One Big Wacky Family

by Jackie French

  The policeman coughed quietly, his notebook in his hand. ‘I’d say she’s right, kid,’ he said, eyeing Spot nervously. ‘I’d say a…a monster like that can do just about whatever it wants to. Er, what sort of thing is it anyway? Did someone say it was a dogosaurus?’

  ‘A supersaurus,’ said the reporter.

  ‘Actually, she’s a rhoetosaurus,’ said Pete.

  ‘My rhoetosaurus,’ added Gunk.

  ‘You tell them, baby brother,’ said Fliss.

  Suddenly something snapped in Gunk. The fear, the exhaustion, the terror for Spot all crowded together. ‘Don’t call me baby brother!’ he yelled.

  ‘I’ll call you whatever I want…’ began Fliss.

  ‘Spt,’ said Spot quietly, lifting up her giant tail.

  Fliss shut her mouth. Then she grinned. ‘Don’t you worry, Gunk,’ she amended. ‘People are going to want to study Spot and film her—and pay lots of money to film her,’ she added sternly to the cameraman, as he aimed his camera again. ‘But I don’t think anyone is ever, ever going to try to take your dinosaur away from you.’

  ‘Spt,’ agreed Spot. She nudged Gunk firmly, then nudged Pete too, then sat down for them to get on her back.

  Gunk grabbed Spot’s big round neck and hoisted himself up. Most of the gorilla hair was gone now. The skin was hard and leathery, and the muscles firm under his hands. He felt Pete hold onto his waist as she climbed up behind.

  ‘Come on, Spot,’ said Gunk. ‘Let’s go home.’

  CHAPTER 26

  One Year Later

  ‘See Spot! It’s a book about you!’ said Gunk.

  ‘Spt?’ asked Spot curiously, peering down from her great height to look at the book on Gunk’s lap.

  Spot had grown in the past year. She was nearly fifteen metres high now and still growing. Her neck was even longer than before, and her tail more massive. One blow of Spot’s tail these days could knock over the school library—but that had been an accident and Gunk had promised the school librarian it wouldn’t ever happen again.

  The title of the book read Supersaurus. There was a picture of Spot on the front cover, taken on the night of the rescue, with Gunk and Pete looking pale and wide-eyed behind her.

  The book had been written by the reporter who’d followed them that night. Some of the money from the book was going to dinosaur research. The reporter had offered some of the money to Gunk too, but he’d refused. What with the film rights to Spot’s life, the sale of Spot postcards and the endorsements for ‘Dinosaur Dinners for Dogs’, Gunk and Spot and the whole family had more money than they’d ever need in their lives.

  Gunk looked around the room. It was enormous, larger than the school hall, with soft, fluffy carpet and the world’s biggest sofa—big enough for a dinosaur to snuggle on and put its head on your lap.

  Next to the sofa was a doggy door (a dinosaur-size doggy door) and out of the window stretched acres of grass and trees and lucerne paddocks, and fields of lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers and roses—just right for a dinosaur to graze on.

  There was a lake, too, for Spot to swim in while the humans paddled their canoes and fished.

  It all looked pretty good to Gunk. Mum had quit her job and worked full-time trying to contact computerusing aliens. (She had a giant radio telescope down past the tennis court now.) Fliss had quit work as a bouncer and was spending all her time weight-lifting. Fliss wasn’t used to having someone in the family more powerful than she was, thought Gunk. She wouldn’t be happy till she was stronger than a rhoetosaurus.

  Even Dad was happy. Pete had come up with an idea for cute, fluffy Supersaurus dinosaur robots, and Dad was in charge of production. Pete was rich now too.

  Dad had furnished the whole mansion with cute little baby dinosaur curtains, baby dinosaur-printed towels, and baby dinosaur doona covers. Even the sofa had little dinosaur feet.

  Suddenly Gunk’s mobile rang. He picked it out of his pocket. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Gunk, hi, it’s me.’

  ‘Hi, Pete,’ said Gunk. ‘Hey, do you want to come over for dinner? Spot and I can come over and pick you up,’ he added.

  ‘Spt,’ agreed Spot, bending down so she could hear the conversation too.

  ‘Yeah, I’d like to,’ said Pete, her voice bright with excitement. ‘But that isn’t why I rang. Guess what?’

  ‘You’ve come up with an idea for dinosaur toilet paper?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Pete.

