by Lyn Gardner
Hetty shuddered and handed Mrs. Slime her only clean tissue.
“Thank you, you’re too kind,” said Mrs. Slime with a grateful sniffle, and she reluctantly set off in the direction taken by the McNastys, leaving a trail of slime behind her. “I’ll give the tissue back to you when I see you next,” she called.
“That really won’t be necessary,” said Hetty hurriedly. “Please keep it.”
“I think Mrs. Slime is more sad than bad,” said Tat thoughtfully.
“You’re right, Tat. There’s nothing about that woman that a little kindness and a lifetime supply of tissues wouldn’t cure. Here,” said Hetty, “have another piece of fudge. It is truly scrumptious as long as you don’t think too hard about what’s in it.”
“Oh, Hetty,” said Tat with a mixture of relief and admiration. “Dog and I are lucky that you know everything.”
Strictly, this was not true, because Hetty had not known that Ye Olde Fudge Shoppe was a nasty trick thought up by the McNastys. In fact, there were quite a lot of other things that Hetty did not know: she did not know where all the lost teddy bears in the world go, or why there is always fluff in your belly button or whether the fridge light stays on even when you shut the door, or how much wood the woodchuck would chuck if the woodchuck could chuck wood.
Chapter 7
Hetty, Tat and Dog walked back through the Big, Scary, Very Dark, Dense Forest Where No One In Their Right Mind Would Want To Go.
They thought it was even bigger, scarier, darker and nastier, and they were right because it now had the McNasty twins in it who made everything bigger, scarier, darker and nastier as well as stenchier, smellier and stinkier.
“Well, that was a lucky escape,” said Tat, as Dog bounded through the forest in front of the children.
“I don’t think luck has anything to do with it,” said Hetty, a little sniffily. Hetty was feeling rather tired and you shouldn’t underestimate how difficult it is to walk any distance in odd shoes. But she perked up when she thought of the treasure box. She was looking forward to examining its wondrous contents carefully.
Still, Hetty was feeling a little embarrassed that Tat had been the one who had been suspicious about the fudge shop and she had fallen for the McNastys’ ruse. She felt guilty that Tat and Dog had almost been poisoned and it was making her unusually quiet.
“Hetty,” said Tat. “You really were very clever to spot the flaw in the jam sandwich fudge recipe.”
“And you were very clever and very brave, Tat,” said Hetty generously, “and often it’s harder to be brave than clever.” And she meant it. Cleverness came easily to Hetty, but she found it much harder to be brave like Tat. Then she added, “The McNasty twins are neither brave nor clever but they are not quite as stupid as I thought. I’m furious that I let us fall for their trick. It just goes to show that you should never underestimate the enemy.”
“No,” said Tat thoughtfully, “but if they can lay traps for us, we can lay traps for them, too. We need to teach them a lesson or they will keep trying to snatch our treasure box.”
“Do you have a plan, Tat?”
“I do,” said Tat, and he began to outline it.
A look of admiration flashed across Hetty’s eyes. “You deserve a Super Star, Tat,” she said. “Miss Green is very silly not to recognize that people can be clever in many different ways.”
The McNastys were sitting by a bog.
“What we need,” said Captain Grisly, “is a scoundrelly plan that is more rotten than a crate of maggoty fish.”
Captain Gruesome scratched his mustache, and forty-four fleas and two nits took the opportunity to make their escape.
“We must find the children, kidnap them and make them walk the plank unless they tell us what they’ve done with the treasure. This time nothing must go wrong.” He grinned nastily. “The lost treasure of Little Snoring will soon be all mine.”
“And mine,” said Captain Grisly and he whacked his brother, who walloped him back, and they whacked and walloped each other so hard that they fell into the foul-smelling bog. They might have been sucked into its depths and drowned if Mrs. Slime hadn’t arrived in the nick of time and pulled them both out.
