Holiday Hullabaloo

by Steven Butler

  STEVEN BUTLER

  Illustrated by Chris Fisher

  PUFFIN

  Contents

  A Note

  Unwelcome Guests

  The Family Bulch

  Meanwhile

  Trolliday Trouble

  Fancy Nibbles

  Meanwhile

  Rubella’s Swimming Pool

  Grandma Joan

  Meanwhile

  Where’s the Ceiling?

  AAAAAAAAAGGGHH!

  You’re On Your Own

  Meanwhile

  The Plan

  London Zoo … Here We Come

  Meanwhile

  Mungo the Monkey-Seal-Pig

  The Longest Game in the World

  Meanwhile

  Horror

  Secrets

  Into the Underneath

  The Dooky What?

  The Getaway

  The Troll That Stole

  Too-Da-Loo

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Steven Butler is an actor, dancer and trained circus performer as well as a keen observer of trolls and their disgusting habits. He has starred in Peter Pan, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and as Henry in Horrid Henry Live and Horrid! His primary school headmaster was the fantastically funny author Jeremy Strong.

  Books by Steven Butler

  THE WRONG PONG

  HOLIDAY HULLABALOO

  For Shirley, Ron, Jenny, David and Ava … A potato family of great jubbliness

  A Note

  Neville stared, wide-eyed, into the toilet bowl. His mouth twitched into a smile and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

  There floating on the surface of the water was a single square of toilet tissue. On it in scruffy handwriting were the words:

  Unwelcome Guests

  Neville peeked through the crack in the kitchen door. It was lunchtime as normal in the Brisket house. Marjorie stood baking with a pink, sparkly apron and matching rubber gloves. She was singing to herself in her shrill voice like a parrot with a cold.

  ‘Erm, Mum?’ Neville said, edging into the kitchen. His mum was going to go crazy. She turned and glared at him.

  ‘What?’ Marjorie snapped. ‘I’m cooking.’

  ‘I got a letter,’ Neville said. ‘I … erm …’

  ‘Neville Brisket, what are you talking about? I’m trying to get ahead with supper. Can’t you see my soufflé needs me right now?’

  ‘I think … erm … I think you should read it.’ Neville held out the piece of toilet tissue and waited for Marjorie to explode. The Bulches, here? he thought. A family of galumphing, toadstool-covered trolls were coming to stay. Neville was excited at the thought of seeing his other family from down the toilet, but even he couldn’t imagine what would happen if they were let loose in Victoria Avenue. Neville started inching away as his mum read the note.

  ‘AAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!’ Marjorie dropped her freshly baked bean-sprout soufflé on to the kitchen floor. It landed with a sticky SLAP and splattered all over Neville’s slippers.

  ‘WWWWWHHHHHAAAATTTT?’ she screamed. ‘THEY CAN’T!’ Marjorie started running on the spot and flapping her arms like a demented rooster. ‘THOSE THINGS? THOSE THINGS IN MY HOUSE?’

  ‘But they’re family now, remember?’ Neville said, shrinking away from his flailing mother. He wasn’t feeling very brave for an honorary troll.

  ‘No, I don’t remember,’ Marjorie shouted back. ‘Do you know what is happening today? DO YOU?’

  Neville opened his mouth to answer, but his mum wasn’t listening.

  ‘Today is the most dreadful day in the history of the world,’ she said, fanning herself and looking dramatically at the ceiling. ‘This evening your rich grandma Joan is coming to stay. Do you know how bad that is? That vicious old weasel is horrible enough to us, and we’re her family. She’ll scream the house down if she sees trolls here. She’ll call the police, and probably the fire brigade as well. All the neighbours will know our secret and no one will speak to us ever again!’

  Marjorie looked like she was going to take off like a rocket. She actually might have done if Herbert hadn’t walked in through the back door with Napoleon the dog trotting behind him like a poo on a lead.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said, seeing Marjorie’s face. ‘Anything the matter?’

  ‘AAAAAAGGGHHH!’ Marjorie threw the toilet tissue at Herbert, dived into the living room and snatched up a cushion from the sofa.

  ‘The Bulches are coming to stay,’ Neville told his dad.

  ‘What? Them … them troll things? Staying here at the same time as your grandmother?’ Herbert’s face turned pale. ‘Your mum’s not going to like that.’

