by Adam Cece
Ug jumped. ‘That’s almost exactly right. How did you know that?’
Kipp smirked. ‘Just a lucky guess.’
‘I’ll say it’s lucky,’ Ug said. ‘The chances of randomly guessing that are one in six million three hundred and fifty-five thousand four hundred and eighty-seven point seven five nine two. The only bit you got wrong, is they said that the thing was nebulous.’
‘Ah, ha,’ Tobias said enthusiastically. ‘At last someone has described it.’
Tobias’s excitement soon evaporated when he noticed everyone else was staring at him.
He sighed. ‘Does nebulous means indescribable?’
‘Actually,’ said Ug, jumping in before Cymphany could, which she looked quite disappointed about, ‘it means not clear enough to describe.’
Kipp crossed his arms. ‘Either way, we’re back where we started. This thing sounds completely indescribable.’
‘I’d say utterly indescribable,’ Ug said. ‘I think it sounds better.’
And I agree with Ug. I think utterly does sound better. I’m going to call this book The Utterly Indescribable Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls now. The title I had been thinking of up till this point was The Fully Astoundingly Altogether Don’t-Even-Try-It-Will-Just-Lead-To-Disappointment Ludicrously Indescribable Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls. But now that I think about it, that title is a tad long.
Anyway, where was I? Ah, that’s right, with the mention of the utterly indescribable thing that had been shown to yet another three Huggabie Falls residents, Ug looked dreamily into the air. ‘I wonder if it’s true,’ he said. ‘Maybe if everyone is moving to Near Huggabie Falls, my family should too. I hope we’re not too late, the second and final house sales are probably already complete. If Near Huggabie Falls is as great as everyone is saying perhaps the Near Huggabie Falls Primary School has a maths test every day, maybe even twice a day.’
‘This is getting serious,’ Cymphany whispered behind her hand to Tobias and Kipp. ‘Now Ug sounds like he wants to move to Near Huggabie Falls, and he hasn’t even seen the utterly indescribable thing.’
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany couldn’t discuss it any further right then, as they needed to get back to their desks. And lucky they did, because a second later Mrs Turgan swept back into class, blender in hand, and began whistling merrily as she started making what she thought was school-board pineapple juice.
‘Even though this thing is supposedly utterly indescribable,’ Cymphany said, keeping her voice quiet as Mrs Turgan whirred the blender into action, ‘I still think if we can find someone who’s seen it, they could tell us something about it. Surely, nothing is truly indescribable.’
‘But who?’ Tobias asked. ‘Mr Haurik? Felonious Dark?’
Kipp was already shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This isn’t like anything we’ve ever encountered before. This time we need someone special.’
Cymphany and Tobias looked at each other, confused. They had absolutely no idea who Kipp was talking about, and neither do I. I’m not good with surprises, so I’m going to end this chapter right now, so we can get to the next chapter and find out.
After school Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany walked along Digmont Drive, across Digmont Drive and up along a small alley that was called—you guessed it— Frobisher Lane. No, just kidding. It was called Digmont Drive.
They reached a small stone cottage, with an overgrown garden around it. The cottage was dilapidated and run down, like no one had lived in it for years, but down a cobblestone path at the back of the garden was a small office, which was the opposite of dilapidated, so I guess it was lapidated. And it was surrounded by glorious well-tended rose and geranium bushes.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany stood at the door of this office and looked at each other.
‘I’ve heard he hasn’t come out in years,’ Cymphany said.
Kipp’s brow creased. ‘He must have. How does he eat?’
Tobias shared Cymphany’s look of concern. ‘But I’ve definitely heard he doesn’t like visitors. I mean look at that mat.’
They all looked down. On the doorstep was an ‘unwelcome mat’.
‘Look,’ Kipp said. ‘It doesn’t matter. We have to try. He could be the only one who can help us.’ And he stepped on the unwelcome mat and knocked on the door.
Apologies, I’ll have to stop writing the story at this point, as someone has just knocked on my door.
Oh dear, I think I have just worked out what is going on. Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany have come to visit me, in my little lapidated office down the back of my garden. I’m not sure how this could have happened, but it is highly irregular. Authors are merely observers, with no physical presence in their books. If I open the door I’ll be in the story, and who knows what might happen.
