New Title 1

by Billings, Ian

  Marley gasped in amazement.

  Grandpop Fred gasped in wonderment.

  Viola gasped in admiration.

  Tark gasped in astonishment.

  Viola gasped in awe.

  Mr J.D. Scabb B.A. (Ed) gasped in surprise.

  Spike Peece gasped in astoundment, but his parent didn’t gasp at all because I can’t think of any more nouns.

  Plonka hugged the machine and rubbed his cheek against it purring softly.

  “It’s my Neverending Gobblocker Generator!”

  “But whatever does it do?” asked Viola.

  “Good question, my dear,” said Mr J.D. Scabb B.A. (Ed).

  “It generates Neverending Gobblockers. Obvs!” announced Mr Plonka.

  The machine looked like a fridge that had turned feral. Slimy mould covered its sides and front, little lights tried hard to penetrate the grot and at the bottom was a wide slit not entirely unlike one you might see on a vending machine. And in many ways it was a vending machine and we’re about to find out what it vends.

  Every single pipe in the room, every single plipping, plopping, dripping, dropping, flipping, flopping pipe was somehow, somewhere, someway plugged into the machine.

  “That’s so the finest grot can be pumped in directly!” trilled Mr Plonka, stroking his machine, “Isn’t she wonderful? This is the filthiest machine in the entire laboratory. Wait a minute, there’s a clean bit!” He knelt down, grabbed a handful of gunky mud and rubbed it over the clean bit. “That’s better. I must tell the Grumpy Trumpers to keep this room nice and dirty! Where was I?”

  “You were telling us about the Neverending Gobblocker, doofus!” said Marley wondering how much all this was worth.

  “Thank you, my dear boy, what a fine tongue for insult you have. You’ll go far!”

  “But what is the Neverending Gobblocker??” said Marley, getting exasperated.

  “Would you like to see one?” asked Plonka, playfully.

  “Of course we would!!!” Marley was getting really annoyed now.

  “He really is a credit to you!” Plonka said to Grandpop Fred.

  “Who would like to see a Neverending Gobblocker?”

  Everyone put their hands up.

  “Who wants to give me a coin?”

  Everyone put their hands down.

  “Oh, dear. Well, like all good vending machines, this will not work without a coin. So I suppose we’re rather stuck.”

  Plonka sat on a nearby barrel and waited.

  The visitors exchanged a few glances but no one wanted to give Plonka money.

  “There you go!” said Marley holding up a shining new coin which twinkled. Plonka grabbed it and leaped over to the towering machine, brushed some mould from the coin slot and slotted in the coin.

  “Bllllarrhhhhh!” went the machine, followed by, “Eeeeekkkk! Urrrkk! Loooomy, loooomy! Futtt, futtt!”

  It swayed slightly back and forth, expanded, contracted, wobbled a little and with each noise a plume of steam hissed from every nook and cranny leaving a hideous stench dangling in the air.

  Then it fell silent.

  The silence continued a little longer.

  Everyone waited.

  Finally Plonka said, “Has anyone got another coin?”

  “There you go!” Marley held up a shiny coin.

  Plonka snatched it and poked it into the machine.

  “Where you getting these coins from?” asked his Grandpop Fred.

  Marley pointed over to Mudguard, whose handbag was gaping open and offering its content to whatever unscrupulous no-good-doer happened to be near, and the no-good-doer who happened to be near on this occasion was Marley Suckett. Grandpop smiled proudly and patted his head.

  Plonka slipped the coin in. The machine huffed and puffed, twanged and twinged, wobbled and bobbled, squeaked and squealed and finally made a noise like a moose squeezing a very big zit.

  Into the vending machine’s slit tumbled a grotty, fluff-covered grey ball about the size of a lemon. Plonka scooped it from the tray and held it aloft with a glistening eye and said,

  “Behold - The Neverending Gobblocker!”

  * * *

  1 It was actually red but years of slime had turned it green. And squidgy. And smelly. And… well, you get the idea…

  2 It’s not. He’s making that up.

  3 Look it up.

  THE NEVERENDING GOBBLOCKER

  The crowd gaped at the Neverending Gobblocker as a little brown juice dribbled from it, down Plonka’s arm and into his sleeve. He shivered with delight.

