Flember 3: The Glowing Skull (from the million-selling Jamie Smart, Illustrator of the Year) E-Book
Jamie Smart
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- Herausgeber: David Fickling Books
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Serie: Flember
- Sprache: Englisch
Boy-inventor Dev and his giant robot bear, Boja, return for a third madcap adventure, in the high-tech, mega-modern city of Prosperity. There's a battle going on for who will control the magical power of Flember . . . will Dev and Boja find themselves fighting for the right side?
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Seitenzahl: 210
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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iii
You can’t control everything
Contents
vi
What Happened Before
Dev P. Everdew is a young inventor whose ideas rarely went to plan. But when he discovered the secret flember book, it threw his whole village into chaos! It showed him how to build Boja – a huge red robot bear, brought to life by the magical power of flember – but in doing so he also accidentally destroyed the Eden Tree, the most beloved tree in his village. Fortunately, the book held one more secret – a map hidden inside its pages. A map that showed all of 2Flember Island, including every spot where Dev might find enough flember to bring the Eden Tree back to life.
So Dev and Boja set off to follow the source of all flember – the Flember Stream. Their journey took them through the dark, dangerous forests known as the Wildening, before leading them to a small mining town called Darkwater. Darkwater, however, was a harsh place to live, with very little flember of its own. And the only food that grew there, the explosive hibbicus, gave Boja some rather fiery farts that 3ended up destroying most of the town and cutting off access to the Flember Stream!
Only Dev’s ingenuity saved the townsfolk, before he and Boja left by tunnel, to try and find some more flember.
Heading for a point on the map marked ‘Prosperity’ …
4
1
A New Start
The hatch door opened with barely a touch.
Dev pulled himself up and through.
The tunnel had led into a small, dark room. There were no windows here, no furniture. Just a length of railway track leading up and out towards a large metal door, beneath which crept the thinnest crack of daylight.
‘GNNNUUUUU!’ Boja groaned. He had managed to squeeze his nose, one of his eyeballs, and his right arm out through the hatch, but the rest was proving more difficult. This was, after all, a hole wide enough to fit a mine cart, not a huge robot bear.
‘Boja, breathe in.’ Dev tugged on a furry red ear. ‘Breathe IN!’6
Boja did as he was told, gripping onto the tracks and pushing the rest of his head out with a loud POP! Then he sucked his considerable belly in and slowly, slo-w-wly, squeezed the rest of his body through.
He ducked beneath the low ceiling.
Ruffled his furry body back into shape.
‘Breakfast?’ He beamed hopefully.
It had been a long walk from Darkwater. Countless hours spent trudging through cold, dark tunnels, guided only by the glow of flember flickering out from the tip of Boja’s finger. The big hungry bear had consumed a large quantity of flonion soup before they set off, but that had only lasted so long inside his belly. By his last flonion-y 7burp he was already talking about food again, mainly by listing his favourite biscuits as far as he could count (three biscuits). And then he started asking when he and Dev might have breakfast.
A few minutes later he asked again.
And then again. And again.
And again and again and again.
Now, the mere mention of the word ‘breakfast’ made Dev’s eye twitch. ‘Soon.’ He smiled politely. ‘Boja, we’ll get some food as soon as we can. In fact, there might even be some just outside this door.’
8The door, however, looked firmly clenched shut. All manner of elaborate locks covered its surface. Thick white cables ran between them, snaking towards a bulging glass orb in its centre.
Dev ran his fingers around the edge of it. ‘All these cogs ready to turn, all these bolts ready to slide,’ he whispered. Suddenly he felt an open slot. A thrill ran across his skin. ‘So all we need is a KEY!’
He clonked his fist against the side of his helmet. The two cat ears either side of it slid apart. What sputtered out had once been the tools of Dev’s Tinkering Helmet – a mesh of lights and lenses to help him invent – but since a fight with his brother Santoro back in Eden, all that now remained was a bundle of broken metal arms. Still, Dev snapped one off, then another, twisting and winding them together until they formed what looked like a key.
A twisted, wonky key.
9‘It won’t be a perfect fit …’ He held onto the orb with one hand, sliding the key underneath it with the other. ‘But it should be just enough …’
Click!
