Oliver Fibbs and the Giant Boy-Munching Bugs

by Steve Hartley

  For my three girls:

  Rosie, Connie and Louise

  (SH)

  For Mike . . . much xxoo

  (BL)

  Contents

  I’M OLIVER

  CHAPTER 1 UNDERCOVER

  CHAPTER 2 PHOTO FAIL

  CHAPTER 3 WENGHI BENGHI

  CHAPTER 4 BITTEN BY THE BUG

  CHAPTER 5 THE DANGER ZONE

  CHAPTER 6 HORRIBOBOLOUS

  CHAPTER 7 A SPOT OF GARDENING

  CHAPTER 8 THE ZIMBESI GOBBLERS

  CHAPTER 9 BALLOON FAIL!

  CHAPTER 10 FUN AND GAMES

  CHAPTER 11 KIDS CAN’T DO

  CHAPTER 12 GRUESOMINGIN!

  I’M OLIVER

  Hi! I’m Oliver Ranulph Templeton Tibbs, mild-mannered comic-reader and EXTREME PIZZA-EATER. Also known as Oliver ‘Fibbs’, just because I tell people I’m DABMAN, the daring and brave, dashing and bold DEFENDER OF PLANET EARTH (D.O.P.E.).

  Meet my Super And Special family:

  Mum, Charlotte Pomeroy Templeton Tibbs, is a life-saving brain surgeon.

  Dad, Granville Fitzwilliam Templeton Tibbs, is an award-winning architect.

  My big twin sisters, Emma Letitia and Gemma Darcy Templeton Tibbs, go to the National Ballet Academy: ballet, ballet, ballet – it’s all they talk about.

  Then there’s my little brother, Algy – Algernon Montgomery Templeton Tibbs. He’s a maths genius, chess champion and King of Sneakiness.

  And how could I forget Constanza, our Italian nanny? She’s a bit dizzy, but she gets me.

  At school, I’ve got my best friend Peaches Mazimba on my side. She’s the most sensible person ever, so I’ve recruited her to be a D.O.P.E. like me: she’s ‘Captain Common Sense’.

  Unfortunately, I’ve got the Super And Special Gang against me:

  Bobby Bragg can break bricks in half with his bare hands. Aka ‘the Show-off’, he has the Power to BORE PEOPLE STIFF.

  Hattie Hurley is a Spelling Bee Cheerleading Champion. Aka ‘the Spell Queen’, she has the Power of Big Words.

  Toby Hadron is a science whizz. Aka ‘the Boffin’, he has the Power of Inventing REALLY SCARRY STUFF.

  And finally there’s my teacher Miss Wilkins, Keeper of the Points, and dispenser of detentions, especially when she thinks I’m telling FIBS – but as I keep telling her (and everyone else): they’re not FIBS, they’re stories!

  The soft, suffocating darkness pressed close around me. Something moved outside the door, shuffling and creeping in the night. I , not daring to breathe. If they found me hiding here, I was in BIG TROUBLE, but I was so close to discovering the SECRET. The end was in sight!

  I waited, silent and still, until everything was quiet again, then switched on my torch. Its white glow lit up the underside of my bed covers. More importantly, it lit up my new comic, , lying open on the bed next to me.

  had discovered that the chief of the Kalamitti Kuku tribe was about to unleash Wiki, an beast-god. had been captured, and was tied to a sacrificial altar-stone, on the summit of an ancient temple deep in the . . .

  I heard a scream.

  ‘’

  I gasped. Had I imagined it? Mum and Dad always said I got too involved in my comics, but I was sure that scream was real.

  As if to prove it, another screech shattered the quiet of our house once more.

  ‘’

  I threw back the bed-covers and dashed out of my room, torch in hand. The sleepy, face of my little brother, Algy, peered round his bedroom door.

  ‘What’s going on, Ollie?’ he whispered, his voice trembling.

  ‘I don’t know, Algy,’ I said. ‘Stay in your room.’

  I rushed along the SHADOWY corridor towards the bathroom at the end of the landing. The sound of my rasping breath and thumping heart filled my head. With one shaking hand, I reached for the door handle, holding the torch above my head, ready to strike.

