Wilf the Mighty Worrier--Saves the World

by Georgia Pritchett

  It was the perfect opportunity to go home and hide in bed.

  But what good would that do?

  It would make Wilf feel a whole lot better for a start.

  Yes, but only in the short term.

  So what? That’s better than nothing.

  Hang on, excuse me, who are you? I’m telling the story. Stop butting in and disagreeing with me.

  Sorry.

  So where was I . . . ?

  I won’t say anything else.

  Good.

  Wilf got out his “HOW TO STOP WORRYING” leaflet.

  NUMBER SEVEN said:

  7) Try thinking positive thoughts.

  This was a good idea. Wilf thought and thought. And he thought. And he thought that he should be brave and catch the next ferry. And that there probably wasn’t such a thing as sea monsters. And if there was such a thing as sea monsters, they might be friendly. And if they weren’t friendly, they might not be hungry. And if they were hungry, they might not like the taste of small boys named Wilf. Or they might be allergic to small boys named Wilf. All very positive thoughts. Feeling very positive, Wilf bought his ticket and waited.

  Chug chug chug chug went Alan.

  Stand stand stand stand went Wilf, Dot, and Stuart (waiting for the ferry).

  Chug chug chug chug went Alan.

  Stand stand stand stand went Wilf, Dot, and Stuart.

  Chug chug chug chug went Alan.

  This is a terrible chase, thought Wilf.

  Finally, Wilf, Dot, and Stuart got on the next ferry.

  Chug chug chug chug went Alan—in the distance.

  Chug chug went Wilf, very very slowly, because he was on the slower ferry.

  Chug chug chug chug went Alan, almost out of sight.

  Chug chug went Wilf, watching as a piece of driftwood overtook them.

  “I’ll have the little ceramic robin standing on a ceramic twig,” went Alan—because by now he was in the knickknack shop.

  Chug chug went Wilf.

  Four hours later, they reached Wyland Island. Wilf hadn’t been sick and he hadn’t seen a squid (giant or otherwise) or a sea monster or a shrimp. It had been fine! He wasn’t scared of boats anymore! Hooray!

  Wilf did a little hoppy dance of celebration and then thought that perhaps he should hurry up and catch Alan. So he hopped on two legs, which some people call running but it’s much more sproingy.

  By the time Wilf caught up with Alan, Alan had already announced the first stage of his world-destroying plans, and an angry mob had formed.

  I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said there were at least two of them.

  The rest were at home, because they didn’t like confrontation.

  “Do not destroy our island!” shouted one.

  “Do not destroy our island!” shouted the other, in his own, different, language.

  “What did he just say?” said the first one, to no one in particular.

  “I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” said the second one to the first.

  “Why don’t you let me translate?” suggested Wilf.

  “Good idea,” said the first one. Let’s call him Bob.

  “Good idea,” said the second one. Let’s call him Bob too. No, hang on, that’s a silly idea. Let’s call him Horatio.

  “Good idea,” said Alan. “Right, everyone. The good news is: I’m about to try out my latest state-of-the-art high-tech swizzy whizzy Big Gun Thingy. The bad news is: it will involve destroying your island and everything on it and, in many ways, you.”

  Wilf turned to Bob and said, “I’m afraid you’re all going to die.”

  Then he turned to Horatio and said, “I’m afraid you’re all going to die.”

  Bob and Horatio clutched their chests, clutched their mouths, clutched each other.

  “Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

  said Bob.

  “Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

  said Horatio.

  “We must, how you say, stop him!” said Bob to Horatio.

  Horatio got a small phrase book out of his pocket and looked up the word yes. It was “yes.”

  “Yes,” said Horatio.

  “Too late!” said Alan. “Because all I have to do is to tap in a code here . . .”

  Alan tapped in a series of numbers that were actually his birthday plus his age.

  “. . . and then aim the Big Gun Thingy at you, and the entire island will evaporate in a billion-degree meltdown. So brace yourself, because this may sting a little . . .”

  Alan’s finger moved toward the

  button.

  It was as if everything was happening in slow motion. In fact, Alan was just doing it really slowly for dramatic effect.

