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held the
egg up in front of the opening. I felt sick.
I felt dirty.
    'Come on,' said Dockery, louder this
time.
    I put the egg through the letter box.
    Except that I didn't.
    I tried to, but it wouldn't fit. Tap-tap-tap,
it went, as the shell clicked against the metal.
I was so relieved I could have cheered. It
was great. I'd tried to post the egg, but it
wouldn't fit. I'd done my best, so they'd
have to let me in the Gang, but poor old
Mrs Cake wouldn't have stinky egg on her
floor.
    I let the letter-box flap fall shut. It sounded
as loud as an explosion. The next thing I
heard was Trixie yapping like a demented
yapping machine invented by a mad scientist.
Trixie was Mrs Cake's Jack Russell terrier.
Her favourite food was children's legs. That's
Trixie, I mean, not Mrs Cake, who'd probably
never even tasted a child's leg.
    I don't know why, but somehow the
yapping dog froze me. I just couldn't move. It
was as if I'd been zapped with a paralysing
ray.
    The top half of the door was made
of knobbly-wobbly glass, and I could
see Trixie jumping up on the inside, her
pointy snout snarling and snapping. I
suppose you shouldn't really be afraid of
a dog that's
only a little bit
bigger than a
rat, but Trixie
was definitely
scary. After all,
quite a few
things are small
and scary – like
scorpions, black
widow spiders,
evil dwarfs and
Brussels sprouts.

    And then, looming up behind Trixie, I
saw the dark shadow of Mrs Cake herself.
We used to say that Mrs Cake was a
witch, but that was silly, because you don't
really get witches any more, except in books.
But even though I knew she couldn't be
a witch, and that she was, in fact, quite
nice, I was still a little bit worried that
if she caught me putting a smelly rotten
egg through her door she might turn me
into a frog, or at least give me warts.
    The egg was still in my hand. Mrs
Cake fiddled with the latch on her door. I
crammed the egg into my back pocket the
second before the door opened.
    Mrs Cake smiled. Trixie snarled.
    'Hello, dear,' she said. Mrs Cake, I mean,
not Trixie.
    'H-h-h-hello.'
    'It's little Ludo, isn't it? What is it you
want? Is your football in the back garden
again?'
    'N-n-n-n-no. Sorry. I, er, came round to
see if you needed anything. At school our
teacher said we had to ask helpless old
people if they wanted us to go shopping for
them or rescue them if they were in danger
or just be nice to them if they were sad and
lonely because they had nothing interesting
in their lives apart from Countdown and Coronation Street .'
    That part was actually true, although I
can't remember if those were Miss Bridges'
actual words. Anyway, I said it all so quickly
that I doubt if Mrs Cake understood it all.
    'How kind,' she said. 'Why don't you come
inside and I'll see if I've got something nice
for you?'
    No one had ever been inside Mrs Cake's
bungalow before. It was obviously a trap.
    She was going to lure me in so she could
wartify me in private.
    I expected it to smell of old lady in there,
but it just smelled of house. Her carpet,
though, was so thick I thought I was going
to sink into it up to my neck.
    'Just come into the living room and I'll
get you some sweets. Or would you rather
have a pickled onion?'
    'Some sweets, please.'
    Then Trixie started to bite my shoes,
which made me jump up and down, while
Mrs Cake shouted, 'No, Trixie, no!' Finally
she wrestled the horrid little dog into the
kitchen and then out of the back door.
    'You sit down, dear,' she shouted (Mrs
Cake, not Trixie). There was a baggy old
chair and a baggy old sofa. I sat on the
sofa.
    CRUNCH .
    STINK.
    The egg!

    The gloopy slime oozed over my backside
and the stench rose up like poison gas.
    Mrs Cake came in, smiling, carrying a
plate of biscuits.
    'Sorry, got to go,' I yelled. 'I've had an
accident!' And I ran out of the room and
through the hall and out of the front door,
trailing the eggy cloud behind me.
    If there was an Olympic gold medal for
embarrassment, I'd have won it.

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