‘Once a suitable number have been squirted,’ Pongdollop continued, ‘they will roam the streets and spread their stink among others, dirtying the world above for monsters to live in. There will be retching and puking, and very soon everything will become one big cesspool of stink and sick –’
A claw shot up in the front row causing Pongdollop to lose the thread of his rant.
‘WHAT?’ he spat angrily.
‘Um, what about those of us who lack the equipment to squirt the genius Stink Ink?’ asked a thorny Crabby, tapping his armoured body to illustrate the absence of pus-sacks.
‘You will be provided with my own patented strap-on pus-sack with adjustable nozzle!’ growled Pongdollop, waving a tentacle at the Underling, who had reappeared with another box containing leather balloons attached to a series of complicated straps and nozzles. The Underling distributed these to all but a smug-looking Bulbous, who lifted its arms to reveal two modest pit-pumps.
Pongdollop continued to rant about a nauseating new world reeking of toe jam and fish poo, while Urk re-read the Octapongus description in the Monsterbook. The young monster was certain he’d missed something. Pongdollop was definitely an Octapongus, so why was he so mean and motivated when he should have been a big lazy lump?
‘… and the only thing left to decide is where to strike our first disgusting blow!’ roared Pongdollop. He pulled a cord and a large map tumbled down the wall behind him. ‘Now, after giving this matter careful consideration –’
‘St Margaret’s Elementary School!’ yelled Will, who was so wrapped up in the rant he’d forgotten who, what and where he was. Urk slammed the book shut and eyed his friend nervously.
‘WHO SAID THAT?’ Pongdollop demanded.
All heads turned to Will, who swallowed hard and raised a quivering fork.
Pongdollop leapt from the stage and slithered towards the boy, his sheer bulk shoving chairs sideways in a chorus of shrieks, until he was bearing down on the cowering bundle of rags.
‘What is your name?’ hissed Pongdollop, his enormous mouth frothing with fury.
‘Will,’ squeaked Will, too terrified to lie.
‘WILL?’ roared the Octapongus.
‘Willijub,’ Will added, after Urk nudged him.
‘Well, Will Willijub,’ growled Pongdollop, scratching his lumpy head. ‘I think that is an EXCELLENT suggestion.’ And he slithered back to the stage, his tentacles tidying the disrupted chairs behind him.
‘St Margaret’s Elementary School!’ roared Pongdollop, jabbing the map with the tip of a tentacle. ‘Easily located, highly populated and with widespread distribution when the smelly little fleshblobs run home to their soapy mumsie-wumsies!’
An enthusiastic cheer rose from the crowd.
‘We will gather at St Margaret’s Elementary School tomorrow,’ Pongdollop said, four eyes rolling around in concentration. ‘At break time in the playground! When all the little fleshblobs are conveniently gathered for a Stink Ink squirt-a-thon!’
‘HOORAY!’ roared the hall.
‘Now, please fill your ugly faces at my expense.’ Pongdollop pointed to the back of the hall where the Underling was laying out paper cups and emptying bags of hairballs into bowls.
Chairs immediately scraped the floor as the monsters stampeded towards the buffet, pushing and shoving and clambering over each other’s heads. Pongdollop exited the building through an extra-large doorway behind the stage, quickly followed by the Underling who zigzagged to and fro holding a tottering pile of boxes.
‘What were you thinking?’ whispered Urk, tucking the book, the bottles and the wobbly pus-sacks into his rucksack. ‘For a moment there I thought we were going to end up as part of the buffet!’
‘Sorry, I just got carried away with all the shouting!’ Will gasped. ‘But I do remember thinking that if he’s going to take over the world anyway, I might as well get a day off school out of it.’
‘We’ll have to worry about that later,’ said Urk, turning his head to the back of the hall where the monsters were ravaging the food. ‘First we need to get hold of those bottles!’
6
Hairball Buffet Brawl
Urk and Will approached the buffet, where the six bottles of Stink Ink belonging to the monsters had been lined up along the table. The monsters were busy snuffling like pigs at a trough, so no one noticed when Urk slipped each bottle carefully into his rucksack.
