Читать книгу Casper Candlewacks in the Claws of Crime! - Ivan Brett - Страница 8

“What is your name?”

“Casper Candlewacks.”

“How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“What is your favourite flavour of ice cream?”

Casper gritted his teeth and winced. “Mushroom ripple?”

KABOOM.

Clods of scorched yolk exploded over the garage, covering Casper, Lamp and every exposed garage surface in a stinking slimy film of egg.

“It worked!” cried Lamp.

Casper smeared the eggy grot from his face and grimaced. “Sort of…”

“Too powerful?”

“Too powerful.”

Lamp Flannigan scratched his chimney-brush hair, pulled a spanner from his boiler suit and set to work adjusting a nut deep inside the contraption.

As his friend tinkered away, Casper Candlewacks sat down on the floor and grinned to himself. Out of all the things to do on a baking hot August afternoon, he could think of nothing better than sitting in his best friend’s grimy garage, working on their latest invention and blasting a few dozen eggs to a few dozen smithereens. Casper had spent most of his summer in Lamp’s garage. It’s not that he didn’t like his own house, but things had got a little hectic recently.

Casper was a blonde-haired, keen-eyed scruffbag of an eleven-year-old. He didn’t have any superpowers, he hadn’t been to space and he’d not even slain a single vampire. In fact, until two months ago, Casper’s life was about as exciting as a six-hour guided tour of the Kobb Valley carrier bag factory and shop (where you can buy all the carrier bags you want, but they never have anything to put them in). But then he poisoned a magician, got his village cursed, got attacked by a flock of man-pecking pigeons, survived a high-speed road accident, swam through a sea of bubbles, destroyed a coriander festival and rode home on the back of a Shetland pony just in time to save his dad from certain death. (Apparently there’s a really good book about it too, but I haven’t read it.) You’d think that such heroic actions from such an ordinary boy would be rewarded with a medal, a national holiday or at least a pat on the back and a flapjack, but no, no, and one for luck – no. The idiots of Corne-on-the-Kobb ignored Casper Candlewacks like a bad smell in a lift. He could do brainy things like reading and writing; he could tie his own shoelaces and walk in straight lines. These things were beyond Corne-on-the-Kobb’s villagers, so they resented Casper and pretended he didn’t exist.

“Any more eggs?” asked Lamp.

“Loads.”

The latest additions to Lamp’s garage were Mavis and Bessie, two prize egg-laying hens. They had arrived unannounced at the front door two weeks ago, carrying little suitcases and claiming to be distant relatives. Lamp’s mum let them stay. All day long they strutted around eating grain, pecking visitors and laying dozens upon dozens of eggs. In fact, they laid so many eggs that every one of Lamp’s inventions over the last fortnight had involved the blasted things – be it the remote-controlled bacon detector or the hover-omelette.

If you hadn’t guessed, Lamp Flannigan was an inventor. He was also a short, podgy boy with a scrub of soot-black hair and a dongle of a nose that would be a fantastic door knocker, if it wasn’t made of skin and currently attached to a face. Lamp was an idiot too, but he wasn’t like any other idiot you’ll ever meet. His idiocy went off the scale, went all the way round and came out on the other end. Lamp thought in ways that normal people couldn’t (Casper suspected Lamp’s brain was made out of a substance not unlike fizzy mashed potato), so he spent his time building things: amazing, inexplicable things that you’d probably call impossible. Two months ago he’d driven Casper to Upper Crustenbury on a buggy that ran on washing-up liquid. Today, he was inventing a lie detector that used the power of dishonesty to boil an egg. It turns out, Casper had discovered, that inventing egg-boiling lie detectors is a messy old process.

KABOOM! Another egg-splosion rocked the garage, exuding a cloud of stinking yellow smoke that insulted Casper’s nostrils and sent Mavis and Bessie squawking back into their coop and slamming the door.

“Hello,” a mystery voice said.

Casper shrieked and whisked round, but the egg smog was thick and he couldn’t see a thing. “Who’s that?”

“My name’s Daisy,” the voice said. “Pleased to meet you.”

As the fug settled, Casper began to make out the shape of a girl, about his height, standing at the entrance to the garage. She had brown curly hair, big green eyes and the most beautiful smile Casper had ever seen. She wore a flowery green frock with a ribbon in the middle.

Mavis and Bessie poked their beaks out of the coop and clucked jealously at the intruder.

“What on earth are you doing?” The girl called Daisy looked round at the eggy mess of a garage and then pulled a face at Casper.

“We… uh…”

Lamp’s mouth was hanging open. He wiped the egg from his eyes and blinked. Then he shook his head and wiped his eyes again, but that just spread the egg back on. “Casper,” he whispered, “is she real?”

Casper jabbed an elbow into Lamp’s side. “I’m Casper,” he said to the visitor, “and he’s Lamp.”

“Did we make her?” Lamp eyed the lie detector with a face of complete bemusement and twiddled a knob on the side. “It’s not s’posed to do that,” he mumbled.

Daisy chuckled. “We only moved in a couple of weeks ago. I live down the road.” She trotted into the garage and picked up a clipboard, upon which Lamp had drawn a diagram of an egg, with labels pointing to its brain, spleen and vocal cords. Then she spotted the lie detector. Inside a large steel saucepan sat the engine from a leaf-blower, grumbling busily, turning oily cogs and rusty axles, all set round a small china dish in the middle to hold the egg. A trigger had been welded to the handle, and an antenna with a green golf visor poked out above the pan, rotating and beeping mechanically. “What’s that?”

