‘Have a lovely dinner!’ Maudlin called after us with a sickening chuckle. ‘I hope everyone feasts until their bellies burst!’
THE DINING ROOM
‘We have to tell Mum and Dad,’ I wheezed as we ran along. ‘Maloney can’t get away with it!’
‘Ignore her,’ Zingri huffed as we left the leprechaun’s laughter behind us. ‘She’s only trying to bonejangle you! Don’t let her ruin your dinner.’
Now, I should probably explain a few things before we carry on…
I know you’ll be imagining the Trogmanay feast in our dining room, even though I haven’t started describing it. Admit it, you are, aren’t you?
I knew it!
You’ve already heard how big the Nothing To See Here Hotel is, and how greedy our guests are, so you’ll be picturing a ginormous room filled to the rafters with fancy tables and chairs and buffet carts and chocolate fountains, ready for hordes of starvatious guests, right?
WRONG!
If you and your family checked in for Trogmanay and headed straight off to join the feast, you’d be shocked when you walked through the dining room door and found yourself looking at just one single table and only one chair.
The table would be piled high with Nancy’s tummy-tinkling food, and even though she’s cooked LOADS it wouldn’t look nearly enough for over a hundred gorgesome guests, AND there’s only one knife and fork with jade-green handles.
‘What’s going on?’ you’d say to yourself, scratching your head and wondering if there’d been some terrible mix-up. But there’s no mistake, I promise you.
Unlike you polite and well-behaved humans, on special occasions we magicals don’t eat AT the table … we eat ON the table.
Haha! You weren’t expecting that, were you?
At extra-special dinners all the guests line up and, one by one, they sit in the chair. Then, picking up the knife and fork, they bang the jade handles on the table and, with a clear voice, shout the one magical word that shrinks them down to the size of a squinkel nugget.
‘HONKSWALLOP!’
FLASH! ZIPP! POOOOF! PING! and it’s done!
In no time at all, every single guest is teeny-tiny and clambering over the feast, burrowing their way into a towering crustacean cake drizzled with toads’ tears or chomping into a minkle-meatball that’s three times the size of their head.
BRILLIANT!
A TROGMANAY FEAST TO REMEMBER
Zingri and I reached the dining room door just as Nancy was ushering in the last of the guests.
‘Oh! There you are, duckies,’ she said, spotting us sprinting towards her.
‘Nancy!’ I panted, trying to catch my breath. ‘Where are Mum and Dad? I need to talk to them.’
‘They’re already on the table,’ Nancy said, smiling sweetly and batting her eight eyelids with glee. ‘Hurry now or you’ll both miss the trog-roast toast.’
‘Quick!’ I said to Zingri.
Inside the dining room, the food looked honkhumptious. The table was piled high with bowls of fried snatchling steaks, squashed pigeon porridge, hashed brownies, tangle-root rostis, hot and crumbly dung-beetle muffins with trunkum-fruit jelly, curried mud-whifflers, porcupatties smothered in sticky giblet jam! You name it, Nancy had cooked it, and, dotted around the huge plates and platters of delunktious delicacies, were hundreds of miniature magicals.
I saw Orfis and Unga straight away because they were twice as tall as all the others – about the size of my thumb – and I knew that Mum and Dad were probably somewhere close by.
Zingri went first and, once she’d swizzled down to nothing but a speck of fluff on the tablecloth, I sat in the chair and picked up the knife and fork.
Shrinking for a festive feast was normally one of my favourite things to do, and I felt a stab of anger that Maudlin Maloney was spoiling it. The quicker I told Mum and Dad, the quicker they could have Ooof throw the crooked crone out and we could enjoy our feast properly.
‘HONKSWALLOP!’ I shouted as loudly as I could, banging the jade handles on the table.
A tingling sensation shot up and down my spine, and my fingers crackled as the magic spell took hold. The whole room suddenly stretched and twisted like jelly.
Shrinking is sort of like falling, only instead of plummeting downwards, the ground rushes up to meet you.
‘Uhhhfff!’ I came to an abrupt stop and found myself standing at the edge of the table with mountains of food in front of me. What had been dishes of sauce and slabs of cheese only seconds ago were now the size of lakes and cathedrals.
