This tale, dear Reader, starts in a little brick bungalow, brimming, for the moment, with the racous sounds of life from the Button family.

"Bill! Bill!" Brenda boomed through the backdoor. "Call the others to get ready for supper."

"Aw Mum! Why is it always me?" Bill appeared from behind the compost heap, dirt smeared across the bridge of his nose and over his blue boots.

"Cos you're the oldest that's why! And less of your babbling young man! Go on! Hop to it!"

"I wish they'd all just fork off." Bill grumbled under his breath as he headed off to round up his wayward siblings. "I wish they'd forking be forked and fork right off!" he whispered, stomping off across the field.

You must understand, dear reader, that even the quietest whisper can be heard by magic ears if the whispers sound like wishes.

Bill searched. Betsy and Burt were not in the bushes, nor in the barn, eventually Bill located his wayward siblings across the babbling brook, covered in even more mud than he was.

"You'd better clean that mud off before your Mother sees you!" Brian Button observed to his three children as they bumbled up the path bickering.

"Yes Pa." Bill, Betsy and Burt sighed in unison.

Betsy turned to her brothers, cheekily. She took two big steps forward and kicked off. "Race you!" she blurted as she streaked ahead.

"Not fair!" Burt blustered, taking off after Betsy.

Bill beamed as he broke into a sprint, beating his siblings to the outside sink.

Maybe they weren't so bad after all, Bill mused.

As Betsy, Burt and Bill set about laying the table, Brian sipped his beer and belched with a benevolent smile, watching his blossoming family.

"There's not enough forks!" Burt exclaimed. "There's only three here!"

"Of course there are, they must have just missed the washing up!" Brenda replied to her youngest. "All of you, get up and search."

First Bill looked, then Betsy, but they could not locate the missing utensils. Even Brian joined the search, but to no avail.

"Well!" Brenda exclaimed, "Bill and Betsy, you will just have to eat with spoons!"

"Aw Mum! Why me!" Bill and Betsy bemoaned in unison.

"Because you're both the oldest! Now stop your babbling. Anyway they have to turn up, they're my Great Aunt's best silver."

"You mean the Wicked Witch of the West?"

"Shhh! Hush Bill! You never know who'll hear you!"

Soon after, the Button family settled down to eat their fill of beefburgers, broccoli and beans in relative peace. The eldest siblings making do with spoons.

"Ouch! Bill!" Betsy wailed as she finished off her Banoffee pie.

"What!? I havn't done nothing!" Bill bemoaned.

"Well actually that means you did do something son!" Brian helpfully added. "You see what you said was..." Brian blathered into incoherent sounds that even I, dear reader, am too bored to write down.

"It hurts!" Betsy wailed clutching her bottom.

"Here, let me see." Brenda took pity and pulled her distraught daughter aside.
"What did you do, Bill?"

"NOTHING!!" Bill boomed slamming down his spoon.

Brenda took Betsy to the bedroom to look at Betsy's behind. On Betsy's left buttock she found a line of four small red dots.

Brenda was bewildered.

"What kind of insect could cause this bite mark?" Brenda wondered loudly.

Brian, Bill and Burt all bundled in to gawp at poor Betsy's behind, but none could identify the culprit.

That night Betsy slept badly.

By the morning Burt was also sporting the strange pattern of blistering bite marks and some strange scratches.

Bill brought up his theory that it could be a strange new beetle at the babbling brook.

Betsy and Burt we're barely able to eat two bites at breakfast. Their normally boistus behaviour, suddenly subdued.

Bill headed to the babbling brook to look for the offending beetle. 

You and I know dear reader, that no such beetle exists.

Bill came home empty handed to find a doctor on their doorstep looking pensive.

"Serious stuff young man! Do you have any of these strange bite marks like the rest of the Button's?"

"No! What do you mean, rest?"

"Ahh, all your family are covered in these strange bite marks now, and scratches, all in groups of four. Most bewildering!" The doctor explained. "I'm quarentining them. You're to stay with your Aunt Belinda."

"Not Belinda! She's so boring!" complained Bill.

"Boring is not as bad as bitten young man!" Was the doctor's stern reply.

That night Bill burrowed a baggy shirt from Boring Aunt Belinder and tried his best to sleep.

