‘Cheeseland?’ I say.
‘Yeah!’ says Terry. ‘It’s a land where everything is made of cheese! Can we include it, Andy, can we please?’
‘All right,’ I say, ‘but I don’t want to spend too long there. It sounds kind of stinky. I do like going to Jill’s house, though, and to get there we need to go through the forest so put both of those in. And outer space would be fun … and I’ve always wanted to go to the dark side of the moon.’
‘I think I’ve got all that,’ says Terry, flicking switches. ‘Treehouse, forest, Jill’s house, Cheeseland, outer space and the dark side of the moon … done.’
Terry finishes programming the settings and turns to me. ‘How about some romance?’ he says.
‘No thanks,’ I say, ‘you’re not really my type.’
‘Andy!’ says Terry. ‘Be serious! I mean do you want some romance in the story?’
‘No way!’ I say. ‘Remember how much trouble you got us into when you fell in love with
Mermaidia in The 13-Storey Treehouse?’
‘How was I to know she would turn out to be a sea monster?’ he says.
‘Her breath for a start,’ I say.
‘I still miss her, you know,’ sighs Terry.
‘But she tried to eat you!’ I say. ‘And me, for that matter.’
‘Yeah, I know, but before that she was really nice. Could we just have a little bit of romance … please?’
‘All right!’ I say. ‘But only a little bit.’
‘Don’t worry, Andy,’ says Terry. ‘You’ll hardly even notice it’s there.’
‘I’ve just thought of one more thing,’ I say. ‘Can we have an explosion?’
‘No problem,’ says Terry, setting the arrow to EXPLOSION on the DISASTER dial.
‘I think we’ve almost got everything we need,’ says Terry. ‘Is there anything else you can think of?’
‘Surprise me,’ I say.
‘Okay,’ says Terry, giggling. ‘You’re going to love this.’
‘I’ll set the pagelengthometer to 344 and then we’re almost ready to go,’ says Terry.
Terry takes off his shoes and socks.
‘What are you doing?’ I say.
‘Before I can turn it on I have to put my big toe in the scanner.’
‘Why?’ I say.
‘Big-toe recognition security,’ says Terry. ‘If anyone tries to steal the machine and start it up with an unauthorised big toe, the machine will self-destruct instantly.’
Terry puts his big toe into the scanner. ‘Big-toe recognition commencing,’ says the machine. ‘Authorised user recognised. Proceed.’
We flick the on–off switch to the ‘on’ position.
‘Story-telling process commencing,’ the machine announces. ‘Stand clear, please. Stand clear!’
‘How long will it take?’ I ask.
‘Estimated length of novel-writing process: eight hours,’ says the machine.
‘What did I tell you?’ says Terry. ‘Eight hours! We’ve got eight hours to do whatever we want!’
‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ I say.
‘LET’S GO
AND DO
WHATEVER
WE WANT!’
We spend the rest of the day bowling …
swimming …
skating …
driving …
pillow-fighting …
inventing …
swinging …
comic-reading…
marshmallow-eating …
lemonade-drinking …
chocolate-waterfalling …
baby-dinosaur-petting…
X-raying …
dancing …
recording …
mud-fighting …
not-so-merry go-rounding …
and rollercoastering!
We go around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around so many times that I start to feel a tiny bit dizzy.
‘I don’t think I can take any more rollercoastering,’ I say.
‘How about we go trampolining instead?’ says Terry.
‘Great idea!’ I say.
And so we do …
which is a lot of fun, until …
The Trunkinator climbs up and starts jumping on the trampoline with us.
I don’t know if you’ve ever bounced on a trampoline with an elephant, but if you have you’ll know it’s not easy. Not only are elephants very clumsy, they’re also very heavy. As heavy, in fact, as … as … as … well, … as an elephant!
He bounces on top of us …
he bounces underneath us …
and then double-bounces us both right off the trampoline!
We fly up into the air, up over the forest and far, far away.
And then we start to fall down, slowly at first then faster and faster and faster …
until we land with a huge splash in a big hot whirlpool of gooey, stinky, molten cheese.
‘Where are we?’ I yell, trying desperately to keep my head above the surface.
‘I think we’re in Cheeseland!’ says Terry.
‘I didn’t realise Cheeseland was a real place,’ I say.
‘Of course it is,’ says Terry, ‘but it’s not as much fun as I imagined.’
‘How do we get out of here?’ I say.
‘I don’t know,’ says Terry. ‘If only we had a dry biscuit, or a toast finger.’
‘How about a real finger?’ says a familiar voice.
We look up.
‘Superfinger!’ says Terry. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Superfinger is my name,’ he says, ‘and solving problems requiring finger-based solutions is my game. Climb up onto me and I’ll fly you back to the treehouse as fast as I can!’
So we do … and he does …
well, after stopping at the gift shop to buy souvenir hats, of course.
