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I’m sorry, but they couldn’t go in with that load. It’s all the dark things at the moment.”
    “All the dark things?” Tony could not help sounding anxious. “Was there anything of mine in there as well?”
    “Yes,” said his father unhelpfully.
    “Oh.” Tony paused. “What of mine?”
    “You’d better ask Mum about that.”
    “Where is she?”
    “In the living room. She’s doing the mendings.”
    “The mending?” Tony was really worried now. A new and equally perturbing thought had just occurred to him, as he remembered how many holes there were in the cloak. “Is she mending ... socks?” he asked hopefully.
    “Far from it,” smiled father. “She found an enormousbit of black cloth, full of holes ...”
    “Holes?” cried Tony. “Oh, no!” and he rushed off into the living room. He could not care less now if his father saw how worried he was.
    His mother was sitting by the window, and was busy trying to pull a long thick piece of black wool through the eye of a rather narrow needle. And on her lap lay ... Rudolph’s cloak!
    “Poof!” she said as Tony appeared. “Thisreally stinks.”
    “It – it b-belongs to a friend of mine,” stuttered Tony.
    “I know,” smiled his mother. “The poor boy. It’s such a tattered old thing. The holes are big enough to stick your fingers through.”
    “I don’t think he wants them sewn up,” said Tony.
    “Why on earth do you think that?” asked his mother.
    “Well, he said so,” said Tony.
    In the meantime, his mother had finished darning thesecond hole, and was trying to thread the needle for the third. “I don’t believe it,” she said confidently. “No one would want to go around in anything as full of holes as this. Maybe he doesn’t have anyone to sew them up for him. No, no,” she said adamantly, “I’m quite sure he’ll be pleased to have it mended. What’s his name by the way?”
    “Rudolph,” grumbled Tony. He had already reached the door.What he really felt like doing was to howl with rage: it was all a plot, and Dad had just been acting so innocent. Well, just wait! He’d show them!
    “Do you want any lunch?” called Dad from the kitchen.
    “No,” said Tony.
    “The macaroni cheese’ll be ready in ten minutes!”
    “O.K.,” said Tony. He went back to his room and lay down on the bed. What a mean trick to have played on him, to pinch hiscloak and darn it, without even asking him first. And not only that – to have gone on darning it, even when he’d specifically asked her to stop! Tony was angry with himself too for having left it lying around, even though he knew well that his parents always looked into his room in the morning to see if he was still asleep.
    But perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing that his mother was mending thecloak. In fact, if it didn’t have so many holes, the vampire would probably be able to fly better in it. Mum was right after all, and he ought to be thankful for it!
    At that moment he heard his mother coming across the hall, so he quickly stood up and began to make his bed. He was just shaking out the pillows when she knocked on his door.
    “Tony?”
    “Yes. You can come in.”
    “Here,” said Mum. “Onecloak, good as new!”
    “Thanks,” muttered Tony. He took the cloak from her and put it on a chair.
    “I’d have like to have wash it,” went on his mother. “But then it wouldn’t have dried for a long time. And Rudolph wants it back soon, doesn’t he?”
    “Yes, he does,” said Tony quickly.
    “Why don’t you take it over to him today then?”
    “Today? Oh, well –” Tony was at a loss for words. “He’s – er, sleepingtoday.”
    “What?” laughed his mother. “Do you know how late it is?”
    “Lunch is ready!” called Dad from the kitchen.
    “He really is a funny friend, if he sleeps all day,” said Mom, giving Tony a searching look. “You must tell us more about him during lunch.”
    “Oh. Er, I’m not very hungry today,” said Tony, even though his