‘WAAAA . . .’ The trapdoor slammed back into place.
There were cries of, ‘Oof!’ ‘Ouch!’ and ‘Get your elbow out of my ear!’ as, first Norbert, then Randalf, then Joe, then Henry landed one on top of the other on the stone floor of a damp, smelly, pitch-black room beneath the house.
Joe extricated himself from the tangle of limbs and stood up. He peered round. This time, however, his eyes did not grow accustomed to the light – because there wasn’t any. Not a glimmer. Not a spark.
‘Now what?’ Joe murmured.
All at once, there was a click and a light came on. Then came the sound of rusty bolts being drawn back and the creak of a heavy door slowly opening.
Blinking in the brightness, Joe looked round. They were in a small, windowless cellar with water on the floor and green mould on the walls. In one corner was a pile of chains attached to large iron balls. In another was a staircase. The sound of heavy footsteps striding down a corridor echoed round the cellar.
‘Buffaloes’ bottoms . . .’ Norbert hiccuped nervously. ‘Someone’s coming!’
Randalf hid behind Norbert. The footsteps got louder – followed by a voice.
‘Honestly, Colin,’ it lisped, ‘how many times must I tell you not to tamper with the spell book?’
A pair of pointy shoes and glittery tights appeared at the top of the stairs, followed by a sparkly red jacket, a pale face, a floppy quiff . . . The figure froze and let out a little squeak. ‘You’re not Colin the Nondescript!’ he said.
‘Quentin!’ Norbert cried.
The thin, foppish figure gasped. ‘Norbert?’ he said. Randalf stepped out from behind the ogre. ‘Quentin!’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’
Quentin fingered his quiff. ‘I work for Dr Cuddles now,’ he said.
‘For Dr Cuddles?’ Randalf said, his mouth falling open in astonishment.
‘And it’s all your fault, Randalf,’ said Quentin. ‘You dragged me here to Muddle Earth without so much as a by-your-leave. One minute my world was icing sugar and fondant crème, the next, you thrust me into that unflattering armour and talked me into going on that awful quest. And then!’ he said indignantly. ‘Then you had the cheek to run away and leave me at the first sign of danger!’
‘Sounds familiar,’ muttered Joe.
‘Thank goodness Dr Cuddles came along when he did,’ Quentin went on. ‘He told me a thing or two about you.’
Randalf blushed.
‘Granted, he may be an evil mastermind intent on taking over the world, but at least he appreciates me . . .’
‘Running away?’ said Randalf. ‘I wasn’t running away, my dear Quentin. I was executing a tactical flanking manoeuvre that we wizards call—’
‘Saving yourself,’ Veronica butted in. ‘The same old story!’
‘Oh, don’t let’s argue,’ said Norbert. ‘Quen-tin,’ he said slowly, clapping his hands together and smiling happily. ‘How are you?’
Quentin smoothed down his sparkly jacket and patted his quiff. ‘Mustn’t grumble,’ he said. ‘Thanks for asking, Norbert . . . Oh, but that Ingrid! She’s a monster – and she never stops! From first thing in the morning to last thing at night it’s all, “Quentin, do this!” and “Quentin, do that!” I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.’ He paused theatrically, then nodded towards the pile of shackles. ‘But enough about me,’ he said. ‘Get your shackles on everyone, and follow me.’
Randalf snorted. ‘And what if we don’t want to, Quentin?’ he said.
‘Then I’ll tell Dr Cuddles,’ said Quentin.
‘I’ll be right with you,’ said Randalf, hurrying across the cellar and securing one of the shackles to his ankle. Reluctantly, the others followed his example.
When they were all ready (even Veronica, who had a tiny ball and chain of her own) they picked up their heavy iron balls and climbed the stairs.
‘Where are you taking us?’ said Randalf uneasily.
‘You’ll see soon enough,’ said Quentin.
At the top of the staircase, they went along a narrow passage that led to Dr Cuddles’s sunshine-yellow kitchen. There were decorated snuggle-muffins everywhere.
Norbert gasped. ‘Quentin, you’re an artist!’
‘And you’re a sweetie, Norbert,’ replied Quentin, opening the kitchen door. ‘This way, everyone – and careful with that iron ball, Randalf!’
