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- Herausgeber: Little Tiger Press
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Serie: Mort the Meek
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
"Engagingly light-hearted, Pratchettesque comic fantasy" - The GuardianWhen Brutalia's ever suspicious Queen is forewarned of a new enemy – a nearby island called Bonrock – Mort is worried. As a pacifist, he's a firm believer that strangers are just friends they haven't met yet. Then he and his best friend and fellow pacifist Weed are sent to the island to investigate.But Bonrock is a warm and welcoming place, with luscious landscapes and tropical waters. Mort's relieved – there's no need to fight! Until they stumble upon something terrifying… Perhaps there really is trouble in paradise?The third book in a wickedly funny series about an aspiring pacifist in a brutal kingdom, perfect for fans of the HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON series, FROSTHEART and THE NOTHING TO SEE HERE HOTEL.Praise for MORT THE MEEK AND THE RAVENS' REVENGE:"Crammed with wisecracking corvids and outrageous wordplay, it's engagingly light-hearted, Pratchettesque comic fantasy" - The Guardian"Delahaye's writing is clever and hilarious and bursting with creativity" - Rashmi Sirdeshpande, author of HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD"A rip-roaringly funny read from the queen of comedy" - Linda C, Educator"This is a hilariously dark adventure for anyone who wants to stand up for what's right" - Tsam P, Bookseller
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This story is dedicated to hope.
R. D.
Contents
But Brutalia doesn’t like visitors, so don’t approach anyone, and keep your eyes peeled for escape routes, and remember to creep and scuttle to avoid being seen, and wear brown so you blend in. Look, it’s probably best if you just disguise yourself as a RAT. OK with that? If you are, then step this way. Step this way, but watch out for traps…
The town square was a riot. It was as if the entire population of Brutalia had been put into a tumble dryer – except instead of making people dry, it was making them angry. Folk were flying through the air, tearing out each other’s hair and pinching everywhere, and the island echoed with insults, shouts and screams. A totally ordinary day in Brutalia, then… Only, this time two boys were worried that they had somehow started the fight.
Big deal! Fights have to be started by someone, right?
Ah, but these two boys were pacifists. They didn’t believe fighting was the answer to anything – not even the question, What rhymes with lighting and starts with f? That’s just how against it they were. So, if they had somehow kicked off the violent brawl, then … AWKWARD.
Mort Canal, plumber’s son and founder of the Pacifist Society of Brutalia, dodged a well-aimed pumpkin and stared despairingly at the devastation around them. Next to him, his best friend, Weed Millet, the baker’s son, was squealing like a squeezed chicken.
“Surely this can’t be because of us,” he squawked. “Our whole message was about extending the hand of kindness.”
“I know,” Mort yelped, ducking a speeding potato. “And everyone’s extending fists of ferocity!”
They scurried behind a barrel as three old ladies barrelled past, tangled up like a ball of rats. Old ladies were often the worst. They lived longer than the average Brutalian, so had more experience and lots of time to form really deep-seated grudges.
“What on earth’s going on?” Weed cried.
Mort caught a small girl who had been catapulted over his head. “There you go, little one,” he said, placing her safely on solid ground.
She kicked him in the shin and ran off to rejoin the fight. Then she came back and bopped him on the nose.
“Pacifist!” she shouted with glee and scarpered. Then she came back again and stamped on his foot.
“OW! Did you hear that, Weed? She said pacifist! It is because of us. We need to find out how this happened!”
Weed tugged at Mort’s tunic. “I don’t think there’s time. Lance Pollip is staring at you funny!”
Lance Pollip was the ‘boil doctor’ of Brutalia. Pollip’s Pop-Shop was guaranteed to burst your boils, prick your pimples and puncture your pustules, but common side effects of treatment included redness around the affected area and totally avoidable death.
“Mort the Meek!” Lance bellowed, lumbering towards them, his alarmingly large thumbs wriggling.
The present members of the Pacifist Society of Brutalia gulped.
While Mort and Weed are busy gulping, let’s have a chat about Brutalia’s strange affection for fighting. You may already know about it, but if you don’t then steady your guts and hold your loved ones close, because pain and distress can be painful and distressing. And in Brutalia fighting came with a side of super-strength OUCH. Anyone thinking they could pop down the vegetable market and return without a scratch must have been born yesterday. Or born somewhere nice. And there was nothing nice about Brutalia. If you need convincing, then just take a look at its traditional nursery rhymes:
As you can see, a good dust-up in the square was as normal and inevitable as a jam sandwich.
But there WAS something different about this particular scuffle. It had a strange taste to it, like a jam sandwich with a thin spread of tuna. And it had all kicked off when the Pacifist Society of Brutalia handed out their promotional leaflets.
Mort and Weed had been trying to encourage people to turn to peace, so what was it about these words that had made them turn on each other instead? What had unleashed such mayhem?
But quickly! Let’s race like rats and catch up with the boys before we find ourselves squished between the giant thumbs of Lance Pollip or ambushed by kids singing happy little songs of destruction…
“RING-A-RING-A-ROSES, WEDGE A HEDGEHOG UP YOUR NOSES!”
