Ted's New Job

The leaves are back on the trees and their shadows are back on the ground. My grandfather once claimed that tiny mice were hiding in the shadows, and that the mice were moving with the shadows when the branches of the trees moved in a breeze. He loved watching the mice dance on windy days.

My cousin Ted once had an interview for a job with an insurance company. He was interviewed by three men. One of them said to him, "What would you do if you found a donkey in your office?"

Ted said, "I'd... attempt to deal... with the situation... in a manner befitting... an employee... of an institution with a reputation... for always acting with honour and fair-mindedness... and whose employees adhere to a strict code of conduct at all times."

The three men nodded in unison.

On the following day he was told he got the job. He wore a suit on his first day to work, but he soon realised that his attire was inappropriate. His office was a shed with a donkey in it. His job was to look after the donkey.

He did a very good job with the donkey, and after just three weeks he was promoted. He became the minder for a pig called Jake. He learnt how to communicate with Jake by blinking.

Jake was a very gentle pig. He was known far and wide for his gentleness, and for his impression of Hugh Grant. He often sat next to the soldier who stood next to the phone booth. The soldier never took any notice of the pig, even when Jake did his Hugh Grant impression. The soldier never reacted to anything. Even if Hugh Grant came along and did his impression of the pig, the soldier would have remained completely still.

When Jake got bored of sitting next to the soldier he often went into Mrs. Murphy's shop. She was always glad to see him because he'd happily listen to her talking. She never spoke to Ted, who stood behind Jake. Ted had to stand there and listen, even though he wanted to be somewhere else. She'd spend a lot of time talking about Las Vegas. She'd never been there, but she was fascinated by the place. She was nothing like the soldier. She couldn't stay silent for two seconds if someone was sitting next to her, although sometimes she seemed to forget that people were there when she became so wrapped up in what she was saying. Someone who was good at remaining inconspicuous could have switched the pig with a dog while she was talking and she wouldn't have noticed.

Jenkins was a man who was very good at remaining inconspicuous. He wore a black top hat and a long black cloak. He was a small man, and he was even smaller when he crouched beneath his cloak.

When Jake and Ted went into the shop one day Mrs. Murphy started talking about her cousin Frank's trip to Las Vegas. Jake sat and listened. She told him that Frank had left his mouth open during most of his time in Vegas, and when he got home he found many insects, bottle tops and cigarette lighters in there. Jake and Ted noticed that Jenkins was climbing up the shelves. He was trying to reach a box of chocolates on the top shelf. If a customer wanted to buy these, Mrs. Murphy would use a step ladder to get them down. Jenkins had managed to climb up the shelves without being noticed while she was talking to herself, but he stopped when Jake and Ted entered the shop. They looked up at Jenkins, whose facial expression contained a plea not to be given away. But they both felt they had to do something. Jake came up with a plan and he communicated it to Ted by blinking. Ted started humming the theme tune to The A-Team. Jenkins believed that The A-Team were real and that they'd catch him someday. He started sweating when he heard the tune, and his hands slipped off the shelf he was holding. As he fell his flailing arms knocked many items off the shelves. Mrs. Murphy only realised he was in the shop when she saw him sitting on the ground, surrounded by sweets, crisps, chocolate bars, biscuits, raisons and sugar. "I'll take these," he said.

He bought all of the items he'd knocked off the shelves, but he hadn't knocked down the box of chocolates he wanted. It took nearly ten minutes for him to produce all of the coins needed to pay for these items. He took the coins out of his purse one by one, and he shed tears for the loss of each of them. When the first purse was empty the tears flowed in a torrent. He produced another purse from another pocket. Mrs. Murphy didn't notice any of this because she was talking about the quality of potatoes in Vegas.

Jake felt guilty about the pain he'd caused Jenkins, and he wanted to do something about it. After they left the shop Ted told Jenkins that Jake had come up with a way to replace the money he'd lost. A man called Morris had hair that grew very quickly. It needed to be cut once an hour. You could actually see it growing. He paid hairdressers to follow him around and cut his hair, but none of them stayed in the job for more than a few days because they found his company tedious. He told rambling stories that could go on for as long as the hair dressers were in his employment. It was difficult to get a professional hair dresser to take up the position, so anyone could apply for the job, and Jake convinced Jenkins to apply. Jenkins said he'd give it a go.

