Fing

by David Walliams

  “But what books should we look at next, Father?”

  “Well, let’s think, Mother. What does a ‘FING’ sound like to you?”

  Both went into deep concentration.

  “A rude-shaped vegetable?” guessed Mother, reaching for

  “An annoying board game?” suggested Father as he took down

  “A very distant planet?” said Mother as she found

  Books, books and more books tumbled off the shelves. Books about the human body. Books about motor cars. Books about flowers. Books about antiques. Books about books.

  “Could a ‘FING’ be that thing that’s left in your plughole after a bath?” suggested Father.

  “An unidentifiable item of clothing you find in the tumble dryer?” guessed Mother.

  Guesses were volleyed back and forth like tennis balls.

  “Something sticky you find up your nose that isn’t a bogey?”

  “A mysterious stain?”

  “The gangly bit of a jellyfish?”

  “A prize from a Christmas cracker that you never actually work out what it is?”

  “Something you find stuck to a dog?”

  “That dangly bit of your belly button that looks like the end of a balloon?”

  “The fluffy stuff you find between your toes?”

  “The opposite of a ‘FONG’?” exclaimed Mrs Meek.

  “What’s a ‘FONG’?” asked Mr Meek.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, downcast.

  Hours passed until the exhausted pair had searched through every single book in the LIBRARY.*

  Just as they were about to admit defeat and brace themselves for the wrath of their daughter, Mrs Meek had a thought.

  “There is one last place we haven’t looked,” she said.

  “Where? Where? Where?” he asked eagerly.

  “The ancient vaults of the LIBRARY. That’s where all the old books are kept. We might find a clue down there.”

  Mr Meek gulped. “But, Mrs Meek, we librarians are strictly forbidden to go down to the vaults.”

  “Everybody is forbidden.

  Nobody has been down there for a hundred years…”

  Well then, we can’t go down into the vaults,” said Mr Meek. “And that’s that.”

  Mrs Meek was not taking no for an answer. “But what about our darling daughter? If we don’t get her a FING, there will be tears before bedtime.”

  “Oh yes.” The man turned deathly pale at the thought. His eyes rolled back and he wobbled.

  “Are you quite all right, Mr Meek?”

  But, before he could reply, Mr Meek fainted. Mrs Meek went to catch him, but they both tumbled backwards and landed on the floor.

  THUD!

  “OOF!” she exclaimed as her husband landed on top of her.

  An old man stepped over them to reach a gardening book. The pair smiled politely up at him.

  “Good morning,” they said.

  “Are you all right under there, Mrs Meek?” enquired Mr Meek.

  “Yes. Are you all right?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You fainted.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Oh dear indeed.”

  “Let me help you up.”

  “No, let me help you up!”

  This went on for quite a while until finally both of them were on their feet. Now the pair had to choose between two evils. Either they went down to the spooky vaults of the LIBRARY or they faced the wrath of their daughter.

  The lesser of the two seemed to be the vaults.

  “I don’t think we have a choice,” said Father.

  “Then follow me,” replied Mother.

  Mrs Meek led her husband to a battered old door in the far corner of the LIBRARY. Cobwebs covered the cracks, and a sign over it read “DO NOT ENTER".

  “Will it be dark down in the vaults?” he asked, his voice wavering.

  “Oh yes. Pitch black. To protect all the old books,” she replied.

  “Well then, ladies first…”

  “Me?” protested Mrs Meek.

  They were both scared of the dark.

  “I insist,” he pressed.

  “I insist.”

  “I am a gentleman. I have to let a lady go first.”

  “No, no, no, that’s very old-fashioned these days, Mr Meek. You should definitely go first.”

  “No, you.”

  “You.”

  “YOU!”

  The pair had reached something of a stand-off.

  “I know! Let’s both go together,” announced Mother.

  “Good plan,” replied Father. He took down the rusty old key that was sitting on top of the doorframe. Looking around to check no one was watching, he unlocked the door.

