by Adam Cece
‘The things you’re scared of are not real,’ Cymphany continued her megaphone speech. ‘The top-hatted scientist found out what your greatest fears were, and he tapped into Conrad Creeps’s imagination to create the scariest versions of them.’
‘The fears are just hard-light holograms,’ Tobias added. ‘Being projected by scare balls. They’re not real.’
‘They seem pretty real to me,’ shouted Ms Suddlehoney, owner of Ms Suddlehoney’s Wish Shop, who was afraid of sloths, and was currently lying on the ground while a sloth sat on her chest.
Cymphany nodded. ‘I used to be scared of this creature,’ she said, gesturing with her hand, the one that wasn’t holding the megaphone, to Bugsplatter.
‘What is that thing coming out of the door in its stomach?’ yelled one Huggabie Falls resident.
‘Is that a fish?’ another resident asked.
‘I think it’s a camel,’ said another. ‘No… it’s…’
‘It’s hideous,’ yelled someone else.
Cymphany waved her hand frantically. ‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is I had no reason to be scared of her. Most of the time our fears are in our mind, and the things we’re scared of aren’t really scary at all, or they don’t mean to be scary. Quite often it’s not their fault that we’re scared.’
Bugsplatter stepped forward. She cleared her throat and looked out across the crowd. ‘Oh, I’m so nervous,’ she squeaked. ‘Get it together, Bugs,’ she mumbled to herself. Then, she addressed the crowd. ‘Do not judge me, for what you see on the outside. Inside, I’m not scary at all. Well, except for the thing behind the door in my stomach, but I’ll keep that door closed. I don’t want to scare anyone anymore.’
The crowd went silent. Bugsplatter wondered if this was the kind of pause that occurred before thunderous applause broke out.
Then someone put up their hand. ‘What sort of a name is Bugsplatter anyway?’
Cymphany’s mum looked blissfully happy. With handkerchiefs stuffed in both her ears, she hadn’t heard anything.
Cymphany smiled. ‘The point is, being scared of things is okay. Our fears are part of what makes us who we are. But we can’t let our fears control us. We have to learn to accept them, maybe even embrace them. Look at us all: the top-hatted scientist and Mr Dark Two are using our fears to control us. We’re all about to leave the town we love. And why?’ Cymphany looked around, seemingly picking the closest thing to her and gesturing to it. ‘Because of a teddy bear!’
Felonious Dark looked up. ‘But Mr Puddles is terrifying. He’s always chasing me.’
Mr Puddles scoffed. He waved his arms and did a silly exaggerated voice. ‘Mr Puddles is terrifying. He’s always chasing me. Give me a break. I’m not terrifying. I’m grumpy.’ He shook his fist. ‘And so would you be, if you hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in years. Do you think I wanted to stay awake night after night, just because you were scared of the dark?’
Tobias looked at Felonious Dark and then at Mr Puddles. ‘Is anyone else confused? Mr Dark, what is going on?’
It took Felonious Dark a moment to answer. He took a big breath. ‘When I was a child, I was scared of the dark. My parents put an old teddy, with an ear chewed off by the family dog, by my bed. They called him Mr Puddles. He was supposed to look after me and keep me company so I wouldn’t get scared. And he did, for a long time, but he’s a scary-looking bear. I started having nightmares that Mr Puddles was chasing me. I stopped being scared of the dark and started being scared of Mr Puddles. So my parents finally got rid of him.’
Mr Puddles huffed. ‘How’s that for gratitude.’
Cymphany frowned, lowering the megaphone so she could whisper to Felonious Dark. ‘How long did Mr Puddles protect you, Mr Dark?’
Felonious Dark shrugged. ‘About five or ten years I think.’
‘Try twenty-one years,’ Mr Puddles shouted.
Everyone was quiet for a moment.
‘Does anyone else,’ Tobias said, breaking the silence, ‘think it’s hilarious that Mr Dark was scared of the dark?’ He chuckled until he noticed everyone was glaring at him. ‘What?’ he said. ‘It is funny.’
Mr Puddles waved his padded paws. ‘It’s not funny. I had plans. I wanted to become an accountant. I wanted to go to university. But, you know who can’t go to university? Teddy bears who have to babysit ungrateful kids who are scared of the dark—that’s who. You ruined my life, Felonious Dark, and you never even apologised.’
