by Kaye Umansky
‘Yep.’
A little silence fell. Dad took a swig of beer.
‘What happened out there in the road?’ I asked. ‘With you and Mr Smallman and the clown?’
‘Oh, we had a little chat,’ said Dad. ‘I told him I didn’t think much of a bloke who’d run off leaving unprotected kids in the road with a Rottweiler. Then blame ’em when he dropped his keys down the drain. He tried to get money out of me, but I told him he could sing for it. Told him he shouldn’t go near kids with a temper like that.’
‘Wow!’ I said. My father the hero. I felt quite ashamed that I’d considered putting washing-up liquid into the empty car shampoo bottle. Tomorrow, I would go out and buy him a brand-new one.
‘Flippin’ wuss,’ said Dad. ‘’Specially as old Duke’s a big softy. You’ve only got to look at him.’
‘I don’t think he’s too keen on Mr Happy Chappy, though,’ I said, carefully. I didn’t want to give too much away. ‘I think he knows him. I think he might live in the same road.’
‘So I gather. Bob Smallman’s had a lot of trouble with him. Complaining about the barking and whatnot. Last weekend he sprayed the dog in the face with a hose. No wonder it had it in for him. Bob saw the whole thing from the window.’
‘Oh.’ I had a sudden sinking feeling. ‘Did he?’
‘Yes. I think you and Flora might have been in the vicinity at the time. Bit of an incident, I hear.’
He was looking at me in a funny way. I said nothing. I just swallowed and blushed a bit.
‘I thought we agreed you weren’t to knock on strangers’ doors?’ said Dad.
‘I know,’ I said, hanging my head.
‘Then why did you?’
So I explained. I told him everything about the whole sorry affair. He tried to keep a stern face, but I could see he wanted to laugh.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I won’t do it again.’
‘Anyway,’ said Dad. ‘It’s all sorted out. Last thing we saw, he was off to ring up a locksmith. That’ll cost him a few bob.’
‘Will I have to pay for it?’ I asked, in a small voice. My dreams of untold riches hung in the balance.
‘Course not. Forget about it, it’s over. But no more car washing, all right? Go on. Take the money and run. Don’t you have homework to do?’
I did, but I wasn’t about to do it. I went up to my room and rang Flora.
‘Guess what?’ I said. ‘We’ve got twenty quid each! For Kidnapped At Sea.’
‘Really?’ squealed Flora. She was eating an apple. I imagined bits of it spraying all around.
‘Yep,’ I said, happily. ‘Great, isn’t it? That’ll pay for Josh’s skateboard.’
‘You’re buying his skateboard?’
‘Yep.’
‘So you’re friends again?’
‘Yep.’
‘Good,’ said Flora. She sounded like she meant it, too.
‘I wouldn’t choose him for a business partner again, though,’ I added.
‘A wise decision, good sir knight,’ said Flora. ‘We make a much better team. Don’t you think?’
‘I do, fair maiden, verily I do.’ I said. ‘Arr, avast an’ away!’ (I was experimentally combining Robin Hood and Pirates of the Caribbean. I wasn’t sure it was working.)
‘It was fun, doing the puppet show, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘I’m quite sorry it’s over. I think they liked it, don’t you?’
‘Kenny certainly did,’ I said, and told her about our little conversion.
Flora clucked like a mother hen. ‘Small children worship us,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should start another business. Hire ourselves out as children’s entertainers.’
‘Hmm,’ I said, doubtfully. ‘Maybe.’
Then again, maybe not. It had been horribly hot and stuffy in the living room with all those little kids. A bit smelly, too. I wasn’t quite sure about spending more time with an audience in nappies. And my puppeteering arms still ached.
‘We should think of another fun thing to do,’ went on Flora. ‘Oh, by the way. I walked by the skip on my way home, and I saw old Happy Chappy’s chewed-up wig and daft hat. And the shoes. He must have dumped them in there. Did your dad and Mr Smallman tell him off?’
‘They certainly did,’ I said. And I told her about that conversion, too.
‘. . .so all in all, I don’t think he’s a very happy chappy,’ I ended.
We both sniggered.
‘Seeing his clown stuff gave me an idea,’ said Flora. ‘We could do a circus. You can be the ringmaster and I’ll be the lady on the tightrope. Kenny can be the audience. We could do it next Saturday in my garden. We could ask Mr Smallman if we could borrow Duke. He could be Duke the Wonderdog.’
‘Will we have a clown?’ I asked.
We both though about this for a moment. Then, together, we said:
‘No.’
‘Tell you what,’ I said. ‘We will do a circus, but let’s leave it for another time. We’re in the money, remember? We could go to the fair on the common and splurge. Buy chips, hire a video and go back to yours.’
