Aunt Effie and Mrs Grizzle Read Online Free Page A

The Wind in the Willows till little playtime.
    At quarter to three, Mr Jones said, “Run straight home. Dawdle past the Haunted House, and the Bogeyman will catch you, sink his fangs into your neck, and drink your blood.”
    “The Bogeyman!” we shrieked.
    “Dawdle under the Dark Trees that hang over the track, and the Boggle will catch you and suck the flesh off your bones with his toothless mouth.”
    “The Boggle!” we shrieked.
    Mr Jones looked into the corridor and out the windows to see nobody was listening. “Dawdle going up Chapmans Hill,” he whispered, face white, “and the Boggart will catch you!”
    “What does the Boggart do?” we asked.
    “I’d rather not say,” Mr Jones’s voice shook. “But it’s very painful.
    “Now,” he said cheerfully, “the first one to give the right answer can go home early:
    “Four thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two pounds, five shillings, and eightpence multiplied by six hundred and fifty-seven?”
    “Twenty-one,” shouted Alwyn.
    “Please, Sir! Three million, one hundred and eighty-seven thousand, nine hundred and eight pounds, ten shillings, and ninepence. Please, Sir,” said Daisy.
    Mr Jones looked at something written on the back of his hand. “Off you go home, Daisy,” he said. Daisy smirked and trotted off, schoolbag bumping on her behind.
    “What’s three times one?”
    “Twenty-one,” shouted Alwyn.
    “Please sir, three!” said Jane.
    “Off you go, Jane.”
    “Spell diarrhoea!”
    “Twenty-one!” shouted Alwyn.
    One by one we got out early, sat in the bamboos across the road, and waited for Alwyn. We knew Mr Jones had to let him go so he could get home himself in time for afternoon tea. If he wasn’t there on the dot of three when Mrs Jones rang the bell, she poured his tea down the sink and gave him the strap.
    “You hold us up every time,” said Daisy to Alwyn.
    “Time every up,” he said back to her, and we ran for our lives. When we came to the Haunted House, Alwyn said, “Here comes the Bogeyman!” and we ran faster. And when we came to the Dark Trees that hung over the track, he said, “Here comes the Boggle!” and we ran faster again.
    We were puffing up Chapmans Hill when Marie said, “We’ve lost the little ones!”
    “They’re coming!” we shouted, but Peter said, “They’re nowhere in sight. Somebody will have to go back and find them.”
    “We’ll tell Aunt Effie that Mr Jones kept them in,” said Alwyn.
    “You know we can’t do that,” Marie told him. “It would be lying.”
    “What say we tell Aunt Effie there never were any little ones?” Alwyn suggested, but Marie said that would be a bit like lying, too.
    So since Victor and David were the next smallest, we sent them back to find the little ones and tell them to hurry up, or the Bogeyman would drink their blood. When they didn’t come back, we sent Jane and Isaac. “Tell them if they don’t hurry up the Boggle will suck the flesh off their bones!” we said.
    When Jane and Isaac didn’t come back either, Peter and Marie sent back the rest of us. “Tell them if they don’t hurry up, the Boggart will be waiting for them on Chapmans Hill,” they said.
    We found the four little ones right beside the front door of the Haunted House. Victor, David, Jane, and Isaac were trying to make them run.
    “Our feet are stuck to the ground!” the little ones cried. “They won’t lift.”
    “Shhh!” whispered Ann. “The Bogeyman will hear you.”
    We pulled together, got them unstuck, and were hitching them up – to give them a piggyback – when we heard footsteps coming down the hall towards the front door of the Haunted House. We tried to run, but our feet stuck to the ground. The footsteps stopped inside the front door. We watched terrified as the door handle began to turn.
    The door of the Haunted House creaked open slowly. “Whooo-ooo!” said a tall black shadow standing in the hall.
    We screamed and bolted. The little ones hung on our backs