Incredible shrinking bogey bear by MI S (classic romance novels .TXT) 📖

tea. She also baby-sat on those odd

nights when Mum and Dad actually went out together for a meal or to a party. On the

Saturdays when Mum worked at the estate agents Mrs. McGonagall always popped

round to cook lunch.

“My word”, said Mrs. McGonagall as she gave Morgan a big hug, “you look

very hot and bothered”.

Morgan unravelled herself from Mrs. McGonagall‟s skirts and looked up at

her favourite neighbour. Morgan glowed. “Yes, I am”, she said, panting. “Bogey and

me… Splat the Rat… brilliant fun… got thirty something rats…brilliant.”

Bogey turned his head towards Mrs. McGonagall and his little jaws moved up

and down as his cell phone speaker squeaked, “Thirty-two”.

Mrs. McGonagall shook her head. “I dare say you did, little madam. It‟s not

right, though, spending all your time with that thing. You should have little girl

friends to play with.”

The one thing that Mrs. McGonagall could never quite understand was why

Morgan loved Bogey so much. Dad explained it like this; Mrs. McGonagall was from

a time before computers and she didn‟t really understand cyber-thingies. It was best if

Morgan let her have her little moments of disapproval. Morgan was a child of the

twenty-first century. It was just grown-up stuff and nonsense. Anyway, Mrs.

McGonagall was lovely in so many other ways.

Morgan hugged the old lady‟s skirts one more time before skipping out of the

kitchen with Bogey in her arms. As she reached the door to the living room she

turned and said, “Just going to re-charge Bogey‟s battery. Won‟t be a tick. What‟s for

lunch, anyway?”

“Macaroni cheese”, replied Mrs. McGonagall, taking a plastic food box out of

her shopping bag. She put the container into the microwave and set the timer to eight

minutes. “When you‟ve done whatever it is with that green thing you can run and tell

your Dad to come and wash his hands”, which is exactly what Morgan did.

Morgan, her Dad and Mrs. McGonagall sat at the kitchen table after their

lunch. The now empty bowls of macaroni cheese were stacked in the sink and the

adults were sipping from steaming hot mugs of tea. Morgan had a glass of orange

juice.

Dad was off in one of his own little worlds again. He kept writing figures

down on the back of an unopened envelope from the bank. Every so often he

muttered something to himself. Morgan and Mrs. McGonagall knew that it was best

to keep quiet for a while. Every time Dad muttered something they just looked at

each other, raised their eye-brows and smiled.

After five minutes of hushed tea and orange juice drinking, Morgan and Mrs.

McGonagall watched as Dad put down his pen, pushed his chair back from the table,

stretched out his legs and clasped his hands behind his head. He grinned smugly.

“Thought so”, he said. “All makes sense now. Just need to tweak the

frequency of the beam up to seventy- five.”

Morgan looked at Mrs. McGonagall, who was shaking her head again. She

turned to Morgan and said, “Haven‟t got a clue what he‟s talking about. Anyway,

none of that beam nonsense gets the plates washed. Fetch the tea towel, Morgan.”

“Okey-dokey”, replied Morgan. She got up from the table, opened one of the

kitchen drawers and took out a blue and white checked tea towel. She turned round

and started to walk over to the kitchen sink so that she could dry while Mrs.

McGonagall washed, but Morgan skidded to an abrupt halt before she even got half

way across the kitchen. Mrs. McGonagall was standing over the kitchen sink with her

arms locked against her sides. Her shoulders were heaving back and forth. Morgan

could hear the old lady taking huge gulps of air and she made a rising, sizzling noise

with every breath. Even Dad broke off from calculating his weird techno-stuff and

turned round to look.

At the end of one huge last intake of breath Mrs. McGonagall threw back her

head, arched her body and there was a sudden ripping sound. This was followed

immediately by the biggest sneeze Morgan had ever heard. It echoed off the tiles,

bounced back off the pots and pans, and filled the house with a sound like an

aeroplane engine at take-off. Mrs. McGonagall was thrown forward so violently that

her nose cracked against the kitchen sink taps. She sank down onto her knees, twisted

round and fell back against the kitchen cupboard doors.

Dad was still sitting in his chair with his mouth open wide in amazement. As

soon as Morgan got over the initial shock of Mrs. McGonagall‟s mammoth sneeze,

she noticed something very worrying. Morgan rushed forward and pushed her tea

towel under Mrs. McGonagall‟s nose. In an instant the tea towel was covered in

blood. When Mrs. McGonagall cracked her nose on the kitchen taps it caused a

gargantuan nose-bleed. Morgan yelled at her Dad.

