Wilf the Mighty Worrier--Saves the World Page 5

  “Good,” said Alan. “Because I’m a little bit busy as a matter of fact. Doing secret things that are secret and that I couldn’t possibly tell you about.”

  As he spoke, a guinea pig tiptoed past in the background and made a break for freedom.

  “Okeydokey,” said Wilf, heading for the fence.

  “But let’s put it this way—someone is going to do something to something big. But that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Right-oh,” said Wilf, turning back again.

  “And that someone is someone you know.”

  “I see,” said Wilf. Because he did.

  “But that’s all I’m telling you,” continued Alan.

  “Fair enough,” said Wilf, strolling off.

  “Can you guess what it is?” asked Alan.

  “No, I couldn’t possibly . . .”

  “Try!” insisted Alan.

  “I have no idea . . .”

  “Just guess!”

  “Is the queen going to tickle an elephant?” asked Wilf.

  “What?” said Alan.

  “That’s someone I know doing something to something big.”

  “No, of course the queen isn’t going to tickle an elephant. Why on earth would the queen tickle an elephant? Are you trying to annoy me?”

  “No. It just seems to come naturally,” said Wilf honestly, peeling Dot off the fence with a squelchy twang.

  “All right, all right, I’ll tell you a bit more: The someone is me and the something is a destroying kind of thing. And the something big is the world. But that is all I’m telling you,” said Alan. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and power up my most magnificent most marvelous most magical flying machine.”

  “You know, you don’t have to destroy the world today. You could do it some other time,” said Wilf quickly.

  “No, it has to be today,” said Alan. “I’ve written it in my diary and everything.”

  “But why do you want to destroy the world?” asked Wilf.

  “Because . . .” said Alan, “there are people who beep at you and people who push in front of you in lines and people who give you funny looks and insects that bite and germs that float and computers that won’t work and there’s mess and noise and crime and feeling scared and it has ALL got to stop.”

  “Hmm. I don’t know,” said Wilf thoughtfully. “Some insects are really nice. I have a pet woodlouse named Stuart who’s always kind and polite. I could introduce you—”

  “No!” said Alan. “It all has to stop! And I am going to be the one who stops it and then I will be world famous and I will go down in history and everyone will know my name!”

  “Yes, you mentioned that,” said Wilf. “But what about my idea of being famous for doing very good nice things? Or for doing unusual things like sitting in a bath of jelly for two weeks?”

  But Alan wasn’t listening. He marched toward his most magnificent most marvelous most magical flying machine.

  He whistled for Kevin and then the two of them climbed the steps of the tower, stepped through the door, and sat down. With a flourish, Alan pressed the

  button.

  The door began to slowly, slowly—vvvvvvvvffffffffffffffffffff—close.

  Then Alan pressed another button that said

  and a loud rumbling bbbbbbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrr could be heard.

  Wilf realized what was happening and ran quickly quickly up the steps of the tower, tip tap tip tap tip tap, and then hurtled—thud thud thud thud—toward the closing electronic door.

  Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvffffffffffffff.

  THUD THUD.

  Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvffffffffffffff.

  Thud thud thud.

  He was nearly there.

  It was nearly closed.

  He was nearly there.

  It was nearly closed.

  Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvfffffffff.

  THUD THUD.

  DOINK.

  Wilf was too late. The door closed. And he bounced off the side.

  OUCH.

  Drat.

  Then he heard a

  ZZZZZZZZZZSSSSSSSSSSS

  SSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHH

  sound, and smoke poured out of the bottom of the most magnificent most marvelous most magical mechanical flying machine.

  With Dot under one arm Wilf rushed down the steps, scrambly slip scrambly slip scramble scramble scrape slip scramble scuff graze slip scramble, until he got to safety.

  They crouched behind the small wooden hut and watched Alan rising into the air on his most magnificent most marvelous most magical mechanical flying machine. It was a staggerblasting sight. There was a huge gust of wind and the m-w-t-p-a-t-o-c’s hair flipped right over to the side so that Wilf could see his bald head gleaming through the smoke. That was also pretty staggerblasting.

