Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior

by Jackie French

  ‘Me got cold slug pizza and zombie spaghetti,’ observed Mug, lowering himself carefully onto their favourite boulder. He had almost lost a foot into the crater the day before, though he’d assured Boo he’d sewn it back on extra tightly. ‘What you got?’

  ‘Chicken-neck sandwiches,’ said Boo, hauling Yesterday’s bananas out of his bag and dropping them on her lap. Old Ms Shaggy was still bringing him nice stinky chicken necks every few days. He bit off a bit of crust for Squeak.

  ‘Squeak!’ said the mouse, taking the crust in his tiny paws.

  ‘Hey, me just remember,’ rumbled Mug. The zombie spaghetti wriggled a bit in his mouth. ‘It my birthday this Saturday. Mum said, you like to come to party?’

  ‘Hey, cool.’ Boo wagged his tail.

  ‘Squeak,’ agreed Squeak, cleaning the last of the crust off his whiskers.

  Yesterday looked up uncertainly from her bananas. ‘I … I’m not sure …’ she began.

  ‘Hey, why not?’ barked Boo.

  ‘I … I have work to do. At home.’

  ‘What sort of work?’ asked Boo curiously. Yesterday never talked about her home. Princess Princess talked about her world all the time, and even Mug had pictures of his sister (she looked pretty much like him, except her fuzz was blonde, not green). But Yesterday never said anything about her world at all.

  Yesterday shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘Oh, things.’

  ‘It important birthday.’ Mug sounded hurt, though it was hard to tell with a zombie. ‘Me four hundred.’

  ‘Hey, wow,’ said Boo.

  ‘Mum been cooking special.’ Mug slapped one of the flies that buzzed around his fuzz.

  ‘Not zombie spaghetti?’ asked Boo. He hadn’t tried zombie spaghetti yet, even though Mug kept offering him some. There was something about the way the zombie slugs had squirmed in his stomach that made him uneasy.

  Mug inspected the fly, then crunched it between his crumbling teeth. ‘Zombie parties always have zombie spaghetti. But we haves other stuff too. Zombie lamingtons. Slug toast. Also meringues. Not zombie ones. They stay puts when you eats them. Have games too,’ he added temptingly.

  Yesterday bit her lip. ‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘I’d love to come. And they’ll understand,’ she added hopefully, almost to herself.

  ‘Who? Your mum and dad?’ asked Boo. Yesterday had never talked about her family.

  ‘Sort of,’ said Yesterday. ‘How do we get to your place?’

  ‘No worries,’ said Mug. ‘You come here, then all go in wormhole with me. I bring you all back here, then we goes back to ours universes. Unless,’ he added, looking hopefully at Boo, ‘me have slapover at someone else’s place that night.’

  ‘Er, slapover?’ Boo wondered if this was a Hero technique he hadn’t come across yet.

  ‘You know. You stays at friend’s house. Me never had a slapover,’ he added sadly.

  ‘You mean sleepover.’ Mrs Bigpaws would probably be proud to have another apprentice Hero stay the night, he thought, even if he is a two-metre-tall zombie. He’d just have to make sure the puppies didn’t gnaw on any stray Mug bits they found lying around. ‘You can have a sleepover at my place after the party if you like,’ he offered.

  ‘Hot lake!’ said Mug happily.

  ‘You mean “damn”,’ corrected Boo. ‘I’ve told you before.’

  Mug shook his head carefully in case it fell off. ‘No hot dam here, only hot lake.’

  Boo grinned. That was real brain work from Mug. But what, he thought suddenly, do you get a giant blob of fungus for his birthday?

  23

  A Zombie Birthday Party

  It hurt a bit, thinking about birthdays. Boo couldn’t help remembering his own birthday last year. Mum had given him a remote-controlled backscratcher and the biggest ice-cream cake Sleepy Whiskers had ever seen, with squished lizard icing. There’d been Kitten Icypoles and Choc-Fly Sorbet and Frozen Moose Mousse or Mouse Mousse, too.

  What will my next birthday be like? thought Boo dismally, as he plodded a bit unsteadily along the wormhole the next Saturday to meet Mug and the others. He was in human form again today, hoping to impress Princess Princess. He was pleased that Mug had invited her too. It was amazing how hard it was to balance on two feet after being on four paws. And even the thought of Princess Princess failed to lift his spirits.

  How could he be thinking of going to a party?

