So Mr Meek climbed up the tallest tree he could find. Holding on tight to THE MONSTERPEDIA, which was trying to squirm out of his hand, he spotted a number of creatures from the pages of the book.
There was:
The wong-wing bird. It is a one-winged (or uni-winged) bird, which is unsurprisingly flightless. It leaps confidently off branches of trees before plummeting to the ground.
A honkopotamus. This is a distant relation of the hippopotamus, but the honkopotamus is legless (not drunk – it has no legs). As a consequence, the honkopotamus moves around by honking. The force of the wind being pushed out of the back blowhole is so powerful it works like a jet engine. Despite its size and weight, the honkopotamus has been known to reach speeds of over a hundred miles an hour. Whoosh!
The mingo. A miniature mungo.
The mungo. A giant mingo.
The pludge. This is a venomous giant worm, half red, half white. A pludge is too large for the holes into which it burrows and ends up getting stuck. Hence one half gets sunburned and turns red, while the other stays underground and remains white.
SIZZLE!
The flattened humming bungbung. This hairless rodent hums tunelessly all day and night.
“Pom pom pom pom pom!”
The humming is so wretched it makes the ears of any listeners bleed. As a result, the bungbung often finds itself being sat on by bigger creatures desperate to make it stop.
S Q U I S H!
A purplephant. This is a species of elephant that hangs upside down from branches by its trunk. It stays there for so long that it turns purple. If you are walking under one when it turns purple, beware: that means it is going to drop to the ground and flatten you in a second.
A lood. Not to be confused with a looood, a lood is a lime-green lizard so terrifying-looking that it is scared of itself. If it sees its own reflection in the water, it desperately swims away, sometimes for hundreds of miles.
A looood. Not to be confused with a lood. This is a hairless white ape, which is so embarrassed about being naked that it crosses its legs and hops around everywhere.
Also known as “the nude looood” or “the hopping looood” or “the nude hopping looood”. One was once spotted shoplifting dresses from a womenswear boutique, causing the old dear behind the counter to faint.
However, despite Mr Meek being able to see for miles around from the top of the tree, there was absolutely no sign of a FING anywhere. The wind blew across the deepest, darkest, jungliest jungle, and his thoughts turned to his darling daughter. As a father, he couldn’t let Myrtle down. He had to find a FING, whatever it took. If not, there would be tears. Most likely his, not hers. He thought about home. While the sun was setting across the jungle, Mr Meek pictured Mrs Meek putting Myrtle to bed. Right about now, his wife would be reading their daughter a bedtime story before being clonked on the head with the book and fleeing from the girl’s bedroom, screaming.
“ARGH!”
A tear rolled down Father’s cheek. It was a beautiful scene.
“Myrtle,” he said, “I won’t let you down.”
Now lost in thought, he lost his footing. It was hard gripping on to a tree with just the one sandal. As a result, he slid down the trunk at speed, his bottom hitting each and every branch as he descended…
Suddenly Mr Meek remembered he had lost his hold on the book. “THE MONSTERPEDIA!” he exclaimed.
Right on cue, the mighty tome thwacked him on the head.
It knocked him out cold.