Dedication

For Philip Onyango… …the bravest little boy I have ever met.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1 - Cabbagy Water

Chapter 2 - A Duck Quacking

Chapter 3 - Plumbing Weekly

Chapter 4 - Mystery and Wonder

Chapter 5 - A Little Broken

Chapter 6 - Cold Wet Egg

Chapter 7 - Bags of Manure

Chapter 8 - A Small Wig in a Jar

Chapter 9 - The Black Cat

Chapter 10 - Everything

Chapter 11 - Cheesy Beans and Sausage

Chapter 12 - The Love Bomb

Chapter 13 - A Lifetime of Crime

Chapter 14 - Nosy Neighbour

Chapter 15 - Reckless and Thrilling

Chapter 16 - ‘N’ ‘O’ Spells ‘NO’

Chapter 17 - Planning the Heist

Chapter 18 - Visiting Hours

Chapter 19 - A Small Explosive Device

Chapter 20 - Boom Boom Boom

Chapter 21 - A Tap-Shoe

Chapter 22 - Lycra Lynch Mob

Chapter 23 - Caught by the Fuzz

Chapter 24 - Dark Waters

Chapter 25 - Haunted by Ghosts

Chapter 26 - A Figure in the Dark

Chapter 27 - An Audience with the Queen

Chapter 28 - Hung, Drawn and Quartered

Chapter 29 - Armed Police

Chapter 30 - A Packet of Sugar

Chapter 31 - Golden Light

Chapter 32 - A Family Sandwich

Chapter 33 - Silence

Chapter 34 - Zimmer Frame

Postscript

Previously by David Walliams:

Copyright

About the Publisher

Thank yous :

I would like to thank a few people who helped me with this book.

First, the hugely talented Tony Ross for his magical illustrations. Next, Ann-Janine Murtagh, the brilliant head of children’s books at HarperCollins. Nick Lake, my hard-working editor and friend. The fantastic designers James Stevens and Elorine Grant, who worked on the cover and text respectively. The meticulous copy editor Lizzie Ryley. Samantha White, for her brilliant work publicising my books. The lovely Tanya Brennand-Roper who produces the audio versions. And of course my very supportive literary agent Paul Stevens at Independent.

Most of all I would like to thank you kids for reading my books. I am genuinely humbled that you come and meet me at signings, write me letters or send me drawings. I really love telling you stories. I do hope I can dream up some more. Keep reading, it’s good for you!

1 Cabbagy Water

“But Granny is soooo boring,” said Ben. It was a cold Friday evening in November, and as usual he was slumped in the back of his mum and dad’s car. Once again he was on his way to stay the night at his dreaded granny’s house. “All old people are.”

“Don’t talk about your granny like that,” said Dad weakly, his fat stomach pushed up against the steering wheel of the family’s little brown car.

“I hate spending time with her,” protested Ben. “Her TV doesn’t work, all she wants to do is play Scrabble and she stinks of cabbage!”

“In fairness to the boy she does stink of cabbage,” agreed Mum, as she applied some last minute lip-liner.

“You’re not helping, wife,” muttered Dad. “At worst my mother has a very slight odour of boiled vegetables.”

“Can’t I come with you?” pleaded Ben. “I love ball-whatsit dancing,” he lied.

“It’s called ballroom dancing,” corrected Dad. “And you don’t love it. You said, and I quote, ‘I would rather eat my own bogeys than watch that rubbish’.”

Now, Ben’s mum and dad loved ballroom dancing. Sometimes Ben thought they loved it more than they loved him. There was a TV show on Saturday evenings that Mum and Dad never missed called Strictly Stars Dancing, where celebrities would be paired with professional ballroom dancers.

In fact, if there was a fire in their house, and Mum could only save either a sparkly gold tap-shoe once worn by Flavio Flavioli (the shiny, tanned dancer and heartbreaker from Italy who appeared on every series of the hit TV show) or her only child, Ben thought she would probably go for the shoe. Tonight, his mum and dad were going to an arena to see Strictly Stars Dancing live on stage.

“I don’t know why you don’t give up on this pipe dream of becoming a plumber, Ben, and think about dancing professionally,” said Mum, her lip-liner scrawling across her cheek as the car bounced over a particularly bumpy speed bump. Mum had a habit of applying make-up in the car, which meant she often arrived somewhere looking like a clown. “Maybe, just maybe, you could end up on Strictly!” added Mum excitedly.

“Because prancing around like that is stupid,” said Ben.

Mum whimpered a little, and reached for a tissue.

