The next morning, back at the hotel, Wilf woke to the sound of arguing outside his window. It was Alan and Kevin Phillips.
“Did you or did you not eat Pam’s left shoe?” asked Alan.
“I did,” said Kevin.
“Bad boy! Shoes are not snacks,” said Alan.
“Well, I wish you’d told me that before I ate her right shoe,” said Kevin with a hiccup.
“Kevin!” said Alan crossly.
“I was upset about her combing my hair,” explained Kevin.
“Well, why didn’t you just say that?” asked Alan, exasperated.
“I did! By eating her shoe,” explained Kevin patiently.
“The thing is,” said Alan, “Pam already doesn’t like you and—”
“Doesn’t like me?!” said Kevin. “Pam LOVES me. She shared her breakfast with me.”
“Shared it or left you alone in the room with it?” said Alan.
“Same thing,” said Kevin.
“No, it is not!” said Alan, and he picked up the POOBUM and threw it angrily onto the ground.
Oh dear, thought Wilf. Alan and Kevin hadn’t been getting along very well recently. Wilf got out of bed and got dressed. As he was tying his shoelaces, he noticed a note from his mom stuck to the door. It said:
Wilf swapped his shoes quickly. Alan looking after Dot seemed like a VERY BAD IDEA indeed. He rushed outside to find them.
“Oh,” said Alan, disappointed. “Not dead then?”
“No. Sorry,” said Wilf. “Where’s Dot?”
“Dot?” asked Alan.
“My sister.”
Alan looked mystified.
“Remind me . . . ?” he said.
“Small, stinky . . .”
“Ah yes. Her. I gave her away.”
“What do you mean?” said Wilf, panicking.
“Well, I’ve been looking for the right ammunition for my BOUNCY EXPLODEY BOMB. I’ve perfected the EXPLODEY part and the BOUNCY part—but I haven’t worked out what to put in it yet.”
“Not Dot!” cried Wilf.
“No, no, not Dot,” said Alan. “I’ve realized children aren’t EXPLODEY enough. No, some chaps came along and wanted her and they said they would give me a huge rock in exchange—so they did and I’m going to use that for my BOUNCY EXPLODEY BOMB. Because I calculate that if the trajectory—”
“This is all very interesting,” said Wilf politely. “But can we just go back to the bit about you giving my sister away? What did these ‘chaps’ look like?”
“They were small chaps,” said Alan. “But very, very strong.”
“What’re their names?” asked Wilf.
“Well, if memory serves they were Debbie, Keith, Sally, Deirdre . . . They were extremely pleasant as dung beetles go,” said Alan.
“Dung beetles?!” screeched Wilf.
“Yes. Dung beetles,” said Alan. “They live over the other side of the jungle.”
Wilf’s eyebrows went all hot. And he felt sick but just in his ears. And his knees wanted to bend the wrong way. Wilf hated beetles—and he wasn’t a huge fan of dung, either. Beetles were so scuttly and crunchy and scary. And dung was, well, dung. The last thing he wanted to do was go and face hundreds of dung beetles. What he wanted to do was go and hide or maybe knit some more sleeping bags for sick snakes (he’d managed four and a half so far) or just go for a big hop or a quiet whistle.
But he couldn’t do any of those things because as much as he hated dungy old beetles, he was jolly fond of his sister. And he had to go and get her back!
Wilf had a big old worry and then he had a big old think—and then he thought so hard that his brain went all floppy—and then he had an idea.
He would take a photo of Dot with him so that he could ask people if they had seen her. And he would take a plate of her favorite snacks to lure her toward him in case she was hiding.
He borrowed a pair of his mom’s high-heeled shoes so that he was higher off the ground and the beetles wouldn’t be able to crawl over his feet or up his legs.1 Next, he wrapped himself in a cloak of tin foil, because it was the closest thing he had to armor. Finally, while Alan and Kevin weren’t looking, he picked up the POOBUM. It might come in handy.
