The Wrong Night

By Katrine Robinson

When you're bullied at school, you've got no friends or pocket money and your Mum can't cook, life can be grim. That's when you need an adventure, and that's what Percy gets - a superb, magnificent, magical adventure, plus pudding with custard!
There's also Grumbo, who may be old, but he's certainly not grown up, a reindeer with attention deficit disorder, an insanitary parrot, a talking tortoise, a terrifying teacher and a comfortingly satisfactory Aunt Lucy to ensure a happy ending. -Oh, and all the rest of course….
Perfect for readers of 7 and upwards- they'll read it again and again.

"How would you like it?" the figure rounded on him fiercely. "Having to go all over the place in the middle of the night when any other self respecting person is asleep in their bed, delivering presents to ungrateful children who can't even be bothered to go to sleep? Still," added the figure, relenting slightly, "At least you didn't leave brussel sprouts for Rudolph. They give him terrible wind, you know, but he simply can't resist them. Imagine it," he said gloomily, "miles and miles through the snow behind a reindeer with chronic wind.
"But it's the wrong night!" burst out Percy finally.
"What do you mean, it's the wrong night?" demanded the figure? "It's the wrong night. You are Father Christmas, aren't you? Only he's supposed to come on the night of Christmas Eve isn't he?"
"I'm a Father Christmas, yes. But it is Christmas Eve, isn't it?" he asked anxiously, counting on his fingers as he did so.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katrine Robinson
• Release date: Oct 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466008816

Katrine Robinson

I write for children, not for the adults who buy the books. That's because I like children. I used to be one. Maybe I still am. (There are rather a lot of them in my extended family, and some of them are pensioners.) I try to make it easy to read aloud, as well as to yourself. That's because not all children are good readers. Some like a bedtime story read to them. (Some books don't read aloud well, and I had to read some very boring stuff when I was Mum.) I try to keep it grammatical and don't avoid big words. I just make sure they're in context - or I explain them as part of the story. (That way they just get assimilated and it's no trouble to anyone.) I'm not a celebrity or well known. That's because I'm fundamentally ordinary and rather quiet. I used to teach and then I became a complaints handler. (It's not very exciting and I prefer writing, though I do make marmalade now and again.)

Book preview

The Wrong Night

By Katrine Robinson

Copyright Katrine Robinson 2011

Smashwords Edition

*****

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

*****

For all those who know it was so,

and all those who hope it is so

and all those who wish it might be so.

Table of contents

Chapter 1: Tea, Toad and the Beginning

Chapter 2: Percy Persecuted

Chapter 3: Grumbo

Chapter 4: Rescuing the Presents

Chapter 5: Fire!

Chapter 6; Sleigh Rides and Slippers

Chapter 7: Breakfast

Chapter 8: Letters and Chimneys

Chapter 9: Grumbo Engineers a Sticky Situation

Chapter 10: Practical Jokes

Chapter 11: What is a Chief Father Christmas Like?

Chapter 12: Going Back

Chapter 13: Percy Alone

Chapter 14: Aunt Lucy

Chapter 1- Tea, Toad and The Beginning

Percy dropped the toad (it was a big warty one) carefully into the cake tin and shut the lid hastily. He could hear his mother and Mrs Doggett puffing and wobbling through the hall. Creeping out, he tiptoed round the corner and joined Will, who was sitting on the patio below the window, his watch on his knee.

Done it! mouthed Percy, putting his finger to his lips and passing Will a large, crumbly, but slightly squashed, piece of chocolate cake from the two in his pocket. Will picked off a few bits of fluff and began to eat.

We’ll just have a nice cup of tea before we do the beds. - His mother’s voice floated comfortably out of the open window. Is there any of your cake left?

There should be a couple of slices in the tin, replied Mrs Doggett. I’ll get the plates.

Percy and Will glanced at each other and momentarily stopped chewing in gleeful anticipation. There was the clatter of crockery and the rumble of the kettle boiling. Then came the unmistakeable metallic sound of the tin being opened………

Tinned Toad for Tea?

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Aaaaaagh! -Mrs Doggett’s startled scream was lengthy and ear splitting! Will pressed the button on his watch.

4.8 seconds – not bad, he gasped, as they ran, bent double, to the far end of the garden, -but you haven’t beaten my 5.2 yet!

Safely concealed in the shed, they rolled about gasping with mirth.

We could rescue it, suggested Percy, wiping tears of laughter from his eye with one hand and scratching a scab on his knee with the other. It was a really good toad. It’d be a pity to waste it.

It was, agreed Will, taking off his sock to examine the progress of his verrucca. What’ll your mum do with it?

Put it in the outside bin if she catches it, I suppose, replied Percy thoughtfully.

She won’t catch it. It jumps too fast

Bet you!

Bet you she doesn’t.

First go on the computer, she does! They crept to the door and peered out through the crack. Distant sounds of commotion were still coming from the kitchen window. Then there was a bang, and with a shout of Out you go you nasty thing! the edge of a broom shot briefly out beyond the corner of the house.

I win! declared Will triumphantly, but Percy’s mind had moved on:

A mouse would be good, he said reflectively. I bet she’d shriek longer with a mouse.

The spiders were best. Where’d we get a live mouse anyway?

Well, a dead one then. One of those your Henry brings in – with maggots!

Maggots! breathed Will with delight. White and wriggling….

If we keep it warm they won’t take long to hatch.

If he catches one tonight I’ll bring it after school.

But the next day everything changed.

