Eve White: Literary Agent

 

from CASPER CANDLEWACKS IN THE CLAWS OF CRIME

Audrey Snugglepuss, loud-mouthed village gossip and baker of cakes, strode forward angrily and flicked her nightcap out of her face. “For crying out loud, Mayor Rattsbulge, I’m trying to sleep,” she warbled. “Here here,” sang Clemmie Answorth, a slightly younger, nervous-looking woman, completely peppered with bruises and still clutching her teddy. “What with all that racket, I fell out of my bed.” She did that a lot. Mayor Rattsbulge wheezed and clutched his chest. “Ladies, please,” He leant on a lamp-post, but it buckled under his weight. “I’ve only just got here. Now, what’s the alarm?” Mitch McMassive, the tiny landlord of the village pub The Horse and Horse, stuck his little hand in the air and squeaked, “Look, mayor.” He trotted forward to the heavy wooden door and gave its brass handle an almighty shove. It groaned open groggily on its rusty hinges. “Someone’s broken the lock.” The bolder villagers bundled through the door into the blackness, and tripped straight over an empty wheelchair. Clemmie Answorth screeched and tinkled through a glass cabinet, while all around dull thuds told stories of foreheads meeting walls and coming off the worse. Audrey Snugglepuss fumbled for a light switch in the dark. Her first attempt found Mitch McMassive’s button nose, which snicked smartly out of joint and failed to make the room any lighter. She finally found the switch and the vault was plunged into dazzling amber light. “My nose!” honked Mitch McMassive, through a crimson torrent running down his face. “I can smell blood!” Betty Woons blinked awake and chuckled at all of the bodies rolling around her. “Oh, hello, dears,” she warbled. “What are we all doing on the floor? Sleepover, is it?” Mayor Rattsbulge was the first to notice. “Oh, my sweet lord...” he whispered, prodding a trembling finger towards the cabinet. “It’s... gone...” Clemmie Answorth spluttered. “The sword’s gone?” “Who used it last?” “Well, I didn’t take it,” said Audrey Snugglepuss. “What about my nose?” squeaked Mitch McMassive. “SHUT UP!” bellowed the mayor. “Shut up and find it. Find my sword!” The pyjama-clad crowd screamed and ran out into the moonlit square, searching under doormats and tipping over flowerpots. Meanwhile, back in the vault, village gardener Sandy Landscape (who’d watched three whole detective shows on telly so he knew what he was talking about) edged closer to the cabinet. “’Ere... mayor...” “What is it?” sobbed Mayor Rattsbulge from behind his gravy-stained hanky. “I found me summink. Look yer eyes on that.” Sandy’s grubby fingers reached into the cabinet and pulled out something black and wiry. He held it to the light, and gasped. It was a single cat’s whisker.