The Nothing to See Here Hotel

by Steven Butler

  ‘Can’t you come down?’ I asked. There was no way a teeny goblin would mess with the likes of her, even if he was a prince and had an army of guards with curvy swords.

  ‘Abso-BLUNKIN-lutely not!’ Granny said. ‘I’m snug as a bundle of bugs up here! You all let him in so you can take care of this mess yourselves. Just stamp on the little twerp.’

  I groaned into the yell-a-phone as loudly as I could.

  ‘But, boy . . .’ Granny’s voice stopped me just before I turned away. ‘Keep an eye out. There’s no way Barrow Goblins would come above ground without a very, very good reason. Something sneakerish is going on.’

  FROM BAD TO WORSE

  After some more frantic searching, I found the bottles of frog grog stashed in a box at the top of the cellar steps, grabbed as many as I could carry and hurried back to the reception hall.

  I couldn’t get the sight of poor Nancy surrounded by guards out of my head. What had we done, letting a tiny, pumpkin-sized maniac into the hotel?

  With any luck, his bubble bath in the fountain would have cheered Grogbah up and he’d be quietly relaxing instead of barking crazy orders at everyone.

  I rounded the corner by the dining room, walked through the archway that lead into reception and . . .

  I stopped and gawped at the scene in front of me. How had this happened? I’d only been gone fifteen minutes!

  The reception hall was in total chaos. Everywhere I looked, Barrow Goblins were clattering about, upturning furniture and smashing vases.

  Dad was standing near a group of lounging goblin-wives, wearing rags just like the other goblin servants. He was holding a fan made from an old broom handle and some sheets of newspaper.

  ‘Waft us, slave!’ they snapped at him, with sour expressions. Dad flapped the fan back and forth with a look of complete disbelief on his face.

  ‘GROOOOOOR!’ Hoggit howled as he scampered past with the Royal Shouter riding on his back. My poor little dragon bucked this way and that to shake the rotten old turnip off, but the Royal Shouter was gripping onto his ears and stayed put.

  The dust pooks were rattling across the floor with silver trays of snacks balanced on their heads, and—

  ‘MUM!’ I gasped, nearly dropping the bottles of frog grog.

  My poor mum was in the middle of the hall, by the fountain with the belly-dancing goblinettes, wearing one of their jingly-jangly tops and skirts. How had they found one to fit?

  She looked at me in horror as she tried to copy the dance steps of the other goblin ladies. Mum REALLY took customer service and pleasing guests far too seriously sometimes.

  ‘Don’t even think about it, WHELPLING!’ Grogbah yelled as I darted towards Mum.

  I looked up at the goblin prince. He was standing on the top of a pile of torn books from the library, still BUTT NAKED, and brandishing one of Dad’s golf clubs.

  ‘What fun!’ he laughed, pointing at poor Mr Croakum. A few of the musician goblins had tied the end of his long tongue round the banister rail and were plucking away at it, as if it was the string of a double bass.

  ‘This is the best time I’ve had in yonkers!’ Grogbah said. He swung the golf club over his head, let go of it and cooed with glee as it sailed across the room and smashed through one of the windows by the front door.

  It was all too much to take in. Goblins were sliding down the railings of the spiral staircase, and swinging from the lights. One was even throwing darts at the big painting of Great-great-great-grandad Abraham that hung with all the framed reviews above the reception desk.

  If they kept this up for much longer, there wouldn’t be a hotel left.

  It was at that moment that a noise filled the reception hall and every goblin dropped what they were doing and stood still.

  A PRINCE ON THE LOOSE

  ‘What’s that?’ Grogbah said, jumping down from his little mountain of torn books. ‘Silence, everyone!’

  The reception hall went quiet and we all listened.

  Through the smashed window by the front door, the sound of Brighton seafront was floating in. It was such a familiar noise to me that I was almost deaf to it, but the mixture of laughter, music, traffic and seagulls must have been brain-boggling to a Barrow Goblin.

  The prince ran to the window and tried to look out. Even on tiptoes he wasn’t anywhere near tall enough to see over the windowsill.

  ‘You!’ he shouted at the Blink family. ‘Here. NOW!’

  We all watched in painful silence as Prince Grogbah ordered the Blink family onto their hands and knees to make a living, breathing Cyclops stepladder. He then waddled up their backs and peered out through the smashed glass.

