Fennymore and the Brumella Read Online Free PDF Page A

your great-aunt’s flat. But I’m sorry.’ Fizzy interrupted herself and put a hand on his arm. ‘I didn’t let you say anything at all, I just prattled on myself. That’s the way you have to be in my house. Otherwise you’d never get a word in edgeways.’
    So then Fizzy stopped talking and Fennymore told her everything that had gone on in the last twenty-four hours. It all came bursting out of him – he didn’t know why. Normally Fennymore was not such a chatterbox, but then he’d never had anyone to talk to, or at least nobody of his own age.
    Fizzy listened in silence, her eyes getting wider and wider with every word. When Fennymore had finished, she frowned.
    â€˜Monbijou has disappeared, you say. Your sky-blue bicycle. So what are you waiting for? Let’s go!’ she cried adventurously.
    Fennymore felt overwhelmed. ‘Why? What? Where to?’ he asked.
    â€˜Where to is a good question,’ Fizzy replied. ‘But what do you mean, “Why”? Don’t you want to find Monbijou?’
    That tone of voice again that didn’t sound like a question.
    â€˜Maybe this weird silvery guy you saw had something to do with his disappearance. In any case, we have to find your bike. That’s as clear as day,’ Fizzy said briskly.
    Fennymore suddenly regretted having trusted her with so much information. She was going to wreak havoc on his life. He longed for a normal Monday in a normal week. But this week was not going to be normal. That much he knew.
    â€˜You’re right,’ he said. ‘But Monbijou could be a long way off by now. He can go very fast when he wants to. And what will your parents say if you disappear just like that?’
    â€˜Oh,’ said Fizzy, rubbing her hands clean on her trousers, ‘they’ll never notice. There are so many of us, they lose count. Titus spent two days and nights locked in the supermarket’s bean store before they missed him. He farted for three weeks after. Anyway, they’re so busy being delighted about the new flat that they have no interest in anything else. Except for Marlon, who –’
    Fizzy stopped herself suddenly. She’d almost let it slip that they were all busy laughing at Marlon prancing about in Aunt Elsie’s flowery nighties, calling, ‘Where is my yummy dachshund?’
    Fennymore went into the kitchen and packed four celery stalks, two lots of liver pâté and three bananas into his blue gym-bag as provisions for the journey. Then he grabbed a handful of hay and he went back to Fizzy in the living room. She stared in astonishment at the hay.
    â€˜Monbijou will be hungry when we find him,’ he explained and went a bit red.
    Fizzy looked at him as if he had announced that vinegar chocolates were his staple diet. ‘Monbijou is a bicycle,’ she said. ‘How can a bicycle eat hay?’
    â€˜It’s just that he thinks he’s a horse. I have no idea why.’
    Fennymore really didn’t know. As far back as he could remember, Monbijou had been his horse.

CHAPTER 8
    In which Fennymore and Fizzy set off into the wide blue yonder
    â€˜Which direction should we go in? Should we toss a coin?’ Fizzy was standing indecisively at the garden gate, looking along the dirt track. To the left it wound its way to the laneway and to the right it came to a sudden halt at a stone wall. Fennymore was just about to close the front door behind him when he remembered Aunt Elsie’s chocolate tin and he went back into the kitchen.
    The tin was still on the kitchen table, where it had stood quietly all night. He had this feeling that he shouldn’t just leave it lying around. Aunt Elsie must have had a reason for hiding it under the potatoes. But where should he put it? He wrapped the tin in an old tea-towel. Then he looked around the kitchen. There was the big wooden table where his mother used to draw up her invention plans, the three