by Adam Cece
Felonious Dark One had initially struggled and strained trying to wriggle his thumb free from under Felonious Dark Two’s thumb, but now he had given up and he hung his head and waited for the inevitable final count.
Felonious Dark Two cleared his throat. ‘Well there is only one thing left to do,’ he said. ‘One more word for me to say. It contains five letters.’
Felonious Dark One counted in his head. Oh, drat, he thought. Surrender has nine letters.
Felonious Dark Two opened his mouth and prepared to say the five-letter word that would end it all. And there was nothing Felonious Dark One could do about it.
Back in the House of Spooks the hard-light laser-shooting hairdryer things were finishing the final part of the unbelievably scary, unbelievably big creature the electronic-capped scientist was imagining.
Kipp, Cymphany, Brussels Sprout, Kaedy and Kipp’s parents were huddled together and watching in complete terror. Bugsplatter, who had recently fainted, was just lying there. Tobias still hadn’t come back, and if he was getting more free popcorn, then Kipp and Cymphany hoped he was bringing back enough for everyone.
The hard-light-hologram-generation machine’s lasers had almost completed the unbelievably scary creature, when a voice from the side of the room said, ‘Excuse me.’
They all looked at the owner of the voice. Even the electronic-capped scientist opened his eyes and looked.
It was Tobias, and he was standing with Gertrude, Felonious Dark One’s receptionist.
‘What do you want?’ the electronic-capped scientist snapped. ‘I’m about to finish making this unbelievably scary creature, and I’d appreciate a bit of shush.’
‘Gertrude wants to show you something she’s been practising,’ Tobias said. ‘Don’t you Gertrude?’
Gertrude nodded.
The electronic-capped scientist looked thoroughly annoyed. ‘Can’t it wait?’
Gertrude shrugged. ‘It won’t take a moment. I just wanted to show you this.’ She sucked in the biggest, deepest breath, and she began to contort her face with trembling effort. Her lips flattened and stretched out sideways, forming a line. Then she clenched her fists while she lifted the edges of her mouth with her neck muscles, driving the thin line of her mouth into a U-shape. Sweat streamed down her face as she prised her lips apart to expose two rows of clenched teeth.
She was smiling. And she looked quite proud of her smile, even as her head shivered and shook and her whole body started to spasm with the effort of holding her facial muscles in place.
The electronic-capped scientist’s eyes widened with shock and he began to shake with fear. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.’
And as he stared at Gertrude, he didn’t notice that the electronic cap had started beeping and flashing wildly and the unbelievably scary creature the hard-light-hologram-generation machine’s lasers had been creating had evaporated. Now the machine’s laser-shooting hairdryer things were buzzing into action, as if forming something new. And that something was what the electronic-capped scientist was now seeing, which was the terrifying sight of Gertrude smiling.
The lasers whirred all over the place, but they weren’t forming anything. They started to jolt and fizz and spark, and smoke began to stream from the terminals around the platform. The hard-light-hologram-generation machine’s humming was super loud now. If it had sounded like a jet plane taking off before, it sounded like a fleet of jet planes taking off now, with a fleet of space shuttles warming up behind them.
Then one of the computer terminals exploded. The hairdryer things sizzled. And the machine roared even louder.
The electronic-capped scientist spun around. ‘No!’ he screamed. He had just realised what was happening. ‘It must not create a hard-light hologram of that hideous smiling woman!’ He climbed down from the platform and ran to the machine. ‘She’s way too terrifying.’
Gertrude’s smile turned into a frown. ‘Excuse me!’ she said, looking very offended.
Cymphany and Kipp ran over to Tobias, and Cymphany wrapped him in a hug. ‘Brilliant work, Tobias. You’re amazing.’
Tobias blushed. ‘It was nothing. I just figured that if the top-hatted scientist saw something even scarier than anything he could possibly imagine he’d be too scared to continue with his evil plan. And I immediately thought of Gertrude. No offence, Gertrude.’
Gertrude twitched with surprise. ‘Hang on. My smile is scary? I thought it was quite fetching.’
Cymphany grinned. ‘It’s great, Gertrude.’
