An Emu at War

By Merv Lambert

In these further adventures of M, the invisible computer-generated emu, read how the Smogg family get their come- uppance, M and Colin the librarian visit Sherwood Forest, the gang get transported to France during World War 2 and how an arrogant RAF officer is thwarted. As expected, in every story in which he appears M never misses a chance to produce his own brand of comical antics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AUK Kids
• Release date: Nov 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781782344117

Book preview

1988.

Haunting by Numbers

Billy and Jilly were intrigued. M had never seemed vain, but there he was standing in front of a mirror and staring at his reflection. Today he kept raising and lowering his head, and also turning it to the left and then to the right. This was because he was undecided. Which wig suited him best? Since the episode in which he had helped Auntie Flo defeat the treacherous Mr. Trench, she had rewarded their emu by buying him a set of six different fancy-dress wigs. At the moment he was admiring himself in an auburn one that hung in straight tresses all the way down his long neck.

Jilly laughed. What does it matter? It’s keeping him amused.

Yeah, laughed her brother Billy. He’ll soon tire of it, won’t he?

Little did they know that M’s current craze would soon prove very useful to them and most of their neighbours. A small minority, however, wouldn’t like what happened at all.

It had really begun two weeks ago. No. 60 was just an ordinary detached house on an ordinary street. The family, who moved in, were far from ordinary though. The Smoggs took extreme delight in annoying other people. They looked ordinary enough, except that they always seemed to have a mocking look on their faces. Donny Smogg was not a big man, but he was lean and mean with a thin pencil moustache and dark, scary eyes. He liked to inspire fear, and saw himself as ‘the Intimidator’. His wife was even more scary. She was large, very large. She called herself Ronnie, which was short for Veronica. Her mean, squinty little eyes were hidden behind large, black-framed glasses. The youngest member of the family was Conrad. He was known as Connie to make sure all the names rhymed. He was the one, who liked deliberately breaking things, other people’s things. On his first day at his new school he had smashed nine window-panes. He claimed the breaking of each one was accidental, but the head-teacher told him that, if all the damage had simply been to one window, it could be true, but since the nine broken panes were in nine different windows, it was impossible. Connie had just laughed. His father Donny had just laughed too, when he was asked to pay for the repairs. Of course he promised to, but he knew he never would. His family always got away with things, didn’t they? They had a certain knack of slipping off before trouble struck.

In those two weeks the residents of the street, where Billy and Jilly lived, became gradually more and more annoyed by the family now living at no. 60. First of all in several back gardens around no. 60 things were found upturned or broken. A wheelbarrow suddenly had a bent wheel. An expensive fancy china flower-planter or pot was left chipped and cracked. Plants were uprooted. Flower-heads were broken off, and petals were strewn on paths and lawns. It was as if a mini-tornado had hit. All this damage must have occurred overnight, for no one had seen or heard the culprits. Soon people began to suspect the Smoggs, but they couldn’t prove anything. The clue, however, was that the garden of no. 60 was untouched. Donny Smogg was most annoying, as he strolled with a satisfied grin on his face down to the betting shop on Medlar Road. Yes he felt very pleased with himself and his family, for his Plan A had worked well. They were beginning to settle in well here, beginning to annoy the neighbours just nicely. Those neighbours were all so smug, thought Smogg. They were so proud of their neat houses and gardens. He hated these people. He hated people in general. It was time to set in motion Plan B. Of course it wouldn’t make him any money, but he would have a good laugh.

Consequently he set Plan B in motion that very night. It was 2.30 a.m., and in most of the houses in the street the people were fast asleep. Suddenly a lot of them were not. What was that noise? It was a very loud burglar-alarm wailing. Some people got out of bed to peer through their bedroom curtains. A light was flashing high up just below the roof of no. 60. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the noise stopped. In his house Donny Smogg grinned. Now he could get some kip.

The next night nothing happened, except that the side of a shed in a garden across the road from no.60 had been sprayed with graffiti. Ronnie and Donny watched as a police-car pulled up across the road. They laughed. They knew the police would have nothing to go on, no leads, nothing. All they would do would be to give the house