stairs, instead of putting it out for the dustmen.
The old couple followed him in, crowding round him in the tiny hallway, and Fizz watched as Mrs Stinkthrottle locked the front door (three locks with three different keys, because you never can be too careful) and put the keys back into pockets hidden in the layers underneath her coat.
‘Get your stupid coat off,’ she said, tugging at his old red Ringmaster’s jacket. ‘You’d best make yourself at home, eh?’
She practically pulled him out of it and hung it on a hook on the wall, which promptly collapsed under its weight, dumping coat, hook and a shower of plaster onto the piles of rubbish on the hall floor.
‘In there,’ she said, indicating a door on his right with a bony pointy finger.
Fizz turned the door handle (which was sticky to the touch) and went into what must have been the lounge.
It didn’t look much like a lounge. Where the sofa would normally be was a sofa-shaped mound of screwed-up bits of paper, scrunched-up magazines, flattened cardboard boxes (for various things, such as board games, hairdryers, Cup-a-Soups and shoelaces), ragged shreds of carrier bags, plastic bags and paper bags. In the middle of this heap were two indentations, two dips which looked to be just the right size for a pair of old people’s bottoms.
Along the back of the mound-which-was-roughly-shaped-like-a-sofa was a window box (a sort of long rectangular flowerpot) out of which stuck, not flowers as you might expect, but bits of old broken crockery (all gummed up with dried or dripping food), empty bottles, a broken guitar, the type of hat a Scotsman might wear, and plenty more bits of newspaper: in short, all sorts of rubbish. At one end a little plastic purple flower drooped drearily over the side.
Two bent bicycle wheels leant against a wall, and on a sideboard two stuffed foxes fought with a coffee percolator, a half-empty plastic milk bottle and a set of miniature suits of armour.
The rest of the front room was much the same. Plastic bags full of unidentifiable stuff piled up in the corners and the floor squelched and crunched under his feet, hidden under layers of discarded paper and who knew what. Armchairs and a coffee table sat in the usual places, but were only recognisable by their vague outlines.
And the place smelt even worse than the inside of a lion’s mouth, which Fizz had thought was the worst smell he’d ever get to know. It was a dreadful stench.
If you want an idea of the smell of the Stinkthrottles’ house, here’s an easy way of experiencing it via an experiment. First, ask your parents to let you take your Sunday dinner up to your room one day and instead of eating it stick it under your bed. Then, when they ask you for the plate, tell them you’ll wash it up yourself and go into the kitchen and run the taps and make washing up noises and then clatter the plates in the cupboard and tell them you’ve put it away. And then wait. Don’t wait a week, that’s not nearly long enough. Don’t wait a month, that’s not quite long enough either. Wait for the whole of the summer holidays and then the first few weeks of the autumn term. That should be long enough.
If after all that, you’re still able to go into your bedroom without being sick, I dare you to look under the bed and see what’s become of that uneaten dinner.
That’s almost what the Stinkthrottles’ house smelt like. Even though from time to time they squirted a lemon-flavoured air freshener into the air, it didn’t really help: the lemony freshness simply wove itself into the sickly sweet smell of rotting food and growing mould and ended up smelling slightly fishy and entirely horrible.
Fizz felt sick, and he was also scared, which made him feel even worse.
Mr Stinkthrottle took his hat and coat off and hung them up on a pile of rubbish by the door (they immediately slumped onto the floor, causing a small avalanche of rubbish to fall down with them) and then he sat down in
The old couple followed him in, crowding round him in the tiny hallway, and Fizz watched as Mrs Stinkthrottle locked the front door (three locks with three different keys, because you never can be too careful) and put the keys back into pockets hidden in the layers underneath her coat.
‘Get your stupid coat off,’ she said, tugging at his old red Ringmaster’s jacket. ‘You’d best make yourself at home, eh?’
She practically pulled him out of it and hung it on a hook on the wall, which promptly collapsed under its weight, dumping coat, hook and a shower of plaster onto the piles of rubbish on the hall floor.
‘In there,’ she said, indicating a door on his right with a bony pointy finger.
Fizz turned the door handle (which was sticky to the touch) and went into what must have been the lounge.
It didn’t look much like a lounge. Where the sofa would normally be was a sofa-shaped mound of screwed-up bits of paper, scrunched-up magazines, flattened cardboard boxes (for various things, such as board games, hairdryers, Cup-a-Soups and shoelaces), ragged shreds of carrier bags, plastic bags and paper bags. In the middle of this heap were two indentations, two dips which looked to be just the right size for a pair of old people’s bottoms.
Along the back of the mound-which-was-roughly-shaped-like-a-sofa was a window box (a sort of long rectangular flowerpot) out of which stuck, not flowers as you might expect, but bits of old broken crockery (all gummed up with dried or dripping food), empty bottles, a broken guitar, the type of hat a Scotsman might wear, and plenty more bits of newspaper: in short, all sorts of rubbish. At one end a little plastic purple flower drooped drearily over the side.
Two bent bicycle wheels leant against a wall, and on a sideboard two stuffed foxes fought with a coffee percolator, a half-empty plastic milk bottle and a set of miniature suits of armour.
The rest of the front room was much the same. Plastic bags full of unidentifiable stuff piled up in the corners and the floor squelched and crunched under his feet, hidden under layers of discarded paper and who knew what. Armchairs and a coffee table sat in the usual places, but were only recognisable by their vague outlines.
And the place smelt even worse than the inside of a lion’s mouth, which Fizz had thought was the worst smell he’d ever get to know. It was a dreadful stench.
If you want an idea of the smell of the Stinkthrottles’ house, here’s an easy way of experiencing it via an experiment. First, ask your parents to let you take your Sunday dinner up to your room one day and instead of eating it stick it under your bed. Then, when they ask you for the plate, tell them you’ll wash it up yourself and go into the kitchen and run the taps and make washing up noises and then clatter the plates in the cupboard and tell them you’ve put it away. And then wait. Don’t wait a week, that’s not nearly long enough. Don’t wait a month, that’s not quite long enough either. Wait for the whole of the summer holidays and then the first few weeks of the autumn term. That should be long enough.
If after all that, you’re still able to go into your bedroom without being sick, I dare you to look under the bed and see what’s become of that uneaten dinner.
That’s almost what the Stinkthrottles’ house smelt like. Even though from time to time they squirted a lemon-flavoured air freshener into the air, it didn’t really help: the lemony freshness simply wove itself into the sickly sweet smell of rotting food and growing mould and ended up smelling slightly fishy and entirely horrible.
Fizz felt sick, and he was also scared, which made him feel even worse.
Mr Stinkthrottle took his hat and coat off and hung them up on a pile of rubbish by the door (they immediately slumped onto the floor, causing a small avalanche of rubbish to fall down with them) and then he sat down in
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