by Adam Cece
Al Dark could see the defeated looks on the children’s faces through their ridiculous disguises. He turned away from them. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a video to stop.’ He kept his thumb ready to press the remote control’s stop button as he strode back through the crowd.
Up on the screen, a street sign appeared. ‘Oh look,’ a woman shouted, pointing. ‘It’s Digmont Drive.’
Another ripple of chuckling spread through the crowd. ‘I did love how all the streets had the same name in Huggabie Falls,’ said a man. ‘It’s so hard to remember all the different names in Near Huggabie Falls.’
‘And with all the different street names, you can find things really easily,’ said another man from another line, with irritation in his voice, ‘and you don’t get lost and wander around for ages looking for places.’
Everyone nodded.
Al Dark gave them an incredulous look. ‘What is wrong with you people? That’s why having different street names is a good thing. You don’t want to get lost all the time.’
‘Don’t you?’ A woman raised an eyebrow at Al Dark. ‘Then how are you ever going to accidentally stumble on new and exciting places?’
There were murmurs of agreement all around.
‘That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,’ said Al Dark.
‘Why did any of us leave Huggabie Falls?’ said another woman. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘I’ll remind you,’ Al Dark said. ‘My case is just over there. But first’—he held the remote control high—‘I’m stopping this video.’
‘Oh, we were enjoying that,’ Mrs Turgan whined.
‘Sorry,’ said Al Dark, not sounding sorry at all. ‘But this is the last any of you will see of Huggabie Falls.’
The two disguised children had followed Al Dark through the crowd, and the girl instinctively reached for a satchel, before remembering she no longer had a satchel. ‘Drat,’ she said. ‘It’s really inconvenient not having my satchel.’
At that moment Al Dark clicked the red button on the remote control.
The video continued to play. Al Dark stared at the remote control. Then he shook it and clicked the stop button again.
The video did not stop.
‘Inconceivable,’ Al Dark muttered. He jabbed the button again and again.
The video now showed a line of people standing outside MegaBurgerWorld in Huggabie Falls.
‘I remember this,’ said a female voice.
‘Yes, me too,’ said a man. ‘The entire town ate French fries for a day, in honour of our French-fries-obsessed resident Ferris Farmelade.’ Ferris Farmelade laughed. ‘I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed. Would you call eating nothing but French fries every day of your life obsessed?’
‘Um…yes, I would,’ said another woman.
‘Oh, okay, then,’ Ferris said. ‘I may be a tad obsessed.’ He frowned. ‘Do they have an outlet of MegaBurgerWorld in Near Huggabie Falls? It seems unlikely. Is anyone else thinking’—he looked about—‘that we might have made a mistake moving to Near Huggabie Falls?’
‘No, no, stop watching this,’ Al Dark waved his hands. ‘Look at my case instead.’ He ran and climbed up onto the stage, where he skidded to a stop. ‘Wait, where is my case?’ He spun around. ‘Who moved my case? Who could have moved my case? No one else has been up here.’
Ferris Farmelade, and many others, were still distracted, contemplating a life without MegaBurgerWorlds, when the Kloveks, the family of happy elves, appeared on the screen having a party in their Christmas-tree house.
‘I remember that party,’ said an excited voice. ‘The Kloveks’ Christmas party where everyone was invited: Father Christmas, the tooth fairy, and even the bogeyman.’
‘The bogeyman wasn’t invited,’ said another woman. ‘But he turned out to be a very nice fellow—he spent the whole night telling me about his collection of bottle tops.’
Glumness spread across the Klovek family’s faces. ‘Daddy,’ said little Kippy Klovek, with hope-filled eyes. ‘Are there any giant Christmas-tree houses in Near Huggabie Falls?’
‘I don’t know a nice way to say this, Kippy,’ said Mr Klovek. ‘So I’m just going to say it in an un-nice way: No, there aren’t.’
While Kippy Klovek was fighting back tears, Al Dark was floundering around the stage, searching for his case and whacking his remote control on the ground and clicking the button over and over.
Another image appeared on the screen.
‘Look,’ squealed a woman with joy. ‘It’s the Sanctuary for People Fleeing Witches and Other Dangerous Flying Creatures. I love that place. I’ve spent a lot of time there.’
