by Tom Fletcher
“Lucy, what are you doing?” Mrs. Dungston gasped in horror.
“It’s OK, Mom! Look!” said Lucy, pointing to the Creakers. They were all looking angrily in Lucy’s direction—but thanks to Lucy using the Woleb’s magic, they couldn’t see her at all.
“I think I’d like to stay right here,” Lucy announced loudly, and just as she’d hoped, the roots dropped her back down among the crowd.
“You have to do the opposite of what you really want!” explained Lucy to the puzzled grown-ups. “Go backward to go forward, go down to go up. Hide and you’ll be seen. Try to be seen and you’ll stay hidden! Over here, come and get me!”
The Creakers growled with frustration as they realized they were being outsmarted.
“Tricksy kidderling,” Grunt hissed.
“We be comin’ backs for your little human!” scoffed Guff.
“We be comin’ backs with…,” began Scratch.
“…the king!” croaked Sniff.
“The king knows whats to do with pesky kidderlings,” snorted Grunt.
Lucy’s heart leapt like a frog as the Creakers disappeared back down the tunnel to summon their leader. She didn’t want to be around when they came back.
Once the last Creaker had vanished into the Woleb, all the grown-ups turned to look at Lucy. Dozens of worried, desperate faces stared at her.
“What do the Creakers want from us, Lucy?” asked the mayor, who had managed to find his pajamas and was hurriedly pulling them on.
“Mess!” Lucy said.
The grown-ups screwed up their faces in confusion.
“Rubbish!” Piers Snoregan barked.
“Yes, exactly!” Lucy said. “Rubbish! They love our trash, our litter, our mess, muck, mold, and more. They want our waste, and they’re tired of all you grown-ups wasting it!”
“Wasting it?” said the mayor, frowning. “But we just throw it away. It’s waste!”
“Precisely! Then where does it go? Into the oceans? Buried in the ground? Burned up into smoke in the sky?” Lucy said. “These Creakers can’t get it if we do that, and without it they can’t survive. That’s why they snatched you grown-ups and left us kidderlings—I mean, us kids! We’re messy and we never clean stuff up. We leave it all out where they can get their hands on it.”
“And what were they doing with us down here? What is this place?” shouted Mrs. McScroodles, the candy lady.
“Well, you were all swept away with the power of this world. It makes everything that is into isn’ts, everything that was into wasn’ts. Your stressful, grown-up, tidy, mess-free lives became fun and childish again. You were making messes for the Creakers,” Lucy said.
“Like cows on a farm,” Old Man Carvey said, shaking his head.
“I guess you could say that, yes. A mess farm!” Lucy said.
“Aren’t we all forgetting the most important question? How do we get out?” Piers Snoregan asked.
“SHHHHHHH!” Lucy said. “If you want something down here, you have to ask in the right way!”
“You mean the wrong way!” Old Man Carvey said.
“Exactly!” replied Lucy, pleased. “A way that this place understands!”
Lucy paced up and down, trying to come up with a plan to get out, trying to think like a grown-up—but her mind was blank. Then she stopped on the spot and rolled her eyes at herself. Come on, Lucy, she thought. Trying to do something in the Woleb is the one sure way of making sure you can’t do it!
She took a new approach. She stopped trying to be the hero who saves all the grown-ups and gets them home safely to their kids. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind. She imagined she was just an eleven-year-old girl who didn’t have a clue how to get out of the trap she was in and wasn’t really bothered about thinking of a way to rescue all the grown-ups from life on this mess farm.
Suddenly a very clever idea floated through the air and slipped inside Lucy’s mind. She felt like a lightbulb had just gone PING! above her head, like one of those big red “recording” lights at television studios when they’re live on air.
THAT’S IT! thought Lucy. I mean…that’s definitely NOT it.
“Mr. Snoregan!” she said to Piers.
“What?”
“Your television camera. Will it broadcast from down here up to our world?” Lucy said hopefully.
“Certainly not! Heaven knows how deep under-ground we are. The chances of broadcasting a live television signal out of here are absolutely hopeless!” Piers said.