Before being hired, Jenkins needed to prove his ability by cutting a hedge. Morris used to have many other tests, such as attacking a rainbow with a sword or running in terror from a ghost (it was the sort of thing he expected his companions to be good at), but due to the scarcity of applicants he'd eliminated all but the hedge-cutting test. Jenkins passed this with flying colours, and he got the job. He started straightaway. Morris went for a walk through the fields every evening, and Jenkins accompanied him. Ted and Jake went with them when Jenkins was starting out.

Morris's hair grew even quicker in the rain, and it started raining heavily when they were out in the fields. Morris agreed to pay Jenkins more because of the extra work he had to do, and he also agreed to pay in coins.

They met Melinda. She always went outside when it started to rain heavily. She seemed depressed when the sun shone, but when they met her that evening she was full of life. She spoke excitedly about the garage she was going to build for the car she was going to make.

When lightning struck, Ted feared for his life, but Melinda caught the lightning bolt in her hand and she used it as a sword to open a bag of marshmallows. She offered one to Morris, but he was unable to say a word. All of his hair had fallen out in the shock of the lightning strike. The hair was on the ground around him. It was up to his knees. There was a look of horror on his face. Jenkins looked horrified as well, but this was probably due to a fear of not getting paid.

When Morris finally managed to string a coherent sentence together he said, "How am I going to get all that back into my head?"

When Melinda finished eating a marshmallow she said, "It's no good putting it back into your head. It's dead now. I know someone who'd buy it."

"I don't care about the money," Morris said. "I just want my hair back."

"Your brain has been frightened by the lightning," she said. "You need to convince it that the outside world isn't such a bad place after all, that it's okay to send the hair out to play. A lightning bolt of joy might just do the trick. What do you like looking at?"

"Buttons," Morris said.

"Buttons?"

"Yeah, buttons. Buttons and women. But when I look at women I can't escape the thought that pain is just around the corner. They don't like the way I look at them. Buttons have never done me any harm."

Jake came up with a plan to restore Morris's hair. He communicated this plan to Ted, who whispered it to Melinda. Ted and Melinda left to put the plan into action, while Jake and Jenkins stayed with Morris.

Later that night, Morris was led blindfolded into Jake's office. When the blindfold was removed he saw thousands of buttons. Many of them were scattered on the floor and on the furniture, and the rest were in glass bowls. His hair came out to play again. It shot out of his head, like kids going out into the garden after the rain has stopped, and Jenkins had to work quickly to cut it. Jenkins worked with real enthusiasm because he knew he'd get paid. Morris also gave him a percentage of the profits from selling the hair to one of Melinda's friends, a man who used it to make a tapestry depicting an army of swans.

The moose's head over the fireplace has been reading 'Ulysses'. I used to hold up books for him. For me, holding up long books was about as much fun as reading them, so I built a book stand out of timber. I still have to turn the pages for him. I made an automatic page turner, but it set 'War and Peace' on fire. I claimed that my machine was meant to do this, but no one believed me.

Raining Cats

The weather reminds me of summers from my youth. The wife's uncle has spent a lot of time standing in the garden, despite the rain. He says it reminds him of his younger days, when he spent many evenings loitering with his friends. Loitering was one of his favourite hobbies, and he was good at it. He says he could loiter with his hands tied behind his back. Getting arrested was something else he could do with his hands tied behind his back. This happened whenever they crossed the narrow line between standing in a public place and being drunk and disorderly

My cousin Gary was walking down a quiet country road late one night when he saw a very strange signpost with a sign that said 'This Way'. He stopped to look at it, and as he stood there the signpost didn't stop to be looked at. It started moving away. Gary realised that it had feet. He followed the signpost through fields and woods until he came to a shack. The walls weren't strong enough to keep the laughter and light inside. Gary could tell that it was a pub even before he stepped inside.

He ordered a pint and he asked the bar man about the pub's history. The bar man, whose name was Shane, said that he had built the pub with two of his friends after they had been barred from another pub in the area. The publican there was always throwing people out. His name was Ted. All Shane and his friends had done was make a joke about an eel that Ted had caught. At first they wanted revenge, so they built an enormous catapult to attack the pub. One of Shane's friends thought he saw someone do this in an episode of 'Murder, She Wrote', but he might have been thinking of something else or not thinking at all.

