On Wings Of Song

Offering to look after a friend’s pets turns out to be hair-raising for Lizzie.

THE Cameron family, plus Katie’s parents, had gone off for 10 days to Portugal, leaving Katie’s husband Andrew’s tank of exotic fish in the care of Lizzie Martin.

Lizzie had offered because she happened to be in the flower shop when Katie and Pamela were discussing rotas for the shop in their absence.

“Then there’s the fish,” Katie said. “Who can we ask to look after them?”

“Who usually does it?” Lizzie asked while looking through the catalogue for floral arrangements. Granny Martin’s birthday was coming up.

“My neighbour looks after the aquarium,” Katie said, “but this year we’re going to be away at the same time. I can’t think who else to ask.”

“I’ll do it if you like,” Lizzie said. “How hard is it to put feed into a tank?”

“We-e-ell,” Katie said uncertainly, thinking of the delicate matter of temperature control.

But it was summer. There wouldn’t be any dramatic drop in temperature in August, surely? She smiled in relief.

“Thank you, Lizzie.”

****

For the first few days of the Cameron holiday, everything went like clockwork. Lizzie greeted the fish on entering the living-room, and they responded by swimming through their miniature castles and underwater trees in perfect health.

On day six things came unglued. Lizzie never did know exactly what caused the hitch, but while administering a tiny amount of fish food she must have nudged the CD player, standing next to the tank. Modern jazz at ear-splitting volume suddenly filled the room, making Lizzie leap with fright. The fish rushed for the miniature castle and the underwater trees.

The trouble was, there didn’t seem to be any way of switching the player off. The tangle of cables behind the cabinet made Lizzie scared to switch anything either off or on.

She was on the point of phoning for David to come and sort things out when the door flew open.

“Who are you, and how did you get in here?” the man there roared, clearly ready for physical combat.

Lizzie looked at the man and recognised him. “Charles?” “Lizzie?” Charles Reid took a step back. “What on earth is going on?”

It transpired that Charles had been passing the Cameron house on foot when the racket started. Knowing the family was away, he’d decided to investigate, all set to make a citizen’s arrest. “Can’t you turn it down?” “I don’t even know how it came on at all,” Lizzie said, aggrieved. “I was just standing here when it started. I’ve never been closer to a heart attack.”

“And I must have made things worse,” Charles apologised. “Sorry. I knew the Camerons were away and acted on impulse.”

He crossed the room and looked at the controls for the CD player before finding the button. Silence flooded the room. Charles lowered his voice. “It just started by itself?” Lizzie nodded. “Weird. Well, let’s have a look at the plug. I suppose we’d better switch it off in case it does it again.”

As Lizzie had done, he looked at the wilderness of wires behind the unit.

“Blimey. There’s enough here for a pop concert. How can we isolate the player?”

“I’d rather try to isolate the aquarium. I don’t fancy coming in and finding it full of floating angel fish.” Charles nodded. “You’re right. Andrew would never forgive us.”

He got down on his knees for a closer look.

“What on earth was he thinking of? Let’s try this plug.”

Only when the bubbles in the tank evaporated did he realise he had switched off the wrong one.

“Ah, I see what I’ve done,” Charles said. “It actually says TANK on the plug. That’s it back on again.”

Lizzie watched anxiously as the bubbles took a few seconds to renew their gentle rise to the surface. If she hadn’t been so alarmed, Lizzie would have found it quite soporific.

The fish reappeared from their hiding places and resumed their meander round the tank.

****

Although neither of them had committed any offence, both Lizzie and Charles felt they had to explain events to the Camerons on their return from Portugal. The rogue CD player remained a mystery, though Katie was adamant it was all Andrew’s fault.

After all, she preferred classical music.

More next week.