Grimwood Read online

  Ted laughed and took a deep breath, before letting rip with an even louder yell.

  ‘AAAAUUUAAAAAAAAUUUURRGH!’

  Suddenly, a dark figure crashed onto the stage and leapt upon Ted, throwing him to the ground and rolling him off stage.

  ‘CUT! Stage invasion!’ cried Tamara, and several security bunnies in dungarees hopped onto the stage.

  ‘Nancy!’ spluttered Ted.

  ‘Are you OK?’ said Nancy, her eyes wide with fear. ‘Is it Buttons? Where is she?’

  She looked closely at Ted and patted him up and down to check he wasn’t hurt.

  ‘I’m fine, sis!’ said Ted. ‘I was acting.’

  Nancy sat back and looked around her at the stage, the lights and the other actors.

  ‘Acting?’ she spat. ‘ACTING?’

  ‘Welcome to… the Grimwood Players!’ said a small brass band of hedgehogs, who began parping out a tune and setting off party poppers.

  ‘Not now, guys,’ said Willow.

  Nancy glared at Willow before turning her attention back to Ted, who knew he was in biiiiiiiig trouble.

  ‘I told you not to leave the den,’ snarled Nancy. ‘I thought you were being ATTACKED!’

  Ted whimpered and looked at the floor.

  ‘He was just having FUN,’ barked Willow, who wasn’t scared of Nancy AT ALL. ‘Remember that? Or have you always been a massive misery?’

  Ooh, Willow! What a burn.

  Everyone gasped.

  Nancy crouched down so that she was eye to eye with Willow.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve always been a massive misery,’ she said. ‘And I’ve always had a taste for rabbit.’

  She licked her lips and bared her sharp teeth.

  ‘Come on,’ she barked at Ted. ‘We’re leaving.’

  And she started to drag him away by the legwarmers.

  ‘NOW JUST ONE MINUTE, MADAME FEROCIOUS!’ came a voice through a loudhailer. It was Ingrid, and she looked very annoyed. ‘You will not steal my new leading man just as soon as I have found him, oh no!’

  She glared at Nancy with the eyes of a duck – and not just any old duck, but a wronged duck. She nodded at Tamara, who waddled over to Ted and started dragging him back to the stage by his headband. Willow joined in.

  ‘He’s coming with ME,’ growled Nancy.

  ‘No, he is staying with US!’ shouted Willow.

  ‘ME!’

  ‘US!’

  ‘ME!’

  ‘US!’

  ‘OW!’ said Ted eventually. ‘Can you all put me down, please?’

  He was dropped to the ground with a thud, and when he stood up he definitely looked a little bit longer.

  ‘Nance,’ said Ted. ‘I’m sorry I snuck out, but I wanted to explore. And it’s been brilliant!’

  Nancy didn’t say anything.

  ‘And, guys – listen, Nancy doesn’t mean any harm. It’s just… I don’t really have a mum or dad around, so Nancy has to look after me all the time. That’s why she gets so angry about things.’

  Willow didn’t say anything, but Ingrid gave a nod.

  ‘Loyalty,’ she said. ‘And strength. I respect that in a woman.’

  ‘Nancy,’ said Ted, suddenly sounding more grown-up than she had ever heard him before. ‘These guys are putting on a show and they need my help. Please will you let me join them?’

  Nancy sighed. Ted looked happy, for the first time in ages.

  ‘Please, sis,’ said Ted, his eyes wide. ‘I’ve finally got an actual friend.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Nancy through gritted teeth. ‘Just don’t get into trouble. I’ll be checking on you.’

  ‘YIPPEE!’ cried Willow, and she and Ted hugged and cheered.

  ancy went and sat by the pond. She wasn’t sure what all these weird feelings were that were pinging about inside her.

  ‘Go away, feelings,’ she said. ‘Get lost.’

  And she threw an acorn into the murky water.

  After a few seconds, the acorn was thrown back and it hit Nancy on the nose.

  ‘Ow!’ said Nancy and threw it back in again.

  The pond threw back an even bigger acorn.

  ‘Oi!’ said Nancy, jumping to her feet. ‘You! Pond! Stop throwing things at me!’

