‘Wouldn't you rather be out in the sunshine, Angel Cake?’ Mum said cheerily.
‘No, thanks,’ I said, leaning sideways and craning my neck to see the screen.
‘Not even to do a bit of weeding for your mum?’ she added hopefully, moving to block my view again.
‘No, thanks,’ I said, craning in the opposite direction. Although by now I could already feel my Saturday-morning TV slipping from my grip.
‘Not even if I pay you?’ Mum added with slumped shoulders and a heavy sigh.
I looked up from the TV and raised an interested eyebrow.
As I said before I spend most of my time in the JCHQ and sometimes I need to earn extra cash to buy paper, pens and anything else I need to make my books. That's when I do chores for Mum, even if it means sacrificing my Saturday-morning routine.
Weeding is not the kind of thing you would think could get you into trouble (though I once did battle with a man-eating rose bush and got into loads of trouble for chopping it down, but I'11 tell you about that another time). So after a bit of negotiation I agreed to take the job.
Mum handed over the gardening gloves and bucket and off I went. But as soon as I stepped into the garden to make a start I heard strange noises coming from the shed.
Someone or something was rustling around inside the JCHQ!
Mum and Dad were clearing out the garage so I knew it couldn't be them breaking the ‘no grown-ups’ rule. I crept up to the shed, cupped my gloved hands around the small dusty window and peered inside to investigate.
With my nose squidged against the glass I saw the reason for the rustling. All my papers and folders and notebooks were flying around the shed as if a mini tornado was going off inside! At first I thought the JCHQ might be haunted.
Throwing stuff around is usually the sort of thing mischievous ghosts get up to, but ghosts don't normally come out during the day so it had to be something else.
Watching closely I suddenly caught a glimpse of something: a small dark shadow swinging from shelf to shelf, pulling out files, opening them up and flinging all the pages into the air. Then I saw another one, and another one. It was impossible to see exactly what they were but I knew I had to get inside before they ruined all my work. I moved round to the shed door and flung it open to catch the mysterious creatures in the act.
It kind of worked because the shed fell silent except for a few loose pages fluttering to the ground. But there was no sign of whatever had caused the damage.
‘Hello?’ I said, stepping cautiously inside and peering into the gloom.
Suddenly a small gruff voice yelled, ‘LEG IT, MEN!’ and a dozen tiny figures sprang from a dozen tiny hiding places and shot through my legs towards the door.
Luckily I was still holding the latch and quick as a flash I pulled the door shut so they couldn't escape. A dozen tiny yelps followed a dozen tiny thuds as they crashed straight into the door and landed on top of each other, and when I looked down I saw a dozen tiny green men cursing and shaking their tiny green fists at me!
GOBLINS!!!
The goblins were about the height of a half-chewed pencil. They all had rough green skin and scruffy grey hair with scruffy grey beards to match. All except one who just had a scruffy moustache, which was all curled up at the edges and nearly as big as his head. I stared down at them with mouth open until I suddenly realized they were all staring back at me, looking very angry.
The one with the moustache was tapping his foot impatiently on the floor.
I don't know what you're supposed to do or say when you find goblins ransacking your shed, so I just said the first thing that came into my head.
‘You're goblins!’ I gasped.
The goblins said nothing.
‘Real goblins!’ I added, crouching down to get a closer look.
I'd never seen anything quite like them before so I reached out to poke one to make sure they were real.
DON'T EVER DO THIS TO A GOBLIN!
He immediately snapped at my hand with his sharp little teeth and bit a hole in the tough gardening gloves.
‘Hey!’ I said, ‘There's no need to bite, I won't hurt you.’
‘Then let us go!’ demanded the goblin with the curly moustache who looked as though he might be their leader.
‘Not before you tell me what you were all doing in my shed,’ I said, looking at all the papers thrown across the desk and the floor, and wondering how long it would take to file them all away again.
A ripple of shrugs swept through the mob of little men, then they all turned to the goblin with the big moustache (definitely the leader). He was now shuffling uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
‘Well?’ I added impatiently.
‘Um,’ said the goblin leader, staring at the floor and suddenly looking very sheepish. ‘We were bored.’
‘BORED!’ I yelled, and then felt bad for raising my voice because it made the goblins jump back.
I quickly changed my tone and said, ‘Bored?’ more calmly and with a question mark on the end.
The goblin leader stepped forward and put his arms into the air the way toddlers do when they want to be picked up. I picked him up and brought the little man to my eye level.
‘It's not our fault,’ said the goblin, pacing up and down my hand. ‘It's just that goblins have lots of energy on account of being so small and sometimes we get a bit overenthusiastic.’
‘But what were you doing in my shed in the first place?’ I asked.
