Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs

by Jackie French

  Yesterday gave him a look. It was a You are a nice puppy and I like you kind of look with a but you have no idea how the dinosaurs and I have to live on the end. ‘They’ve never tasted cheese sandwiches,’ she said quietly. ‘But I know what they do like. Baaa,’ she said softly to the sheep. ‘Baa, baaa, baa, baaabaa.’

  The sheep stared at her.

  ‘Baa?’

  ‘Baa,’ said Yesterday firmly.

  ‘Baa,’ said the sheep resignedly. It baaed an instruction to the rest of the menu creatures. As one they bowed, then trotted back and stood by the café door.

  ‘How can animals offer themselves to be eaten?’ said Boo wonderingly. (And could he ever eat kittenlicious ice cream again?)

  ‘The Greedle,’ said Yesterday grimly. ‘He could use his hypnosis on any creature, remember. Maybe that’s why everyone here seems so happy. He made them happy. Even happy to be eaten…’

  ‘The happiest little town in the universes,’ said Boo slowly.

  Yesterday nodded. ‘This really is the Ghastly Other when. But its Ghastliness is…different…’

  ‘What did you order for the dinosaurs?’ asked Princess Princess curiously.

  ‘Garbage,’ said Yesterday shortly. ‘That’s what they’re used to eating. I ordered fifteen garbage bins full of scraps, the smelliest they have.’

  ‘Oh, yuck,’ said Princess Princess. ‘Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck—yuuuurk…’ she added.

  The garbage bins had arrived.

  SCHOOL FOR HEROES RULE #24

  Students are asked not to Wham! Bam!, Pow!a Punch or Zoom! their teachers no matter what rude comments are written on their homework.

  25

  Dancing for Dinner

  Fifteen garbage bins full of rubbish and five cheese sandwiches—one wriggling, one with its crusts cut off, and one with no bread, just cheese, for Squeak—later, even the dinosaurs looked stuffed. Roary gave a burp that smelt of fish guts and carrot tops, and blew a couple of beetle-shaped customers at the next table off their seats. But the beetles just picked themselves up and smiled happily at the Heroes’ table, then went back to scooping up the stuff in their bowls. Boo sniffed. It smelt like…

  He stiffened. The Best Ice Cream in the Universes…

  ‘Boo! What is it?’ cried Yesterday softly. The flatness in her voice was vanishing. She seemed almost normal now, despite the trance.

  Boo nodded towards the table. ‘They’re eating ice cream.’

  ‘So what?’ Princess Princess yawned. ‘I hope my handsome prince is going to come soon. This is getting boring. We haven’t even had any Heroic adventures to tell everyone at school.’

  ‘Only Mum can make the Best Ice Cream in the Universes,’ said Boo tightly. ‘And me. And I haven’t given the recipe to anyone. That means Mum is here.’ Or was, he thought. No, he wouldn’t think of that. Mum had to be here…

  Yesterday stood up and straightened her blue skirts. ‘Then the sooner we get to the Greedle’s Spa and Holiday Camp the better.’

  ‘Was everything to your liking, dear Majesty?’ The café owner bustled up, rubbing his front tentacles together again.

  Princess Princess beamed at him regally. ‘Delicious, thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Then that will be fifty-two scones with strawberry jam and whipped cream,’ said the café owner promptly.

  Boo blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘Fifty-two scones with strawberry jam and whipped cream, Your Poodleship,’ repeated the café owner. ‘That is how much your meal cost.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Yesterday quietly.

  Boo looked at her. She’s never gone to a café, he understood suddenly. Never had a treat at all, except the bananas he’d given her that he didn’t want to eat and the food at events like Mug’s party and the school Speech Day.

  ‘You pay for what you eat at cafés,’ he explained patiently. He reached around and pulled a couple of dried rats out of his backpack. ‘I don’t have any scones. But two dried rats should cover it.’

  The café owner blinked his giant octopus eyes. The lids took a long time to get down and back up again. ‘Dried rats? I don’t think so, Your Poodleship. It can be apricot jam if you don’t have strawberry,’ he offered generously.

  ‘Rats,’ said Princess Princess scornfully. She flicked her finger at Mug. He held her bag open obediently. ‘Here are five green gold coins,’ she said imperiously. ‘Green gold is the most famous gold in the universes you know…’

  The café owner cleared his throat—or whatever octopuses cleared instead. ‘Fifty-two scones,’ he said tightly. ‘Not bits of silly yellow stone. Who wants to eat yellow stones?’

