Meanwhile, a sixth skeleton turned a handle to lower one of the giant balls from the ceiling. He opened a circular door in its side, and then pushed us inside.
Cube shook his square head in dismay. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” said Claret. “You didn’t ask to be kidnapped by this ectoplasmic egotist. He’s abused your skills to get his own way.”
“And get my own way, I shall!” Nobody beamed. “But first – another test run. Let’s use six thousand hamsters this time. The temperature at the earth’s core is near to six thousand degrees Celsius, so this plastic ball will melt away almost immediately – as will anything which isn’t coated in heat-resistant spray, such as yourselves. After you have burned to a crisp, I shall issue a command via a radio link, and my beautiful hamsters will begin to run as one. Time will speed up again.”
The skeletons rolled the ball over so that the opening was facing the roof of the cavern. We all fell over. As we were scrambling to our feet again, 6,000 still-wet-from-being-sprayed hamsters were dumped on top of us. I could feel the weight of them pressing down on me. My nostrils twitched at the stench. I hoped it was the smell of Cube’s spray and not hamster wee.
“We have to find a way out of here,” Fangs gasped as the lid of the ball was screwed back in place.
“Be seeing you!” called Mr Nobody. “Oh, that’s right – no, I won’t.”
Then his skeletons pushed the giant hamster ball into the hole and we fell towards the very centre of the planet.
Tuesday 1720 hours: Falling, Lindos, Rhodes
As we tumbled into the darkness, the light at the top of the hole suddenly looked like a screaming mouth. I had to think fast, otherwise we wouldn’t stop falling until we reached the fires at the centre of the earth.
“Fangs!” I cried. “Do a star jump.”
“What?”
“DO A STAR JUMP!”
My boss clambered to his feet – which wasn’t easy with his hands fastened behind his back and 6,000 hamsters crawling over him. He jumped. As he did so, I kicked him as hard as I could in the bottom.
“OW!”
The telescopic chair legs of Cube’s Seat-of-Your-Pants gadget exploded out of Fangs’s trousers. The ends broke through the plastic ball and embedded themselves in the wall of the hole. We came to a violent halt. The ball rocked back and forth, but the creaking legs held us in place. We had fallen around 300 metres into the hole. The hamsters scurried around the bottom of the ball, squeaking with fear.
“No one make any sudden movements,” I hissed.
“Well, I’m hardly likely to, am I?” grunted Fangs. He was pressed up against the top of the ball, his hands against the smooth curve of the plastic above him – the handcuffs had been snapped off by the impact. His legs were spread almost into the splits by the poles that were holding us in place.
“Cube!” exclaimed Claret. “Your gadgets have done it again.”
“Thank you,” said Cube, although he didn’t sound convinced.
“We’re not out of this yet, Claret,” I pointed out. “The next part is up to you.”
“Me?” asked the older vampire. “What can I do?”
“It’s time for you to take possession of the situation,” I said. “We need the Astounding Claret to possess someone back up there in Mr Nobody’s lair and operate the machinery to winch us back out.”
“But I can’t—” protested Claret.
“You have to,” I interrupted. “No more excuses. It’s our only hope of not dying a very painful death.”
“I don’t mean I won’t do it,” Claret said. “I mean I can’t possess anyone up there. Mr Nobody is a ghost, and his henchmen are all skeletons.”
“You could always possess one of these hamsters,” suggested Fangs. “Maybe then you could climb back up the wall and save us that way.”
I shook my head. “There’s no way a hamster could operate the winch controls.”
“There is someone else,” said Cube. “Marmalade Springs.”
“No,” protested Fangs. “He can’t possess Marmalade.”
“Why not?” I asked.
Fangs sighed. “I was going to ask her out, but I can’t if she’s my dad!”
“Fangs,” I said sternly. “If Claret doesn’t do this, the only date you’ll ever go on again is a very short hot one with some flame-retardant hamsters.”
My boss nodded. The Astounding Claret closed his eyes, then began to tremble – and then he fell back to lie limply among the hamsters.
“Is that it?” asked Cube. “Has he done it?”
