‘My name, as you know, is Goonhilda Swag,’ she said, staring into people’s eyes from the stage as she stamped slowly around. Every time she stopped, it took a moment for her beehive hairdo to stop swaying.
‘I am here because Her Majesty the Queen recently decided to rename Starkley and call it “Royal Starkley”.’
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. That was true. And that’s why Goonhilda thought everyone was gathered here today. The Queen had been so impressed the last time Starkley saved the world that she’d said that from now on it would have a far more regal name. Today must be the day this strange woman was going to make the name change official. This was deeply exciting.
‘HOWEVER!’ said Goonhilda, her pink beehive wobbling and flobbling. ‘The Queen is not the only person in charge of these things. I am. And I have to tell you, from what I have seen and heard of your “town”, I am not happy.’
Everyone gasped. What on earth could she say was wrong with Starkley?
‘The recent events I’ve been told have happened in Starkley were bad enough, but on my way in just now,’ said Goonhilda, cracking a knuckle, ‘I counted three old men stuck in trees. That is well above the national average. I also counted six bins upside down. I saw a car spinning on its roof. There is litter everywhere.’
Well, yes, but . . . that wasn’t Starkley’s fault! That was the GravityBurp! Talking of which, what if there was another one in a moment? They needed to prepare. They should warn Goonhilda!
Someone put their hand up to try and tell her there was something a bit more important going on, but Goonhilda was having none of it.
‘SHOOSH YOUR LIPS!’ she barked, folding her arms behind her back. ‘Now I’ve read about this town, and I have to say there have been some very odd things happening here indeed. Some. Very. Odd. Things.’
The CLUMPs of her feet seemed louder and more foreboding now. She was talking slowly. Almost snarling. Relishing every word. Hamish could tell that this was a woman who enjoyed being the centre of attention. She liked people being scared of her. She was thrilled by the power she had over Starkley.
‘I come from the government’s Public Office of Pride,’ she said, fiddling with her neck cone, and looking rather pleased with herself. ‘Or POP.’
Mr Slackjaw raised his hand.
Goonhilda sighed. ‘Fine. One question. What is it, Bandage Bonce?’ she barked.
‘Shouldn’t it be . . .’ – he swallowed nervously, before quietly saying – ‘POOP?’
Goonhilda grimaced.
‘Public Office of Pride. POP!’
That told him.
‘But, um, there are two “o” words,’ said Mr Slackjaw, and people started to shuffle slowly away from him. ‘So it’s POOP.’
‘It’s not POOP because we don’t count the second “o”, so it’s POP!’ said Goonhilda, moving towards him, menacingly.
‘I think it’s probably POOP,’ he shrugged.
‘It’s not POOP! It’s POP!’
‘I just think you’re from POOP.’
‘You’re POOP! I’m POP! And I am afraid it’s my terrible duty to inform you that in the opinion of POOP . . .’
She kicked herself.
‘I mean, in the opinion of POP, not only do I feel that Starkley should not be renamed Royal Starkley . . .’
Everyone gasped again.
‘. . . but, as far as POOP – POP! – is concerned, there is a very strong case for having Starkley taken off the map altogether!’
She put her hands on her hips, triumphant, and stared straight at Mr Slackjaw.
‘What?’ shouted Madame Cous Cous. ‘You can’t take Starkley off the map!’
Sadly though, and despite Mr Longblather trying to help her, she still hadn’t found her glasses and said all this to a small potted plant on a shelf.
‘I am Goonhilda Swag and I can and I will, you mad little woman!’ shrieked Goonhilda.
‘Hamish,’ whispered Alice, as Goonhilda kept on ranting. ‘What time is it?’
Why did she want to know what the time was? Where did she have to be?
‘We can’t have towns like Starkley making the rest of the country look bad!’ yelled Goonhilda over the growing noise and angry murmurings in the school hall. ‘Far better to take you off the map where no one will ever find you than advertise the fact that you people exist.’
