by Adam Cece
‘And,’ Tobias’s dad added, ‘nobody knows the Treachery family name in Near Huggabie Falls. We can go there and start a new non-treacherous life.’
‘Hang on,’ Cymphany said. ‘You’re going to stop lying, cheating, stealing and generally doing treacherous things?’
Tobias’s dad gasped. ‘Is that what non-treacherous means? Oh, well then no, we won’t be doing that. But at least we will be living in a new place, without debt collectors banging on the door—not for a while, anyway.’
‘I don’t want to move to Near Huggabie Falls,’ Tobias said to his dad. ‘Kipp, Cymphany and I are going to convince everyone that Near Huggabie Falls is not a better place to live than Huggabie Falls.’
‘There’s no place better than Near Huggabie Falls,’ Mr Treachery said. ‘The utterly indescribable thing convinced me of that. And everyone else. I mean, look around. Everyone is gone. They’re off having fun in a brilliant new town without us. We have to go too, immediately, or we’ll miss out.’
‘What about my parents, Mr Treachery?’ Kipp said. ‘And please don’t lie. Have they left town?’
Mr Treachery looked thoughtful. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen them. But I guess that’s not unusual. Now, come on, Tobias, in the car. I won’t wait another minute.’
‘You know,’ the crestfallen voice of Tish said from the back seat, ‘people actually die of boredom in Near Huggabie Falls.’
‘That’s what I was just saying,’ Cymphany said.
‘That’s not true anymore,’ Mr Treachery said. ‘Cymphany, I like you and Kipp. You have been wonderful friends to Tobias, which we really appreciate. Being part of this family, his life could have been really tough in Huggabie Falls without friends. But you haven’t seen the utterly indescribable thing. If you had seen it, you’d know Near Huggabie Falls is where you need to be.’
‘I highly doubt that,’ Cymphany rebutted, with all the confidence of a debating club champion three years in a row.
Mr Treachery growled. ‘It doesn’t matter. We are the adults, and more importantly, Tobias is a part of this family, and this family is moving—now. So, Tobias, you’re coming with us. This adventure is over, and, I’m happy to say, there won’t be any more adventures in Huggabie Falls.’
‘And certainly not in Near Huggabie Falls, that’s for sure,’ Tish shouted out. And she was right: Near Huggabie Falls had been voted the least likely place to have an adventure in the world, nineteen years running.
‘But Mr Treachery,’ Cymphany said. ‘This can’t be the end of this adventure. I don’t know how many adventures you’ve been part of, but we’ve been part of two big ones, three if you count this one—and generally the adventure is only over when the good guys win, which means we save the town. And generally there needs to be three of us to do that. In the first adventure we battled the extremely weird thing that happened in Huggabie Falls, and it was only because I worked out the piranhas hadn’t become weird and I threw chocolate chip cookies over the creepy scientist that we won. In the second adventure, we battled the unbelievably scary thing that happened in Huggabie Falls, and we only won because Tobias worked out that the only thing that would be too scary for the hard-light-hologram-generation machine to create was a scare-ball creature from Gertrude’s smile. So, you see, we need all three of us, as we never know which one is going to come up with the adventure-saving idea.’
‘To tell you the truth, Mr Treachery,’ Kipp added. ‘I was really hoping it would be me that works out how to save the day in this adventure, as I’m starting to get worried that I’m not pulling my weight in the saving-adventures department. But if I can’t, it will be really good to have Tobias and Cymphany around, as they have proven adventure-saving track records.’
Mr Treachery said nothing for a moment, but his eyes were sad, and Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany knew what he was going to say next before he even said it. ‘I’m sorry, children. The adventure is over. We’re leaving, and Tobias is coming with us. It’s time to say goodbye.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Cymphany said, hugging her friend. ‘Is this really the end?
‘It looks that way,’ said Kipp.
‘Hold on a second,’ Tobias said. ‘Kipp, I can’t see you. Your face. It’s gone.’
‘I’m totally invisible now,’ Kipp said softly. ‘Which is bad enough. But to make matters worse, my two best friends are leaving. Tobias, you right now, and Cymphany, your submarine departs in three minutes.’
