Emily's Penny Dreadful by Bill Nagelkerke

PART ONE
     
    UNCLE RAYMOND ARRIVES
     
      Chapter
One             
             
     
    Emily had never, ever heard of a Penny
Dreadful, not until the day Uncle Raymond and Auntie Dot
arrived.
    The week before, almost a year to the day
since Gran died, Uncle Raymond and Auntie Dot’s home had burnt to
the ground. Emily’s mum - who was Uncle Raymond’s sister - had
immediately insisted that Uncle Raymond and Auntie Dot come and
stay with them.
      “ I like Auntie Dot a
lot,” said Emily, when she heard the news from her sister Sibbie,
“but not Uncle Raymond. Not very much.”
      “ You never have,”
Sibbie reminded her. “Not even when you were a baby. He made you
grizzle and cry.”
      “ Why was that?”
asked Emily.
    “ He pulled funny faces at
you,” Sibbie explained, and
    “ you were
scared.”
      “ I’m not scared of
him now,” Emily said. “I just think he’s grumpy. And he still pulls
faces, except they’re not funny. They probably never
were.”
      “ I thought they were,” said Sibbie.
“And I can remember them better than you can.”
    “ I don’t remember the early
ones at all,” said Emily.
    “ That’s because you were a
baby. Babies don’t remember anything. People who write books are
always grumpy,” Sibbie added. “They can’t help it. They suffer from
brain-strain, Dad says so.”
      “ At Gran’s funeral
everyone was sad but Uncle Raymond stayed grumpy,” Emily
remembered.
      “ That’s just the way
he is,” said Sibbie. “You’re grumpy too, a lot of the time. And you
love writing stories, so you’ll probably turn out just like Uncle
Raymond.”
      “ I won’t,” Emily
insisted. “I’m only grumpy now because I’ve had to move back in
with you.”
      “ Hmm,” said
Sibbie.
    “ Uncle Raymond says that a
lot,” Emily pointed out.
    “ So does
Mum. Maybe you’re the one who’s like
    Uncle Raymond.”
      “ Huh! No way!” said Sibbie. She went on: “Chances are that
Uncle Raymond will be extra grumpy because he and Aunty Dot are
having to move in with us .”
    “ Why do
they have to?”
asked Emily. “When they came for Gran’s funeral, they stayed in a
motel. Dad said Uncle Raymond didn’t even want to stay with
us.”
      “ I don’t blame him,”
said Sibbie. “Who’d want to listen to you babbling on day and
night?”
      “ I don’t babble,”
exclaimed Emily. “That’s just for babies. I have
conversations.”
    “ Is that what you call
them,” said Sibbie. “At the funeral I heard Uncle Raymond say to
Mum that you were precocious.”
      Emily considered.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
      “ The way Uncle
Raymond said it, it sounded bad.”
      “ I don’t like Uncle
Raymond very much,” Emily said again.  
    “ He does talk like he’s
swallowed a dictionary,” said Sibbie. “Anyway, motels cost a lot.
And, according to Mum, Auntie Dot and Uncle Raymond have had a
big
    shock. Mum thinks it will
be best for them to be
    around family for a while.
It won’t be forever.”
    “ It better not be,” said
Emily. “How do you spell precocious?”
      “ P R E C O . . .
that’s how it starts, I think,” said Sibbie.
      Emily went to check
in her dictionary.
      It was her favourite
book.
     

Chapter
Two             
             
     
    “ The man’s a paid-up member
of the Grammar Police,” Emily heard Dad complain to Mum that
morning. “He really gets up my nose.”
      “ Who are the Grammar
Police?” Emily asked. “And what man are you talking
about?”
      “ Uncle Raymond of
course. And the Grammar Police are people who not only mind their
own ‘p’s and ‘q’s but everybody else’s as well,” complained Dad.
“Last time he was here, Raymond told me off for saying ‘my wife and
me’ when apparently I should have said ‘my wife and I’. Ridiculous!
As if things like that matter. It’s a load of old tosh.”
      “ Oh,’ said