The Very Royal Holiday Page 2

  ‘We’ve been on this boat for over a week!’

  ‘Over a week?’ Holly repeated. ‘How’s that possible? We would have noticed!’

  ‘We didn’t. Seven days – and this is the eighth night,’ said Anna. ‘We’ve been here longer than the whole Holy Moly Holiday was supposed to last!’

  ‘How bizarre,’ said Pepino. ‘I’d have thought Mum and Dad would be worried about us not coming back. I borrowed their space hopper: they must be missing it.’

  ‘Come on,’ Holly whispered, ‘let’s try to get into Pip Hamelin’s room. It’s the only way to find out what’s going on.’

  They put down the little chocolate figurines they’d been painting (Pepino popped three or four into his mouth) and they ran up the staircase to the top deck. Blastula was blowing bubbles in the giant outdoor Jacuzzi with Nadya of Marok and Flora of Florenz.

  Holly, Anna and Pepino crept up to Pip Hamelin’s cabin.

  Hamelin’s snores made his cabin door quiver. Only when he slept did he not play the mandolin – and he kept his sleeping to a bare minimum.

  ‘Holly, pass me your glasses!’ said Anna. She slipped one of the glasses’ arms in the slit alongside the door and – CLICK! – flicked the lock open.

  They walked in. Hamelin was snoring – rhooooopppsh! – but also humming and whistling to himself.

  There was another noise too.

  Bzzz … Crrrkkkk … tililit … bzzz …

  A slice of moonlight through the round window cast a silver light on to the desk, making all kinds of strange instruments glisten: a telescope, a compass, a complicated map, a picture of a beautiful young girl … and a fish bowl containing a buzzing, beeping, bustling electric eel.

  ‘Look, it’s picking up radio waves,’ Anna murmured. ‘Let’s try to tune it.’

  She twisted the dials on the fish bowl.

  ‘Crrrzzzk!’ the fish bowl creaked.

  ‘Interzzznational news! Bzzzzz … There is zzzztill no … news of the zzzzirty-zzree kidnapped … tiiliilit … royal children … bzzzzz … sposed to go on … zzly Moly Holid– sssskkkkrrrr! …’

  ‘So at least the world knows we’ve gone missing,’ said Pepino.

  ‘Crrrrr Britlander Royal Family …. grrrzzzspace hopper!’

  And ‘they are missing that space hopper,’ he sighed.

  ‘Poor eel,’ Holly said. ‘It must be very annoying being used as an antenna.’

  ‘Shush!’

  ‘Brrrzzzzeeeek … search teams … tlllleeee … been sent to … Afrik …’

  ‘They’ve sent search teams to Afrik? That won’t help,’ said Pepino. ‘We haven’t even made it to Islandia. I’m not sure we’ll ever get to Afrik.’

  ‘But fffffishermen in Antarktik … spotted a crrkkkkkuiseship … some fear … ggrrrrddzzzgg … children may be heading … towards Southern Edge of Earthzzzz … tllliiiiiit!’

  ‘The Southern Edge of Earth?’

  Anna and Holly began to shake.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Pepino. ‘I’m sure that’s just a lovely place full of funny, fat, fluffy walruses.’

  ‘Pepino,’ said Anna, ‘did you ever have a geography lesson?’

  ‘Yes, I learnt to colour in my kingdom.’

  ‘Well, if you’d learnt to colour in the rest of the Earth, you would have noticed something about the southern part of it!’

  ‘I haven’t invaded that part yet,’ said Pepino. ‘I noticed that. What else?’

  Anna and Holly rolled their eyes and pointed at a crumpled-up map on the wall of the cabin.

  ‘The Southern Edge,’ Holly whispered, ‘is where the ocean water has nowhere else to go and just leaks and leaks like a tap into the sky.’

  ‘Awesome!’ said Pepino.

  ‘Into the great, big, dark, cold, empty sky,’ stated Anna. ‘If that’s where we’re going, then it’s bad news.’

  ‘Well,’ whistled a beautiful, warm voice behind them, ‘then I’m afraid, my dears, that it is bad news.’

  Chapter Four

  Pip Hamelin, in his pyjamas, looked like a long silvery eel himself.

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ Anna croaked.

  ‘To a Holy Moly Holiday,’ smiled Hamelin, and his teeth shone like shards of crystal in the moonlight. ‘Have a slice of marzipan.’

