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  About the Book

  The Unbelievably Scary Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls

  What’s the SCARIEST thing you’ve ever seen?

  Now imagine something even SCARIER.

  SCARIER still?

  You might be getting close to the unbelievable level of scariness that Kipp Kindle, Tobias Treachery and Cymphany Chan encountered in Huggabie Falls.

  A Brussels sprout with a very bad Scottish accent, an alpaca-riding teddy bear and flying bathtubs, not to mention a flock of geese—what could be more unbelievably terrifying? A top-hatted scientist with an evil plan and an assistant who looks scarily just like the evil-but-now-reformed Felonious Dark, that’s what!

  The Unbelievably Scary Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls is the second book in the Huggabie Falls trilogy, the funniest, weirdest, scariest series ever written, so far.

  Contents

  Cover Page

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1: The Trouble with Sequels

  2: A Really Short Chapter

  3: Two Extremely Difficult Smiles

  4: Why Inside a Portaloo is Not a Great Place to Hide

  5: I Hope This Is Not a New Chapter

  6: Oh, This Is Getting Ridiculous

  7: Fortuitous Flyers

  8: A Ghost Train and a Top Hat

  9: The (Not So) Top-Secret Lab

  10: Scare Balls

  11: If You Scare Easily Skip this Chapter

  12: The Dark Family Business

  14: Definitely Not Chapter Thirteen

  15: A Surprisingly Good Substitute

  16: The Nothing-Scary-Here-at-All Party

  17: Cymphany’s Drawing

  18: Free Popcorn, But Still a Bad Party

  19: What the Mystery Person Was Asked to Do

  20: Mocktails and the End of the Story

  21: Time Crystals and Lemonade

  22: The Really Big, Huge Mega Battle

  23: The End of the Sequel Curse

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  For Albert and Edward.

  Courage.

  Love.

  Uncles.

  The three most important things in life.

  If you’ve picked up this book—which I assume you have, otherwise how are you even reading this—then I’m sorry to tell you that this is a sequel. It’s the sequel to The Extremely Weird Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls, which of course was a spectacular book, written by the equally spectacular, devilishly handsome and stupendously modest author, named me. But while that book was a masterpiece, who knows whether this one will be as good?

  In fact, I was against writing a sequel. But so many kids have written to me wanting to know what happened next in Huggabie Falls that I found myself crumbling under the pressure.

  So I have dusted off my typewriter, and cleared off the mess on my desk, and I’ve started writing about another thing that happened in Huggabie Falls, which is quite a coincidence, because something unbelievable just happened in Huggabie Falls, something so unbelievable I scarcely believe it myself.

  But the fact that I can scarcely believe what happened isn’t the biggest problem I have. The biggest problem with writing a sequel is that some of the people who pick up the sequel have not read the first book. If you are one of those people, then I’d like to ask you what the blazes you think you’re playing at? I think you should take a good long hard look at your reading habits.

  So for those people—you know who you are—I’ll summarise the first book: the extremely weird thing that happened in the extremely weird town of Huggabie Falls was by far the weirdest thing that had ever happened anywhere. It was the spread of normality, and Kipp Kindle and his two best friends, Tobias Treachery and Cymphany Chan, realised that they didn’t want their town to become normal, even though they once did, because being weird turned out to be the best thing about their town. So they had to fight the evil thin man Felonious Dark and an evil creepy scientist, whose name I can’t remember, and her henchmen, who weren’t so much evil as just paid to do a job. And I don’t want to ruin anything here, but Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany won, and urgghhh…my brain has already turned to jelly so if you want to know any more then you’ll just have to go and read the first book. I mean, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, what are you playing at?

  Addendum: my publisher has asked that I refrain from insulting and badgering readers about their reading-order habits and that I should express the opinion that readers can read books in any order they like, which sounds just crazy but I’m willing to be proven wrong, even though I’ve never been proven wrong before.

