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1000 franc reward, that’s ...”
    They went off into calculations, writing with a stick of macaroni on some flour that Signor Spaghetti had spread out on the table.
    â€œIt would be easier with three brothers,” said Franco at length.
    â€œNo, no. I got seven brothers. Seven!” bellowed the chef.
    â€œAll right, all right. Let’s say 900 francs instead. Seven brothers and me and you into 900 francs go 100 francs each.”
    A bell rang out suddenly and the chef padded over to an ancient-looking telephone.
    â€œYes, of course, Monsieur le Comte. Yes, at once, Monsieur le Comte.”
    He replaced the phone looking very agitated. “Quick, Franco. The Count is coming to inspect the kitchens. We got to tidy up. Get your shirts out of the cooking pot and put those bottles of wine back in the cellar.”
    Franco scuttled round the kitchen, knocking things off the tables in his agitation. The chef crammed all the dirty pots and pans into a big cupboard, mopped the floor and returned to the boiling soup, which he began to stir with his wooden spoon. Franco came back from taking his dripping shirts and bottles of wine down to the cellar. They both tried to look casual, but Franco’s knees were knocking together and the chef looked hot under his tall hat.
    Footsteps sounded outside the door, when suddenly the chef noticed me still sitting on the table.
    â€œThe bear, hide the bear quick,” he hissed at Franco.
    Franco snatched me off the table with a trembling hand and pushed me into the first cupboard he came to.
    When I saw all the frost and ice inside, I realised what sort of cupboard it was. Toots used to say that if you didn’t open the refrigerator for several weeks, polar bears and things would come and live there. It was all right for polar bears, of course, but my sort of bear needed the sun. What if I turned into a snowman or something? Or got so cold my fur went blue?
    Once more there was no way of escape. I wished Amanda had thought of things like being upside-down in waste bins, and waste paper baskets, and being locked in refrigerators. I had a compass for being lost in a desert, and a reel of cotton for a maze - and I hadn’t come to either of them yet.
    Time seemed to drag on very slowly in the refrigerator. I could feel my fur going all brittle like a hedgehog, and icicles started to grow from my ears and nose. I discovered that I was sitting on a large block of ice cream, which didn’t make things any better.
    Just as I’d decided to play a game of imagining faces on all the eggs in the rack in front of me, I heard a terrible bellowing noise outside.
    â€œFool! Idiot! Stupid kitchen plate-scraper! Son of a cabbage! You must have put him somewhere!”
    I could hear Franco mumbling apologies, and the chef whacking him with his spoon. Then all the cupboard doors in the kitchen started banging, one after the other. At last it was the turn of the refrigerator.
    â€œSanto Cielo!” said the chef when he saw me. “He has turned into a polar bear!” Tears ran down his cheeks. “We must thaw him out before my brothers come,” he said to Franco.
    Franco looked pained, and spread out both arms. “How we do it, chef? No fires, no heating.”
    The chef patted me on the head, causing a snow shower from my ears. “We think of something,” he said in a soothing voice.
    â€œAh!” said Franco, suddenly looking intelligent. “The oven!”
    Oh dear, I thought, remembering the story of King Alfred and the burned cakes.
    â€œBut what is the temperature for thawing a bear?” pondered the chef. “Puddings - number 1. Fruit cake - number 3. Roast lamb - number 5.”
    â€œI think pudding,” said Franco firmly. “We don’t want him to catch fire.”
    So I was put on a meat dish and carefully placed on the bottom shelf.
    â€œA little sugar and nutmeg?” said the chef with a broad smile, and then