Another short and silly story.

More Oopsydiddlydandydees.

I suppose in a way it is my own fault. I thought that we had cleared the Oopsydiddlydandydees from the house. The monster with the vacuum cleaner had been on the rampage and cleaned every inch and more of the whole house. Oopsydiddlydandydees are terrified of the vacuum cleaner. As soon as they hear the familiar whine they hide. When she who is always right goes on a major cleaning spree they move out into the garden.

You have never seen or heard of them? That is because they are impossible to see or hear. You need to have a special pair of glasses before you can see them. The glasses have to be made by a left handed spectacle maker during the night of the last full moon in July. The glass itself has to be coloured with the juice of the fruit of the Bangolin tree.

The Bangolin tree is only found in the deepest part of the densest jungle in Burkoland. There is only one of them and it only has fruit on it once every fifty years.

You can only hear the Oopsydiddlydandydees if you have these glasses. If you could hear them you would hear their favourite cry.

"It wasn't me, honest guv!"

Sometimes they change this to "I didn't mean to do it, honest guv." They only say this if you catch them doing something.

As far as I know I have the only pair of these glasses in the world. I found the instructions for making them written on a piece of animal skin in the back of an ancient book. The book was called '70 Magic Tricks to Amaze your Caveman Friends.' All the tricks were just making rocks and pebbles appear and disappear.

I was given the fruit by that world famous lady explorer. Miss Amanderella Grotsnobbler.

Luckily the fruit stays fresh forever so I could still get some juice from it when I found the right kind of glasses maker.

You may be wondering what these Oopsydiddlydandydees look like. Well they have round bodies, rather like a table tennis ball and round heads like a slightly smaller table tennis ball. However, it may be the glasses which make them look round like this, but if I take off the glasses to make sure then I can no longer see them.

They are slightly pink in colour. However it may be the glasses which make them look like this, but if I take off the glasses I can no longer see them.

They are about this tall, certainly not as big as that. However it may be the glasses which make them look like this, but if I take off the glasses I can no longer see them.

They are about as wide as here, but not as wide as there. However it may be the glasses which make them look like this, but if I take off the glasses I can no longer see them.

Their voices are small and squeaky. However it may be the glasses which make them sound like this, but if I take off the glasses I can no longer hear them.

They love to live in houses where there are children. They like it even more if there are cats or dogs or ferrets or hamsters.

They really love it when there are children, dogs, cats, ferrets and hamsters all in the same house.

The oddest thing of all is that they do not mean to break things, spill things or do any of the other things that they do. They are just very, very nosy. They love to look at anything and everything. The trouble is that they have never learnt to look with their eyes and not their hands.

As I said I thought we had got rid of them all, but I was wrong. I had to get up in the night. We had dined rather well on a very hot curry. Now I like a very hot curry, but they do not like me. After lying awake for some time with a bad case of the tummy burns, I decided that I really had to have a glass of milk and a digestive biscuit.

When I got downstairs, the cat decided that it was time for him to go mouse hunting so he head bumped me until I opened the door to let him out. The Oopsydiddlydandydees must have been waiting for such a moment. Without me seeing them they swarmed in. I wondered at the time why the cat leapt into the air as it went through the door.

Cats cannot see Oopsydiddlydandydees either, but they can sense them and usually keep well out of their way.

Next morning I was first up, as usual, I went into the kitchen to make myself and she who is always right the first cup of tea of the day. To my horror I found the refrigerator door wide open. It had begun to defrost so there was a pool of water. Naturally, being still in my pyjamas and barefooted I stepped in the freezing cold water.

Not only that, but the glass I had used for my nocturnal drink was lying on its side. The milk in it had spilled out onto the work surface.

The tea towel had mysteriously managed to fall into the sink and was soaking wet from lying in the washing up bowl which had filled up with water from the dripping tap.

The packet of digestive biscuits had been ripped open and the contents spread out on the Breakfast bar. Every biscuit had been reduced to crumbs.

The cat's food bowl was upside down and the food smeared all over the floor.

Without being able to see them I knew straight away who was to blame, but I needed the special glasses to be certain. I remembered putting them away carefully in the cupboard in the Hall. The door, of course, was stuck so that when I pulled it open everything inside was jerked out on to the floor.

The glasses were nowhere to be seen. I rummaged around, but they were definitely not in the cupboard where I had left them. I tried to put everything back in and managed to jab myself with a pair of nail scissors. Dripping blood I did find the First Aid box. Naturally the only plasters I could find were either far too big or far too small.

Luckily though, the special glasses were right at the bottom of the First Aid box. As soon as I put them on I could see that the Hall was crawling with Oopsydiddlydandydees. They were busy rummaging through the box of plasters, throwing them out on to the floor. Some of them were drawing rude pictures in the spots of blood from my damaged hand.

All the time they were shouting. "It wasn't me honest, guv."

I left them to it and went back into the kitchen. They were in there too. They had emptied the remains of a can of lager into one of the foil trays which had held the curry. They were swimming up and down in a mixture of lager and curry sauce. Every now and then one would jump out and run up and down the work top leaving a trail of footprints behind. These naughty creatures did not shout "It wasn't me honest, guv!" like they usually did. No, they were much redder than usually and were shouting. "Hot, hot, hot, guv!"

Another group of them were dancing up and down on the remains of the Poppadoms, reducing them to crumbs. They swept them off the work top on to the floor and into the pool of water next to the 'fridge making a very messy porridge.

Yet, others were busy making moustaches from the egg noodles which they stuck on with sticky Mango chutney.

There were more of them carefully brushing the biscuit crumbs on to the floor where their friends, just as carefully swept them under the kitchen table.

Finally there were half a dozen of them swimming in the cat's water bowl. Then they jumped out and slid around in the smeared cat food.

All the while they shouted "It wasn’t me, honest guv!"

"I can see you" I shouted.

For a second they all stopped what they were doing and looked at me. Then they carried on, but this time they shouted, "I didn't mean to do it, honest, guv!"

Then a look of absolute horror appeared on their round faces. "The monster with the vacuum!" they screamed and as quick as a breath of wind they were gone.

I turned to see she who is always right, stood in the kitchen doorway. I knew there was going to be trouble. She had her arms folded and was tapping her foot.

"What on earth?" she said.

I could think of nothing to say except, "It wasn't me honest, luv."