“Yes,” exclaimed Fangs with pride. “Look – there’s my dad.”
A ghostly figure in a vampire cape was floating up towards the hole in the floor of the cavern above us.
“Oh, I wish I had a computer,” moaned Cube. “I could hack into Nobody’s CCTV system and watch what’s going on.”
“I think I can go one better, professor,” I said. “But first I’ve got to get out of these.” I twisted my wrists against the skeletal handcuffs until I heard the SNAP! of bones breaking. I then helped to free the professor.
“I left the Bat ‘n’ Ball parked behind the door in the laboratory, just in case,” I explained, flying the gadget high into the air using the controls on my Smartphone. The professor and I sat among the wriggling hamsters and watched the action up above on the tiny screen.
“What’s happening?” asked Fangs, who was still suspended awkwardly near the top of the ball.
“I can see your dad!” I cried. “He’s sneaking up on Marmalade…” It felt strange to be saying that with Claret’s body lying next to us – but I knew that was just an empty shell for the time being. The real Claret was a few hundred metres above us, working to save our lives.
The ghostly form of Claret took up position behind Marmalade. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath – and started to step forward… Only for Mr Nobody to spot him!
“Oh no you don’t!” Nobody cried, swinging round with an ectoplasmic fist. I expected it to go right through Claret, but it didn’t. It hit him square in the jaw and sent him sprawling backwards across the room.
“Ghosts can make contact with other ghosts!” Cube exclaimed. “Who knew?”
As quick as a flash, Claret was back on his feet – well, hovering a few centimetres above the floor, anyway. He threw himself at Mr Nobody and wrestled him to the ground. Then he returned the punch with one of his own.
Three skeletons rushed at Claret. The see-through vampire turned and ran – or, at least, he tried to. He clearly wasn’t used to moving around without a solid body, and his feet swept through the air a few times before he was finally able to move. He wasn’t fast enough, however, and the skeletons pounced – only to fall straight through him. They shattered into a pile of bones.
“Get Marmalade out of here!” Mr Nobody screamed. “I don’t want him anywhere near her.”
Two of the Bone Boys grabbed Marmalade and dragged her away. The only person up there who Claret could possess had gone.
Nobody peered down at us. “So, you found a way to delay your doom,” he cried, squinting at the Seat-of-Your-Pants gadget. “Well, you haven’t extended your pathetic lives for very long.” He turned to his skeletal henchmen. “Fill another ball with hamsters and send it down on top of them.”
Tuesday 1759 hours: Beneath Nobody’s Lair, Lindos, Rhodes
I heard the whirr of machinery as another of the giant plastic balls was winched down from the ceiling of the cavern. I turned the Bat ‘n’ Ball round to see a skeleton opening a crate of hamsters. Another Bone Boy picked up the hose and began to spray the animals with Cube’s potion.
Fangs glanced down at me in terror. “If he drops another ball on top of us…”
“…It’ll dislodge us from the sides of the hole and send us plummeting to the centre of the earth,” I finished.
“I think this is it,” said Cube, hugging me. “I can’t see a way out of this.�
��
Then the microphone in the Bat ‘n’ Ball picked up a new voice. “Drop everything, Nobody! The game’s up. You’re under arrest.”
“That … that sounded like Mr Nobody,” I said.
“He really has lost it if he’s arresting himself,” Fangs said.
“Do as I say, Nobody, and nobody gets hurt! Apart from Nobody, that is…” the voice went on. “The Astounding Claret is here.”
“Claret has possessed Mr Nobody’s body,” I exclaimed.
“What?” cried Fangs.
I stared at my phone in amazement. Staggering clumsily out of the ice room, surrounded by clouds of freezing air, was the dead body of Mr Nobody.
The real Mr Nobody – the shimmering ghostly one – almost exploded with fury. “What are you doing with my body?” he screamed, his eye twitching like crazy.
“I’m possessing it,” replied Claret, lumbering forward. “It’s very hard to do, and it takes lots of concentration and years of practice!”
Mr Nobody’s eyes grew wide. “Teach me how to do it!” he begged. “Then I could return to my body today.”
