by Tom Fletcher
“Lucy, what’s happening?” shouted Norman, peering into the Woleb.
“I don’t know!” she called. “I think—I think maybe the Woleb is becoming unstable! I don’t know how much longer it’s going to hold!”
As she said this, a little voice in her mind added, Or what’s going to happen to it once we’ve all climbed out.
She glanced back along the winding tunnel and saw the pointy ears of the four Creakers poking out from behind lumps of melting mud and crumbling rock as they hid from the sunlight.
Lucy’s heart suddenly sank.
The Woleb is their home, she thought.
Was she really going to leave and let this place turn to dust? Could she really destroy these creatures and their entire world? Lucy didn’t want anyone to get hurt—not even the rotten Creakers.
“Lucy, you go first, darling!” Mrs. Dungston said, giving Lucy a little nudge toward the rope.
“No, Mom! YOU go first. I’m rescuing you, remem-ber!” Lucy said, and pointed at the rope.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Dungston said, and quickly began climbing into what was now an enormous hole leading to Lucy’s bedroom in Whiffington.
Lucy watched as her mom climbed out and was lifted to safety by Norman.
She had done it!
She was the last human left in the Woleb.
She reached out and grabbed hold of the knotted rope, ready to leave this place behind once and for all. But just as her fist tightened around the rope, she felt someone else’s fist tighten about her leg, and she was jerked back into the Woleb.
“AHHHHH!” Lucy screamed.
But how could a Creaker be grabbing her leg? The beams of sunlight pouring up through the holes into the Woleb would surely have turned any normal Creaker to Dozy Dust!
Lucy looked back and got her answer immediately.
This was no ordinary Creaker.
“It’s the Creaker King!” Lucy breathed.
Here we go. I told you this was going to happen. I warned you that Lucy would have to face the king. Don’t blame me. It’s not like I’m making this stuff up. If you didn’t go to the bathroom the last time I warned you, then now’s your last chance. No? You sure? Because by reading on, you agree to the terms and conditions that I, Tom Fletcher, the author of this book, am not responsible if you pee your pants with fright in the next chapter.
Lucy’s stomach twisted in horror as she saw a flash of fluorescent green. She recognized it at once. It was her dad’s jacket—and it was draped around the shoulders of the largest Creaker she’d ever seen. He was the size of Guff, Grunt, Scratch, and Sniff put together, a hideously rotten creature who kept himself hidden in the shadows of the tunnel.
With the sun in her eyes from the world above, Lucy could just make out glimpses of the king’s cracked lips, his beaky nose, and his flaky, scaly head. His battered, crablike claw was as tough as bone as it grasped Lucy’s ankle, but worst of all was his smell. It was like fish guts and vomit. It made Lucy gag.
“Say farewell to your world, kidderling,” the king snapped in an awful creaky croak that scratched Lucy’s eardrums. He pulled her from the open wormhole, out of the sunlight and back into the dark shadows of the Woleb.
“Get backs from the holes, you disgustin’ bunch of twitnits,” the king spat at his Creakers. “Or you’ll all be dusted!”
Lucy saw the upside-down world turn upside down as he picked her up by the leg with one mighty claw. She was carried, swinging dizzily from side to side, back into the cavernous opening where the entrance to Creakerland had once stood. Stay calm, Lucy! she told herself, trying desperately to ignore the leaping of her heart in her chest. Stay calm!
With a thud, Lucy was dumped in the middle of Main Street, which was thick, oozing mud now that the polished green pavement had vanished. She rubbed her sore ankle where the king’s claw had gripped her as he stood at the entrance to his grand castle of dustbins. With a wave of his powerful arms, he commanded the brightly lit tunnel that led to Whiffington to twist shut, sealing off the warm sunlight.
“Let me go home!” Lucy shouted at the king, her voice echoing around the enormous cave.
