by Lyn Gardner
Soon after, Tat, Hetty, Mrs. Slime, Dog and Polly were in dungeon 433, looking for treasure and the McNastys. So far they had found neither. They had begun pirate and treasure hunting in dungeon 500, which was in the deepest, darkest and dingiest part of the castle, and were working their way back to dungeon number one. They were fueled by a large bag of donuts given to them by Bigwig Junior the Third. Polly had eaten most of them.
“There’s nothing here,” said Hetty. “Let’s look in the next dungeon.”
They were about to leave when Tat spotted a crack in the deepest, darkest and dingiest corner of the dungeon. He put his hand into the crack and to his intense excitement found a secret lever. He pulled it and the crack in the wall opened wider.
“Look what I’ve found!” he shouted to the others.
There were gasps of astonishment as they peered through the opening in the wall.
“Don’t touch!” warned Mrs. Slime, whose nose had begun to run even faster with the excitement.
Hetty, Mrs. Slime, Dog and Polly all stared openmouthed. They had never seen anything so wondrous.
Then Tat pulled the lever again, and the space closed up. They knew that what they had found was so precious they had to keep it safe.
“Mrs. Slime,” Tat said urgently, “do you think you could go and tell Miss Green what we’ve found? I’m certain she would want to know about it. It might even make her feel better.”
Mrs. Slime smeezed (which is a cross between a smile and a sneeze). “I’ll do better than that, Tat. I’ll bring her back to the castle so she can see what you’ve found herself. You are a clever, kind boy, Tat. But make sure you watch out for those ghastly, nasty pirates while I’m gone.”
“We will,” said Tat. “But so far we’ve been looking for them without success.”
Dog meowed loudly.
Tat ignored him. Dog meowed louder and put his nose to the ground and sniffed around. Polly squawked encouragement. Dog meowed louder and moved toward the door.
“Maggoty fish?” asked Tat. Dog nodded and wagged his tail happily. Tat and Hetty looked at each other.
“Oh, Dog, you are the cleverest cat in the world,” said Hetty. “Lead us to the McNastys, and the biggest bone you can carry home from the butcher’s will be yours.”
T here is no Chapter 6 because it ran off the page.
Chapter 7
D og led the children up the spiral staircase and along a gloomy corridor on the ground floor of the castle. He was following the smell of maggoty fish. It was getting stronger. They passed a large room with a great big fireplace where logs were laid but not lit. There was no sign of the McNastys inside, but there were two chairs. On the back of one, in small writing, it read, “Bigwig: director.” On the other, in much bigger writing, it read, “Bossypants: VIP.” There was also a large props table full of pirate-related items.
“This must be Bigwig’s office, where he’s holding the auditions,” said Hetty.
Suddenly they heard voices. Two of them belonged to Bigwig and Mr. Bossypants and the other two unmistakably belonged to the McNastys. All four voices were coming in their direction.
“The map!” hissed Hetty. “Hide it where the McNastys are likely to spot it. But not somewhere too obvious or they’ll realize it’s a fake.”
Tat looked wildly around, then he ran to the great big fireplace, looked up the chimney and stuck the map into a gap in the brickwork. Then he, Hetty, Dog and Polly hid behind the heavy brocade curtains as the four men entered the room.
Captain Grisly was cackling. “Those sharks were real beauties. I’ve never seen sleeker creatures or sharper teeth.”
As soon as the McNastys had got inside the castle, Mr. Bossypants had told them about the sharks. They had demanded to be taken to see them in the great tank situated in a room under the moat. They had called them “my pretties” and teased them terribly by holding Captain Grisly’s teddy bear up to the glass and shouting, “Come and get your dinner!” They were thrilled when Mr. Bossypants had shown them the secret button that, when pushed, opened specially installed glass panels in the top of the tank, allowing the sharks to swim out into the moat.
Bigwig Junior the Third and Mr. Bossypants sat down in the chairs, and the McNastys wandered around the room examining the props and looking up the chimney.
All the clever brainiacs among you can try this fiendishly difficult quiz.
