Singin' in the Drain

by Steven Butler

  And so it went on.

  Eventually, it was Rubella’s turn.

  ‘Rubella,’ Neville whispered. ‘It’s time.’

  Rubella waddled miserably into place behind the kitchen scenery cloth and did her best turnip pose.

  ‘Stand by,’ Dunk whispered from the other side of the stage.

  Neville looked at his troll-sister in her turnip costume and suddenly felt very sorry for her.

  ‘Rubella,’ Neville said quietly.

  Rubella turned her head and looked at him.

  ‘I’m proud of you.’

  ‘Nev,’ Rubella said back. She smiled the sweetest smile Neville had ever seen his sister manage. ‘I hate you.’

  ‘Now!’ Dunk shouted.

  Neville pulled on a rope and the kitchen scenery cloth flew out, revealing a junk-filled garden complete with a very oversized turnip.

  ‘THERE SHE IS!’ Clod shouted, rocking back and forth in his seat. ‘MY BELLY, ALL BIG AND JUBBLY AND TURNIPY.’

  ‘I’m proud plonkless,’ Malaria said, wiping a tear away.

  Backstage, Neville and Halitosis were getting the hinkapoots ready for their first entrance. He watched as Halitosis opened the basket lid and did one of her funny hand gestures, making all the hinkapoots stand very still.

  ‘All righty,’ she said to the little green creatures. ‘To the coach.’

  The hinkapoots quickly clambered out of the basket and ran to the front of the clock-coach that stood a little way away in the dark. They grabbed hold of the ropes that dangled from the front of it and waited silently for Halitosis’s command.

  Onstage, Gristle Pilchard was finally out of the curtain and flapping gracefully above Gruntilda.

  ‘BRING ME A TURNIP,’ Gristle cried, ‘AND EVERY COCK-A-ROACH.’

  Rubella waddled over to the centre of the stage and did a little twirl.

  ‘TURNIP!’ she shouted.

  ‘AND WITH MY MAGIC SPELLS,’ yelled Gristle, ‘YOU’LL HAVE A HINKAPOOT-DRAWN COACH!’

  Bowel pointed to the back of the theatre and bellowed, ‘GOOD GRACICLES! … LOOK OVER THERE!’

  The audience turned round and looked in the direction of Bowel’s stumpy finger as Rubella darted offstage as fast as her turnip feet could carry her, and the hinkapoots quickly pulled on the coach made from bits of clock.

  The audience turned back round and gasped.

  ‘IT’S MAGIC,’ cried Clod. ‘ABSOLUNKLY MAGICOUS!’

  The Hinka-Hamper

  After pulling Gruntilda round in the coach and waiting for the troll-ball scenery cloth to lower in front of them, the hinkapoots all skittered back to the side of the stage and gathered round Halitosis’s feet.

  ‘Congruntulations,’ she whispered to them. ‘You were marvellish.’

  ‘That was great,’ Neville said to Halitosis.

  ‘Thanks!’ The troll-girl beamed. ‘Listen, Nev, I have to glump back to the dressin’ room and get some things readsy for the Tremundous Hinka-hurl. Can you get them back in the basket and lock the lid for me?’

  ‘No problem,’ said Neville.

  ‘Squibbly!’

  Halitosis walked away, leaving Neville with the little crowd of hinkapoots. He carefully lifted the lid of the hamper and pointed inside.

  ‘IN!’ he said, trying to sound as commanding as possible.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘IN!’ Neville said again.

  The hinkapoots stared at him with their tiny jet-black eyes and … and … OH NO!

  The hinkapoots scattered in all directions. ‘COME BACK!’ Neville howled as they shimmied up the curtains and spun around the floor. He tried to grab them as fast as he could and fling them into the basket. ‘Please don’t go on the stage … PLEASE DON’T GO ON THE STAGE!’

  ‘CHIK-CHI-BRUK-BRUH-CHIK!’

  ‘Ouch!’ Neville pulled one off his leg as it bit his knee, and grabbed another three that were swinging on the scenery ropes. He had to jump to catch one that was scampering up the hallway doorframe, and then tug at another that was chewing the spokes on the back wheels of the coach. This was terrible!

  Huffing and puffing, Neville dropped the little beasts into the basket and counted them.

  ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine …’ Neville was sure there had been ten hinkapoots before. He started looking frantically about. Halitosis would be so upset if one of her hinkapoots was missing and they weren’t able to perform the Tremundous Hinka-hurl.

