Vile Visitors Read Online Free PDF Page B

rather timidly to listen at the back door, the noise was definitely coming from the garden shed.
    â€œIt’s next door’s dog got shut in the shed again,” Simon said. It was his turn to be brave. Marcia was scared of next door’s dog. She hung back while Simon marched over the lawn and tugged and pulled until he got the shed door open.
    It was not a dog. There was a person standing inside the shed. The person stood and stared at them with his little head on one side. His little fat arms waved about as if he was not sure what to do with them. He breathed in heavy snorts and gasps as if he was not sure how to breathe.
    â€œEr, hn hm,” he said as if he was not sure how to speak either. “I appear to have been shut in your shed.”
    â€œOh – sorry !” Simon said, wondering how it had happened.
    The person bowed, in a crawlingly humble way. “I – hn hm – am the one who is snuffle sorry,” he said. “I have made – hn hm – you come all the way here to let me out.” He walked out of the shed, swaying from foot to foot.
    Simon backed away, wondering if the person walked like that because he had no shoes on. He was a solid, plump person with wide, hairy legs. He was wearing a most peculiar striped one-piece suit that only came to his knees.

    Marcia backed away behind Simon, staring at the person’s stripy arms. He waved them about in a feeble way as he walked. There was a blot of ink on one arm and what looked like a coffee stain on the other. Marcia’s eyes went to the person’s plump striped stomach. As he came out into the light, she could see that the stripes were sky-blue, orange and purple. There was a damp patch down the middle and a dark sticky place that could have been ketchup, once. Her eyes went up to his sideways face. There was a beard on the person’s chin that looked rather as if someone had smashed a hedgehog on it.
    â€œWho are you?” she said.
    The person stood still. His arms waved like seaweed in a current. “Er, hn hm, I am Chair Person,” he said. His sideways face looked pleased and rather smug about it.
    Marcia and Simon of course both felt awful about it. He was the armchair. They had put him in the shed ready to go on the bonfire. Now he was alive. They hoped very much that Chair Person did not know that they had meant to burn him.
    â€œWon’t you come inside?” Simon said politely.
    â€œThat is very kind of you,” Chair Person said, crawlingly humble again. “I – hn hm snuffle – hope that won’t be too much trouble.”
    â€œNot at all!” they both said heartily.
    They went towards the house. Crossing the lawn was quite difficult, because Chair Person did not seem to have learnt to walk straight yet, and he talked all the time. “I believe I am – hn hm – Chair Person,” he said, crashing into what was left of the sundial and knocking it down, “because I think I am. Snuffle. Oh dear, I appear to have destroyed your stone pillar.”
    â€œNot to worry,” Marcia said kindly. “It was broken last night when we – I mean, it was broken anyway.”
    â€œThen – hn hm – as I was saying,” Chair Person said, veering the other way, “that this is what snuffle wise men say. A person who thinks is a Person.” He cannoned into the apple tree. Most of the apples Dad had meant to pick that weekend came showering and bouncing down on to the grass. “Oh dear,” said Chair Person. “I appear to have loosened your fruit.”
    â€œThat’s all right,” Simon and Marcia said politely. But since Chair Person, in spite of seeming so humble, did not seem very sorry about the apples and just went on talking and weaving about, they each took hold of one of his waving arms and guided him to the back door.
    â€œOnly the finest snuffle apples,” said Chair Person as he bashed into both sides of