

He was still looking at the phone when she told them there was something he should investigate in the garden. When he saw the first arrow he said, "I think this is a clue." Then he saw the second one and said, "Yeah, and that's another clue... And there's another one."

He followed the arrows to the fence and said, "Just as I suspected, a fence."

"What do you make of that?"

"I think I can solve this now." That's what the stork always said.

"What is it?"

The magnet had never said this before, and Graham didn’t know what to say, so he just said the first thing that came into his head: "Cyril did it."

"What did he do?"

"He... He got his hand stuck in the fence. Both hands. But not the rest of his body. And this happened at half-eleven last night."

"What about the mouse?"

"The mouse died of natural causes."

When Jane and Claudia called around, Graham told them his conclusion. "Cyril got his hands stuck in the fence at half-eleven last night."

"Are you sure about that?" Jane said.

"As sure as I'll ever be."

"That's interesting."

"And the mouse died of natural causes."

Jane phoned Gary and asked him what time he had gone to the kitchen with May.

"Somewhere in the region of... I'd say about... I think..."

"Half-eleven?" she suggested.

"Half-eleven, that's it. We went to the kitchen at half-eleven. And we saw Nathalie there."

Jane then called Nathalie and asked her to call over to June's house. When she arrived, Jane gathered everyone in the front room - herself, Claudia, June, Daisy, Graham and Nathalie.

"Ye're probably wondering why I've gathered ye all here. If ye don't mind, I'd like to start with a song. June, would sing along to the music that Claudia composed for the party? Just sing about what you were doing yesterday."

Claudia played her song on the piano and June started singing: "Well I got a phone call in the garden about... Oh God! I was supposed to meet someone at half-eleven this morning to buy a cuckoo clock!"

June ran from the room.

"She's definitely trying to hide something," Jane said.

Daisy and Graham realised what had happened. Their mother often wrote notes on things, and she must have drawn the hands on the sundial when she got the call in the garden, and then she wrote the word 'sun' on her hand to remind her of the sundial. She often bought things like cuckoo clocks too.

"I don't know," Daisy said. "I think she might have just forgotten about the cuckoo clock."

"When people run away like that, it means they're trying to hide something."

"What does the stork think?" Daisy said to Graham.

"I don't know. The magnet seems to be the expert now."

"The magnet thinks she just forgot about the clock," Daisy said.

"Well you can tell the magnet it's wrong," Jane said. "Because all of the pieces fit together in this jig-saw. It was you who buried the bell." She pointed at Nathalie. "Everyone suspected Cyril, but he couldn't have done it. Gary and May were in the front garden all evening, apart from when they went inside to get more drinks at half-eleven. This is the only time the crime could have been committed. But Cyril's hands were stuck in a fence at half-eleven. How could a man with both of his hands stuck in a fence bury a bell? It was you who did it, but June caught you in the act. She blackmailed you. She made you buy the garden table in exchange for keeping quiet about what you did. It was you who buried the bell because you were jealous of the bell and Hector. You didn't get to sing your song because of them. And the mouse... died of natural causes."

Graham nodded.

The truth was that Nathalie was having an affair with Darren. She had left the party to be with him, but June saw the two of them returning together. It was an awkward situation, and the only thing Nathalie could think of talking about was the garden table, so she said she was interested in buying it.

Jane's version of events was easier to admit to, so Nathalie said, "Yes. It was me."

Jane turned to Daisy and said, "Jane one, the magnet nil."

June came back with a cuckoo clock and said, "I was so lucky. He was delayed too, and he gave it to me for half-price because he thought he'd kept me waiting."

"It's one-all at least," Daisy said.

Nathalie ran away when they weren't looking.

The moose's head over the fireplace seems to miss the Christmas decorations, but the festivities still go on. There's lots of food and drink to get through. I'm doing my best to get through the drink, but it has led to a few blunders. I was talking about something the other night - I can't remember what I was talking about, and I'm not sure if I knew at the time - and I mentioned a goat in sheep's clothing. I tried to get out of it by just rambling on, but I couldn't find a way to bring that sentence to an end. It finally ended with the following words: "...and a dog with a wolf or the night, is it a vampire? I don't know." I didn't turn around to see how the moose's head reacted to my speech. He always picks up on little mistakes like that. The surprised looking hen in the painting looked worried when I mentioned a vampire. Or maybe it just looked surprised.

The Fight

The dog is looking at one of the trees in a funny way. When he saw a pony go by on the road, he looked at it in just that way. I can't see any similarity between the pony and the tree. There was a goose sitting on the back of the pony, but you won't find any birds in the tree when the dog is looking at it in a funny way.

