Betty Woons grinned at the crowd and then slapped the top of her head with her withered hand, tutting loudly.
“…and nobody else witnessed the crime at all. In fact, the only clue we have is this.” He felt around in his Scotch egg pocket and plucked out a wiry black cat’s whisker.
The crowd gasped.
“Yes, we worried this day would come, and I fear it has. He’s here. This whisker is the calling card of none other than the French cat burglar Le Chat!”
As those terrible words of Le Chat spread through the crowd like a snotty cold, jaws dropped in horror, eyes sprang with tears and mothers clutched on to their children like wriggly teddy bears. They’d all heard about him, they’d all been warned about him, but not once did they think he’d actually strike in Corne-on-the-Kobb.
“Now, few people have seen him in the flesh, but we believe him to look something like this.” Mayor Rattsbulge held aloft a large poster featuring a photograph of a regular black cat, with the words WANTED – dead or alive (preferably dead) hastily scribbled along the top in big black letters, and *Artist’s impression at the bottom.
Audrey Snugglepuss gasped. “I’ve seen him.”
Mrs Trimble went very pale. “But that’s… that’s Tiddles.”
The crowd screamed and pointed at Mrs Trimble. One person threw a shoe.
“Calm down,” bellowed Mayor Rattsbulge. “Nobody’s blaming Tiddles.”
The crowd stopped screaming.
Mrs Trimble sobbed, reached into her bag and dried her eyes on a newborn kitten.
The mayor straightened his mayoral gown (which he’d made himself by stapling together three rolls of red carpet material) and continued. “Now, the roads out of the village were guarded last night, and they have been ever since. This has given me valuable time to think about how to catch this scoundrel, and you’ll be pleased to know I’ve got a plan!”
Casper, who had been watching Anemonie Blight and her mother, noticed them become distinctly twitchier as the meeting progressed. Anemonie kept rubbing her wrists, and her mother couldn’t stand still.
“It’s a foolproof plan if I may say so myself, both original and unpredictable. It’s taken me nearly all day and three whole pies to think of it, but here it is…” He did a drum roll on Mitch McMassive’s bald head. “You find Le Chat for me!”
“Hurray!” cheered the villagers, applauding their mayor’s genius plan most wholeheartedly.
“Whoever can catch Le Chat and retrieve the sword will be rewarded with…” Mayor Rattsbulge pulled a wad of crumpled banknotes out of his pocket and hastily counted them. “One… two… two… five…” Losing count, he shrugged and shouted, “Twenty-thousand pounds.”
The crowd went, “Ooooooh!”
“And…” The mayor rooted around in another pocket, producing something brown and sticky. “…The rest of this pie.”
The crowd went, “Aaaaaah!”
Sandy Landscape rolled up his sleeves. “Cor, imagine that – twenty grand. I’m gonner gold-plate my wellies.”
“I’m going to gold-plate my house,” said Audrey Snugglepuss.
“I’m going to gold-plate my cats,” said Mrs Trimble.
“’Ere, can I have half o’ that money now if I promise to find the sword?” shouted Sandy.
“No chance.” Audrey yanked him back by his belt loop. “It’s mine.”
“You’ll have to get past me first,” squeaked Mitch McMassive, launching himself at Audrey’s legs and bundling her to the ground, knocking over Clemmie Answorth in the process. Sandy Landscape dived on top, launching punches into the crowd. Then, with a left hook, he felled old Mrs Trimble, who shrieked and dropped her bag of cats. The cats tumbled out into the melee, ripping and nipping with furry fury.
“SILENCE!” bellowed Mayor Rattsbulge.
Cats and villagers alike froze and stared at their mayor. Sandy Landscape let go of Mitch McMassive’s head and put his teeth back in.
“One more thing. There’s a dangerous criminal on the loose, and I don’t want any more of my villagers hurt than is necessary. So I’m imposing a curfew: everybody must stay in their houses after dark. Understood?”
“Yes, Mayor Rattsbulge,” chorused the villagers.
“What about the Summer Ball?” came the shrill tones of Audrey Snugglepuss from somewhere beneath Sandy Landscape’s foot. “That’s tomorrow, and the cake’s all ready.” The Corne-on-the-Kobb Carrot Cake Appreciation Society, of which Audrey was the president, baked a giant cake every year for the occasion. “Will all those carrots have died for nothing, mister mayor?”
Audrey’s question got a roar of agreement from the villagers. The Summer Ball was a much-loved event in Corne-on-the-Kobb – you got free wine and sausage rolls all night, and the best-dressed villager won a pig.
“Of course the ball will still take place.” Mayor Rattsbulge wouldn’t dream of cancelling it, not while there were free sausage rolls and a massive cake, anyway. “But no loitering outside. We’ll lock the doors once you’re all in. Now clear off, and find my sword.”
The crowd cheered as the mayor waddled down from his perch, then they promptly got back to beating chunks out of each other with handbags, wooden legs, or whatever else was to hand.
“Come on, Lamp,” said Casper, just as Mitch McMassive flew straight past them and crashed into a bin. “Let’s go home before things get any uglier.”
As they left the square, Casper could feel the gaze of the little pointy-nosed girl burn the back of his neck. “I don’t trust Anemonie,” he said. “Did you see how shifty she’s acting?”
“Not as shifty as him.” Lamp nodded towards an olive-skinned little man with a black beret, whom Casper swore he’d never noticed before. He sat on a low wooden stool by the steps to the village hall, his pursed white lips sucking on a needle-thin cigarette. He watched the mass brawl with a smirk.
“Who’s that?”
“He looks weird.”
“He looks French, Lamp.”
“Like Le Splat.”
“Yeah, like—” Casper gasped. “Do you think he’s part of it?”
But Lamp wasn’t listening. He was too busy waving through the window at Daisy. She grinned and waved back, giving Lamp a minor heart attack.
Families are odd things. They come in all shapes and sizes, colours and smells. Some families grow on trees, some families come by post and some families arrive off the train with a bulging suitcase and a head full of dreams. The biggest family in the world contains two fathers, three mothers, twelve grandmothers, twenty-six brothers and a poodle. The smallest family in the world is so minute that it can only be seen through a special microscope. The Wriggle family of Essex makes a living by travelling the world and juggling ducks. There is a rumour of a new sort of family that exists only on the Internet, which can be downloaded in bite-size chunks for a weekly fee. All of these are examples of the wonderful, remarkable or downright laughable sorts of families that you can get these days. But none of these even come close to the insanity of the Candlewacks family of