  Alan had indeed made himself a magnificent flying machine. He had built a model of that most majestic of flying creatures—the Daddy longlegs.

  Yes, a giant twenty-foot-high mechanical Daddy longlegs.

  In the cockpit of his glorious craft, Alan pressed a button that said “FORWARD.” The giant Daddy longlegs glided gracefully through the air. For a couple of yards. Then it shot off to the side. Then it went around and around a lamppost about twenty times, then it got sort of tangled up in a cloud, then one of its legs fell off, then another leg fell off—and then it went and sat on top of a tall building for about three days . . . and everyone wondered if it was dead.

  But no, it wasn’t! Because on the fourth day it suddenly lurched off again (leaving a leg behind) and zigzagged and soared and dipped and plummeted and flapped around in its own splendid straggly way, and at last Alan was on his way.

  Next stop: London.

  Or maybe another cloud.

  But then definitely London.

  Three weeks later, the Houses of Parliament loomed into view. It had been a long, long, long, and somewhat breezy journey. But, all in all, pretty uneventful for Alan. Except for when that other evil lunatic flew past on his giant mechanical pigeon that tried to eat Alan’s giant mechanical Daddy longlegs. Luckily Alan and the Daddy longlegs got caught up in a cloud at just the right moment and the giant pigeon got distracted by a statue that it wanted to poo on—so everything turned out all right.

  Alan steered his magnificent majestic Daddy longlegs toward the Houses of Parliament and plummeted gracefully to the ground. He climbed down and looked around.

  “London at last!” he said. “First I shall destroy the world! Then, and only then, I shall have ice cream.”

  Alan turned to get his Big Gun Thingy, but suddenly stopped in his tracks. Someone was standing in his way. It was Wilf.

  “How on earth did you get here?” Alan asked Wilf.

  “I came by bus,” said Wilf.

  Alan went a bit quiet and looked like he was having a thought that he wished he’d had some time before.

  “Yeah, Dot and Stuart and I came a couple of weeks ago. We’ve been to all the museums and the Tower of London twice,” said Wilf.

  Which, let’s face it, was a little insensitive.

  “Well, that’s all very well, but I’m here now,” said Alan, “and I’m going to kill you all. Yes. Until you’re all dead. Deadity deadity dead. Deadity deadity dead dead dead. And what are you going to say then?”

  “Not much,” said Wilf.

  “NO.

  INDEEDY

  DOODY.

  INDEEDY DOODY DOO.”

  Alan was in a very good mood at the thought of doing all this evil. You could tell because he was making up words and adding bits to words that already existed.

  “YESSITY

  YESSITY

  YES YES YES.

  Put that in your PIPPITY POPPITY PIPES and give it a great big large big smoke, LOSERS OF LOSERVILLE!”

  Alan really didn’t know when to stop talking.

  “Oh I’m the baddest, I’m the baddest, I’m the

  BIDDLY

  BADDEST

  BADDEST

  in the whole wide
worlderoony. And that is a fact-eration-istic-ism-onishment. Ation. Erality. Ington. Ism.”

  Alan had finally stopped talking.

  “ADOODLE DOO.”

  Oh no, he hadn’t.

  Fortunately for everyone he was interrupted by another leg falling off the Daddy longlegs.

  “Right, better get on with it,” said Alan. “Where’s my Big Gun Thingy?”

  As Alan rummaged around in the Daddy longlegs’ bottom, looking for his Big Gun Thingy, some people wondered how they could stop him from destroying the world.

  Some other people wondered whether they had turned their faucets off or what they should have for supper—but they weren’t really paying attention.

  Most people felt quite worried and hoped someone would do something before it was too late.

