by Adam Cece
Of course anyone who followed my advice in the last chapter wouldn’t be reading this chapter now, and therefore wouldn’t be reading my apology. They would be up to about chapter three in a book with a ‘Good Guys Win Ending Guaranteed’ sticker on the front, so they are probably having a wow of a time but, still, it’s a shame that they missed out, and I feel partially responsible. In fact, I feel totally responsible. But you’re still here, so well done you for not following my advice. The advice adults give is not always correct, in fact, it is only correct approximately sixty-two per cent of the time.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany had won the day, along with some help from their greatest fears, which they were no longer so terrified of, not to mention Felonious Dark One and his receptionist, Gertrude.
The residents of Huggabie Falls took their now-inactive scare balls home and put them on their mantelpieces, or in their safes or on their bedside tables, and hoped that one day they might find a way to reactivate them.
And the next day the mayor of Huggabie Falls presented Kipp, Tobias, Cymphany, Felonious Dark One and Gertrude with keys to the city.
Now, usually when keys to the city are presented, they are just ceremonial items, but in Huggabie Falls’ case, these were actual keys to the city. They unlocked every single door, gate, padlock and secret diary in the whole of Huggabie Falls—so they were very handy bits of moulded metal indeed.
At the key presentation ceremony, there was much photo-snapping and much shaking of hands, and Gertrude did a bit more smiling—which made some of the Huggabie Falls residents think about leaving town again. Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany’s parents kept saying how proud they were of their sons or, in Cymphany’s case, daughter or, as her father called her, My Little Princess, despite the fact that there was no royal ancestry in the Chan family tree, at least none that Cymphany had been able to find.
As Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany posed for photos for the Huggabie Falls Gazette, the mayor said, ‘Congratulations, children. Along with Mr Dark and Gertrude, you have saved Huggabie Falls, again. And I think this time was perhaps even more spectacular than the first time.’
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany looked at each other. ‘You know what?’ Kipp said through the clenched, unnatural smile he was putting on for the gazette’s photographer, which was a smile almost as unnatural-looking as Gertrude’s. ‘I think he’s right. This really was an amazing adventure. Perhaps even better than our first one.’
And as Kipp said this, I, as storyteller, was forced to sit back…
Sorry. While I was sitting back I was unable to reach the keyboard for a second there—I could only reach the full stop key, which is why I have all those full stops above.
I was sitting back for a moment to think about how Kipp was right.
It seems I was wrong about the bad guys winning in the last chapter, and I was wrong when I said readers should go and swap this book for another one, and now it seems I may also have been wrong that a sequel is never as good as the original.
But I’ll let you be the judge of that. Or, perhaps I’ll go and get the book assessed by a professional sequel assessor.
After the presentation by the mayor, Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany stood at the edge of the Huggabie Falls town square, where all the Huggabie Falls residents were celebrating. Even Conrad Creeps, who was no longer quite so scared of celebrations, was there. Cymphany rubbed her jaw. ‘My face hurts from smiling so much in all those photos,’ she said.
Kipp nodded. ‘I feel like my jaw is made out of concrete now,’ he said.
Tobias laughed. ‘I haven’t smiled this much since I found out Mr Dark’s full name was Felonious Foolish Dark One.’
‘Full-ish,’ Felonious Dark One corrected him as he walked up. But he didn’t look annoyed. He looked very happy. ‘Well done, kids,’ he said, and he shook their hands.
‘And well done to you, too, winning that thumb war, Mr Dark,’ Cymphany said. ‘Sorry, I mean, Mr Dark One.’
Felonious Dark held up his hand. ‘Please. Just call me Felonious Dark. No need to put the One on the end. Like my brother said’—he winked—‘a few extra letters doesn’t make any difference.’
Kipp nodded. ‘I guess your other brother, Al, doesn’t have to worry about his name now.’
Felonious Dark snorted. ‘Woah. Woah. I said a few extra letters doesn’t make any difference. I still wouldn’t want to be Al. I mean, just two letters. That poor sap.’
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany giggled. They were just happy things were back to normal or, in Huggabie Falls’s case, back to weird.
The Huggabie Falls police officer, Officer Snaildraw, was loading Felonious Dark Two, the bald scientist, who could now be called the handcuffed bald scientist, and all the other lab-coated scientists into a bus that had ‘Express to Huggabie Falls Prison’ painted on the side.
Kipp, Tobias, Cymphany and Felonious Dark watched in silence as the bus drove away.
Then Tobias looked thoughtfully at Felonious Dark and said, ‘Mr Dark, first you threatened this town, with the help of a creepy scientist—’
‘But now I’m reformed,’ interrupted Felonious Dark.
‘Yes,’ Tobias continued. ‘Which is great. But then your brother threatened this town, with the help of a top-hatted, then electronic-capped, then bald, and now handcuffed bald scientist.’
Felonious Dark looked back at him. ‘Yes. What’s your point?’
‘Well.’ Tobias bit his lip. ‘Your family seems to have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this town. I just hope that your other brother, Al, isn’t going to come to Huggabie Falls and cause trouble next.’
Kipp and Cymphany looked at each other, and you could tell they both shared Tobias’s concern. I shared their concern too, because while this sequel has amazingly broken all the rules of sequel quality and might even be better than the original—a fact which is soon to be confirmed by a qualified sequel assessor—third books in a series are, without exception, always complete garbage. And I wouldn’t write one even for two truckloads of money. Maybe… three. No, what I am saying, not even three. I have standards, you know.
But Felonious Dark didn’t seem worried. ‘C’mon kids.’ He chuckled. ‘Let’s go back to the party and celebrate.’ And as they followed him back, he added, ‘You don’t have to worry about Al. I’m sure he’ll never come to Huggabie Falls. And even if he did, he couldn’t possibly cause any trouble. I mean, how much trouble can a guy with a two-letter name cause?’
And if I was worried before, then I am even more worried now, and so should you be. As, by saying that, Felonious Dark showed that he had obviously not learnt the lesson that has been repeated again and again throughout this book—a lesson that I hope you readers have now learnt—which is that it is never a good idea to tempt fate.
The end.
The Huggabie Falls trilogy
The Extremely Weird Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls
The Unbelievably Scary Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls
The Utterly Indescribable Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls
Adam Cece lives in Adelaide with his family. He has always liked wondering about weird things, so he decided to write a book about a place where the very weirdest things happen. Then he decided to write a sequel.
adamcece.com
Andrew Weldon is a cartoonist based in Melbourne. He has written and illustrated several books for children.
andrewweldon.com
textpublishing.com.au
textpublishing.co.uk
The Text Publishing Company
Swann House, 22 William Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia
The Text Publishing Company (UK) Ltd
130 Wood Street, London EC2V 6DL, United Kingdom
Copyright © Adam Cece 2018.
The moral right of Adam Cece to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reprod
uced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
First published by The Text Publishing Company, 2018.
Book design by Imogen Stubbs.
Illustrations © Andrew Weldon.
Typeset by Text.
ISBN: 9781925773019 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925626964 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.