A couple of weeks later, Edwin was having a bad time at home. He was accused of being both uninterested in Mandoline and “sometimes not very nice”. He even heard the J word used a couple of times—whispered, of course, but he caught it distinctly. J for jealousy. Edwin wasn’t jealous; he felt misunderstood and left out. And now here he was, once again, being asked to “keep an eye on Mandoline” while his mother faffed about with something unimportant in the kitchen. His father rarely kept an eye on Mandoline at all. So much for being an adoring parent.

“You’ve got to promise me not to cry,” Edwin told his sister, as soon as Mrs Robbins left the room. “Because I’ll get the blame. You know that.”

It was a rash thing to say. Mandoline narrowed her eyes and stared at Edwin. Her bottom lip trembled. She wasn’t going to get him into trouble in the first minute, was she? Only five months old and already she was so cunning. He knew, he just knew, that when she learnt to speak, she would invent all sorts of untrue tales about him, and his parents would believe every word.

“Look at the funny bunny,” he said.

The bright-yellow rabbit, with its overlong ears and jingly rattle, didn’t amuse Mandoline at all. She settled into a persistent low-level grizzle, which Edwin felt pretty confident wasn’t loud enough to reach the ears of his mother in the kitchen. He sat glumly on the floor, expecting time to pass agonizingly slowly until he was set free from this babysitting hell.

Then he suddenly felt a rush of air on his face, a warm but damp and smelly breath accompanied by a sound effect he was afraid he recognized. The logs on the fire flared dramatically as the strange air blew over them. A few sparks crackled, and the sound made Mandoline jump. She began to cry properly. Edwin knew he would need to soothe his sister before his mother rushed in and shouted at him, but, for a few moments, he wasn’t able to move at all.

The whooshing air had brought with it something very unwelcome—another tiny letter. If he threw it onto the fire unread, Edwin was sure it would shoot back out again, and probably land on Mandoline and set her alight. So, snatching the little packet, he pushed it down into his pocket, where he could feel its warmth against his leg. Then he had to attend to Mandoline.

He leant over the carrycot and made meaningless noises at his sister, who began to wail in loud sobs fed by deep gasps for breath. She certainly knew how to give a performance. Edwin took hold of Mandoline’s fingers and began the pat-a-cake game which generally amused her. Horror! A dusting of soot on the letter had transferred itself to his hands, and Mandoline’s pink jacket now sported Edwin’s black hand print.

Mrs Robbins emerged from the kitchen.

“Why is Mandoline crying? Edwin, you’ve covered her in soot!”

Panic made Edwin inventive. “The logs on the fire exploded. There were burning sparks everywhere. Mandoline was frightened and I thought the house might catch fire. I sorted out the fire and I got a bit dirty and she’s all right. But there’s a funny smell ’cause she might need changing.”

It was a long excuse and his voice got louder and louder as he said it, but it worked.

“You’ve been a sensible boy,” said Mrs Robbins.

“I’m going upstairs,” Edwin told her. He felt he needed to do this quickly, in case the letter became impatient to be read and opened up and burst out of his pocket.

By the time he reached his room, the letter had cooled down—although his annoyance at receiving it hadn’t. Some of the smell still lingered. As soon as Edwin broke the seal, the remaining soot on it blew off in a poof! and the letter expanded to reading size. There was a new and unexpected feature this time too, an unnerving one. As the letter opened, a voice came out of it. It sounded clear, if a little echoey.

“Hello, Edwin. This is Lanthorne. I can’t say any more because it’s too expen—” The message ended in a squeak.

At least he sounds like a boy, thought Edwin, and not like a… He couldn’t finish the sentence, because it was all so peculiar and Lanthorne might be an octopus for all he knew. He wanted to bail out, to turn back time, but here he was with a second letter and a VOICE introducing it. Taking a deep breath, Edwin began to read.

Although a large part of Edwin—in fact, all of him—still wanted nothing at all to do with strange letters blowing out of chimneys, accompanied by the smell of drains, he sympathized with Lanthorne’s comments about his difficult family. Here was someone he could talk to, even if it meant having their conversation by way of the chimney.

It’s never a good idea to write a letter in haste, but Edwin needed to sound off.

Dear Lanthorne, he wrote.

I’m being kept prisoner in my bedroom. When my little baby sister, who was stupidly named after a musical instrument, learns to crawl, I expect she’ll come in here all the time, and then I’ll have to retreat into a cellar like you. Do you have a little baby sister too? Does she get you into trouble when she makes even the smallest sound? If you don’t have one, please feel free to take mine. I’ll even wrap her up for you. Let’s meet for a burger, or whatever, and have a good moan about our parents.