She spat out the words ‘you people’ with such scorn that they could have burnt a hole wherever they landed. But even though taking Starkley off the map would be a terrible thing to happen – how would anyone ever find them? Who wants to live in a place that doesn’t exist? – Hamish was distracted by Alice’s odd question.
‘Why do you want to know what time it is?’ he asked, as Alice looked quizzically around the room. What had she noticed?
‘In fact, I have to tell you,’ Goonhilda went on, holding up her clipboard, ‘I’m close to signing the document to make that happen right now. Oh, I’ll have to tell the Queen, of course, but as soon as I mention the old men stuck up trees I’m sure she’ll see the light. In fact, I’m so close that if just one more strange thing happens . . .’
Until Alice’s interruption, Hamish had been listening quite intently. It all seemed so unfair. So unjust! But now he realised that something was changing as Goonhilda spoke.
‘. . . even if it’s just one more out-of-the-ordinary little thing that makes Starkley stand out . . .’
Now nobody was listening to the massive bully in the awful dress. Everyone was looking around the room, making curious faces at one another, glancing at the windows, whispering . . .
‘. . . then I am afraid that your town will be taken out of the guidebooks and off the maps, and—’
‘WHO TURNED OUT THE LIGHTS?’ screamed Madame Cous Cous, because suddenly it was dark. Actually, it was really dark.
And, what’s more, it was getting darker.
‘Hamish, LOOK!’ shouted Alice who was now standing by the window and pointing towards the sky. Hamish ran over to her and the look on her face told Hamish that whatever Alice had seen had scared the daylights out of her.
In fact, whatever Alice had seen had scared the daylight out of Starkley.
The Living Daylights
Fifteen seconds later, Hamish and Alice had run outside and were standing bravely in the darkening playground to get a closer look at whatever was happening.
Most of the grown-ups had stayed indoors, cowering by the windows, turning their backs on an increasingly frustrated Goonhilda Swag.
They’d all been so preoccupied with wondering if there’d be another GravityBurp that they just weren’t prepared for this.
Day seemed to be turning to night.
But not everywhere – just right above Starkley.
In fact, if you were looking down at the world from above, it would have appeared just the way it normally did, except for a big dark spot where Starkley was.
To the left and to the right of the town, it was as bright as you like. But immediately above the tiny figures of Hamish and Alice was a huge and ominous black cloud.
A huge, black, smoky cloud.
A huge, black, smoky, moving cloud.
‘Do you hear that?’ asked Alice, staring straight up, instinctively moving closer to her friend.
‘What’s that noise?’ asked Buster, running out of the school hall towards them, the other members of the PDF following closely behind.
CCCCCCCHHHHHHHHH came the distant noise. Like the sound a radio makes when it isn’t tuned properly.
Getting louder.
And louder.
From right above their heads.
CCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHH.
‘It sounds . . . like a machine!’ said Elliot. ‘Or . . . insects?’
Now the double doors behind them were flung open, and the residents of Starkley poured out of the school hall in a panic.
‘Who said INSECTS?’ yelled Goonhilda Swag, thundering out and batting everyone else out of the way with her knobbly
elbows. ‘I HATE insects! Spiders! Dung beetles! The Mariachi Mayfly! Bungle Trumps! Booger Ticks! ALL OF THEM!’
‘Run, children!’ yelled Frau Fussbundler. ‘It must be some kind of storm! Get home!’
‘It doesn’t look like a normal cloud,’ said Elliot, standing completely still, totally fascinated. ‘It’s neither cumulonimbus nor stratocumulus!’
He smiled and tapped the others on the arm to point out just how weird that was, but nobody had the faintest idea what he was talking about.
The CCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHH was even louder now, like it was almost inside all of their ears.
‘I think we need to get home,’ said Hamish’s mum, suddenly appearing.
But they’d never make it home in time.
Whatever this cloud was, it was indeed getting closer, and closer, and closer . . .
Do clouds fall to Earth?
Was this even a cloud?
Now it was so wide, and getting blacker, and looking angrier . . .
