Monsterbook: Snotgobble and the Bogey Bully

  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: 978-0-14-196689-2

  CONTENTS

  1 Miffni the Mean

  2 The Bogey Bully

  3 Monster Mall

  4 Fleshblob Fantasia

  5 Wonky Woods and Creepy Caves

  6 Snotgobble

  7 The Labyrinth of Peril

  8 The Snot Plot

  9 School Gate Scare

  10 Hiccups and a Familiar Burp

  11 Snort ’n’ Splat

  12 School Sewer Shock

  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

  Miffni the Mean

  In his murky brown bedroom, Urk shoved the Monsterbook into his rucksack and headed for the door. It was a scare-training night and the young monster was looking forward to spending time with his fleshblob friend Will.

  Unfortunately his path was blocked by something large and mean.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ growled Miffni, folding her arms defiantly.

  Miffni was technically Urk’s little sister – being two years younger – but she was twice his size and much more frightening.

  ‘Scare training, of course!’ said Urk, trying to nudge his way past.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she sneered, still refusing to budge. ‘I forgot about all those fantastic scare reports you fill out every week. You probably think you’ve got Mum and Dad completely fooled.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ sighed Urk.

  ‘Really?’ said Miffni, producing a brown paper bag and waving it at him. ‘Then you must have a very good excuse for these,’ she added, tipping the contents over his head.

  Urk’s eyes widened as the empty snack wrappers fluttered down around him and landed at his hooves. They were not Monsterland snack wrappers from Hairballs or Bugs’ Legs – these were all wrappers from fleshblob snacks!

  ‘Where did you get those?’ he gasped.

  ‘I’ve been snooping through your rucksack looking for proof that you’re up to something,’ Miffni stated proudly. ‘And now I have evidence that you’ve been raiding your fleshblobs’ food cupboards!’

  ‘So what if I have?’ Urk said quickly, relieved that she didn’t suspect anything more. Stealing food was forbidden while in training – due to the obvious risks of rummaging around a kitchen. But making friends with a fleshblob was the worst thing a monster could do. ‘It’s none of your business anyway!’ he added.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Miffni. ‘But it is Mum and Dad’s business.’

  ‘You’re going to tell on me?’ Urk gasped, quickly gathering up the evidence.

  ‘Actually, I already have,’ grinned Miffni, jabbing a chubby thumb in the direction of the living room. ‘Mum and Dad sent me to fetch you. And they don’t look very happy …’

  2

  The Bogey Bully

  ‘BOO!’ said Urk, jumping from the wardrobe and plonking his rucksack on Will’s cluttered desk. The young monster seemed in a hurry and didn’t collapse into his usual beanbag in front of the TV.

  ‘ARGH!’ said Will. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘My sister has been going through my stuff and found some old crisp bags and biscuit wrappers!’ Urk gasped. ‘She’s convinced my parents that I’ve been slacking off scare training and that I spend the whole time stealing snacks!’

  ‘Uh oh!’ said Will, knowing how mean Urk’s enormous little sister was.

  ‘That’s not the worst of it,’ Urk sighed. He reached into his rucksack, pulled out a small glossy catalogue and handed it to his friend. ‘My parents have decided to take me off nightly scare training and they’re making me do this instead.’

  What had looked like a glossy catalogue was actually a dull catalogue covered in slime, so the boy took the corner with the tips of his fingers and held it up.

  ‘What is it?’ Will gasped, thinking it looked like a catalogue selling humans.

  ‘It’s the latest line of rubber fleshblob suits,’ Urk explained. ‘My parents want me to switch to daytime scares, disguised

  as a human. I’m supposed to choose one from the catalogue and pick it up tonight.’ ‘Tonight?’ Will sighed, not wanting to spend a boring evening alone.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Urk and began rummaging in his rucksack. Eventually he pulled out a dirty brown sack and a pair of forks and waved them at Will. ‘Fancy a trip to Monsterland?’

  ‘Definitely!’ said Will. The Jub Jub disguise meant the boy could enter the tunnels and mingle among monsters without any of them knowing he was a fleshblob, which was exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

  Before pulling on the Jub Jub disguise, Will couldn’t resist looking through the Fleshblob Fantasia catalogue. He was surprised how many different themes there were in the contents page, from ‘Dreadful Dinner Ladies’ to ‘Not Nice N
annies’, although they all had something to do with children.

