Mabel Jones and the Doomsday Book
Page 1
More books about Mabel
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VIKING
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
First published in the United Kingdom by Puffin Books, 2016
Published in the United States of America by Viking,
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2016
Text copyright © 2016 by Will Mabbitt
Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Ross Collins
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Ebook ISBN: 9781101999639
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Mabbitt, Will, author. | Collins, Ross, illustrator.
Title: Mabel Jones and the Doomsday Book / Will Mabbitt ; illustrated by Ross Collins.
Description: New York : Viking Books for Young Readers, [2016]
Series: Mabel Jones ; 3 | Summary: Mabel Jones and her pirate crewmates race an elusive creature known as Von Klaar to find the Doomsday Book, a guidebook used to wipe out humanity.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016003754
ISBN 9781101999622 (hardback)
Subjects: | CYAC: Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Pirates—Fiction.| Fantasy. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / Pirates. | JUVENILE FICTION / Animals / General. | JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy & Magic.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M24 Maae 2016 |
DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016003754
Version_1
For Mum
CONTENTS
MORE BOOKS ABOUT MABEL
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
MAP
THE END
CHAPTER 1: A Relic from a Hooman Age
CHAPTER 2: Another Bloody Sea Battle
CHAPTER 3: It’s Easy Being a Pirate
CHAPTER 4: A Bad Idea
CHAPTER 5: The Mystery of the Three Nun
CHAPTER 6: The Creaking Gibbet
CHAPTER 7: Dreadful Boredom Awaits within This Chapter
CHAPTER 8: The Top-Secret Headquarters of the Top-Secret Service
CHAPTER 9: The Sunbeam
CHAPTER 10: The Fur Coat of Righteousness
CHAPTER 11: Death by Splattering
CHAPTER 12: The Alsatian Ironclad
CHAPTER 13: Ursula and Wilkinson
CHAPTER 14: Maniacal Pigeon Fever
CHAPTER 15: The Librarian
CHAPTER 16: The Plan
CHAPTER 17: Letters Home
CHAPTER 18: The Beggar
CHAPTER 19: Their Mysterious Guide
CHAPTER 20: The Afterlife of a Bacon Sandwich
CHAPTER 21: Findus
CHAPTER 22: The Filthpipe
CHAPTER 23: A Cunning Distraction
CHAPTER 24: A Dirty Job
CHAPTER 25: Cracking the Cryptogog
CHAPTER 26: The Mummified Remains of St. Statham
CHAPTER 27: The Revolution
CHAPTER 28: The Last Words of Sir Timothy Speke
CHAPTER 29: The Deadly Schphzzz!
CHAPTER 30: The Aftermath of the Deadly Schphzzz!
CHAPTER 31: The Exciting Final Chapter
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Q&A WITH THE NARRATOR
WHICH UNLIKELY PIRATE ARE YOU?
THE END
Not long after you’ve finished reading this sentence, the whole hooman race will become extinct.
I say the whole hooman race, but that’s not exactly true. Some of them will survive, but only a few. A pawful at most.
It’s one of these survivors in whom we are particularly interested. Her name, as you have probably guessed from the front cover of this book, is Mabel Jones.
Poor, young, nose-picking Mabel Jones. Mabel Jones, who skipped the fate the rest of you will suffer, by virtue of being snatched from the present and pulled deep into the footure: a footure without hoomans.
How this happened is not important, but the end result is. Because if Mabel Jones can work out what caused the end of the hooman race, maybe—just maybe—she can stop it from happening . . .
Take a second.
Take a
deep breath.
Take a cookie from the cookie jar and ponder this unlikeliest of heroes.
A mere child. All thin legs and scrawny shoulders. Scrawny shoulders that carry the greatest of weights.
The fate of the HOOMAN RACE!
CHAPTER 1
A Relic from a Hooman Age
This is the life, eh?
You, me and a tiny rowing boat dwarfed by the gargantuan waves of the Wild Western Sea! Sure, the salty wind lashes against my cheeks like an angry bosun’s whip, but that’s what happens if you gamble and lose your trousers in a game of cards at the CADAVEROUS LOBSTER TAVERN.
Still, there is something magical about the Wild Western Sea, thinks I, as I lie back, gaze lazily at the stars and feel the cooling breeze around my—
I didn’t say you could stop rowing!
We are drawing nearer to our goal. See there! Two dull shapes on the horizon. One large—a merchantman sailing from ALBEMARLE, I’ll warrant. Probably the OMBUDSMAN, bound for the NOO WORLD. The other one is smaller, faster, and closing in.
Is this it?
Is this the ship we seek?
Aye! I think it must be, for a flag is hoisted, and on that flag is a picture of a white ant on a background of inky blue-black. This is the RANCID TILAPIA, a pirate ship, captained by CAPTAIN RUFUS SICKLESMEAR THE YOUNGER.