‘We were going from shed to shed looking for an old television. Big folk usually put old things in their sheds and then forget about them. It's where we get most of our stuff – very low-risk looting,’ he explained. ‘Yours was the last shed in the street and we got a bit fed up.’
‘Why were you looking for a television?’ I asked.
‘Watching TV is our favourite thing!’ said the leader. ‘But we can only usually do it at night when the big folk are in bed. It's much too risky in the daytime. So we decided to find one of our own.’
‘You watch our televisions when we're in bed?’ I gasped.
‘We get in through the letter box and watch late-night horror films!’ He grinned, and the other goblins started jumping up and down excitedly.
‘TV! TV! TV!’ they chanted.
These guys really liked watching TV. I thought about all the Saturday-morning TV I was missing and about the gardening I was supposed to be doing. Then I looked at the goblins-with-too-much-energy and had a brilliant idea.
‘I'll make a deal with you,’ I said.
The deal was that the goblins could come inside the house and watch TV with me until all the Saturday-morning kids' programmes were over. In return they would help with the gardening and get it all done before Mum and Dad finished the garage.
The goblins huddled together, whispering. Eventually the leader nodded and held out his hand to me. I crouched down, shook his hand
to seal the deal and then led the little green men into the house.
You might think that's where the trouble started.
I agree that letting a bunch of hyperactive goblins into your house doesn't sound like the cleverest idea in the world, especially with Mum and Dad only two rooms away in the garage. OK, they did get very excited watching the cartoons, but apart from swinging from the lampshade, and using the sofa as a trampoline (and one goblin who had a wee in one of Mum's plant pots), they were generally very well behaved. You might now be thinking that the trouble started when the TV programmes were over, when the goblins had to do some work. I did wonder whether they would scarper, never to be seen again. But when we got outside the goblins leapt around enthusiastically, waiting for me to tell them what to do.
Goblins really do have too much energy!
‘We have to weed the garden,’ I said, setting down the empty bucket.
The goblins looked at the bucket and scratched their heads. They all seemed genuinely confused.
‘What's “weeding the garden”?’ asked
the leader.
I pointed at the flower beds. ‘It just means pulling out all the bad plants so all the good plants can grow properly,’ I said, feeling pleased with myself that I'd summed it up so simply.
‘We can take care of that, no problem at all.’ The goblin whistled through his fingers and all the other goblins formed an orderly line before him. ‘You heard him, lads. Let's get cracking!’
The other goblins nodded obediently and shot away into the flower beds, dragging the bucket behind them.
‘We'll have it done in no time,’ the leader stated confidently and headed out after them to supervise.
With nothing else to do I decided to tackle the mess in the shed, and because I could hear the goblins huffing and puffing, and the leader calling out various instructions to his workers, I was happy to leave them to it.
And that was where the trouble started!
I'd just finished sorting out the mess in the shed when I heard someone tapping on the door. I opened it to find the goblins waiting outside, looking very pleased with themselves. But when the leader showed me the weeding bucket I nearly screamed out loud.
It was full of mangled flowers!
With a sinking feeling in my stomach I stepped from the shed and looked around the garden in horror. Every single flower was gone from Mum's borders, and all the shrubs and bushes had been uprooted and plonked on the compost heap!
‘What have you done?’ I gasped.
‘We have weeded out all the useless plants from your garden,’ the leader stated proudly. The other goblins smiled at me and nodded.
‘But these aren't the weeds!’ I pleaded, waving the bucket in the air. ‘You've pulled out all the wrong ones!’ Then I noticed that not only were all the weeds still in the flower beds, but they had also been pruned and watered and spaced out in neat little rows.
‘Oh.’ The goblin leader scratched his head and frowned. ‘But you told us to take out all the useless plants, and flowers are the most useless plants of all.’
‘Uh?’ I said, because I was still kind of in shock.
‘Well, you can't eat flowers, or make clothes out of them, and worst of all they smell really horrible. So we left you all the yummy dandelions, bouncy moss, nettles for playing Sting Ball and all the other wild plants that…’ the leader's eyes grew wide as realization suddenly dawned ‘… that I suppose big folk would consider weeds.’
The goblins looked very sorry, but not as sorry as I was that all Mum's plants and flowers had been ripped out and piled on to the stinky compost heap! And as bad luck would have it, that's when Mum appeared with a plate of sandwiches and a glass of lemonade.
Mum looked around the garden. Her jaw dropped, and so did the lemonade and sandwiches – on to the grass at her feet.
She seemed stunned for a moment and glancing around I noticed all the goblins had legged it. I'd like to have legged it too but knew I had to stay and face the wrath of Mum.
‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS?’ Mum shrieked, staggering over to the compost heap. She picked up a single wilted rose bush and gazed sadly at it. ‘But it wasn't me, it was…’ I stopped and realized how it would sound if I told the truth, and even if I did tell the truth it was still my fault because I should have done the weeding myself. So I just stood there with my mouth open.