  ‘We don’t want marzipan! We want to go home!’

  ‘Let me sing you a little song. Ah! Fair maiden, when shall I …’ Anna picked up the fishbowl and – FLOSH! – poured it over Hamelin’s head.

  The electric eel wrapped itself smugly around the singer’s neck and electrocuted him in one neat shock. PZZZT! Then it leapt out of the window and into the great icy ocean.

  ‘Quick,’ said Holly, ‘while he’s knocked out, we need to change the course of the ship. I’ll try to find the commands – meanwhile, you two go and tell the other kids.’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ Pepino exclaimed. ‘Why don’t we just escape in a lifeboat and let the other kids fall into the sky? They’re all awful anyway!’ (He added to himself: ‘And then I can have their kingdoms.’)

  Anna grabbed him by the arm and they ran downstairs.

  ‘Your Bubbly Baroness,’ she said to Blastula. ‘Get out of this Jacuzzi – we’ve got important news.’

  Blastula was so shocked she coughed into her bubble mix, sending gazillions of prickly soap drops into her friends’ eyes. ‘How – dare – you talk to me like this?’

  ‘Pepino,’ groaned Anna, ‘get her out of this Jacuzzi.’

  Pepino tried to grab Blastula, but she was so slippery she popped right out of his arms, up in the air and – plop! – got stuck into a round inflatable life ring that was tied to the railings.

  ‘PEASANT UPRISING!!!’ Blastula yelled. ‘CALL THE ARMY!!!’

  Alerted by the screams, all the other children slowly emerged from various places in the ship – still munching on crêpes or drinking juice out of big golden hat-cups with swirly straws.

  ‘Listen, everyone,’ said Anna. ‘We’ve been on this boat for over a week. It’s going nowhere. Pip Hamelin has tricked us – he never intended to take us on the Holy Moly Holiday.’

  ‘Who cares! This is better than the Holy Moly Holiday!’ exclaimed Ichabod of Atlantis.

  ‘Quite right,’ said Blastula. ‘There are purple puppies in every bathroom!’

  ‘They’d better be good astropuppies,’ said Anna, ‘because we’re heading straight into space! This boat is going to the Southern Edge of the Earth!’

  ‘Awesome!’ replied all the royal children.

  ‘That’s what I said,’ Pepino agreed.

  Anna rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t you understand? The food won’t last forever. If we fall into the skies, we’ll quickly run out of things to eat.’

  ‘Not awesome,’ all the royal children admitted.

  ‘I guess we could eat the kittens and puppies,’ mulled Pepino.

  Blastula swelled up in anger. BAM!

  The life ring exploded, sending rubber all over the deck.

  ‘We shall eat no kittens or puppies, you cannibals! You’re lying, lying, because you don’t like us having any fun!’

  ‘No,’ shouted Holly’s voice behind them, from the top deck. ‘Look up!’

  Everyone stared at the skies above them. And it was quite a sight.

  Like a great upside-down waterfall, the ocean poured up into the starry sky, where it swirled into fraying curls of salty water. Flecks of foam fluttered away busily, and the children, even though they were looking up, suddenly had a terrifying fear of heights.

  ‘We’re going to fall,’ said Holly. ‘Unless we row hard. Down to deck two! I’ve been through the boat’s papers and found how to get the oars out.’

  ‘Me, rowing? Who do you take me for, some Oxforth boffin?’ Blastula erupted.

  ‘You’d better come, Blastula, or I’ll make you drink a puppy smoothie,’ said Anna. ‘Hurry up!’

  The children ran downstairs to the second deck, where Holly opened a smal
l control box on the wall. A few clicks and beeps later, two rows of fifteen holes opened alongside the flanks of the ship, and oars were locked into place.

  ‘I don’t know how to row,’ Blastula yawned. ‘I was never prisoner of the galleys, unlike some of you here, clearly.’

  ‘Then sit here and hit this drum,’ snapped Anna as they all got behind their oars.

  ‘Regularly, and fast, so we row as hard and as constantly as possible! Come on!’

  Blastula began to tap the drum. TAP … TAP … TAP …

  Row … row … row … went the royal children.

  (And ‘Ow!’, ‘Ow!’, ‘Ouch!’, ‘Argh!’ too.)

