Jason Hazeley - The Ladybird Book of the People Next Door

Publishers: Ladybird Books Ltd., Loughborough
Printed in England. If wet, Italy.

Our planet is small and we must learn to share with each other.

Every Sunday, at dawn, Neil sits outside his house, sharing the deafening engine noise of his unmuffled vintage M.G. roadster with the rest of the street who are having a liein.

Not everything needs sharing.

The houses on this new estate may all look the same, but the people who are moving in have big ideas.

Tom and Susy are planning to fill their garden with purple and white flowers.

Mickey and Sylvia have their hearts set on a selection of mattresses and motorcycle parts.

Every dream home is different.

Logan is reporting his nextdoor neighbour to the police again.

This time, its for using a hairdryer before 8am. Last time, it was for trespass by blossom.

You again, says the duty sergeant, and gets the forms.

Nobody on Twebbin Way knows anything about the Routledges.

The people opposite once saw Mr Routledge receive a delivery of hovercraft parts, and there are rumours that the children, who are homeschooled, only eat mushrooms.

There may also be more than one Mrs Routledge.

Mina planted some genetically modified asparagus seeds in her vegetable patch before she went on a twoweek holiday.

When she comes home, she finds a note from the couple next door saying they would like a word.

Chloe and Harry are convinced that Mr Benbecula is up to something.

After six months, Nat stopped believing the constant drilling from next door could be shelves.

He now thinks it is either a transatlantic tunnel, fracking, or an attempt to find a lost dinosaur kingdom at the earths core.

He would pop round and ask them, but next door cannot hear their doorbell over the drill.

These handsome flats were built as social housing for ordinary working people, it says in the expensive architecture books on the coffee tables of the doctors, creatives and architects who live in them now.

The people who live below Lisa and Marc are environmentalists.

Because they always leave their windows open, the environment constantly benefits from their aggressive chillout music and the smell of their unusual cigarettes.

Petuwaq and Aqpalibaaqtuq are building a new igloo.

The people next door are not pleased.

Look at that monstrosity, they say. Ah, well. There goes the neighbourhood.

Vickys upstairs neighbour is always crying. He plays the song Rise by Gabrielle five or six times an hour.

Vicky thinks he either misses his wife or his job in local radio in the early 2000s.

Ever since the ESA capsule docked, Bruno has been sharing the International Space Station with an astronaut who insists on being called The Jonester.

The Jonester has made the joke Need some space, man? every two minutes since arriving.

Bruno wishes the International Space Station had a predatory alien on board that picked the astronauts off one by one. He wouldnt mind in which order.

Before the financial crash, Troy lived in the apartment next door to David Letterman.

Now he lives in the shack next door to OneEyed Pete and his silent son.

Troy never talks about his old job to Pete, because it was his bank who repossessed Petes old flat and made him sell the eye.

Craig thought his neon Father Christmas and singing snowman were going to be the talk of The Close but he has to admit the Khaings at number 15 have pulled out all the stops this year.

Stephen and Jon have lived in their flat for ten years.