  But it wouldn’t help Mum if he didn’t go. He’d already done an hour of Zoom!ing practice today and raced up and down the creek, as well as two hundred doggie leaps, which Boo reckoned was just as good as push ups. And Mug was his friend and a Hero, in his own fungusy zombie way. And if Boo was ever going to be able to rescue Mum — if he ever made it to Level 4 — he’d need all the friends he could get …

  ‘Student approaching!’ he yelled, as he stepped out of the wormhole.

  Someone cackled happily by the portal. ‘Student? Best not look at me then, sonny.’

  Boo stared at the ancient Hero. She was as tall as Mug, with masses of bright yellow hair, a thin scrap of gold and purple striped fabric over a skinny body, and 126,000 wrinkles. ‘Er, why shouldn’t I look at you?’

  She beamed at him, showing brilliant white false teeth. ‘Because I’m Gloria the Gorgeous, sonny. And I’m not just gorgeous, I’m drop-dead gorgeous. One look at me and bogeys keel over. Everyone keels over when they look at me!’

  ‘But I’ve already looked at you!’

  Gloria the Gorgeous peered down at him. Her bright blue eyes were heavy with eyeliner and false eyelashes. ‘Don’t feel faint? World spinning a bit?’

  ‘No,’ said Boo honestly.

  ‘Bother. Better go and put on some more lipstick. That should do it.’ She began to totter up the mountain path to Rest in Pieces on the highest heels Boo had ever seen.

  Boo gazed around. School looked weird on a weekend. The bats hovered over the lava pit, zapping at sparks, and the lava glugged and bubbled. From up at Rest in Pieces came the sounds of elderly Heroes yelling ‘Biff! Bam! BINGO!’ and hitting each other with their walking sticks. But the ledge itself was silent.

  The school looked curiously empty.

  The hot wind blew up from the cauldron, tasting of fire and rock. The ground shivered again, as the volcano shifted in one of its tiny earthquakes.

  It still feels like the Zurms digging, thought Boo. It smells like Zurms, too, sort of strawberry and volcano, he added to himself, absently trying to scratch an itch with his hind leg and realising he was in human form just as he started to fall over. But that was impossible. Why would Zurms dig yet another tunnel to the Heroes’ volcano, the worst place for bogeys in the universes?

  And anyway, there was nothing special about the food here, nothing that the Greedle might want. Mr Hogg had said that the food up at Rest in Pieces was mostly tentacles — tentacle kebab, roast tentacle, or tentacle sushi. The retired Heroes had spent their working lives eating whatever they could get — which was mostly bits of defeated bogey, grilled on an open fire or, where there wasn’t any firewood, raw. And even the Greedle would stay away from a volcano full of Heroes.

  ‘Squeak?’ said Squeak, poking his head out of the pouch around Boo’s neck.

  ‘Can you smell danger too?’ asked Boo.

  ‘Squeak,’ the mouse replied.

  Which doesn’t help much, thought Boo, as he hadn’t learnt how to speak much Mouse yet. He must just have been imagining the strawberry smell. It was so hard to smell properly in human form. Or maybe the ancient Heroes were having strawberry and tentacle muffins for morning tea.

  ‘Toorootoorooo!’

  Boo stared. Something was thudding through the wormhole. Something massive that shook the ground with every tread! Something that stank so bad it even cleared his nose in human form …

  ‘Toorootoorooo!’

  He’d been right! he thought. Bogeys from the Ghastly Otherwhen were invading the school!

  What should he do? Scream for help and hope s
omeone up at Rest in Pieces heard him? No! A Level 3 Hero couldn’t yell help! He’d just have to face whatever it was till the others arrived.

  Is there time to Change? he thought frantically, just as the something lurched out of the wormhole.

  ‘Toorootoorooo!’

  Boo jumped back as an elephant surged past him. A large zombie elephant, he realised, as a bit of its foot landed on his nose.

  ‘Hi,’ called Mug, waving from the elephant’s back. ‘Me brought smelephant to carry us all to my place! Like bus but zombie!’

  The zombie elephant skidded to a halt, with a three-and-a-half-leg landing.

  Mug slid down the smelephant’s trunk and hauled his duct tape out of his pocket. He expertly taped the severed foot back on, patched up the trunk, then turned to Boo. ‘You look greats,’ he announced.

  Boo flushed. He hadn’t known what zombies wore to a party (or for that matter what other guests wore to a zombie party), and he wasn’t going to wear what werewolves wore to parties, which was just a collar, not when he was in human form, anyhow.