Wilf looked at his “HOW TO STOP WORRYING” leaflet. NUMBER FIVE said:
5) It can be a good idea to set aside worrying time so that you don’t worry all day.
It was 8:34 now, perhaps he could worry for ten minutes and then go and look for his sister. But then when would he brush his teeth?
Perhaps it would be better to worry for five minutes, then brush his teeth and then look for Dot. But what about combing his hair?
So he could worry for three minutes and then brush his teeth and comb his hair, but then that left no time for changing into his lucky pants. Plus, he realized he was wearing purple socks and they didn’t go with his sparkly shoes. That meant changing his socks too. And that meant he only had about one minute to worry and he’d used that all up worrying about when to worry. Phew!
He’d better get going and find Dot.
Wilf set off in his high heels and his shiny cape. Not many people could carry that look off, but Wilf could.
He picked his way through the jungle looking for his sister. If he’d looked a bit harder, he might have noticed some gorillas giggling or some snakes sniggering, but he didn’t. He was too busy trying not to fall over.
He was just beginning to give up hope when he decided to try one last thing. He would turn the POOBUM on and ask the nearest animal if they had seen Dot.
As soon as he turned it on, he heard a noise. The noise of hundreds of tiny voices.
The noise of hundreds of tiny voices singing.
And as he peeped out behind a tree he saw Dot sitting happily on the ground, surrounded by hundreds of dung beetles.
They were singing to her.
This is what they were singing:
Dot giggled in delight at the tiny singing dung beetles. And as she laughed, she let out a smelly blowoff.
“All hail the mighty Dung God!” said the dung beetles.
Wilf stepped forward.
“Excuse me, but she is not the Dung God, she is my sister.”
“She is the all-powerful Dung God!”
“No, she isn’t. She’s just a bit whiffy,” explained Wilf.
“Our supreme leader,” chanted the dung beetles, lifting Dot onto their shoulders. But let’s face it, their shoulders were pretty low, so she wasn’t far off the ground. Plus, her diaper was quite full and saggy, so it scraped along as they carried her.
“For it is written in the Dung scriptures that one will arrive amongst us and, lo, she will be bigger and stinkier than any who has come before,” the beetles continued.
“The thing is,” said Wilf, “it’s really time she had a bath . . .”
“No! Blasphemy! Sacrilege!” cried the dung beetles. “She must remain stinky for all eternity.”
“Well, you’re probably in luck there,” said Wilf.
“And we must scatter precious gifts before her!” exclaimed the dung beetles.
“When you say ‘precious gifts’ . . . ?” said Wilf.
“Dung!”
“Yes. That’s what I was worried you might say. Listen,” said Wilf, “I’ve got a suggestion. What if you had a lovely statue of my sister to look at and to sing to instead?”
The dung beetles stopped and thought about it, but they weren’t sure.
“Look,” said Wilf. He stuck the photograph of Dot to the plate that had the biscuits on it. Then he wrapped the foil cloak beneath the plate to make a body and put the shiny high heels at the bottom.
“Oooooh. Pretty!” said the dung beetles. “But not smelly,” they added sadly.
“I can fix that,” said Wilf. “What about if I gave you my sister’s diaper? I’ve got a clean one in my bag . . .” said Wilf.
“Yuck. Clean,” said the dung beetles.
“No, you’d get the dirty one. I’ll put her in the clean one . . .”
“Deal!” said the dung beetles, and they handed Dot back to Wilf.
“Good-bye, Dung God!” said the dung beetles.
“Bye-bye, Reg,” said Dot. “Bye-bye, Norman. Bye-bye, Debbie. Bye-bye, Elvis. Bye-bye, Simon. Bye-bye, Adrian. Bye-bye, Deirdre. Bye-bye, Keith. Bye-bye, Howard. Bye-bye, Sally . . .”2
Wilf and Dot went happily back to the hotel and returned the POOBUM. And I expect Alan saw sense and stopped his dastardly plans and they all lived happily ever after.
The End.