Gertrude looked relieved. ‘Would you like to see it again?’
‘No, thanks all the same,’ Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany said in perfect unison.
Cymphany turned back to Tobias and grinned. ‘I thought I was the only one who came up with brilliant plans.’
‘Well, now it’s my turn,’ Kipp said. ‘And my plan is we’d better get out of here, because I think the hard-light-hologram-generation machine is about to explode.’
Cymphany looked alarmed. ‘Let’s go. Run.’
‘Eh, yes, run,’ Brussels Sprout said, shaking Bugsplatter awake.
‘Mum? Dad? Kaedy?’ Are you guys still here?’ Kipp asked as he heard them running down the hall. Kaedy looked like she was flying, but she was actually being piggybacked by—judging by the height—Kipp’s dad. ‘We’ll get Conrad and get out of here,’ Kipp’s mum’s voice shouted back.
The electronic-capped scientist was scrambling around the hard-light-hologram-generation machine, tapping madly at the consoles, but it wasn’t doing much good as the consoles were on fire. ‘Not my machine,’ he screamed. ‘Not my beautiful machine. Please, don’t blow up,’ he cried as he gripped the electronic cap and squeezed his eyes tight. ‘I’m thinking of a little puppy now,’ he said, although no one could hear him, because the machine was so loud you couldn’t hear anything except the noise of a machine about to explode, which sort of sounds like: Wwooooooollllllllllllllllnnnmmmmmmmmmmbeeooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany pulled the cap off the electronic-capped scientist’s head—making him now the bald scientist—and dragged him away from the machine.
‘My machine,’ the bald scientist cried, oblivious to the fact his machine was making I’m-about-to-blow-up noises. ‘If the machine is destroyed, all the scare balls will shut down and everyone’s greatest fears will evaporate.’
Cymphany looked fearfully at Bugsplatter. And initially Bugsplatter looked shocked too, but then her nineteen eyes met Cymphany’s two, and she nodded. ‘Well, you always knew I was just a hard-light hologram.’
Brussels Sprout nodded too, and chuckled. ‘Aye, Sprouts were nae meant ta last forever.’
‘It’s okay,’ the bald scientist said, although it was still impossible to hear him because the machine was even louder now. ‘That thinking-of-a-puppy-thing I was doing before, I think it worked. I don’t think the machine is going to explode now.’
And then the machine exploded.
Outside, Felonious Dark Two had managed to say, ‘Thre—’ which meant that he was one e away from winning the thumb war, when the hard-light-hologram-generation machine exploded, and the whole House of Spooks erupted in a giant explosion of wood and train tracks and smashed bits of hidden video cameras and shredded parts of warning signs, which scattered everywhere, and a wave of force knocked everyone off their feet.
Lying in front of the house, with bits of debris raining down all around them, were Cymphany, Kipp, Tobias, Kaedy, Conrad Creeps, the bald scientist, Bugsplatter, Gertrude and Brussels Sprout.
Kipp’s parents were there too, but you couldn’t see them—they were just two parent-shaped indentations on the grass.
They all got to their feet and ran clear of the still-crumbling remnants of the House of Spooks.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Cymphany said to Kipp and Tobias as they all looked back at what was left of the house, which wasn’t much. ‘Did we just foil the bald scientist’s plans?’
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Tobias nodded. ‘I think we did.’
Kipp chuckled. ‘Well that was easier than I expected.’
But right then, as the once top-hatted, then electronic-capped, and now bald scientist had predicted, the lights on top of the scare balls began to flicker, and the greatest fears of the people of Huggabie Falls began to fade. Within moments you could see straight through Bugsplatter.
‘No,’ Cymphany yelped. She tried to wrap her arms around her greatest fear, as if she could protect Bugsplatter from vanishing, but she passed straight through her.
Bugsplatter smiled, exposing her razor sharp teeth, which didn’t seem at all scary anymore. ‘Cheerio,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Cymphany, for being my first ever friend. See you in your nightmares.’ And then Bugsplatter evaporated in a small puff of hologram light. Right then, Cymphany became the first person in history to wish for her next nightmare to arrive as soon as possible.