Hang on, I know what to do: I will write a note.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany waited a moment and then Kipp knocked again. Tobias leaned forward. ‘I think I can hear someone scribbling in there.’
A second later a note slid under the door.
Cymphany picked it up. ‘It says, “Go away. No one home.”’
Tobias frowned. ‘But if there’s no one home, who wrote the note?’
Okay, this is an emergency. These kids have totally outsmarted me, and, what’s worse, they are knocking again. Why couldn’t they have just gone to see Mr Haurik or Felonious Dark?
I’ll have to do something drastic. And this is not something I would recommend any other authors do. But I cannot be in this adventure. I deliberately moved seventeen centimetres outside Huggabie Falls town limits so none of the events or adventures that happen in Huggabie Falls would involve me. Adventures are too dangerous for me. But, it just so happens someone had told me something about the utterly indescribable thing that was happening in Huggabie Falls. And what I am about to do next, I’m not proud of it, so let’s never speak of it again.
‘Maybe we should come back later,’ Kipp suggested.
Tobias looked really confused now. ‘But I thought you said he never went out. And I definitely heard a pencil scribbling, which I’m reasonably confident was to write this note’—he held up the note he had taken from Cymphany—‘trying to deceive us by saying no one is here.’
At that moment, another note slid under the door and onto the unwelcome mat. Cymphany, who seemed to be the designated note picker-upper, picked it up. ‘It says,’ she read, ‘“Truman Trotter”.’
Kipp and Tobias gawked at each other. ‘Who is Truman Trotter?’ they said in unison.
Cymphany smiled with the smile of someone who particularly enjoys knowing things when others don’t. ‘Don’t you remember? He was a member of the Dinosaur Fearers Anonymous group, the DFA, who got swallowed by the T-Rex that was generated by a scare ball. You do remember the T-Rex, don’t you?’
Tobias and Kipp didn’t have to think about it very long. ‘Yes,’ Tobias said dryly, ‘A T-Rex rampaging through town, eating people and almost eating us, is not the sort of thing you forget in a hurry.’
You may remember that Truman Trotter was a minor character in the last Huggabie Falls book. He was swallowed by a Tyrannosaurus Rex and ended up escaping. He left town to become a quilt maker, as he thought it was less dangerous, but, as we all know, quilt making is actually a very dangerous activity, so he soon came back. He was a minor character who was going to be a major character in a future book. Because of this fact, I didn’t want him to be in this book, but then Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany came knocking at my door—completely ignoring my unwelcome mat—and so I was left with no choice.
‘Well,’ Kipp said, as they walked past the dilapidated cottage and out the rusty front gate. ‘I guess if he isn’t going to open his door, then we’ll have to find Truman Trotter. He’s the only clue we’ve got.’
‘Why do they even call him the author?’ Tobias asked, peering back down the path at the lapidated office, where he saw a curtain twitch in the window.
‘Apparently he knows about everything that’s eve
r happened in Huggabie Falls,’ Cymphany said. ‘Apparently he’s even written some books about it. I say apparently because I’ve never seen them in any bookshops.’ She stopped. ‘Has anyone else noticed I’ve started saying the word apparently a lot?’
Kipp smiled. ‘Come on. Let’s go and visit Truman Trotter.’
And I can breathe a sigh of relief, because Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany have left, and I have avoided being part of this adventure. But at the same time I am utterly devastated to learn that Cymphany has never seen any of my books in any bookshops. But there’s no time to think about that now. We need to get back to the story.
As Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany left, a pair of eyes were watching them from behind a nearby rubbish bin. And as they reached the end of the street, a man slunk after them, in the sneaky suspicious way people do when they are up to no good.
After their unusual experience with the mysterious and elusive author, Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany made their way to Truman Trotter’s house, which was surrounded by ten-metre-high dinosaur-proof fencing.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany stood and stared at the ten-metre-high electronic security gates at the front of the Trotter compound.
‘Somebody should tell Truman Trotter,’ Cymphany said, ‘that dinosaurs are extinct.’
Tobias glanced at the road behind them.