  ‘No,’ said Neville.

  In the living room, Marjorie screamed again.

  ‘Maybe one of my whale music CDs would help?’ said Herbert, peeking round the living-room door at Marjorie rocking back and forth on the carpet.

  Either that or a bucket of cold water poured over her head, thought Neville.

  ‘Trolls,’ Marjorie blubbed. ‘NAIL DOWN THE TOILET SEATS!’

  ‘Steady on, love,’ said Herbert.

  ‘BRICK UP THE DOORFRAMES!’

  ‘They won’t be any trouble,’ Neville said from the doorway. ‘Honest.’ He thought he’d better not fetch the bucket just yet.

  ‘Trouble? They’re thieving, stinking, filthy trolls – they’re made of trouble!’

  Neville shuffled a little bit closer to his mother. ‘I promise I’ll hide them up in my room when Grandma Joan arrives,’ he said. Deep down inside, Neville secretly wished the Bulches would frighten the nasty old bat away forever. ‘She’ll never notice them.’

  ‘What about that little one – Plop? He’s bound to wreck my home.’

  ‘His name’s Pong,’ said Neville.

  ‘Pong, Plop, what does it matter? WE’RE DOOMED!’

  ‘I’ll keep an extra eye on him,’ Neville said. ‘I promise nothing bad will happen.’

  ‘You’d better hope you’re right, Neville Brisket,’ Marjorie hissed, pointing a skinny pink rubber finger at him. ‘If those monsters rear their ugly heads while Joan is about, she’ll make curtains out of them. How would you like that? Waking up each morning to a lovely set of troll-skin curtains?’

  Neville had butterflies in his stomach. The more he looked at his mum, the more she reminded him of a slurch – a wailing gnashing monster from the land of the trolls, complete with teeth like screwdrivers.

  ‘You’d better keep them out of my sight, Neville Brisket,’ snarled Marjorie.

  ‘I promise,’ he said with a gulp.

  The Family Bulch

  Neville had that same feeling in his belly that he always got on Christmas Eve. The waiting was unbearable. It was almost dinnertime and they still hadn’t arrived.

  He sat biting his fingernails, while Marjorie shivered next to him and Herbert paced back and forth across the living-room rug. He looked like a polar bear at the zoo, thought Neville, only less cuddly.

  The only noise in the whole house was the scuffing of Herbert’s feet and the ticking of the hallway clock.

  Just when Neville was starting to think the Bulches weren’t coming after all, he heard the distant knock of the upstairs toilet lid being lifted. Followed by the SPLOSH-STOMP … SPLOSH-STOMP of large wet feet stepping on to the tiles.

  ‘They’re here,’ Marjorie wailed, hiding her face behind her hands. ‘Trolls in my house … AGAIN!’

  Neville got up from the sofa, his heart pounding against his ribs. He suddenly felt very nervous. It had been so long since he’d seen his mooma and dooda. What if they weren’t as friendly as he remembered? What if they’d come to take him away again?

  THUD … THUD … THUD …

  Nev
ille listened to the clomp of troll feet coming down the stairs. The living-room door handle jiggled. Everyone held their breath.

  ‘How d’you work this thing?’ came a voice on the other side. It was Clod’s voice. ‘It’s broken.’

  ‘Like this, you nogginknocker,’ came Malaria’s voice. The handle jiggled again, but nothing happened. ‘Well, I never.’

  The handle jiggled one last time, followed by a dull clunk. It sounded as though it had fallen off altogether.

  ‘Oh well … Not to worry,’ said Clod. Then there was silence.

  ‘I think they’re going home,’ whispered Herbert. ‘Listen – nothing.’

  Marjorie’s face was just beginning to crease into a smile when Malaria burst through the living-room wall to the side of the door. ‘See, Clod,’ she said, chuckling. ‘That’s how it works.’

  She stomped through in a cloud of dust and cement and broken brick. Clod lumbered through after her.

  Neville’s heart was racing faster and faster. There they were. His mooma and dooda, his troll parents, back from Underneath.