  Now, where was I? Oh yes—the next thing that happened in Huggabie Falls. Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany, fresh from putting a stop to the extremely weird thing that happened in Huggabie Falls, were back in their normal lives. Or as normal as your life can be when you have a teacher who is a witch and, in Kipp’s case, everyone in your family is cursed to turn invisible at puberty, and, in Tobias’s case, your family is so deceitful and distrustful that you have to board up the doors and windows of your house to keep out angry debt collectors. Cymphany’s life, on the other hand, was almost actually back to normal, because her family was the most normal family in all of Huggabie Falls anyway, as the only weirdness in her family was that her father stood on a little bit of a lean.

  Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany were having lunch at the Huggabie Falls Sanctuary for People Fleeing from Witches and Other Dangerous Flying Creatures, on Digmont Drive. They weren’t there trying to flee from their teacher, Ms Turgan, flying on her broom, although ordinarily that would have been a good reason to go there—they were there because the sanctuary’s cafe had some of the best doughnuts in town.

  Kipp was looking at his hand and frowning. ‘You don’t think I’m starting to turn invisible, do you?’ He held his hand up. ‘Look at the back of my hand. Does that look glistening and translucent to you?’

  Tobias looked carefully at his worried friend’s hand. ‘It’s clear icing,’ he said, ‘from the doughnut.’

  Kipp licked his hand, and the relief on his face was instantaneous.

  Cymphany laughed. ‘I’m so glad everything is back to normal—or back to weird. I’d be happy if nothing else ever happened in Huggabie Falls.’

  Tobias nodded. ‘I wouldn’t worry. After the extremely weird thing that happened, I don’t think anything else could happen.’

  At that exact moment a blood-curdling scream ripped through the Huggabie Falls Sanctuary for People Fleeing from Witches and Other Dangerous Flying Creatures. It was so loud, and so forceful, that it pushed Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany’s hair up, making little upright walls on the tops of their heads.

  Kipp glared at his friends, as if to say, why did you say that, why did you tempt fate?

  ‘To tempt fate’ is an expression that means the more you say something will never happen, the more likely it is that the thing will happen. I tempted fate once, when I said, ‘I bet I’ll never, ever, in a million billion years, write a sequel to The Extremely Weird Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls.’ And so, case in point, I think you get what I mean.

  Froggin Fillibuster, the proprietor and chef of the Huggabie Falls Sanctuary for People Fleeing from Witches and Other Dangerous Flying Creatures, came bursting out of the cafe kitchen, his face as white as a ghost, which is another stupid expression because ghosts are often a murky blue or purple colour, as everyone knows.

  He was shaking so much he couldn’t speak. He was wheezing and jabbing his finger at the kitchen wh
ile he backed away from it.

  Kipp jumped up. ‘What is it, Froggin? What happened?’

  ‘It’s in there,’ Froggin said. ‘I saw it. It’s petrifying. It’s a monster.’

  Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany stared at each other, as if to say, should we run now and ask questions later? For your information, that is exactly what I would have done if I was in their shoes. Actually, the first thing I would do if I was in their shoes is take them off, because they’d be way too small for me.

  Cymphany looked at Froggin, with a look on her face that seemed to say, I don’t believe you. ‘What sort of monster?’ she said.

  ‘The worst kind,’ Froggin shrieked. ‘It had eight legs.’

  ‘An arachnid?’ Cymphany asked.

  Arachnid is a fancy word for spider.

  ‘No, a spider,’ Froggin said. ‘A giant one. Two metres tall. With fangs as big as my legs.’

  Tobias straightened up in his seat. ‘That’s… quite a big spider,’ he said. His eyes found the exit door and the street beyond and the big hill beyond that, as if he was calculating whether it would be possible to get to the top of that hill in eight point four seconds.

  ‘Surely there can’t be a spider that big,’ Cymphany said. ‘The maximum recorded height of a spider is only twenty-eight centimetres.’

  ‘Only?’ Tobias spluttered. ‘By the way, on an unrelated topic, how long do you think it would take me to run to the top of that hill out there?’

  But Kipp, who was a bit braver than his friend Tobias, or a bit more reckless, said, ‘I’ll go and check it out. Pass me that broom would you, Froggin?’