Sicklesmear is a pirate of the old school—an aardvark with a wooden leg, a wooden nose, and a habit of performing the foulest of acts, including kidnap, blackmail, and throwing his dung at a security guard during a public reading of his autobiography, A NOSE FOR PIRACY. But it is not him we really seek. It is a member of his crew. A hooman. Our hero, Mabel Jones.
DID YOU HEAR THAT?!
The distant sound of cannon fire!
Row faster, reader, for we are missing the action. A sea battle is under way! Row! Row faster, lest we miss the gratuitous bloodshed. For our story is about to begin . . .
In the hold of the RANCID TILAPIA, Mabel Jones’s scrawny shoulders lie hunched beneath dribble-stained blankets, swinging in a hammock with every pitch and roll. She groans and tosses in her sleep. Her tattered and torn pajamas are sodden with sweat.
Mabel Jones is deep within a dream.
A bad dream.
Can you pass me the Weetabix, Dad?
Dad?
DAD?
Her father breaks a sad, single segment from a satsuma and hands it to Mabel’s baby sister, Maggie.
Mom, what’s up with Dad?
Her mother looks at her father.
“I miss Mabel,” she says, staring through the window.
But I’m right here, Mom!
“I miss Mabel too,” says her father.
I’M.
RIGHT.
HERE.
But she wasn’t.
Not anymore.
Now she was floating. Floating high above 23 Gudgeon Avenue, the house where she once lived. Higher now. High above the messy, sprawling city and the cars that filled the busy streets like ants in the litter of a spilled trash can.
Higher still she floated, until the land and the sea and the clouds became swirls that curved and curled around the earth. And then there was a
bang
and the earth rippled like a puddle in the rain. And in the puddle Mabel could see her reflection, and her family’s reflection, and those of her friends, and her teachers, and more and more and more and more people.
And . . .
And . . .
And then there was another bang.
The puddle became stir-murky with the blackest of mud, and the people disappeared into the swirling clouds, until there was just Mabel’s mom and dad and Maggie.
And then they too were lost in the black fog.
And Mabel was alone.
And she knew that something bad had happened.
Mabel Jones sat up and rubbed the memories of the bad dream from her eyes. The whale-fat lamp swung with the pitch and roll of the RANCID TILAPIA and illuminated the snoring form of her crewmate “Greasy” Daniel Lanolin-Flannel, an old sheep sleeping off the effects of last night’s rum.
Voices were shouting from above:
“All hands on deck! Prepare to attack!”
Mabel sighed. Being a pirate was hard work.
Dangerous work.
She reached for the cutlass that hung from her hammock and prepared herself for another bloody sea battle.
“My name is Mabel Jones, and I’m not scared of anything
CHAPTER 2
Another Bloody Sea Battle
Squat safely behind this crate of highly explosive gunpowder. Keep your head low and your tail, if you have one, tucked in. I cannot guarantee your safety, for a bloody sea battle carries a degree of risk for even the most cautious of observers, and more still for its active participants. In fact, we can identify any number of potential fates that might befall attacking pirates as they board an enemy ship.
Pass the popcorn.
FATE 1: Young Eriks
See Young Eriks high up the rigging of the RANCID TILAPIA? He’s a keen young rodent and cabin hamster to Captain Sicklesmear. Cutlass in one hand, he grabs a thick, hairy rope with the other and swings! Curse those caterpillars of the infamous vine moth, and curse their hunger for thick, hairy ropes. The cord snaps and Young Eriks is plunged forever deep into the cold waters of the Wild Western Sea, never to be seen again.
FATE 2: OTUS SLUGGARD
Otus Sluggard, a rare wet-nosed sloth, is next on this grisly list. This is supposed to be his last-ever voyage aboard the RANCID TILAPIA, for on a far-off clifftop overlooking a distant sea his fiancée Doreen awaits, a flower anxiously clasped between her three toes as she watches the horizon for a sign of his return.
Sadly, with but a single foot aboard the OMBUDSMAN, his innards meet with a well-aimed musket ball, and Doreen is doomed to wait forever.
FATE 3: CAPTAIN PEBBLEDASH of the OMBUDSMAN
The OMBUDSMAN has been overrun by pirates from the RANCID TILAPIA, and the smell of spent gunpowder is thick in the air. The two crews are locked in deadly paw-to-paw combat. The sounds of clashing cutlasses, pained screams, and whimpered surrenders spoil the salty breeze. Through the terror, the smoke, and the smell of musket fire, a figure emerges.
Mabel Jones!
