When you leave the Menace at home with General Auntie

The REAL disaster

A/N: I'm back after three weeks of revising like hell! Exams are over, holidays are starting, so hopefully I'll be able to update everyday, as well as bring my new story to you all soon. Thanks for being patient and I hope you enjoy the rest of this story!

"Don't go downstairs and touch the iron."

Auntie Pru's words keep replaying in the 5 year old's mind. "Don't touch the iron...don't touch...don't...don't...don't..."

Dennis sat upright, indignation flowing through his veins instead of blood, his face red with anger. "Who does she think she is?" he cried crossly. She certainly wasn't his Mummy, or even his Daddy, so how dare she tell him off? How dare she? How DARE she?!

Dennis stood up. He was going to go downstairs, and he was going to touch the iron! Nobody told Dennis the Menace what to do, especially not some bossy auntie. Even if said Auntie was a monster with a booming voice that seemed like she had a megaphone implanted in her mouth, or a heavy duty speaker in her vocial cords...

NO! He was most definitely not scared of his wicked witch of an aunt, and he was going to touch the iron. He wouldn't make any noise either, he'd sneak downstairs like a mini ninja, or like how his dad would sneak down in the middle of the night to eat chocolate or cake, making absolutely no noise. If his dad could do it, and his dad was a huge man (at least he seemed to be a huge man to his tiny son, when he was really only 5 foot 5 and the shortest of his friends), then the tiny menace could definitely do it, and quicker.

His mind made up, Dennis slowly opened the door, and carefully peered around it for his aunt. She wasn't there, and from the shouts coming from the bathroom told Dennis that she had just discovered the shampoo explosion and that half the debris were from the toilet's lid.

Mum was not going to be happy.

Taking advantage of his aunt's distraction, Dennis slipped from his room, and shut the door softly, before he crept across the hall, rolled once, and then slid down the stairs, doing his best to keep his bottom from banging and making noise. Unfortunantly he was so focused on staying quiet that he accidentally pushed himself too quickly, and he slid down the carpet at a speed to rival the Formula One racers, and landed with a little crash and a littler cry, gasping for breath, rubbing his arm, which had been scraped on the carpet and burnt now. The sound of Pru accidentally breaking the bathroom door, or what was left of the door, reminded Dennis that his angry aunt was still hunting him, and he quickly got up and slunk towards the kitchen, where he knew the iron would be. He had watched his mother iron his dad's shirts only this morning, the iron a million miles up on the worktop from Dennis's position on the ground.

"What are you doing, mum?" he had asked.

"Ironing your dad's shirts for the meeting he will be going to tonight," Sandra had replied, aiming the last words at his father, who was pretending to read the newspaper and was actually watching cartoon's on his phone. Den had put the newspaper and hidden phone down, and replied, "Why? To everyone else get their promotions and know I'll never be anything more than the bin-man or runner-boy? Or so that those...you-know-whats have someone to fetch their tea and make their coffees and so the boss has someone to clean up afterwards?"

Dennis couldn't understand why his mother and father kept arguing about this. If Daddy didn't want to go, then he didn't have to go. Why did Mum keep saying he had to go? Mum had said it was to show something called commitment to the job, and that you never know, this meeting might need him. Den had snorted, "Yeah, to clean up the mess afterwards," but Sandra had just ignored him. Dennis didn't know what to say, so asked, "What does the iron do?"

"It gets rid of creases and wrinkles," Sanda had replied. Dennis had frowned, then grinned cheekily.

"So why are you wasting time ironing Dad's shirts? Why don't you use it on you face?" Den had been quicker to understand the joke, and started to laugh, gasping at Dennis, "You menace! You little menace!" and had actually started to cry with laughter, and it wasa only then that Sandra had understood just what Dennis had been implying, and she abandoned the iron with an outraged shout and had chased Dennis all around the house.

"How will I reach the iron?" Dennis whispered now to himself, looking up at the worktop. He looked around and his eye hit the chair. Oh. Of course. Quickly Dennis dragged the chair to the worktop, and grinned as he saw the shiny iron, and laughed at his reflection in the iron's silver bottom triangle. The holes in it reminded him of cheese. Pru began shouting again, screaming "WHEREISTHATLITTLE'ORROR?!"

He was out of time. Quickly he lifted his hand, opened it wide, and moved his whole little podgy hand to the base of the iron.

Pru raced down the stairs, fury pushing her bulk faster than it should have been physically possible for her to move. She was absolutely not about to let that little devil-spawn of Dennis The Menace get the better of her. It was bad enough that in their secondary school years Den was forever pulling pranks on her and besting her, but now the son was doing the same! She could not let him win, the way Den always won! Angry thoughts like these made her run faster, and she ran to the kitchen, where she heard the scraping of a chair.

She flung herself in just in time to see her 5 year old nephew press his hand to the base of the iron, a look of pure naughty triumph plastered across his face, which was replaced with a look of pure horrified pain as he felt the heat on the iron, the iron his hand was fused to.

The iron that was burning his hand.