by Lyn Gardner
His heart began to thump louder than the music at the annual Little Snoring junior fancy dress disco.
Tat raced down the stairs. Aunt Tessie was snoring quietly in her armchair. She had fallen asleep over her 443 516–piece jigsaw puzzle that she had bought at the same store where she had bought Tat’s flashlight with the power of a million candles. Tat didn’t stop to wake her up. He opened the front door and with Dog at his side he began running for the beach.
When he was down on the sand, his superior eyesight meant that despite the darkness of the night he could see The Rotten Apple moored at a spot just this side of the Jaws so it was completely obscured from the approaching boat. He looked up at The Rotten Apple’s mast. Flying from the top was the skull and crossbones. The terrible sound of the McNastys’ laughter could just be heard carried upon the wind as, at regular intervals, they shone a flashlight out to sea.
Tat didn’t hesitate. He had to stop the McNastys.
“Hetty, wake Hetty,” he told Dog, who meowed loudly and wagged his tail to show he understood.
Tat ran over to one of the little rowing boats, pushed it into the water and started rowing as fast as he could toward The Rotten Apple.
Tat rowed as hard and as silently as possible, and tried to block out the terrible sound of the McNastys’ laughter, which was like a room full of balloons being rubbed together. He rowed alongside The Rotten Apple, lined his boat up with the rope ladder and tied it to the bottom rung alongside the two other rowing boats that had been left there.
Then he began to climb up the side of The Rotten Apple, leaning back slightly to try and avoid the worms coming out of the ship’s rotten wooden planks that tried to lick his face as he passed. Tat climbed higher and higher until he reached the handrail that ran around the top of the deck. Very carefully, he peered over the top …
Chapter 12
Hetty woke up with a jump to the sound of meowing, which is much, much nicer than waking up to the sound of a screeching alarm clock. She looked around. It was still very dark. It was obviously far too early to get up and start trying to do six impossible things before breakfast, which, to tell the truth, she was beginning to find quite exhausting. She thought that maybe she should just try to do six impossible things before breakfast on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and skip breakfast on the other days.
She lay in bed for a moment, but the meowing just got louder, and as she lay there she became aware of an intermittent beam of light outside her bedroom window. Hetty’s sleepy brain, which had not quite woken up yet and really wanted to carry on dreaming, tried to make her roll over and snuggle under the duvet. But Hetty forced it to think.
Suddenly she leaped out of bed, grabbed her glasses and ran over to the window. Hetty found it utterly impossible to eat six carrots before breakfast however hard she tried, but at that moment the moon briefly appeared from behind a cloud and she could see the hulk of The Rotten Apple moored by the Jaws.
She could see that the ship was also the source of the blinking light and she knew at once that the Ghastly McNastys were trying to lure some poor sailors out on this filthy night toward the treacherous rocks.
Hetty knew that the McNastys were wasting their time. There was no boat with precious cargo. The note that Tat had left on The Rotten Apple for the McNastys to find was an old one dating from the time when Tat’s dad had been the lighthouse keeper. Clever Tat was just using it as a way to keep the McNastys on their ship until his parents and sister returned and he could give them the treasure that he and Hetty had dug up on the beach. There was no need to worry.
She looked across the sea, which was growing wilder as the wind began to shriek. It was as if it had suddenly glimpsed something very, very frightening.
At that moment, Hetty spotted the little rowing boat leaving the harbor of Little Snoring and setting out on the frothing sea toward The Rotten Apple.
Dog was pointing his paw toward it and mewing loudly, and Hetty was certain that Tat must be in that little boat.
Hetty’s stomach sank to her toes, which made a terrible clanging noise that echoed around her bedroom and made her worry that it might wake up her parents. After she picked her stomach up and put it back where it belonged, she put on her dressing gown, ran downstairs and opened the front door. Dog tried to jump up and lick her face, then he bounded ahead of her as they both ran down to the beach and toward the sea.
Right at the water’s edge lay a jam sandwich, immediately confirming to Hetty that it was Tat in the rowing boat. But why was he going back to The Rotten Apple? She knew that Tat must have a very good reason to do something so dangerous.