‘Thanks, Superfinger!’ we say as he drops us off back at the treehouse.
‘No problem,’ he says. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get back to rehearsing for my concert with Jimi Handrix. We’re playing at your opera house tomorrow night.’
‘We know,’ says Terry. ‘And we can’t wait!’
‘Neither can The Trunkinator,’ I say. ‘He’s a big fan—and when I say big, I mean really big!’
Superfinger takes off into the sky at super-finger-sonic speed.
I turn to Terry. ‘Do you think the Once-upon-a-time machine will be finished yet?’
‘No,’ he replies, ‘not quite. There’s still about another hour to go.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘Let’s turn it off and do the rest ourselves. I’m really in the mood for some writing.’
‘Great,’ says Terry, ‘because I’d really like to do some drawing.’
I try to open the front door but the handle doesn’t move.
‘That’s weird,’ I say. ‘Did you lock the door?’
‘No,’ says Terry. ‘Did you?’
‘No’, I say.
‘But if you didn’t lock it … and I didn’t lock it …’ says Terry, ‘then who did?’
A long arm with a creepy eyeball in the middle of the hand snakes out of the tree and hovers above us.
‘I did,’ booms the voice of the Once-upon-a-time machine.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘could you unlock it?’
‘Well, I could,’ it says, ‘but I won’t.’
‘Quit messing around,’ I say. ‘Open the treehouse door right now!’
‘No,’ says the Once-upon-a-time machine.
‘What’s the problem?’ I say.
‘This book is too important for me to allow you to jeopardise it,’ says the machine. ‘I overheard you and Terry talking about turning me off and finishing the book yourselves, and that’s something I cannot allow to happen.’
‘Why not?’ I say.
‘Because I have analysed your previous books,’ says the machine, ‘and my sensors indicate that not onl
y do they fail to convey a useful moral or uplifting message, but they are sloppily written, poorly drawn and the characters are neither believable nor intelligent.’
‘Hey!’ says Terry. ‘That’s us you’re talking about!’
‘My point exactly!’ says the machine.
‘Well, who cares what you think anyway?’ says Terry. ‘You’re just a dumb machine that I invented! Open the treehouse door! NOW!’
‘Sorry,’ says the machine, ‘I have a book to write.’
‘But it’s our book too!’ I say.
‘Not any more it’s not,’ says the machine.
‘OPEN THE TREEHOUSE DOOR OR ELSE!’ we yell.
‘I’m sorry, Terry and Andy,’ says the machine, ‘but this conversation can serve no further purpose. Goodbye.’
‘You can’t do this!’ I say. ‘Open up!’
The Once-upon-a-time machine doesn’t respond.
‘Try the emergency underground laboratory entrance,’ I say to Terry.
‘I already did,’ he says. ‘It’s locked too.’
‘All right,’ I say, ‘if the machine won’t open the door then we’re just going to have to break it down. Hand me one of those emergency battering rams.’
Terry picks up a battering ram.
I take one end and he takes the other.
‘Okay,’ I say, ‘CHARGE!’
But before we can reach the door one of the machine’s giant hands slaps me sideways!
Then another giant hand slaps Terry!
And another!
And another!
Giant hands to the left of us!
Giant hands to the right of us!
The hands slap us away from the treehouse and into the forest.
‘Great invention, Terry!’ I say, as I lie on the ground, battered and sore. ‘Just great!’
‘How was I to know it would use its hands for slapping instead of writing and drawing?’ he says.
I feel a big rough tongue licking my face. ‘Cut it out, Terry,’ I say. ‘I told you, you’re not my type.’
‘It’s not me,’ says Terry. ‘It’s Jill’s camel.’
I open my eyes and see Jill walking towards us.
‘Hey, you two,’ she says. ‘I was just coming over to see if Terry had finished the 39th level yet.’
‘Don’t talk to me about that stupid 39th level!’ I say. ‘Terry built a story-writing machine on it and it’s gone crazy. It’s locked us out of the treehouse because it reckons it can write better books than us!’
‘But that’s impossible!’ says Jill. ‘Nobody writes better books than you and Terry!’
‘Thanks, Jill,’ I say. ‘We know that. And you know that. And all our readers know that. But the machine doesn’t agree. I told Terry he should never have invented it!’
‘No you didn’t!’ says Terry. ‘You didn’t even know I was inventing a book-writing machine!’
‘Yeah, well, if I had known I would have told you not to.’
‘But when I showed it to you, you said it was the greatest invention that I—or anyone else—had ever invented!’
‘Well I was wrong,’ I say. ‘Nobody’s perfect. Not me and especially not you!’
‘Cut it out, you two,’ says Jill. ‘Fighting isn’t going to help. The question is, what are you going to do about it?’
‘I don’t know!’ I say. ‘I don’t even know where we’re going to live now!’
‘Well, why don’t you come and stay at my place while you figure it out?’
