Boo looked up at her. ‘You mean…you can See there’s nothing I can do?’
‘No,’ boomed Graunt Doom firmly. ‘Me can See you will do somethings. But not now.’
‘Why?’ demanded Boo, sitting back on his haunches.
‘Because time not right,’ said Graunt Doom calmly. ‘Yes, me can See that.’
‘But—’
‘Why you think school have Finder, boy?’ roared Graunt Doom. ‘Because me can Sees things!’
‘You dumb werewolf if you don’t take Graunt’s advice,’ rumbled Mug. He peered around the rocky ground as though he’d lost something.
Boo nodded. He felt like a dumb werewolf. The dumbest werewolf ever to have come out of Sleepy Whiskers. He’d just charged off, without a plan. And now…
‘And now you goes to the Ghastly Otherwhen,’ stated Graunt Doom.
‘Now?’
‘Next week best.’
‘And me comes too,’ said Mug, picking up his ear and pressing it back onto his head with duct tape.
The secret to a Good Cunning Plan is this:
1 Work out a plan.
2 Make sure it’s cunning.
It’s amazing how many Heroes omit these simple steps.
FROM ONE MONKEY’S GUIDE TO CUNNING PLANS AND HOW TO SURVIVE THEM BY DR VB MUSSELLS
13
Wanted: A Cunning Plan
Boo curled up in his basket back at the Bigpaws’ home in Sleepy Whiskers and tried to think.
Why did Graunt Doom say that next week would be better than tomorrow for his Expedition? What could happen in a week?
In a week’s time the bogeys in the Ghastly Otherwhen might have realised that the Greedle wasn’t coming back. Maybe by next week there’d be no bogeys in the Ghastly Otherwhen at all…or only peaceful ones, trying to get on with their lives now their savage master had vanished.
Or maybe…maybe in a week’s time he’d be better prepared. Maybe in a week he could convince other Heroes to join him. Or maybe…
Boo gulped. There was no getting away from it. A week would give him time to work out a Cunning Plan.
That was what he needed most—and had been trying to avoid.
He’d heard of Cunning Plans. Most of Level 2 was spent studying the great Heroic Cunning Plans of the past. But Boo had skipped Level 2 after he and the others had transformed the deadly Rabbits of the Universe of Golden Grass into fluffy pets and grass eaters, instead of savage bogeys who ripped their prey limb from limb.
That might have been why he hadn’t achieved anything in Yesterday’s universe, he admitted to himself. He hadn’t worked out a Cunning Plan! He’d just charged off down the wormhole without thinking.
If he were to have any chance of saving Mum and getting the expedition into—and out of—the Ghastly Otherwhen safely he had to have a really good Cunning Plan.
It was time to get some lessons.
‘Cunning Plans’ was taught by Dr Mussells—the only class the old Hero actually taught himself. Boo scrambled out of his basket and over to the bookshelf, grabbed the School for Heroes class timetable in his jaws and carried it back to his basket. He hopped back in, dropped the book, leant over for a quick lap of squashed fly juice—Mrs Bigpaws always kept his water bowl full—then licked the pages open.
Friday’s timetable, Monday’s timetable…Tuesday’s timetable. Here it was. Tuesday morning: Level 1s had Wham! Bamm!ing in the Library (assuming they could find it, which wasn’t always easy with a ghost library that perched wherever it wanted to), and Zoom!ing after that with Dr Hogg. After lunch there was a ‘name that bogey’ competition with Ms Snott. Boo missed classes with the Bogey teacher, but she only taught in the junior school.
All other classes were for anyone—from Level 2 upwards—who wanted to attend. Boo moved the candle closer.
8 am–9 am. Poisonous Pansies and how to use them with Griselda Snott, Senior. (That must be Ms Snott’s mother, the one who had won best poisoned daffodil at the All Universes Poisonous Flower Show two years running.) Tentacle muffins will be served, and hemlock tea. Bring your own antidotes.
9 am–10 am. Advanced Zoom!ing, with Dr Hogg. How to achieve Boom! status.
10 am–11 am Keep Clothes Moths from your Costumes and Does Black Really Go with Everything? (That was with Dr Hogg too.)
11.30 am–12.30 pm. The Best Lipstick to Dazzle a Bogey, or How You can’t Go Wrong with Passionate Purple, with Gloria the Gorgeous.
1.30 pm–3 pm Get the Pow!a, with Ms Punch.