  TAP. TAP. TAP.

  Row. Row. Row.

  (Blastula was rather enjoying this.)

  TAP, TAP, TAP, TAP.

  Row, row, row, row, went the children – (‘Ouch!’, ‘Hey!’, ‘Too fast!’, ‘Humph!’)

  TAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAP.

  Rowrowrowrowrow.

  ‘Hey!’ Pepino huffed and puffed. ‘She’s going much too fast!’

  ‘For … once, she’s … right!’ Anna panted. ‘It’s the only way to save ourselves!’

  ‘I like your attitude, prisoner number six!’ yelled Blastula to Anna. ‘Faster! Harder! Stronger! More –’

  But she suddenly stopped, and all of them did, because the deck was filled with …

  … the most beautiful music in the world.

  ‘Why, hello, children,’ Hamelin purred, playing his mandolin. ‘I must have fallen asleep … Holy moly! Why are you rowing so hard?’

  All the children shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know,’ mused Blastula. ‘Why are you rowing so hard, everyone?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the children whispered. ‘It’s painful and not nice.’

  ‘It is painful and not nice,’ said Hamelin approvingly. ‘Have some marzipan instead.’ Anna struggled. She knew something was wrong, but couldn’t say what. They had a good reason to be rowing, surely? But could it be a better reason than the fun they would have going waterskiing in the artificial mini-lake on deck nine?

  She took the slice of marzipan from Hamelin’s hand. He was such a nice man! And the way he strummed the strings of his mandolin –

  BAM! went Blastula’s drumstick on the drum as she dreamily dropped it.

  This one second of noise, covering Hamelin’s music, reminded Anna why they were rowing. The boat was going to fall up into the sky!

  Already she could feel it …

  getting to the edgiest edge of the Southern

  Edge of the Earth …

  and lifting slightly at the prow.

  ‘COVER YOUR EARS!’ she screamed. ‘WE MUST ROW, OR WE’RE GOING TO FALL!’

  She squeezed her hands on either side of her head, and all the other children imitated her. But then they couldn’t row any more!

  ‘The marzipan!’ yelled Holly. ‘Put it inside your ears!’

  The children quickly rolled their marzipan slices into little sausages and stuck them inside their ears.

  (Blastula said, ‘Disgusting! We won’t even be able to eat them afterwards!’)

  (Pepino said, ‘Yay! Extra taste!’)

  The boat was sloping dangerously upwards now, following the stream of water up into the universe …

  ‘ROW!!!!!!!!!’ Anna shouted, though no one could hear.

  And they started rowing again.

  ROW. ROW. ROW. ROW.

  ROWROWROWROWROW.

  ROWROWROWROWROW.

  They rowed so hard that the boat sailed back a bit, laying flat down again on the sea.

  But it edged up again …

  then was dragged back …

  then dropped a bit more

  but was dragged back …

  and finally …

  … there was nothing the children could do any more.

  And the boat fell and fell and fell, up and up and up into the dark and empty skies, riding falling waves that gradually dissolved into space.

  Chapter Five

  The children, pressed against the round windows, watched in horror as the blue-black universe wrapped itself snugly around the drifting boat.

  ‘You people are such useless rowers!’ Blastula erupted, taking off her marzipan earplugs.

  ‘Maybe your drumming wasn’t good enough,’ Anna snarled.

  ‘Aren’t we going to run out of oxygen soon?’ the Tsarina of Marok asked.

  ‘Oh, shucks,’ said Pepino. ‘I really should have brought a scuba-diving kit. I thought they’d be provided.’

  ‘Scuba-diving kit! Good call, Peps,’ said Holly. ‘Everyone – get your scuba-diving kits and oxygen bottles. It’s the only way to keep breathing.’

  ‘How about me?’ Pepino cried as the children ran to their cabins.

  ‘You get your space hopper. I’ll fill it with some of my oxygen.’

  Soon enough, when the boat left the atmosphere, the space scuba-divers were flying haphazardly around …

  And Pepino had fashioned himself – with a few bendy straws, his fake nose and his space hopper – a very comfortable cushion of oxygen.

  ‘Ab I glad I rebebbered to pack that fake dose!’ he sniggered sdiggered.

  ‘Wait a second, everyone,’ said Anna. ‘Where’s Hamelin?’

