by Adam Cece
It seems Felonious Dark had the same thought, because he said, ‘Who in their right mind is scared of a Brussels sprout that speaks with a very bad Scottish accent?’
‘Aye, who is it? The numpty,’ the Brussels sprout said.
The top-hatted scientist laughed. ‘It’s for our little intruder, hiding in the dome with his friends.’
Kipp and Cymphany locked eyes, confused, and then they turned and looked at Tobias. His face was even whiter than usual, which was really saying something because Tobias’s face was naturally pearly white. And now he was frozen in an expression of absolute terror.
Below them, the top-hatted scientist said, ‘This scare-ball creature is for Tobias Treachery.’
‘Run first and ask questions later’, is one of my all-time favourite expressions, along with ‘between a rock and a hard place’, and ‘never tickle a buffalo while it is watching daytime television’. It is generally a good idea to run first and ask questions later, unless you are competing in the annual Huggabie Falls Marathon Quiz. The word marathon is sometimes used to refer to something that lasts a really long time, and while the annual Huggabie Falls Marathon Quiz is quite lengthy, it is also a quiz held at the same time as its participants run a forty-two-kilometre marathon. So the participants of this event do not run first and ask questions later, they run and ask (or rather answer) questions at the same time.
Now Kipp, like me, was a big fan of the expression ‘run first and ask questions later’, so when the top-hatted scientist had just used the big laser thing-creating machine to create a fearful object—and had revealed that this object was for Tobias Treachery, and had pointed at Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany, indicating he knew they were there—Kipp’s first instinct was to run. But he also wanted to ask a rather big question, which was: who in their right mind is scared of a Brussels sprout that speaks with a very bad Scottish accent?
‘Yes, that’s right,’ the top-hatted scientist called out. ‘We’ve known you children were there the whole time. We have a secret surveillance camera hidden in the dot above every i in every warning sign in this place. Why do you think there are so many warning signs?’
‘Oh.’ Cymphany nodded. ‘That makes sense. That’s actually quite a clever idea.’
‘Cymphany!’ Kipp said, as if the expression ‘run first and ask questions later’, should be changed to, ‘run first and congratulate the top-hatted scientist on a good place to hide secret surveillance cameras later’. But that second version of the expression probably wouldn’t work very well, as it’s quite specific, although if that expression did exist I personally could have used it three times this week alone.
As Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany ran back along the walkway towards the stairs, they noticed a door with a sign above it that read ‘Escape Exit’ and a warning sign beside it that read:
It took Tobias quite a few seconds to open the door, because he tried to push it instead of pulling it, and I’d like to say there is an important lesson here about reading warning signs, even ones with hidden surveillance cameras in them.
As they ran down a stairwell, which must have been an escape exit, Kipp asked, ‘Tobias, are you really scared of Brussels sprouts with very bad Scottish accents?’ Kipp had obviously decided to run and ask questions at the same time, even though this wasn’t the annual Huggabie Falls Marathon Quiz.
And Cymphany added to Kipp’s question by saying, ‘I thought you loved Brussels sprouts, Tobias.’
‘I used to,’ Tobias said, bounding down the steps. ‘I used to eat them all the time. For just about every meal. I loved them with chicken salt and tomato sauce, especially in sandwiches and on pizzas.’
They continued tearing down the steps at top speed. Above them they heard the door to the escape exit bang open. ‘But then,’ Tobias continued, ‘I read a book called, Do Vegetables Have Feelings? And I started to wonder, do vegetables have feelings? And if they do, then Brussels sprouts are going to be so annoyed that I have eaten thousands of them. Then I started having terrible nightmares about an evil Scottish Brussels sprout coming to get revenge for all the members of his Brussels sprout family I’ve consumed. It’s my biggest fear, actually.’
‘But why is it a Scottish Brussels sprout,’ Cymphany said, breathlessly. ‘And why does it talk with such a terrible accent. That’s not how Scottish people really talk, you know.’