‘Now leave the talking to me this time,’ said Urk, and disappeared under the filthy tablecloth.
Will was happy never to speak again. Or at least until he got back home, where saying the wrong thing can get you into trouble but rarely gets you eaten. A voice suddenly boomed from beneath the table with a barrage of complicated insults, each in a different accent and strangely monster-specific.
‘Your pit-pumps are pathetic compared to my ferocious spines!’ was the first; followed by, ‘Call that a horn? I could snip it off with one snap of my giant claw!’; and finally, ‘One eye? That’s scary! I’ve got ten and they’re all more gooey than yours!’
Around the table the feasting halved as three monster heads slowly reared up, glaring at the spines, eyes and claws of the remaining monsters. The Bulbous growled at the Spinula, the Horned Hilla snarled at the Crabby, and the One-Eyed Wig glared at the Deccapeep.
Moments later there was a growling, snarling, spitting ball of monsters scrapping over the table. Claws snipped, spines snapped, pits squirted, horns butted and the ‘eye’ monsters pulled each other’s hair very aggressively.
Will saw the table creaking under their weight and shot beneath the cloth. He hooked his forks under Urk’s rucksack and yanked him free, just as the table collapsed with an almighty CRASH! The heap of fighting monsters paused for a second and then continued the battle, rolling around in the mess of food in a frenzied ball of fury.
‘Let’s get out of here!’ Urk and Will gasped together.
They legged it away from Monster
Hall, and kept on legging it until they could no longer hear the growls and roars from the scrapping monsters – a long way away on the outskirts of Monster City.
‘How did you know they’d fall for that?’ asked Will as Urk dropped the bottles one by one into a murky, gurgling river with pongflies buzzing over the surface. ‘They could have just lifted the tablecloth!’
‘Monsters are pretty hot-headed,’ said Urk, ‘They snip, squirt and squash now and ask questions later. Most don’t even bother asking questions later – they just keep snipping, squirting and squashing.’
‘But what about tomorrow?’ said Will. ‘They’ll all be at my school!’
‘Oh, they won’t turn up without the Stink Ink!’ said Urk. ‘Disappointing a giant like Pongdollop usually means getting eaten – even if he’s supposed to be a vegetarian. And I’ll bet most of them only turned up for the free food anyway.’
‘Pongdollop will still turn up, though,’ said Will. ‘And he’s got his own whiffy pus-sacks all ready to squirt!’
‘Well, at least you’ll have a ringside seat!’ laughed Urk, as the last of the bottles burped into the oozy depths.
‘I still can’t believe you suggested your own school for the putrid apocalypse.’
‘That was pretty dumb,’ sighed Will. ‘But I guess this way I’ll be able to keep an eye out for him, and maybe even have a go at trying to stop him.’
‘What did you say?’ Urk frowned.
‘I know,’ Will sighed. ‘How could I stop the great and mighty Pongdollop?’
‘No, what did you say before that?’
‘Keep an eye out for him?’
Urk took a seat on the bank of the smelly river and flicked through the ‘Ghastly Gadgets’ section of the Monsterbook.
‘Aha!’ he said eventually. ‘I knew there was something weird about him.’
‘I thought everything about him was weird,’ said Will, sitting down and adjusting his sacking. ‘Not to mention violent!’
‘Did you notice one of P
ongdollop’s eyes was all yellow and swirly?’ asked Urk. ‘Like it was a bit more evil than the other three?’
‘Um, yeah, I guess so,’ said Will, recalling the terrifying close-up he got when Pongdollop bore down on him. ‘I thought it was just a monster thing – you know, one eye, ten eyes, yellow swirly eye …’
‘That last one was an Evil Eye!’ said Urk, pointing to the page in the book.
‘At least we know why Pongdollop’s not a big lazy lump,’ said Will, closing the Monsterbook and handing it back. ‘But knowing about the eye doesn’t really help us, does it?’
‘It does if we can steal the Evil Eye out from under his nose,’ said Urk. ‘Or was the eye above his nose? Where was his nose?’
‘I don’t think he had a nose,’ said Will.