‘That sounded like a clacklescrew,’ he whispered, just as a string of lights flickered along the outer line of cables. They glowed with such a beautiful sparkle that Dev instantly recognized what they were. ‘Flemberthysts,’ he gasped. ‘Boja, there are flemberthyst crystals studded into the cables, and they’re filling with—’
‘FLEMB-UH!’ Boja cheered, raising his fists triumphantly and accidentally punching two dents into the ceiling.
Holding his breath, Dev twisted the key further.
Click!
More flember rushed through the cables, flowing closer towards the orb.
‘That’s the rufflehinge unlocking.’ Dev beamed, barely able to contain himself.
Click!
Click click click!
‘Knucklebolts! Farplenuts! Lock-jawed Whistlesprings!’
Suddenly the whole door was shining, a string of lights PLINK-PLINK-PLINK-ing towards the glass orb in its centre until it too was alight.10
11Dev pulled his key away just as Boja pushed his sizeable face in for a closer look. The door’s elaborate arms and hinges unlocked – CLUNK, CLANK, CLUNK – and with a loud creak the door shunted open. Boja fell through it, landing face first onto the ground.
Bright sunlight burst in. Dev held his hand up to shield his eyes. A warm, gentle breeze stroked against his cheek, as if it was washing all memory of the dark tunnels away with it. Slowly, ever so slowly, the landscape around him blinked into view.
And his heart sank.
The ground beneath his boots was barren. Dry. Not a tree or a shrub as far as he could see. No flowers. No grass. Not even a bobbleberry bush.
Just dust. And rock.
‘Oh, not again.’ He sighed. ‘Boja, this place looks as dead as Darkwater!’
Dev slipped his backpack from his shoulders and hauled out the flember book. He flipped through its pages, found chapter three, then carefully placed each page on the ground, one next to the other. He plucked the golden, flember-filled F from the book’s cover and placed it down upon them.
Bright, beautiful blue flember sparkled across the pages. It traced along all the invisible lines of flemberthyst 12dust hidden between the words, spreading out through the whole chapter to reveal a map.
A glowing map.
13Dev counted the measurements along each line, as he tried to work out where he and Boja might be. ‘We’ve walked far enough,’ he muttered. ‘We really should be in Prosperity.’ He looked over his shoulder, to a thick concrete wall behind them. It carved a line between the dead ground and a row of pointed green treetops beyond.
‘Over that wall must be the Wildening.’ Dev nervously ran his hand across the blackened scratches on his arm, shivering at the memory of it. Then he turned back to the map, to the cluster of trees upon the third page, and the oval line keeping them all out. ‘The wall marks the very edge of Prosperity. So this must be the place, it must.’
14‘Prsprrty.’ Boja lifted himself onto his feet and raised a paw against the sunlight. His large bulging eyes squinted ahead of him, across the ground, towards a glimmer of twinkling, shining lights on the horizon.
‘You think that’s Prosperity, over there?’ Dev asked.
‘Breakfast!’ Boja agreed.
Dev lifted the F away from the pages. Wisps of flember rolled back as the map disappeared. He then shuffled the book back in order and tucked it inside his backpack.
‘Well whatever it is’ – Dev nodded – ‘it’s the next point on our map.’
2
The Racetrack
Shadows started to emerge beneath the shimmering lights. Shadows which became shapes, which became buildings: small, crumbling little houses, each built from stone and wood, their roofs woven from straw. Washing lines hung between them, barrels stacked beside them. Half-loaded carts lay abandoned in the middle of the road.
‘Hello?’ Dev called out.
‘HELLO!’ Boja cheerfully replied, lifting one of the straw roofs off its walls and wearing it like a hat.
‘Not you,’ Dev hushed. He listened out for any other reply, but couldn’t hear anyone. ‘It seems like everyone left their houses in a hurry.’16
Suddenly his foot caught on something in the ground. He stumbled onto his knees. For a second he hoped, perhaps, it might have been a tree root, but on closer inspection it was a cable lined with flemberthysts, just like the ones he’d seen in the metal door.
And it too was glowing.
‘It’s carrying flember,’ he gasped, before noticing more cables half-buried by the dust. Each of them studded with glowing flemberthysts. ‘They’re all carrying flember, and they’re coming from …’
The wind changed direction. A murmur of noises rode upon it.
Voices.
Lots of voices.