  As his finger moved slowly, slowly, slowly toward the button, Wilf had a great idea. He reached into his knapsack, got out the Christmas pudding and rolled it down the barrel of the Big Gun Thingy just as Alan pressed the

  button.

  The pudding was an exact fit.

  There was a pause. Wilf looked at Alan. Alan looked at Wilf. Bob looked at Horatio. Horatio looked at Bob. They all looked at one another.

  What had Wilf done? Had he stopped the Big Gun Thingy? Wilf put Dot’s goggles on Dot and his goggles on himself.

  Time stood still. Then time shuffled about a bit and kicked a stone. Then time carried on again.

  There was a rumble. And a whirr. And a sort of gulp and then the laser flashed out across the island, plunging everything into a horrible red light for several seconds.

  Suddenly Bob and Horatio and Alan started screaming. They slapped their heads and hopped about and ran in circles. But they didn’t melt.

  Wilf’s Christmas pudding had absorbed almost all of the Big Gun Thingy’s power and had reduced the setting from Billion-Degree Meltdown to Smoldering Eyebrows. And now all six of their eyebrows were smoldering away. (Luckily, Stuart didn’t have eyebrows, and Wilf’s and Dot’s were protected by their goggles, for the eyebrow-counters among you.)

  Bob slapped Horatio. Horatio threw a bucket of water over Bob. Wilf very kindly thwacked Alan’s forehead with Dot’s pig.

  In a matter of seconds their eyebrows had stopped smoldering and all was quiet. Although there was an odd burned-eyebrowy kind of smell in the air.

  “Thank you!” said Bob to Wilf.

  “Thank you!” said Horatio to Wilf.

  “Typical!” said Alan to Wilf.

  “You saved everything!” said Bob.

  “You ruined everything!” said Alan.

  “We’re alive!” said Horatio joyfully.

  “They’re alive!” said Alan irritably. “I’m not going to go down in the history books for just smoldering a couple of people’s eyebrows, am I?” he said forlornly.

  “Look,” said Wilf sympathetically, “I think it’s time to go home. I think you’re a little bit tired.”

  “I am not tired!” said Alan, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

  “And emotional,” said Wilf.

  “Waaaaaaaaah, I’m not emooootionnnnallllll,” said Alan, bursting into tears.

  “And you know how that always makes you bad tempered,” said Wilf.

  “WHAT?” yelled Alan. “I am NOT bad tempered! How DARE you say I am bad tempered? That makes me so ANGRY when people say I am bad tempered, because it’s JUST NOT TRUE!” said Alan, pounding his angry little fists on the ground.

  “I am NOT tired, I am wide AWAKE and I . . .”

  Alan was asleep.

  Wilf put Dot’s blanky over him. He picked her up, checked Stuart was still in his pocket, and tiptoed away with Bob and Horatio.

  Bob followed the sign saying “Town Center” and Horatio followed a different sign saying “Town Center” and Wilf and Dot followed the sign saying—“Ferry.”

  It was lunchtime and Wilf was in the kitchen. He was eating a sandwich with relish. By which I mean he was enjoying it. But, come to think of it, his sandwich was cheese with relish. So, in fact, he was eating his sandwich with relis
h with relish.

  And he was thinking that after the whole Wyland Island kerfuffle, maybe life would go back to normal. He’d saved a little bit of the world—maybe now he could learn a new whistle or hone his hop or knit a new outfit for Stuart the woodlouse. Maybe Alan would stay on Wyland Island and stop being evil and take up ballroom dancing.

  Wilf chewed happily, watching Dot while she carefully placed a slice of cheese in the DVD player. Then she stood up and started to smear a second slice of cheese on the window.

  As Wilf was watching, he noticed something behind the smear. It was Alan getting off the bus with his Big Gun Thingy. He did not look happy and he did not look like he had taken up ballroom dancing. He marched up to his own front door and rang the bell. No reply. He rang again. No reply. He hammered on the door and shouted, “LRX2FL309version8.4Mark III! Wake up!”

  Nothing.