My cousin Hugh went on a guided tour of a castle with his fiancee, Annabel. When they were walking down a corridor, the tour guide said, "On the wall you'll see a shield bearing the family coat of arms, and if you look over there, you'll see where I dropped a bottle of wine." He pointed to the end of the corridor. "The next stop on our tour is the dungeon."

The tour finished in the dining hall, and the guide said, "Are there any questions?"

A woman put up her hand and said, "Why were you carrying the wine?"

"I'm very glad you asked me that. On the tenth anniversary of the castle being opened to the public, the owner had a reception here one afternoon, and he gave all of the staff a bottle of wine. My friend Derek came along to it too, and as we were on our way out, I was taking an old chalice to the security guard, so he could lock it in the safe. I was carrying that in a wooden box, and Derek was carrying the wine. He had been trying to chat up the woman who works in reception - ye might have seen her on the way in. I told her he'd have a better chance with one of the statues in the garden, and if you've seen her you'll know what I mean. But Derek got all upset when I said that. He left. He put the bottle of wine on top of the box and he left. Then I stumbled in the corridor and dropped the wine. He's a complete moron. He's always getting upset at the slightest things. And I wouldn't mind, but he's a boxer. Or he was a boxer. I used to manage him. Before his last fight he was training for months. He couldn't have been better prepared for it, and he was looking forward to it too. He was listening to the announcer introduce him before the fight, and the announcer said he'd been training entirely by watching Jackie Chan videos. Derek wasn't happy with this at all, and he refused to go on with the fight. He's very 'sensitive'. Can you imagine that? He was perfectly happy to go into the ring and fight, but something as small as that upset him. I lost a fortune because of it. And that didn't upset him at all. No one will fight him now. No one's going to take a risk on him. He might step on a snail and run away crying. He might as well fight a statue. That's what I said to him."

As Hugh listened to the story, he remembered Conn, a friend of a friend. Conn was a very good boxer, but he gave it up because he was afraid of hurting someone. When the tour came to an end, Hugh went over to the guide and said, "I think I might be able to help you out. I know a fighter who's been out of the ring for a while, but he's looking for a way back in, and your friend might be just the opponent he needs."

The tour guide was very keen on the idea. He said Derek would be ready to fight any time.

Hugh went to see his friend, Owen, who put him in contact with Conn. He told Conn about his plan for the fight - he wouldn't actually have to fight at all. Hugh would do something to put off Derek before the fight - he'd pay the announcer to say that Derek kicks pigs or something - and he promised to split the winnings. It didn't take much convincing for Conn to agree.

Hugh arranged the fight with the tour guide, and Conn started training. He didn't put much effort into the training because he knew he wouldn't be fighting, but he wanted to look as if he had put some effort into it. On the day before the fight, he went to see an eighteenth century sailing ship with his girlfriend, Justine. But Conn managed to get lost on the ship. When she called him on his phone he had no idea where he was. She had to go and meet a friend of hers, and she told him he'd have to find his own way out.

As she was walking down a street in the city, she met Owen. He asked her where Conn was, and she said, "He's lost on a ship."

"What, do you mean he's lost at sea?"

That sounded much better than the truth, or at least it made Conn sound less stupid, so she said, "Yeah."

"How did that happen?"

"I don't know. I only just heard."

Owen phoned Hugh and said, "I've got some bad news about the fight. Your fighter is lost at sea."

Hugh started to panic at first, but then he realised that he didn't need another fighter at all because there would be no fight. He could get anyone at all to replace Conn. In fact, he'd be better off with anyone at all rather than a boxer, because he'd get better odds on someone who was obviously not up to the job.

He called to see his cousin Ronan, and he asked him to step into the ring as Conn's replacement. Ronan was completely against the idea, even after Hugh explained that there would be no actual fighting in the fight. He'd just have to step into the ring and collect his winnings.

"There's absolutely no way I'm doing it," he said.

"Think of Audrey," Hugh said. "If there's one thing guaranteed to impress a girlfriend, it's boxing."

Audrey hated boxing, and Ronan knew it would horrify her. "I'll do it," he said.

Hugh got odds of thirty-to-one on Ronan from a bookmaker at the fight. He put three-hundred quid on him. He paid another hundred to the announcer to read out the 'kicking pigs' story.

The crowd weren't very impressed with Ronan when he got into the ring. They were right in thinking that this fight wouldn't last long. Derek looked very focussed as he made his way to the ring, but then the announer said that he'd been training by kicking pigs, and he stopped.

