LITMIR.BIZ

      ‘We’ll gets ’em!’ cried Polly, sticking her head out of the window towards Goblin Mountain. ‘Oi! Badgers!’ she shouted, just in case they could hear over long distances like whales or telephones. ‘You gone too far this time, you stripy rascals! We gonna come an’ sort you out!’

      During all this Alan Taylor had been sitting in an ashtray on the bedside table, listening carefully. And now it was his turn to speak. For he knew all about the natural world, and that was why he was the headmaster of Saint Pterodactyl’s School For The Poor.

      ‘I don’t think it was badgers,’ he said. ‘You see, badgers mainly come out at night and Mrs Lovely was attacked by day. Also, badgers tend to attack small mammals such as stoats, voles and marmots (a type of large ground squirrel). They hardly ever attack Mrs Lovely. You know what I think it was?’

      ‘Badgers?’ asked Friday, who hadn’t really been listening properly.

      ‘No,’ said Alan Taylor, ‘I think it was goblins.’

      ‘Goblins?!’ whispered Polly in fright.

      ‘Goblins?!’ moaned Mrs Lovely fearfully.

      ‘Goblins,’ nodded Alan Taylor gravely, and the moon slid out from behind a cloud and its light spilled into the room like a long skeletal finger. And from up high on Goblin Mountain, they seemed to hear horrible laughter, it was probably just their imagination but it gave ’em goosebumps all the same.