Stopping for a Spell

“Won’t you come inside?” Simon said politely.

“That is very kind of you,” Chair Person said, crawlingly humble again. “I – hn hm snuffle – hope that won’t be too much trouble.”

“Not at all!” they both said heartily.

They went towards the house. Crossing the lawn was quite difficult because Chair Person did not seem to have learnt to walk straight yet, and he talked all the time. “I believe I am – hn hm – Chair Person,” he said, crashing into what was left of the sundial and knocking it down, “because I think I am. Snuffle. Oh dear, I appear to have destroyed your stone pillar.”

“Not to worry,” Marcia said kindly. “It was broken last night when we – I mean, it was broken anyway.”

“Then – hn hm – as I was saying,” Chair Person said, veering the other way, “that this is what snuffle wise men say. A person who thinks is a Person.” He cannoned into the apple tree. Most of the apples Dad had meant to pick that weekend came showering and bouncing down on to the grass. “Oh, dear,” said Chair Person. “I appear to have loosened your fruit.”

“That’s all right,” Simon and Marcia said politely. But since Chair Person, in spite of seeming so humble, did not seem very sorry about the apples and just went on talking and weaving about, they each took hold of one of his waving arms and guided him to the back door.

“Only the finest snuffle apples,” said Chair Person as he bashed into both sides of the back door, “from the finest – hn hm – orchards go into Kaplan’s Peasant Pies. This is one of many snuffle facts I know. Er, hm, very few people have watched as much television as I have,” he added, knocking over the nearest kitchen chair.

Marcia picked the chair up, thinking of the many, many times she had gone out of the living room and forgotten to turn the television off. Chair Person, when he was an armchair, must have watched hours of commercials and hundreds of films.

Simon turned Chair Person round and sat him in the kitchen chair. Chair Person went very humble and grateful. “You are – hn hm – treating me with such kindness,” he said, “and I am going to cause you a lot of snuffle trouble. I appear to need something to eat. I am not sure what to do about it. Do I – hn hm – eat you?”

“We’ll find you something to eat,” Simon said quickly.

“Eating people is wrong,” Marcia explained.

They hurried to find some food. A tin of spaghetti seemed easiest, because they both knew how to do that. Simon opened the tin and Marcia put it in a saucepan with the gas very high to get the spaghetti hot as soon as possible. Both of them cast nervous looks at Chair Person in case he tried to eat one of them. But Chair Person sat where he was, waving his arms gently. “Hn hm, Spiggley’s tasty snacks,” he said. “Sunshine poured from a tin.” When Marcia put the steaming plateful in front of him and Simon laid a spoon and a fork on either side of it, Chair Person went on sitting and staring.

“You can eat it,” Simon said kindly.

“Er, hn hm,” Chair Person said. “But this is not a complete meal. I shall have to trouble you for a napkin and salt and pepper. And I think people usually snuffle eat by candlelight with soft music in the background.”

They hurried to find him the salt, the pepper mill, and a paper towel. Simon fetched the radio and turned it on. It was playing country and western, but Simon turned it down very low and hoped it would do. He felt so sorry for Chair Person that he wanted to please him. Marcia ran upstairs and found the candlesticks from Mum’s dressing table and two red candles from last Christmas. She felt so guilty about Chair Person that she wanted to please him as much as Simon did.

Chair Person was very humble and grateful. While he told them how kind they were being, he picked up the pepper mill and began solemnly grinding pepper over the spaghetti. “Er, hn hm, with respect to you two fine kind people,” he said as he ground, “eating people is a time-honoured custom.”

Simon and Marcia quickly got to the other side of the table. But Chair Person only took up the fork and raked the spaghetti into a new heap, and ground more pepper over that. “There were tribes in South snuffle America,” he said, “who believed it was quite correct to – hn hm – eat their grandparents. I have a question. Is Spiggley’s another word for spaghetti?”

“No,” said Marcia. “It’s a name.”

Chair Person raked the spaghetti into a different-shaped heap and went on grinding pepper over it. “When the snuffle grandparents were dead,” he said, “they cooked the grandparents and the whole tribe had a feast.”

Marcia remembered seeing something like this on television. “I watched that programme too,” she said.

“You – hn hm – will not know this,” Chair Person said, raking the spaghetti into another new shape and grinding another cloud of pepper over it. “Only the sons and daughters of the dead men were allowed to eat the brains.” This time he spread the spaghetti flat and ground pepper very carefully over every part of it. “This was so that snuffle the wisdom of the dead man could be passed on to his family” he said.

