‘Perhaps we should teach him some manners, sir?’ said Maurice.
‘An excellent idea,’ said the Prince. ‘After you, my dear Maurice.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Maurice. ‘Very kind indeed. Very, very . . .’
‘Maurice!’ said the Prince.
Maurice sped up and launched himself into Zack’s stomach. Zack gasped, completely winded. It felt to him like he’d just caught a medicine ball full in the guts. And before he could catch his breath, the Prince did the same and winded him again.
As they repositioned themselves for another attack, Zack put one arm in front of his stomach to protect himself. Maurice’s next attack came not on Zack’s stomach, however, but on his right hand: the hand he was using to grip the hatch.
Maurice came in hard and fast, over and over again, while the Prince continued to pound Zack’s stomach and the bum-mobile plummeted ever faster towards the ground.
Zack tried to endure the pain, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before his bruised fingers couldn’t take any more.
And then he saw them. Three of the bravest and the best bum-fighters in the world were speeding up from the ground towards him on flying bums. The B-team!
Zack couldn’t believe his luck. He had to blink a few times just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
But it was them all right.
They were an amazing sight. Zack smiled. They were just like their pictures on the trading cards. And even though they were among the trading cards he’d swapped to get the Bum Hunter’s card, he was still very pleased to see them.
Leading the charge was the Kicker, a large muscular man wearing a sleeveless black and white footy jumper and footy shorts. He had a big black bushy beard, thick black eyebrows and the most enormous feet that Zack had ever seen.
Right behind him was an equally huge woman who was wearing an orange floral dress. She wore her hair in two enormous buns, one on either side of her head, and she had hands like baseball mitts. It wasn’t hard to see why she was called the Smacker.
Bringing up the rear was a man dressed in a white three-piece suit. He had a white scarf around his neck and a red carnation in his left lapel. Apart from looking completely out of place riding on a bum, the other striking feature about him was his lips. They were big and red and wet-looking. He was known simply as the Kisser, and he was famous for his legendary ‘kiss of death’.
The three riders whooshed up through the middle of the pack of bums, sending them flying in all directions.
The Kisser grabbed Zack around the waist and shot through the hatch with him. He brought the flying bum to a screeching stop, dismounted and ran to the front dome where Eleanor was hanging upside down in her seat, still unconscious.
The Kisser climbed into the seat beside her, strapped himself in and turned the bum-mobile 180 degrees. As he did so, Zack fell off the flying bum and crashed to the floor.
Right on top of the Kicker and the Smacker.
‘Get off my head,’ growled the Kicker.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Zack. ‘It was an accident.’
‘Accident my bum!’ said the Kicker, picking himself up. ‘I’m going to give your bum a kicking it will never forget. I’ll teach you to be a bum sympathiser!’
Zack backed away from him. This strange, violent man was freaking him out.
‘Now, now,’ said the Smacker, stepping in between the Kicker and Zack. ‘Nobody’s going to kick anybody’s bum until we know all the facts.’
‘Kick first, ask questions later!’ said the Kicker. ‘That’s my motto.’
Right at that moment a huge bum crashed into the roof. Another bum crashed into the floor. There was silence for a moment and then they heard a volley of bum-fire from the rear.
‘No, Kicker,’ said the Smacker, who quickly pulled the hatch shut. ‘There’s no time for that now. We’ve got a bum-blitz on our hands! They’re coming at us from all directions!’
‘Can’t this thing go any faster?’ bellowed the Kicker.
‘I’ve got the gas on full already,’ said the Kisser.
Zack glanced up towards the front of the bum-mobile and immediately wished he hadn’t.
A big hairy bum had attached itself to the windscreen. Zack couldn’t recall when he’d seen anything so horrible. It made him feel like throwing up all over again.
The Kicker shook his head in disgust.
‘Leave it to me,’ he said.
‘No,’ said the Smacker. ‘Too dangerous.’
‘Not as dangerous as flying with a big hairy bum on the windscreen,’ he said.
He wrenched the hatch open, pulled himself up through it and dropped it shut.
The bum-blitz stopped instantly. Zack and the others watched the Kicker clomp along the roof to the front of the bum-mobile until their view of him was obscured by the hairy bum.
