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

the flags back in the box, when the table gave a sort of wriggle and stamped one of its legs.
    Simon beckoned Marcia madly. The box must have been standing on the table for quite a long time. The stuff from the crystal ball had leaked down into the table and spread along the tablecloth to the food. The tablecloth was rippling itself, in a sly, lazy way. As Marcia arrived, one of the jellies spilt its way up to the edge of its bowl and peeped timidly out.
    â€œIt’s all getting lively,” Simon said.
    â€œWe’d better take the crystal ball to the toilet and drain it away,” Marcia said.
    â€œNo!” said Simon. “Think what might happen if the toilet gets lively! Think of something else.”
    â€œWhy should I always have to be the one to think?” Marcia snapped. “Get an idea for yourself for once!” She knew this was unfair, but by this time she was in as bad a fuss as Mum.
    Here the record got as far as who shall we click to click him away ?and stuck. Who shall we click, who shall we click...
    Marcia raced for the record and took it off. Simon raced among the stampede towards Chair Person and hit him with the unwrapped wand. Again nothing happened. Chair Person pushed a boy with a plaster cast on his leg off the end chair and sat down. Auntie Christa said angrily, “This is too bad! Start the game again.”
    Marcia put the needle down on the beginning of the record a third time. “I’d better stay and do this,” she said. “You’d better go and search the box – quickly, before we get landed with Table Person and Jelly Person as well!”
    Simon sped to the table and started taking things out of the conjuring box – first the flags, then the dripping hat with the crystal ball in it. After that came a toy rabbit, which was perhaps meant to be lively when it was fetched out of the hat. Yet, for some reason, it was just a toy. None of the things in the box was more than just wet. Simon took out a sopping pack of cards, and a dripping bundle of coloured handkerchiefs. They were all just ordinary. That meant that there had to be a way of stopping things getting lively, but search as he would, Simon could not find it.
    As he searched, the cracked music stopped and started and the table stamped one leg after another in time to it. Simon glanced at the game. Chair Person had found another way to cheat. He simply sat in his chair the whole time.
    â€œI’m counting you out,” Auntie Christa kept saying. And Chair Person went on sitting there with his smashed-hedgehog beard pointing obstinately to the ceiling.
    Next time Simon looked, there were only two chairs left beside Chair Person’s and three children. “We’ll have tea after this game,” Auntie Christa called as Marcia started the music again.
    Help! thought Simon. The wobbling, climbing jelly was half out of its bowl, waving little feelers. Simon turned the whole box out on to the dancing table. All sorts of things fell out. But there was nothing he could see that looked useful – except perhaps a small wet box. There was a typed label on its lid that said DISAPPEARING BOX. Simon hurriedly opened it.
    It was empty inside, so very empty that he could not see the bottom. Simon put it down on the table and stared into it, puzzled.
    Just then, the table got livelier than ever from all the liquid Simon had emptied out of the conjuring box. It started to dance properly. The tablecloth got quite lively too and stretched itself in a long, lazy ripple. The two things together rolled the hat with the crystal ball in it across the tiny, empty box.
    There was a soft WHOP. The hat and the crystal ball were sucked into the box. And they were gone. Just like that. Simon stared.
    The table was still dancing and the tablecloth was still rippling. One by one, and very quickly, the other things from the conjuring box were rolled and jogged across the tiny box. WHOP went the rabbit, WHOP