  ‘Arguing with water now, are we?’ asked Frank, who was perched on the branch of a nearby hollybush. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me.’

  Nancy spun round and pointed at the pond.

  ‘Did you see that?’ she barked. ‘That ain’t normal!’

  Frank shrugged.

  ‘Lot of things aren’t “normal” around here, kid. You may as well get used to it.’

  Nancy gave a hollow laugh, and Frank spun his head around so it was almost back-to-front, which is something all owls like to do now and then just to show off.

  ‘I think I know something that might help,’ said Frank. ‘Come with me, kid.’

  Nancy had to run to keep up with the massive owl as he weaved his way expertly through the branches. Every now and then he had to swoop and duck as a squirrel shot overhead shouting,

  ‘Right, that’s it,’ cried Nancy. ‘What IS treebonk? Why do I keep seeing squirrels smashing themselves into tree trunks?’

  Frank gave a chuckle.

  ‘Treebonk is the official sport of Grimwood, and we take it very seriously indeed,’ he said. ‘I remember when I first landed here, I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. But it’s really very simple.’

  ‘OK, well, I’m listening,’ said Nancy. Frank took a deep breath and began to explain.

  UM – hang on a minute! I’d actually prepared, like, a whole ‘thing’ on treebonk. Does this mean it’s not going to be used? Are you serious?! Look, can you at least just take a little look? You don’t even have to use it in the final thing if you don’t want to.

  With additional material by

  E. Dynamite

  Foreword by Ericus Dynamitus

  What is treebonk?

  Treebonk is a game where players (or ‘bonkers’) fling themselves into large trees. Then they must immediately bounce off that tree onto another tree, and then another, and so on, for as long as possible.

  That sounds quite hard.

  It is.

  Are you allowed to touch the ground?

  Nope.

  How many bonkers are on one team?

  There is no limit to the number of bonkers you can have on a treebonk team. But both teams must have an equal amount of bonkers. This means there can be a great big treebonk battle with a hundred bonkers on each team. Or there can be an intense duel with bonker against bonker.

  What else happens?

  Players can upset their opponents using the following methods: Colliding in mid-air so you both crash to the ground.

  Hiding in trees to tickle the armpits of the enemy.

  Leaving sticky things on trunks (e.g. honey or glue) to slow down other treebonkers.

  How do you win at treebonk?

  The last treebonker standing wins the match.

  I thought you weren’t allowed to stand?

  Oh, you know what I mean.

  Is treebonk dangerous?

  Yes.

  Is treebonk stupid?

  Yes.

  Why are we all playing treebonk then?

  There wasn’t room for a tennis court.

  ‘Right,’ said Nancy. ‘I think I understand. Is it only squirrels who play?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Frank. ‘They’re well suited to it. Big tails. Enjoy flinging themselves off trees. I coach them sometimes. I teach them about gliding. I took over after Pamela… after she… well, it doesn’t matter.’

  At this point, three squirrels zoomed overhead and splatted against the tree boughs.

  ‘Hi, Frank!’

  ‘Hullo!’

  ‘Howdy!’

  Frank gave the bonkers a nod as he swooped by.

  Nancy shook her head. Treebonk sounded like a ridiculous game. Though she could imagine all that whizzing and bouncing could be kind of… fu
n.

  * * *

  ‘Ah,’ said Frank after a while. ‘Here we are.’

  Nancy looked up and saw the electricity pylon.

  ‘They call it “the Magic Tower”,’ said Frank.

  ‘It’s an electricity pylon,’ said Nancy flatly.

  ‘Aye, I know, clever clogs,’ said Frank. ‘It certainly used to be. But now… well, now it’s a little bit more than that.’

  And he swooped down, grabbed Nancy by the scruff of the neck and flew high into the air.

  ‘AAAAAARRRGH!‘ said Nancy.

  Frank gently lowered her onto a small wooden plank.

  ‘Don’t look down.’

  Nancy gulped. She wasn’t generally scared of heights. But the Magic Tower was taller than any wall or roof she’d been on in the Big City.

  ‘ ‘W-wh-why are we here?’ she gasped.

  ‘Thought you might want your phone back,’ said Frank. ‘Didn’t you say your mates in the city were going to text you?’