Suddenly the windscreen was clear, the hairy bum obviously booted to oblivion by the Kicker, who was standing on the nose of the bum-mobile, grinning widely and giving them the thumbs up.
Zack could see the other bums were keeping a safe distance, just out of kicking range. The Kicker turned towards them and beckoned them, daring them to come closer.
One did.
The Kicker booted it so hard that it split in two.
Another bum flew in from the left-hand side.
But the Kicker didn’t even blink. He just lashed out with a perfect side-kick that sent the bum spinning.
The rest of the bums charged in fast after that, as if all keen to avenge the other bums. But if the Kicker was worried he sure didn’t show it. He was dropkicking and torpedo-punting and pirouetting—he looked amazing. Bums were flying everywhere.
‘Look at him go!’ yelled the Smacker. ‘That’s poetry that is!’
Zack wondered what sort of poetry described a brute in a footy jumper kicking bums senseless. Certainly not any of the poetry they gave him to read at school.
As Zack watched, he noticed that the Kisser didn’t seem quite so enthusiastic about the Kicker’s performance as the Smacker. He seemed to wince every time the Kicker’s boot connected with a bum.
Meanwhile, one of the bums was orbiting the Kicker’s head at high speed.
The Kicker was swatting at it with both hands like it was a particularly annoying mosquito, but the bum persisted, swatting clearly not being the Kicker’s main strength.
All of a sudden the bum found the opening it was looking for and attached itself to the Kicker’s face.
‘Uh-oh,’ said the Smacker. ‘Looks like he’s in trouble.’
The Kicker grabbed the bum by its cheeks and tried to pull it off, but it was too tightly attached. Meanwhile, the rest of the bums were coming in thick and fast.
‘I’ve got to get out there!’ said the Smacker, rising from her seat.
She pulled herself up through the hatch. Zack watched her stomp along the roof and out onto the nose of the bum-mobile. Then the action really started. He’d thought the Kicker was pretty spectacular, but the Smacker was something else again.
She rolled up her dress sleeves past her elbows, raised her enormous hands in the air and put on the most amazing display of slapping and smacking Zack had ever seen.
Backhanders, fronthanders, slaps, super-slaps, super double front and backhander power-slaps— there wasn’t a smack or a slap that she didn’t know. She smacked one bum so hard that it simply blew apart, smearing the windscreen with brown liquid.
‘Damn,’ muttered the Kisser, fumbling for the windscreen flusher.
When he’d got the window clean there was just the Smacker and the Kicker out on the nose alone. The Kicker still had the bum attached to his face, though, and the Smacker was holding him by the shoulder and smacking the bum with a front slap on one cheek and a backhander on the other.
After almost a minute of this punishment the bum fell off the Kicker’s face.
The Kicker looked dazed and confused. He staggered backwards and Zack was sure that he was going to
step off the nose of the bum-mobile until the Smacker grabbed him. She threw him over her shoulders in a fire-fighter’s lift and walked back up the windscreen and across the roof.
Zack opened the hatch and the Smacker lowered the Kicker, still dazed, down into the bum-mobile.
He was in a bad way. His knees buckled and he sank to the floor. The Smacker lowered herself down next to him and closed the hatch behind her.
‘I love the smell of freshly smacked bum in the morning!’ she said. She went across to a small sink mounted on the wall of the bum-mobile and began to wash her hands.
‘Call that smacking?’ said Eleanor pulling herself up out of her seat.
‘Eleanor!’ said the Smacker, wiping her hands on the front of her dress. ‘You’re awake!’
The Smacker walked across to Eleanor and threw her enormous arms around her.
‘It’s good to see you,’ said Eleanor after she emerged from the mighty hug. ‘But why . . . how did you get here?’
‘We saw your bum-mobile flying upside down. We caught this guy hanging from the hatch,’ said the Smacker, pointing to Zack. ‘We got here just in time.’
Eleanor glared at Zack.
‘You idiot!’ she said. ‘You could have got us both killed!’
‘It was an accident,’ said Zack.
‘You should have had your seatbelt on,’ said Eleanor.
‘I didn’t get a chance,’ said Zack. ‘You went into that corkscrew thing and I’ve got a really weak stomach . . .’
