Wilf the Mighty Worrier--Saves the World Read online

  Yipeedoodledee! thought Wilf. He hauled up his stinky catch, climbed back up the big long scarf, and scrunched back through the window.

  He landed back on the doorstep and, stopping only to recrinkle his ears, he ran all the way home with Dot under his arm.

  Wilf told his mom that Alan wouldn’t be joining them for tea. He didn’t mention anything about the kerfuffle with Dot and the bazooka or anything about Alan being an evil lunatic, because the whole thing made him feel very scared and like he might faint. So he decided that was the end of it.

  But was it?

  Yes, it was.

  Oh really?

  Yes, definitely.

  You’re really sure that was the end of it?

  Absolutely.

  Are you, though? Are you, though? Are you, though?

  Well . . . all right! Maybe it was the end of it apart from the whole world-ending thing. As far as that was concerned, it was still only the beginning.

  Wilf was in bed, hiding, as one does. And trying not to wonder what shenanigans were going on next door. But trying not to wonder is still wondering, and so then he started to wonder how he could stop wondering.

  Meanwhile, next door, Alan was doing his own wondering. He had started to unpack and he just couldn’t decide which room should be his evil lair. Should it be the room with the view of the garden? Or the room with the bay window? Or the little cubbyhole room that was too small for a bed? Or should it be the huge underground lair beneath the house complete with missile launcher, shark tank, and a maze of tunnels leading to a volcano?

  Actually, on second thought, it was an easy decision. The room with the bay window, of course! But by the time Alan had dragged his MISSILE LAUNCH CONTROL COMMAND CENTER CONSOLE and comfy swivel chair in there, Pam had already claimed it as her gym. So he had to use the underground lair after all.

  Alan moved his belongings into his new evil lair and started wondering where to hang his pictures. It wasn’t long before Kevin Phillips showed up. Kevin Phillips was Alan’s right-hand man and the mastermind of his evil plans. Every evil lunatic needs a right-hand man, because it’s a tiring job and you need help with the paperwork.

  “What do you think of my evil lair?” Alan asked Kevin.

  Kevin was as silent as a wardrobe.

  Alan thought this was probably a good sign.

  “I thought I’d get some little golf carts to take us around the underground tunnels.”

  Kevin coughed.

  “And look, I got you this comfy swivel chair for when you’re sitting at the MISSILE LAUNCH CONTROL COMMAND CENTER CONSOLE.”

  Kevin walked over to the comfy chair and sat on it. Alan could have sworn he saw a smile play over his lips.

  Kevin Phillips was the strong silent type. He was as clever as a mushroom and loyal too—but he wasn’t much good for a chat.

  “I’ve got this photo I took of a sunset,” said Alan. “Do you think it looks best here? Or here? Or how about here?”

  Kevin looked at Alan long and hard. Then he sighed.

  “Maybe I’ll put it in the bathroom,” said Alan meekly. “You’re right. We probably shouldn’t be worrying about pictures—we have worlds to destroy. Well, one anyway. So let’s get on with it. This is the beginning. Of the end!”

  The beginning of the end of the world was a lovely sunny day with occasional showers sweeping in from the west.

  Wilf was out in his garden playing with Dot. He would throw her a ball, then she would slobber on it for a while before lobbing it over her shoulder.

  Wilf would pick it up, wipe it on a leaf, and then the whole game would start again.

  Stuart the woodlouse was sunbathing on a Smarties lid.

  Meanwhile, Alan was next door in his garden, looking in various boxes.

  “I can’t find the killer sharks for the shark tank!” he said.

  Kevin Phillips looked at Alan quizzically.

  “I was sure I’d put them in with my knickknacks!” Alan kicked a box angrily.

  Kevin chewed on a pen.

  “Have you seen them anywhere?” asked Alan, getting exasperated.

  Kevin scratched his chin.

  “Nothing’s where it’s meant to be. I thought I’d put the cushion for the swivel chair in the box marked ‘Cushions’—but I just found it in a box containing a lamp, two forks and my jump rope which is all tangled up!”

