…and there they are in the middle of town. Mia, Sami, Freddie and Claudie, all with a kind of Wow! expression on their face anyone would have if they’d just travelled by magic for the first time. And there are the Dumdumland people looking and acting as dumb as ever. And there’s Dumdum Dog lolloping towards them.
“Goodbye,” he says, pleased to see them. “Have you got any brains left? Or did he suck them all out?”
The kids all talk at once trying to tell Dumdum Dog what happened.
“No Giant?” says Dumdum Dog. “No! Get Away! Really? That’s great! Now I can stop acting stupid, go to Uni and get a degree. I’m thinking maybe Psychology and then into advertising or politics. Let’s go and tell the Mayor.”
“The person we want to see is the Town Clerk,” says Freddie, waving his cutlass to show he means business.
Dumdum Dog and the four kids race towards the Mayor’s Office, all calling out: “Good news. Good news. There is no Giant! There is no Giant!”
“No Giant? No Giant?” say the people, stunned. “Of course there’s a Giant! What about all that noise he makes?”
“It’s just a marsupial playing the drums,” says Sami who likes to show off her vocabulary at times.
“And the Giant isn’t a giant at all, just this sweet little person who would like you to pay him a visit.”
“So he can suck out our brains. No thanks!”
“But he doesn’t do that.”
“Of course he does,” say the people, getting angry. “That’s why we act dumb. Why would we act dumb if there’s no Giant and he doesn’t suck out brains?”
The news, rather than making the people happy, was making them more and more angry. “There is so a Giant. And he’s a giant Giant,” they say.
“You’ve got it wrong,” says Mia. But the more she tries to convince them the angrier they get.
Dumdumdog and the kids race up to the door leading to the Mayor’s Office, an irate crowd behind them. They don’t know it but the Town Clerk is watching them from an upper window.
“You go and do what you have to do,” says Dumdum Dog. “I’ll try and talk some sense into them.” The kids dart inside and slam the door behind them. The Town Clerk’s face disappears from the window.
Dumdumdog stands defiantly with his back to the door. “We want those kids,” says one of the crowd. “They’ve got to be punished for the terrible lies they’re telling!”
Dumdum dog puts on his best hero’s look. “Anyone who tries to go through this door will have me to deal with.”
A voice from the crowd says “Do you want us to tear you apart limb from limb – or what?”
“I prefer the sound of “Or what”,” says Dumdum Dog. “What do you have in mind?”
Inside the kids run along the corridor to the Town Clerk’s office and look inside, but he’s not there. Where can he be? Then they spot the Lord Mayor approaching. He has a chicken on his head.
“We’re looking for the Town Clerk. Have you seen him?” asks Mia.
“No,” says the chicken.
“Don’t listen to him. He says foul things,” says the Mayor.
“So you have seen the Town Clerk?” says Mia.
“Yes,” says the Mayor. “Often.” And he turns down another corridor.
“Have you seen him recently?” says Sami.
“What do you mean by recently?”
“Like just now,” says Mia.
“No, not just now,” says the Mayor.
“What about before just now?” says Sami.
“He was going into his storeroom before.”
“Where’s the storeroom?”
“Where the Town Clerk is, Silly!” And he goes into his office and closes the door.
Outside, Dumdum dog has his back against the door facing an enraged crowd. One of them shoves his face up against Dumdum dog’s nose. “Move away from that door or you are dead.”
“Dead! Why didn’t you say that before? I’m allergic to being dead. It doesn’t agree with me.” And he stands aside, saying: “Try the Mayor’s office.” Well, he knows the kids aren’t going there. The crowd rushes in past him with deadly intent, like shoppers at the January sales.
The kids race along a corridor. At the end are some well worn stairs leading down into a dark basement. And there’s a sign: “These stairs are for the use of the Town Clerk only. Private. Keep out. That meenz U, Stupid.”
So naturally Mia leads the way down. “It’s spooky,” says Claudie. Mia puts a finger to her lips as a sign to keep quiet. “But it is,” says Claudie.
“Shhh,” says everyone at once as they move on down into the darkness. At the bottom they find a door with a light underneath spilling on to the stone floor. That’s where he must be, thinks Mia. And turning to the others puts her finger to her lips again. They must be quiet.
She takes a big breath and pretending she’s not frightened, reaches for the handle and eases open the door. But it creaks. And it’s a loud creak. Anyone inside is sure to have heard it. But we can’t stop now, thinks Mia and opens it wide.
But they can’t see anybody. What they can see is things, hundreds of things: plates and cutlery and vases and toys and teddy bears and jewellery and boots and furniture and all kinds of stuff piled high. In the ceiling above is a pulley with a rope secured to a wall. He must use that to move the heavy stuff, thinks Freddie.
But where is Dad’s revolving chair? They tiptoe round the huge pile – and there it is. At last! And it still has that dirty mark from landing in Dumdumland.