  ‘Dinosaur pimple-pickers then?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Pete. ‘Give up?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Gunk.

  ‘I just logged onto the Supersaurus web site,’ said Pete gleefully, ‘and this kid from China had just logged on too! And he’s got a rhoetosaurus!’

  ‘Another rhoetosaurus!’ said Gunk disbelievingly.

  ‘They found this fossilised egg—it must have protected the baby for one hundred and forty-four million years! So I thought, hey, what if the baby rhoetosauruses have just been waiting one hundred and forty-four million years for someone to love them? They just sort of refused to hatch till someone wanted them again!’

  ‘That’s a crazy idea, Pete,’ said Gunk. He thought for a minute. ‘But it’s a nice one too,’ he added.

  ‘And I had another idea too! I emailed back to this kid,’ cried Pete, ‘and he’s going to bring his dinosaur over here—his rhoetosaurus is just a baby so it’ll fit on a plane! And guess what!’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Gunk.

  ‘His rhoetosaurus is a boy! So when his dinosaur gets bigger…’

  Gunk grinned. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is the best idea you have ever had. It’s the best idea in the universe! Hey, Spot! Guess what? You’re going to have a boyfriend!’

  ‘Spt,’ said Spot, as though to say, ‘I’ve got you, and Pete too, but another rhoetosaurus would be fun.’

  ‘See you later!’ said Gunk into the mobile. ‘Spot and I will gallop over in half an hour!’

  ‘Great!’ said Pete. ‘Hey, can I have one of the puppies? I mean dinosaurs?’

  ‘Spt,’ said Spot.

  ‘I guess that means yes,’ said Gunk. He switched the mobile off and stuffed it back into his pocket. He jogged across the living room and down the corridor and down the next corridor and…and decided that next time he went to the shopping centre he was going to get some Rollerblades. Getting around a mansion took too much time.

  Dad was in the kitchen, mixing Spot’s afternoon snack. The experts at the museum had given the family a list of what they thought a rhoetosaurus should eat for a well-balanced dinosaur-type diet.

  ‘One bale of lucerne hay,’ muttered Dad, ‘two dozen eggs…’

  ‘Spt!’ said Spot hungrily, dribbling onto the kitchen floor. Now Spot was even bigger, there was even more dribble, but that was all right because the new kitchen floor sloped into a channel to take it all away.

  ‘Six buckets of seaweed, ten boxes of bananas, a watermelon…Down, Spot! There’s a good dog, I mean dinosaur,’ said Dad. Dad had never quite got used to having a dinosaur in the kitchen.

  ‘Hey Dad, guess what?’

  ‘What?’ asked Dad warily.

  ‘There’s a kid in China who has a dinosaur just like Spot!’

  ‘Oh, goodie!’ said Dad faintly. ‘Another dinosaur!’

  ‘And it’s a boy!’ added Gunk.

  ‘Spt!’ added Spot, dribbling happily down Dad’s back.

  ‘Now Spot can have lots of baby dinosaurs! She can lay a clutch of dinosaur eggs, and Pete and I will make sure they hatch, and we’ll have dinosaurs all over the place! Won’t that be fabulous? It’s lucky we’ve got such a big house now…Dad? Dad?’

  Spot peered down with concern. ‘Spt?’ she asked.

  But Dad had fainted.

  My Dad the Dragon

  To Lewis, You know, there’s something interesting I’ve been meaning to tell you about your dad.

  Love Aunty Jacq

  For my brother Dave

  SMK

  CHA
PTER 1

  Sir Sneazle’s Horrid Homework

  ‘Now for your homework!’ announced Sir Sneazle, smiling nastily at the class. Sir Sneazle’s teeth were sharp and yellow, and he showed far too many of them when he smiled.

  Horace hated it when Sir Sneazle smiled, because he never smiled at anything anyone else enjoyed.

  Sir Sneazle had taught the boys at King Arthur’s School for Trainee Knights since dear old Sir Bunny retired suddenly last term because of his arthritis. It was an honour to be chosen for King Arthur’s School. You had to pass exams in horseriding, swordfighting and on how to convince a princess to kiss you if an evil wizard turned you into a frog.

  Horace and his family were thrilled when Horace had been one of the boys chosen within Camelot and the surrounding villages to attend King Arthur’s School. But since Sir Sneazle took over, thought Horace, things just hadn’t been the same.