  ‘Yellow stone!’ gasped Princess Princess.

  ‘Or dried rats. You can buy ten dried rats with crunchy cockroach topping for half a scone.’ The café owner was turning red, with hints of purple on his tentacles.

  The other customers were staring. They didn’t look quite so happy any more.

  Boo gulped. What were they going to do now? It was one thing to attack a mob of bogeys who were trying to kill you. But Heroes couldn’t fight a mob of townspeople who were angry because they hadn’t paid their bill.

  He glanced at Princess Princess. Did she have a Cunning Plan? But Princess Princess just looked dumbfounded, as though she had never dreamt that there were any people in the universes not impressed by her father’s gold. Boo felt a tiny puff of pleasure that Princess Princess was stumped, too.

  Mug had taken out a needle and was sewing his foot back on again. It must have fallen off while he was talking to the café owner, or perhaps Roary had tugged it.

  I’m the leader of this Expedition, thought Boo. This was up to him…

  ‘Well…’ he began.

  Yesterday smiled. It was one of her real smiles, like a beam of sunlight breaking through the clouds. ‘You will have your scones,’ she promised. ‘And ten more for your trouble, Sir Café Owner. But may we just have five minutes?’

  ‘Five minutes?’ hissed Boo. ‘How are we going to get fifty-two scones with strawberry jam—’

  ‘Or apricot,’ added Mug. He‘d been holding his ear in place to hear the conversation.

  ‘—or apricot, in five minutes?‘

  Yesterday grinned. It was a real grin, too, thought Boo. Yesterday was enjoying this. ‘You‘ll see.‘

  She clapped her hands. ‘Hurry, hurry, hurry!’ she cried. ‘Gather round! See the Famous Dancing Dinos—I mean Poodles! I read about this in a book in the library,’ she added to the others in a whisper. ‘The little fat book with the green cover who likes to play Scrabble. You do a dance or sing and then you take around the hat and people put money in it.‘

  ‘But we don‘t have a hat,’ growled Boo softly.

  Yesterday nodded at Princess Princess. ‘We have a crown.‘

  Princess Princess blinked. ‘My crown? My actual crown! I’m not passing around my—’ She stopped as the café owner glared at her.

  A crowd had gathered round. They looked happy and a bit curious. Even the mutated fly was peering down at them from its rooftop.

  The dinosaurs stared at Yesterday, as though they were trying to work out what she wanted.

  ‘Greeek,’ said Massive slowly.

  Roary nodded. ‘Grrroar,’ he added.

  ‘You don’t have any music,’ Boo hissed urgently. ‘How can you dance without music?’

  Yesterday held up her hand. Massive lumbered over and took it, holding it carefully so he didn’t cut it with his claws. One by one the poodlesaurs linked arms.

  They began to dance.

  The crowd was silent now. As silent as the Heroes had been as they watched Yesterday back at school. But this dance was even more extraordinary.

  The dinosaurs stepped slowly, gracefully—one, two, three, one, two, three, step, step, step, then back again—bobbing as they stepped, the girl in the middle with two monsters on each side.

  Slowly, very slowly, the pace increased—step, step, step, and back again the fe
et twinkling in and out. Step, step, step and step, step, step…the footwork was so fast now it was hard to see, but the dance was still the most beautiful thing that Boo had ever seen. He could even hear the music. It was a strange sound, half made up of the beat of the dancers’ feet, and half from his own imagination, the music of a rocky world where even the sky was grey.

  There was no pattern Boo could see. Either it was too complex for him to work out or the dancers knew each other’s minds so well they understood what every move should be.

  But that’s impossible, thought Boo. A girl couldn’t mind-share with a pack of dinosaurs. Even a Finder couldn’t manage that.

  Could she?

  She be the greatest Finder one day the school has ever known. Graunt Doom’s words came back to him.

  Who was Yesterday, really? He didn’t know. All he knew was that this dance would live with him forever.

  Boo glanced around at the crowd. Somehow he could tell from their faces that they could hear the music too. Beetle faces, earwig faces, octopus faces, all entranced.