‘This way!’ Dev yelled, jumping back onto his feet and running between the buildings. Boja followed, squeezing through the cramped alleys, leaping up the huge stone steps, stomping up the steeper ground. Higher and higher they went. The path narrowed. The buildings stacked tighter around them.17
The voices grew louder now. Rushing, roaring, breaking into cheers. ‘BREAKFAST!’ Boja yelled back, assuming everyone cheered for breakfast the same way he did. With the exciting thought of food to power him on he took the lead, bounding up between the buildings, tongue flapping, arms waving, his straw-roof hat tumbling from his head.18
‘They’re not … puff … chanting for breakfast!’ Dev’s legs were aching, his heart pounding. When the path finally ran out he thought he might be able to catch up, but Boja just leapt against a wall and started climbing. Dev clambered after him, pulling himself up from brick to brick, before finally gripping the weathered edges of a gutter and he-e-e-aving himself up.
And then he FLUMP-ed, exhausted, in amongst a crowd of feet.
The people around him must have numbered in their hundreds, thousands even, all of them spread across a seemingly endless row of rooftops. They were dressed in tatty old clothes, torn trousers, split boots. They cheered, and they booed, and they swore like Dev hadn’t heard since that time he’d snuck into Eden’s hibbicus beer halls.
He crawled between their feet, calling out for Boja as if his voice could ever be heard over the noise.
And then, suddenly, he reached the farthest edge.
And he could see what had been casting such bright lights. 19
A spire, a magnificent, bulging spire, so tall it almost punctured the clouds. Its glass sides reflected the dazzling sunlight, while a net of pulsing cables threaded across them, each pitted with huge chunks of glowing flemberthyst crystals. They ran from the spire’s pointed tip right down to the wide, open concourse, then trailed out across a thick bustle of treetops.
20‘So this must be Prosperity,’ Dev gasped. ‘And it looks like they’ve built it right on top of the Flember Stream!’
He cast his eyes down to where the crowd’s attention was focused. A racetrack, six lanes, each lit up in bright colours, that ran all the way around the spire in one huge loop.
And in each lane stood a racer.
The first three racers were tall, proud, and clad in a sleek metallic white armour. Lights ran down their arms and legs, lights that blinked on and off as they moved. The next three racers, however, looked quite different. They looked … smaller. Their armour was old and battered, as if it had been cobbled together from junk. Rusty exhaust pipes stuck out from their backs. Puffs of dark grey smoke trailed out behind them.
‘Brianne’s been working day and night on her armour.’ A man nudged Dev. He was tall, friendly looking, and smiling proudly through a beard so big it looked like he could hide small animals inside it. ‘That’s her.’ He nodded. ‘Fourth lane along. “Rails, I can win this year,” she keeps telling me. “I have the best chance out of anyone.” Well, I hope she’s right. It might finally make things fair around here.’
The racer in the fourth lane looked up at them. Her face was mostly obscured by the huge jaws of her rusty 21helmet, but Dev could see her bright green eyes. They stared at him with a furious determination.
Dev waved back, an excited grin across his face.
‘What’s going on here?’ he asked Rails. ‘Why are they all racing?’
‘For a share of Prosperity’s flember, of course!’ Rails crossed his arms and, as he did, Dev caught sight of a strap clamped around his wrist. It glowed with the light of a flemberthyst crystal. ‘How could anyone not know about the Pioneer Races?’
‘You … you’re wearing a flemberthyst,’ Dev stammered. ‘Where did you get it from?’
Rails stared down at Dev’s wrists in bemusement. ‘Question is …’ he said, ‘why ain’t you wearing a harness?’
22‘AGAIN!’ Boja suddenly called out. Dev turned and saw the bear a little further along the rooftops, surrounded by a flock of rather stunned onlookers. In front of him stood a small boy, his chestnut hair ruffled, his clothes a little shabby. A delighted grin spread between his cheeks. He held a family-sized bag of snacks – salty, crunchy bufflechips, to be precise – as Boja hopped back and forth in front of him, panting like a dog.
Then the boy slowly reached into the bag, pulled out a bufflechip, and flung it into the air as high as he could.
Boja’s mouth opened wide. He watched the bufflechip as it arced down towards him, and then …
‘CHOMP!’ Boja chewed. The wide-eyed crowd roared with laughter. ‘CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP!’23
‘Breakfast?’ Dev laughed.
‘Brckfschtt!’ Boja gleefully chomped in reply.