“You’re upsetting your mother. Now just be quiet please, Ben, there’s a good boy,” replied Dad firmly, as he turned up the volume on the stereo. Inevitably, a Strictly CD was playing. 50 Golden Greats from the Hit TV Show was emblazoned on the cover. Ben hated the CD, not least because he had heard it a million times. In fact, he had heard it so many times it was like torture.

Ben’s mum worked at the local nail salon, ‘Gail’s Nails’. Because there weren’t many customers, Mum and the other lady who worked there (unsurprisingly called Gail) spent most days doing each other’s nails. Buffing, cleaning, trimming, moisturising, coating, sealing, polishing, filing, lacquering, extending and painting. They were doing things to each other’s nails all day long (unless Flavio Flavioli was on daytime TV). That meant Mum would always come home with extremely long multi-coloured plastic extensions on the end of her fingers.

Ben’s dad, meanwhile, worked as a security guard at the local supermarket. The highlight of his twenty-year career thus far was stopping an old man who had concealed two tubs of margarine down his trousers. Although Dad was now too fat to run after any robbers, he could certainly block their escape. Dad met Mum when he wrongly accused her of shoplifting a bag of crisps, and within a year they were married.

The car swung around the corner into Grey Close, where Granny’s bungalow squatted. It was one of a whole row of sad little homes, mainly inhabited by old people.

The car came to a halt, and Ben slowly turned his head towards the bungalow. Looking expectantly out of the living-room window was Granny. Waiting. Waiting. She was always waiting by the window for him to arrive. How long has she been there? thought Ben. Since last week?

Ben was her only grandchild and, as far as he knew, no one else ever came to visit.

Granny waved and gave Ben a little smile, which his grumpy face just about permitted him to reluctantly return.

“Right, one of us will pick you up tomorrow morning at around eleven,” said Dad, keeping the engine running.

“Can’t you make it ten?”

“Ben!” growled Dad. He released the child lock and Ben grudgingly pushed the door open and stepped out. Ben didn’t need the child lock, of course: he was eleven years old and hardly likely to open the door while the car was driving. He suspected his dad only used it to stop him from diving out of the car when they were on their way to Granny’s house. Clunk went the door behind him, as the engine revved up again.

Before he could ring the bell, Granny opened the door. A huge gust of cabbage blasted in Ben’s face. It was like a great big slap of smell.

She was very much your textbook granny:

“Are Mummy and Daddy not coming in?” she asked, a little crestfallen. This was one of the things Ben couldn’t stand about her: she was always talking to him like he was a baby.

Broom-broom-brroooooooooommm.

Together Granny and Ben watched the little brown car race off, leaping over the speed bumps. Mum and Dad didn’t like spending time with her any more than Ben did. It was just a convenient place to dump him on a Friday night.

“No, erm… Sorry, Granny…” spluttered Ben.

“Oh, well, come in then,” she muttered. “Now, I’ve set up the Scrabble board and for your tea, I’ve got your favourite… cabbage soup!”

Ben’s face dropped even further. Nooooooooooooooooo! he thought.

2 A Duck Quacking

Before long, granny and grandson were sitting opposite each other in deadly silence at the dining-room table. Just like every single Friday night.

When his parents weren’t watching Strictly on TV, they were eating curry or going to the movies. Friday night was their ‘date night’, and ever since Ben could remember, they had been dropping him off with his granny when they went out. If they weren’t going to see Strictly Stars Dancing Live On Stage Live!, they would normally go to the Taj Mahal (the curry house on the high street, not the ancient white marble monument in India) and eat their own bodyweight in poppadums.

All that could be heard in the bungalow was the ticking of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, the clinking of metal spoons against porcelain bowls, and the occasional high-pitched whistle of Granny’s faulty hearing aid. It was a device whose purpose seemed to be not so much to aid Granny’s deafness, but to cause deafness in others.

It was one of the main things that Ben hated about his granny. The others were:

1) Granny would always spit in the used tissue she kept up the sleeve of her cardigan and wipe her grandson’s face with it.

2) Her TV had been broken since 1992. And now it was covered in dust so thick it was like fur.

3) Her house was stuffed full of books and she was always trying to get Ben to read them even though he loathed reading.

4) Granny insisted you wore a heavy winter coat all year round even on a boiling hot day, otherwise you wouldn’t “feel the benefit”.

5) She reeked of cabbage. (Anyone with a cabbage allergy would not be able to come within ten miles of her.)

6) Granny’s idea of an exciting day out was feeding mouldy crusts of bread to some ducks in a pond.

7) She constantly blew off without even acknowledging it.

8) Those blow-offs didn’t just smell of cabbage. They smelled of rotten cabbage.

