Neville woke up lying on the pile of stinking laundry in Rubella’s room.
‘Oh, there you are, youngling,’ came Clod’s voice. ‘I was worried you’d gone and popped your cogs.’
Neville scratched his head, adjusted his glasses and looked around the room. Clod came into view, sitting beside him. Rubella was in her hammock, reading her troll teen magazine.
‘What happened?’ asked Neville.
‘You got so excited about crossin’ the Undersea to visit your grandmooma Jaundice, you got a wee bit wobbly.’
Neville suddenly remembered what tomorrow’s plans were and wished he hadn’t asked.
‘You’ll love it,’ Clod said. ‘My dooda used to sail the big wetty when he was a bit fresher … and his dooda before that.’
Neville smiled a pathetic smile. Before today, he hadn’t even known there was an underground ocean and now he had to sail across it. Neville groaned inside. Clod looked so excited, how could he say no?
‘I think there’s time for one of my dooda’s old sea yarns before bed,’ Clod said.
‘Oh, lummy,’ lied Neville.
‘I love stringish things,’ Rubella said greedily from her hammock.
‘Not yarn-yarn,’ said Clod. ‘Fables and foobles … Ain’t nothin’ like a good bedtime story.’
‘Oh,’ said Rubella and returned to her magazine.
‘Right then,’ said Clod, scratching his head. ‘Where to start? Oh, I know … My dooda once saw a fish so big it ate a whole town right off the coast, it did. All in one whoppsy great chomplet.’
Neville eyed his dooda and wished he would stop talking about it. He wasn’t sure his nerves could take this.
Rubella could tell that Neville was getting nervous.
‘What else did Grandooda see?’ she asked, sticking her tongue out at Neville.
‘Well, there’s electric skrunts,’ said Clod. ‘They can sizzle you like a rat patty in no time flat.’
Electric skrunts? Fish big enough to eat a town? Neville curled his toes under and tried not to listen.
‘There’s the hundred-armed clonktopus … nasty, big grunchers, those.’
Neville whimpered. Rubella giggled.
‘Glugulars and squiggers and pinchy little prawks that’ll chew off your toes if you ain’t careful. Then there was the time my dooda sailed across the big wetty in search of –’
‘SHUT UP!’ Rubella suddenly barked. Everybody jumped. She was enjoying the stories all the time they were scaring Neville, but she didn’t want to hear her grandooda’s life history. ‘You’re borin’ me now.’
‘All rightsy,’ Clod said, clambering back to his feet. ‘I expect you’ll be wantin’ to have a wee snizzle and snore, anywho, eh, Nev?’
Neville nodded. Anything to stop his dooda from telling more stories about terrible beasts in the sea they were going to cross. He buried himself deep into the laundry pile.
‘Well, nighty-nighty, you two,’ said Clod, heading for the door. ‘See you bright and bungly in the morrow.’
Rubella blew out the bedside lantern and slumped on to her back.
‘Sweet dreams, Nev,’ she snickered in the darkness. ‘Sleep tight … Don’t let the sea monsters bite.’
