‘You’re flying, Ratboy! Just like a superhero!’ she cooed, and Twoface’s two faces screwed into one big fat angry one.
‘That’s not flying - it’s FLOATING!’ he scoffed, pointing all four of his eyes at me at once. ‘Ratboy’s not a superhero. Look at his costume - it’s just an anorak with a scuba-
diving mask stretched over it,
for crying out keel! THIS is
a superhero!’ he shouted,
pointing at himself.
81
Not Bird ruffled up his fur. ‘NOT!’ he squawked, giving me a thumbs up with the thumb bit of his wing.
Bunny rubbed Twoface’s hood, trying to calm him down. ‘Twoface’s mum and dad are superheroes too, aren’t they, Twoface?’ she smiled, picking a bit of fluff off one of his hood-wings, and I wondered why Twoface needed to live in an orphanage if he had a superhero mum and dad.
‘Yeah, but it’s not as keel as it sounds,’ said Twoface, looking up at Bunny while staring down at the table at the same time. ‘They’re so busy saving the universe, I hardly ever see them . . .’ he mumbled.
‘That’s why Twoface is staying with us for a bit!’ Bunny smiled, giving him a cuddle, and he squirmed out of it, even though I could tell he quite liked it.
I thought of my mum and dad and little
sister, sitting in our living room,
wondering where
I was. ‘Don’t worry
Lampposts, I’ll be
home soon!’ I
whispered in
my superhero
voice, and I
felt my belly
do a rumble.
83
I glanced down at my tummy, and its TV screen fizzled to life. ‘HELP ME!’ crackled a bald man with a missing nose, which is a pretty weird thing to see on your stomach.
‘Hey, isn’t that Dr Smell on Ratboy’s belly?’ asked Splorg, scraping out
of his chair at Splorg-speed and walking over. Jamjar squinted through her glasses at the bald
man, and I wondered who in the keelness Dr Smell was.
84
‘ANY-way . . .’ I said in my superhero
voice, mostly just to change the
subject from my belly. ‘What are
your superpowers, Twoface?’
Jamjar de-squinted her eyes and looked up from my telly belly. ‘He can look both ways at once!’ she smiled, pointing at Twoface’s head. ‘What with the two faces and everything . . .’ she said, and Twoface did a double-grin.
Not Bird sniggled at how rubbish Twoface’s superpowers sounded and I gave him a nudge, holding in a chuckle myself.
85
‘AND I’ve got sticky hands . . .’ said Twoface. ‘For climbing up walls and stuff!’ he grinned, and he poked one of my zigzaggedy chips with a sticky finger and lifted it out of its packet, popping it into one of his mouths.
Which I had to admit was pretty keel.
86
‘Keel to meet a real life superhero!’
I said, scraping out of my chair and holding out my hand, and Twoface shook it with his sticky one.
87
Bunny Deli’s doors whooshed open and
a familiar-looking man staggered in.
The main reason he was familiar-looking was that he was the bald
one with the missing nose I’d just seen on my telly belly.
‘My nose! Somebody’s stolen my nose!’ cried the man, who was wearing a shiny silver suit. A hover-tie floated
in front of his glow-in-the dark
pink shirt, and I made a note inside
my brain to buy my dad one for a present before I went home.
88
89
‘Dr Smell!’ shrieked Bunny, rushing over to the man, and I thought how weird it was to be called Dr Smell when you haven’t got a nose. ‘What in the name of Shnozville happened to you?’
Splorg lolloped over to me and cupped his hand round my ear. ‘Dr Smell owns the perfume shop down the road.
He makes the keelest perfume in the whole of Shnozville - it’s Bunny’s favourite!’ he whispered, moving his cupped hand up and down to
keep it where my ear was,
seeing as my tail
was still
plugged into
Socky and I
was floating
around like a
balloon.
90
Dr Smell took a deep breath, but not through his nose, because it was missing.
‘It was the weirdest thing,’ he said, starting to tell Bunny his story.
‘There I was in my shop making a
new batch of perfume when I heard
a clip-clopping noise,’ he warbled. ‘I turned round, and blow me down with a feather if I wasn’t face to face with a pair of robot grannies!’
