by Will Mabbitt
Well. She might have thought that. But some things are best left unseen, for nothing could have prepared Mabel for the sight that was revealed in the flickering light of the flame . . .
Chapter 15
A Sight Best Left Unseen
I’m often asked, “Of all the many onions available to the hobby pickler, which variety would you recommend and why?” Of course, the answer is always—
I beg your pardon?
Oh, I’m sorry, that’s actually a line from my other book. You’re reading this one, aren’t you?
Where was I?
Ah yes. Mabel Jones and a sight best left unseen!
In the flickering of the lamplight, among the dancing shadows cast by the flame, was a sight that sent cold gray fear crawling over her skin like a troop of chilled maggots looking for a warm spot in which to pupate.
SKELETONS!
Hooman skeletons!
Sitting one per desk, and dressed in the tattered remains of their clothes: a cap here, a pair of shoes there, baseball jackets and sparkly hairbands. Mabel gasped.
Students!
All were facing the front, where a larger skeleton sat at a larger desk, with a coffee mug and a magazine. Its elbow was on the desk, a thumb lodged into the hole where its nose would once have been—as if frozen in the motion of picking a booger in the trademark and duplicitous style of an adult.
Coffee . . .
Nose-picking . . .
A teacher!
Mabel’s eyes explored the large room. The flickering light of the lamp revealed the half-collapsed remains of an ancient school gymnasium, the sports equipment safely stored and the room lined with row upon row of examination desks. The roots of large trees punctured the ceiling and vines hung from the rafters. Over time, the school had become buried by the advancing jungle, seemingly lost forever!
The students of Maryvale High School had never finished their exam. The teacher never got to finish his coffee.
Here they had sat for years upon years.
Something had happened to them.
Something had happened a long time ago.
Jarvis’s voice plucked Mabel from her daydreaming.
“Do you want me to try to pull you back up?”
“Yes, please!”
Mabel sighed with relief. It was good having backup. Even if he was only a little boy.
Jarvis smiled. “I’ve found a vine. I’ll lower it down. You can tie the vine around your waist and—”
Suddenly there was a loud scuttling sound . . .
Then a muffled cry . . .
Then . . .
The vine fell to the floor beside Mabel.
“Jarvis?” she cried.
“JARVIS?”
No answer.
Jarvis had disappeared.
Dead, I reckon.
Another victim of the Scuttling Death—the beast that lurked deep, around and within this ancient school.
A moment’s silence, please, for in these circumstances I believe it is best to assume the worst and give up all hope . . .
Chapter 16
A Moment’s Silence
What’s that noise?
Do you mind? Have you no respect?
Oh! It’s Mabel Jones.
She runs through the gymnasium, frantically searching for a way out!
A way to get to Jarvis!
She still has hope.
She is not the sort to give up on one of her friends.
Not like you.
Shame on you!
If there’s one thing I always say, it’s:
“NEVER GIVE UP.”
It’s a motto I like to live by.
Chapter 17
The Principal
Mabel stood before a small room. It was closed off from the gym by a heavy metal grate that took all her strength to lift. It was a store cupboard. Neatly packed sports equipment lined the walls. No way out here! Stepping back, she let the grate fall closed with a loud bang that echoed around the gymnasium.
Next she found a door. She tried pushing it, but it was stuck fast. The partial collapse of the gymnasium had wedged it firmly in place, but Mabel found a rotten section and kicked a hole in it. Squeezing through on her hands and knees, she found herself in a long corridor with doors on either side. Lockers lined the walls. The place was full of dust.
Suddenly there was a scuttling noise to her left. She jumped and spun around, drawing her cutlass.
There was nothing there.
Then the noise came again. This time from behind a door marked PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE.
Cautiously she approached.
“Jarvis?” she whispered. “Jarvis . . . ?”
A sound broke the silence. A strange gargling voice came from inside the room, speaking dreadful words:
“I can smell
bloooooooood!”
Mabel stopped. She put a hand to the cut on her head.
“Where’s my friend?” she demanded.
The voice from inside the room spoke again.
“He’s getting ready for dinner.”
“Jarvis? Are you in there?”
“Won’t you join us?”
The door swung open. A draft of air rushed out and extinguished the lantern.
Mabel Jones was
into complete darkness!
Mabel jumped backward into the corridor. She was just in time. The Scuttling Death swooped its head toward her, its mandibles snapping empty air.
Mabel held her cutlass out and roared,
“MY NAME IS
MABEL JONES,
AND I’M NOT
SCARED
OF ANYTHING!”
The Scuttling Death laughed a wet laugh. Drool hung from its jaws, dangling in large drops that swung below its face.
The monster swooped again.
Mabel twisted out of the path of the mandibles, but she was too slow to avoid the beast altogether and her cutlass was knocked to the floor.
