Dad quite often muttered “Quack-quack-quack” under his breath when Auntie Christa was talking.
“Quack-quack,” Dad murmured as Auntie Christa went on fetching things out of her bags and telling them what good prizes they were. Auntie Christa had just got through all the things in the bags and was turning to the cardboard box on the arm of the chair when Mum came dashing back with tea and biscuits.
“Tea!” Auntie Christa said. “I can always rely on a cup of tea in this house!”
She turned gladly to take the tea. Behind her the box slid into the chair.
“Never mind,” said Auntie Christa. “I’ll show you what’s in there in a minute. It will thrill Simon and Marcia – oh, that reminds me! The African Aid Coffee Morning has to be moved this Saturday because the Stamp Collectors need the hall. I think we’ll have the coffee morning here instead. You can easily manage coffee and cakes for twenty on Saturday, can’t you?” she asked Mum. “Marcia and Simon can help you.”
“Well—” Mum began, while Dad looked truly dismayed.
“That’s settled, then,” said Auntie Christa, and quickly went on to talk about other things. Dad and Simon and Marcia looked at one another glumly. They knew they were booked to spend Saturday morning handing round cakes and soothing Mum while she fussed. But it was worse than that.
“Now, you’ll never guess what’s in the box,” Auntie Christa said, cheerily passing her cup for more tea. “Suppose we make it a competition. Let’s say that whoever guesses wrong has to come and help me with the Caring Society party on Saturday afternoon.”
“I think we’ll all be busy—” Dad tried to say.
“No refusing!” Auntie Christa cried. “People are so wicked, the way they always try to get out of doing good deeds! You can have one guess each. And I’ll give you a clue. Old Mr Pennyfeather gave me the box.”
As old Mr Pennyfeather kept the junk shop, there could have been almost anything in the box. They all thought rather hard.
Simon thought the box had rattled as it tipped. “A tea set,” he guessed.
Marcia thought she had heard the box slosh. “A goldfish in a bowl,” she said.
Mum thought of something that might make a nice prize and guessed, “Dolls’ house furniture.”
Dad thought of the sort of things that were usually in Mr Pennyfeather’s shop and said, “Mixed-up jigsaws.”
“You’re all wrong, of course!” Auntie Christa said while Dad was still speaking. She sprang up and pulled the box back to the arm of the chair. “It’s an old-fashioned conjuror’s kit. Look. Isn’t it thrilling?” She held up a large black top hat with a big shiny blue ball in it. Water – or something – was dripping out of the hat underneath. “Oh dear,” Auntie Christa said. “I think the crystal ball must be leaking. It’s made quite a puddle in your chair.”
Dark liquid was spreading over the seat of the chair, mixing with the old ketchup stain.
“Are you sure you didn’t spill your tea?” Dad asked.
Mum gave him a stern look. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We were going to throw the chair away, anyway We were just talking about it when you came.”
“Oh good!” Auntie Christa said merrily. She rummaged in the box again. “Look, here’s the conjuror’s wand,” she said, bringing out a short white stick wrapped in a string of little flags. “Let’s magic the nasty wet away so that I can sit down again.” She tapped the puddle in the chair with the stick. “There!”
“The puddle hasn’t gone,” said Dad.
“I thought you were going to throw the hideous old thing away, anyway,” Auntie Christa said crossly. “You should be quite ashamed to invite people for a coffee morning and ask them to sit in a chair like this!”
“Then perhaps,” Dad said politely, “you’d like to help us carry the chair outside to the garden shed?”
“I’d love to, of course,” Auntie Christa said, hurriedly putting the hat and the stick back into the box and collecting her bags, “but I must dash. I have to speak to the Vicar before I see about the music. I’ll see you all at the Caring Society party the day after tomorrow at four-thirty sharp. Don’t forget!”
This was a thing Simon and Marcia had often noticed about Auntie Christa. Though she was always busy, it was always other people who did the hard work.
CHAPTER TWO Something in the Garden Shed
Now Mum had told Auntie Christa they were going to throw the chair away, she wanted to do it at once.
“We’ll go and get another one tomorrow after work,” she told Dad. “A nice blue, I think, to go with the curtains. And let’s get this one out of the way now. I’m sick of the sight of it.”
It took all four of them to carry the chair through the kitchen to the back door, and they knocked most of the kitchen chairs over doing it. For the next half hour they thought they were not going to get it through the back door. It stuck, whichever way they tipped it. Simon was quite upset. It was almost as if the chair was trying to stop them throwing it away. But they got it into the garden in the end. Somehow, as they staggered across the lawn with it, they knocked the top off Mum’s new sundial and flattened a rosebush. Then they had to stand it sideways in order to wedge it inside the shed.
“There,” Dad said, slamming the shed door and dusting his hands. “That’s out of the way until Guy Fawkes Day.”
He was wrong, of course.
The next day Simon and Marcia had to collect the key from next door and let themselves into the house, because Mum had gone straight from work to meet Dad and buy a new chair. They felt very gloomy being in the empty house. The living room looked queer with an empty space where the chair had been. And both of them kept remembering that they would have to spend Saturday helping in Auntie Christa’s schemes.
“Handing round cakes might be fun,” Simon said doubtfully.
“But helping with the party won’t be,” said Marcia. “We’ll have to do all the work. Why couldn’t one of us have guessed what was in that box?”
“What are Caring Society children, anyway?” asked Simon.
“I think” said Marcia, “that they may be the ones who have to let themselves into their houses with a key after school.”
They looked at one another. “Do you think we count?” said Simon. “Enough to win a prize, anyway I wouldn’t mind winning that conjuring set. It was a real top hat, even if the crystal ball did leak.”
Here they both began to notice a distant thumping noise from somewhere out in the garden. It suddenly felt unsafe being alone in the house.
“It’s only next door hanging up pictures again,” Marcia said bravely.
But when they went rather timidly to listen at the back door, the noise was definitely coming from the garden shed.
“It’s next door’s dog got shut in the shed again,” Simon said. It was his turn to be brave. Marcia was scared of next door’s dog. She hung back while Simon marched over the lawn and tugged and pulled until he got the shed door open.
It was not a dog. There was a person standing inside the shed. The person stood and stared at them with his little head on one side. His little fat arms waved about as if he was not sure what to do with them. He breathed in heavy snorts and gasps as if he was not sure