“Help! Come on, Dad, help me!”

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Dad shook his head, like he

was coming out of a wicked spell. Mrs. McGonagall‟s body slid down the cabinet

door and slumped on the floor. Then, everything speeded back up and Dad was

kneeling next to Morgan. He took the tea towel from her and said, “Get the rest of the

tea towels from the drawer, love. Quickly!”

Dad and Morgan spent the next five minutes desperately trying to staunch the

flow of blood from Mrs. McGonagall‟s nose, but nothing they could do seemed to

work. The floor was littered with bloody cloths and Morgan was starting to feel very

unwell. She was extremely worried now and by the look on his face she could tell

that Dad was as well.

“Should we call an ambulance, Dad?” Morgan asked in a small and frightened

voice.

Her Dad thought about this for a moment and said, “Don‟t think there‟s time.

If her nose keeps bleeding like this it could be curtains.”

Morgan was shocked. She started to sob as she asked, “You mean… you

mean she might die?”

“What?” replied Dad. “No, I meant we might have to use the curtains to mop

up the mess.”

Mrs. McGonagall was starting to moan softly, but nothing that Dad and

Morgan could do seemed to stop her nose-bleed. They used nearly all of the clean tea

towels and most of a brand new packet of kitchen roll. Dad too was starting to look

very worried. He turned to Morgan and looked into her eyes.

“I‟ve got an idea”, he said. “You know I‟ve been working on the miniaturiser.

It might just work. That and the laser glue gun. If we could make someone small

enough to climb into Mrs. M‟s nose and glue the blood vessel back together we could

save her.”

There was a moment of silence. Mrs. McGonagall twitched slightly. Dad

shook his head.

“No”, he said. “It wouldn‟t work. I‟m the only person who can operate the

miniaturiser and the laser glue gun. Botheration!”

Morgan thought for a moment and then reached across Mrs. McGonagall‟s

tummy and took her Dad‟s hand in hers.

“What about Bogey?” she asked.

“Don‟t be ridiculous”, replied Dad. “Bogey‟s just a toy. He couldn‟t…”

Dad stopped talking in the middle of the sentence. He suddenly had that faraway

inventing look in his eyes and he started to sketch out numbers and equations

on the cupboard door. He mumbled a few figures and then turned back to Morgan.

“He could, you know, he flippin‟ well could. Right. You hold this towel under

Mrs. M‟s nose. I‟ll be right back.”

With that Dad jumped to his feet and rushed out into the back garden. From

where Morgan was kneeling she heard the back door slam shut followed by sounds of

banging and crashing from the shed. Then Morgan heard the sound of something

heavy and metallic being dragged across the garden patio. All the while she kept the

last clean tea towel pressed firmly against Mrs. McGonagall‟s nose, but still the poor

old lady‟s blood flowed and flowed. Mrs. McGonagall was starting to look very pale

and ill.

“Hurry up, Dad, please hurry up”, Morgan whispered to herself.

Just then the back door crashed open and Dad reappeared. He pushed and

shoved at a tangle of metal and wires mounted on top of a shopping trolley.

Eventually he managed to haul the whole contraption in and over the door sill. There

was a big metal plate at the bottom of the trolley basket. At the end by the trolley

handlebar there was a metal scaffold about three feet high and on top of the scaffold

was a round ball with wires coming out of it and a pointy bit that was aimed at the

metal plate. Dad pulled the trolley over to the table, yanked at a length of wire and

rammed a plug into one of the kitchen sockets. Then he reached down into the

shopping trolley basket and fished out two more things. First he put the laser glue gun

onto the metal plate. Then he held up what looked like a plastic space suit, complete

with a round, see-through helmet.

“Techno-suit”, he said. “I designed it so Bogey can go out in the rain. It might

just do the trick.”

Dad turned and started to run towards the living room but stopped half way

across the kitchen. He turned round and looked at Morgan very seriously.

“Whatever you do”, he said to her, “don‟t touch anything.”

Morgan stared at her Dad. She kept the tea towel pressed firmly against Mrs.

McGonagall‟s nose. Both the old lady and Morgan were by now stained a rosy hue of

pink.

“Dad, I don‟t understand”, she cried. “And please hurry up. I‟m going to run

out of things to soak up all this blood and stuff!”

“Look”, said Dad in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. “I‟ve just got to

program Bogey with a new download and then get him into the techno-suit. It‟ll take

two minutes. I‟ve been working on a special program for a few weeks now. It‟s called

the Freewill program. Sort of lets Bogey behave like you and me, you know, thinking

and the like. Just hold on.”

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Publication Date: 07-18-2013

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