‘Well?’ Mum demanded.
‘It was Fatty,’ I said, pointing at our fat lazy cat sunbathing in the middle of the lawn.
Fatty opened one eye, hissed at me and then went back to sleep. Even the cat knew Mum wouldn't believe that. Fatty never did anything energetic.
Mum was too angry to give me the usual lecture about making up stories. Instead she sent me to my room and banned me from the JCHQ until all the flowers had been replaced using my own pocket money. I suppose paying for the damage was only fair, but keeping me out of my writing den was the worst punishment EVER!
The following morning I woke to the sound of Mum calling my name from the garden. I thought she was going to tell me off again or make me start work early, undoing the mess I'd made. But when I came down in my pyjamas and looked out across the garden I saw an amazing sight!
All the borders were filled to bursting with flowers, even more flowers than Mum originally had, and all the proper weeding had been done around them.
‘How did this happen?’ I said, scratching my head.
‘I thought you might be able to tell me,’ Mum said smiling, overjoyed to have her garden looking wonderful again.
She grabbed me and planted a big wet kiss on my cheek. ‘Thank you, Angel Cake. I don't know how you did it but you've made your mother very happy!’
‘But…’ I said helplessly.
‘Very happy indeed,’ she added, and ran back inside the house before I could say anything else. Mums sometimes do this when they don't want to know something that might put them back in a bad mood.
She obviously hadn't noticed the tiny muddy footprints trailing across the patio,
or that the flower beds in the neighbours' gardens looked a whole lot thinner than they had the day before. Mum did wonder why the potted plant in the living room had suddenly shrivelled up and died, but I didn't think she'd believe me if I told her.
So for once I said nothing and Mum stayed happy (and I stayed in her good books).
Because my punishment was over I went straight to the JCHQ to start writing up this story and there was a small note on the desk. In very tiny writing it read:
‘But there's nothing wrong with the ones I'm wearing!’ I whined, as Mum dragged me down the busy high street. Although it was far too late because the ugly new shoes were already in a box under Mum's arm.
My only chance now was to refuse to wear them.
‘You may not want new shoes, Angel Cake, but you definitely need them,’ Mum said, pointing an accusing finger at my favourite old trainers as they flipped and flopped on the pavement.
Admittedly my old trainers had seen better days, but they were so comfortable, nearly as comfortable as my feet, unlike the new ones that rubbed my ankles and squeaked when Mum marched me up and down the shop in them.
Mum stopped abruptly on the pavement and because I had my head down in a sulk I nearly ran into her. We were standing outside a sweet shop and Mum was pulling out her purse, which could mean only one thing.
Bribery!
Bribery only works one way with parents. You either take what's on offer and do as you're told, or refuse what's on offer and still do as you're told because you don't really have a choice. In fact the bribe is only there to stop kids moaning.
So I took the money with a defeated sigh and went in the sweet shop.
As I stepped inside a small brass bell rang above my head and the door slammed shut behind me (which by the way is never a good sign), but the smell of sweets had already filled my nostrils so I kept on going.
BIG mistake!
As I browsed the shop I got the strange feeling someone was watching me even though there was no one around. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a tall dark figure rise up from behind the counter, a tall dark figure that came to a very sharp point at the top. Which meant that, unless the shop was owned by a big black traffic cone, I had wandered into a witch's lair! I was about to turn and leg it but my feet
were glued to the spot. I did wonder if they were on strike over the horrible new shoes, but then the witch glided out behind the counter and started cackling and I realized she must have put a spell on my feet.
I've dealt with witches before. There are loads of them around if you know what to look for (I once found a whole coven living in the cellar, but I'll tell you about that another time). But one sure sign of a witch is the cackling. They all cackle.
This one was wearing a pointy hat, pointy boots, black dress, stripy stockings and she was cackling, so there was no doubting what she was. What I didn't know was what she was up to. ‘What's your name, little boy?’ said the witch, drumming her long dirty fingernails on her long hairy chi
n.
You should never engage a witch in conversation if you can avoid it.
They play tricks with words and the next thing you know you're volunteering to climb into their oven or something. But my mouth, like my feet, seemed to have a mind of its own.
‘Jake Cake,’ I said, while trying my best to say nothing at all.
‘Jake Cake,’ said the witch, pressing her big hooked nose against my head and taking a great noisy sniff of my hair. ‘A nice big Cake for my oven!’ she cackled.
GULP!
I must have gone pale because the witch suddenly threw her head back and started cackling even louder. ‘Oh, they fall for it every time!’ she shrieked, clapping her hands together with joy. ‘Eating children indeed, what a ridiculous idea!’
Jake Cake: The Robot Dinner Lady Page 2