What do you do when
someone’s head is ballooning?
It’s not in any first-aid manual:
carpet burns, yes, paper cuts, yes,
stapling your fingers together, yes,
but there’s nothing about head
ballooning. So Jarvis did the
only thing he could think
of. He clamped his
hands against
each side
of Milk’s
head and
squeezed as
hard as he could.
Instantly, her rubbery
head squished into the most
peculiar hourglass shape, the top
half bulging upwards, eyes popping,
forehead swollen like a camel’s hump,
while the bottom half plummeted
down in a flubbery jumble
of mouth and chin.
‘Owww!’ squealed Milk. ‘Stop it!’
Jarvis let go. Instantly, Milk’s head pinged out, bigger than ever, the size of a watermelon and still growing.
In a crisis like this, it is important to remain cool, calm and collected. Jarvis was none of these. He ran around the café like a headless chicken, flapping his arms, wailing, ‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’
‘Go and get help!’ bellowed Milk.
‘Yes! Of course. We need help,’ yelped Jarvis, scampering towards the café door. ‘Who shall I get?’
‘I don’t know!’ cried Milk. ‘Anyone! Just go!’
‘Right. Yes. Anyone!’
But just as he stretched out his hand to open the door, he froze.
‘What are you doing?’ screeched Milk. ‘Don’t just stand there!’
‘My head,’ yowled Jarvis, looking at his reflection in the café window. ‘It’s growing.’
Now Jarvis really panicked. In a desperate attempt to stop the swelling, he reached up and wrapped his arms around his head, interlocking his fingers over the top. But still his head kept growing, getting bigger and bigger, stretching his arms, pushing his elbows out wide. He felt his fingers being wrenched apart, but he didn’t let go. He refused to let go. With the top of his head held down, his face grew out. Led by the nose, his eyes and mouth bulged forward in a blubbery protrusion, until his face stuck out like some hideous, undiscovered sea monster.
‘Let go of your head,’ screamed Milk.
‘No!’ insisted Jarvis. He felt the tip of his nose pushing against the café window. His fingers were slipping – the pressure was just too great – he couldn’t hold on any longer, until, with an almighty BOING, his head sprang free.
‘Owww!’ he yelped, as his head flubbered out, the size of a satellite dish.
It was then Milk realised that something else was happening to them.
They were beginning to float.
‘Jarvis, quick! Grab hold of a table,’ she cried, taking hold of a table herself.
Jarvis did as he was told, bobbing up and down towards Milk like an astronaut crossing the surface of the moon. He grabbed hold of the other end of her table.
‘Not this table!’ screamed Milk. ‘It’s not heavy enough for both of us.’
But it was too late. Already Milk, Jarvis and the table in between them were hovering inches off the ground and rising slowly. Their feet scrambled in mid-air, kicking over chairs and tables. And still they floated, higher and higher, until at last the tops of their heads plumped gently against the café ceiling.
They were stuck, floating twelve feet up, holding a table with a large plastic tomato on it.
‘Now what?’ whimpered Jarvis, nervously looking down.
Milk looked at the café beneath her. It was strange seeing a place she knew so well from this new, lofty viewpoint. Everything looked so familiar, but at the same time, so completely different. On the counter next to the till she saw the book, The Porridge of Knowledge – the book that Grandad had innocently given to her all those weeks ago, the book that had started this wonderful and terrible chain of events. She remembered the day she had read it out loud to Grandad in their kitchen and he had fallen asleep under the newspaper.
Suddenly, a dreadful thought filled her massive head.
‘Jarvis,’ she said quietly. ‘I think we might be in trouble.’
‘We’re already in trouble.’
‘No, you don’t understand. Do you remember when I told you about Jim from the Porridge of Knowledge book? How in the story he ate too much porridge?’
‘Vaguely,’ replied Jarvis, eyeing Milk suspiciously. ‘Why? What happened to him?’
Milk took a deep breath. ‘His head exploded.’
‘Exploded?’