  But who would that person be? There were a lot of people to choose from. For gathered in London at that very time were some of the world’s most expensive suits. And inside some of those suits were some very clever and important people. And inside other suits were people who didn’t have a clue but were hoping nobody would notice.

  They had all been practicing shaking hands and now they were all looking forward to lunch and hoping it wasn’t spaghetti, because that can be quite tricky to eat.

  Meanwhile, Alan had found his Big Gun Thingy and also his walking boots, which he’d been looking for everywhere.

  “Right,” said Alan. “Nobody move!”

  Everyone stood very still except for Kevin Phillips who scooted along the ground on his bottom and barked happily.

  “I am now going to destroy the world!” said Alan importantly.

  All the people gasped. Well, most of them gasped. One of them gave a sort of wheezy cough and another one mouthed, “What did he say?” to his wife, and a third one had just swallowed a hard candy the wrong way.

  “Yes, oh yes,” continued Alan in his evil way. “It’s curtains for the world. And not nice flowery curtains. BIG curtains saying ‘THE END’ on them.”

  The people gasped again. And the wheezer wheezed a bit more. And the one with the hard candy thumped his chest.

  “So does anyone have anything to say before I destroy the world?” asked Alan.

  Everyone thought. Everyone with a beard scratched his beard. A couple of people thought they might have something to say but they didn’t like being put on the spot. Twelve more felt it was on the tip of their tongue. Someone near the back would have said something, but he had a sore throat. The rest of them were too shy to speak in public.

  “There’s a phone call for you,” said a man with tiny ears.

  Everyone tutted and sighed—if they’d known someone was going to come up with something that silly they’d have said something themselves.

  “No. Really. There is.”

  The phone was passed to Alan.

  “Hello?” said Alan. “I’m a little bit busy—can you call later?” Then suddenly his whole face lit up. “LRX2FL309version8.4Mark III!” he said. “How are you? Where are you? I’ve been so worried.”

  Alan listened. Kevin tilted his head to one side. Everyone else waited and shuffled around while Alan said,

  “UH HUH.

  MMMM.

  NO! REALLY?

  HOW?

  I SEE.

  YES.

  HMMMM.

  RIIIIIIIIIGHT.

  OK. YES.

  Just let me get a pen and paper.”

  It turned out that someone had stolen Mark III’s passport. And his iPod. And his wallet. And his phone. Or possibly he’d left them all on the train. He wasn’t too sure.

  While Alan was writing down the address of the bank nearest to Mark III so he could send some money to him, Wilf put Dot down and reached for his knapsack. He needed to check his leaflet. And draw a picture and come up with a plan. Because he was worried about big guns and loud noises and also dying. But just at that moment another leg fell off the Daddy longlegs right onto Wilf’s knapsack.

  Wilf was horrified. What was he going to do now? He didn’t have his knapsack. He didn’t have his leaflet. He didn’t have a pen or paper. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t have anything to help him. Most of all, he didn’t have time to panic. And there was nothing he would have liked more than to have a big old panic. Or a great long hide under the blanket. But he couldn’t.

  IT WAS JUST

  WILF.

  WILF AGAINST

  ALAN.

  The future of the whole world depended on him. And that included Dot and Stuart. He had to do something. And he had to do that something

  So Wilf grabbed the Big Gun Thingy and he ran. He ran like an ant with its bottom on fire. He ran like a horse on skis. He ran like one of those lizardy things on vacation. He ran like he was running after the last ice cream van in the world. He ran and he ran and he ran and he ran.

  He looked around. Alan was chasing him!

  Wilf ran across roads and parks and gravel. Thud thud swish swish crunch crunch.

  In the distance, Dot followed, holding Pig. Pad pad pad pad.

  Wilf ran across puddles and mud and stones. Splash splash splotch splotch clonkety clonk. (Pad pad pad pad.)