  Wilf slipped off his chair and went outside. He was just about to ask Alan whether he wanted to wait in their house when Alan’s door opened. Mark III stood there blinking. Kevin Phillips jumped up at Alan excitedly and put his muddy paws all over his coat.

  “What’s going on?” said Mark III. “What time is it?”

  “It’s time to destroy the world!” said Alan. “Today’s the day! Step one: you invade China. Step two: you round everyone up and tell them to stand still. Step three: I arrive with my Big Gun Thingy and then we destroy the—”

  “Yeah, I’m still not so sure about this whole world-destroying thing . . .” said Mark III.

  “What?” said Alan.

  “I’m over it,” said Mark III.

  “But, but, but . . . it’s all arranged and paid for!” said Alan, bewildered.

  “Yeah. I think I’m going to travel instead.”

  “Well, could you travel to China,” suggested Alan hopefully, “and then destroy it?”

  “I was thinking of somewhere more beachy,” said Mark III.

  “OK,” said Alan. “Well, in that case, could you travel to somewhere more beachy—and then destroy that?”

  “Nah,” said Mark III. “I need a year off. I’m just going to chill out and relax.”

  Alan looked baffled. “But I programmed you to want to destroy the world.”

  “Sorry,” said Mark III. He popped a loaf of bread in his mouth and loped back inside the house.

  Alan sighed.

  Kevin gave Alan a look as if to say, “I told you so.” Or it could have been a look as if to say, “I need another cookie.” It was hard to tell.

  “He’ll be back,” said Alan uncertainly.

  Just then Mark III put his head around the door.

  “See!” said Alan, beaming with joy.

  “Can I borrow some money?” asked Mark III.

  “Yeah,” said Alan, his shoulders drooping.

  He handed Mark III some bills from his wallet, then changed his mind and handed him the whole wallet.

  “Be careful,” said Alan. “Call me!” he called as the robot ambled up the path carrying a small knapsack.

  “OK, let’s forget about invading China or Russia or anywhere else,” said Alan, turning to Kevin. “Let’s just fly to London and destroy the world like I planned. I’ll go pack.”

  Wilf felt the icy hand of fear grip his underpants. His stomach did a double backflip and his knees badoinged. He needed to do something. He needed to stop Alan. But how?

  He had to destroy the most magnificent most marvelous most magical mechanical flying machine. But the fence around it was locked and Alan had said there would be lions guarding it. And Wilf had a silly fear of being mauled to death by lions. Well, not that silly, come to think of it.

  Wilf drew a picture of a lion.

  Then Wilf tried to think of what could be worse than coming face to face with a lion. Wilf was scared of balloons and really, really scared of dentists.

  Coming face to face with a lion who was also a dentist and holding a balloon?

  Wilf needed a plan. He had a great big old worry. Then he had a great big old think. And he thought and thought until his brain hurt. And then he had an idea.

  If he took a push pin, he could pop the balloon.

  And if he wore his granny’s false teeth, the lion dentist wouldn’t be able to hurt his teeth.

  But what could he do about the lion’s appetite for small boys?

  He chewed thoughtfully on his bubblegum and blew a bubble.

  It popped.

  That was it!

  If he wadded up all the bubblegum he could find and threw it in the lion’s mouth, the lion wouldn’t be able to eat him.

  Wilf drew this.

  Wilf packed his knapsack with a push pin and a huge ball of bubblegum, and he popped his granny’s false teeth in his mouth.

  Then he looked at the leaflet again.

  NUMBER EIGHT said:

  8) Go to your happy place. Instead of thinking about what you are scared of, think about being somewhere nice, like a beach.

  Wilf imagined he was on a beach. He hoped he wouldn’t get prickly heat from the sun. And he hoped he wouldn’t see a crab. He hated crabs—they were all scuttly and crabby and they might nip his toes and then he might fall over and get seaweed on his face and arrgggh! The idea of sitting on a beach was making him feel worse.

  He looked at NUMBER NINE on the leaflet.

  9) Try breathing deeply.