3 pm–4 pm. Cunning Plans. (Ah, this was it.)
Swot! Suddenly the book snapped shut, putting out the candle and clapping Boo’s tongue between its pages.
‘Ow!’ Boo pulled his tongue out—carefully, in case the timetable decided to bite. How had he forgotten rule one of Library Studies? The School for Heroes books were Heroes too. Of course the school timetable was just a little book—and a very minor Hero. But even small Heroes didn’t like being ignored.
‘Er, how are you?’ managed Boo. The words were a bit muffled by his bruised tongue.
For a few seconds the book didn’t move. Then almost reluctantly it opened again. Some of his whiskers had been caught in the pages, Boo noticed.
He picked up a match in his jaws—a little gingerly, as his tongue still hurt—and lit the candle again. He bent down to read the pages. There were faint new words there now. DID I EVER TELL YOU HOW I SNAPPED A BOGEY’S NOSE IN THE BIT NASTY INVASION OF THE POBBLEWONKS?
‘No,’ said Boo politely.
AH. More words appeared on the page as Boo watched. WELL, IT WAS WHEN WATTALOTTA MUSSELLS WAS JUST A LEVEL 1.
‘Dr Mussells’s daughter?’ Huh, thought Boo. Every single book in the library had a story about itself and the highest-ranking Hero the school had ever produced.
THAT’S IT. HER FIRST HERO EXAM WAS TO FIGHT THE POBBLEWONKS. THE GREEDLE HAD SENT THE POBBLEWONKS TO CAPTURE THE BEST PINEAPPLE PIZZA IN THE UNIVERSES. WELL, WATTALOTTA FORGOT SHE STILL HAD ME IN HER POCKET WHEN SHE SET OFF. A GOOD THING TOO, boasted the book, in big red letters now, BECAUSE OTHERWISE SHE WOULD NEVER HAVE MADE IT TO LEVEL 20! NOT WITHOUT ME!!!
Boo sighed. His tongue still stung and his nose hurt where his whiskers had been pulled out. ‘Congratulations,’ he said to the book politely, trying not to yawn. ‘That sounds absolutely…ah hum…fascinating.’
At least he knew when the Cunning Plan class was now.
He settled down to read the rest of the timetable’s Great Adventure.
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Turner.
Turner who?
Turner the page or I’ll bite you.
FROM THE SCHOOL FOR HEROES
TIMETABLE AND DIARY
14
Buzz Off
‘Good afternoon, class!’ Dr Mussells swung through the door, his tail grasping a long twisty vine. Somehow ropes or long twisty vines just appeared when Dr Mussells was around. The old monkey wore blue shorts today, a wide-sleeved white silk shirt and a pair of bananas stuck in his belt. He swung himself onto the table in front of the class and gazed out at the assembled young Heroes.
It’s an unusually big class, thought Boo, as he perched up on a black rock bench at the back of the tiered learning centre. The principal’s lectures must be popular.
A few Level 2s sat along the side, their notebooks ready. The front seats were filled with Level 3s, one of them the handsome human-type Princess Princess had danced with the other night. Princess Princess sat next to him, wearing a particularly Heroic red silk tunic. Her long blonde hair was dusted with tiny diamonds again today.
There were even some ancient Heroes from up at Rest in Pieces. A decrepit walrus with long grey whiskers and tusks filed razor-sharp sat fiddling with his hearing aid. Gloria the Gorgeous and Dahlia the Dazzler giggled as they shuffled in behind their walking frames. A couple of phaeries fluttered near the unseen ceiling, twinkling even brighter than the yellow sulphur crystals. They were too small for Boo to see whether they we
re students or elderly Heroes.
Dr Mussells pulled out one of his bananas, peeled it with his foot and took a bite. Boo blinked. Somehow another banana had taken its place in the principal’s belt, as a young butterfly with a Level 3 badge fluttered into the room.
‘Hurry up,’ said Dr Mussells. ‘I hope you have the right class. We’re not studying mothematics today. Mothematics! Get it?’
‘Ha ha, sir,’ said the class.
‘Get on with it, Furry Bum,’ cackled Dahlia the Dazzler.
‘Today,’ said Dr Mussells, ‘we will consider Wattalotta Mussells’s Cunning Plan to capture the Vampire Bee of Ouche. Now, can anyone tell me what’s more dangerous than being with a fool?’ Dr Mussells looked round expectantly. ‘Fooling with a bee, of course.’