  Nancy very carefully turned around, and saw what looked like a massive bird’s nest. It was piled high with wires, plugs, computers and lots of mobile phones.

  ‘Wow,’ said Nancy.

  Frank circled the nest a couple of times.

  ‘Pamela!’ he called. But there was no reply.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Frank. ‘Now what does your phone look like?’

  ‘Sort of… phone-y,’ said Nancy. She was standing very still. Any sudden movement and she knew she could plummet to the ground and land with a splat.

  ‘Maybe we can ask Pamela,’ said Frank.

  ‘ASK PAMELA WHAT?’ said Pamela, poking her head up from a pile of wires and broken gadgets. She was wearing a weird helmet that beeped and buzzed and flashed.

  ‘Pamela,’ said Frank. ‘We were just looking for you.’

  ‘I’m recording a podcast,’ she said, gesturing at the headphones clamped to her head.

  ‘Can I have my phone back? You know, the one that you nicked?’ said Nancy.

  ‘No,’ said Pamela.

  ‘Why not?’ said Frank.

  ‘Because I ate it,’ said Pamela.

  Nancy slapped her forehead in despair.

  ‘Oh, Pamela,’ said Frank.

  Pamela rummaged around in her piles of electrical junk. Eventually she held up a bit of smashed-up phone screen, with a few wires sticking out of the back.

  ‘This is all that’s left,’ said Pamela. ‘But I need it! It’s a tracking device. For when the aliens arrive.’

  ‘What aliens?’ asked Nancy.

  Pamela’s eyes grew big and started swirling around like ping-pong balls in a washing machine.

  ‘THE ALIENS!’ she shouted, waving her wings about and generally looking utterly mad. ‘They will be here SOON! They want to destroy us. We must be ready for attack!’

  Nancy sighed.

  ‘Forget it, Frank,’ she said. ‘Can you take me back to the den, please?’

  Frank gave Pamela a very stern look.

  ‘I think you owe our wee fox friend an apology,’ he said.

  ‘SORRY!’ squawked Pamela. Then she blew a raspberry in Frank’s face and flew off.

  * * *

  Back in the den, Nancy sighed as she watched Frank fly away. She was going to have to get in touch with Bin and Hedge some other way. She had hoped they would be able to defeat Princess Buttons together, but now it looked like she needed to think up another plan. Lost in thought, she scraped her claw along the wall of the den, scratching out her name, like she used to do in the Big City.

  As she added the ‘y’ with a final flourish, there was a CLUMP. She looked down at the clod of earth by her feet and realized she’d dislodged a chunk of wall.

  ‘Oops,’ she said. But then she noticed something quite peculiar.

  Her scraping had exposed a large slab of smooth, grey stone.

  And in the middle of the stone were two faded paw prints. One was slightly bigger than the other. Nancy ran her paw softly over them.

  ‘Huh,’ she said.

  If she held her paw directly over the smaller print, it seemed to fit perfectly.

  ‘Weird,’ she whispered.

  She sniffed at the stone but couldn’t pick up any particular scent. They must have been made some time ago.

  Nancy lay back on her bunk. There was something about Grimwood. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it was making her feel… odd. She thwacked at Princess Buttons’ tail, which dangled over her head.

  She needed to get rid of Princess Buttons once and for all, so that she and Ted could safely return home.

  Has anyone got any ideas? Anything? You at the back, there? Nope.

  Sorry. We’re all out.

  Heyyyy, Dynamite fans! Now we’re going to whoosh miles and miles away from Grimwood and head back to the Big City! You’d forgotten all about that place, hadn’t you? Anyway, you find out what’s going on while I head to the shops to stock up on biscuits and bananas. Byeeeee!

  rincess Buttons knew that she looked absolutely ridiculous without a tail. It was a very difficult thing to replace.

  But, most of all, she hated looking WEAK. She knew that Ted biting off her tail was still the talk of the Speedy Chicken bins.

  ‘Those foxes must be found,’ she hissed at nobody in particular. ‘And then they must be DESTROYED!’ She banged the top of the green bin with her fist.

  ‘O-kaaaaaaaaay,’ said a rat called Kelvin, who really didn’t want to get involved and backed away slowly.

  Just then, a member of her evil cat gang, Denise, trotted over looking very pleased with herself.

