Читать онлайн «Muddle Earth Too. Paul Stewart»

For Julie PS

For Jo CR

Contents

Book One: Down with Stinkyhogs!

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Book Two: The Trouble with Big Sisters

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Book Three: Pesticide the Flower Fairy

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Day was dawning over Muddle Earth and, as usual, things were getting in a muddle. Two of the three moons had forgotten to set. They shone down – one purple, one yellow – on the Ogre Hills, which rumbled with the snores of sleeping ogres, and the rattle and clink of the milk-elf delivering bottles of stiltmouse milk to the steps of every cave.

Meanwhile, the sun was rising over the Musty Mountains, sending flocks of tatty batbirds flapping off to roost. High above the Perfumed Bog they collided with sleepy lazybirds that were just waking up and taking to the air like overstuffed pillowcases looking for a pillow-fight.

The noise roused a wallowing pink stinky hog that looked up wearily, and an exploding gas frog that inflated in alarm, and blew up. After a good deal of honking and hooting, flapping and plumping, the birds settled their differences and all headed for Elfwood, where it still seemed to be the middle of the afternoon.

‘Here they come, Sandra, bold as you please,’ a spreading chestnut tree grumbled, ‘perching in our branches without so much as a by-your-leave. ’

‘Oh, the batbirds and lazybirds are nothing, Trevor,’ his neighbour, a dumpy sycamore, replied with a shudder. ‘It’s the woodpeckers you’ve got to watch out for . . . ’

In Goblintown, the city that never sleeps, the goblins were going about their business as usual. Sausage makers were sausage making, bakers were baking and bankers were going out for enormous lunches on expenses.

Meanwhile in nearby Trollbridge, the city that never sweeps, the trolls were knee-deep in rotten cabbage leaves and mouldy turnip tops, but didn’t seem to mind. Below their bridge, the Enchanted River flowed past.

‘Toffee trousers, watering cans, tinkle-tinkle, April showers . . . ’ it babbled enchantedly as it meandered through fields and orchards, before rising up into the air like a big wet mushroom to form the Enchanted Lake.

Bobbing upon its magical waters were the seven houseboats belonging to the seven wizards of Muddle Earth.

Six were in darkness, their owners still fast asleep, while the seventh was aglow with lamplight. This, the largest and grandest of them all, was the residence of Roger the Wrinkled, who was pacing up and down the deck in a purple chiffon dressing gown and pink fluffy mules, dictating a letter to his enchanted quill.

He was working late, or working early. He wasn’t sure which.

‘With our ruler the Horned Baron having stepped down from the throne comma and the wizards in charge of Muddle Earth comma . . . ’ Roger intoned in his thin, reedy voice, ‘it is more important than ever that the highest standards of . . . ’

He paused to allow the quill to dip itself in the ink pot that hovered beside the floating parchment.

‘. . . the highest standards of . . . ’

‘You’ve said that already,’ wheezed the quill in a scratchy-sounding whisper.