The crowd fell silent. Felonious Dark opened his mouth, looking set to retort, but then he closed it again. ‘I guess…’ He shook his head. ‘I guess, ummm, I never really thought about it like that.’
Mr Puddles crossed his stumpy teddy-bear arms and spun around so he faced away from Felonious Dark. ‘Yes, well, thinking was never your strong point,’ he muttered.
The silence continued, for quite a long time, before Felonious Dark finally said, ‘I’m sorry.’
Mr Puddles turned his furry head slightly. ‘You are?’
Felonious Dark nodded. ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’ He smiled and opened his arms out wide.
And Mr Puddles ran and dived into Felonious Dark’s outstretched arms, giving him a mini bear hug.
Many of the Huggabie Falls residents and a few of the fearsome creatures sniffled and wiped their weeping eyes.
Cymphany raised her megaphone to her mouth again. ‘We can’t allow the top-hatted scientist and Felonious Dark Two’s plan to succeed. So if Mr Dark can make up with Mr Puddles, surely we all can make friends with our greatest fears. And then we can all go get our town back.’
Seeing Felonious Dark hugging Mr Puddles made the people of Huggabie Falls take a good hard look at their own greatest fears.
Tobias’s dad slowly approached the group of vacuum-cleaner salespeople. ‘Look,’ he said, taking a deep breath. ‘I want the new Super Sucker 6000, I really do, but I don’t want a contract with hidden clauses.’
One of the vacuum-cleaner salespeople nodded and flipped to a new page on her clipboard. ‘Ah, so you want one of our no-hidden-clauses contracts.’
Tobias’s dad jumped with excitement. ‘You have those?’
The vacuum-cleaner salespeople shared a laugh between themselves. ‘Of course. We’re not heartless monsters, except for Larry, over there, who is actually a heartless monster, which is Pogsley Pottlebrush’s greatest fear.’
Larry, who was a rather large monster with a gaping hole in his chest where a heart usually should be, wiped a tear from his eye. ‘I may not have a heart,’ he sobbed, ‘but I have lots of love to give.’
Pogsley Pottlebrush, who had been hiding from Larry behind a tree, stepped out, and put his hand to his chest. ‘Awwww,’ he said—in the same way Kipp’s mum always did when there was a miniature poodle on TV—‘you poor thing.’ He went over and gave the sobbing monster a hug. ‘I can’t believe I was ever scared of you. You’re just a big crybaby, aren’t you?’
Larry was bawling now. Waves of tears cascaded down his face. ‘I can’t even watch sad movies, unless I’m sitting in a boat.’
And the greatest fears reconciliations continued, with most people realising that the things they were scared of weren’t really all that scary. Some people even started patting the little scare balls, which actually purred with delight.
And the bathtub let Mrs Turgan’s broomstick free. Mrs Turgan sat on the edge of the bathtub, chatting to the rubber ducky. ‘You know, maybe having a bath wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe all these flies would stop hanging around me if I smelled a little more pleasant. And thank you for letting my broomstick go. Interesting fact: broomsticks aren’t just used for flying, you can also use them to sweep up breadcrumbs.’
Even Cymphany’s dad admitted that geese weren’t so frightening, especially after Cymphany put her megaphone back in her satchel and told him the interesting fact that a single goose can eat up to a kilogram of grass a day. Cymphany’s dad did a quick head count of the geese. ‘Wow. I may never have to mow the front lawn a
gain. Perhaps I should invite them to move in.’
Before long, the people of Huggabie Falls had their arms around their greatest fears, and everyone was laughing and joking.
Cymphany’s mum finally took the handkerchiefs out of her ears. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘Did I miss something?’
She turned and saw the poet standing beside her, with a goofy grin on his face, and she was about to make a run for it, but the poet put up his hand to stop her and explained what had been happening.
And Cymphany’s mum, keen to continue the spirit of reconciliation, gritted her teeth and allowed the bad poet to read her one of his poems. He began:
Poe-a-tree, poe-a-tree,
How I leaf thee.
Your roots dig into me,
Until I find the key.
When the bad poet had finished, Cymphany’s mum blinked a few times, but she didn’t look totally terrified.