  “This is an entire garbage chute in one mouthful.”

  “Rubbish!” scoffed Mr J.D. Scabb B.A. (Ed).

  “Top quality rubbish!” Plonka retorted and turned the Neverending Gobblocker over in his hand. It left a slimy trail which glinted and gleamed. “Quite, quite perfect!”

  “This is complete garbage and utter dross!” continued Mr J.D. Scabb B.A. (Ed).

  “Well, garbage it maybe but the dross I use to flavour the cat litter. Dross would ruin a Neverending Gobblocker!”

  “I, like, don’t get it!” said Viola, elbowing her way to the front.

  “And you won’t get it, either, young lady. These Gobblockers are not yet on the market. They are as rare as fish legs!”

  “But fish don’t have legs, bozo!” said Viola.

  “It’s a figure of speech, dunderhead!” came back Plonka, “Who wants first lick?”

  He waved the Neverending Gobblocker before the disgusted face of each visitor. Each stepped back a little as it passed by and wafted away the whiff.

  “Marley - have first lick and pass it on!”

  “Gross!”

  “I know!”

  Each in turn turned down the Neverending Gobblocker.

  “Well, thank you very much, Mr Plonka!” said Mr Plonka, sarcastically, sitting on a creaking crate, “Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for letting me be the first person in the universe to try a Neverending Gobblocker. I don’t know why I bother. Look at it! A thing of ugliness is a joy forever, I always say.”

  “But,” said Spike Peecee, “It’s kind of disgusting!”

  “Of course it is, moofus!”

  “You mean ‘doofus’, doofus!” corrected Marley.

  “Disgusting is what I do! I’m the Monarch of Muck, the Duke of Dregs, the Rajah of Rot, the Sultan of Slime!”

  Plonka leaped on the crate, wobbled a little, regained his balance and started ranting again, “I’m the Tycoon of Ooze, the Mogul of Goo, the Prince of Stink, the Maharajah of Mucus and the King of Kak. Now who wants to lick this Gobblocker??”

  “I, like, will!” Viola stepped over to Mr Plonka and held out her hand.

  “Are you sure this is wise, Miss Mudguard?” said Tark.

  She turned to her bodyguard and winked, “Don’t you get it? I’m going to the first person in the universe to eat a Neverending Gobblocker. I’m going to be famous again and what does fame mean?”

  “Money!” They shrieked like startled geese and high-fived each other.

  “Get a picture of me eating it!”

  Tark took out his phone and pointed it at Viola as she opened her hand to receive the Gobblocker.

  “Now you do understand this is still in the beta stage?” said Plonka.

  “Give!”

  “It hasn’t been satisfactorily tested yet.”

  “Give!”

  “Not even on the Grumpy Trumpers.”

  “Give!”

  “There may be a few side effects. Just a few teensy-weensy side effects.”

  “Give. It. Me!”

  Plonka sighed and dropped the Neverending Gobblocker into Viola’s outstretched hand. She looked at it, she sniffed it, she very, very carefully touched it with the tip of her tongue and then with one swift gulp swallowed it whole!

  “Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!” said Mr Plonka, casually making his carnation a little more wilty.

  “What? What did I do?” said Viola.

&
nbsp; “Well, you were only supposed to lick it. Remember the old saying, ‘Never bite off more than you can poo!’”

  “Tell us what you can taste, Miss Mudguard,” said Tark, filming everything on his phone.

  “It’s bizarre! I'm getting old toothpaste! What's this? Some fluff and some dust! Urggh, this tastes like grass clippings! Wait I’m getting an old tea bag now! Some left over beans and pencil shavings and soil! Wait there’s something else. Chocolate??? That's gross! Wait, washing up water, month-old socks, mouldy yoghurt and some sludge!”

  “What’s next?” asked Tark.

  “Burpppppppppp!”and it was one of the loudest burps ever heard! If she had done it into a microphone the sound engineer’s ears would have exploded and his nose lit up, but she didn’t so you'll just have to take my word for it.

  And then there was another.

  And then another.

  And another.

  “Bbbbuuuuurrrrrpppppppppp!!!!”

