The Gorgle

by Emma Fischel

  He skidded over to the fence. ‘I’m Oliver,’ he said.

  He looked straight up at me. He had a solemn face, round staring eyes, and red cheeks.

  ‘Now you have to tell me who you are,’ he said. ‘Because I can’t talk to strangers. Mummy says.’

  ‘Finn,’ I said, feeling glum.

  ‘You can play my game, Finn,’ said Oliver. ‘But you have to do this.’

  He started grunting. He tossed his head. He gnashed his teeth and stamped his foot. Then he puckered up his mouth and gave a big roaring breath out. Then he raised his arms and waggled them above his head.

  I gaped. What was he doing? Was this what kids were like in the country?

  ‘I’m being the monster with the big curly horns,’ Oliver said. ‘And now it’s your turn.’

  Then he stood and waited.

  What? Well – he could carry on waiting.

  ‘Oliver,’ I said, crouching down to his height. ‘Do you have a brother?’

  ‘Yes, Finn,’ said Oliver.

  ‘Can you take me to your brother?’ I said.

  ‘No, Finn,’ said Oliver.

  I tried not grind my teeth, but it was hard.

  ‘Why not?’ I said. ‘Is he still asleep?’

  ‘He might be,’ said Oliver. ‘But I don’t know. Because Mummy’s still growing him. But he’s hatching very soon. And his name will be Arthur Jonathan Middleditch.’

  Great. A four-year-old and a baby.

  Then Oliver stamped his foot again and did another roar. ‘When are you playing my game?’ he said, looking stern. ‘Because I’ve been waiting an astonishingly long time.’

  I was saved the bother of answering because three piercing shrills on a whistle blasted out from Oliver’s garden.

  ‘That’s Mummy’s signal,’ said Oliver. ‘It means I have to go and tell her where I am.’

  He pawed the ground with his foot and tossed his head again. ‘I wish I had a monster tunnel in my garden,’ he said. Then off he cantered.

  Chapter Four

  Twin Club

  The PPs were not happy with me tying their doors together – and nor was Mum. In fact, Mum spent almost ten minutes telling me exactly how not-happy she was.

  So I spent almost ten minutes telling Mum how it was all her fault for having such a stupid hobby – which is entering competitions – in the first place. And how she should have a proper Mum-hobby, like knitting or baking. And how if she did have a proper Mum-hobby, I wouldn’t be in Gulliver House, tying doors together.

  And Mum just went grrr and marched off, muttering something about finding a way to make me see that Gulliver House was the perfect place for kids, even if it killed her, which it probably would.

  Well, I didn’t care.

  My plan had got off to an excellent start, and there was more of it to come. A lot more. Which was why, five minutes later, I was creeping along the upstairs landing…

  Because the thing about a big landing that sweeps round the whole upstairs of the house, above the hallway, is this.

  It is the perfect place to ambush sisters.

  I crouched down, and poked my water cannon – pump-action Mega Blaster, 612 series, five-litre tank, ten-metre firing range – through the railings. Then I waited.

  It didn’t take long.

  The PPs came through the hallway – skip skip skip, chat chat chat, gasp gasp gasp – discussing the map they were planning to make of Gulliver House and its garden.

  But I had other plans for them…

  I put my finger on the trigger, and I fired. Half a tank each – more than enough for a decent drenching. And the PPs stood there, screeching and dripping – and also blue, because I’d mixed in some paint as a finishing touch – then they charged up the stairs straight past me, glaring and hissing.

  They headed for the bathroom, like I hoped they would. Because I knew what was about to happen.

  It did.

  There was a thud. The sort of thud a big bucket of flour makes, falling from above a bathroom door. Then screeches, lots of them. The sort of screeches sisters would make if a big bucket of flour landed on their heads.

  * * *

  Once the PPs got cleaned up and dried off, they came barging into my room.

  ‘You will be sorry,’ screeched Mo. ‘Sorrier than the sorriest brother who ever lived in the whole history of TIME!’

  Lily nodded, eyes glinting. ‘All that,’ she said. ‘And more.’