  ‘I DON’T BLUNKING BELIEVE IT!’ he screamed after a few seconds of staring. ‘You lying, cheating, kunkerous HUMANS!’

  ‘What’s wrong, Your Gobliness?’ I said, dumping the bottles of frog grog on the nearest table and running over to the window.

  ‘I’ve been swizzled!’ Prince Grogbah yelled. ‘I’ve been double-crunched!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. The last thing we needed was to make our grizzly little goblin guest angrier and meaner than he already was.

  ‘Don’t know?’ Grogbah grabbed me by the chin and pointed straight through the hole in window. ‘Don’t know, you swindly bamboozle-bonce? Then what’s that?’

  I followed the line of Grogbah’s stumpy finger. He was pointing at the sea.

  ‘THAT’S A MUCH BIGGER PLUNGE POOL THAN MY ONE!’ he cried.

  ‘It’s the sea—’ I began.

  ‘It’s mine!’ The prince looked like he was about to have the temper tantrum of the century. ‘I want it!’

  ‘YOU CAN’T!’ The words just shot out of my mouth. Grogbah gasped in horror. I don’t think he’d ever been told he couldn’t do or have something in his entire life.

  ‘Can’t? CAN’T???’ His face twisted with anger. ‘I AM PRINCE GROGBAH! I WANT THAT BIG, BLUE, GIANT POOL AND I WANT IT NOW!’

  ‘But it’s packed with humans!’

  ‘Humans?’ Grogbah said the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth. ‘Pah! I’ll just order them to BOG OFF!’

  Before anyone had time to stop him, Grogbah jumped down from the windowsill and, with one big shove of his belly, pushed the front door open and skittered out into the afternoon sunshine.

  THE BEACH

  ‘NO!’ Mum screamed. She ran across the reception hall, jangling as she went. ‘Frankie! Stop him! We can’t let people see him!’

  I spun back towards the door and saw Grogbah’s little naked bottom wobbling down the garden path. In a moment, he’d be through the front gate and out onto the pavement among hundreds of human tourists.

  ‘Quick!’ Mum huffed as she darted past me, pinching her nose. Any second the spell on the doorstep would mean her poor human nostrils would be filled with the stench of Brussels sprouts. She hated them!

  ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no!’ Dad was hot on Mum’s heels. ‘He’ll blow our cover completely!’

  I jumped down the steps onto the front path to see Grogbah pushing open the gate and scurrying through it.

  ‘IT’S MINE!’ Grogbah yelled over his shoulder as he hopped across the pavement. There were families strolling in both directions, and traffic for as far as the eye could see. It would take only seconds before he was flattened by a car and we’d all be arrested for Royal Murder . . . or worse, he’d be spotted and our secret would be ruined forever.

  ‘Prince Grogbah!’ Mum was practically screeching. She reached the gate and hurdled over it like a deranged Christmas decoration.

  The prince darted between the legs of two men holding hands and pushing a pushchair. ‘HAHA!’ he laughed. ‘OUT OF MY WAY, PATHETIC HUMANS!’

  This was it. The Nothing To See Here Hotel was going to be exposed and we’d be run out of town like monsters.

  ‘WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!’ It was Mum. ‘WAH-WAH-WEEEEEEEE!’

  Dad and I stopped in our tracks at the gate and stared.
/>   ‘YAHOOOOOOO!’ Mum raised her arms in the air and shimmied. Her jingly-jangly top tinkled loudly as she jumped about. ‘OOH-AAH-EEEEE!’

  You genius! I thought to myself. Everyone on the pavement (including a shocked-looking dog) was gawping at Mum. She whistled and whooped and twirled her way into the road. Cars screeched their brakes, and drivers leaned out of their windows, agog at the BONKERS belly dancer.

  ‘Where is he?’ Dad said. ‘Quick, while everyone’s distracted.’

  I scanned the road and pavement on the other side. For a second I thought we’d lost the little twerp, then I caught a glimpse of him waddling out from under an ice-cream van and heading down onto the pebbles.

  ‘He’s already on the beach!’ I told Dad.

  ‘Oh, this is bad.’ Dad grabbed me by the hand and pulled me across the road.

  My eyes darted back and forth, trying to spot Grogbah. Normally the beach was only filled with old people snoring in their deckchairs on weekday afternoons, but I could already see a big group of children on a school trip heading towards us in the distance . . .and . . .

