by Lyn Gardner
The children and Bigwig took the opportunity to slip by the surprised McNastys, who were busy trying to remove the donuts while simultaneously trying to protect their ankles, which were being nipped by Dog, and their heads, which were being pecked by Pegleg Polly. Polly was enjoying taking revenge for all the times that the McNastys had been horrid to her in the belly of the whale and when she had sailed with them in their ship, The Rotten Apple.
The children and Bigwig raced up the spiral staircase. They were much faster than the McNastys, who never did any exercise and who only liked long walks when they involved people who annoyed them walking along a plank and into a sea of sharks.
When the children and Bigwig reached the top of the staircase, they sprinted into the room where Bigwig had auditioned the McNastys and ran straight into Mr. Bossypants.
“Pirates!” gasped Tat. “There are pirates in the castle.”
Mr. Bossypants laughed in Tat’s face, which is a very rude thing to do.
“What a silly little boy you are,” he sneered. “Of course the castle is full of pirates, because we are making a pirate movie.”
“Please listen,” said Hetty. “There are two real pirates here, the Ghastly McNastys, the nastiest (and I think I should add, smelliest) pirates ever to have sailed the seven seas.”
At that moment, the McNastys stomped into the room waving their cutlasses so wildly that they narrowly missed cutting off Mr. Bossypants’s head. It was a very close shave. In fact so close his mustache fell onto the floor and lay there curled up like a small dead slug.
Mr. Bossypants whimpered, but he would never admit to being wrong about anything. “You are quite mistaken. These gentlemen are not the McNastys. They are those famed thespians, the McLuvvies of the Royal Sharkspeare Company.”
“Liars!” squawked Pegleg Polly.
The McNastys were beginning to find Mr. Bossypants’s self-importance very tiresome, so they pushed him into a cupboard and locked the door. Then they turned to the children and Bigwig. They were between the children and the door to the room. There was no way of escape, and Tat had used up all his donuts.
“Give us all the treasure you found.”
Hetty looked puzzled. “We didn’t find any treasure,” she said, and she showed them her empty pockets. Tat did the same, but his pockets were rather fuller, as he had an emergency ration of jam sandwiches.
The McNastys weren’t interested in jam sandwiches, so Tat stuffed them back in his pocket.
The McNastys narrowed their eyes. They were convinced the children and Bigwig were trying to trick them. Maybe they had swallowed the treasure? They waved their cutlasses dangerously and took another step toward the children.
Polly swooped down to peck their heads and got a rather fetching new feathered haircut as Captain Gruesome swung his cutlass. Dog almost lost his tail to a cutlass swipe from Captain Grisly.
Tat knew that they needed to get away. He looked desperately around. He spied the great big fireplace with unlit logs laid in the grate.
“This way!” he shouted. He ran for the fireplace and scrambled up the chimney and onto a ledge, followed by Hetty, who was as nimble as a mountain goat (but not as hairy as mountain goats, which often have beards).
Polly and Dog held the McNastys off as long as they could to give Bigwig, who was slower than the children, a chance to climb up the chimney. When Bigwig and the children were out of sight, Dog took a flying leap up the chimney and landed in Tat’s arms, and Polly flew up after them.
The McNastys ran to the chimney and waved their cutlasses up it, hoping to slice off a toe or two. But the ledge they all stood on was just out of their reach.
The McNastys pushed each other to be the first to catch them, but in their struggle to scramble up the chimney, their bums got tightly wedged.
“Sweaty socks!” screeched Captain Gruesome.
They might still be stuck there if Captain Grisly hadn’t sneezed and they shot out of the bottom of the chimney like corks out of bottles and lay sprawled in the fireplace, as if they had just been trampled by a herd of rampaging yaks trying to avoid being milked.
Captain Gruesome sat up, his head hurting. He looked in the grate where the logs were laid. He picked up a box of matches and grinned wickedly — he’d smoke those hideous, horrible children out. He struck the match and put it to the kindling. The fire in the grate caught and began to burn, sending a plume of smoke upward. Captain Grisly laughed, which was such a horrendous sound that all the glass in the chandelier shattered.