9) Granny made you go to bed so early it seemed hardly worthwhile getting up in the first place.

10) She knitted her only grandson jumpers for Christmas with puppies or kittens on them, which he was forced to wear during the whole festive period by his parents.

“How’s your soup?” enquired the old lady.

Ben had been stirring the pale green liquid around the chipped bowl for the last ten minutes hoping it would somehow disappear.

It wouldn’t.

And now it was getting cold.

Cold bits of cabbage, floating around in some cold cabbagy water.

“Erm, it’s delicious, thank you,” replied Ben.

“Good.”

Tick tock tick tock.

“Good,” said the old lady again.

Clink. Clink.

“Good.” Granny seemed to find it as hard to speak to Ben as he did to her.

Clink clank. Whistle.

“How’s school?” she asked.

“Boring,” muttered Ben. Adults always ask kids how they are doing at school. The one subject kids absolutely hate talking about. You don’t even want to talk about school when you are at school.

“Oh,” said Granny.

Tick tock clink clank whistle tick tock.

“Well, I must check on the oven,” said Granny after the long pause stretched out into an even longer pause. “I’ve got your favourite cabbage pie on the go.”

She rose slowly from her seat and made her way to the kitchen. As she took each step a little bubble of wind puffed out of her saggy bottom. It sounded like a duck quacking. Either she didn’t realise or was extremely good at pretending she didn’t realise.

Ben watched her go, and then crept silently across the room. This was difficult because of the piles of books everywhere. Ben’s granny LOVED books, and always seemed to have her nose in one. They were stacked on shelves, lined up on windowsills, piled up in corners.

Crime novels were her favourite. Books about gangstas, bank robbers, the mafia and the like. Ben wasn’t sure what the difference between a gangsta and a gangster was, but a gangsta seemed much worse.

Although Ben hated reading, he loved looking at all the covers of Granny’s books. They had fast cars and guns and glamorous ladies luridly painted on them, and Ben found it hard to believe this boring old Granny of his liked reading stories that looked so thrilling.

Why is she obsessed with gangstas? thought Ben. Gangstas don’t live in bungalows. Gangstas don’t play Scrabble. Gangstas probably don’t smell of cabbage.

Ben was a very slow reader, and the teachers at school made him feel stupid because he couldn’t keep up. The headmistress had even put him down a year in the hope that he would catch up on his reading. As a result, all his friends were in a different class, and he felt nearly as lonely at school as he did at home, with his parents who only cared about ballroom dancing.

Eventually, after a hairy moment where he nearly knocked over a stack of real-life crime books, Ben made it to the pot plant in the corner.

He quickly tipped the remainder of his soup into it. The plant looked as if it was already dying, and if it wasn’t dead yet, Granny’s cold cabbage soup was sure to kill it off.

Suddenly, Ben heard Granny’s bum squeaking again as she made her way into the dining room, so he sped back to the table. He sat there trying to look as innocent as possible, with his empty bowl in front of him and his spoon in hand. “I’ve finished my soup, thank you, Granny. It was yummy!”

“That’s good,” said the old lady as she trundled back to the table carrying a saucepan on a tray. “I’ve got plenty more here for you, boy!” Smiling, she served him up another bowl.

Ben gulped in terror.

3 Plumbing Weekly

“I can’t find Plumbing Weekly, Raj,” said Ben.

It was the next Friday, and the boy had been scouring the magazine shelves of the local newsagent’s shop. He couldn’t find his favourite publication anywhere. The magazine was aimed at professional plumbers, and Ben was beguiled by pages and pages of pipes, taps, cisterns, ballcocks, boilers, tanks and drains. Plumbing Weekly was the only thing he enjoyed reading – mainly because it was crammed full of pictures and diagrams.

Ever since he had been old enough to hold things, Ben had loved plumbing. When other children were playing with ducks in the bath, Ben had asked his parents for bits of pipe, and made complicated water channelling systems. If a tap broke in the house, he fixed it. If a toilet was blocked, Ben wasn’t disgusted, he was ecstatic!

Ben’s parents didn’t approve of him wanting to be a plumber, though. They wanted him to be rich and famous, and to their knowledge there had never been a rich and famous plumber. Ben was as good with his hands as he was rubbish at reading, and was absolutely fascinated when a plumber came round to fix a leak. He would watch in awe, as a junior doctor might watch a great surgeon at work in an operating theatre.

But he always felt like a disappointment to his mum and dad. They desperately wanted him to fulfil the ambition they had never managed: to become a professional ballroom dancer. Ben’s mum and dad had discovered their love of ballroom dancing too late to become champions themselves. And, to be honest, they seemed to prefer sitting on their bums watching it on TV to actually taking part.

