Something Rotten (Thursday Next 4)

Hamlet and I arrived home to find a TV news crew from Swindon-5 waiting for me outside the house.

'Miss Next,' said the reporter, 'can you tell us where you've been these past two years?'

'No comment.'

'You can interview me,' said Hamlet, realising he was something of a celebrity out here.

'And who are you?' asked the reporter, mystified.

I stared at him and his face fell.

'I'm . . . I'm . . . her cousin Eddie.'

'Well, Cousin Eddie, can you tell us where Miss Next has been for the past two years?'

'No comment.'

And we walked up the garden path to the front door.

'Where have you been?' demanded my mother as we walked in the door.

'Sorry I'm late, Mum – how's the little chap?'

'Tiring. He says that his Aunt Mel is a gorilla who can peel bananas with her feet while hanging from the light fixtures.'

'He talked?'

Friday was using the time-honoured international child signal to be picked up – raising his arms in the air – and when I did so he gave me a wet kiss and started to chatter away unintelligibly.

'Well, he didn't exactly say as much,' admitted Mum, 'but he drew me a picture of Aunt Mel which is pretty conclusive.'

'Aunt Mel a gorilla?' I laughed, looking at the picture, which was unequivocally of . . . well, a gorilla. 'Quite an imagination, hasn't he?'

'I'd say. I found him standing on the sideboard ready to swing on the curtains. When I told him it wasn't allowed he pointed to the picture of Aunt Mel, which I took to mean that she used to let him.'

'Does she, now. I mean, did he, now.'

Pickwick walked in looking very disgruntled and wearing a bonnet made of card and held together with sticky tape.

'Pickwick's a very tolerant playmate,' said my mother, who was obviously not that skilled at reading dodo expressions.

'I really need to get him into a playgroup. Did you change his nappy?'

'Three times. It just goes straight through, doesn't it?'

I sniffed at the leg of his dungarees.

'Yup. Straight through.'

'Well, I've got my panel-beating group to attend to,' she said, putting on her hat and taking her handbag and welding goggles from the peg, 'but you'd better sort out some more reliable childcare, my dear. I can do the odd hour here and there but not whole days – and I certainly don't want to do any more nappies.'

'Do you think Lady Hamilton would look after him?'

'It's possible,' said my mother in the sort of voice that means the reverse, 'you could always ask.'

She opened the door and was plinked at angrily by Alan, who was in a bit of a strop and was pulling up flowers in the front garden. With unbelievable speed she grabbed him by the neck and with a lot of angry plinking and scrabbling deposited him unceremoniously inside the potting shed and locked the door.

'Miserable bird!' said my mother, giving me and Friday a kiss. 'Have I got my purse?'