Muddle and Win by John Dickinson Page A

disturbance.
    ‘THERE HE GOES!’
    (Mild, but nevertheless unusual.)
    ‘Gold fifteen! Intruder is on the stairs! Cut him off!’
    ‘DIE, scum! Yay verily!’
    Muddlespot flung himself over a balustrade, skidded round a corner and frantically reversed direction at the sight of four more angels advancing, instruments in hand. He dived for cover behind a plinth. Trumpets blew and trombones blasted. The notes sang past his ears and wrote themselves in little quartets all over the wall behind him. He threw a tar bomb and didn’t stop to see where it went.
    Down another corridor, feet pounding, pursued by cries. The six-sided chamber with the pointing statue. The exit ahead of him  . . .
    Angels in the gallery above!
    Something small, hurtling through the air!

    Ears ringing, Muddlespot skittered sideways. The air was full of a horribly sweet-smelling smoke. It stung his skin. He pounded on down the last corridor. The way out into the world was ahead of him. From behind came the sounds of rushing wings and running feet, and cries of ‘
He’s getting away
!’ (which sounded good) and
‘Don’t miss!’
(which didn’t sound good at all). He groped in his sack for another tar bomb. There weren’t any.
    He found the trident, which might have worked at close range, except that right now close range was very much where he didn’t want to be  . . .
    He found the parachute, which he had stuffed back in his sack earlier  . . .
    He ran out of Sally’s ear canal like he was running full tilt out of a cave in a mountainside  . . .
    He was falling, the air rushing up past him. He was shaking the parachute desperately with one hand  . . .
    And
WHACK!
For a second time the parachute opened into a beautiful, comforting curve above his head. His mad descent seemed to stop in midair. ‘So long, suckers!’ he called cheerfully to the angels who crowded at the lip of Sally’s ear, pointing arms and weapons down at him.
    TARATARATARATARATTARATAAAA!
went the trumpets above him. Golden notes flew through his canopy and ripped it to shreds. Muddlespot’s eyes bulged in terror.
    Then he was falling again.
    He fell a long way.
    A long, long way.
    And the ground rushed up to meet him. And it went on rushing, expanding madly as he got closer and closer and closer to it until  . . .

    ‘Ooo-ooh!’ groaned a dazed Muddlespot.
    ‘Muddlespot?’ said a voice he knew, somewhere nearby. It wasn’t one he particularly wanted to hear.
    ‘Muddlespot? Are you receiving me?’
    Muddlespot opened his eyes. He was lying on his back in a heap of brown goo, surrounded by what seemed to be a smooth silver wall that rose up in a circle all around him. Looking down on him out of the sky was a huge face.
    It was round and covered in black hair. It was topped with two huge triangular ears. Its mouth was a short, straight line that looked as if, when it opened, it could open very wide indeed and be full of red tongue and sharp white teeth. It had a small black button nose that twitched suspiciously, and two huge yellow eyes with slit pupils that peered down upon him as if trying to make out what he was.
    (Shades, the Jones household cat, lived by a few very simple rules. One was ‘Dinnertime Is Anytime’. The following scene will illustrate  . . .
    S HADES :
Miaaoooww?
    S ALLY : You’ve been fed, Shades.
    S HADES :
Miaaoooww?
    S ALLY : You’ve been fed, Shades.
    S HADES :
Miaaoooww?
    S ALLY : You’ve been fed, Shades.
    S HADES :
Miaaoooww?
    S ALLY : Shut up and let me do my homework!
    S HADES :
Miaaoooww?
    S ALLY : What’s the matter with you? There’s still a mountain of stuff in your bowl!
    This replays itself hourly in the Jones household, with minor variations but only one ending – the arrival of a fresh helping of cat food, with a layer of nice gleaming fresh jelly, in Shades’s dish. There is no other way it can possibly go. Sally knows Shades is a greedy, selfish, heartless professional beggar. But Shades knows a softie