‘Me too,’ said a man.
‘Me three,’ said a woman.
‘Me four,’ said a toddler.
Al Dark was looking exasperated. ‘It wasn’t a good thing you were spending so much time there. You were running for your lives from deadly flying creatures,’ he said.
‘Yes, true,’ said an elderly woman. ‘But we were keeping fit.’
Others nodded. ‘I competed in seventeen marathons after the great dragon attack of eighty-seven,’ said another elderly woman.
Al Dark glanced at his watch. ‘I only need ten more minutes before it will be too late for anyone to change their mind and move back to Huggabie Falls. Why isn’t this remote control working?’ he said, staring at the remote control. ‘Wait a second—this is not my remote control. And it doesn’t even have any batteries in it. Someone swapped my remote control for another one. I was wondering why this remote control had all this sticky stuff on it.’
‘That’s silk,’ said a disembodied voice.
‘Who said that?’ Al Dark reeled around.
‘I got that remote control from the Under,’ said the voice. ‘I put the real remote control inside your case with the utterly indescribable thing and mailed it to the moon.’
‘It’s you,’ Al Dark snarled, snatching at the air around him, ‘but that’s impossible—I caught you in my sack trap.’ He glared at the top-hatted scientist. ‘Open the sack,’ he said. ‘I want to see what’s inside.’
The top-hatted scientist seemed confused by this command, as everyone knew what was inside the sack, but he opened the sack anyway, and he dumped the contents on the stage. ‘I don’t know what you’re expecting to see,’ he said, ‘because the sack contains an invisible—’
He stopped talking, because out of the sack had tumbled a black-haired boy wearing a sports coat and a waistcoat, scarf and flat cap, which were at least two sizes too small. They were, however, the perfect size for a super-cute goat.
Sorry for the chapter break, but I just had to stop for a second and say, oh wow. I know authors are not supposed to be surprised by their own stories, but I did not see that coming. I thought Kipp was in the sack. Wasn’t he supposed to be in the sack? I’ve just gone back and checked—he was definitely supposed to be in the sack. So who is in the sack? I’m desperate to find out now. I wish we would just get on with this story. Oh wait, that’s my job. Yes, I’ll get on with it!
Al Dark narrowed his eyes at the boy who had just been dumped out of the sack. ‘You are that annoying boy Tobias Treachery.’
Tobias stood up and brushed himself off. ‘I am.’ He smiled. ‘Man, this waistcoat is tight.’
The creepy scientist and the top-hatted scientist stared at Tobias. The top-hatted scientist took another look inside his sack. He swished his hand about and tipped the sack over and shook it. There was definitely nothing else inside.
‘But—’ Al Dark was confused. ‘Isn’t that you over there?’ He pointed to the two children surrounded by his guards, and they removed their oversized cowboy hats and their fake noses and moustaches—so now they were un-hatted, and un-disguised. One of the children was Cymphany Chan, but the other one was—
‘You’re that witch’s super-cute goat,’ Al Dark roared. ‘In Tobias Treachery’s clothes.’
Copernicus chuckled. ‘Well, would you look at that? So I am. I reall
y do make these clothes look smashing, don’t I!’
‘How is this possible?’ Al Dark screeched. ‘You were in my office,’ he said to the thin air, which he must have been hoping contained Kipp. ‘And then you jumped out my window and into my sack trap.’
‘Correction,’ Kipp said, and Al Dark jumped as if someone had just poked him in the bum with a pin, because Kipp was in the space right behind him. ‘You’ve been one step ahead of us the whole time,’ Kipp said. ‘But just as I was about to sneak into your office I heard a duck quacking around the corner of the building.’
Everyone was listening with great interest to what the space behind Al Dark was saying, and no one noticed Lemonade Limmer slip a little green device into her pocket.
‘I followed the quack sound,’ Kipp continued, ‘but instead of a duck I found your sack trap. Then I realised what you were planning, and I knew that once you had a person in the trap, you’d think you had me. But you didn’t—we outsmarted you. Tobias and Copernicus, who I thought was asleep in the car, but who showed up at exactly the right time, changed clothes, and Tobias threw himself into the sack trap, at the exact moment I jumped out the window. And Copernicus was then running about in Tobias’s clothes, and his adorable goat face was disguised by the oversized cowboy hat, glasses and fake moustache. You thought you knew where we all were, when what you really had was an invisible boy running around ruining your plans.’