If you thought Jarvis was panicking before, that was nothing. Now he really, really panicked. He turned his humongous head towards the door and screamed, ‘HELP!’ at the top of his voice.
CHAPTER 28
OLIVER AND GEORGE
Malcolm Blanket stood outside Café Smoooth looking up and down the deserted promenade through a pair of binoculars. It was late, and no one was around. Coast clear, he stepped into the middle of the road and signalled into the darkness. Moments later a lorry pulled out of the shadows and came trundling slowly towards him. Its headlights were switched off. On the side of the lorry, in large red-and-white-striped letters, were the words:
CLEAN YOUR TEETH WITH BLANKET’S TOOTHPASTE.
Underneath was a cartoon picture of a smiling shark, with two rows of sparkling, razor-sharp teeth. In its fin it held a toothbrush and a tube of Blanket’s Toothpaste. A speech bubble came out of its mouth. It read:
Steve the Shark says, ‘For the best-kept bite, brush with Blanket’s.’
Below all that was a black-and-yellow skull and crossbones sticker with the words:
Danger! Toxic Waste. Dispose of Carefully.
The lorry pulled up alongside Café Smoooth, then carefully reversed over the pavement and onto the pier. The wooden flooring groaned and creaked beneath the weight of the lorry. Malcolm Blanket stood behind it, guiding it into a space behind his café. From the road the lorry was completely out of sight.
‘Did anyone follow you?’ asked Malcolm Blanket.
‘No, sir,’ replied the driver, a bald, stocky man who seemed to have lost his neck somewhere inside his T-shirt.
‘Good. Well, you know the drill. Get to work.’
The driver ducked underneath the lorry, reappearing a moment later with a long, wide hose. He attached one end to the lorry and threw the other end over the pier railings, so it dangled just above the waves.
‘It’s ready sir. Would you like to press the button or shall I?’
‘Of course I push the button,’ snapped Malcolm Blanket, slapping the driver’s bald head. ‘I always get to push the button. It’s the best bit.’
On the side of the lorry, hidden among Steve the Shark’s teeth, Malcolm Blanket felt for and found a small button. He pushed it. A gentle whirring sound, no louder than a vacuum cleaner, started up.
The driver leant over the railings and looked down towards the end of the hose. ‘Here it comes, sir.’
A vile, bright yellow, sloppy, steaming stream of goo began pumping out of the hose and plopping into the sea. Malcolm Blanket stood beside the driver, watching the sea turn a putrid beige.
‘Do you know how much money this saves me?’ He didn’t wait for the driver to answer. ‘A fortune. It would cost thousands to dispose of this through the proper channels. And it’s only a few harmless chemicals from my toothpaste factory. Much easier this way, don’t you think?’ he said, pulling out a crumpled five-pound note from his pocket and handing it to the driver.
‘Don’t you ever worry about the fish, sir?’ pondered the driver, pocketing the money.
‘Oh, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish. Why does everyone keep bleating on about the fish?’ snarled Malcolm Blanket. ‘Do the fish pay your wages? No! Do fish do anything except swim about all day eating other fish? No! They’re useless. Who cares about the
fish? You’re as bad as everybody else around here moaning about the dead fish.’
The driver scratched his bald head and said, ‘It’s just that I’ve got two goldfish at home. They’re called Oliver and George, and I sometimes wonder if their brothers and sisters are out there somewhere.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ Malcolm Blanket had heard enough. ‘Get on with your work, you pathetic idiot.’ And with that, he marched back onto the promenade to make sure no nosy Sloppites were poking their beaks into his business.
All was quiet. A brisk wind ruffled his hair as he scoured the promenade for busybodies. But it was well after midnight. Of course everyone was in bed. A warm, smug feeling washed over him. He felt very pleased with himself that he was going to get away with it – again – and no one in Slopp-on-Sea would be any the wiser.
Just then, carried on the wind, he heard a strange cry. Probably a fox, he told himself. Nothing to worry about.
There it was again, louder this time, almost human, like a cry for help. He raised the binoculars to his eyes and scoured the promenade.
That’s when he saw lights coming from inside Carp’s Café.
