‘There’s no way we’re going to get through that!’ says Terry. ‘Not in a million years! Not in a trillion years! Not in a million trillion gazillion—’
‘Terry!’ I say.
‘What?’
‘Come on! The caterpillar’s eaten a hole through the wall!’
‘That was a lot quicker than I thought,’ says Terry. ‘I must have made a mistake in my calculations. Let me just check where I went wrong …’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘Keep moving!’
We follow the caterpillar into the tunnel.
We arrive at the end of the tunnel and peek out. It’s horrible. There’s a garden full of vegetables!
‘We can’t go out there,’ says Terry. ‘We’re not vegetables.’
‘Good point,’ I say. ‘Do you have any vegetable disguises in your takeaway bag?’
Terry looks through his bag. ‘I’ve got three,’ he says.
‘Perfect,’ I say. ‘That’s the exact amount we need!’
I choose the corn cob, give Terry the broccoli, and we put the carrot on Jill.
As we enter the garden a trumpet sounds and we see a group of official-looking vegetables making their way towards us.
‘All hail, Prince Potato,’ says a bugle-blowing eggplant.
‘That must be him! That’s Prince Potato!’ says Terry, pointing to a large potato wearing a small golden crown. ‘But he’s not very handsome.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘He’s pretty good-looking for a potato though.’
‘Oh, my!’ says the prince, stopping next to us. ‘Do my ten eyes deceive or is this a princess in a glass coffin I see before me?’
‘No,’ says Terry, ‘Jill’s not a—’
I stamp on Terry’s foot to shut him up.
‘Yes, Your Highness!’ I say quickly. ‘She is indeed a princess but she is under a terrible spell and only the kiss of a handsome prince will wake her.’
‘Oh, how beautiful she is!’ says the prince. ‘Her skin is more orange than the sun, her hair greener than grass and her face sweeter than the sweetest pea of summer. I must kiss her immediately and marry her before the day is through!’
‘Um, Andy,’ whispers Terry, ‘I don’t think Jill’s going to want to marry a potato.’
‘Shhh,’ I say, ‘we’ll worry about that later … after he’s woken her up.’
Prince Potato leans down and kisses Jill. Quite loudly.
Jill blinks, opens her eyes, looks up at the prince … and screams. (Also quite loudly.)
The prince, startled, falls backwards and lies on the ground, his arms and legs wriggling helplessly.
Jill stands up and looks down at him. ‘Did you just kiss me?’ she says.
‘Yes, my fair carrot princess,’ he says. ‘I woke you from your enchanted slumber and now we can marry and live happily ever after.’
‘I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about,’ says Jill, ‘but I do know that I’m not a carrot. Or a princess, for that matter.’
She starts tugging at the top of her carrot costume. ‘And what is this stupid thing on my head?’
‘No!’ I say, lunging towards her, but it’s too late.
She pulls off her carrot head and the vegetables scream.
‘That princess is no carrot!’ shouts an eggplant. ‘She’s a human being!’
‘Seize her!’ says the prince.
‘Uh-oh,’ I say, grabbing Jill’s hand. ‘We’d better get out of here. Come with us.’
‘What’s going on?’ says Jill. ‘Who are you?’
‘It’s me—Andy! And that piece of broccoli is Terry.’
‘Hi, Jill!’ says Terry.
‘Is this a dream?’ says Jill.
‘Not really,’ I say. ‘It’s more like a nightmare. I’ll explain later. Run!’
We try to head back through the tunnel but the entrance is blocked by a big, ugly pumpkin.
We turn back and are bombarded by a brutal battalion of brussel sprouts.
We run across the courtyard to a set of stairs only to be repelled by a reeking gang of ginger, garlic and onions.
We are trying to decide where to run next, when millions of mushrooms emerge out of the ground and surround us.
‘Take those villainous vegetable-impersonators to the dungeon,’ says the prince. ‘I’ll deal with them later.’
The mushrooms tie us up and drag us down a long cold corridor …
open a heavily reinforced celery door …
and throw us in to a small dark dungeon.
‘Well, that all worked out pretty well,’ says Terry.
‘How do you figure that?’ I say.
‘Well, Jill’s awake now,’ he says. ‘That’s what we came here for, isn’t it?’
‘Ye-es,’ I say, ‘that was part of it. But we also wanted her to talk to the caterpillar so we could find out what happened to Mr Big Nose.’
‘You don’t need a caterpillar for that,’ booms a familiar voice. ‘I can tell you myself. I’m right here!’
CHAPTER 8
THE DUNGEON
‘Mr Big Nose?!’ says Terry. ‘Is that you?’
‘Of course it’s me!’ says Mr Big Nose. ‘What are you two clowns doing here? You’re supposed to be writing a book!’