‘Don’t remind me,’ said Eleanor, screwing up her face.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce us to your boyfriend?’ said the Smacker, grinning.
‘His name is Zack,’ said Eleanor. ‘And he’s not my boyfriend. I found him wandering the streets in the middle of a bum curfew. I saved his life. Biggest mistake I ever made.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ said Zack.
The Kicker groaned.
‘Is he all right?’ said Eleanor.
‘He’ll be fine,’ said the Smacker.
‘Ohhh,’ he said, touching his nose. ‘What happened? How did I get back here?’
‘You got one on the face,’ said the Smacker. ‘How many times do I have to tell you—keep your head protected! Honestly, for an experienced bum-fighter you can be a real klutz!’
‘I was doing all right,’ said the Kicker.
‘At getting yourself killed,’ said the Smacker. ‘Or at least rearranged.’
Zack felt a shiver run down his spine as he remembered what had happened to the bumcatcher at the rally.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Did you say “rearranged”?’
‘Yeah,’ said the Smacker eyeing him suspiciously. ‘What of it?’
Zack hesitated. ‘Last night,’ he said. ‘I saw it . . . I saw someone get rearranged . . . it was horrible.’
‘You saw a rearrangement?’ said Eleanor, flashing an alarmed look at the Smacker.
Zack took a deep breath and told them the whole story.
When he’d finished Eleanor slammed her fist into the palm of her hand.
‘I knew they were up to something,’ she said, ‘but I had no idea it was this big.’
‘You think they’re really capable of doing it?’ said Zack.
‘You’d better believe it,’ said the Smacker. ‘For the last thirty years we’ve travelled the world nipping bum uprisings in the bud wherever and whenever they appear. Most bum revolutions amount to little more than hot air—but it sounds like this one is more organised than most.’
‘And Eleanor?’ said Zack. ‘Are you part of the B-team too?’
‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘But my father used to be, before he became a full-time Bum Hunter.
‘Your father’s a Bum Hunter?’ said Zack.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘His name is Silas Sterne.’
Zack gasped. He couldn’t believe it. This was incredibly good luck. Silas Sterne was the one person who could stop his bum and save the world, and he was Eleanor’s father!
‘Where is he?’ said Zack. ‘Can you take me to him? We need to let him know what’s happening.’
Eleanor shook her head.
‘I don’t know where he is,’ she said. ‘All I know is that I came home last week and he was gone. No note. Nothing. It’s not like him at all.’
Zack gasped again. He couldn’t believe it. This was incredibly bad luck. The one person who could stop his bum and save the world was missing.
‘Do you have any idea where he went?’ said the Smacker.
‘Hunting the Great White Bum,’ said Eleanor. ‘Where else?’
The very mention of the Great White Bum sent new shivers down Zack’s spine. The Great White Bum was in a class of its own. A rogue bum. Enormous. Evil.
There were many different theories about where it had come from. Some believed it to be a mutant bum created as an accidental side-effect of nuclear testing in the Pacific. Some believed it had been around for centuries. One Egyptian scholar had claimed to have discovered hieroglyphs depicting a large white bum. In his book Chariots of the Bums Eric Von Dunnycan even went so far as to claim that the Great White Bum was a space traveller who had arrived on Earth and taught ancient bums about bum liberation. Some believed it had been around for even longer than that: a sort of throwback to the age of the dinosaurs that had somehow avoided extinction—perhaps the first bum ever to grow legs and walk the face of the Earth.
‘So what are we going to do?’ said Zack.
‘We’ve got to find that bumcano and plug it up as soon as possible,’ said the Smacker. ‘Let ’em stew in their own juices.’
‘Give ’em a taste of their own medicine!’ roared the Kicker, who had red cheeks now instead of the deathly white pallor of a few minutes before.
Eleanor nodded.
‘I agree,’ she said.
‘Count me in,’ said the Kisser.
‘Me too,’ said Zack.
‘Uh-uh,’ said Eleanor. ‘Not you, Zack. We’re dropping you off at the nearest bum shelter. This is a job for professionals.’
‘But what about my bum?’ said Zack.
‘What about it?’ she said.
‘It’s my bum,’ said Zack. ‘I want it back. I know it’s a bit out of control right now, but I’m kind of attached to it.’