‘Hmm. Will it be Robin Hood again? It’s just that you’ve seen it a trillion times.’
‘No,’ I said, nobly. ‘It can be your choice.’
I knew what she’d choose.
‘Great! Bambi it is, then. And can we make a Harrier jump jet out of cardboard? I know how.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘We’ll go to the fair, get chips, watch Bambi and make a Harrier jump jet.’
And the following Saturday, that’s just what we did.
A Word From the Author
A year ago, I wrote a story called I Am A Tree, which was inspired by a real-life incident. The main characters were Tim and Flora, and I rather liked them. I filed them away in my head, thinking that I might write another story about them one day.
Nothing happened to inspire me for ages. Then, one morning, two boys on skateboards came to our door and asked if they could wash our car. We said they could, and off they went. When they came back for the money, it turned out that they had washed a neighbour’s car by mistake. He wasn’t very pleased about it, although I have to say his fury fell far short of that displayed by Mr Happy Chappy.
Round about the same time, I ran across a box full of my old, battered childhood puppets up in the loft. They looked a bit sad. Then, a little boy over the road had a horrifically chaotic birthday party. I met his weary mum, who told me all about it, ending with the words: ‘Never again. The next time I’m having an entertainer.’
Washing the wrong car. Skateboards. Old puppets. A toddler’s birthday party. Hmm. Slowly, a story began to form in my brain. . .
Kaye Umansky 2007
“They’ve cast the school play and I’m a tree!”
Tim’s an ace actor and usually gets the lead role in the school play, so he’s shocked to find out that this time he’s been cast as a tree.
And, what’s worse, the only lines he has to speak are in rhyming couplets! Can anything be done to help Tim save face, or does this mean curtains for his acting career?
“No Grumpy Roger, no chests of treasure, no nothing . . . we’re sunk!”
Captain Codswallop is not having a good day. While he and his crew have been celebrating their latest success at sea, a couple of crooks have stolen their ship. So the pirates set off to get back the loot. But when a thick fog comes down and the Spanish Armada turns up, things start to get complicated. . .
“The bony hand zoomed right out of the screen and grabbed him.”
When James is kidnapped by aliens, he can’t believe his luck. They want to transform his feeble human body and James can have whatever superpowers he likes. He chooses super-speed, super-brains and super-strength. But James soon starts to realise he might have got slightly more than he asked for. . .
“Oh, Terence. I’m really going to miss you.”
Terence the Tamworth boar is proud to be 100% pig. But his cosy life on the rare breeds farm is about to change the day a lorry c
omes to take him away. Can Terence escape before it’s too late? And, if he does, how will he cope with being a pig on the run?
The Gold-Spectre • Elizabeth Arnold
The Ramsbottom Rumble • Georgia Byng
Time and Again • Rob Childs
Calamity Kate • Terry Deary
The Custard Kid • Terry Deary
Footsteps in the Fog • Terry Deary
The Ghosts of Batwing Castle • Terry Deary
Ghost Town • Terry Deary
Into the Lion’s Den • Terry Deary
The Joke Factory • Terry Deary
The Treasure of Crazy Horse • Terry Deary
The Wishing Well Ghost • Terry Deary
A Witch in Time • Terry Deary
Bryony Bell Tops the Bill • Franzeska G. Ewart
Under the Spell of Bryony Bell • Franzeska G. Ewart
Bryony Bell’s Start Turn • Franzeska G. Ewart
Planimal Magic • Rebecca Lisle
Eyes Wide Open • Jan Mark
The Gods Are Watching • Caroline Pitcher
Dear Ms • Joan Poulson
Changing Brooms • Sue Purkiss
Spook School • Sue Purkiss
Spooks Away • Sue Purkiss
Cry in the Dark • Dee Shulman
It’s a Tough Life • Jeremy Strong
Big Iggy • Kaye Umansky
Quirky Times at Quagmire Castle • Karen Wallace
Something Slimy on Primrose Drive • Karen Wallace
Drucilla and the Cracked Pot • Lynda Waterhouse
Arf and the Happy Campers • Philip Wooderson
Arf and the Tarantula • Philip Wooderson
Moonmallow Smoothie • Philip Wooderson
First published 2007 by
A & C Black Publishers Ltd
38 Soho Square, London, W1D 3HB
www.acblack.com
Text copyright © 2007 Kaye Umansky Illustrations copyright © 2007 Kate Sheppard
The rights of Kaye Umansky and Kate Sheppard to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Print ISBN: 978-0-71368-416-2
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-40815-335-2
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems – without the prior permission in writing of the publishers.