Then she realized that the lighthouse was in darkness. Being the kind of girl she was, Hetty put two and two together and came up with 125 and a half. She guessed that the McNastys must have stopped it working.
She turned back to The Rotten Apple and what she saw was so frightful that I can hardly bear to write the words, but I will be very brave, maybe even braver than a dormouse or a llama, and try.
What she saw was Tat climbing the rope ladder up the side of The Rotten Apple. She saw him pop his head cautiously over the edge of the handrail and then she saw two pairs of hairy arms reach out, grab him hard and lift him over.
The McNasty twins had captured Tat!
For the first time in her life, Hetty didn’t know what to do, but what she did know was that she must save Tat before the McNasty twins made him walk the plank or keelhauled him. Tat had told Hetty about the poor teddy who was perched perilously on a plank above a tank full of piranhas, and she feared for his life. Anyone wicked enough to think of feeding their teddy bear to piranha fish would have no qualms about making a small boy walk the plank.
Hetty shivered. She knew she was going to have to do something very brave, something so brave that it would make doing six impossible things before breakfast seem easy peasy.
She heard a gentle sneeze behind her.
“I think,” said Mrs. Slime, “that it’s time for me to help you in return for your kindness in alleviating the symptoms of my cold.”
Chapter 13
(Unlucky for some)
The McNastys were confused, and being confused always made them as angry as terrapins.
Their plan, to lure onto the rocks the ship carrying precious cargo detailed in the note they had found on their bedroom floor, had been going rather well. They had successfully stopped the beam of the lighthouse by dropping a very large blanket over it from a helicopter, which had cost half their treasure to hire. But it was worth it to get their nasty hands on more treasure. The prize had been in sight.
They had both glimpsed the lamp from a rowing boat as it set off just after 11:00 p.m. from the mainland and headed toward the island and the harbor of Little Snoring. It did seem to be quite a small boat to be carrying such a huge precious cargo, but they guessed that what was on board was so priceless that the owners didn’t want to draw attention to it. They had used their flashlight to trick the boat into thinking it was heading for the harbor when in fact it was on a direct course for the sandbanks and the Jaws. The treasure would soon be theirs.
They were just about to start celebrating when they heard a noise and spied Tat climbing over the handrail on deck.
For a moment they were both frightened because they thought that Tat had been eaten by piranhas and that his ghost had come back to haunt them. But then they realized that he was a real flesh and blood boy because he was shouting “Stop!” and gabbling on about the fact that the rowing boat didn’t contain any treasure, only the Trout family.
“Dastardly boy! You’re trying to trick us and save the boat and keep its precious cargo out of our hands,” said the twins angrily.
“No,” said Tat desperately. “I’m not. There is no precious cargo. I dropped the note to trick you. If you look very carefully under the jam splotch, you’ll see that the message dates from years ago.”
The twins shone their flashlight on the note and saw that Tat was telling
the truth.
The McNastys stamped their feet so hard that their left legs went straight through the rotten planks on deck.
They caught Tat in a net and squirted him with slime. Then the McNasty twins shone their flashlight with the power of five million candles in Tat’s eyes.
It was rather painful, but it hurt less because Tat very cleverly realized that if the McNastys were shining their flashlight into his eyes they couldn’t be using it to pretend to be the Little Snoring lighthouse and trick his mom and dad into rowing onto the Jaws. He glanced out toward the sea and blinked to restore his vision. Without a light to guide it, the little boat had stopped moving. Tat heaved a sigh of relief.
He glanced the other way, and he spied another boat leaving Little Snoring and heading toward them. He hoped that Hetty was in the boat and that help was on its way. All he had to do was stall for time.
“We want to know exactly what’s going on!” roared Captain Gruesome.
“We need information and we need it quickly,” bawled Captain Grisly.
“Yes,” said Captain Gruesome, “tell us EVERYTHING, absolutely EVERYTHING you know.”
Tat stared at them. “Do you mean every single thing?”