They followed Quentin out of the kitchen door and into the backyard of Giggle House. The yard was huge (the size of three football pitches at least, Joe thought) and full of hundreds of elves. In front of them was a long podium, upon which were seven wizards – each one with a ball and chain attached to an ankle – seated on seven chairs, and a lectern, with a short character dressed in baggy robes standing behind it. He had his back to them and was shouting in a high-pitched giggly voice.
‘Quentin! We’re all waiting!’
‘I’m coming, sir,’ Quentin shouted back. ‘You’ll never guess who fell through the trapdoor.’
‘It can’t be what’s-his-name, he’s over there,’ said Dr Cuddles, turning round.
‘No, sir, not Colin the Nondescript. Look!’ He ushered Randalf and the others forward.
From inside the shadowy hood, two piercing blue eyes grew wide with surprise for an instant, then narrowed menacingly. ‘Well, well, well,’ said Dr Cuddles. ‘If it’s not Randalf the Wise! It’s been a long time, Randy, my old friend. Far too long! Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn you’d been avoiding me!’
Joe frowned. ‘You know each other?’ he said in surprise.
‘Of course they do,’ said Veronica.
‘Shut up, Veronica!’ said Randalf.
Dr Cuddles giggled. ‘I’ll enjoy having a nice little chat with you later,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, I’ve got bigger things on my mind.’ He turned his back on them.
Quentin motioned to the wizards to move up and make room for the late arrivals. With much shuffling and grumbling and shifting of chairs on the podium, they got themselves settled, by which time Dr Cuddles’s fingers were drumming impatiently on the lectern.
Joe and Norbert had managed to squeeze themselves on to the end of the line, Henry lay at Joe’s feet, Veronica sat on Norbert’s head, but Randalf still lingered at the foot of the podium, with Quentin fussing beside him.
‘Come on,’ said Quentin impatiently. ‘Move along a bit there at the end, Colin. That’s it, now Bertram the Incredibly Hairy and Boris the Bald can move over. Then Eric the Mottled can move on to that chair. Ernie the Shrivelled, move there; Melvyn the Mauve, there . . . Norbert, budge up next to Roger. That’s better.’ He mopped his brow. ‘Right, now you can sit down, Randalf.’
‘Oh, no need to bother,’ said Randalf, with a nervous smile. ‘I’ll just slip back to the kitchen and wait for you all . . .’
‘Sit, Randalf!’ growled Dr Cuddles. Randalf did as he was told, perching next to Norbert. ‘Right, well if we’re all ready at last,’ he said, eyeing Randalf sternly, ‘bring on the tree rabbit.’
Hundreds of tiny elf voices chattered excitedly as the huge wooden construction was wheeled in through the powder-blue back gate.
Towering above the house, the tree rabbit had been fashioned with minute attention to detail. It had splendid wooden whiskers, huge wooden paws and a wooden tail carved to look fluffy.
‘Quentin,’ said Cuddles.
Quentin stepped forwards. ‘Congratulations, my dear elves,’ he said, his voice echoing round the glade. ‘Your work here is done.’
‘O-oh,’ the elves sighed sadly in unison.
‘It remains only for me to pass you over to that most demanding and unyielding of slave-drivers. The one, the only . . . Doctor . . . Cuddles!’
The elves burst into applause.
‘Thank you! Thank you!’ said Dr Cuddles, raising his arms and staring round at the great gathering. ‘I have worked you hard!’ he said. ‘Days of backbreaking toil and ceaseless endeavour, just as I promised . . .’
&
nbsp; ‘More! More!’ cried the elves.
‘And today, I make you this pledge,’ Dr Cuddles continued. ‘There will be many such hard, gruelling, thankless tasks to come.’
‘Hooray!’
‘Noses to the grindstone, shoulders to the wheel, fingers worked to the bone!’
‘Hooray!’
‘But for now I declare the holiday here in Giggle Glade over!’
Quentin stepped forwards. ‘Please leave in an orderly fashion,’ he lisped, ‘taking care to take all personal items and luggage with you. Thank you.’
As one, the elves stood up and set off back through the forest. ‘My aching back!’ said one happily. ‘Lovely!’
‘And I’ve got so many splinters in my fingers!’ said another, his face creased up in a grin.
‘Can’t beat a good bit of heavy toil,’ said someone else. He tutted. ‘It’s back to sewing in Goblintown for me.’
‘All good things come to an end,’ said yet another with a wistful sigh.
‘All work and no hard labour makes Jack a dull elf,’ replied his companion.
The elves filed out of the powder-blue back gate and skipped off through the forest, trilling at the tops of their voices.
