Invasion of the Christmas Puddings Page 6

  ‘Oh, please!’ he complained.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Amy. ‘I think it’s lovely.’

  ‘I think it’s lovely!’ echoed Lewis in a sing-song voice. ‘Yuck!’

  ‘Battle stations, everyone!’ ordered Rufus. ‘Are you ready? CHAAAAARGE!’

  It sounded as if a truck full of dustbins had fallen down a cliff. It was the noise of umpteen non-stick pots, pans, trays and saucepan lids banging together as the Magnificent Eight came tearing into the Command Centre.

  Big Chief leaped from the Seat of High Command, where he had been lazing with his feet

  screamed, as the elves ran for their Sticky Matter Blatter-Splatters. Streams of dark brown goo were soon slicing across the room.

  The eight warriors threw themselves to the ground, just as they had seen heroes do in countless movies. They tried rolling over, but it’s very difficult to roll with several saucepans and baking trays tied round your middle. They soon found it better to throw themselves down and slide, although it made the most awful screeching sound.

  ‘Yah! Eat Sticky Matter, suckers!’ yelled Father Christmas, felling three elves with a single blast. For a second he seemed very surprised at himself, before grinning wickedly and carrying on.

  Amy was overpowered by several elves. They were carrying her away when they suddenly came face to face with Miss Comet wearing her sternest face.

  ‘Put her down, at once!’ she ordered. And they did.

  ‘Sorry, miss,’ said the lead elf, before turning round and rushing back into battle.

  Amy looked up at Miss Comet and whispered a shy ‘thank you’. Then she uttered a bloodcurdling scream and tore back into the fray.

  Miss Comet shouted across to Rufus, deep in his own battle with the elves. ‘It’s just like break time!’

  Meanwhile Father Christmas and his wife stood back to back, fighting off endless elf-attacks, he with his gun and she with her knitting needles, jabbing left and right. There were moments when the Magnificent Eight seemed to be surrounded by gun-happy elves and it would be impossible to survive the criss-cross stream of Sticky Matter that filled the room. Time and time again the Rescue Team were hit, but the puddings slid harmlessly off the non-stick surfaces of their armour.

  Dylan and Freya were edging along either side of the room, moving towards the Seat of High Command. Big Chief was standing there, bellowing commands to his troops. All at once he leaped down and hurried over to a small instrument panel.

  ‘He’s trying to send a warning message to Bad Christmas,’ yelled Freya. ‘Stop him!’

  There was too much going on for either of them to get a sight line on the elf. Dylan was nearest. It was down to him. He swallowed. There was a seething throng of elves between him and Big Chief, but he had no choice. He was only going to get one go at this. He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, put his head down, closed his eyes tight and charged forward.

  BANG! BIFF! WALLOP! KRRANG! THUD! BLIPP! BOYOINNGG!

  Elves bounced off the charging battering ram

  like peas pinging off a wall of steel. Dylan opened his eyes and saw the look of shock on Big Chief Elf’s face as he crashed straight into him and a strenuous wrestling match began. They wriggled and rolled and biffed, baffed and boffed until

  Big Chief was sitting triumphantly astride an exhausted Dylan.

  ‘Pipsqueak!’ hissed Big Chief. Then Freya landed on his head and knocked him cold.

  With Big Chief captured, the remaining elves threw down their weapons and surrendered. The Magnificent Eight gathered together with much hand-slapping, back-thumping and hugging. (The hugging bit was only Rufus and Miss Comet. Freya thought she heard a kiss too, but Dylan said it was only their baking trays clashing.)

  The awesome Death Pudding had fallen into their hands and Rufus nodded with satisfaction. ‘Now we must tackle Bad Christmas down on Earth.’

  Miss Comet smiled. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. I have a little plan.’

  ‘How lovely!’ sighed Bad Christmas. ‘A steam iron. Just what I always wanted.’ He chucked the iron over his shoulder. ‘Next! Ah, look at this: curling tongs. Won’t we look stylish, Boo-Boo? Next!’

  The endless line of zombified present-givers shuffled forward, watched from a safe distance by Rufus and the Rescue Team. They had immobilized the Death Pudding before they left and Rufus had the ignition key safe in his pocket. The elves had been zombified for the time being. Only raw sprouts would bring them back to themselves.

  Father Christmas, still in his underwear, (giant spotted boxer shorts and a T-shirt with a slogan on the front saying CHRISTMAS IS COMING

  and another on the back: CHRISTMAS IS GOING), was grinding his teeth. ‘How dare my brother parade around like that, wearing my special coat? And how dare he make people give him presents? It’s outrageous.’

  Mrs Christmas agreed. ‘I know, jellybean. It shouldn’t be allowed. But look at all the guards he’s got.’ She turned to Miss Comet. ‘What’s the plan?’

  Miss Comet nodded. ‘I think we should join the queue. We’ll have to remove our armour and hide our weapons under our clothes. The queue moves forward, and when we get to Bad Christmas – bingo! He’s suddenly surrounded! The elves will have to surrender.’

  Rufus was already in agreement. Father Christmas frowned a lot and scratched his head, while the children looked at the adults and waited for them to make up their minds.

  ‘Agreed,’ Father Christmas said gruffly.