I spotted Orfis and Unga a little way off, and could see Zingri was already lumbering over to them, so I followed as fast as I could. As I got nearer, Dad came into view, standing on the rim of a bowl filled with pocket-lint fritters. He was getting ready to make his trolliday speech.
‘Excuse me!’ I ran through the guests, darting this way and that, trying to get to my parents as quickly as I could. ‘Excuse me!’
‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ Dad called over the chitter-chatter.
‘And tooth fairieth!’ the Molar Sisters piped up.
‘And impolumps!’
‘And werepoodles!’
‘EVERYONE!’ Dad yelled, cutting off the rest of the crowd before anyone else could join in. ‘It is with happiness in my haunches and armfuls of Trogmanay cheer that I’d like to welcome you all to our summery … ermm … wintery trog-hog feast.’
A cheer went up from all our guests.
‘Firstly, I’d like to make a special trog-roast toast to Nancy and all her delinktible cooking!’
Everyone raised their glasses and turned to face the gargantuan spider. She was still full-size and loomed over us like a titan with a purple perm.
‘OH, YOU’RE TOO SWEET!’ Nancy boomed, making the entire table shake.
We all clamped our hands over our ears and cowered at the deafening noise.
‘ ’Ere, keep it down!’ the pine dryad pleaded with a painful expression.
‘Oh, sorry,’ Nancy whispered as quietly as an exploding volcano. ‘Thank you, my lovelies. Now, before we get started, does anyone need anything? Any last orders?’
‘Where’s the mango chutney?’ Gladys Potts called up to her. ‘I can’t see it anywhere!’
Nancy’s eight eyes scanned the table, then she gasped and clutched her four hands to her chest.
‘Goodness me,’ she exclaimed. ‘What a wally-wonk I am! Back in a jiffy!’
Nancy turned and hurried out of the room with footsteps as loud as thunder, and…
I couldn’t be certain, but I thought I caught a glimpse of the gnomad and its magpie peeking round the edge of the door as it creaked shut.
That thing is SO weird, I thought to myself. Gnomads don’t eat anything at all, so it must have been feeling pretty left out right about then. If it wasn’t so grumpy, I might even have felt sorry for the little creature.
‘Moving on!’ Dad shouted, breaking my train of thought. ‘Without any further ado, I wish you all the happiest of magical new years and I hope you all enjoy THE FEAST!’
With that, everybody darted off in different directions like bugs that had just been discovered under a log.
In seconds, guests and staff alike were sliding down the dandruff-dusted doughsticks, bouncing on the beetle-brain buns and taking a luxurious dip in the chinchilla-cheese fondue.
‘Thith ith thmashing!’ the Molar Sisters hooted between enormous mouthfuls as they devoured the three corners of a dragon-breath chilli tortilla chip. After a few seconds, they each threw their heads back and belched flames into the air. ‘Thpicy!’
Watching with a mixture of excitement and nervousness as people bustled this way and that, I headed over to where Mum and Dad were standing.
Part of me desperately wanted to dive head first into a nearby tray of mouth-marvelling hashed brownies that were as big as sofa cushions, but I had to let my parents know what Maudlin Maloney had done to reception and about the gnomad’s warning.
I ran round the edge of the gigantic termite trifle and was nearly swept off my feet as Gladys Potts galloped past, dragging a snatchling steak the size of a duvet behind her.
‘Darling!’ Mum’s voice suddenly called over the din. ‘There you are!’
My parents and the Kwinzis were standing by the mountainous slices of roast trog hog and balls of sage-and-bunion stuffing.
‘Here’s our little Frankie!’ Unga chuckled. She was hugging Zingri, who’d got to them ahead of me.
‘Where’ve you been?’ Dad asked as I ran over.
‘We thought you weren’t coming, my little lump,’ Orfis said, planting a big kiss on the top of my head.
‘Mum! Dad!’ I said. ‘Something awful—’
‘We know,’ Mum interrupted me. ‘Zingri’s just been telling us.’
‘Thorns all over reception?’ Dad asked. ‘What a mess!’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Maudlin Maloney is plotting her revenge. I think she’s going to do something even more terrible.’
‘Oh, don’t exaggerate, Francis!’ Mum said, rolling her eyes. ‘Honestly! She’s just a great big gasbag.’