The McNastys didn’t even say thank you. In fact, they were so annoyed that Mrs. Slime had taken so long to find them that they pushed her into the oozing bog and set off in pursuit of the children, ignoring all her pleas for help.
Luckily for Mrs. Slime a truly explosive sneeze soon propelled her to the edge and she was able to crawl out of the bog unaided, although with several leeches stuck to her face.
The twins walked round and round the forest for some time and they might still be there if they hadn’t accidentally stumbled across a path.
They looked up the path and they looked down the path but they didn’t know which way the children had gone.
Then Captain Grisly suddenly spied a jam sandwich. They walked a little farther and they came across a splotch of jam and then another sandwich. The brothers grinned wickedly at each other. Those foolish children obviously didn’t realize that they were leaving a jam sandwich trail behind them. All the McNastys had to do was to follow the trail and they would find the children and frighten them so badly that they would immediately confess where they had hidden the golden treasure that the McNastys had glimpsed in the box.
Chapter 8
Hetty and Tat were hiding in the bushes close to the shore. They had stopped off at the village store and used their candy money to buy an extra-large box of tissues, a bottle of cold medicine, some big sheets of cardboard and a black felt-tip pen. They were now within sight of the McNastys’ sharkmobile, which was still tied up close to several rowing boats.
“I don’t know,” said Hetty, which was the first time those three words had ever crossed her lips, “perhaps we should just give the McNastys the treasure we found. Then maybe they will leave us alone and sail away and never come back to Little Snoring.”
“No,” said Tat fiercely. “We can’t do that. We put all the work into finding that treasure. Why should we be bullied into handing it over to the greedy McNastys? Besides, maybe my plan will work. If we can keep them on The Rotten Apple for the rest of today and tonight, my parents and Tallulah will be back early tomorrow morning and we can give them the treasure. We may even have found some more by then.”
Hetty squeezed his hand, but she was still worried.
“Tat, it’s a brilliant, brainiac idea to lure the McNastys back to the sea with a jam trail, but what you are proposing is dangerous, too. If they capture you, they will make you walk the plank.”
“They won’t capture me,” said Tat, “because although I’m not very good at math, I can row very fast.”
“Let Dog and me come with you,” pleaded Hetty.
“You’ll only slow me down,” said Tat, and Hetty knew that he was right.
She watched as he untied a rowing boat, pushed it out to sea and jumped in.
“Good luck, Tat.”
“Thanks, Hetty, I’m going to need it.”
Tat rowed a little bit away from the shore and then stopped.
Hetty sat down in the bushes and waited.
After a few minutes she heard a sneeze. She raised her head cautiously above the bush. Mrs. Slime was standing on the beach. There was no sign of the McNastys.
“Mrs. Slime,” hissed Hetty.
Mrs. Slime turned around and sneezed. Hetty ducked just in time.
“Mrs. Slime,” said Hetty urgently, “I’d like to make you an offer that you can’t possibly refuse.”
The McNastys were extremely grumpy. They had followed the jam sandwich trail all through the Big, Scary, Very Dark, Dense Forest Where No One In Their Right Mind Would Want To Go. Their feet were covered in jam and they stuck to the path with every step and they kept attracting the unwanted attention of swarms of angry wasps. They were also being pestered by kangaroos who wanted to lick the jam off their feet.
When the McNastys demanded paymen
t in return for the jam, the kangaroos boxed their ears. As a result the McNastys had made very slow progress.
But eventually they stumbled out of the forest and through the village, and followed the trail right to the very edge of the sea.
They looked up and across the water. Between them and The Rotten Apple was a rowing boat, and sitting in the rowing boat was Tat.
He grinned and waved at them, then stood up very carefully. He was holding several sheets of cardboard. He held up the first sheet. On it was written in big black letters:
He dropped the first sheet and underneath was a second sheet that declared:
The McNastys growled at him like angry Rottweilers and shook their fists.
Tat grinned and produced a third sheet.
The McNastys yelped furiously and shook their fists again.
Tat held up a fourth sheet.