  Kevin sighed and peered into a box. He pulled out one shoe and placed it on the floor. The other shoe did not appear to be in there. Alan kicked a box again and began trying to untangle his jump rope.

  Just then Alan noticed Wilf and Dot over the fence.

  “What are you doing there?” asked Alan. “Didn’t the security guards wrestle you to the ground the moment they saw you?”

  “No, because we’re in our own garden,” said Wilf reasonably.

  “Not for long,” said Alan. “I’m going to buy your garden and flatten it and pave it over so that I can park my hover tank there.”

  “What’s a hover tank?” asked Wilf.

  “It’s basically a huge tank that hovers over the ground.”

  “Wow!” said Wilf. “That sounds amazing!”

  “It is,” said Alan. “It is powered by the sighs of orphans. A thousand sighs needed per second for fuel,” he added proudly.

  “Couldn’t you just use air?” asked Wilf.

  “No!” said Alan. “Because, because . . . because I’m just a bit busy untangling my jump rope at the moment if you don’t mind, thank you very much.”

  Alan wrestled with his jump rope and made it a bit more tangly and also made the bobbly end fall off. He sighed and put the bobble in the trash.

  “That’s actually our trashcan,” said a small muffled voice from inside Wilf’s house.

  “Is it all right if we play in our own garden until you flatten it?” asked Wilf politely. “It’s just I promised my mom that I’d mow the lawn.”

  Alan snorted pityingly. “Mow the lawn? I have a robot who does that for me. Maybe I should ask him to do it today. It’s a nice day for it.”

  “What did you say?” asked Wilf.

  “It’s a nice day for it,” repeated Alan.

  “No, no, before that—the thing about the robot!” prompted Wilf.

  “Oh yeah. That,” said Alan in rather a showy-off way. “I’ve built myself a robot—to do my every bidding. Which is just a fancy way of saying ‘do whatever I tell it to.’”

  “Gosh!” said Wilf, impressed. “That sounds great!”

  “Would you like to see him?” asked Alan.

  Wilf wasn’t sure that he did. Alan did seem a bit evil, after all, what with the bazooka and everything. But he also seemed lonely, and Wilf knew what it was like to feel lonely. Wilf’s mom was always telling him to try to be more friendly, so Wilf decided to give it a try.

  “OK,” said Wilf bravely. “Yes.”

  Alan led Wilf and Dot to a shed. He opened the door. Shafts of light filtered through the dark, poking at the gloom and annoying it a bit. There was a dusty musty fusty smell.

  “Let me introduce you to the LRX2FL309VERSION8.4Mark III,” said Alan grandly.

  Wilf peered through the shadows and could just make out a great big robot with legs and arms and a face and everything.

  “Wow!” said Wilf again. “What do you call him?”

  “I call him LRX2FL309version8.4Mark III,” said Alan, looking at Wilf as though he was a little bit of an idiot.

  “Why don’t you call him Mark III? For short?”

  Alan stared at Wilf for a long time. Then he turned to the robot and said, “Mark III? I’ve brought someone to meet you.”

  The robot didn’t move.

  “What can he do?” asked Wilf.

  “Anything I want him to,” said Alan proudly.

  “Wow! Get him to do something!” said Wilf excitedly.

  “OK,” said Alan.

  Wilf looked at Alan expectantly.

  Alan cleared his throat.


  “Mark III?” he called.

  The robot didn’t move.

  “Mark III?” said Alan more loudly.

  Nothing.

  “Mark III!!!!” shouted Alan.

  The robot stirred.

  “Hmm? Wha . . . ? Whassup?” said the robot sleepily.

  “I’d like you to tidy up in here, please,” said Alan.

  “GO AWAY. I’m asleep,” said the robot in a strange whiny voice that changed from very high-pitched to very low-pitched from one word to the next.

  “Mark III . . . ,” said Alan with a hint of warning in his voice.

