Freaky Families

Freaky Families
Diana Wynne Jones

Two quirky and hilarious stories from the bestselling Diana Wynne Jones. Two groups of children learn that while you can choose your friends, dealing with your family can make you wish you could choose a different one…THE FOUR GRANNIES. Two children are left alone for a couple of days, while their parents go away on a business trip. They have four very different grandmas – a mean one, a snobby one, an anxious one, and a delicate one. Erg (the boy) tries to make all the grannies leave him alone, but manages to turn them into one ‘Super-Granny’…AUNTIE BEA’S DAY OUT. Annoying Auntie Bea always does things HER way. And when she decides to take the three children (Nancy, Debbie and Simon) to the seaside, despite what the signs say, she is determined that they will sit on the small, fenced off and isolated island. It turns out to be a magical island though, and whisks her & the children (and dog) around to different places trying to get rid of them…

Cover (#ucdf21141-ec35-524e-9004-843b43129f59)

Title Page (#ub1e35570-75fb-58df-aa5a-c872c3596cba)

The Four Grannies (#u186996da-eae6-50a8-8b39-8d69156a93f4)

Chapter One (#u78f3b3b0-c41e-5031-906b-6eb4e0290842)

Chapter Two (#u50d3ecfe-6954-507f-ac45-4e0ad4d42202)

Chapter Three (#ud17de6e8-29ed-5473-ae62-fc96de41c12d)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Auntie Bea’s Day Out (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

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Erg’s Dad and Emily’s Mum found they had to go away to a Conference for four days, leaving Erg and Emily at home.

“I want a house to come back to,” said Erg’s Dad, thinking of the time Erg had borrowed the front door to make an underground fort in the garden.

“We’d better ask one of the Grannies to come and look after them,” said Emily’s Mum, knowing that if Erg did not borrow a thing, Emily could be trusted to fall over it and break it. Emily was younger than Erg, but she was enormous. She needed bigger shoes than Erg’s Dad.

There were four Grannies to choose from, because Erg’s Dad and Emily’s Mum had both been divorced before they married one another.

Granny One was strict. She wore her hair scraped back from her forbidding face and her favourite saying was, “Life is always saying No.” Since Life did not have a voice, Granny One spoke for it, and said No about once every five minutes.

Granny Two was a worrier. She could worry about anything. She was fond of ringing up in the middle of the night to ask if Emily was getting enough vitamins, or – in her special, hushed worrying voice – if Erg ought to be sent to a Special School.

Granny Three was very rich and very stingy. She was the one Emily hated most. Granny Three always arrived with a big box of chocolates. She would give Erg’s Dad a chocolate, and Emily’s Mum a chocolate, and eat six herself, and take the rest of the box away with her when she went. Erg agreed with Emily that this was mean, but he thought Granny Three was more fun than the others, because she had a new car and different coloured hair every time she came.

Granny Four was a saint. She was gentle and quavery and wrinkled. If Erg and Emily quarrelled in front of her, or even spoke loudly, Granny Four promptly came over faint and had to have a doctor.

Granny Four was the one Erg and Emily chose to look after them. If you could avoid making Granny Four feel faint she usually let you do what you wanted. But, when Emily’s Mum rang Granny Four to ask her, Granny Four was faint already. She had been let down over a Save The Children Bazaar and was too ill to come.

So, despite the shrill groans of Erg and the huge moans of Emily, Emily’s Mum phoned Granny One. To Erg’s relief, Granny One was going on holiday and could not come either. So that left Granny Two, because Granny Three had never been known to look after anyone but herself. But Erg’s Dad phoned Granny Three, all the same, hoping she might pay for someone to look after Erg and Emily. Granny Three said she thought it was an excellent idea for Emily and Erg to look after themselves.

Erg’s Dad phoned Granny Two. “What!” exclaimed Granny Two, hushed and worried. “Leave dear Erg and poor little Emily all alone, for all that time!”

“But we’re only going to Scotland for four days,” Erg’s Dad protested.

“I know, dear,” said Granny Two. “But I’m thinking of you. Scotland is covered with oil these days and so dangerous!”

Erg and Emily were not looking forward to Granny Two. They waved their parents off gloomily, and sat about waiting for Granny Two to arrive. She was a long time coming. Emily fidgeted round the living room like an impatient horse, knocking things over right and left. Erg felt an idea coming on. He wandered away to the kitchen to see what he could find.

All the food was wrapped up and carefully labelled so that Granny Two could find it, but Erg found a biscuit-tin. It had holes in the lid from the time he had started a caterpillar farm. Inside were the works of a clock he had once borrowed. It seemed a good beginning for an invention. He collected other things: an egg-beater, the blades off the mixer, a sardine-tin-opener, and a skewer. He took them all back to the living-room and began fitting them together. The invention was already looking quite promising, when the phone rang. Emily bounced up to answer it, and, quite naturally, she trod on the invention as she went and squashed it flat. Erg roared with rage.

It was Granny Two on the phone. “I’m terribly sorry, dear. I’d got halfway, when I thought I’d left my kitchen tap on. I’m just setting out again now.”

“Was your tap on?” asked Emily.

“No, dear. But just suppose it had been.”

Emily went back to the living room to find Erg still roaring with rage. “Look what you’ve done! You’ve ruined my invention!”

Emily looked at the invention. It looked like a squashed biscuit-tin with egg-beaters sticking out of it. “It’s only a squashed biscuit-tin,” she said. “And you ought to put those egg-beaters back.”

But Erg had just discovered that the hand-beater fitted beautifully into a split in the side of the biscuit-tin.

“You’re not supposed to have any of them,” said Emily. But Erg took no notice. He wound the handle of the egg-beater. The battered metal of the tin went in and out as if it were breathing, and the pieces of clock inside made a most interesting noise. Emily got annoyed at the way Erg had forgotten her. “Put those things back, you horrible little boy!” she roared.

She was trampling towards Erg to take the invention apart, when a shocked voice said, “Emily! Children!”

They looked round to find Granny Four in the doorway. She was pale and quavery and threatening to faint.

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Erg and Emily tried to stop Granny Four fainting by smiling politely. “I thought you weren’t coming,” said Erg.

“I couldn’t leave you two poor children all alone,” Granny Four said in a failing voice.

Emily and Erg looked at one another. Neither of them had quite the courage to say Granny Two was already on her way.

“Here you are, dear,” Granny Four said to Emily. Shakily, she held out a small, elderly book. “This will put you in a better frame of mind. It’s a beautiful little book about a wicked little girl called Emily. You’ll find it charming, dear.”

Emily took the book. It was not the kind of gift you could say thank you for easily. “I’ll take it upstairs to read,” Emily said, and thundered away so as not to seem ungrateful.

Erg was hoping heartily that Granny Four had something better for him. But it was not much better. It was a shiny red stick, narrower at one end than the other.

“I think it’s a chopstick,” said Granny Four. “It was in the Bazaar.” She must have seen from Erg’s expression that he was not loving the chopstick particularly. She went white and leant against the side of the door. “You can pretend it’s a magic wand, dear,” she said reproachfully.