What's for Dinner, Mr Gum?. Andy Stanton

did a thought. Then, without a second thought, he slunk out of the butcher’s shop. Taking care to keep to the shadows and to not yell out things like, ‘HEY, MR GUM! I’M FOLLOWING YOU!’ Billy crept after his horrible old pal.

      ‘Shabba me whiskers!’ he heard Mr Gum mutter up ahead. ‘I’m gonna be late for me dinner!’

      Oho! Billy nodded to himself. ‘Late for dinner is it? I knew he was up to something! But what? It’s a mittersy.’ (You see, that was how Billy William pronounced the word ‘mystery’.)

      Mr Gum picked his way through the quiet streets, his hobnail boots clomp-clomp-clompin’ on the cobblestones. And behind him rode Billy William on his magic unicorn, Elizabeth.

      ‘Hang on,’ frowned Billy. ‘I ain’t got no magic unicorn called Elizabeth.’

      Mr Gum picked his way through the quiet streets, his hobnail boots clomp-clomp-clompin’ on the cobblestones. And behind him crept Billy William. There were no magic unicorns in sight.

      By now Mr Gum had come to the stone steps that led down to the old canal. Mr Gum did a big crafty look and went tiptoeing down the slimy steps. Billy did an even bigger crafty look and went tiptoeing after him. Mr Gum did an ENORMOUS crafty look and went tiptoeing along the canal towpath. Billy did an even BIGGER crafty look which was so large it didn’t even fit on his face. But somehow he managed it because that’s how determined he was to look craftier than Mr Gum.

      The two bad men tiptoed along the canal, the dirty water lapping softly in the evening breeze. Many years ago the canal had been a glorious waterway, transporting over 90% of all England’s emails down to Cornwall. But in these modern times all the email transportation was done over the Internet and no one used the canal any more, except to dump shopping trolleys in. The water was brown and useless. If you drank it you would die and I should know because I drank it once and I died.

      But now a new smell came to Billy William’s long nose above the stench of the stagnant, brown water. It was the smell of old cooking oil and chip fat. And suddenly a cold chill passed over him as he realised where Mr Gum was headed.

      ‘No,’ whispered Billy. ‘It couldn’t be . . . It’s too upsettin’ to even imagine . . .’

      But there it was. A fizzing neon sign, which blinked and buzzed in the darkness like a sinister fig.