  “I tidied it, like, three months ago. Leave me alone. You’re always nagging me,” said the robot.

  “He normally does whatever I ask him to,” said Alan, a little embarrassed. “I probably programmed him wrong. I just need to make a few adjustments . . .”

  “I’m sure it’s amazing when he does do whatever you ask him to,” said Wilf kindly.

  “Yeah. It would be,” said Alan a little wistfully.

  Wilf and Dot and Alan tiptoed out of the shed. Kevin was waiting in the garden, holding a newspaper. He did not look pleased to see them.

  “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” said Alan. “Where have you been?”

  Kevin sniffed and stared coolly at Wilf and Dot.

  “Forget about them, we have things to do. Come on.”

  Kevin ignored Alan and headed briskly for the kitchen.

  “All right, well, when you’ve had something to eat, come to the evil lair,” said Alan.

  Alan tutted to himself. “He leaves me to do all the work on the

  and he’s supposed to be my right-hand man. Which means he’s supposed to help.”

  “What secret evil plan?” asked Wilf.

  “Have I told you that I’m the baddest, the baddest, the biddly boddly baddest in the whole wide world?”

  “Yes, you did mention that,” said Wilf. “But you didn’t tell me about a secret evil plan.”

  “That’s because it’s

  a secret,” said Alan.

  Alan was good at keeping secrets. When I say good I mean bad. And when I say secrets I mean guinea pigs. Alan was bad at keeping guinea pigs. They were always dying or escaping.

  Come to think of it, he wasn’t much good at keeping secrets either. So it wasn’t very long (about forty-eight seconds) before he had blurted out his whole

  “I,” he said. “I, Alan,” he repeated for effect. “I, Alan, myself, have a secret evil plan that nobody knows and that secret evil plan is to totally and utterly and completely destroy the world until it is destroyed. Because,” said Alan, “as I may have mentioned, I’m the baddest, I’m the baddest, I’m the biddly boddly baddest man in the whole wide worlderoony.”

  Luckily for Alan, Kevin Phillips was out of earshot, so he didn’t hear Alan blurting out their secret evil plan, because if he had heard, he would have been piping mad.

  Once Wilf had heard Alan’s evil plan, he was absolutely flabbergasted.

  That could only be a bad thing. Wilf knew Alan needed to be stopped. And Wilf knew he had to be the one to do the stopping. It was time for him to do something heroic.

  Or, actually, on second thought, was it time to hide under the blanket and whistle and pretend none of this had ever happened? Somehow that sounded like a better option.

  Wilf hid and whistled and whistled and hid. He did a bit of knitting. Then some more whistling and hiding. He gave Stuart the woodlouse a bit of a workout. And as he watched Stuart trotting about in a carefree way, the wind in his legs, the sun on his back, playing soccer with the pink sprinkles Wilf had saved for him—Wilf realized something.

  He couldn’t hide in bed and whistle and pretend everything was fine. It wasn’t fine. And for the sake of Stuart and Dot and lots of other people and woodlouses (Woodlice? Woodlii?) everywhere, he had to

  something. He had to save the day. And the world. Both. At the same time. He needed to get to Alan’s evil lair and find out how he was going to destroy the world and with what.

  There was just one problem. The only way to get to Alan’s evil lair was in an elevator. And Wilf was scared of elevators. In particular, Wilf was scared of getting stuck in an elevator and suffocating.

  Wilf drew a picture of this.

  Then he thought about what could be worse than being stuck in an elevator.

  The only thing that could be worse was if there was a giant moth in the elevator. Wilf was really scared of moths.

  Wilf had a great BIG OLD WORRY. Then he had a great big old think. He thought and thought. He thought so hard that his brain got worn out. And then he had an idea.

  If he took a flashlight, that would attract the moth to the flashlight, instead of to him. Then, if he sprayed the moth with hairspray, its wings would go stiff and it wouldn’t be able to flutter in that scary way. And if Wilf took a little bag of air with him, he might not suffocate in the elevator.