Tobias glared at Cymphany. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t get to write a script for my nightmares, did I? Nightmares just happen. I think the first time I had the nightmare I was watching a movie that day, with an actor in it, who had a terrible fake Scottish accent, his name was Mel—’
Cymphany interrupted him. ‘Better not say the actor’s full name, Tobias, just in case someday someone writes a book about our adventures. We don’t want the actor with the terrible fake Scottish accent to get upset and come after us for revenge.’
Now it was Kipp’s turn to glare at Cymphany. ‘Cymphany, why would somebody write a book about our adventures one day? And even if they did, this is our second adventure, so this book would be a sequel, and no one is silly enough to write one of those. Secondly, I hardly think that is our major worry right now.’
As Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany continued hurtling down the steps three at a time, they could hear tiny footsteps on the steps above them, and a squeaky, but gruff, voice saying, ‘Oi. Where d’ye think ye can run ta? I’m a comin’ fer ye.’
I should point out, at this point, in case you are worried, that vegetables most certainly do not have feelings. And you can feel free to keep eating vegetables—in fact you should eat them, as they are quite healthy—without fear of attack from any of their vegetable cousins.
‘Okay,’ Cymphany said, upon hearing Tobias’s story about why he was scared of Brussels sprouts with very bad Scottish accents, ‘that makes sense.’ Of course, she was lying about it making sense, but she was under a lot of pressure, and running for her life, so she was happy to have just about any explanation at this point.
A few steps later Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany reached a door at the bottom of the escape exit.
They burst out the door, to be confronted by hundreds of identical versions of their shocked faces staring back at them.
‘Oh, no,’ said Cymphany, ‘there are mirrors everywhere. We must have run full pelt into the storage yard for the Huggabie Falls Mirror Emporium.’
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany ran across the yard, weaving between mirrors of all different shapes and sizes. Everywhere they turned they saw reflections of themselves looking back, and reflections of those reflections in mirrors all around them, which gave the weird sense of hundreds of them all running in different directions. It was like trying to escape through a confusing giant crowd of yourself.
Behind them somewhere, Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany heard the door to the House of Spooks escape exit open, and a small voice say ‘Och, that’s a good-lookin fellow.’ The Scottish Brussels sprout had obviously seen his own reflection.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany kept running. They finally stumbled into an open area free of mirrors, but it was surrounded by a high fence. They ran towards the fence, looking for a way over it. But there were no rungs to climb, or any doors or gaps to squeeze through.
‘We have to go back,’ said Kipp.
‘Ye cannae go back,’ a voice said. ‘I’m here fur ye.’
They spun around, backs to the fence, to see one hundred Brussels sprouts with very bad Scottish accents standing in a row.
‘Time ta introduce ye ta all ma pals,’ the Brussels sprout with the very bad Scottish accent in the middle of the row said, while all the other Brussels sprouts moved their lips at the same time.
‘Oh, no,’ Tobias said as he cowered. ‘This is all my nightmares come true. And now there’s hundreds of them. We’re done for.’
But Kipp stopped and stood up. ‘Wait a minute. There are not hundreds of them. There’s just one Brussels sprout reflected hundreds of times. And he’s tiny.’
Cymphany s
miled and nodded. ‘I know, right. Just because Tobias is scared of him, doesn’t mean we have to be too. What possible damage could one little Brussels sprout do?’
Kipp and Cymphany both laughed at the absurdity of the situation. But then Tobias said, ‘Ah, guys.’
They looked at him.
Tobias gulped. ‘I forgot to mention that in my nightmares the Brussels sprout has superhuman strength, and he is always trying to crush me with a grand piano.’
A hint of concern flashed across Cymphany’s face, but she was still smiling. ‘Tobias, the hard-light-hologram generator didn’t create a grand piano.’
‘I think it did,’ Tobias said, trembling with fear.
‘No, we were there. It definitely didn’t,’ Kipp said.
Tobias tried to speak but he was shaking so much even he couldn’t understand what he was saying, so he pointed. Cymphany and Kipp turned just in time to see a grand piano flying through the air towards them.