Tat dropped that sheet to reveal a fifth and final message.
With that, Tat sat down in the boat and began rowing as fast as he could toward The Rotten Apple. The McNastys screeched with horror and fury at the thought of losing all their treasure. They ran toward the sharkmobile. But then they remembered that Mrs. Slime had the ignition key in her pocket.
“Mrs. Slime! Mrs. Slime!” they cried. But there was no answer. They watched, horrified, as Tat’s dinghy moved closer and closer to their unoccupied ship, which was stuffed full of treasure.
“Sweaty socks!” said Captain Gruesome.“That maggoty boy is going to board our ship and steal our treasure!” Then a look of relief passed across his face. “But he won’t get in. The front door is locked.”
“Ooops!” said Captain Grisly. “I’ve just remembered. I forgot to lock it.”
The twins stared at each other, aghast. Then they raced for one of the rowing boats and started rowing after Tat as fast as they could, which was not very fast at all because they kept fighting.
Behind the bushes, Mrs. Slime took a big swig of cold medicine and accepted another tissue from Hetty. Hetty smiled at her, and Mrs. Slime smiled back. She hadn’t had a close friend since she had caught her cold, which was thirty-eight years ago. She was certain that Hetty and Tat would be true friends. True friends never complain about sniffling, even though it is a most irritating habit.
(Sadly there is no Chapter 9 because seven ate nine.)
Chapter 10
Tat rowed as hard as he could. He reached The Rotten Apple, climbed up the rope ladder and clambered onto the deck. The McNastys were still a long way away from the ship.
Tat ran along the deck, through the unlocked front door, which was swinging wide open, and into the McNastys’ bedroom. He was shocked to see that Captain Grisly’s teddy bear was perched perilously on a plank above a massive tank of hungry piranhas. He imagined Grisly making his poor teddy walk the plank.
Tat pressed a slightly jammy finger against the outside of the glass tank and was horrified when the fish all swam toward it, their razor teeth snapping. Tat jumped back, rescued the teddy bear and put him safely on the bed.
He looked around. In the corner of the bedroom was a large treasure chest. It was full of diamonds and rubies, silver goblets and gold bars. Tat looked longingly at the stolen treasure.
One little diamond or ruby was all his family needed. It was so tempting. He reached out a hand toward a gold bar, and then snatched it back again. If he took something, it would be stealing. He would be as bad as the McNastys. Sadly, he closed the treasure box. In any case, treasure wasn’t what he had come for — he just wanted the McNastys to think that.
He took a note out of his pocket and placed it artfully in the middle of the floor so it looked as if it had just been accidentally dropped there. Then he ran back onto the deck.
The McNastys were still huffing and puffing their way toward The Rotten Apple. Tat ran to the other side of the deck and climbed nimbly down the rope ladder. He waited until he heard the McNastys begin to climb the rope ladder on the other side of the ship and then he dived into the sea, swam under The Rotten Apple and set off, swimming underwater toward the shore.
The McNastys rushed into their bedroom. The first thing they checked was their treasure chest. They were puzzled. Their treasure was all accounted for and there was no sign of the nasty boy. They rushed out onto the deck to find him but it was empty. They looked over the deck and toward the shore but there was no sign of him. They searched the entire ship, and even looked in the boiler room, which was a bit scary because it was full of bats and rats. Captain Gruesome made Captain Grisly look under his bed where the dust was almost two inches high and a family of giant cockroaches was moving out. One of the cockroaches bit Captain Grisly on the nose.
The McNastys were foxed and flummoxed. They were relieved that all their treasure was safe but where could Tat have possibly gone? He was nowhere to be found on The Rotten Apple and yet his dinghy was still tied up by the rope ladder. He seemed to have disappeared into thin air. It never occurred to them that Tat was a champion swimmer and had swum all the way back to shore, because the McNastys didn’t know how to swim. They had been expelled from Pirate School before they had even had the chance to get their ten-meter breaststroke swimming certificate.