The catapult fell apart before they had a chance to use it. They built this makeshift pub using bits and pieces of the broken catapult. They were doing very good business. A lot of people went worm hunting at night in this area, and the hunters would often drop in for a drink, which was why so many people in the pub had guns. One man sitting at the bar was unarmed. He was trying to drink a pint, but he was hindered by his laughter. This was Willie. He used to be a regular in Ted's pub, but he was barred because he was always preaching doom and gloom. Ted said he was making the other drinkers even more depressed than they already were. Willie never smiled or laughed, until one day he saw a fire engine, and instead of having a siren it made noises like an ice cream van. This made him laugh, and he kept laughing. It completely changed his outlook on life. He became a regular in the makeshift pub, and his laughter helped create a good atmosphere. This had attracted even more customers.

Ted was angry about the exodus of drinkers to the makeshift pub. He wanted to shut them down, but he could never find them because they kept moving. They'd use the mobile signs to show people how to find the pub. These signs would point in the wrong direction if Ted looked at them.

It was nearly two o' clock in the morning when Gary ordered his second pint, and the pub showed no signs of closing. People were arriving all the time. One of the newcomers was a hunter, and he said he had heard stories about a giant worm with an umbrella. This worm had been seen in the ruins of the castle late at night. All of the hunters looked as if they were ready to shoot something after they heard this. Everyone in the pub, including Shane, Gary and Willie, left to go on a hunting expedition to the old castle.

The expedition turned out to be an anti-climax. They found an umbrella alright, but no giant worm. They did shoot many normal-size worms on the way back. The return journey turned out to be an anti-climax as well. When they got to the site of the pub they found the site alright, but no pub. Shane said, "Ted must have found it at last and stolen it. He often goes worm-hunting after closing time. He must have seen us, and he'd have known that the pub would be nearby."

"How could he have stolen it?" Gary said.

"His cousin owns a farm not far from here. He could have called the cousin and told him to bring his tractor and trailer. They'd have put the pub on the back of the trailer."

The hunting party went to the farm, and they found confirmation of Ted's suspicions. Through the window of a shed they saw the pub on the back of a trailer. As they were trying to figure out how to get the pub out they heard footsteps. Ted appeared from around the back of the shed. He had a shotgun. Almost everyone there had a shotgun, so it wasn't as dramatic as it might otherwise have been.

"I suppose ye'll be wanting the pub back," Ted said.

"Of course we'll be wanting the pub back," Shane said.

"Well ye're not getting it. I'm going to make it into a catapult, a badly-made catapult so that when I try to use it it'll destroy itself."

Ted's cousin arrived shortly afterwards. He also had a shotgun, but he had a look in his eyes that suggested he wanted to shoot something much bigger than a normal-size worm, so Shane and his customers went away.

Gary told Shane not to give up hope of getting the pub back. "I know a man who spent years working as a diplomat," Gary said. "I could go to see him tomorrow and ask him to have a word with Ted. His name is Frank. He might be able to negotiate a deal."

In Frank's career as a diplomat all he ever had to do was nod. He went to visit Ted's pub with Shane and Gary, and his nodding did have some effect. Ted agreed to return the pub if they did a favour for him. He wanted them to steal a frozen turkey from his grandmother. At first they refused, but he tried to talk them around. "'Steal' is the wrong word," he said. "That turkey is rightfully mine. I lost it in a bet with my grandmother. If I had won she'd have given me a box of cigars. But she won, and I found out later that she had cheated. The bet concerned the outcome of a hurling match in the county championship. I didn't see any way our local lads could lose, but she knew in advance that our goal-keeper hadn't slept in three days because his new girlfriend was taking something to keep herself awake, and she was keeping him awake as well. I have no idea how my grandmother finds out about these things. I only found out about this after I'd handed over the turkey. My efforts to get it back have been hindered by the fact that I can't pull a gun on my grandmother. I tried it once before, but my mother hit me over the head with a frying pan."

They agreed to have a go at retrieving the turkey. After they left the pub, Shane started thinking about how they'd break into the grandmother's house, but Frank didn't think an invasion was necessary. "We should try a diplomatic approach first. Only when diplomacy has been exhausted should we even consider breaking into an old lady's house."