Mort and Weed wove through the crowd, trying to get away from Lance Pollip. But it’s hard to weave when there are no spaces to weave into, and the pimple-popper was closing in on them. Suddenly a space opened up, and they rushed towards it, tasting freedom … before an old lady tripped up Mort with a very large parsnip, and he landed flat on his back. Lance Pollip loomed above him, and it looked as if it was all over.
Saved by the parp! At the sound of the royal horn, everyone put down their victims and vegetables and turned to face the stage – a raised wooden platform where people were punished or pickled, all for the Queen’s entertainment. Oh yes, the ruler of Brutalia was a nasty piece of work. She spent her days guzzling oysters and kicking her King for spending his days guzzling oysters, which made her a right old hypocrite. Her favourite things were fashion crimes and punishment. The first was revolting, and the second was absolutely terrifying.
It looked as if the Queen was pretty pleased with whatever she had in store because she had brought her entourage. As well as all her guards, there were Grot Bears* and Grot Bear handlers.
After the Grot Bears came the King, who was wheeled out only on special occasions (and by wheeled we mean carried on his sofa on the backs of four small children). And then there was silence. The crowd searched the King’s face for a clue as to what was about to happen – but he didn’t have a periwinkle’s inkling, and he stared ahead blankly like a boiled potato until his Queen arrived, which she did to the insufferable accompaniment of more parping horns.
She was wearing a gown made of sad squirrels and was astride her least favourite manky-breath tiger, Warren. Warren was being led by the Queen’s new personal bodyguard, Marcus Sucram, who was chosen purely because his name was spelled the same backwards.
Thanks to the arrival of the hideous royals, Lance Pollip left Mort alone. But it didn’t mean the pressure was off, because the Queen arriving at the beginning of the story could only mean one thing: something big was about to happen. And, as nothing nice ever happened in Brutalia, it was bound to be deeply unpleasant.
The guards raised their CLAP NOW and CHEER NOW signs, which prompted the crowd to clap and cheer. Although the Queen was full of hate, she did like to be adored. And, for anyone thinking of not adoring her, the punishment was clear – and MURKY – because the details were written on the chalkboard for all to see.
What added ingredients? Piranhas? Old bananas? You can’t be prepared for what you don’t know. Therefore, while some Brutalians might have happily endured a bog bath for hygiene reasons (because nothing could make them filthier), not a single soul wanted to WAIT AND SEE.
People are sometimes more afraid of what they don’t know than what they do know. Did you know that? Now you do know, so keep it in mind because, you know, it’ll help you understand what this story is all about (if it ever gets going).
All right, all right, keep your pants on…
So the citizens of Brutalia continued their adoring applause with sore hands and raw throats until finally the Queen motioned to the guards to lower their signs.
“MY LOYAL SUBJECTS!” she shouted. “I have gathered you all here today because I want to test your knowledge.”
She said it with suspicious delight, and the crowd’s brains itched in panic because knowledge wasn’t one of their strongest subjects.
“First question – if I told you to clap, what would you do?”
She stared accusingly at the wall of silent faces in front of her. “You CLAP, you idiotic mushrooms! You CLAP!”
Someone stupidly clapped, and the Queen’s face purpled. “Not NOW, you absolute flannel! Next question – what’s Brutalia’s main sporting event?”
There were murmurs of confusion in the crowd because this seemed to be some kind of painless quiz. Eventually, a bold character shouted, “The Annual Cabbage Drag!”
The Queen nodded approvingly. “Question three – what do we do with the losers of the Annual Cabbage Drag?”
Emboldened by the previous shouter coming to no harm, Brutalia’s only comedian, Looby Larkspit, called out, “Make them fart ‘God Save the Queen’?”
There was a tight silence, but the Queen let it go. So did the King, and thirteen people fainted.
“And the final general-knowledge question,” the Queen said, holding her nose. “Does Brutalia like visitors or does it hate visitors?”
This was an easy one.
“BRUTALIA HATES VISITORS!” everyone shouted gleefully, hoping there might be a prize.
The Queen smiled and batted her eyelids, which were adorned with millipedes for a full-volume lash effect. “Excellent response. And now on to today’s businesssssssssssss.”
The Queen stretched out her s’s, which annoyed everyone, but especially Warren the tiger, who roared. His manky breath poisoned the air, and the crowd cowered. It looked like the Fun Quiz was over.
“Snit Parlot has overheard something VERY DISTURBING.”
GASP NOW signs went up, and everyone gasped very easily. For what could a Queen who was wearing sad squirrels and wriggling eyelashes possibly find disturbing?
“What could it be?” Weed whispered.
“I dread to think,” Mort said. His stomach had dropped the moment she said the name Snit Parlot. The Royal Snoop was always getting the wrong end of the stick, and it always had a sticky ending.
“And who did he overhear, you ask?”
The Queen beady-eyed the crowd. And the crowd beady-eyed each other suspiciously until there was a loud:
“SALLY McROOT!” the Queen shrieked.