Captain Gruesome was looking up the chimney because:
1) He liked the smell of soot and was thinking of using it as a secret ingredient in a new perfume for pirates called Dung. (Existing perfumes included: Poo and Stinkerama.)
2) He wanted to see if it was possible to spot the blue sky at the very top.
3) He hoped to find a stash of hidden treasure.
4) He was looking for a sooty albatross. The sooty albatross is a shy bird, and if you are very shy and very sooty, a chimney is a good place to hide if you don’t want to meet people, although you do have to watch out for singed feathers.
Answer: 3
Hetty winked at Tat as they spied Captain Gruesome reaching up the chimney for something and putting it in his pocket along with several other things he’d swiped from the props table when he thought Bigwig and Mr. Bossypants weren’t looking.
“Shall we begin the audition?” asked Mr. Bossypants, clapping his hands. The McNastys glared at him. They made people walk the plank for less than clapping their hands. Then they remembered: if they got through the awful audition, they would have free run of the castle.
They were both fed up at wasting their time with all this acting business when they could be looking for treasure. They glared at Bigwig and Mr. Bossypants and started waving their cutlasses around menacingly.
Peeping from behind the brocade curtain, Tat could see Bigwig cowering under his chair like a wet sock.
“Do we get the parts?” inquired the twins. There was only one possible answer to this question.
“Yes,” said Bigwig weakly. “You’re cast. You can head to the costume department in the dungeons. But watch out for the spider the size of a car tire. It’s roaming around down there somewhere.”
“Spider!” said the McNastys, and suddenly they looked a little less fearsome.
“You’re not afraid of a spider, are you?” asked Bigwig.
The McNastys waved their cutlasses ominously.
“We are afraid of nothing,” they cried, which wasn’t entirely true as they were often really, really scared when they looked at themselves in the mirror and both of them hated spiders. “Anyone who says we are afraid of spiders will be made to walk the plank.”
“I won’t say anything then,” said Bigwig faintly, mopping the sweat off his brow.
“Darlings, you were marvelous,” gushed Mr. Bossypants. The McNastys pushed him aside, delighted that they now had the run of the castle and could look for Captain Syd’s treasure without being challenged. They grinned nastily and left the room. But the fleas they had brought with them didn’t — they much preferred Mr. Bossypants’s expensive silk suit to the McNastys’ threadbare rags.
“What a lucky find they are,” said Mr. Bossypants. “They are both terrifyingly good. I’m prepared to bet big money that they will win awards for their performances.”
Mr. Bossypants reached for his wallet. He patted all his pockets but mysteriously it seemed to have gone missing. Suddenly he scratched under his armpit — he was feeling very itchy. He stalked off to look for his wallet and take a shower.
As soon as he had gone, the children emerged from behind the curtain. Bigwig smiled when he saw them.
“What are you doing here?”
“We’ve got something important to tell you,” said Hetty. “The good news is that we’ve found something very precious that we want to show you, but the bad news is that those two actors you’ve just hired for your movie are not actors at all. They are the McNastys, who are the nastiest pirates ever to have sailed the seven seas.”
“Oh, dear,”
said Bigwig, “I fear that could be very bad news for us all.”
“It would be,” said Tat, “but Hetty and I are confident that any minute now the McNastys will be heading for dungeon 244, and when they walk inside, we’ll slam the door and lock them in so they can’t harm anybody.”
The Ghastly McNastys were hiding in one of the dungeons and emptying their pockets of all the things they had stolen so far, which included Mr. Bossypants’s wallet and several props — only they hadn’t realized that they were props.
They were very disappointed to discover that the gold ducats were foil-wrapped chocolate, although they gobbled them down greedily and so fast that they both burped 116 times, which they thought might be a world record and their greatest achievement in life so far.
There was only one thing left to look at: a rolled up bit of paper that Captain Gruesome had found tucked up inside the enormous chimney in the room where they had auditioned.
Captain Gruesome unfurled the paper excitedly. It was as crumbly as moldy cheese. Gruesome screwed up his eyes.