Then it struck again. Its head crashed against her side and sent her spinning down the corridor, where she landed, dazed, at the foot of a trophy cabinet. A large wooden shield covered in the names of a succession of spelling-bee winners fell next to her.
The Scuttling Death lunged forward. Mabel held the shield out in front of her. The beast’s jaws bounced off and it shrieked in pain.
There was a stand-off.
They glared at each other, both breathing heavily.
Then the monster attacked again. Once more the shield took the full force, but this time it spun from Mabel’s grasp and she went skidding back down the corridor toward the gym.
The Scuttling Death shook its dazed head. “I’ll get you, little juicy one.”
Quickly Mabel squeezed back through the hole in the gymnasium door. The giant millipede came after her, its mandibles snapping empty air once more as she pulled her trailing foot through the hole.
Safe.
For the moment.
But there was no other way out and Jarvis was still in the creature’s wicked clutches.
Mabel shuddered.
Jarvis was going to be eaten!
It was the kind of moment when you need a really good idea.
And then she had one.
Chapter 18
The Exam Room
THUDDDD!
The door of the gymnasium shook with the impact from the Scuttling Death’s head.
“I can smell you. I can smell your blood!” it gurgled through the hole.
THUDDDD!
The door shook again.
THUDDDD!
With the third thud, the door gave way. Rubble fell from the ceiling and bounced off the giant millipede’s armored hea
d.
The Scuttling Death looked around. It was a creature of the dark, dank underground. A creature that normally surfaced only on the blackest nights, when its hunger for the jungle egret overwhelmed the urge to stay safe in its subterranean lair.
Its eyesight was poor. It lifted its head and sniffed the air. “I can smell you, little one.”
It scuttled closer and then sniffed again.
Sure enough, the smell of Mabel Jones’s bloodstained pajamas drifted faintly through the air.
“Closer and closer I come . . .”
His blurry vision fixed upon a Mabel Jones–sized object.
“It smells like you . . .”
It stalked closer to the store cupboard where poor frightened Mabel Jones sat rigid, frozen stiff with terror.
The Scuttling Death blinked.
“It looks like you . . .”
And with those words, the creature pounced.
Mabel didn’t have time to move. She didn’t even seem to try. The monstrous mandibles mashed down on her head and . . .
The Scuttling Death looked confused. Mabel Jones was not the juicy snack it was expecting. This was a dusty husk: a snuglet-pie without its filling—a low-fat alternative to a real child.
What could have happened?
The monster’s eye fell upon a stick. A lacrosse stick—strangely not dusty, as though it had recently been taken from storage—propping up the heavy metal grate of the store cupboard.
The real Mabel Jones stood up from a desk nearby, wearing the baseball jacket that had once belonged to the skeleton she had dressed in her pajamas and positioned in the store cupboard. In her hand she held a football.
I only get one chance!
And she threw it, knocking over the lacrosse stick and releasing the heavy metal grate, which fell with a large
and severed the head of the Scuttling Death with such force that it flew from its body across the room, bounced off a wall, and landed firmly wedged in a basketball hoop.
A weak voice came from inside the store cupboard. “Three points?”
Mabel raced across and heaved open the grate.
Jarvis lay within, still trapped inside the cocoony sac of the Scuttling Death.
Mabel tugged the sac free and tore at the sticky membrane until it split.
Jarvis fell out, gasping for air. “I don’t feel too good, Mabel,” he whimpered.
“You’ll be all right,” said Mabel, scrubbing him clean with her jacket sleeve. “Now help me get my pajamas back. We’ve got a baby to rescue!”
Chapter 19
The Journal of Sir Timothy Speke (Cont.)
“Is it even possible to amputate a bottom?” asked Mabel Jones curiously.
Pelf shrugged. “’Tis our only hope. If that splinter don’t come out it will be the death of him.”
He wiped his cutlass on his yellow-stained fleece. “That should be clean enough!”
Carruthers gritted his teeth through the pain. “I’m not letting any of you filthy brigands near my nether regions!” He looked up at Speke. “Timothy, despite your many failings, at least you have good hygiene. You must follow my instructions.”
Speke nodded bravely. “I’ll make you proud, Carruthers.”
“Firstly, fetch the box of emergency equipment . . .”
Speke reached into a crate and pulled out a small tin box. He looked at Mabel eagerly. “I packed it myself! Only the best equipment for—”
Carruthers interrupted, his voice weak with pain. “Make haste! For this splinter must be removed. Speke, you have to open the wound and extract it. It is the source of an intense discomfort.”
Speke scrabbled in the first-aid box and held up a multi-bladed pocketknife.
“You did purchase the Explorer edition, didn’t you?” asked Carruthers. “The one with the knife, built-in compass, and tweezers?”
Speke shook his head. “I decided against that version, Carruthers.”
The others looked at him as he started opening the pocketknife’s multiple blades.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the very latest in outdoor accessories: The Wilkins PicnicmanTM!”
