Now, of course, the important thing to remember with honkopotamuses (or, rather, honkopotami for the plural*) is that a bubble is just the beginning. A bubble means there is a lot more to come. Mr Meek looked down to see a huge jet of air shooting out from between his feet.

The creature powered through the water like a torpedo.

Despite hitting a hundred miles an hour, the FING was still not letting go of Father’s finger.

If you thought things couldn’t get any worse, then think again. In fright at all the commotion, a flock of wong-wing birds took off from a tree in which they’d been nesting.

CLUCK! CLUCK! CLUCK!

Having just one wing (each, not between them – that would be plain silly), they spun through the air, whacking the poor man across the face…

“OW! OW! OW!”

…before they nose-dived into the water.

SPLISH! SPLASH! SPLOSH!

This served to continue the chain reaction. The wong-wing birds plunging into the lake attracted the attention of another creature lurking in the depths.

The two-headed .

It also had its own entry in THE MONSTERPEDIA. The was not unlike a crocodile, but instead of having a head and a tail it had two heads and no tail.*

Two huge, hungry mouths to feed meant DOUBLE TROUBLE.

The main drawback of having two heads and no tail was that the creature was directionless. One head wanted to go one way, and the other, well, the other way. Still, Mr Meek looked like a tasty treat to this creature. So the thrashed around in pursuit, both sets of jaws snapping at the man as if he were dinner.

What with the FING biting his finger, the honkopotamus blasting bottom bubbles from below, the wong-wing birds dive-bombing from above and of course the snapping at his heels, Mr Meek was beginning to think that this might be the end.

” he cried. “PLEASE CAN SOMEONE TAKE THE MONSTERPEDIA BOOK BACK TO THE LIBRARY? THERE IS A FEE TO PAY!”

Shouting didn’t help one bit. In fact, it made things worse. Much worse. The shout woke up another animal. Not just any animal. Oh no.

Mr Meek had woken up the

deadliest animal in

the world.