When you leave the Menace at home with General Auntie

Auntie Pru takes her revenge

Pru was upstairs for ages. Ages and ages and ages. Dennis had got tired of laughing, and she still didn't come down. He was now sitting on the floor of the living room, sucking his fingers, thinking. It suddenly occurred to him that menacing Auntie Pru might not have been one of his best ideas. She had been mean enough earlier when he had been behaving (with scowls of course), so how bad would she be now that he had menaced her? With great stinky tomato too!

The more he thought, the less comfortable he felt. Pru was much meaner than his mum and dad. When he menaced his parents, they got grumpy and Dad would sometimes get a bit shouty too, but he wasn't afraid of them. They would stop being grumpy fairly quickly, and sometimes when it had just been Mum who was menaced Dad would laugh with Dennis. The boy doubted that Pru would find any of it funny. He was starting to find it less funny himself. A growing ball of apprehension was making itself apparent in his round belly, and he didn't like the feeling. He hugged his tummy to see if that would make the pain better, but of course it didn't. He gulped. What was his aunt going to do to him? Would she beat him across the bottom with a cane, like his Dad had once told him they used to do to him at school when he was 5? Or would she hit him with a slipper, like his Dad used to be as a child? Dennis shuddered. Mum and Dad had never hit him, ever. Ok, so there was that one time when Dad had chased him all over the garden because he wouldn't take a bath, and had spanked him when he caught him, but they had been laughing when that happened.

He wasn't laughing now. Not one bit.

A roar from Pru flew downstairs,"I am going to KILL that boy!" and Dennis jumped. He could hear her thundering out of the bathroom- and fancied that he saw the ceiling shaking- and towards the stairs. Panic filled the 5 year old, and he rushed to the front door to escape the house, and tried to pull it open, before he remembered that it was locked and he looked for a hiding spot, as the rumbling of Hurricane Auntie Pru came closer. Desperately he threw himself under the sofa, squeezing himself under it as far back as the wall. As he lay there, trying to slow his breathing, his father's voice popped into his head. "You can crawl wherever you like, son, but do not hide under the sofa," Dad had once told him when they were playing hide and seek. "You could get stuck, or worst of all, somebody might sit on the sofa and squish you." "Squish me?" Dennis had replied, eyes wide."Yes," Dad said, "it's very dangerous and painful. I got stuck once, and I hurt my back badly. It left a horrible mark." And he had actually taken off his shirt to show Dennis the faint, but huge, marks across his back, where the sharp springs had dug into his back when Grandad had sat on the sofa. Dennis had been horrified beyond words. And now curled under the sofa he released he had made the worst mistake ever. He'd given Pru the perfect opportunity for revenge. He didn't even have time to crawl out and make a dash for it; Pru had thundered inside the living room, the stormiest expression on her face.

"DENNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSS!" she screeched at the top of her very large lungs. Dennis very wisely chose to remain slient. Pru stormed around, screeching for five long whole minutes, until she started coughing, and she was forced to sit down.

On the very sofa Dennis was lying underneath, petrified.

The sofa creaked as she settled her massive, khaki-covered bulk above the tiny menace, who felt his heart come up in his mouth. He pressed his hands to his mouth to prevent himself from crying out. Had it been his dad up there, he would have made a noise, wailed, let himself be found, and his father would have coaxed him out, no matter how mad he was. And Dad would absolutely not sit even harder in the chair, just to teach his son a lesson. Pru, on the other hand... Dennis had no idea. He was sure she would press down on the chair to scare him.

And he thought his daddy was a big meanie.

Dennis lay under that sofa for ten whole minutes, lying stock still. Worse, he desprately needed to use the toilet, and he wasn't sure how long he could hold it. Finally Pru got up, and once the kitchen door had shut behind her, Dennis squeezed himself out. It was much harder than getting in, and the carpet grazed his cheek as he forced his head out, before the rest of him followed out. The second he was out, he rushed up the stairs, into the bathroom, locked the door, and finally managed to use the toilet. Panting and gasping with his relief, Dennis flushed the toilet, and went to the door to let himself out. But it wouldn't open. He pulled and pushed, but it didn't work. He checked the lock, but it wasn't locked.

"That'll fix you, little 'orror," came the bloodchilling voice of Pru. "You won't be able to get up to anything NOW!"

Dennis gave a cry of horror, followed by a loud wail.

Pru had taken her revenge, alright.

She had locked him in the bathroom.