He lowered himself down on to a chair and nicked one of my zigzaggedy chips.
91
I thought back to earlier that day and did a mini superhero gasp. ‘Hey, me
and Not Bird were chased by two killer robot grannies just this morning!’
I said, and Twoface
rolled all of his eyes.
though Dr Smell
was right in the middle of
telling HIS
tale.
92
Dr Smell gave Twoface the look a man with no nose gives someone when
they’re ruining his story. ‘Anyway,
where was I . . .’ he said, stealing
another chip. ‘Ah yes, one of
the robot grannies pulled a
crumpled-up tissue out of
her sleeve and waggled
it under my nostrils.
Now, it must have
had some kind of
sleeping potion on it,
because the next
thing I knew, I’d
woken up and my
nose had disappeared!’
he cried, peering
down with cross-eyes
at his missing nose.
93
I looked over Not Bird and mouthed the words, ‘MAVIS 3000’.
‘NOT!’ mouthed Not Bird with his beak, which isn’t an easy thing to do, seeing as a beak isn’t really a mouth, it’s a beak.
‘Oh, Bunny, how will I ever be able to make your perfume without my precious hooter?’ sobbed Dr Smell, flopping off his chair on to the floor. Bunny whipped a soggy old flannel out of her apron pocket and patted it on his forehead.
94
‘Ooh, those robot grannies, they give me the willies!’ she said, and I looked
at Not Bird and giggled, because Bunny had just said ‘willies’.
‘Killer robot grannies are nothing to giggle about, Ratboy,’ said Jamjar, looking serious, and I stopped giggling and did my superhero face.
95
Splorg turned to Twoface, waiting to hear what he had to say, seeing as he was the real superhero out of all of us.
‘Sounds like something Mr X might be mixed up in . . .’ muttered Twoface, tilting all four of his eyebrows into their serious positions, and I tilted my eyebrows to their pretending-I-am-listening-to-Twoface positions.
Twoface’s other face nodded. ‘Good thinking, Twoface,’ he said, patting himself on the back, and I wondered who in the keelness Mr X could be.
So I asked.
‘Er, who’s Mr X?’ I said, and everybody went quiet.
96
‘Mr X is the evilest man in the whole of Shnozville,’ boomed Twoface with both his mouths at once.
Jamjar took her glasses off and cleaned them on her scientist’s coat. ‘He was an orphan too, once - when he was a boy like you,’ she said, pointing at me with all twenty-five of her fingers.
97
I shouted, and Not Bird sq
uawked.
Jamjar raised one of her eyebrows,
then carried on talking. ‘The only
difference is, Mr X didn’t have
someone nice like Bunny to look after
him - HIS Bunny was a mean old lady,
isn’t that right, Twoface?’ she said, but
Twoface just ignored her.
98
He was pacing up and down Bunny Deli,
scratching his head, and I wondered if
he had two tiny brains inside it, or one
normal-sized one.
‘This is Mr X,’ drawled Splorg, slowly
pulling a white plastic cube out of his
pocket and holding it up in his
blue palm.
‘What, he’s that little white cube?’ I
said, peering down, my shiny full-stop
nose almost touching it.
99
‘No!’ chuckled Splorg, prodding the
cube with his finger, and a floating
see-through screen popped up.
A mean-looking man with a pointy
nose wearing a brown cloak rotated
on the screen. ‘THIS is Mr X,’ he said,
and I floated over to get a better look.
‘Doesn’t look very scary to me,’ I said,
and Not Bird chirped, which I think
might’ve meant he agreed.
100
Splorg gave the cube another tap,
and Mr X shrunk. A giant silver metal
scorpion with a V-shaped window for
a face appeared next to him, snapping
its claws. Its tail curled in the air above
its body like an evil question mark and
two glowing green eyes stared ahead,
blankly. A door on the side of the
scorpion slid open and Mr X climbed
in and sat down in a chair, scowling
through the glass.