‘GOOD PEOPLE OF PROSPERITY!’ A loud voice spoke, silencing the crowd. Dev looked around to see where it had come from and spotted a number of huge, floating screens hovering above the racetrack. A woman’s face appeared upon them. She was pale but for her unnaturally rosy red cheeks, whilst her starkly white hair had been bundled into wide loops and held in place by a series of ornate golden pins.
‘We are gathered’ – she spoke through delicately 24painted lips – ‘for the most important date in our city’s calendar. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the Pioneer Races!’
A loud cheer erupted, as the crowd around Dev jostled and shoved each other with excitement. Through the glass walls of the spire, he could see people excitedly punching the air inside. Their clothes looked a lot smarter. Their hair was trimmed into neater shapes. Their surroundings were a lot more luxurious than the crumbling old rooftop Dev was standing on.
‘What’s a Pionee—’ Dev started, only for an almighty ‘SHRIEK!’ to drown out his voice. He swung around in time to see a badly aimed bufflechip bouncing off Boja’s big black nose, over his head and into the crowd.
‘SHRIEK!’ Boja went again as he lunged after it, a wild panic in his eyes. Innocent bystanders leapt out of his way. ‘Sorry!’ he whimpered, accidentally crumpling a few of them. ‘SORRY!’
What happened next seemed to occur in slow motion. The bufflechip rolled past Dev’s boot, too fast for him to catch it, or even stamp on it, before dropping off the edge of the rooftop. He turned, opening his mouth to warn Boja, but before he could get any of the words out Boja was already bowling past him. Off the roof and into the air, over the racetrack. All six racers stared up 25in befuddlement at the huge, shrieking shadow sailing over them and then – THUMP! – Boja landed, his huge wobbly bottom slamming down into the sixth lane, clipping the poor racer who was already standing there and sending them tumbling over the edge of the track.
Down the racer fell, in amongst the treetops, before disappearing from sight altogether.
The crowd held its breath.
‘DOLLOP?’ Rails yelled out.
‘I’m OK!’ a beleaguered voice finally wailed, to which the crowd sighed with relief.
Boja, meanwhile, stood in a butt-crater of his own making, shaking his head as if it might stop his eyes rolling around in their sockets. ‘BUFFLECHIP,’ he moaned. ‘BUFFLECHIIIIIIP!’
‘Boja, get back up here,’ Dev hissed. ‘They’ll think you’re in the race!’
‘Maybe … he could be!’ Rails exclaimed. ‘We’re one racer down now, and your bear’s already taken her place! He looks fast. Or at least, he looks strong. Well … bulky. He looks bulky. That might give us an advantage.’
Suddenly Dev became very aware that the crowd had hushed. They all stared at him expectantly.
‘Please?’ Rails asked. ‘We could use all the help we can get.’2627
3
The First Race
‘BUFFLECHIP!’ Boja gasped, spying his salty prize wedged into a crevice between the armoured neck slats of Ralto, the largest racer. Boja crept closer, as discreetly as a huge clumsy bear can. Then he reached out his arm, and opened his finger and thumb apart as if he were about to steal the most precious jewel imaginable.
‘Bu-u-u-u-fflechip …’ he whined. ‘Boja!’ Dev called out. He carefully slid himself over the edge of the rooftops and then down, stepping cautiously onto the racetrack. ‘Boja, they want 29you to race for them! And they’re one racer down now, so I guess we should help.’
Brianne leant back from the other racers to get a good look at Boja. ‘Just as long as he doesn’t butt-nudge me over the edge too,’ she grumbled.
‘YOU ALL KNOW THE RULES!’ the white-haired lady on the screens declared, making Dev jump in surprise. ‘Racers must complete a full lap of the racetrack, round Prosperity’s boundary, and all the way back to the First Pioneer.’
Dev turned. There, behind all the racers, towered a rather large statue. He’d barely noticed it before, what with so many sights to take in and chasing after Boja. Now, however, he saw it in detail.
Rolls of white hair. Sharp cheekbones. Thin, painted lips.
A pair of curious stone compasses held between its hands.
‘I do, of course, mean the statue of ME,’ the lady announced, a wry smile fluttering between her cheeks. ‘As First Pioneer I, Grace Neverwhere, am the architect of everything you see around you. I designed Prosperity itself. I had it built as a home for us all. And now our brightest and best will compete to honour my very name.’
The crowd inside the Spire cheered enthusiastically. 30
‘Just run around the track with the rest of them,’ Dev whispered, tugging on Boja’s butt fur to get his attention. ‘I’ll be waiting here for you at the end of the race.’