  So he’d looked up ‘Handsome Princes’ in the library to see what they wore to parties. It took a few hours to track down the library (it had been hiding under the stairs yesterday) but he’d finally found ‘Handsome Princes’ in The Book of Instantly Everything, which was an unusually polite book and had considerately stopped its sword practice so he could look it up. According to the book, Handsome Princes wore silk and velvet to parties. Ms Shaggy had sewed all night to make the best Handsome Prince outfit Boo reckoned the school had ever seen.

  ‘You don’t think the green velvet cloak is too much?’

  Mug grinned. ‘No. It cool fungus colour. White silk shirt good too. Sleeves look like big saggy maggots.’

  ‘Er, thanks,’ said Boo doubtfully. Actually he was so hot in all the silk and velvet that the sweat was dripping down his back. But it was worth it if Princess Princess thought he looked like a Handsome Prince. If she came at all …

  ‘You look pretty good, too,’ he offered. ‘Sort of … neat.’

  Mug beamed. ‘Me combed fungus. Special for party,’ he said.

  Boo pulled a package out of his pocket and handed it to Mug. ‘Hey, happy birthday!’ he said. ‘From me and Squeak.’ He watched as Mug unwrapped it.

  ‘Hey, cool. Scent,’ rumbled Mug.

  ‘It’s “Instead of Shave”,’ said Boo. ‘It’s made from essence of dead cow, and old tortoise dung. Mr Bigpaws says it’s great. He uses it all the time.’

  ‘Cool,’ rumbled Mug.

  ‘And this,’ said Boo. He thrust another package into Mug’s fuzzy hands. ‘It’s ice cream. I made it myself. It’s the Best Ice Cream in the Universes. I thought we could eat it at the party.’

  He’d spent all morning starting up the machinery and mixing the ingredients and finding a freezer pack to keep the ice cream cold all the way to the party. It had felt funny, working at the ice-cream shop without Mum there singing to herself. Sort of sad. But good too, as though she was almost with him.

  ‘Eat what?’

  Boo’s world went bright again as Princess Princess strode out of the wormhole. ‘Princess! Sorry, I mean Princess Princess. I wasn’t sure you were coming!’

  ‘Well, I am. What’s that thing? It stinks.’

  ‘It a smelephant,’ said Mug.

  Princess Princess was wearing a tiny gold vest today, and a tiny blue-and-gold-striped skirt with ‘Hero’ embroidered around the hem. Even her shoes were gold — lacy sandals with high gold heels. ‘You look wonderful,’ said Boo before he could stop himself. He wondered suddenly if even Gloria the Gorgeous had looked as good as this when she was young.

  Princess Princess shrugged. ‘I wasn’t going to come. But people might have asked why I wasn’t going to Mug’s party, after all we went through together.’ She stared at the elephant. ‘What is a smelephant?’

  ‘It’s a zombie elephant,’ explained Boo. ‘It’s going to give us a lift to the party.’

  ‘Oh, great. If I get any zombie yuck on my new clothes I am going to be seriously angry.’ Princess Princess looked at her diamond-studded watch. ‘Come on, let’s get going.’

  ‘Yesterday’s not here yet.’ Boo hesitated. ‘Princess Princess, Mug …’

  ‘Mmm?’ said Princess Princess impatiently.

  ‘You don’t think … I mean, can you feel something strange?’

  ‘What?’ demanded Princess Princess.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Boo.

  ‘The only strange thing here is a zombie elephant,’ said Princess Princess. ‘Oh good, here’s Yesterday. Oh, no, it’s you, sir.’

  Mr Hogg suddenly appeared before them. He was wearing a tiny spangled vest — pink — and spangled sunglasses. His tail looked freshly curled. ‘Good morning!’ he trilled. ‘And how are we all this merry Saturday morn?’

  ‘Is my birthday,’ rumbled Mug. ‘We off to birthday party on smelephant.’

  ‘Enjoy yourselves!’ carolled Mr Hogg. ‘I’m just ducking back to pick up my speech. I’m trotting off to a Warrior Pig conference for the week.’

  ‘Ha-ha, sir,’ said Princess Princess.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mr Hogg.

  ‘Your joke, sir. Trotting off. Trotters …’

  ‘It wasn’t meant as a joke,’ said Mr Hogg stiffly. ‘Well, enjoy yourselves. Don’t eat too much birthday cake!’