‘But her curses are coming true!’ I huffed. ‘She said, “May our bottoms be prickled by thorns,” and now reception is covered in briars. Nancy’s soup turned to snot!’
‘Well, not all of them are coming true,’ Mum said. She was normally the biggest stress-head of all and she didn’t seem to be worried in the slightest. Why wasn’t she panicking?
Before I could say another word, Dad grabbed a chunk of trog-hog meat and handed it to me.
‘Try it,’ he said, giving me an encouraging wink. ‘Go on.’
I cautiously took the lump of meat in both hands and stared at it. It was the size of one of my Real-life Adventures of Calamitus Plank comics.
I bit off a piece and chewed it. It was … DELUNKTIOUS!
The trog hog was juicy and tender and fatty. It was probably the best Trogmanay roast Nancy had ever made. For a second I thought I might cry with happiness as I gulped and swallowed the fantastically moist mouthful of food.
‘See!’ Mum said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘It’s amazing,’ I said. ‘But I don’t understand what this has to do with Maloney?’
‘That lanksome leprechaun cursed the trog hog,’ Unga said. ‘But it’s squinkly and moresome and not a bit dry.’
‘Precisely!’ Dad joined in. ‘Maloney’s lost her touch. She’s getting old and so are her hexes.’
‘But the gnomad warned me and Zingri that something dreadful was going to happen!’ I exclaimed.
‘It’s true,’ Zingri said.
Mum and Dad exchanged a quick concerned glance.
‘Well, I’m sure it was talking about the vines, so it’s done now,’ Dad said. ‘I’ll get Ooof to get rid of them after dinner.’
‘Let’s hope it’s all over,’ Mum said, suddenly looking a little nervous. ‘Everybody’s here at least, so we know Maloney’s curse about unwelcome guests at the festive table hasn’t worked…’
UNWELCOME DINNER GUESTS
Fa-Dunk! Fa-Dunk! Fa-Dunk!
The noise was distant and low at first, but it rumbled menacingly off the dining-room walls and made everybody stop what they were doing to listen.
Fa-Dunk! Fa-Dunk! Fa-Dunk!
‘What’s that?’ asked Zingri.
‘It’s probably just Nancy coming back with the mango chutney,’ Mum replied.
FA-DUNK! FA-DUNK! FA-DUNK!
Unless my ears were playing tricks on me, the sound was getting louder. It seemed to be coming from underneath our feet, like something was shuffling about on the floor.
FA-DUNK! FA-DUNK! FA-DUNK!
There was an ear-shattering squeal as something nudged the chair backwards away from the table and everyone cried out in alarm.
Fa-Dunk! Fa-Dunk! Fa-Dunk!
The sound was different now … softer! Whatever was down there had just hopped up onto the chair.
‘Can you see what it is?’ Mum said. ‘If it’s Hoggit snaffling for scraps, there’s going to be trouble.’
I walked to the edge of the table and nervously peered over, being careful to keep my balance. Far below on the wooden seat were three leathery brownish lumps. If I had been normal-sized, they’d each be about the size of an apple, but right now they were as big as hot-air balloons.
‘What can you see, Frankie?’ Dad called over to me. ‘Anything?’
I was about to yell back to Dad and say I thought they were extra-large minkle-meatballs when the middle one opened its yellow eyes and glowered up at me.
After that, everything was a bit of a blur if I’m honest. I barely had time to run back from the edge before…
FA-DUNK! FA-DUNK! FA-DUNK!
I dived out of the way as the monstrous things bounced up onto the table with deafening booms! Scurrying back towards my family, I spun round to get a good look…
I recognised all three of them instantly. They were the disgusterous bad-luck charms we’d seen strung to Maudlin Maloney’s belt, and now the shrunken heads – which were not so shrunken any more – were very much alive and, by the looks of things, ready to have a feast of their own.
Everybody froze in terror. In our tiny state, the gruesome little lumps were COLOSSAL and towered above us all.
‘BLAAAAAGH!’ one of the heads groaned, lolling a black tongue out of its mouth and dragging it across jagged teeth.
‘BROOOOAAAAAAAAHHH!’ the heads roared and all at once chaos broke out across the tabletop.
‘Run fer it!’ Orfis howled as the head with a ring through its nose bounced towards us with its mouth open wide. ‘THEY’RE TRYING TO EAT US!’ CRASH!
