Uncle Drac was busy scraping out the last bit of his boiled egg. He had soot all around his mouth from the sooty toast that Aunt Tabby had buttered for him.
“Hello, Minty,” he said.
“Hello, Uncle Drac,” I said. I tried to think of something nice to say to Aunt Tabby, but it was difficult to think of anything at all with Sir Horace’s helmet staring at me with its little beady eyes. It doesn’t really have eyes, of course, but I often used to think it was looking at me, even though I was sure it was nothing more than an empty tin can.
Aunt Tabby plonked my bowl of porridge down in front of me, so I said, “Thank you, Aunt Tabby.” And then, because Aunt Tabby likes polite conversation at breakfast, I said, “Have you been having trouble with the boiler again, Aunt Tabby?”
“Yes, dear—but not for very much longer,” Aunt Tabby said, hardly moving her lips. I used to think that when Aunt Tabby spoke like that she was practising to be a ventriloquist, but now I know it means she has made her mind up about something and she doesn’t care whether you agree with her or not.
“Oh, why is that, Aunt Tabby?” I asked especially nicely, while I covered my porridge with brown sugar and stirred it all in really fast so that the porridge went a nice muddy colour.
Aunt Tabby sort of gritted her teeth and said, “Don’t do that with the sugar dear. Because we’re moving, that’s why.”
First published in Great Britain in June 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Text copyright © Angie Sage 2015
Illustrations copyright © John Kelly 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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Angie Sage, Skeleton Island
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