Monsterbook

by Michael Broad

  Michael Broad spent much of his childhood gazing out of the window imagining he was somewhere more interesting.

  Now he’s a grown-up, Michael still spends a lot of time gazing out of the window imagining he’s somewhere more interesting – but these days he writes and illustrates books as well.

  michaelbroad.co.uk

  Books by Michael Broad

  MONSTERBOOK: PONGDOLLOP AND THE SCHOOL STINK

  MONSTERBOOK: SNOTGOBBLE AND THE BOGEY BULLY

  MONSTERBOOK: LUMPYDUMP AND THE TERROR TEACHER

  JAKE CAKE: THE FOOTBALL BEAST

  JAKE CAKE: THE PIRATE CURSE

  JAKE CAKE: THE ROBOT DINNER LADY

  JAKE CAKE: THE SCHOOL DRAGON

  JAKE CAKE: THE VISITING VAMPIRE

  JAKE CAKE: THE WEREWOLF TEACHER

  For John (the milkshake monster)

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published 2009

  Copyright © Michael Broad, 2009

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author/illustrator has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-193058-9

  CONTENTS

  1 The Terror Teacher

  2 Lumpydump

  3 The Scream Shuttle

  4 The Den of Doom

  5 Fright Hag

  6 Flight of the Dungflappers

  7 Caught and Caged

  8 Miffni Plop

  9 The Poopy Plot

  10 Something a Little Bit Special

  11 The Dungheap

  12 Lumpy and Mumpy

  1

  The Terror Teacher

  ‘… and as well as being small, you’re also very stupid,’ Mrs Dumpy concluded.

  Will’s new maths teacher wasn’t just picking on one kid, she was addressing the whole class with a long loud moan about how useless children were. The end of school bell had already sounded, but everyone remained fixed to their seats with fear.

  It was Mrs Dumpy’s first day at school and she was already the meanest teacher Will had ever met. Aside from unleashing an hour of mind-boggling maths that no one even understood, she was also incredibly rude.

  ‘You are by far the dumbest class I’ve ever taught,’ said Mrs Dumpy, pulling on her coat and cramming a hat decorated with plums on her head. ‘Now, run along home and ask your parents why you’re so stupid.’

  The teacher then grabbed her handbag and stomped away, leaving the stunned students with their mouths hanging open. As the class slowly crept out from behind their desks, Will snatched his rucksack and chased after Mrs Dumpy.

  The boy had been watching the teacher closely all afternoon and decided Mrs Dumpy was so mean she had to be a monster in disguise. Thanks to the Monsterbook and his monster friend Urk, Will knew all about monsters dressing as humans to scare kids – and his classmates were petrified proof!

  Will followed Mrs Dumpy down the corridor, through the back doors and out into the car park. He’d never heard of a monster driving before, but hid behind a bush when the teacher approached a car. Peering through the foliage, he watched as Mrs Dumpy glanced around to check that no one was watching and then ducked out of sight.

  Will waited for a moment, but when he didn’t hear a door slam or an engine running, he poked his head above the bush to find Mrs Dumpy had vanished. There was nowhere she could have gone, so he stepped around the vehicle to investigate.

  ‘Uh oh!’ he gasped.

  On the ground beside the car was the teacher’s fruity hat. But what had made Will gasp was the litterbin in front of him, because monsters regularly use the hidden doorways inside litterbins to get to and from Monsterland, their smelly underground world!

  2

  Lumpydump

  ‘BOO!’ said Urk, jumping from the wardrobe and swinging the rucksack off his shoulders. The young monster dropped the bag beside Will’s desk and waited for his friend’s usual response.

  ‘ARGH!’ said Will half-heartedly. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Urk replied cheerfully. ‘No monster plots to take over the world, or even a little monster uprising. Everyone underground is more or less behaving themselves, so we have a whole evening without any monster trouble.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Will, holding up the evidence.

  ‘You bought a new hat?’ Urk frowned, prodding one of the plums.

  ‘It’s not mine!’ gasped Will. ‘I think it belongs to a monster at my school.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Urk, and then added, ‘uh oh!’

  ‘That was my reaction,’ said Will, and told his friend the whole horrible story.

  ‘She certainly sounds like a monster,’ said Urk, pulling out the Monsterbook and drumming his fingers on the top. ‘Are you sure you didn’t see a tail or a tentacle or anything like that?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Will.

  ‘Then tell me everything you know about this Mrs Dumpy,’ said Urk, taking out a small brown notebook and a pencil. He wrote ‘DUMPY’ at the top of a fresh sheet and underlined it. ‘Because if we can find out what type of monster is under the fleshblob suit, the Monsterbook could give us something to end her reign of terror.’

  ‘Well, she’s mean,’ said Will, scratching his head.

  ‘Most monsters are,’ said Urk. ‘We’re going to need a bit more than that.’

  ‘She’s got a silly hat with plums on it,’ Will shrugged.