‘How did you know that?’ Cymphany asked.
‘There’s a man over there,’ Kipp said, pointing, ‘holding a sign that says, the last submarine leaving Huggabie Falls departs in three minutes.’
‘Over where?’ said Tobias.
‘Oh sorry,’ Kipp said. ‘I forgot, you can’t see me pointing. No one will ever get to see me pointing ever again. I’ll have to get used to that. He’s behind you.’
Cymphany and Tobias turned and saw the man, who had now changed his sign to say ‘The last submarine is leaving Huggabie Falls in two minutes’.
Kipp and Cymphany said goodbye to Tobias with long hugs, and a few tears, although everyone was trying not to make matters worse by blubbing everywhere.
Tobias got in his family’s station wagon and drove away, and they couldn’t even wave a final wave to him through the back window as the station wagon was so loaded up with luggage.
Then Kipp walked with Cymphany over to the submarine station. ‘This is the worst,’ Cymphany said. ‘I’ll never find a best friend like you again.’
Then the submarine man announced the submarine was leaving and they needed to ‘chop chop’.
Cymphany boarded the submarine. And Kipp couldn’t wave a final wave to her either, because, as you probably know—and if you don’t know, you should really read a few more books about things—submarines travel underwater.
For a moment Kipp hoped his family was moving to Near Huggabie Falls as well. But, alas, he went home to find that his parents still there. It didn’t matter, though, because everyone else had left town, so they were the only ones left, and Al Dark had not been seen again, and Kipp never did find out what the utterly indescribable thing was. The only other being left in town was the super-cute goat Copernicus, who moved in with the Kindles and continued working on his theory that Huggabie Falls was the centre of the universe. If he was right and Huggabie Falls was the centre of the universe, it was a lonely centre.
Kipp lived with his invisible family and Copernicus, invisible and without his best friends, forever after.
The end.
Hello readers. The strangest thing happened today. It has been four years since I completed the final chapter of The Utterly Indescribable Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls. Of course, I was very upset at the way the story finished, but, as you know, I have no control over these things. I was so upset that I put the book away in my bottom drawer and tried to forget all about it.
I have lived a fairly reclusive life since then. I mean I lived a pretty reclusive life before, hardly ever leaving my lapidated garden office, but I soon had to move from that garden office to an underground bunker. You see, people wanted the third Huggabie Falls book, desperately, and they got angry. Very angry. And they’d shout through my window, ‘Where’s the third Huggabie Falls book? You call yourself an author? Well, write something.’
I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the reason there wasn’t a third book was because Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany never found out what the utterly indescribable thing was.
Or, at least, so I thought.
But, as I was saying, the strangest thing happened today. I was in the supermarket, with my hat and sunglasses and a fake nose and moustache so people wouldn’t recognise me, when the woman next to me in the checkout line started chatting to me.
‘Wasn’t it wonderful what happened with the utterly indescribable thing that happened in Huggabie Falls?’ she said.
I gave the woman a strange look—which she probably couldn’t see b
ehind my sunglasses—because we obviously had very different ideas of what constituted wonderful.
‘What’s wonderful about it?’ I said. ‘Three best friends got split up, the best town ever got deserted because people got convinced by an utterly indescribable thing there was a better place to live, and Kipp Kindle was left friendless, invisible and lonely? It doesn’t sound wonderful to me, it sounds wonder-empty.’
Now it was her turn to give a strange look. ‘But that’s not what happened,’ she said. ‘Or that is what happened, initially, but what happened next was really amazing.’
I was so shocked, I ripped off my sunglasses. ‘What happened next? You mean that wasn’t the end of the story?’
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you the author who never wrote the third Huggabie Falls book?’
I put my sunglasses back on. ‘No, definitely not,’ I said. ‘But tell me, was there a different ending to that story?’
She laughed. ‘Of course there was.’ And then she proceeded to tell me what happened. And the permanent frown I’d had on my face for the last four years disappeared.
Kipp was devastated that Tobias and Cymphany had moved away and that he would never find out what the utterly indescribable thing was. His sister, Kaedy, wasn’t too happy either. ‘I can’t believe that irritating goat has moved in with us,’ she said as she stormed into the lounge room. ‘He’s so cute, he’s getting all the attention I used to get. I’m too upset to watch cartoons.’