The poet looked hopeful.
‘Well, that was the worst thing I’ve ever heard,’ Cymphany’s mum said. ‘It didn’t even make sense.’ The look of hope on the poet’s face faded.
‘But I’m still standing,’ Cymphany’s mum said, and she shrugged. ‘I didn’t faint or anything, this time.’
A smidgen of hope returned to the poet’s face. ‘Shall I recite another poem?’ he said.
‘Don’t push your luck,’ Cymphany’s mum said. ‘At least I’m not terrified of you anymore.’
The greatest fears love-fest continued, until Tobias’s clapping hands got everyone’s attention. He stood with Cymphany, Bugsplatter and Brussels Sprout. ‘It’s great that we’re all friends now and everything, but let’s not forget it was the top-hatted scientist and Felonious Dark Two who caused all of this, and they also kidnapped Conrad Creeps and our friend Kipp Kindle and his family. I think it’s time we paid them a little visit.’
The people of Huggabie Falls looked into the eyes of their greatest fears, and determined looks began to form. The greatest fears didn’t much like being scary, and the Huggabie Falls residents didn’t really like being driven out of Huggabie Falls, and there were two people to blame for all of it. Bugsplatter perfectly captured everyone’s thoughts in one three-word sentence.
‘It’s payback time,’ she chuckled.
Felonious Dark Two and the top-hatted scientist sat on the porch of the House of Spooks, drinking celebratory mocktails.
‘This mocktail is scrumptious,’ Felonious Dark Two said as he took a slurp.
‘The secret ingredient,’ the top-hatted scientist said, chinking his glass with Felonious Dark Two’s, ‘is evilness.’
‘Ahhh,’ said Felonious Dark Two. ‘And here I was thinking it was cinnamon.’
Trucks full of scientific apparatus were rolling into town in a rumbling line. The top-hatted scientist was about to commence his experiments. He was going to extract the weirdness from everything in the town, starting with the Kindle family’s invisibility. He had a lot of other plans too, and one of them involved the Tuggenmeisters’ inter-dimensional letterbox, which existed in every dimension simultaneously. You could put a letter in it and it would be read by an alternative version of yourself in an alternative dimension, and your other self could send you a letter back before you’d even posted the first letter. The top-hatted scientist was sure if he could open a portal to this other dimension, then he could rule the world, or become insanely rich.
The top-hatted scientist took in a deep satisfying lungful of air. ‘With all the residents of Huggabie Falls scared out of town, no one can get in the way of my experiments to extract all the weirdness in Huggabie Falls. And I will become the most rich and powerful person in the world.’
He saw Felonious Dark Two raise an agitated eyebrow at him.
‘Errr,’ the top-hatted scientist said. ‘I mean we will become the most rich and powerful people in the world.’
Felonious Dark Two smiled. He was already planning on pushing the top-hatted scientist into the other dimension, and closing the portal behind him, as soon as possible.
‘So, Felonious,’ the top-hatted scientist said. ‘We have officially won. If someone was writing a book about all my adventures, then this glorious moment would be the end of it.’
But the top-hatted scientist should know, as all good storytellers know, that a story is never over until the words ‘the end’ appear. Felonious Dark Two must have known this, and he must also have known it is dangerous to tempt fate by saying things like ‘We have officially won’, because he lowered his agitated eyebrow and raised his mocking eyebrow, and said, ‘You know it’s dangerous to tempt fate by saying things like that.’
The top-hatted scientist laughed so hard a bit of mocktail came shooting out of his nose. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dark Two. It’s not like everyone in town is going to make friends with their greatest fears and come back to get—hey, what’s that?’
The top-hatted scientist stood up, squinting down the road. Felonious Dark Two stood up too. A huge crowd was marching along Digmont Drive towards the House of Spooks, a crowd containing Huggabie Falls residents, arm-in-arm with their greatest fears.
The top-hatted scientist gulped as he turned to Felonious Dark Two. ‘Don’t even think about saying, “I told you so”.’
Felonious Dark Two looked back at the top-hatted scientist. ‘Actually,’ he said. ‘There’s never been a better time to say, “I told you so”.’
Felonious Dark Two was wrong, by the way, when he said there’s never been a better time to say, ‘I told you so’.