  ‘Hello,’ he whispered. ‘Little hinka–’

  Neville froze. There in the doorway that led to the dressing rooms stood the tenth and final hinkapoot. It waggled its ears and chirped happily. Neville noticed the little tag dangling round the creature’s neck and his heart started racing even faster. It was Grimble, Halitosis’s prize hinkapoot.

  ‘CLICK-CHIK-CHRUP-CHIK-CHIK!’

  Grimble stuck its little green tongue out at Neville, then turned and bounded down the hallway.

  Meanwhile

  Abominatia sat brooding in her own private director’s dressing room, drumming her fingers on the table.

  ‘Guh!’ she huffed. Had she definitely made sure that no one knew the truth about Gruntilda? All of a sudden, Abominatia couldn’t remember what she’d done with the torn-up scorecard and it worried her in the pit of her stomach. What if … ?

  Just then she heard a rustling coming from the storeroom next door – and suddenly remembered where she’d stuffed the card.

  Abominatia rose slowly from her seat and sniffed the air.

  ‘Overling,’ she grunted.

  Something wasn’t right …

  Discovered

  ‘Grimble?’ Neville said, quietly tiptoeing into the storeroom. ‘Come out now.’

  Neville felt helpless. He looked around at the shadowy piles of junk and boxes of costumes and felt his heart sink. What was he going to do? He felt sure he’d seen the little green thing scamper in here, but it could be hiding under anything by now. It would take hours to dig the pesky hinkapoot out.

  ‘Grimble, it’s me … Come out now,’ Neville whispered.

  He was just walking round a stack of old troll-sized top hats that went all the way up to the ceiling, when a flash of green shot out from under a chair and darted up the wall. It stopped in the top corner and turned to look at Neville, waggling its rabbit-like ears.

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ Neville said, smiling and trying to look as inviting as possible. ‘Erm … we can play games if you come down.’

  ‘CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI-CHIK!’ Grimble gnashed his little teeth and scowled.

  ‘OK.’ Neville edged a little closer. ‘Maybe I can find you … um … a snack?’

  ‘GRUH-GU-GAH!’ Grimble squeaked and scrambled towards him.

  ‘Oh … ha! OK, you’re hungry … um …’ Neville looked about for something to feed to the hinkapoot. Halitosis had said they ate almost anything, so it couldn’t be too hard to find something to tempt the little creature.

  ‘Aha!’ Neville noticed two pieces of card sticking out of an old box of costumes. Maybe that would be enough. ‘It’s tasty,’ Neville said, grabbing the pieces and waving them at arm’s length. ‘It’s very, very –’

  Neville stopped. He noticed the words RUBELLA BULCH were scrawled across the top of one of them.

  Forgetting about Grimble for a moment, Neville moved closer to the light pouring in from the hallway. He put the two ripped edges together and read what was on them.

  Neville’s jaw dropped open. It was the scorecard from the pan-troll-mime auditions! Rubella had won the part of the grumptious stepsister fair and square and someone had lied about it.

  ‘I HAVE TO TELL RUBELLA!’ Neville said to himself. He stuffed the pieces of card into his pocket, spun on his heel and cried out loud in shock. The doorway was filled with a very tall, very angry troll-woman with twitching, flytrap hair.

  Abominatia’s Secret

  ‘Just where do you think you’re wifflin’ off to, you … you skunku
s little lump of foozle fodder?’ Abominatia hissed, edging menacingly into the storeroom.

  ‘Erm … I-I was just looking for a missing h-hinkapoot,’ Neville stammered. ‘That’s all … I should be getting back to the stage … Dunk will be needing me.’ He tried to walk round Abominatia, but she seized him by the scruff of his collar and bowled him back into the room. Neville stumbled against the high tower of hats, nearly knocking it over.

  ‘I DON’T THINK SO!’ she screamed. ‘I KNOW YOU SAW THE SCORECARD!’

  ‘Scorecard?’ Neville laughed uneasily. ‘What scorecard?’

  ‘SHUT UP, YOU GRUBLING!’ Abominatia’s flytrap hair started to writhe and gnash. ‘SO WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO, NEV?’

  ‘Well …’ Neville decided not to be scared. He planted his feet wide, gritted his teeth and thought of Captain Brilliant. ‘I’M GOING TO TELL RUBELLA.’

