Fiend of the Seven Sewers

by Steven Butler

  ‘Ahem.’ The royal advisor unravelled a long scroll and started reading from it. ‘Many of the palace servants are hungry and starvatious…’

  ‘The moany-mopers! If they’re nibblish it means they’re still alive! They should count themselves very lucky indeedy!’ Latrina replied. ‘Plus nail-biting and nose picky-licking is always very nutritious. They can eat as much of that as they like.’

  ‘YOUR MAJESTY IS WHOPPSY WISE!’ the courtiers chirped together.

  ‘The royal guards caught a cruminal stealing frog grog from the Royal Kitchens,’ the advisor-goblin read.

  ‘Flush them down the poodly-pipe!’ Latrina ordered. By now she was shovelling snacks from several food platters into her mouth and spat pie crust all over the royal advisor’s cape as she spoke.

  ‘The crown prince of the compost pooks arrived three weeks ago and has been waiting for you in the palace hedge maze ever since, Your Majesty,’ the royal advisor read from the list, not daring to brush himself down from all the bits of chewed food. ‘He’s visiting from Kew Gardens and is another contender for your next husband, the lucky thing. Would you like to meet with him?’

  Queen Latrina contorted her face like she was going to be sick.

  ‘Flush him down the poodly-pipe as well!’ she hollered.

  ‘Righty… Erm…’ The royal advisor was looking more and more flustered by the second. ‘Well, there’s the small matter of invading armies of thistlewumps from the south-west sewers. Any thoughts?’

  ‘Don’t care!’ Latrina bawled.

  ‘The autumn sea-kelp harvest is nearly upon us…’

  The queen fake-yawned loudly.

  ‘You’ve received a very special gift from the Mayor of the Underneath in return for a spot of junkumfruit trading.’

  ‘Oh, what is it?’ Latrina’s eyes flashed greedily. ‘Tell me, tell me, tell me!’

  ‘Five hundred bouquets of finkus flowers.’

  Latrina looked completely insulted and wrinkled up her pudgy nose.

  ‘Is that all?’ she groaned. ‘Weeds?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Flush them down the poodly-pipe!’ the queen screamed so loudly, even Doris the crocodile flinched. ‘D’you know what? I’m bored now. Everything else on that stupidly little list of yours…’

  ‘Yes?’ The royal advisor’s face had turned as white as a little green goblin’s face could possible go.

  ‘Flush it all down the poodly-pipe! All of it! EVERY LAST THING! WHOOSH!’

  THERE SHE GOES!

  It was gobsmacking to see Queen Latrina holding court. She was even more bonkers than Grogbah! If I hadn’t been worrying about what the beach-ball-in-a-ball-gown might do to me, I’d almost say it was fun to watch.

  At that moment, however, Lickspittle waved in the air and yelled,

  ‘WHAT ABOUT THE BANISTER BOY?’

  Everyone in the royal plaza fell silent for a moment and turned to look in my direction.

  ‘Oh, good gracicles!’ the omelette-faced goblin gasped, clutching at her hundreds of pearls. ‘I clean forgot old stinky-poos over here!’

  ‘We can’t miss the human out!’ croaked the ancient goblin in the wheelchair. ‘I want to see a public scrounching!’

  ‘Ooh-ho-ho! You’re in for it now, whelpling,’ Flott chuckled next to me, rubbing his hands together. ‘I love a good spot of revenging before supper.’

  Queen Latrina, who had been busy snatching drinks from a nearby servant and guzzling them down with little volcanic burps, stopped in her tracks and placed her tiny fists on her hips.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she snapped. ‘Why isn’t your attention all on me?’

  Before anyone else could speak, Captain Grumpwhistle stepped out with a flamboyant swish of his blood-red cape, and the goblin courtiers cleared aside.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ he declared. ‘I have returned from the Great Outside with your precious cargo!’

  ‘Oooh, Grumpkins!’ the queen chortled, clapping her hands. ‘It’s you! Back from where? What have you brought me?’

  I watched with a pounding heart as the captain swaggered into the centre of the court. This was it. My time had run out. A cold tingle of despair crept up my spine.

  ‘I battled through mushroom forests!’ Grumpwhistle boomed.

  ‘Oooooh,’ the crowd replied.

  ‘Ventured to gut-rotsy goblin fishing towns and the human city of Brighton!’

  ‘HONKHUMPTIOUS!’ Queen Latrina squawked.

  ‘My courageous officers, Flott and Lickspittle, walked amongst PEOPLE under the disguise of a glimmer!’