  He ran until his teeth hurt and his ears were ringing and his heart ached. And all the while, Alan followed—getting closer and closer, closer and closer, closer and closer, closer and closer and closer until he was just there right behind him and suddenly:

  Alan grabbed Wilf and Wilf fell—and the Big Gun Thingy went spinning spinning spinning spinning . . .

  And landed on Tower Bridge.

  Alan leapt toward it, but Wilf pulled him down.

  Wilf leapt toward it, but Alan pulled him down.

  Wilf crawled crawled crawled, but Alan dragged dragged dragged him back.

  Wilf tried to break free, but Alan pinned him down.

  Just then, Tower Bridge began to open slowly with a CHUDDER CHUDDER AWWWWWW WWWW WWWWRK.

  Wilf and Alan wrestled and rolled and brawled and scrapped and tussled and scuffled and fought. And Dot crawled past, uphill now, pad pad pad pad.

  Wilf and Alan thumped and kicked and bit and tugged and elbowed and scuffled and then just when it seemed that all was lost—Wilf wriggled! He slipped free and rushed up the hill of the opening bridge, which was getting steeper by the second.

  Alan hurled himself at Wilf and they rolled back down the hill.

  While they were tussling and rolling—something else rolled. It was Stuart the woodlouse! He rolled out of Wilf’s pocket, crawled onto Alan, and bit him. (Yes, I know woodlouses/woodlice/woodlouseseseses don’t bite, but that’s because they’ve never needed to before.) Stuart needed to now, and so he took a big chomp out of Alan’s knee.

  “Owwwwwwwwww!” shrieked Alan. He grabbed his knee, letting go of Wilf. In an instant, Wilf leapt up to the top of the bridge and the Big Gun Thingy just in time to see Dot popping Pig down the end of it. It was ever such a nice fit. It just slid down and then wedged itself there.

  Wilf grabbed the Big Gun Thingy but just then Alan grabbed his leg and held fast. He wasn’t going to move. And that meant Wilf wasn’t going to move.

  Alan reached for the

  button,

  shouting . . .

  “THE WORLD

  ENDS

  NOW!”

  But Alan had forgotten that Wilf was really great at hopping.

  Wilf watched the other side of the bridge getting farther and farther away. He summoned all his strength and he did the biggest and best hop he’d ever done in his life.

  As he did so, Alan slid down Wilf’s leg and fell down down down into the Thames River below with a large PLOP (taking Wilf’s shoe with him).

  Wilf landed on the other side of the bridge. He aimed the Big Gun Thingy away from earth and into the sky and pressed the

  button.

  Pig went falooping up into the sky at a

  miles an hour.

  When it landed again (several days later) it was a bit more gray and a bit
more shiny and it had one less ear.

  A wisp of smoke emerged from the end of the gun.

  I don’t know if a gun can cough, but the gun coughed. And then it sort of gulped and creaked and cracked and went sproing. And then the words

  “MALFUNCTION”

  and

  “FOREIGN OBJECT”

  and

  “URGH, PIG’S EAR”

  and

  “I’M BROKEN AND IT’S

  NO GOOD TRYING TO FIX ME”

  flashed on the screen.

  Wilf threw the gun onto the ground and jumped up and down on it for good measure. Dot snapped the trigger off, chewed it, and threw it over her shoulder.

  “Hooray!” shouted every single person in the world (except one).

  “Boo!” (splash) shouted one person. (Can you guess who?)

  Then the whole world jumped up and down and hugged one another and did skippety dances. Except for one person, who stomped soggily toward his giant Daddy longlegs, got in it,

  pressed

  and went lurching off, zigzagging and soaring and dipping and plummeting and flapping sadly home (not before getting tangled up in a cloud for a few days).

  And the whole world had a giant picnic and then went home to watch the queen tickling an elephant on TV. She’d never done it before, but she just fancied it.

  Wilf and Dot and Stuart made their way home, tired and grubby but happy.

  To celebrate, they had a peanut butter sandwich and then they all shared some juice from Wilf’s special cup that said “Wilf” on it . . .