‘Not any more you’re not,’ said Eleanor. ‘What you need is a prosthetic bum.’
‘A what?’ said Zack, but Eleanor didn’t answer him. Instead she turned around and flung open the lid of one of the padded bench seats that ran along each side of the bum-mobile. She rummaged around in the compartment underneath the seat and pulled out a bum. A clear wobbly silicon bum. She threw it to Zack.
‘Here!’ she said. ‘Try this. It’s a bit big but it’ll do until you can get properly fitted.’
‘But I don’t want a false bum,’ said Zack, throwing it down onto the floor of the bum-mobile. ‘I want my real bum.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Eleanor. ‘Real bums are nothing but trouble. Sooner or later you’re going to need to go to the toilet and I guarantee you, you’re not going to care what sort of bum you’ve got.’
‘She’s right, you know,’ said the Smacker, picking up the bum and gently putting it back in Zack’s hands. ‘We’ve all got falsies. They’re the safest and the best. Take the bum. You’ll need it.’
‘I still think I should come with you,’ said Zack.
‘No, Zack,’ said the Smacker. ‘Eleanor’s right about that too. A bumcano is no place for a civilian. For anyone for that matter. The odds are against us. But we’ve all had years of experience fighting bums. With a bit of luck we can tip the odds back in our favour. But not with you there, Zack. I’m sorry.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Zack. He gripped the false bum and kneaded it back and forth in his hands. He knew that what Eleanor and the Smacker said made sense, but deep down he still felt responsible for all the trouble his bum had caused. It didn’t feel right to just do nothing.
&nbs
p; ‘Bum shelter ahead!’ announced the Kisser. ‘Beginning descent. Seatbelts on, everybody!’
The Kicker, Eleanor and Zack sat down and belted themselves in.
The bum-mobile dived at a steep angle. Zack could feel his ears popping. He could see through the front windscreen that they were heading towards an enormous stainless steel dome with the number ‘5’ painted on the top. A little way to the left of it was a landing pad. Zack sat back in his seat and prepared for touchdown.
The Kicker was bending over, pulling his laces tight.
‘Any bums try anything while we’re down there and you know what I’ll do?’ he said.
‘Kick their bums?’ said Eleanor.
The Kicker guffawed and slapped her knee.
‘You got it!’ he said. Then, looking at Zack, his smile evaporating, he said: ‘And if I see any bum sympathisers I’ll kick their bums too.’
‘I’m not a bum sympathiser,’ said Zack, feeling scared again. The Kicker could kick bums, that was for sure—he just wished the Kicker would stop threatening to kick his.
‘Bum-mobile BH-007 to Shelter 5,’ said the Kisser into his handset. ‘Permission to land requested. Over.’
The Kisser waited and then repeated his request.
‘That’s odd,’ said the Kisser.
‘What’s the matter?’ said the Smacker.
‘I’m not getting any response,’ said the Kisser. ‘The radio is jammed. But there must be people inside the shelter. The brown flag is up.’
‘Land anyway,’ said the Smacker. ‘We’d better check it out.’
‘Roger,’ said the Kisser.
There was a hissing sound and the bum-mobile began to descend.
The bum-mobile jolted to a stop.
‘Uh-oh,’ said the Smacker. ‘Looks like we’ve got a welcoming committee.’
Zack looked out of the window. The bum-mobile was surrounded by a group of mean-looking bums armed with bum-trumpets.
‘No wonder we’ve been having trouble getting through on the radio,’ said Eleanor. ‘They’ve been jamming it with high-frequency emissions. Leave them to me.’
Eleanor crossed the floor to a large black cabinet and opened it. Inside was the most amazing arsenal of bum-hunting weaponry Zack had ever seen. There was every sort of bum-fighting weapon imaginable: bum-guns, spear guns, harpoons, stun guns and long pointy sticks, some of the most deadly of all bum-fighting tools. There were bum-magnets, bum-shields, pink fluffy toilet seat covers, toilet brushes, soaps in plastic holders, clothespegs, rolls of sandpaper hanging on ready-to-roll dispensers and a full range of deodorisers and disinfectants.
The Day My Butt Went Psycho Page 4