  The bathroom door burst open and a tall, terrifying figure stood before me. Its dark face and long, outstretched arms glowed with luminous orange . Its hair stuck out in a halo of long stiff spikes. The MONSTER staggered out of the bathroom, hands grasping at me. I could feel the creature’s hot, foul breath on my face.

  Yikes, I thought, it’s one of the radioactive zombies from .

  And, what’s more, it had breathed on me – I was !

  The hall light snapped on. Mum ran towards us, closely followed by my twin sisters Emma and Gemma.

  It was then that I realized. The creature wasn’t a zombie, it was . . .

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ he cried, his red-raw eyes blazing at us.

  ‘Maybe it’s something you ate,’ suggested Algy.

  The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. ‘WHAT IF . . . that fruit salad you had for supper had been poisoned by a race of , mutant fruit-men who wanted revenge on humans . . .’

  ‘But that’s only one theory,’ I said hurriedly. (My ‘WHAT IFS’ had a habit of getting me into TROUBLE, and I didn’t want to be GROUNDED again).

  ‘!’ shouted Dad, fixing me with his furious laser-red eyes.

  We all stared at him in . Dad never said anything silly.

  ‘Why did he say that?’ asked Emma.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Mum.

  ‘What does mean?’ asked Gemma.

  ‘I don’t know,’ repeated Mum.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ wailed Algy.

  ‘I DON’T KNOW!’ shouted Mum.

  ‘But you’re a doctor,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I’m a brain doctor, not a doctor,’ she answered, staring closely at Dad’s face.

  At that moment, Dad did an enormous ear-splitting sneeze.

  ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ said Mum. ‘We’d better get you to hospital.’

  As she rushed downstairs to get the car, Dad noticed Algy pointing a camera at him.

  ‘Algy!’ he growled. ‘Don’t you dare take a photo of me looking like this!’

  Then with another cry of ‘!’ Dad dashed from the house, jumped into the car and he and Mum drove away into the night.

  Our Italian nanny Constanza wandered sleepily to the top of the stairs, late for all the action, as usual. She blinked at the light, and jumped when she saw us standing in the hallway.

  ‘Mamma mia!’ she exclaimed. ‘What you do here? You should be in beds.’

  I quickly told her what had happened.

  Constanza stared at me for a moment then burst out laughing.

  ‘Ha! You are pulling my foot,’ she cried.

  ‘He’s pulling your leg,’ corrected Algy.

  ‘Oliver! No FIBS!’ said Constanza, ignoring our protests and ushering us all back to our rooms.

  I sighed and climbed into bed. Alter all this excitement, there was no way I was going to get to sleep, so I snuggled back under my blankets and switched the torch on. I decided the only thing that would stop me worrying about Dad was to finish . Now, where was I?

  The knife was plunging towards ’s heart. I turned the page . . .

  ‘,’ I yawned, switching off my torch, and sliding the comic under my pillow. There’s nothing like a really great story to make you forget about your dad turning into a zombie in the middle of the night.

  The next thing I knew, the morning sun was BEAMING through the gap between my curtains, carving a thin golden slice across the bedroom carpet, and Constanza was shouting my name.

  ‘Oliver! Wake up yourself!’ she called. ‘You have a late for school!’

  I leaped out of bed, threw on my school uniform and CLOMPED downstairs. I couldn’t wait to get to school and tell everyone last
night’s zombie horror story. And for once I didn’t have to make anything up – it was all true!

  Algy and the twins sat around the kitchen table, quietly eating breakfast.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, plonking down on a chair next to my brother.

  ‘Your Papa, he is still at hospital,’ said Constanza. ‘They no know what makes bad with him.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ It hadn’t occurred to me that Dad’s might be serious. ‘Is he going to be OK?’

  ‘Mum said it’s not very nice . . .’ replied Emma.

  ‘. . . but it’s not really nasty,’ continued Gemma.

  ‘Phew,’ I said.

  I pointed at my sisters, as an image flashed through my mind. ‘WHAT IF . . . you catch Dad’s horrible disease too? WHAT IF . . . your ears SWELL up and your noses DROP off and all the join into one huge GLOWING blob? WHAT IF . . . it makes you take up tag-wrestling instead of ballet?’

