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pep into the poorest parts.”
    He sat at the table and slurped lemon squash while Marcia helped Mum get supper. Simon went to look for Dad, who was hiding behind a newspaper in the living room. “Did you buy a new armchair?” Simon asked.
    â€œYes,” said Dad. “Hush. That thing in the kitchen might get jealous.”
    â€œSo you do believe he is the armchair!” Simon said.
    â€œI don’t know !” Dad groaned.
    â€œI think he is,” Simon said. “I’m quite sorry for him. It must be hard to suddenly start being a person. I expect he’ll learn to speak and breathe and behave like a real person quite soon.”
    â€œI hope you’re right,” said Dad. “If he just learns to stop waving his arms in that spooky way I shall be quite pleased.”
    For supper, Chair Person ate five pizzas and six helpings of chips. In between, he waved his arms and explained, “I – hn hm – have a large appetite for my size, though I do not always need to snuffle eat. I am strange that way. Could I trouble you for some Mannings’ fruity brown sauce? I appear to have eaten all your ketchup. I think I shall enjoy my – hn hm – life with you here. I suggest that tomorrow we go on – hn hm – a short tour of Wales. I think I should go to snuffle Snowdon and then down a coalmine.”
    â€œI’m sorry —” Dad began.
    â€œEr, hn hm, Scotland then,” said Chair Person. “Or would you rather charter an aeroplane and take me to France?”
    â€œWe can’t go anywhere tomorrow,” Mum said firmly. “There’s Auntie Christa’s party in the evening and the coffee morning for Africa Aid before that.”
    Chair Person did not seem at all disappointed. He said, “I shall enjoy that. I happen to – hn hm – know a great deal about Africa. At the end of the day it must be snuffle said that not nearly enough is being done to help Africa and the Third World. Why, in Kenya alone...” And he was talking almost word for word – apart from the snuffles – the way last night’s television programme on Africa had talked.
    Before long, Simon and Marcia had both had enough. They tiptoed away to Simon’s room and went to bed early.
    â€œI suppose he’s here for good,” Simon said.
    â€œHe hasn’t any other home,” Marcia said, wriggling her way into the uncomfortable camp bed. “And he has lived here for years in a sort of way. Do you think it was the stuff that dripped from the crystal ball that brought him alive? Or Auntie Christa tapping him with the wand? Or both?”
    â€œPerhaps she could look after him,” Simon said hopefully. “She does charity and good works. Someone’s going to have to teach him all the things that aren’t on television.”
    They could hear Chair Person’s voice droning away downstairs. It was a loud voice, with a bleat and a bray to it, like a cow with a bad cold. After an hour or so, it was clear that Mum and Dad could not stand any more of it either. Simon and Marcia heard them coming to bed early too. They heard Chair Person blundering upstairs after them.
    â€œEr, hn hm – oh dear!” his voice brayed. “I appear to have broken this small table.”
    After that there was a lot of confused moving about and then the sound of running water. Chair Person’s voice bleated out again. “Tell me – er, hn hm – is the water supposed to run all over the bathroom floor?”
    They heard Mum hurry to the bathroom and turn the taps off. “There are such a lot of things he doesn’t know,” Marcia said sleepily.
    â€œHe’ll learn. He’ll be better tomorrow,” Simon said.
    They went to sleep then. There was the first frost of winter that night. They woke up much earlier than they had hoped because it was so cold. Their blankets somehow seemed far too thin and there was