  ‘Ooh, I’m scared,’ I said – but actually, I was a bit. Which was why I was wearing the knee and elbow pads I use for skateboarding.

  Because the PPs may look like real girly-girls – bouncing curls, big blue eyes, frilly glittering things, and way too much pink – but they’re not.

  They’re tough. Tough like gladiators are. And sometimes they attack. Except they do cheat fighting, hair pulling and jabbing and pinching instead of proper rolling about – and it hurts. Especially when Mo does it.

  But they didn’t attack. Not yet anyway.

  ‘This is one of your plans,’ hissed Mo. ‘I know it is! One of your stupid, stupid plans!’

  Now, that was unfair. My plans are never stupid. It’s just the PPs have trouble understanding their brilliance.

  And, clearly it was time to explain this particular plan. So I did.

  ‘Did I do traps or ambushes back home?’ I said. ‘No. Because the flat was small. So I couldn’t. But Gulliver House is big. So I can.’

  I thought that would explain my plan. But for some reason the PPs didn’t seem to get it. So I explained more.

  ‘I’ll be doing about twenty – say twenty-five, tops – traps and ambushes each day we are here,’ I said. Then I paused and waited for the PPs’ teeth to start clacking with terror. But the PPs’ teeth weren’t clacking at all. In fact, they were grinding.

  In my head my plan had worked better than this.

  ‘So… you tell Mum you want to change your vote,’ I said, starting to feel a bit less confident. ‘Then we’ll go back to the flat, and I won’t do traps or ambushes.’

  There. Clear as clear.

  A simple plan – but I had to act fast. No one had bought our flat, not yet, so we could still go back. If we hurried.

  Mo got it. ‘Blackmail? Threats?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘You idiot!’ Mo said, gaping. ‘You actually think that will work? That me and Lily will vote to go back? To a flat with a view of the car park? A flat that shook when lorries drove past? A flat that was so small even the mice complained about the size of the kitchen cupboards? When we could live here? Here! With nineteen rooms – including one that Mum is going to turn into our very own games room – and a garden, and a lake, and an actual maze?’

  Well, when Mo put it like that my plan sounded stupid. Which it wasn’t.

  ‘The flat was cosy,’ I said.

  ‘It was teeny tiny!’ Mo shrieked. ‘It was squashed!’

  ‘I liked being squashed,’ I said, and I was feeling grumpy now so I didn’t bother explaining any more. How it wasn’t just the flat I missed. It was everything. The friends, the streets, the places, the life, everything I knew.

  Lily just stood there, shaking her head and looking at me pityingly – which I didn’t like. ‘There is no way we are the same species,’ she said.

  Then she turned to Mo. ‘Let’s go,’ she said, eyes glinting. ‘We have a plan to sort out.’ And they left.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, they came back.

  ‘See this?’ said Lily.

  ‘And this?’ said Mo.

  I gaped.

  The PPs were standing in my bedroom doorway looking smug, like they’d just found the answer to a tricky long division sum. They were wearing matching outfits, with matching scrunchy things pulling their curls into matching knots on their smug heads. And they were both pointing their fingers at the big badges they were wearing.

  Home-made, girly-looking badges, all sparkly, with little flower
decorations around the edge – and big swirly silver lettering in the middle:

  TWIN CLUB

  ‘That’s what we are now,’ said Mo, sticking her nose in the air. ‘That’s what happens when you try to blackmail sisters. That’s what happens when you ruin the most exciting thing that has EVER happened to us!’

  ‘And…’ said Lily, smirking right in my face. ‘As long as you keep doing ambushes and traps, we’ll keep doing Twin Club.’

  Then they marched off along the landing and towards the stairs, and Mo started talking loudly about how they were making hot chocolate – for Twin Club members only.

  Now – maybe you’re thinking, so what? It’s only a stupid girly club. And who wants a badge with silver swirly lettering anyway? Who cares?

  Well, I did. However hard I tried not to, I did.

  Because the PPs are NOT twins. They’re triplets – with me.