Curiosity got the better of him. Malcolm Blanket went to investigate.
CHAPTER 29
A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING
On a cold January morning in 1892 Barnabas Blanket wheeled his rickety handcart into an east London market. He had invented a Powder for the Cleansing of Ladies’ Teeth, and he intended to make his fortune. The other market traders, their teeth blackened by soot and ale, laughed at his new invention. Who in their right mind would want to have clean teeth? Nevertheless, slowly but surely, his mixture of elderflower, powdered mouse brains and mint caught on. Bad-breathed, slime-toothed Victorian ladies flocked to his stall and by the end of the year he was selling more than he could make. He built a factory, employed fifty men and grew enormous sideburns. Blanket’s Toothpaste was born.
As a boy, Malcolm Blanket never wanted to go into toothpaste. For him, the business started by his great-grandfather was a source of enormous embarrassment. The children at school used to call him ‘paste-face’ or ‘Malcolm Talcum’, because his teeth were as blindingly white as talcum powder. As a result, young Malcolm learnt never to smile. He became withdrawn, secretive and sly. He imagined that one day he would become a great spy, and he would wreak revenge on his unkind classmates. Of course he never did, and at eighteen he dutifully joined the family business selling toothpaste.
But to this day, to this very moment, he still liked to think of himself as a daring spy. As he made his way up the promenade towards Carp’s Café he ducked in and out of shadows, lurking behind lampposts. At the abandoned tennis court, he stopped. With his back pressed against the fence he looked through the binoculars to make sure he hadn’t been followed. Nothing. He was still a great spy.
He crawled the final few yards on his hands and knees until, at last, he was crouched beneath the window of Carp’s Café. Slowly, silently, he raised his head and peered in.
As far as he could see, the café was empty. But something wasn’t right. Across the café floor were upturned tables and chairs, as if there had been some kind of struggle. It was the kind of mystery that Malcolm Blanket, super-spy, couldn’t resist. On the count of 007, he pushed open the door.
‘We’re up here.’
Malcolm Blanket looked up. His mouth fell open. He thought he was prepared for anything, but the sight of two people with gigantic heads, bobbing against the ceiling, holding a table in between them – well, it took his breath away.
‘What happened?’ he spluttered.
Instantly, Jarvis blabbed, the words spilling out of his mouth at a hundred miles an hour. ‘Oh Mr Blanket thank goodness you’re here we need help we ate too much porridge and our heads grew so much and we floated up to the ceiling and now our heads might explode and you have to get us to hospital as soon as possible …’
‘Porridge?’ asked Malcolm Blanket. ‘What porridge?’
Jarvis was giving too much away. Milk tried kicking him under the table, but her leg swished harmlessly through the air.
‘Yes Mr Blanket it’s called the Porridge of Knowledge from the book that Milk found and there’s a recipe in it that makes you the cleverest person in the world and that’s how I became a brilliant chef and we ate too much and now we’re in no end of trouble will you help us please because our heads might explode and—’
‘Of course I’ll help,’ interrupted Malcolm Blanket. He adjusted his facial features into what he imagined to be a sympathetic expression. ‘Don’t panic. I’ll look after you. I’ll get you to the hospital straight away.’ On the surface, he remained calm and collected, but inside he was jumping for joy. He couldn’t believe his luck. Without any effort he had discovered the secret of their success. On top of that, Milk and Jarvis were completely at his mercy, just how he liked his rivals to be.
And then a wicked plan entered his head. ‘Do you have any string?’ he asked innocently.
‘In the drawer under the till,’ replied Jarvis. ‘Why?’
But Malcolm Blanket didn’t answer. He made his way around the counter and began rummaging through the drawer.
Milk thought quickly. Though she was pleased there was someone there to help them, she wished it was anybody but Malcolm Blanket. She remembered her grandma telling her once, ‘Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing,’ and that was certainly true of Malcolm Blanket – she didn’t trust him one little bit. On the other hand she also remembered her grandad saying, ‘Good things come in strange packages.’ Maybe Malcolm Blanket was a good thing in a strange package. Maybe he would help them after all. And they certainly needed help.
