TEA WITH THE MIDNIGHT MONSTERS

HEATHROW

This is the terrible, wonderful story of Millie and Pim Cumberbatch -- and their mother Caroline -- and how they put an end -- finally! -- to the mass and mysterious kidnappings that terrorized the world for two whole years, plus two months, starting in the summertime two years ago.

Every loving and fair-minded person on planet Earth should know and study this story well, and they did -- at the time -- and so you must now.

It is an important one.

When she thought about it later -- as she so often did -- Millie realized the whole affair started before the big move, right in Heathrow Airport.

The three of them sat at Gate Six, waiting: Millie, Pim, Caroline. A stewardess announced a bump in the boarding. The flight was delayed.

"Two hours?" Millie asked her mother. "But why?"

The baggage carriers out on the tarmac discovered a creature -- they wouldn't say what -- tucked up under the airplane's wheel -- a stowaway hitching a ride from London to New York City.

It must be a goose, or maybe a raccoon, Caroline guessed, without much thought. Animal Control arrived, half a dozen men with dogcatcher's nets and a giant kennel, and oddly, as well, some MI6 men and the American CIA.

The CIA, in case you don't know, is America's organization of spies; spies and thinkers and tinkers and such, all of whom try to keep America safe. The MI6 do the same in Britain.

Millie watched as Animal Control and the secret service men stood by the gate, arguing loudly, seeming at odds. But Caroline was glad for the delay. She hated to fly. It made her nervous. And besides, she had a million calls -- a million and one! -- to make and return before the flight. The delay would help. She could get work done -- if it weren't for the screaming boy.

"Inside a monster -- even the small ones -- there's usually a child who needs to be loved." Caroline sighed and stared at the boy as she waited on hold to speak to the movers. The movers had made a mistake. A fateful mistake. A mistake that would affect the rest of the their lives. She pressed her mobile phone to her ear and cupped her hand over the other. "Stop staring, Millie. Please. Not polite."

"You're staring, too." Millie said. "I can't," she said. "I can't stop." She'd never seen such a horrible tantrum. Such abandon. He was incredible.

The boy, three, blonde-haired and pudgy, was lying on his back on the dirty carpet. He was, as it turned out, awaiting the same flight Millie was, from London, England to New York City -- and he writhed and kicked and squealed and screamed, and his parents did absolutely nothing to stop him.

"He looks like a fish, caught out of water," Caroline said.

"Where are his parents?" Pim said. "You'd think his parents -- with all that's going on in the world -- does anyone have an eye on him?" Pim, himself, had one eye on the boy and the other on a football game on the TV across from Gate Six. "Caroline?" he said.

"Sorry, darling?"

"I'm headed to the pub to watch the FA Cup on the telly. All right? Hello? I'm talking here?" No one was paying attention to Pim.

"He does look like a fish!" Millie said, still staring. "Out of water..." A freshly caught flounder! Fully alive, but left on the dock, bucking and arching, fighting for his life.

"Millie?" said Pim. "I'll be near the pub, watching the game. Don't wander off."

"I won't," she said off-handedly.

Pim then wandered off himself, to watch the end of the football game.

What Pim called "football," in case you don't know, was really only American soccer. The British call it "football" instead of "soccer," which makes some sense if you think about it -- since in soccer you do kick the ball with your foot.