“Squeaky underpants!” Gruesome said. “Toasted children! What an admirably abominable idea.”
They ignored Mr. Bossypants, who was banging on the door demanding to be let out of the cupboard, and peered hopefully up the chimney, waiting for the children to fall down like dead birds.
Chapter 9
C hapter 9 was so unruly I had to give it a time-out.
Chapter 10
P olly flew up and out of the chimney. Behind her she could hear Tat and Hetty scrambling upward. She perched on the chimney pot and waited for them. From far below she could hear some voices. She put her head on one side and listened harder. The voices sounded familiar. She smiled. (Most people have no idea that birds smile, but they do.) She would have recognized both voices anywhere. One was the voice of Mrs. Slime, and the other was the voice of that nice but very sad woman who had fed her a jam sandwich at Little Snoring School. Polly really hadn’t minded at all that the sandwich had been quite squashed and very damp. The woman and Mrs. Slime were in distress. (In case you were wondering, distress is not a place, but a state of mind. You never hear anyone say “I am going to Distress” in the same way they say “I’m just off to Bigbottoms on Sea to see the prize-winning garden gnome collection.”)
“Help! Help!” The women’s state of mind was becoming much clearer.
Polly peered down the chimney. It would be a few minutes before the children and Bigwig got to the top. She decided to investigate.
Polly did her best impression of a sparrow hawk and dove down the walls of the castle to the very bottom. The voices were louder still and more desperate and were interspersed with sneezes.
“Help! Will somebody please help us! The McNastys have locked us in here and the slime is rising.”
Polly perched on the narrow windowsill of a small barred window and peered down into the dungeon. Mrs. Slime and Miss Green were clinging to a ledge by the window, trying to escape the rising tide of slime, which was threatening to engulf them. It would not be long before they drowned in a sea of snot and tears. Mrs. Slime had found a mug and was using it to bail out the dungeon. But Miss Green’s distress had created a river of tears and Mrs. Slime was sneezing so violently it was a losing battle. Their situation was desperate.
Polly squawked in sympathy, and seeing Polly gave Miss Green an idea. She took a pencil and piece of paper from her survival kit and wrote a note. She then thrust it into Polly’s beak. “Please, please take this and find Bigwig Junior the Third and give it to him.”
Miss Green had no idea if the bird understood her, but Polly’s eyes gleamed brightly.
Polly spotted an old bucket lying on its side. She made a high-pitched sound like a whistle and immediately a flock of seagulls appeared. Polly and the seagulls had a conversation, and then Polly flew off with the note in her beak. The seagulls pushed the bucket upright and carried it in their beaks to the barred window, where Mrs. Slime began to fill it from her mug.
Tat hauled himself out of the top of the chimney. He had Dog, who was meowing piteously, under his arm. Some of his fur was slightly singed. Hetty followed Tat. Bigwig came after, huffing and puffing. They sat down on the roof of the castle. They knew that they had had a lucky escape. Bigwig’s toes were still smoking.
“Where’s Polly?” asked Hetty, suddenly looking anxious.
“She’s safe,” said Tat. “She flew up the chimney ahead of me.”
Polly suddenly swooped down on the roof beside them. She he
ld a slime-smeared piece of paper in her beak, which she gave to Bigwig.
My darling Bigwig,
I’m writing to say goodbye. I want to tell you that I have never stopped loving you, even though you broke off our engagement. I came to the castle with my good friend Mrs. Slime hoping to see a wondrous sight and maybe catch a glimpse of you. But we encountered the Ghastly McNastys, the nastiest and smelliest pirates ever to have sailed the seven seas. They have thrown Mrs. Slime and me into dungeon 53, locked the door and taken away the key. We are about to be drowned by a rising tide of snot and tears. There is no hope of rescue, but if you get this note, I will go to my doom knowing that you know how much I love you.
Yours, forever and for always,
Emerald Green
P.S. Please give the parrot a jam sandwich — she deserves one.