Shane didn't think there was much likelihood of a diplomatic solution, but he underestimated the power of Frank's nodding. He managed to reach this deal with Ted's grandmother: she'd give them the turkey if they built her a catapult that could throw dead cats at Ted from over a hundred yards away. They agreed to this deal, and she invited them in. She took the frozen turkey out of her freezer and she gave it to them. They could see that the freezer was full of dead cats.

They didn't say anything about the cats to Ted when they returned the turkey. They thought it might spoil his enjoyment of the turkey, and it would spoil the surprise when a shower of dead cats rained down on him. Gary helped Shane and his friends build the catapult. This one didn't fall apart when they tested it with sandbags.

They hid behind bushes when they watched Ted's grandmother use it for the first time, and they got immense satisfaction from seeing it work so well. This satisfaction was only partly due to the sight of Ted being hit by dead cats. It was mainly due to the fact that they'd done such a good job. They felt they had to be there to see it in operation. They had to make sure that the cats were fully thawed before being fired at Ted.

The moose's head over the fireplace has been wearing a Panama hat over the past few days. It suits him, and he seems to enjoy wearing it. I found it in the attic. I also found a cello, but it only plays the French National Anthem.

The Haunted House

When I was raking the grass I found an old coin. It reminded me of my youth when I used to collect coins. I found nearly all of the coins in my hair and in my clothes. When I was fourteen I realised that it was much more fun to part with the coins than to hold onto them. One day I found enough coins in my hair to buy football boots.

My cousin Bertie wasn't surprised when he found himself spending a weekend in a haunted house by the sea. This is the sort of thing that always happens to him when he lets his guard down. He'll close his eyes for a few seconds and when he opens them again he'll find himself involved in a religious ceremony performed by an obscure cult. As long as he's not being sacrificed, he doesn't mind.

He wasn't in the least bit concerned about the haunted house by the sea. He'd been in these situations many times before. He'd be spending a weekend in the house with some friends of his, and candles would be lighting for atmospheric effect. They'd hear strange noises around about midnight. The ghost would make his presence known and he'd express his disapproval of the guests in the house, usually making scathing remarks about their clothes. Bertie was used to hearing much worse from his fiancee.

John had a dolphin. The only person who had seen this dolphin was John himself. The only person who had seen John was Brendan, one of Bertie's friends. When Brendan started talking about 'my friend John' Bertie wondered if John was really real. Many of Brendan's friends had asked if they could meet John. Meetings would be arranged, but John would never turn up. Brendan would always have an excuse, such as 'John couldn't make it because he curled up his fingers to make a fist so he could punch a mischievous rugby player, but he couldn't uncurl his fingers. He had to go to the hospital'.

Brendan was at the haunted house, and so was his girlfriend, Kate. Eight other people, including Bertie, were staying there for the weekend. John was due to join them as well, but by ten o' clock on the Friday evening he hadn't arrived. "He might have got delayed punching something," Brendan said. No one responded to this.

It started raining. "It always starts raining," Bertie said. "The lightning will come soon, and then the power will go."

They had to wait until after eleven for the power to go. They lit candles, and they happily passed the time talking and drinking whiskey.

At midnight they heard a loud knock on the door. "Normally they come down the stairs," Bertie said. "A variation is always welcome."

Bertie opened the front door, and the others stood behind him. He was expecting to see a ghostly figure, so he was surprised to see a man in a raincoat, and then he was shocked when Brendan said, "This is John."

Bertie was amazed to find out that John was real. But he hadn't believed in Silly Mahony's moon either, and that turned out to be real as well. They invited John in. He hung his raincoat on a hook in the hall. He was fascinated by the house, even though he could only see the interior in candle light. He led the others on a tour of the place, and they listened to his commentary on the architectural features. He seemed to be an expert on this subject.

This wasn't his only talent. He was a very good pianist as well. There was sheet music on the piano, a song called 'When Wedding Bells Fell on my Head'. He played this, but it was a bit depressing, so he played something lighter to lighten the mood.

He spent an hour playing songs on the piano, and the others sang along. He took a break to look at the many sculptures in the room. He was very knowledgeable about sculpture as well. He knew what he detested, and he detested the two sculptures of tennis players, a man and a woman. They were facing each other. He was terrified when he saw the sculpture of a bearded man who was wearing robes. He mentioned something about an ancient cult, and then he tried to change the subject by talking about the carpet.