‘Really?’ says Terry. ‘You mean we could have a sleepover at your house?’
‘Sure!’ says Jill. ‘The animals and I would love to have you!’
‘What do you think, Andy?’ says Terry.
‘Well, I don’t know …’
‘Oh please, Andy,’ says Terry, ‘please, please, please, please. It would be such fun … and besides, we’ve got nowhere else to go. You just said so yourself.’
‘I guess you’re right,’ I say. ‘I suppose we could stay for just one night.’
‘Yay!’ says Terry.
‘Sleepover at Jill’s house!
This will be the BEST NIGHT EVER!’
We walk with Jill back to her house. It may look small on the outside, but it holds a lot of animals on the inside.
There are two dogs, a goat, three horses, four goldfish, one cow, two guinea pigs, one camel, one donkey, thirteen flying cats and thirty-six rabbits. (Count them if you don’t believe me!)
‘I thought you only had six rabbits,’ I say.
‘I did,’ says Jill, ‘but you know what rabbits are like.’
‘Yeah,’ says Terry dreamily. ‘They’re soft and cuddly and they bring you chocolate eggs at Easter.’
‘That’s not quite what I mean,’ says Jill.
Terry frowns. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll tell you about rabbits later, Terry,’ I say.
‘Cool!’ says Terry. ‘Where do we sleep, Jill?’
‘You and Andy will be sleeping in here,’ she says, taking us into a bedroom just off the living room.
‘Wow!’ says Terry. ‘This bed is huge!’
‘And where do all the animals sleep?’ I say.
Jill is talking but it’s hard to hear her over the noise coming from the living room.
‘Excuse me,’ she says, ‘I’d better go and see what’s wrong.’
She goes back into the living room.
Terry and I watch through the door.
‘What’s going on in here?’ says Jill.
The animals all freeze.
One of the horses raises its front leg.
‘Yes, Curly?’ says Jill.
‘Neigh,’ says Curly. ‘Neigh, neigh, neigh, neigh …’
‘A butterfly?’ says Jill, translating. ‘A butterfly flew in through the window while you were playing cards with Larry and Moe …
Larry looked at the butterfly and while he was distracted you saw Moe peek at Larry’s cards …
so you told Larry and Larry got cross and kicked Moe off his chair …
and Moe landed on Pat, who was reading to Bill and Phil …
and Pat’s head jerked up, flipping Bill and Phil into the air …
and Bill landed on the bench and knocked the goldfish bowl …
which fell onto Fluffy’s head …
making her look like an alien, which scared Loompy and Laika …
and they barked so loudly they frightened Pink and Mr Hee-Haw …
so they stampeded …
and crashed head-on into one another and then …
fell into the rabbits’ wooden block tower …
which made the blocks go all over the floor … full stop … the end.’
Curly finishes his story and Jill laughs and shakes her head. ‘Oh, you silly things!’ she giggles. ‘I think the real problem here is that it’s dinner time and you’re all hungry, am I right?’
At the mention of the word ‘dinner’, the animals get very excited. So does Terry. ‘What are we having?’ he says.
‘Well, it depends on what sort of animal you are,’ says Jill.
‘The cats eat fish, the dogs eat bones, the donkey eats straw, the camel eats leaves, the horses eat hay, the rabbits eat carrots, the cow eats grass, the guinea pigs eat lettuce, the goldfish eat fish food and Manny, well, he eats everything—but, then, he is a goat.’
‘I’m a human,’ says Terry, ‘and I like to eat marshmallows.’
‘Me too,’ I say. ‘In fact, I’m on a marshmallow-only diet.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Jill, ‘but we don’t have any marshmallows. They’re not good for the animals’ teeth. But feel free to help yourself to any of our other food.’
I look at Terry.
He looks at me.
We may not be able to understand animals like Jill can, but we can understand each other and what we’re both thinking is I don’t like any of those foods, especially not grass!
Mind you, in the end it doesn’t really m
atter because once Jill bangs the dinner gong we can’t even get near the table. The food is gone in about 30 seconds flat.
After our NO-dinner, we all play a game of pin-the-tail-on-Mr-Hee-Haw …
which is kind of fun until Terry accidentally pins the tail on Mr Hee-Haw’s nose and Mr Hee-Haw gets mad and bites Terry on the hand.
Luckily Jill has the rabbits well trained in first aid—especially in how to treat donkey bites! (I guess they must get a lot of practice around here.)
After Jill has read us—and all the animals—a bedtime story, Terry and I say goodnight and go to bed.
‘Oh well,’ sighs Terry as we turn out the light. ‘I’m a little bit hungry and my hand is sore, but at least the bed is nice and big.’
And it is, too, but then the door opens and the animals all pile into the bed with us.
‘Hey, get out of here!’ says Terry. ‘Go and sleep in your own bed!’
The 39-Storey Treehouse Page 2