“No can do,” said Claret. “You can’t possess yourself – that would be ridiculous. Besides, I really don’t think you want this body any more…”
“Why not?”
“It’s been in the deep freeze for too long,” said Claret. “It feels a bit brittle to me…” As if to prove what he was saying, there was a sickening
CRACK!
and the body’s right ankle snapped off.
“You broke my foot!” screeched Mr Nobody.
“It’s not just the foot, I’m afraid,” Claret said. “Other bits are starting to give out too. I reckon this body will only last a matter of minutes. Still, that’s long enough to save my son and his friends.”
I manoeuvred the Bat ‘n’ Ball so we could watch Claret limp over to the winch controls and pull on a lever. A chain clattered down the hole towards us. Two of the Bone Boys dashed to stop him.
“Don’t go near him,” Mr Nobody ordered. “That body is the only one I’ve got. I don’t want you clumsy oafs smashing me to pieces.”
The chain knocked into the plastic ball. It had a large hook on the end. I handed the phone to Cube, then climbed up Fangs’s back to sit on his shoulders. “Nearly there, boss,” I said, unscrewing the lid above him.
“Thank goodness,” sighed Fangs. “I could do with a good sit-down after this.”
“Easily done, Agent Enigma,” said Cube from below us. “I could install those chair legs in all your trousers.”
“Actually, scrap that,” said Fangs. “I’ll be a standing-up kind of guy from now on.”
I attached the hook to a fastening next to the door in the ball. “WE’RE READY, CLARET!” I shouted. “BRING US UP!”
I heard the winch begin to retract, and, finally, the ball started to rise. Fangs pressed the button to retract the chair legs and collapsed to the floor. We gathered around the phone again so we could watch what was going on via the Bat ‘n’ Ball.
Claret was pulling hard on the lever which controlled the winch. Then—
CRACK!
His wrist snapped.
“Forget what I said!” screeched the ghost of Mr Nobody. “Get that idiot out of my body before he destroys it.”
The Bone Boys advanced on Claret. He snatched up the broken-off hand and jammed it into the control panel, wedging the lever in position.
“That’s my dad,” said Fangs with a proud smile.
The hole above us was growing larger and larger by the second. We would be at the surface very soon.
“Now, now,” Claret said to the assortment of angry and misshapen skeletons hobbling towards him. “Stay back or the body gets it!”
Mr Nobody howled with rage. “I can’t watch this any more.”
“Then don’t,” exclaimed a female voice.
Mr Nobody spun round – just as we reached the surface. We were able to watch without the aid of the Bat ‘n’ Ball as Marmalade Springs doused Nobody with Cube’s heat-resistant cooking spray. “This should obscure your vision,” she cried.
The spray hit Mr Nobody full in the face. But instead of passing through him as you’d expect, the liquid began to fill him up.
“Oh dear,” cried Cube as I helped him out of the giant hamster ball. “It’s the ground-up pebbles I used in the mixture. The liquid is turning solid as it hits him. It’s building Mr Nobody a totally new body, from the inside out.”
“You mean we’re giving him exactly what he wants?” cried Fangs.
“I’m afraid so,” Cube said.
Marmalade shrieked and dropped the hose, which was just as well, as Nobody was now full to the brim with sloshing, pink liquid.
“I feel amazing,” he roared. “Destroy my old, inferior body if you will. This is the new me. With this stone body, I shall be more powerful than ever!”
The door to the tunnel burst open and two dozen witches flew in on broomsticks. They whizzed around the room, hurling weighted nets over the Bone Boys.
Feline Scamper leapt off the back of one of the broomsticks and ran over to me.
“You arrived in the nick of time,” I said with a smile. “But how did you get past the DNA lock?”
Kora the witch flew over us and dropped a bone club into my open paws. It was the weapon Claret had tossed out to sea. “One of the Bone Boys gave us a hand.” Feline grinned. “You’re going to prison, Nobody!” he sneered as one of the witches clamped a hand down on Nobody’s shoulder. Yes, his shoulder. Mr Nobody’s new body was finally complete!
