Charlie and the War Against the Grannies (17 page)

 

‘Hils. We've been looking around for a while now. We should leave.'

‘At ease.'

Army-talk = ‘We're not leaving.'

‘What if the Stinkly Wrinklys come back?'

‘Stand easy.'

Army-talk = ‘They won't come back.'

‘That's not true, Hils. They
will
come back. You just mean that you don't think they will come back while we're here. You are wrong. They will come back while we are here. We need to leave. Right away.'

Hils did not leave right away.

‘Hils, I know that you are superior to me in every way.'

‘Affirmative.'

‘Except one. You know there is one thing I am much better at than you. I am much better at knowing when something is going to go horribly, horribly, horribly wrong.'

Just then the door to the Stinkly Wrinklys' HQ swung open.

It was Mrs Cyclopolos and The Skrink.

THE STINKLY WRINKLYS WERE BACK.

Hils and I ran straight into the wooden, Narnia-sized wardrobe and shut the door.

Outside I could hear Mrs Cyclopolos and The Skrink walking around their secret HQ.

‘Do you think they saw us?'

‘Negative.'

‘What if they did?'

‘They didn't.'

‘What if they did?'

‘They
didn't
.'

‘What. If. They. Did?'

‘Then any moment soon they'll open the wardrobe door and find us.'

‘I knew it! THEY'RE GOING TO OPEN THE WARDROBE DOOR AND FIND US.'

‘Cease all transmissions.'

That's the army way of saying, ‘Shut up. Shut up.'

‘We've got to get out,' I said.

‘Hold your position.'

Army-talk = ‘Stay where you are.'

‘We're trapped,' I said. ‘We're trapped. I knew it. I knew it.'

‘Halt,' said Hils. ‘Your indiscipline is placing this whole operation at risk. Halt.'

Hils was right. I needed to halt. I needed to take a deep breath. I took a deep breath. It sounded so loud I was sure the Stinkly Wrinklys would hear it. I decided the best thing to do was not to breathe. I tried not to breathe. The problem with trying not to breathe is that you don't breathe. If you don't breathe you die. I decided not to die. I started breathing again.

‘There must be something in this wardrobe that we can use to help us escape,' I said.

I looked around the wardrobe.

There was a long, dusty, smelly old fur coat. (I knew there would be.)

A fish bowl.

A basket of dry brown stuff that maybe used to be flower petals.

An ancient vacuum cleaner.

A tin of shoe polish.

A jar filled with lots of tiny bits of different coloured soaps.

A bunch of bent forks held together with a rubber band.

A pair of gardening gloves.

A gigantic pair of ladies' underpants.

‘We must be able to use this stuff to make some sort of escaping machine thing,' I said.

But what?

I needed time to think.

No, I didn't. I didn't need time to think. I had already thought. I had thought a really good thought.

‘I've got it, Hils. I've had a thought. A plan thought. I know how we can use all this stuff to help us escape.'

Hils didn't say anything.

‘All we have to do is cover the fish bowl in shoe polish, then stick the dry brown stuff into the shoe polish then stick the gardening gloves on top of the fish bowl for ears then use the little bits of soap to make eyes and ears. Then we'll attach the fish-bowl head to the top of the fur coat and it'll look exactly like a bear. We'll use the forks to make the bear's claws and have it wear the underpants because a bear wearing human underpants must be scarier than a bear not wearing underpants then we'll use the vacuum cleaner to blow air into the fur coat and that'll make the bear float out of the wardrobe straight towards the Stinkly Wrinklys and while they're screaming, “The bear in underpants is going to eat us!” we'll escape and never come back here even if we find out there is a pile of diamonds sitting on the front step that we wouldn't get into any trouble for taking.'

‘That's a really, very, super good plan, isn't it, Hils?'

‘Negative.'

‘Then you think of a plan, Hils, because we're still trapped.'

‘I am fully cognisant of that operational actuality.'

That's how the army says, ‘I know we're trapped.'

‘The Stinkly Wrinklys are going to find us and then who knows what they're going to do to us. They'll probably eat us.'

‘Negative. No one eats children.'

‘There are millions of Stinkly Wrinklys in the world, Hils, one or two of them
must
eat children.'

Hils thought for a moment.

‘You're probably right,' she said.

I was probably right? I was never probably right. I just wished that the thing I was probably right about
wasn't
that there might be one or two Stinkly Wrinklys in the world who eat children.

‘You're right, Hils. They're going to eat us.'

I had always wondered how I would react if my life was in imminent danger. I was sure I would develop superhuman strength.

Well, now my life was in danger.

I didn't develop superhuman strength.

I didn't even develop human strength.

I farted.

It sounded like a duck exploding.

It smelled like a nappy sandwich with extra pickles.

‘Poo,' said Hils.

‘Sorry,' I said.

From outside the wardrobe I heard a long, terrifying clanking and grinding.

‘What was that?' I said.

I farted.

It sounded like a thirsty pig drinking yogurt from a bucket.

It smelled like an old gumboot full of cat food.

‘Poo.'

‘Sorry.'

I heard a petrifying clinking, a heart-stopping plopping and a deathly snorting.

‘WHAT WAS THAT?'

I farted.