“Yes!” roared Captain Grisly.
“Okay,” said Tat with a smile. “If you’re quite sure it will be of help.” He took a deep breath.
Tat was running out of breath, but it didn’t matter because Captain Gruesome had fallen asleep and Captain Grisly was trying to spell difficulty and particularly. Tat stopped speaking and Captain Gruesome woke up with a jump.
“Clearly this nasty, nauseous, noxious ninny knows nothing of use. He is a complete waste of space,” he said.
“Oh,” said Tat indignantly, “I thought I told you quite a lot and I haven’t even started yet on all the things Hetty has taught me.”
“Silence,” said Captain Grisly McNasty. “You will be dealt with. Gruesome, fetch the plank and some meat to attract the sharks.”
Chapter 14
Hetty rowed furiously toward The Rotten Apple with Dog in tow. She had discovered that rowing was much harder than it looked (which made her admire Tat a great deal more). The boat was quite heavy because, as they pushed off from the shore, several kangaroos had leaped on board.
The McNasty twins didn’t see Hetty’s boat coming because Captain Gruesome was setting up the plank on the far side of the ship and Captain Grisly was dropping chunks of bloody raw meat into the sea to attract as many sharks as possible.
As soon as everything was ready, the McNastys shone the flashlight in Tat’s eyes again.
“You are going to die so you might as well tell us where you’ve hidden the treasure. It’s the least you can do for wasting our time,” said Captain Gruesome.
Tat said nothing. He would never tell.
“Make him walk the plank!” cried Captain Grisly, before Tat had a chance to reply.
So they tied Tat’s hands behind him and prodded him with a broom handle toward the end of the plank. Tat could hear the snapping of sharks’ teeth.
Suddenly a big beam of light swept across the sea. It was such a welcome sight that it quite took Tat’s mind off the prospect of imminent death.
The lighthouse was working again!
In the distance, Tat saw the rowing boat, containing his family, begin to move again. It changed course and began heading straight for the safe haven of the harbor mouth. Tat was staring death straight in the face but he gave a loud laugh of happiness. His family was safe. He would die happy.
Infuriated, the McNastys prodded him harder toward the end of the plank. Then, with a nasty cackle, they gave him one last hard push and he disappeared over the edge. They stood waiting for the splash and the crunch of sharks’ teeth against the small boy. But no splash or crunch came.
“Sweaty socks! A shark must have swallowed that nasty boy whole!”
“Squeaky underpants! It will give the shark the most terrible indigestion!”
But Tat had not been swallowed by a shark at all. He had jumped straight into Hetty’s boat, which she had cleverly rowed around the side of The Rotten Apple so it was directly below the plank. Hetty untied Tat’s hands and gave him a wet tissue to wipe away the slime. Then Tat began rowing them back to shore but not before the kangaroos had leaped onto the deck of The Rotten Apple and started whacking and walloping the McNasty twins on their noses and behinds.
“Sweaty socks! Set sail at once!” shouted Captain Gruesome to Mrs. Slime. But Mrs. Slime was not there. She was sitting by the lighthouse, blowing her nose very loudly into the blanket, which she had pulled down. It was the biggest handkerchief she had ever seen, and Hetty had promised that if she could get it down from the lighthouse, she could keep it.
Despite being boxed continuously by the kangaroos, the McNasty twins finally got The Rotten Apple underway and it sailed farther out into the open sea. But they didn’t get very far. Pegleg Polly, who had been slowly climbing up from the end of Chapter 8, where she had been swiped by Captain Gruesome, got to the beginning of Chapter 14 and found herself right in the thick of the story. Eager to get her revenge, she flew down into the bowels of the ship and pulled out Mrs. Slime’s snot plug with her beak. It came out with a satisfying pop. It took a few minutes for The Rotten Apple to start to take on water.
But when it did there was an enormous GLUG.
And then there was a huge GURGLE.
Then there were lots of little gurgles.