  ‘Have you chosen one?’ asked Will, flicking to the ‘Tyrant Teachers’ section.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Urk, peering over the boy’s shoulder.

  All the fleshblob suits in the ‘Tyrant Teachers’ section had long noses and fierce expressions on their faces. The male ones wore beige suits with patches on their elbows and the female ones wore floral dresses and cardigans.

  ‘You think I should get one of those?’ asked Urk, frowning at the teachers.

  ‘No, I was just checking to see if any of my teachers were in here,’ laughed Will. ‘Some of them are pretty monstrous, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they were monsters in disguise.’

  Urk took the catalogue and flicked to the ‘Naughty Kids’ section.

  ‘I was thinking of going for one of these,’ he said, holding up the page full of boys and girls around Will’s age. ‘They’re more my size and I thought if I looked like a regular kid we could hang out during the daytime.’

  Will’s eyes grew wide and his mouth dropped open.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Urk. ‘Don’t you think that sounds fun?’

  ‘That kid just started at my school!’ gasped Will, pointing to one of the larger boy suits named Terrible Tyler. ‘He’s not in my year, but he steals everyone’s food at break time. He’s the reason I couldn’t offer you any snacks this week.’

  ‘I wondered why that was,’ said Urk, taking a closer look at the description.

  ‘What else can you tell me about this boy?’ asked Urk, putting the catalogue aside and picking up the Monsterbook. ‘If we can work out what kind of monster is under the suit, we might be able to find his weaknesses.’

  ‘All I know is that if anyone refuses to hand over their food, he smears them with massive bogeys,’ said Will, shuddering at the memory. ‘Something he seems to have an endless supply of.’

  ‘An endless supply of bogeys, eh?’ asked Urk, turning to the ‘Gruesome Gallery’ in the Monsterbook. The ‘Gruesome Gallery’ contains every kind of monster known to monster and after flicking between a few likely snotty suspects he eventually narrowed it down to one.

  ‘You’ve got a Goopsnottle on your hands!’ Urk gasped.

  ‘URGH!’ said Will, checking his hands for Goopsnottles.

  ‘No, one of these,’ said Urk, tapping the page in the Monsterbook.

  ‘URGH!’ said Will when he saw the illustration.

  ‘So there’s nothing I can do to get rid of him?’ asked Will.

  ‘Not unless you want to get splattered with bogey bombs,’ said Urk, packing the catalogue and the Monsterbook into his rucksack. ‘And from what I’ve heard, that stuff will stick around for weeks!’

  ‘Monsters are horrible!’ said Will, pulling on the Jub Jub sack and poking his forks through the grubby material. He peered through two meshy eyeholes and saw Urk gazing at his hooves. Realizing what he’d said, the boy quickly added, ‘Except you, of course!’

  ‘I know you didn’t mean me,’ sighed Urk, pulling the rucksack on to his shoulders. ‘But you’re right. The kids in your school shouldn’t have to put up with a greedy Goopsnottle stealing their food.’

  ‘But the Monsterbook said they have no weaknesses,’ said Will.

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ said Urk, patting his friend on the shoulder.

  Will nodded uncertainly as they stepped into the wardrobe.

  Once inside, the pair ducked through the hidden doorway and entered the damp, earthy tunnels leading to Monsterland. Urk pointed out a Nod and a Gwomper among the many creatures scuttling past, and Will looked them up in the Monsterbook to take his mind off the bogey bully.

  3

  Monster Mall

  When Urk and Will stepped out of the tunnels, Monster City spread out before them like a gigantic, steaming dungheap under a murky, starry night. The star effect came from the thousands of grubby light bulbs stuck in the enormous domed ceiling, and the dungheap effect came from most of the buildings being made of dung.

  The pair made their way through the Fungus Forest that surrounded the city and hurried through the Slug Slums – where slugpickers were filling their buckets with slimy slugs to sell at Monster Market. Urk then led Will to a part of Monster City he’d never seen before, and at first the boy thought he was being taken to see the largest dog poo in the universe.

  ‘Welcome to Monster Mall!’ said Urk as they approached the giant dollop.

  ‘Monster City has a mall?’ Will gasped, stepping through the sliding doors that squelched upon opening. He was always surprised at how similar Monsterland was to the world above, except that almost everything underground was brown and smelled terrible.

  ‘Of course we have a mall,’ laughed Urk. ‘We’re not savages!’