‘Ha ha, sir,’ said the class.
Dr Mussells took a thoughtful bite out of his banana. ‘As some of you may know, Lottie was my daughter.’ Boo caught a glimpse of pain and pride on the old monkey’s face. ‘But I do not think I am biased when I say the Vampire Bee Expedition was one of the Great Cunning Plans of History. A bee-yootiful plan, in fact.’
‘Ha ha, sir,’ said the class.
‘Now can anyone here tell me about the Vampire Bee of Buzzerouche?’
Princess Princess’s hand shot up. ‘Yes, sir!’ She stood up. She was wearing long red boots, too, Boo noticed. The Level 3s goggled at her admiringly.
‘The Giant Vampire Bee wasn’t an agent of the Greedle,’ recited Princess Princess. ‘It was created by mad Dr Parrot. The Bee slurped the blood from anyone who ventured out in daytime.’
‘A buzzy bee, indeed,’ said Dr Mussells.
‘Ha ha, sir,’ said Princess Princess.
‘Now,’ said Dr Mussells softly, ‘do you know what happened next?’
‘Yes, sir! Lottie Mussells defeated the Bee. She wore this Heroic silver tunic with—’
Dr Mussells lifted a small paw. ‘Do you know how Lottie defeated the Bee?’
Princess Princess stared. ‘I suppose she Wham! Bamm!ed it, sir.’
Dr Mussells threw the banana skin over his shoulder. ‘Lottie was…is…’ The principal paused for a second, then held his head high. ‘Lottie is a monkey, thirty centimetres high. The Vampire Bee was twenty metres from its feet to its antennae. Do you really think a thirty-centimetre Hero could Wham! Bam! a twenty-metre mutated bee?’
Princess Princess frowned. ‘She was a Level 20 Hero, sir!’
‘Exactly. Which meant she had too much sense to Wham! Bam! a giant bee into beehiving.’
‘Ha ha, sir,’ said the class (except Princess Princess).
Dr Mussells nodded to her. ‘You may sit down. This of course is where the Cunning Plan comes in. Like some of our students here—’ Dr Mussells glanced up at Boo ‘—Lottie wasn’t a classic Hero. So. Step one: Lottie went to the library. It says a lot for Lottie—’ Dr Mussells beamed proudly ‘—that the books gave her all the information on Vampire Bees as soon as she walked in. Step two,’ he continued, ‘Lottie worked out her enemy’s weakness. Can any of you think what a twenty-metre-high Vampire Bee’s weakness might be?’
Boo wished Yesterday was here. Yesterday understood bogeys—and people too. It was lonely without her.
Boo put up his hand.
‘Yes, Boojum?’
‘Maybe it was lonely, sir.’
Dr Mussells beamed.
‘I was just going to say that,’ hissed Princess Princess.
‘Lottie disguised herself as another Vampire Bee. But it didn’t work. Day after day the Bee flew past, dripping drops of blood from its prey.’ Dr Mussells stared out at the class. ‘Can you even begin to imagine how hard that is? To know that people are in peril, but to also know that the only way to help them is to wait?
‘Day after day she waited. Why didn’t the Bee try to land?’
‘She should have waited at a buzz stop, sir,’ said Princess Princess.
‘Ha ha,’ said Dr Mussells shortly. ‘No, Lottie realised that her bee disguise wasn’t working. It was time for Cunning Plan number two. And that,’ said Dr Mussells, ‘is the essence of a great Cunning Plan. The ability to change. Class dismissed.’ He lifted his arm and grabbed hold of his vine again.
‘But, sir,’ Boo stood up. ‘What was the second Cunning Plan?’
‘Didn’t I tell you? Lottie held up a mirror. What could be more bee-like than a reflection? It buzzed on down so fast that it knocked itself out on the mirror and tumbled into the pit-trap Lottie had dug.
It was quite bee-witched, in fact.’
‘Ha ha, sir,’ said Boo. ‘But what about the mad doctor who created it?’
Dr Mussells beamed. ‘Now that is what I like to hear. Efficient Heroing is tying up loose ends. Lottie discovered that Mad Dr Parrot was lonely too. He’s now happily employed as the keeper of the Insect Collection at the Ouche Zoo.’ He paused. ‘I gather they have a quite…unusual collection of creatures there these days.
‘The people of Ouche declared Lottie their bite in shining armour and her actions the greatest example of insecticide in the history of their universe.’
