Shrinking Ralph Perfect Read Online Free Page A

Annie. ‘Poor, poor pooch.’
    ‘Done what I can, of course,’ Jack said, picking dirt from under his nails. ‘Bit of masking tape, elastic and an old broom handle, cut to size. But it’s not the same as a good paw, is it? I’d normally reward him with one of his biscuits after a skirmish like that, but I don’t always carry them around in the van…’
    ‘Oh, oh,’ Annie flapped. ‘I think I have a packet of digestives, somewhere.’
    ‘Lovely,’ brimmed Jack, gaily rubbing his hands. ‘Could manage one myself. While we’re looking round the house, perhaps?’
    ‘Oh, err, yes,’ said Annie, in a muddled twitter. She looked at Ralph as if to say, ‘Is this all right? Am I doing the right thing?’ But Ralph was just too shell-shocked to speak. ‘I suppose you’d better come in, then, Mr Bilt. I’ll put the kettle on. You’d like a cup of tea with your biscuit, I take it?’
    ‘No milk, four sugars, and a dash of brandy.’ Jack wiped his feet and swept inside. Knocker barked once and knocked on after him.
    Annie, bewildered, blown off course by the rogue gust of wind that was the builder, Bilt, shuffled around andbegan to close the door. ‘Erm, brandy, yes. I think I might have a little left over from Christmas…’
    Clunk. The door closed shut.
    Ralph swallowed hard.
    Jack Bilt had arrived.

A Knock-down Price
    ‘Hedges? Broom handles? Flashing lights? Ralph, you’re not making any kind of sense.’ Mrs Perfect threw an armful of clothes into the washing machine and set the dial with a determined twist.
    Ralph paced the kitchen and tried again. ‘But he did something, Mum. Mr Bilt, the builder. It was amazing. Kyle Salter ended up in a hedge.’
    Mrs Perfect sighed, matching the frequency of the steam cloud issuing from her iron. ‘Ralph,’ she said impatiently, flapping a shirt across the board, ‘throwing people into hedges is neither amazing nor pleasant, even if they are an obnoxious bully.’
    ‘But he didn’t, Mum.’
    ‘You just said he did.’
    ‘I know, but…’ Oh, it was hopeless, Ralph decided. How could he explain it when it didn’t make any sense to him, either? Jack Bilt had been standing a good ten yards away when Kyle had apparently taken off like a rocket and come to earth in a pile of twigs. Something must have moved him. Something with incredible strength. But what?
    A sudden bang from next door made Ralph lift his head.
    ‘That sounded like Annie’s cellar,’ said his mum, turning to look at the door to theirs.
    The hairs on the back of Ralph’s neck began to rise. Jack Bilt in Annie’s cellar. Why did Jack, in darkness, make him feel uneasy?
    ‘I expect it’s Mr Bilt, having a root around. Checking for damp. That kind of thing.’
    Checking, thought Ralph. That’s what I should do, check. He cracked his knuckles and headed for the door. ‘Going out, Mum.’
    ‘Not far. We’ll be eating soon.’
    No, not far, Ralph thought. Into next door’s garden, that’s all.
     
    Annie’s back gate was never locked to Ralph. Within seconds he was in her L-shaped garden, creeping past the tubs of flowering shrubs and the hosepipe that never ceased to spit and the bench he had helped to varnish last summer, up past the kitchen to the dining room window that Annie liked to open for a breath of fresh air.
    He was in luck. Jack was in the room with his back to the window. Knocker, tongue out and panting, was lyingout flat on the blue oval rug in front of the sofa. Annie was pacing back and forth, wringing her gnarled old hands in dismay.
    ‘But I’ve never had a moment’s trouble, Mr Bilt.’
    ‘My sympathies,’ said Jack, who sounded more smug than sympathetic to Ralph. ‘It’s like a sleeping sickness, my dear. Creeps up slowly, then you’re engulfed. It wiggles up your brickwork and spreads across your ceilings. Saw a whole ring of these poking out of someone’s chimney pot once.’ He twiddled a mushroom in his fingers. ‘Fungus: starts in the damp, dark