He was only standing there for about two seconds, but the fact that he didn't turn around straightaway, coupled with the recently-acquired knowledge that he kicks pigs, made Ronan leave the ring and head for the nearest exit, screaming as he ran.

Hugh followed him out of the building. He saw Ronan running down the street, and he went in that direction, but he noticed a noise growing behind him. He looked back. The crowd from the boxing match were following him, and they looked very angry.

He forgot about Ronan for a while, and he concentrated on getting to safety himself. The chase went on for a few streets. There was a small park up ahead, and Hugh saw two hippies sitting on the grass. There was a car parked on the street nearby, and Hugh guessed that they owned the car when he saw the words 'We're hippies' written across the rear window.

He said to them, "Do ye mind if I 'borrow' the car?"

"Of course you can." One of them gave the keys to Hugh. He drove away just before the crowd caught up with him.

"Why did he say 'borrow' like that?" one of the hippies said to the other.

"Like what?"

"He just had an odd way of saying 'borrow'."

Hugh drove around the streets, looking for Ronan, and he finally spotted him in a phone booth. He ran away when Hugh parked on the street. Hugh ran after him, and he caught up with him a few minutes later. It took another minute for Hugh to get his breath back before he could speak. "You..."

"Who are they?" Ronan said.

Hugh turned around, and the hippies were there. "Oh, hello," one of them said. "We were just wondering, what exactly did you mean by 'borrow'?"

"I meant that I had a clear idea of how I'd leave in the car, but I didn't have any definite plans for giving it back."

"Oh, that's okay." They walked away.

When Hugh turned around, Ronan was gone, and the crowd from the boxing match had taken his place. "We paid good money to watch a fight," one of them said. "Not someone running away before it even begins. He can do all the running away he wants at the end of the fight, as long as we see a fight."

"I can understand your concerns, but..." Hugh saw Conn in the crowd. "Conn! I thought you were lost at sea."

"No, I was... Yeah, I was lost at sea."

"Are you still on for the fight?"

"Yeah. I mean, I've been through a lot over the past day, at sea, but I'm willing to give it a go."

Hugh introduced the real opponent to the crowd, and their spirits lightened very quickly. They all returned to the boxing ring. Derek's manager had been trying to convince him that the announcer hadn't mentioned pigs at all. "He was talking about... the weather or something." After a lot of persuasion, Derek agreed to go ahead with the fight. Hugh paid the announcer another hundred to say that Derek hits pigs with crutches too.

Ronan was with Audrey and the hippies. They were telling him that he did exactly the right thing in running away, and that only very brave people run away from violence. Ronan was glad that Audrey didn't have any of her stuffed toys with her. They'd be expressing their opinions on this too, and they always agree with her.

"You're an inspiration to us all," one of the hippies said. "You chose the path of love over hate."

"Think of what Mr. Panda would say to that," Audrey said. "Even if he wouldn't say anything, he'd be nodding his head in agreement."

Ronan thought about that.

The fight was just about to begin when Hugh remembered his bet. Conn was already in the ring, and Derek was about to be introduced. He went over to the bookmaker to cancel his bet on Ronan and put the money on Conn instead, but before he got a chance to do it, Ronan came running into the arena. He was screaming again, but this time he was running towards the ring.

"I want to cancel my bet on him," Hugh said to the bookie.

"It's too late now. The fight has already begun."

Ronan was in the ring, punching Conn. The punches were having no effect, and Conn didn't punch back. But the crowd were becoming impatient with him, and when one of the punches caught him below the belt, he punched back.

Ronan staggered against the ropes. He seemed to realise that it was madness trying to fight Conn, so he dropped to his knees and took a count. When the count got to five he looked to his left and saw Audrey. She had got Mr. Panda from her car. He was shaking his head very slowly, and the hippies behind her looked disappointed too.

Ronan got to his feet again and charged towards Conn. After the next punch, Ronan couldn't get to his feet even if he wanted to, and he did want to, because the only voice he could hear clearly was that of Mr. Panda.

The moose's head over the fireplace seemed to enjoy our New Year's Eve Party, despite being the only one there who couldn't eat, drink, dance or sing. I'd have enjoyed it a lot more if some of the guests couldn't drink, dance or sing. Only one or two of them could dance and sing - no one could do both at the same time - but the drink made them have a go. The wife's uncle sang a song about meeting a woman on an old stone bridge at midnight, and it turns out that she's a dancer and they met once before. There was something about an aerobics class in it as well. I didn't listen to the rest.