‘Why do you keep doing that, Tobias?’ Kipp asked. ‘You’ve been doing that all the way over here?’
‘I think—’ Tobias said.
‘Someone is following us,’ Cymphany completed his sentence. ‘Yes, someone is, and he isn’t doing a very good job of keeping himself hidden.’ Cymphany turned around. ‘You can come out now, Mr Dark.’
After a few moments, Felonious Dark sheepishly stepped out from behind a bush.
‘Mr Dark?’ Kipp said. ‘Why are you hiding from us? We’re friends now. And you’re a reformed evil person.’
Felonious Dark brushed twigs off his pinstriped suit and shrugged. ‘Old habits die hard, I guess. And I don’t know how non-evil people get about.’
Tobias smiled. ‘They just walk, on the footpath.’
‘Really?’ Felonious Dark said. ‘That’s a bit odd. They don’t dive behind rubbish bins or disguise themselves as fire hydrants?’
‘No, Mr Dark.’ Cymphany laughed. ‘They just walk around. If we had known you wanted to walk with us, you could have shared the chocolate chip cookies I have in my satchel.’
Felonious Dark looked guilty. ‘Actually, I stole those while you were waiting at the traffic crossing back there, while I was disguised as a discarded chip packet. I’m sorry. I’m still trying to get the hang of this not-evil thing.’
Kipp put up his hands. ‘It doesn’t matter, Mr Dark. Are you here to see Truman Trotter as well? We got his name when we visited the author.’
Felonious Dark rolled his eyes. ‘That weirdo. I tried to visit him once. He just kept slipping notes under his door telling me no one was home, and that the noise that sounded like a vase being knocked off a table was actually nothing at all. I mean how dumb does he think I am? That was certainly a vase being knocked off a table.’
‘Well he gave us this note,’ Cymphany said, showing Felonious Dark the note.
‘Hey, that note has got my name on it,’ said Truman Trotter.
Kipp, Tobias, Cymphany and Felonious Dark all spun around to see Truman Trotter standing beside them.
Truman Trotter was a short, curly haired man with a sharp nose, and he was wearing a wetsuit, goggles, flippers and scuba tanks. He also had two suitcases beside him.
‘Mr Trotter,’ Cymphany said. ‘When did you come out?’
‘Just now,’ Truman Trotter said. ‘I’m actually on my way out for good. Have you heard, there’s a place to live that is sooooooooooo much better than Huggabie Falls. And you’ll never guess—’
‘Let me guess,’ said Kipp, ‘It’s Near Huggabie Falls? You saw something indescribable that convinced you it’s now the greatest town on Earth—way better than Huggabie Falls—so you bought a house in either the first or second final move-in-immediately-very-last-chance-no-more-houses-available-after-this-sale sale.’
Truman’s face filled with awe. ‘Did you really guess that, because the chances of randomly guessing that are one in six million three hundred and fifty-five thousand four hundred and eighty-seven point seven five nine two.’
Cymphany looked perplexed. ‘Is that a common statistic, because everyone else seems to know it except us.’
Truman laughed. ‘The only part you got wrong is I bought a house in the third and most definitely final move-in-immediately-very-last-chance-no-more-houses-available-after-this-sale sale. The real estate agent assured me, this third sale really was the last sale. And trust me, if you’d seen what I’d seen, you’d understand. Near Huggabie Falls is a million times better than Huggabie Falls.’
Tobias and Cymphany were about to ask further questions, when Kipp said, ‘But Mr Trotter, if you’re moving to Near Huggabie Falls, why are you wearing all this.’ He gestured to the tanks and flippers. ‘Apart from the suitcases, you look like you’re going deep-sea diving.’
Truman shook his head. ‘Oh, no. Ever since I was’—he shivered—‘swallowed by the Tyrannosaurus Rex, I always wear this outfit. You never know when you might be swallowed again. I need to be prepared. By the way, do you know anyone who wants to buy a house with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a walk-in wardrobe and ten-metre-high dinosaur-proof fences?’
Cymphany stepped forward. ‘Mr Trotter, we think you’ve been tricked. How can you be convinced Near Huggabie Falls is the greatest town on Earth now? What was this thing that you saw?’
