The curly-headed man who lives at the strange Fernbank Cottage in the middle of the Dendringham woods (we STILL don’t know who he is!) seems to have been carrying out some kind of an experiment… which has gone wrong… with a BANG!
“Yikes, what NOW!!” said Mr Mouse in his most panicky voice.
BARkgrowlBARKBARK went the two dogs.
Cough and splutter went everyone else!
A thick green cloud was rolling out of Fernbank Cottage, flecked with bits of what looked like cloth and ash.
But the explosion didn’t seem to worry the curly-headed man one bit.
“Oh deary me!” he said with a big, smile, flapping the air with a blue spotted hanky. “Deary, deary me! Back to the drawing board!!”
“What…” spluttered Mr Holmes, waving his funny hat about in front of Dot to clear the air round her “… what the devil was THAT? One of your experiments, I suppose!”
“Ah, yes!” said the curly-headed man. “I’m working on my Daily Miracle Clean-All Cloth, the Housemaid’s Boon!”
“Sounds more like the housemaid’s bang to me!” said Mr Mouse.
“GROAN!” went Angharad and Wizzie together, in between coughing.
“Ah yes!” the curly-headed man went on. “It will clean everything, all round the house! Your servant will have no excuse for not having everything sparkling clean! In fact!” he said, waving a stubby, chemical-stained finger in the air “I could call it the ‘No Excuse’! I like that!” he chuckled.
The smoke had cleared while he was carrying on, and Dot was able to stop coughing and start to speak.
“But… why did it blow up?” she asked.
“Ah” the curly-headed man replied, a shadow crossing his face. “That’s probably because hydrogen sulphide and nitro-glycerine don’t mix. I was blending them up together, you see… trying to boil it into the cloth… I thought the power of the nitro glycerine - ”
“One of the most powerful explosive chemicals ever invented” murmured Mr Holmes to Dot, lifting an eyebrow and sucking at his funny pipe.
“ – just a TEENY bit, you understand, I though its explosive power would help DRIVE the dirt away you see?” His shoulders slumped a bit. “Oh well! Try again!”
“Why not attempt the same effect with dynamite, next time?” said Mr Holmes, his dark eyebrow arching even higher.
“Ah! Now! That’s an idea!” said the strange man excitedly. “Now why didn’t I think of that!
“Good Lord!” muttered Mr Holmes to himself.
The curly-headed man leant into the strange window in the grassy bank so that his rather large bottom in its grassy suit poked up in the air.
Angharad and Wizzie giggled.
“Not too bad!” came his voice, a bit muffled. “It was much worse when my Extraordinary Rocket Boots experiment didn’t quite go as planned!”
“This man is a danger to himself and everyone round him!” said Mr Holmes quietly to Dot. Then he smiled. “Still… I like his spirit… none of the great inventions was ever even started without someone being prepared to take risks! Look at the work of this extraordinary German fellow, Wilhelm Röntgen” (he said “Rerntgen”.) “Thinks he’s found away of seeing your bones inside your body – X-rays he calls them! Remarkable!”
“Won’t take long!” said the curly headed-man, starting to slide himself inside through the window. “Have it cleared up in a jiffy!”
Suddenly, there was a crashing and a breaking of twigs and branches behind them, from deep inside the forest - and next moment, there was Laetitia, riding headlong into the clearing on Hector!
She cantered right up to where they were, the two dogs running to one side to get out of the way, and pulled Hector to a stop so that he reared up on his hind legs like a horse in a circus.
“Giles!” she gasped. “Are you all right?”