“Sweaty socks!” he cried in triumph. “We’ve found the map that marks the spot where Captain Syd’s treasure is buried. It is in dungeon 244, which is a deep, dark, dingy dungeon directly below this one.”
“Squeaky underpants! We’ll be rich!” said Captain Grisly.
“I’m a clever pirate for finding it,” said Gruesome. “The cleverest, craftiest, most cunning pirate the world has ever seen. Ouch!” Grisly had pinched him very hard.
“Why did you do that?” asked Gruesome grumpily.
“Because I’m cleverer and craftier than you,” said Grisly.
“You’re not,” roared Gruesome. “You are a dull-witted, birdbrained muttonhead.”
Gruesome pinched his brother, who pinched him back, and soon they were rolling around on the floor, whacking and whalloping each other as hard as they could.
They were so busy that they didn’t notice that the treasure map had fallen onto the floor and floated across on a draft through the open door of the dungeon. They also didn’t notice or hear the approach of Mrs. Slime and Miss Green, who were on their way to dungeon 433.
Mrs. Slime had used all of her powers of persuasion to get Miss Green to the castle, and in the end she had been quite sharp with her friend and told her that she should stop wallowing in her misery and come and see what her clever pupils had found.
They had made slow progress to the castle because Miss Green kept stopping to have a little cry, which Mrs. Slime found very stressful and which only made her sneeze more and more. By the time they reached the back door of the castle, she had already used up all her tissues. They were creeping past the dungeon where the McNastys were fighting, when they were forced to stop by the imminent approach of one of Mrs. Slime’s explosive sneezes. Mrs. Slime knew she needed to take prompt action to avert a snot disaster. She looked wildly around. They had no tissues, sleeves or socks left to stop the tide of slime or the noise that might alert the McNastys to their presence. She spied the parchment on the floor. It was totally inadequate, but it would have to do. She glanced briefly at it, and then there was a noise as loud as a cannon as she sneezed into it.
The McNastys stopped fighting and looked up just in time to see their precious treasure map disintegrate into a pulp of green slime. They suddenly realized that although they had looked at the map, they couldn’t remember the dungeon number where X marked the spot.
The McNastys grabbed Mrs. Slime and Miss Green and held them tight even when Mrs. Slime sneezed all over them, which Captain Gruesome thought was actually refreshing as he had been feeling quite hot.
The McNastys were furious at the loss of their treasure map and they flipped like angry pancakes, which was a truly terrifying sight. If you have ever seen an angry pancake, you will know quite how terrifying that is. It is infinitely worse than seeing ten hungry cannibals running toward you with their arms and mouths wide open, or discovering that the bridge you are using to cross the river is made from seventeen cunning crocodiles with very sharp teeth.
Fortunately, as a teacher Miss Green had seen far more terrifying sights in her life, including an entire overtired kindergarten class trying to learn to tie their shoelaces.
“Oh, stop flipping immediately,” ordered Miss Green. She said it so sternly that it reminded the McNastys of being told off at Pirate School, and they stopped, fell silent and simply glared at Miss Green and Mrs. Slime. They hated Mrs. Slime, who they felt had betrayed them. They loomed over the two women menacingly and gave them their most threatening stare.
“Sweaty socks! We’re going to have to tie you up and shine a very bright flashlight in your eyes and ask you very difficult questions before we throw you to the sharks,” said Captain Gruesome. He suddenly felt happy.
“Squeaky underpants! It’s a dastardly delightful day for ghastliness,” said Captain Grisly, “and we are going to be very ghastly to you.”
“Yes, we’re going to have to get tough with you. Really tough,” said Captain Gruesome. “And when you are quaking with terror, you will give us all the information we want from you.”
Miss Green didn’t look in the slightest bit worried. “What information is that?” she asked. Despite her misery, when faced with danger, Miss Green went into automatic teacher-mode. She sat down on a ledge and patted the empty seats on either side of her.
“Why don’t you come and sit down, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” she said, talking to the McNastys as if they were small children. “One of you sit on my left and one of you sit on my right.”
