King Flashypants and the Toys of Terror

by Andy Riley

  Jill held the headline under Edwin’s nose.

  “Nurbison’s NICE?” said the king. “That IS big news. Why did they hide it on the front page?”

  All of a sudden, the sky went dark. There was a thundering sound on the roof, like the heaviest rain King Edwin had ever heard.

  But it wasn’t rain.

  “Newspapers!” said Jill.

  High above Edwinland, hundreds of the emperor’s crows were dropping copies of the Nurbisonia Times. Everybody in Edwinland picked one up and read it.

  Seconds later, Megan the Jester burst into the throne room. She pulled off her Thundercloud hat and cape.

  “Have you seen it? Have you? Have you seen it? Have you seen it? Have you? Have you seen it? Have you? Have you? Have you seen it?” said Megan, breathless. “The emperor’s going to make toys! So many toys. I love toys! Can we go to the toy shop as soon as it opens? Please? Please?”

  When people get older, most of them forget how cool toys are. That’s just one of the things that makes grown-ups more boring than kids. But even though she was a grown-up, Megan never forgot, and Edwin loved her for it.

  “Well, Emperor Nurbison is good now, I suppose…,” said Edwin.

  “He’s pretended to be nice before, then turned out to be horrible,” said Jill. “But he never pretended for more than an hour. If it seems like he’s been good for a whole month—maybe he really is good. Maybe. We’d better give him a chance, at least.”

  “Megan,” said King Edwin, “we’ll go to the toy shop.”

  “Hooray! Yay! Whoo-hoo! All the other words like that!” said Megan. Then she ran upstairs to see how much was in her piggy bank.

  Megan forgot to pick up her Thundercloud cape, thought King Edwin. And the helmet got a bit bashed up when she dropped it. But I know she loves it, so I’ll find some tape and fix it for her.

  He picked up the newspaper and looked at the comic strips again. Mister Poo was wearing poo for a hat and walking his pet poo, when he tripped over a poo and fell in some poo. It was just the kind of thing Edwin liked. But he wasn’t laughing as much as he normally would.

  Something was worrying him about Megan. But what was it?

  4.

  Grand Opening

  For the next few nights, Nurbison’s peasants hammered and sawed and built, saying things like “Let’s lay some bricks here” and “Where shall I put the floorboards?” and “On the floor, dummy.” In just a few days, there was a shiny new toy shop at the edge of Nurbisonia, just by the dotted line.

  The crows flapped over Edwinland again, dropping paper scrolls that said:

  Before the sun even rose on Saturday morning, King Edwin Flashypants was woken by a great big jester trampolining on his bed.

  “Let’s be first in line!” said Megan. “Let’s! Let’s! Let’s!”

  But when they got there, a great snaking line of people was already in front of the superstore. The people of Edwinland couldn’t wait to see what was inside.

  “Your Majesty! You should come to the front of the line,” said one peasant.

  “You are the king, after all,” said another.

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll wait like everyone else,” said King Edwin. “Just because I’m royal doesn’t mean I should jump the line.”

  When she heard this, Minister Jill felt incredibly proud. She turned to tell Edwin he was growing into a very wise and mature king, but Edwin had already started a booger-flicking contest with some other children.

  All morning, the people waited. The sun crept across the sky, stayed still for a bit just to annoy everyone, then crept a little more.

  “Hey, Megan,” said King Edwin. “Let’s pretend there’s a dinosaur, which is also a zombie and also a Dracula. A dino-zomb-cula! And it’s attacking this line! But wait, here come Thundercloud and Shark Boy!”

  Megan didn’t even look his way.

  “Megan? Megan. Megan. Megan. Megany-Megan. Megaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.”

  “I wonder if they do a discount for jesters?” said Megan, gazing at the superstore.

  At seven seconds before twelve, Globulus popped out of a hatch on top of the shop.

  “I kind of like, you know, sort of, declare this superstore kind of open, sort of thing!” said Globulus.

  That meant the superstore was open.