Bertie wasn't interested in the carpet. He said, "Tell us more about this cult."

John said, "It would be wrong of me to pass on knowledge I wish I didn't have. I suggest we all forget the whole thing. I have a bottle of brandy in a suitcase that could make a fleeing fox forget about the hounds."

"As long as I don't get sacrificed," Bertie said, "I don't mind."

John didn't respond to this. He got the bottle of brandy from his suitcase and he poured them all a glass of it. He sat down by the fireplace and told them his life story. He'd spent a lot of time thinking about his life because he was writing his memoirs.

He said, "I decided to have a go at an autobiography after my attempts at fiction failed. I started writing at an early age. My earliest attempt at fiction involved dinosaurs and Shakespeare. The dinosaurs could talk. So could Shakespeare. He could write as well, though I don't remember ever mentioning this. I don't remember much about this first attempt at writing. It might well have been just as good as Shakespeare's earliest works, if he started writing when he was about three. The same comparison can't be made between our most recent literary endeavours. I remember liking my story about Shakespeare and the dinosaurs. The quality of my writing hasn't improved significantly since then. The subject matter remains more or less the same.

"When I was young I tried writing in the tunnels in our garden, but I was too excited to concentrate down there. My father's hobby was digging tunnels. The whole garden was full of them. It drove my mother mad. But it was a great place to hide, and there were so many people to hide from in those days, like that man with the long neck who used to call around and try to inject us with something. He'd chase us around the garden with a syringe, telling us it wouldn't hurt. He just wanted to inject this completely harmless chemical into our necks. He said he'd tested it on monkeys and on bread. Another man used to call around to hit us over the head with a yard stick. He said the same things: that it wouldn't hurt and it would do us good. He was counting people for a census, and his method of counting was hitting people over the head with a yard stick. We always managed to avoid being counted. There was a trapdoor in the kitchen floor, and we'd all escape through this. We'd be in the tunnels in the garden before the man with the yard stick had a chance to knock on the front door. He'd go around the back of the house. We'd hear him walking above us, but he never found us.

"Years later my brother was fishing in a river one day. He caught something big, too big to be a fish. He was expecting it to be a tyre, but it turned out to be the man who was supposed to count us. He looked very depressed. His failure to count us had affected him badly. My brother felt sorry for him, so he took this man to a nearby pub and bought him a drink. The drink didn't do much to cheer him up, as is often the case. My brother tried to think of what else he could do. The only idea he could come up with was to buy the man another drink. Just after he turned towards the bar he was hit on the head. He turned around and he saw that the man had a yard stick in his hand and a smile on his face. 'I knew I'd get you some day,' the man said.

"I've just finished writing about that in my memoirs. It's going much better than the fiction. After countless failed attempts at literary fiction I decided to become a horror writer, but that was a disaster. I've tried many other genres and styles. I even had a go at writing a self-help book, but that didn't work out. Then I decided to become a fantasy writer. Then I decided to become a science fiction writer. Then I decided to become a horror writer again, but that was a disaster. I've finally settled on autobiography, and I feel at home there."

John's life story was interrupted by the sound of raised voices outside the room. Brendan had just caught his girlfriend sharing a private moment with Darren, one of his friends. Various explanations and excuses were being offered.

John said, "This is exactly what I feared. It's the influence of the place. People abandon their standards. One sniff of this cult is enough to make the average person let their standards fall around their ankles."

Listening to Brendan, Kate and Darren arguing proved to be just as entertaining as John's life story, and much more entertaining than anything on TV. But the argument came to a sudden halt when they heard the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. The door burst open and they saw something that even made Bertie's heart beat faster. It was more terrifying than any ghost he'd seen before. This creature was over seven foot tall. He wore strange robes. His face was concealed by a grotesque mask, and Bertie got the impression that there was something much worse beneath the mask.

Bertie grabbed a candlestick and he was just about to hit the creature over the head when it reached for its scabbard and pulled out a yard stick. It hit John on the top of the head and said, "I told you I'd get you."

John was reduced to tears. This wasn't because of the physical pain -- it had more to do with the disappointment of his defeat after putting up such a strong resistance to being counted.

This was more entertaining than the argument, Bertie thought.

