furnace. A great long lick of flame flicked out and singed off Billy’s eyebrows, cruel as a scarlet donkey.
‘Ha ha ha!’ cackled Billy, who loved to see people getting hurt. ‘Someone jus’ got their eyebrows burned off!’ Then he realised who that someone was, and he let out a bloodcurdling howl.
‘OOW!’ yelled Billy, hopping up and down in agony. ‘How come I gotta do all the shovellin’ ‘round here anyway? How come you ain’t doin’ none?’
‘Shut up!’ roared Mr Gum, whacking Billy over the head with a silk handkerchief. He didn’t have a silk handkerchief, so he used a cricket bat instead. ‘We gotta keep gettin’ that power up! We can’t afford to rest for a moment. Now, you carry on shovellin’. I gotta rest for a moment.’
Mr Gum threw himself down on a filthy old sofa he’d found on a rubbish tip, all covered with stains and moss. The cushions were cold and soggy, and a big rusty spring poked uncomfortably into his back, but Mr Gum was such a lazer he didn’t really care.
‘I tell ya, I love this secret hideout,’ yawned Mr Gum as he lay there staring up at the ceiling, his hands behind his head and his head behind whatever was in front of his head, probably just a bit of air or something. ‘This is the life, eh, Billy?’
‘Yeah, this is the life,’ said Billy.
‘Yeah, this is the life,’ said another voice.
‘Who the blimmin’ flip said that?’ shouted Mr Gum.
‘It was I!’ cried a man, jumping out from behind the sofa.
‘I’m Surprising Ben! I pop up here, I pop up there! Surprise! Surprise! I’m everywhere!’
And off he ran, giggling like a packed lunch.
‘Well, that was surprisin’,’ scowled Mr Gum.
‘It certainly was,’ said Billy, chewing a piece of coal to see if he could turn it into a diamond but actually just hurting his teeth. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, spitting it into the fire. ‘Soon we’ll have a blaze so powerful it’ll be the most powerful in history! Even more powerful than itself, even though that’s impossible!’
‘Yeah,’ grinned Mr Gum, rubbing his hands with glee. Then he rubbed his hands with brie, which is sort of the same but a lot smellier. ‘An’ the more powerful that blaze gets, the closer we gets to winnin’ once an’ for all!’
‘Ha ha ha!’ said Billy William. ‘It’s funty!’
And the rats they scuttled and the pipes dripped slime and the vats they bubbled and Billy he shovelled in the secret hideout where the two men hid, cos they were low-down villains and that’s what they did.
Chapter 2 The Department of Clouds and Yogurts
Later that day, a nine-year-old girl and an oldish fellow in a nice friendly hat were sitting in the town square watching something very peculiar. It was the clouds. Every now and then one would just fall out of the sky – FLOOOOOB! – and land on the ground – BUFFSH! See? Very peculiar indeed.
Now, the nine-year-old girl was Polly and the oldish fellow was Friday O’Leary. And if you’re thinking, ‘Who even cares about them, not me, I like stories with heroes in, not stories with some idiotic little girl and a bloke who’s named after a day of the week,’ then I’m afraid you’ve just made an astonishing fool of yourself. Because Polly and Friday were heroes. They were two of the best heroes the town of Lamonic Bibber had ever seen. They were as brave as bees, as true as trees, as cheerful as cheese and as knowledgeable as knees. Not so clever now, are you?
FLOOOOOB!
BUFFFSH!
Another cloud flopped out of the sky and landed on a hen, startling it so much that it accidentally laid an egg out of its mouth.
‘Hmm,’ said Polly. She had a worried expression on her face and Friday had a bit of strawberry yogurt on his. Friday loved yogurts.
‘Frides,’ said Polly at length. ‘Do you know what I’m a-thinkin’?’
‘Maybe,’ said Friday hopefully ‘Are you thinking, “I ought to go and buy Friday an enormous yogurt, he deserves it?’”
‘No,’ replied Polly. ‘I’m a-thinkin’ there’s somethin’ well strange goin’ on with them clouds up there. I never done seen ’em fallin’ out the sky before. It can’t be no good, that’s what I says.’
‘Yes,’ said Friday thoughtfully. ‘Well, that was interesting,’ he continued. ‘Now let’s go and get some delicious yogurts and not think about it ever again.’
‘But, Frides, if we jus’ ignore them clouds who knows what might happen?’ frowned Polly. ‘Jus’ imagine. Without no clouds, there won’t be no rain. Without no rain, the grass won’t grow. Without no grass, the cows’ll die. Without no cows there won’t be no milk. An’ without no milk –’
‘There won’t be any yogurts!’ cried Friday in alarm as another cloud fell down with a soft furry bang somewhere in the distance. ‘We’ve got to do something, Polly! We’ve got to! We’ve got to! We’ve simply GOT to!’
‘’Xactly,’ said Polly. ‘So I was thinkin’, why don’t we starts up an office an’ do some ’vestigations?’
‘THE TRUTH IS A LEMON MERINGUE!’ yelled Friday, as he sometimes liked to do. ‘I’ve always wanted to work in an office!’
It was true. Friday O’Leary had done all sorts of jobs in his time. He had been an inventor, a travelling musician, a sailor, another sailor, an American footballer, a fashion model, a Lego model, the King of Sweden, the Queen of Sweden, the first man never to have walked on the moon, a jet pilot, a detective, a mountaineer who explored mountains, a fountaineer who explored fountains, a ninja, a stunt-car racer, a film star, an earthworm-tamer, a famous French chef called Monsieur Canard, a TV presenter and a professional apple.
‘But all those jobs were completely boring!’ said Friday, jumping up so high he almost hit the sun with his face, narrowly missing it by only 149.599 million kilometres. ‘What I’ve always wanted is to work in an office. That’s the life for me!’
So Friday went home and got some planks and nails, and after