  Wilf drew this.

  He packed his knapsack with a flashlight and hairspray and a little bag of air. Then he looked at the “HOW TO STOP WORRYING” leaflet again.

  NUMBER FIVE said:

  5) Sometimes it helps to distract yourself by thinking of something completely different.

  That was a good idea. Wilf decided to think of words that began with s.

  No, no, no. That wasn’t helping!

  Something else. He decided to think of words that begin with f.

  No, no, no! That was making it worse!

  Wilf decided he’d better just get on with it. He hoisted Dot up onto his shoulders, and she grabbed his nose with one sticky hand and grabbed his left eyeball with the other sticky hand to keep herself steady.

  It was quite difficult to breathe and quite difficult to see, but Wilf and Dot made it to Alan’s house. They knocked on the door and then hid behind a bush. While Alan was looking for who had knocked on the door, they tiptoed into the house.

  Wilf took a deep breath and pressed the button for the elevator.

  The elevator doors opened.

  The good news was: no giant moth.

  The bad news was: a big security guard.

  Wilf briefly wondered whether he had time to go to the bathroom before confronting the security guard—but decided he didn’t. He sprayed the hairspray in the guard’s eyes. The guard screamed and fell out of the elevator. Wilf and Dot stepped in and pressed the button marked

  The elevator doors closed. Wilf took a little sip of air from his bag of extra air.

  The elevator started going down.

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  DOWN

  STOP

  The doors opened again.

  Wilf had done it! He had been in an elevator and it hadn’t gotten stuck! He did a hoppy dance of joy. And then he put the flashlight in between the doors so that they wouldn’t close and the elevator would stay there and they would have a quick getaway.

  Wilf and Dot tiptoed to the corner of the evil lair and crouched down, as quiet as cushions.

  Wilf was flabbergasted at what he saw. There were screens and buttons and more buttons and a lot more screens and tunnels and golf carts and rather a nice picture of a sunset.

  It was all really swishy-swoo.

  “Wow!” whispered Wilf.

  “You like it?” asked Alan, who was standing right behind him.

  Wilf jumped out of his skin. “H-h-how did you know I was here?” he stammered.

  “That smell,” said Alan.

  “Oh. Happiness?” asked Wilf.

  “No. I think it’s your sister’s diaper.”

  Dot was crawling
quickly across the floor, leaving a trail of crispies and raisins behind her.

  “Oh,” said Wilf. “Yes. It could be that.”

  Dot had spotted an enormous blanky and was heading straight for it.

  “It seems she is just in time to unveil my new weapon. Behold!” said Alan dramatically as Dot pulled at the corner of the giant blanky and revealed a great big large enormous shiny metal gun-shaped thing.

  Wilf stared up in amazement.

  “I’m going to call it my

  Weapon for

  EXTREME EXTERMINATION AND WORLD-ENDING EXPERIMENTS—or WEE-WEE for short,” said Alan.

  Wilf couldn’t help giggling.

  “What?” said Alan. “Oh drat. Hmmm. All right, I’m going to call it my

  WEAPON OF

  INTERNATIONAL AND

  NATIONAL KILLING

  AND EXTERMINATION

  ENTERPRISES—or my WINKEE for short.”

  Wilf tried ever so hard not to laugh, but he couldn’t help a quick splutter.

  “What now?” said Alan angrily. “Oh, I see. Hang on then. Let me think . . .”

  Alan paced about. “How about my

  POWERFUL ALL-NUCLEAR

  TERROR SYSTEM.

  Yes! That’s it! Just wait till I unleash the true horror of my PANTS!”

  Wilf chuckled into his sleeve.

  Alan sighed. “I’ve done it again, haven’t I?” he said forlornly.

  “Yes,” said Wilf, “but don’t worry. Why don’t you just call it your Big Gun Thingy and we’ll all know what you mean.”

  “OK, thanks,” said Alan. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a world to destroy.”

  “How are you going to do that?” asked Wilf casually, as though it were no big deal.