The Great Cheese Robbery Read online

  CONTENTS

  The Old Junk Shop

  Shelf Life

  The Baseboard Mice

  Off the Shelf

  A Perilous Journey

  A Place Called Fridge

  The Wooden Horse

  Cheese on Wheels

  Cat Burgling

  A Good Wash

  Back on the Shelf

  The Old Junk Shop Map

  The Great Drain Escape Excerpt

  About the Author

  At the end of the street is an old junk shop. It’s gloomy and shabby and nothing ever happens there. At least, that’s what most people think. . . .

  Among the odds and ends and things of no use, a dusty ship in a bottle sits gathering cobwebs on a shelf. But when the world isn’t watching, a tiny pirate crew comes out to explore.

  And when you’re smaller than a teacup, a junk shop can be a pretty dangerous place. . . .

  Button the ship’s boy had spent most of the afternoon exploring. He’d climbed in and out of piles of books and boxes of this and that to see what he might find. He’d even snatched a quick nap inside the old cuckoo clock.

  But on his way back down to the shelf, Button had caught the back of his jacket on an old picture hook and now he was hanging helplessly on the wall.

  “Oh, crumbs, not again,” he said out loud to himself.

  He looked over the shop. It was one of those perfect evenings. The moonlight was pouring in through the window and shone a silvery blue over the ship in the bottle. Everything had been calm until now. He tried to shake himself free, but it was no good.

  High above Button, something had awakened in the dark. Mr. Dregby, the house spider, was eager to make a snack out of Button. He’d had his six eyes on the boy for some time. And now he could see that his perfect meal was hanging there beneath him, waiting.

  “The young ones are the juiciest,” Mr. Dregby cackled in delight.

  Button heard a scritching sound above and he looked up in alarm. A tangle of long hairy legs and beady eyes was rushing toward him.

  And then, all at once, he felt himself being pulled by the legs. He slipped clean out of his jacket and landed in a heap on the floor, on top of his rescuer. She let out a muffled “YELP.”

  It was his best friend, Lily, the youngest of the pirate crew. She jumped to her feet, waving a long darning needle in Mr. Dregby’s direction. The spider scuttled grumpily back into the darkness above the shelf.

  “Thanks!” said Button as he straightened himself out. “That was close.”

  He looked up to see his coat was still hanging on the hook.

  “You’re not supposed to go wandering off on your own,” Lily said. “It’s dangerous!’

  “I was looking for an adventure,” Button replied.

  “You shouldn’t wish too hard for an adventure,” said Lily. “You just might get one. . . .”

  Much later, Button emerged from the ship, feeling calmer. He climbed out of the bottle’s glass neck and dropped down on to the shelf.

  He took a good look around the shop. All was quiet again. From his pocket, Button pulled out a pirate flag, which he unfolded and tied between a candlestick and a pin in the wall.

  “Captain’s orders,” Button explained to a nearby beetle. “It’s my job to fly the skull and crossbones, and keep this shelf polished and scrubbed as properly as the deck of the ship.”

  Pepper Jack, the leader of the mangy gang of mice who lived behind the junk shop baseboard, was watching Button from a distance, his mouse ears pricked. He nodded to Blue Vinny and Fleabag, two of his gang, as they waited in the darkness. Their mean eyes shone back at him through the black.

  But Button couldn’t see the mice. Instead he took a seat on a small cotton reel and kicked off his buckled shoes. Jones, the ship’s cat, was curled up nearby, in a peaceful snooze. Lily was warming her hands at the stub of a lighted candle and quietly singing a sea shanty to herself.

  The captain of the ship, Captain Crabsticks, was having a rest on an open page of his favorite book, Treasure Island. He was tired after a day on the hallway shelf reading Domestic Pest Control and The Pocket Encyclopedia of Trees, which wasn’t pocket-sized at all. Especially not when you are two inches high.