Percy came home from school to find his mother in tears in the living room and his father hurling piles of papers into cardboard boxes with silent venom. Percy took one look and decided that Mrs Doggett’s kitchen was the best place to be…. But Mrs Doggett wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the utility room either. Furthermore there was no smell of cooking and no chocolate biscuits.

It had been a bad day at school. He’d had to stay in at break because he hadn’t learnt his spellings; Will had caught chicken pox and was away sick, and now this! Percy inspected the kitchen meticulously – there was no sign of tea! That was really bad news. He wandered back into the living room. His mother was sitting by herself on the sofa with a large pink box of tissues. His father had disappeared back into his office.

Oh, Percy! she cried.What shall we do? As Percy didn’t know the answer to this question, he asked one himself:

Where’s Mrs Doggett?

Oh, Percy! sobbed his mother again. Your father’s sent Mrs Doggett away. He says we can’t afford her any longer. We’ve got to move house! He’s lost all his money!

What are we going to have for dinner? asked Percy, who was hungry. Percy’s mother just sobbed. Percy went back into the kitchen and helped himself to two packets of crisps, a yoghurt, three slices of bread and jam, a glass of milk, a banana, a large bowl of sugar puffs and four satsumas. It didn’t look very much so he added an apple and a slice of Mrs Doggett’s new cake that was lurking at the back of the cupboard. Then he went to his room and switched the computer on gloomily – it wasn’t the same without Will, and there was no custard.

****

The first thing that happened after Percy’s father lost his money; the thing that happened even before Percy’s mother had properly stopped crying all over the sofa; was that Percy’s father started putting everything into a large removal van in the drive. He began with the boxes of paper and then gradually moved on to everything else, glaring at Percy’s mother at intervals as he passed through the living room. Percy watched him from the bedroom window. Grown-ups were very peculiar, he decided. His father looked very cross, but then rather tired too. Percy felt a bit sorry for him, and as he’d finished the last satsuma he thought perhaps he’d try and help. He went downstairs and began to carry things from the pile that had grown in the hall out to the van. Percy’s father stopped for a moment and looked at him. It wasn’t a particularly pleased sort of look. Percy faltered for a moment as he heaved a pile of books over the doorstep, but then carried on. Between them in silence they gradually emptied the house of almost everything but the biggest bits of furniture and the still sobbing Mrs Proudworthy, enthroned on her sofa.

Get in the back, Mr Proudworthy ordered Percy, curtly. Maria, if you’re coming with us, get in now. I don’t intend to wait. With that injunction he climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

Oh Edwin! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I’m coming! - Maria Proudworthy wobbled frantically across the drive clutching her tissues and climbed clumsily into the van, sniffing loudly and dabbing her red-rimmed eyes. Percy, sitting on Mrs Doggett’s favourite kitchen chair pressed up against the upturned coffee table in the gloom of the back, wondered where they were going.

After what seemed like a very long time indeed Mr Proudworthy brought the van to a bumpy halt outside a long row of terraced houses built of dirty bricks.

*****

The new house was a great deal smaller and darker than the old one. It didn’t have a beech tree or a garden pond. It had a dusty prickly sort of hedge that poked out in the wrong places, some concrete flags with a washing line pole stuck in the middle and three broken plant pots.

Percy’s room was tiny. There was just room for his bed and a chest of drawers. It had a little old fashioned fire place with a black hood over it in one corner. Percy wasn’t too bothered at first. His mother promised him that when they had got rid of the spare furniture and the papers from the old house that were filling the other bedroom he could have that to use as a playroom.

Percy’s Room

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What did bother Percy was that he didn’t have any friends. None of the other people who lived in the road had children. They had sticks or zimmer frames, wore a lot of bulky clothes and walked very slowly to stand queues at the Post Office on the corner. Some of them were fat with wobbly bits and some of them were withered with crinkles, but all of them were old. Mostly they edged away a little when they saw him as if he might be dangerous, but the ones who didn’t breathed out extra strong mints and called him son or even referred to him as the wee lad.

Because he was lonely, Percy was quite looking forward to starting his new school although he was a bit afraid at the same time.

Percy’s mother came with him on the first day. They stood there at the front of the classroom and Miss Carbuncle, the teacher, asked his name so that she could write it in the register.

Miss Carbuncle

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Percival Piers Paulinus Ponsonby Parminter Proudworthy, answered his mother, proudly, before Percy could get a word in edgeways. Miss Carbuncle looked at them, slowly, over the top of her spectacles, and a titter ran around the class.

Silence! rapped out Miss Carbuncle. Percival, you may sit next to Sarah. She handed him a book. Page 22, exercise 7, and remember that I do not allow casual conversation in my lessons and visits to the toilet take place strictly at break times.

Oh dear! He’s very delicate… began Mrs Proudworthy.

Indeed? said Miss Carbuncle, holding open the classroom door. Then we must harden off this hot-house flower for you. Good morning.

Percy moved nervously towards the empty place at the table. He’d never had to sit next to a girl before! Sarah moved her chair as far as possible from him and turned sideways so that she was looking in the other direction. He cheered up a little when he had found exercise 7 which turned out to be multiplication, as he was quite good at that.

When the bell rang, Miss Carbuncle shut her book with a snap and pointed at the door. The entire class rose and surged forward out of the classroom in a babble of voices. Percy, who was used to forming orderly queues, was taken by surprise. By the time he emerged the corridor was almost empty and there was no-one to tell him where to go or what to do. As