By this time the spaghetti was grey. Simon and Marcia could not take their eyes off it. It must have been hot as fire by then. They kept expecting Chair Person to sneeze, since he seemed to have trouble breathing anyway, but he just went on grinding pepper and explaining about cannibals.

Simon wondered if Chair Person perhaps did not know how to eat. “You’re supposed to put the spaghetti in your mouth,” he said.

Chair Person held up the pepper mill and shook it. It was empty. So he put it down at last and picked up the spoon. He did seem to know how to eat, but he did it very badly, snuffling and snorting, with ends dangling out of his mouth. Grey juice dripped through his smashed-hedgehog beard and ran down his striped front. But the pepper did not seem to worry him at all. Simon was thinking that maybe Chair Person did not have taste buds like other people, when the back door opened and Mum and Dad came in.

“What happened to the rest of the sundial?” said Mum. “I leave you alone just for—” She saw Chair Person and stared.

“What have you kids done to those apples?” Dad began. Then he saw Chair Person and stared too.

CHAPTER THREE A Busy Night (#ulink_7dfe1298-3ef5-5337-97cc-b84d3167035c)

Both Simon and Marcia had had a sort of hope that Chair Person would vanish when Mum and Dad came home, or at least turn back into an armchair. But nothing of the sort happened. Chair Person stood up and bowed.

“Er, hn hm,” he said. “I am Chair Person. Good snuffle evening.”

Mum’s eyes darted to the ink blot on Chair Person’s waving sleeve, then to the coffee stain, and then on to the damp smear on his front. She turned and dashed away into the garden.

Chair Person’s arms waved like someone conducting an orchestra. “I am the one causing you all this trouble with your apples,” he said, in his most crawlingly humble way. “You are so kind to – hn hm – forgive me so quickly.”

Dad clearly could not think what to say. After gulping a little, he said in a social sort of way, “Staying in the neighbourhood, are you?”

Here Mum came dashing back indoors. “The old chair’s not in the shed any more,” she said. “Do you think he might be—?”

Chair Person turned to her. His arms waved as if he were a conductor expecting Mum to start singing. “Your – hn hm – husband has just made me a very kind offer,” he said. “I shall be delighted to stay in this house.”

“I–” Dad began.

“Er, hn hm, needless to say snuffle,” said Chair Person, “I shall not cause you more trouble than I have to. Nothing more than – hn hm – a good bed and a television set in my room.”

“Oh,” said Mum. It was clear she could not think what to say either. “Well, er, I see you’ve had some supper—”

“Er, hn hm, most kind,” said Chair Person. “I would love to have some supper as soon as possible. In the meantime, a snuffle flask of wine would be most – hn hm – welcome. I appear to have a raging thirst.”

Marcia and Simon were not surprised Chair Person was thirsty after all that pepper. They got him a carton of orange juice and a jug of water before they all hurried away to put a camp bed in Simon’s room and make Marcia’s bedroom ready for Chair Person. Marcia could see that Mum and Dad both had the same kind of dazed, guilty feelings about Chair Person that she had. Neither of them quite believed he was really their old armchair, but Mum put clean sheets on the bed and Dad carried the television up to Marcia’s room. Chair Person seemed to get people that way.

When they came downstairs, the fridge door was open and the table was covered with empty orange juice cartons.

“I – hn hm – appear to have drunk all your orange juice,” Chair Person said. “But I would be willing to drink lemon squash instead. I happen snuffle to know that it has added glucose, which puts pep into the poorest parts.”

He sat at the table and slurped lemon squash while Marcia helped Mum get supper. Simon went to look for Dad, who was hiding behind a newspaper in the living room. “Did you buy a new armchair?” Simon asked.

“Yes,” said Dad. “Hush. That thing in the kitchen might get jealous.”

“So you do believe he is the armchair!” Simon said.

“I don’t know!” Dad groaned.

“I think he is,” Simon said. “I’m quite sorry for him. It must be hard to suddenly start being a person. I expect he’ll learn to speak and breathe and behave like a real person quite soon.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Dad. “If he just learns to stop waving his arms in that spooky way, I shall be quite pleased.”

For supper, Chair Person ate five pizzas and six helpings of chips. In between, he waved his arms and explained, “I – hn hm – have a large appetite for my size, though I do not always need to snuffle eat. I am strange that way. Could I trouble you for some Mannings’ fruity brown sauce? I appear to have eaten all your ketchup. I think I shall enjoy my – hn hm – life with you here. I suggest that tomorrow we go on – hn hm – a short tour of Wales. I think I should go to snuffle Snowdon and then down a coal mine.”

“I’m sorry—” Dad began.