'WHAT ARE YOU BOYS DOING DOWN THERE?'

So, the mega-legus eating monsters pile through the hole. Dexter and me tumble backwards and I think that the creatures will fall on us and eat us right away. Somewhere, Mrs Next-Door is screeching like mad and will soon be another victim.

'It's drooling on me!' cries Dexter from beneath brown and matted fur.

'Try not to swallow! It is most likely poisonous!' I advise, helpfully.

Already the hot air down here is reeking of old meat and nasty wet stuff. I can hardly breath underneath it all. Four thousand claws scratch at my face.

'Sorry, Dexter!' I shout. 'At least we will not have to put up with the new baby-child!'

'It's licking me!' cries Dexter. 'Aghhhhhhhh!'

'WHAT ARE YOU BOYS DOING DOWN THERE???!!!' Mrs Next-Door bellows into the understairs void. She must have opened the door. Bad move.

There is a fantastic clawing and growling and scrabbling and the beasts fling themselves out of the under-the-stairs-cupboard and onto her throat. Probably. The door slams shut. There is silence whilst they devour their prey and then quite a lot of barking.

'Come along, boys!' chirrups Mrs Next-Door, who must still be alive. 'I don't know how you got into this house but now it's time for a bath!'

We crawl up to the hall and peek the door open. There are muddy paw-prints all over the hall floor, lots of jackhammer scratches on the parquet, a small hill of rubble by the front door and a mountain of mud that Dexter was supposed to be dealing with. I hear the car door slam outside.

'Right,' says Dexter, 'I think I'll be off now, you can keep the jack-hammer for a bit.'

And he runs out of the back door.

'Why Do You Have a Jack-hammer In My Hallway?'

The problem was that I just happened to mention, in passing, that I was mining myself a nice new bedroom and suddenly EVERYONE wants to do it. I tried to pretend that I was only talking about a film I had seen but Dexter was not having any of it. He said, 'my Dad, Dave, is a builder and has loads of useful tools up his sleeve and I can borrow some without him knowing.' You might think this would be useful.

That Saturday, Dad is helping Mum into a coat-tent so they can go and for a hospital appointment.
'Mrs Next-door is keeping an eye on you, Wilfred,' says Dad. 'And she will be round soon, so get any ideas.'
'What sort of ideas?' I ask, casually.
Dad glares at me but before he can begin on a long and boring list of banned activities, the doorbell boings.
'Hello, Dexter,' says Mum. 'What have you got there?'
Dexter heaves a giant scraper-thing into the hallway.
'It's a jack-hammer,' he says out loud.
Dad's eyebrows are working overtime. 'Why do you have a jack-hammer in my hallway?' he asks. I try and give Dexter the shut up secret signal. 'Stop fidgetting, Wilfred!'
'Because I am helping Wilf dig out a new bedroom.'
Mum laughs and then after a pause Dad joins in.
'Oh, that's alright then!' She laughs some more and it is starting to get a bit disturbing, so Dad heaves her out of the door and looks back with an eyebrow glare.
'Remember! No ideas!'

When I have punched Dexter and we have eaten some biscuits, we get to work. A jack-hammer is an ace tool. It jumps up and down really hard on any surface and goes actually deeper than you think. We had to sort of start it in the hall and it bounced around on the parquet for a while before we could catch it. Then we took it under the stairs and really got to work.
And it would have been fine, had Mrs Next-Door and her small dogs not turned up. It really would.