And then The Rotten Apple began to sink. The kangaroos and various rats and bats jumped overboard and swam or flew back to shore. The Rotten Apple was sinking fast. Captain Gruesome and Captain Grisly turned red, then purple with rage and then green and white with fear.
“Sweaty socks! We are staring catastrophe in the face!” Actually catastrophe doesn’t have a face, but this is what it would look like if it did:
“Squeaky underpants! This is a disaster!” Captain Grisly had never spoken a truer word. (Or six words in this case.)
When the water came up to their knees, the McNasty twins jumped overboard but they didn’t look before they leaped and they jumped straight into the mouth of an enormous whale — the very same one that they had bumped on the nose on the way to Little Snoring. The whale had followed them and had been lying in wait for them so she could teach them a few manners.
Just then The Rotten Apple disappeared with a sound that was like something too big going down the bath drain.
The whale gave an enormous burp and from somewhere in its stomach could be heard the words, Sweaty socks and Squeaky underpants. The whale swam very fast, far out into the ocean, to join the rest of her family.
Tat rowed back to shore with Hetty and Dog. The sky was taking on the rosy hue of dawn. He rowed hard toward the harbor mouth and arrived there just at the same time as his parents’ boat.
“Why did you come back early?” he asked when they were all standing on the seashore together.
“Ah,” said his dad. “All the jewelers were closed. They’d been offered a last-minute bargain weekend trip to Ouagadougou.”
“So you couldn’t sell the wedding ring?”
“No,” said Tat’s mom, “but actually I’m pleased. Some things are worth more than money.”
“But we did buy jam donuts,” piped up Tallulah.
“Yes,” said Tat’s dad. “We spent the last of our money on them.”
“Jam makes everything seem better,” said Hetty brightly.
“It does.” Tat’s mom smiled. “And something will turn up.”
“Actually,” said Tat, “it already has.”
They all started to walk toward the village.
“By the way, Tat,” said Tat’s dad. “Was that the Ghastly McNastys’ ship I saw sinking?”
Tat nodded.
“I hope they haven’t been bothering you.”
Tat grinned at Hetty. “Nothing we couldn’t handle,” he said. “We’ll tell you all about it over jam donuts.”
&n
bsp; Later that day, everyone in the village of Little Snoring gathered on the beach. Tat and Hetty wheeled down the wagon carrying the big wooden box, which they’d draped in an old blue velvet curtain covered with silver stars that had been used in the village pantomime. The school band played a fanfare, and everybody watched with mounting excitement as Tat removed the curtain with a flourish. He grinned at Hetty, and together they slowly raised the lid of the box. There was a flash of gold and a loud gasp from the crowd, followed by a tiny silence, and then everyone began cheering wildly and clapping Tat and Hetty on the back. The box was full of precious TREASURE. It was all the lost shoes that had gone missing from the houses in Little Snoring over the last few months.
Hetty’s mom’s missing gold sandal glinted right at the top. She reached for it with an enormous smile on her face, and soon the rest of the delighted villagers were reclaiming their lost shoes. For the first time in months some people in the village had two shoes that matched, and it made them want to dance.
They happily handed over the reward money to Hetty and Tat, but Hetty said that it all belonged to Tat because if it hadn’t been for him being so brave and clever, then nobody would have got their shoes back.
“So where did you hide the box that the McNastys would never think of looking?” asked Tat’s dad after they had told everyone about their adventures and how the McNastys had tried to snaffle the box, believing it was stuffed full of jewels and gold bars.
“We took it to Aunt Tessie’s dental office,” said Tat. “After we’d seen the McNastys’ teeth, we knew they’d never go there.”
“Actually,” said Hetty, who was staring hard at Miss Green, “it was all Tat’s brilliant idea.”
Miss Green had the grace to look a little embarrassed. She rummaged in her handbag and presented Tat with a Super Star on the spot, which made Mr. and Mrs. Trout beam with pride. It was the first Super Star that anyone in the Trout family had ever received.
“But how on earth did the shoes get in the box and get buried in the first place?” asked Hetty’s mom as everyone else walked around happily in their matching shoes.
