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СКАЧАТЬ your cheese shop getting along?” asked Casper politely.

      “Ah, not bad, not bad,” nodded Renée. “I think it will be making quite ze splash.”

      “Why?” Lamp scratched his hair. “Is it wet?”

      Renée frowned and reached for the little English dictionary he’d taken to keeping in a pocket. “I, er, do not…”

      “Don’t worry, sir,” said Casper, motioning for Renée to put his dictionary away. “He just means to say how excited we are about tasting all your cheese.”

      “Heh,” said Renée, breaking into a gruff smile. “Yes. Ze cheese.” He winked at Lamp and turned to shuffle away.

      Casper turned to Lamp and saw that he was grinning. “What was that wink?”

      “Huh?”

      “ALL ABOARD, TICKETS ’N’ RAILCARDS, MIND THE GAP!” shouted Sandy Landscape, clambering up the side of his tractor. “TRAIN NOW STANDIN’ ON PLATFORM ONE’S THE TEN PAST EIGHT TER HIGH KOBB.”

      As children tottered up on to the train carriage and mothers wailed ever louder, Casper’s nerves flooded back in and stung him like a mouthful of seawater. What waited for him at the other end of this journey? Did High Kobb really have alligators? Would he even make it home to see the opening of The Battered Cod?

      The ‘bus’ roared into life, pumping black fumes and a sleeping hedgehog out of the exhaust pipe and into the crowd. The tractor shunted forwards and the carriage jerked into motion behind, throwing the children back in their seats. The villagers cheered, tearful mothers waved their hankies and little children and dogs chased the carriage down the road, although it wasn’t going very fast so they just stood there and wondered what to do once they’d caught up with it.

      At the back of the crowd, Renée shuffled away across the cobbles. He stopped at the door to a boarded-up shop with a small sign that said Le Cheese Shop. He open tonight. He fiddled with the key, pushed open the door and shuffled inside. But that’s not important because Renée’s obviously not anyone to worry about and he’s certainly not hatching any evil plans or anything. Don’t even know why I mentioned him, actually.

      

      The country lanes trawled by slower than a lazy snail. Casper smudged his nose on the window of the train and sighed. Summer was over and school was ready to take its place, filling his days with boredom and sums.

      Casper and Lamp sat at one of those four-seat tables opposite Milly and Milly Mollyband, the identical twins (who’d been given the same name to save time and name-badges). They’d obviously heard about the alligators too because they both trembled so hard that Lamp thought there was an earthquake going on.

      Eventually, Lamp decided he liked earthquakes, so Casper had some more time to look out of the window. When he looked back, Lamp was scratching his oily black hair and then sniffing his finger. “Strawberry,” he said. “Must be Monday.”

      Casper frowned. “What?”

      “I invented a shampoo that knows what day it is. It changes flavour to match. Monday means strawberry.”

      “Oh…” Casper frowned.

      “And you know I smelt of eggs yesterday?”

      “Was that the shampoo too?”

      “Nope, I’d just been eating them. Got my last three here. Want one?” He pulled three boiled eggs from an inner pocket of his blazer.

      Casper took an egg to keep Lamp happy and placed it carefully in his backpack.

      Lamp licked his lips and saved his two for later.

      “OY! WOSSAT?” A shriek tore from the back of the carriage.

      “It’s Anemonie!” whispered Casper. “What does she want?”

      “I want that! It’s mine!” A small, pointy-nosed girl with squinty eyes and dark hair stomped up the aisle, pointing straight at Lamp with her sharpened pink fingernails. Her sickly sweet perfume made Casper gag.

      Lamp plunged his eggs into his pocket and pretended to be asleep.

      “What were you holding? Give it.”

      “Zzzzzz,” snored Lamp. Then he opened one eye and whispered, “Has she gone yet, Casper?”

      Anemonie Blight jabbed a few fingernails into Lamp’s side.

      “Ouch! I mean… zzz. Oh, bother.” The game was up.

      “Give it.” Anemonie reached for a sharp-tipped pencil that she kept behind her ear. “Last warning, Flannigan. This pencil is leaded.”

      “Fine. Didn’t want it, anyway.” Lamp withdrew his trembling hand from the pocket clutching one of the boiled eggs.

      “An egg?” Anemonie’s face wrinkled with disgust. She swatted the egg at Milly Mollyband, but it missed and struck Milly Mollyband.

      Anemonie snarled. “Now, gimme your lunch money.”

      “That was my lunch,” said Lamp, staring hungrily at Milly Mollyband’s blazer.

      “How ’bout yours, then, Candlewacks?” Anemonie swung the pencil towards Casper.

      Casper considered giving Anemonie his egg as well, but he valued not having a pencil sticking out of his face a bit too much for that. The two one-pound coins that he’d brought for lunch weighed heavily in his pocket. Begrudgingly, he handed them over.

      “There. Not so hard, was it?” Anemonie smiled her sickly smile and skipped away back down the carriage to play ‘Ding Dong Bell’ on Teresa Louncher’s pigtails.

      Casper sighed. Anemonie had been stealing his lunch money for as long as he could remember, but for some reason he thought going to senior school would change things.

      One of Teresa’s pigtails landed on his table with a plap. Evidently things hadn’t changed.

      “I miss my egg,” moaned Lamp.

      “Here. Have mine.” Giving Lamp his egg back cheered him hugely. He sang some jolly songs until he ran out of breath, and then he went blue because he forgot to breathe in again, so Casper had to remind him.

      The road bent round and Casper caught his first sight of High Kobb – an ugly mass of grey towers and belching chimneys scarring the beautiful landscape like a scab on a princess.

      As the country roads became paved streets, Casper longed to be home again. The endless dusty concrete and nose-to-tail traffic made his heart sink. Luckily СКАЧАТЬ