As such, Ben tried to keep his passion private. To avoid hurting his mum and dad’s feelings, he stashed his copies of Plumbing Weekly under his bed. And he had made an arrangement with Raj, so that every week the newsagent would keep the plumbing magazine aside for him. Now, though, he couldn’t find it anywhere.

Ben had searched for the magazine behind Kerrang and Heat and even looked underneath The Lady (not an actual lady, I mean the magazine called The Lady), all to no avail. Raj’s store was madly messy, but people came from miles away to shop there as he always brought a smile to their faces.

Raj was halfway up a stepladder, putting up Christmas decorations. Well, I say ‘Christmas decorations’ – he was actually putting up a banner that read ‘Happy Birthday’, though he had Tippexed out the word ‘Birthday’ and replaced it in scratchy biro with ‘Christmas’.

Raj carefully stepped down off the ladder to help Ben with his search.

“Your Plumbing Weekly… mmm… Let me think, have you looked beside the toffee bonbons?” said Raj.

“Yes,” replied Ben.

“And it’s not underneath the colouring books?”

“No.”

“And you have checked behind the penny chews?”

“Yes.”

“Well, this is very mysterious. I know I ordered one in for you, young Ben. Mmm, very mysterious…” Raj was speaking extremely slowly, in that way people do when they are thinking. “I am so sorry, Ben, I know you love it, but I don’t have a clue where it is. I do have a special offer on Cornettos.”

“It’s November, Raj, it’s freezing outside!” said Ben. “Who would want to eat a Cornetto now?”

“Everyone when they hear my special offer! Wait until you hear this: buy twenty-three Cornettos, get one free!”

“Why on earth would I want twenty-four Cornettos?!” said Ben with a laugh.

“Erm, well, I don’t know, you could maybe eat twelve, and put the other twelve in your pocket to enjoy later.”

“That’s a lot of Cornettos, Raj. Why are you so keen to get rid of them?”

“They go out of date tomorrow,” said Raj, as he lumbered over to the freezer cabinet, slid open the glass top and pulled out a cardboard box of Cornettos. A freezing cold mist immediately shrouded the shop. “Look! Best Before 15th of November.”

Ben studied the box. “It says Best Before 15th of November 1996.”

“Well,” said Raj. “Even more reason to put them on special offer. OK, Ben, this is my final offer. Buy one box of Cornettos, I will give you ten boxes absolutely free!”

“Really Raj, no thanks,” said Ben. He peered into the freezer cabinet to see what else might be lurking in there. It had never been defrosted and Ben wouldn’t have been surprised to find a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth from the Ice Age inside.

“Hang on,” he said, as he moved a few frost-encrusted ice lollies out of the way. “It’s in here! Plumbing Weekly!”

“Ah yes, I remember now,” said Raj. “I put it in there to keep it fresh for you.”

“Fresh?” said Ben.

“Well, young man, the magazine comes out on a Tuesday, but it’s Friday today. So I put it in the freezer to keep it fresh for you, Ben. I didn’t want it to go off.”

Ben wasn’t sure how any magazine could ever go off, but he thanked the newsagent anyway. “That’s very kind of you, Raj. And I’ll have a packet of Rolos, please.”

“I can offer you seventy-three packets of Rolos for the price of seventy-two!” exclaimed the newsagent with a smile that was meant to entice.

“No thanks, Raj.”

“One thousand packets of Rolos for the price of nine hundred and ninety-eight?”

“No thanks,” said Ben.

“Are you mad, Ben? That’s a wonderful offer. All right, all right, you drive a hard bargain, Ben. One million and seven packets of Rolos, for the price of a million and four. That’s three packets of Rolos absolutely free!”

“I’ll just take one packet and the magazine, thank you.”

“Of course, young sir!”

“I can’t wait to get stuck into Plumbing Weekly later. I have to go and spend the whole night with my boring old granny again.”

It had been a week since Ben’s last visit, and the dreaded Friday had rolled around once more. His parents were going to see a ‘chick flick’, according to his mum. Romance and kissing and all that goo. Yuckety yuck yuck.

“Tut tut tut,” said Raj, shaking his head as he counted out Ben’s change.

Ben instantly felt ashamed. He had never seen the newsagent do this before. Like all the other local kids, Ben regarded Raj as ‘one of us’ not ‘one of them’. He was so full of life and laughter, Raj seemed a world away from parents and teachers and all the grown-ups who felt they could tell you off because they were bigger than you.

“Just because your granny is old, young Ben,” said Raj, “doesn’t mean that she is boring. I am getting on a bit myself. And whenever I have met your granny I have found her to be a very interesting lady.”