“Hurray!” they all shout, dirty mark or not.
“Are we going home now?” says Claudie.
“Yes,” says Mia. “We’re going home.”
“Oh, no you’re not!” says a harsh voice. Behind them, the Town Clerk locks the door and puts the key in his pocket. “You’re not going anywhere.” And he picks up a big metal mallet.
“You’re a thief,” says Sami with more courage than she feels. “You stole all this stuff and blamed the Giant.”
The Town Clerk moves towards them swinging the big mallet. The noise of the crowd searching the building is getting closer.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he says raising the mallet. “You’re going out there and tell the crowd you were lying and there is a Giant and he sucks out people’s brains.”
“But there isn’t,” says Mia.
“And he doesn’t,” says Sami.
They can hear the crowd hurrying down the stairs and banging on the door. “We want those kids! We want those kids!”
“You go out there and tell them what I said,” says the Town Clerk. “Or I’ll smash up the chair. And then you’ll never see your home again. Ever!”
The banging on the door is getting worse and the lock creaks as though it is going to burst. “The kids. The kids. We want the kids!”
“I”m counting to three and then I’m smashing the chair,” says the Town Clerk. And he raises the mallet over his head.
Freddie glances at the rope and pulley and whispers to Mia. “Do something.”
“What?”
“Anything.”
“One,” says the Town Clerk beginning the count.
“Do what I do,” Mia whispers to the others and cartwheels across the floor. Sami and Claudie follow.
“What do you think you’re doing?” says the Town Clerk as Mia leads the other two singing and dancing the Dumdum song. “We’re so dumb, we’re so dumb, we’re so dumb, dumb, dumb”.
Freddie, unseen, scurries to the wall where the rope is secured.
The Town Clerk is getting furious. “Two,” he yells. The girls take no notice and keep singing: “From the top of our head to our bum, bum, bum.”
Cutlass between his teeth, Freddie starts to climb the rope.
“Three,” says the Town Clerk watching Mia, Sami and Claudie cavorting around:. “When it comes to brains, Well, nobody’s got ‘em.”
“Three?” he says.
“Our most brainy part i
s in our bottom.”
“Three?” Where’s that other kid?”
That other kid is slashing the rope below his feet. And he swings from the wall across the room, just like a Pirate. Freddie’s feet slam into the pile of furniture sending it toppling on to the Town Clerk and burying him. He won’t be going anywhere for a long time.
“Quick,” says Mia as the door threatens to give way from the pounding of the crowd. “We must do exactly what we did before.”
Mia and Sami drag the chair out of the pile and climb on it, followed by Claudie. Freddie spins it around and around. The girls call, “Faster, faster!”.
And faster and faster it goes. Freddie hurls himself in with them. The chair topples over and they find themselves falling…
The four open their eyes and look around. They’re still in Dumdumland! And the door is about to give in to the angry crowd. What went wrong? Why aren’t they home?
“Maybe we spun the chair the wrong way,” says Mia.
They pick it up and try again. Mia, Sami and Claudie jump on and start it spinning. Freddie gets it going faster and faster.
The door flies open. “Get those kids,” yell the crowd.
Freddie hurls himself on to the spinning chair. It topples over and everything blurs as they find themselves falling…falling, falling.
They open their eyes and look around. And there they are back home in Dad’s room – safe.
Mum calls from downstairs. “What’s that awful noise? What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” they say as one. And they believe it. Because the whole memory of their adventure has gone, wiped from their minds as though it never happened. A complete blank. Even the dirty mark has disappeared from the chair.
Their mother calls again. “Who’s going to help me trim the Christmas tree?”
“Me, me, me, me,” they all shout. And race for the door to find themselves wedged in together like a rugby scrum.
“I was here first,” says Mia.
“I fart at thee,” says Freddie. But he only says it, thankfully not following up with a demonstration.
Soon they are all downstairs fighting over who is going to put the sparkly stuff on the tree. And Mum is tearing her hair. Can’t they ever agree?
Upstairs Dad’s room is back as it always was. But the revolving chair, if it could, would smile. Because only it knew what had happened and how if the kids spun it in the right way again it could take them on another adventure to another land…
###
This is all started when I was playing with the real Mia, Sami, Freddie and Claudie and we dreamed up a place called Dumdumland. And every time we met we had a big laugh coming up with the dumb things the locals might do. When the kids went to live overseas I decided to turn those dumb things into a story, which I sent them chapter by chapter.
I eventually showed it to a schoolteacher friend who read it to her class over a few weeks. They enjoyed it so much I decided to produce it as a book. My first.
Previously I’d written for performance: television, theatre and film. This included a movie for kids: “BMX Bandits”, which starred the teenage Nicole Kidman. Maybe “4 got to Dumdumland” will become a movie one day.
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