Dr Mussells fixed Boo with his furry gaze. ‘Lottie was the most advanced Hero our school has ever produced. But always remember that there are some things—and some places—that are too much for even the greatest Hero.’
He swung out of the room as the school bell rang deep inside the cliffs of the volcano.
HOME-MADE DOGGIE SHAMPOO
Ingredients:
1 cup dead rat, chopped
1 cup cow manure, dried
1/2 cup flea powder
2 cups minced slug, powdered
Method:
Mix well. Store in a sealed container. (Not plastic. Doggie Shampoo dissolves plastic.)
Shake well before use. Roll in shampoo three times a week.
15
A Cunning Poodle Plan
Boo sat on the rock by the skinning pool. It was peaceful in the late afternoon glow from the volcano. Most of the other students had finished classes and gone home for the day. The only teacher to be seen was Ms Punch, her ghostly form wafting across the ledge. From here he could see the ancient Heroes sunbaking on the ledge of Rest in Pieces above the school, or racing their wheelchairs down the path.
‘Can’t catch me, you old duffer,’ shrieked Gloria the Gorgeous. She’d attached wheels to her walking frame so she could zip down the path faster. Boo watched as Hamad flung his axe at her. It bashed against the cliff, missing her by inches.
Well, relatively peaceful. The volcano burped, then settled down again.
He had to come up with a Cunning Plan. But how could he when no one had ever returned from the Ghastly Otherwhen to write about it? And he and Yesterday and Mug were the only people who had ever defeated the Greedle.
Boo scratched a flea absently. So what did he know about the Greedle and the Ghastly Otherwhen?
He reached around and snapped the flea between his front teeth, then crunched it slowly. He did know one thing. The Greedle would have told his bogeys to look out for Boo.
The bogeys might well have stopped being bogeys now that the Greedle was dead, but if they didn’t know he was dead, they’d still be on the lookout for anyone werewolfy—and for zombies and girls in tatty leather tunics, too. News of their defeat of the Rabbits must have got back to the Ghastly Otherwhen by now.
Which meant he had to go in disguise. But what disguise would work in the Ghastly Otherwhen?
…And then suddenly he had it—and the ghost of a Cunning Plan too.
The flying pigs were sticking their little snouts into the flowers in the Bigpaws’ garden. Spot sat on her cushion in the living room and stared at Boo. ‘You want me to what?’
‘Give me a poodle haircut,’ repeated Boo. ‘Then dye my fur pink.’
‘But why?’
Boo grinned. ‘It’s a Hero thing.’ Spot won’t
understand, he thought, if I tell her I’m heading into certain death—well, uncertain
death—in the Ghastly Otherwhen. The Bigpaws’ daughter was like the pup he’d been before the Greedle invaded and took Mum—an everyday kind of werewolf, happy to play Frisbee and hunt kittens down at the park. But Boo was a different wolf now. And for the first time he really felt he had a Cunning Plan that might work.
What did the Greedle love?
Food.
And what was the most delicious thing in the universes—apart from Mum’s ice cream?
Stuffed poodle! Mug and anyone else who volunteered to invade the Ghastly Otherwhen could disguise themselves as bogeys bringing the Greedle a delicious poodle. That would get them to wherever its headquarters were. They’d rescue Mum and…
Boo gulped. He wasn’t sure about the rest of the Cunning Plan. A Plan that finished ‘…and then get safely home without being torn apart by bogeys’ seemed to lack a few necessary details. It didn’t seem very Cunning, either.
But he couldn’t think of anything else.
‘Can you do it?’ he asked Spot.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ve been trimming my own fur for years. Mum won’t let me dye it pink yet though,’ she added regretfully. ‘You do know you have to have a, shudder, bath if I’m going to dye your fur? Two, eeek, baths. One to wet your fur and one to wash the dye out.’
Boo lifted his head proudly. ‘I can take a bath. Even two baths. We Heroes can cope with anything.’
‘So you’re absolutely sure you want to be pink? And have a poodle cut? You’re sure you’re sure?’
‘I’m sure I’m sure I’m sure,’ said Boo, trying to keep the tremor from his voice.
He’d never had his hair dyed before. He’d never had a haircut either. It was something girl pups did, trying to get their fur to curl if theirs was straight or to go straight if it was curly. Some girls even put curlers in their tails, or rubbed in slug slime to make their coat shiny and stay in place.
Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs Page 6