  ‘AAAAGH!’ Dad spotted them too. Way ahead of us, too far to catch him, Grogbah was skittering straight towards the big class of kids. I couldn’t hear what he was shouting, but he was waving his stumpy arms, so I guessed he was ordering them to get away from his plunge pool.

  ‘We’re done for,’ Dad said.

  ‘Think of something!’ Mum yelled as she caught up with us. ‘There has to be a—’

  ‘HELLO, DARLINGTH!’ We spun round, and standing right behind us were three very old men in crumpled suits. Each of them had an enormous white beard and gappy, rotten teeth.

  ‘Ummm,’ Mum said. ‘I’m sorry, we haven’t got time to—’

  ‘It’th uth,’ the three men said in unison. ‘The Molar Thithterth.’

  ‘The Molar Sisters!?’ Dad gasped.

  They each pulled a magic wand from one of their crumpled suit pockets and winked.

  ‘We haven’t played with a thpot of magic in yonkth.’

  Mum looked like she was about to cry. ‘You brilliant, brilliant men . . . ladies . . . men . . .’

  ‘Where ith the little blighter?’ said the sisters.

  Dad pointed at Grogbah who was only a few seconds away from running head first into the schoolchildren and blowing the secret of the hotel for good.

  ‘Oh, blunkin’ bunionth!’ the Molar Sisters said when they spotted the prince. ‘We need to clear thith beach, quick.’ With that, they mumbled a few odd-sounding words under their breath and gave a violent flick of their wrists.

  I’d never seen tooth fairies casting spells before, but it wasn’t quite as impressive as I’d hoped. One of their wands snapped as they flicked it, and another let go of hers and lobbed it into the sea.

  ‘That ought to do it.’

  ‘What ought to do it?’ said Mum after a few seconds. ‘What did you actually do?’

  ‘Jutht you watch,’ the Molar Sisters said, grinning proudly.

  Suddenly the pebbles on the beach seemed to lurch under our feet, and the air was filled with a strange crunching sound. ‘Look,’ Dad said and pointed at the ground. All of the pebbles were jumping and jostling about. Then, one by one, they sprouted legs and little eyes on stalks. Before we knew it, Brighton beach had been replaced by millions and millions of tiny hermit crabs. They scuttled about, and tumbled over each other.

  ‘Ugh!’ Mum yelped. ‘They’re disgusting!’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Dad. ‘YOU DID IT!’ He scooped the three old men into a bear hug.

  Dad was right. I looked along the beach and saw all the human tourists screaming and running for the safety of the pavement at the top of the swarm of crabs. The Molar Sisters had cleared the beach before anyone could spot Prince Grogbah, who was now flailing about, kicking and swatting at the little creatures.

  ‘Ooof here to help,’ came another voice from behind us. Ooof was still wearing his massive straw hat and sunglasses, and had wrapped himself in one of Mum’s sarongs from the kitchen laundry pile. It was a pretty convincing disguise.

  ‘Get him, QUICK!’ Dad said, pointing at the prince.

  ‘Ooof grab Grog!’ Ooof shouted, and loped off across the crabs. Then, just when I thought the ogre would snatch Grogbah off his feet, Ooof jumped into the air and came crashing down on top of him, wrestling the prince flat.

  ‘Got him!’ Ooof shouted, waving back at us. ‘Grogbah grabbed.’

  THE PLOT THICKENS

  Wow! We’ve made it to CHAPTER NINETEEN! It’s a good story, isn’t it? Well, don’t go anywhere just yet because it’s almost time for the big, MASSIVE, climactic plot twist. All the best stories have one . . .

  Prince Grogbah was in a foul mood by the time we’d all raced back across the crab-infested beach and got him safely into the hotel.

  Ooof dropped him in the middle of the reception-hall floor, and everyone stepped away, eyeing him nervously. Grogbah’s goblin subjects and the other guests were crowded up the great staircase. They’d been watching at the windows and saw the whole fiasco unravel.

  ‘I HATE YOU!’ Grogbah finally screeched when he’d clambered back to his feet. ‘This is the worst HOTEL IN THE WORLD!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the three old men in crumpled suits, as their features melted back to those of the Molar Sisters. ‘What a thulky tho-and-tho.’

  Two of the prince’s slaves ran forward and helped him get dressed back into his golden robes, and Nancy approached with a glass of frog grog.

