Vile Visitors, Page 2

  “You should sell that piano,” Angus Flint said, as Pip started bashing away.

  Mum would not hear of it. The piano is her best bargain ever. Not everyone can buy a perfect concert-grand for £100. Besides, she wanted us to learn to play it.

  By this time, Angus Flint had stayed with us for nearly a fortnight. Cora was due home in three days, and he still showed no signs of leaving. The boys told him he would have to leave when Cora came back, but all they got was the Stare. My parents both realised that something would have to be done and began to show a little firmness at last. Mum explained – in her special anxious way that she uses when she doesn’t want to offend someone – that Cora was coming back soon and would need her room. Dad took to starting everything he said to Angus Flint with “When you leave us—”. But Angus Flint took not the slightest bit of notice. It began to dawn on me that he really did intend to stay for good.

  I was soon sure of it. He suddenly went all charming. He left me some breakfast for once. He even made his bed, and he was polite all morning. I warned the boys, but they wouldn’t believe me. I warned Mum too, when she came back suddenly in the middle of the afternoon, but it was a hot day and she was too tired to listen.

  “I only keep buying things if I stay out,” she said. “I’d rather face Angus Flint than the Bank Manager.”

  Too right she kept buying things. That week, she’d bought two hideous three-legged tables for the sitting-room, about eight bookcases, and four rolled-up carpets. We were beginning to look like an old furniture store.

  Angus Flint heard Mum come back. He rushed up to her with a jolly smile on his face. “Isn’t it a lovely day, Margaret? What do you say to me taking you and the kids out to tea somewhere?”

  Mum agreed like a shot. He hadn’t paid for a thing up to then. The boys had visions of ice cream and cream buns. I knew there was a catch in it, but it was just the day for tea out on a lawn somewhere, and I did feel we ought at least to get that out of Angus Flint in return for all our suffering. So we all crammed into his car. Angus Flint drove exactly like you might expect, far too fast. He honked his horn a lot, overtook everything he could – particularly on corners – and he expected old ladies to leap like deer in order not to be run over. Mum said what about the Copper Kettle? Tony said the cakes in the other place were better. But Angus Flint insisted that he had seen, “A perfect little place,” on his way to stay with us.

  We drove three times round town looking for the perfect little place, at top speed. Our name was mud in every street by then. We called out whenever we saw a cafe of any kind after a while, but Angus Flint just said, “We can’t stop here,” and sped on.

  After nearly an hour, when Pip was near despair, we ended up roaring through Palham, which is a village about three miles out of town. There was a place called “Ye Olde Tea Shoppe” with striped umbrellas. Our spirit was broken by then. We didn’t even mention it. But Angus Flint stopped with a screech of brakes. “This looks like as if it might do,” he said.

  We all piled out and sat under an umbrella.

  “Well, what will you have?” said Angus Flint.

  Deep breaths were drawn and cream teas for five were ordered. We all waited, looking forward to cream and cakes. We felt we really deserved our teas.

  Angus Flint said, “I’ve applied for a job in your town, Margaret. The interview’s tomorrow. Your husband was good enough to say that I could make my home with you. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”

  We stared. Had Dad said that?

  “There’s Cora,” Mum said. “We’ve no room.”

  “That’s no problem,” Angus Flint said. “You can put the two girls in together.”

  “No!” I said. If you knew Cora—

  “I’d pay,” Angus Flint said, joking and trying to be nice. “A nominal sum – a pound a month, say?”

  Mum drew herself up resolutely, to my great relief. “No, Angus. It’s absolutely out of the question. You’ll have to go as soon as Cora comes back.”

  Angus Flint did not answer. Instead, he bounced jovially to his feet. “I have to go and see someone for a moment,” he said. “I shan’t be long. Don’t wait for me.” And he was back in his car and driving away before any of us could move.

  hey brought us five cream teas almost at once. It was a perfect revenge.

