Chapter 2

(The plot thickens. I normally find that a little gravy or glue on the end of my quill pen does the job quite nicely.)

T revor Augustus Trout, known to everyone as Tat, and his best friend, Hetty, were sitting side by side in class trying to solve some hideously horrible math problems that their teacher, Miss Green, had assigned. They were the kind of math problems that make you feel as if your brain has turned into squirming worms that are being gobbled alive by hungry ostriches — unless you are Hetty, who was the cleverest girl in Little Snoring and possibly the cleverest brainiac in the entire universe. Her brain loved math problems — the more hideous and horrible the better. Everyone always said that Hetty knew everything (which wasn’t quite true because she definitely didn’t know where Captain Syd’s treasure was buried).

It was the last day of the school year, and to Miss Green’s disgust, many of the children had arrived late. This was because of a massive traffic jam caused by trucks heading to Little Snoring Castle, where the big Hollywood movie Raiders of the Lost Shark was about to start shooting.

Once she had taken the attendance, Miss Green was even more displeased to discover that, as it was the last day of the school year and all the children hoped to audition that afternoon as extras for the movie, they had ants in their pants and were finding it hard to sit still.

(VERY IMPORTANT WARNING:
Please do not try putting ants in your pants at home, as some species of ant may bite even harder than my pet terrapin, which has a mean streak a mile wide and has a particularly nasty nip.)

Tat had more ants in his pants than anybody else in the class. He didn’t want to be in the movie, but he did want to find treasure. Over breakfast his dad, who was trying to earn some extra money by helping to unload the equipment for the movie, had shown him the Little Snoring Gazette and the story that pointed to Captain Syd’s lost treasure being buried in Little Snoring Castle. Definitely. Maybe.

Tat couldn’t wait to start looking for it. He hoped the movie would give him a chance to get inside the castle, which was normally locked. He was determined to restore the Trout family finances, which — as usual — were in very bad shape because although his dad had got his job back (part-time) as the lighthouse keeper, Tat and his little sister Tallulah’s feet would keep on growing, which was very selfish of them. Having to buy new shoes was putting a strain on the family budget.

Tat looked at the math questions and sighed loudly. He was of the opinion that there are only three kinds of people — those who can count and those who can’t — and each time he added two numbers together, his brain gave a squeal like a small, unhappy pig who has just been informed where bacon comes from. Every time he squealed, Miss Green glared at Tat.

Miss Green had been ever so much nicer to Tat — who was not very good at school subjects, but was very good at the things that really matter such as outwitting pirates, digging for treasure and swimming long distances — since he and Hetty had got rid of the Ghastly McNastys and discovered all the lost shoes of Little Snoring. She had not just given him a Super Star but also a certificate, which was the first time that a member of the Trout family had received any kind of certificate since 1831 when Thomas William Ignatius Trout (otherwise known as TWIT) had been certified as being quite mad.

Mrs. Trout proudly displayed the Super Star and both certificates on the mantelpiece. They sat alongside a two-for-one offer for a miracle cream that stops feet smelling like stinky cheese (which she was going to get for Mr. Trout, whose feet smelled like that kind of overripe Brie that is always trying to slide off the plate and make a dash for the door) and a coupon for a holiday swimming with crocodiles.

Tat sighed. Over the last few weeks Miss Green had quite run out of Super Stars and niceness and she kept bursting into tears. As a result she had developed an almost permanent runny nose. She sat at her desk scrawling angrily across the children’s homework — a project about spiders and their babies — with a red pen, while sniffing sadly.

She and Mrs. Slime, the McNastys’ former second mate — reformed and regretful — who now lived in Little Snoring and helped out with reading once a week at the school, spent Sundays together taking turns wiping their noses on each other’s sleeves and trying to avoid falling over in the rising puddles of snot and tears that accumulated around their rain boots. Mrs. Slime’s cold had improved enormously since she had stopped working for the McNastys and become friends with Tat and Hetty. She now only needed five tissue boxes a day, except on the days where she experienced the slightest sign of stress and her nose gushed like a fast-flowing river.

Tat could remember precisely when all Miss Green’s niceness had been used up. It was on the very day, four weeks ago, when it had been announced that Little Snoring Castle was to be the location for the latest pirate movie — Raiders of the Lost Shark — being made by Bigwig Junior the Third, the famous hotshot Hollywood film director. Hetty had brought the Little Snoring Gazette into class and read out the article to everyone. It said that the Caribbean had become far too expensive for pirate movies and that Little Snoring had been chosen instead because of its famous crumbling castle with its saltwater moat, perched right on the edge of the sea. Bigwig Junior didn’t seem to be at all worried that Little Snoring Castle was damp, dank, dirty, dangerous, dingy and full of very hairy spiders the size of dinner plates. He loved spiders.

