Casper Candlewacks in the Claws of Crime!. Ivan Brett

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ her to the ground, knocking over Clemmie Answorth in the process. Sandy Landscape dived on top, launching punches into the crowd. Then, with a left hook, he felled old Mrs Trimble, who shrieked and dropped her bag of cats. The cats tumbled out into the melee, ripping and nipping with furry fury.

      “SILENCE!” bellowed Mayor Rattsbulge.

      Cats and villagers alike froze and stared at their mayor. Sandy Landscape let go of Mitch McMassive’s head and put his teeth back in.

      “One more thing. There’s a dangerous criminal on the loose, and I don’t want any more of my villagers hurt than is necessary. So I’m imposing a curfew: everybody must stay in their houses after dark. Understood?”

      “Yes, Mayor Rattsbulge,” chorused the villagers.

      “What about the Summer Ball?” came the shrill tones of Audrey Snugglepuss from somewhere beneath Sandy Landscape’s foot. “That’s tomorrow, and the cake’s all ready.” The Corne-on-the-Kobb Carrot Cake Appreciation Society, of which Audrey was the president, baked a giant cake every year for the occasion. “Will all those carrots have died for nothing, mister mayor?”

      Audrey’s question got a roar of agreement from the villagers. The Summer Ball was a much-loved event in Corne-on-the-Kobb – you got free wine and sausage rolls all night, and the best-dressed villager won a pig.

      “Of course the ball will still take place.” Mayor Rattsbulge wouldn’t dream of cancelling it, not while there were free sausage rolls and a massive cake, anyway. “But no loitering outside. We’ll lock the doors once you’re all in. Now clear off, and find my sword.”

      The crowd cheered as the mayor waddled down from his perch, then they promptly got back to beating chunks out of each other with handbags, wooden legs, or whatever else was to hand.

      “Come on, Lamp,” said Casper, just as Mitch McMassive flew straight past them and crashed into a bin. “Let’s go home before things get any uglier.”

      As they left the square, Casper could feel the gaze of the little pointy-nosed girl burn the back of his neck. “I don’t trust Anemonie,” he said. “Did you see how shifty she’s acting?”

      “Not as shifty as him.” Lamp nodded towards an olive-skinned little man with a black beret, whom Casper swore he’d never noticed before. He sat on a low wooden stool by the steps to the village hall, his pursed white lips sucking on a needle-thin cigarette. He watched the mass brawl with a smirk.

      “Who’s that?”

      “He looks weird.”

      “He looks French, Lamp.”

      “Like Le Splat.”

      “Yeah, like—” Casper gasped. “Do you think he’s part of it?”

      But Lamp wasn’t listening. He was too busy waving through the window at Daisy. She grinned and waved back, giving Lamp a minor heart attack.

      Families are odd things. They come in all shapes and sizes, colours and smells. Some families grow on trees, some families come by post and some families arrive off the train with a bulging suitcase and a head full of dreams. The biggest family in the world contains two fathers, three mothers, twelve grandmothers, twenty-six brothers and a poodle. The smallest family in the world is so minute that it can only be seen through a special microscope. The Wriggle family of Essex makes a living by travelling the world and juggling ducks. There is a rumour of a new sort of family that exists only on the Internet, which can be downloaded in bite-size chunks for a weekly fee. All of these are examples of the wonderful, remarkable or downright laughable sorts of families that you can get these days. But none of these even come close to the insanity of the Candlewacks family of Corne-on-the-Kobb.

      “I’m home,” called Casper as he slammed the sticky front door behind him.

      “Casper, that you? Come on through, supper’s looking delicious!” Casper’s mum’s shout from the kitchen was accompanied by the clattering of knives and a rubbery thud.

      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. СКАЧАТЬ