TOFFEE THOMAS is the world’s biggest liar at school. No-one ever believes him because he’s always coming up with new crap. He reckons his dad invented the computer. When everyone knows that the only thing his dad knows about computers is how to pinch rude movies. Another time he reckoned that his mum is a world famous doctor. YEAH, RIGHT! Actually she spends so much time with those doctors that try and work out why you’ve gone ‘NUTTSO’ and belong in a loony bin, that she’s probably a world famous patient! So when TOFFEE said that he’d seen a bear in there, we just thought it was another humungous bunch of bull. But this time it wasn’t. For the first time ever TOFFEE was telling the truth. And the BEAR was way, way BIGGER than they looked on those boring nature shows on TV.

I grabbed our Incredibly Awesomely Adjustable Bulravian Periscope out of the back-pack so that we could get a better look. The cavern was about the size of half a footy field and from what we could figure, there only looked like one way out . . . WaAay down the other end . . . OF COURSE.

The HAIRY BEAR was standing up on its hind legs, ready to attack, but in the dull light all I could make out was that its claws were even longer and SHARPER than its teeth. We were definitely going to need a change of daks very soon. Actually I think Jared had needed to change his undies for a while now.

Behind us we could only just hear the groaning and moaning again, the BEAST was coming our way. In front of us was the only way we could go . . . past the BEAR.

Just then I had an idea, as usual, and it was brilliant, as usual! Jared could start zig-zagging around the enormous cavern. Then while the BEAR was chasing him, I could take off out the far opening.

Of course I’d send back help just as soon as I found the way out and Jared is so skinny that there was a good chance that he could slip through the BEARS claws for ages . . . probably . . . maybe.

But for some reason Jared wasn’t that thrilled with the plan.

OH NO! As we stared into the darkness all around the cavern through my periscope, we started to realise that all of those other dark shadows weren’t just ‘STUFF’. The BEAR wasn’t alone in there.

What was this . . . the yearly meeting for all animals great and DEADLY? Or a ‘show us who’s got the biggest claws’ jamboree? Maybe it was just cheaper for them all to share a place to live. But they must’ve known we were coming. Yeah that had to be it! They must’ve known that there was a whole school of ‘kid buffet’ on the way.

Yep . . . there’d be plenty for all of them!

We could barely make out the shapes of most of the other animals. But it was pretty obvious that there was no cutesy wittle bunny wabbits, or fwuffy wuffy kittens in there. There was a huge weird shaped animal the size of a truck and heaps of others of all shapes and sizes and they all definitely had fangs and massive claws that seemed to glow in the dark.

Could it get any worse? Maybe we should go back . . .

“AARRRR . . . OOWWW . . .”

Yes . . . yes it could get worse and it was just about to.

“EERRRR . . . OOWWW . . . AARRRR . . .”

“Maybe if we dig a hole, then hide in it and cover ourselves over. Then whatever’s following us will walk straight over us and into the animals’ lair. Then while they’re trying to rip each other to shreds, we could make a run for it!” Jared suggested.

Hey, that actually wasn’t a bad idea for Jared. Normally a good idea for Jared is when he thinks of something like . . . using the brakes on his bike when he’s just about to smack into a brick wall. This one was pretty good. If only we had a shovel instead of a teaspoon to dig the hole with and a week instead of about twenty five seconds to dig it.

“EERRRR . . . OOWWW . . . AARRRR . . ."

Whatever it was, we were about to find out. It was just about onto us and sounded like it was only back around the last corner.

We were going to have to make a RUN FOR IT! A last chance dash right through the middle of the cavern full of animals, there was no time and no other way.

Jared grabbed out our heavy duty, wide load, single boulder holder sling shots. Then we laid out the ‘AMMUNITION’.

Three loaded, smelly nappies each.

It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. Although right now what we could really use was a spear, or a canon, or a stick, or any sort of weapon, otherwise, very shortly we’d be making some ‘smelly AMMUNITION’ for ourselves, if you know what I mean? There was only one thing that we did know for sure . . . that the teeth around the next corner weren’t just there to smile at us.

As we each loaded up our sling shot we got ready to run.