  ‘Ha!’ Abominatia cackled. ‘You actually think I’ll let you leave this room alive and ruin generations of showbizzly talentin’? My daughter is amazely!’

  ‘But you cheated.’

  ‘So what? I had to … my daughter … is … she … is …’

  ‘Terrible,’ said Neville.

  ‘She’s worse than terrible, you skrunt. She’s ROTTISH! But I won’t let anyone beat the Bunts!’

  Neville couldn’t believe his ears. Abominatia was insane.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Neville said.

  Abominatia stopped yelling and stared at him.

  ‘I’ll make you a deal. If you let me go, I’ll forget about the cards and leave them just … HERE!’

  Neville punched the tower of hats, sending them raining down on Abominatia. A particularly big hat fell and wedged itself over the mad troll-woman’s face. She clutched at it and scrabbled this way and that like a headless chicken, as Neville scooted round her and darted back up the corridor towards the stage. He’d worry about finding Grimble later.

  ‘COME HERE, YOU DISGUSTEROUS LITTLE WHELP!’ Abominatia screamed, tripping over a box of shoes and tumbling to the floor. The hat came off her head with a loud THWUK.

  ‘I’LL GET YOU!’

  The Secret’s Out

  Neville sprinted to the stage area and along behind the painted backcloth. He could hear from the band’s playing and Gruntilda’s awful singing that they were near the end of the show.

  He had to find Rubella.

  Dashing round a group of troll-ballerinas, Neville found Dunk on the other side of the stage, getting ready to push on a big piece of scenery. He looked up at Neville and shook his head.

  ‘Where you been, Nev?’ Dunk asked, looking disappointed. ‘I’ve been lookin’ for you.’

  ‘There’s no time to explain, Dunk,’ Neville wheezed. ‘Abominatia’s gone mad, she’s going to kill me … I have to find Rubella.’

  ‘Rubella?’ Dunk puzzled, scratching his head as if nothing Neville had just said was shocking. ‘Is she the parsnip?’

  ‘The turnip, yes. Where is she?’

  Dunk pointed upwards, winked at Neville and then lumbered off with the scenery in tow.

  Neville looked up and saw a large pair of grey-green feet dangling over the edge of one of the walkways that arched high above the stage.

  ‘Oh, what next?’ Neville mumbled to himself and followed the walkway with his eyes until he spotted a ladder at the far end. He ran over to it and started climbing, rung by rung, ignoring his terrible fear of heights. This was turning out to be the strangest day of his life.

  Neville climbed higher and higher, but his hands were sweaty and his legs felt wobbly. He hated heights so much.

  ‘Rubella!’ Neville shouted up to his troll-sister, but she couldn’t hear him. If he wanted to tell her about Abominatia’s secret, he’d have to climb all the way up. ‘Come on, Neville, you can do this … Come on,’ he muttered to himself.

  Keeping his eyes on the top of the ladder, Neville climbed the last few rungs and clambered on to the wooden walkway.

  ‘RUBELLA!’ Neville shouted again.

  Rubella looked glumly at him, then looked back at the scene below. ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘You have to see something,’ urged Neville.

  ‘Go away, Nev, I’m not in the moodsie.’

  ‘No, really,’ Neville pleaded. He made himself cross the narrow bridge and grabbed Rubella’s arm. ‘You’re the grumptious stepsister.’

  ‘Stop makin’ fun of me, snot,’ Rubella growled at him. ‘You know I’m not.’

  ‘No … no … you don’t understand,’ Neville said, pulling the pieces of scorecard out of his back pocket. ‘Look!’

  Rubella snatched the pieces and stared at them.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look what’s written on them,’ Neville said.

  Rubella held the bits of card together in the light from the scrawnet jars and read the scribbled writing.

  ‘“Rubella Bulch – fifty-three points …” RUBELLA BULCH – FIFTY-THREE POINTS?’ Rubella almost flopped head first off the wooden walkway with surprise. ‘WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS?’

  ‘In the old storeroom,’ Neville whispered. ‘Abominatia knows I’ve seen it … and she’s after me.’

  ‘THAT HUMPER!’ Rubella barked, puffing out her cheeks. She stood up, slipped off her turnip costume and rolled up the sleeves of her dress beneath it. ‘THAT POODLY, PLOPPISH OLD POOK … WE’LL SHOW HER NOT TO MESS WITH THE BULCHES … AND HER TWIGLING OF A DAUGHTER.’

