The invitation made Samuel uneasy for reasons he couldn’t quite pin down. Perhaps it was the fact that Boswell took one sniff and decided he didn’t care for it at all, or that the ink didn’t look much like ink. It looked, to be honest, a bit like blood, and Samuel told his mother as much.

“Don’t be silly,” said Mrs. Johnson. “You always see the worst in things.”

“Fighting demons and being dragged off to Hell will do that to a person, Mum,” said Samuel.

“Oh, hush,” said Mrs. Johnson, who didn’t like being reminded of the unpleasantnesses that had befallen her son, even if she did have two demons living in her spare room and making funny smells in the bathroom. She had decided to look upon Nurd and Wormwood as a pair of slightly eccentric lodgers, and leave it at that.

“Anyway,” Mrs. Johnson continued, “it’s about time you got some recognition for all that you’ve done for this town. They should have put up a statue to you, if you ask me.”

In addition to the wandering statue of Hilary Mould, Biddlecombe only had one other such monument, and that was of Brigadier General Sir Charles MacCarthy, the hopeless nineteenth-century British commander, who, while on his way to be knighted in 1820, had stopped for tea in Biddlecombe and left a small tip.²⁵ It was often suggested that the town needed another statue or two, although this suggestion usually came from mayors or local politicians, who seemed to think it would be a good idea if the statue looked a bit like them, and maybe had their name carved underneath.

“I don’t want a statue in my honor, thanks,” said Samuel. He could think of nothing worse than having a bronze version of himself providing a convenient head on which pigeons could poo. Life was hard enough as it was.

A thumping sound came from above, and moments later Nurd and Wormwood appeared in the kitchen. They were very excited. Samuel could tell because Wormwood had somehow set himself on fire and hadn’t noticed, and the fire had spread to Nurd’s coat but he hadn’t noticed either. Samuel discreetly put out the flames with a damp tea towel and waited to find out what was going on.

“We’ve received an invitation,” said Nurd.

“To the opening of the new toy shop in the town,” said Wormwood.

He was positively glowing, which was probably how the fire had started. Wormwood had recently developed an unfortunate habit of bursting into flame when he got angry or embarrassed, or even if he coughed for too long. He would turn bright red, and the next minute you could toast bread on him.

Wormwood had never been invited anywhere before, unless you counted being invited outside for a fight, or to make a room smell better by his absence. Even Nurd had rarely received invitations to events, largely because he had spent billions of years going through a phase of conspiring to rule worlds, and nobody wants to invite someone to a party only to find that he’s declared himself king of their house and is now trying on their slippers for size.