They sat down on their bedroom floor by the big tank of piranhas to have a good think, which hurt quite a lot. Captain Grisly suddenly noticed that his teddy was no longer perched on the plank above the fish tank where he had left him. He stood up and examined the tank. He spotted the fingerprint of jam on the side.
“Squeaky underpants! I know what has happened to that nasty boy. He must have fallen in the tank. My pretty, precious piranhas have had a good meal. They have gobbled every last gobbet of him. That’s why we can find no trace of him.”
The McNastys laughed so nastily that even the blue in the sky momentarily turned black.
At that moment they both spied the crumpled piece of paper on the floor. They grabbed for it at the same time, and as neither of them would let go, it tore into several bits. Eventually they pieced it together again and began to read. The note had a large, sticky jam stain in a corner, but the McNastys could read the part of the message that interested them.
The McNastys smiled toothily. They knew precious cargo was code for TREASURE.
“Sweaty socks! It’s turning into a wickedly wonderful day for gruesomeness. The note must have fallen out of that boy’s pocket when he tumbled into the fish tank,” said Captain Gruesome.
“Squeaky underpants! It’s becoming the most dastardly delightful day for grisliness,” agreed his brother.
“We’ve rid the world of a maggoty child, and now all we have to do is sit here on our ship and lure the boat that comes tonight onto the Jaws so we can steal its precious cargo of treasure.”
“What about the Little Snoring treasure?” asked Captain Grisly.
“It can wait. It will still be there for us to steal tomorrow. One treasure in a McNasty hand is worth two in the bush.”
Chapter 11
Tat looked out his bedroom window and across the sea. It was almost midnight and it was a dark and cheerless night. Even the moon was sulking miserably behind a cloud and the moonbeams were all shivering and huddling together like penguins trying to keep warm.
After checking his teeth thoroughly and making him do a second brush of them, Aunt Tessie had told Tat to go to bed. But Tat couldn’t sleep. He was too excited. He couldn’t wait to show his mom and dad the treasure when they rowed home tomorrow.
He hadn’t been able to eat his dinner either, even though Aunt Tessie had made him triple helpings of jam sandwiches. (Aunt Tessie didn’t believe in giving children jam sandwiches for their dinner because jam is very bad for teeth, but she had made an exception because she thought Tat needed cheering up.) Tat had stuffed the sandwiches in his dressing gown pocket in case he felt peckish later. Tat had once eaten seventeen jam sandwiches — it had made him burp seventy-two times, which he thought might be a world record, and he didn’t want to be burping all night.
Tat gasped. His mom, dad and Tallulah were rowing back to the island tonight! What if the McNastys mistook them for the boat with precious cargo?
He had eaten an extra carrot that morning and his eyesight was better than ever. In the distance, far away on the horizon, he was certain he could see a pinprick of light bobbing about. He knew it must be his family in their sturdy little rowing boat.
Tat felt sick. He had thought he was being so clever by making the McNastys wait all night for a boat that would never come, but now one was! And it had the most valuable cargo in the world in it: his family. His actions had put his family in danger. He was wondering what he should do when he saw another light, much nearer and brighter. It began to blink at regular intervals, like the beam from a lighthouse.
Tat frowned. He knew that there shouldn’t be a light coming from that location because there was nothing there. Nothing, that is, except the sandbanks and the Jaws upon which many a ship and boat had been wrecked before the Little Snoring lighthouse had been built.
The lighthouse!
The cogs in Tat’s brain began to whirr and click like a cuckoo clock on the fritz.
Tat ran to the back of the house, which looked up the cliffs to where the lighthouse was perched. It was in complete darkness.
Tat thought hard. He may not be very good at Miss Green’s kind of math but he knew for certain that two McNastys plus one darkened lighthouse and one light blinking by the Jaws didn’t make four, it made an epic disaster of infinite proportions for the Trout family. The McNastys were trying to lure his family onto the rocks. He had to save his parents and Tallulah!