'Well,' said Mother, 'I'm much too tired to discuss it now. We will discuss it in the morning.'

'Can you help me with my cabbage?' asked Margo.

'Do what?' inquired Mother.

'Help me with my cabbage,' said Margo.

'I have often wondered whether one could not cultivate bumble-bees,' said Aunt Fan, thoughtfully.

'What do you do with your cabbage?' inquired Mother.

'She puts it on her face,' hissed Prue. 'Ridiculous!'

'It isn't ridiculous,' said Margo, angrily. 'It's done my acne a world of good.'

'What? Do you mean you boil it or something?' asked Mother.

'No,' said Margo, 'I put the leaves on my face and you tie them on for me. Mawake advised it and it works wonders.'

'It's ridiculous, Louise dear. You should stop her,' said Prue, bristling like a plump kitten. 'It's nothing more than witchcraft.'

'Well, I'm too tired to argue about it,' said Mother. 'I don't suppose it can do you any harm.'

So Margo sat in a chair and held to her face large crinkly cabbage leaves which Mother solemnly fixed to her head with lengths of red twine. I thought she looked like some curious vegetable mummy.

'It's paganism. That's what it is,' said Prue.

'Nonsense, Prue, you do fuss,' said Margo, her voice muffled by cabbage leaves.

'I sometimes wonder,' said Mother, tying the last knot, 'whether my family's all there.'

'Is Margo going to a fancy-dress ball?' inquired Aunt Fan, who had watched the procedure with interest.

'No, Mummy,' roared Prue, 'it's for her spots.'

Margo got up and groped her way to the door. 'Well, I'm going to bed,' she said.

'If you meet anybody on the landing, you'll give them a terrible shock,' said Prue.

'Have a good time,' said Aunt Fan. 'Don't stay out till all hours. I know what you young things are like.'

After Margo had gone, Prue turned to Mother.

'You see, Louise dear? I didn't exaggerate,' she said. 'That woman is an evil influence. Margo's behaving like a mad thing.'

'Well,' said Mother, whose maxim in life was always defend your young regardless of how much in the wrong they are, 'I think she's being a little unwise.'

'Unwise!' said Prue. 'Cabbage leaves all over her face! Never doing anything that that Mawake doesn't tell her to! It's not healthy!'

'I shouldn't be a bit surprised if she didn't win first prize,' said Aunt Fan, chuckling. 'I shouldn't think there'd be other people there disguised as a cabbage.'

The argument waxed back and forth for a considerable time, interlaced with Aunt Fan's reminiscences of fancy-dress balls she had been to in India. At length Prue and Aunt Fan left us and Mother and I prepared for bed.

'I sometimes think,' said Mother, as she pulled the clothes up and switched off the light, 'I sometimes think that I'm the only sane member of the family.'

The following morning we decided to go shopping, since there were a great number of things unobtainable in Corfu that Mother wanted to purchase and take back with us. Prue said this would be an excellent plan, since she could drop her Bedlington puppies off with their new owner en route.

So at nine o'clock we assembled on the pavement outside Balaklava Mansions, and we must have presented a somewhat curious sight to passers-by. Aunt Fan, presumably to celebrate our arrival, had put on a pixie hat with a large feather in it. She stood on the pavement entwined like a maypole by the leashes of the eight Bedlington puppies that romped and fought and urinated round her.

'I think we'd better take a taxi,' said Mother, viewing the gambolling puppies with alarm.

'Oh, no, Louise,' said Prue. 'Think of the expense! We can go by tube.'

'With all the puppies?' asked Mother doubtfully.

'Yes, dear,' said Prue. 'Mummy's quite used to handling them.'

Aunt Fan, now bound almost immobile by the puppies' leashes, had to be disentangled before we could walk down the road to the tube station.

'Yeast and maple syrup,' said Margo. 'You mustn't let me forget yeast and maple syrup, Mother; Mawake says they're excellent for acne.'

'If you mention that man once again I shall get seriously angry,' said Mother.

Our progress to the tube station was slow, since the puppies circumnavigated any obstacle in their path in different ways, and we had to pause continually to unwind Aunt Fan from the lamp-posts, pillar-boxes, and occasional passers-by.

'Little tinkers!' she would exclaim breathlessly, after each encounter. 'They don't mean any harm.'

When we finally arrived at the ticket office, Prue had a prolonged and acrimonious argument over the price charged for the Bedlingtons.

'But they're only eight weeks old,' she kept protesting. 'You don't charge for children under three.'

Eventually, however, the tickets were purchased and we made our way to the escalators to face a continuous warm blast of air from the bowels of the earth, which the puppies appeared to find invigorating. Yapping and snarling in a tangle of leads, they forged ahead, dragging Aunt Fan, like a massive galleon, behind them. It was only when they saw the escalators that they began to have misgivings about what, hitherto, had appeared to be an exciting adventure. They did not, it appeared, like to stand on things that move and they were unanimous in their decision. Before long we were all wedged in a tight knot at the top of the escalator, struggling with the screaming, hysterical puppies.

