Casper Candlewacks in Attack of the Brainiacs!. Ivan Brett

grimaced Casper.

      “Ah, c’est bon. Say ’allo to your fazzer.”

      Casper trotted the rest of the way across the square.

      Ting-a-ling.

      “Dad?” Casper pushed open the restaurant door, caught the corner of the ladder and sent it toppling over, leaving Julius Candlewacks hanging from the lampshade.

      “Help!” Julius flailed his legs about and suddenly realised he was terrified of heights. “I can’t hold on! I’m too young to die!”

      “Just jump. It’s not far.”

      “It’s miles! I’ll break my legs! Get me a parachute or something.”

      “We don’t have a—”

      RRRRIPPPP went the lampshade and, along with Julius, it tumbled to the carpet.

      Julius checked he was alive, breathed a sigh of relief and then noticed how far the bit of lampshade in his hands was from the rest of the lampshade. “Oh.”

      “Sorry, Dad.”

      “It’s fine!” He sprang to his feet with forced jollity. “It’s modern. Half a lampshade is the new lampshade. Soon everyone’ll be doing it. Now, plenty to do.” And he tottered off to look at the list of unfinished jobs scribbled all over the Today’s Specials blackboard.

      It had just gone four o’clock, which left three hours until opening time.

      “How can I help?” asked Casper.

      “Right,” Julius read down the list. “You need to connect that oven, peel the spuds, get a new fridge, sweep up the old fridge, label the meat pile and fix the lock on the loo. Got that?”

      Casper groaned.

      Ting-a-ling.

      “Caspy!” Casper’s mother, Amanda Candlewacks, burst through the restaurant door. She had long blonde hair, scratches all over her face and a wriggling baby in a bag slung over one shoulder. “Look at me, Caspy, I’m a real mother!”

      “How was your first day with Cuddles?”

      “Wonderful! We went to the park, she caught some squirrels, I lost her down the back of the tumble dryer—”

      The baby screeched and thrashed about, gnashing its razor-sharp teeth. This was Cuddles, Casper’s sister, the least cuddly baby since Clemmie Answorth adopted a cactus. (The cactus didn’t last long, by the way. It was eaten by Cuddles, along with Clemmie Answorth’s shoes and purse and Don’t Eat my Cactus sign.)

      “But I think she might be broken. Can you take a look at her, darling?” Amanda smiled sweetly at Casper.

      It didn’t take long to see, or to smell, what was going on. “Mum, her nappy’s full. Like every day. You just need to change her.”

      “Change her?” Amanda’s brow furrowed in confusion. “But I like this one.”

      “Not all of her, Mum. Just the nappy.”

      “How do I do that?”

      “I showed you yesterday.”

      “But I need to do it today,” she giggled.

      Casper sighed and laid Cuddles out on Table 4. His mum wasn’t a quick learner. She wasn’t even a slow learner. As it turned out, Amanda Candlewacks wasn’t a learner at all. What’s more, she was about eleven years late to this ‘mothering’ malarkey, and she couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. But today, with Casper going to school, Amanda was faced with her first full day of unaided mothering.

      “All done,” said Casper, fastening the pin extra tightly. “And stop putting her in bags.”

      “How else will I carry her? Some sort of trolley?” She burst into trills of fruity laughter.

      “Yes, Mum. They call it a buggy.”

      “Well, I call it a waste of money. If a bag’s good enough for my shopping, it’s good enough for my daughter. Anyway, I’m shattered. Your turn to look after her now!”

      “No, Mum, I’m—”

      “Thanks, Caspy, you’re a star.” Amanda collapsed where she stood and was snoring before she hit the floor.

      “Great.”

      Cuddles gnawed on her own foot.

      Casper left Cuddles to peel the potatoes (her fangs were perfect for the job) and clomped through to the kitchen. Last week Julius had bought every single item from the Kitchens ’n’ More catalogue, and now the whole lot was squeezed into his minuscule new kitchen. Four-slot toasters were stacked on top of chrome-finished deep-fat fryers, all still wrapped in plastic and far from being plugged in. In fact, nothing was plugged in because the only thing Julius had forgotten was something to plug them all into. Until further notice the kitchen would be lit by dozens of torches hanging from the ceiling or propped up in mugs.

      “Right,” said Julius from behind a stack of flat-pack shelving units. “Block your ears!”

      Casper did as he was told, and just in time too, because the next moment a deafening buzz rocked the room. Casper dived behind the oven just before hundreds of knives jiggled from their rack and thunked to the linoleum floor where he’d been standing, sticking fast.

      “DAD!” he bellowed. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

      The noise stopped. Julius blew a cloud of sawdust from the tip of his power-drill like a spy with a smoking gun. “Drilling holes.”

      “What for?”

      “Electricity. This wall goes through to the restaurant so I’m sticking a wire through.”

      “Just watch where you’re drilling. There’re water pipes and all sorts in there.”

      “Trust me, Casp. I’ve done this before.” He winked and flipped down his goggles, then the drill roared into action again. The room shook, the wall wobbled, torches dropped from the ceiling and mugs rolled off tables, plunging the kitchen into darkness, but still Julius drilled on.