Monsterbook: Pongdollop and the School Stink Read online

  Michael Broad spent much of his childhood gazing out of the window imagining he was somewhere more interesting.

  Now he’s a grown-up, Michael still spends a lot of time gazing out of the window imagining he’s somewhere more interesting – but these days he writes and illustrates books as well.

  Books by Michael Broad

  MONSTERBOOK: PONGDOLLOP AND THE SCHOOL STINK

  MONSTERBOOK: SNOTGOBBLE AND THE BOGEY BULLY

  JAKE CAKE: THE FOOTBALL BEAST

  JAKE CAKE: THE PIRATE CURSE

  JAKE CAKE: THE ROBOT DINNER LADY

  JAKE CAKE: THE SCHOOL DRAGON

  JAKE CAKE: THE VISITING VAMPIRE

  JAKE CAKE: THE WEREWOLF TEACHER

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario,

  Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published 2009

  Copyright © Michael Broad, 2009

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author/illustrator has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-196688-5

  CONTENTS

  1 Urk and Will

  2 Will the Jub Jub

  3 Monster City

  4 The Great and Mighty Pondollop

  5 Octapongus Rant

  6 Hairball Buffet Brawl

  7 Miffni the Big

  8 Snoring and Spearing

  9 ‘Pssssst!’

  10 Lady Balloon Head

  11 Stinky Squirty Showdown

  12 Mad Monster Dog

  THIS IS URK

  Urk is a monster. But to his parents’ disappointment he’s not very scary.

  When Urk began scare training with the MONSTERBOOK he made friends with Will, his allocated fleshblob!

  THIS IS WILL

  Will is a human. He thinks monsters are revolting, but also very interesting.

  SCARE TRAINING

  When Urk’s meant to be out scaring will, the pair watch TV, eat snacks and read the MONSTERBOOK.

  Urk makes up weekly scare reports for his parents, and will learns more about the disgusting world of Monsterland.

  1

  Urk and Will

  Urk closed the Monsterbook and peered up at his parents.

  ‘Scare them until they wee the bed?’ he frowned. ‘It just seems a bit mean.’

  Urk’s dad gave an angry snort and his mum fled the room in tears. It was the young monster’s first night on scare training and his parents had hoped the Monsterbook would spark some enthusiasm.

  It hadn’t, but he didn’t really have a choice.

  Urk recently finished bottom of his class in Basic Boo, having displayed a wilful lack of menace. Now he’d graduated to solo scares his parents were determined to make a monster of him.

  Clutching the Monsterbook and using the handy map provided, Urk trudged through the dark, earthy tunnels out of Monsterland until he found the wardrobe belonging to Will, his allocated fleshblob. He was about to scratch ominously on the door, as described in chapter one, when his hooves suddenly became tangled in a bunch of wire hangers and he crashed into the room!

  Then everything went dark.

  When everything went light again, it went light blue – which was the colour of Will’s bedroom. Looking around, Urk found the boy flicking through the Monsterbook with great interest.

  ‘So, you’re a monster?’ Will asked cautiously.

  ‘Um, yeah,’ said Urk, sitting up to find himself wrapped in a woolly blanket.

  ‘And I’m your allocated …’ The boy ran a finger down the page until he found the right word. ‘… fleshblob?’ he said with a frown.

  The monster shrugged uncomfortably.

  This was followed by an awkward silence. The boy closed the book and drummed his fingers on the top, while the monster fiddled with the corner of the woolly blanket and wiggled his hooves. Then Will rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a small white bag and offered it to Urk.

  ‘Do you want a fizzy cola bottle?’ he asked.

  From that night on, whenever Urk was supposed to be on nightly scare manoeuvres, the pair sat up watching TV, eating crisps and reading the Monsterbook. Urk made up elaborate scare stories to tell his parents, while Will learned all about the disgusting world of monsters.

  So everything worked out really well …

  2

  Will the Jub Jub

  ‘BOO!’ said Urk, jumping from the wardrobe and plonking his rucksack on Will’s cluttered desk. The young monster was out of breath from running through the tunnels.

  ‘ARGH!’ said Will, glancing up from yesterday’s Nasty News, Monsterland’s nightly newspaper. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘This!’ said Urk, rolling out a messy, crumpled poster.

  ‘An uprising?’ said Will, sitting up straight. ‘I thought monsters were happy living underground. You said they only ever surface to scare people and steal light bulbs?’

  ‘Monsters have never tried to take over the world before, it’s far too clean up here,’ said Urk. ‘And we’ve only survived this long underground because grown-ups don’t believe in us, which makes a monster uprising the worst idea ever!’

  ‘What’s a Pongdollop?’ asked Will.

  ‘That’s probably his name,’ said Urk, ‘but I’ve never heard of him.’

  Will glanced at his watch. ‘The meeting’s in an hour!’