  They looked everywhere: no sign of the singer.

  ‘And it’s not as if he could be hiding under the furniture,’ remarked Ursul, ‘since it’s flying around.’

  ‘THERE!’ Pepino screamed. ‘Id the sky! He’s rudding away!’

  They all flapped towards the windows of the ship. In the dark blue distance, Hamelin, in full astronaut gear, was indeed running away – or, rather, pedalling away in a space pedal car.

  ‘What a weirdo. Well, we’re not going to miss him,’ Blastula said.

  ‘We need to go get him!’ Anna shouted. ‘He can’t leave us floating into space like this! Find me some rope!’

  She swam across the ship as fast as she could and, a few minutes later, she was back with one of the racing cars. She tied a piece of rope to it, knotted the other end to a pillar in the ship and opened a window.

  VROOOOOM! She rushed away into the void.

  The other children were a little stunned.

  ‘Is she always like that?’ Nadya of Marok asked.

  ‘Ofted,’ said Pepino. ‘She loves showing off.’

  ‘And saving people,’ Holly pointed out.

  ‘Well,’ Blastula yawned, ‘what do we do in the meantime? I’m sure the TVs can’t pick up the most interesting channels from here. Are there even kittens left to stroke?’

  ‘Kittens!’ Holly jumped. ‘We need to make sure the animals are safe. Let’s gather all of them and give them some oxygen.’

  ‘Great. You do that while I stand guard!’ said Blastula, who crossed her arms and drifted around, showing her (frilly) knickers to everyone.

  For the next hour or so, the other children rushed about the boat, floating from room to room and staircase to staircase to collect wayward wolverines, cute kittens, purple puppies, coquettish cockatoos … and – yes – even the petrifying leopards. ROAR!

  They fitted them each with space helmets – balls from the ball pool, or fishbowls for the bigger ones – linked by a few straws to an oxygen tank donated by Ursul (who then had to share Flora’s tank; she didn’t seem too pleased about it, but he looked over the moon).

  ‘Well done, everyone!’ Holly exclaimed, after squeezing a helmet on to the head of a toothy Tasmanian tiger cub. ‘Let’s hope the oxygen tanks last long enough for the rescue teams to arrive.’

  ‘If they ever arribe,’ Pepino whispered. ‘Oh, do you think they will?’

  ‘My rescue team certainly will,’ said Blastula. ‘As for you, Pepino, I sadly don’t think anyone will have the money to come and save you. Plus, I’ve heard your parents don’t care that much now that they’ve got your little brothers. They barely noticed you’d gone to Francia the other week.’

  ‘Stop it, Blastula,’ sna
pped Holly. ‘You’re making him sad.’

  ‘Do, she isd’t, I dod’t care at all,’ said Pepino, but Holly noticed there were tiny little pearls of water flying away from his eyes, and he bounced slowly away on his space hopper.

  ‘Anna’s coming back!’ Ursul suddenly shouted. ‘And she’s bringing Hamelin with her!’

  ‘Hello, children,’ said Hamelin in his soft and melancholy voice, as Anna dragged him into the ship in his pedal car. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Bored,’ said Blastula. ‘Why did you bring him back?’ she asked Anna. ‘He’s been nothing but trouble.’

  ‘He was abandoning us!’ Anna exclaimed. ‘He needs to explain why he’s trying to get us lost in space. So? Why?’

  ‘I have my reasons,’ said Hamelin. ‘If you let me sing you a little song with my mandolin, I’ll explain.’

  ‘Oh! Yes! A song!’ the children exclaimed.

  ‘Certainly not!’ Anna yelled. ‘He’ll try to entrance us again!

  ‘Just ONE song!’ Quetzal implored, seizing the mandolin.

  ‘NO!’ Anna retorted, snatching it away.

  The debate was suddenly settled, however, when … ZPLING! A harpoon shot through one of the round windows and broke Hamelin’s mandolin in two clean halves.

  ‘MY MANDOLIN!’ Hamelin screamed heart-wrenchingly.

  And a voice outside, in the cold and dark void, called, ‘ATTAAAACK!’

  The children looked out of the window,

  and …

  … spotted the drifting pirate ship.

  Chapter Six

  At the end of the harpoon was a rope, and at the end of the rope was an alien-looking pirate, or a pirate-looking alien.