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Once upon a time there were two terrible Twits. And this is the story of how they were taught a lesson by some very brave children and some rather unusual animals.
More on that in a moment.
But fi rst you need to see just how terrible the Twits were. It would be easier to think of nice things to say about a pair of sweaty socks than the Twits.
They were nasty, ghastly wretches, who hated everything, and everyone. Including each other!
Every morning, as sure as clockwork, they’d wake up and begin planning the mean, dirty tricks they would play on one another.
Mrs Twit’s favourite was to secretly slip her glass eye into Mr Twit’s mug. Then she’d watch. And wait, licking her lips with excitement, until Mr Twit took a huge, dribbly slurp . . .
‘ARGH! ’ he’d splutter, as he caught sight of the eyeball at the bottom of his mug. Mrs Twit would laugh so much she’d nearly pee her pants.
‘I’m always watching you!’ she’d cackle.
Mr Twit was just as horrible. He liked to sneak into the bedroom while Mrs Twit was asleep, and place a large, colourful toad
on her chest. Not that she’d be asleep for long . . .
SCHWUMP!
The toad would sucker her forehead with its long, sticky tongue, and pull her up with a violent jerk. Mr Twit would laugh so hard, he’d nearly burst his braces!
Yes, the Twits were disgustingly dreadful. But even people who hate everything, love something. And for the Twits it was their amusement park, called Twitlandia. They’d been building it in their garden. It was the one thing they truly cared about. The one thing they wanted everyone in the whole world to see . . .
And they did!
Well, sort of.
A few people in the nearby city of Triperot saw it, thanks to a slightly wonky
home-made TV advert, which featured the Twits showing off some of Twitlandia’s strange assortment of rides . . . a rickety roller coaster. A rotating toilet ride. And a ginormous swinging pirate ship that seemed to have been made from glued-together old tin cans.
For local orphans Beesha and Bubsy, who happened to be passing the TV-repair shop just as the advert was playing on the screens in the window, it was a splash of colour in their rather grey world.
Beesha laughed. ‘That looks like the –’
– ‘most AMAZING place in the world!’
Bubsy interrupted, squishing his small face against the glass to get a closer look.
‘Um . . . yeah . . .’ Beesha raised an eyebrow. ‘I definitely wasn’t going to say horrifying and lame. ’ 4
‘But Beesha . . .’ Bubsy continued, his eyes WIDE with excitement, ‘it has rides made out of toilets!’
‘And who doesn’t want that?’ Beesha replied, smiling. ‘OK, Bubsy boy, I promise to take you on the rides at Twitlandia before –’ she clutched her hands to her chest in mock horror – ‘before you leave me forever next week when you get adopted!’ Then her face broke into a huge grin, and she hugged him tight.
But Beesha wouldn’t keep her promise to Bubsy . . . because at that very moment, on the other side of the city, the Twits were greeting their first – and only! – visitor to Twitlandia: an official from Triperot city who had come to deliver some bad news.
‘ Condemn-ned? ’ Mrs Twit said, reading the large sign the official was attaching to the park’s gates.
Yes. Condemned. The city had shut Twitlandia down for being dangerous, structurally unsound, and stinking of rancid hot-dog meat.
‘
RANCID HOT-DOG MEAT?’
Mrs Twit let out a shriek of anger, so shrill that all the light bulbs on the Twitlandia sign exploded. And Mr Twit roared, so thunderously that people miles away thought a hurricane must be on its way. (It was. But not the type they were expecting.)
And the Twits carried on shrieking and roaring until the sun went down. Then they slunk off to bed with a new thought in their dark minds . . . revenge.
You see, Twitlandia was the Twits’ baby, and it had been taken from them. So they vowed to do to the city of Triperot what it had done to Twitlandia.
They would play a trick so fantastically filthy, so monstrously MEATY, it would change the lives of everyone in Triperot –especially Beesha and Bubsy – forever.
CHAPTER ONE Revenge
It was a sunny day in Triperot. Birds were chirping. The traffi c was moving along nicely. And most people were going about their business with a smile. Most people.
‘ GET OUT OF THE WAY! ’ Mr Twit slammed his hand on the bonnet of the car he’d just stepped out in front of, glaring at the driver through the windscreen. The driver shrank back. Mr Twit did not
look like the sort of man you wanted to get into an argument with. His giant, spiky beard was a mass of squirming bristles that started in his earholes, then travelled across to his nostrils before dropping down to his belly, casting a huge shadow over the car. His eyebrows were thick and bushy, too, framing his angry little eyes. And below them was a square-toothed sneer that suggested he might chomp through anything that got in his way.
‘Sorry,’ the driver squeaked.
‘Should think so too!’ Mr Twit gave the car another thump, then stomped over the top of it, bouncing on the roof as he went, with Mrs Twit marching by his side.
‘Good morning.’ A smiley lady from the house across the road waved to the Twits as they clomped past. Mrs Dee Dungle liked to smile at people. And wave. A lot. 9
Mrs Twit didn’t.
She scowled back, her big green-andpurple hairdo wafting in the wind. ‘What’s so good about it?’