The Creaker King stood very still. Lucy saw his shoulders rise and fall as his rotten, reeking breath filled the air with stinking steam. He reminded Lucy of a fearsome dragon.
He opened his fist, revealing long, black, pointy claws.
Lucy gulped.
The king twisted them around, and a huge, greasy throne of mud began to grow out of the floor, bubbling and oozing as it formed in the deepest shadows of the Creaker Castle.
The king suddenly bent forward and creaked along on all fours, more like the Creakers Lucy was used to seeing, although his creak was more creepy, more powerful, like that of a strong silverback gorilla. He crept into the shadows and sat on his moldy throne of rot. If it weren’t for the luminous green jacket he’d stolen from Lucy, she wouldn’t have been able to see him at all.
“So, kidderling. You’ve come to destroy us?” The king’s voice cut through the darkness.
“No!” Lucy said honestly. “That’s not why I came here at all!”
The king was silent for a moment as his four loyal Creakers—Grunt, Guff, Scratch, and Sniff—crept beside his throne.
“These Creakers of mine be tellin’ me how you tricksed ’em. How you caught ’em in a sun trap. And now you brings the day down here with yous?” the king said.
“Yes, but I—”
“So, you see, it seems that you are destroyin’ us whether you wants to or not.”
Lucy’s heart sank in her chest. She’d never meant to destroy anything or hurt anyone.
“I just wanted my mom back and to rescue the other moms and dads for the other children,” she explained.
“LIES!” the king roared.
Lucy found herself trembling with fear. She wished she could run away, but something about the king made her feel frozen to the spot.
“No kidderling wants their grown-ups back. We takes ’em away—we lets the kids be free, be messy, be naughty,” the king boomed. “In return, all we wants is your rotten waste.”
“Yes, but…” Lucy gulped. “Your Rottenness, you see, it all got a bit out of hand.”
“Outs of hand?” the king asked.
“Yes! We realized that we needed the grown-ups. We missed them…”
“Missed them?”
“Yes! When they were gone, it was fun for a little while, but then we got lonely and sad. We wanted our moms and dads back.” Lucy paused for a moment. “My mom…She’s all I’ve got in the world since my dad disappeared. I had to come and save her.”
The king was silent. Lucy could only see his large pointy claws dangling over the arms of his throne like spiders sitting on their webs, waiting to attack.
Suddenly the lumpy ground of Main Street started rumbling and shaking. Lumps of decaying floor crumbled upward, floating toward the cave ceiling.
“Your Creakiness,” Grunt said in a panic, “the bright be comin’ through!”
Lucy knew that Grunt was right. The moldy ground beneath was getting warmer and warmer. As she looked down, a crack appeared by her feet.
“You’ve got to hide!” Lucy yelled at the Creakers. “Get into the shadows!”
The king stood up, spreading out the long, filthy jacket. Grunt, Guff, Scratch, and Sniff leapt behind it, taking cover in the shadow of their king.
Then the crack split open, and an enormous shard of blinding white sunlight exploded into the cave, slicing through the shadows and falling directly on the king. With a roar, he shielded his face with his arms, protecting it from the hot rays.
“No!” Lucy cried out, terrified they would all be turned to dust.
But the king stood in the pool of light and slowly lowered his arm, allowing the warmth to touch his face.
&n
bsp; For the first time Lucy saw what he looked like.
She saw his eyes, which were a twinkling blue.
His nose, which was a little bit big, just like hers.
His mouth, which looked like it might break into a smile at any moment.
A lump instantly caught in her throat, tears formed in her eyes, and her head spun with confusion.
“Dad?!” she gasped, before everything went black.
Lucy opened her eyes. Her head swam dizzily, and her stomach was filled with an awful kind of emptiness. She was staring right into a pair of curious, beady black eyes, which blinked at her and then looked up.
“The kidderling be alive, Your Rottenness!” announced Sniff.
The king! Lucy’s heart leapt as she remembered what had happened before she blacked out. She rolled slowly onto her side and sat up, wincing.