  ‘OK, that’s a start,’ said Urk, writing ‘PLUM’ on the pad. ‘What else?’

  ‘She’s very good at maths,’ said Will. ‘So she must be really clever.’

  ‘Now that does narrow it down,’ said Urk, putting the notepad aside and flicking through the ‘Gruesome Gallery’ in the Monsterbook. This section contained every type of monster in Monsterland, and most of them were not very bright.

  Will looked over Urk’s shoulder and they read the descriptions of various monsters, quickly discounting all the stupid ones and skinny ones. The young monster studied the few that were left closely, looking for a fruity clue.

  After a few minutes of flicking between pages, Urk slammed the book shut.

  ‘So what kind of monster are we dealing with?’ Will asked anxiously.

  ‘I have no idea,’ sighed Urk. ‘None of them mention fruit at all.’

  Will picked up the hat and turned it round in his hands.

  ‘These are real plums,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Huh?’ sa
id Urk.

  ‘Oh, I just noticed that the fruit on the hat is real. Which is a bit dumb because they’re already going squidgy,’ said Will, and then frowned at his friend. ‘Why would such a clever monster staple real plums to its hat?’

  ‘It wouldn’t!’ gasped Urk, picking up the notebook and pencil. ‘And fresh fruit is really hard to get hold of in Monsterland, so the plums must be important! Maybe even a clue of some kind!’

  Will watched as Urk began scribbling on the page, scratching out seemingly random letters from the words ‘PLUM’ and ‘DUMPY’. Then his concentration turned into a grin as he rearranged the letters and held up the notebook.

  ‘LUMPYDUMP!’ Urk said triumphantly.

  ‘Eh?’ said Will. ‘What’s a lumpydump?’

  ‘It’s not a what,’ said Urk. ‘It’s a who!’

  The young monster picked up the Monsterbook and quickly thumbed through its pages until he found what he was looking for. Then he pressed the book open for them both to read.

  ‘Lumpydump thinks he’s the smartest monster in Monsterland,’ said Urk, closing the Monsterbook. ‘It’s typical that he would leave a clue to his true identity using the teacher’s name and the plums to spell out his real name.’

  ‘But if he’s so rich and famous, why would he bother coming to my school just to scare a few kids?’ asked Will.

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ said Urk, scratching his chin thoughtfully. ‘Which means he must be planning something bigger. And I bet it has something to do with those secret experiments!’

  ‘The diabolical ones?’ Will gasped.

  Urk nodded.

  ‘But how can we stop him if we don’t even know what he’s planning?’ said Will.

  ‘I think we’ll have to pay Lumpydump a visit,’ replied Urk.

  ‘Then I guess I’ll be needing these again,’ said Will, pulling a dirty brown sack and a pair of forks from under his bed. This was the Jub Jub disguise that he always wore for trips to Monsterland, because without it he’d be squashed like a fleshblobby bug.

  ‘Are you sure you want to come?’ asked Urk, packing the Monsterbook away and pulling the rucksack on to his shoulders. ‘I won’t mind if you decide to stay behind. I can go on my own and report back tomorrow…’

  ‘Why would I stay behind?’ asked Will, half covered with the sack and holding one fork.

  ‘I just think it might be dangerous,’ said Urk.

  ‘I’ve been to Monsterland before,’ laughed Will. ‘And it’s always dangerous.’

  ‘But if we want to know what Lumpydump is planning, we need to visit his home and snoop around that underground laboratory where he does his diabolical experiments,’ said Urk, nibbling his nail.

  ‘And?’ said Will, shifting the grubby sack and peering through two eyeholes.

  ‘And Dump Castle isn’t in Monster City where I’ve taken you before,’ Urk whispered gravely. ‘It’s far away in the deep dark Outer Regions, slap bang in the middle of the Horror Hills!’

  3

  The Scream Shuttle

  Urk and Will stepped into the boy’s wardrobe and entered the damp smelly tunnels leading to Monsterland where monsters were making their way to their allocated fleshblob bedrooms for a night of bed-wetting frights. Urk was supposed to be scaring his fleshblob too, but he was taking the boy on a fearful field trip instead.

  Will could have stayed behind, but he didn’t want to let his friend go to the Horror Hills alone. And as they trudged down the muddy slopes, he noticed the young monster still looked very worried.

  ‘You should probably know exactly where we’re going,’ said Urk, taking out the Monsterbook and flicking through the ‘Hideous Holiday’ section. ‘Before it’s too late for you to turn back.’

  Will took the book and paused beneath the nearest grubby light bulb.

  ‘We have to know what Lumpydump is doing in his lab and what he’s got planned for my school,’ said Will, handing back the book. ‘And if Dump Castle is in the Horror Hills, then that’s where we’re going.’

  ‘So you still want to come?’ said Urk.

  ‘The Monsterbook says NEVER travel alone,’ said Will, patting his friend on the shoulder. ‘So we won’t.’