Edwin

It was a short reply and Edwin wasn’t happy with the way he ended; all the same, he marched defiantly downstairs and threw it up the chimney.

“What are you doing, Edwin?” asked his mother, who came into the room just as he was delivering the letter.

“I’ve written to Father Christmas, saying I don’t want any presents this year. He’s to give them all to Mandoline. That’s what you and Dad want, isn’t it?”

Mrs Robbins was taken aback. “There’s no need for sarcasm, Edwin.” She went to give him a hug, but Edwin stomped off. He was beyond hugs, at that moment.

Mr Robbins had obviously been told to have a word with his son during supper. He managed it very badly.

As they finished their lemon meringue pie, he said, “Mum tells me you’re being difficult, Edwin.” The J word was used twice.

“I didn’t say that at all,” said Mrs Robbins sharply.

“I’m thinking of running away,” said Edwin. “Is it all right to leave the table to do that?”

He spent the evening fairly contentedly in his room, playing a computer game and writing rude comments about his parents and sister in his diary. That day’s entry ran to two pages. His mother knocked on his door twice, once to ask if he wanted to watch a comedy programme on the television and the second time to say she had opened a tub of ice cream. Edwin was distant and negative each time. He felt he had the upper hand for once, and he was enjoying it.

Edwin had been in bed for about an hour when his parents came upstairs. He was amused to hear that they were still bickering about what had been said to him.

“You don’t know the meaning of tact.”

“You said talk to him. It wasn’t necessary.”

“He’s going through a stage.”

“So are you.”

Their bedroom door shut loudly, and Edwin fell asleep to the distant buzz of their continuing argument. He woke up sometime after midnight, thinking, They can’t still be at it. He could hear a tapping, whispering sort of noise. Perhaps his mother was knocking on his door, begging for forgiveness. Edwin sat up in bed and looked towards the bedroom door, but that wasn’t where the noise was coming from.

The tapping and whispering hadn’t stopped, and Edwin realized he could distinguish words, his name.

“Edwin, it’s me, Lanthorne. Let me through.”

Edwin was suddenly cold from head to foot. Around the edge of the door to his bedroom cupboard was a faint light, and behind it, Lanthorne Ghules was tapping, perhaps with claws or extra-long teeth. Edwin’s temperature dropped another degree. The catch on the door was unreliable, and it sometimes swung open of its own accord. What if that happened now?

“Edwin, I know you’re on the other side.”

The light around the door didn’t grow any brighter, but a smell was seeping into his bedroom now, a drainy smell like the one that clung to Lanthorne’s letters. Edwin tried lying there with his fingers jammed into his ears and both pillows over his head, but each time he surfaced, the tapping and whispering was still going on. He felt invaded, cornered. Gathering an ounce of courage, he jumped out of bed and switched on his radio and computer. He found a music station on each of them and turned the volume up to maximum.

Very soon, Mr Robbins burst into the room and stood there glaring at Edwin.

“Edwin, what is going on?”

“I had a nightmare. Music frightens it away.”

Little did his father know just how real the nightmare was, and how near. The bogeyman—the bogeyboy actually—really was hiding in the cupboard.

“Well, it’s a shame about the nightmare, Edwin, but you can’t keep the whole house awake.” Mr Robbins gave several long sniffs and looked quizzical.

“I wouldn’t want to disturb Mandoline,” Edwin said pointedly.

“Keep your light on for a bit and play the radio quietly. That should do the trick.” Mr Robbins sniffed again, thought about saying something more, decided not to, ruffled his son’s hair, said, “See you in the morning” and left.

Edwin switched off his computer and sat on the edge of his bed, praying that the only sound he would hear would be that stupid song on the radio.

Prayers have a habit of not being answered.

Tap, tap. “Edwin, I’m still here.”

“Armpits off!” Edwin growled. He wanted to run up and shout it through the crack in the cupboard door, but he remembered that if you trod on a certain part of the carpet in front of the door, it affected the loose catch. Also, if he started shouting, it would bring his father back.

The tapping and whispering finally stopped. After twenty minutes, Edwin turned off the bedroom light and saw that the light around the cupboard door had also gone. It might be a trick, of course. He turned his light to half brightness and opened the bedroom door a little way, in case he had to make his escape. Then he tried to get back to sleep, not an easy thing in the circumstances.