by Gwyneth Rees
So I pointed the remote control at Cedric again and he obligingly began to twirl about in a not too robotic way, humming to himself at the same time.
‘Amazing,’ Ziggy’s mother said. ‘From a distance anyone would think it was a real little gnome-man.’ She looked at her husband sharply. ‘And you did see it from a distance, Godfrey . . . for a few seconds, in fact, while bouncing up and down on a trampoline . . .’
Godfrey was nodding his agreement, clearly doubting himself now that our much more likely explanation was being given the seal of approval by his wife.
I realized that they were both looking quite relieved. It seemed that even a professor who was interested in aliens and a TV presenter who needed an alien family for his TV show would still rather discover that their next-door neighbours were boring old humans after all.
‘Well, we’ll leave you in peace,’ Mum said, giving me a look that told me it was time to turn Cedric back into a normal garden gnome again.
‘Where’s Ziggy?’ I asked as his mother showed us to the door.
‘Oh, he’s upstairs looking for his favourite teddy that got lost in the move.’ His mother sighed. ‘He’s never been much of a one for cuddly toys, but he’s had this particular teddy since he was a baby . . .’
I gasped, because of course I had completely forgotten about rescuing Ziggy’s bear from the dustbin.
As she spoke she opened the front door for us and we saw the big lorry that collects all the rubbish driving away from us down the street.
‘Oh no!’ I felt terrible.
‘What’s wrong?’ Ziggy’s mum asked me, but of course I couldn’t tell her.
I’m not sure what I’d have done if I’d been left to deal with the situation on my own. But straight away I saw Saffie standing alone on the pavement outside our house. She had her back to us and she was looking in the direction of the dustbin lorry. And she was clutching her tummy.
‘Oh no,’ Mum murmured just as Ziggy came thundering down the stairs looking really upset.
‘Mum, I’ve looked and looked and I can’t find Henry anywhere!’ he exclaimed, rubbing his eyes as if he had been crying. Then he saw that we were there and he suddenly looked very stiff and awkward.
Before anyone could speak, the rubbish lorry screeched to a dramatic halt and a voice that sounded like it was coming from a megaphone boomed out, ‘STAND BACK, CITIZENS! I DO BELIEVE I AM GOING TO BE SICK!’
‘What the . . . ?’ Even Mum looked astounded.
The rear of the lorry had turned into a rectangular face with knitted eyebrows and big square eyes. The opening for the rubbish bags had become a huge gaping mouth that let out a loud belch followed by a terrible retching sound. Then the lorry began to spew out its load, ejecting bag after bag of stinking rubbish on to the street.
The driver had already jumped down from his cab to see what was going on, and the other bin men were standing staring in disbelief at the rubbish that was piling up behind their vehicle. People were starting to come out of their houses to see what was happening, and cars were screeching to a halt in the street.
I could tell that Mum was quickly putting two and two together, though she obviously didn’t know why my sister was doing this. I reckoned I did. Saffie must have seen the bins being collected and remembered about Ziggy’s bear. My little sister often felt sorry after she’d done something naughty and wanted to put it right, but usually by that time it was too late.
Mum was saying a hurried goodbye to Ziggy’s mum, who fortunately was too short-sighted without her glasses to see exactly what was happening at the other end of the street. I rushed to join Saffie, desperate to get to her before Mum. Thankfully she had stopped animating the lorry and nobody else seemed to have noticed the face except Mum – and possibly Ziggy’s dad, judging by the way he had just rushed off to find his video camera.
‘Saffie, what are you doing?’ I hissed.
‘I was telling Granny how much I miss Elvira and Dorothy since Mummy took them away from me,’ Saffie said in a small voice. ‘And it made me think about that boy and how he must be missing his teddy bear. And I was going to fetch it back for him when I saw the bin lorry taking away all the rubbish.’
‘There’s no way the bin men will let us search through all those bags to find Ziggy’s bear,’ I said, trying to think what to do.
‘Maybe I can make Ziggy’s bear come to us?’ Saffie said. ‘But we have to get closer.’