It sounded like a squeaky shoe popping a balloon full of bacon.

It smelled like opening your lunchbox after it has been in your warm schoolbag for a thousand years.

‘Poo.'

‘Sorry.'

‘Time to evac,' said Hils.

‘Evac' is army for, ‘Get out of here'.

That's exactly what Hils did.

SHE OPENED THE WARDROBE DOOR AND STEPPED OUT TO A CERTAIN DEATH BY STINKLY WRINKLY EATING.

I didn't fart.

I was so scared I had run out of farts.

Hils stepped out of the wardrobe to certain-death-by-Stinkly-Wrinkly-eating.

I closed my eyes and waited to hear the horrific sounds of her being eaten.

I didn't hear anything.

I certainly didn't hear any . . .

Chasing

Grabbing

Struggling

Restraining

Screaming

Gnashing

More screaming

More gnashing and a bit of ripping as well

Much more screaming

Munching

Grinding

Tearing

Coughing

More coughing

‘I've got something caught in my throat.'

More coughing

‘Probably a bit of finger. Or maybe some kidney.

I'll just have a quick drink of water.'

Drinking

‘Ahhhh. That's much better. Now, where was I?'

Shredding

Rupturing

The most screaming yet

Crunching

One final scream that I'll never forget as long as I live

Swallowing

Burping

Flossing

Mouth washing

Evil satisfied laughing.

 

All I could hear was . . .

Snoring

I poked my head out through the wardrobe door. There – completely uneaten-to-death – was Hils. She was standing next to the two Stinkly Wrinklys who were both reclining in their chairs.

Asleep.

Then I saw the eyeball.

‘Hils. They're watching us.'

‘Negative. They're asleep.'

‘They're watching us. On the table. Next to the chair. In the glass of water. There's an eyeball.'

Hils glanced at the squishy, glossy, starey eyeball in the glass of water next to Mrs Cyclopolos.

‘It's a glass eye,' she said.

‘A what?'

‘A glass eye. An artificial eye made of glass. Lots of really old people have them. They put them in water when they're having a nap, to stop them drying out,' said Hils.

‘Yuck. How do you know this?' I said.

‘Peripheral intelligence gathered while on a mission.'

That's the army way of saying, ‘I read about it in a magazine while waiting to see the dentist.'

‘Why do you think Mrs Cyclopolos has a glass eye?'

Hils didn't answer me. She had started looking around again.

‘I think it's because one night, when she was really, very, super much younger, a spider laid its eggs in her eyeball and a few days later thousands of baby spiders started to climb out of her eyeball and her mum grabbed the vacuum cleaner to suck up all the spiders but instead sucked out the young Mrs Cyclopolos's eyeball. They found the eyeball in the vacuum bag. It was covered in dust. They drove to the hospital and the doctors did everything they could to put it back in but there was too much dust on it and they had to give her a glass eye instead.'

‘Negative. That never happened. Somewhere here there is actionable intelligence concerning the Stinkly Wrinklys' plans. We need to find it ASAP.'

Even though I didn't want to, I started looking for actionable intelligence.

Behind the two sleeping Stinkly Wrinklys was a cabinet thing. It looked like the sort of place you'd hide actionable intelligence. It sat on four high legs and the cabinet bit was wide at the bottom and sloped up to a thin top. At the top was a key with a bit of thin gold rope hanging from it. I grabbed the rope and pulled. The whole front of the cabinet flopped down to form a little writing table. Behind the table were all these little cubbyholes filled with all sorts of bits and pieces. There had to be actionable intelligence in one of those cubbyholes.

‘Hils, I've found something.'

‘So have I,' said Hils.

I suspected that Hils's something might be a much better something than mine.

Hils was standing in front of a full-length mirror.

‘It's a mirror,' I said.

‘Affirmative,' said Hils. ‘And negative.'

Hils traced her finger all the way around the outside of the mirror. She didn't seem to find anything. She tried to push the mirror along the wall to the left. Then to the right. She then walked over to a set of drawers. After a quick search she found a cloth. She went back to the mirror, wrapped the cloth around her hand, placed her cloth-wrapped hand on the surface of the mirror and gently pushed towards the wall.

There was a soft click and the mirror swung open to reveal a small secret chamber.

Even though they had nearly blinded me with rooster brand chilli sauce, I thought it was pretty cool that the Stinkly Wrinklys had a secret chamber hidden behind a mirror.

‘There will definitely be actionable intelligence in there,' I said.

‘Affirmative.'

‘Or corpses.'

‘Negative.'

We walked into the secret chamber.

There were no corpses.

There was actionable intelligence though.

Every bit of wall in the secret chamber was covered in photos, newspaper clippings, handwritten notes and all the other sorts of stuff you'd expect to find on the wall of a secret chamber belonging to two people who were up to something bad.

‘They've had us under surveillance,' said Hils.

There, on the wall right in front of us, was a series of grainy black and white photos of me and Hils running down the alley chasing after Mrs Cyclopolos and The Skrink, trying to find out where they'd disappeared to, and us waving goodbye to the LLG.

‘Look at these,' said Hils, pointing at some newspaper headlines the Stinkly Wrinklys had cut out and pinned up near the photos of us.