‘Got it,’ said Malcolm Blanket triumphantly, holding up a ball of string. As he came back round the counter, he noticed a book sitting beside the till. His eyes flicked over it, quickly reading the faded gold letters that ran along the spine …
THE PORRIDGE OF KNOWLEDGE.
His heart, if he really had one, skipped a beat. This is all too easy, he said to himself, like taking candy from big-headed, floating babies.
But first he had a job to do. He picked up an overturned table, positioned it directly underneath Milk and Jarvis and climbed up onto it. On tiptoes, he could just reach their dangling legs.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Milk.
‘You’ll see,’ he replied in a comforting voice. ‘Don’t worry about a thing. Now, tell me if this is too tight.’
Expertly, he tied a knot around one of Milk’s feet. Then, feeding the string through his fingers, he shuffled along the table and tied another knot around Jarvis’s foot, before jumping down onto the floor.
Like a child with a balloon, he gave the trailing string a tug, gently pulling their heads away from the ceiling.
‘How does that feel?’ he asked.
It felt good. It had been very uncomfortable head-squashed against the ceiling.
Malcolm Blanket put the second part of his plan into action. ‘My car’s outside,’ he lied. ‘You can both squeeze in and I’ll drive you to Pifflemundon Hospital. They can take it from there.’ He looked up at them, curled back his lips and attempted a smile. ‘Don’t worry about a thing. You’re in safe hands now.’
Jarvis was relieved. ‘Oh, thank you, Mr Blanket. You’ve been so kind.’
Milk was less sure, but what choice did she have?
Malcolm Blanket got to work. Standing directly beneath the table, he pulled on the string. It took some effort – he was hardly a strong man – but inch by inch Milk, Jarvis and the table began to descend. When the bottom of the table was almost touching his head, Malcolm Blanket opened his mouth, put the string in between his magnificent teeth and clamped down hard. With his hands now free, he reached up and grabbed each side of the table, pulling it down so it appeared to be balancing on his head. For all the world, they resembled a bizarre circus act.
With Jarvis’s legs dangling in front of him, and Milk’s behind
him, Malcolm Blanket turned towards the open café door.
‘Do you think our heads will go through?’ asked Jarvis, nervously eyeing up the narrow exit.
Malcolm Blanket spat the string out of his mouth. ‘Of course your heads will go through. There’s plenty of room.’
‘They won’t,’ insisted Milk. ‘Maybe you should get some help. Call an ambulance or something.’
But Malcolm Blanket didn’t want to wait for an ambulance. He wanted this over as soon as possible. Nor did he want any witnesses. Without another word, he charged.
Jarvis yelped as his head smacked against the door frame. His neck stretched and pulled, his ears scrunched against the jambs, until at last his head sprang free on the other side.
‘I’m through!’ he yelled.
It was Milk’s turn. She ducked her head down and closed her eyes. Her bulbous head squished square-shaped as it plugged the door frame. She felt like she was being dragged face-first down a rabbit hole. Jarvis screamed encouragement. ‘Go on, Milk! Push it! You can do it, Milk!’
And then, with one final thrust, she was through! She opened her eyes. Across the table she saw Jarvis grinning wildly at her. They’d made it. They were going to be all right.
‘Thank you, Mr Blanket,’ said Milk, peering down under the table. ‘It was a bit of a squeeze but you were right. Now, which one’s your car?’
Malcolm Blanket was quite out of breath. Eventually he turned and looked up at Milk. ‘What car?’ he asked.
‘Your car. To take us to hospital.’
‘But I don’t have a car, I can’t even drive,’ he said with a smirk. ‘Anyhow, surely it’d be quicker if you flew to the hospital.’
And with that he let go of the table.
‘What are you doing?’ screamed Milk, as she and Jarvis began floating up into the sky. ‘Grab the string!’
But he didn’t. The ball of string began unravelling at his feet, spinning and jumping on the ground, getting smaller and smaller until there was almost nothing left.
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