Copyright

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is:

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text © David Baddiel, 2016

Illustrations © Jim Field 2016

Jacket illustration © Jim Field, 2016

Jacket Design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

David Baddiel and Jim Field assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008167806

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008164911

Version: 2016-02-01

To the real Mrs Stokes …

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part 1

Chapter 1: 3.32pm

Chapter 2: 5.30pm

Chapter 3: 6.00pm

Chapter 4: 6.15pm

Chapter 5: 6.35pm

Chapter 6: 6.49pm

End of Part 1

Interlude

Part 2

Time Stop: 6.49pm

Having-Tea: 6.49pm

Clearing-up-After-Tea: 6.49pm

Homework: 6.49pm

Limited-Amount-of-Tv: 6.49pm

Bath: 6.49pm

Cleaning-his-Teeth-in-the-Evening: 6.49pm

Getting-Undressed-and-Putting-Pyjamas-on: 6.49pm

Going-to-Bed: 6.49pm

Part 3

Chapter 7: 10.25pm

Read an extract from The Parent Agency

Also by David Baddiel

About the Publisher

Alfie Moore had a routine. To be honest, he had a lot of routines. He had a waking-up routine, a getting-dressed routine, a cleaning-his-teeth-in-the-morning routine, a breakfast routine, a clearing-up-after-breakfast routine, a getting-his-schoolbag-ready routine, a checking-he-had-everything-before-he-left-the-house routine, a walking-to-and-from-school routine, a having-tea routine, a clearing-up-after-tea routine, a homework routine, a limited-amount-of-TV routine, a bath routine, a cleaning-his-teeth-in-the-evening routine (which, to be fair, was pretty similar to his cleaning-his-teeth-in-the-morning routine), a getting-undressed-and-putting-pyjamas-on routine and a going-to-bed routine.

Alfie was eleven and the routines had all been worked out by his dad, Stephen. Each one was precisely written out, listing all the things he had to do, and the times he had do them by, on pieces of paper pinned up on different walls of his house. For example, the waking-up and getting-dressed routines were on his bedroom wall, along with the getting-undressed-and-putting-pyjamas-on and going-to-bed routines, only on a different piece of paper (placed very neatly next to the first one).

But Alfie never needed to look at those pieces of paper because he knew all his routines by heart. Plus, he wore two watches, one on each wrist (one digital and one analogue, both given to him by his dad) to make sure he always knew the time. As a result, he was never late for school, always knew what clothes to wear, was never tired from going to bed late and always got all his homework done.

Alfie was perfectly happy. The routines made his life work very, very well; it only wasn’t operating under a routine when he was asleep, although Alfie didn’t really know about that because he never seemed to have any dreams.

Alfie’s routines did, of course, involve his dad and his stepmother, Jenny. His parents were there at exactly the right times to prepare his tea, to help him with his homework, to kiss him on the top of his head when the back of his head hit the pillow, as it always did at 8.35pm on weekdays and 9.35pm on weekends. But every so often Alfie’s parents did go out, to dinner parties and other things that they said they liked, but often came back from crosser and more miserable than they were before they went out. That could mean a disruption to Alfie’s evening routines.

Luckily, they had a babysitter who was completely up to speed with how Alfie lived his life. Her name was Stasia and she was Lithuanian. If anything, she was even more efficient than Alfie’s dad at making sure Alfie stuck to his regular timetable.

Stasia would arrive, promptly, at 6pm and everything would run smoother than smooth with Alfie’s having-tea routine, his clearing-up-after-tea routine, his homework routine, his limited-amount-of-TV routine, his bath routine, his pretty-similar-to-the-cleaning-his-teeth-in-the-morning-cleaning-his-teeth-in-the-evening routine, his getting-undressed-and-putting-pyjamas-on routine and his going-to-bed routine.

But then, one day, Alfie came back from school to find his stepmum, Jenny, video-calling Stasia on her smartphone. He wanted to interrupt her and tell her all about his science class, which he had really liked that day because they’d been doing space travel, but he could see that she was preoccupied.

“But what are we going to do?” his stepmum was saying. “We’ve got a dinner party tonight. It’s Stephen’s boss. I really don’t think we can cancel.”

Alfie’s stepmum, it should be said, was not quite as concerned about the routines as Alfie’s dad. In fact, if anything, she was a bit worried that Alfie was being teased at school for his punctuality and his always-having-his-homework-doneness: she thought she’d heard a boy called Freddie Barnes shout: “BORING, BORING ALFIE!” at him in the playground.

But she knew the routines had started soon after Alfie’s biological mum had died and that they had made day-to-day life much easier while Stephen was a single dad. And, even though Stephen wasn’t a single dad any more, he seemed to want to stick with the routines and Jenny didn’t like challenging him about how he had decided to bring up his son.