‘Glad to see the back of the little squeakers,’ grumbled a hefty ash tree.
‘Yeah, good riddance!’ shouted a spiky pine.
‘And don’t come back!’
Elfwood was quiet once more, the only sound, the wind in the branches and the distant babbling of a brook. At the top of the oak tree, Brenda opened one eye. She looked down. Her face relaxed.
‘Sniffy,’ she said. ‘I think they’ve gone.’
In Giggle Glade, Dr Cuddles was still holding court. With his elf audience gone, he turned to address the wizards and captured visitors behind him.
‘They said I was mad,’ he announced.
‘You are,’ Randalf murmured.
‘They said it couldn’t be done. But I, Dr Cuddles of Giggle Glade have proved them all wrong.’ He turned and gestured towards the great tree rabbit.
Joe looked. It was absurd, with one ear longer than the other, giant outsized paws and a lopsided expression on its face. A trapdoor at the base of the wooden creature hung open, a set of steps leading down to the ground from it.
‘I have tried everything to breach the walls of the Horned Baron’s castle,’ said Dr Cuddles. ‘The singing curtains. The enchanted wardrobes . . .’
‘I told you Dr Cuddles was at the bottom of them,’ Veronica whispered to Joe.
‘But this time,’ Dr Cuddles went on, ‘I shall succeed with deception where brute force has failed!’ He paused. ‘Inside this tree rabbit is a secret chamber in which shall be concealed an elite squad that I have prepared,’ he said, giggling gleefully. ‘The tree rabbit shall be left outside the castle walls as a goodwill offering from me to the baron who, suspecting nothing, will take it inside. Then, as the clock strikes midnight, my squad shall leap out and . . .’ Cuddles’s blue eyes flashed madly. ‘I shall become the ruler of Muddle Earth!’
He turned to Roger the Wrinkled. ‘Roger, the spell of animation if you please.’
Roger climbed to his feet, looking oddly unperturbed by Cuddles’s speech and stepped forwards. The other wizards looked at one another and muttered under their breath. Roger stopped at the front of the podium, looked up at the rabbit and raised his arms. He intoned a long and complicated incantation. The next moment, the wheels at the four corners twitched and the tree rabbit trundled forward.
Joe gasped with amazement.
‘Yes!’ cried Dr Cuddles triumphantly. ‘It’s working! I am a genius!’ He looked round, wild-eyed, and fingered the rusty whistle around his neck. ‘The time has come,’ he announced, ‘to enter the tree rabbit!’
‘Not so fast, Cuddles!’ came a voice behind him, as a huge, pink, stripy cat bounded over the powder-blue back gate and raced towards the podium, with a warrior-princess – blades glinting in the bright morning sunlight – on its back.
‘Sniffy!’ cried Joe.
‘Brenda!’ shouted Randalf.
‘Eeeek!’ screamed Quentin, jumping up on to Norbert’s lap, as Brenda somersaulted from Sniffy’s back and landed in front of Dr Cuddles. She brandished her huge two-handed sword.
‘Release these people, fiendish sorceror!’ she roared.
‘Never!’ cried Dr Cuddles.
‘We’ll see about that,’ said Brenda, striding forwards. In a blinding flash, her blades sliced through the air. Swish, swish, swish. Dr Cuddles’s robes fell in tatters to the floor.
Standing before them, was a short pink teddy, with blue eyes and stubby paws. A gasp of surprise went round.
‘What?’ said Joe, scarcely able to believe what he was seeing.
‘Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’ said Roger the Wrinkled thoughtfully. He turned to Randalf. ‘Isn’t that . . . ? Didn’t you once have . . .’
‘Shut up . . . Oops, pardon me, sir.’
‘Typical,’ said Veronica. ‘Still trying to keep things quiet. When are you finally going to come clean?’
Brenda was circling Dr Cuddles, a look of bemusement on her face. ‘Strange,’ she was saying. ‘Are evil sorcerers meant to have pink fur and big blue eyes? Is this the fiendish Dr Cuddles you were so afraid of, Rudolf?’
‘You’re a fine one to talk!’ said Randalf. ‘Falling to bits at the first sight of an elf!’
‘Yes, well,’ said Brenda, blushing and turning her attention back to Dr Cuddles. ‘You’re an extremely naughty teddy and I’m going to have to box your fluffy pink ears.’
‘And rap him on the paws,’ said Bertram the Incredibly Hairy.