‘OK, then.’ I held her hand. ‘Come on.’
We pretended not to hear Mum calling after us as we ran down the street, heading for the stranded truck and the heap of spewed-out black bags. Many of the refuse sacks were torn or split open but there was no sign of Ziggy’s bear among the loose rubbish lying around.
‘Do you remember him clearly enough to picture him in your mind?’ I asked Saffie urgently.
She nodded and stood still on the pavement, closing her eyes. As Saffie did her best to bring the bear to life with her special power, I scoured the rubbish sacks looking for any sign of movement.
Ziggy arrived, out of breath from running. ‘What are you two doing? Your mum says you’ve got to come back at once.’
‘Shush!’ I put my finger to my lips, pointing at Saffie.
‘Look, what’s that?’ someone shouted.
A lot of the bags had fallen together in a massive heap to form a black mountain of rubbish sacks. And now something small and brown and furry was dragging itself up to the top of that mountain, paw by shuddering paw. As he reached the top, the little creature stood up and knocked a greasy crisp packet off his head.
‘It’s a rat! Stand back, everyone! It’s a rat!’ shouted one of our neighbours.
This gave the bear such a fright it lost its footing and started to tumble down the bin-bag mountain as several people backed away very rapidly.
I quickly rushed forward, ignoring everyone’s cries for me to come back. I reached the pile of rubbish sacks and grabbed the bear. ‘You’re safe now, Henry,’ I whispered as the frightened toy let out a relieved sob. ‘I’ll take you back to Ziggy.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ The bear gave me the friendliest of growls before Saffie withdrew her power and he became a normal toy again.
Ziggy looked shocked and stood gaping at me, his arms remaining firmly at his sides, as I held Henry out for him to take.
When our mothers arrived, looking a mixture of stern and relieved, and Ziggy’s dad appeared, extremely overexcited and armed with a massive camera, Ziggy slowly held out his hand to take his toy bear.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked him softly.
He nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he mumbled.
‘You’re welcome,’ Saffie chirped up, as if to remind us that she should be the one he was thanking, not me. She had clearly forgotten that she was the one who had put Henry in harm’s way in the first place.
‘Thanks, Saffie,’ Ziggy said at once.
‘Yes, well done, Saffie,’ I said, giving her a hug. I knew that she had put us in a lot of danger by using her power in full view of all our neighbours like that, but I couldn’t start telling her off. After all, I hadn’t exactly discouraged her.
‘Of course, I was only so bothered about losing Henry because I knew Mum would be upset,’ Ziggy said, doing his best to sound cool as we sat chatting in his back garden. Saffie had gone straight home with Mum, whereas I had decided to pop next door first to collect our frisbee.
‘Sure,’ I said with a disbelieving grin.
He smiled, then lowered his voice as he said, ‘Listen, I’m really sorry about my dad shoving his stupid camera in your faces like that. I think he just got really excited because he saw Saffie make that lorry come to life the same as I did and, well . . . families who might be aliens just aren’t that easy to find.’
‘I keep telling you – we’re not aliens,’ I said sharply.
‘I know, I know . . . I’m just saying he was excited because he thought all over again that you could be, that’s all . . .’
/> I took a deep breath and did my best to calm down. After all, Ziggy had been brilliant at handling his dad for us just now. His dad had taken so long rushing around the house trying to find his camera that, by the time he got back outside, the lorry had lost its lifelike features. As everybody else was talking about how there had to be a fault in the garbage-disposal mechanism inside the lorry, Mr Seaton gradually came round to the idea that they must be right and that he had imagined the face. As for the lorry’s voice, Ziggy had helped us there as well.
‘I thought it was really funny when one of the bin men pretended to be the lorry shouting out that it was going to be sick, didn’t you, Dad?’ he had said. And his dad had agreed, clearly not wanting to admit that he had thought the voice had come from the lorry itself.
I looked at Ziggy gratefully as I remembered how well he had covered for us. But at the same time it didn’t really make any sense to me why he would.