  “Arrr, there you are, me hearties,” said Old Uncle Noggin as he hobbled along to join his shipmates. He took a sip from a steaming bottle cap of hot chocolate and pulled his blanket over his knees. He was sitting on his favorite seat, a dish sponge. “Are you ready for a good old pirate story?”

  “Of course we are!” cheered Lily. She and Button loved Old Uncle Noggin’s pirate tales, even though they weren’t quite sure they were true.

  “Is it made up?” Button asked. He was still undecided about the story of the cockroach who ate Captain Crabsticks’s parrot, and the one about the pirate who sailed to the land of “next door” in a margarine tub . . . It was always hard to tell.

  “Never you mind, young Button,” muttered Old Uncle Noggin. “Tonight I’m telling you the story of Blackbeard’s ghost, and how he went searching for his missing head and found it bobbing around in the water like an empty barrel, glowing in the dark.”

  All eyes and ears were fixed on Uncle Noggin. The crew were so taken with the terrifying story of Blackbeard and his ghost, they weren’t aware of a very real terror that lurked nearby.

  They didn’t hear sharp claws scratching their way up to the shelf, or the whoosh of tails whipping through the air.

  They didn’t see the sharp teeth and long twitching snouts that cast spiky shadows across the candlelit walls.

  And that was exactly what the baseboard mice wanted!

  Button had once said to Lily that he didn’t think the baseboard mice could talk. “Perhaps they always know what the others are thinking?” he’d suggested.

  Luckily, he’d never got close enough to find out if he was right.

  Now the mice sat silently in the darkest corner of the shelf and waited as Uncle Noggin’s tale came to an end.

  “So he picked up his head, squeezed it firmly back into place, and wandered off into the darkness,” finished Old Uncle Noggin. Then he took a gulp of his hot chocolate and watched the steam rise into the air.

  “Jolly good yarn, old chap,” said Captain Crabsticks, putting his hat over his face and falling asleep in an instant.

  “Is that really a true story?” asked Button. He was sitting so close to the edge of his cotton reel it was almost tipping over.

  “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,” said Uncle Noggin with a yawn and a stretch.

  “Well I think it is,” said Lily, giving a sleepy grin to show how much she enjoyed being scared.

  Captain Crabsticks was snoring now, his hat rising up and down over his face, and it wasn’t long before the stillness of the night nudged them all into a gentle sleep.

  Mr. Dregby the spider dangled by a thread above the snoozing pirates. He dropped slightly lower to get a clearer view and watched as the pointed shadows of the skirting-board mice came closer. Blue Vinny’s long-fingered paws were carrying a bag made from a piece of old sackcloth.

  The mice swept down on Jones the ship’s cat and bundled him up tight in the sackcloth bag. Then off they went, across the old books, down the side of the longcase clock, and through the hole in the baseboard into their den.

  “Those sneaky mice,” the spider mumbled to himself. “They have no shame.” He twisted himself around gracefully and whispered back up his thread into darkness.

  It was some time before Button woke up. The candlelight was fading but he could see that where Jones had been sleeping peacefully, there was now an empty space.

  Nothing unusual in that, Button thought to himself. Jones was a cat, after all. He wan
dered far, and often. But as Button’s eyes cleared of sleep, he suddenly noticed that in Jones’s place lay a large blank envelope, waiting to be opened. . . .

  Button called out for the others, then he picked up the envelope and peeled open the flap. Inside was a scratchy, scribbled drawing.

  “What is it, Button?” said Lily, as the pirates gathered round.

  “Cheese,” said Button, “and I don’t like it.’

  “Nonsense,” muttered the Captain. “Of course you do, all pirates love cheese.”

  “No, I mean I don’t like this cheese,” said Button.

  “It’s a ransom note,” said Lily.

  “Exactly,” announced Button. “A demand for cheese, in return for our poor, helpless ship’s cat!’

  “Oh, I see . . .” said the Captain, his mind catching up slowly as they all stared in horror at the empty space where Jones had fallen asleep.