  ‘Yeah, we’d better hurry,’ said Urk, quickly rolling up the poster. ‘If we’re going to stand any chance of stopping Pongdollop, we have to find out exactly what he’s planning!’

  ‘Us?’ gasped Will, who was happy to learn about monsters from the safety of his room, but had no plans to visit Monsterland. Mostly because fleshblobs wouldn’t get far before something bad happened to them.

  ‘Oh, I’ve already thought about that and you can disguise yourself as a Jub Jub,’ said Urk, pulling a brown sack and a pair of forks from his rucksack, thinking this would explain everything.

  It didn’t explain anything, so Will grabbed the Monsterbook and flicked through the ‘J’s in the ‘Gruesome Gallery’ section. The ‘Gruesome Gallery’ contains every kind of monster known to monster, and eventually he found a Jub Jub.

  ‘Is this web-weave, breathable fabric?’ Will asked, picking up the dirty smelly sack with the tips of his fingers.

  ‘No,’ said Urk. ‘It’s just a dirty, smelly sack.’
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br />   ‘And the forks?’

  ‘You’ll have to use them for hands,’ Urk said, handing them over. ‘Even the sight of a Jub Jub’s hands would make a monster puke, so they have to use implements. Anyway, your pink ones would be a dead giveaway.’

  ‘Are you sure this will work?’ Will frowned, pulling the ragged sack over his head. He jabbed the forks through the material and shifted it around until he was peering through two meshy eyeholes.

  ‘Trust me,’ said Urk, packing the book away and throwing the rucksack over his shoulder. ‘No one will want to lift that sack to find out what’s underneath.’

  Urk headed for the wardrobe and was about to enter the tunnels, when he noticed Will wasn’t behind him.

  The boy was still standing by the desk looking like a muddy ghost.

  ‘It’ll be fine!’ said Urk. ‘I promise.’

  Will reluctantly shuffled through the hidden doorway of the wardrobe after his monster friend, bumping into a few things along the way until he got used to the sack and the smell of the tunnels.

  A few odd-looking creatures scuttled past and Will tried not to stare or scream or run in the opposite direction. He also tried to look like a Jub Jub and not a fleshblob draped in a sack.

  3

  Monster City

  After many twists and turns through reeking tunnels, Urk and Will eventually stepped out into a giant underground cavern with grubby light bulbs planted in the ceiling like stars. The cavern was the biggest hole Will had ever seen, but it needed to be big because it had a whole city in it!

  Will decided Monster City was not all that different from the city above, except that this one was much darker, smellier and looked as though it was made of dung. Putrid oozefalls burped and gurgled down the cavern walls and a forest of giant fungus surrounded the city like a demented fairy ring.

  ‘YUCK!’ said Will, pinching his nose between two forks.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Urk, and set off down the slimy cavern edge.

  Will gazed, wide-eyed, as they made their way through the fungus forest, past the slug slums and into the city – where the buildings towered over them like enormous compost heaps. In the busy streets he saw lots of unfamiliar creatures in all shapes and sizes, and made a mental note to look them up later in the Monsterbook. Others he recognized from the ‘Gruesome Gallery’, like Parpers, Quillylous and a couple of Big Ugly Jennies.

  As they made their way down Snot Street, Will felt something wet and slimy land on his head and looked up to see a Big Ugly Jennie grinning down at him. He waved a fork at it in what he hoped was a friendly gesture, and then legged it to catch up with Urk.

  The young monster was standing outside the mighty Monster Hall.

  ‘It looks like a giant curly dog poo!’ said Will, gazing up at the big brown dollop.

  ‘Thanks!’ said Urk, and led them inside.

  The interior of Monster Hall was exactly what Will imagined the inside of a giant curly dog poo might look like – curved brown walls, winding staircases and ploppy chandeliers.

  ‘Now, leave all the talking to me,’ Urk whispered as they entered the foyer.

  A small ugly creature was holding a pile of leaflets. His most striking feature was the hump on his back – it was bigger than his body and looked like a giant walnut.

  ‘Are you here for the great and mighty Pongdollop?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘Yes,’ said Urk. ‘Down with all fleshblobs!’

  ‘Follow the slime trail to the main hall,’ the creature grumbled, handing Urk a grubby leaflet. Then he screwed his eyes shut and skewered another leaflet blindly on to Will’s left fork. ‘Tea and hairballs will be served afterwards.’

  ‘That thing didn’t look at me once,’ Will whispered as they followed the slime trail down a low brown corridor towards the main hall. ‘Which is rich considering he was a walking hump!’

  ‘That was an Underling,’ Urk explained. ‘Underlings aren’t technically monsters because they have no scary bits or natural defences. They survive by working for big monsters in return for protection, and he didn’t look at you because he was frightened.’

  ‘I’m a sack with cutlery!’ said Will, lifting his right fork and frowning at it. ‘Unless he thought I might prick him in the bum with one of these?’

