4 go to Dumdumland
written by
Patrick Edgeworth
Copyright © 2012 Patrick Edgeworth
Cover by Michelle Dybing
CHAPTER ONE: The adventure begins…
“I fart at thee!”
Mia is the eldest of four kids – she’s ten and the others are eight, six and four – so she has more than a few ways of saying she’s upset with someone. But this is different. Not farting, of course. Everybody farts. Especially boys. But using it as a put down – that is new. And it’s in such an old book. And she can’t ask her parents about it because she isn’t supposed to be in Dad’s room trying to see where they’ve hidden the Christmas presents this year.
And she certainly wasn’t supposed to spin around in his new revolving chair. Well, new to him. He’d picked it up at a garage sale for next to nothing along with a box of bits and pieces. And her foot wasn’t supposed to hit the box. And the box wasn’t supposed to fall off the desk and spill everything on the floor, so that a book opens with the words “I fart at thee!” looking back at her.
Then she realised it wasn’t a normal story book, it was a copy of a very old play. And that meant somebody has to come out on stage and say those words in front of everybody. Wicked! She’d love to do that.
Mia’s younger sister Sami peers in and says something they both know so well it doesn’t need saying. But she says it anyway. Which is why little sisters are not always as popular as they might be.
“Mia, you’re not supposed to be in here”.
“I fart at thee”, says Mia, desperate to give the phrase an airing, as it were.
Sami is puzzled. “Fart at the what?”
“Fart at thee!
“The…?” Sami waits for Mia to finish the sentence.
“Don’t you know anything? Thee means you. It’s what they used to say in the olden days. So, I fart at thee meant, I fart at you.”
“If they meant you why didn’t they say you?”
This throws Mia for a moment. But as somebody who thinks she knows everything, she has to give it a shot. “I guess they were just dumb then. I mean, in the olden days they didn’t have Cocopops or Ipads or anything.”
“They were so Dumb,” says Sami enjoying the sound it makes. “Dumb, dumb, dumb.”
“They must have lived in Dumdumland,” says Mia as she clambers back into Dad’s chair, pushes her foot against the desk, and sets it spinning.
“Yes,” says Sami enjoying the game. “I bet in Dumdumland they’re so dumb they put ice cream in their ears because they can’t find their mouths.”
“And they wear their underpants on their head and their hat on their bum,” says Mia flying around.
“I want a go. I want a go,” says Sami and launches herself into the chair beside Mia, their bums battling for space. Meanwhile the chair, with a mind of its own, decides to stop.
“I want a ride.”
It’s Claudie their youngest sister, who they both love. So they squeeze her in without a fight. Crammed together, what they need now is someone to spin the chair.
Crash! Freddie always comes into a room as if he is going out through the opposite wall. Sometimes he bounces off things. Today the chair is in his way. Kapow!
“Freddie!” cry three accusing voices.
“What?” says Freddie picking himself up from the floor.
“Spin the chair for us,” says Mia.
“Why should I?”
“Because you’re bigger and stronger than us.”
He isn’t – being even younger then Sami – but Mia believes in working with what she has. And Freddie – as boys do when flattered in the right way – buys it. He grabs the back of the chair and spins it around and around. The girls call, “Faster, faster!”.
And faster and faster it goes. Not wanting to miss out, Freddie hurls himself in with them. Which is not one of Freddie’s better ideas. The chair topples over and everything blurs as they find themselves falling, falling, falling.
The four open their eyes and look around. Wow! Wherever they are, it isn’t anywhere they know.
CHAPTER TWO: A trip to Dumdumland!