Neighbour troubles

We have some new neighbours. We noticed them because they were so noisy. Every morning we could hear them gossiping and carrying on, from our window. They seem to comment on everything. We didn't mind, though, because they sounded cheerful. It is always good to have cheerful neighbours.

We thought they had children, but weren't sure.

Late yesterday afternoon, just after The Man had gone out, I heard voices outside the hallway window. The door from this room to the hallway was open, so I could hear them clearly. They were saying terrible things, swearing and shouting and yelling. They were using uncivilized language, dreadful cursing and carrying on, and it worried me.

But I ignored it at first. It will soon blow over, I thought. Don't get involved.

But it didn't stop. The shouting and cursing just got louder, and more insistent and angry. Finally, I went to the window to see what was going on.

Sure enough, our new neighbours were angry. In fact they were positively hysterical with rage. They were bouncing up and down along the power lines and shrieking curses at something below them.

"DON'T YOU DARE EAT OUR BABIES!" they were shouting.


At first I thought they were yelling at the woman next door. They were looking in that direction. Was she a baby-eater? I wondered. She had always seemed relatively harmless to me.

Our new neighbours didn't seem to think so, though.


I leaned out the window and looked down.

It was not the woman next door. It was her visitor, who I could not see clearly because the roof was in the way. Our new neighbours really objected to this visitor.


I wasn't entirely sure that this was an invited visitor, so I asked our new neighbours if they wanted me to help.

"Yes, please," they said. "We can't go home until he's gone. He'll see where our babies are, and eat them!"


I went outside.

"Are you invited?" I asked the cat. But the cat did not answer. As soon as I got close, he slunk away.

"He's going?" said one of the neighbours. "Yes! He's going!"


"AND DON'T COME BACK! OR ELSE!"


I went inside. Outside, all was quiet again.

The intruder had gone, and the neighbourhood was back to normal.