  ‘He was worried he might see something under the sack,’ said Urk. ‘Most monsters are tough enough to survive a glimpse of a Jub Jub, like a bit of elbow or a toe. But that would be enough to kill an Underling.’

  ‘We could have fun with that,’ Will chuckled, peeping out from under the rag.

  ‘If an Underling found out you were a fleshblob, it could still pull your arms and legs off and hit you over the head with them,’ warned Urk. ‘They can be pretty aggressive.’

  ‘You just said they were defenceless!’ Will gasped, quickly throwing the sack back down and adjusting the hem to make sure nothing human was sticking out.

  ‘Defenceless to monsters,’ Urk corrected.

  4

  The Great and Mighty Pongdollop

  At the opening of the main hall, Urk and Will paused in the doorway and scanned the room. There was a poor turnout for the great and mighty Pongdollop, despite the promise of free hairballs. Six monsters were seated among a sea of chairs filling half of the hall. The other half of the hall was filled with the great and mighty Pongdollop!

  The monster was a sprawling mass of spotty tentacles, but surprisingly nimble as he slithered behind the podium, mumbling angrily to himself. He seemed to be rehearsing his speech because two tentacles were flapping in tyrannical gestures, while the rest shuffled leaflets, flicked through notes and poured a glass of something that looked like water, but was yellow.

  ‘He’s huge!’ squeaked Will as they shuffled down the aisle and took their seats.

  The plan had been to go along to the meeting and find a way to stop Pongdollop’s uprising – but at the moment they were busy taking deep breaths and trying not to run screaming from the building.

  Will plucked the leaflet from his left fork with his right fork and held it at eye level with both forks. He was surprised at how quickly he had mastered the forks because he’d never got the hang of chopsticks.

  ‘It’s not the most inspiring leaflet.’ Will frowned, secretly hoping this meant Pongdollop was a bit stupid and incapable of rousing a flock of panicky pigeons. ‘Not to mention the really bad spelling.’

  Urk was busy reading the description of an Octapongus in the Monsterbook. There was an illustration of something that looked like Pongdollop, but the scale of the drawing really didn’t do him justice.

  ‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘We should know exactly what we’re up against!’

  Will and Urk peered up at the fuming, growling mass of tentacles as it thumped the podium several times with its head, sending notes and leaflets into the air in a shower of paper.

  ‘He doesn’t look very docile,’ said Will.

  ‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Urk.

  The Underling scuttled up the aisle, leapt on to one of Pongdollop’s tentacles and scaled the side of his giant head. Perched on the lumpy summit he whispered something into a crusty hole and then scuttled back down again.

  Pongdollop surveyed the gathering with a disappointed snarl while his assistant gathered the scattered notes and arranged them neatly on the podium. Then the Underling peeped over the top and addressed the hall.

  ‘MONSTERS AND MONSTERS!’ he yelled, arms outstretched for dramatic emphasis, which would have been more dramatic if he were not so small.

  ‘I give you the great and mighty PONGDOLLOP!’

  With this, Pongdollop slithered forward, swept the Underling across the stage with a swish of a tentacle and roared at the top of his voice. The noise made the room quake and the chairs clattered like nervous crabs.

  The six monsters began clapping and whooping, so Urk joined in. Will felt a bit left out so he tapped his forks together in a way he hoped looked enthusiastic and not at all fleshblobby.
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br />   ‘SILENCE, SCUM!’ roared Pongdollop, waving his tentacles angrily at the group.

  The claps and whoops ended abruptly, while Will’s forks carried on tapping like turbocharged knitting needles. Urk had to nudge his friend with a swift elbow to make him stop.

  ‘I am the great and mighty Pongdollop!’ roared Pongdollop, four mad eyes peering around the hall independently of each other. ‘And you are the most hideous, disgusting, smelly bunch of freaks it has ever been my displeasure to witness!’

  ‘HOORAY!’ cheered the monsters, because this was a bit of a compliment.

  5

  Octapongus Rant

  ‘Are you weary of living in the soap-scented shadow of the puny fleshblobs living above us?’ boomed Pongdollop, jabbing a tentacle into the dung ceiling of the hall. ‘Tired of creeping around in tunnels and performing minor frights and scares?’ he added, rearing up and wiggling his tentacles.

  ‘YEAH!’ chorused the crowd, while Urk and Will exchanged worried glances.

  ‘Well, I am here today to tell you about Stink Ink!’ roared Pongdollop, lifting a bottle of black fluid from behind the podium. ‘Stink Ink was manufactured in my own whiffy pus-sacks and is guaranteed to turn all soapy-washed fleshblobs into foul, filthy STINK BOMBS!’

  The crowd cheered as the Underling reappeared with a box of small black bottles and passed them out among the monsters. He handed two bottles to Urk and nodded that one was for the Jub Jub.