Monkey hugged his new plastic banana
After tea, they played a board game which Moopah tried to win by trickery. He thought no one would notice that he moved his counter when he shouted, “Good grief! What’s that?” and pointed at the window. They all looked but Fabby, Chloé and Evan weren’t fooled. Francis on the other hand scampered over and stared out from under the curtains. “What was it? I can’t see anything,” he called.
Elle shook her head, sadly, and Monkey hugged his new plastic banana then waved it in the air. “Look at that!” he cried. “It’s so real no one would ever know it wasn’t.” They all stared at him in disbelief, apart from Moopah who secretly moved his counter two extra spaces forward.
With the game put away and Moopah and Fabby now in the garden watering the plants, the children discussed what they should do the next day and what time they should go to bed.
“I know!” Evan looked at them all excitedly. “Why don’t we not go to bed and solve a mystery instead?”
The others stared at each other then Chloé said, “But what mystery can we solve?”
Evan grinned. “The mystery of the missing grass!”
“How can we do that?” Chloé asked.
With a secretive look, Evan ran off to find Moopah.
Five minutes later, he came back with a triumphant face. “Moopah says they’ve got an old tent and some sleeping bags in the loft.
Come on! Let’s get the ladder down and go and look!”
Spread over the living room floor, they examined the tent for any holes. There were none.
“These sleeping bags are really nice,” Evan declared from inside one.
“Yes,” Chloé said. “I see what we can do now. We’ll camp out on the lawn and take it in turns to keep an eye on the bag of grass cuttings Moopah’s just put out by the gate.”
Evan had rolled over and was searching through a little canvas bag he’d brought down from the attic. “Moopah said there’s other stuff in here we might find useful.” He rummaged around and produced a small set of binoculars and a torch. “Wow! It’s like a real spy kit!” He examined the torch. “No batteries but I think there’s some in the drawer over there.”
Chloé jumped up. “I’ll look!” Seconds later she declared, “Got them! And there’s some spare ones.” She sat back down on the floor. “All we have to do now is convince the grown-ups to let us do it.”
Fabby thought it a grand idea and Moopah, who wasn’t so keen at first, only agreed when they all promised that they wouldn’t leave the house and garden for any reason whatsoever.
After he’d put fresh batteries in them, he showed them two little hand held radios. “You’ll have one and we’ll have the other,” he said. “I’ll show you how they work and we’ll test them later on.” He saw the questioning looks on their faces. “We used to use them to speak to each other if one of us was in the house and the other was in the garden but we just use our phones now.”