‘Ziggy, why are you taking my family’s side in this?’ I asked him. ‘I mean, why are you helping us instead of your own dad?’
Ziggy frowned, plucking at the grass while he clearly tried to decide whether or not to tell me something. ‘OK, Emma,’ he finally said, ‘I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell anyone else, OK?’ As I nodded, wondering what he could possibly have to tell me, he continued quietly, ‘It’s because I don’t want my dad to get all obsessed with you like he did with another family in the last place we lived. There was a weird kid who went to my school who I got friendly with, and I accidently mentioned to Dad that he could bend spoons and stuff just by looking at them. His parents could do it too, and his grandparents, he said. Dad got all excited and wanted them on his show and he wouldn’t leave the family alone after that. But they didn’t want any fuss or to go on television and it all got really nasty at school when Dad wouldn’t let it drop. The Head took the other family’s side and I got asked to leave. Dad was sorry about it because he knew I really liked that school, but he was more sorry that he didn’t get that family to appear on his TV show.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, if he carries on like this I can see the same thing happening here. He’ll get into a similar thing with your family and our two families will end up hating each other. And all the other neighbours will take your side and they’ll end up hating us too, and you’ll hate me and everyone at my new school will hate me and eventually we’ll have to move on yet again.’
I didn’t say anything for a little bit after he’d told me all that. I was too busy thinking. And what I was thinking was that maybe there were even more difficult families to belong to than a super-weird one like mine.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t trusted you,’ I finally said, giving Ziggy an apologetic smile. ‘It’s been quite scary having your family move next door, that’s all.’
‘I know.’ He looked apologetic too. ‘It’s been pretty freaky for me as well, seeing your gnomes doing the weeding and those dolls throwing stuff at each other, and seeing your sister doing that stunt with the dustbin lorry just now. Not to mention Henry! I mean, that isn’t exactly normal, is it?’
‘I didn’t say we were normal,’ I clarified, ‘just that we’re not aliens, OK?’
‘OK.’ He paused. ‘So what are you then?’
And that’s when I decided the time had come to tell him the truth about us. After all, I was going to need his help and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t trusted me. I wasn’t sure that my parents would approve, but I didn’t see what else I could do.
‘Wow, that’s pretty cool!’ he exclaimed when I’d finished talking. ‘But I can see why you want to keep it a secret.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Listen, you’ll have to be really careful around my dad. He would expose you and Saffie with no hesitation if it meant his viewing figures went up.’
As he spoke the back door opened and his dad emerged.
‘Here comes Dad for his daily trampoline workout. He really does use our trampoline to keep fit, you know. He didn’t buy it purely to spy on any interesting neighbours!’
We watched Ziggy’s dad jog down to the bottom of the garden and do a few stretches on the grass to limber up.
I remembered that Granny was meant to have sabotaged the trampoline by now. It was probably just as well that she hadn’t, I thought, as we watched Mr Seaton haul his large body up to sit on the padded edge of the trampoline, which seemed to tilt a little under his weight.
I reckoned he must be extremely heavy, judging by the way the whole trampoline was sort of sinking down into the ground as he jumped on it. As we watched, the trampoline’s legs seemed to be slowly disappearing into the earth. It was like watching somebody bouncing on a trampoline on top of quicksand! Ziggy’s dad soon realized something was wrong and dismounted in a sort of rolling motion over the side. Unfortunately he landed with a splat on the muddy ground and rolled into the boggy hollow that the sinking trampoline was now stuck in.
Ziggy was running down the garden, calling, ‘Are you all right, Dad?’ while I followed at a slower pace.
‘Do I look like I’m all right?’ his father grunted as he crawled out covered in mud. ‘Someone’s done something to the ground under this trampoline. I don’t know what exactly. Dug out a whole lot of soil from underneath it or something – and replaced the turf so it wouldn’t be noticed. I should jolly well call the police!’
‘What? To report the theft of some earth?’ Ziggy sounded incredulous.
‘I don’t think the earth has been stolen exactly,’ I said, pointing to a large pile of soil close to the hedge.