A huge smile appeared on Lucy’s face.
“Perfect—I mean, Oh no! That’s not what I wanted to hear at all!” she said, winking.
Suddenly the red recording light on top of the Wakey-Wakey, Whiffington camera pinged on.
They were live!
Piers Snoregan stared at the camera and scratched his head. “I don’t understand it! How did—”
“Never mind that now!” hissed Lucy. “Just pretend you’re presenting a normal show.”
“Yes, go on! Listen to Lucy!” urged the mayor, nudging Piers toward the camera.
Obediently Piers switched into cheesy-TV-presenter mode.
“Good morning, Whiffington. This is…”
“Lucy Dungston!” Lucy interrupted, standing directly in front of the camera and waving. “Remember me? I’m the girl who wanted to watch the news and go to school…and helped you get your hands out of the cookie jars, used the vacuum to suck the Play-Doh out of your noses, and stopped you from crashing all the cars. Well, now I need your help!”
She took a deep breath and crossed her fingers for luck. “I really, really, really hope someone is watching this,” she said. “This is breaking news! I have found the grown-ups…”
“Would you please be quiet!” Norman grumbled at Ella, who was jumping up and down and yelling in excitement at seeing Lucy on the TV.
“Lucy’s there, Norm! She’s on the news! I told you so, I told you so!” she sang, dancing in circles.
“Yes, but we have to listen to what she’s saying!” He grabbed the remote control and turned up the volume.
“…I have found the grown-ups,” announced Lucy, “and I need your help getting them back.”
Ella and Norman gasped.
“Quickly, where’s that megaphone?” said Norman, searching the room and then running into the kitchen to keep looking. Triumphantly, he pulled the megaphone Lucy had confiscated out of the fridge.
He ran into the street, placed the now-freezing-cold megaphone to his mouth, and pressed the button.
“CHILDREN OF WHIFFINGTON!” His voice echoed around the houses as little heads poked out of windows and over fences. “LUCY IS ON TV! OUR PARENTS HAVE BEEN FOUND!”
There was a slight pause. Then a tremendous clatter arose in Clutter Avenue as every child stampeded to Lucy’s house. They burst through her front door and gathered in front of her TV set to hear Lucy’s announcement together.
“It’s Mama and Papa!” Ella cried as Norman came running back into Lucy’s living room, squeezing past the crowd of children sitting on children that now filled it. “There they are, in the crowd behind Lucy,” Ella said, pointing.
Norman recognized them instantly. They wore matching silk pajamas with their initials sewn on the pockets, and Ella’s father had an enormous mayor’s hat perched on his head.
“And that’s my dad!” gasped Norman, spotting his father. He was pretty easy to see too, as he was wearing his full Scout leader uniform and looked like an over-sized, bald version of Norman.
One by one, all the children pointed out their moms and dads, grandmas and granddads. They were even excited to see their teachers!
“There’s not much time to explain. You’re just going to have to trust me, from one kid to another. I need you to do something. Something no child wants to do,” Lucy said into the micr
ophone. Her voice rang out of the TV like a beacon of hope, like a true leader about to ask the impossible of her followers.
“OK, so I’ll admit it—we’ve had fun without the grown-ups. We’ve stayed up late, eaten all the junk food our bodies desired, and even watched movies rated higher than PG. But it’s time we faced reality. Look at the town. Look at yourselves.” Lucy paused, but the kids of Whiffington didn’t need to look. They knew where Lucy was going with this. They knew she was right. “It’s a mess. We’re a mess. It’s time to get the grown-ups back.”
There was a burst of applause from inside the packed Dungston living room as the children suddenly realized how much they missed their grown-ups. How much they needed them.
“Here’s how we’re going to do it,” Lucy said. “I need you to do something. You won’t enjoy it, but it has to be done. The time has come when we must do our duty and put the needs of these poor, useless grown-ups before our own.”
Lucy took a breath, hoping that someone was watching. She had no idea that she had the children of Whiffington hanging on her every word.