And right beside where Bugsplatter had been a second ago, Brussels Sprout was almost gone too.
‘Bye, Brussels Sprout,’ Tobias said. ‘I’m glad we sorted out that I don’t want to eat you or any other Brussels sprouts.’
Brussels Sprout smiled. ‘Aye, but we’ll always have this.’ And he threw a grand piano at Tobias. Tobias leapt out of its path, but the grand piano evaporated mid-flight, and when Tobias looked back, Brussels Sprout was gone too.
Down the street, everyone’s greatest fears were disappearing, some giving their owners final hugs or shaking hands—if they were still solid enough to do so.
Mr Puddles was the last to disappear. He looked at Felonious Dark One, who still had his thumb pinned by Felonious Dark Two. Mr Puddles put his thumb up. ‘Don’t worry, Felonious,’ he said. ‘You’ll find a way.’
And then he was gone.
The residents of Huggabie Falls were picking up the inactive scare balls and examining them. They were finding it hard to believe that they ever contained anything scary.
Kipp was the only one not looking at a scare ball. He didn’t want anything reminding him that he was going to turn invisible one day.
He sighed. ‘It’s over.’
‘No,’ Felonious Dark Two corrected him. He still gripped Felonious Dark One’s hand and had Felonious Dark One’s thumb clamped down in an even more unbreakable grip than he had it clamped before. ‘I’ve still got a thumb war to win.’
Cymphany turned, confused. ‘But what does it matter now? We’ve won.’
Felonious Dark Two sniggered. ‘I’m afraid not, Ms Chan. Because if I win this thumb war, my inferior brother here’—he motioned to Felonious Dark One with his non-thumb-clamping hand, in case there was any confusion as to who his inferior brother was—‘promised that if he lost this thumb war the people of Huggabie Falls would leave forever.’
The bald scientist, who had been looking quite dejected up until this point—probably because his hard-light-hologram-generation machine had recently exploded—suddenly looked a lot happier. ‘Well done, Felonious Dark Two, you sly devil,’ he said.
Cymphany raised a furious eyebrow at Felonious Dark One. ‘Mr Dark! Why would you make a promise like that? With all the Huggabie Falls residents and their greatest fears with us, we had your brother and the lab-coated scientists completely outnumbered. There was no way we were not going to win this battle. So why would you bet we would all leave Huggabie Falls over a thumb war?’
There was a long pause. All the residents, who were already upset at having lost their greatest fears, now looked even more upset at Felonious Dark One. They were probably all thinking what I am thinking, which is: why would someone so obviously terrible at thumb wars make such a promise?
Felonious Dark One grimaced. ‘Well, in hindsight, now that you mention it, it does seem a bit foolish.’
Felonious Dark Two laughed. ‘Foolish is your middle name.’
Felonious Dark One recoiled. ‘Hey! It’s pronounced Full-ish.’
Felonious Dark Two shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter how it’s pronounced. You’re still going to lose. Now, I’ve lost my spot with my counting, so I’ll have to start again. One,’ he roared.
Cymphany looked desperately at Kipp. ‘Mr Dark is going to lose,’ she said. ‘This is terrible.’
‘Two,’ Felonious Dark Two bellowed.
‘Oh, goodie,’ the bald scientist said, and he clapped his hands in glee.
‘We’ve got to do something,’ Cymphany said to Kipp and Tobias.
‘I don’t know if we can,’ Kipp said.
Tobias looked similarly flummoxed. ‘I’m still getting over the fact that Mr Dark’s full name is Felonious Foolish Dark One.’
‘It’s pronounced Full-ish,’ Felonious Dark One called out. He was still trying to wrench his thumb free from his brother’s grip. But it was no good because the main characteristic of an unbreakable grip is its unbreakable-ness.
Felonious Dark Two opened his mouth to say three, and everyone knew that in a second it would be over.