The McNastys were puzzled. They weren’t very good at their lefts and their rights, but like lots of people when faced with a teacher, they were too nervous to disobey. She really was very stern.
“Ouch!” said Miss Green and bit her lip as the McNastys sat heavily on each of her hands. It was very painful. She slid her hands out from under their nasty stinky bums as quickly as she could.
“Now,” she said, smiling, which took a great deal of effort because the stench from the McNastys’ clothes and from their unbrushed teeth was quite overpowering, “how can we help you?”
“Tell us where X marked the spot on the map Mrs. Slime sneezed all over and which is now a slimy pulp,” said Captain Gruesome.
“That’s easy,” said Miss Green pleasantly, remembering what Mrs. Slime was trying to show her in the dungeon. “The treasure is hidden in dungeon 433. Mrs. Slime was just about to take me there. I am right, Mrs. Slime, am I not?”
“You are always right, Miss Green,” said Mrs. Slime.
The McNastys knew that they just had to go to dungeon 433 and the treasure would be theirs. But first they grabbed Miss Green and Mrs. Slime, and pushed them into the dungeon (which happened to be number 53), slammed the door and turned the key in the lock. They couldn’t allow them to go free in case they raised the alarm that there were two real pirates loose in the castle.
“You can’t escape from here, and just to make sure, I’m taking the key with me,” chuckled Captain Gruesome, pocketing it. Then the McNastys hurried away to look for the treasure.
Inside the deep, dark, dingy dungeon, Mrs. Slime began to sneeze. The shock brought her cold back with a vengeance. Miss Green began to cry great fat tears that formed a pool at her feet. Her nose began to run, too. Neither of them had anything to blow their noses on. The puddle of snotty, salty, sticky slime around their feet began to get higher. Very soon it was nearly up to their waists and rising fast.
“I think,” said Mrs. Slime bravely, “we are in what is known as a sticky situation.”
The previous page is one of my favorite pages in this entire book, if not the entire universe. It is not blank. It is full of something awesome. You will just have to search very, very, very hard to find it. This will be done most successfully with your eyes shut and using your imagination (but please watch out for wasps, which are strongly attracted to imagination).
Chapter 8
T at
, Hetty, Dog and Polly were in dungeon 433 showing Bigwig what they had found. They then planned to go to dungeon 244 where they were sure the McNastys would be looking for the treasure.
“Well, that’s amazing,” said Bigwig as Tat pressed the hidden lever so the crack in the wall closed.
“Amazing,” agreed Hetty. “We couldn’t believe our luck when we found it.”
The McNastys were making their way along the corridor and heard what Hetty was saying. They looked at each other (which was quite unpleasant and frightening for both of them). Those horrible children, Tat and Hetty, must have discovered the treasure. They rushed into the dungeon, hands outstretched, ready to gather up all the emeralds and gold bars and diamonds that they were sure were there.
“Oh, no! It’s the Ghastly McNastys!” cried Hetty.
“Everyone hates us,” Captain Gruesome roared.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” retorted Captain Grisly, “not everyone has met us yet.” He paused and then added boldly, “But when they do, they will.”
“That’s because we are so ghastly and nasty,” said Captain Gruesome proudly, “and we are about to be very ghastly and nasty to you horrible, hideous children, that disgusting cat called Dog and that total disgrace of a one-legged parrot, unless you immediately hand over all the treasure you’ve just found.”
They looked around greedily. They could see no sign of sparkling jewels or piles of silver. They decided that the children must have stuffed it all in their pockets. They took a step toward them and waved their cutlasses very threateningly at Bigwig, who had his hands outstretched and was trying to be very brave and protect the children even though both his knees were knocking together.
“Run!” shouted Tat, and he quickly pelted the McNastys with donuts. Tat’s aim was very accurate and several donuts caught on the McNastys’ noses so they looked like a living ringtoss game at a carnival. Although it wasn’t very fun for the McNastys, whose faces got very sugary and sticky.