Kipp, who had been staring forlornly at the floor and wondering what sort of fun his two best friends were having without him said, ‘Who’s that? Copernicus?’
Kaedy shot a look in his direction. ‘No, some other super-cute goat that just moved in—yes, of course I’m talking about Copernicus. Man, becoming invisible hasn’t made you any smarter.’ ‘Speaking of turning invisible,’ Kipp said. ‘You came into the room just now, and I was invisible.’
Kaedy blinked a few times. ‘Are we going to spend the rest of the afternoon saying completely obvious things?’
‘No, what I’m saying,’ Kipp said, ‘is how did you know I was in the room?’
Kaedy rolled her eyes. ‘We’ve been living together for a long time—too long if you ask me. I think I know by now when my brother is in the room.’
‘But, you can’t see me,’ Kipp said.
Kaedy let out a groan. ‘Yes, but I can hear you. Do you ever shut up? I’m trying to watch cartoons.’
‘I thought you were too upset to watch cartoons,’ Kipp said.
Kaedy stared in his direction like he’d just declared the world was made of jelly. ‘That is something I would never say,’ she said, and she picked up the remote control and turned on the TV.
They sat there for a while until Kaedy—her eyes now glued to the screen, where an animated chicken was lifting up a car with its wings—said, ‘It’s just a feeling that you’re in the room. It’s the same with Mum and Dad, I know they’re there, even though I can’t see them. Sometimes I even know when they’re looking at me, and smiling or not smiling. You don’t always have to see something to know it’s there.’
Kipp chuckled to himself. Just for a moment he didn’t feel so bad about being invisible.
‘It’s exactly like that utterly indescribable thing,’ Kaedy said.
Kipp sprung to his feet and stood in front of Kaedy. ‘What did you say?’ he asked.
‘Hey,’ Kaedy squealed. ‘You’re blocking the TV. I want to see what that chicken is going to lift next.’
‘Kaedy,’ Kipp said. ‘I can’t block the TV. I’m invisible.’
‘Yes, but I know you’re in the way. It distracts me.’
‘Kaedy!’ Kipp said. ‘What did you say about the utterly indescribable thing?’
Kaedy turned the TV off with a sharp jab of the remote control. ‘I hope you’re happy. I think that chicken was going to pick up the Eiffel Tower next. I mean, the Eiffel Tower. You don’t see that being lifted up every day.’
‘Kaedy, this is important.’
Kaedy sighed. ‘The utterly indescribable thing is not indescribable. It’s just invisible. That’s why that Al guy never showed it to us. Because invisible people can see invisible things.’
‘We can?’ Kipp said. He paused for a second, then raced into the kitchen.
His mouth dropped open. ‘Mum, Dad,’ he said. ‘I can see you.’
His parents, his beautiful, not invisible parents, were sitting at the kitchen table with Copernicus. Kipp’s mum and Copernicus were playing chess. As Kipp’s parents turned to him, Copernicus shifted a white pawn one square to the left.
Kipp’s mother smiled. ‘Oh good, that means your invisibility is finally complete.’
Kipp beamed, not taking his eyes off his parents. ‘You never told me that when I turned invisible I’d be able to see you.’
‘We thought it would be a nice surprise,’ Kipp’s dad said.
‘It’s not hard to work out,’ Kaedy said, appearing behind Kipp in the doorway. ‘If Mum and Dad couldn’t see each other then they’d keep bumping into each other all the time.’
‘I suppose,’ said Kipp slowly, surprised he’d never thought of this before.
Kipp’s mum took a brief glance at the chess board, then glared at Copernicus. ‘Copernicus, what did we say about cheating?’
Copernicus threw his adorable hooves out. ‘I would never—’
‘Copernicus.’
Copernicus slumped and sheepishly, or, rather goatishly, nudged the pawn back to the square it had been on.
Kipp was still looking amazed. ‘So you guys can see the utterly indescribable thing?’