  There was a strange moment of silence when the Bulches and the Briskets just stared at each other. Clod and Malaria had come dressed for the occasion in their finest clothes. Clod was wearing his ten-sizes-too-small trollabaloo suit and Malaria wore a lacy gown that looked like it had been made from three wedding dresses all stitched together, and an enormous hat of woven swamp grass.

  ‘NEV!’ Clod rushed forward and scooped Neville up in a bulky troll hug. ‘’Ello, lump,’ he said, beaming. ‘What a sight for salty eyes you are.’

  Now they’d arrived, Neville was so pleased to see the trolls that for a second he thought he was going to cry. He thought his parents might too, but for a very different reason. Herbert had picked up a piece of the wall and was gawping at it. Marjorie’s face was now the colour of tomato ketchup and her mouth was saying lots of rude words, but no sound was coming out.

  ‘BBRRRROOOOOAAAAAAAGGGGHH!’ Pong bounded through the hole in the wall and leapt into Marjorie’s arms. He licked her face like an excited puppy.

  ‘Get off! GET OFF!’ Marjorie screamed.

  ‘Now, Pong,’ said Malaria. ‘Say hello nicely to … to … Hergberg and Margarine?’

  ‘Herbert and Marjorie,’ said Marjorie sharply, but Malaria wasn’t listening. Marjorie dropped Pong and he skittered off to the kitchen. In no time, the sound of teacups smashing and Pong cooing with glee came back through the open doorway.

  ‘I’d forgotten how honksome you are, my porklet,’ Malaria said, flinging her arms round both Clod and Neville. ‘Did you miss your mooma?’

  ‘Of course,’ shouted Neville. ‘We’re so glad you’re here, aren’t we, Mum and Dad!’

  Herbert looked at Marjorie, who squeaked, wobbled, then fainted. No one except Napoleon noticed. He padded across the living room and curled up on top of Marjorie’s warm belly.

  ‘I thought you might be,’ laughed Clod, lifting Neville away from him to get a good look. ‘It’s been blunkin’ ages since we had a nice trolliday.’

  ‘I wanted to go for a winky little break in the fungus forests,’ said Malaria. ‘But then Rubella said we should glump off to see you overlings.’

  Neville stiffened in Clod’s grip.

  ‘Rubella’s here too?’ he said, breaking out in a cold sweat.

  ‘Of course!’ Clod chuckled. ‘It was her idea.’ He put Neville down gently on the cement-covered rug and turned to the hole in the living-room wall. ‘Belly, get your face out of that laundry basket and come and see your brother. There’ll be humpfuls of time for food later.’

  ‘She’s as greedy as a gundiskump,’ said Malaria.

  THUD … THUD … THUD … THUD … THUD …

  Rubella stomped down the stairs. Then, like a bad dream emerging through the last wisps of dust, she appeared, scowling as usual. Neville gasped. He clapped his hands over his mouth and was very nearly sick. Rubella was wearing a … a … A BIKINI!!!!

  Her massive, greasy belly hung over the yellow bikini bottoms like a sack of boiled chickens and the bikini top was way too small. She was bulging out in all directions like an over-inflated balloon.

  Rubella tossed her spiny hair over her turnip shoulders, stuck her hands on her boulder-sized hips and glared.

  ‘All right, scab?’ she hissed, like a bullock with a bad case of warts. ‘Bleeucchh, you’re ugly.’

  Meanwhile

  Joan Brisket clattered along the dark hallway of her enormous mansion house, muttering to herself. She was in a foul mood. The thought of having to spend a whole day with her idiot son, his common-as-muck wife and their insect of a child made her feel positively sick. Neville? Who would call their child Neville?

  She squinted at the mirror and painted a thick layer of pink lipstick on to her puckered-up lips. They were like a pair of slugs that had shrivelled and gone wrinkly in the sun.

  A servant carrying a tray of glasses passed her as she headed for the front door. Joan stuck her walking stick out and tripped him up. He fell to the ground with an almighty SMASH.

  ‘NO WAGES FOR A MONTH!’ Joan yelled, then chuckled quietly to herself.

  She stopped at the hat rack and snatched up a fox-fur scarf. She’d shot and skinned the fox with her own hands and it was her favourite. Then she rang a small bell to call for her driver and, stepping out into the cold air, set off to visit her awful relatives.

  Trolliday Trouble

  Neville clenched his bottom and gripped his toes to stop himself from running out of the room.

