‘That was lucky,’ said Urk, helping Will out of the pond and shaking the water from Pong Pong’s empty sack. ‘Any further and we would have landed in that cactus patch.’
‘Very lucky!’ agreed Will, eyeing a bed of tall sharp spines as he stooped to wring the bottom of his Jub Jub cloth.
The soggy pair quickly made their way out of the Grisly Gardens, keeping an eye open for Miffni and Pong Pong as they headed back to the tunnels and the safety of Will’s bedroom. They still had Rumblefart and the Monster Mob to deal with, and needed a safe place to come up with a brand-new plan.
After chomping their way through several bags of crisps and slurping down glasses of orange squash, Urk and Will spent a long time studying the Windbag description in the Monsterbook. They were looking for anything they might have missed on how to defeat Rumblefart.
‘All it mentions is farts!’ said Will. ‘And we already knew that.’
‘He does seem to have a very talented bottom,’ said Urk, drumming his fingers on the book. ‘But I bet my sister and her friend wouldn’t be so keen on Rumblefart if he wasn’t so foul.’
‘They’ll probably like him even more when he eats those Stinkypinks!’ said Will, screwing his face up. ‘But at least he’ll only be eating one sack of petals instead of two, making his grand finale only half as revolting.’
‘I wonder what his Monster Mob would think if he wasn’t revolting at all?’ Urk wondered aloud, pointing to the line describing how Windbag farts smell like whatever they eat. ‘I mean, what if he turned up tomorrow night smelling of …’
The young monster racked his brain for something pretty and girly that looked like a Stinkypink.
‘Roses!’ gasped Will, grabbing the empty sack and waving it in the air. ‘We can fill this up with roses and switch it with Miffni’s Stinkypinks! They look exactly the same and Rumblefart won’t know the difference because he hasn’t got a nose!’
‘But where will we get roses at this time of night?’ asked Urk.
Will smiled, tossing the sack over his shoulder. ‘Follow me!’
Will led his friend silently past his parents’ bedroom, down the dark stairs and out into the back garden. By the light of the moon, Urk’s eyes widened when he saw dozens of bushes filled with bright pink flowers.
‘My dad loves his roses,’ whispered Will.
‘They really are exactly like Stinkypinks!’ Urk gasped, poking his large nostrils into one of the roses and smiling at the scent. ‘But won’t your dad notice they’re missing?’
‘I’m sure he won’t miss a few,’ said Will, knowing full well that his dad knew every flower and probably had names for them. ‘And it’s for a very good cause.’
The pair made short work of filling the sack with rose petals, leaving just enough flowers remaining on the bushes so Will’s dad wouldn’t be too upset. Then they tiptoed back up to the boy’s bedroom to finely tune the plan to turn the Monster Mob against Rumblefart.
They called it the Pong Plot and worked on it for most of the night.
8
The Pong Plot
On the opening night of Beauty and the Beast, the audience chattered cheerily as they took their seats in front of the stage in the school assembly hall. Behind the red curtain, Will had finished his technical preparations for the Pong Plot and was making sure his parents were not in their seats. He’d used every excuse he could think of to keep them away, and was relieved to see that it had worked.
‘You’re not in your costume!’ shrieked a startled voice.
Will snatched the curtains back together and turned round to find Miss Star standing behind him, her arms loaded with a pile of tatty scripts. The drama teacher had been running around like a headless chicken for the past hour and judging by her untidy appearance, the school play was starting to take its toll.
‘Er, I was just about to change,’ said Will, and he was hurrying forward when the teacher dropped the scripts all over the floor and burst into tears. ‘Are you OK, Miss Star?’ he frowned, gathering up the sheets of paper.
‘Oh, I just have a lot on my mind,’ she gasped, mopping her eyes with a tissue.
Will had a lot on his mind too, and many things still to do before the Monster Mob arrived. Getting the drama teacher out of the way was one of them, but he had no idea how to do it.