  Froggin fetched the broom from the corner, and brought it over to Kipp, but Froggin’s hands were still shaking so much it took Kipp three grabs to get his hand on it.

  ‘You don’t want to go in there, Kipp,’ Froggin said. ‘I’m not joking. It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Honestly,’ Cymphany said, ‘twenty-eight centimetres tall. That’s it.’

  Kipp smiled. ‘The last of the doughnuts are in there. I’m not letting some giant spider have them all.’

  Tobias gulped. ‘I’m just going to wait down here,’ he stuttered, adopting a sprinter’s takeoff pose. ‘Just in case.’

  Kipp smirked at his friend. ‘Very brave, Tobias.’

  ‘What?’ Tobias protested. ‘I’ll get help. When I get to the top of that hill.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Cymphany said to Kipp, grinning. She took a toothpick out of her satchel and handed it to him, as if to say, a toothpick will be sufficient defence against whatever kind of spider you’re going to find in there.

  Kipp politely declined the toothpick. He gripped the broom, and he edged towards the kitchen door. Two pairs of fearful eyes watched from behind him, as well as Cymphany’s not-at-all fearful eyes. Actually, there were three sets of fearful eyes watching, as, in the opposite corner of the cafe, a tiny spider was peering out from its web in the rafters and wondering if, now that a two-metre-tall spider had moved into the cafe, it might be time to find another place to live.

  Kipp tentatively pushed the door and opened it just a tiny bit. He stuck his head through the gap and looked into the kitchen. What he saw horrified him beyond his wildest nightmares.

  Kipp froze, with his body on one side of the door and his head inside the room. ‘Oh my,’ he managed to say.

  ‘What, what is it?’ Tobias asked, lifting his bum in the air and extending his arms—preparing to sprint.

  ‘Is the spider still there?’ said Froggin. He was standing on the opposite side of the room with one foot already out the front door.

  Cymphany, who had not believed that there was a two-metre-tall spider in there, held the toothpick out in front of her like a sword.

  ‘It’s horrible,’ Kipp said. ‘It’s hideous.’

  ‘What is it?’ everyone screamed. If the spider in the corner, who was packing its little spider suitcase at the time, could have talked, it would have shouted, ‘Just tell us already. The suspense is killing us.’

  And then Kipp unfroze and stepped through the doorway into the kitchen. Everyone else frowned in a mixture of fear and puzzlement.

  ‘It’s absolutely revolting,’ Kipp shouted back at the others. ‘When was the last time you cleaned up in here, Froggin? This kitchen is filthy!’

  Everyone breathed a sigh of relief—except Froggin. ‘It’s not that bad,’ he said.

  ‘Not that bad?’ They could hear Kipp’s voice echoing in the kitchen. ‘There’s mould on top of mould on top of barnacles in here. And this tub of yoghurt sitting on the counter says best before 3 December 1994.’

  Tobias and Cymphany gawked at Froggin.

  Froggin put his hands up. ‘Don’t worry. The doughnut-maker is perfectly clean.’

  ‘And what’s this doughnut-maker-looking thing covered in green sludge?’ they heard Kipp ask. ‘Oh, gross! I’m never eating doughnuts here again.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Kipp, as he emerged from the kitchen. ‘I can’t see any giant spider in there now.’ He put the broom back in the corner. ‘I think it’s gone.’

  ‘But what if it comes back?’ Froggin said. ‘I’m not going to be here when it does.’ He bustled Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany out the front door, flipped the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’ and stepped out after them. As the door shut behind him he pulled a black marker from his pocket and wrote under the sign on the door: Permanently!

  ‘I’m closing the Huggabie Falls Sanctuary for People Fleeing from Witches and Other Dangerous Flying Creatures forever,’ Froggin announced, marching away. ‘I hate spiders, more than anything. All my life I’ve been worried about protecting myself from flying creatures, when the scariest monsters are in my own kitchen.’

  Froggin dashed across Digmont Drive. Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany barely had time to absorb this turn of events before Mr Yorrick Yugel, manager of the Huggabie Falls bank, rocketed along the footpath from the direction of Digmont Drive, dragging a trolley suitcase, which had various items of clothing poking out of the joins as though it had been packed very hastily.