His dreams were filled with his family, all fading away as if they were being strangly drained, almost devoured.

The forks!

It all started to click.

The strange marks must be linked to the missing utensils!

The Bill remembered his whispered string of curses.

Bill banged on Boring Aunt Belinda's door.

In broken sentences, between sobs, Bill explained what he thought was wrong with his family.

At this point dear reader, Boring Aunt Belinda could have responded in many ways to her hysterical nephew. The reaction Bill did not expect, was for her to take him to look at a book.

"This book belonged to my Great Aunt." she explained, blowing off the dust.

"The Wicked Witch of the West?"

"Yes but hush child, we don't call her that! Her name is Wendy."

"Is Wendy? I thought she melted?"

"No, that was just a ruse to keep the tax man off her back. She lives in Wolverhampton now."

"A ruse?"

"Do keep up boy, there might not be much time!"

Bill started to see Belinda in a new light. The open book was glowing, highlighting her nostrils.

"Here we are, yes, enchanted forks... Here it is, the incarnation to set them on your enemies... Oh dear, do you think these are the words you might have said?"

Bill hung his head in shame, his bottom lip quivered as he nodded.

"No time to lose then! Hold your breath."

Aunt Belinda bopped Bill on the head with the tip of her finger.

The world blured. Bill stumbled and blinked.

Bill realised he was in a bus stop.

Wolverhampton, he sqinted to read.

Belinda grabbed his elbow to steady him.

"This way!" she sang out, running off with a bounce in her step.

Bill raced after his not-so-boring Aunt, down the dark and twisting paths in Wolverhampton.

Belinda was fast.

Bill lost sight of her as she rounded a corner. He was hot on her heals, but when he followed around the next corner, the street was empty.

Bill stopped, confused.

A familiar bony hand emerged from the bushes and beckoned him over.

Relieved, Bill headed over.

"We have to do this last bit the backway." Belinda explained as they pushed through the bushes into the back garden of a very black house.
"Quiet now."

They crept on.

The black door ahead of them swung open with a deep creak.

"Ah good, she's home! That make's this so much easier!" Belinda announced cheerfully.  "No need to creep anymore, the house is friendly."

"Friendly?"

"Yes, friendly, do keep up boy!"

Belinda bounded up the steps, into the blackness beyond.

Trembling, Bill trailed after.

The black door quivered menacingly as he passed.

"Hello! Wendy?"

"Belinda? Is that you?" A voice responded from the blackness "I do wish you'd call? Turning up, out of the blue like this, I haven't even got any biscuits in!" the voice continued to berated his Aunt.  "Who is this?" A very short woman emerged from the darkness, crooked finger pointing at Bill.

"This is your Great Nephew, Bill and he seems to have set your cursed forks on his family by mistake!"

"By mistake! That was extremely careless of you boy, what have you got to say for yourself?"

"B...b...bbb!" Bill stuttered.

"Alright boy, don't stress yourself." Wendy took pity on the babbling boy. "Lets see if we can fix this mess you've caused."

After some hot bovril, and a slice of bread and butter, Bill was feeling more grounded as he watched the ladies pouring over a pile of books.

"Ah haa! here it is!" Wendy exclaimed, waving her battered book triumphantly. "We need to go back to the Button's, where this all started. Come."

Wendy bopped Bill on the head, but he was more prepared this time. He blinked, they were in his back garden near the compost heap.

"Now boy, repeat after me." Wendy instructed.
"Dear forks.."

"Dear forks."

"I am a foolish boy who said some foolish things."

"I am a..."Bill repeated each word, heart sick at what he'd caused.

"I do not wish anyone to be forked at all. Please return to the draw where you belong. I promise to watch what I say in future."

As the last words left Bill's mouth, a weight lifted from his shoulders. Magic light sparkled along the drain pipes.

"Bill! Is that you?" Brenda called from the window.  "Belinda? And Wendy? You're here as well! Come in! It's amazing, we are all better! A strange light just ran over us and healed all our symptoms! Was that you? Come in, come in! You are just in time for breakfast!"

Bill joined his family for breakfast, strange scratches still covering their faces, but their energy returned.

Bill chose to eat his entire meal with a spoon.

In fact the entire Button family never did use a fork again.

The End