Faeries, Elves and Goblins: The Old Stories by Rosalind Kerven

Author:Rosalind Kerven [Kerven, Rosalind]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pavilion Books
Published: 2013-08-15T05:00:00+00:00

Flitting

· England ·

Flitting

here was once a family – Gilbertson, they were called – that was sure they had an invisible Boggart living in their house. Don’t go thinking that was fun, because Boggarts are dreadful nuisances, always playing mean tricks and causing trouble.

To give some examples: while the household was asleep, the Boggart would sneak round the bedrooms pulling the covers off everyone’s beds and opening the windows wide, so that they all woke up freezing cold in the middle of the night. When they were eating breakfast, the Boggart would thump his hand on the children’s porridge spoons, spilling gooey blotches down their clean clothes and knock the husband’s toast to the floor, greasy buttered-side down. As the wife hung out the washing, the Boggart would follow her around, swatting insects onto the sheets so that they got covered with black and yellow stains. And so on and so on.

The Gilbertsons hunted all over the house for the culprit, but never found him. However, the children did discover the Boggart’s hole – a place in the skirting where a knot of wood had worked loose. They each peered down it – not that they could see anything, of course – and then the youngest boy poked an old shoehorn down it. At once, something invisible pushed it back, so hard that the shoehorn flew out and whacked the lad on the head! The children thought that was hilarious, and they spent a happy afternoon taking turns to push sticks, pencils, rulers and spoons down the hole and giggling as the angry Boggart thrust them back out.

Of course, children never think of consequences; but you won’t be surprised to hear that afterwards the Boggart’s tricks got even more malicious. There wasn’t an article of clothing in the house that he didn’t scrabble at until the edges were all frayed, not a corner of the larder that he didn’t sprinkle with mouse droppings, not a meal that he didn’t cause to get burned. The wife and her husband hardly slept a wink, and as for the children, they’d run out of excuses for their school books having ink smudges and torn pages.

‘It’s no good,’ said Mr Gilbertson at last. ‘We’ll have to flit, get out of here, find a new place to live. The Boggart is part and parcel of this house, so the only way to be rid him it is to settle down somewhere else.’

So that’s what they did. They found a pleasant cottage in a neighbouring village and got everything all signed up. Then they packed their belongings, piled them into their cart, and squashed together on the seat in front. Mr Gilbertson took up the reins and off they went.

They hadn’t got very far before they met one of their neighbours – John Marshall his name was – standing by his gate to watch them go by.

‘Good morning, Georgie,’ he called to Mr Gilbertson. ‘I see you’re flitting, eh?’

‘Aye, Johnny lad,’ Mr Gilbertson replied, ‘we’re forced to because of that pesky Boggart in our old house.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.