  So I had to do something about their stupid plan. And as their rooms were empty, I could.

  Which was why, one hour later, Mum slapped a piece of paper down in front of me. My ransom note.

  To the Piggy Princesses

  I have your hairbrushes,

  Also the frilly things you stick

  in your hair,

  Also your pink socks with the

  strawberries on,

  Also your books on ballet,

  Also your bottles of smelly stuff,

  Also your metal thing that says it

  curls eyelashes,

  Also your box with the nail paints in

  it,

  Also your secret diaries.

  Destroy your Twin Club badges or you

  will never see them again.

  ‘Go and get them,’ said Mum. ‘Wherever you put them, go and get them. RIGHT NOW.’

  Which was how I saw the moth thing again.

  Chapter Five

  Bunnies

  I saw it from the barn. I’d just scooped up the bin bag with all the PPs’ stuff in it, and I saw it through a window with a broken pane of glass.

  It was near some falling-down old sheds that looked like animals might once have lived in them. It was perched on a clump of big spreading planty things with fat green leaves.

  But was that really the moth thing?

  I crept out of the barn door, and peered round the side. I had to make sure I was actually seeing what I thought I was seeing.

  I was.

  The moth thing was double the size. Big as a budgie. And horribly waggly. All of it waggled. The antler things. The spare legs. The long fat end bit.

  Waggly and furry. Horribly furry. A fat furry head. A fat furry middle. A fat furry end. Sludgy green fur, with black stripes.

  I always thought furry things were cute – little furry puppies, little furry bear cubs…

  Well, this wasn’t. It was not cute at all. It was ugly. Mean looking.

  And it had teeth.

  Because then it tore a great strip off the fat green leaf. Slashed at it with little razor-sharp teeth, left the edges all jagged and ripped. Then it unfolded two pairs of scaly green wings, stretched them wide – and flew off, flapping and swooping like a bat does.

  That was it. I was running away. Going back to the city, where there were no moth things. I had not seen one single moth thing in the city. And nothing that doubled in size in one day.

  What if there were more moth things? Maybe there were caterpillars busy shapeshifting into horrible moth things in other wardrobes in Gulliver House right now. Or in cupboards. Or under the stairs.

  Maybe we’d have a plague of moth things…

  No.

  I was packing. I was not staying one second longer in Gulliver House. Not with a plague of moth things about to happen. And there was nothing Mum could do that would change my mind.

  Not one single thing in the whole wide world…

  Except, when I charged into the kitchen, Mum and the PPs were in there. And so was a box, filled with straw. And in the box were three little snuffling, twitching, soft fluffy shapes.

  Bunnies.

  Whatever me and the PPs argue about, we all agree on one thing, bunnies. Every year since we were big enough to write, we all put one thing at the top of our birthday list.

  Bunnies

  When we were six we made a stuffed bunny from my old school socks. Lily made two floppy bunny ears. I made a stuffed sock body. Mo made a pom-pom for a tail.

  We called it Alice Bunnikins Sniffler – one name each. We made it a basket to sleep in, we left it bowls of food, we gave it cuddles. We dragged it behind us on a lead to the park.

  It didn’t work.

  ‘A city flat with no garden is no place for bunnies,’ Mum always said. ‘Bunnies need fresh air, and a hutch outdoors.’

  But now, here they were.

  Bunnies. One each.

  And Mum was smirking right in my face. ‘Gulliver House is the perfect place for bunnies,’ she said.

  Well, I didn’t care about the smirk. I was too happy. And anyway, Mum was right.

  I called my bunny Thunderpaws. He was black and fluffy, with a little pink nose, and twitching whiskers.

  Me and the PPs had a truce. We did our special three-way handshake – complicated and in eleven bits – which we’ve done since we were five.

  No more traps. No more ambushes. No more Twin Club. A new start.

  Me and the PPs spent the rest of the morning trying to teach our bunnies to sit. Because we saw on TV that humans only use ten per cent of their brains. So we reckoned maybe bunnies did too. In which case, they could learn to sit. Definitely…

  They couldn’t.

