puffin books
Will Mabbitt writes. He writes in cafes, on
trains, on the toilet, and sometimes, when his
laptop runs out of power, he writes in his head.
He lives with his family somewhere in the south
of England. This is his fi rst book. Another one is
coming soon.
Ross Collins grew up with an affi nity for
drawing, the bionic man and precariously
swinging backwards on
chairs. Finding it hard to
make careers from the
latter two, he continued
drawing and has since
written and illustrated
many award-winning
books. Ross resides in
Glasgow, Scotland.
By WILL MABBITT
Illustrated by ROSS COLLINS
PUFFIN
PUFFIN
PUFFIN BOOKS
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
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Puffi n Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies
whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
puffi nbooks.com
First published 2015
Text copyright © Will Mabbitt, 2015
Illustrations copyright © Ross Collins, 2015
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
Text design by Mandy Norman
ISBN: 978–0–141–35515–3
For Tilly, Etta and Ellen
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
The Kidnap
CHAPTER TWO
Pirates
CHAPTER THREE
The Greasy Pole of Certain Death
CHAPTER FOUR
The List
CHAPTER FIVE
The Cadaverous Lobster Tavern
CHAPTER SIX
A Storm and Some Filthsome Treachery
CHAPTER SEVEN
That Sinking Feeling
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Unremitting Drip
CHAPTER NINE
Mabel Escapes the Unremitting Drip
CHAPTER TEN
The Fish Burps
1
13
27
37
54
79
95
100
101
110
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Bestest Thief Ever
124
CHAPTER TWELVE
A Friend In Need
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A Fate Worse Than a Fate Worse Than Death
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Princess Mabel Jones
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A Helping Hand
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Really, the Bestest Thief Ever
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Captain’s Leg
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A Sheep Trick
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Going Underground
CHAPTER TWENTY
Secrets of the Crypt
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Fishing
132
138
147
153
157
162
175
182
192
204
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Rough Passage
220
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Home
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Ghostly Forms
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Bell Tower of the Dead
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Raising Hell
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Terrible Klank
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Consequences of the Terrible Klank
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Sonorous Bong
CHAPTER THIRTY
Repercussions of the Sonorous Bong
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Count’s Revenge
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
231
237
241
252
257
258
274
275
282
289
292
CHAPTER ONE
The Kidnap
M
abel Jones was woken by a sudden quiet.
She sat upright.
‘What wasn’t that noise?’ she wondered.
The city outside was strangely soundless.
The neighbours weren’t listening to the TV.
The cars weren’t driving up and down the
busy road.
Even the mice that scuttled under the
fl oorboards observed the eerie silence. A most
suspicious silence . . .
1
The Unlikely Adventures
of Mabel Jones
Mabel listened very carefully, but even with her
eyes closed really tight she couldn’t hear where
the silence was coming from.
Little did she know that the source of the
silence was
squeezing through the cat fl ap with a
cutlass in its teeth . . .
. . . tiptoeing through the lounge, leaving wet
pawprints on the carpet . . .
. . . creeping up the stairs, pausing
for a second to shudder in fear at
a photograph of Mabel’s great-
grandmother . . .
. . . crouching outside
Mabel’s room with a large,
specially designed child-
sized sack and, at that very
moment, pushing open her
bedroom door ready to –
STOP! WAIT!
2
The Kidnap
Before we witness the terrifying sight of young
Mabel Jones being skilfully bagged in the dead of
night, I believe it is time to reveal the identity of
the creature that has invaded her home in such a
deafeningly silent fashion.
Let us shine a light into the shadows and reveal
the sly beast that lurks in the corner.
Who are you, creature? And what’s with
the sack?
The creature’s whiskers twitch.
Some fur that grows in the wrong direction on
top of its head is anxiously straightened with a
licked paw.
A pause, then it fi xes us with its saucery eyes
and blinks nervously, whispering:
‘I? I is Omynus Hussh .’
It speaks!
And to which species do you belong?
‘I is a silent loris.’
A dastardly breed: quiet as a peanut and
3
The Unlikely Adventures
of Mabel Jones
sneaky as a woodlouse in a jar of raisins.
What brings you to the bedroom of the
poor, unfortunate Mabel Jones?
‘I is the bagger on board
THE FeROShUS MAggOt !’
The bagger?
‘The bagger what bags them children! I gots
the proper fi ngers on me paws that ties the proper
knots that keeps the wriggling little snuglet
safe inside.’
Surely not young Mabel Jones?