P.P.S. I never blamed you for our breakup. I always thought Mr. Bossypants had something to do with it. Never trust a man with a big ego, a small heart and a fake mustache.
P.P.P.S. Don’t forget to wear your vest when the weather turns chilly.
A single tear slid down Bigwig’s face. Silently, he handed Tat and Hetty the note to read.
“So that’s why our teacher, Miss Green, has been so unhappy,” said Tat.
“Emerald! My love! Held hostage! By the McNastys! Here in the castle! Doomed! By my foolishness! I’ll be responsible for the death of the woman I love, and her good friend Mrs. Slime,” said Bigwig miserably.
“This is no time for whimpering,” said Hetty tartly. “It’s time to take action and save Miss Green and Mrs. Slime. Come on!” She hauled Bigwig to his feet.
There was a terrific flapping of wings, and they were surprised to see a flock of seagulls flying toward them, taking turns to carry a heavy bucket, which they deposited on the roof next to Tat, Hetty and Dog. It was filled to the brim with slime.
“What are we supposed to do with that?” asked Hetty, who seldom asked questions because she usually knew everything.
Tat shrugged. But from down in the depths of the chimney they heard the voices of the McNastys. He grinned. “I know what it’s for!”
The McNastys had grown tired of waiting for Tat and Hetty and Bigwig to fall down the chimney. They decided that they must have got stuck. It was very annoying. They were going to have to climb the chimney themselves.
They stamped on the fire to put it out, and then they walked into the great big fireplace and stood right underneath the chimney, looking up with their mouths wide open.
There was a sudden sloshing sound and they were deluged with slime.
Chapter 11
T he children, Bigwig and Dog climbed carefully down the side of the roof and in through an open window. Pegleg Polly flew alongside them. Then they ran down to the audition room hoping to find the McNastys, but they had already gone.
“We must find them because they’ve got the key to dungeon 53 where Mrs. Slime and Miss Green are imprisoned,” said Hetty.
It wasn’t hard to find the McNastys. They simply had to follow the trail of dripping slime. They soon realized that it was leading to the moat — the McNastys must have gone there to wash off the worst of the slime.
On the way they ran into Mr. Bossypants, whose cries had finally been heard by a passing camerawoman who had turned the key in the cupboard lock and set him free. But even though the McNastys had locked him in there, Mr. Bossypants was still insistent that Bigwig and the children were mistaken to think that the McLuvvies were real pirates.
“It’s their artistic temperament. They are just determined to get into character,” he said.
“Well,” said Bigwig, “their characters are exceptionally nasty and I will not have them in my movie,” and he ordered Mr. Bossypants to evacuate the castle immediately. If things turned very nasty and ghastly, he didn’t want anyone getting hurt.
Mr. Bossypants was very surprised. He wasn’t used to being ordered about and he didn’t like it. He drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest like a small frog. “Smell my —” he began furiously.
“Never again,” said Bigwig firmly. “For once you will do what you are told, and if you don’t, I will fire you and tell everyone that you wear a fake mustache.”
The children, Bigwig, Pegleg Polly and Dog followed the trail of slime to the moat. The McNastys were there, whacking and whalloping each other because they had suddenly realized that they had again forgotten the number of the dungeon where the treasure was to be found. They broke off fighting when they saw Bigwig and the children.
“We need the key to the dungeon where you’ve locked Miss Green and Mrs. Slime,” said Hetty urgently. “Poor Mrs. Slime can’t stop sneezing, Miss Green can’t stop crying and the snot levels are rising dangerously. They will drown in slime if we don’t let them out.”
“You give us the treasure, and we will give you the key,” said Gruesome, and he reached in his pocket and pulled out the key and held it aloft. It gleamed tantalizingly in the sunlight.
“But we don’t have any treasure,” said Tat desperately. “We’re not lying, we promise.”
The McNastys sneered. They knew that when anyone said “I promise,” it was a lie because that’s what they did themselves. When they were children, their mother got so tired of tripping over their broken promises that lay in bits all over their family pirate ship that she urged them to take up pottery instead. It had been no greater a success.
