Dunk led Neville along a hallway behind the stage. There were dressing rooms on either side with the actors’ names painted sloppily on each door and the occasional poster of past shows. Neville read each one as he shuffled past.
Dunk stopped outside the door at the far end of the hallway. The painted sign on it read: HALITOSIS AND HER AMAZING HINKA-CIRCUS.
Neville smiled; that sounded quite fun.
‘’Ere we are then,’ Dunk said, nodding politely. ‘Just go in … She won’t hear if you knock.’ Then the hefty troll turned and trudged off back towards the stage, whistling to himself.
‘Thanks,’ Neville called.
‘Ain’t no nevermind,’ Dunk called back.
Neville waited for a moment, then stepped up to the door and listened. Inside, he could hear a huge commotion clattering about. Oh no, he thought. Neville had never actually seen a hinkapoot before. He remembered his mooma describing them as scrawny and little, but that didn’t stop them from having massive claws and razor-sharp teeth.
Ignoring what Dunk had said, Neville knocked softly on the door and waited. There was no answer, just the sound of something smashing.
‘GET DOWN FROM THERE!’ a troll-lady’s voice on the other side of the door screamed. ‘NO! DON’T EAT THAT!’
Why was everything so scary in the Underneath? Neville braced himself and thought of Captain Brilliant, then grabbed hold of the rusty old doorknob and twisted it.
‘Hello,’ he said in a pathetic whimper as he pushed the door slightly. ‘Hello–ooooooooooaaaaaaagggghhhhh!!!!’
Something small and green skittered round the surface of the door and jumped on to Neville’s face. He ran flailing into the room as the small thing gripped hold of both his ears and held on tight. Neville could feel the pinch of tiny dull teeth trying to bite the end of his nose.
‘HELP!’ he shrieked, but the second he opened his mouth, a small foot wedged itself in there. ‘HMELPH!’
‘OH, MY GRACICLES!’ The troll-lady’s voice gasped. ‘HOLD STILL!’
Neville didn’t dare open his eyes. The thing on his face started chittering and squeaking wildly as a pair of troll-hands reached up and scooped it off.
‘Grimble, that’s not nice … Naughty Grimble.’
Neville stood there, frozen in horror, with his eyes clamped shut.
‘It’s OK,’ said the voice. ‘You can look now.’
Neville wasn’t sure he wanted to.
‘Really,’ she said. ‘I’ve got him; he won’t jump on you again.’
Neville very carefully opened one eye and peeked at the troll before him. She was a round troll-girl with palm leaves for hair and large magnifying-glass spectacles.
‘Hello,’ she said, and smiled a shy smile. ‘I’m Halitosis. Sorry about him.’ She held the hinkapoot out at arm’s length for Neville to see.
‘I’m Neville,’ said Neville, gawping at the odd green thing struggling in Halitosis’s hands. It was wearing a little collar with a tag that read GRIMBLE. ‘Abominatia sent me.’
‘Oh, squibbly,’ Halitosis said. She gently put Grimble down on the floor and did a funny hand gesture like the dog trainers at Napoleon’s puppy classes. ‘STAY!’
Neville couldn’t help but stare. The hinkapoot was the strangest thing he’d ever seen – a kind of cross between a troll and lots of types of animals. It was about as high as Neville’s knee and was covered from head to toe in light green and dark green stripes. It had a long body with little hands, feet and a face just like a miniature troll, but out of the top of its head popped a set of enormous rabbit-like ears.
‘CHEE-CHIK-BUHH-BRAA-CHIK! ’ it hollered in a tiny voice.
‘OH!’ Neville yelped. ‘It’s um …’
‘He can be a bit rampageous sometimes,’ said Halitosis. ‘But he’s very friendly. Grimble just thought you were food, didn’t you, Grimble?’
The little thing looked at Neville and licked its lips.
‘They eat anythin’,’ Halitosis said, giggling.
‘Oh, b-brilliant,’ Neville stammered. He squirmed and backed away, only to hear more chittering right by his ear.