‘I can hand these out for you,’ he offered, shuffling the scripts into a pile. But he stood up to see Miss Star sprinting down the corridor, sobbing loudly as she burst through the exit doors. ‘The St Margaret’s school play finally got the better of her,’ Will sighed, and crossed the drama teacher off his mental list of things to do.
A nearby classroom had been turned into a changing room where the children were merrily pulling on their costumes. With all the hustle and bustle no one paid any attention as Will dumped the scripts on a table, grabbed two foam tree costumes and hid them under the stage. He then legged it down the corridor to the school canteen where Urk would soon be arriving through a hidden doorway.
Will poked his head through the double doors and looked around for his friend.
‘Pssst!’ said the large potted fern in the corner of the empty hall.
Still having no idea where the Monster Mob planned to enter the school, Will held his breath as the plant began to rustle. Then he sighed with relief as Urk stepped through the leaves and waved at him.
‘How’s it going?’ asked the monster, trotting over to his friend.
‘OK so far,’ said Will, leading Urk back through the empty corridor. ‘Luckily the drama teacher has fled the scene, but we still have to make sure my classmates are safe before Rumblefart and his Monster Mob arrive.’
‘What about the undercover monster?’ asked Urk.
‘I’ve been watching Grant Butcher all afternoon,’ said Will. ‘But I lost track of him while I was setting up the stage. He’s not in the changing room, which means he must have crept away to meet with the mob.’
‘Well, I managed to swap the Stinkypink sack with the one filled with roses,’ said Urk, blinking at the bright interior of the school. ‘And Miffni and Pong Pong left early this evening to deliver them to Rumblefart.’
‘What did you do with the real Stinkypink sack?’ asked Will.
‘I stuffed it under Miffni’s bed.’ Urk laughed. ‘Her room is so smelly she won’t even know they’re there!’
As they approached the noisy changing room, Urk and Will pressed their backs against the wall and Will quickly poked his head round the door. Miss Star hadn’t returned and Grant was still nowhere to be seen, but all the other kids were present so he gave Urk the nod.
‘Are you sure we can’t just shut the door and lock it?’ Urk whispered.
‘We discussed this last night and decided it was too dangerous,’ said Will, knowing this part of the Pong Plot would only work if his friend could be scary. ‘Rumblefart’s gassy bottom might start a fire!’
‘So it’s up to me to make sure they stay in there,’ Urk sighed.
‘I know you can do it,’ said Will. ‘Just pretend it’s a play and act like you’re terrifying.’
Urk counted to three and then leapt into the doorway waving his arms above his head while Will stayed hidden and waited for the screams. When the screams didn’t come and Urk’s arms looked like they were getting tired, Will leaned sideways to speak to his friend.
‘What’s happening?’ he whispered.
‘Nothing,’ said Urk, through the corner of his mouth. ‘They’re not even looking!’
‘Then make some noise,’ Will suggested. ‘Growl at them.’
Urk cleared his throat with a series of short coughs and let out an almighty
ROAR! The young monster was not very big or scary to look at, but he had an impressive pair of lungs that more than made up for it.
The chatter in the classroom halted abruptly and everyone turned their heads towards the noise. Upon seeing the monster their silence was quickly replaced with screams of terror, followed by the thunder of footsteps headin
g for the doorway – where Urk immediately froze.
‘Flap your arms again!’ Will gasped, as the stampede drew closer. ‘Or they’ll trample you to death!’
Urk quickly threw his arms around and added more growls and snarls for good measure. The kids that had intended to charge straight through him swiftly changed their minds and screeched to a halt, slamming the door to keep the monster out and tugging the blind across the window.
‘Phew!’ sighed Will. ‘I thought I was going to have to scrape you off the floor!’
‘Me too!’ gasped Urk, feeling quite proud of himself when he heard desks and chairs being dragged in front of the door. ‘Now let’s hope you don’t freeze like that when we get on stage!’
‘Speaking of which, we’d better get changed,’ said Will, hurrying to the backstage area and pulling out the tree costumes. He sized them up and passed the smaller one to Urk. ‘We can’t risk Miffni recognizing you when the Monster Mob arrive!’