  Everybody hurried inside. The shop was simply enormous. The shelves seemed to go on forever. But wherever he walked, Edwin noticed the toys had one thing in common.

  “They’re all Emperor Nurbison dolls,” he said.

  “I know!” said Megan. “And so many different kinds!”

  She was right.

  And lots and lots more.

  Hundreds of different Nurbisons.

  For boys who thought buying a doll wasn’t for them, there was another part of the shop where they sold all the same stuff, but under a big sign that said ACTION FIGURES.

  “Nurbison is such a bighead!” said King Edwin, who was secretly a bit jealous he hadn’t been the first to think of making dolls of himself.

  Megan chose a Princess Nurbison doll and followed the THIS WAY TO PAY signs. Emperor Nurbison worked the giant cash register, which played jolly pipe music whenever he made a sale.

  “Such merriment! Enjoy your toys, everyone!” said the emperor. “Oh, hello, King Edwin, so glad you could come! SQUEE HEE HEE HEE”

  After banging the register’s huge buttons for a while, the emperor announced his arms were tired. “But never mind!” he said. “One of my sinister—I mean, un-sinister—soldiers will take over.”

  Nurbison and Globulus stepped out the back door. The moment they were alone, the emperor’s smile collapsed into a scowl.

  “It’s infernally hard work, pretending to be good,” said Nurbison. “I’ve never kept it up for this long before. And this false beard is giving me a rash.”

  The emperor pulled a fake beard from his chin. He’d had a shave. In secret.

  “Just, you know, a few more days, Your Sensationalness,” said Globulus, slapping moisturizer on the emperor’s bare face.

  “Yes!” said Nurbison. “And then all shall know the true might of the Evil Emperor Nurbison!”

  Then the emperor had to fetch a mop and bucket, because a baby had just been sick in aisle five.

  5.

  Big Pouty Face

  Bang, bang, bang. Bang, bang. Ba-ba-bang. Bang. Ba-bang. Bang, bang, bang, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bang.

  Bang, bang. Ba-bang.

  Ba-bangbangbangbangbangbang.

  Bang.

  Shark Boy was knocking on Thundercloud’s bedroom door.

  Edwin had just put a cool tail on the Shark Boy hat. It took lots and lots of tape to keep it in place, and he was very proud of it.

  “Megan! My lessons are over! Let’s play superheroes! Megaaaaan!”

  There was no reply. Edwin jumped onto a giant boingy spring. Giant boingy springs were another cool way to get around inside the castle. The spring boinged him all the way up to the battlements.

  He gazed across Edwinland. It seemed like everybody was carrying Emperor Nurbison dolls.

  And there was Megan, by the castle moat. It looked like playing superheroes couldn’t be further from her mind. Edwin frowned as he watched her dancing her Princess Nurbison all around and singing a song to it. Something like this:

  King Edwin called Centurion Alisha. She clanked toward him in her steel armor, then stamped her feet so hard that a chunk of the ceiling shook loose in the room below and hit Minister Jill on the head.

  “Your Majesty!” said Centurion Alisha.

  “Alisha? If anybody needs me, I’ll be in my throne room having a massive sulk,” said Edwin.

  Kings never have small sulks. Edwin really threw himself into this one, doing all the things nine-year-olds do when they’re in a bad mood.

  He pouted until his face got tired.

  He sat on his throne the wrong way around with his feet sticking in the air.

  He pouted some more.

 
; He kicked his foot with his other foot.

  He moaned and sighed and banged things with a stick.

  It’s not fair, he thought. Megan is my best friend, and she doesn’t want to play superheroes with me anymore. She just wants to play with her stupid Nurbison doll like everybody else.

  Normally, Megan would be there to cheer Edwin up when he was like this. But today, Megan was the reason why he was like this.

  In came Minister Jill, rubbing the bump on her head.

  “Something’s wrong about all this,” said Jill.

  “Mumble mumble mumble,” mumbled Edwin, because when you’re mega-moody it’s important to speak like that.

