by Lyn Gardner
Hetty looked wildly around. She had to help Tat. She saw his pants on the grass, felt in the pockets and pulled out a large packet of jam sandwiches. She unwrapped it and ran along the bank toward the sharks, throwing the sandwiches into the water.
The sharks smelled them and suddenly changed direction and followed Hetty. Jam is so much tastier than boys. It is a little-known fact that sharks are very fond of jam, as long as it is not apricot flavored. Fortunately Tat’s sandwiches were made with strawberry jam.
Hetty tried to hold them off as long as she could. But the sharks were hungry and had no table manners at all and they gulped the sandwiches down without even chewing them. Within seconds they had eaten all the sandwiches and were once again chasing Tat.
Hetty felt tears prick her eyes. Tat was going to be eaten!
Just then, Mr. Trout arrived to see if any more equipment for the movie needed unloading. He noticed the commotion by the drawbridge and pushed his way through to the front of the crowd. Hetty gasped with excitement. She knew that Mr. Trout possessed the one thing that could save Tat.
“Mr. Trout,” she cried. “Mr. Trout, over here.”
But Mr. Bossypants raised a hand to stop him coming further. “No entry allowed!” he said very rudely.
Mr. Trout took no notice.
“No entry,” shrieked Mr. Bossypants. “My word is law. Smell my feet!”
“No,” said Mr. Trout, knocking over Mr. Bossypants “YOU smell MY feet!” On the ground where he had fallen, Mr. Bossypants sniffed. He had never smelled anything so utterly revolting. He fainted right away. Mr. Trout ran to the middle of the drawbridge where Hetty had run to meet him.
“Quick,” said Hetty, “take off your shoes and socks, and dangle your feet in the water.”
Mr. Trout did as Hetty commanded. Instantly the sharks lost interest in Tat.
It is not well known, but if there is one thing that sharks like more than jam sandwiches it is feet that smell like that kind of overripe Brie that is always trying to slide off the plate and make a dash for the door.
The sharks swam toward Mr. Trout, who removed his feet from the water just as they opened their mouths to bite off his toes.
By then Tat had scrambled out of the moat, pulled on his clothes and, clutching the key, raced with Hetty toward the dungeons to unlock the door and save Miss Green and Mrs. Slime.
Chapter 13
(Unlucky for many people, especially the McNastys)
D own in dungeon 433, Captain Gruesome hunted for the treasure. Grisly was getting impatient with his brother, who was taking a very long time to find the lever. He knew that he would find it much more quickly. He was worried, too, that if Gruesome found the lever and got to the treasure first, he would steal it all for himself.
He lowered his cutlass and turned toward his brother just as Gruesome found the lever and pulled it hard. The crack in the wall began to open.
The pirates gasped. This was the moment they had dreamed of, when they would get their grubby, greedy fingers on Captain Syd’s lost treasure.
In their greed they forgot their hostages, and Bigwig, Dog and Polly took the opportunity to tiptoe quietly away and start running toward dungeon 53.
Meanwhile, Tat turned the key in the door of dungeon 53, and he and Hetty stood well back as the tide of slime flowed out of the dungeon and down the corridor where it disappeared into a large drain. A second or two later, Mrs. Slime and Miss Green stumbled breathlessly out of the dungeon.
“That was a close one. A few more minutes and Miss Green and I would have had the misfortune to have entered the record books as the first and only people to have drowned in their own snot and tears,” said Mrs. Slime gratefully.
Tat and Hetty grinned, but Miss Green wasn’t listening. A look of wonder and confusion on her face, she was staring down the corridor at Bigwig, who was walking toward her with outstretched arms. He took no notice of the fact that she was covered in slime, and took her in his arms and laid his cheek against her cheek.
“Emerald! My love! My only love! Forgive me.”
“With all my heart,” said Miss Green and she gave him a very sticky kiss, but Bigwig didn’t mind at all.
In dungeon 433, the McNastys’ eyes grew rounder and rounder. The crack had opened out into a large hole. Stretched across it was the biggest, most intricate spider’s web ever. The patterns on the web were exquisite. But the McNastys weren’t interested in the web. Their eyes were drawn to a glistening silken silver sac right in the middle of the web.
They grinned toothlessly at each other. They had found the treasure! They were certain that the sac must be filled with diamonds, which is what made it glisten so enticingly.
They looked around carefully. There was no sign of any spider. The spider must have died long ago. They stepped toward the sac. They raised their cutlasses at the same time and swiped at it.
It broke open and suddenly the floor of the dungeon was not covered with diamonds as they had expected, but was alive with thousands of baby spiders, which were swarming angrily toward the McNastys.
The McNastys screeched and turned to run, and it was at that point that they saw a sight so terrible that their legs began to wobble, their bellies did somersaults and their hearts began to beat as loudly as if a brass band had taken up residence in their chests.
Bearing down on them from the ceiling was a huge, hairy spider the size of a car tire, and she was not at all pleased that her web and babies had been disturbed.
