Free Jasper and the Green Marvel by Deirdre Madden

scary-looking bat with awoolly bobble hat pulled tightly over its head.
    ‘Well, well,’ said the bat, as Rags’s and Bags’s knees began to knock. ‘Look what the wind blew in.’
    ‘Oh, don’t be a tease, Benny,’ Nelly said. ‘These are my friends.’
    ‘Behaving themselves, are they?’
    ‘Oh we are, we are!’ the rats cried. ‘We’re really good these days. We’re no trouble at all.’
    ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Benny replied. ‘Any friend of Nelly’s is a friend of ours. We were just about to have dinner. Would you like to join us?’
    ‘Of course they would,’ Nelly said, replying for the rats. ‘Ooh yum-yum, I’m so hungry. What’s on the menu tonight?’
    ‘We’ll soon see.’ And with that, Benny flew off to the far side of the room, with a single flap of his great wings.
    Rags and Bags now realised that there was a dumb-waiter in this room too, as PING! Benny pressed a button and the metal doorsslid open. Delicious smells of meat and of hot tomatoes and cheese filled the attic. ‘We’ll soon get this served up,’ Benny said. ‘Jim, come here and help me, there’s a good lad.’ A bat in a beret made of red felt swooped over and got right into the dumb-waiter. ‘Ready? When I say three. One … two … three!’
    Imagine a string of fairy lights, or a Christmas garland. And now try to imagine that, instead of light bulbs, or gold and silver stars, at intervals along the cord there are pizzas. Yes, pizzas. Tiny ones, crispy and scrumptious. And now imagine another garland, hung with little sausages; then another with chunks of cheese, another with green and red grapes, and finally, a garland of cakes, each one no bigger than a postage stamp, but each one iced and decorated. Benny and Jim took each of these marvels in turn out of the dumb-waiter and hung them from hooks, festooning the room until the whole place really did look as though it was decorated for Christmas, but with thestrangest (and most delicious) baubles you ever saw.
    ‘Tuck in, everybody! Enjoy your meal.’
    But how were Rags and Bags to manage? All the food was hanging high above their heads, and they couldn’t fly. They needn’t have worried. All the bats took it in turn to throw things down to them.
    ‘Here’s a sausage! Catch!’
    ‘Want some grapes? Red or green?’ Pizzas whizzed down like edible Frisbees, fairy cakes dropped neatly into their waiting paws.
    ‘I had no idea that that is the kind of food bats eat,’ Rags said.
    ‘It isn’t really,’ Nelly admitted. ‘It’s rather unusual. I suppose Mrs Haverford-Snuffley does spoil us a bit, and then Mrs Knuttmegg is such a good cook.’
    ‘She’s a star, our Mrs Haverford-Snuffley,’ Benny said. ‘She came into some money a few years ago and the very first thing she did was to fix up our attic, even before she got her ownrooms sorted out. Put in central heating for us, got these racks installed for us to hang from, and worked out a system for the food, with hooks to hang it from. Thought of everything, she did.’
    ‘You should have seen the state of the place before that,’ Jim added. ‘Holes in the roof, rain coming in, and talk about chilly. Awful, it was.’
    ‘Nelly’s too small to remember it, aren’t you, Princess?’ Benny said. ‘All you’ve ever known is the lap of luxury, eh? That’s my Princess!’ Nelly smiled with pleasure at this, showing her sharp, pointed teeth. ‘If ever we get the chance to pay Mrs Haverford-Snuffley back for all her kindness, we won’t need to be asked twice, I can tell you that.’
    ‘I suppose we should be going now,’ Rags said, not wanting to overstay the welcome.
    ‘Thank you for everything,’ Bags added. ‘It’s been the most lovely evening, and the dinner was delicious.’
    ‘How polite!’ said a bat in a blue felt hat witha green ribbon on it. ‘What nicely mannered and well behaved rats! Who’d have expected such a thing?’
    Getting home was no trouble at all. Rags and Bags