Free My Nasty Neighbours by Creina Mansfield

weighed less than ten stone.
    ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Try this. Stand up straight.’ I got behind him but he swivelled round. ‘No, stand that way,’ I instructed, turning him back.‘Now, I’m going to catch you. Fall backwards.’
    He didn’t move.
    ‘Just relax and fall backwards,’ I repeated. I waited, ready to catch him. For a moment nothing happened. Then he crumpled to the floor in a faint.
    Just then Ian walked in. He was strangely different. Gone was the razor blade in his left ear-lobe, back was the cherub-like expression. Stepping over Psycho, he headed towards the piano.
    ‘Welcome home!’ I said. ‘Know what’s wrong with the fire?’
    But he just sat at the piano and started playing some intricate composition.

    And still the fire wouldn’t light properly. Joe didn’t come round any more. Abbas did, but mainly to supply domestic advice from his mum. She couldn’t speak much English so stayed indoors a lot. I’d come to think of her, sitting inside, a Goddess of Domestic Science, waiting to hand out advice to me when I needed it. Abbas decided to consult her and report back.
    It was bad news. ‘She says how often do you clean it out?’ he said.
    ‘Clean it out? What do you mean “clean it out?” Coal burns, doesn’t it?’
    ‘Coal burns into ash,’ Abbas pointed out, grinning. He pulled the front away from the fire grate. It was packed thick with ash.
    ‘How do we get rid of this?’ I asked Helen, who’d just entered the front room.
    ‘No idea,’ she said sharply. She was carrying a blouse. ‘All this washing,’ she moaned.
    Mum still washed all my clothes at no 10, but she refused to do Helen’s.
    ‘You seem a bit ruffled today,’ I said to her, grinning. ‘In fact, you look positively unironed.’
    Helen glowered. ‘Friends round again,’ she commented.
    ‘At least my friends don’t annoy the neighbours,’ I retorted. We’d received another spidery note that morning written on the back of a ‘Get Well’ card.
    We could read only two words: ‘car’ and ‘blockage’. Helen had a new boyfriend, ‘new’ but not ‘young’.
    ‘If your boyfriends get any older, they’ll be parking their Zimmer frames in the hall,’ I commented.
    Abbas looked uncomfortable. ‘I’ll go and get something to pick up the ash,’ he offered, and sped off.
    He returned with a small shovel that his mum said could be used for ashes.
    I shovelled the ashes out from under the grate and into a plastic bag. The cinders left in the fire immediately began to glow red. But when I was carrying the bag of ashes out to dump them in the back garden, a funny thing happened. The plastic bag shrivelled to nothing and a mound of grey ash landed on the carpet.
    ‘You idiot,’ shrieked Helen. ‘Look what you’ve done. Quick, quick! It’ll burn the carpet.’
    ‘Don’t tell me what to do–’ I began, but when Abbas started shouting, ‘Where’s the vacuum cleaner?’ I realised there was a real danger of fire and I went in search of a vacuum cleaner too.
    But we didn’t have a vacuum cleaner. We had a grand piano and a TV set as big as a Punch and Judy booth, but no vacuum cleaner.
    ‘Get Mum’s!’ I shouted.
    Helen ran next door. I kicked at the ash tostop it burning through the carpet. It was smouldering by now and some of the ash stuck like glue to the sole of my right shoe, which started to smoke.
    I was just wiping that off on another bit of carpet when Helen returned with Mum. Mum had a bucket of water with her which she threw over the ash. There was a sizzle and then everything went silent.
    Except Mum. ‘Fancy even thinking of using a vacuum cleaner to suck up hot ashes,’ she yelled. ‘What did you think would happen when the fire met the electric current?’ She was really livid. ‘Or haven’t you two heard of electricity?’ she asked sarcastically.
    ‘It was his idea,’ said Helen, pointing to Abbas.
    ‘Don’t drag David’s friends into this,’ snapped Mum. ‘You’re