  Sir Sneazle’s eyes were black and cold, even when he smiled. ‘Now this weekend’s homework is important,’ he reminded the boys. ‘His Majesty, King Arthur, is going to inspect the school on Monday morning and he will want to see your homework!’

  Sir Sneazle smiled another little private smile, as though he knew a joke that no one else had guessed.

  ‘Now,’ said Sir Sneazle, his eyes gleaming, ‘Bernard of Badger’s Bottom, your homework will be a hundred-page essay on Ye Historie of Ye Broadsword.’

  (Bernard didn’t live on a badger’s bottom. Some people lived on Badger’s Hill. Bernard’s family owned the bottom—the valley bottom.)

  ‘A…a hundred pages, sir?’ stammered Bernard, scratching a flea bite under his stockings. Bernard was the best sword fighter in the whole school, even better than some of the Knights of the Round Table, in Horace’s opinion. But when Bernard tried to wield a feather pen the ink smudged across the page.

  Sir Sneazle’s smile grew even nastier. ‘A hundred pages. And no blots! If there is a single blot I will tear the whole lot up! Bran of Pig Ford, Pimply Pol and Snidge the Blacksmith’s son, your homework is to rescue a damsel in distress. Make sure she’s here first thing Monday morning so I can check that you rescued her properly.’

  Pimply Pol’s face grew white, though his pimples stayed red. ‘A damsel, sir?’

  ‘A damsel. And make sure she’s a proper damsel. No elderly grandmothers, no second cousins with warts. This damsel has to be young and beautiful and rescued according to Chapter 16 in Howe To Rescue Ye Damsels in Distress.’

  ‘But, sir,’ protested Pol desperately.

  ‘Silence,’ roared Sir Sneazle.

  Horace gulped. Sir Sneazle’s roar was almost as bad as his smile. Damsels wanted handsome knights to rescue them, not kids with pimples like Pol’s, or knock-knees like Snidge’s, and most definitely not smelling of Bran’s pig yards.

  ‘Now, Horace,’ Sir Sneazle’s black eyes bored into him. ‘What can we find for little Horace to do?’

  Horace gulped. It wasn’t his fault he was the smallest boy in the class. Dad said all the men in their family were late developers.

  Sir Sneazle’s smile grew even wider. ‘I know! I have the perfect little project to keep you busy over the weekend.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’ quavered Horace.

  ‘You can bring us a dragon,’ smiled Sir Sneazle. ‘A dead dragon, naturally.’ Again he smiled that horrid, private smile. ‘We wouldn’t want King Arthur’s School to be disturbed by a live dragon, would we boys?’

  ‘But no one kills dragons nowadays, sir!’ cried Horace. ‘They’re a protected species!’

  ‘Are you arguing with me, Horace?’ demanded Sir Sneazle awfully.

  ‘No sir, er, I mean yes, sir,’ said Horace, trying to pull his courage up from his stockings. ‘We’ve never been taught how to kill a dragon, sir.’

  Sir Sneazle stared at him. ‘Do you know what happens to boys who don’t do their homework?’

  ‘They have to do it at lunch time?’ suggested Horace hopefully. ‘That’s what Sir Bunny made us do.’

  ‘Sir Bunny was a weakling!’ thundered Sir Sneazle. ‘Any boy who doesn’t do his homework will be expelled from school! And on top of that, a note will be made on their records so they can never ever be made a Knight of the Round Table! Or any other table! You understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ whispered Horace.

  ‘Now, class dismissed!’

  CHAPTER 2

  Kill a Dragon!

  Sir Sneazle swept out of the classroom. A cold breeze seemed to follow him. Horace sat there stunned.

  A dragon! How could he possibly tell Mum and Dad he had to catch—and kill—a dragon!

  ‘A hundred pages,’ breathed Bernard. ‘I can’t write a hundred pages! I can’t write half a page without a dozen blots!’

  ‘A damsel!’ Snidge’s red ears were even redder and his Adam’s apple bobbed like a rabbit.

  ‘I tried asking a damsel to dance at Queen Guinevere’s May Dance and she just laughed!’ Pimply Pol was nearly in tears.

  ‘I can’t help it if I smell!’ said Bran unhappily. ‘It’s the pigs! You can’t work with pigs and not stink a bit! What damsel is going to even look at the three of us! Much less let us rescue her!’

