Free Neighbours by Colin Thompson

starting the whole thing all over again.
    Now, in a normal house, getting all the dusting and cleaning done automatically would be great. But it wasn’t like that in the Floods’ house. The Floods had cobwebs that were old friends. Generations of spiders had lived in complete safety on the ceilings and windows, knowing that no one was ever going to come and sweep them away. They had dust collected in happy piles around the house that just moved to one side when anyone needed to go past.
    If Betty hadn’t made another mistake, Mr Dent would now be a big comfy sofa – though Mordonna had to admit, the thought of sitting in Mr Dent’s ex-lap was a bit creepy. With magic that was meant to happen, it was always possible to change your mind, but because Betty’s magic was so uncontrolled, no one knew the formula, which made changing it pretty dangerous. If they made a mistake, Mr Dent could turn into something covered in mould that smelled like a bad drain and kept exploding. On the otherhand, he could change into something awful.
    So once again Winchflat, the family genius, sorted things out. He took the Dent-O-Vac down to his special workshop in the cellars and made a few modifications. Basically, he made Mr Dent run backwards (which anyone who had known him as a human would have said he’d done all his life). Every morning Mr Dent trundled out into the garden and collected dust and flies. Then he spent the rest of the day spreading the dust around the house and feeding the flies to the spiders. At midnight, whenhis work was done, he would trundle into the kitchen and sit next to Dickie the fridge and the two of them would hum softly together in a very loving father and son bonding way, which they had never done when they were human.

    Once the final Dent had been taken care of, Rambo’s evil spell was broken and he became a cuddly, fluffy, happy little poodle. He went to live with the nice neighbours at number 15 – an old couple who spoilt him rotten with poached chicken, crispy liver treats and a red velvet cushion to sleep on.
    Mordonna turned the Dents’ other pet, Adolf the budgie, into a small solar-powered lawnmower, to trim the grass on Queen Scratchrot’s grave. That way he would always be close to Tracylene.

When you are as dreadful as the Dents were, all your relatives pretend they don’t know you. Sometimes they move to another town and sometimes they even move to Patagonia. No one knew if the Dents had any relatives, but if they did, they were never found. 22 There was a rumour that, rather than have anyone know they were related to them, their cousins had gone to live in a remote shack high up in the Andes. So when the final Dent had been ‘re-assigned’, as Mordonna described it, no one missed them. There was even talk of a big party in the street to celebrate.
    If a family of nice people disappeared, the place would be crawling with detectives with big torches looking for clues. They would fingerprint every square centimetre of the house, even inside the toilet bowl. They would scrape DNA out of the bottom of the garbage bin trying to find out what had happened. No stone would be left unturned.
    But when the Dents all vanished, the police raced into action by buying the biggest bottle of champagne they could find and celebrating for three days. They put the news in their monthly newsletter, in the ‘Good News’ section, and everyone kept their fingers crossed just to make sure the Dents wouldn’t come back.
    After a couple of months, the bank, who owned nearly all of the house, put up a ‘For Sale’ sign. The house would be auctioned in a week’s time.
    â€˜I hope the next owners are all right,’ said Betty.
    â€˜Mmmm,’ said Nerlin.
    â€˜What?’ said Mordonna. ‘Have you got a plan?’
    â€˜Well,’ said Nerlin, ‘there is a way to make sure we like the new owners.’
    â€˜How?’
    â€˜We