  C L I C K.

  He fumbled for his wife’s hand, and together they slowly descended the steps.

  “It’s not too bad, is it?” asked Mrs Meek.

  stammered Mr Meek.

  To his relief, Mr Meek found a candle and a box of old matches halfway down the stairs. His hands trembling uncontrollably, he passed them to his wife, who struck a match and lit the candle.

  STRIKE!

  The flickering light illuminated shelves and shelves of dusty old leather-bound books. The LIBRARY vaults were a treasure trove of titles that were ancient, obscure and bizarre. There were thousands of books down there, all of them long out of print.

  One by one, Mr and Mrs Meek pulled the books from the shelves. With just a candle to read by, they searched the millions upon millions of words for any reference to a “FING”. Just as they were about to lose all hope, Mr Meek thought he saw something move out of the corner of his eye.

  “What was that?” he whispered.

  “What was what?” she asked.

  “Something moved.”

  “Maybe it was a rat? I hate rats.”

  With the candle, Mrs Meek illuminated a dingy corner of the vault. Indeed, something was moving underneath a pile of old newspapers.

  RUSTLE! RUSTLE! RUSTLE!

  She pushed her husband towards it to investigate further.

  “Go on!”

  “I am going! I am going!”

  “Lift up the newspapers and see!” suggested Mrs Meek.

  “No, after you.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake! Let’s not start all this again.”

  Reluctantly, Mr Meek lifted the old damp sheets of paper. To his surprise, all that was underneath was a book.

  “It’s a book!”

  “Books can’t move,” she replied.

  “This one did.”

  “What is it called?”

  Mr Meek peered down to study the spine.

  The title sent through him.

  “It’s called

  THE

  MONSTERPEDIA.”

  Mr and Mrs Meek set the book down on a rickety old table.

  THUD.

  THE MONSTERPEDIA was a huge leather-bound tome that must have been printed at least a few hundred years ago. It was, as the title suggested, an encyclopedia of monsters. Mrs Meek blew dust off the cover and opened it.

  Might this book hold a clue to the existence of a “FING”?

  It was the Meeks’ final hope.

  The book was, as far as anyone knew, the only one of its kind in existence. Inside it was an alphabetical list of terrifying creatures that were either long extinct or assumed to be mythical, with lavish hand-painted illustrations of these creatures on the opposite page. Neither Mr nor Mrs Meek had seen or heard of any of them before.

  First there was an AAGADONGDONG:

  a man-eating underground bird.

  On the next page was a BOOBOO:

  a giant slug that leaves a poisonous trail of slime in its wake.

  Then there was the CRUNKLETOAD:

  a reptile so ugly it can kill a man with a look.

  D was for DUMDUM:

  a cross between a jellyfish and a warthog,


  and, judging by the illustration, even more hideous than it sounds.

  EEBINKIBONK:

  an amphibious monkey found only in the deepest depths of the oceans.

  The next page was F. The Meeks took a collective breath, praying that they would find what they were looking for.

  “‘FING’!” exclaimed Mother.

  “YES!”

  “We did it!”

  “I could kiss you!” said Father.

  “Please don’t. Not at work, darling. And the LIBRARY has a strict no-canoodling rule.”

  “Of course. How silly of me. Would you care to read out what it says?”

  Mrs Meek cleared her throat and began:

  FING:

  MAMMAL

  This, the most rarest of rare beasts, is found only in the deepest, darkest, jungliest jungle.

  The appearance of the fing is that of a fur-covered sphere. The size of the beasts varies wildly. One moment they can be as small as a marble, the next as large as a hot-air balloon. Fings have one large eye in the centre, and a hole on either side. One hole is a mouth, the other is its (for want of a more polite expression) bottom. But nobody can be sure which hole is which, not even the fing itself, which has been known to try to feed using its bottom. Having no arms or legs, fings move around by rolling, or sometimes even bouncing. Strangely enough, a fing’s favourite food is biscuits of the custard-cream variety. The fing beasts can devour a hundred in seconds, but they will eat almost anything and everything. Fings leave behind a trail of foul-smelling droppings, which can be as big, if not bigger, than the creature itself.

