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But at that moment Mrs Stock put her face round the door. “Here’s our Shaun,” she announced. “And you’re employing him as handyman here. If you don’t and you hire that Stashe instead, I’m leaving and you can just find yourself another housekeeper!”
    Everyone stared at her. Trying not to laugh, Andrewtook his glasses off and slowly cleaned them with his handkerchief. “Don’t tempt me, Mrs Stock,” he said. “Don’t tempt me.”
    Mrs Stock bridled. “Is that a jo —?” she began. Then it dawned on her that it might not be a joke. She gave Andrew a slanting, upwards look. “Well, anyway,” she said, “this is our Shaun.” She pushed a bulky young man into the room.
    Shaun was probably about eighteen. It took Andrew — and Aidan too — only a glance to see that Shaun was what people in Melstone called “a bit in the head” or, Aidan thought, what the Arkwrights would call “mentally challenged”. His face and body were fat in that way that showed that his body was trying to make up for his brain. His eyes looked tight round the edges. He stood there, perplexed and embarrassed at the way everyone was looking at him, and twisted his plump thumbs in his T-shirt, ashamed.
    “He can do most things,” Mrs Stock asserted, pushing her way in after Shaun. “Provided you explain them to him first.”
    Mr Stock had been prudently lurking outside the study windows to see how Stashe got on. Now he stuck his face, and his hat, through the nearest opening. “I am not,” he said, “having that lummock-de-troll glunchingabout this place! Trod on all my tomatoes he did, last year.”
    And suddenly everyone was shouting at one another.
    Shaun gave vent to a great tenor bellow. “Was not my
fault
, so!” Stashe shouted at her uncle to keep his nose out of things, and then turned and shouted at Mrs Stock. Mrs Stock shouted back, shriller and shriller, defending Shaun and telling Stashe to keep her bossy, managing face out of Professor Hope’s business. Tarquin bounced in his chair and yelled that he was not going to sit there to hear his daughter insulted, while Mr Stock kept up a rolling boom, like a big bass drum, and seemed to be insulting everyone.
    Aidan had never heard anything
like
this. He sat back in his hard chair and kept his mouth shut. Andrew rolled his eyes. Finally, he put his glasses back on and marched to his desk where he found his long, round, old-fashioned ruler, swung it back and banged it violently against the side of his computer. CLANG!
    The shouting stopped. Andrew took his glasses off again, in order not to see the incredulous way they all looked at him.
    “Thank you,” Andrew said. “If you’ve all quite finished arranging my affairs for me, I shall now tell you what
I
have decided. Shaun, you can work here for a week’s trial.” He was sorry for Shaun and he thought aweek wouldn’t hurt anyone. “That suit you?” he asked. Shaun gave him a relieved, eager nod. “And you, Stashe,” Andrew went on, “since you know your way around computers, you can come for a month’s trial. I need a database set up and a lot of documents tapped in and something’s gone wrong with this computer.” Probably a lot more, he thought, now that he had hit the thing. “Is that OK?”
    Mrs Stock glowered. Stashe, looking perky and triumphant, said, “I can do Tuesdays, Fridays and Mondays. When do I start?”
    “She works down the Stables on the other days,” Tarquin explained.
    “Then start tomorrow,” Andrew said. “Nine-thirty.”
    Aidan was greatly relieved. Up to now he had thought Andrew was the kind of person that everyone pushed about.
    “Mr Stock,” Andrew continued, “I’m sure you have work to do. And Mrs Stock, can you make up the bed in the front spare room, please? Aidan will be staying here until we can sort out what he ought to do.”
    “Oh,
thanks!
” Aidan gasped. He could hardly breathe, he was so relieved and grateful.

Chapter Three
    A ndrew was anxious to