“I am sorry, Mrs Moore,” said Stasia from the phone screen. “I cannot help it. My family needs me. I must catch a plane at 7.30.”

Jenny shook her head. “How heavy is this pig?”

“Was. The pig is dead.”

“Dead? Running into your mother killed the pig?”

“No. Because she broke my mother’s leg, the pig has been destroyed.” There was a short pause. “Although we will eat her later.” There was another short pause. “The pig. Not my mother.”

“OK …” said Jenny. “Fine. Of course. I understand. Go. We’ll … find someone else.”

But when she clicked off and looked up, Alfie could tell she was worried. And he was worried too because they’d never had any other babysitters, apart from his grandparents, and both sets lived too far away to reach his house in time.

Who were they going to get to look after him?

The situation got worse when Alfie’s dad arrived home and discovered that Stasia had to fly back to Lithuania to deal with her emergency pig-induced crisis. Going to his boss’s dinner party was non-negotiable, he said. Alfie wasn’t sure what non-negotiable meant, but it seemed to suggest that his parents were going to go out whatever happened. He started to think they might just leave him home alone or, worse, take him with them and then he’d have to talk to grown-ups about management consultancy, which is what his dad did, and Alfie had even less idea what that actually meant than non-negotiable.

“There must be someone else we can call,” said Jenny. “What about the next-door neighbours?”

“They’re away on holiday,” replied Alfie’s dad.

Alfie, not really liking it when his dad and stepmum got frantic, went over to the other side of the living room where there was a chest of drawers. Inside the top drawer there were lots of bits of paper, including some of the bits of paper that his dad had first drawn up his routines on. Alfie liked to look at these sometimes to see how his routines had changed as he had got older.

“OK,” said Jenny. “What about the other side? Mr Nichols …”

“Are you serious? He stands all day at the lights on the High Street, directing traffic with a spoon.”

Jenny nodded. “You’re right. Bad idea.” She sat down, took out her phone and started tapping. “We could call an agency …”

“No, Jenny.”

“No?”

“No. I don’t want someone we’ve never met. How could we trust them to be on top of everything?”

“On top of every … what thing?”

Stephen looked at her like she was mad. “The routines, Jenny. Alfie’s routines.”

Alfie’s stepmum stopped tapping. She put the phone down and sighed.

“Then I’m out of ideas,” she said.

Alfie’s dad put his head in his hands. “What are we going to do?” he said, sounding muffled.

“What about this?” suggested Alfie.

He held out a small card that he had found under some of the bits of paper in the chest of drawers. It had gone slightly yellow with age, but you could still make out a picture of flowers on it. In the middle of the flowers were printed the words:

and a phone number. On the back of the card someone had written, in biro:

His dad looked at the card. He turned it over. He seemed, for some reason, shocked by it.

“Um … well, I guess … we could try her.” He showed the card to Jenny.

“Do you know her …?” said Jenny, surprised.

“No, I don’t think we ever used her, but …” He turned the card over so that Jenny could see the writing on the back.

Jenny squinted at it. “Is that …?”

“Yes.”

Jenny thought for a while. “Well then, I guess it must be OK. Although, looking at the state of that card, I think Mrs Stokes might be quite old now.”

Jenny was right. When Alfie first saw Mrs Stokes, he didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone so ancient. She made his oldest grandparent, Grandpa Bernie, look like a member of a boy band. She had a Zimmer frame, two hearing aids and – although Alfie didn’t know how tall she might have been before – seemed to have shrunk with age to the size of a munchkin. And it took her so long to walk up the drive that, by the time she was actually inside the house, Alfie wondered if it was too late for his parents to go out.

How on earth, he thought, is she going to look after me? And, more importantly, make sure I get through all my routines?

The first problem, in fact, was making Mrs Stokes understand what a routine was.

“Shoe-bean?” she said loudly to Stephen. “Your son has a bean in his shoe? Baked or haricot?”

“No,” said Stephen, sighing. He bent down to her ear, which Alfie could see was very small and poking out of her extremely white hair. She was sitting in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea that Jenny had made, and into which Mrs Stokes had put a seemingly endless amount of sugar.

“ROO-TINE. I said I’d like Alfie, if possible, to stick to his usual routine …”

“Oh dear, dear, dear,” said Mrs Stokes, looking with concern at Alfie. “I’m so sorry.”

“Pardon me?” said Stephen.

“That’s all right, love,” said Mrs Stokes. “I’m a bit deaf myself.” She pulled Stephen’s face down by his ear and shouted into it: “I’M SO SORRY!!”