A queue formed behind us.

'It shouldn't be allowed,' said a frosty-looking man in a bowler hat. 'Dogs shouldn't be allowed on the tube.'

'I have paid for them,' panted Prue. 'They have as much right to travel by tube as you have.'

'Bloody 'ell,' observed another man. 'I'm in an 'urry. Can't you let me get by?'

'Little tinkers!' observed Aunt Fan, laughing. 'They're so high-spirited at this age.'

'Perhaps if we all picked up a puppy each?' suggested Mother, getting increasingly alarmed by the muttering of the mob.

At that moment Aunt Fan stepped backwards onto the first step of the escalator and slipped and fell in a waterfall of tweeds, dragging the shrieking puppies after her.

'Thank God for that,' said the man in the bowler hat. 'Perhaps now we can get on.'

Prue stood at the top of the escalator and peered down. Aunt Fan had now reached the half-way mark and was finding it impossible to rise, owing to the weight of puppies.

'Mummy, Mummy, are you all right?' screamed Prue.

'I'm sure she is, dear,' said Mother soothingly.

'Little tinkers!' said Aunt Fan faintly as she was carried down the escalator.

'Now that your dogs have gone, Madam,' said the man in the bowler hat, 'would it be possible for us, too, to use the amenities of this station?'

Prue turned, bristling to do battle, but Margo and Mother grabbed her and they slid downwards on the staircase towards the heaving heap of tweed and Bedlingtons that was Great-Aunt Fan.

We picked her up and dusted her down and disentangled the puppies. Then we made our way along to the platform. The puppies now would have made a suitable subject for an RSPCA poster. Never, at the best of times, a prepossessing breed, Bedlingtons can, in moments of crisis, look more ill-used than any other dog I know. They stood uttering quavering, high-pitched yelps like miniature sea-gulls, shivering violently, periodically squatting down bow-legged to decorate the platform with the results of their fear.

'Poor little things,' said a fat woman commiseratingly, as she passed. 'It's a shame the way some people treat animals.'

'Oh! Did you hear her?' said Prue belligerently. 'I've a good mind to follow her and give her a piece of my mind.'

Mercifully, at that moment the train arrived with a roar and a blast of hot air, and distracted everybody's attention. The effect on the puppies was immediate. One minute they had been standing there shivering and wailing like a group of half-starved grey lambs and the next minute they had taken off down the platform like a team of virile huskies, dragging Aunt Fan in their wake.

'Mummy, Mummy, come back,' screamed Prue as we started off in pursuit.

She had forgotten Aunt Fan's method of leading the dogs, which she had explained to me at great length. Never pull on the lead, because it might hurt their necks. Carrying out this novel method of dog-training, Aunt Fan galloped down the platform with the Bedlingtons streaming before her. We finally caught her and restrained the puppies just as the doors closed with a self-satisfied hiss and the train rumbled out of the station. So we had to wait in a pool of Bedlingtons for the next train to arrive. Once we finally got them in the train the puppies' spirits suddenly revived. They fought each other with enjoyment, snarling and screeching. They wound their leads round people's legs, and one of them, in a fit of exuberance, leaped up and tore a copy of The Times from the grasp of a man who looked as though he were the manager of the Bank of England.

We all had headaches by the time we arrived a tour destination, with the exception of Aunt Fan, who was enchanted by the virility of the puppies. Acting on Mother's advice, we waited until there was a pause in the flow of human traffic before we attempted the escalator. To our surprise, we got the puppies to the top with little or no trouble. They were obviously becoming seasoned travellers.

'Thank goodness that's over,' said Mother as we reached the top.

'I'm afraid the puppies were a little bit trying,' said Prue, flustered. 'But then you see, they are used to the country. In town they think that everything's wrong.'

'Eh?' said Aunt Fan.

'Wrong,' shouted Prue. 'The puppies. They think that everything's wrong.'

'What a pity,' said Aunt Fan, and before we could stop her she had led the puppies onto the other escalator and they disappeared once again into the bowels of the earth.

Once we had got rid of the puppies, in spite of feeling somewhat jaded by our experiences, we had quite a satisfactory morning's shopping. Mother got all the things she needed, Margo got her yeast and maple syrup, and I, while they were purchasing these quite unnecessary items, managed to procure a beautiful red cardinal, a black-spotted salamander as fat and as shiny as an eiderdown, and a stuffed crocodile.

Each satisfied in our own way with our purchases, we returned to Balaklava Mansions.

At Margaret's insistence, Mother had decided that she would attend the seance that evening.

'Don't do it, Louise dear,' Cousin Prue said. 'It's dabbling with the unknown.'

Mother justified her action with a remarkable piece of logic.

