On the doormat lay five red letters all with different shouty words on the front like Urgent: Final Payment Request and Fines overdue – we will release the hounds, along with one of those Wanted posters with that picture of Tiddles on it. Casper picked them all up and traipsed down the dark corridor to the back of the house. At the kitchen table sat Casper’s dad, Julius Candlewacks, surrounded by mountains of cookery books and furiously scribbling on a roll of toilet paper. Casper’s mum, Amanda Candlewacks, stood proudly in the middle of the cluttered kitchen floor, her blouse inside out, little pink rollers littering her straggled blonde hair, with a whole raw chicken clutched to her chest like a slippery hot water bottle.
“I’m making chicken!” she announced.
“Oh,” said Casper, worried. “It looks very dirty. What have you been doing with it?”
“I might have dropped it once or twice, but it’s fine. We always clean the floor, right?”
“I’ve never cleaned the floor.”
“It doesn’t matter, Casper. Floor bits are tasty.” Amanda flung open the oven door, threw in the chicken, slammed it shut and grinned. “Simple as that. I’m a natural!”
The door swung back open and broke right off its hinges, tipping the oven forward so that the grubby chicken tumbled out on to the floor and rolled under a cupboard.
“Oh…” muttered Amanda. “Is that meant to happen?”
Casper sighed. “Forget the chicken, Mum. Let’s try beans on toast.”
“Beans on toast! That’s easy.” She perked up at once and bounded back over to the stove, grabbing the nearest saucepan and thumping it down on a ring. Into the pan she threw two slices of stale bread and a tin of baked beans (unopened), then she stepped back with hands on hips, chest puffed up proudly. “There. I’m not completely useless.”
“Um…”
You see, being a mum is a difficult job. It’s much easier, on balance, to sit in front of the telly and munch biscuits. Amanda Candlewacks made this discovery eleven and a half years ago, shortly after the birth of her bubbly blonde-haired son called Casper. She’d only get up from the sofa during advert breaks or weather reports, and that would only be to fetch biscuits, use the toilet or have another baby (which only happened once, and Amanda was furious about it because she missed the latest episode of Granny’s Skin Complaints).
But two months ago the telly broke and, left alone in the house with Cuddles, her screaming baby, Amanda was faced with a problem. You see, televisions have ‘mute’ buttons and you can change the channel when you get bored, but even the most up-to-date babies can’t boast those features. So she was forced to be a mother for the very first time in eleven and a half years. Strangely, she quite liked it. Not so strangely (for someone who’d been sitting in front of a telly for over a decade), she wasn’t very good at it.
“Dad, can’t you help?” pleaded Casper. “You’re a chef, for goodness’ sake.”
Julius didn’t look up from his toilet paper. “Was a chef, Casp. Was.”
“Whatever. Couldn’t you cook our dinner?”
“I’m busy, can’t you see?”
Casper sighed. Two months ago Julius Candlewacks’s restaurant had closed down due to bad press and a small explosion, and suddenly he’d found himself without a job. Never one to give up, he jumped on the next bus to High Kobb, took out every single book from the food section of Kobb Central Library, staggered home and announced to his family, “I’m writing a celebrity cookbook!”
“Which celebrity?” Casper had asked.
“Me, of course. I’ve been a chef for twenty years; now it’s time to pass on my knowledge.”
“What knowledge?” Casper had asked.
But Julius wouldn’t hear a word of it. From that moment on he spent every waking second poring over exotic ingredient lists, copying down useful pages and growing steadily more angry about younger chefs’ successes.
Today was no different. “Look at this potato gratin, Casp, just look at it.” He waggled a loose page from Vinnie’s Veg across the room. “It isn’t even properly seasoned! That’s it. I’m taking this one. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Dad, you can’t just steal other people’s recipes.”
“I’m not! Mine’ll have more seasoning.”
Casper rubbed his eyes. “Never mind. Where’s Cuddles?” Normally he would’ve heard screaming by now, or at least felt that characteristic stabbing pain as his feral baby sister bit him on the ankle.
“She’s hanging on the line,” said Amanda. “I gave her a wash today.”
“Hanging on the…?”
“I couldn’t very well put her in the tumble dryer, could I?” Amanda burst into trills of uproarious laughter.
Eleven and a half straight years of telly would do funny things to anyone, but Casper hoped his mother might have learnt how to be a bit less bonkers by now. This morning he’d caught Amanda drying her hair with a Hoover. Last night she’d plugged a dummy up each of Cuddles’ nostrils. “These things take time,” he told himself.
Casper shoved open the back door and dashed into the garden, where the ten-month-old bundle of teeth and snot called Cuddles Candlewacks bounced up and down inside a pair of Julius’s boxer shorts that were hanging on the washing line. At the sight of Casper she screeched like a wounded eagle and swung her arms about, gnashing at the air with her tiny razor-sharp fangs.
“Come on, let’s get you inside.” Casper unhooked Cuddles and carried her at arm’s length back to the kitchen.
“There she is!” Amanda grabbed the baby from Casper’s arms and gave her a loving squeeze. “Ooh, ‘WANTED’. What’s this about?” She reached for the poster.
Instantly forgotten, Cuddles slithered gently down her mother’s legs. She landed on all fours and scuttled off under the cupboard to hunt the raw chicken.
“Haven’t you heard?” said Casper. “Someone’s stolen Sir Gossamer D’Glaze’s sword. A jewel thief going by the name of Le Chat.”
“Is this him?” asked Amanda. “Poor feller. He does look so much like a cat.”
Cuddles’ head popped out from under the cupboard. She stared at Amanda with wild eyes.
“What’s she doing?” Casper frowned at his sister, her ears pricked up attentively.
“Oh, it’s her new thing. She saw a cat in the garden and went berserk. Started bonking her head against the windows.”
“TAT!” screeched Cuddles. “TAT!”
“Ooh!” Amanda frowned. “She’s not done that before.”
“She’s saying ‘cat’!” Casper couldn’t believe his ears.
“Don’t be silly,” giggled Amanda. “Babies can’t talk.”
“TATATA! TATATA!”
“No, she is, she definitely is!”
Cuddles scrabbled out from under the cupboard and set off on a circuit of the kitchen, her nose frantically sniffing the air.
“Is it the cat?” Casper waved the poster at Cuddles. “Do you want the cat?”
Cuddles’ whole body tensed. Then she launched at Casper, scaling his trousers, yapping with all her lungs, drool dangling off her sticky chin. She leapt