  Each burp sounded like an angry sea lion complaining about the price of fish.

  And the next burp was so loud it shot Viola across the room and she banged against the machine. She burped again and shot off in the opposite direction scattering the crowd of visitors, all of whom were now getting out their phones and helpfully filming the event.

  “Make it stop!” shrieked Tark, as Viola shot past.

  “I told you it wasn’t ready!” Mr Plonka shouted over the burping “But it could be worse, I suppose.”

  “How could it be any worse?”

  And then Viola let off a far grosser noise from a very different part of her body.

  “Like that!” said Mr Plonka, softly.

  Everyone grimaced, wafted the air and held their noses.

  With each deafening and whiffy report Viola was flung violently back and forth across the room like a missile with a broken sat-nav.

  “She’s whazzplopping!” shouted Mr Plonka with delight, “I love it when they whazzplop!”

  “Do something, you buffoon!” Tark demanded as Viola bashed against a pile of cardboard boxes emptying piles of garbage onto the floor.

  “Oh, very well,” Mr Plonka said reluctantly and placed his hand under his armpit summoning the Grumpy Trumpers, “Take Viola to the De-gassing Room!” he ordered as she flew past for the umpteenth time. “You will find all the pipes, pumps and extractors you need there!”

  With practised ease the Grumpy Trumpers formed a scrum around the bouncing, burping Viola and brought her to the ground with a scream then dragged her away followed by her squealing bodyguard.

  “Mind her face! Mind her face!”

  Once the room fell silent and everyone’s phone had been put back in their pockets, Plonka sighed, tutted, plucked some hair from his ear and said, “Right, who wants to see some eels?”

  THE EEL ROOM

  Mr Plonka strode over to the large brown door of the Eel Room, which had been sitting quietly in a corner. He unstraightened the sign and placed his nose on a small, black box by the side.

  “PlonkaNoseScan™!” he said, “Not to be sniffed at!”

  “But will she be alright?” asked Mr J.D. Scabb B.A. (Ed).

  “They usually are!” said Plonka and stood back as the big brown door slowly creaked open, stuck, creaked again, stuck and creaked again and stopped. Mr Plonka muttered something rude about the Grumpy Trumpers and shoved it open with his foot.

  “You mean it’s happened before?”

  “Yes, yes, but let’s not cry over stale milk! Onwards! Behold the Eel Room - the epicentre of my Grotty Empire!” he said and was immediately engulfed in a cloud of smog.

  “Where did he go?” asked Spike Peecee’s parents through his ePad.

  “I can’t see a thing!” announced Victoria. Her father wafted the smog then gagged loudly.

  “Heavens! I can even taste it! It tastes like old socks!”

  “Indeed it is!” said Mr Plonka from inside the smog, “It’s always old socks on a Tuesday! Follow my voice!”

  And one by one the visitors stepped into the smog and disappeared.

  Squelch!

  “I trod in something!” yelped Victoria Scabb.

  Squidge!

  “I slipped in something!” shouted Spike Peecee.

  Splat!

  “I slipped and trod in something!” said Marley.

  “I think it was me!” said Mr Plonka, “May I have my wallet back, please?”

  The visitors stumbled about in the pongy smog trying hard not to inhale the stench, but failed.

  “Eeeeeek!” said Mr J.D. Scabb B.A. (Ed).

  “Urggghhh!” said Grandpop Fred.

  “Can I please have my wallet back!” said Mr Plonka, “Thank you!”

  Slowly, very slowly, the pongy mist started to clear and bit by bit the room started to come into focus. It was smaller than ones they had visited before but maybe it only felt smaller because right in the centre was something very large, very wide and very, very wet. It was big and black and bubbling.

  Bubble, bubble!1

  “The Eel Tank!” announced Mr Plonka, tapping the side with his cane.

  “This tank contains hundreds of highly-trained eels. I trained them myself with my own two feet! It takes three years to train a really good eel, you know. It’s not easy. Try it sometime!”

  “But what do they do?” asked Marley.

  “Allow me to demonstrate with the use of this yo-yo!” And with that, Mr Plonka produced a yo-yo from his pocket, skipped across to the tank and stood on the edge.