  Fings are greedy, bad-tempered and sometimes just plain rude. Because they can grow to epic proportions, they may not just eat you out of house and home, they may very well eat your home. Worst of all, they might even eat you.

  After she had finished reading, they both pored over the picture. The FING was a peculiar-looking thing. The illustration, just as the words had described, showed a ball of brown fur with one eye between two dark holes.

  “Oh dear,” said Father.

  “Oh dear indeed,” agreed Mother. With that, she closed the book. “Well, that’s the end of that, then. There is no way our darling daughter can have a FING.”

  “Poor thing. She is going to be so bitterly disappointed,” said Father.

  “I know. Well, I think it best you break the bad news to her.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, Mr Meek! It’s your turn.”

  “No, no, no,” protested Mr Meek. “It is definitely your turn.”

  “Let’s do it together,” reasoned Mrs Meek.

  “A splendid idea!”

  “Thank you.”

  “You can go first.”

  So, with heavy hearts, Mr and Mrs Meek picked up their daughter from school. Once again, I mean “picked up”, literally. They picked Myrtle up and carried her all the way home, before depositing her as gently as they possibly could on the sofa.

  Mr and Mrs Meek were trying to hide the worry they were feeling at breaking the bad news to their daughter, but it was daubed all over their faces.

  “Perhaps you might like to a play a game, Myrtle, my love,” suggested Father. “Or do a jigsaw? Or watch the television?”

  Distraction. Distraction. Distraction.

  “CARTOONS!” demanded Myrtle.

  “Here’s the remote!” said Mother, handing her daughter the chocolate-stained black gadget.

  Myrtle scowled back at her. “You press the button for me, you lazy old moo!”

  Mrs Meek did what she was told, and a CARTOON flickered on to the television screen. Myrtle liked the violent ones the best, where animals ran into walls, fell off cliffs or simply exploded. Her favourite CARTOON series were:

  With their daughter momentarily distracted by the sight of a cartoon rabbit being flattened by a steamroller, Mr Meek nodded to his wife. This was her cue. She scurried off to the kitchen. They had a secret plan. The pair hoped that if they gave their daughter the biggest slab of chocolate cake in history this would soften the blow of her not getting a FING.

  The CARTOON finished, and as the theme music played Myrtle remembered what she had forgotten.

  “Where’s my FING?” she shouted.

  yelped Father.

  “Coming right up, Father!” replied Mrs Meek, staggering into the living room carrying a stupendous slab of cake. It was the size of a small garden shed. “There you go, Myrtle my angel,” she said as she set it down on the coffee table.

  THUD!

  “Haven’t you got a bigger slice?” demanded the girl.

  “Sadly not,” replied Mother. “It’s bigger than the cake it came from.”

  This, of course, couldn’t strictly be true, but it fooled Myrtle.

  “It looks like delicious cake, my beautiful bunnykins. Do tuck in!” prompted Father.

  Not being a regular user of cutlery, Myrtle simply leaned forward and buried her face in the cake. It was how a hog might enjoy its dinner.

  Mother and Father sighed with relief. That feeling was sadly not to last. In no time at all, the girl had polished off the giant slab of cake. She lifted her head, her face now covered in chocolate icing.

  “I want my FING!” she repeated, spraying her parents with chocolate-cake crumbs as she spoke.

  Mr and Mrs Meek were covered from head to toe. It looked as if they had been rolled in rabbit droppings.

  “Ah yes, yes, yes, yes, of course. The famous FING…” began Father, before losing his nerve. “I will let your mother take over from here.”