‘It was fun pretending to be a boy,’ Copernicus said. ‘You never suspected me, did you? I could be an actor. I’m certainly good-looking enough.’
Al Dark was rigid with fury. ‘You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?’ he asked the air.
‘Sort of,’ Kipp said.
‘Aiyee,’ Al Dark jumped again. ‘Stop moving, would you?’
Kipp was smirking, but nobody could see it. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But you have to admit, Mr Dark, we’ve foiled your plans.
The crowd nodded in agreement.
Kipp chuckled. ‘Mr Dark, the residents of Huggabie Falls already live in the greatest town on Earth. All I had to do was remind them. And it was easy to do, because neither you nor your guards can stop an invisible boy running about.’
Al Dark waggled his finger at the space where Kipp had been standing only a second ago, unaware that he was waggling his finger at nothing. ‘What you don’t realise, Kipp Kindle, is that I have a secret weapon.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small red box.
Al Dark raised the small red box. ‘As long as I have this,’ he sneered, ‘you won’t stop me.’ Al Dark laughed triumphantly, but his laughter was almost instantly replaced with a frown of confusion, because the small box was no longer in his hand. It was hovering about two metres away.
‘How stupid can you get, Mr Dark?’ Kipp said.
‘Kipp, no,’ Cymphany called out, as she realised what was about to happen. Kipp probably would have worked it out too, in another second, but he didn’t have time to drop the box before Al Dark pulled a sling shot from his pocket, loaded with a small round object and released it.
‘Oh dear,’ said Kipp, a split second before the small red box exploded.
A cloud of silvery dust ballooned out of the exploding box and then, as though someone had switched on a vacuum cleaner in the middle of the balloon of dust, it all appeared to be sucked in one direction, onto Kipp.
‘Kipp,’ Cymphany screamed, terrified that her friend had been hurt, but then she suddenly stopped still and stared in Kipp’s direction.
Kipp froze, not game to move a muscle. ‘What’s going on? What happened?’
He saw that Tobias was staring at him—straight at him. Kipp checked his arms. ‘Wait a minute, he said. ‘You can see me. The dust from the box. It’s all glittery, and it’s sticking to me.’
Al Dark threw his head back and laughed. ‘It’s something I’ve had those two bumbling idiots working on.’
The top-hatted scientist and the creepy scientist turned to see who the two bumbling idiots were—then they realised Al Dark was talking about them.
‘Invisibility-resistant particles,’ Al Dark continued, ‘that are magnetically attracted to invisible skin. It’s not permanent, but you will be visible for the next few hours or so—plenty of time for my guards to catch you.’
Kipp looked at Al Dark, dumbstruck.
Al Dark look back at Kipp, triumphant.
But then Kipp did something no one expected. He ran up to Al Dark and wrapped his arms around him. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,’ he said.
Al Dark looked like someone who went to a shop and ordered a turkey-and-cranberry sandwich and was given a pet giraffe. ‘What is going on here? You’re not supposed to be happy. You’re supposed to be the opposite of happy.’
‘This invention is incredible,’ Kipp said, staring in disbelief at his sparkling arms and legs and body. ‘You’ve found a way to make me visible.’
Al Dark extracted himself from Kipp’s grip. ‘Correction, it is not an invention. It’s a trap, and you fell for it.’
‘It was a lovely thing to do,’ said Cymphany, as she and Tobias and Copernicus walked over.
Al Dark stamped his foot. ‘Lovely? Lovely? It was anything but lovely. I don’t do lovely. I’m evil. The evilest Dark brother of them all.’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t evil doing this for Kipp,’ Tobias said.
Cymphany cocked her head at Al Dark. ‘You know, Mr Dark, I’m starting to see you in a whole new light. Maybe you’re not so bad after all.’
‘Yes I am,’ Al Dark fumed. ‘In fact, I’m worse, no matter what light you’re looking at me in.’
