32
Leave it to Mug

No, thought Boo. Princess Princess couldn’t be dead!

All around him ancient Heroes and students checked the edges of the nets to make sure none of the bogeys could wriggle free. The Werewolf General patted him briefly, comfortingly. Then he too was gone, working his way around the field of bogeys.

Someone shuffled next to him. It was Mug. He’d found duct tape somewhere and managed to stick his arm and leg back on, though the leg was back to front. The zombie bent his face down close to Princess Princess’s. He sniffed at her through the net. ‘Her dead all rights.’

He pulled a knife from somewhere in his armour and began to cut through the net. Boo grabbed the strands in his jaws, pulling the edges away from Princess Princess’s body.

‘Oh.’ Yesterday knelt beside them. She took Princess Princess’s lifeless hand in hers. ‘She…she was so brave at the end. A true Hero. Just like she always wanted to be. The bravest of the brave…’ Her voice broke. ‘She can’t be dead. She can’t!’ The dinosaurs peered over her shoulder, keening.

‘She dead all rights,’ repeated Mug. Why wasn’t Mug crying too? wondered Boo. He knew Mug didn’t like Princess Princess much. But Princess Princess had been their friend.

Mug lifted Princess Princess up. Her head lolled against his armour. Boo and Yesterday followed as Mug carried her over the net to a clear space beyond the tents.

Mug laid Princess Princess on the grass. She almost looked like she was asleep, except for the blood at her throat. Her face still held the look of concentration it had worn as she Zoom!ed into a squad of bogeys.

Mug reached into his backpack. ‘Wonder if she like gold fungus or pink?’

‘What…what do you mean?’ stammered Yesterday. Her new blue lady-in-waiting dress was tattered. Boo’s heart warmed a little. Somehow Yesterday always seemed to turn her clothes to tatters.

Mug looked up, surprised. ‘When she become zombie.’

‘You can do that?’ gasped Boo.

‘Sure. Me Hero zombie, remember?’

‘But…but would Princess Princess want to be a zombie?’

‘Well, she wouldn’t want to be dead, boy.’ It was the Werewolf General again. He clapped Mug on the shoulder, his claws rattling against the armour. ‘If this lad can get her moving again, I say go to it. Good Hero work, you lot, by the way.’

‘A good deed, indeed. Get it? Have a banana.’ The principal’s furry face peered over the Werewolf General’s shoulder. He hasn’t noticed Lottie yet, thought Boo. How will he feel when he finds his Hero daughter is a bogey?

Lottie…Mum…he couldn’t cope with either of them now. His brain only had room for this. He took the banana in his mouth absently, then spat it out. It tasted of blood. It hurt to bite. It hurt to think. It even hurt to feel.

‘Not good for the school’s reputation to lose a student,’ added Dr Mussells. ‘Go ahead, young zombie. Do your zombie thing. Hate to have to tell her father that his daughter’s dead.’

Boo wondered how the principal would tell the King of Pewké that his daughter was a zombie.

Could Mug really do it? He gulped. Sometimes lately he hadn’t liked Princess Princess at all. But he didn’t want her dead. He wanted her alive, insulting him, showing off…

Mug held out his hand. A strange white powder lay among the green of his fungus. He sprinkled it across Princess Princess’s lifeless form, then bent down again. He whispered something in one of her ears, and then the other, then breathed up into her nose.

‘Errrk,’ Princess Princess twitched. ‘What’s that? There’s fungus up my nose! Yuck!’ She tried to sit up, her eyes fluttering open. ‘What are you doing to me, you dumb zombie?’

Mug’s big hand pushed her down. ‘You lies still till me sews you up. Otherwise you falls apart.’

‘I what?’ Princess Princess’s blue eyes blinked up at them. ‘Sir, what are you doing here?’

‘We’ve just defeated all the hordes of the Ghastly Otherwhen,’ announced Dr Mussells carelessly. ‘Captured the lot of them in our net. A good catch, eh? Get it?’ The little monkey’s grin grew wider. ‘This is going to look very good in the school’s annual report.’

‘What…what happened to me?’ Princess Princess’s voice quavered.

‘You dead,’ said Mug. He held up a giant needle and thread.

‘I’m what?’ Princess Princess struggled again, then felt the wound across her neck. ‘I…I can’t be dead!’

‘No worries. You not dead dead. You zombie dead.’

‘What!’ Princess Princess’s shriek made the dinosaurs beep in surprise. ‘Me? A zombie? An actual zombie! NO!’

‘Yes,’ said Mug calmly, threading the needle. ‘Can unzombify if like,’ he added.

‘But…but…sir!’ She thrust Mug away from her neck with her hand, then appealed to Dr Mussells. ‘There has to be some way out of this!’

‘Not that I know of,’ said Dr Mussells. ‘Like a banana?’

‘Her not suppose to eat for half hour after zombify,’ rumbled Mug. He gently pushed Princess Princess’s hands back onto the grass and began to sew. Boo shut his eyes. Mug was a surprisingly neat sewer…but even so Boo couldn’t bear to watch.

Dr Mussells stood up. ‘Interesting procedure, that zombifying. Might have to get you teaching a zombie class one day.’

Mug beamed. ‘Me a teacher? Mum be proud! There,’ he added. ‘Me finished sewing. You can sits ups now.’

Yesterday helped Princess Princess to sit up, her arm around her shoulders. ‘But I can’t be a zombie,’ wailed Princess Princess. ‘What handsome prince is going to look at me now?’

‘Doom! Doom! Told you there be Doom. Bogeys doomed real good.’ Graunt Doom tottered across the still wriggling bogeys, leaning on her stick. Her hat was chewing a tentacle. She peered down at Princess Princess. ‘Her makes good-looking zombie,’ she roared. ‘An’ you no worries about prince, girl. Handsome prince right here with you, now.’

‘Where?’ wailed Princess Princess. She sniffed. ‘I can’t let a handsome prince see me like this. I have to do my hair… my nails. And I’m a zombie!’ She gulped. ‘I don’t believe there is a handsome prince at all. You just told me that to get me here.’

‘Me no lie,’ boomed Graunt Doom calmly. ‘This handsome prince! Nephew!’

‘You…you mean…?’

‘Yeah. Me prince,’ said Mug. He wrenched off his leg, tearing the duct tape, turned it round and began to sew it back on properly.

‘Him handsome too,’ boomed Graunt Doom. ‘Most handsome zombie I knows.’

‘But…But what’s he prince of?’

‘Me prince of Zombie Island.’ Mug bit off the thread and tucked his needle back into his pack. ‘But me no wants you,’ he added. ‘You not even grow fungus yet. You ugliest zombie me ever seen. You rude too.’

‘Ooooh!’ wailed Princess Princess. She covered her face with her hands. ‘I’m a zombie! And there’s no handsome prince, only a zo—zombie! Nothing, nothing can be worse than this!’

‘Oh, yes it can,’ said a voice. It was a light and cheerful voice—and a familiar one. It came from somewhere high above them all.

‘For I’m afraid that you can see

You haven’t seen the last of me.’

How do octopus bogeys get around the Ghastly Otherwhen? They go by octobus

FROM DROP DEAD LAUGHING BY THE GREEDLE