The wind rose and CCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHH came the noise, growing, roaring, until Hamish could see that actually this was not a cloud at all.
Whatever was headed to Earth was made up of billions and billions of tiny little dots.
‘It is insects!’ yelled Elliot.
‘AAAAARGH!’ cried Goonhilda.
But Hamish could tell Elliot was wrong. These weren’t insects.
Then the first of the strange little things began landing around him. Little black dots clattered onto the ground, and skittered about, as more and more joined them. Clanging on roofs, battering benches and bollards and bushes and barnets . . .
Alice stooped to pick one up. It looked like a little black teardrop.
‘SEEDS?’ she said, holding it out so the others could see. ‘Why are SEEDS falling from the sky?’
But they weren’t just falling now. They were cascading down. Tumbling. So many seeds grouped together that they’d blocked out the very light that shone on Starkley.
The CCCCCCHHHHH turned to a SSSSSSHHHHHH like the fiercest rainstorm you’ve ever been in.
‘Ow!’ yelled Grenville Bile, running while trying to shield himself from the seeds and slamming straight into a lamp post.
‘I’m covered!’ yelled Buster. ‘They’re all in my hair!’
The seeds were falling with such ferocity that they were beginning to sting. They tore through the leaves left on the trees. They ricocheted off walls. If they didn’t hit you on the way down, they got you when they bounced back up again.
‘UNDER HERE!’ yelled Clover over the noise, removing a seed from her nostril and opening up a small pink umbrella for the PDF to all cram themselves under.
Some people ran back inside the school. Others ran for the bus shelter. People dived through car windows as the seeds clattered and drummed against the roofs. Others hid in doorways and pulled their hoods up. Across Starkley, front doors slammed shut. All the while a trillion tiny seeds bounced and danced and pattered around on the concrete streets and hard tiles of the houses.
‘This is HORRIBLE!’ yelled Clover as they cowered under the umbrella.
And then, as quickly as it had begun . . .
SILENCE.
Sunshine.
Calm.
Clover carefully lowered the little pink umbrella and the kids peeked round it.
Everywhere was covered in a five-centimetre layer of little black seeds.
It was like snowfall. A really rubbish, crunchy black snowfall.
‘Wh – what do you think they are?’ said Hamish, kicking his feet, hearing seeds crunch and crackle underfoot.
He’d read once, in THAT’S INTERESTING! magazine, about strange things like this happening. It was to do with whirlwinds, they said, or maybe tornadoes. The article had said that sometimes, in a place called Honduras, it actually rains small, silvery, slithery fish. He’d also read that in Serbia, at least once a year, it rains frogs! And, apparently, if a tornado goes over a lake, it can suck up whatever’s inside and carry it through the air for miles and miles until it loses power and just drops whatever it was carrying. But Hamish had never heard of it raining seeds anywhere. And it had certainly never happened in Starkley before.
Slowly, around town, doors opened again. People peered out of cars. Windows were pulled up and faces popped out. The grown-ups that had stayed in the school hall began to creep out again, to find that seeds now carpeted the town. They filled every gutter. Every brim of every hat. There were seeds in every nook and cranny of every nook and cranny.
‘H, I think I know what this might be,’ said Hamish’s dad, holding one in the palm of his hand, and studying it very seriously.
And then, from right behind them . . .
‘MMFF-MFFMMF! MMMFFF MFFMFMM!’
It was Goonhilda. She may have run off, but she hadn’t made it back to the school in time. Her neck cone had filled right up with seeds so that they completely covered her mouth.
All you could see were two large and panicked eyes. Her plump little arms couldn’t reach up to get rid of the seeds. She spun around, pirouetting, arms flailing wildly, trying to dislodge them and shout-mumbling all the while.
‘MMFFF-MMMFFF!’
Goonhilda had seeds in her hair and seeds in her ears and, by the way, she had a not inconsiderable number of seeds in her pants too.
Finally, she bent straight forward and all the seeds poured out of the cone.