“There comes a time when we must…MAKE OUR BEDS!”
A gasp of horror echoed down Clutter Avenue. The children burst into panicked cries of outrage.
“She’s gone doolally,” Ella said, twisting her fingers around her head.
“Shhhh!” Norman hissed. “Keep listening!”
“I know it’ll be hard. But don’t do it for yourselves. Do it for your moms and dads.” Lucy stepped out of the way and allowed the camera to film the scared, tired, disheveled-looking grown-ups who were shivering from sugar withdrawal. Off-camera, she kept speaking. “It is time to strip those bedsheets, flip those mattresses, open your curtains and let the sun shine where it never usually shines…UNDER YOUR BEDS! Children, to your rooms!” Lucy ordered, and at her command the children of Whiffington began marching back to their houses and up to their bedrooms with purpose.
“Right, you heard her!” Norman said as he and Ella scrambled back upstairs and burst into Lucy’s bedroom.
“NormEllaTron, assemble!” he boomed.
“What?”
“Er, never mind. Quickly, take off the pillows,” he said as he pulled back the duvet and ripped off the sheets. “And open the curtains,” he added.
“The curtains? Why?”
“Lucy said to let the sun shine where it never usually shines—under the bed—and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
Norman lifted up the mattress and rested it against the wall as Ella pulled the curtains back, allowing the morning sunlight to flood the room with its warmth.
They both stood side by side, staring through the bed slats at the floorboards beneath. Floorboards that were usually kept in darkness, hidden in shadow. Now they were exposed to the sunlight.
All at once Norman and Ella could see what they were hiding. The solid wooden floor beneath the bed bubbled and hissed like a witch’s cauldron as the sunlight shone directly on it.
“Norman, look!” Ella said, noticing something out of the window.
From Lucy’s bedroom they could see curtains opening in the bedrooms of every house across Whiffington. And as sunlight flooded in through the windows, a strange crumbling sound started coming from the floor. They both jumped back from the unmade bed and saw the strangest thing ever. The floorboards began to shift and wobble, and then they started swirling. What had once been solid wood was now a twirling whirlpool into another world.
“Do you think this is happening in all the other bedrooms in Whiffington?” asked Ella.
“I don’t know. But I do know we’re going to need some help,” Norman said.
“Help with what?”
“This is a rescue mission now, and we’re the only ones who know about the Creakers. It’s me and you in charge,” he said.
“NormEllaTron?” Ella asked.
“Exactly.” Norman nodded.
Ella peered into the swirling hole opening up in the floor as the bright morning sunlight filled the room. “Norm, what is that?” she asked, putting her pink heart-shaped sunglasses on.
Norman took a deep breath and straightened out his neckerchief. “That, my dear Ella, is the way to the Woleb.”
The red light flickered out. Lucy’s broadcast was over.
“Well done, Lucypops,” Lucy’s mom said, pulling her into a hug.
“Not bad, kid,” said Piers Snoregan, “but never interrupt me again.”
“Now what?” Mayor Noying whined. He sounds a lot like his daughter, Lucy thought.
“Now we wait…,” she said.
“For what?”
Lucy grinned. “For that!”
She pointed at the large tunnel she’d crept down earlier—the one that led from below Whiffington to Creakerland. Far in the distance, dirt and mud were falling—but not falling down, like you would expect. It was all falling UP! It was crumbling from the floor all the way up to the ceiling as the BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! of marching children could be heard echoing through the twisted tunnels of the Woleb from their bedrooms above.
Suddenly a streak of blinding-hot sunlight pierced through the tunnel floor like a laser beam. Everyone jumped and gasped. Mayor Noying let out a high-pitched scream and hid behind Mrs. Noying.
“What in the world is that?” cried Mrs. Dungston.
Lucy smiled. “Sunlight!”
Then another beam of glorious light exploded through one of the wormholes and into the Woleb. Then another, and another, until the entire tunnel was flooded with the most brilliantly warm, fresh morning sunlight.