The moose's head over the fireplace has a stamp collection. I hold the stamps in front of his face so he can examine them with a magnifying glass. I have to hold the magnifying glass as well. The wife's aunt says she used to collect potatoes when she was young. She could collect a whole field of potatoes in a day. They'd always go missing overnight. Almost all of them would be gone by the morning. She thought they were posting themselves around the world because they believed they were stamps.

The Rock's Birthday

The leaves are coming out on the trees again. The garden will soon be in full bloom. One of our neighbours says that firemen keep trying to put her flowers out, even though she asks them not to do that.

My aunt Joyce once helped her friend, Pamela, organise a garden party to celebrate the birthday of Pamela's favourite rock. The rock resided in her rockery. Her astrologer had told her that its birthday was in June. She invited all of her friends and neighbours to the party. There was a long table on the lawn behind her house. The table was covered with a white table cloth, which was almost hidden beneath plates, bowls, cups and glasses. The astrologer insisted that there should also be two other smaller tables. One of them should hold a selection of cheese, and on the other one there should be a woman dressed as Little Bo Peep. Pamela got her niece, Gillian, to fill the role of Little Bo Peep. Gillian struggled to stay awake as she sat on the table.

Sean, one of Pamela's neighbours, spent most of his spare time smoking a pipe. He could play music through the pipe. At the party he was confused by the arrangement of the tables. He kept walking around the garden, trying to figure out the purpose of the Little Bo Peep table. As he walked he absent-mindedly played a tune through his pipe. He didn't notice that most of the other guests had become transfixed by the tune and they were following him around.

Pamela's dog was asleep on a table in the shed. When he rolled over in his sleep he fell off the table and landed in a bucket that had been placed on the ground beneath a leak in the roof. It was full of water after the rain on the previous day. The dog had always been a repository of strange noises, and the noise he made on landing in the bucket was a high-pitched shriek you wouldn't expect to hear from a dog. The people who were following Sean emerged from their trance when they heard the sound. They all had a feeling that something was wrong.

Little Bo Peep had been drifting off to sleep. The dog's shriek woke her, and she fell off the table. The table fell over with her. Everyone in the garden looked at her. She saw that they all had expressions of fear on their faces. She thought she must have done or said something wrong. Something very wrong, judging by the way they were looking at her. So she got to her feet and she ran away into the trees behind the garden. Sean thought she knew what she was doing -- that the situation called for a swift escape and that she knew where she was going. So he ran after her and everyone else ran after him.

Joyce and Pamela had been in the kitchen getting more food ready when they heard the noise. By the time they got out to the garden the place was deserted. "Where has everyone gone?" Pamela said.

"I don't know," Joyce said. "This is a bit like the Marie Celeste."

They walked to the end of the garden, and Joyce noticed a half-eaten cake on the path through the trees. "They must have left in a hurry if they dropped that," she said. "Only a very serious situation would call for the abandonment of cake."

They walked down the path, and they found another piece of cake further on. "I don't like this at all," Joyce said.

Gillian kept running away through the fields. She thought the other guests were chasing her. She didn't know what she had done, but she knew she must have made a serious faux pas to warrant such a reaction.

They all struggled to keep running on such a warm day. They had to stop to take a break. A waiter brought Gillian a gin and tonic. He also served drinks to the other guests, who had stopped running when she stopped. They were about twenty yards behind her. When everyone had been suitably refreshed, Gillian started running again and the others followed.

Joyce and Pamela moved at a slower pace, but they didn't need to stop for a rest. Pamela wondered how astrology could help her locate her guests, but she didn't need to contact her astrologer. The guests had to stop again, and this time they took a much longer break. Joyce and Pamela caught up with them. After Pamela had reassured them that nothing was wrong, they all made their way back to the garden. They walked slowly because were all tired. Pamela was worried about the fate of her party. A party that ended badly would be a bad omen, she believed. It was nearly dark by the time they got back.

A man called Glen had stayed behind in the garden. He was sound asleep when the dog landed in the bucket, and the noise didn't wake him. When he finally woke he was surprised to see that he was on his own. Some people would think they're in heaven if they found themselves alone with so much food, but Glen preferred eating paper food. He'd get through a few A4 sheets of apples and pears every day. They had to be fresh. If he kept the sheets for too long someone would write on them. There were paper decorations in the garden, and he used these to make food. This is how he passed the time while the others were away.