The two friends slipped into the foam tree trunks and shifted them around until they were peering through the eyeholes. It was now five minutes to seven, so they shuffled off to keep a lookout for Rumblefart.
The night before, Urk had studied a map of hidden doorways alongside Will’s rough blueprint of the school and decided the rear entrance was the most likely place where the monsters would arrive – especially if Rumblefart had someone working on the inside. So the two trees took up positions either side of the corridor and waited.
While Will and Urk’s sights were fixed on the rear doors of the school, they heard the flush of a toilet chain and the bang of another door behind them. This was followed by footsteps stomping along the corridor towards them.
The pair exchanged worried glances before shuffling round, and standing before them was a monster.
9
M-m-m-monsters!
The creature standing before Urk and Will was actually more of a beast than a monster. And it wasn’t even a real beast because it had cardboard tubes for horns, large painted eyeballs and its teeth appeared to be made from egg boxes.
‘What are you two doing?’ Grant Butcher demanded, his face glaring out at them through the jaws of his mask. ‘I heard screaming. Where is everyone?’
‘They’re safe,’ said Will, stepping in front of the bully. ‘And what are you doing out here, as if I didn’t already know!’
‘That’s none of your business, Willow!’ Grant sneered, stepping up to Will and rolling up his sleeves. ‘Now get out of my way or I’ll give you something to weep about, Willow!’
‘You’re here to let them in and show them to the stage, aren’t you?’ said Will, firmly standing his ground. ‘I know everything, so you might as well admit it.’
‘What are you talking about?’ growled Grant. ‘Get out of my way!’
The bully made a move to push Will over, when there was an almighty BANG as the rear entrance doors burst open and the Monster Mob stormed down the corridor.
A bloated Rumblefart was up front bragging about a bellyful of Stinkypinks, closely followed by Miffni and Pong Pong, who were hanging on every word. The smaller monsters were straggling behind like ugly ducklings, shouting ‘HONK! HONK!’ in loud, rowdy voices.
‘Them!’ said Will, shuffling aside so Grant could see his friends.
‘M-m-m-monsters,’ burbled the cardboard beast.
Rumblefart stormed past the foam trees, thinking they were props and paused in front of Grant Butcher. The petrified boy stared up at the fuming Windbag, his real eyes almost as wide as the ones painted on his cardboard head.
‘Is this meant to be scary?’ Rumblefart asked, flicking one of the horns.
The boy was too terrified to speak so he nodded very slowly.
‘Well, it’s not!’ snorted Rumblefart, rearing up on his tentacles. ‘THIS IS SCARY!’ he roared, blasting the boy with a bone-rattling bellow that made the strips of paper hair flap angrily on his mask.
Urk and Will peered at each other over the heads of the smaller monsters and stifled a chuckle when Grant Butcher, who was obviously just a mean bully and not a monster at all, ran screaming down the corridor.
The Monster Mob roared with laughter and Rumblefart bowed graciously. ‘That was the warm-up act!’ chortled the Windbag. ‘And now it’s time for my big entrance!’
Urk and Will waited until Rumblefart and the Monster Mob bounded away towards the stage and then followed close behind, pausing like statues whenever the monsters glanced back.
‘Did you bring the new script?’ whispered Urk.
‘Yep!’ whispered Will, pulling his arm into the foam trunk. It reappeared moments later with several sheets of tatty paper covered in notes and scribbles where the new version of Beauty and the Beast had been edited to perfection.
‘Are you nervous?’ asked Urk.
‘Yep!’ sighed Will, as they crept towards the backstage area.
When they caught up with the mob, Rumblefart was bouncing up and down behind the red curtain, preparing for his big entrance. The audience obviously mistook his loud thumping for a drum roll because the assembly hall slowly fell silent.
The two trees quickly took their places either side of the stage, where Urk switched on the fairy-tale music and Will picked up the narrator’s microphone. He had a lot more lines to deliver than ‘RUSTLE! RUSTLE!’ and took a very deep breath as Rumblefart burst through the curtain.
