Read a sample of The Nudgers by Andy Evans

Chapter One

One of Those Mornings

By half past seven on Tuesday morning, the Green household had already reached a level of confusion that most families preferred to save for emergencies.

This was unfortunate because there was no emergency.

Nobody had broken a leg. Nobody had set fire to the curtains. Nobody had accidentally released wild animals into the neighbourhood. The difficulties facing the Green family were, on the whole, remarkably ordinary. Yet ordinary problems have a curious habit of becoming extraordinary when they all decide to arrive at exactly the same time.

Ben Green was discovering this for himself. At nine years old, Ben considered himself reasonably organised. He was not one of those children who remembered absolutely everything, but neither was he the sort who lost his belongings every five minutes. Most school mornings passed without incident. 

He got dressed, packed his bag, ate breakfast and arrived at school with whatever books, folders and pieces of homework happened to be required that day.

Today was proving rather different. The first sign of trouble had appeared when he opened his sock drawer and discovered that only one school sock seemed willing to participate in the morning. The other had vanished completely.

Ben searched beneath his bed. He searched behind his bedroom door. He searched beneath a pile of comics that had somehow migrated from the bookshelf to the floor. The missing sock remained stubbornly absent.

It was during this search that he first became aware that something unusual was happening downstairs. A clatter echoed through the house.  Then came a muttered exclamation. Then another. Ben paused, kneeling beside his bed, and listened carefully.

The sounds were coming from the kitchen. More specifically, they were coming from his father. Now, Daniel Green was not generally an angry man. He was the sort of father who helped with homework, attended football matches in all weathers and laughed at jokes even when he had heard them before. Like most adults, however, he possessed certain weaknesses.

One of these weaknesses was mornings. Not every morning, but plenty of mornings. Unfortunately, this particular morning seemed determined to become one. Ben climbed to his feet and wandered onto the landing.

"Everything all right, Dad?" he called.

There was a brief pause.

"Fine."

The answer floated up the staircase.

Ben frowned. The word itself sounded perfectly normal, but the voice behind it suggested the exact opposite. Experience had taught him that when adults answered too quickly, they were often trying very hard not to say something else. Curiosity got the better of him. Abandoning the hunt for the sock, and choosing a non-matching one instead, he made his way downstairs.

The kitchen looked as though it had recently experienced a small but energetic storm. A slice of toast sat in the sink. Another rested on a plate beside the toaster. The butter dish had somehow ended up near the fruit bowl, while a tea towel hung from the oven handle in a manner that suggested it had been thrown there rather than placed.

Daniel stood at the kitchen counter holding a butter knife. He was staring at a piece of toast on the floor. Ben followed his gaze. The toast was lying upside down. 

It takes a surprisingly short time to recognise when something has gone wrong. Even before his father spoke, Ben understood exactly what had happened.

"The second one?" he asked.

Daniel looked up.

"The second one."

Ben nodded sympathetically.

Shelley Green, who was unloading the dishwasher nearby, seemed considerably less concerned by the situation.

"It's only toast," she said.

"It was perfectly good toast."

"So, make another piece."

Daniel glanced at the toaster. The toaster sat innocently on the worktop, offering no explanation for its behaviour.

"You know," he said, "I've always suspected that thing dislikes me."

Shelley laughed. Ben smiled. For a moment it seemed as though the morning might recover. Then the kettle boiled over. Nobody was entirely certain how. One moment the kettle was heating water. The next, a stream of hot water was running across the worktop and dripping onto the floor. Daniel closed his eyes. Shelley reached calmly for a cloth. Ben wisely remained silent.

A few minutes later, breakfast was finally underway. Ben poured cereal into a bowl while Shelley prepared packed lunches and Daniel attempted to make coffee. The atmosphere had improved slightly, although his father continued to wear the expression of a man who suspected that everyday household objects were plotting against him.

Outside, the early morning sun shone through the kitchen window, casting bright rectangles across the floor. A blackbird hopped along the garden fence. Somewhere beyond the houses, a lawnmower had already begun its noisy duties.

It was the sort of pleasant morning that seemed completely unaware of the troubles taking place inside Number Twenty-Seven. Ben had almost finished his cereal when he remembered something. His science homework.

The exercise book needed to be handed in that morning, and he had spent nearly an hour completing it on Sunday afternoon. Mrs Parker had asked the class to create detailed diagrams showing how seeds germinated, and Ben had worked harder than usual because he was rather proud of the finished result.

The drawings had turned out well. Even the roots looked convincing. He reached down and opened his school bag. A few seconds later, his stomach sank. The book wasn't there. 

Ben frowned and checked again. Then again. His fingers moved through every compartment. Pens. Pencils. A ruler. A reading book. Yesterday's spelling test. 

No science homework. At first, he wasn't especially worried. The book had been on the dining table the previous evening. He remembered seeing it there. It would still be somewhere in the house.

"Has anybody seen my science book?" he asked.

Shelley looked up.

"The blue one?"

"Yes."

"I saw it yesterday."

"So did I."

"Have you checked your bag?"

Ben resisted the urge to point out that he was currently checking his bag.

"Yes."

"Then it'll be somewhere nearby."

Daniel nodded absently while concentrating on the coffee machine.

"Things don't just disappear."

Continues in Chapter 1 of The Nudgers by Andy Evans.