  “And you know what that means, don’t you . . . ?” Button continued. “If we want cheese, we have to go to the freezing cold place where it’s always winter. The place they call . . . Fridge.”

  “But that’s even further than the food cupboard,” said Lily. “The journey is terribly dangerous. And even if we get there we’ll never survive the frozen land of Fridge, let alone bring back a massive hunk of cheese. We’ve no chance.”

  “But we have no choice,” insisted Button, staring at her through the fading candlelight. “We have to get Jones back, before they decide to eat him instead!”

  “Well, you did say you were looking for an adventure,” Lily said, and she smiled a mischievous pirate’s smile. “This is a job for heroes. A job for the Pocket Pirates!”

  There was a shout and a clatter and a terrible fuss below deck. Button’s cries echoed around the glass bottle. Lily headed into the ship to investigate.

  A pair of skinny pirate legs were sticking out of the old sea chest.

  “Get me out!” cried Button.

  “What are you doing?” asked Lily, dragging him by his ankles.

  “Looking for this,” he said, and showed her the rolled-up paper he was hugging tightly.

  “Umm, what is it?” Lily asked.

  “Take a look,” said Button excitedly. “It’s the old map of the shop that Uncle Noggin found in a cupboard.”

  The young pirates decided it would be easier to read if they flattened it out, so they headed to the neck of the bottle. But flattening it was harder than they thought. The map kept springing back together and Button eventually disappeared inside it. It took Lily and Uncle Noggin to rescue him that time.

  Captain Crabsticks appeared. He was pushing an old box filled with thumbtacks along the shelf.

  “Crabsticks to the rescue!” he said. “These should hold the pesky thing in place.”

  Corner by corner, they held the map flat and pinned it in place. Lily kept the thumbtacks still and Button jumped up and down to bang them in. “Take that!” he said, landing with a thud. “And that!”

  “What ho,” said the Captain. “Let’s have a peep.”

  They all stood back and studied the drawing.

  “We can head down the hallway into the kitchen,” said the Captain, pointing his sword at the drawing of rooms and corridors. “We don’t need the map. It’s easy.”

  “No. We can’t go that way,” Button insisted. “Doyle’s basket is just outside the kitchen. We’d be that gigantic mutt’s breakfast before you could say blistering barnacles.”

  There was a sudden knocking sound.

  “What’s that?” asked Lily.

  “Sorry,” said Uncle Noggin. “It’s me.” He was shaking at the knees.

  “I just remembered the day I fell in Doyle’s water bowl,” he went on. “It was awful. . . .”

  Button was only half listening. If they stopped to hear another of Uncle Noggin’s stories, they’d still be here at midnight.

  “What about this way?” said Button loudly, pointing to the corner of the shop where he knew a broken plug socket was hanging out of the wall. It meant they could squeeze into the gap between the wall, and if they could get through to the other side, they would be in the kitchen. He and Lily had been to the kitchen before. But they had never been to that cold and wintery place called Fridge.

  “Maybe you could stay here and look after the ship,” suggested Button, turning to Uncle Noggin.

  “No chance,” said Uncle Noggin, “I’m coming too. You can’t do it without me. I’m Champion Cheese Lifter.”

  “Perfect,” said the Captain. “In that case, you shall join us.”

  “Um, you’re coming too, Captain?” Lily asked hesitantly.

  “Of course, my dear girl,” he bellowed. “A good pirate captain never abandons his crew!”

  Button looked at Lily. She said nothing. Both of them knew that Captain Crabsticks and Uncle Noggin would slow them down. But there was no stopping a pirate when they sniffed adventure.

  “We shall head out first thing in the morning,” said the Captain.

  They had to get Jones back, and quickly.

  It’s unlikely you would have looked through the junk shop window at six o’clock that morning. But if you had, you might have seen a crew of tiny pirates on the edge of a shelf, getting themselves ready for adventure.

  They were armed with every weapon they could lay their hands on—safety pins, sewing needles, cocktail sticks, and a jumble of other odds and ends inside their bags. Button had raised the flag as high as it would go.