  ‘Here’s Yesterday,’ said Princess Princess in relief, as Yesterday stepped out of the wormhole, still in her old tattered tunic. ‘Finally!’ Princess Princess stared at Yesterday in disgust. ‘Is that what you’re wearing? Erk. Come on, you lot. Let’s get this over with.’

  Mug had brought a ladder so they could climb up onto the smelephant. He’d even strapped on a seat, though it was a bit of a squash fitting them all on it.

  To Boo’s relief the zombie smell wasn’t so bad up on the smelephant’s back. He didn’t want Princess to get car-sick — or smelephant-sick — before they got there. And the seat would stop any zombie yuck seeping into his new pants.

  Not that Princess had commented on them, he thought. Or said he looked just like a handsome prince. He sighed. Maybe she was so used to handsome-prince-type gear that she took it for granted.

  ‘Toorootoorooo!’

  The smelephant gave a stumbling run, then galloped into the wormhole. The volcano’s glow vanished as the wormhole’s gloom settled around them.

  Boo gave a sigh of happiness. He was squashed up next to Princess Princess! What could be better than that?

  Well, actually, he admitted to himself, I can think of several things that might be better. Princess Princess playing catch with him on a deserted beach, just her and him and a ball and the waves rolling in to chase and maybe some dead seagulls to roll in.

  And Mum back at the Best Ice-Cream Shop in the Universes, said a small voice in his mind. A family to come home to.

  ‘Something stinks,’ said Princess Princess. ‘And I don’t just mean decomposing elephant.’

  Mug smiled happily. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘That was not a compliment,’ said Princess Princess.

  ‘Dat’s good,’ said Mug. ‘What’s one of those anyway?’

  Princess Princess sighed. ‘Okay, you lot. Which one of you has rolled in the chookie-doo-doo?’

  ‘Um, me,’ said Boo. ‘Do you like it? Mr Bigpaws says he always rolls in chook-doo before a party. And he’s the best-stinking werewolf in Sleepy Whiskers. Everyone says so.’

  ‘Boo-Boo’s boo-booed,’ said Princess Princess. ‘Again.’

  ‘Um — whose bed are we going to come out under in your universe?’ asked Boo, trying to change the subject. He hoped it wasn’t going to be Mug’s sister’s. It would be embarrassing to come out under a girl’s bed.

  ‘It come out under Graunt Doom’s bed,’ said Mug.

  ‘Graunt?’ asked Yesterday.

  ‘She great. She Great-great-great-aunt Doom,’ said Mug. ‘She got cool fungus carpet!’ he added.


  ‘Oh, great,’ muttered Princess Princess, as the smelephant came to a stop. ‘Come on. Put the ladder down so we can get off this dopey thing and up into your universe.’

  ‘No need,’ said Mug happily. ‘Smelephant will rise up with us under the bed.’

  ‘How can an elephant fit under a bed?’ demanded Princess Princess.

  ‘Me made smelephant that stinks. No, me mean shrinks.’

  ‘It stinks too,’ muttered Princess Princess. Her eyes opened wider. ‘Hey, you mean you made this elephant? That’s impossible. You’re dumb!’

  Mug grinned, showing his crumbly green teeth. ‘Yeah. Me dumb with words. Me dumb with numbers. But me not dumb with DNA and zombie stuff.’

  The smelephant began to rise … and shrink. Suddenly they were all tumbled together under a bed on something cold and fuzzy, with a small smelly elephant in the middle.

  ‘Erk!’ yelled Princess Princess. ‘Get me out of here!’ She crawled out over the moist fungusy carpet, kneeing Boo in the ribs as she went, then stood up. Boo followed her, then stared.

  He was in a room … or was he? The walls were white … but when you looked closely there was a tracery of what looked horribly like veins. The walls seemed to bounce like a heartbeat … and the floor went up and down.

  ‘What’s happening?!’ shrieked Princess Princess. ‘This place is weird! It’s moving!’

  Mug grinned. ‘You inside zombie house. No worries. House just swimming.’

  ‘It’s what?!’

  ‘It hot today. House swimming in lagoon. Come on. Come and meet my family!’

  It’s a beautiful lagoon, thought Boo, gazing out from the living room. The water had a pink sandy beach on three sides, and pink palm trees, and pink zombie swans gliding in the shallows.

  ‘Mum like pink,’ said Mug proudly. ‘House pink too.’

  ‘Yes, it’s very … pink,’ said Boo weakly.

  ‘Pink feathers good insulation,’ said Mug.

  ‘And the feet?’ asked Yesterday.

  ‘How house move around without feet? Hi, Mum! They here!’