  Urk sighed with obvious relief and the pair quickened their pace through the tunnels. After many twists and turns they stepped into the gigantic grotty grotto that was Monsterland, where light bulbs buzzed overhead and mud squelched underfoot as they made their way to Monster City.

  ‘I thought we were going to the Outer Regions!’ said Will.

  ‘We are,’ said Urk. ‘But we have to catch a train to get there.’

  ‘Monsterland has a transport system?’ said Will.

  ‘Well, it has a train,’ answered Urk. ‘Which isn’t really a train, as such.’

  Will was about to ask what he meant about the train not being a train, when they turned a corner and the boy could see their transport for himself. A huddle of monsters was gathered beside a lumpy green carriage with the words ‘SCREAM SHUTTLE’ on the front.

  ‘It looks like a big bogey on wheels!’ gasped Will.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose it does,’ said Urk, tilting his head.

  Will was wondering why it was called the Scream Shuttle, until he saw the track the carriage would be travelling on. Trains above ground generally travelled in a straight line, but this looked like a giant roller coaster! The track plummeted into a large gully and arched and curved and looped the loop before it snaked through a tunnel in the distant cavern wall.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s the only way to get to the Horror Hills,’ said Urk, seeing Will’s eyes widen.

  ‘And you’re sure that thing will get us there?’ he asked.

  ‘The Scream Shuttle has only come off the tracks once,’ said Urk. ‘But it’s quite sticky and just got stuck to the ceiling like a proper bogey. It took a while to get it back down again, but no one was hurt.’

  ‘That’s very reassuring,’ mumbled Will.

  ‘Good,’ said Urk, as he approached the ticket booth.

  The young monster bought two return tickets to the Horror Hills and grabbed a free map from a display on the counter. He was about to show it to his friend, but when he turned round Will was gone.

  Urk looked up and down the road wondering whether the Horror Hills and a trip on the Scream Shuttle was one too many horrors for a visit to Monsterland, when he heard an urgent hissing sound coming from a nearby doorway.

  ‘PSSSST!’ it said.

  The doorway belonged to a shop called Monster City Souvenirs, and lurking in the shadowy entrance was a familiar sack-covered shape. It was frantically waving him over with a fork.

  ‘I thought you’d legged it home!’ laughed Urk, casually trotting over to his friend. But as soon as the monster was in reach of Will’s forks, the boy pulled him deep into the shadows.

  ‘Shhh!’ said Will.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Urk.

  Will quickly poked his head out of the doorway and then jabbed a fork in the direction of the monsters boarding the Scream Shuttle. Urk scanned the untidy queue and then jumped back when he saw a very large lump at the end.

  ‘Miffni!’ he gasped, shocked at the sight of his massive little sister.

  ‘She must have seen us heading for the train and followed us!’ said Will, knowing how suspicious Miffni was of her brother and that she’d do anything to get him into trouble. ‘How else would she know where we’re going?’

  ‘But if she’s following,’ said Urk, ‘shouldn’t she be behind us?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Will. ‘But what else could Miffni be doing here?’

  ‘I know she has friends in the Outer Regions,’ said Urk, watching as his sister got bored of queuing, barged past the other monsters and boarded the carriage. ‘She’s probably just visiting someone and doesn’t even know we’re here.’

  ‘That’s a relief!’ said Will, happy not to encounter Miffni again. Her snooping and spying had almost revealed his fleshblob identity in t
he past. ‘So we can just wait here until the next bogey train comes along?’

  ‘Actually, that’s the only train there is,’ said Urk, turning to face his friend. ‘And if we miss it, we’ll have to wait hours until it comes back again. And by that time it will be too late to make the return trip.’

  ‘But we can’t get on the same carriage as Miffni,’ gasped Will.

  ‘Not looking like this, we can’t!’ said Urk, and bundled Will into the shop.

  When the last call sounded for the Scream Shuttle, Urk and Will emerged from the shop looking different from when they went in. Urk was wearing a pair of novelty sunglasses and Mrs Dumpy’s hat, and Will had souvenir spoons instead of forks.

  Boarding the train they saw Miffni’s bulk taking up two seats at the front, so they quickly slipped into two seats at the back, where Urk immediately pulled out the Monsterbook and held it in front of his face.

  ‘Did she see us?’ he whispered.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ whispered Will, leaning into the aisle. ‘She’s too busy glaring at the tiny monster in the next seat.’

  ‘Phew!’ said Urk, and stole a glance over his sunglasses. ‘That was close.’

  A fart-like trumpet sounded in the distance and the Scream Shuttle jerked on the track. Will quickly lost interest in Miffni and focused all of his attention on gripping the seat with his spoons as the train rattled forward. The first few seconds were pleasant enough, watching the brown scenery moving past the grubby window, then Will’s stomach leapt into his throat as they plunged over a steep slope.