  “No one messes with this scurvy crew!” he cried. “We may be tiny, but we’re still fearsome. Pocket Pirates to the rescue!”

  In the corner of the shelf lay a tiny musical box with a wind-up handle. A long length of cotton was wound around the musical barrel so that when the handle turned and the music played, the cotton lowered to the ground. The pirates called it “the elevator.”

  They took it in turns. Captain first, of course. Then Uncle Noggin, then Lily. And when the others were at the bottom, Button took one last look along the shelf, wound the handle once more and held tightly on to the end of the thread. He listened to the music play as he was lowered down to the next level.

  From here it was a climb. Books were stacked in wonky piles, like giant, uneven steps. And though it was dusty and they had to help Uncle Noggin over all the thick encyclopedias and heavy car manuals, they soon reached the crockery box.

  They tried to be quiet but the plates clattered noisily.

  “Shhhhhhh,” whispered Button. “ You’ll wake Doyle.”

  “Too late,” Lily said with a gasp.

  The sly eyes of the dog had blinked open. They could hear him heave himself out of his basket and head in their direction. Brushing his tail against the boxes and shelves. Sniffing the air.

  “Crew! Hold still!” the Captain ordered. “That thing will have us for breakfast.”

  Doyle was moving closer.

  “At least it means the mice will stay out of the way,” said Lily.

  “True,” said Button. “But I don’t like your chances against those teeth. . . .”

  He looked over to the broken plug socket. It was only inches away. If they moved quickly enough they could squeeze through into the gap in the middle of the wall, to safety. . . .

  Button whispered his plan to the others. Captain Crabsticks and Uncle Noggin would go first, then Lily, and Button himself would bring up the rear. If they all went together, Doyle would be more likely to notice them.

  “Marvelous plan, young Button,” the Captain said, clapping him on the back. “Tally-ho!”

  And off he went with Noggin in tow, the old pirate waddling as fast as his little legs would take him.

  But even with Captain Crabsticks’s help, Uncle Noggin was still painfully slow. Button gritted his teeth. The Captain had gone through the hole in the wall first, so that he could help Uncle Noggin from inside. But Uncle Noggin’s plump belly was caught fast on the opening. The plaster crumbled around him.

  Then, suddenly, Uncle
Noggin was through. He took a chunk of plaster with him and made the hole bigger.

  Lily darted after them and leaped gracefully into the hole. She turned and held her hands out to Button. But it was too late—Doyle had spotted him. Mornings were a bad time to come across the hairy beast. He was always hungry when he woke.

  Button knew there was no time to think—he had to run for it, NOW! He could feel the dog’s hot breath at his back as he sprinted toward the hole and threw himself through. He looked over his shoulder, and saw a large black nose nudging at the opening. He’d just made it!

  After all the excitement, the pirates needed a rest. A slice of early morning light poured into the gap in the wall and they could just about see to unpack their pocket-size picnic. They perched on chunks of plaster, using their bags as cushions. Uncle Noggin took off his neck scarf and laid it out to make a picnic blanket.

  “Once, I got stuck in a teapot,” began Old Uncle Noggin as he handed out their breakfast of biscuit crumbs. “Wedged right in the spout, I was. I was thinner then, mind you. Wouldn’t even get halfway down nowadays. Not with this.” He patted his round belly.

  “How did you get stuck in the first place?” said Button, who had found a comfortable spot and was ready for a story as he ate his breakfast.

  “Well, it started like this . . .” said Uncle Noggin. “I was out one night, heading toward a corner of a sandwich I’d spotted through the spyglass earlier in the day. I couldn’t quite see from the ship but I was fairly sure there was a piece of chicken in there. Maybe even a dollop of mayonnaise if I was lucky. Anyway, off I went, into the night, when . . .”

  Suddenly, a scratchy noise came from the darkness. It grew louder and louder. It sounded like legs marching toward them. Not just one pair of legs. Lots and lots of legs. More legs than you can even imagine.