10
Beast and the Beauties
Rumblefart bounded on to the stage waving his arms and roaring at the top of his voice. The audience had been ready to applaud the beginning of the play, but seeing the monster charging towards them, their mouths fell open and their hands froze mid-clap.
Urk looked over to his friend and nodded eagerly, urging him to read the first lines. Will stared at Urk, and then at Rumblefart, and finally at the seated parents – who seemed to be waiting for a reason not to run screaming from the building.
The success of the Pong Plot now rested on the boy’s ability to convince the audience that they were watching a play, so he lifted the microphone and began reading aloud from the script.
‘ “Once upon a time there was a big revolting beast called Rumblefart,” ’ said Will, his voice filling the hall from the speakers at the back. ‘ “Rumblefart was very fat and spotty with weird feeler things stuck on his head – for this was a land of scary creatures and he was their king.” ’
Urk grabbed the paper crown from the prop table and tossed it on to the monster’s head. Luckily, Rumblefart didn’t notice because he was too busy trying to work out where the voice was coming from and why no one was screaming. The monster peered into the stunned audience and scratched his bottom angrily.
‘ “Rumblefart’s royal bottom was also very spotty,” ’ Will added quickly, hoping a joke would break the stunned silence of the crowd. ‘ “Which made it very itchy, and the smelly old king scratched it all day long.” ’
At this point the uncertain audience finally allowed themselves to clap and laugh because the creature on the stage was obviously a couple of kids in a very clever costume – and the king’s itchy bottom was pretty funny.
‘ “There were two beautiful princesses who both wanted to marry King Rumblefart,” ’ Will continued with relief, as Miffni and Pong Pong stomped on to the stage. ‘ “Their names were Miffni and Pong Pong, and no one could decide who was the most beautiful.” ’
‘Neither of them!’ heckled Urk, making the crowd laugh even louder.
Confused by the audience’s reaction and sensing something was wrong, Miffni and Pong Pong immediately hurried to the front of the stage to get instructions from Rumblefart. But the Windbag ignored them as he belted out his scariest roars, which were quickly drowned out as the narrator’s voice continued.
‘ “King Rumblefart couldn’t decide which of the beautiful princesses he liked more,” ’ said Will, as the remaining Monster Mob entered the stage, jumping up and down and poking out their tongues. ‘ “So he had a big par
ty and invited every scary creature in the land.” ’
Urk quickly changed the music from fairy-tale to disco, which made the bouncing mob seem like they were dancing. The audience merrily clapped along in time to the song and chuckled at the strange little dancers.
‘ “At the party, smelly old Rumblefart planned to ask one of the princesses to become his queen,” ’ Will continued, watching as Miffni and Pong Pong now appeared to be following the story – glaring at each other as they wondered who would be chosen. ‘ “And to decide which one, the king set them both a challenge.” ’
‘ME! ME! ME!’ yelled Pong Pong, getting carried away.
‘YOU!’ growled Miffni. ‘DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH!’
By this time the smaller monsters in the Monster Mob had stopped jumping around and were watching the front of the stage, happy to put their scares on hold when it looked like a fight might break out.
‘BUT I’M THE MOST BEAUTIFUL!’ snapped Pong Pong.
‘YOU’RE THE MOST STUPID!’ snorted Miffni.
‘I’M NOT STUPID!’
‘YOU ARE TOO, AND SO IS HE IF HE DOESN’T PICK ME!’
Miffni and Pong Pong suddenly started grabbing at each other’s hairbunches, while Rumblefart continued to work through his best scare routines, determined to get at least one scream from the crowd.
Unfortunately for the Windbag the audience were now thoroughly enjoying the play. They cheered and clapped and chuckled to themselves, marvelling at how much trouble the children had gone to with their wonderful costumes. And even though the story didn’t make much sense, it was a lot of fun to watch.
Monsterbook: Rumblefart and the Beastly Bottom Page 3
