Fennymore and the Brumella Read Online Free PDF

wobbly chairs, the old kitchen cabinet, in which was a whole collection of cups and plates and where Fennymore kept his provisions, the gas stove and the sink in which last week’s dirty dishes were piled up. There weren’t many hiding places. Then his eyes fell on the big rubbish bin. Nobody would ever think of looking there for Aunt Elsie’s most precious things.
    Fennymore lifted the lid. It contained a couple of banana skins, an empty ice-cream tub and the squashed packet of an old liver pâté. It didn’t smell exactly appetising. A perfect hiding place , Fennymore thought happily and pushed the box under the rubbish. He wiped his hands on his jeans and ran outside.
    Fizzy was leaning against the gatepost. ‘Right or left, left or right?’ she murmured.
    Fennymore’s gaze fell on the dry-stone wall. Tiny rainbows glittered between the mossy flowers.
    Hadn’t Monbijou often stood on this very spot looking out over the wall? His bicycle had never much liked cycling to town. If his bike had really taken to its heels to give the silvery gentleman the slip, as Fennymore supposed he had, then he would definitely have gone in this direction.
    â€˜The wide blue yonder starts on the other side of the wall behind the house,’ Aunt Elsie had always said, ‘and you have no business going there.’
    But he didn’t care about that now. They had to go into the wide blue yonder to find Monbijou.
    Fennymore took a deep breath to give himself courage. Then he began to climb onto the little stone wall. It wasn’t very high, but the area in which Fennymore lived was so flat that the view from the top of it was wonderful all the same. To the left he could see the houses at the edge of town. The Bronx stood, a washed-out blue against the sky, not far behind him. The crooked shutters were open and Fennymore could make out, on the other side of the window, the outline of the kitchen cabinet. He thought wistfully of the safe and cosy sofa with its comfy blanket in the living room.
    Comfy blanket, The: The Teabreak family’s comfy blanket is an essential object in the Bronx household. It has to remain on the large leather sofa at all times. It is made of soft wool and its multicoloured tartan pattern hinders the visibility of the stains that the careless consumption of red wine, coffee and hot chocolate would otherwise leave on it. Its smell is crucial. Only the regular use of the blanket by various members of the family produces this delicious aroma: the smell of security. And because of this particular circumstance, the comfy blanket may never be washed.
    â€˜I beg your pardon?’ A freckled face shoved itself under Fennymore’s nose and two blue eyes regarded him curiously. ‘What circumstances exactly must never be washed?’
    Fennymore was shocked into silence. He hadn’t been aware that he’d been muttering to himself. ‘Em, I just meant …’ Fennymore stuttered. ‘Well, what I meant to say was … I think we should go this way.’
    He stretched out his arm into the wide blue yonder. By now they were standing side by side on top of the wall, fields stretching before them out as far as the horizon. A long way off they could see hills and a little bit of woodland.
    â€˜Looks good to me,’ Fizzy cried with a whoop and hopped down onto the other side of the wall.

    Fennymore took one last look round. An enormous rainbow hung over the roof of The Bronx. Then he also hopped down onto the grass on the other side of the wall.
    * * *
    Fennymore and Fizzy made their way, chatting, through the poppies and cornflowers that grew along the edge of the field. That is to say, Fizzy chatted to Fennymore. She told him all about her family. How her father, a fitter, had lost his job some years ago when Dr Hourgood had made the town the capital of the rain-hat industry and metal workers were no longer needed. She told him how the whole Kobaldini