  ‘Overlings? Cor! Is it true humans all have honking great fat and heavy feet?’ one of the courtiers asked with wide eyes. ‘So they don’t get blown away by the wind up there?’

  ‘YES!’ Lickspittle butted in. ‘I saw it with my own peepers!’

  ‘Squibbly stuff!’ Latrina said with a grin spreading across her green and lumpy face. ‘So… don’t keep me waiting or I’ll get crossly. What did you bring me?’

  ‘What you asked for, Your Majesty,’ Grumpwhistle said with a low bow. ‘The very thing you demanded I collect.’

  ‘I don’t remember demanding you to collect anything!’

  ‘It’s just what you wanted.’

  ‘So, show me!’ the queen grunted.

  ‘Your Majesty will be so pleased.’ Grumpwhistle beamed. ‘You will be so happ—’

  The stumpy queen said nothing for a second, and then her face twisted into a scowl that could have smashed windows, it was so hideous.

  ‘JUST TELL ME, GRUMPKINS! I DON’T LIKE WAITING!’ she bellowed. ‘I’M TOO BUSY RULING THIS BUNCH OF SNIPE-SNIFFERS TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING I DEMAND!’

  Even a brute like Grumpwhistle knew not to mess with the hopping-mad little Brussels sprout. He turned round and gestured for Flott and Lickspittle to bring me forward.

  By this point I’d hidden myself as far behind the giant fern as I possibly could, but no sooner had I pulled against the two officers, the trap-lace tightened round my middle and I had to give up.

  I was yanked into the clearing of goblins at the centre of the plaza and an audible gasp went up around the place.

  Latrina stared blankly at me, like she had no clue what she was even looking at.

  ‘I bring you Frankie from The Nothing To See Here Hotel,’ the captain cheered. He flourished his arms at me as if he’d just performed a magic trick.

  ‘A Frankie… what?’ the queen finally asked. She looked more baffled than a hippopotamus on a helter-skelter.

  ‘Frankie Banister! The slayer of your sovereignly son,’ Grumpwhistle tried again in an even more excited voice. ‘A descendant of ABRAHAM BANISTER!’

  ‘Abraham Banister?’ Queen Latrina’s eyes started widening. ‘The pukey-pootling husband of that hulkus honker, Regurgita Glump?’

  ‘The very same,’ Grumpwhistle declared. ‘And this is his great-great-great-grandson!’

  ‘A… a… human?’

  To say that Queen Latrina screamed loudly, would have been like saying that Gradibash was only a bit impressive. Yep! The gristly old grunion screeched such a high-pitched wobbler of a howl, the front row of her audience fell backwards and slid across the glass mosaicked floor.

  ‘A HUMAN!?’ she bawled. ‘You brought a grotsome, snivelling, stink-ball-on-legs HUMAN into my magnificent palace!? It’s filthous! It’s hidyump! It’s gruzzly!’

  ‘Your Majesty, you asked me to!’ Grumpwhistle started flapping his hands at the hysterical queen like he was trying to put out a fire. ‘You sent me orders. Remember?’

  ‘I did no such thing!’ Latrina squealed. ‘Do you want me to get squitly right here in the Royal Throne Hall? DO YOU!?!?’

  ‘You said you wanted to meet the boy because of—’

  ‘TAKE IT AWAY!’ the queen barked hysterically. ‘Take this rot-riddled thing back to where it came from now, or I’ll blurgle all over you! I’LL BLURGLE ALL OVER EVERYONE!’

 
With that, the furious little ruler of the DARK AND DOOKY DEEP turned and started scrambling back up the golden croco-steps to her fearsome throne.

  REVENGE

  For the first time since I’d wandered into the hotel library and the wonky glimmer of my mum had transformed into a pair of grizzly kidnappers, I felt the faintest spark of hope in my chest.

  ‘Why would you bring it in here?!’ Latrina hollered over her shoulder as she tried to heave herself up the side of her pet crocodile. ‘BAD GRUMPWHISTLE! BAD!’

  Had it really all backfired? This quest for revenge had gone wrong, and Grogbah’s bonkers mother didn’t have the foggiest clue about why I was there. How could the captain have made such a mistake?

  I looked at Grumpwhistle and his stupid sidekicks with a victorious smile and they glared back, fuming with rage.

  ‘Well,’ I said, feeling a bit too over-confident for my own good. I think I even laughed in the captain’s face. ‘It’s about time you and your noggin-bonked officers took me back…’

  ‘MOOMSIE!!’