101
‘That’s Mr X’s giant metal scorpion,’
said Splorg, his black eyeballs quivering
with fear. ‘Not that I’ve ever seen it in
real life - mostly he sends his killer
robot grannies out to do his dirty
work,’ he trembled, and the floating
see-through screen fizzled into thin air.
102
‘Why’s he called Mr X?’ I said, peering
through the window of Bunny Deli,
half expecting a robot granny or a
giant silver metal scorpion to come
stomping round the corner any second.
103
Twoface stopped pacing and pointed
all four of his eyes at me. ‘Because he’s
very CROSS,’ he said.
‘Cross?’ I said, as Not Bird fluttered
through the air and landed on my
head.
104
‘Yeah, cross . . . like an “X”, get it?’
smiled Jamjar, looking down at
Dr Smell on the floor where he was
still lying.
He was doing a sniffing face, except
without the twitching-end-of-nose bit,
so really it was just a completely still
face. ‘The weird thing is, I can still smell
stuff . . .’ he said, as if we were all
still listening to his story about how his
nose got nicked. ‘Like now . . . all I can
smell is cheese!’ he chuckled, then he
started crying again, because having
your nose stolen really isn’t a laughing
matter.
105
Jamjar whipped a turquoise plastic
triangle out of her white coat pocket
and started tapping at it with one of
her twenty-five fingers.
‘What in the unkeelness is that?’ I said,
wondering how many new things I
could see in one day.
106
‘This?’ said Jamjar, flipping the triangle
in the air and catching it in another
hand. ‘This is my Triangulator!’ she
smiled, and she carried on tapping.
‘Very interesting . . .’ she muttered,
scratching the tip of her nose,
and Dr Smell looked at
it jealously.
‘What’s very interesting?’ said Splorg.
‘Well, according to my Triangulator,
there’s a ninety-nine point nine, nine,
nine, nine, nine percent probability
that maybe Dr Smell can smell
cheese because his nose has been
transportatorised somewhere cheesy . . .’
said Jamjar, looking up from her
triangle.
107
I lifted the bun off my half-eaten
cheesebleurgher and peered inside,
checking to see if Dr Smell’s nose was
part of my Cheesebleurgher Meal Deal,
and Bunny gave me a wink like my
mum does when she thinks I’m being
sweet.
‘Hey, I’ve had an idea!’ said Twoface,
clicking his fingers, and we all looked
at him. ‘Maybe Dr Smell can smell
cheese because his nose is somewhere
cheesy . . .’ he said, and I was just
about to say how that was Jamjar’s
idea when Dr Smell started snoring.
108
‘Is Dr Smell OK?’ asked Splorg, and Bunny
patted him on his bald blue head.
‘He’ll be fine, Splorg. Having your nose
stolen is a tiring business,’ she said,
scooping Dr Smell up with all ten of her
arms and carrying him over to
the see-through lift at the back of
the deli.
109
‘Don’t mind if Dr Smell lies
down in your bed for a while,
do you, Ratboy?’ she huffed,
pressing a button next to the
lift, and I gave her a double
thumbs up, seeing as I wasn’t
going to be in the future long
enough for it to really be
mine.
Bunny and Dr Smell zoomed
up in the lift through a hole
in the ceiling, and Twoface
went back to scratching his
head. Jamjar was busy
tapping something into her
turquoise plastic triangle.
110
‘Hey, I’ve got an idea!’
shouted Splorg, and I
jumped, which was the
first time I’ve ever
jumped when I was
floating off the
ground already. ‘Maybe
Dr Smell’s nose is on
the moon!’ he grinned.
I smiled over at Not Bird,
and he sniggled. ‘What’s
so funny about that?’
said Splorg, looking
all confused.
111
‘Everybody knows the moon’s not
made out of cheese, Splorg!’ I said,
flicking the last bite of cheesebleurgher
into my mouth and swallowing it
whole.
‘WRONG!’ honked Twoface, double grinning. ‘Don’t you know anything,
Ratboy?’ he said, and before I could
say something back, he’d carried on
talking. ‘I suppose you missed it while
you were being zapped here from the
year MINUS ZERO, but all the cheese in
the world is made on the moon these
days!’
I rolled my eyes and did my
face I do when I don’t