“But—”

“Don’t be too hard on her, Ben,” pleaded Raj. “We will all be old one day. Even you. And I’m sure your granny will have a secret or two. Old people always do…”

4 Mystery and Wonder

Ben wasn’t at all sure that Raj was right about Granny. That night it was the same old story. Granny served up cabbage soup, followed by cabbage pie and for dessert it was cabbage mousse. She even found some cabbage-flavoured after-dinner chocolates* somewhere. After dinner, Granny and Ben sat down together on the musty sofa as they always did.

“Scrabble time!” exclaimed Granny.

* Cabbage-flavoured chocolates are not as nice as they sound, and they don’t sound that nice.

Great, thought Ben. Tonight’s going to be a million times more boring than last week!

Ben detested Scrabble. If he had his way, Ben would build a rocket, and blast all the Scrabble boards in the world into outer space. Granny pulled out the dusty old Scrabble box from the sideboard and set up the game on the pouf.

What seemed like decades later, but was probably just hours, Ben stared at his letters, before scanning the board. He had already put down:

(double word score)

(this had to be checked in the dictionary)

(triple word score)

(Granny had disallowed this on account of it not being one word).

He had an ‘E’, an ‘M’, an ‘I’, a ‘U’ and a ‘D’. Granny had just put down ‘Murraymint’ (double word score) so Ben used the ‘T’ at the end to form the word ‘tedium’.

“Well, it’s nearly eight o’clock, young man,” announced Granny, looking at her little gold watch. “Time for your beddy-byes, I think…”

Ben groaned inwardly. Beddy-byes! He wasn’t a toddler!

“But I don’t have to go to bed until nine o’clock at home!” he protested. “And not until ten o’clock when I haven’t got school in the morning.”

“No, Ben, off you go to bed, please.” The old lady could be quite firm when she wanted to be. “And don’t forget to brush your teeth. I’ll be up soon to give you a bedtime story, if you like. You always used to love a bedtime story.”

Later, Ben stood at the sink in the bathroom. It was a cold damp room with no window. Some of the tiles had fallen off the wall. There was just one sad little frayed towel and a very worn bar of soap that looked like it was half soap, half mould.

Ben hated brushing his teeth. So he pretended to brush his teeth. Pretending to brush your teeth is simple. Don’t tell your parents I told you, but if you want to try it for yourself, all you have to do is follow this handy step-by-step guide:

1) Turn on the cold tap

2) Wet the toothbrush

3) Squeeze a tiny amount of toothpaste on to your finger and place finger in mouth

4) Move the trace of toothpaste around your mouth with your tongue

5) Spit

6) Turn off the tap

See? It’s so easy. Nearly as easy as brushing your teeth.

Ben looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. He was eleven years old, but shorter than he wanted to be, so he stood on his tiptoes for a moment. Ben was aching to be older.

Only a few more years, he thought, and he would be taller and hairier and spottier, and his Friday nights would be very different.

He wouldn’t have to stay at boring old Granny’s any more. Instead Ben would be able to do all the thrilling things the older kids in the town did on Friday nights:

Hang around with a gang of friends outside the off-licence waiting for someone to tell you off.

Or alternatively, sit at the bus stop with some girls in tracksuits and chew gum and never actually get on a bus.

Yes, a world of mystery and wonder awaited him.

However, for now, even though it was still light outside and he could hear boys in the nearby park playing football, it was time for Ben to go to sleep. In a hard little bed in a damp little room in his granny’s rundown little bungalow. That smelled of cabbage.

Not just a little bit.

A lot.

Sighing, Ben got under the covers.

Just then, Granny gently opened the door to his bedroom. He quickly shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep. She lumbered over to the bed, and Ben could feel her standing over him for a moment.

“I was going to tell you that bedtime story,” she whispered. The old lady had often told him stories when he was younger, about pirates and smugglers and master criminals, but he was far too old for all that nonsense now.

“What a shame you’re asleep already,” she said. “Well, I just wanted to say that I love you. Goodnight, my little Benny.”

He hated being called ‘Benny’ too.

And ‘little’.

The nightmare continued, as Ben sensed his granny bending over to give him a kiss. The prickly old hairs on her chin bristled uncomfortably against his cheek. Then he heard the familiar rhythmic quacking sound as her bum squeaked with every step. She squeaked her way back to the door and closed it behind her, sealing the smell in.

That’s it, thought Ben. I have to escape!