‘We are,’ I say. ‘At least, we were, but we got to page 54 and realised that you hadn’t called to remind us about the deadline like you usually do, so we called you. But you weren’t there. It looked suspicious, so we decided to investigate and search for clues.’
‘And the trail of clues led you here?’ says Mr Big Nose.
‘Well, not exactly,’ I say. ‘We found a caterpillar in your office. We figured it must have seen what happened to you, and we took it to Jill’s house so she could talk to it.’
‘Ah,’ says Mr Big Nose, ‘so that’s how you found me.’
‘Well, no,’ says Terry, ‘because Jill had pricked her finger on a carrot and fallen asleep for 100 years.’
‘So I kissed her to wake her up,’ I say.
‘Eeewww!’ says Jill.
‘I know what you mean,’ says Terry. ‘And it didn’t work anyway, because Andy’s not a real prince. So then we had to go on a long journey to find an actual prince. But the best we could come up with was a potato prince.’
‘Oh, so that’s why that potato was slobbering all over me,’ says Jill.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘and I’m sorry about that, but at least you’re awake now.’
‘Yeah,’ says Terry. ‘And you can talk to the caterpillar and find out what happened to Mr Big Nose.’
‘You fools!’ shouts Mr Big Nose. ‘You don’t have to talk to a caterpillar! I’ll tell you what happened—I was kidnapped by vegetables, that’s what!’
‘But why?’ says Jill. ‘Why would vegetables do such a thing?’
‘Because I published Vegetable Patty’s book, Fun with Vegetables, that’s why. Apparently, they’re a little upset about it.’
‘So the book was a clue!’ says Terry. ‘I thought so!’
‘You thought everything was a clue,’ I say. ‘Even your own hand!’
‘Did not,’ says Terry.
‘Did so,’ I say.
‘Did not.’
‘Did so times infinity!’ I say, which wins the argument, but Terry doesn’t hear me over the loud crunching and munching sound coming from just outside the dungeon door.
The sound gets louder and louder and then a hole opens up in the door and the caterpillar pokes its head through.
‘Yay!’ says Terry. ‘This is the caterpillar we were telling you about. It’s come to save us!’
‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,’ says Mr Big Nose. ‘How could a caterpillar save us?’
‘By eating all the vegetables, of course,’ says Terry.
‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘that caterpillar can eat anything! So far today it’s eaten one flying fried-egg car,
one enormous black bird,
two steamrollers,
four wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube men,
five giant mutant spiders,
one grumpy old tomato,
one wall of asparagus spears
and one reinforced celery door!’
‘That caterpillar is amazing,’ says Terry. ‘We should write a book about it.’
‘Well don’t expect me to publish it,’ says Mr Big Nose. ‘As if anyone would want to read a book about a really hungry caterpillar!’
‘I would,’ says Jill. ‘I love animal stories. But I don’t think that caterpillar will be eating anything else today.’
‘Why not?’ says Terry.
‘Because it’s making a cocoon,’ says Jill. ‘And once inside it will transform into a beautiful butterfly!’
‘And then will it eat all the vegetables?’ says Terry.
‘No,’ says Jill, ‘because it won’t have a mouth … just a proboscis for sucking nectar from flowers.’
‘Well that’s no use to us!’ I say. ‘What are we going to do?!’
‘You’re going to come with us,’ says a gruff voice, as two eggplant guards unlock the door and enter the dungeon. ‘It’s lunch time!’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ says Terry. ‘I’m starving! What are we having?’
‘You soup,’ says one of the eggplants.
‘Mmm,’ says Terry, ‘that sounds interesting. What’s in it?’
‘You!’ says the eggplant, pointing at him. Then it turns to the rest of us.
‘And you …
and you …
and you!’
CHAPTER 9
HUMAN SOUP
‘Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us all into, Terry,’ I say, as we sit in a pot of water suspended over a fire surrounded by a mob of angry vegetables.
‘It’s not my fault,’ says Terry. ‘It was your idea to come to this stupid castle.’
‘Only because Jill pricked her finger on a carrot,’ I say. ‘If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s Jill’s.’
‘That’s got nothing to do with it!’ says Jill. ‘It’s obviously Mr Big Nose’s fault for upsetting the vegetables by publishing that mean book.’
‘It’s not my fault,’ says Mr Big Nose. ‘It’s Vegetable Patty’s fault for writing it!’
‘Yes, it’s Vegetable Patty’s fault,’ I say to the eggplants. ‘You should catch her and put her in the pot and let us all go free. We love vegetables!’
‘Yes, vegetables are the best!’ says Terry. ‘Long live vegetables!’
‘Who are you trying to fool?’ says one of the eggplants. ‘I’ve read your books! You and Andy hate vegetables!’
‘No, we don’t,’ I say. ‘It’s fruit we hate—we’ve got a whole room in our treehouse just for smashing watermelons!’