  Mrs Meek shot a look at Mr Meek, most displeased. He was even meeker than she was. “Well, my sweet princess,” she began. “Your father and I found this book deep in the vaults of the LIBRARY—”

  “LISTEN!” growled the girl. “I want my FING. And I want it NOW!”

  Things were going from bad to worse. The cake hadn’t helped at all. If anything, it had given Myrtle a sugar rush that made her even more foul-tempered than usual.

  “Well, er, you see, um…” the lady spluttered. “Father, you can take over from here.”

  “We, er, um, well…” he began, a look of terror now in his eyes.

  “SPIT IT OUT!” bawled the girl.

  “My cherub, we searched and searched every book in the LIBRARY to find out what a FING is.”

  “A FING is a FING. Duh!” mocked Myrtle.

  “Quite. We found only one reference to it in the whole of the LIBRARY – in this dusty old book that we discovered down in the secret underground vaults. Here.”

  Father nodded to Mother, who lumbered over with the ancient tome.

  “It’s called THE MONSTERPEDIA,” said Mrs Meek. “Have a look! It’s fascinating reading.”

  Mother went to pass the book to her daughter, but the book actually pushed back.

  “I HATE BOOKS! THEY MAKE MY BRAIN HURT!” Myrtle exclaimed, batting THE MONSTERPEDIA away with her hand.

  The book slapped her back.

  “OUCH!” screamed the girl. “Get that thing away from me!”

  Mother took hold of the book. “Let me help you, sugar-plum fairy.” Mother flicked through the dusty old book, and opened it at the right page.

  “This, my rainbow child, is a FING. Have a read.”

  “You read it!” ordered Myrtle.

  Mrs Meek proceeded to read aloud from the book, placing particular emphasis on this particular part:

  “So, my dove of love?” prompted Mother. “What do you think? Surely, surely, surely, you don’t want a FING now.”

  The pair looked longingly at their daughter, their hands glued together in prayer.

  I fink,” began Myrtle, her tongue tracing the plate for any uneaten crumbs, “having a FING as a pet would be a big, fat disaster.”

  Mr and Mrs Meek let out a humongous sigh of relief.

  Their lives had been spared.

  “We couldn’t agree more!” exclaimed Mother.

  Father beamed. “You took the words right out of ou
r mouths!”

  “The creature would destroy everyfing!” Myrtle continued.

  “You are so right! Righter than right!” cooed Mrs Meek.

  “What a clever, clever girl you are!” agreed Mr Meek.

  “The car. The house. EVERYFING. It might even kill us all!”

  “Excellent point!” agreed Father.

  “Yes, best not to die if you can possibly avoid it,” echoed Mother.

  “Who on earth would want a FING as a pet? Ha! Ha!” Myrtle laughed.

  Her parents joined in.

  “HO! HO! HO!”

  “HEE! HEE! HEE!”

  Even THE MONSTERPEDIA seemed to wobble around, chuckling silently to itself.

  “ME!” replied Myrtle.

  The laughter died. Instantly.

  Mr and Mrs Meek couldn’t believe their ears

  The book stopped dead still.

  “I wanna FING as a pet.”

  “B-b-but—!” began Mother.

  “NO BUTS!” shouted the girl, and she bashed her parents’ heads together for emphasis.

  CLONK!

  “OW!”

  “OUCH!”

  “I said I wanna FING. And I want it NOW!”

  Mr and Mrs Meek looked at each other, aghast. Both were so aghast it was impossible to tell who was the most aghast, or, to give it its improper word, aghastliest. You can decide for yourself by studying these two aghastliesque pictures…

  For goodness’ sake, don’t take too long deciding. We have a story to be getting on with. Please let’s agree that they were both extremely aghast. As indeed you’d be if you had to bring a deadly animal into your home.

  Now all they had to do

  was find one…

  The big question was this… Who would have to go to the deepest, darkest, jungliest jungle in search of this blasted FING?