“Do you like it?” asked Lamp, blushing.

“Well, I…”

“You can have it if you want.” He picked it up and handed it to Daisy.

“I don’t really…”

“Come on, Lamp,” said Casper. “Put it down.”

Lamp sniffed and plonked the pan back on the table.

By now the hens had emerged and were pecking at Daisy’s ankles.

“It’s a lie detector,” said Casper. “Lamp’s an inventor.”

Lamp grinned at Daisy. “An inventor means you invent things.” He pointed at his watch, which was made of chocolate. (It tells you when it’s time to eat it.)

“Does it work?” asked Daisy, motioning to the lie detector.

“Sort of,” said Casper. He remembered that he was covered in egg and blushed.

A female voice floated in from outside. “Daisy, darling?”

“That’s my mum,” said Daisy. Then she called, “Mum, in here. I’ve made some friends.”

Round the corner swept a tall, glamorous woman with the same curly brown hair and bright green eyes, wearing a flowing blue dress and a floral brooch. She flashed a ravishing smile, the sort of smile that would melt the heart of even the frostiest snowman.

Lamp fell over.

“Hello,” she said. Her voice was cool and refreshing. “I’m Lavender. Lavender Blossom.” She reached out her hand, which Casper shook despite the egginess of his own. “You’ve met my daughter Daisy.”

“H-hello,” Casper stammered. They’d never allowed females in the garage, let alone beautiful ones, and this was exactly why. What were you supposed to do with them? He thought about offering his guests a seat or a cup of tea, but the garage didn’t have either. Lamp, crimson-cheeked and breathless, took one more look at the visitors and then scrabbled away on all fours to the back of the garage to tinker about with a driveshaft.

“Do you want some help?” asked Daisy. “I’m good at—”

“Now, now, Daisy,” Lavender interrupted. “We don’t want to interfere.” She placed her hand on Daisy’s shoulder and smiled gently at Casper.

“So… um… what brings you to Corne-on-the-Kobb?” said Casper, relieved to have thought of something to say.

“We own the flower shop,” Daisy chirped.

“Flower shop?” Casper laughed.

“Yeah.”

Lavender looked ruffled. “We opened two weeks ago.”

“Really? In Corne-on-the-Kobb?”

Lavender reached into her dress pocket, pulled out a little flowery business card and handed it to Casper. It read:

Blossom’s Bloomers

‘They’re Heaven-Scent.’

Visit us on the corner of the village square, next to the sweet shop.

Casper nodded and stuffed the business card into his pocket. “Sorry, I hadn’t heard of you. We spend a lot of time in this garage, don’t we, Lamp?”

Lamp squeaked.

“That’s OK,” said Lavender. “Drop in if you’re passing. We’ve got a summer sale on.”

“If you buy a full bunch, you’ll save a whole bunch!” sang Daisy.

“Sounds good. I’ll… um… definitely buy a full bunch then.”

“Will you? That’s brilliant!” Daisy skipped forward and planted a kiss on Casper’s cheek.

“Right then, darling, plenty more of those cards to hand out before tea time.” Lavender wrinkled her nose cheekily at the boys and sauntered out of the garage.

Daisy skipped into the sunshine in pursuit of her mother, stopping to chirp, “Nice to meet you,” before disappearing round the corner.

The garage was quiet again. Lamp shuffled towards Casper with a worried sort of face on. “Casper?”

“Yes?”

“I can’t feel my feet and my heart’s gone thumpy. What’s wrong with me?”

“I think you’re in love, Lamp.”

“Oh…” Lamp mouthed the word ‘love’ to himself a few times, and then wrote it down on his clipboard. “Is that bad?”

“I don’t really know,” said Casper. “I hope not.”

The boys worked in silence for about an hour and a half, disturbed only by the occasional clink of cogs or the whirr and crackle of Lamp’s hamster running furiously on its electric wheel. But gradually another noise swelled in the distance, a mix of yelling and clanging and stamping of feet. As the sound grew louder, Casper could make out the frantic ringing of a bell and the screams of a lady who must have been either very upset about something or a terrible singer. The boys scurried outside and were presented with the sight of that nervous wreck Clemmie Answorth tearing down the road at full speed, swinging a bell precariously round her head.

“HEAR YE,” she screamed. “HEAR YE!”

Casper and Lamp leapt back as Clemmie thundered straight past them, clanging her bell in their faces as she passed. She reached the end of the street, tripped over, sprang to her feet and raced back again. More villagers had appeared at their front doors now.

“I SAID, HEAR YE!” There was a rip in Clemmie’s skirt and she was missing a shoe. “MAYOR RATTSBULGE…” – she was quite out of breath – “REQUIRES YOUR PRESENCE… Oh, dear.” Sandy Landscape gave her a full watering can and she drank gratefully. “Thank you. IN THE VILLAGE SQUARE, AT ONCE!”

She dropped the bell, chased it down again and clanged off in the direction she’d come from.

“Ooh, are we getting presents?” Lamp’s face perked up.

“No, she said ‘presence’. We’re meant to go to the village square.”

“Not even one little present?”

“Perhaps something even better, Lamp.” Casper felt a surge of excitement like he’d not felt for exactly two months. “Let’s go and have a look,” he said. And so they did.