ARAMINTA'S AWFUL AMBUSH

    W e didn't have to wait long--soon someone was banging on the front door so hard that I was surprised the door didn't fall off, just like it did last week. Aunt Tabby was at the top of the basement stairs in no time. She was still covered in soot, and she was looking around to see if I was going to try and race her to the front door like I usually do.

    She looked really pleased when she realized I wasn't there, and she scurried across the hall like the biggest spider you have ever seen and pulled the front door open with a thump, spraying soot everywhere. Standing on the doorstep was the weirdest bunch of people. Edmund stared at them like he had never seen anything like them before in his life--which I suppose he hadn't, since he'd last been alive about five hundred years ago. The first person on the doorstep was a short, round woman wearing sunglasses and a bright pink dress. She was holding an extremely fat black cat. Who takes their cat with them to look at a house? Weird.

    Next was a really tall, thin man. He was wearing a bright green coat and long, yellow pointed boots. On his head he had a blue bowler hat with a small green frog on the top of it. I thought it was probably a stuffed frog until it hopped off his hat and landed on the smallest person on the doorstep. She looked really boring, and a little stupid. Well, quite a lot stupid, actually. She had short, mousy hair and was wearing a blue school top and a gray skirt. The only slightly interesting thing about her was the green frog that was now sitting on top of her head. But the green frog soon got bored too, and it hopped straight back onto the blue bowler hat. Aunt Tabby looked at the weird people like they were the best things she'd seen all day.

    "How lovely to see you, " she cooed in her very best polite voice. "Do come in. " "Thank you, " said the sunglasses woman. "So nice to meet you, Mrs. . . . Er?" "Spookie, " said Aunt Tabby. "Tabitha Spookie. " "I am Brenda Wizzard, " said the sunglasses woman. "This is my husband, Barry, and our daughter, Wanda. We saw your wonderful sign and we'd love to buy your house. " "Great, " said Aunt Tabby. "Do come in. " The weird people who wanted to steal my house walked into the hall and stood just where I expected them to stand--right under the balcony. Perfect. And then they did just what I expected them to do--they gazed around in amazement with their mouths wide open. Fantastic!

    "Ready?" I asked Edmund. He nodded. So I set the "ghosts" off.

    WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE- EEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIII- IOOOOOOOOEEEEEEE! It was the best! Swarms of screaming white pillow- cases zoomed around and looped the loop. Thick clouds of flour dropped all over the weird people and then the pillowcases fell on their heads.

    One of them dropped right over the small boring one so that she looked Q like a ghost too. All you could see were her spindly little legs. Then I tipped the buckets of Extra-Sticky Strawberry Jell-O out. SPLATTTTTTTTT! It was perfect. The Jell-O was just right. Lumps of horrible, sticky, red slime fell on their heads. It ran right down their necks and got stuck inside their clothes. Then came the best part. Edmund woke up the bats and shooed them out of Sir Horace's room. They came out like a huge black cloud, and they went everywhere. The whole hall was just a storm of flapping bats. It was fantastic.

    Aunt Tabby screamed, almost as loudly as Huge Hotels had done. And while she was screaming, I cut the spiderwebs. It rained spiders. Really fat ones. Hundreds of them fell onto the weird people. They got stuck in their hair, they dropped down their necks and got covered in Extra-Sticky Strawberry Jell-O. They shot up their sleeves and trouser legs, trying to find somewhere safe to hide. A family of fifteen particularly hairy spiders fell on the sunglasses woman. I don't think she liked spiders much. She screamed really loudly too, and her cat leaped into the air and landed on Aunt Tabby's head. It was the best thing I'd seen all day. But things got even better because, you see, Aunt Tabby is allergic to cats. Really allergic. They make her sneeze the hugest sneezes I have ever heard and give her big, -103- red, scratchy bumps. It is not nice. So Aunt Tabby sneezed--and when Aunt Tabby sneezes, she really goes for it. "Ah-ah- aaaah-aaaaaaaaaaah-TISHOOOOOO!" She lost her balance, slipped on a pile of Jell-O, and hurtled into the sunglasses woman at full speed. The sunglasses woman toppled over like a falling tree and kind of clung onto Aunt Tabby as she went down. Then they both slid across the hall together, complete with the cat, which was still hang- ing on to Aunt Tabby's head. Aunt Tabby sneezed again. "Ah-ah-aaaah-aaaaaaaaaaah-TISHOOOOOOOOO!" The cat screeched and leaped up into the air. It was just amazing; I can still see it now, in slow motion.

    This great fat cat flying through the air with its hair standing up on end and its claws out, coming gracefully to land on a large puddle of Extra-Sticky Strawberry Jell-O. It touched down beauti- fully, then it streaked across the hall, twirling around like an ice skater--and collided with Sir Horace.

    Edmund told me later that Sir Horace had prepared a speech and was planning to deliver it to Aunt Tabby to make her see the error of her ways. He had been carefully clanking down the stairs ever since he had heard the weird people arrive, but no one had noticed him what with all the other stuff going on.

    But they all noticed him now. The cat cannoned into his left foot, which flew off and skittered across the floor. Then, with the most horrible noise and very slowly, piece by piece--just like a tower of cat food cans in the supermarket--Sir Horace col- lapsed into a rusty heap. I peered over the balcony to see how the weird people were taking this. It looked promising. The smallest one was still strug- gling to get out of her pillowcase. The frog man was covered in bats, and the sunglasses woman was just lying on her back like a stranded beetle, staring up at the ceiling. Aunt Tabby looked really, really angry.

    She got up, dusted herself off, then looked straight up at the balcony and said, "Really, Araminta. You have gone too far this time. " I didn't reply, as I was too busy looking at the sunglasses woman trying to get up. She did exactly what stranded beetles do--kind of waved her legs about, rolled over, and picked herself up. Then she scrabbled through the remains of Sir Horace and fished out her cat, which leaped at her and clung to her like a piece of Velcro. I nudged Edmund, but my elbow went right through him and hit the balcony rail. Ouch. "You wait, " I told him. "She'll be out the front door in five seconds flat. " But she wasn't. She just stood in the mid- dle of the hall, gazing around her. "Wonderful, " she said. "This is our dream home!"

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