The Cornflake House Read Online Free PDF

cardboard home to use for Stan, our pet mouse. For a few moments I saw them, an army of odd shoes, wandering tragically through shoe purgatory looking for their other halves, poor lost soles.
    There was only one thing for it. We’d have to see for ourselves. The situation called for a voyage of discovery. We didn’t possess slippers and there was no hope of sorting out our shoes from the pile in the caravan, so we crept across the smallholding in bare feet. The ground was white with frost. We sprang across it, as if the diamonds of ice were hot coals, until we reached the big tin dustbin. To us it felt like the dead of night, but it can’t have been very late as Eric, who slept in the downstairs back room, was still awake with his light on. Good and bad luck for us. The light shone on the dustbin, making our search possible, but if Eric saw or heard us we were done for. Fabian removed the dustbin lid with the care of an expert defusing a bomb. It didn’t smell too bad, Editha had a compost heap for peelings, so we leant over and began our inspection. The old black shoe was near the top only now, instead of Eric’s foot, it held a sticky collection of chicken bones. Underneath was a blend of household dust, broken china, tins and something that felt horribly like a human brain. We couldn’t get to the bottom, we weren’t tall or brave enough to try. Fabe was about to give up when a tingling, ticklish sensation played with the back of my neck then spread right over me, and I knew suddenly that I was special, that I’d be able to see to the depths, discern the contents without actually looking, just by touching the freezing metal bin on the outside.
    â€˜Wait,’ I pulled Fabian back to my side, where he sat rubbing his icy feet while I lightly fingered the dustbin. For me the pain of the cold was obliterated by the joy of discovery. I could ‘see’ everything, the little silver coloured toothpaste tin, two tattered, filthy hankies with ‘E’ for Eric embroidered in their corners, both halves of a severed dog’s collar and a big lemon bath sponge.
    I was lost in this magical experience; Fabe eventually had to whisper fiercely in my ear, ‘What are you doing?’ And then, guessing what had happened, ‘Is it there?’
    â€˜No, it’s not.’ There was no sign of any brown shoe, I had failed to solve the mystery, but I was puffed with success, and determined to have the last word. ‘But there’s a three-penny piece in the pocket of that skirt Granny threw out, we could get it and spend it tomorrow.’ What a generous soul. Knowing Fabe would be put out by my having magic while he had none, I did at least try to share a benefit of this wonder with him.
    Back in the caravan I lay, with a sleeping sister on one side and a giant pink rabbit on the other, and felt warmed by good fortune. Tomorrow was golden with possibilities, I might do anything, see through closed doors, feel inside strangers’ pockets; anything. Amazingly, brilliantly, I’d inherited some magic, and this, my Day of Discovery, was Grandad Eric’s birthday so I would never forget the exact date. January the thirtieth, my own New Year’s Day.
    You see, it was especially exciting, because my mother had often spoken of her Day of Discovery, the day of the freak storm, and there I was, finding my own feet, yet following in her footsteps. We ought to walk home with her now, mustn’t leave her standing, shaken but not scarred in the school playground.
    That afternoon the children were let out early. There was no hope of calling them to order after the added excitement of visits from ambulance and fire engine. Victory travelled across a sodden landscape, veering around newly formed ponds, jumping deep puddles. She said she hadn’t given her home a moment’s thought, having been so preoccupied with the dangerous roof and then having felt such empathy for Donald