“AARRRR . . . OOWWW . . . ”

Suddenly it wasn’t just the moaning and groaning that worried us anymore. We could hear FOOTSTEPS! They sounded absolutely ENORMOUS and really close now! Thumping along, getting louder, stronger . . . catching up to us from behind, FAST, and just like when Mum is really peeved, it was thumping along heavier than an elephant wearing lead shoes on a tin roof. The sound began to totally engulf us, echoing and bouncing all around. THUD THUD THUD! There was no time left to think, we had to go, it was now or never.

“EERRRR . . . OOWWW . . . AARRRR . . . ”

“Go!!” I suddenly screamed at the top of my lungs.

With our slingshots at the ready, we leapt out from the corner together and fired our first shot at the gigantic wolf-like BEAR . . . BULLSEYE! I hit it right between the eyes, spraying the contents of the goopy nappy all over its head and straight into its wide open snarl-ing mouth. Jared’s shot seemed to explode as it SLAMMED square into the BEAST’S chest, sending the nappy contents in every direction. We zigged past one, we zagged by another, ducking under outstretched claws, twisting past razor sharp fangs the size of bananas. Like a graceful ballerina I stretched out my legs to do the splits mid air as I leapt across a huge round-ish animal the size of a lounge chair, I think it was a giant, prehistoric man-eating wombat, or something.

At the speed that we were going and without light everything was just a dark fuzzy shape that we had to avoid at all costs. Vicious claws and jaws flashed in front of us as we raced on.

“Jared, look out, tiger!” I screamed as he turned just in the nick of time. He fired another stench loaded shot at the massive set of jaws to his right . . . THUD! yes! Brilliant, HE GOT IT! The tiger dropped like a rock. It fell so heavily that I felt the vibration race through my entire body.

Wow! Smelly Melly’s stinky ‘AMMUNITION’ was stronger than we thought, way stronger . . . luckily for us!

We kept ducking and weaving, dodging and sliding as we fought our way across the cavern towards the only exit. OH GREAT! Suddenly, directly in front of us was some sort of even more GIGANTIC, humongous BEAST. It was bigger than everything else that we’d passed, it was absolutely enormous. It was so big that we just hadn’t seen it. We’d assumed that it was just part of the cavern. And now we were about to smash, head on, INTO IT, like a bug hitting the windscreen of a truck doing two hundred on the freeway. Whatever it was it was standing on all fours with its head just about scraping the ceiling. So right at the very last second I screamed out to Jared. . . “Now!” We both instantly did a full-on belly flop and dove down onto our guts, sliding straight underneath its belly. In an instant I twisted onto my back and fired a shot straight up at its gut as we slid below. The nappy hit its mark and disintegrated on impact, sending the disgusting Melly poop raining down onto us from above. I could feel the warm goop trickling down my skin and mixing in with my salty sweat to then run even faster around my body. Little chunks of solid veggies attacked my face and bounced away. And finally I could feel little tufts of nappy fluff sticking to me like spit-balls . . . but unfortunately they weren’t just soaked in spit.

“AARRRR . . . OOWWW . . . SAM, JARED!”

The BEAST was right behind us, it was about to pounce, it was . . . hang on . . . it knew our names!? It must have already gotten Booga and TOFFEE and . . . and . . . what’s-his-name, you know, the other guy.

We leapt up off our backs and bounced across one animal like it was a trampoline, booted a couple of smaller ones up the backside and out of the way and then sprinted around another bunch of weird BEASTS with vicious, man eating teeth and gut-ripping claws.

“Light ahead!” I yelled.

Finally, through the exit and way up ahead in the distance I could see a faint light. We still had a chance.

“Run, Jared, run!” I yelled. It was only faint, but it was definitely light! Whether it was another group with a torch, or the way out, we didn’t care. The BEAST behind us would hopefully start a fight with the BEAR and all the other ‘THINGS’ on its way through. We were going to make it after all!

“EERRRR . . . OOWWW . . . AARRRR . . . SAM, JARED!!” It wasn’t stopping, it wasn’t slowing down, actually it seemed to be coming faster than before. NOTHING WAS STOPPING IT!