  Mum could not believe that Angus Flint was not coming back. We ate our cream teas. After a while, Mum let the boys eat Angus’s cream tea too, and said we could order another when he came back. When they came with the bill, she said we were expecting a friend, who would pay.

  Half an hour later, they began to look at us oddly.

  Half an hour after that, they took the umbrellas out of the tables and stood the chairs on them suggestively.

  A short while after that, they came and asked to be paid. They made it quite clear that they knew we were trying to cheat them. They refused Mum’s desperately offered cheque. We had to go through all our pockets and shake Mum’s bag out on the table, and even then we were 2p short. They forgave us that, but grimly. They looked after us unlovingly as we went. Mum nearly sank under the embarrassment.

  Then we had to walk home. It was still hot. Tony hates walking, and he whined. Pip got a blister and whined too. Mum snarled and I snapped. We were all in the worst tempers of our lives by the time we plunged up the garden path and burst into the house. We knew that Angus Flint would be standing there, upside-down on the hall carpet, to meet us.

  “And this time I shan’t care that it’s his socks I’m talking to!” I said.

  But the person standing in the hall was Dad. He was the right way up, of course, and wondering where we’d all got to. Mum went for him with all her claws out. “Have you had the nerve to tell Angus Flint that he could live with us? If so—” I felt quite sorry for my father. He admitted that, in the heat of the first reunion, he might have said some such thing, but – Oh boy! Never have I heard my mother tell someone off like she did then. I couldn’t do it half so well. Even Cora couldn’t, the time she played the evil headmistress in the school play.

  After that, for a beautiful, peaceful half evening, we thought Angus Flint had gone for good. We kept the window shut, played the piano, watched the things we wanted on the telly, and cheered Dad up by playing cards with him. We were all thoroughly happy, when Angus Flint came back again. He knew we were likely to complain, I suppose, so he brought a girlfriend home with him to make sure we couldn’t go for him.

  The girlfriend was a complete stranger to us. Hand-picked for her big smile, with glasses and a giggle.

  “Teach her to play cards,” said Angus Flint. “She’s quite clever really.”

  She wasn’t. But neither was Angus Flint, when it came to cards. Have you ever played cards with somebody who thinks for twenty minutes before he puts a card down, and then puts down exactly the wrong one? He played the girl’s hand too, though she was slightly better at it than he was. We went to bed after the first game. But Angus Flint didn’t take the girlfriend home until well after midnight. I know, because I heard Mum let fly again when he did.

  Angus Flint came back at three and woke me up hammering at the front door.

  When I let him in, he said, “Didn’t you hear me knocking? I might have caught my death.”

  I said, “I wish you had!” and escaped into the sitting-room before he could pick me up by my hair.

  Menace was there. He crawled nervously out from under the piano to be stroked.

  “Menace,” I said. “Where’s your spirit? Can’t you bite Angus Flint?”

  Then I thought that I didn’t dare bite Angus Flint either, and got so miserable that I went wandering round the room. I patted the uncomfortable chairs and the poor ugly tables, and stroked the piano.

  “Chairs,” I said, “stand up for yourselves! He insults you all the time. Tables,” I said, “he said you ought to be burnt! Piano, he told Mum to sell you. Do something, all of you! Furniture of the world, unite!” I gave them a very stirri
ng speech, all about the rights of oppressed furniture, and it made me feel much better. Not that I thought it would do any good. But I thought it was a very good idea.

  ext morning, Angus Flint ate my breakfast as usual, and Mum and Dad went out together to make friends again. Leaving us alone with Angus Flint, yet again!

  At least there was something, ‘very profound’ on the telly that afternoon. First I ever knew that racehorses were profound, but it meant twenty minutes’ peace. I did some practice. The piano sounded lovely. My song that sounded like dancing elephants was getting better; the elephants had shrunk in size and were beginning to sound like mere dancing tortoises, when the door was torn open. I knew it was Angus Flint and dived for safety.

