Casper Candlewacks in the Time Travelling Toaster

Dedication

For Amy

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 18 - The End

Chapter 2 - The Bus Stops Here

Chapter 3 - The Time Toaster

Chapter 4 - Upgrade

Chapter 5 - Spot the Difference

Chapter 6 - Family Reunion

Chapter 7 - Men O’ the Manor

Chapter 8 - Casper Gets a Job

Chapter 9 - Blight Betrayal

Chapter 10 - The Unemployed

Chapter 11 - Know Thyself

Chapter 12 - The Legendary Casper Candlewacks

Chapter 13 - Mission: Implausible

Chapter 14 - Sweeping Up the Crumbs

Chapter 15 - The Time Toaster Flies Again

Chapter Minus 637 - Sir Gossamer

Chapter 17 - The Battle of the Kobb

Epilogue

Another Epilogue

Chapter 1 - The Big Dog Who Wouldn’t Stop Eating Muffins

More adventures with

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Copyright

About the Publisher

PS Oh dear. This book seems to have developed the capability of time travel. It’s actually a pretty common thing, especially when there’s time travelling going on within the book’s pages. The story gets ideas of its own, you see, and soon you’ve got Chapter 1 following Chapter 12, Chapter 4 hiding in the middle of Chapter 5, and Chapter 7 fighting barbarians somewhere in the Middle Ages. It’s a nightmare, I tell you.

Listen, the best thing to do is just ride it out. I’ll fill you in as we go along, OK?

Oh, that’s close enough. I mean, ideally you’d start with Chapter 1, but not much happened, really. There was this big dog that wouldn’t stop eating muffins, but it’s not central to the story. So let’s just begin from here.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this may be the proudest moment of my life.”

Mayor Rattsbulge wiped a greasy tear from his enormous cheek and licked his finger.

“To be standing in the shadow of such a majestic structure, and to have that structure named after little old me? Well, few people in this world could feel as proud as I do now. To have our very own bus shelter here in Corne-on-the-Kobb.” The mayor trembled. “To enjoy its many uses, such as, well, actually… what does a bus shelter do?”

A murmur of confusion spread through the crowd. Beards were scratched, shoulders were shrugged. The 107-year-old Betty Woons gasped and almost rocked her wheelchair over, but then her smile wrinkled up and she shook her head. This was a problem. Nobody had a clue what a bus shelter did, and if nobody knew, what was the point in having one?

In truth, this sort of thing happened quite a lot around these parts. You see, Corne-on-the-Kobb was what’s known in the trade as A Village of Idiots. With an average IQ of just under fifty-six, and an average reading age of minus three, the villagers of Corne-on-the-Kobb weren’t the shiniest spoons in the drawer. If left to their own devices they’d often end up stuck in a tree, buried neck-deep in a vegetable patch or sleeping inside your washing machine. But that’s exactly what makes Corne-on-the-Kobb brilliant.

“Somebody must know,” groaned Mayor Rattsbulge. “Where’s that clever lad? The one with the face. Oh, what’s his name – Camper Catalogue or something. He’ll know.”

The name spread through the crowd like Chinese whispers.

“Find Catcher Capricorn!”

“Where’s Candy Calculator?”

“Get Calcium Carbonate!”

At the very back of the crowd, Casper Candlewacks sighed. “You mean me?”

Heads nodded eagerly and the crowd parted to let Casper through.

“Ah, just the fellow,” said Mayor Rattsbulge, ruffling Casper’s scruffy blond hair. “Got any idea what this chap actually does?” He gestured to the shiny new bus shelter.

The wide-eyed crowd looked on expectantly. Noise trickled down to silence as they waited for the boy’s verdict. Even the pigeons stopped pecking to listen in.

Casper pointed inside to the wooden seats. “Erm… you sit here to wait for a bus.”

“HOORAY!” The crowd exploded with joy and Casper was promptly forgotten.

Not being an idiot in a village full of idiots was a full-time job, as Casper would tell you (between bouts of averting disasters and saving days). It meant late nights, early starts and a terrible pension package. But deep down, Casper loved it.

He wandered off to sit on a bollard just as the mayor asked, “What’s a bus?”

Casper picked up a soggy copy of Corne-on-the-Kobb’s weekly newspaper, the Daily Kobb, which floated on a puddle. On the front page Casper could still read the headline, the story that everyone had been talking about (until Mayor Rattsbulge announced the opening of his bus shelter):

Below the headline was a picture of Blight Manor, a once-great mansion, now old and crumbling, with missing windows, half a roof, and walls that had buckled and bent more than a bent buckle.

The Blight dynasty existed long before Corne-on-the-Kobb had even been thought of. A baron of Blight ruled the Kobb Valley after the Norman Conquest, and the family have held the seat with their cold-knuckled fists ever since. But in the years that passed, the Blights’ hold on the Kobb Valley slipped, their lands shrank and their finances dwindled. The last Lord Blight died under mysterious circumstances – after his daughter poisoned him. It’s not that mysterious, really. Now Lady Lobelia Blight and her daughter, Anemonie Blight, resided in Blight Manor, desperately clutching at the embers of their once-great empire. With the sale of Blight Manor, the lordship would slip away and the estate disappear, leaving nothing in its place but a nesting-place for the pigeons.