The guards lifted their signs and the crowd went, ‘OOH.’
“I ain’t done nothing!” came a frail voice from somewhere in the throng.
“She hasn’t done anything,” Weed whispered to Mort.
“Grammatically correct,” Mort agreed. “She’s just a soup maker and bum-shaped vegetable enthusiast.”
They watched, terrified, as Sally was tossed like a rugby ball through the crowd and across the square to the front. Guards lifted her on to the stage, and she trembled before the Queen, who beckoned to Snit Parlot. The Royal Snoop slid towards her like a well-oiled trolley, licking his well-oiled lips.
“This is the old woman you overheard?”
“It certainly is, Your Majesty,” Snit oozed.
“Can you recount the events of that afternoon for us all?”
“Indeed I can, Your Majesty,” he syruped.
“Well, do it, then!”
“Absolutely, certainly, you betcha, Your Highness.” Snit cleared his throat. “I was passing Sally McRoot’s house when I saw smoke at her window. The sort of smoke you would expect from a sorcerer’s magic potion.”
Guards help up their OOH NOW signs.
Ooooooooh!
“It was steam!” Sally spat. “Steam from my soup pot.”
“It smelled unsavoury,” Snit said. He circled the old woman, taunting her with his slippery confidence.
“My soups always smell unsavoury,” Sally grumbled.
“But the steam smelled evil,” Snit insisted.
“That’s going too far. I do my best with what I’ve got. I’d give my nostrils for an ingredient that didn’t taste of mud and mould.”
“I listened at the window…”
Mort sighed. What perfectly innocent words had Snit Parlot got tangled up this time?
“…and I heard her say: ‘When it’s bubbling, I’ll see in my head.’”
“WHAT DOES ITMEAN?” the Queen shouted. Her tiny hazel-gazey eyes glistened as if she already knew the answer. She rubbed her hands together with glee.
“When it’s bubbling, I’ll see in my head means … Sally McRoot can read her soup!” said Snit.
“Aha!” the Queen screeched. “A soup sayer!”
“Rubbish!” Sally shouted. “I ain’t a soup sayer! I don’t even know what a soup sayer is.”
“What is a soup sayer?” Weed whispered.
“No idea,” Mort admitted.
“A soup sayer is someone who tells the future in their soup!” the Queen clarified. “And it looks like you’ve been reading your soup without a soup-reading licence.”
“I have not!” Sally spat. “I just said that when the soup’s bubbling I’ll see to my bread. I dip it in my soup. It’s nothing new, y’know.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Snit Parlot sang tauntingly.
The Queen dismounted Warren and put the tip of her long finger on Sally’s nose, wiggling it as she spoke. “We know the punishment for future-telling without permission, don’t we?”
“DEATH!” shouted some particularly nasty sorts in the crowd. “DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!”
“Unfortunately, we don’t do that here any more,” the Queen said, and her own nose wrinkled like an overboiled sausage, and her lips puckered like a rat’s bottom.
“No executions any more! That’s thanks to you in Book One, that is,” Weed whispered, nudging Mort.
The Queen momentarily glazed over as she remembered the good old days, and the King put a caring arm of condolence round her shoulders and whispered, “There, there, my prickly pear.”
She shrugged off her husband and his drivelling pity.
“Execution may be against the law … BUT – and it’s a BIG BUT – Snit Parlot overheard something else, didn’t you, Parlot?”
“Indeed I did, Your Majesty,” he slimed. “I heard her say, ‘Fiends are scheming.’”
“FIENDS!” the Queen shrieked, making it sound very scary indeed.
Even without PANIC NOW signs, people began to panic and it boiled over into a mass fight, the likes of which no one had seen since just a bit earlier.
“SO,” the Queen said, “when it comes to Sally McRoot’s punishment, I am forced to make an exception.”
Weed looked at Mort, horrified. “She can’t bring back execution, can she?”
Mort swallowed a lump the size of a toad as he looked up at poor Sally, who was quaking like windy lettuce.
“But I—” Sally McRoot tried to protest, but she was prodded by Marcus Sucram. “Ow!”
The Queen continued. “She will be given an exec—”
“But—” Sally was poked again. “Stop it!”
“She will be given an executive new kitchen and vegetables with no mouldy bits so that she may keep Brutalia safe with her soupy predictions,” the Queen said. “From now on, she will be known as the Royal Soup Sayer.”
The Queen turned to Sally, who was now blinking rapidly like a lizard with an eye infection.
“What is it you wanted to say, Sally McRoot? Spit it out.”
Sally McRoot was about to inform everyone that she had only uttered the words, “The beans are steaming.” But now she wasn’t headed for death or prison, she decided to keep her mouth shut about that.
“I just wanted to say the fiends are scheming again,” she said, with a little smile. “Oh yes, they’re schemey-scheme-scheming. Soup says so.”
The Queen stamped her foot and pointed her bony finger at the crowd. “Everyone must be alert. The strangers may already be on our shores. And we don’t like strangers on Brutalia, let alone strangers that are fiendish. Throt Gutsem!”