  He was in a very bad temper. I think his horse lost. As I crawled out from under the piano, he sat down at it, grumbling, and started to hammer out a song. I was surprised to see that he knew how to play. But he played very badly. Menace began to whine under his cupboard.

  Angus Flint thumped both hands down with a jangle. “This is a horrible piano,” he said. “It’s got a terrible tone, and it needs tuning.”

  Rotten slander. I don’t blame the piano for getting annoyed. Its curved black rear shuddered. One of its stumpy front legs pawed the ground. Then its lid shut with a clap on Angus Flint’s fingers. Now I know why Mum got it for only £100. Angus Flint dragged his fingers free with such a yell that Pip and Tony came to see what was happening.

  By the time they got there, both the new, ugly little tables were stealing towards Angus Flint for a surprise attack, each with their three legs twinkling cautiously over the carpet. Angus Flint saw one out of the corner of his eye and turned to Stare at it. It stood where it was, looking innocent. But the piano-stool spun itself round and tipped him on the floor. I think that was very loyal of the stool, because it must have been the one piece of furniture Angus Flint had not insulted. And, while Angus Flint was sprawling on the floor, the best chair trundled up and did its best to run him over. He scrambled out of its way with a howl. And the nearest bookcase promptly showered him with books.

  While he was trying to get up, the piano lowered its music stand and charged.

  I don’t blame Angus Flint for being terrified. The piano was gnashing its keys at him and kicking out with its pedals and snorting through the holes in its music-stand. And it went galloping around the room after Angus Flint on its three brass castors like a mad, black bull. The rest of the furniture kept blundering across his path. Tables knocked him this way and that, and chairs herded him into huddles of other chairs. But they always left him a free way to run when the piano charged, so that he had a thoroughly frightening time. They never once tried to hurt the three of us.

  I stuffed myself into a corner and admired. That piano was an expert. It would come thundering down on Angus Flint. When he tore off frantically sideways, it stopped short and banged its lid down within inches of his trouser-seat. It could turn and be after him again before you could believe it to be possible. Angus Flint dashed round and round the sitting-room, and the piano thundered after him, and when the boys had to leave the doorway, one of the new bookcases dodged over and stood across it, so that Angus Flint was utterly trapped.

  “Do something, can’t you!” he kept howling at me, and I only laughed.

  The reason the boys had to leave the doorway was that the dining-room table had heard the fun going on and wanted to join in. The trouble was, both its rickety leaves were spread out and it was too wide to get through the dining-room door. It was in the doorway, clattering its feet and banging furiously for help. Tony and Pip took pity on it and took its leaves down. It then scuttled across the hall, nudged aside the bookcase, and dived into the sitting-room after Angus Flint, flapping both leaves like a great angry bird. And it wasn’t going to play cat and mouse like the piano. It was out to get Angus Flint. He had some very narrow escapes and howled louder than ever.

  I thought the time had come to take the show on the road. I made my way around the walls, with tables and chairs trundling this way and that all around me, and opened the window.

  Angus Flint howled out that I was a good girl – which annoyed me – and made for the opening like a bat out of hell. I meant to trip him when he got there. I didn’t want him getting too much of a start. But the carpet saved me the trouble by flipping up one of its corners around his feet. He came down on his face, half inside the room and half in the garden. The piano and the dining-table both bore down on him. He scrambled up and bolted. I’ve never seen anyone run so fast.

  The table was after him like a shot, but the piano got its rear castor stuck on the sill. It must be very awkward having to gallop with only one leg at the back.

  I went to help it, but the faithful piano-stool and my favourite chair got there first and heaved it free. Then it hunched its wide front part and fairly shot across the garden and out into the road after the flying Angus Flint. The chairs and tables all set out too, bravely bobbling and trundling. Last of all went Menace, barking as if he was doing all the chasing single-handed.