“Dad?” she called out again, her voice wobbly with worry.
The Creaker King stepped forward from his throne. Grunt, Guff, and Scratch were still hiding in the shadows behind his back, in fear of another beam of light breaking through.
“Whys you be callin’ me that, kidderling?” the king said suspiciously.
Lucy nervously took a step toward him so she could see him better. Her knees trembled.
There he was, as clear as crystal.
It was her dad all right, just…different.
Changed.
Creakified.
Lucy studied this new face of his.
His ears were long and pointy, like a goblin’s, and his skin had turned a dark, wrinkly green. His head was bald—although it had been bald before, so that wasn’t any different, but now it was covered in big lumpy moles. His nose was pointy, with twisty, wiry hairs poking out, and in his ears she could see dirty globules of brown wax, like he hadn’t washed in years.
But beneath all that, all the rottenness, Lucy knew it was her dad. His eyes still twinkled like magic, and on his left cheek there was a deep dimple, giving him away.
“Dad! What’s happened to you?” Lucy whispered in shock, and took another step toward him, reaching out with her shaking hands.
But the king backed away into the shadows. “That’s close enough! Is this another tricksy, kidderling?” he demanded fiercely.
“No! Dad, it’s me…Lucy!”
“Who?”
“Your…your daughter…Don’t you remember?” Lucy said, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks.
“Dad…you have to try to remember. You’re not a Creaker! At least, you haven’t always been one. You’re a grown-up! With a wife and a kidderling…I mean, kid…ME! Lucy. Your Lucypops…remember?”
“Lucypops?” the king repeated slowly, as though he remembered saying that word before.
“YES!” Lucy cried. “That’s what you and Mom always call me!”
She saw the Creakers shooting quick, nervous glances at each other.
“The kidderling be tricksin’ you, Your Rottenness!” Grunt hissed.
“Best not listen to the tricksy thing,” added Guff.
“It’s NOT a trick!” said Lucy. “Dad, you disappeared months ago. You just vanished. Everyone thought you’d left us, but I knew you wouldn’t do that. Now I know what really happened.”
The Creakers all started fidgeting nervously.
“You were snatched!” Lucy’s voice echoed around the cavernous room.
“Me? Snatched?” the king scoffed.
“Yes, Dad! By these four rotten things.” Lucy pointed at Grunt, Guff, Scratch, and Sniff. “They snatched you and brought you down here. Who better to be their king than you? The one man who knows garbage better than anyone!”
Lucy stared at her dad’s new Creaker face. “You’ve been here so long, Dad, that this place has changed you. Made you forget. It’s turned you all backward and different. But, Dad, I can see you’re still in there.”
Suddenly another crack burst open in the floor, and a second streak of light shot out into the cave.
“LUCY!” Norman’s voice soared up through the hole.
Lucy stared down it. She could see into her world, and Norman waiting for her at the other end.
“Dad, come back with me,” Lucy pleaded.
“No, Your Rottenness! This all be a tricks!” Grunt said from his hiding place in the king’s shadow.
“It’s not a trick, Dad!” yelled Lucy, searching her brain for a way to make her dad remember. She stared at him, standing there in his dirty green work jacket. Then she suddenly remembered…
“Dad, your coat pocket!” she exclaimed. “There’s something in there. It’s yours—remember?”
Slowly the king slid his long black Creaker claw into the coat pocket and pulled out something small, shiny, and silver.
His harmonica!
“You used to play it for me every night,” Lucy said hopefully. She gazed at the king’s face, watching for any sign that he recognized the object. He held it out in the palm of his hand, staring at it, studying it.
“Trick! Trick! Trick! Trick!” the four naughty Creakers chanted in the king’s ear as he turned the silver harmonica around and saw his wretched reflection in its shiny surface.
