Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire (5 page)

‘Shenanigans!'
squealed the Biscuit Billionaire but it was too late. The hot dog man had scooped him up and stuffed him into a bun.

‘There you go!' shrieked the hot dog man, piling on handful after handful of onions and slapping the whole mess down on the counter. ‘Have all the onions you want! No extra charge!'

And with a terrible laugh, the two robbers turned and ran off down the hill as fast as their bad legs could run.

‘We done it!' howled Billy William, tearing off his disguise. Because I know this will surprise you but . . .

 

 

‘An' who's ever gonna know it was us what done the robbin's?' chortled Mr Gum, brandishing the biscuit tin as he ran. ‘No one, that's who!'

But it wasn't ‘no one, that's who!' It was ‘Friday and Polly, that's who!' From up on the Big Wheel, they had seen every horrible moment. And as soon as they were back down, they wasted no time in legging it over to the hot dog stand like the heroes they were. They made it just in time to see Jonathan Ripples reaching for a hot dog smothered in onions.

He brought it to his flabulous lips.

He opened his food-destroying mouth.

He licked a bit of ketchup off the bun.

‘POWER JUMP!'
cried Polly, leaping headfirst at Jonathan Ripples' stomach, and down he went, the hot dog flying from his grasp and landing in Friday's hair. With a dizzy moan, Alan Taylor emerged from the bun, smothered in sauce and onions, slithered down Friday's nose and landed on the grass in a sloppy heap. Jonathan Ripples took one look at what he'd almost eaten and fainted away like a right wibber.

‘Where's my biscuit tin?' spluttered Alan Taylor weakly. ‘All my money was in there! Now I've got nothing!'

And even as he said these words, one of his servants pulled a switch and all the lights went out. The rides ground to a halt, the jugglers dropped their hoops and a clown turned into a businessman in a grey suit who never smiled and told lies all the time.

For Alan Taylor was no longer the Biscuit Billionaire. He was just the Biscuit and the fun was over.

A
s midnight struck, the two robbers were racing away over the dark muddy fields in their hobnail boots, churning up great clods of earth in their wake and ruining the farmers' crops. The biscuit tin gleamed in the thin moonlight as they threw it to and fro like a rugby ball.
But it wasn't rugby they were playing, it was the Game of Crime, and the score was:

Oh, what a terrible, terrible night! The robbers dashed and their teeth gnashed and the rain lashed and the thunder crashed and the lightning flashed and the puddles splashed and the pigs in the fields went oinkety-oink. Yes, the pigs went oinkety-oink.

And as they raced along, Billy William started up with a song and Mr Gum joined in and if you'd been out on the fields that night the blood would have frozen in your veins to hear it. And even just reading it on this page you might feel a little bit chilly for it was the famous and utterly terrifying ‘Robbers' Song':

 

 

 

 

 

‘Right,' said Mr Gum when the song was done. The lightning lit up his face horribly, so you would have sworn he was the Devil himself. Or maybe the Devil's equally bad brother, Jeffrey.

‘It'll be light soon an' everyone'll spot us an' catch us into prison,' continued Mr Gum. ‘We gotta get off to France.'

‘Don't worry 'bout that, me old billionaire,' replied Billy William, getting out his mobile phone. ‘I'm calling Monsieur Bellybutton right now.'

‘Ah, yes,' smiled Mr Gum. ‘Bellybutton. The smelliest man alive.'

Many miles away, a dirty, dirty hand picked up the phone and a horrible stench wafted into the Lamonic Bibber night, faint but unmistakeably disgusting. For you see, Monsieur Bellybutton was so niffy that you could actually smell him all the way down the line from Paris. After a muttered conversation in bad French, Billy put down the phone. Then he threw it at a horse for a laugh.

‘It's all arranged,' he told Mr Gum. ‘We gotta wait down in Smuggler's Cove for Bellybutton to
row over from Paris. Then we jump in his boat an' row back to France. Then we change our names, learn French an' live like powerful kings.'

‘I'm gonna change me name to Monsieur le King de la Powerful de la Gum-Gum,' said Mr Gum as they clomped off for Smuggler's Cove.

‘An' I'm gonna be Monsieur le King Fantastique de la Butcher de la Billy de la French Toast de la Powerful,' said Billy William.

‘An' I'm gonna buy the Eiffel Tower,' laughed
Mr Gum. ‘And then I'm gonna smash it to bits an' put up a massive statue of a cockroach.'

By now the sun was coming up, shining miserably through the grey clouds and casting a thin grey light over everything as if there was no joy left in the world and all the footballs had been punctured. Tendrils of mist swirled around the
robbers' legs as they came to a windswept cliff top. It was Hangman's Leap and, lordy, it was a wretched place. The cliff face was steep and rocky, and some of the rocks looked a bit like the faces of murderers. Others looked like the faces of thieves or plumbers. Seagulls flew overhead but not nice ones like in paintings. Hangman's Leap attracted only the most dismal seabirds, with one eye and scraggy old feathers and bits of
string hanging off their manky legs.

Huffing and puffing, the robbers began the long and treacherous climb down the cliff. It took ages, and Billy William slipped on an empty crisp packet and nearly went a-tumblin' – but somehow they made it to the bottom. Picking their way over the sharp black rocks they were soon at Smuggler's Cove and in they crept, like bad dreams into a postman's head.

It was cold and damp inside the cave. A crab wept with loneliness on the stony floor and a monstrous eel pushed its head out of a hole in the wall and went ‘UNNNNGGGH!' An albatross squawked mournfully in the gloom and wolves and vultures sat on the – OK, there weren't any wolves and vultures but it still wasn't very nice. It was a cursed place was Smuggler's Cove, miserable and lonesome and isolated from all civilisation. It was so isolated that there was only a black and white TV. Billy William turned it on.

‘Good,' said Mr Gum with satisfaction. ‘It's “
Legmash
”.'

‘
Legmash
' was Mr Gum's new favourite programme. It showed people breaking their legs in real accidents so it was just his type of thing. Billy William started a fire by lighting his own farts and together the robbers settled down to await the arrival of Monsieur Bellybutton.