  Algy laughed, and the twins pulled stupid faces at me.

  ‘I can see it now,’ I went on.

  ‘Go and boil your bottom,’ said Emma.

  ‘Go and bake your banana,’ said Gemma.

  As we all tucked into our cornflakes, I noticed Algy sneakily looking at something under the table. Constanza noticed too.

  ‘Algy, what-a you do?’ she said.

  My brother quickly slipped his camera into my trouser pocket. ‘Nothing,’ he replied casually, leaning over towards me. ‘I was trying to find the photos I took of Dad last night,’ he whispered.

  I , a spoonful of cornflakes hovering just under my nose. This was even better. My sneaky little brother had snapped the proof that it had all happened!

  ‘I’ll keep the camera for now,’ I whispered back. ‘You don’t want to get GROUNDED.’

  I wolfed down my breakfast, and hurried everyone else along. Even so, the journey to school seemed to take forever.

  First, the twins had to be dropped off at the National Ballet Academy so they could try on some new costumes.

  Then Constanza took Algy to his university because he had a super-difficult special class with a world-famous maths professor.

  By the time I got to school, I only had a couple of minutes to tell everyone my news before we started lessons. I saw my best friend, Peaches Mazimba, talking to a few of our classmates in the playground.

  ‘You’ll never guess what happened last night!’ I said, charging up to them.

  The kids gathered round as I acted out my midnight drama. They jumped when I screamed, held their breath when I showed them my creep towards the bathroom down the dark corridor and then gasped when I described my dad’s zombie transformation.

  ‘Liar, liar! Pants on fire!’ shouted Bobby Bragg.

  ‘It’s not a lie,’ I replied, pulling the camera from my pocket. ‘And I can prove it.’

  I switched on Ally’s camera, but as I flicked through the photos on the screen, my knees went weak. Why hadn’t I checked them before now?

  ‘Look,’ I said, pointing to a shape in the top corner of the screen. ‘There’s Dad. You can see his orange and sticky-up hair!’

  Everyone gathered round and stared at the picture.

  ‘It’s a pineapple,’ said Hattie Hurley.

  ‘It’s a hat,’ said Toby Hadron.

  ‘It’s a joke,’ said Bobby Bragg.

  I looked at Peaches, my eyes behind for help.

  ‘It could be a man with a crazy hair-do,’ she said, but even she didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘Or it could be Tibbs the Fibbs telling another great big whopper!’ laughed Bobby.

  ‘I’m not FIBBING!’ I insisted.

  ‘Then you’ll have to show us better proof than that,’ snorted Bobby, pointing at the BLURRY photo.

  ‘Fine, just wait until you see my tomorrow,’ I blurted out. ‘Dad breathed his zombie germs all over me, so I know I’ve caught it too. I can feel the boils bubbling up inside me.’

  ‘I can’t wait, Fibbs,’ laughed Bobby, swaggering away from me.

  Peaches looked at me as though to say, ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘It’s not a FIB, Pea,’ I said. ‘It’s not even a story. It’s true!’

  Constanza dashed into the classroom eleven minutes after everyone else had gone home.

  ‘Sorry! I take my siesta after lunch, but my clock has no beep-beep-beep!I throw it at I the bin, and buy a new one.’

  As I struggled into my coat, Constanza had one of her whispered conversations with Miss Wilkins. I caught odd words like, ‘terrible’, ‘shocking’, ‘sneeze’ and ‘big toe’.

  Algy and the twins were in the back of the car. As usual, the girls ignored me and carried on talking about ballet stuff.

  ‘Kimberley Smithers does the best fish dive I’ve ever seen,’ said Emma.

  ‘Are you surprised?’ said Gemma. ‘She looks like a halibut.’

  They both sniggered.

  My poor little brother looked BORED STIFF. I passed the camera back to him, and whispered, ‘You’ll never be a BRILLIANT photographer, Algy. Those sneaky photos were terrible – you couldn’t see Dad’s at all.’

  ‘I’ll get some better ones tonight,’ he replied, and gave me a huge wink.

  Mum was waiting by the front door when we got home.

  ‘Family Meeting in the kitchen,’ she ordered. ‘Now.’

