E-Book, Englisch, Band 3, 224 Seiten
Reihe: Mort the Meek
Delahaye Mort the Meek and the Perilous Prophecy
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-78895-571-3
Verlag: Little Tiger Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, Band 3, 224 Seiten
Reihe: Mort the Meek
ISBN: 978-1-78895-571-3
Verlag: Little Tiger Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
After studying linguistics, Rachel began a career in print journalism. She has worked in London, Sydney and Melbourne, and now lives in Bath. While she has vowed never to move again (well, not for a little while), her imagination has refused to settle down, and she's now writing children's fiction, including the hilarious JIM REAPER series. Rachel is married with two children and a dog called Rocket. You can follow her on Twitter at @RachelDelahaye.
Weitere Infos & Material
The guards raised their CLAP NOW and CHEER NOW signs, which prompted the crowd to clap and cheer. Although the Queen was full of hate, she did like to be adored. And, for anyone thinking of not adoring her, the punishment was clear – and MURKY – because the details were written on the chalkboard for all to see.
What added ingredients? Piranhas? Old bananas? You can’t be prepared for what you don’t know. Therefore, while some Brutalians might have happily endured a bog bath for hygiene reasons (because nothing could make them filthier), not a single soul wanted to WAIT AND SEE.
People are sometimes more afraid of what they don’t know than what they do know. Did you know that? Now you do know, so keep it in mind because, you know, it’ll help you understand what this story is all about (if it ever gets going).
All right, all right, keep your pants on…
So the citizens of Brutalia continued their adoring applause with sore hands and raw throats until finally the Queen motioned to the guards to lower their signs.
“MY LOYAL SUBJECTS!” she shouted. “I have gathered you all here today because I want to test your knowledge.”
She said it with suspicious delight, and the crowd’s brains itched in panic because knowledge wasn’t one of their strongest subjects.
“First question – if I told you to clap, what would you do?”
She stared accusingly at the wall of silent faces in front of her. “You CLAP, you idiotic mushrooms! You CLAP!”
Someone stupidly clapped, and the Queen’s face purpled. “Not NOW, you absolute flannel! Next question – what’s Brutalia’s main sporting event?”
There were murmurs of confusion in the crowd because this seemed to be some kind of painless quiz. Eventually, a bold character shouted, “The Annual Cabbage Drag!”
The Queen nodded approvingly. “Question three – what do we do with the losers of the Annual Cabbage Drag?”
Emboldened by the previous shouter coming to no harm, Brutalia’s only comedian, Looby Larkspit, called out, “Make them fart ‘God Save the Queen’?”
There was a tight silence, but the Queen let it go. So did the King, and thirteen people fainted.
“And the final general-knowledge question,” the Queen said, holding her nose. “Does Brutalia like visitors or does it hate visitors?”
This was an easy one.
“BRUTALIA HATES VISITORS!” everyone shouted gleefully, hoping there might be a prize.
The Queen smiled and batted her eyelids, which were adorned with millipedes for a full-volume lash effect. “Excellent response. And now on to today’s businesssssssssssss.”
The Queen stretched out her s’s, which annoyed everyone, but especially Warren the tiger, who roared. His manky breath poisoned the air, and the crowd cowered. It looked like the Fun Quiz was over.
“Snit Parlot has overheard something VERY DISTURBING.”
GASP NOW signs went up, and everyone gasped very easily. For what could a Queen who was wearing sad squirrels and wriggling eyelashes possibly find disturbing?
“What could it be?” Weed whispered.
“I dread to think,” Mort said. His stomach had dropped the moment she said the name Snit Parlot. The Royal Snoop was always getting the wrong end of the stick, and it always had a sticky ending.
“And who did he overhear, you ask?”
The Queen beady-eyed the crowd. And the crowd beady-eyed each other suspiciously until there was a loud:
“SALLY McROOT!” the Queen shrieked.
The guards lifted their signs and the crowd went, ‘OOH.’
“I ain’t done nothing!” came a frail voice from somewhere in the throng.
“She hasn’t done anything,” Weed whispered to Mort.
“Grammatically correct,” Mort agreed. “She’s just a soup maker and bum-shaped vegetable enthusiast.”
They watched, terrified, as Sally was tossed like a rugby ball through the crowd and across the square to the front. Guards lifted her on to the stage, and she trembled before the Queen, who beckoned to Snit Parlot. The Royal Snoop slid towards her like a well-oiled trolley, licking his well-oiled lips.
“This is the old woman you overheard?”
“It certainly is, Your Majesty,” Snit oozed.
“Can you recount the events of that afternoon for us all?”
“Indeed I can, Your Majesty,” he syruped.
“Well, do it, then!”
“Absolutely, certainly, you betcha, Your Highness.” Snit cleared his throat. “I was passing Sally McRoot’s house when I saw smoke at her window. The sort of smoke you would expect from a sorcerer’s magic potion.”
Guards help up their OOH NOW signs.
Ooooooooh!
“It was steam!” Sally spat. “Steam from my soup pot.”
“It smelled unsavoury,” Snit said. He circled the old woman, taunting her with his slippery confidence.
“My soups always smell unsavoury,” Sally grumbled.
“But the steam smelled evil,” Snit insisted.
“That’s going too far. I do my best with what I’ve got. I’d give my nostrils for an ingredient that didn’t taste of mud and mould.”
“I listened at the window…”
Mort sighed. What perfectly innocent words had Snit Parlot got tangled up this time?
“…and I heard her say: ‘When it’s bubbling, I’ll see in my head.’”
“WHAT DOES IT MEAN?” the Queen shouted. Her tiny hazel-gazey eyes glistened as if she already knew the answer. She rubbed her hands together with glee.
“When it’s bubbling, I’ll see in my head means … Sally McRoot can read her soup!” said Snit.
“Aha!” the Queen screeched. “A soup sayer!”
“Rubbish!” Sally shouted. “I ain’t a soup sayer! I don’t even know what a soup sayer is.”
“What is a soup sayer?” Weed whispered.
“No idea,” Mort admitted.
“A soup sayer is someone who tells the future in their soup!” the Queen clarified. “And it looks like you’ve been reading your soup without a soup-reading licence.”
“I have not!” Sally spat. “I just said that when the soup’s bubbling I’ll see to my bread. I dip it in my soup. It’s nothing new, y’know.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Snit Parlot sang tauntingly.
The Queen dismounted Warren and put the tip of her long finger on Sally’s nose, wiggling it as she spoke. “We know the punishment for future-telling without permission, don’t we?”
“DEATH!” shouted some particularly nasty sorts in the crowd. “DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!”
“Unfortunately, we don’t do that here any more,” the Queen said, and her own nose wrinkled like an overboiled sausage, and her lips puckered like a rat’s bottom.
“No executions any more! That’s thanks to you in Book One, that is,” Weed whispered, nudging Mort.
The Queen momentarily glazed over as she remembered the good old days, and the King put a caring arm of condolence round her shoulders and whispered, “There, there, my prickly pear.”
She shrugged off her husband and his drivelling pity.
“Execution may be against the law … BUT – and it’s a BIG BUT – Snit Parlot overheard something else, didn’t you, Parlot?”
“Indeed I did, Your Majesty,” he slimed. “I heard her say, ‘Fiends are scheming.’”
“FIENDS!” the Queen shrieked, making it sound very scary indeed.
Even without PANIC NOW signs, people began to panic and it boiled over into a mass fight, the likes of which no one had seen since just a bit earlier.
“SO,” the Queen said, “when it comes to Sally McRoot’s punishment, I am forced to make an...