5 A Little Broken

“Aaaahhhhkkkk… pfffttttt… aaaaaahhhhhhkkkkkk … ppppppppfffffffffffttttttt…”

No, reader, you haven’t bought the Swahili edition of this book by mistake. That was the sound Ben was waiting for.

Granny snoring.

She was asleep.

“Aaaaaahhhhkkkkkkk… pppppfffffffttttttt… aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhkkkkkkk…”

Ben crept out of his room and made his way over to the telephone in the hall. It was one of those old style telephones that purred like a cat when you dialled a number.

“Mum…?” he whispered.

“I CAN HARDLY HEAR YOU!” she shouted back. There was loud jazz music playing in the background. Mum and Dad were at the arena again watching Strictly Stars Dancing Live On Stage Live! She was probably drooling as Flavio Flavioli swivelled his hips and broke the hearts of thousands of women of a certain age. “What’s the matter? Is everything all right? The old bat hasn’t died, has she?”

“No, she’s fine, but I hate it here. Can’t you come and pick me up? Please,” whispered Ben.

“Flavio hasn’t even done his second dance yet.”

“Please,” he pleaded. “I want to come home. Granny is such a bore. It’s torture spending time with her.”

“Speak to your dad.” Ben heard a muffled sound as she passed the phone over.

“HELLO?” shouted Dad.

“Please keep your voice down!”

“WHAT?” he shouted again.

“Shhhh. Keep your voice down. You are going to wake up Granny. Can you come and pick me up, Dad? Please? I hate it here.”

“No, we cannot. Seeing this show is a once in a lifetime experience.”

“You saw it last Friday!” protested Ben.

“Twice in a lifetime then.”

“And you said you were going again next Friday too!”

“Look, if I have any more of your cheek, young lad, you can stay with her until Christmas. Goodbye!”

With that, his dad hung up. Ben carefully placed the receiver back in its cradle, and the phone made the quietest ting.

Suddenly, he noticed that Granny’s snoring had stopped.

Had she heard what he’d said? He looked behind him and thought he saw her shadow, but then it was gone.

It was true that Ben found her dreadfully dull, but he didn’t want her to know that. After all she was a lonely old widow, and her husband had died long before Ben was even born. Guiltily, Ben crept back to the spare room and waited and waited and waited for the morning.

At breakfast Granny seemed different.

Quieter. Older maybe. A little broken.

Her eyes looked bloodshot as if she’d been crying.

Did she hear? thought Ben. I really hope she didn’t hear.

She stood by the oven as Ben sat at the tiny kitchen table. Granny was pretending to be interested in her calendar, which was pinned to the wall by the oven. Ben could tell she was pretending, because there was nothing interesting on her calendar.

This was a typical week in Granny’s hectic life:

Monday: Make cabbage soup. Play Scrabble against yourself. Read a book.

Tuesday: Make cabbage pie. Read another book. Blow off.

Wednesday: Make the dish ‘Chocolate Surprise’. The surprise is that it isn’t made of chocolate at all. It is in fact 100% cabbage.

Thursday: Suck a Murray Mint all day. (She could make one mint last a lifetime.)

Friday: Still suck the same Murray Mint. My wonderful grandson visits.

Saturday: My wonderful grandson leaves. Have another nice sit down. Pooped!

Sunday: Eat roast cabbage, with braised cabbage and boiled cabbage on the side. Blow off all day.

Eventually, Granny turned away from the calendar. “Your mummy and daddy will be here soon,” she finally said, breaking the silence.

“Yes,” said Ben, looking at his watch. “Just a few more minutes.”

The minutes felt like hours. Days even. Months!

A minute can be a long time. Don’t believe me? Then sit in a room on your own and do nothing but count for sixty seconds.

Have you done it yet? I don’t believe you. I’m not joking. I want you to really go and do it.

I am not carrying on with the story until you do.

It’s not my time I’m wasting.

I’ve got all day.

Right, have you done it now? Good. Now back to the story…

At just after eleven o’clock, the little brown car pulled up in front of Granny’s house. Much like a getaway driver for a bank robbery, Mum kept the engine running. She leaned over and opened the passenger door so Ben could dive in quickly and they could zoom off.

As Ben trudged towards the car, Granny stood at the front door. “Would you like to come in for a cup of tea, Linda?” she shouted.

“No thanks,” said Ben’s mum. “Quick, Ben, for goodness sake get in!” She revved the engine. “I don’t want to have to talk to the old dear.”

“Shh!” said Ben. “She’ll hear you!”

“I thought you didn’t like Granny?” said Mum.

“I didn’t say that, Mum. I said I found her boring. But I don’t want her to know that, do I?”