  ‘I think I know how we can get to them, Miss Buttons,’ she said.

  ‘How?’ said Princess Buttons, clutching Denise by the neck and shaking her back and forth. ‘HOW?’

  ‘Aarrrargh! All right, calm down. Um, well, those two other foxes. Their idiot friends. I know where they are,’ said Denise, who now felt less keen on helping Princess Buttons, what with the whole being-grabbed-by-the-neck thing.

  Princess Buttons let go of Denise and held a torch under her face. She made her voice go deep and growly.

  ‘Take me to the foxes – NOW!’

  ‘What’s the magic word?’ said Denise, who believed basic manners were important.

  ‘OR ELSE I WILL KILL YOU,’ said Princess Buttons.

  Denise decided it was best just to get on with it.

  * * *

  Bin and Hedge were lounging around in Ted and Nancy’s old fox den in the park.

  ‘I really miss her,’ said Bin, chewing thoughtfully on a bit of stick. ‘She was the first fox I ever met. In fact, she gave me my name.’

  ‘No way!’ said Hedge. ‘She gave me my name too. Because she found me in a hedge.’

  ‘No way!’ said Bin. ‘She found me in a bin.’

  The foxes high-fived each other. They had been avoiding the Speedy Chicken bins ever since that fateful night, when Ted bit Princess Buttons’ tail off.

  ‘Has she texted you yet?’ said Hedge.

  ‘Nah,’ said Bin. ‘But I’ll message her as soon as we know if that crazy cat Buttons is still sniffing around.’

  There was a knock at the den, which was weird because it didn’t really have a door.

  ‘Pizza delivery!’ shouted someone (can you guess who?).

  ‘Come in!’ said Hedge.

  The hedge opened –

  – and the foxes came face to face with…

  PRINCESS BUTTONS! And her smelly and horrible evil cat gang were right behind her, looking ready to have a massive fight or say mean stuff or something.

  ‘Hey… you’re not a pizza,’ shouted Bin.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ hissed Princess Buttons. ‘I am a very angry cat whose tail was murdered by YOUR friends.’

  ‘I would have preferred pizza,’ said Bin.

  ‘Where are they? Your nasty little fox pals?’ said Princess Buttons.

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Hedge. ‘Look, you’ve got the stupid bins al
l to yourselves. Why don’t you leave us alone?’

  Just then, Bin’s phone pinged.

  ‘Ooh, I wonder if it’s Nancy!’ said Bin. ‘We’ve been waiting for them to get in touch, haven’t we Hedge?’

  Hedge smacked herself on the forehead.

  Princess Buttons looked at the phone. Bin looked at the phone. Hedge looked at the phone.

  ‘Attack!’ yelled Princess Buttons.

  In the kerfuffle, Princess Buttons managed to grab Bin’s phone and squeeze her way out of the den. Denise was waiting outside with the getaway vehicle.

  ‘This is gold – gold, I tell you!’ shrieked Princess Buttons.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Denise, pushing the skateboard as fast as her paws could manage.

  ‘We’re going to visit the most dangerous mouse in the entire world,’ said Princess Buttons.

  ‘Fine,’ said Denise, because what else was she going to say? Princess Buttons paid her wages after all, plus the school holidays were coming up and the kids needed shoes.

  * * *

  The most dangerous mouse in the entire world worked in a tiny secret mouse laboratory underneath a much bigger, secret, human laboratory. Her name was Dr Fairybeast.

  Dr Fairybeast used her amazing brain and scientific powers for both good and evil. It really depended on her mood. On the first day Princess Buttons turned up to Dr Fairybeast’s secret lab, the arrow on the Fairybeast-o-meter was pointing towards ‘Good’. And, sure enough, inside the lab, Dr Fairybeast was using complicated maths to heal old people’s knees, and had invented some felt tips that never ran out of ink.

  But the day after that, the arrow was pointing at ‘Evil’, so Princess Buttons walked straight in and, indeed, there was Dr Fairybeast looking wicked and burning ants with a magnifying glass.

  ‘I’ve got a job for you, Dr Fairybeast,’ said Princess Buttons. She handed over Bin’s phone.

  ‘I need you to find someone. Their number will be stored in this phone. Can you do it?’