‘It performed the sacred DEED. THE DEED
that seals the deal! THE DEED that binds it
to the captain for a lifetime’s service aboard
the Feroshus Maggot.’
The creature leans close and whispers.
‘The Deed that shows it’s a pirate in the making.’
She didn’t?
Not THE DEED?
The Kidnap
‘It did! It did! We saws it through the captain’s
telescope!’
Goodness me! THE DEED was performed!
What’s that, reader?
You know not of which DEED we speak?
Of course not – how silly of me. You probably
haven’t spent years aboard a pirate ship. You
probably haven’t ever sat round a fi re on a
tropical beach fi nishing the last morsels of a
freshly grilled parrot. Then, after the rum has
run dry, heard the talk turn to whispered tales of
the unfortunate children recruited to piracy after
unknowingly performing THE DEED!
So let me take you back an hour, to the deck of
the pirate ship
on which stands one CAPTAIN IDRYSS
EBENEZER SPLIT.
5
FeROShUS
MAggOt
THE
The Unlikely Adventures
of Mabel Jones
6
The Kidnap
Split is a wolf.
A wolf with a pirate hat and a false leg carved
from a human thigh bone. He has a rusty cutlass
hanging from his belt and a loaded pistol
hidden in his underpants, with no fear of the
consequences! His left eye has long since been
lost – burnt from his skull by a stray fi rework.
His right eye is pressed to the end of a telescope.
The telescope is focused on a strange hole in the
thick fog that envelops the FeROShUS MAggOt
– a hole through which he observes a
different world from the one he knows.
A hooman world.
A world where young Mabel Jones is about to
perform THE DEED: the ceremonial picking
of Mabel Jones’s nose by Mabel Jones’s nose-
picking fi nger.
‘Has it been eaten yet?’ the crew ask eagerly.
‘Is THE DEED complete?’
‘Not yet, lads. Not yet!’
7
The Unlikely Adventures
of Mabel Jones
Mabel’s fate is to be decided by the fi nal
destination of the bogey currently sitting on her
fi nger. The fi nger that now pauses precariously
between mouth and wall as Mabel makes the
decision whether to eat or wipe.
8
The Kidnap
Will she eat it?
Finally she makes the decision. The very same
decision that any person believing they were
unobserved would make. The same decision
being made across the world at this very moment
by head teachers, policemen, dinner ladies and
parents (but especially by head teachers).
She eats it!
Split allows himself a toothy grin. An extra
pair of hands aboard ship could come in useful.
At the very least, the child might fetch a modest
sum at the next port.
He turns to Omynus Hussh and claps the loris
on the back, laughing wickedly.
‘Fetch yer sack. For tonight ye go child-
bagging!’
π
In the bedroom of 23 Gudgeon Avenue, Mabel
Jones climbed out of bed to fi nd the source of the
suspicious silence.
9
The Unlikely Adventures
of Mabel Jones
Looking out of her window, Mabel could see
the city was wrapped in thick greeny-grey fog.
Only the tops of the tallest tower blocks could
be seen.
What an odd night! She wasn’t normally woken
by a strange quiet. The city wasn’t usually –
She had trodden on something.
A peanut!
Why would there be a peanut on her bedroom
fl oor?
I don’t even like peanuts, thought Mabel Jones.
Apart from the chocolate-covered ones, of course
. . . And even then I only like the chocolate part.
Oh! There was another.
And another.
This is strange!
Someone had left a trail of peanuts leading to
the darkest corner of her room.
10
OUCH!
The Kidnap
She picked them up one by one.
It’s almost as though someone WANTS me
to follow them.
Mabel scratched her armpit thoughtfully.
It’s almost as though there is somebody in
my room.
SOMEBODY
IN MY ROOM!
THERE IS
Mabel Jones turned to run for the door, but a
strong, spindly hand grabbed at her from behind.
She opened her mouth to call for help, but only
got as far as the ‘D’ in ‘Dad’ before another hand
was clamped tightly over her lips
and she was wrestled
into a sack.
The Unlikely Adventures
of Mabel Jones
Skilful fi ngers tied a neat knot at the top.
The sack was lifted to the window, where a
large pair of hairy arms grabbed it eagerly and
pulled it deep into the fog. Then, pausing only to
examine a Mabel-Jones-sized bite on his hand,
Omynus Hussh climbed up on to the sill and leapt
into the night.
Shortly afterwards the silence was broken.
Above the usual noise of the busy road in the
middle of the busy city, far away from the nearest
port or shore, the tuneless singing of a rude sea