‘Either way, without the Evil Eye he’ll turn back into a big lazy lump,’ said Urk, packing the Monsterbook away in his rucksack. ‘And then he won’t even care about the uprising any more.’
‘But how will we get our hands on it?’ asked Will. ‘It’s next to three other eyes that can all see properly. So I’m thinking we can’t exactly sneak up on him!’
‘The Monsterbook says he’ll be keeping the Evil Eye in a glass tonight. That’s our one chance to steal it and stop the uprising!’ Urk jumped up and pulled Will to his feet. ‘But we need to go back to my place first to do some research.’
‘Won’t your parents be there?’ said Will, hurrying after Urk as he led them through a series of dark alleyways. Will tried not to notice the various shapes, sizes and numbers of eyes peering out at them from the shadows.
‘I hope not,’ said Urk, ducking into a stairwell.
Halfway up a mudblock named Terror Towers, the monster opened one of the many brown doors, poked his head inside and looked around carefully. Then he pressed a finger to his lips and ushered Will inside.
The pair tiptoed down a small hallway and slipped into the first room on the right. Once inside, Urk closed the door quietly and hurried to the bookshelf. He pulled down a large brown book and heaved it over to the bed.
‘What’s that?’ asked Will, joining Urk as he began flicking through the index.
‘The Brown Pages,’ said Urk. ‘We need to find out where Pongdollop is staying. He’s from the Outer Regions so he’ll be holed up in a hotel somewhere, and there aren’t many with rooms that size.’
Will looked around Urk’s bedroom and found it was similar to his own in size and furniture. Except everything in this room was made of mud and rags and it smelled quite bad.
Urk tore a page from the Brown Pages and handed it to Will.
7
Miffni the Big
‘URRRRRRK!’ roared an angry voice from the hallway. ‘IS THAT YOU, SNEAKING AROUND LIKE A LITTLE BOGEY BUG?’
Urk snatched the page back and quickly slipped it into the Monsterbook. Suddenly, the door burst open and a much larger version of himself filled the doorway with a very angry look on its face. Will noticed it was wearing lipstick, which was the only clue that this monster might be a girl.
‘Oh, you’ve brought a little friend home!’ she sneered.
‘Yeah,’ said Urk. ‘So what?’
‘That’s a first!’ she chuckled spitefully.
‘Well, aren’t you going to introduce us?’
‘Willijub, this is my sister Miffni,’ said Urk. ‘Miffni, this is Willijub.’
Urk’s sister snorted an unfriendly greeting while Will waved a friendly fork.
‘Where are Mum and Dad?’ asked Urk, keen to draw attention away from Will.
‘They’re out on scare manoeuvres, of course!’ snapped Miffni.
‘Well, we’re just going out again,’ said Urk, grabbing the Monsterbook and standing up. Will got up too, but Miffni pursed her lips, folded her arms and showed no intention of budging.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes.
‘Mind your own business,’ said Urk.
‘If you don’t tell me where you’re going, you’re not going anywhere,’ she growled and then shifted to fill as much of the doorway as she could – which was all of it. ‘I’m the biggest, so I’m in charge when Mum and Dad aren’t here!’
‘If you don’t move I’ll get my friend to show you a leg!’ threatened Urk.
‘You wouldn’t dare!’ Miffni hissed, eyeing Will and her brother nervously.
Urk snorted and tried to look fearless, which wasn’t easy, knowing that if she called his bluff, Will would be showing her a leg in jeans with a muddy trainer on the end.
‘Oh, I don’t care what you’re doing anyway!’ Miffni huffed. ‘It’s probably something really stupid and boring!’ And with this she stomped off down the hallway mumbling to herself.
‘Phew!’ sighed Urk, as they hurried from the mudblock and back on to the street. ‘That was close!’
‘I didn’t know you had a big sister,’ said Will.
‘Oh, she’s not my big sister,’ Urk explained. ‘She’s my little sister, who just happens to be really big. We don’t get on at all.’
Urk led them to what Will decided was a more upmarket district of Monster City. The streets were lined with giant curly dog-poo-style buildings and they were all bigger and more elaborate than Monster Hall. The monsters they passed also seemed to be more important-looking.