  I don’t know what the other people in the street thought. The dining-table collided with a lamppost halfway down the street and put itself out of the running. But the piano got up speed wonderfully and was hard on Angus Flint’s heels as he shot into the next street. After that, we lost them. We were too busy collecting exhausted tables and chairs, which were strewn all down the street. The piano-stool had only got as far as the garden gate, and my favourite chair broke a castor getting through the window. We had to carry them back to the house. And there was a fair amount of tidying up to do indoors, what with the books, the carpets, and Cora’s bed.

  Cora’s bed, probably the most insulted piece of furniture in the house, must have been frantic to get at Angus Flint too. It had forced itself halfway through the bedroom door and then stuck. We had a terrible job getting it back inside the room. We had just done it, and were wearily trying to mend the dining-table – which has never been the same since – when we heard twanging and clattering noises coming from the sitting-room. We were in time to see the piano come plodding back through the window and put itself in its usual place. It looked tired but satisfied.

  “Do you think it’s eaten him?” Pip said hopefully.

  The piano didn’t say. But it hadn’t. Mum and Dad came back and we were all cheerfully having a cup of tea when Angus Flint suddenly came shooting downstairs. We think he climbed up the drainpipe in order not to meet the piano again. I suspect that Cora’s bed was rather glad to see him.

  “I’m just leaving,” Angus Flint said.

  It was music to our ears! He went straight out to his car too, carrying his suitcase. We all came out to say polite goodbye – or polite good-riddance, as Tony put it.

  “I’ve had a wonderful time,” Angus Flint said. “Here’s a football for you, Pip.” And he held out to Pip a flat orange thing. It was Pip’s own football, but it was burst. “And this is for you,” he said to Tony, handing him a fistful of broken plastic. Then he said to me, “I’m giving you some paper.” And he gave me one sheet of my own paper back. One sheet! I’d had a whole new writing pad.

  “I do hope Cora’s bed bit you,” I said sweetly.

  Angus Flint gave me the Stare for that, but it wasn’t as convincing as usual, somehow. Then he got into his car and drove away. Actually drove away and didn’t come back. We cheered.

  It’s been so peaceful since. Mum wondered whether to sell the new tables, but we wouldn’t let her. They are our faithful friends. As for the piano, well, Pip has decided he’s going to be a genius at something else instead. His excuse for giving up lessons is that Miss Hawksmoore’s false teeth make her spit on his hands when she’s teaching him. They do. But the real reason is that he’s scared of the piano. I’m not. I love it more than that coward Menace even, and I’m determined to work and work until I’ve learnt how to play it as it deserves.

  hat happened to the old striped armchair was Auntie Christa’s faul
t.

  The old chair had stood in front of the television for as long as Simon and Marcia could remember. As far as they knew, the cushion at the top had always been tipped sideways and it had never been comfortable to sit in. The seat was too short for Dad and too low for Mum and too high for Simon or Marcia. Its arms were the wrong shape for putting things on. Perhaps that was why there was a coffee-stain on one arm and a blot of ink on the other. There was a sticky brown patch on the seat where Simon and Marcia had once had a fight for the ketchup bottle. Then one evening, the sideways cushion at the top wore out. Whatever the chair was stuffed with began to ooze out in a spiky brown bush.

  “The armchair’s grown a beard,” said Simon.

  “It looks as if someone’s smashed a hedgehog on it,” Marcia said.

  Dad stood and looked at it. “Let’s get rid of it,” he said. “I’ve never liked it anyway. I tell you what – we can sit the Guy in it on Guy Fawkes night. That will make a really good bonfire.”

  Marcia thought this was a very good idea. Now she thought about it, she had never liked the chair either. The purple and orange and pale blue stripes on it never seemed to go with anything else in the room. Simon was not so sure.

  He always liked things that he knew, and he had known that chair all his life. It seemed a shame to burn it on the bonfire. He was glad when Mum objected.