Oliver Fibbs and the Abominable Snow Penguin
Page 6
‘When the Spell Queen fainted, Emperor Eric became instantly un-hypnotized. He and the other penguins put Norman the Not Very Nice back in the Tomb of the Ice Lord,’ I said. ‘Captain Common Sense very sensibly chopped the Toenail of Doom into hundreds of tiny pieces. Then the ninja penguins set out on a march around Antarctica, spreading the clippings far and wide across the ice, to be buried forever beneath the snow.’
‘And once again,’ roared Uncle Sir Randolph, ‘the two D.O.P.E.S. had saved the Earth from disaster!’
‘Hurray!’ cheered Millie Dangerfield.
Bobby Bragg grumbled under his breath, ‘FIBS and lies will pop your eyes!’
Uncle Sir Randolph heard him. ‘So you think we made it up, do you?’ he asked, pulling off his shoe and sock. ‘Then take a look at this!’
The kids gasped as he held up his foot for all to see.
‘And here are the toes the ice troll sliced off!’
The hall echoed to sound of about 250 people going, ‘Eughhhhhhhh!’
Hattie Hurley was sick all over Bobby Bragg . . .
. . . then she fainted.
Miss Wilkins was a bit cross about this. She gave me and Uncle Sir Randolph a playtime detention, and made us write down the rest of our story. What actually happened was that I wrote down the story, while Miss Wilkins listened as my uncle told her about the time he crawled around the caves of Catalonia, and stumbled into the lair of a venomous Spanish squish-squash snake.
‘Was that a FIB too?’ I asked him when the playtime bell rang, and our detention was over.
‘More of an exaggeration,’ he whispered. ‘I took a nap in one of the caves, and woke up with a worm on my nose.’
My classmates came in from the playground, and Uncle Sir Randolph said his goodbyes. Then, as we waved and cheered, he stepped on to my old skateboard, and shouted, ‘Mush!’ Poochie gave a few happy barks, and they trundled off down the road.
Peaches nudged me, and whispered, ‘Do you think hell get lost on his way home?’
I took the satellite phone from Peaches’s special holster that dangled at my hip. ‘I’ve got this,’ I grinned. ‘Just in case.’
I spent the rest of the day being high-fived by just about every kid in school. There was a real buzz about the place. Only Bobby Bragg and Hattie Hurley weren’t happy. Bobby had to wear his PE kit for the rest of the day, because his ordinary clothes were covered in Hurley hurl.
It was definitely a Memorable Day!
When I got home from school, Mum, Dad and Uncle Sir Randolph were sitting in the living room looking like they’d caught a bad case of Grim and Grumpy-itis. Even Poochie was glum and silent at my uncle’s feet.
‘Sit down, Oliver,’ ordered Dad. ‘You and Sir Randolph are in Big Trouble.’
‘Why?’
‘FIBS,’ answered Mum.
‘I told your parents everything, Ollie,’ said my uncle. ‘Not just about our FIB at school, but how I’ve made up all my perilous adventures.’
Constanza, Algy and the twins gasped, obviously as shocked at this news as I had been.
‘It’s true,’ he said, nodding sadly, ‘and I’m sorry.’
‘Will the curse of Black Jack Tibbs always bring shame on us?’ said Dad.
(Black Jack was the black sheep of our family. He was a rogue and a rascal, and the first Tibbs ever to ‘Go Bad’, over 200 years ago.)
‘You are both grounded for a week,’ said Mum.
‘But, Charlotte,’ complained Uncle Sir Randolph, ‘they’re not really FIBS – they’re more like . . . stories.’
It was no use: that was my excuse, and it never worked.
Constanza tutted and wagged her finger at my uncle. ‘Cattivo!’ she said, smiling. ‘You are the naughty boy like Oliver, and naughty boys must have the ice cream, yes?’
So every evening, as my family went here, there and everywhere doing their things, Constanza, Uncle Sir Randolph and I stayed at home, sitting on the sofa, eating raspberry ripple ice cream and reading comics.
On Saturday, everyone stayed in to watch a TV programme about Dad’s new penguin house at Florida Zoo. It was amazing: an ice palace fit for an emperor penguin.