Cutlass in her hand, she parries a blow from a passing tapir and leaps up to the helm where a Dalmatian stands. He is Captain Pebbledash of the OMBUDSMAN, and this is his first crossing of the Wild Western Sea. He fires his flintlock pistol, but too early, and it discharges through his holster and into his foot. Before he realizes what has happened, a cutlass is pointed at his heart. The battle is over. The OMBUDSMAN has fallen to the pirates of the RANCID TILAPIA and Mabel Jones is victori–
FATE 4: Mabel Jones
Back in the hold of the RANCID TILAPIA, the sheep Greasy Daniel Lanolin-Flannel, still drunk from the night before, lights his pipe, rolls from his hammock, trips, falls on a cannon (match still aflame), and accidentally triggers the weapon. A heavy iron cannonball shoots through the side of the OMBUDSMAN, deflects off a reinforced barrel of sardines, and smashes a massive hole in the deck. A hole through which Mabel Jones is now
CHAPTER 3
It’s Easy Being a Pirate
Mabel Jones winced.
She was lying on her back in the darkened hold of the OMBUDSMAN. A table had broken her fall, and her fall had broken a table.
Slowly her eyes became accustomed to the gloom. She was in a small, private cabin. By the flickering light of a whale-fat lamp Mabel could see that a large wooden chest had been upturned by her sudden arrival, its contents spilled across the floor.
Gold coins!
Thousands of them.
Above, the sound of fighting continued. Mabel carefully tucked her trusty cutlass into her belt and picked her nose thoughtfully.
What could I do with all this gold?
A new cutlass?
A new ship?
My own ship?
A scrap of paper among the gold caught her eye. A page carefully torn from a notebook not unlike the one she had once used at school.
She picked it up. The paper was yellowed and a bit crumbly.
It must be ancient!
It had a sentence written on it in spidery handwriting, but in the flickering gloom Mabel could only make out one word:
Doomsday
“Once I get back into the light I’ll be able to read it all,” she said to herself.
Mabel picked her nose and looked around at the gold coins strewn about the wrecked cabin.
It was easy being a pirate.
Maybe too easy . . .
Something was wrong!
Her hand grasped the hilt of her cutlass.
“Stop right there!” said a voice.
Mabel turned to face the speaker.
Sitting in a comfortable-looking leather armchair was a smartly dressed warthog. In one trotter he held a glass of port; in the other, a pistol.
The pistol was pointed at her heart.
“For a pirate, you seem awfully interested in a scrap of paper, eh?”
The warthog smiled. Beneath his side-whiskers and mustachioed snout, Mabel could see a threatening pair of tusks.
“Why don’t you put it down here, on the arm of my chair? Slowly, though, eh? I don’t want to make any more mess.”
Mabel carefully placed the note down.
“Pirates!” the warthog snorted. “The lowest form of crook. Worse pay than a pickpocket in a poorhouse. No, there’s no profit in piracy.”
He took a sip of port. “I could teach you a thing or two about stealing, eh? I, SIR LEOPOLD GUPPY, have stolen more money than your puny brain could ever imagine, eh? And how? I’m a corrupt banker—that’s how!”
He laughed again.
“Stealing from the poor is the most fun. Their pitiful life savings might be mere piffle to a hog of my financial status, but their suffering is enjoyable to me.”
“You’re disgusting!” snarled Mabel Jones, her grip tightening on the hilt of her cutlass. “You think money is more important than being kind!”
Guppy smiled and downed the last of his port.
“Oh, it’s not just money. I also take things of purely sentimental value.” He nodded toward the arm of his chair. “That is a piece of holy paper, would you believe! Supposedly from an ancient book!”
“Where did you get it?” asked Mabel.
The warthog smirked.
“From a convent on the coast of ALBEMARLE—part payment for a de
bt. The Mother Superior says it’s a relic from the hooman age. It’s the only thing of value she had. She really didn’t want to part with it, eh? But I insisted.”
Mabel Jones gasped.
A “relic from the hooman age!”
A minuscule spore of inspiration drifted into her head and settled gently on the mossy floor of her imagination.
This might be the clue I need to find out what happened to the human race!
“Give it to me,” said Mabel Jones. “Please. I need it.”
Sir Leopold Guppy laughed cruelly.
“Oh you do, do you? I suppose I could let you have it. It means nothing to me really. Just a tiny scrap of wealth compared to the vast fortune here!”
Then his smiling, gloating face turned to an angry frown.
“But if you think you can drop in here through a hole in the ceiling and steal from me, you’re sorely mistaken. Because it’s mine. ALL OF IT.
EVERY.
LAST.
PENNY.
EH?”
He took a deep breath and wiped frothing spittle from his whiskers with a silken hankie.
“So I can do whatever I want with it.”
And, with that, Guppy held the paper out toward the flame of the whale-fat lamp.
“No!
Don’t!”
cried Mabel Jones.
But she was too late. She could only watch as the flame turned the ancient paper to ash.
“And as for you, girl, I’m afraid you’ll have to pay a hefty fee for trying to rob me of my ill-gotten gains.”
Sir Leopold Guppy’s trotter tightened on the trigger.
“I’m closing your account!”
There is a moment before you die.
A stretched second that contains the memories of a life about to end.
Mom.
Dad.
Maggie!
Mabel missed them so much, and in that stretched second she felt further from her own home and further from her own time than she had ever felt before.