  Wilf started breathing deeply. He breathed as deeply as he could but then he started worrying that he might breathe in a gnat and then the gnat might lay eggs and then every time he breathed out he would breathe out a

  baby gnats and people would call him “gnat-breath.”

  Wilf jumped up. He’d rather be fighting dentist lions than breathing in gnats and being nipped by crabs! He put Dot on his shoulders and rushed over to Alan’s garden.

  When he got there, he was delighted to see there were no dentist lions holding balloons. But there was the top of the most magnificent most marvelous most magical mechanical flying machine poking out from behind its sheet. Underneath was a huge launch pad and next to it a tall towering tower with lots of buttons that he didn’t want Dot to press. So he stuck the big ball of bubblegum to the fence and he stuck Dot to the bubblegum—for safekeeping.

  Then Wilf tiptoed toward the control panel.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Alan.

  Wilf jumped and did a high sort of whinny of a scream.

  “Nothing!” he said.

  Although, because he was wearing his granny’s teeth, it came out as “Mmmmmfooofffffimmmmm!”

  “What?” said Alan.

  Wilf removed the teeth. “Just looking at this stick,” he said, picking up a stick he’d spotted on the ground.

  “Guards!” shouted Alan.

  Wilf froze and looked around. Nothing happened.

  “GUARDS!” said Alan, a little louder.

  A small man eating a sandwich stepped out of a small beige hut next to the launch pad. He had a part too far over to one side of his head. If you imagine a person’s head is a clock, then a part should really be somewhere between eleven and one o’clock. But this man’s part was at three o’clock.

  The-man-with-the-part-at-three-o’clock swallowed his mouthful of sandwich, cleared his throat, and said, “It’s actually ‘guard.’ Not ‘guards.’ There’s just me.”

  “Where are all the others?” asked Alan.

  “Pete’s got a doctor’s appointment and the others are on a training day, learning how to use the new Trespasser Destroying Equipment.”

  “Where are the lions?” asked Alan.

  “They got delivered to the wrong address,” said the man-with-the-part-at-three-o’clock.

  “Well, could you wrestle this boy to the ground?” asked Alan impatiently. “He’s trespassing and he’s playing with a stick that belongs to Kevin Phillips.”

  “There’s nothing I’d like more than to wrestle that boy to the ground, but it’s my knee, you see. There was an episode. Last week. It popped out. I wo
uldn’t want a repeat of the episode,” said the man-with-the-part-at-three-o’clock.

  “Fine,” said Alan. “Then could you liquefy him please? With the new Trespasser Destroying Equipment.”

  “I can’t. I’m not on the training day. The others will be able to when they get back. You need a certificate,” explained the m-w-t-p-a-t-o-c.

  “Well, just blast him to smithereens then!” said Alan tetchily.

  The m-w-t-p-a-t-o-c produced some documents. “The latest health and safety regulations say we should not attempt to blast objects as small as that small boy to smithereens. He’s barely more than a smithereen as it is.”

  Alan put his hands on his hips. “Would it be too much to ask,” he said a little snippily, “to just make him feel in some way scared and uncomfortable?”

  “Of course not,” said the m-w-t-p-a-t-o-c.

  “Thank you,” sighed Alan.

  The m-w-t-p-a-t-o-c approached Wilf.

  “Global warming is getting worse and it’s partly your fault.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” said Wilf.

  “Will that be all?” asked the m-w-t-p-a-t-o-c. “Because, strictly speaking, it’s my lunch break.” As he spoke, he tried to flatten down his hair that was parted in the wrong place but it kept flipping back. “Also, it’s my birthday,” he added, producing a balloon from his hut.

  “Aaaaah!” shrieked Wilf and popped the balloon with his push pin.

  The m-w-t-p-a-t-o-c looked at what used to be his balloon in surprise.

  “Sorry,” said Wilf. “I was worried it might pop so . . . I popped it.”

  Alan and the m-w-t-p-a-t-o-c looked at Wilf.

  “Well, anyway,” said Wilf, “must be going. This stick isn’t quite as interesting as I thought it was. Also, someone has slobbered on it—so I’ll just go home. You don’t need to liquefy me or anything.”