Hetty and Tat had thought that Miss Green, who was also fascinated by spiders, would be very excited to hear that a famous Hollywood movie director loved them, too. All year she had been trying to get permission to take the children into the locked-up castle to study its spiders as part of their project on arachnids, but without success. She had even brought in a plan of the castle, which detailed all its rooms and its five hundred dank dungeons laid out over thirteen levels.

But when Hetty read out the newspaper article, all the children became overexcited at the prospect of playing extras in the movie, while Miss Green had just burst into tears.

They had been about to do chocolate finger painting, but Miss Green forgot about that and instead gave them a spelling test that included really difficult words like really and difficult.

Now, a month later, Tat progressed very slowly and painfully to the fourth math problem. He was thinking about treasure. If the Little Snoring Gazette was correct, and Captain Syd’s treasure was almost certainly, definitely, maybe buried in the castle, he hoped that the movie wouldn’t get in the way of his trying to find it.

Tat’s stomach rumbled. He remembered that he had a few jam sandwiches somewhere in the depths of his pocket. If he picked the fluff off one of the sandwiches and ate it without Miss Green noticing, it might give his brain the extra energy it needed to struggle on to question five.

He fished around in his pocket.

“What are you looking for?” hissed Hetty.

“Fuel to keep me alive,” said Tat gloomily.

Hetty grinned and squeezed his arm. “You’ve only got to stay alive for the next eleven minutes and nineteen seconds, Tat,” she said soothingly, “and then we’re on our summer holidays and we can start hunting for treasure again. I’ve got a good feeling. I just know that this time we’ll find the treasure.”

“Yes,” said Tat, who was sure that if Hetty knew something, it was almost certainly true. “And this time we won’t have to worry about the Ghastly McNastys getting their grubby thieving hands on it because they are far away.” Triumphantly, Tat pulled a small fluff-covered packet out of his pocket and maneuvered it onto his lap. It was full of strawberry jam sandwiches — Tat’s favorite — wrapped in an inside page of that morning’s Little Snoring Gazette. The wrapping had come loose.

“What have you got there?” demanded Miss Green, eyeing Tat suspiciously. “If it’s a jam sandwich, Tat, I’m going to keep you in detention for the next six weeks. We will do triple arithmetic and double spelling together every single day without fail, and I will definitely make you spell very difficult words such as definitely, abominable, budgerigar and crocodile.”

Tat gulped. Everyone knew that budgerigar is hard to say and impossible to spell unless you are a Super Star brainiac genius like Hetty.

The quick-thinking Hetty snatched the sandwiches off his lap and promptly sat on them. She felt the jam ooze down the back of her legs. Hetty had landed herself in a particularly sticky situation — but then she had helped Tat out of a sticky situation, and helping each other out of sticky situations is the reason we have friends.

“Come here, Tat,” said Miss Green ominously. “Bring whatever you’ve got in your hand with you. I’ve warned you before. There are three things that I will not stand in my classroom: imagination, reading for pleasure and jam sandwiches. They are all simply frightful for attracting wasps.” She held out her hand. Tat gave her the slightly sticky newspaper. The headline shouted:

EXCLUSIVE!
BIGWIG JUNIOR THE THIRD ARRIVES IN LITTLE SNORING.

There was a large picture of a smiling Bigwig Junior the Third:

He was quoted as saying, “Raiders of the Lost Shark is going to be the biggest and best pirate movie ever made. Even sharks will be selling their teeth to the tooth fairy for a ticket. All those who want to be extras should come dressed as pirates to Little Snoring Castle this afternoon for auditions. Please don’t worry about the spiders; we have removed them to a safe place — all except one the size of a car tire. It got away but is probably harmless provided nobody upsets it.”

Miss Green stared at the headline and picture and looked very sad. “Class dismissed,” she shouted, and the children cheered and headed for the exit, delighted that their summer was beginning at last.

At the door, Tat glanced back. A bedraggled parrot had alighted on the windowsill, and Miss Green was absentmindedly feeding it one of the squashed jam sandwiches that Hetty had sat on. A tear was running down Miss Green’s cheek.

Even though Miss Green had been horrid to him, Tat had a kind heart and he couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. He wondered what was making her so very unhappy.