Cymphany, Kipp and Tobias dived out of the way, and the grand piano smashed into the ground, splintering into thousands of pieces. Bits of wood and piano keys rained down all around Kipp, Cymphany and Tobias as they scrambled out of the debris.
‘Honestly, Tobias,’ Cymphany said, as a piano key bounced off her head, with a pitch-perfect middle C. ‘Why can’t you just have normal nightmares?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Tobias yelped, as keys pounded the ground all around him in an amazing chance order to play the tune ‘Happy Birthday’. If Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany hadn’t been running for their lives, they could have stopped to admire this once in a gazillion lifetimes event, but Cymphany was too busy yelling at Tobias and Kipp to keep running.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany ran between some mirrors and around a corner, and then skidded to a stop in terror.
Standing in front of them were at least a hundred Felonious Darks.
The one hundred Felonious Darks smiled. ‘Hello, children,’ they all said. ‘I managed to get off the ghost-train ride, but now I’m a bit lost in this yard of mirrors.’
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany stared in shock at the one hundred Felonious Darks.
‘It’s only one Mr Dark,’ Cymphany whispered to Kipp and Tobias, ‘reflected a hundred times, like the Brussels sprout was.’
‘Did you find anything?’ the Felonious Dark in the middle said, and his hundred reflections moved their lips at exactly the same time. ‘I think something fishy is going on in this place. I keep hearing whirring camera noises behind the warning signs, and a few minutes ago I heard a big crashing noise followed by somebody playing ‘Happy Birthday’ on a piano.’
‘Mr Dark,’ Cymphany said, stamping her foot. ‘Don’t lie to us. We know you’ve been helping the top-hatted scientist and torturing poor Conrad Creeps, and because of you we’re being chased by a revenge-driven Brussels sprout with a very bad Scottish accent who’s trying to flatten us with a grand piano.’
Felonious Dark raised an eyebrow, along with the other hundred Felonious Darks. ‘Me, helping the top-hatted scientist? I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I would remember something like that. And Conrad Creeps? Isn’t he the guy who’s scared of everything? And did you say a Brussels sprout with a very bad Scottish accent is trying to flatten you with a grand piano?’
Just as Cymphany started to say, yes a Brussels sprout with a very bad Scottish accent is trying to flatten us with a grand piano, the giant mirror beside Felonious Dark shattered into a thousand pieces as a grand piano came flying through it. Felonious Dark ducked and the piano whizzed over his head, before crashing into the ground and bouncing away—smashing through mirrors like a grand-piano-shaped wrecking ball. It left a trail of shattered glass, which made a jagged path towards what appeared to be an exit doorway in the fence.
Felonious Dark turned to see where the grand piano had come from and his jaw dropped. The Brussels sprout smiled at him. ‘Och aye, another noggin for flattenin. Looks like it’s ma lucky day.’
Felonious Dark turned back to Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany. ‘In reference to my questions before, you can ignore the third one. But I’m still quite curious about the first two things I asked about. I think we might have to revisit those queries at a future time—have you children ever heard of the expression: ‘Run first and ask questions later’?
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany escaped from the Huggabie Falls Mirror Emporium via the exit door, and raced, ducking and weaving, through the streets of Huggabie Falls, which of course were all called Digmont Drive. Eventually they found a spot to hide in the now-abandoned—since Froggin Fillibuster had found a two-metre-tall spider in his kitchen—Huggabie Falls Sanctuary for People Fleeing from Witches and Other Dangerous Flying Creatures.
Felonious Dark had raced along behind them, and was now hiding with them. ‘I can’t see anything,’ he whispered, as he shifted the curtains enough to form a hair-width crack and peeked out the front window of the sanctuary. ‘I think he’s gone.’
Since the sanctuary had been deserted, the tiny spider, who used to occupy a single high corner, had taken full advantage of the new situation and had built spiderwebs over every surface and object in the room.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany sat in a spiderweb-covered booth and glared at Felonious Dark. Felonious Dark saw them glaring and frowned. ‘Look, I told you.’ He threw up his hands. ‘That wasn’t me. I was stuck in the last cart on the ghost-train ride with my knees up above my head. I was only able to escape because I remembered I had a packet of butter in my pocket. I got it out with my teeth and used it to make myself slippery enough to slide out of the cart.’