The walls of the rotten tunnel began melting, dripping like a runny nose, and as the morning sun rose higher in the sky over Whiffington, its light shone deeper into the tunnel of the Woleb until it finally hit the rotten roots that were trapping the grown-ups and Lucy.
One by one the moldy green bars dried up and turned into powdery dust, crumbling at the slightest human touch into puffs of decayed Woleb powder.
“It’s working!” cried Old Man Carvey. “We’re free!”
“Not so fast, you rotten stinkers!” screeched Grunt as he and his army of Creakers leapt back into Main Street, Creakerland.
“Arghhh! It be daylight!” Guff cried, seeing the warm light glistening magically out of Whiffington and up into their world, crumbling away the walls of the Woleb.
“She be lettin’ in the bright down here,” gasped Scratch in horror.
“The kidderling be tryin’ to kill us Creakers!” Sniff shrieked as they ducked for cover, hiding themselves in whatever dark shadows they could find. All the other Creakers ran for it, disappearing back down the tunnel as fast as they could with stinking smoke billowing from their slimy bottoms as the sunlight touched them.
“Let’s go!” Lucy cried, leading all the grown-ups down the tunnel, feeling the kind glow of sunlight on her skin as they arrived at the hundreds of wormholes that led back to Whiffington.
She stood over the first, which was now five times bigger than before and still growing as the sunlight melted away all the rottenness of the Woleb. She shielded her eyes from the light so she could see into it. Once her pupils had adjusted, she saw fifty or so friendly children peering down at them from her bedroom above.
“NORMAN!” Lucy called, her heart skipping when she saw the unmistakable silhouette of Norman in his Scout uniform.
Lucy could see that he had propped her mattress up against the wall of her bedroom, allowing the fresh sunlight to chase away the shadows beneath her bed, where light never normally reached.
The pure sunbeams were too strong for the rottenness of the Woleb, and with the mattresses out of the way there was no stopping it from penetrating the entrances to the Woleb hiding under every child’s bed.
Lucy’s plan was working! Or, in Woleb terms, it was all going horribly wrong.
; “Lucy! Sorry we fell asleep!” Norman shouted back. “But then we saw you on the TV, and we did what you said. We started stripping the bed, and this hole just melted into the floor!”
“Great!” Lucy called. “Well done!”
“I helped too!” called Ella. “We both did. We’re NormEllaTron!”
Lucy blinked. “What?”
“NormEllaTron!” Ella shouted back. “Oh—never mind. The stupid name was his idea anyway.”
“We’re here to rescue you. I hope there’s a badge for this!” Norman said. Suddenly a long rope rose up out of the hole in front of Lucy like a snake from a basket. It had perfect knots at regular intervals, ready to be climbed.
As Lucy watched, the Whiffington kids threw ropes into the Woleb through every sunny hole in the squashy floor. There were hundreds of them!
“Norman! These are some of the best knots I’ve ever seen. I’m so proud of you!” shouted Norman’s dad, a tear twinkling in his eye as he gazed at the ropes.
“Thanks, Norman!” Lucy called down into the world above, and Norman gave her a huge smile back.
“Right, grown-ups,” Lucy said, looking around. “Take your time climbing out of the Woleb. There’s no need to rush.”
The grown-ups looked confused for a moment, before Mrs. Dungston caught Lucy’s wink and understood. “She’s speaking the Woleb’s language!” Mrs. Dungston hissed to the grown-ups standing next to her. “Pass it on! What she actually means is…”
“HURRY UP! THIS PLACE IS GOING TO COLLAPSE!!!!!” whispered Mr. Quirk.
The grown-ups started climbing down into the holes and back to Whiffington at once. Lucy marched around, overseeing the escape, making sure they all got in. Old Man Carvey, Ella’s parents, Paige Turner, and every single mom and dad and grandma and granddad and aunt and uncle of every single boy and girl.
She wasn’t leaving anyone behind.
Suddenly the ground shook violently, and more beams of brilliant sunlight exploded sideways out of the wall.