  “We’ve let Emperor Nurbison sell toys to everyone in Edwinland,” Jill continued. “And it’s good that we did, because we said we’d give him a chance to be nice…”

  Minister Jill took a deep breath, then puffed her cheeks out.

  Edwin checked the list of Jill’s moves he kept under his throne pillow. Puffy cheeks meant that Jill’s next word would be but.

  “But,” said Jill, “just say he wasn’t nice. Then the toys could be part of some new plan of—well, how can I say this—not-niceness.”

  Just then, Megan bounced into the throne room, and the wind blew a hundred new toy catalogs through the door after her. Nurbison’s crows had been dropping them for the last hour. They fell so thick in some places that the shorter peasants were stuck up to their necks.

  “There’s a new Princess Nurbison play set!” Megan gasped. “It’s got an ice-cream parlor and a beard salon—look!”

  She held two catalogs in front of King Edwin’s face, one for each eye. Then Megan the Jester ran up to her bedroom, grabbed some gold coins from her piggy bank, and dashed out to the superstore.

  “Maybe we should take a really close look at a Nurbison doll,” said Minister Jill. “Even though I’m absolutely sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Oh, I know where to find one of those,” said King Edwin.

  And he climbed the stairs.

  All the way to Megan’s bedroom.

  6.

  Find the Princess

  As he pushed open Megan’s bedroom door, Edwin thought, I’m just borrowing her doll, not stealing it. And while I know that’s not quite true, if I keep saying it in my head, I might start to believe it. I’m borrowing, not stealing. Borrowing, not stealing.

  Since the last time Edwin was in Megan’s room, she had built a giant play castle on the floor out of old toys and games. The Princess Nurbison doll was perched right on top.

  Wow. You could stack seven of me up alongside that thing, thought Edwin. Hey! If I had six identical brothers, you really could stack up seven of me, and we could be a circus act. The Flying Flashypants-es! And we’d wear spangly catsuits and we’d flip into the big top like this …

  King Edwin tried a cartwheel, stabbed his left hand with his crown, tumbled to the floor, and nudged the play castle.

  It creaked and rocked—but it didn’t come crashing down on Edwin.

  That really wobbled a lot then, thought Edwin. But it didn’t ACTUALLY come crashing down on my head, so I reckon it’s totally safe to climb.

  Edwin clambered up the princess’s castle. When he couldn’t find the next handhold, he opened up board games and looked for useful things inside the boxes. Hooky Duck had a tiny fishing rod. With a bit of hook-throwing and bit of reel-winding, Edwin climbed higher still.

  At the top, the king grabbed the princess doll with his teeth and climbed all the way down again.

  Whew! Not so hard, thought Edwin, leaning against the play castle’s biggest tower.

  The castle groaned, rumbled, and toppled over.

  Edwin ran.

  I’m not going to get crushed, he thought. Going to make it to the door … just in time …

  Just … in … time …

  Seventy jigsaw puzzles landed on his head. Alisha and the palace guards had to use every single rod from Hooky Duck to pull him out.

  Later, down in the throne room, Jill and Edwin looked at the Princess Nurbison doll this way, then that way. Then sideways, topways, and underways.

  “Just a normal-looking doll,” said Edwin.

  “Well, nothing weird about the outside,” said Jill. “So maybe there’s something inside it.”

  King Edwin was still pretty sure Emperor Nurbison was nice these days. But if he isn’t, Edwin thought, what might he hide inside a doll…?

  Just the thought of that last one made Edwin’s blood run cold.

  “We have to open it up and find out,” said King Edwin. “Jill? The big tongs, please.”

  Jill fetched a couple of pairs of tongs from the fireplace. Edwin gripped Princess Nurbison’s head with one pair, and Jill held Princess Nurbison’s feet with the other.

  Megan really, really, really, really wouldn’t like this, thought Edwin. But if I fix the doll straight afterward, she’ll never know.

  “One, two—” said Jill.

  “Wait,” said Edwin. “Let’s count down, not up. Down sounds cooler.”

  “Oh, all right then,” said Minister Jill.

  They both heaved. With a pop, then a rip, the Princess Nurbison doll broke in two.