‘I mean,’ Kipp said. ‘Look at everything you’re doing for Near Huggabie Falls. You’re only doing it because you love it so much.’
‘No, I don’t,’ Al Dark said. ‘This town is terrible!’
Cymphany crossed her arms, in an unbelieving fashion. ‘I don’t believe you.’
Al Dark’s eyebrows formed an angry V-shape. ‘I don’t care what you believe,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m evil, and my guards are going to throw you in the Near Huggabie Falls World’s Greatest Jail, and nobody is going to leave Near Huggabie Falls and move back to Huggabie Falls.’
All the guards and everyone else were watching them now that the video had finished. ‘Actually,’ one of the guards said, ‘I think everyone is moving back to Huggabie Falls, and I think all of the guards might be moving there with them.’
‘What?’ Al Dark hissed. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘Well,’ the guard perked up, oblivious to Al Dark’s ferocious glare. ‘Didn’t you see the video of Huggabie Falls? That place looks pretty amazing.’
‘This is ludicrous.’ Al Dark blinked. ‘No one is going back to Huggabie Falls, because you’re all convinced this town is the best town ever, and you all signed contracts saying you’ll live in Near Huggabie Falls forever, even once you find out all the attractions are fake.’
‘Excuse me?’ said Gertrude.
‘Excuse me?’ said every other person who was waiting in line for the many, many attractions that were all due to open in five minutes.
‘Ah,’ Al Dark grimaced, suddenly looking completely busted. ‘Whoops. I didn’t mean fake. I meant to say they are all real. Totally real.’
It was at precisely that moment that the cover blew off the giant rollercoaster to reveal that it wasn’t a rollercoaster at all.
‘Hey,’ Cymphany’s mum said. ‘That’s the destroyed wreckage of the House of Spooks that exploded in The Unbelievably Scary Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls.’
Ripples of anger swept through the many lines outside the Near Huggabie Falls attractions, especially the line for the Near Huggabie Falls World’s Greatest Amusement Park, which contained the fake rollercoaster.
Al Dark coughed and looked very flustered. ‘Ah, correction. That attraction is fake, but the rest are real. I promise.’
He turned to Kipp, Cymphany and Tobias. ‘You may think you have fou
nd me out,’ he snarled, low enough that no one else could hear. ‘But you don’t have time to show that all the other attractions are fake. In five minutes, every former resident of Huggabie Falls will be contractually obliged to stay in Near Huggabie Falls.’
‘Ahem,’ said a voice, and they turned to see Lemonade Limmer, in her silver jumpsuit and aviator goggles, leaning against a nearby street pole. She was holding a bundle of papers.
‘Who’—Al Dark glared at her—‘are you?’
‘Oh, hi, Al,’ she said sweetly. ‘We’ve met before. Don’t you remember me? My name is Lemonade Limmer.’
Al Dark was about to say something else, when he stopped. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘You got my name right.’
‘I get everything right,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I’m a time traveller. Hi Kipp. Hi Tobias. Hi Cymphany. Hi Copernicus.’
Kipp, Tobias, Cymphany and Copernicus waved at Lemonade. Copernicus was the only one who didn’t look surprised to see her.
‘By the way, Cymphany,’ said Lemonade, reaching behind her back, ‘I have something for you.’
Lemonade threw a familiar bulky object to Cymphany, whose face exploded with joy as it landed in her outstretched arms. ‘My satchel,’ she squealed. ‘Thank you, Lemonade. I thought I’d lost it forever. How did you get it back?’
‘I paid a visit to the silkworms,’ Lemonade said. ‘I swapped it for a solid-gold clothes peg. Apparently, they’d been looking for one, and they already had a satchel.’
Al Dark looked furious. ‘What is this all about? What are you doing, little girl?’
Lemonade flashed a dazzling row of teeth at him and held up a bundle of papers. ‘I’ve been reading these Near Huggabie Falls contracts you made all the Huggabie Falls residents sign when they thought they were buying houses, which no one actually read in their frenzied hurry to move to Near Huggabie Falls. And according to page nine, subsection C, clause seven, in just under five minutes every single former resident of Huggabie Falls will be contractually obliged to live in Near Huggabie Falls forever.’