Kipp’s mum nodded. ‘I saw it when that awful man was showing it to Mrs Bott down the street. Horrid thing it was. How that man managed to get invisible pamphlets inside that case I’ll never know.’
‘Pamphlets?’ Kipp said, bewildered. ‘There were pamphlets in the case?’
‘Invisible pamphlets,’ Kipp’s dad explained. ‘Promoting Near Huggabie Falls and all the new Near Huggabie Falls attractions that apparently make it the greatest town on Earth, along with articles about how Near Huggabie Falls is so popular now it’s near impossible to move there.’
Kipp’s mum nodded. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s all fake. I mean, isn’t Near Huggabie Falls awful?’
Kipp’s dad shuddered. ‘You realise people die of boredom there.’
‘Sounds terrible,’ Copernicus said, uninterested. ‘Are we going to finish this game of chess?’ Unbeknownst to everyone else, he had moved three more pieces, and he was now only one move away from declaring checkmate.
‘But, I don’t get it,’ said Kipp. ‘Why was the promotional material invisible? How did it work if no one could see it? And why didn’t it work on you guys? You still think Near Huggabie Falls is awful.’
‘Because visible marketing doesn’t really work,’ Kaedy said, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘That’s why I don’t think Al Dark wanted anyone in our family to see it. If you see a pamphlet that advertises some place is the best place ever, then you just think the people making the pamphlet made it up to try to get you to move there. But invisible marketing, where you don’t even see it, but the message sneaks into your subconscious—that works. And, even better than that, people start believing the invisible marketing and then tell their friends and family. That starts a tidal wave of people thinking that Near Huggabie Falls is the greatest place on Earth and that with only a limited time to move there they freaked out that they were going to miss out. But if anyone in our family saw the pamphlets—’
Kipp nodded. ‘We’d be able to tell people what was going on, and that they were being fooled, and people hate being fooled. By the way, speaking of being fooled, Copernicus is still cheating.’
Copernicus sat bolt upright, whipping his cute hoof away from the board. ‘No I’m not,’ he said. ‘That bishop fell over all by itself. I was just standing it back up again.’
Kipp spent the rest of th
e afternoon in his room, pacing back and forth, one hand massaging his chin with his thumb and forefinger.
He wished Cymphany and Tobias were here. Cymphany was good at coming up with plans, and Tobias was good at cracking lame jokes that made them all relax, which helped them all think up plans.
Al Dark’s invisible marketing had convinced everyone that Near Huggabie Falls was the greatest town on Earth, full of the world’s best attractions and that they’d miss out if they didn’t move there straightaway. Kipp had no idea how Al Dark had created invisible pamphlets and no idea what he was going to do about any of this now that everyone had moved to Near Huggabie Falls. But while he was thinking about it, Copernicus appeared at the doorway in a tiny vest, a sports jacket, a scarf and a stylish flat cap. Now he looked super-cute and fashionable.
‘I can tell you’re having trouble coming up with a plan,’ Copernicus said. ‘And I know there’s a lot of pressure on you, because Cymphany came up with a plan when the extremely weird thing happened in Huggabie Falls and then Tobias came up with a plan when the unbelievably scary thing happened. Now, I can tell you what you have to do, as I am extremely intelligent, and you can pretend it’s your plan if you like.’
‘No, thanks, Copernicus,’ Kipp said. ‘I’m sure I’ll think of something.’
‘Okay, then, suit yourself,’ Copernicus said, and he shrugged and trotted back down the hall.
Kipp shot a quick look at his desk, where he had drawn a diagram of his best plan so far, which was to build a giant vacuum cleaner to suck everyone back into Huggabie Falls.
Barely a second later he called, ‘Copernicus. Come back.’
Copernicus reappeared at the doorway in an instant. It seemed he had only been pretending to trot down the hall.
‘Look,’ Copernicus said, swinging his scarf over his shoulder, ‘it’s simple. The invisible pamphlets were designed to make people think they were missing out on something wonderful by not living in Near Huggabie Falls. But we both know they weren’t, and Al Dark only wanted everyone to move to his town because he was sick of being ignored and missing out himself, and we know that Huggabie Falls is actually the most amazing place on Earth, so we just need to remind people—’