‘The thing?’ Truman said, already shaking his head. ‘I can’t—’
‘Describe it,’ Cymphany said quickly. ‘Yes, yes. Everyone has been saying that, but really Mr Trotter, you have to try. You must be able to tell us something about it.’
‘No time,’ Truman Trotter said, pulling his goggles down over his face and picking up his suitcases. ‘I’m catching a submarine in two minutes. My new house contract in Near Huggabie Falls says I had to move in within two hours, or my house will be sold to someone else. Did you know, submarines are the most dinosaur-attack-proof way to travel?’
And with this Truman Trotter began walking briskly along Digmont Drive. But Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany didn’t give up—they toddled along beside him, so too did Felonious Dark (although he was now disguised as a pram). Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany peppered Truman Trotter with questions.
‘Well, if you can’t describe the thing,’ said Cymphany, ‘can you describe what it isn’t?’
Truman Trotter thought about this, but he didn’t stop walking. ‘I’m not sure if that will do any good.’
‘At least try,’ Kipp said desperately. ‘Was it big?’
Truman shook his head. ‘No, no. Not big at all.’
‘Was it small then?’
‘I wouldn’t say it was small.’
‘Wait,’ Kipp said. ‘So it was somewhere between big and small then? Was it medium sized?’
‘No, definitely not medium sized,’ Truman Trotter said, checking his watch, which had the words ‘dinosaur-stomach-acid-proof’ around the face.
‘Hang on, Mr Trotter,’ Cymphany said. ‘If this thing wasn’t small or big or medium sized, what size was it?’
Truman slowed his walking, but then quickened again. ‘Actually, I’m not sure it had any size.’
‘How can something not have a size?’ Cymphany said, with a frustrated tinge in her voice. ‘Did it have a shape?’
‘Not really.’
‘A colour?’
‘Is non-distinct a colour?’
Cymphany’s eyebrows formed a V-shape. ‘No.’
‘Then no, it didn’t have a colour.’
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany had so many more questions, but Truman Trotter held up his hand. ‘Look.’ He stopped. ‘I’d like to help you—by the way, where did that pram come from?—I really would
. But this thing had no size or shape or colour, or weight or even a smell. It had no defining characteristics at all. But as soon as I saw it, I just knew Near Huggabie Falls was the greatest town in the world, and when I found out I still had a chance to get a house there, I just had to grab the opportunity. Imagine if I’d missed out!’
‘Yes, imagine that,’ Cymphany said, shooting a look at Kipp and Tobias.
They arrived at the Huggabie Falls submarine station to find passengers, a lot of passengers, boarding a submarine. They were all wearing T-shirts that said things like ‘I wish Huggabie Falls wasn’t just near Huggabie Falls, but was Near Huggabie Falls’ and ‘Near Huggabie Falls, it’s no longer just near Huggabie Falls, it’s now also near perfection’ and ‘Near Huggabie Falls, if you’re in Huggabie Falls, then you’re nearly there’.
‘Wow,’ Cymphany said. ‘Those T-shirts are really confusing. But one thing is certain. This utterly indescribable thing is spreading fast.’
But they still didn’t know what the utterly indescribably thing was, and their only lead, Truman Trotter, was now boarding a submarine.
Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany, and Felonious Dark, who was still disguised as a pram, tried to ask Truman Trotter more questions as he bought his ticket, checked his waterproof baggage, and stepped up to the boarding plank, but this just seemed to annoy Truman, who kept saying it was pointless trying to describe an utterly indescribable thing, and he was in an awful hurry because he didn’t want to miss out on his new house in Near Huggabie Falls.
‘Are we just going to let him go?’ Tobias said at last. ‘We’re no closer to finding out anything about the utterly indescribable thing.’
‘I don’t know what else we can ask him.’ Kipp put his hands out. ‘Maybe this thing really is indescribable?’
Truman Trotter had reached the other side of the boarding plank and was descending the ladder into the submarine. His head had just disappeared into the submarine, when Cymphany clicked her fingers. ‘Oh, I almost forgot to ask one question,’ she said. ‘Mr Trotter,’ she called out. ‘Please. One more question.’