Mr. Gum and the Goblins. Andy Stanton

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СКАЧАТЬ great care, Friday dumped Mrs Lovely down on the little bed. Polly fetched a flannel and gently she scrubbed the slime from Mrs Lovely’s goodly face. And Alan Taylor hopped up on to her chin and gently he flossed her goodly teeth.

      ‘I shall take first watch,’ said Friday, pulling up a chair. ‘If she wakes I will wake you too. But until then, she must not be disturbed. THE TRUTH IS A LEMON MERINGUE!’ he yelled at the top of his lungs, as he sometimes liked to do.

      At once Mrs Lovely’s eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright in bed like a startled panda caught shoplifting bamboo.

      ‘Whaa? Eh? Boing?!’ she gabbled, looking around in confusion. ‘Where am I?’

      ‘Fear not, Mrs L,’ exclaimed Friday, ‘For ’tis I, your beloved husband, me.’

      ‘Oh, hello, Friday,’ said Mrs Lovely weakly. ‘What’s going on?’

      But suddenly she caught her breath and drew the bedcover to her cheek in terror.

      ‘Goblin Mountain!’ she murmured in the flickering candlelight. ‘Now I remember!’

      ‘Tell us your tale, dearest wife-face,’ said Friday, tenderly clasping her nose to his. ‘But will you do it as a song?’ he asked eagerly.

      ‘Now is not the time for songs, my love,’ replied Mrs Lovely. ‘Besides, I’m all weak and feeble. I’m just going to say it normally.’

      ‘Bah,’ sulked Friday – but Mrs Lovely was determined to tell her tale her own way.

      ‘It was like this,’ she began. ‘You know how I’m always after unusual herbs to make my sweets? Well, the best ones grow up on Goblin Mountain. So, early this morning, up I did climb to get at those herbs. But soon a blizzard whipped up. I couldn’t see a thing – and then, suddenly, I found myself under attack from creatures unknown! They bit and scratched and I thought I was doomed, but somehow I fought my way loose and escaped. After that I don’t remember anything and now here I am safe and sound, hooray.’

      ‘What do you thinks them creatures was?’ asked Polly.

      ‘I’m not sure,’ said Mrs Lovely. ‘That’s why they were creatures unknown. But like I say, it happened on Goblin Mountain, just outside the Goblin Cave, where the Goblin River runs swift and blue.’

      ‘Hmm,’ said Friday thoughtfully, twirling his famous imaginary detective’s moustache . . . ‘Goblin Mountain . . . Goblin Cave . . . Hmm . . . Goblins . . . Goblins . . . It all points to one thing. Mrs Lovely,’ he announced triumphantly, ‘it was badgers who attacked you. A gang of wild badgers driven mad by the cold winter and too much sugar!’

      ‘We’ll gets ’em!’ cried Polly, sticking her head out of the window towards Goblin Mountain. ‘Oi! Badgers!’ she shouted, just in case they could hear over long distances like whales or telephones. ‘You gone too far this time, you stripy rascals! We gonna come an’ sort you out!’

      During all this Alan Taylor had been sitting in an ashtray on the bedside table, listening carefully. And now it was his turn to speak. For he knew all about the natural world, and that was why he was the headmaster of Saint Pterodactyl’s School For The Poor.

      ‘I don’t think it was badgers,’ he said. ‘You see, badgers mainly come out at night and Mrs Lovely was attacked by day. Also, badgers tend to attack small mammals such as stoats, voles and marmots (a type of large ground squirrel). They hardly ever attack Mrs Lovely. You know what I think it was?’

      ‘Badgers?’ asked Friday, who hadn’t really been listening properly.

      ‘No,’ said Alan Taylor, ‘I think it was goblins.’

      ‘Goblins?!’ whispered Polly in fright.

      ‘Goblins?!’ moaned Mrs Lovely fearfully.

      ‘Goblins,’ nodded Alan Taylor gravely, and the moon slid out from behind a cloud and its light spilled into the room like a long skeletal finger. And from up high on Goblin Mountain, they seemed to hear horrible laughter, it was probably just their imagination but it gave ’em goosebumps all the same.

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