Read Online Vile Visitors by Diana Wynne Jones - Free Book Online Page A

this, quite a number of the children called out, “Yes! Can we eat the food now?”
    Auntie Christa stamped her foot. “No you may not ! Games come first. All of you stand in a line and Marcia bring those hacky sacks from over there.”
    Once Auntie Christa started giving orders, Chair Person became quite obedient. He did his best to join in the games. He was hopeless. It someone threw him a hacky sack, he dropped it. If he threw a hacky sack at someone else, it hit the wall or threatened to land in a jelly. The team he was in lost every time.
    So Auntie Christa tried team Follow My Leader and that was even worse. Chair Person lost the team he was with and galumphed round in small circles on his own. Then he noticed that everyone was running in zig-zags and ran in zig-zags too. He zagged when everyone else zigged, bumping into people and treading on toes.
    â€œCan’t you stop him? He’s spoiling the game !” children kept complaining.
    Luckily, Chair Person kept drifting off to the table to steal buns or help himself to a pint or so of fizzy pop. After a while, Auntie Christa stopped rounding him up back into the games. It was easier without him.

    But Simon and Marcia were getting worried. They were being kept so busy helping with teams and fetching things and watching in case people cheated that they had no time at all to get near the conjuring set. They watched the other prizes go. The green teddy was first, then the broken train, and then other things, until half the pile was gone.
    Then at last Auntie Christa said the next game was Musical Chairs. “Simon and Marcia will work the record player and I’ll be the judge,” she said. “All of you bring one chair each into the middle. And you!” she said, grabbing Chair Person away from where he was trying to eat a jelly. “This is a game even you can play.”
    â€œGood,” Simon whispered as he and Marcia went over to the ancient record player. “We can look in the box while the music’s going.”
    Marcia picked up an old scratched record and set it on the turntable. “I thought we were never going to get a chance!” she said. “We can give them a good long go with the music first time.” She carefully lowered the lopsided needle. The record began:
    Here we go gathering click in May, click in May, nuts in click... and all the children danced cautiously round the chairs, with Chair Person prancing in their midst, waving his arms like a lobster.
    Simon and Marcia ran to the table and pulled the conjuring box out from under the other prizes. The crystal ball was still leaking. There was quite a damp patch on the tablecloth. But the wand was lying on top when they opened the box, still wrapped in flags. Simon snatched it up. Marcia ran back and lifted the needle off the record. There was a stampede for chairs.
    Chair Person of course was the one without a chair. Simon had expected that. He followed Chair Person and gave him a smart tap with the wand as Chair Person blundered up the line of sitting children. But the wand did not seem to work. Chair Person pushed the smallest girl off the end chair and sat in it himself.
    â€œI saw that! You were out!” Auntie Christa shouted, pointing at him.
    Chair Person sat where he was. “I – er, hn hm – appear to be sitting in a chair,” he said. “That was the snuffle rule as I understand it.”
    Auntie Christa glared. “Start the game again,” she said.
    Simon tapped Chair Person on the head with the wand before everyone got up, but that did not seem to work either. “What shall we do ?” he whispered to Marcia, as they hurried back to the record player.
    â€œTry it without the flags,” Marcia whispered back. She lowered the needle again.
    Here we go gathering click in May , the record began as Simon dashed over to the table, unwrapping the string of flags from the wand as he went. He was just putting