  ‘I said … All right, scab?’ Rubella asked again.

  ‘Hello,’ squeaked Neville. He was determined not to look scared and wimpy in front of his hulking great walrus of a troll-sister, but it wasn’t easy. Neville thought of Captain Brilliant to make himself feel braver. ‘It’s nice to see you, Rubella,’ Neville lied. ‘You look … erm …’

  Rubella clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes.

  ‘You look like a right beachy beauty,’ Clod said to his daughter with an even bigger grin. Neville nodded and pulled his best ‘I agree’ face.

  ‘It’s a good thing you found that book, Belly,’ Malaria said. ‘This was a squibbly idea.’

  ‘What book?’ Neville asked.

  ‘This,’ said Rubella, pulling a rolled-up magazine out of her bikini bottoms. She held it up for Neville to see.

  ‘That’s mine,’ said Herbert suddenly, stepping over Marjorie, who was still out cold. It was one of his old Happy Holiday magazines (the kind that tells you where to go and what to see). ‘I threw that out last week when Napoleon peed on it.’

  ‘Well, it’s mine now,’ Rubella snapped. She opened the tattered front page. ‘And it says here: “When you arrive at your holiday destination you can expect to be pampered with exotic drinks and fancy nibbles.”’

  ‘Yes … b-but …’ Herbert stammered.

  ‘We’ve arrived at our trolliday destination.’

  Herbert’s bottom lip started to tremble.

  ‘I WANT MY FANCY NIBBLES!’ Rubella roared. ‘NOW!’

  Herbert was almost knocked off his feet by the great gust of sour-smelling breath. He squealed like a mouse and ran out of the room.

  ‘And,’ Rubella said, turning to Neville, ‘it says: “While on holiday you can enjoy lovely luxuries like foot massages, swimming, bathing, sports and entertainment.”’

  ‘How exciterous!’ chuckled Malaria. ‘Can you imagine? ME … BATHING? I’ve never had a bath in my life.’

  Rubella plonked herself down on the sofa, lifted a spade-sized foot and rested it on top of Marjorie as if she was a stool. ‘I’ll have that foot massage now, Nev,’ she said, wiggling her chubby toes and smiling a vinegary smile.

  Neville ran for the door.

  Five minutes later, Neville was equipped with gardening gloves, a tea towel tied over his nose and mouth and a pair of Herbert’s skiing goggles. If he had to touch Rubella’s revolting, clammy feet, he was going to do it safely.


  He stopped at the living-room door and gawped in shock at the scene before him. How had this happened?

  Furniture was upturned in all directions, there were cushions scattered over the floor and the trolls were settling in for their holiday.

  Herbert was standing like a waiter, holding a tray of left socks and old, mealy teabags for Rubella as he sobbed to himself.

  ‘It says you’re supposed to be entertaining me,’ Rubella shouted at him, as she read the magazine. Every time she shouted, her belly wobbled like the world’s largest jelly. ‘Sing, slave … SING.’

  Clod had found Herbert’s golf clubs and, with a huge grin on his face, was launching golf balls around the room like little missiles. ‘I feel like a right regular overling,’ he said, chuckling.

  Pong bounded back and forth through the hole in the wall as he chased Napoleon. The little dog had an upside-down teapot on his head and Neville could hear excited yip-yips coming from the downward-pointing spout.

  Marjorie was still out cold, but was now slumped in one of the dining chairs with a wild hairdo of pigtails and spikes, all held together with rubber bands from the bureau drawer. Both her socks were missing and her toenails had been sloppily painted pink. The tin of pink paint lay on its side next to a paintbrush from the shed, spilling across the carpet.

  Neville’s heart raced. What was he going to do? At this rate there wouldn’t be a house left for much longer. The thought of Grandma Joan seeing this made his blood run cold.

  On the far side of the room, the garden doors were wide open and Neville could see Malaria hunkering down by the flowerbeds and rubbing handfuls of mud on to her face.

  Neville gasped. This was worse than he thought. What would the neighbours say if they looked out of the window and saw a troll in the Briskets’ daffodils?

  ‘Squibbly. This’ll do wonders for my warts,’ Malaria mumbled. She’d practically dug up the entire garden and looked like a mud monster.