Some were being ferried along the street by several straining Underlings, while others had a single Underling
perched on their heads, holding an umbrella. Will thought this was odd for lots of reasons, but mostly because it wasn’t raining.
‘WEE WEE!’ yelled a voice above them.
Will glanced up in time to see a large bucket appear through a high window before Urk bundled him into the nearest doorway. Moments later a jet of steaming liquid hit the pavement with an enormous SPLOSH!
‘Not all the hotels have toilets,’ Urk explained, as they stepped around the steaming puddle and continued down the street. ‘Just in case you were wondering about the umbrellas.’
Not surprisingly, The Goliath was the biggest of all the giant curly dog-poo-style buildings. In fact, it looked like several giant curly dog poos arranged into a large pooey pyramid. Urk was about to stroll casually into the foyer when Will leapt in front of him, waving his forks in alarm.
‘We’re not just going to walk in there, are we?’ he whispered urgently. ‘I thought we might sneak in or something?’
‘We will sneak in, but we have to find the room first,’ Urk explained. ‘Anyway, we’re part of the great and mighty Pongdollop’s uprising, so we’re kind of allowed to be here.’
Will stepped aside and followed Urk into the building, where he found the foyer was much more fancy than Monster Hall. Fanciness in Monsterland amounted to straw on the floor, carved dung ceilings and ploppy chandeliers with extra-big plops.
A small stripy monster sat behind the reception desk with a spray of thin tentacles writhing around her head, each strand busying itself with various filing tasks.
Will could tell the creature was a ‘her’ because, like Miffni, she had a smudge of lipstick across her mouth.
‘Yessss?’ she hissed, three beady eyes peering over the desk.
‘We’re here to see the great and mighty Pongdollop,’ Urk stated confidently.
‘Are you expected?’ she demanded, a tentacle shooting behind her and poking around inside a pigeonhole labelled THE GIGANTICA SUITE.
She pulled out a scrap of paper with ‘DOONT DYSTEERB’ scribbled in a familiar Pongdollopy scrawl and waved it at him.
‘Er, not exactly,’ said Urk. ‘But we have very important news about tomorrow’s gloriously disgusting plot to take over the world. Mr Pongdollop will definitely want to see us.’
The tentacles on the receptionist’s head paused for a moment while she considered this, then they wiggled in the direction of the stairs.
‘Top floor,’ she said curtly. ‘The crane-lift has a weight minimum.’
‘What’s the plan once we get there?�
� asked Will as they made their way up the damp winding staircase. Grubby light bulbs flickered on the walls, buzzing angrily whenever the damp trickled too close.
‘Snatch the Evil Eye, of course,’ replied Urk.
‘Just like that?’ said Will.
‘I guess so,’ Urk shrugged, running through the plan in his head. ‘We know Pongdollop doesn’t want to be dysteerbed, so he’s probably getting a good night’s sleep before the big day.’
‘And if he’s not?’ asked Will.
Urk paused on the stair as though he hadn’t considered the possibility of Pongdollop not being asleep and gave Will a worried look. ‘Let’s just really hope he is,’ he said.
8
Snoring and Spearing
There was no question whether Pongdollop was asleep or not when they reached the Gigantica Suite. The whole floor was rumbling and vibrating with the sound of snoring. There was a giant door at the top of the stairs, with what looked like a large walnut sleeping beside it.
‘I’d forgotten about him!’ whispered Urk.
‘Me too,’ whispered Will.
The pair crept forward, watching the sleeping Underling the whole time, then they slid the door back and slipped into the room. The sound of snoring inside was almost deafening.
The Gigantica Suite was hot and gloomy with extra-large everything. In the centre lay a giant mattress with Pongdollop sprawled across it, his bottom lip flapping with each clattering snore.
‘There it is!’ gasped Urk, pointing to the edge of the mattress.
On the floor beside the sleeping Octapongus sat a small glass of murky liquid. Through the murk they saw a swirly yellow eyeball. It was giving evil looks to everything in the room.
Monsterbook: Pongdollop and the School Stink Page 2