Mum laughed as they sped off out of Grey Close. “I wouldn’t worry, Ben, your granny isn’t really with it. She probably doesn’t understand what you’re saying half the time.”

Ben frowned. He wasn’t sure about that. He wasn’t sure at all. He remembered Granny’s face at the breakfast table. Suddenly, he had a horrible feeling she understood a lot more than he had ever realised…

6 Cold Wet Egg

This Friday night would have been just as spectacularly dull as the last, if Ben hadn’t remembered to bring his magazine with him this time. Once again, Mum and Dad dumped their only child at Granny’s.

As soon as he arrived, Ben rushed past her into his cold damp little bedroom, shut the door and read his copy of the latest Plumbing Weekly from cover to cover. There was an amazing guide, with lots and lots of colour photographs, showing how to install the new generation of combi boilers. Ben folded over the corner of the page. Now he knew what he wanted for Christmas.

Once he’d finished the magazine, Ben sighed and headed to the living room. He knew he couldn’t stay in his bedroom all evening.

Granny looked up and smiled when she saw him. “Scrabble time!” she exclaimed cheerily, holding up the board.

The next morning the air was thick with silence.

“Another boiled egg?” said Granny, as they sat in her rundown little kitchen.

Ben didn’t like boiled eggs and hadn’t finished his first one yet. Granny could even ruin food this simple. The egg would always come out all watery, and the soldiers were always burnt to a cinder. When the old lady wasn’t looking, Ben would flick the egg gloop out of the window with his spoon, and hide the soldiers behind the radiator. There must be a whole platoon of them back there by now.

“No thanks, Granny. I’m completely full,” replied Ben. “Delicious boiled egg, thank you,” he added.

“Mmm…” murmured the old lady, unconvinced. “It’s a bit nippy. I’m just going to put another cardigan on,” she said, even though she was already wearing two. Granny trundled out of the room, quacking as she went.

Ben flicked the rest of his egg out of the window, and then tried to find something else to eat. He knew that Granny had a secret stash of chocolate biscuits that she kept on a top shelf in the kitchen. Granny would give Ben one on his birthday. Ben would also help himself to one from time to time, when his granny’s cabbage-based delicacies left him as hungry as a wolf.

So he quickly slid his chair over to the cupboard and stood on it to reach the biscuits. He lifted the biscuit tin. It was a big Silver Jubilee assortment tin from 1977 that featured a scratched and faded portrait of a much younger Queen Elizabeth II on the lid. It felt really heavy. Much heavier than usual.

Strange.

Ben shook the tin a little. It didn’t feel or sound like it had biscuits inside. It was like it had stones or marbles in it.

Even stranger.

Ben unscrewed the lid.

He stared.

And then he stared some more.

He couldn’t believe what was inside. Diamonds! Rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, all with great big sparkling diamonds. Diamonds, diamonds and more diamonds!

Ben was no expert, but he thought there must be thousands of pounds worth of jewellery in the biscuit tin, maybe even millions.

Suddenly, he heard Granny quacking her way into the room. Fumbling desperately, he put the lid back on and placed the tin on the shelf. He leaped down, yanked his chair over and sat at the table.

Glancing at the window, he realised that his flicked egg hadn’t flown out into the garden, but was smeared across the glass. Granny would need a blowtorch to get that off if it dried. So he rushed over to the window and sucked the cold wet egg off the glass, then returned to his seat. It was too unpleasant to swallow so, in a panic, Ben kept it in his mouth.

Granny shuffled back into the kitchen wearing her third cardigan.

Still quacking.

“Better get your coat on, young man. Your mummy and daddy will be here in just a tick,” she said with a smile.

Ben reluctantly swallowed the cold wet egg. It slipped down his throat. Yuck, yuck and double yuck. “Yes,” he said, fearing he would vomit and deposit the egg back on the window.

Scrambled.

7 Bags of Manure

“Can I stay at Granny’s again tonight?” announced Ben from the backseat of his mum and dad’s little brown car. The diamonds in the biscuit tin were so puzzling; he was desperate to do some detective work. Maybe even search every nook and cranny of the old lady’s bungalow. This was all awfully mysterious. Raj had said his granny might have a secret or two. And it seemed like the newsagent was right! And whatever Granny’s secret was, it must be pretty amazing to explain all those diamonds. What if she used to be a zillionaire? Or worked in a diamond mine? Or been left them by a Princess? Ben couldn’t wait to find out.

“What?” asked Dad, astonished.

“But you said she was boring,” said Mum, equally astonished, irritated even. “You said all old people are.”

“I was just joking,” said Ben.