When it finished, we began to chat about the programme. Uncle Sir Randolph was just saying that yet another architecture award would be winging its way to Dad when he suddenly leaped to his foot, hopping around and crying, ‘Bunty! Bunty!’
Poochie joined him, doing little jumps and noisily.
The news had come on after Dad’s zoo programme, and luckily we hadn’t turned the TV off.
‘Breaking news,’ said the newsreader. ‘A woman has been discovered living , high in the rainforest mountains of Borneo. She was found by cameramen filming a documentary about orang-utans for the BBC.’
The famous nature presenter David Rabbitburrow came on screen. ‘The woman just wandered into our camp one morning,’ he said. ‘She seemed to be looking for someone, and the only word she would say was “Randolph”.
‘It is believed that the , as she is now called, could possibly be Bunty Templeton Tibbs, wife of the famous explorer Sir Randolph Templeton Tibbs. She was carried off many years ago by a troupe of orang-utans, and has never been seen since.’
‘That’s my Bunty!’ cried our uncle.
‘She needs a haircut,’ whispered Emma.
‘She needs a bath,’ added Gemma.
‘When you told me all your stories were FIBS, I thought that was a FIB too,’ I said to my uncle.
‘No! That one was true!’ He laughed, his grey eyes shining with 6oy. ‘And it’s going to have a happy ending!’ He hobbled towards the living-room door. ‘I’m going to amble to the airport, fly to the Far East and bring back my Bunty.’
‘Romantico!’ said Constanza.
‘But you can’t go to Borneo,’ said Algy. ‘You’re grounded.’
Mum laughed. ‘I think under the circumstances, Algy, well forgive Uncle Sir Randolph for telling FIBS, and let him fetch Aunt Bunty home.’
While my uncle packed his rucksack, my dad made a few phone calls, and in no time at all they were climbing into the car and racing away to the airport.
On Monday morning, I stood up in front of my classmates and told them the story of Uncle Sir Randolph and Bunty.
‘How incredible!’ said Miss Wilkins.
‘She was kidnapped by orangu-tans?’ sneered Bobby Bragg. ‘Tibbs, Tibbs, you’re telling more fibs!’
I couldn’t help feeling a small thrill of triumph as I pressed a key on Miss Wilkins’s computer, and an internet news report flashed up on the whiteboard screen.
Explorer finds his lost treasure!
Sir Randolph Templeton Tibbs has been reunited with the wife he thought he’d lost forever.
‘My wandering days are over,’ he said. ‘Bunty and I are going to settle down and make up for all the years we’ve been apart. The only exploring I’ll be doing from now on will be in my back garden!’
Peaches clapped her hands and cried, It’s true! It’s true!’
‘Yeah! And . . . er . . .’ I tried to think of something really rude to say, but all that came out was: ‘Bobby goes moo!’
Everyone laughed, and Bobby’s face went as red as Firefly, the flame-thrower man in Hot Dogs of Hell!
I knew what he was thinking . . .
Steve Hartley is many things: author, astronaut, spy, racing-car driver, trapeze-artist and vampire-hunter. His hobbies include puddle-diving and hamster-wrestling and he was voted ‘Coolest Dude of the Year’ for five years running by Seriously Cool magazine. Steve is 493 years old, lives in a golden palace on top of a dormant volcano in Lancashire and never, EVER, tells fibs. You can find out more about Steve on his extremely silly website: www.stevehartley.net
Books by Steve Hartley
The DANNY BAKER RECORD BREAKER series
The World’s Biggest Bogey
The World’s Awesomest Air-Barf
The World’s Loudest Armpit Fart
The World�
��s Stickiest Earwax
The World’s Itchiest Pants
The World’s Windiest Baby
The Wibbly Wobbly Jelly Belly Flop
The OLIVER FIBBS series
Oliver Fibbs: Attack of the Alien Brain
Oliver Fibbs and the Giant Boy-Munching Bugs
Oliver Fibbs and the Abominable Snow Penguin
www.stevehartley.net
First published 2014 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2014 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-2030-5
Text copyright © Steve Hartley 2014
Illustrations copyright © Bernice Lum 2014
The right of Steve Hartley and Bernice Lum to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.