A RIGHT PICKLE!

‘FRANKIE!’

I jolted awake with a yelp, flailing my arms about like an upturned tortoise. The scream was so loud it echoed round my bedroom and knocked my framed portrait of Great-Great-Great-Grandad Abraham off the wall.

‘FRANKIE, COME QUICK!’

Sitting up in bed, I rubbed the sleep from my groggy eyes and glanced about, not sure if I was dreaming.

I’d been up late last night, helping Mum with an incident in the garden. Lady Leonora Grey, one of our ghost guests, had got so excited about winning a game of croquet that she’d accidentally exploded ectoplasm all over a family of hobyahs enjoying an evening outside. It was slime central! The Lawn was furious …

Hoggit, my pet pygmy soot-dragon, whimpered at me from the fireplace. All the yelling had made the orange glow between his scales turn to a pale grey, and he puffed out a chain of tiny smoke rings … a sure sign he was feeling nervous.

‘FRANKIE! IT’S URGENT!’

It was Nancy, our hotel cook, speaking to me through the yell-a-phone, a trumpet-shaped contraption sticking out of the wall just above my head. The hotel is so big that we have a yell-a-phone in nearly every room so we can talk to each other wherever we are.

I stayed silent for a minute, deciding whether to pretend I hadn’t heard her. Normally, if Mum, Dad or Nancy called me on the yell-a-phone in the morning, it was because they wanted me to help out with MEGA-BORING chores around the hotel, and I wasn’t about to do that. I’m not noggin-bonked after all!

‘ANSWER ME, DEAR, PLEASE!’

I pricked up my pointy ears. Nancy’s voice sounded high-pitched and panicked.

‘WE’RE IN A RIGHT PICKLE!’

‘A RIGHT PICKLE!?’ I gasped, then threw back the blankets and jumped out of bed. If you’d spent any time at all in our hotel, you’d know that ‘a right pickle’ could mean any sort of disaster!

We’d had a ‘right pickle’ just last week when a Madagascan muskrumple smashed through the kitchen wall and demolished half the cupboards after he found out we’d run out of bread rolls to go with the seagull-snot soup!

OH! Hang on a second! I’ve just realised that if you haven’t read any of my books before, you’re probably wrinkling up your forehead and saying, ‘WHAT ON EARTH IS HE TALKING ABOUT?’

Well, don’t panic! There are definitely one or two things you need to know before we carry on, but it’ll only take me a moment. I’m super good at telling stories. Madam McCreedie, one of our banshee guests, said so … and banshees are NEVER wrong.

I should probably start with an introduction. HELLO! My name is Frankie Banister and I live in the Nothing To See Here Hotel. Ever been to stay here for your holidays?

Ha! Of course you haven’t! It’s the best holiday destination for magical creatures in the whole of the UK and we have a STRICTLY NO HUMANS rule.

Well … no humans unless you’re married to a magical, like my mum. She’s completely human and my dad is what’s known as a halfling, which makes me a quarterling, I suppose. Yep, I’m one thirty-sixth troll and proud of it.

Ever since my great-great-great-human-grandad, Abraham Banister, married my great-great-great-troll-granny, Regurgita Glump, about a hundred years ago, my family tree has been a proper muddle. It’s full of trolls and humans, witches, bogrunts, puddle nymphs and just about every other type of magical creature you can think of. Brilliant, huh?

Let’s not worry too much about all that family stuff now though. I’ll fill you in on the details as we go, I promise, plus I’ve stuck a picture of my family tree at the beginning of this book for you to have a peek at.

Now, I know it all seems a bit impossible – I’m sure this sounds like a bunch of silly nonkumbumps – but I’m not even kidding. If you’ve read my first book, you’ll know that Frankie Banister NEVER tells lies.

My name really IS Frankie Banister, I really DO live with my mum and dad, Rani and Bargeous, in a hotel for magical creatures on Brighton’s seafront, and Nancy the giant spider (ooops! I forgot to mention that part) had just ruined my sleep, warning me about a right pickle.

So, before you throw this book in the bin, shouting, ‘I’M NOT READING THIS! FRANKIE BANISTER HAS POPPED HIS CLONKERS! THIS IS GOING TO BE THE WEIRDEST TALE EVER!’, read on just a teensy bit more …

You’ll be hooked in no time, I just know it.

‘Nancy?’ I barked into the metal trumpet of the yell-a-phone. ‘I’m here!’

‘Ooooh! Frankie! I’ve been calling you for yonks and yonkers!’

‘What’s happened?’ I shouted, suddenly feeling a queasy mix of excitement and fear bubble up in my tummy. ‘A plague of gurnips? A Kraken in the swimming pool? A coachload of Stink Demons?’

‘No, my dearie,’ Nancy wailed. ‘It’s much, MUCH worse than that. Get down here as quick as you can! IT’S RUINED! THE DAY’S RUINED!!!’

I didn’t need telling twice. I scooped Hoggit out of the fireplace, jumped into the armchair in the corner of my room, clicked the dial on its arm to the correct position and impatiently waited as it juddered down through my bedroom floor to the library below.