Boja was not listening, however. He was still transfixed by the bufflechip.
‘Boja!’ Dev insisted, clambering up Boja’s back until he was whispering right into his fluffy red ear. ‘If we win the race, maybe they’ll take us to the Flember Stream. Then we can go home and …’
His voice tailed off. He too had become distracted, not by a bufflechip but by the images of Grace upon the screens. For she now held an object proudly between her hands. It was bulky, round. It was glowing.
And it stared back at Dev through two hollow eye sockets.
A cold shiver rattled down through his spine.
31‘Is that …’ he gasped. ‘Is that a human skull?’
‘Oh, you have no idea.’ Brianne smirked.
‘Complete the race, climb the statue and claim the COMPASS!’ Grace shouted, as the skull glowed even brighter in her hands. ‘AND MAY THE BEST RACER WIN!’
A ridiculously loud HON-N-N-N-NKKKK echoed across Prosperity. The crowd erupted into a deafening cheer. ‘No one stands a chance against ME,’ Esco, the first racer, snarled. His armour lit up in a blaze of blue lights and then suddenly he was gone, surging ahead at an extraordinary speed, his cape billowing out behind him. The second racer, Sienna, did the same, gliding gracefully along the racetrack as she sped into the distance.
Brianne, in the fourth lane, gave chase. She clanked and wheezed as she ran, but what her armour lacked in finesse, she more than made up for in determination. Pipo, the smallest racer, ran in the lane beside her, only to be closely pursued by Ralto. Huge, hulking Ralto. He roared as he stomped between the lanes, one heavy foot after the other, lights flickering wildly across his chest.
Boja was left standing, arm outstretched, pinching at the air. ‘Bufflechip?’
Dev winced, clutching a little tighter onto Boja’s ears.
‘Can I just get down fir—’32
‘BUFFLECHIP!’ Boja boomed, raising his arms in the air and balling his paws into fists. Then with an excited little squeak, he too was part of the race, his eyes bulging wide, his tongue flapping behind him. Dev found himself clinging on for dear life. Terrified, he squeezed his eyes shut as the cheers of the crowd echoed between his ears.
33By the time Dev had opened his eyes again Boja was already halfway around the track, running beneath the shadows of the spire itself. While the other racers were still some distance ahead of them – Esco first, then Sienna, with Brianne and Pipo trailing behind – Boja’s hunger had driven him within a tigglesnatch’s whisker of his own prize: Ralto, or rather, the bufflechip wedged into his armour. ‘Bu-u-u-ufflechip,’ Boja puffed, arms outstretched, fingers desperately waggling out in front of him.
Ralto caught sight of the big, hungry bear, and he snarled. The lights across his armour blazed even brighter and then suddenly he was gone, faster than before, his huge metal feet clanging loudly towards Pipo. Pipo yelped in alarm only for Ralto to leap upon him, clamping one of his huge armoured claws around Pipo’s waist and lifting the tiny racer off the track. ‘You might as well just give up NOW!’ Ralto boomed, flinging Pipo over his shoulder like a water balloon. Boja swerved. Dev ducked. Pipo CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-ed along behind them.
‘That … that must be cheating!’ Dev cried.
Boja growled, scrunching his face up in fury. Flember crackled across his fur, sparkling out from his nostrils, powering him on faster and faster.34
And closer to Ralto.
‘BUFFLECHIP!’ he cheered, reaching out, only for Ralto to swing back and clamp his claw down hard around the bear’s arm. Flember burst out from beneath Boja’s fur, spinning around his body in random bursts.
‘BOJA!’ Dev cried, clinging on tight as Boja buckled to his knees and Ralto dragged him along the racetrack like a huge floppy doll. Boja roared in pain, and he whimpered, and he belched out huge plumes of sparkling flember. But he couldn’t find his feet, couldn’t work his way loose of the claw.
‘Maybe I can undo it!’ Dev heaved himself across Boja’s body, pulling himself up, over the bear’s face, along his outstretched arm. Then he pulled the makeshift key from his pocket, leant in through the sparkling bursts of flember and wedged it in between the hinges of Ralto’s claw. ‘It can’t be that complicated,’ he muttered. ‘A few ruffleclanks, maybe a lock-ping bolt, I’ve unlocked far worse.’