  ‘It’s worse than having your nose hairs pulled out by eagles!’ sniffed Snidge.

  ‘Have you ever had your nose hairs pulled out by eagles?’ inquired Horace.

  ‘No,’ gulped Snidge.

  ‘Then how do you know?’ asked Horace reasonably.

  ‘I can guess,’ said Snidge unhappily. Horace decided he’d worry about dragons later. Meanwhile his friends were in trouble.

  Horace might be the smallest boy in the class, but somehow all the others turned to him when things went wrong.

  ‘Look, we can fix this!’ he said, more confidently than he felt. ‘How about you all come over to my place tomorrow? We can all help Bernard write his essay. After all you know all that stuff about the broadsword don’t you, Bernard?’

  Bernard nodded hopefully. ‘I know everything about broadswords. I’m just no good with feather pens.’

  Horace nodded. ‘Then we’ll all go and see if we can find a damsel to rescue.’

  ‘But we’re just kids!’ protested Snidge. ‘No damsel will take us seriously!’

  Horace grinned. ‘We can ask my mum to turn us into handsome knights just for the day.’

  ‘Can your mum do that?’ breathed Snidge.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Horace, crossing his fingers. Mum’s spells didn’t always work. But surely turning five boys into handsome knights just for an afternoon couldn’t be too difficult, even for Mum! ‘Then all we have to do is find a damsel and rescue her, and ask her to turn up at school on Monday morning,’ he added.

  ‘But we won’t be handsome knights on Monday!’ protested Snidge.

  ‘Who cares?’ said Horace airily. ‘The main thing is that she turns up at school!’

  Bernard grinned, ‘Then all of us can help you find your dragon!’

  ‘My Uncle Slodge says he saw a dragon fly over our smithy last week!’ cried Snidge.

  ‘I’m sure a dragon has been stealing our pigs!’ put in Bran. ‘We could put a pig out for bait then wait till the dragon flew by and…’

  Horace gulped. ‘No,’ he said, ‘thanks anyway. But I think I’d better find a dragon all by myself.’

  CHAPTER 3

  Mum Tries to Help

  It was a long walk from school to Horace’s home, but Horace enjoyed it. The fields of rye and barley looked peaceful and the stubble where the hay had been cut shone gold in the autumn sunlight.

  It hadn’t always been so peaceful, Horace knew. The years before he had been born had seen the country scarred by war, evil lords invading each other’s counties to steal crops or cattle and capture slaves; the Saxons were invading too, to try to claim the land as their own.

  And then King Arthur had pulled the sword from the stone and called all the great knights to him. The Saxons had been driven out and under King Arthur’s rule
no man dared draw his sword to take another’s land.

  One day, vowed Horace, he’d be a knight as well. His name would be engraved on his chair at the Round Table and he would protect the land from evil and make his family proud.

  Home looked peaceful too, especially after a day spent with Sir Sneazle at school. The rose-covered cottage nestled against the hillside. Any passer-by would think the cottage was tiny, but it was larger than it looked. There were caves in the hill behind the cottage. Dad had turned one into his study, and Mum and Dad’s bedroom was in another.

  Horace walked up the crooked path between the daffodils and guinea pig bushes. (Mum had been trying to conjure up rose bushes, but the baby guinea pigs on the guinea pig bushes looked cute anyway, wrinkling up their little noses as their bushes blew in the wind.) When the guinea pigs grew older they dropped off the stems and ran about the garden. Guinea pigs were more interesting than roses in Horace’s opinion, though Mum said they didn’t smell as good.

  Horace reached for the door handle, then stopped as the doorknocker glared at him.

  ‘There’s no one home,’ declared Doorknocker.

  Horace stared at it. ‘There’s smoke coming out of our chimney!’

  ‘Doesn’t prove nothing,’ said Doorknocker. ‘Not worth you’re going in, lad, that’s my advice.’

  ‘Look,’ said Horace. ‘Your job is to be welcoming, not put people off!’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ sighed Doorknocker. ‘It’s that spell your mum did last Tuesday. I haven’t felt the same since. I bit the postman’s fingers this morning,’ he admitted.

  Horace patted it consolingly, then zapped his fingers back as the doorknocker’s mouth began to open. ‘I’ll have a word with Mum,’ he said. ‘Maybe she can undo the spell.’