  Not Thunderpaws. Not Cho Chang. Not Tinkerbell. They were lovely. They were sweet. They were funny. But however much of their brains they were using, it wasn’t enough.

  So that afternoon me and the PPs made them comfy in the new hutch Mum got, and started on a map of the house and garden.

  Which was when I realized something.

  Gulliver House had an extra window. One more window on the outside than it did on the inside – which could only mean one thing.

  A secret room.

  * * *

  ‘It has to be in here,’ I said. ‘It can’t be anywhere else.’

  Me and the PPs were in the fifth room. The study. The extra window, the one in the secret room, was between the sitting room and here.

  We checked the sitting room first. We hauled everything away from the wall. There was nothing behind the furniture. Just a blank wall.

  So it had to be here. Somewhere behind the wall with the floor to ceiling bookshelf, and the desk and Wolfgang, the stuffed dog in the case.

  ‘It’s the bookshelf! Mo said confidently. ‘It’s always the bookshelf. There’ll be a secret button, or a special book. Some way to open it. And the whole thing will swivel round – whoosh – and it’ll be there. The secret room. And there might be skeletons and tragic family secrets. Or there might be treasure. And there’ll definitely be cobwebs. And I’ll find it, I’ll totally find it!’

  Then she started hurling books out of the shelves, still babbling.

  While Mo did that, me and Lily did proper checking of the room.

  We lifted Wolfgang and his case off the wall, and checked behind. We pressed things. We pulled things. We looked for hidden levers or a special key. We went through the desk looking for a hidden drawer. Anything.

  It was no good. We could NOT find a way into the secret room.

  But we did find something – a box full of old newspaper clippings. Going back ten, even fifteen years. The newest one on top was dated three years ago…

  UFO OR GIANT BIRD?

  MYSTERY SIGHTING ON MOORS

  And the second…

  BLACK BEAST WITH HORNS

  STALKS PARK, CLAIM LOCALS

  And the third…

  LLAMA MISSING FROM ZOO.

  LARGE PAWPRINTS ONLY CLUE

  They were all like that. Every single clipping. Missing animals. Strange sightings
.

  Now – maybe at that point I should have thought, why? Why did someone collect all those clippings? What does it mean? And maybe I should have thought more about my own strange sightings in Gulliver House. And about Oliver and his monster tunnel. And about the moth thing, and how fast it was growing…

  But I didn’t.

  Because I was far more interested in finding the secret room.

  And pizza.

  Chapter Six

  Feeding Time

  Gulliveroni Pizza, we called it. Mum made dough, then me and the PPs rolled it out and did toppings.

  We guzzled great slices of it and started planning a new teaching method for the bunnies. And the kitchen was warm now, and felt cosier, and I was beginning to wonder if I had been a bit hasty with all the traps and ambushes – and then I saw it.

  A fat furry face, two slitty nostrils, two bulging eyes. Staring in through the kitchen window, straight at me.

  It stuck its head on one side, and I swear its eyes – its horrible bulging eyes – started gleaming.

  It looked… well, it looked like it knew me.

  I shrieked, and I dropped my slice of Gulliveroni pizza. But by the time the PPs looked out of the window, it had flapped its wings and flown off.

  And – I just couldn’t help it – I told the PPs about it. How it hatched from a chrysalis the size of a sausage. How it had stripes and grew big as a budgie. How it had teeth and crunched leaves and it must have a gigantic insect brain because it had recognised me…

  Big mistake.

  Mo started giggling. She jumped up on her chair. ‘Help!’ she shrieked. ‘A mouse – a purple one – the size of a puppy! And it’s reading a newspaper!’

  She thought that was funny. I didn’t.

  Lily didn’t giggle. She stared at me, baffled. ‘This had better not be some kind of stupid plan,’ she said. And she looked fed up.

  I knew why.

  Today had been good, and Lily didn’t want me to mess it up. Well, nor did I – and I didn’t…

  But the moth thing did.

  * * *

  I was brushing my teeth when I heard screeches. Big angry screeches blasting out of Lily’s room, and out of Mo’s room.