  For just a few minutes they had lost the wide fixed smiles of the Greedle’s hypnotism. Perhaps for a short time they could no longer even hear the whispering of the breeze. But they were still happy.

  Even Princess Princess’s face was rapt.

  One, two, three and one, two, three…all at once Yesterday broke from the line. She circled the others and then they circled her. And then they all stopped and bowed, first to each other, and then to the watching crowd.

  The audience was silent for ten seconds. Then everyone began to cheer.

  There were too many scones to fit into the crown, so Mug took round his helmet too and, when that filled up, he and Princess Princess emptied the scones into small piles on the café tables while the crowd filled the crown and helmet again and again.

  Boo sat on his haunches and began to count the takings while Yesterday stood quietly with the poodlesaurs. The big creatures seemed subdued, still lost perhaps in their dance.

  ‘Two hundred and seventy-two, two hundred and seventy-four…’ Boo stood up and gave the others a wolfy grin. ‘Two hundred and seventy-four scones with strawberry jam and cream and eighty-one scones with apricot jam and cream.’

  ‘Yuck.’ Princess Princess examined her crown. ‘It’s got jam and cream in it.’ She handed it to Yesterday. ‘Wipe it out.’

  ‘Why should she clean your crown?’ demanded Boo. ‘Yesterday’s a Hero too, even if your dad is paying—’

  ‘Because, you dumb puppy,’ said Princess Princess sweetly, ‘we are supposed to be Queen Splendifera and her lady-in-waiting, her guard and her poodles. A lady-in-waiting would clean the crown. And don’t say Hero out aloud,’ she added in a whisper. ‘We don’t know who is listening.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Boo. ‘Right.’

  ‘Also, poodles don’t argue with queens. Remember that.’ Princess Princess looked at the scones. ‘Great. We have enough money, er, scones now to pay for a room at an inn tonight.’

  ‘No,’ said Yesterday quietly. She handed the cleaned crown back to Princess Princess.

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Princess Princess.

  Yesterday nodded at the Menu, still waiting patiently outside the café for someone to eat them. ‘We’re going to buy them and set them free.’

  ‘But…’ began Princess Princess. She stopped as the others stared at her. ‘Oh, all right,’ she added sulkily. ‘I suppose it’s the Heroic thing to do. But it means the dinosaur poodles are going to have to dance again if they want any dinner.’

  Yesterday gave one of her rare smiles. ‘We’ll dance. We’d dance forever if they’d let us.’

  ‘Maybe we find foods dinosaurs like,’ boomed Mug. ‘Not just garbage thingses.’

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there.’ Princess Princess placed the crown on her head again. ‘This is an Expedition, remember. Pay the café owner and let’s get going.’

  What did one bogey say to the other bogey when they escaped from the dinosaur? Dooyathinkitsaurus? He he. Get it?

  FROM LIFE IS LIKE A BANANA: THE COLLECTED JOKES OF DR VB MUSSELLS

  26

  On the Road in the Ghastly Otherwhen

  The road wound through fruit trees again—orange ones with long yellow fruit—now they were past the village. There were pink flowers in the grass on the verge, and bright blue beetles clicked among the leaves: Gree-dle! Gree-dle! Gree-dle!

  Boo trotted after Yesterday and the poodlesaurs. Princess Princess strode beside him, his lead in her hand, her boots going click, click on the cobbles and her golden skirts swishing. Mug clanked along next to them.

  Boo peered back. ‘They’re still following us.’

  Princess Princess snorted. ‘Oh, great.’

  She turned around. ‘Look, go away!’ she called. ‘You’re free! Scat!’ ‘Meow?’ The kitten, stopping so that the sheep, lambs and sort-of-mice piled up behind her, peered up at Boo. ‘You bought us, so we are yours. Are you hungry yet, Your Poodleship?’

  ‘No,’ said Boo swiftly. ‘Look, go away and tear up some knitting or something.’

  ‘Knitting?’ The kitten frowned. ‘Is that like gravy? Kittens are delicious in gravy.’

  ‘No!’ said Boo. ‘Look, you’re free. F-r-y!’

  ‘That’s f-r-e-e,’ said Princess Princess.

  ‘Oh. Right. Well, go away anyway!’ Boo called back.

  The kitten began to purr.

