Archer’s Goon. Diana Wynne Jones

was exasperated. If even Awful at her very worst could not send the Goon away, what would? The Goon ate the small amount he seemed able to manage with painstaking good manners and kept his feet wrapped dutifully around the back of his chair, so as not to lift the table.

      And as if this were not enough, Catriona was grateful to the Goon for putting Awful in a good mood again. She began thinking of him as a proper visitor and wondering where he should sleep. “I wish we had a spare room,” she said. “But we haven’t, with Fifi here.”

      Fifi and Howard were not the only ones who found this a bit much. “Get this quite clear,” Quentin said. “If he decides to stay, it’s his bad luck. He can sleep on the kitchen floor for all I care!”

      “Quentin! That’s unfeeling!” said Catriona.

      Howard made haste to get away again upstairs, where he barricaded himself into his room. He knew what would happen if he did not. His mother would give the Goon Howard’s room and make Howard share with Awful. And Howard was not making that sacrifice – not for the Goon! All the same, he was surprised to find, while he was wedging a chair under his doorknob, that he felt a little guilty. The Goon had helped him find Mountjoy and had made Mountjoy answer his questions. He seemed to want Howard to like him. “But I don’t like him this much!” Howard said, and made sure the chair was quite firm. Then he designed several more spaceships to take his mind off the Goon.

      When he came down in the morning, he found the problem solved.

      The Goon was doubled into the sofa in the front room, wrapped in the blankets that had been over the drums. The Goon had really settled in. He had moved the sofa round so that he could watch breakfast television and was basking there with a big grin on his face and a mug of tea in his hand as he watched. As Howard came in, however, the picture fizzed and vanished. Howard just caught the words ARCHER IS WATCHING YOU before the Goon’s long arm shot out and turned the television off.

      “Keeps doing that,” the Goon said in an injured way.

      “Perhaps Archer doesn’t trust you,” Howard said.

      “Doing my best,” the Goon protested. “Staying here till your dad does the words.”

      “You’re going the wrong way about it,” Howard explained. “I know Dad. You’ve got his back up by hanging around trying to bully him like this. The way to do it is to pretend to be very nice and say it doesn’t matter. Then Dad would get a bad conscience and do the words like a shot.”

      “Got to do it my way,” the Goon said.

      “Then don’t blame me if you’re still here next Christmas,” said Howard. The Goon grinned at that, as if he thought it was a good idea, annoying Howard considerably.

      On the way to school Howard noticed that someone had chalked the name ARCHER beside Awful’s hopscotch. It was chalked on the wall of the corner shop, too, and when Howard got to school, the name ARCHER stared at him again, done in white spray paint on the wall of the labs. There was a long, boring talk about vandals in Assembly because of it.

      Howard was annoyed for a while because it was Dad’s business, not his. But he forgot about it in English because he was busy making a careful, soothing drawing of his articulated spaceship.

      Fifi was waiting for him when he came out of school, waving and looking anxious. In a way, it was as bad as the Goon. Howard’s friends all made chortling noises, pretending they thought Fifi was his girlfriend. He went over to her as slowly as he could. But that only made Fifi run to meet him. “What’s up?” he said.

      “Don’t look so glad to see me, will you?” Fifi said. “Someone might notice. Miss Maisie Potter’s up, that’s what. She didn’t come near the Poly today, and that’s not like her. I want you to come round to her house with me.”

      “Do you think she’s ill?” said Howard.

      “I think she’s avoiding me,” said Fifi. “She saw the Goon that night, remember. I think it’s fishy.”

      She clung to Howard’s arm, causing a further set of chortles from Howard’s friends. “Be ever so nice and come with me, Howard. I don’t like to face her with stealing on my own.”

      “Oh, all right,” Howard said hastily. They walked down the street together, pursued by chortles.

      As soon as they were out of hearing, Fifi said, “The Goon’s still there, you know. Sitting. Grinning. Your dad’s just sitting, too – sitting it out. He hasn’t even tried to write his new book. I keep thinking of that knife.”

      Howard sighed. He had hoped the Goon would have got tired of waiting by now.

      Fifi wrapped her scarf around her neck and flung the end bravely over her shoulder. “Frankly, Howard, I’m wondering if I should go to the police. Your dad won’t. But someone should.”

      “It may not do any good,” said Howard. “Dillian runs law and order.”

      “Dillian?” said Fifi. “Who’s Dillian?”

      “Archer’s brother,” said Howard. “Mr Mountjoy said there were seven of them, and they run—”

      He was interrupted by well-known piercing shouts and pounding feet. Awful was racing after them, having seen them crossing the end of the street where her school was. “Where are you two going and not taking me?” she demanded when she caught up. “You’re supposed to look after me.”

      Fifi sighed rather. “We’re going to Miss Potter’s to get the words back. It’s a long way.”

      “I’m coming, too,” Awful announced, as they had known she would.

      “Then be good,” said Howard.

      “I’ll be how I want,” Awful retorted. But she was afraid of making them angry enough to send her home, so she skipped along beside them almost quietly and did nothing worse than make a rude sign at two little girls across the street. “Our school was written over last night,” she said. “It says ARCHER on all the walls.”

      “So does mine,” said Howard.

      “Let’s go and see Archer,” Awful suggested. “You could set me on him.”

      “Oh, no!” said Fifi. “He must be worse than the Goon.”

      This sobered Awful somewhat. She skipped along without talking, while they went past the Poly and through the shopping centre and on up Shotwick Hill. “Where are we going?” she complained at the top of Shotwick Hill.

      “I warned you,” Fifi said. “She lives up Pleasant Hill way. Woodland Terrace.”

      “It’s posh up there,” Awful objected. “And a long way. And,” she added, “I wish I hadn’t come now.”

      The way was all uphill. Long before they got to Woodland Terrace, Awful was shuffling and dragging and moaning that she was tired. She said she hated the houses here. Even the ordinary houses were beautifully painted and very neat. Most of the houses were more like red-brick castles than ordinary houses, and they got bigger and redder and more castle-like, with bigger gardens and more trees, the higher they went into Pleasant Hill. It was quite a surprise to find Woodland Terrace was a row of small houses. Awful perked up when she found Miss Potter’s house actually had gnomes in its little front garden.

      “She would have gnomes!” Fifi said contemptuously as she rang the bell at the little stained-glass front door.

      Miss Potter, when she opened the door, had a towel around her head and her glasses hanging from her neck on a chain. She hurriedly put the glasses on in order to stare. For an instant she looked really dismayed. “Oh,” she said, “what a surprise!” and forced a smile to her ribby face.

      “That typescript I gave you to drop into the Town Hall…” Fifi began.

      “What about it?” Miss Potter said, much too quickly.

      “My father needs it urgently,”