‘And spank his bottom!’ added Ernie the Shrivelled.
‘And . . .’
Dr Cuddles scowled. ‘You think you’re pretty tough, with your big pointy weapon and your big stripy battle-cat, don’t you? Well, I’ve got news for you . . .’ He took hold of the small rusty-looking whistle hanging round his neck, put it to his lips and blew hard.
Pfeeep!
For a moment, nothing happened. Everyone looked round at everyone else. Then, with a loud crash, the door of Giggle House burst open and a dozen identical teddies – exact copies of Dr Cuddles in every way – marched over to the podium.
‘My secret weapon!’ Dr Cuddles roared. ‘The Tickle Squad!’
The wizards all began muttering at once. ‘Whose work is this?’ demanded Roger the Wrinkled. ‘Only a wizard can perform a spell like this. As if one Dr Cuddles wasn’t bad enough!’
‘Not me,’ chorused Bertram the Incredibly Hairy and his brother, Boris the Bald. ‘Nor me,’ said Eric the Mottled, Ernie the Shrivelled and Melvyn the Mauve.
Roger looked sternly at the wizard on the end of the line. ‘Oh, Colin!’ he said. ‘How could you!’
Colin the Nondescript winced unhappily and shuffled his feet. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘I just wanted to be noticed.’
Brenda chuckled. ‘Never mind,’ she said, tightening her grip on her sword, her muscles rippling. ‘Just leave them to me.’
The teddies marched towards her, their big blue eyes staring fiercely.
‘I’ve grappled with ogres and wrestled with hags. I’ve battled with the warty gutguzzler of—’
Suddenly, the squad split into two. Six of the teddies pounced on Brenda and six on a startled Sniffy. Brenda stumbled backwards. The teddies started tickling.
‘Oh, my word!’ she giggled, dropping her huge sword. ‘Stop it. Tee-hee-hee! Get off me! Ha-ha-ha . . .’
Meanwhile, the other six were rendering the great battle-cat as weak as her mistress. Within seconds, the pair of them were helpless with laughter, rolling around on the ground, gasping for breath and with tears streaming down their faces.
‘Tie them up,’ Dr Cuddles ordered.
Brenda was shackled to four enormous sets of balls and chains, while Sniffy was trussed up like a chicken in what looked suspiciously like Dr Cuddles’s sitting-room curtains.
Cuddles was triumphant. ‘Nothing shall stop me now!’ he giggled.‘Muddle Earth shall be mine!’ And he threw back his head and giggled loudly and unpleasantly. ‘Hee-hee-heehee-hee!’
‘Tickle Squad, atten-shun!’ Dr Cuddles shouted.
The Tickle Squad snapped to attention, their pink fur glowing in the bright sunlight; their blue eyes glinting. Dr Cuddles walked along the line, straightening up an ear here, flicking a bit of fluff from a shoulder there.
‘Excellent,’ he giggled. ‘Excellent!’
One or two of them giggled with anticipation. Dr Cuddles reached the end of the line and stepped back.
‘Tickle Squad!’ he shouted. ‘You are an elite force and you must show no mercy. You are to conceal yourselves in the great tree rabbit which, by means of magic, shall be transported to the Horned Baron’s castle. Once inside the castle walls, you are to wait until darkness, observing complete silence at all times. That means no giggling, Number Seven!’ The seventh bear along stifled a giggle. ‘On the stroke of midnight you are to burst from the tree rabbit and take over the castle. Any resistance is to be met with extreme tickling – to the death, if necessary!’
The bears nodded impassively, not a trace of emotion registering on their pink, furry faces.
‘Good luck, Tickle Squad,’ Dr Cuddles cried. ‘To the tree rabbit!’
Turning smartly, the bears set off in a line, marching in step to Dr Cuddle’s barked commands. ‘Lef’, lef’, lef’ right, lef’!’
Joe watched helplessly as the Tickle Squad approached the great tree rabbit. ‘Is there nothing we can do?’ he said. ‘Brenda? Randalf? Roger?’
Brenda rattled her chains and shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, Joe, they took me completely by surprise,’ she said.
‘I knew this was a bad idea,’ said Randalf, shaking his head. ‘We should never have come on this hopeless quest. Why, I could be at home right now tucked up in my king-sized bed if it wasn’t for you lot.’
‘Shut up, Randalf!’ said Veronica.
Muddle Earth Page 27