The head landed on the edge of the trog-hog platter, sending boulder-sized balls of sage-and-bunion stuffing bouncing high into the air.
‘Go, go, go!’ Dad yelled, grabbing me by the arm and dragging me away as the shrunken head flopped out its crusty tongue again. ‘Get to higher ground!’
Ahead of me, I could see Mum and the Kwinzis sprinting across the tablecloth as balls of stuffing came thundering down like dreadful savoury bombs.
‘OOOF NO LIKE!’ Ooof bawled as we passed him. He swung a breadstick like a club and knocked one of the gruesome heads over on its side. It was the super-leathery one that Maudlin Maloney had introduced as her Aunt Influenza. For a second I thought our handyogre might just have defeated it, until the horrible thing wobbled upright and screamed in Ooof’s face, sending a green cloud of rancid breath billowing out in front of it.
Dad and I raced round an immense jug of grappleweed gravy and came face to face with the third horrible head. It had a patch over one eye and the faded remains of a blue anchor tattooed on its chin which meant that this dreadful thing had once been a Squall Goblin, just like Captain Calamitus Plank.
‘GAAAAAAAH!’ it bellowed so loudly that the tabletop rumbled under our feet. ‘BLAAAAARRG!’
‘Over here, Frankie!’ Dad yelled as he pulled me up onto a great hill of crab-curd koftas. ‘Get to the top!’
I scrambled as fast as I could, but the enormous fried blocks of food were greasy and it was difficult to grip the edges as I climbed.
‘This way, grub!’ Unga called to me. She was a few levels higher on the stack of crispy snacks and I could see she’d already helped Mum, Orfis and Zingri up onto the pile. ‘Wiffly now! As quinkly as you can!’
She reached down and grabbed me by my jacket collar, then lifted me straight up to the top of the crunchy peak.
‘THIS IS DISASTEROUS!’ Orfis howled as a plate of iced bumble-wheat buns was upended and they crashed into the side of our food mountain like meteors. ‘We’re gonelies!’
From the top of the crab-curd koftas I could see the terrible scene unfolding all around me. It was like everything was moving in slow motion…
I watched as the ugly blob with the ring through its nose cornered Reginald Blink and his family by the dish of rat-tail terrine. With one foul SLUU
URRPP, it sucked them all straight off their feet and gobbled all four of them down at once.
Aunt Influenza’s head was now splashing about in the cauldron of cursed snotty soup like some nightmarish tea bag. It was guzzling down mouthfuls of the green liquid, then spitting jets of it back out as guests ran past in a panic, sending them flying across the table.
‘Aaaeeeeeeee!’ I turned just in time to see the pirate head blow an almighty gust of wind at Berol Dunch who had somehow shimmied up a drinking straw to escape the chaos.
The geriatric mermaid spiralled into the air, flapping her fishtail this way and that. Then, as she started to fall back down, the tattooed head bounced up towards her and swallowed her whole with a reverberating GULP!
JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME
Hope seemed to be running out faster than you could scream, ‘PLEASE DON’T EAT ME!’
In only a few minutes, the three gruesome heads had gleefully gobbled down half our guests and were showing no signs of stopping.
‘AAAAGH!’ Gladys Potts was seized off the top of the dung-beetle muffins.
‘NOOOOO!’ Madam McCreedie was sniffed up Aunt Influenza’s nose as she flew frantically past.
‘GUUUUHH!’ Ooof was licked right off the tablecloth and vanished down the pirate head’s slimy throat before he’d even realised it was behind him.
This is it! I thought as I stared with wide eyes. Maudlin Maloney is winning. The gnomad and its magpie were right and this is the end of the Nothing To See Here Hotel.
Aunt Influenza’s head had been busily slurping back the family of bogrunts, who’d swum out into the centre of the pork-and-parsley punchbowl for safety, when the gory lump swivelled its eyes upwards and spotted us all huddled at the top of the still wobbling crab-curd koftas.
A crooked leer spread across its withered face and it started to bounce towards us.
FA-DUNK! FA-DUNK!
BOOOOOOOOM!
A second much louder noise suddenly echoed round the cavernous dining room. Even the three heads stopped hopping about and seemed to listen for a moment, despite their ears being stuffed full of old rags and sawdust.
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yeti! Page 5