'I feel I ought to meet this Mawake person,' she said to Prue. 'After all, he's giving Margo treatment.'

'Well, dear,' said Prue, seeing that Mother was adamant, 'I think it's madness, but I shall have to come with you. I can't let you attend one of those things on your own.'

I begged to be allowed to go too, for, as I pointed out to Mother, I had some little time previously borrowed a book from Theodore on the art of exposing fake mediums, so I felt that my knowledge thus acquired might come in exceedingly useful.

'I don't think we ought to take Mummy,' said Prue. 'I think it might have a bad effect on her.'

So at six o'clock that evening, with Prue palpitating in our midst like a newly caught bird, we made our way down to Mrs Haddock's basement room. Here we found quite a collection of people. There was Mrs Glut, the manageress of the hotel; a tall, saturnine Russian with an accent so thick that he sounded as though he were speaking through a mouthful of cheese; a young and very earnest blonde girl; and a vapid young man who, rumour had it, was studying to be an actor, but whom we had never seen do anything more strenuous than doze peacefully in the palm-fringed lounge. To my annoyance, Mother would not let me search the room before we started for hidden cords or fake ectoplasm. However, I did manage to tell Mrs Haddock about the book I had been reading, as I thought that if she was genuine it would be of interest to her. The look she bestowed upon me was anything but benevolent.

We sat in a circle holding hands and got off to a rather inauspicious start, since, as the lights were switched out, Prue uttered a piercing scream and leaped out of the chair she had been sitting in. It was discovered that the handbag she had leaned against the leg of the chair had slipped and touched her leg with a leathery clutch. When we had calmed Prue and assured her that she had not been assaulted by an evil spirit, we all returned to our chairs and held hands again. The illumination was from a night-light that guttered and blinked in a saucer and sent shadows rippling down the room and made our faces look as though they were newly arisen from a very old grave.

'Now I don't want any talking and I must ask you all to keep your hands firmly clasped so that we don't lose any of the essence... Whaaaha,' said Mrs Haddock. 'I know there are unbelievers amongst us. Nevertheless I ask you to make your minds quiet and receptive.'

'What does she mean?' whispered Prue to Mother. 'I'm not an unbeliever. My trouble is I believe too much.'

Having given us our instructions, Mrs Haddock then took up her position in an arm-chair, and with deceptive ease, went into a trance. I watched her narrowly. I was determined not to miss the ectoplasm. At first she just sat there with her eyes closed, and there was no sound except for the rustle and quiver of the agitated Prue. Then Mrs Haddock started to breathe deeply; presently she began to snore richly and vibrantly. It sounded like a sack of potatoes being emptied across a loft floor. I was not impressed. Snoring, after all, was one of the easiest things to fake. Prue's hand clutching mine was moist with perspiration and I could feel her shivers of apprehension running down her arm.

'Ahaaaaa,' said Mrs Haddock suddenly, and Prue leaped in her chair and uttered a small, despairing squeak as though she had been stabbed.

'Ahaaaaaaaa,' said Mrs Haddock, extracting the full dramatic possibilities from this simple utterance.

'I don't like it,' whispered Prue shakily. 'Louise, dear, I don't like it.'

'Be quiet or you'll spoil it all,' whispered Margo. 'Relax, and make your mind receptive.'

'I see strangers among us,' said Mrs Haddock suddenly, with such a strong Indian accent that it made me want to giggle. 'Strangers who have come to join our circle. To them I say "welcome".'

The only extraordinary thing about this, as far as I was concerned, was that Mrs Haddock was no longer stringing her words together and no longer uttering that strange inhalation of breath. She mumbled and muttered for a moment or so, incomprehensibly, and then said clearly, 'This is Mawake.'

'Ooo!' said Margaret, delighted. 'He's come! There you are, Mother! That's Mawake!'

'I think I'm going to faint,' said Prue.

I stared at Mrs Haddock in the dim, shaky light and I could not see any signs of ectoplasm or trumpets.

'Mawake says,' announced Mrs Haddock, 'that the white girl must have no more punctures.'

'There!' said Margaret triumphantly.

'White girl must obey Mawake. Must not be influenced by disbelievers.'

I heard Mother snort belligerently in the gloom.

'Mawake says that if white girl trusts him, before the coming of two moons she will be cured. Mawake says...'

But what Mawake was about to say was never vouchsafed to us, for, at that moment, a cat that had been drifting round the room, cloudlike and unobserved, jumped onto Prue's lap. Her scream was deafening. She leaped to her feet shouting, 'Louise, Louise, Louise!' and blundered like a bedazzled moth round the circle of people, screaming every time she touched anything.

Somebody had the good sense to switch on the lights before Prue, in her chicken-like panic, could do any damage.

'I say, it's a bit much, what?' said the vapid young man.

'You may have done her great harm,' said the girl, glaring at Prue and fanning Mrs Haddock with her handkerchief.