“Then tell us which dungeon the treasure is hidden in,” said Captain Gruesome.
Tat looked at the others. They all nodded, but very reluctantly.
“Tell them,” said Hetty.
“No funny business,” said Captain Gruesome with a nasty grin. “Just to be sure you don’t try to trick us, we’ll take him …” He pointed at Bigwig. “… and that horrible cat called Dog and that bedraggled excuse for a parrot with us as hostages. And if we don’t find the treasure when we get there, it will be the worse for them. We will cut off all Polly’s feathers and take Bigwig and the cat up the castle tower and throw them into the moat from a great height.”
“No —” started Hetty, but Bigwig shushed her.
“It’s a deal. You hand over the key and we’ll give you the number of the dungeon where the treasure can be found,” Bigwig said pleasantly, holding out his hand for the pirates to shake, which was a very brave thing to do because even though they had dipped them in the moat, the McNastys’ hands were still as filthy as a junkyard. He turned to the children. “Hetty, Tat. Your job will be to take the key and unlock the dungeon and save my beloved Emerald and Mrs. Slime.”
Tat took a deep breath and said to the McNastys, “You’ll find it in dungeon 433.”
The McNastys grinned nastily. As soon as they heard the number, they knew it was the right one.
“We’ll even help you a bit more,” said Tat with a sly wink at Hetty. “You need to look for a hidden lever, which when pulled will reveal the hidden treasure.”
The McNastys were thrilled. They began herding Bigwig, Dog and Polly toward the castle door, all the time repeating the number out loud so they remembered it.
“Haven’t you forgotten something?” said Hetty. “The deal was that we would tell you where the treasure was and you would hand over the key.”
Captain Gruesome chuckled. “Of course, how silly of me. I completely forgot.” He raised his arm and threw the key. It sailed over the heads of the children and for a second it seemed to hang in the air before it plunged into the middle of the moat and disappeared beneath the surface of the water.
“You should remember pirates never keep their promises,” he said wickedly, and he prodded Bigwig’s bum with his cutlass before they disappeared into the darkness of the castle.
On the way to the dungeons, the Ghastly McNastys made a detour to the room where the tank of sharks was kept. Once there, they pressed the button to release the sharks into the moat.
Chapter 12
T at undressed to his undershirt and u
nderwear. He walked toward the edge of the moat and prepared to dive in.
“You’ll never find it,” said Hetty.
“It’s our only chance to save Miss Green and Mrs. Slime. It may already be too late. But we can’t give up hope,” said Tat firmly.
Hetty started to take off her shoes. If Tat was going into the moat to find the key, she was, too, even though she wasn’t nearly as good a swimmer as Tat. But Tat stopped her.
“No, Hetty,” he said. “You have to tell Mrs. Slime and Miss Green that help is on its way, and tell Miss Green that Bigwig really does love her. That may stop her crying so much.”
“You are clever, Tat,” said Hetty. “After you rescue her, Miss Green should give you the biggest Super Star in the history of Little Snoring School.”
She ran toward the castle, but as she got there, she looked back. Tat had just dove into the water and had come up in the middle of the moat and was swimming toward the spot where the key had fallen. Hetty gasped loudly — swimming very fast toward Tat were several sharks.
“Tat!” she shouted. But Tat had already dove back under the water.
All the people who had been ushered out of the castle by Mr. Bossypants had gathered on the opposite bank of the moat. They began to shout loudly. Tat surfaced, holding the key triumphantly in his raised hand. He looked at the crowd of people with astonishment. What on earth were they all pointing at, he thought?
He looked in the direction of their fingers. His eyes widened with horror, and he began swimming as fast as he could. But sharks, particularly hungry sharks, swim much faster than boys, even if those boys are champion swimmers like Tat.
The sharks were getting closer — he could feel them snapping at his heels. They had spread out in a V-formation and were hunting him down. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, but there was no way he would be able to reach the bank and scramble out before they took a bite of his toes.