‘Yes, but you also have a vegetable vaporiser,’ says the eggplant.
‘That was Andy’s idea,’ says Terry.
‘And what about the rocket-powered carrot-launcher?’ says the eggplant. ‘Whose idea was that?’
‘Well,’ says Terry, ‘that was mine, but the carrots enjoy it!’
‘No, they don’t! And flying beetroots don’t like people riding on them, either. That’s why we set them free.’
‘So that’s where our flying beetroots went!’ I say.
‘Another mystery solved!’ says Terry.
‘Excuse me,’ says Jill to the eggplant, ‘I don’t hate vegetables and I’d never dream of hurting one so could you let me go please?’
‘No way!’ snaps the eggplant. ‘You feed truckloads of poor defenceless vegetables to your animals every day. That’s why we sent that cursed carrot to your house to put you to sleep.’
‘So that’s why Jill was asleep!’ I say. ‘She wasn’t cursed—the carrot was!’
‘Another mystery solved!’ says Terry. ‘We are GREAT detectives. We have solved every mystery that we had today!’
‘Enough jibber-jabber!’ says the prince, stepping forward. ‘You are all guilty of anti-vegetable activity and for this you will pay the ultimate price!’
‘A million dollars?!’ says Terry.
‘No, you fool,’ says the prince, ‘you will pay with your lives!’
He turns to face the assembled vegetables. ‘My loyal subjects,’ he says, ‘today we feast … on human soup!’
The vegetables all start dancing around the pot and chanting.
‘Well, it doesn’t look like there’s much hope for us now,’ I say. ‘And to think that it had to happen today of all possible days.’
‘What do you mean, Andy?’ says Terry.
‘You still don’t remember, do you?!’ I say.
‘Remember what?’ he says.
‘Forget it,’ I say.
‘How can I forget it if I can’t even remember it in the first place?’ says Terry.
‘Be quiet, you two,’ says Mr Big Nose. ‘Look at the vegetables! They’re slowing down and falling asleep. They appear to have tired themselves out.’
‘Yay!’ says Terry. ‘We won!’
‘Not really,’ says Mr Big Nose. ‘I think you’ll find we’re still tied up in a pot of water that is getting hotter by the minute.’
‘Yeah, good point,’ says Terry. ‘I guess we lost after all.’
Suddenly a ferocious, vegetable-fighting warrior comes flying through the air holding a potato masher in one hand and a vegetable peeler in the other.
‘Never fear!’* she says. ‘Vegetable Patty is here!’
* Unless, of course, you’re a vegetable, in which case you should fear … quite a lot, actually, because—look out—Vegetable Patty’s here!
CHAPTER 10
VEGETABLE PATTY
TO THE RESCUE
‘Yay!’ says Terry. ‘I knew Vegetable Patty would come to save us! I knew everything would be all right.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ I say. ‘Look! The vegetables are waking up, and there’s a lot more of them than there are of her.’
‘He’s right, you know,’ sneers the prince. ‘You’ll never take us alive!’
‘I have no intention of taking you—or any other vegetable here—alive,’ says Vegetable Patty. ‘Prepare to be sliced, diced, packed into plastic snap-lock sacks and snap-frozen in my portable freezer!’
She slices!
She dices!
She chops and lops and bops!
She crashes!
She mashes!
She cuts off carrot tops!
She punches!
She crunches!
She grabs and jabs and stabs!
She chomps!
She whomps!
She makes vegetable kebabs!
She kicks!
She flicks!
She whacks and cracks and smacks!
She crushes!
She mushes!
She stuffs them into sacks!*
* Handy resealable plastic snap-lock sacks, which are an ideal size for portable freezers.
Vegetable Patty puts the last of her resealable bags into her freezer and releases us from the pot of near-boiling water.
‘Thank you for coming to my rescue, VP,’ says Mr Big Nose. ‘It’s so good to have an author I can rely on … not like these two clowns.’
‘That’s not very nice,’ says Jill. ‘Andy and Terry did their best.’
‘Well their best wasn’t good enough!’ says Mr Big Nose. ‘But then Patty is a vegetable-fighter, I suppose. And a revenge-atarian.’
‘A revenge-atarian?’ says Terry. ‘What’s that? Is it like a vegetarian?’
‘Sort of,’ says Patty. ‘I mainly eat vegetables, but it’s not because I like them—it’s to get revenge on them for the misery they caused me as a child.’
‘Tell me about it!’ I say. ‘My parents used to make me eat vegetables all the time! It was awful.’
‘At least you only had to eat them,’ says Terry. ‘My parents made me drink them—vegetable smoothies three times a day.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ says Vegetable Patty. ‘I don’t hate vegetables because I had to eat them. I hate them because they killed my parents.’
‘Vegetables killed your parents?’ says Jill. ‘But how?’
The 52-Storey Treehouse Page 3