“Ow!” said Stephen, pulling away and rubbing his ear. “What about?”

“Your son having to have a poo-team,” said Mrs Stokes. “I’ve never heard of that before in such a young person. So, where are they? How many people normally help him go to the toilet?”

Alfie’s dad frowned and whispered to Jenny: “I really don’t know if we should go out and leave Alfie with her.”

“Why are you bothering to whisper?” said Jenny.

Stephen looked at Mrs Stokes, who was happily smiling at him. “Good point,” he said in a normal voice. “Maybe I should just call it off after all.”

“Well, OK, phone your boss and—”

But, as she was saying this, Stephen’s phone rang.

“It’s him,” he said, looking stressed. “He’ll be asking why we’re not there already. Pre-dinner drinks started at six …” And he dashed off into the hallway, apologising to his boss in hushed tones. Jenny exchanged a glance with Alfie.

“Mrs Stokes,” said Jenny, crouching down. Alfie noticed that the old lady was dressed a little bit like the Queen – all in green, with a necklace of pearls – but as if the Queen bought her clothes at Oxfam. “Alfie doesn’t have a poo-team. He has routines.”

“Oh, I see. Where did you get them from, Topman?”

Now it was Jenny’s turn to frown. “Sorry, not quite with you, Mrs Stokes.”

“His new jeans. I prefer Primark myself.” She took a sip from her cup. “Lovely spot of tea. Can I have another?”

Alfie watched all this with increasing horror. He looked at his stepmum, but she was writing something down on her phone. She held it out to Mrs Stokes. It said:

MRS STOKES, WOULD YOU MIND PLEASE SWITCHING YOUR HEARING AIDS ON?

The babysitter seemed to consider this for a while. Eventually, she said: “Well, OK. I don’t know why you think that’s important seeing as we’ve been having such a lovely chat. But you’re the boss. Hold on a minute.”

She reached into her ears with both hands and made a series of tiny adjustments to the bits of plastic inside. Her fingers were stiff and Alfie became concerned that she might get them stuck in there. The whole process probably took about three minutes, but appeared to Alfie to last at least an hour.

Suddenly, there was the most terrible high-pitched squealing.

“WHAT’S THAT NOISE?!” shouted Alfie.

“I DON’T KNOW!” replied Jenny loudly. “IT SOUNDS LIKE MY OLD JESUS AND MARY CHAIN RECORDS!”

“IT SEEMS TO BE COMING FROM … HER!!” said Alfie, pointing to Mrs Stokes.

“Sorry, dearies,” said the old lady. “If I switch them both on together, they do tend to feedback a bit. Hold on a mo.”

At this point, Stephen came back into the room. “WHAT’S THAT AWFUL NOISE?!” he shouted.

“IT’S MRS STOKES’S HEARING AIDS!” yelled Alfie.

“WHAT?”

“MRS STOKES’S HEARING AIDS! THE THINGS SHE PUTS IN HER EARS TO HELP HER HEAR!!”

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” Stephen bellowed.

Mrs Stokes herself seemed impervious to the sound, fiddling and fine-tuning inside her ears again.

“DO WE HAVE TO GO TO THE DINNER PARTY?” shouted Jenny.

Stephen made a face, meaning, Yes, probably – but I’m still not happy with Mrs 2,000 Years Old here. (Alfie was quite good at reading his dad’s expressions.)

Jenny thought for a moment and then passed Stephen the card, the old one with Mrs Stokes’s name on it and the words in case of emergencies. She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. Alfie watched his dad look at the card for a while and then come to some sort of a decision.

“OK,” said Stephen. “Fine.” He turned towards the old lady. “MRS STOKES! MRS STOKES! WE’RE GOING OUT NOW!!!”

Mrs Stokes nodded and smiled, oblivious to the fact that the feedback from her hearing aids seemed, if anything, to be getting both louder and higher pitched.

“SO, I’D LIKE ALFIE TO STICK TO HIS USUAL ROUTINE IF POSSIBLE. AND DEFINITELY IN BED BY …”

The feedback suddenly stopped. Which meant that when Stephen finished his sentence by saying,

“… 9.35PM!!!”,

it was much too loud.

Mrs Stokes sat back in her chair and said: “Blimey. No need to shout, dear!”

Stephen shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “I was saying,” he said, “that I’d like Alfie to be in bed by 9.35pm if possible. And, before that, to stick to his usual routines.”

“Oh. That’s no problem,” said Mrs Stokes. “Hang on, I’ll make a note of it.”

She opened her handbag, which smelt so much of mothballs that moths from miles around must have flown away, terrified. Nonetheless, Stephen and Jenny and Alfie breathed a sigh of relief as they watched her write.

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