  With weapons hidden from view, they joined the queue. It wasn’t difficult to penetrate the line of shuffling zombies and soon the adventurers were shuffling along too, with Rufus in the lead. Their heads were bowed and they looked for all the world as if they had been puddified.

  In front of Rufus was a young girl. She was about five or six and was holding a present close to her chest. Rufus found himself getting very angry as he thought about this poor child who had been puddified and was now having to obey a megalomaniac. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on Bad Christmas.

  The queue edged forward. Rufus whispered back to Miss Comet. ‘We’re almost there. Get ready.’ Their hands tightened on the Splatter guns.

  The little girl in front of Rufus had reached the grinning, swollen figure of Bad Christmas. ‘Next!’ he called. The girl stepped forward and held out her gift.

  ‘It’s my teddy,’ she said shyly.

  Bad Christmas was astonished. The girl had spoken! Zombies weren’t supposed to speak! He gazed at her intently. She looked back at him, her eyes bright and shiny. The truth suddenly dawned on him.

  SHE HADN’T BEEN PUDDIFIED!

  YET HERE SHE WAS, WITH A PRESENT FOR HIM!!

  Bad Christmas leaned forward and took the little teddy. It was warm and soft. ‘How lovely,’ he murmured. ‘Surely this is your teddy?’

  The girl nodded. ‘Yes. But it’s OK, I’ve got three more at home. This is only my second best one. It’s not my first.’

  Bad Christmas didn’t seem to hear. ‘You’re giving me your teddy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why are you giving me a present?’

  ‘I saw you on television and you looked sad and I thought that’s how I feel when I haven’t got my teddy at night, so I brought you one.’

  Bad Christmas swallowed and blinked quickly, several times. ‘Do you think it will work?’ he asked huskily.

  ‘It works for me,’ the little girl answered.

  ‘Oh. Thank you,’ he muttered. ‘Nobody has ever given me a present before. I mean, not

  actually given me one. All these,’ he went on, casting an eye over the huge pile behind him, ‘they’re just tokens. But now I have your teddy. Look, Boo-Boo, you have a new friend.’

  The girl smiled and walked off, while Bad Christmas sat there hugging the teddy and the tartan beanie. Tears had welled up in his eyes, and as the Magnificent Eight prepared to surround and seize him, his shoulders hunched up and he started to cry.

  ‘What do we do?’ asked Rufus, compl
etely confused.

  Father Christmas stamped his feet crossly. ‘The trouble is, it’s very difficult to get angry with someone who’s upset, even when it’s your own evil big brother. I don’t know. What do you think we should do?’ he asked his wife.

  ‘Well, I’m certainly not going to take his teddy away,’ she said. ‘Miss Comet, what do you think?’

  But even Miss Comet was stumped. ‘He does look very upset,’ she murmured, because although Miss Comet could be very strict when necessary she actually had a heart as soft as the best fudge there is.

  There was a long, snuffling and whuffling noise as Bad Christmas sniffed and blew his nose. He looked up at the people standing in front of him and suddenly recognized them. But he didn’t jump up and call for the guards. He held out the teddy instead. ‘A child gave me this. She gave it to me. It’s a gift!’

  ‘That’s what Christmas is about,’ Father Christmas said gruffly. ‘Now then, what are you going to do about all these people you’ve puddified?’

  ‘Oh, I just have to sproutify them. Sprouts are the antidote.’

  ‘We know,’ Mrs Christmas said smugly. ‘Because we went on your computer and we worked it out for ourselves.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Bad Christmas, with great tiredness in his voice. ‘My little brother – you’ve depuddified him.’ He turned to Father Christmas. ‘I suppose you’d like your robe back?’

  ‘Hmmm. I’m not sure. Since you’re dressed for the part maybe you should finish the job. Then I can have a day off and Mrs Christmas and I can take a holiday. We’ve never been able to holiday at Christmas before. Then next year I’ll be Father Christmas again, and you can do it the year after that, and so on. Nobody will know.’

  Bad Christmas’s eyes widened. ‘You’d let me do that? After everything I’ve done to you?’ Father Christmas coughed and frowned and nodded. ‘Then that’s two gifts I’ve been given today!’ cried Bad Christmas. ‘I wish I had something I could give.’

  Dylan pushed forward. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘You have twenty-four children at my school to depuddify, plus all the rest of the people on the planet AND the animals in the laboratory on the Death Pudding. Not to mention all these presents to give back.’

  Bad Christmas jumped up. ‘Yes! And I shall start straight away.’

  So it was that everyone got dezombified and everything ended happily after all. For a short while everyone wondered what to do about the Death Pudding. There were suggestions that it could be turned into an adventure playground, but there were an awful lot of children who said they didn’t want to look at another Christmas pudding after what had happened to them, and they certainly didn’t want to play in one.

  In the end the air force came along and bombed it to bits and the whole thing went up in smoke and flames, while they watched from a safe distance.

  Miss Comet laughed. ‘Look, Dylan, it’s just like the picture you drew in class.’

  Dylan quietly asked his father if he was going to marry his teacher. ‘Because it wouldn’t be fair. It would be like being in school all day and all night. There’d be no escape,’ he complained.

  But he didn’t mind, not really. He was already thinking chicken and mayonnaise, cheese and tomato… the days of disaster sandwiches could be over.

  Sound FX: Happy, cheerful wedding-march-type music, and the sound of Lewis pretending to be sick.