The strange thing about that tea – which might seem, in dietary terms, a little sugary and heavy – is that actually it wasn’t. Every bit of the candyfloss rocket that entered Alfie’s mouth seemed to change its level of sweetness so that it never became overpowering, the fizzy chocolate went down like a smooth treat and the chips were really light, fluffy and not too greasy.

“It’s all organic,” said Mrs Stokes, which seemed unlikely in the case of candyfloss, chips and fizzy chocolate, but then again it was magic candyfloss, chips and fizzy chocolate, thought Alfie, so there might be a special exemption.

When he’d finished his tea, she said: “What’s next?”

“What do you mean?”

“What routine’s next?”

“Oh,” said Alfie. “Clearing-up-after-tea.”

“OK,” said Mrs Stokes, “if you were to go about that just as you liked, how would you do it?”

Alfie thought. His first instinct was to say that he wouldn’t do it at all, but he felt that would be rude or possibly ungrateful. So he said: “Plates are a bit like flying saucers, aren’t they?”

“They are,” said Mrs Stokes.

“How do flying saucers fly, Mrs Stokes? They’re round and all their jets seem to be underneath, so how do they fly anywhere but upwards?”

“Well,” said Mrs Stokes, her face lit by the flashing Zimmer frame, “they may have a propulsion system that creates an anti-gravity effect which curves the jet streams in infinite directions. Or it may just be …” she added, as Alfie’s plate floated into the air, “… magic.”

The plate hovered in front of Alfie’s face, glowing. Then it twirled round.

“Uh-oh …” said Mrs Stokes.

“What?” said Alfie. Mrs Stokes nodded towards the table. The salt-and-pepper shakers were trembling – then they blasted off up towards the plate! Followed closely by a bottle of tomato ketchup, which had also suddenly risen into the air like an enemy rocket ship!

“THE DARK FORCES OF THE CONDIMENT ARE COMING!!” shouted Mrs Stokes.

Alfie picked up his knife and fork and held them up vertically, like a comic-book picture of a boy expecting food. He levered the knife forward and the fork backwards.

“Go Warp Factor 1! Hyperspeed!!”

The plate zoomed away from his face. Alfie manipulated his knife and fork backwards, forwards and sideways, making the plate zigzag its way through the attacking salt-and-pepper shakers, and enemy-rocket-ship ketchup. Expertly, he controlled the path of the plate up towards the lampshade, along the dining-room wall and past the canvas photo of him when he was a baby that he wished his parents would take down. (It did occur to him that he could crash the plate into that and destroy it, but he felt that was going too far with doing just what he liked.)

But the shakers and the ketchup speeded up. The condiments were right behind!

“ALFIE!” shouted Mrs Stokes. THE PLATE’S NOT GOING TO MAKE IT! IT’S GOING TO GET SALT-AND-PEPPERED! AND … KETCHUP’D!!!”

Alfie knew what to do. He threw his knife and fork together towards the plate. They whirled round at high speed, like wheels in the air, overtaking the salt-and-pepper shakers, and arcing past the ketchup bottle. Still rotating incredibly fast, they spun themselves on to the side of the plate, giving it that little bit of extra speed it needed … to get to the dishwasher!

Which Mrs Stokes opened just in time for the plate, knife and fork to separate and drop into the right parts of the rack.

“Fabulous,” she said. “What about your glass?”

“I think I’m OK just to bring that over,” said Alfie.