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  Marcia put the needle down on the beginning of the record a third time. “I’d better stay and do this,” she said. “You’d better go and search the box – quickly, before we get landed with Table Person and Jelly Person as well!”

  Simon sped to the table and started taking things out of the conjuring box – first the flags, then the dripping hat with the crystal ball in it. After that came a toy rabbit, which was perhaps meant to be lively when it was fetched out of the hat. Yet, for some reason, it was just a toy. None of the things in the box was more than just wet. Simon took out a sopping pack of cards, and a dripping bundle of coloured handkerchiefs. They were all just ordinary. That meant that there had to be a way of stopping things getting lively, but search as he would, Simon could not find it.

  As he searched, the cracked music stopped and started and the table stamped one leg after another in time to it. Simon glanced at the game. Chair Person had found another way to cheat. He simply sat in his chair the whole time.

  “I’m counting you out,” Auntie Christa kept saying. And Chair Person went on sitting there with his smashed-hedgehog beard pointing obstinately to the ceiling.

  Next time Simon looked, there were only two chairs left beside Chair Person’s and three children. “We’ll have tea after this game,” Auntie Christa called as Marcia started the music again.

  Help! thought Simon. The wobbling, climbing jelly was half out of its bowl, waving little feelers. Simon turned the whole box out on to the dancing table. All sorts of things fell out. But there was nothing he could see that looked useful – except perhaps a small wet box. There was a typed label on its lid that said DISAPPEARING BOX. Simon hurriedly opened it.

  It was empty inside, so very empty that he could not see the bottom. Simon put it down on the table and stared into it, puzzled.

  Just then, the table got livelier than ever from all the liquid Simon had emptied out of the conjuring box. It started to dance properly. The tablecloth got quite lively too and stretched itself in a long, lazy ripple. The two things together rolled the hat with the crystal ball in it across the tiny, empty box.

  There was a soft WHOP. The hat and the crystal ball were sucked into the box. And they were gone. Just like that. Simon stared.

  The table was still dancing and the tablecloth was still rippling. One by one, and very quickly, the other things from the conjuring box were rolled and jogged across the tiny box. WHOP went the rabbit, WHOP the wand, WHOP-WHOP the string of flags, and then all the other things WHOP WHOP WHOP, and they were all gone too. The big box that had held the things tipped over and made a bigger WHOP. And that was gone as well, before Simon could move. After that the other prizes started to vanish, WHOP WHOP WHOP. This seemed to interest the tablecloth. It put out a long exploring corner towards the box.

  At that, Simon came to his senses. He pushed the corner aside and rammed the lid on the box before the tablecloth had a chance to vanish too.

  As soon as the lid was on, the box was not there any more. There was not even a whisper of a WHOP as it went. It was just gone. And the tablecloth was just a tablecloth, lying half wrapped across the few prizes left. And the table stood still and was just a table. The jelly slid back into its bowl. Its feelers were gone and it was just a jelly.

  The music stopped too. Auntie Christa stopped too. Auntie Christa called out, “Well done, Philippa! You’ve won again! Come and choose a prize, dear.”

  “It’s not fair!” somebody else complained. “Philippa’s won everything!”

  Marcia came racing over to Simon as he tried to straighten the tablecloth. “Look, look! You did it! Look!”

  Simon turned round in a dazed way. There were still two chairs standing in the middle of the hall after the game. One of them was an old shabby striped armchair. Simon was sure that was not right. “Who put—?” he began. Then he noticed that the chair was striped in sky-blue, orange and purple. Its stuffing was leaking in a sort of fuzz from its sideways top cushion. It had stains on both arms and on the seat. Chair Person was a chair again. The only odd thing was that the chair was wearing football socks and shiny shoes on its two front legs.

  “I’m not sure if it was the wand or the box,” Simon said.

  They pushed the armchair over against the wall while everyone was crowding round the food.

  “I don’t think I could bear to have it on our bonfire after this,” Marcia said. “It wouldn’t seem quite kind.”

  “If we take its shoes and socks off,” Simon said, “we could leave it here. People will probably think it belongs to the hall.”

  “Yes, it would be quite useful here,” Marcia agreed.

  Later on, after the children had gone and Auntie Christa had locked up the hall, saying over her shoulder, “Tell your mother and father that I’m not on speaking terms with either of them!” Simon and Marcia walked slowly home.

  Simon asked, “Do you think he knew we were going to put him on our bonfire? Was he having his revenge on us?”

  “He may have been,” said Marcia. “He never talked about the bonfire, did he? But what was to stop him just asking us not to when he was a person?”

  “No,” said Simon. “He didn’t have to set the house on fire. I suppose that shows the kind of Person he was.”

  About the Author

  first children’s book was published in 1973. Her magical, humorous stories have enthralled children and adults ever since, and she has inspired many of today’s children’s and fantasy authors. Among Diana’s best loved books for older children are the Chrestomanci series and the Howl books. Her novel, Howl’s Moving Castle was made into an award-winning film. She was described by Neil Gaiman as “the best children’s writer of the past 40 years”.

  Copyright

  First published in hardback in Great Britain

  by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2012

  HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of

  HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is:

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  www.dianawynnejones.com

  1

  Who Got Rid of Angus Flint? © 1975 Diana Wynne Jones

  Chair Person © 1989 Diana Wynne Jones

  Illustrations copyright © 2012 Marion Lindsay

  The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.

  ISBN: 978-0-00-748942-8

  EPub Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780007489435

  EPub Version 1

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

  About the Publisher

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  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

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  HarperCollins Canada

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  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

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  Ha
rperCollins Publishers Inc.

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