‘Um – well . . .’ Dee Dungle looked at her husband, Horvis, who was cutting the grass. Sometimes it was hard to think of an actual reason why the morning was good. The Dungle family didn’t have much of anything, other than each other.
‘It’s a good day because the sun’s shining,’
Dee Dungle said at last, bEAming at Mrs Twit. Who glowered back. Of course.
‘I also think that,’ Horvis added, echoing his wife’s positive thought. ‘Also as well.’
‘Huh,’ Mrs Twit grunted, shaking her stick. (She didn’t actually need a stick for walking. She just liked to hit things with it. Dogs. Cats. Small children.) ‘Rotten old turnips.’
Luckily for the Dungles, there was no time to get into a conversation. The Twits had business to take care of.
They snuck down the next alleyway, keeping close to the buildings so no one would see them. Then they crept round the corner at the end, skulking in the shadows by the side of a truck with the words Liquid Meat written on it. (If you’ve ever eaten a hot dog, then you’ll know all about liquid meat . . . because it’s the gloopy pink goo that gets squirted into sausage skins to make them!)
The Twits winked at each other as they watched and waited.
Not that the driver noticed. She was whistling a cheery tune while she unhooked the big hose at the back of the truck and began to attach it to the hot-dog factory behind.
That’s when the Twits made their move. Before the driver could open her mouth to shout ‘ STOP! ’ , they were off! Mrs Twit grabbed the wheel of the truck, rammed her foot hard on the accelerator pedal, and thundered away down the street with the long, dangly meat hose dragging behind.
ZOOM . They shot through the city. Past buildings. And shops. And the fire station . . .
Heads turned. People gasped. Cars and pedestrians dived out of their way. They even interrupted the city’s mayor, Wayne John John-John (a name so good, his parents used it three times!). He was just about to cut a ribbon on a new statue, which looked like a big pink squiggle, when the Twits roared past, leaving everyone coughing in a cloud of dust.
Finally the truck screeched to a stop 12
outside the city’s water tower, and the Twits jumped out. They stood there for a moment, squinting up at the structure. With its LONG metal legs and giant tank at the top, it reminded Mrs Twit of a huge, spindly spider. The sort she liked to find in the shed and put in her pocket, so she could pull it out at teatime and pop it on Mr Twit’s plate!
But this tower wasn’t for catching. It was where all the city’s water came from. It supplied everything. Taps. Toilets. Hospitals. Restaurants. Schools . . . and every house in Triperot.
Mrs Twit’s eyes sparkled with mischief as she pulled a spanner out of the pocket of her dirty denim dress. ‘Ready, you filthy old frumpet?’ she asked Mr Twit.
‘Ready, you maggoty old monster!’ he replied. Then he followed Mrs Twit to the
back of the truck and together they dragged the giant liquid-meat hose towards the tower.
In five minutes flat, the deed was done. They’d hooked the hose up to the water tower, and now a steady stream of pulsating, putrid, pink, stinky goop was shooting out of the meat truck and into the city’s water system.
From the top of the tower, where the Twits had climbed, they had a perfect view of their terrible trick.
‘Just watch that gloop go!’ Mr Twit gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Looks good, don’t it.’
Mrs Twit nodded. ‘Revenge tastes yum.’
‘Better than Bird Pie,’ Mr Twit added.
‘ NOTHING tastes better than Bird Pie.’
Mrs Twit glared at him for a moment, then she let out a loud cackle and began to do her happy dance, kicking up her denim boots
and jerking and waggling her arms in the air.
Mr Twit joined in, spinning and twirling and twisting and curling, his wild beard swishing and swaying, sending old bits of food and the bugs that lived inside flying in all directions.
Meanwhile, across the city, strange noises could be heard. gurgling sounds. And clanking. Rumbles, too. The water pipes were juddering and shaking as the liquid meat began to spread through the system, gushing out of taps and toilets and fire hydrants. It was everywhere. Cafes! Department stores! Even the car wash was flooded with frothy pink gunge.
And high on the hill, back at their home above the city, the Twits watched it all with glee. Their chests were puffed up with triumphant pride. Their beady little eyes
gleamed with delight. This was everything they’d planned and more. Then . . .
KABOOM!
The city’s water tower exploded, and meat chaos began.
CHAPTER TWO meat flood mayhem
For Burl Napkin, humming was a calming habit. Much like walking after lunch, which was what he was doing now. Striding down the streets of Triperot, he hoped that the exercise would settle his belly. Being the boss of the city’s only orphanage was a stressful job. Not because of the kids. He loved them. The hard bit was fi nding homes for them. No, not just homes. great homes! With great people. Trouble was,
there weren’t many families looking for extra mouths to feed right now.
Money was tight in Triperot.
‘ Hummmm, hummmm, hummmity-hum ,’ he hummed, trying to hum away his worries. It hadn’t always been so bad . . .
As he walked down the street, passing empty shops and boarded-up windows, Burl thought about how fine the city had looked, and how busy it had been when he’d first started working at the orphanage. Back then, the city’s
GIANT
lake had made Triperot a magnet for visitors. Businesses had prospered. Families had moved into the city, and neighbours had looked out for one another.
But not now. Tripe Lake had dried up, and so had jobs. Shops closed. Buildings went unrepaired. And people struggled to 18
