CHAPTER 11

Dear Earthling,

I enjoyed reading your last letter—it made me feel much better knowing that you also avoid spending time with your sister. I’m also glad that Shriekfest is my younger sister—I don’t know if I could cope with the activities you describe, such as the time your sister secretly parpled into an empty jar, then asked you to take a sniff and tell her if you thought it used to contain jam. Disgusterous!

As it happens, the time I’ve spent with her in the last week was almost worthwhile because on the third day of enforced bonding (after I’d plodded round the lounge on all fours for the umpteenth time with Shriekfest on my back whipping me with a belt), Mum took pity on me and actually allowed me to take my sister outside in the hope that she’d run off some excess energy. Mum never usually trusts me to take Shriekfest out of the house—ever since that time when I took her into the front garden to play when she was a baby.

I don’t know what Mum was worried about, as anyone not profoundly deaf would have hurried back with Shriekfest for a full refund the second she started wailing.

So, as Mum has conveniently forgotten all about that episode (either that or she now thinks selling her wasn’t such a bad idea), I took her to the local park to feed the fluppies. Do you have fluppies on Earth? They are tiny goat-like creatures that eat almost anything. But as they like to roam around in packs of forty or more, they aren’t suitable to keep as pets.

Anyway, while Shriekfest was chasing the fluppies round (I was sat on a bench nearby shouting occasional words of wisdom, such as “No Shriekfest, don’t throw the fluppie,”), who should come charging out of some bushes and hurtling towards the fluppies, but Killian!

Shriekfest was preparing to test her theory that fluppies could fly, when Killan snatched the unsuspecting fluppie from her grasp. Killan then proceeded to shout angrily at Shriekfest about treating wild creatures with respect.

Well, I was shocked to say the least and did the only thing a self-respecting big brother could do in such circumstances—I joined Killian in having a go at Shriekfest.

Okay, I know what you are thinking—I should have stood up for my little sister; but the thing is, Killian’s lovely—I mean right. The strange thing is that Shriekfest didn’t go loopy and start screaming like at home when she doesn’t get her own way. Instead she just started asking questions about the fluppies. Killian turned out to be quite an expert on them!

For instance, she told Shriekfest that fluppies mate for life and can have up to four litters of three flips (baby fluppies) a year, so when you see a herd of them roaming around they are all from the same family. I took the chance to show off my modest fluppie knowledge and told her that fluppies have an unlimited amount of teeth and if they lose one it simply grows back. Killian seemed really impressed by this, so rather than admit I’d read it on the back of a cereal box, I made out that I was really interested in them too and we actually had a proper conversation for the first time ever. She even told me about how she’s the chairperson of the Fluppie Lovers (or F.L. for short), and invited me to a meeting at her house next week. Fluppies may not be able to fly, but it felt like I flew home on a cloud of happiness!

I’ll tell you all about the F.L. meeting in my next letter.

Your friend,

Dethbert Jones.