  “Eely, eely, eelies! Yo-yo time!” and the yo-yo whizzed down the string and plopped into the water.

  It stayed there for a moment.

  Everyone gawped.

  The string suddenly tightened with a twang and whatever was below the water tugged at it with the strength of an annoyed elephant.

  “Look at that! That is quality tugging!” Suddenly the string went limp and Mr Plonka drew it from the water. The yo-yo was gone!

  “That’s it?” said Victoria, “I am so not impressed!”

  “Patience, fishface!”

  Then suddenly the little red yoyo shot out the water, flew through the air, donked off Grandpop Fred’s confused head and landed with a plop in a nearby pile of slime.

  “Big hail stones!” said Grandpop Fred, rubbing his head.

  “But I still don’t understand what they do!” said Mr J.D. Scabb B.A. (Ed).

  “You really are very simple, aren’t you!” said Mr Plonka leaping from the side of the tank and over to Mr J.D. Scabb B.A. (Ed). “Are you sure you should be a teacher? What’s the capital of minus five? In what year was the Pacific Ocean executed? What’s the past tense of umbrella? What’s the square root of a squirrel? If it takes three wardrobes two hours to hear cheese, what does number nine smell like? See - you’ve no idea!”

  “But that’s just gibberish!”

  “I know! I speak it fluently. I spent many years on the isle of Gibber! But enough of this witty wittering - let me tell you about my eels!”

  He leaned over the tank and dangled his cane near the surface of the black, whiffy water.

  Slowly a slithering eel emerged from the water. It had a face like a burned sausage. It winked at them and slowly wrapped itself around the cane.

  “My eels’ senses are so finely tuned they can sniff out the finest quality grot from the deepest and darkest waters and spit it out onto dry land instantly!”

  And as he spoke a small, moist teabag shot out of the water and landed with a splat at Plonka’s feet.

  “What perfect timing!” He picked it up and sniffed it. “Oh, that’s a keeper,” he said and slipped it in his pocket.

  Everyone crowded around the pond and looked into the slithering mass of manky eels.

  “How much are they worth?” asked Marley.

  “They are not for sale! Never! These eels are priceless. No one else in the world owns eels like these! Watch!”

  He clicked his fingers and from nowhere the s
ound of music filled the air.

  “That’s beautiful music!” said Victoria.

  “I know. It makes me sick. Now watch!”

  And suddenly five eels poked up out of the water in a line and winked, then they started swaying back and forth in time to the music. The visitors couldn’t take their eyes off the strange sight. The eels swayed a little longer, plopped back under the water and then, in perfect time to the music, one leaped clear of the water like a mad party popper. Then another. Then another. Then another. And each in turn sploshed back into the water.

  “They’re putting on a show!” said Spike Peecee, recording it all on his ePad.

  “Synchronised eel swimming!” hooted Mr Plonka.

  Another eel shot out of the water, pirouetted in the air and as soon as it plopped back in it was replaced by another who flipped over in the air, stretched itself to its full-length and slapped back into the tank splashing the visitors with grimy water.

  “Urgh! I’m covered in it!” shrieked Victoria.

  “I know - isn’t it marvellous?” said Plonka.

  Another leaped for the water, tied itself in a knot, untied itself and plopped back. Another shot up, tied itself in a knot that spelled the word, “Yo!” and splashed back down. Then they all formed a circle in the water and dived head first under with only their tails wiggling in the air.

  Grandpop Fred was clapping with delight. “Who knew eels were so entertaining?”

  When the heads of the eels returned to the surface each had a piece of garbage in its mouth. Some mouldy bread, an old sardine tin, a brown banana and a nappy.

  Mr Plonka was doing a jig to the music and whooping merrily as the eels spat their garbage clear of the tank and it landed at the feet of the spectators with a sloppy plop.

  “I’m so proud!” he yelped.

  An eel emerged and winked. Another eel climbed onto top of that eel and stood straight up, balanced on the other one’s head. Then another eel climbed up both of them and stood straight on top of each of them. Then two more eels slithered up their team mates and stood up straight like a big, black flag pole. It wobbled slightly and then suddenly they jumped and splashed back into the bubbling water.

  The music stopped and everyone clapped wildly.