He smiled proudly, holding up a rounded flat blade not unlike a toddler’s butter knife.
Pelf grunted and blew out a cloud of toxic smoke. “That couldn’t cut through the hide of a moldering sardine!”
Speke looked a little upset. “It’s a pâté blade,” he explained. “It’s meant for spreading, not cutting.”
He opened another, similar tool. “And this one is for your coarser condiments. Your piccalillies, shredded marmalades, onion chutneys, et cetera.”
With a flourish, he demonstrated the rest of the implements. “Corkscrew, sugar tongs, tea strainer, napkin ring . . . All in one handy accessory!”
Carruthers’s eyes boggled. “Is that it? Is that all our emergency equipment?”
“Of course not,” cried Speke indignantly. “We also have instant coffee! Just in case we have guests from . . . er . . . of . . .” He looked awkwardly at Pelf. “Of a less refined nature!”
Carruthers jumped to his feet. “Why, I’ll throttle you, Timothy! You’ve brought nothing to this expedition but whimsy and picnic accessories!”
“I—I say, Carruthers,” stammered the otter, his voice breaking with emotion. “The scones! What about my mother’s scones? You said they were delicious!”
“THEY. WERE. DRY!” cried Carruthers, clenching his swollen right buttock in rage. Then he turned on his heel and limped to the bow of the boat, where he proceeded to glare moodily at the river ahead.
Speke sat dejectedly on the stern. “I am such a fool. I’ll never amount to anything,” he sobbed. “Oh, Veronica, how could I ever believe you might choose me?”
Mabel Jones patted Speke on the shoulder. “There, there,” she said. “We’ll think of something.”
Then she paused, bent down, and picked something up from the deck.
“Look—it’s the splinter. It’s come out!”
Carruthers turned. “Why, it must have popped loose when I was clenching my buttock with rage . . . Speke, old fellow, can you forgive my temper?”
Speke nodded sulkily. Then he looked at Mabel.
“That badger wouldn’t know a good scone if you threw one at him!” he muttered.
Chapter 20
The Last Known Whereabouts of Gideon Scapegrace
Perch on the branch of this tree that stretches over the tepid waters of the Great Murky River. Dangle your lower limbs if you must, but take care not to dip your toes beneath the surface. For this stretch of the river is home to numerous species of carnivorous fish that can strip a cow to its bones in under a minute, and to a particularly painful parasitic footworm.
Here they come!
You can hear the chugging of the BROWN TROUT Long before it appears around the bend in the river. Its paddle wheel churns the water, and the river is narrow enough for the wake from the boat to gently lap the banks. Mabel Jones is at the helm and she carefully steers the BROWN TROUT Upstream toward their destination.
His right buttock carefully bandaged, Carruthers studiously examines the map. They are nearing their goal.
THE FORBIDDEN CITY!
Mr. Habib’s words tug at Mabel’s memory strings.
“l see an ancient tower that grows from the black and burned earth of a forbidden city . . .”
She looked at the thick forest that lined the bank. They were so close to finding Maggie . . .
There was a movement on the shore.
A rabbit stood up, its head poking above the undergrowth, its nose twitching. It blinked and ducked behind a bush. Then it popped its head up again.
Mabel smiled and waved. “Hello there!”
The rabbit waved back.
“Isaycouldyouhelpmedownfromh
ere?” it said.
Mabel cut the engine. “I beg your pardon?”
“Isaycouldyouhelpmedownfromhere?” repeated the rabbit.
Mabel scrunched her nose up in the way people do when they are confused.
The rabbit spoke again.
“Isaycouldyouhelpmedownfromhere?”
It beckoned to her.
Mabel let the BROWN TROUT drift toward the bank. Jumping overboard into the shallows, she moored the boat to a tree stump.
The rabbit disappeared into the undergrowth.
“Where did it go?”
Pelf blew out a thick cloud of smoke. “There!”
The rabbit beckoned again.
“Isaycouldyouhelpmedownfromhere?” it said.
The crew of the BROWN TROUT carefully disembarked and followed the rabbit along a narrow path that weaved through the thick undergrowth. Eventually they came to a small clearing. Many other rabbits were sitting around. They hopped over to inspect the strange visitors.
“Isaycouldyouhelpmedownfromhere?” they chorused.
“It’s awfully perplexing, Carruthers,” said Speke. “Why do they keep saying that?”
Carruthers scratched his head. “More to the point, where did they learn that particular phrase?”
Mabel looked up. “I think I know,” she said. “And I think it’s bad news . . .”
Carruthers, Speke, Pelf, and Jarvis slowly followed her gaze upward.
Caught in the upper canopy of the jungle, ripped and stretched across the branches, was an expanse of colorful fabric. Below it, suspended from ropes and swinging ominously in the breeze, was the wicker basket of a hot-air balloon.
It was, of course, the balloon of Gideon Scapegrace!