At this point in the story, I’d like to point out that it’s moments like these that I wish I wasn’t writing a sequel to The Extremely Weird Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls. Because sequels are never as good as their originals, and this one certainly isn’t going to be, because the bad guys are going to win, and it’s all because of a silly thumb war and a foolish promise. It’s the sort of deplorable nonsense that only ever happens in sequels, which is exactly why people should never write them.
It’s obvious what’s going to happen, and you don’t want to waste time reading an obvious ending. All I can do is apologise. Just stop reading this book right now, take it back into the bookshop and ask if you can swap it for a book that has a ‘Good Guys Win Ending Guaranteed’ sticker on the front. That sounds much better.
To anyone who is still reading at this point. I can only assume you are a glutton for punishment, or you’re being forced to read this book as part of a school assignment. If so, I pity you, and you should pity me too, because I’m the one who has to write this tragic inevitable ending and endure the terrible reviews, like: ‘Why did he have to give the main villain character an unbreakable grip so that the good hero character had no chance of winning the day? This author really painted himself into a corner. What a klutz.’
Anyway, I suppose we’d better get on with it. The quicker I finish this, the quicker the pain will be over. Just like ripping off a bandaid, which I never do, by the way. It’s too painful. But that means I have bandaids on my knees that have been there for more than twenty years.
Now, where was I. Oh, yes, the horrid ending.
Once again, Felonious Dark Two didn’t say the final count, ‘three’, straightaway. He was a big fan of extended gloating, it seemed.
‘You are so pathetic,’ he said to Felonious Dark One, who had lowered his head in shame. ‘You could never beat me. You never have, and you never will.’ Felonious Dark Two laughed. ‘I can’t believe you’ve started calling yourself Felonious Dark One. What were you thinking? What difference does a few puny letters make? They’re just letters.’
And right then Felonious Dark One’s left eye twitched, and he looked up. ‘You’re right,’ he said.
Felonious Dark Two stopped laughing and looked at Felonious Dark One. ‘What?’ he said.
And then the weirdest thing happened. In his moment of absolute defeat, Felonious Dark One lifted his head high, and he said, ‘You’re absolutely right.’
Felonious Dark Two was confused.
So were Cymphany, Kipp and Tobias.
‘I’m confused,’ Cymphany said.
‘Me too,’ said Kipp.
‘Felonious Foolish Dark One,’ Tobias said. ‘Is no one else flabbergasted at how funny that is?’
But Felonious Dark One didn’t look foolish right then. He looked confident.
‘You’re totally right, brother,’ he said, standing up straight. ‘A few extra letters in a name doesn’t make me better than you. Nor does it make you better than me.’
&nbs
p; Then there was a crunching noise. It took everyone a moment to work out what it was. It was Felonious Dark One gripping Felonious Dark Two’s fingers so tight that Felonious Dark Two’s bones started to crack. Felonious Dark Two yelped in pain, and his thumb flew up as he tried to wriggle his hand out of Felonious Dark One’s crushing grip.
But no sooner had Felonious Dark Two lifted his thumb than Felonious Dark One’s thumb launched forward and flattened Felonious Dark Two’s thumb in an unbreakable grip. Felonious Dark Two stared at the situation, as though he couldn’t believe it was happening.
But Felonious Dark One could believe it, and he didn’t waste any time gloating. He calmly counted, ‘One. Two. Three.’
Cymphany, Kipp and Tobias stared in absolute amazement, and so did the residents of Huggabie Falls. They started clapping and cheering, because Felonious Dark One had won, which meant they could all stay in Huggabie Falls.
The bald scientist looked horrified. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said. ‘We lost. We lost! This couldn’t get any worse.’
Remember what I said at the beginning of this story about tempting fate? Well, the bald scientist was about to learn that lesson, again, because no sooner had he said, ‘this couldn’t possibly get any worse’, than a piece of a warning sign—which had been launched into the air when the House of Spooks exploded, and had obviously been launched very high, because it had taken quite some time to come down again—came down. Right on top of the bald scientist’s head, knocking him out.
To anyone who followed my advice in the last chapter and stopped reading this book, I would like to humbly apologise, because that chapter didn’t turn out anywhere near as bad as I predicted it would. I’m fact it turned out pretty flipping fantastic.