SECTION FOUR

In which we meet all of the dreadful McGloones, who are almost too horrible to mention. We do have to mention them, though.

While the sun set gently and Uncle Shawn raced towards the start of his adventure, over in the west, the McGloone Farmhouse kitchen was filling with McGloones. Every one of the McGloones was there: Farmer McGloone and his wife, Myrtle McGloone, and the little McGloones, who were called Fred, Dusty, Bettina, Socket Wrench and Small. Farmer McGloone was also joined by his two sisters, Maude and Ethel, who we’ve met already.

That made nine McGloones.

Even one McGloone was really one too many to have in a kitchen, or anywhere else. They were clumsy, noisy, smelly, selfish and greedy. As well as being cruel, they enjoyed watching other people being cruel when they were feeling too tired to be cruel themselves. And they liked eating. They were also very fond of being ignorant. If they didn’t already know something, then they weren’t interested in finding out about it – unless it might make someone cry.

The McGloone sisters were sneering as if they might be struck down dead by the furniture at any minute and as if they had never seen anywhere so filthy and dreadful as the farmhouse kitchen. They did this because they hated Myrtle McGloone with all their hearts and they wanted her to feel like a bad housewife.

The sisters didn’t usually set foot in the farmhouse, but now they had been summoned for a family meeting and were all dressed up in their finest clothes. They wore matching purple gumboots with brown llama-fur trimming, pink tweed skirts, green blouses, orange knitted waistcoats and large, dusty hats decorated with flowers and a few vegetables to replace the flowers that had fallen off over the years. They looked like a jumble sale and smelled of sprouts, but they were standing next to the greasy farmhouse stove and trying to look like duchesses. They were guessing this would mean making their mouths very narrow and tutting and waving their arms about so that their pink plastic handbags slid up and down their leathery big arms. This did make them look a little bit like some duchesses, but mostly they were just frightening.

Myrtle McGloone was sitting at the kitchen table and pretending the sisters weren’t there. This was difficult because Ethel’s handbag kept hitting her on the back of her head. All the rest of the McGloones were squeezed nastily in round the table. They were jabbing each other in the ribs and shoving slices of lardy cake, jam sandwiches and apple pasties into their big McGloone mouths. And they were all shouting, so wet crumbs and bits of pasty were flying all over the place and sticking to things.

Farmer McGloone – who really didn’t have any first name apart from Farmer – was shouting loudest of all. “The llamas aren’t producing enough wool! And they’re getting fat too slowly!”

Maude shouted back, “Well it was a ssstupid idea to bring them here! I told you ssso!”

“Don’t you call my husband stupid!” yelled Myrtle, forgetting to ignore Maude. “You’ve got sprouts all over your hat! That makes you even stupider than a stupid old llama – you big snake!”

“Sssproutsss are the most fashionable vegetable for hatsss!” Maude screamed happily – she loved a good argument. “You’re jealousss of how lovely we are, that’sss your trouble!” And her wet and snaky hisses splashed everybody while she yelled.

“Now then, my pets,” bellowed Farmer, while his children ate and punched each other. “You are all lovely, elegant and dainty.” He stared at Myrtle, Ethel and Maude while he told them this and didn’t appear to notice that they were as lovely, elegant and dainty as a donkey trying to ride a see-saw.

Under the cobwebby beams of the ceiling hung bottled spiders and rusty dog collars and lots of boiled bones tied up with ribbons and many, many grubby pie dishes – exactly as if the kitchen was sometimes used to bake many, many pies.