‘CHIK-CHI-CHI-CHIK! ’
‘ARGH!’ Neville spun round to see another hinkapoot hanging off a set of coat pegs, waggling its ears at him. ‘EWW!’ He spun back to Halitosis and realized, with growing nervousness, that the room was crawling with hinkapoots. They were sitting on the top of an old wardrobe and crawling over the floor and walls. One was even swinging on a milk-bottle lantern above Neville’s head.
‘CHIK-CHUH-GRA-BRIK-BRIK! ’ they all chirped together. Neville almost jumped out of his pyjamas with surprise.
‘Don’t get jangled,’ said Halitosis reassuringly. She picked up a cane from a broken table and knocked it three times on the floor. The hinkapoots instantly jumped into formation and created a hinkapoot pyramid with Grimble at the top. ‘I have all of them under control.’
‘Ha!’ Neville chuckled, suddenly mesmerized by the little creatures. ‘I can see that.’
‘Now,’ said Halitosis in a big voice, ‘let’s show Neville what you can do.’
She tapped three more times on the floor and the hinkapoots darted about, spinning cartwheels and leapfrogging over one another. Then they formed a circle round Neville’s feet and did flips in both directions.
‘They’re amazing,’ said Neville, desperately trying to ignore the urge to cringe.
‘Thanks.’ Halitosis scuffed her feet shyly. ‘So … um … why did Abominatia send you?’ ‘Oh, I’m supposed to help you get the hinkapoots ready. They’re starting soon.’
Panic spread across Halitosis’s face as if she’d been slapped by an invisible hand.
‘NOW?’ she barked. ‘OH, POOK! NOW?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Neville. ‘Why, what’s wrong? They look ready to go, if you ask me.’
‘We have to get them dressed … QUICK!’ Halitosis shrieked. ‘If we’re late, Abominatia will explode. She’s crazy.’
Halitosis dashed to the wardrobe and started pulling out armfuls of tiny, hinkapoot-sized clothing.
‘What do you think?’ she said, holding up two different types of outfit. ‘Ruffly or not ruffly?’
‘Erm.’ Neville didn’t know what to say. He didn’t have a clue what kind of clothes looked good on a hinkapoot. ‘Ruffly?’
‘Good choice,’ said Halitosis. She threw a bunch of ruffles to Neville and grabbed some for herself. ‘All we have to do is get them on.’
‘What do I have to do?’ said Neville.
Halitosis gave Neville a playful look and shouted, ‘CHARGE!’
Without stopping to think, Neville copied Halitosis and grabbed a hinkapoot off the wall. It wriggled in his hands and CHIK-CHIK-ed angrily.
‘Like this,’ Halitosis said, showing Neville how to smooth down the hinkapoot’s ears and slide the little ruffled collar over its head. ‘Just show it who’s boss.’ She then took the dressed little creature and dropped it into a big wicker hamper.
‘OK,’ Neville said. His heart was beating fast. Dressing hinkapoots was fun and dangerous all in one go and made him feel a bit like his hero, Captain Brilliant. ‘CHARGE!’
Halitosis and Neville jumped about the room, grabbing hinkapoots from all directions.
‘THERE!’
‘GOT ONE!’
‘BEHIND YOU!’
One by one the hinkapoots were dressed and deposited in the basket. They wriggled and chirped inside, but the lid stayed put and none escaped, to Neville’s relief.
‘All done,’ Halitosis said with a big grin. ‘I’m so excited. They’re goin’ to try a new trick tonight.’
‘What’s the trick?’ asked Neville, rubbing a stinging hinka-bite on his knuckle.
‘It’s never been performed before in all the history of hinka-circuses,’ Halitosis said. She wriggled her fingers as if she was casting a magic spell. ‘The Tremundous Hinka-hurl.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Every hinkapoot stands on the next one’s shoulders until they’re all in a big tower. Then Grimble climbs to the top and they throw him as high as he can go … Higher than any hinkapoot’s gone before.’
‘Wow,’ Neville said. His nerves were slowly creeping away and he was starting to feel genuinely excited about the show. He only wished he could sit in the theatre and watch it.
Halitosis grabbed hold of one of the basket handles and nodded to indicate that Neville should grab the other.
‘It’s showtime,’ she said.
They were just in time. As Neville opened the dressing-room door and started pulling the basket up the hall, the ticker-dinger-thinger went …
BOOOOONNNNGGGG!!!