‘MMMFF,’ she said, then spat a huge great gobful of seeds all over poor Buster.
‘That is IT!’ she said, furious. ‘That was the LAST STRAW!’
It was as if she had taken this seed storm very personally. Like it had been planned somehow to anger her and only her. This very self-centred woman whipped out her clipboard, shook all the seeds out of it and found a pen.
‘I am writing an OFFICIAL REPORT!’ she raged, pointing it at anyone she saw. ‘You will all rue the day you messed with Goonhilda Swag!’
The people of Starkley looked rather upset at the idea of an official report on them, but if he was bothered Hamish’s dad didn’t show it.
Hamish knew the dark look on his dad’s face meant that, right now, they had far bigger problems to deal with.
No One Seed That Coming!
Hamish Ellerby, as you know, is a boy of action. When action is to be taken, Hamish will take it. No ifs, no buts, no maybes!
But sometimes he likes to make neat lists first.
He decided there were three very pressing things to deal with:
Goonhilda Swag had left town in quite a hurry, shouting and bellowing and picking seeds out of her ears and flicking them at cats. So Hamish would worry about Goonhilda and the Public Office of Pride (which he agreed with Mr Longblather should be called POOP) later.
What was far more worrying were these seeds. What were they? Why had so many of them been dropped right on Starkley? And what would happen when they grew?
I mean, let’s look on the bright side. They might be melon seeds. Everybody loves melons. But, even so, you don’t want a whole town covered in billions of melons, do you? You don’t want to become the ‘melon’ town. You don’t want everyone calling you ‘Old Melon Face the melon lover who loves melons and lives in MelonTown’, do you? ‘You know, Old Melon Face from MelonTown – the town that’s all just melons! Ooh, they love melons there, they really do!’
How would you get anything done? You’d be eating melon for breakfast, lunch and tea. You’d have to drink melon juice all day long. You’d have to have a spare room, just full of melons, and sleep in a big melon bed, in among all the massive melon pips. Sooner or later, you’d go mad, because all you’d ever talk about would be melons, and all your friends would be melons.
But I’ve got sidetracked, because all of that is supposing these seeds were lovely, tasty melons. What if they were something else entirely?
What if these seeds were for ENORMOUS HUGE GREAT STINK TREES? Trees so big and so huge that suddenly you found yourself living in a massive, dark, stin
ky forest? And they grew underneath your house until one day you woke up and you were living at the very top of one of those enormous huge great trees with a clothes peg on your nose to block out the smell? Okay, you’d get a zip wire to school, and that would be fun, but how on earth would you get back up every night?
Or what if they turned into . . . sharp, spiky cactuses? And the whole town became a terrible health-and-safety risk? And you couldn’t even leave your house without getting prodded and poked and grazed and scratched by awful spiky needles? Needles over there, needles in your hair. Needles in your shoes, needles in your poos. You’d have to wear a bubble-wrap suit, or roll around in a hamster ball, just so you didn’t end up covered in plasters.
None of this sounds ideal, does it?
No. The seeds had to go. Whatever they were.
‘What we need is some kind of motorised centrifugal fan capable of creating a form of instant partial vacuum to suck the seeds into a sort of basic attached containment unit,’ said Elliot, scratching his head, then starting to work on possible designs on his pad.
‘Do you mean . . . like a vacuum cleaner?’ said a confused Clover, trying to get her head round it.
Elliot thought about it and stopped sketching.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘OKAY!’ shouted Madame Cous Cous, slipping and skidding on the seeds. Things had become much more dangerous now the whole place was covered in the things. Then Madame Cous Cous realised she could actually use them to move around much quicker by paddling her big stick like an oar, and just punting herself around, pushing and sliding on the seeds as they rolled. ‘OPERATION DE-SEEDING!’ she yelled, gliding past Hamish, looking like one of those gondoliers you see on boats in Venice. ‘Positions, please!’
Anyone who owned a vacuum cleaner was now feeding extension lead after extension lead out of their window, pulling them across their lawn and plugging them in.