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I asked, peering around the kitchen. ‘Is he OK?’

  ‘Your father’s having a nap,’ replied Mum as we took our places round the table. ‘He has to lie down in a darkened room and must not be disturbed. He’s been diagnosed with . The tropical disease expert, Doctor Hampson, says he must have been bitten by a blood-sucking UBANGI DEVIL BUG when he was in Africa last week.’

  ‘Eeeuw!’ said Emma.

  ‘Gross!’ said Gemma.

  ‘Could we catch too?’ asked Algy.

  ‘Dad breathed all over me last night,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve dot it already!’

  Mum shook her head. ‘ isn’t an airborne disease,’ she explained. ‘You can only catch it if you’re bitten by the bug.’

  (Uh-oh. It looked like those boils I felt bubbling up inside me that morning were just wind!)

  ‘Doctor Hampson said DEVIL BUGS bite anything that moves,’ Mum continued, ‘and they get everywhere. So if Dad’s brought one home in his luggage we could be in TROUBLE.’

  ‘Noooooooooo!’ wailed Emma and Gemma.

  ‘Yessssssssss!’ I yelled, punching the air triumphantly. ‘I bet nobody at school’s ever had a tropical disease. WHAT IF . . . the beast is loose in the house? WHAT IF . . . it’s lying in wait under one of our beds, ready to pounce when we’re asleep?’

  ‘Mum!’ wailed the twins. ‘Make him stop!’

  ‘Oliver! This is not the time for one of your flights of fancy,’ warned Mum. ‘We must all keep a look out. If you see a strange insect in the house, report it to me immediately.’

  If there was a DEVIL BUG on the loose, then I had to get bitten and I had to get ! It would be the most totally SHOW AND TELL in the history of the universe.

  ‘Shall we go bug-hunting after dinner?’ I said to Algy.

  My little brother nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yeah! Although, statistically, the chances of finding a bug in a bedroom are even lower than finding a needle in a haystack: about eight hundred and ninety-nine octillion, nineteen septillion, four hundred and forty-four sextillion, five hundred and sixty-two quintillion, three hundred and eight quadrillion, nine hundred and seventy-one trillion, six hundred and thirty-six million, three hundred and twenty thousand, one hundred and eleven to one.’

  ‘Wow! How did you work that out?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he grinned. ‘I made it up.’

  So Algy and I spent the evening crawling around on our hands and knees with a magnifying glass, searching all over the house for any sign of a weird insect. All we found were:

  • two mouldy peanuts,

  • a spider,

  • an ancient snotty hanky,


  • a penny and

  • a ping-pong ball.

  ‘Do you think Dad’ll come out before bedtime?’ Algy wondered, as we hunted around in the hallway outside his darkened room. ‘I’d like to get another photo of his .’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘No one believes me at school.’

  But Dad stayed in his bedroom, snoring away all evening. He’d been a bit sleepy ever since he got back from his trip to Africa. He’d done there to work on a new brain hospital, and the scheme had turned into a super-duper protect for my super-BRILLIANT family:

  Dad was in charge of designing and building the hospital.

  Mum was in charge of choosing the doctors to work at the hospital.

  Emma and Gemma were in charge of the hospital’s opening ceremony, which involved them performing dances from their favourite ballets, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.

  Algy was in charge of fund-raising for the hospital. He was doing sponsored chess challenges. No one had beaten him and he’d raised thousands of pounds.

  I wasn’t in charge of anything. I just got the Dull And Boring job of sticking stamps on all the letters they sent out about the project, then posting them.

  I did come up with a BRILLIANT name for the hospital: The Templeton Tibbs Extra Special Hospital For Ill People With Unwell Brains That Urgently Need Operating On. Mum said she liked it, but thought it was a bit too long, so I pointed out that they could shorten it to:

  Mum said that people with unwell brains that urgently need operating on have enough problems, without coping with tongue-twisters, and decided to call the hospital ‘The Ubangi Neurology Centre’. Now that is Dull And Boring.

  That night as I climbed into bed, and settled down to read again, I just couldn’t concentrate. I was excited about getting bitten by a UBANGI DEVIL BUG, but worried about going to school the next day without either the photos of Dad or the I’d promised.