Ziggy’s dad went to inspect it before turning back to glare at me. ‘I don’t suppose you already knew about this, did you?’
I shook my head, not really feeling like I was lying. After all, it wasn’t as if Granny had told me what she’d done.
But he wasn’t finished with his interrogation.
‘And what about our missing garden shed? Do you know anything about that?’
In my panic I forgot all about ‘V is for Vandals’ and blurted out the first thing that came into my head. ‘Maybe the wind blew it away?’
Mr Seaton narrowed his eyes. ‘Really? I didn’t notice a tornado but I guess one could have visited the garden while I was out!’
I gulped because I didn’t like the way he was glaring at me. ‘I think I’ll go now,’ I said. ‘See you later, Ziggy.’
‘See you, Emma. And thanks again for rescuing Henry!’
As I left I heard Ziggy’s dad ask him in a suspicious voice, ‘Now . . . tell me again . . . how exactly did those girls rescue that bear?’
‘Granny, what did you do?’ I asked as soon as I got home. ‘Ziggy’s dad is furious. He thinks someone dug up the ground under his trampoline.’
‘He’s right.’ Granny was smiling. ‘It was my gnomes. I sent them over there to do what turned out to be rather a large spot of gardening. It took them all night. I did help them a little bit with the hose though. I thought it might be a nice touch to make the earth nice and boggy before they put the turf back on.’
‘But, Granny, how did they do it without anyone seeing anything?’
‘It was a night mission. My gnomes are quite expert at night missions. They looked like mini commandos climbing up one side of the hedge and down the other. We used your washing-line as a rope.’
‘But, Granny, Ziggy’s dad will just move his trampoline on to a firmer bit of ground and carry on using it,’ I pointed out.
‘He can move it and exercise on it as much as he likes, but if I catch him spying on us again I shall send the boys back over there. They’re prepared to dig up his whole garden if necessary. He’ll soon learn not to mess with this family!’
‘I just hope you haven’t made things worse, Mother,’ Mum said as she came into the room.
‘I doubt that,’ Granny said. ‘And the sooner he stops being such a nosy neighbour the better.’
‘Where’s Saffie?’ I asked when I saw that she wasn’t with our mother.
‘I gave her dolls back to her and she’s
playing with them in her room,’ Mum replied.
I was puzzled. There was no noise coming from upstairs.
‘I got her to make me a promise before I gave them back,’ Mum added.
‘What promise?’ I asked.
‘To teach them that if they don’t play nicely with each other, then they won’t get played with at all.’
Granny was tilting her head, cupping one hand behind her ear as if she was having a really good listen. ‘Well . . .’ she finally declared. ‘I do believe that’s done the trick, my dear.’
Mum nodded and gave a wry smile as she murmured, ‘At least for now.’
As soon as Dad got home from work, Mum said she needed to talk to him in the kitchen. I knew she was going to tell him what had happened today with the bin lorry and how worried she was about Saffie using her power like that in public. And she was also going to tell him about my conversation with Ziggy and the fact that I had told Ziggy the truth about us. Mum had been furious when I’d let her know what I’d done. Granny was already in the kitchen, so I guessed she was planning on being in on their talk too.
The grown-ups had been shut up in the kitchen for some time when the doorbell rang. Saffie was in the living room watching television, so it was me who went to the door.
‘Who is it?’ I called out.
‘Ziggy! Quick! Open the door! I don’t want my mum to see me here!’
‘Why mustn’t she see you?’ I asked as I let him inside.
‘She’s decided there’s something about your family that’s not quite right and she’d rather we kept our distance.’ He grinned. ‘Basically, she thinks you’re all a bit weird, but not in an interesting or scientifically significant way.’
‘Oh,’ I said, wondering if I ought to feel insulted.
‘Don’t worry. It means she’ll do her best to get Dad to drop his interest in you too,’ Ziggy continued. ‘She only likes him focusing on families who might be aliens, so she’s trying to steer him back in that direction. She’s written an advert to put in the paper. That’s what I came to show you. Look!’ He handed me a piece of paper with typing on it: