Chapter 9

Saturday The following Saturday Dev and I spent the morning rehearsing the magic trick in his garden. Dev made a special, showbiz accessory for Hulk but Hulk refused to co-operate until we took it off. He doesn't like cherry pink, taffeta bow ties. I don't blame him. I thought it would be difficult getting Hulk in and out of the box without

scaring him but he seemed to enjoy the attention. It is miles better than being stuck in a hutch being fed manky noodles out of Oli's hair, that's for sure. Just as I was draping a cloth over the closed box, we heard sniggering. I looked over the fence and found EVIL TWINS crouched behind it! They had squeezed through the gap in the fence into Mr Pike's garden and had been watching us the whole time. They soon scarpered when we told them Mr Pike was coming out with a big stick. HA HA! After lunch, me and Dev took Oli into town to buy him his new Luke

Skywalker action figure. It was going to cost me my birthday money from Uncle Jim and Aunt Tanya put together. But I thought it was a fair swap for the use of a live guinea pig. Cruckshank's Toy Shop only had one latest model Luke Skywalker left on the shelf. Lucky for Oli. I don't think I could have been bothered to make the trip in again just to buy a silly doll. After a quick calculation I worked out I would get precisely one pence change from my two crisp ten-pound notes– practically daylight robbery! The shop assistant (or Malcom as it said on his name badge) got Luke out of the box to demonstrate. He got way too excited about jointed limbs for a man in his mid-fifties. While him and Oli

chatted, me and Dev looked around the shop until we ran out of things to sniff and prod. When we returned they were still at it so I fluttered my money impatiently at him. 'Oh, yes that'll be nineteen pounds ninety-nine then,' said Malcom, hurrying across to the till. He put Luke in a bag and ceremoniously handed me the one pence change. I tried not to weep as I put it in the charity box on the counter and apologised to the photo of the golden Labrador dog for the blind on the front of it while I did so. We'd only been in Cruckshank's for twenty minutes but it felt like an hour! Time sure crawls by in the company of Malcom. It was too early to head home. EVIL TWINS

would still be at our house chopping off flower heads with a cricket bat or running over slugs with their tricycles. We went to the café and Dev got us chips for lunch. At a quarter to one, we caught the bus. Back home we discovered that the twins hadn't left yet. Apparently, Mr Tatlock was stuck at work and wasn't coming to collect them for at least another hour. UGH. We went into the garden to check on Hulk and found he wasn't in his hutch. 'Ah, he'll be asleep inside his wooden house,' said Oli, opening up the latch. He put his hand in and lifted the lid of the house. It was empty inside! 'OH NO, HE'S GONE!'

said Oli. He scrabbled around in the hay with his hand. Then he looked under a bunch of shredded paper, searched in the food bowl, and peered under a lone sunflower seed. (He was quite desperate).