Dad studied his son in the rear-view mirror. He found understanding his plumbing-obsessed son hard enough at the best of times. Right now Ben wasn’t making any sense at all. “Mmm, well… if you are sure, Ben…”

“I am sure, Dad.”

“I’ll call her when we get home. Just to check she’s not going out.”

“Going out!” scoffed Mum. “The old dear hasn’t gone out for twenty years!” she added with a chuckle.

Ben wasn’t sure why this was funny.

“I took her out to the garden centre that time,” protested Dad.

“It was only because you needed someone to help you carry a load of bags of manure,” said Mum.

“She had a super day out, though,” said Dad, sounding miffed.

Later, Ben sat alone on his bed. His mind was racing.

Where on earth had Granny got the diamonds?

How much were they worth?

Why would she live in that sad little bungalow if she was so rich?

Ben searched and searched his mind, but couldn’t find any answers.

Then Dad entered the room.

“Granny’s busy. She says she’d love to see you, but she’s going out tonight,” he announced.

“What?!” spluttered Ben. Granny hardly ever went out – Ben had seen her calendar. The mystery was getting even more mysterious…

A Small Wig in a Jar

Ben hid in the bushes outside Granny’s bungalow. Whilst Mum and Dad were downstairs in the living room watching Strictly Stars Dancing on the TV, Ben had scaled down the drainpipe outside his bedroom window, and cycled the five miles to Granny’s.

This alone was a sign of how curious Ben had become about his granny. He didn’t like cycling. His parents were always encouraging him to get more exercise. They told him that being fit was absolutely necessary if you wanted to be a professional dancer. But since it didn’t make much difference when you were lying under a sink, screwing in a new length of copper piping, Ben had never willingly taken any exercise.

Until now.

If Granny was really going out for the first time in twenty years, Ben had to know where. It might just hold the key to how she came to have a ton of diamonds in her biscuit tin.

So he huffed and puffed along the canal towpath on his clunky old bike, until he came to Grey Close. The only good thing was that, being November, instead of being drenched in sweat, Ben was only mildly moist.

He had pedalled fast because he knew he didn’t have that much time. Strictly Stars Dancing seemed to go on for hours, days even, but it had taken Ben half an hour to cycle over to Granny’s, and as soon as the show was over Mum would be calling him downstairs for his tea. Ben’s parents loved all the dancing TV shows – Dancing on Ice Skates, So You Think You Might Be Able To Dance A Bit? – but they were completely obsessed with Strictly Stars Dancing. They had recorded every single episode, and had an unrivalled collection of Strictly memorabilia in the house, including:

• A lime green thong once worn by Flavio Flavioli, framed with a photograph of him wearing it

• A Strictly Stars Dancing real fake leather bookmark

• Some athlete’s foot powder signed by Flavio’s professional dance partner, the Austrian beauty, Eva Bunz

• His and Hers official Strictly Stars Dancing leg warmers

• A CD of songs nearly used on the show

• A small wig in a jar that had been worn by the presenter, Sir Dirk Doddery

• A lifesize cardboard cut-out of Flavio Flavioli that had some of Mum’s lipstick smudged around the mouth

• Some earwax in a jar that belonged to a celebrity contestant, the politician, Dame Rachel Prejudice MP

• A pair of tan tights that smelled of Eva Bunz

• A doodle on a napkin of a man’s bottom drawn by the nasty judge, Craig Malteser-Woodward

• A set of official Strictly Stars Dancing eggcups

• A half full tube of raxjex used by Flavio Flavioli

• A Craig Malteser-Woodward poseable action figure

• A Hawaiian Hot pizza crust that had been left by Flavio (complete with a signed letter of authenticity from Eva Bunz)

It was a Saturday, so after the show had finished the family were going to be having Cheesy Beans and Sausage. Neither Mum nor Dad could cook, but of all the readymade meals Ben’s mum took out of the freezer, pricked with a fork and placed in the microwave for three minutes, this was his favourite. Ben was hungry and didn’t want to miss it – which meant he needed to get back from Granny’s house quickly. If it had been a Monday night, say, and they were having Chicken Tikka Lasagne, or a Wednesday and Doner Kebab Pizza, or a Sunday and Yorkshire Pudding Chow Mein* was on the menu, Ben wouldn’t have been so bothered.

Night was falling. As it was late November it was rapidly growing colder and darker, and Ben was shivering in the bushes as he spied on his granny. Where can she be going? thought Ben. She hardly ever goes out.

* The supermarket chain where Ben’s dad worked liked to bring the cuisine of two countries together in one easily microwaveable pack. By combining dishes from different countries, perhaps they would be able to bring peace to a deeply divided world. Or maybe not.

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