  A smile crept into the corner of Neville’s mouth. He looked at Rubella, who winked, picked up a disused sandbag and hurled it down at the stage below.

  Meanwhile

  Abominatia stalked to the stage area, sniffing the air for the scent of young overling. When she found him, she’d pull him into little pieces and feed him to her flytraps.

  ‘You filthy little worm,’ she hissed as she stood there, silently searching the darkness with her copper eyes.

  Abominatia was just about to head back and look in the dressing rooms, when a sandbag hurtled down and exploded in a cloud of reddish dust. She looked up and saw two pairs of feet shuffling about through the slats of the walkway above.

  ‘Think you can ruin my pan-troll-mime, Neville?’ she whispered, slinking towards the ladder. ‘Think again …’

  Sabotage

  ‘THE PRINCE RODE ALL AROUND THE TOWN,

  LEFT AND UP AND RIGHT AND DOWN,

  AND WOULD NOT LET A GIRLY PASS

  UNTIL SHE TRIED THE SHOE OF GRASS.’

  Bowel sang at the top of his voice as Thicket galloped round the stage on a pretend dungle, stopping at various troll-ballerinas and kneeling in front of them with the grumptious stepsister’s grass shoe.

  ‘Where can that grumptious honker be?’ Thicket exclaimed to the audience. ‘I wish she’d come and marry me.’

  All of a sudden, Gruntilda appeared through a door in the scenery and ran towards the prince, fluttering her arms.

  ‘Princey-poo, my dunklin’ dear,’ she shouted in her scratchy voice. ‘’Tis I, my honk, ’tis I, I’m here!’

  ‘Grumptious!’ Thicket cheered. ‘Marry me?’

  Gruntilda started flapping towards her honksome prince, when a sandbag suddenly plunged down from above and smashed straight through the stage between them.

  CRRAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!

  ‘ARGH!’ screeched Gruntilda. She looked at Bowel, who shrugged, and then at Thicket. ‘What’s goin’ on?’

  The audience started to laugh.

  ‘Shut up, Gruntilda,’ Thicket whispered, turning away from the cheering crowd. ‘Just say your lines.’

  ‘OH, MY PRINCE,’ Gruntilda swooned, giving Thicket a poke in the ribs. ‘I’M SO CHUFFLY!’

  CRRAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!

  Another sandbag came soaring down from the rafters.

  ‘I say …’ Gruntilda chuckled nervously. ‘Funny weather, Princey.’

  ‘What are you doin’?’ Thicket murmured through gritted teeth. ‘Stop makin’ up lines.’

  Gru
ntilda pulled a face at Thicket and turned to the audience. ‘What a squibbly day,’ she said and pouted.

  Bowel walked to the centre of the stage and spread his arms wide.

  ‘THE PRINCE AND HIS GRUMPTIOUS

  WERE MARRIED THAT DAY;

  THEY JUMPED ON HIS DUNGLE

  AND RODE FAR AWAY.’

  The mop-Whingerella rose back through the trapdoor and wobbled there next to Bowel.

  ‘BUT DON’T FORGET WHINGEY,

  THAT ROTTISH OLD LIZARD.

  THE PRINCE KILLED HER DEAD

  WITH A JAB TO THE GIZZARD.’

  Thicket and Gruntilda galloped past on their pretend dungle and kicked the mop over as they went. The audience cheered and clapped and stamped their feet.

  Gruntilda walked to the front to take a bow when –

  CRRAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!

  CRRAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!

  CRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSHHHHHH!!!

  Up above, Rubella was crying with laughter as she lobbed more and more sandbags over the edge of the walkway.

  ‘Did you see that?’ she shouted to Neville. ‘HA!’

  Neville suddenly felt incredibly naughty – and liked the feeling a lot.

  ‘Watch this,’ he said, and pulled on a rope near the wall. All at once, the cloth painted like Whingerella’s kitchen was released and came tumbling down on Gruntilda’s head, covering her completely.

  ‘Grotsome, Nev!’ Rubella laughed.

  Neville beamed to himself. No one had ever called him ‘grotsome’ before.

  ‘WHAT THE …?’ Gruntilda screamed from under the scenery cloth. She started running about the stage like an oversized, saggy ghost. ‘GET ME OUT!’

  ‘What d’ya think, Nev?’ Rubella smirked. ‘Shall we let her out?’ She pulled on a heavy chain – and another trapdoor opened in the floor. Gruntilda and the scenery cloth flopped into it like laundry down a chute.