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Something in the kitchen went ching-BOING! and there was the glop-glop-glop of liquid ru
“My new dress is soaked!” she heard Marlene whine. Then came the sound of Tibby’s cat flap opening. Marlene gasped, “A monster!”
“What a splendid one!” E
By the time A
A
A
She went thoughtfully up to her bedroom. Tibby was now crouched on A
“You eat it,” said A
She shut her bedroom door to keep Tibby in there and went down to the living room. She stepped over the pieces of the china lamp to the dining area and fetched out the tea trolley. Then she spent quite a long time tying the tray to the front of the trolley, testing it, and tying it again. When she had it tied firmly, so that it grated along the carpet as the trolley was pushed, and nothing an inch high could possibly get under the bottom edge of the tray, A
She wheeled the armored trolley out through the hall. By lying on her stomach across the top of it, she managed to reach the handle of the kitchen door and open it quietly. She looked warily inside.
She was in luck. The three heroes thought they had defeated her. They were relaxing, filling their waterskins at the edge of the pool of milk. “Now remember to go for the big giants’ eyes,” E
“No, you can’t!” A
“There’s a way out!” squeaked Marlene.
“Stupid! It’s just tempting us!” shouted E
But A
“We’ll get in another way!” E
“No, you won’t!” said A
She was just setting off to make sure all the windows were shut when she heard a car outside. It was the unmistakable, growly sound of her father turning the car around in the road before he backed down into the garage. A glance at the kitchen clock showed A
“I can’t let them stab his eyes!” she gasped. She raced through the hall, her head full of visions of the heroes standing on the garden wall and climbing up Mr. Smith as he walked back around from the garage. She dragged the front door open and made warning gestures with the poker.
Mr. Smith smiled at her through the back window of the car. The car was already swinging round backward into the driveway. A
“Go for its big black feet!” E
Mr. Smith never saw them. He backed briskly down the drive. Halfway there, the heroes saw the danger. Marlene screamed, and they all turned and ran the other way. But the car, even slowing down, was moving far faster than they could run. A
Before A
Mr. Smith looked ruefully from the tire to A
“Has it?” A
While she was feeling them, her father turned and got something out of the car. “Here you are,” he said. He passed her a fat new drawing book and a large pack of felt tips. “I knew you were going to run out of drawing things today.”
A
Mr. Smith smiled cheerfully. “Then isn’t it lucky you’re so much better?” he said. “You can tidy up while I’m putting the spare wheel on.”
It seemed fair, A