THIS HOUSE IS FOR SALE

    Later that morning I was looking out of my Thursday bedroom window and thinking about what Aunt Tabby had said. I always find it easier to think when I am doing something, so I was busy picking off lumps of peeling black paint from around the windows and throwing them at the monster statues out on the parapet.

    It was lucky that I looked down and noticed the man standing on the front doorstep. He was wearing a shiny blue suit and was staring up at the house while he wrote down notes on his clipboard. I knew what he was right away--a real estate agent. I could see Aunt Tabby meant business. Well, so did I. So I got down from the window and hummed a happy tune to myself: "La-di-da, la-di-da, time to clean out the fish bowl. " I found the old bowl in a dark corner, where I had put it after Brian, my last goldfish, escaped. I don't know where Brian went, but he never came back. For sentimental reasons I had kept the bowl just as Brian had left it, so it was full of slime, old weeds, and some very smelly green water.

    The real estate agent was standing right underneath my win- dow. I balanced the fish bowl on the win- dowsill and tipped it. The sludge landed splat right on him.

    Bull's- eye! The real estate agent had green goo all over his head and his shiny blue suit. He just stood there for a moment-- like he was really sur- prised--and spat out some bits of slippery weed. Then he looked up, and I aimed my Fiendish Stare at him.

    He made a weird, spluttery, yelping noise and ran off down the path. Good riddance.

    At lunchtime in the third-kitchen-on-the- right-just-around-the-corner-past-the-boil- er-room, I was not surprised to see that Aunt Tabby looked just as crabby as she had at breakfast. "These real estate agents are really most unreliable, " she said as she stabbed a defense- less potato and thumped it down on my plate. "I have been waiting all morning for one, but he hasn't even bothered to turn up. " I didn't say anything. Aunt Tabby looked at me for a moment and then she said, "I shall put my own sign up this afternoon.

    You'll enjoy helping me paint it, Araminta. " "Won't, " I told her.

    I tried to avoid Aunt Tabby in the afternoon, but she found me down in the cellar looking for vampires and dragged me out to the garden. "It's a lovely day, Araminta, " she burbled. "Some sunshine would do you good. You are looking quite pale. " Well, of course I was looking pale. It was because of the chalk dust all over my face. Vampire hunting is the same as ghost hunt- ing--you have to look like one of them to have any chance of finding one. I think I look pretty good as a vampire, although I would like to grow my teeth, too (but when I asked the dentist how I could do that, she was not exactly helpful).

    Aunt Tabby had cleared a patch of stinging nettles--stinging nettles are what grow best in our garden--and she had dumped down a piece of board and some old paints. Aunt Tabby thinks she's an artist, but I have my doubts. "Come on, dear, " she said, patting the ground beside her like we were going to have a picnic or something, "you know you love painting. " "Don't, " I told her. So I sat on the steps and kicked them, which is quite fun as they are very crumbly and you can often get big lumps of stone to drop off. I watched Aunt Tabby really go for the paint in a big way until she had covered herself in as much paint as she had put on the board.

    When she had run out of paint, Aunt Tabby fixed the board to a post and stuck it in the hedge. The sign said:

    This House Is for Sale Aunt Tabby looked pleased. She rubbed her painty hands all down the front of her dress and said, "Not too bad. I haven't lost my touch. What do you think, Araminta?" I didn't say what I thought, as it would not have been polite. Also I was thinking hard. I -19- badly needed a Plan--Aunt Tabby was not going to get away with this. So while Aunt Tabby went indoors to shout at the boiler, I thought about my Plan. It didn't take long before I had one. Soon the sign said:

    This House Is NOT for Sale Simple.