By the time they returned he had filled the table with paper food. He lit the candles on the table. Pamela and her guests looked on in awe at the paper banquet before them. Pamela was delighted because there was a chance that she could rescue her party.

Her hope was soon dashed. A gentle breeze blew a paper strawberry onto a candle, and all of the food caught fire. The whole thing burnt out in seconds.

All of the guests were depressed. Miranda put up her grey umbrella and started sobbing beneath it. This was always a sign of doom.

Urgent action was needed to save the party. Someone had once told Pamela that you can bring a bit of life back into your party by poking your guests with a TV aerial. She certainly wasn't prepared to do this. Music would be a much better way of restoring life to the dying patient. So she led her guests into the house and she put on some records.

These had no effect, even the song about the man whose sand sculptures come to life. Any time she'd played this in the past it had never failed to make people laugh or cry.

Joyce had an idea. "Mrs. Lamprog will restore the party mood," she said to Pamela. "She couldn't possibly fail. I'll go and get her now."

Mrs. Lamprog was nearly ninety. She had been a professional opera singer when she was young, and she still loved performing. Her performances never failed to fill people's hearts with joy. Joyce drove to Mrs. Lamprog's house and asked her to sing at Pamela's party. Mrs. Lamprog said she'd be delighted to sing.

She transformed the atmosphere as soon as she started singing. Miranda was smiling again. She was also holding a cocktail that had a tiny multi-coloured umbrella in it, and she had a flower in her hair. A local politician was dancing with a chicken. He must have brought the chicken with him.

Joyce and Pamela were closest to Mrs. Lamprog as she sang. They felt a slight urge to leave in the middle of a song. They turned around and they saw that all of the guests had gone. They had a vague memory of music, something other than the sound emanating from Mrs. Lamprog. They had to wait until Mrs. Lamprog finished her song before going out to look for the guests. It was impossible to catch her attention while she was singing. When she came to the end of the song she was expecting another round of applause, but she was disappointed to find that the room was almost empty. Joyce said they had to look for the guests. Mrs. Lamprog went with them.

The guests were nowhere to be found in the house, and the garden was empty as well. At the end of the garden, Joyce found the flower that had been in Miranda's hair. "They must have been led away again," Joyce said.

Joyce, Pamela and Mrs. Lamprog walked through the fields and the woods in search of the missing guests. Mrs. Lamprog kept talking about how disappointed she was.

It was nearly midnight when they found the guests in the garden of a woman called Pugnosia, Pamela's arch enemy. Pugnosia had taken the pipe from Sean's mouth and replaced it with a pen. She had played the pipe and led the guests away.

Pamela felt a sense of doom. She believed that her party was a sign of things to come, and her party had been a disaster. She had to make one last effort to get her guests back, so she spread this message: her astrologer told her not to go to Pugnosia's party because she'd have to witness a man expressing his undying love for a worm.

The guests were already starting to realise that Pugnosia didn't have much to offer at her party, and they wanted to leave after they heard this, but Pugnosia was looking at them. It would be rude to leave before her back was turned.

Pugnosia sensed that she was losing them. She thought about singing to entertain them. Joyce told her she'd help. "I know just the person to entertain your guests," she said. "I'll bring him here right now."

Joyce brought a magician called Arnold to the party. His act was making buttons appear. It gets tedious very quickly. Joyce's plan was that he'd pull a button out of Pugnosia's ear, and the guests would have a chance to leave while she was distracted. But Arnold didn't get around to this. He pulled a handful of buttons out of his hair. "Where did this worm come from?" he said as he looked at the contents of his hand. A worm was trying to hide amongst the buttons.

Everyone left in front of Pugnosia. The garden was empty within seconds. They all went back to Pamela's place and Mrs. Lamprog started singing again. The rest of the party went without a hitch, even though Pugnosia arrived later on. Pamela decided to make peace with her rather than risk losing her guests again.

The moose's head over the fireplace enjoyed the snooker on TV over the past two weeks. I think he finds it relaxing. He also finds jazz relaxing. He's been getting an education in jazz from the wife's uncle, a man who's always had an impeccable taste in music, but he surprised us all recently when he told us he's been listening to metal. He says the snails in his radio absorb most of the sound.