“C’mon Jared we’re nearly there!” I yelled with my lungs burning from the chase. Every breath was total Agony. It felt like my rib cage was about to explode and chuck-up my organs all over the place.

We were so close and it was obvious now that it wasn’t just another group with a torch up ahead. As we made our way towards the exit, we could just make out that there was only one more small chamber to go through, with the exit on the other side. It was the way out . . . this time we were SURE!

We raced along in the darkness, nothing could stop us now. Nothing could be worse than what we’d been through. So no matter what, we had to keep going.

We raced into the last chamber . . . just a few more metres and we’d be . . .

“Aarrhhh!” . . . SMACK!

My feet flew up into the air and kicked myself in the head. . . THAT HURT . . . as Jared suddenly SMACKED into the back of me. All of a sudden, we were both ‘dancing’ around like insane Orangutans, trying to grab for anything in the dark to stay standing up.

SMASH . . . SLIP . . . splash!

We smacked into walls and CRASHED through everything around us, sending stuff flying through the air. Something that sounded like eggs were SMASHING to the ground and splattering their contents all over us like a thousand POPPING zits. In the slippery, SLIMY goop, we lost our footing and smacked to the ground, spinning around and around, totally OUT OF CONTROL. By the time that we finally stopped I was flat-out keeping my guts down, everything was still spinning like CRAZY.

“Eewww . . . slime!!” Jared said as he flung his hands about in the air and splattered the goop all over the place . . . including on me.

I stared into the darkness and slowly began to make out shapes, shadow . . . egg-shells . . . no it couldn’t be . . . bodies! HUMAN BODIES! They must have been propped up against the wall and we’d knocked them down . . . eewWw!

But what’s worse than bodies? BODY PARTS! Yep, as I scanned the area about us I could see scraps of bodies, there were parts everywhere, it was sooo gross. Oh no, not the little kids! Was this all that was left of the other kids and maybe a teacher or two?

With the dull night light now streaming in from the exit, we couldn’t see a lot of detail, but we could see enough.

“Give me a hand” Jared called from under a pile of bodies. “Thank”

“But I’m over here” I replied as I struggled to my feet.

“Aarrhhhh!” Jared screamed as he realised that he’d grabbed ‘SOMEONE ELSE’S’ hand. He threw it so hard that it flew through the air like a boomerang, somersaulting around my head and then it went straight back to Jared and slapped him in the back of the head. SLAP!

As we ran for the exit our feet slipped and slid all over the place. It felt like we were treading on slimy water-balloons and rotten fruit. But we knew exactly what we were treading on . . . all about us were lungs, hearts, stomachs, intestines . . . eyes! There were bits of organs everywhere and we had no choice but to smoosh right through them. It was like a people butcher shop killing field in there.

And we could tell that they weren’t just human remains either, some of the parts belonged to animals as well. Whatever had happened in there, we weren’t going to stop and investigate, or stay long enough to become part of the collection. We had the exit in sight and we weren’t stopping for anyone, or ANYTHING.

With the last of our strength almost gone, we reached the exit and finally knew that we were going to get outta there.

We’d made it!

We stood at the exit and sucked in the clean air . . . with just one more step we’d be outside and through the archway . . .

“Aaarrrhhhh!!”

A MASSIVE HAIRY CLAW grabbed us from behind and clamped down onto my shoulder and Jared’s, digging its flesh ripping nails into our bodies like a steel vice.

IT HAD US!

Thinking fast I whipped out my Incredibly Awesome Instant Animal Attacker Whacker . . . my yoyo . . . and slid the loop over my finger. Then I threw it out in front of me as hard as I could, spinning it with everything that I had. With a yank of the wrist I flicked it straight back over my shoulder, WHACK!

“#@//#!!!”

The creature instantly released its DEADLY grip from the both of us and stumbled backwards. Jared and I both turned with our sling shots loaded. In a split second we fired our very last shot.

Splatt! splatt!

Yes! Both shots hit right on target, splattering their disgustingly DEADLY loads, dead centre of the face.

YES WE DID IT!

We’d smacked it right in the face . . . the face of . . . of . . . of Mrs Duckson?!