Writer's Notebook

There could be no doubt about it; Tommy was more than disappointed with the horror charm he dug out of his latest packet of griZZlies. He put the sugar cube on the table in front of him. It certainly wasn't a patch on the traitor's-tongue-tip he'd dug out of the first packet. He'd been overjoyed with that - there had been just 13 different pieces; you couldn't cut up a tongue into much more. A fitting end to a tongue that had belonged to Ally Sagen, his country's biggest ever traitor. The second packet also contained a real find: a Dracula-like fang which took pride of place on his neck. And now nothing but a lump of suger. Tommy looked at the packet. He knew most of the names there and couldn't associate any of them with a lump of sugar. Two names, he wasn't sure of; the sugar probably belonged to one of them.

He quickly buttered a piece of toast and raced back up to his bedroom. Ten minutes later he descended the stairs a little more satisfied. It seems the lump of sugar had belonged to a research doctor who had killed his son. He had been doing some research into warfarin anti-dotes and had prepared a few dozen lumps of sugar to administer to a number of volunteers, including his son who had been the first to swallow one of the lumps. Unfortunately... So

Tommy poked his head through the kitchen door to say goodbye to his mother. Sitting at the table in her new dressing-gown she was enjoying her first cup of tea of the day. Tommy froze as he saw that his lump of sugar was no longer where he had placed it.