The absolute best time to say I told you so was officially recorded ten years earlier. It had started when Huggabie Falls resident Meta Morphosis was tipping time crystals down the kitchen sink and his wife, Merida, told him she didn’t think that was a good idea.
Some readers out there might be wondering what time crystals are. Put quite simply, they are crystals made up of time, and now that we’ve cleared that up, can we get on with the story, please?
Yes?
Good. It seems the time crystals mixed with some lemonade (which coincidentally is how Lemonade Limmer got her name) that had been tipped down the sink. The combination of time crystals and fizzy drink caused a rift in the time–space continuum, and, long story short, Meta and Merida spent the next three hundred and sixty-five days as French peasants during the French Revolution, in the late seventeen-hundreds. On the three hundred and sixty-fifth day, they were convicted of being sorcerers because of their digital watches and were being led up to the guillotine for execution. If you don’t know what a guillotine is, then I’m afraid I can’t tell you in a children’s book. You’ll have to ask your parents, but don’t tell them why you are asking, or where you heard about it, because I don’t want to get angry letters about it.
So, as Meta and Merida were being led up to the guillotine, Merida said, ‘I told you so.’
Luckily for Meta and Merida, just as the blade of the guillotine dropped towards Meta’s neck, the lemonade in their kitchen sink finally went flat and they were instantly transported back to Huggabie Falls in the current time. The only injury Meta sustained was that one of the hairs on the back of his neck was sliced perfectly in half. But even so, while they were walking up to the guillotine, Merida had said, ‘Meta, putting those time crystals down the sink was definitely not a good idea. I told you so.’ And that was officially the absolute best moment to say ‘I told you so’ in the history of the universe. What’s more, the time crystals were still moving down the drain, and were about to collide with an un-popped party popper next, which was going to send Meta and Merida forty-four thousand, nine hundred and eighteen years into the future.
Actually, when Felonious Dark Two said, ‘There’s never been a better time to say I told you so’—as the residents of Huggabie Falls were marching down the street arm-in-arm with their greatest fears—it was actually only the one thousand, four hundred and fifty-seventh best time to say ‘I told you so’. But it didn’t really matter, because the top-hatted scie
ntist hadn’t stuck around to hear it. He had dashed back into the House of Spooks and into the secret lab, leaving Felonious Dark Two to face the people of Huggabie Falls and their greatest fears alone.
Felonious Dark Two fixed his eyes on his brother, who was walking beside a rather threadbare teddy bear, a teddy bear that was cracking its knuckles. This confused Felonious Dark Two, as he didn’t know teddy bears had knuckles, but he wasn’t about to spend any time wondering about teddy-bear anatomy just then; he was more concerned that his three-fewer-letters-in-his-name brother was about to challenge him.
A large group of lab-coated scientists came running out of the House of Spooks. They obviously worked for the top-hatted scientist, who must have sent them out to fight off the people of Huggabie Falls and their greatest fears.
Felonious Dark Two looked at the scientists running out of the House of Spooks and held up a flat hand in a stop motion. ‘Let’s get them,’ he said. ‘Just as soon as I finish my mocktail—it’s extremely tasty.’
Cymphany watched all this as she led the crowd of Huggabie Falls residents and their greatest fears, with Tobias, Brussels Sprout, Felonious Dark, Mr Puddles and Bugsplatter right behind her. ‘The top-hatted scientist just ran back into the House of Spooks,’ Cymphany said. ‘And Mr Dark Two and a large group of rather evil-looking scientists are running towards us.’
Brussels Sprout raised a leafy, annoyed eyebrow at her. ‘Aye. We can see that, Miss Obvious. We’re lookin’ at exactly da same thing that ye are.’
Cymphany smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry. That’s a thing I do—provide commentary. Come on,’ she said, urging Tobias and Brussels Sprout to jump onto Bugsplatter’s back, as Bugsplatter spread her wings ready for takeoff. ‘We’ll fly into the House of Spooks, deal with the top-hatted scientist and then save Kipp and his family and Conrad Creeps. Mr Dark, you and everyone else can deal with your brother and the lab-coated scientists.’
Felonious Dark looked at Felonious Dark Two and the scientists running towards them. He gulped. ‘I guess. But what if having three extra letters in his name really does make him better than me?’