  There was a small explosion of ectoplasm above the fussing crowd and – you guessed it – Grogbah appeared, looking more miserable than ever. His curly toed shoes had drooped into sad dangly rat-tails and there were slimy tears running down his ruddy cheeks.

  ‘Moomsie, I’m not speaking to your botty-bot!’ the prince whined. ‘Turn round, please!’

  ‘What the BLUNKERS? Doris, did you say something?’ Queen Latrina was still struggling up onto her crocodile and the entire room watched as her stubby legs waggled about in our direction, sticking out of her pompom of petticoats.

  She finally scrambled onto the gold throne, then jerked back around, looking dishevelled and confused.

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘It was me, Moomsie-woo!’ Grogbah did a quick spin in the air. ‘Your speshly prince. Your smoochikins! Did you forget my parade?’

  Latrina gawped at the ghost of her son. She opened up her mouth to speak, closed it, then opened it again.

  ‘Oooooh, not you!’ she finally snapped. ‘I heard you’d kicked the carbuncle at that Nothing To Something Something Hotel ages ago. Who’s been telling me fibblies?’

  ‘Moomsie!?’ Grogbah grovelled. ‘Aren’t you happy to see your lumpling?’

  ‘Bleurgh!’

  ‘Your prince!’ Grogbah whined. ‘Your son and heir to the golden throne.’

  ‘Heir to the what?’ Latrina balked. ‘Not on your nelly, you ain’t! I’m leaving Gradibash to Doris. She’ll look lovely in a crown and a sparkly dress.’

  The crowd all gasped at this news, and the royal advisor fainted onto a plush pink sofa.

  ‘Of course I’m the heir!’ Grogbah sobbed back. ‘I might be a bit ghosty and whispish, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be kingly as well.’

  ‘Oh, this is all I need,’ groaned Latrina, snatching up Doris’s reins. ‘I’ve got a human-stinking-being honking up my throne hall, and now my cowardly conk of a deadish son has snizzled back into the palace, thinking he can run things around here!’

  Grogbah twisted in the air and yelped at me.

  ‘Why is Frankie still here? I thought you would have clunkered him by now,’ he blubbed at his mother. ‘And I’m not a cowardly-conk!’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Latrina chuckled. ‘A big’un! You’re dim-twitted too.’

  Grogbah turned to the sea of upturned goblin faces crowding the plaza and grizzled.

  ‘You all love the Prince of Gradibash, don’t you?’ he said, puffing out his chest and trying to flex his muscles. ‘I’m big and smart and impressively.’

  The courtiers mumbled under their breath and stared at their feet, shuffling about.

  ‘Nah,’ wheezed the ancient goblin through his tangled beard.

  ‘I prefer the crocodile,’ confessed another.

  ‘I’ve had enough of all this glubbergrunting and chattywagging,’ Queen Latrina grumbled. She lifted the reins and was about to steer Doris back out of the courtyard. ‘Make sure you send that snivelsome human back to where he came from, Grumpwhistle!’

  Grogbah gasped.

  ‘No, Moomsie! Frankie can’t go back!’

  ‘Nonkumbumps!’ the queen grumbled. ‘He’s disgusterous… and his face is dreaderously ugly. Why can’t he go back to where he came from?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you!’ said Grogbah. ‘I can prove I’m not dim-twitted. It was my squibbly idea to bring him here from The Nothing To See Here Hotel in the first place.’

  ‘What?’ Captain Grumpwhistle grunted. ‘I thought it was the queen’s idea!’

  ‘Well, I might have been slightly fibblish,’ Grogbah explained. ‘But I had to! I was stuck at the hotel haunting Frankie and couldn’t get any further than the end of the street before I was pinged straight back to his slumish bedroom. I needed to make it home to Gradibash for my revenge, and I realised he was going to have to come with me. So I tricked some brain-boggled triplet tooth fairies in The Nothing To See Here Hotel to write two letters for me. Told them I was coming up with bedtime stories, I did, and the idiumps believed me. Ha! One note contained Captain Grumpwhistle’s orders and the other was for the city’s Board of Travel Goblins, announcing my glorious arrival with my human-prisoner. Then I snuck them both into the saddlebag of a visiting postal-goblin and my humdifferous plan was complete. That way I knew I’d get my whoppsy hero’s welcome, and Banistump would be brought to Moomsie who could help me splat him. It was my idea all along! I’m super smartly… and one successful plan out of two isn’t bad!’