“What is this thing? This be too shiny and nice to be the Creaker King’s,” he snapped. “You be tricksin’ me, little kidder. I never seen this before.”
“NO!” Lucy cried out as he tossed the harmonica through the air. It landed with a splash in what was once the flowing pink milkshake river but was now a stream of moldy, bubbling sludge. Lucy ran to the edge of the stream, but it was too late. The harmonica was gone, sinking deep into the muck, along with all hope of freeing her dad from this Creaker spell.
The Woleb shook violently again, causing huge chunks of mold and festering rot to break away and crumble to dust.
“Lucy, it’s really time to get out of there!” Norman yelled through the hole from Whiffington, but Lucy didn’t budge.
“I can’t leave you behind. I won’t lose you again, Dad,” Lucy said through teary eyes. Her vision must have been blurred, because for a moment she thought she saw a little green teardrop trickle down Sniff’s cheek too.
As the Woleb collapsed around them, Grunt, Guff, Scratch, and Sniff leapt for cover, shielding themselves from the falling debris anywhere they could. Grunt and Scratch scuffled behind boulders, and a panicking Guff tried to bury himself in the mud. Sniff even dived headfirst into the moldy river.
“Look what you humans have done to our world. To our home,” the Creaker King said, looking at his glorious rotten castle, which was beginning to tumble down, one silver garbage can at a time. “We Creakers never wanted to—”
But Lucy had stopped listening. Something had caught her eye. Something impossible.
Something small, shiny, and silver.
“Dad’s harmonica!” she whispered as she watched it rise out of the flowing river as though some sort of spell was bringing it back from the dead. Then she saw three black claws clasped around it, and then a bony arm emerging from the muck. Finally Sniff’s head appeared, and the Creaker pulled himself silently out onto the bank of the river, soggy and damp and covered with slime.
“Sniff!” Lucy gasped.
The little Creaker put one claw on his cracked lips and shook his head.
Lucy glanced over to the pile of rubble and mud where Grunt, Guff, and Scratch were hiding. They were staring suspiciously at Sniff.
Scratch spotted the harmonica.
Scratch pointed it out to Guff.
Guff pointed it out to Grunt.
Grunt’s eyes narrowed in anger.
But just as he was about to alert the king, Sniff plunged his claw into the black pouch around his neck and blew a clawful of golden Dozy Dust into the air.
The sleepy cloud of dust didn’t float lazily this time. It shot like an
arrow across the Woleb toward Grunt, Guff, and Scratch.
The three Creakers fell fast asleep instantly, collapsing on the floor.
“…and that’s why humans can never be trusted!” the king continued, pacing back and forth, avoiding the cracks appearing in the ground around him.
Sniff creaked silently over to Lucy and, with a wet, trembling claw, handed her the harmonica.
“P-p-please help us,” he said, his beady black eyes suddenly large and worried, so that he looked like a sad kitten. Lucy saw something in him she’d not seen in the Creakers before. Kindness.
She took the harmonica, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and started to play.
Beautiful music suddenly filled every corner of the collapsing cave while she tried to remember “Lucy’s Lullaby”—the one her dad used to play to her every night.
The king stopped talking. He froze on the spot as though he could do nothing but listen to the music.
As the notes reached the sleeping Creakers’ pointy, cabbage-like ears, they began coming around from the Dozy Dust’s spell, shaking off the slumber much faster than humans could.
“Don’t listen, Your Rottenness!” they cried, scrunching up their faces as though the beautiful sound was hurting them, but the king couldn’t help it. He was already caught in the music’s magic.
His cracked green lip was trembling.
He was starting to remember.
“You be turned to dust if you go back,” Scratch said in a panicked voice.
“…back?” the king whispered, and Grunt shot Scratch an evil look for confirming the truth.
Huge crystal teardrops formed in the corners of the king’s eyes and began falling down his cheeks. Not tears of sadness but of happiness. Happy tears, because every note Lucy played brought his human memories back to him.