  ‘Maybe a wee tipple will cheer you up?’ she said.

  Prince Grogbah snatched the glass and hurled it at the wall. ‘You think I want to drink anything in this HONK HOLE?’ he screamed in Nancy’s face.

  If the prince’s face wasn’t greyish-green, I’d swear he was turning purple with rage. It was quite something to watch.

  ‘If I’d known I’d have to deal with THIS!’ Grogbah shouted, gesturing around the room. ‘Commoners, and peasants, and humans . . . I NEVER WOULD HAVE CHOSEN TO HIDE OUT HERE!’

  Grogbah realised what he had just said and clamped his little hands over his mouth.

  ‘What?’ said Mum. ‘Did you just say—’

  ‘NOTHING!’ The Royal Shouter ran forward and stood between us and Grogbah. ‘The prince didn’t say anything. We’re not hiding out! Who said anything about hiding out?’

  ‘Yes . . . erm . . . I mean . . . we’re just having a winksy little holiday,’ Grogbah said, laughing nervously. ‘We’re definitely not on the run and I’m certain that I didn’t steal anything from a rival clan of goblins who are now after us.’

  Grogbah stared at us all with wide eyes.

  ‘You little criminal!’ Dad said, rolling up his sleeves and trying to look tough. ‘You come into my family’s hotel, then insult us, humiliate us, wreck the place and nearly blow our secret BECAUSE YOU’VE BROKEN THE LAW?’

  ‘Now can we eat him?’ said Madam McCreedie.

  ‘Ooof squish him,’ said Ooof, raising a huge foot in the air.

  Grogbah’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his skull. He looked at the Royal Shouter, then at the gaggle of us standing around him, then back to the Royal Shouter.

  ‘Ummm . . .’ he said. ‘GUARDS! ARREST EVERYONE!’

  And they did . . .

  There was nothing we could do. Goblin weapons are sharp, you know.

  By the time night fell, we’d all been sitting about for hours. The little pouting pumpkin’s guards surrounded us with their spears and made every nongoblin sit on the floor in the middle of the room.

  Things were looking pretty hopeless, but you’ll be glad to know it didn’t end there.

  I bet you’re wondering just who Grogbah had stolen something from, aren’t you? I know I was. It’s all I could think about.

  Well . . . you’re about to find out.

  We were all sitting in silence, except the prince. He was hunched over a little table, noisily scoffing the remains of Nancy’s
garden feast, when it happened.

  I was sitting on the floor, bored, with a numb bottom, and I had no idea . . . not a clue . . . not the tiniest inkling that everything was about to go WHOOMMFF!!

  The WHOOMMFF-iest WHOOMMFF I’d ever seen or heard!

  WHOOMMFF!

  The front door exploded inwards and a huge, rusty cannonball arced across the reception hall and wedged itself in the wall just above the painting of Great-great-great-grandad Abraham.

  ‘NOBODY MOVE!’ a voice shouted. I couldn’t be exactly sure as my ears were ringing from the blast, but it sounded like the voice of a girl. It was coming from the front steps, but it was dark and there was so much smoke and dust that no one could see who it belonged to. ‘OR ELSE!’

  Nobody moved a muscle. Even Prince Grogbah quickly sprawled himself across the table, stunned into silence.

  I stared with wide eyes as the dust cloud rolled through the hole in the wall where the front door used to be.

  ‘What was that, First Mate Plank?’ a second voice in the smoke asked. It was high-pitched and scratchy, like the hinges on the back garden gate.

  ‘I said—’ came the girl’s voice.

  ‘Eh?’ asked the scratchy voice.

  ‘Will you SHUT UP!’ the girl’s voice snapped. ‘You’re ruining my entrance! And, while we’re at it, I hadn’t said FIRE yet.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I hadn’t given the command!’

  ‘What command?’

  ‘FIRE!’ The girl was clearly losing her temper. I could hear the sound of her stamping on the spot. ‘I HADN’T SAID FIRE!’

  ‘Oh!’ the scratchy voice said. ‘FIRE!’

  There was another enormous WHOOMMFF and a second rusty cannonball shot through the hole in the wall and demolished the cloakroom door.

  ‘Oh, forget it!’ the girl’s voice shouted. There was the sound of footsteps and a silhouette suddenly appeared in the smoke.