Ever since Ned and Jess's parents split, they've had to put up with lodgers in the house, and they've all been disasters. So they aren't exactly thrilled when Mum announces the arrival of Kid Kibble - especially when they learn that he is a teacher at their school. Jess takes against him at once, sure that he'll be good and clean and boring. But boring is one thing that Kid Kibble is certainly not. He arrives with a skeleton over his shoulder, a variety of animals and a trombone. Biologist, musician and eccentric, Kid Kibble turns the house into one huge laboratory, culminating in an episode when a plague of locusts and a host of bats take up lodgings in the kitchen. In the end even Jess is won over. Diana Hendry won the 1991 Whitbread Children's Novel Award for "Harvey Angell" and was shortlisted for the Smarties Prize for "Fiona Finds her Tongue". Her other books include "Midnight Pirate", "Hetty's First Fling", "Wonderful Robert and Sweetie-Pie Nell", "Hannah and Darjeeling", "The Dream Camel and the Dazzling Cat" and the novel "Double Vision".