  Will paused to take in the corkscrew interior and curved escalators leading to different departments. Then he frowned in the direction of a nearby shop called Savage Supplies.

  ‘Oh, that’s a supply store for monsters who live in the Outer Regions,’ Urk explained. ‘I suppose they are technically savages, but they still like to visit the city occasionally to do their shopping.’

  As they made their way through the busy Monster Mall, Will couldn’t help staring at all the different shops. There was a toyshop called Little Horrors, full of baby monsters running around with scary toys; a McSlug’s restaurant, packed with monsters slobbering over slug-burgers and worm-sticks; and a cosmetics store called Pretty Putrid, with two thorny monsters plastering their faces with something green and slimy.

  Will thought it was odd that Monsterland had a cosmetics store at all, so he took a leaflet from the rack by the door.

  As they continued through Monster Mall, Will stopped and peered into Boo’s Books, where a hovering Slinky was running a long black finger along the shelves. When the creature turned and grinned at him, the boy hurried away to catch up with Urk. He’d read about Slinkies in the Monsterbook and didn’t want one following him home!

  4

  Fleshblob Fantasia

  Will found Urk standing outside Fleshblob Fantasia, and as they stepped through the doors the boy took one look around and shrieked. It wasn’t a loud shriek, it was more of a high-pitched gasp, but it was enough for Urk to take him aside quickly.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Urk whispered.

  Will’s wide eyes were fixed on the hundreds of fleshblob suits dangling from hangers. The suits weren’t actually frightening, but they were incredibly lifelike and seeing so many saggy human skins was quite alarming!

  ‘It’s only rubber,’ said Urk, lifting a nearby arm and waving it in the air. The arm belonged to a little old lady suit that was so realistic Will had to fight the urge to wave back so as not to appear rude.

  ‘I’m OK,’ said Will. ‘I just didn’t expect to see so many!’

  There were rubber fleshblobs hanging on racks, rubber fleshblobs lining the walls and a couple of rubber fleshblobs dangling from the ceiling. There were even a few displays with rubber fleshblobs arranged in funny positions like dancing teachers and a nanny pyramid.

  ‘If it’s too freaky I can always come back another time,’ Urk suggested.

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ said Will, prodding a nearby dinner lady. This model came with a hairnet that guaranteed not to stop hairs falling into food, and a free recipe for lumpy custard.

  Once he got over the shock, Will found the store was actually really interesting. So while Urk browsed through a rack of Naughty Kid suits, Will explored the rest of the shop.

  The fleshblob accessories section was particularly fascinating; here you could not only purchase clothes and shoes, but also pick up a spare arm or replace a missing eyeball.

  Above a basket full of half-price and discontinued body bits, Will saw a noticeboard covered in business cards offering rubber repairs. Among these were also notices from customers seeking rare spare parts and scare partners. In the centre of the board there was a notice that immediately caug
ht Will’s eye and almost made him shriek again.

  Will looked around to make sure no one was watching and then stabbed the board with his right fork, skewering the notice on the end. Then he quickly hurried off to find his friend.

  Urk was busy with a sales assistant whose nametag said ‘Hi, I’m Moop!’

  Moop was holding up two unattractive rubber children and pointing out the benefits of fleshblob suits with ugly faces. Will tapped Urk on the shoulder and passed him the piece of paper.

  Urk read the notice and immediately grinned. ‘I told you we’d think of something!’ he said excitedly.

  ‘What have we thought of?’ asked Will, who was pretty sure he hadn’t thought of anything. But his friend simply winked and turned his attention back to the assistant, who was still trying to sell him one of the ugly children.

  ‘ … and the best thing about these,’ Moop continued, ‘is that they’re so incredibly ugly you can perform daytime scares with very little effort. All you have to do is creep up from behind and the face will do the rest!’

  ‘They are pretty revolting,’ said Urk, scratching his chin thoughtfully. ‘But I’ve changed my mind. Can I have a look at a Mumsy suit instead? Preferably one with orange hair and freckles?’

  Moop rolled his eyes, dumped the child suits back on the rack and scuttled to the other side of the store.

  ‘You’re not planning to actually meet with this Snotgobble?’ gasped Will as they followed the assistant. ‘The Monsterbook said Goopsnottles are very aggressive and territorial, and lots of other bad stuff about bogeys and bombs!’