Mr Nobody shrugged the witch off easily and made a break for it. Claret launched himself at Nobody, but the ghost was ready. He snatched up a wrench from the control desk and raised it above his head, preparing to strike Claret.
“NOOOO!” yelled Fangs. He pulled out the Spookie award from under his cloak and hurled it at Mr Nobody.
The statue hit the ghost in the back, knocking him into Claret, and the pair fell into the drill hole. The Spookie skittered away across the floor.
The award forgotten, Fangs lunged for his dad, clutching hold of the fingers of Nobody’s shattered corpse. “Don’t worry, Dad,” Fangs cried. “I’ve got you!”
Only he hadn’t. There was a CRACK! and Fangs was left holding nothing more than a detached arm.
“DAD!”
Two versions of Mr Nobody – ghostly and dead body – disappeared towards the earth’s core.
“He’s gone,” Fangs croaked. “He saved us all, and now he’s gone.”
I just didn’t know what to say.
“He could really do everything he said he could,” Fangs continued. “And I never got to say thank you.”
There was a groan behind us. The body of Claret Enigma was still inside the plastic ball with the hamsters. It sat up. “Now, what on earth possessed the Astounding Claret to think doing that was a good idea?” he asked.
Friday 2029 hours: Dorchester Hotel, London, UK
The audience in the ballroom of the Dorchester Hotel applauded as Phlem slid up to the microphone. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” he gurgled. “And welcome back to the concluding part of this year’s Spookie Awards ceremony.”
Fangs Enigma, who was seated near the front of the room, crossed his fingers. “This time,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else. “This time…”
“I’m rooting for you, handsome,” said Skylar, kissing the vampire’s cheek.
“As am I, son,” said Claret Enigma. The older vampire was dressed in a new suit made from lime green silk and covered in blue sapphires. It clashed horribly with his orange-sequined cape.
Feline Scamper winked at a werewolf sitting next to him. “Do you think he’ll win one?” he asked.
“Oh, I hope so,” said Puppy Brown. “Or I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“A bit like me back home,” said Feline. “It doesn’t do a cat’s reputation much good to have a million or so hamsters smuggled into the c
ountry, right under his whiskers! Still, it’s a free pet for every classroom in Greece.”
There was more applause as a new figure took to the stage – it was Cube! He was wearing a square-shaped wooden frame over his head, as he had done ever since he had returned to London a few days earlier. Unfortunately, it was rather heavy, and he staggered slightly, bumping his now flattened forehead into the mike.
“Oops,” he said, his voice echoing around the room. “I feel such a square – thank goodness.”
“Get on with it!” barked a voice that may or may not have belonged to Fangs Enigma.
“All right, all right,” said Cube, tearing open a golden envelope. “And the award for the world’s greatest vampire spy goes to … Claret Enigma!”
“WHAT?” cried Fangs. But his protestations were quickly drowned out as the rest of the room leapt to their feet in a standing ovation.
Puppy Brown watched open-mouthed as Claret jumped up from his seat, grabbed Skylar’s hand and dragged her up onto the stage with him. Meanwhile, Fangs’s mouth was flapping open and closed. He looked like a goldfish.
Phlem handed the award to the older vampire, who paused to slip on a pair of dark sunglasses before approaching the microphone. “The Astounding Claret truly deserves this,” he exclaimed. Then he ran towards the exit, dragging his new date with him.
“Dad,” shouted Fangs, “get back here right now!”
Claret didn’t even glance over his shoulder.
“Dad! DAD!”
“Here we go again.” Puppy Brown smiled before racing out of the room after her vampire boss and best friend, Fangs Enigma.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TOMMY DONBAVAND was born and brought up in Liverpool and has worked at numerous careers that have included clown, actor, theatre producer, children’s entertainer, drama teacher, storyteller and writer. He is the author of the popular thirteen-book series Scream Street. His other books include Zombie!; Wolf;Uniform; and Doctor Who: Shroud of Sorrow. His non-fiction books for children and their parents, Boredom Busters and Quick Fixes for Bored Kids, have helped him to become a regular guest on radio stations around the UK and he also writes for a number of magazines, including Creative Steps and Scholastic’s Junior Education.
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