Tobias nodded, smiling. ‘Ah, that explains why I keep thinking of pancakes,’ he said.
‘And, like I keep saying,’ Felonious Dark continued, ‘the person you saw with the top-hatted scientist must have been my identical brother.’
‘So you’re a twin?’ Kipp asked.
Felonious Dark shook his head. ‘No. I’m not a twin.’
‘Is anyone else confused?’ Tobias asked. ‘And hungry?’
Felonious Dark smiled, letting go of the edge of the curtain and sitting down in the spiderweb-covered booth across from Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany. ‘I’m a triplet.’
‘Identical triplets?’ Cymphany frowned. ‘Is that even possible?’ she asked, quite annoyed that she didn’t already know the answer to the question.
Felonious Dark sighed. ‘It is possible. Of course it’s possible. How else would I have two identical triplet brothers. I knew one of them was in town. He’s been ringing me on my mobile phone all morning.’
Tobias slammed his hand down on the spiderweb-covered table. ‘I knew it. I knew that vibrating noise was your mobile phone. I knew you hadn’t eaten a particularly buzzy fly.’
‘Oh, no,’ Felonious Dark said. ‘I had also been eating flies. But you’re right, that vibrating noise was my identical triplet brother, ringing to tell me he’d come to town.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And it looks like he has gone into the family business.’
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany gave Felonious Dark matching blank looks. ‘Which is?’ Cymphany asked.
‘Working for evil scientists, of course,’ Felonious Dark said. ‘I thought you would have worked that out by now. It’s what my father did, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, my great-great-great-grandfather, my great-great-great-great—’
‘Grandfather,’ Cymphany finished his sentence. ‘Yes, we get the picture.’
‘Actually.’ Felonious Dark held up a finger. ‘I was going to say my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, as my great-great-great-great-grandfather didn’t work for an evil scientist. He was a peanut salesman.’
The blank looks Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany had given Felonious Dark before were barely blank looks at all compared to the blank looks they gave him now.
‘Why did your great-great-great-great-grandfather sell peanuts?’ Kipp asked.
Felonious Dark looked confused. ‘I think he liked peanuts,’ he said.
They thought in silence for a moment. Then Tobias said, ‘When we were running away, I saw one of those spider balls.’
‘I think the top-hatted scientist called them scare balls,’ Kipp added.
Tobias nodded. ‘Yes, that’s them. I saw a scare ball scuttling along, on its spider legs, behind the Brussels sprout with the very bad Scottish accent. It was there the whole time.’
‘Yes, I saw that scare ball too,’ Cymphany said. ‘And it makes sense. Hard-light holograms need a constant power-and-projection source.’
Tobias and Kipp and Felonious Dark stared at Cymphany.
‘What?’ Cymphany said defensively, looking from one of them to the other.
‘How could you possibly know that?’ Kipp asked.
Cymphany shrugged. ‘I read it in a book.’
Tobias smirked and shook his head. ‘Are there any books you haven’t read, Cymph?’
Cymphany rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course there are.’ Although she had a little smirk on her face, too, because she was pretty sure she was down to fewer than ten left to be read before she’d read every single book ever written.
‘But,’ Tobias said, his smirk disappearing, ‘there were hundreds of those spider scare balls in that crate. Hundreds of them.’
‘Enough for one for everyone in town,’ Kipp said, and he gulped.
‘The whole spider design is fantastic,’ Felonious Dark said. ‘That way those fast little balls can skitter around town undetected, get near people and then project their greatest fears.’ He chuckled. ‘It’s brilliant. That’s exactly how I would do it.’
He saw Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany glaring at him and jumped. ‘Errr…I mean, how I would do it, if I wasn’t reformed. But, like I said, it wasn’t me. It was my identical triplet brother.’