  Boo shook his head. ‘What’s wrong with them? Why don’t they head off to the hills or go back to their own universes now they’re free?’

  ‘Maybe they don’t know what free means,’ said Yesterday quietly.

  Boo stared. ‘But that’s—’ he stopped. Was that why Yesterday didn’t try to escape from the Guardians?

  Maybe Yesterday didn’t know how to be free either.

  Yesterday seemed to know what he was thinking. She gave a half smile. ‘Things are never simple,’ she said. ‘Even when you’re a Hero.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Princess Princess crossly. ‘I know how to get them to stop following us.’ She beckoned imperiously.

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty?’ The kitten purred even louder. ‘Do your dino-poodles want to eat us now?’

  ‘No,’ said Princess Princess shortly. ‘But they may want a snack later. It’s my royal command that you look after yourselves and have fun.’

  The kitten frowned. Two lines appeared in the white fur between its eyes. ‘How do we have fun?’

  ‘It’s your job to work that out. And not to get eaten by anyone else. You’re our meal. You just have fun and stay happy till we tell you it’s time for dinner.’

  ‘Have fun. Be happy,’ repeated the kitten. ‘Yes, Your Majesty! We will try to have fun! At once!’

  ‘Try chasing balls of wool to begin with,’ called Boo, as the kitten trotted off into the trees with its companions.

  They camped that night beside a small lake that smelt of tomato soup. It tastes like tomato soup too, thought Boo. He’d hoped that its red colour meant it was raw liver soup. But at least Yesterday and Princess Princess enjoyed tomato soup for dinner. Even Mug had liked it once he’d sprinkled something in it to make it bubble up and down.

  Poodlesaurs didn’t like tomato soup, but it turned out they did like lamingtons, and the trees here just happened to be lamington trees.

  And even if he didn’t love it the soup lake did replenish Boo’s store of widdle. He grinned to himself. Only a werewolf could convert one hundred laps of tomato soup to widdle in ten seconds. He lifted his leg triumphantly on a lamington tree—at least there was no one here to scream eerk! at him—then trotted back to the tents.

  The others sat around the fire Princess Princess had built out of fallen wood. He’d never made a fire before (werewolves’ coats kept them warm), there was no wood on Yesterday’s planet to burn and Mug’s universe was too soggy to catch alight. But Princess Princess had come top in Lighting Fires—I must have missed that class too, B
oo admitted to himself.

  Princess Princess had known how to put up the tents too, and how to roast his dried rat on a stick to bring out the flavour, though she’d complained about dog breath when he ate it. She’d even brought marshmallows to toast though Mug, of course, had carried them.

  Boo sat down next to the Heroes and wagged his tail at Yesterday. She plucked a toasted marshmallow off her stick and threw it to him. Boo caught it in his mouth, then spat it out quickly. ‘Hot,’ he explained. He waited a few seconds then gulped it down. Ah, that was better. The extra dirt made it crunchier, too.

  ‘Doggy manners,’ sighed Princess Princess.

  ‘What’s wrong with doggie manners?’ demanded Boo.

  ‘There aren’t any.’ Princess Princess stood up and yawned. ‘Time for bed. Mug, fetch my pyjamas from my bag. I SAID FETCH MY PYJAMAS. The ones with the little gold crowns tonight.’

  Mug got up. His marshmallow was wriggling on its stick. He lumbered in the direction of Princess Princess’s tent.

  She turned back to the others and continued: ‘You two take the first watch.’

  ‘Watch?’

  Princess Princess giggled. ‘You’ll be a watchdog. Get it? We need to keep watch in case bogeys attack.’ She glanced around. ‘This is all too easy. Maybe a horde of bogeys is going to attack us while we’re asleep.’ She shivered suddenly. ‘Where are the dinosaurs, I mean poodles?’

  ‘They’ve gone to find more lamingtons. You need a lot of lamingtons to fill up a dinosaur.’ Yesterday didn’t look up from her marshmallows. ‘And there are no bogeys around.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’m Finding all the time. The only creatures around are us.’

  ‘Well, keep your Find radar or whatever it is on high while you’re on guard.’ Princess Princess still sounded nervous. ‘And make sure the dinosaurs, I mean poodles, are back before the next watch. Mug and I will take that one. I SAID, MUG YOU’LL TAKE THE SECOND WATCH WITH ME.’