  For those people who are reading this book before the first one (you know who you are, we’ve talked about this), I’ll just quickly explain that every street, road, path, highway, lane and alleyway in Huggabie Falls is named Digmont Drive. No, don’t ask me about it. I’ve said enough already and it’s only chapter two.

  ‘Where are you going in such a hurry, Mr Yugel?’ Tobias asked.

  ‘And why have you got a hastily packed suitcase with you?’ Cymphany asked.

  Mr Yugel barely paused. ‘There’s a shark in my vault.’ He looked back fearfully. ‘I’m terrified of sharks.’

  ‘A shark?’ Cymphany said. ‘In a bank vault?’

  Mr Yugel nodded, looking like he’d rather continue hurrying than waste time nodding. ‘Yes, a pipe burst and the vault filled with water.’

  ‘That may be so,’ Cymphany said. ‘But it doesn’t explain how a shark got in there. I don’t believe it.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Mr Yugel blurted out. ‘I thought the Treacherys not paying their debts was the worst thing I had to worry about in this town’—Tobias shifted uneasily—‘but now I’ve got to deal with a shark! I’m so scared of sharks, I can’t stay in Huggabie Falls a moment longer. So I’m shutting down the bank and moving somewhere far away—like the moon. Now, I have to go. There’s no point hastily packing your suitcase for a quick getaway, if you then waste time chinwagging.’

  Mr Yugel took off so fast that he overtook Froggin, who was still dashing up Digmont Drive, and they both turned right at Digmont Drive and headed towards the Huggabie Falls bus station, on Digmont Drive.

  Cymphany, Kipp and Tobias stared at each other. ‘Wow,’ Kipp said. ‘That was all a bit weird…even by Huggabie Falls’ particularly weird standards.’

  Cymphany shook her head. ‘Mr Yugel and Froggin saw things that scared them so much that now the Huggabie Falls bank and the Huggabie Falls Sanctuary for People Fl
eeing from Witches and other Dangerous Flying Creatures are both shutting down on the same day. Do you know what this means?’

  Tobias nodded. ‘Yes, it means we’re going to have to find a new place to eat doughnuts, and I’ll probably never see the money in my junior saver’s account ever again. But seeing as I mostly only ever use that money to buy doughnuts, I guess that might not be such a big problem.’

  ‘No,’ Kipp said, sharing a look with Cymphany. ‘It means a new thing is happening in Huggabie Falls.’

  ‘Another one,’ Tobias moaned. ‘I don’t like things.’

  They all continued to look at each other, with wide eyes and open mouths, until Cymphany said, ‘You know who we have to talk to?’

  Kipp and Tobias nodded. They all knew exactly who they had to talk to.

  Those people who have read the first book in the Huggabie Falls trilogy, will already know that Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany always went to see Mr Haurik when they had an important question, or when they needed advice or guidance.

  Mr Harold Haurik was a wise old man who claimed to hate pirates, yet he had a wooden leg, an eye patch and a parrot, and he always spoke in just the way you’d imagine a pirate would talk. He used to live on the shore of the bottomless lake in a four-storey caravan, which, among other features, had a swimming pool, three hot-tub spa baths and a rooftop tennis court. But then he installed that caravan into a pirate ship so he could sail it across the lake.

  (Honestly, this is getting beyond a joke. I wouldn’t have to explain all this if the non-first-book readers weren’t still here. Surely you should have learnt your lesson by now. Just go and read the first book, will you, please. I mean, do us all a favour! Comments deleted by the publisher, and author warned to behave nicely to all readers, because all readers are wonderful people, and some readers might have a very good reason why they haven’t read the first book in the Huggabie Falls trilogy.)

  Mr Haurik used to come ashore often, until the local council banned cutlasses on the lakefront. Now he spent all his time sailing the bottomless lake. So the only way Kipp, Tobias and Cymphany could communicate with him was through smoke signals from a campfire on the shore, which was both extremely time consuming and extremely dangerous.