  Edwin and Jill each looked at their own part.

  “Just wood and wire and cotton stuffing in my half,” said Jill.

  “Same here,” said Edwin.

  said Megan the Jester.

  Jill and Edwin looked up. There she was, clutching her new Princess Nurbison play set. They hadn’t heard her come in.

  “You’ve broken Princess Nurbison! You rotten snot-lords, you snapped her in half!”

  “Well—well—who cares about a stupid Princess Nurbison doll anyway? They all belong in the trash!” said Edwin.

  “Megan, Edwin. Let’s just calm down,” said Minister Jill, “before we all say a lot of angry words we won’t be proud of later.”

  But Edwin and Megan weren’t listening. They were too busy saying lots of angry words they wouldn’t be proud of later.

  “I care!” said Megan. “She was my favorite toy, and you’re just jealous because … because … because … YOUR SUPERHERO COSTUMES ARE GARBAGE!”

  “They

  are

  not!” said King Edwin.

  “They are so!” said Megan. “They’re not even made properly—they’ve got lots of tape hanging off them and it gets stuck to my hair!”

  The Thundercloud helmet was on the floor. Megan kicked it hard. It flew out the window and landed in the castle’s cardboard recycling bin.

  “Edwin! Megan! Calm down,” said Minister Jill. She knew perfectly well that she couldn’t say anything to help now, but all ministers know it’s good to be seen doing something, even when it’s totally and utterly pointless.

  “Well I … well I … well I don’t care if you don’t want to play superheroes anymore because you’re a rotten jester anyway!” said Edwin.

  “And you’re a rotten king! The WORST EVER!” said Megan.

  “Well, you’re a MASSIVE STINKY BUTTFACE!” said King Edwin Flashypants.

  “No! You’re the MASSIVE STINKY BUTTFACE!” said Megan.

  Once people have called each other massive stinky buttfaces, there’s really nothing more they can say.

  Trying not to cry, Megan ran to the kitchen and gathered a loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese into a huge polka-dotted handkerchief. She tied the hankie to a stick and stomped to the castle gate.

  “Megan, wait. All we were doing was—” said Jill.

  “I’m leaving Edwinland forever! Goodbye, dolly murderers!”

  Megan slammed the gate of Edwin’s castle so hard that the shock wave knocked peasants into ditches half a mile away.

  And then Megan the Jester, who had been King Edwin’s faithful friend since he was a little boy, was gone.

  Edwin ran to his bedroom.

  He didn’t want to speak to anyone.

  Jill picked up the top half of the doll.

&n
bsp; Peculiar, she thought. The emperor could have just painted that beard on. Nobody would have minded. But it’s made of lots of very small black hairs.

  Very, very peculiar.

  7.

  Hairy Magic

  That night, Nurbison and Globulus climbed the steepest, most winding staircase in the emperor’s castle. Flaming torches on the walls lit their way with a bright, steady glow.

  “Oh, that’s not right at all,” said the emperor. “Change the setting, Globulus!”

  Globulus found a knob on the wall. He clicked it around from “Bright, Steady Glow” to “Dim, Spooky Flicker.”

  “Much better,” said the emperor, and he continued up the stairs, stumbling a few times because he could hardly see the steps now.

  “Erm, Emperor?” said Globulus.

  “You’re not about to ask for something, are you, Globulus?” said Nurbison. “You know very well that I only let you ask for something every five years.”

  Emperor Nurbison pulled a little diary from his cloak and flicked back through the pages.

  “Oh!” said the emperor, his evil eyebrow arching. “Five years, two months, and three days ago: ‘Globulus asks His Imperial Greatness to pass the ketchup.’ So you really are due for another. Let’s get it over with, then.”

  “It’s um, kind of, you know, it’s this,” said Globulus. “There’s, like, thousands of dolls of you in Edwinland now. But there’s, kind of, no dolls to be helpers to them dolls. To keep all the emperor dolls company. Might be nice, yeah? Helper dolls. Sort of thing.”