Aunt Alberta sat up in bed. She gave Wagner, who was wearing matching striped pyjamas, a poke. It was time for her to give the Owl-Rack another almighty turn and get back to the important business of torturing her niece.
First Alberta went to stand up. But instead of her feet touching the carpet as they did every morning, she placed them on a sea of marbles. The little glass balls rolled under her weight, and with a giant
Alberta flew into the air and landed on her behind with a
“OW!” she screamed. The woman picked up a handful of marbles. “How the blazes did these get here?!”
Again and again Alberta tried to stand up, but every time she did she fell back down again. The hundreds of little glass balls made her roll every which way. So, on her hands and knees, she crawled to her bathroom, and pulled herself on to the toilet. Immediately there was a feeling of immense relief. This lasted less than a second though, as she felt her wee-wee spurting back up at her! Her behind soaking wet, and with her pyjama bottoms still round her ankles, she jumped up from the toilet shouting,
“Nooooo!!!”
After taking a deep breath to gather herself, Alberta peered down into the toilet bowl. Try as she might she couldn’t see anything amiss. The piece of glass the pair had put there had been perfectly positioned on top of the water so as not to arouse the slightest suspicion. So she sat down and tried again.
“Noooooooooo!!!!” she screamed, as her wee-wee came back to haunt her once more.
Still desperately needing to pee, but abandoning the toilet for now, the woman moved over to the sink to have a wash instead. She ran the taps, and wetted her bar of soap under the water. Next Alberta closed her eyes and rubbed the soap on to her face, giving herself what she thought was a jolly good wash. However, a shock was awaiting her. When she opened her eyes and looked in the mirror she saw what she thought was a stranger looking back at her. In fact it was her own face, but painted completely black.
“NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” she cried in horror.
Try as she might to wash it off by using more of the soap it just became worse and worse. Now her hands and neck were completely black too. Alberta put the tip of the soap into her mouth to taste it.
“Eurgh! It’s boot polish!”
In the mirror she inspected her now-black tongue. Desperate to brush it clean she reached for her toothbrush and toothpaste. Alberta squeezed what she assumed was nothing more than her favourite minty-fresh toothpaste on to her brush. Now of course she was becoming suspicious. Just as she was about to put it in her mouth she sniffed it. The paste smelled minty so she began to brush away at her black tongue.
But as soon as she began brushing, the bubble bath Soot and Stella had mixed in with the paste began to foam. Huge soapy bubbles started foaming out of her mouth. The more furiously she brushed the bigger the bubbles and soon the bathroom was filled with them.
“There is devilment at work here!” she hollered.
Upstairs in the attic, Stella and Soot listened to each new yelp from the woman. Every one made them laugh more and more.
Back in her bedroom, Alberta threw a blanket over the marbles so she could walk to her chest of drawers. Determined to get to the bottom of this, she rushed to get dressed. First she slipped on a pair of her massive knickers, as big as a child’s tent. As soon as she had them on she noticed a peculiar tingling sensation. The tingling became worse and worse, until it felt like her bottom was on fire.
“My bottom! MY BOTTOM!” she howled, as she began leaping up and down and moving wildly around the bedroom. It was if she was doing some ludicrous new dance routine all of her own invention. Wagner was now sat up in bed, and watching the display. The owl had seen his mistress do some bizarre things in his time, but this was off the scale.
The ants in her pants were working like magic.
The woman jerked and juddered her way over to her armchair, and reached for her pipe. Her tobacco never failed to make everything seem better for her. Aunt Alberta placed the pipe to her mouth before guiding a lit match to the tobacco chamber. Except there wasn’t any tobacco in there. It was gunpowder.
