I did warn you right back at the beginning of the book that this was one SERIOUSLY weird twenty-four hours in the Nothing to See Here Hotel … even by our standards.
It took us ages to decide what to do after poor Uncle Oculus had been frozen solid.
The sun rose not long after our giant fight and, before we knew it, all the hotel guests were shuffling around the ice column, scratching their heads and wondering what the strange new piece of art was all about. But we got it all sorted (well … Mum did) eventually.
She set Ooof to work, chipping the stone reception counter out from its frosty nest, and it was safely back in place in no time.
Then our handyogre started on the unfortunate grave child. He hammered away at the enormous tower of ice until there was only a neat cube of it left with Oculus trapped in its centre.
Now, don’t forget that my great-great-uncle couldn’t die. He’d been cursed with the graveghast’s kiss after all.
NOPE! He was going to be stuck in there for a very long time, getting VERY bored indeed.
After one of Nancy’s world-famous breakfasts of scrambled unicorn eggs on toast and mugful after mugful of shrimp-scale tea, the Kwinzis saddled up the Arctic ulk and got ready to head off on their journey back home to the Himalayas.
‘It’s just not long enough,’ Unga sobbed into an oversized hanky. ‘I’ll miss you more than a chunker misses chipolatas.’
Orfis loaded the frozen boy in his block of ice onto a small sled they’d hitched to the back of the ulk and grimaced.
‘Ooooh, it’s all a bit spookerific if you ask me!’ he mumbled, visibly juddering. ‘We’ll keep him safe and snugly up on the glacier by our village. He won’t be able to cause any more trouble there, so long as he stays frosty and freezy.’
And that was that. Before we had time to grumble or complain or cry, our Trogmanay Trolliday was over and our yeti friends were galloping down the garden path and over the frozen sea at the centre of a magical storm.
As I waved goodbye, I wanted to feel happy about stopping Oculus and saving the hotel from being discovered by the outside world, but I couldn’t shake a weird gloopy feeling in my belly. I… well, I… I felt sorry for him. If everything my great-great-uncle had said was true, I wasn’t surprised he wanted revenge! What if Great-Great-Great-Grandad Abraham really had been a big phoney?
I had some serious investigating to do… but before then, we had a mountain of clearing up to see to.
Mum put the enchanted mops to work with all the melting snow, and the Molar Sisters kindly used their magic wands to repair all the damage around reception caused by the fight, Maudlin set about fixing her lepre-caravan, Lady Leonora and Wailing Norris were whisked off to the nearest staircase where they could rest up and recover from terrible headaches and what they said were, ‘REALLY STRANGE DREAMS!’, and Granny Regurgita missed all of it.
HAHA! My grizzly grunion of a great-great-great-granny hates trolliday celebrations and didn’t care a jot when I tried to tell her about Oculus later that day.
She’d heard it all before, I suppose? There have always been blizzards, and yetis, and talking birds, and angry 127-year-old boys, and water witches, and festive feasts, and leprechauns, and whispering wallpaper, and curses, and shrunken heads, and jars of extra-thick and spicy mango chutney, and goblin ghosts, and evil plans and lots and lots of ‘right pickles’…
I did warn you that weird is normal to us Banisters, and I guess when you’re a 476-year-old troll, there’s always something crazier that’s happened on some other occasion.
Ha!
Who’s for a snowball fight before the last of it thaws in the garden?
COME ON!
ONE LAST THING…
Agh! HANG ON! Before you put this book down and go outside to play, there’s just one skwinkly thing I have to tell you.
That night, after all the commotion was over and the sight of my frozen great-great-uncle was starting to go fuzzy in my memory, there was a bump in the dark.
I was lying in bed, quietly thinking about Great-Great-Great-Grandad Abraham and nodding slowly off when…
‘Oi! Wake up, you ranciderous SNOT-LUMPER!’
I jolted awake and sat up. For a second I thought it was all happening again, and Nancy was calling me from the kitchen … until … I saw it. Sitting on the end of my bed, waggling his tiny, curly shoes over the edge, was Grogbah’s ghost.
‘WELL, now, what a whoppsy day!’ he said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. ‘Who’d have thunkled it? I’ll be needing somewhere bunglish and cozy to haunt now that deadly dratling has gone and I think your bedroom is the PERFECTEROUS SPOT!’
I stared with wide eyes as he plucked a ghostly chain out of the air and rattled it noisily at me.
‘Wooooooooo!’ Grogbah moaned and yowled, between stifled chuckles. ‘WOOOOOOOOOO!’
Steven B is an award-winning children’s writer, actor, voice artist and host of World Book Day’s The Biggest Book Show On Earth. When not typing, twirling about on stage, or being very dramatic on screen, Steven spends his time trying to spot thistlewumps at the bottom of the garden and catching dust pooks in jars. His The Wrong Pong series was shortlisted for the prestigious Roald Dahl Funny Prize.
www.stevenbutlerbooks.com
Steven L is an award-winning illustrator based in Brighton, not far from The Nothing To See Here Hotel! As well as designing all of the creatures you have just seen throughout this book, Steven also illustrates the Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam series and Frank Cottrell Boyce’s fiction titles. When he isn’t drawing giant spiders and geriatric mermaids, Steven loves to eat ice cream on Brighton beach looking out for goblin pirate ships on the horizon.
www.stevenlenton.com
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Text Copyright © 2019 Steven Butler
Illustrations Copyright © 2019 Steven Lenton
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Steven Butler and Steven Lenton to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor, 222 Gray’s Inn Road
London
WC1X 8HB
www.simonandschuster.co.uk
www.simonandschuster.com.au
www.simonandschuster.co.in
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
PB ISBN: 978-1-4711-6385-2
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-6386-9
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd are committed to sourcing paper that is made from wood grown in sustainable forests and support the Forest Stewardship Council, the leading international forest certification organisation. Our books displaying the FSC logo are printed on FSC certified paper.
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yeti! Page 10