  ‘Oh, that is good!’ Lickspittle said, her mouth full of termite tarts. She gave Grogbah a round of applause.

  ‘You little rottler!’ I yelled at the floating prince, who grinned spitefully at me. I’ve always known that Grogbah was tricksy, but fooling the Molar Sisters into helping him out was unforgivable.

  ‘Moomsie, this horribump human chased me into a guzzly plant’s gob and it grunched me up! Now it’s time for you to wreak revenge for me. Promise your snuggly son you’ll do it… pleeeeaaaase.’

  Queen Latrina shrugged.

  ‘Not in the mood – I’m feeling a bit snoozerous,’ she yawned. Then she yanked on Doris’s reins and they started clomping out of the hall. ‘Send the human back.’

  ‘NO!’ whimpered Grogbah.

  ‘Send him back!’ Latrina barked over her shoulder. ‘NOW!’

  There was a moment of silence as we watched the bonkers ruler leaving, until…

  ‘HE SAID TERRIBLE THINGS ABOUT YOU TOO, MOOMSIE!’

  Queen Latrina and her crocodile stopped in their tracks.

  ‘Awful, judderish things,’ Grogbah went on. ‘Really spinejangling.’

  ‘No, I didn’t, Grogbah!’ I shouted as Doris thudded back round the way she’d just gone. ‘Your Majesty, it’s not true.’

  ‘What kind of things?’ Latrina grunted, narrowing her eyes at me.

  ‘Ummm… well… he said you were a… a… a slimy slumpus!’

  Queen Latrina’s face fell into a scowl.

  ‘And he said you’ve got… frazzly hair, like a hinkapoot… and crunchous elbows… and your crocodile is just a big bloated newt!’

  ‘EH?’ Latrina hollered.

  ‘He also said that… umm… Gradibash is a muckdump and… err… your palace was a bit on the small and snizzly side!’

  The queen’s cheeks puffed out and her nostrils flared like a charging tusk-billed plunktipuss.

  ‘I’ll grottle you,’ she roared at me. ‘No one says my palace is small and snizzly without seeing the inside of the poodly-pipe!’

  ‘Feed him to Doris!’ Flott guffawed.

  ‘Throw him in the lake!’ cried the royal advisor, who’d come back to his senses and was now watching the scene unfold with wide eyes.

  ‘Prickle his bumly-bits with rattle-snitches!’ the goblin maidens chorused.

  ‘NO, NO, NO!’ Grogbah whined over the hubbub. ‘Moomsie, Frankie Banister needs a much worse punishment. He�
�s the most rotten kind of gurnip!’

  I was frozen to the spot. It felt like I’d been prattle-peaced again, and no matter how hard I tried, my mouth wouldn’t make a sound. The only thing I could think of was how far away I was from Mum and Dad, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I started crying and sniffling with fear. I’m only a kid!

  ‘I know exactly what to do with you, you stinkly cruminal!’ Latrina growled. She tugged on Doris’s reins and the two prowled towards me. I was trembling all over with terror as the massive reptile clomped so close, I could feel its breath on my face and hear a deep, low rumbling from its belly.

  ‘What are you going to do, Your Majesty?’ the royal advisor clucked.

  ‘Yes, Moomsie?’ Grogbah cooed with glee. ‘What have you got planned?’

  Queen Latrina drew herself up to the top of her pumpkin-sized height, checked to see if her elbows were indeed a bit cruncheous, then glared at me with a face like thunder.

  ‘IT’S GRIMEGORN FOR YOU, GRUBLING!’ she bellowed. ‘THROW HIM IN THE CLUNK!’

  A cheer of praise and merriment went up around the courtyard of goblins. I watched with watery eyes as they all celebrated and approved my fate, but noticed the only person who wasn’t hooting and hollering was Grogbah. He was staring at me with a look of determination on his piggy face.

  Floating down slowly, the ghost-prince placed a cold spookery hand on my shoulder and leaned in close.

  ‘Got you,’ he whispered.

  WELL, HOW ABOUT THAT?

  So, here we are. We’ve made it to Chapter Eighteen and I bet you hadn’t guessed any of this was coming my way. I know I certainly hadn’t.

  If you’d have told me, back when I was racing around the hotel hallways with Viscera Von Tangle on the old food trolley, that by the end of the night I’d be being dragged along by a whole squadron of royal goblin guards on my way to jail, I’d have said you’ve been drinking too much bluebottle brandy!