Edie Amelia and the Runcible River Fever Read Online Free

a tall grandfather clock with a long brass pendulum and even a cuckoo clock, complete with a perky bird that popped out every hour on the hour to remind the Chompsters that time flies.
    â€˜Are you deaf, Sparks? Didn’t you hear me ask you to close the lychgate behind us?’

    â€˜Sorry,’ muttered Edie, who didn’t understand the point of a gate with a roof over the top of it, but was afraid to cause offence by saying so.
    The girls climbed Cheesy’s front steps and knocked on the door. Cheesy’s mother, Beltane Chompster, let them in. ‘Oh hello, lovelies, what do we have here? Something smells nice.’ She wore a green knitted turban, and although she smiled at them, Edie thought her eyes looked red. Whether it was from sadness or Fever, Edie couldn’t be sure. She made a mental note to watch out for a dry cough, wet sneezing and memory loss.
    â€˜Good afternoon, Mrs Chompster,’ said Edie.
    The girls noticed some cardboard boxes in the lounge room as they followed Beltane into the kitchen.
    â€˜Mummy! What’s going on?’ demanded Cheesy.
    â€˜I’m doing a little packing, Charisma. The Runcible River Fever is a big, big . . . botheration. Our Loch Ness monster is apussycat compared to this Fever Dog. So I’m very sorry but we’re leaving.’
    Cheesy looked as though she’d swallowed a barnacle as she deposited the flan on a bench beside a clock in the shape of a silver cat with a meowing chime. ‘Let’s go to my room,’ she whispered to Edie.
    Although the girls politely excused themselves as they left the kitchen, Mrs Chompster continued talking, seemingly unaware that they had gone.
    â€˜Have you noticed your mum coughing lately?’ said Edie, pulling out her notebook.
    â€˜Not sure.’ Cheesy walked ahead, down the red-carpeted hall. ‘I got us some orangeade,’ she added glumly. ‘We may as well toast my imminent departure.’
    Cheesy opened the door to her room and tripped over Volume 12 of
The Whiz-kids’ Encyclopaedia
, spilling orangeade all over the carpet.
    â€˜Blast!’ said Cheesy.
    â€˜Language,’ said Edie.
    There was a knock on the door and Beltane’s head appeared around it.
    â€˜I think you girls have forgotten someone,’ she said. As she stepped aside, Mister Pants scuttled into the bedroom and stood on the wet patch of carpet. Mrs Chompster returned to her packing.
    â€˜How did
you
get here?’ said Edie, giving Mister a hug.
    â€˜I don’t necessarily want him in here!’ said Cheesy. ‘Can’t he wait by the door?’ Cheesy, as it happened, was not fond of animals. She objected strongly to insects and bushland creatures, and had only recently become friends with Mister Pants after he had behaved heroically in Chinatown on the evening of her father’s balloon crash. This didn’t, however, mean that she was happy to have his doggy smell, doggy hairs or doggy slobber in her bedroom, which her mother had tastefully decorated with floral fabrics, china figurines and more clocks. A large antique pram with enormous wheels and a navy canopy stood in the corner of the room. Edie knew this had been Cheesy’s when she was a baby, and Cheesy had since filled it with her limited-edition nineteenth-century doll collection.

    â€˜Sit, boy,’ said Edie when she’d taken Mister into the hall. Tired from his long walk, Mister Pants sank gratefully onto his belly in the doorway.
    Cheesy handed Edie a glass of what was left of the orangeade.
    â€˜Edie, Mum’s packing. If we don’t do something about it soon, I’ll be on the next ship back to Scotland!’
    Mister Pants grunted, then pricked up his ears. The garage door at the side of the house had begun to creak open.
    â€˜Dad’s home!’ said Cheesy.
    â€˜Quick,’ said Edie, ‘is there some way we can see down to the garage? I’d love to know what