“Sweaty socks!” screeched Captain Gruesome.
“Squeaky underpants!” whimpered Captain Grisly, and they threw down their cutlasses and ran out of the dungeon, up the spiral staircase and out of the castle door, all the while pursued by the furious mother spider and her babies.
The McNastys ran headlong across the drawbridge. They were so scared that they completely failed to see Mrs. Slime, Miss Green, Dog, Bigwig, Mr. Trout, Tat, Pegleg Polly and Hetty all standing in a line across the middle of the drawbridge, blocking their way.
As the McNastys got closer, the sight of them was so fearsome and stressful that Mrs. Slime sneezed, creating an instant puddle of slime.
The McNastys saw the slime, but they were running at full speed and were unable to stop in time. They slid on the slime, careened over the edge of the drawbridge and fell into the gaping mouth of a waiting shark that swallowed them both whole.
The shark then swam all the way around the moat until it got to the side where it bordered the sea, then it leaped into the ocean and swam away.
Afterward people said that they could just hear muffled shrieks of “Sweaty socks!” and “Squeaky underpants!” as the shark swam toward the horizon.
Bigwig planted a kiss on Miss Green’s head. “Nobody will be crying over the McNastys,” he said.
“No,” said Miss Green happily, “there’s no happily ever after for them, but there is for us.”
“You have these kids to thank for that,” said Bigwig.
Miss Green smiled. “I do.”
A few weeks later, everyone was down on Little Snoring beach where Miss Green and Bigwig Junior the Third were throwing a big party to celebrate their marriage and the end of shooting Raiders of the Lost Shark. Bigwig was giving up the movie business and moving to Little Snoring. He had paid Tat, Hetty, Dog and Pegleg Polly double for their roles in the movie. The Trout family budget wasn’t quite so tight, since Tat insisted he would be paying for his own new shoes out of the money he’d earned.
Mr. and Mrs. Trout were dancing together. Mrs. Trout had decided that since Mr. Trout’s feet had proved so useful, she wasn’t going to worry about them being smelly anymore. She had thrown away the coupon for the special cream to cure feet that smelled like that kind of overripe Brie that is always trying to slide off the plate and make a dash for the door. It was just as well, as it left more room on the mantelpiece for the extra special, biggest Super Star in the world, which Miss Green had given to Tat for his bravery in helping rescue her. He
tty had got one, too, but Hetty already had squillions of Super Stars so it meant less to her.
Bigwig tapped his glass and everyone fell silent (this did not mean they fell over but that they stopped talking) and turned to look at him.
“My friends,” he said, “Emerald and I are both touched that you are all here to share this special day. For that we thank you. But our biggest thanks must go to Tat, Hetty, Dog and Polly, who saved the day when the day needed saving. Their bravery and quick thinking has put us in their eternal debt. So I want to give them a little present.”
He handed over a piece of parchment to Tat and Hetty. They looked at it, puzzled.
“What is this?” asked Tat.
“It’s a treasure map,” said Bigwig. “It’s a map that the spider experts found when they investigated dungeon 433 where the spider was living and where she has now happily returned with all her babies. It was hidden at the back of the space where the web was located, almost certainly placed there by the same person who designed the secret lever. So I think it is probably real. Definitely. Maybe. We could give it to the experts at the University of Greater Snoring to examine in more detail, but we thought that you and Hetty should have it first so you can try finding the treasure.”
Hands trembling, Hetty and Tat examined the map. The writing was very faded but they could make out the few faint lines and the signature at the bottom, which said in curly letters:
Hetty and Tat gasped and rushed to get their spades. They would start digging immediately while the McNastys were far, far away in the belly of the shark.
“There’s no hurry, kids,” said Mrs. Trout. “Those Ghastly McNastys won’t be back. Nobody has ever escaped from the belly of a shark.”
“Ah,” said Hetty, “I wouldn’t be so sure. There’s a first time for everything.”
Somewhere far out at sea, the shark gave an enormous BURRRP, for she had swallowed something very nasty, indeed.
Set sail on the first GHASTLY McNASTYS adventure!
The Ghastly McNastys are the ghastliest, nastiest pirates ever to sail the seven seas. But on their endless quest for treasure, they come across Tat and Hetty — two local children who aren’t going to let some thieving pirates get in their way.
Look out for the GHASTLY McNASTYS when they return in:
Gruesome and Grisly McNasty are sure they finally know where Captain Syd’s legendary treasure is buried. But Tat and Hetty plan to give them a real fright by posing as the ghost of Captain Syd, seeking revenge on anyone trying to steal his treasure!
Lyn Gardner is a theater critic for the Guardian and goes to the theater five or six times a week, which should leave no time for writing books. But actually she has written several children’s books, including the very successful Stage School series. She lives in London, England.
Ros Asquith is a cartoonist for the Guardian and has written and illustrated many books. Letters from an Alien Schoolboy was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, and The Great Big Book of Families, which she illustrated, won the SLA Information Book Award. She lives in London, England.
