As they watched, Miss Muffet started to make her way to the stairs. She had obviously decided that someone had to pay for the destruction of her spider, but they were distracted from her approach by the ringmaster. His wooden face had contorted into a mask of rage. Thin streams of black smoke poured from his nostrils. Beside him, the Ferris wheel rattled on its foundations. Bolts popped, and its supports collapsed. The Ferris wheel dropped to the floor and headed toward them.
“Incoming!” shouted Jolly.
Samuel and the dwarfs dived out of the way of the rolling wheel. Samuel was relieved to see Lucy and the policemen do the same. They reacted fast, certainly faster than Miss Muffet, who reached the top of the stairs just in time to be hit by the wheel. It rolled halfway down the stairs before striking a wall at full speed, tearing through the brickwork and taking Miss Muffet with it. All that was left to show she had ever been there at all was a trail of crushed black spiders.
And that was when the Polite Monster appeared.
To start with, Samuel and the others didn’t know that he was polite. When monsters appear, the general approach is to assume that they don’t mean anyone any good and to set about getting rid of them. If that doesn’t work, it’s a good idea to make your apologies and leave while you still can. The Polite Monster had a lot of horns, and a great many teeth in its jaws, and four eyes, two on each side of its head. It was about twelve feet tall, and almost as wide, and was covered entirely in coarse red fur. It popped into existence in a puff of purple and yellow smoke, accompanied by the most horrendous smell combining the worst aspects of rotting fish, dog poo, and very old eggs that had been scrambled and fed to someone with bad digestion and worse wind.
The Polite Monster sniffed the air, made a face, and said, “That wasn’t me.”
It had a very cultured voice. It sounded like a monster that liked light opera, and perhaps acted in plays for the local dramatic society, the kind in which chaps called Gussy popped up dressed in tennis whites, and people laughed like this: “I say, aha-ha-ha!”
By that point, everyone who wasn’t a monster had found somewhere to hide. This floor of the shop was devoted entirely to books and some more board games, which had been a relief to everyone until the Polite Monster appeared. There was a limit to how much damage a game of Scrabble could inflict: at worst, it could probably arrange some of its tiles into a rude name.
“Hello?” said the Polite Monster. “Anybody home?”
Samuel poked his head up from behind a pile of boxes of Risk. The boxes were rattling alarmingly, suggesting to Samuel that some games might be more dangerous than others. This was confirmed when he heard a muffled shot from the topmost box, and a tiny cannonball pierced the lid and flew past his ear. A very small voice, muffled by cardboard, shouted, “Reload!”
“Oh, hello,” said Samuel.
“Ah,” said the Polite Monster. “I’m terribly sorry for intruding—nine letters, ‘to force oneself in without invitation’—but I was hoping that you could tell me where I am?”
Samuel was still wary.
“Where do you think you are?”
“I can tell you where I was a moment ago,” said the Polite Monster. “I was doing a crossword puzzle in my cave. Tricky one. Two down, eight letters: ‘Insecure now that the horse has bolted.’?”
“Unstable,” said Constable Peel, who did a lot of crosswords.
“Unstable!” said the Polite Monster. “Oh that’s very good, very good. Let me just—”
It patted its person looking for something with which to write, and then it blushed, or blushed as much as a large, hairy monster could blush, which wasn’t a lot.
“Oh dear,” it said. “This is most embarrassing—twelve letters, ‘to be ill at ease.’ I appear to be completely naked.”
Another cannonball popped from the Risk box. This time it nicked Samuel’s left ear, and drew a little blood.
“Hey!” said Samuel. “That’s enough!”
He gave the box a thorough shake.
“Earthquake!” shouted the same small voice.
The Polite Monster was now attempting to cover itself with its arms. Samuel wasn’t sure why it was bothering. It really was just one big ball of fur. If it had any bits that it didn’t want seen, the fur was already doing a very good job of hiding them.
“Sorry?” said Samuel.
“Naked,” said the Polite Monster. “Five letters, ‘to be bare, or without clothes.’?”
The dwarfs appeared, hauling behind them a large, paint-spattered sheet that had been left behind by the decorators.
“Will this do?” said Angry.
“Oh yes,” said the Polite Monster. “Anything would be better than my current situation—nine letters, ‘a state of affairs.’?”
It arranged the sheet as best it could over its shoulders and around its hips. Jolly found a piece of rope, and the Polite Monster used it to secure the sheet. It now looked like a monster that had been cast in the role of Julius Caesar.
“Thank you, that’s much better,” said the Polite Monster.
Dan and the policemen had now joined Sam, Lucy, and the dwarfs. It was clear that they were in little danger from the Polite Monster. The Polite Monster looked curiously at the dwarfs.
“I say: little men,” it said. “Did you have an accident to make you that way—eight letters, ‘an unforeseen event or mishap’?”
“We’re dwarfs,” said Jolly. “Six letters—‘to thump someone who suggests that we’re small because something fell on our heads.’?”
“Oh dear,” said the Polite Monster. “I seem to have offended you—eight letters—‘to cause to feel upset or annoyed.’ I really am most dreadfully sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” said Jolly.
He hadn’t wanted to beat up the Polite Monster anyway. Even if he’d been able to, it wouldn’t have been, well, polite.
“And in answer to your question,” Jolly continued, “you’re on Earth, in Biddlecombe, in Wreckit & Sons’ toy shop. And it’s not a good place to be right now.”
“Oh, isn’t it?” said the Polite Monster. “You all seem very nice, I must say—four letters, ‘pleasant or agreeable’—and it makes a change from the cave, but I really should be getting back. I was baking scones, you see. Mother is coming to visit.”
“We’re all trying to get out of here,” said Samuel, “but there are vampires in the basement, killer dolls on the ground floor, and spiders just below us. We’re being forced higher and higher in the store because I think that whatever is causing this is waiting for us on the topmost floor.”
The Polite Monster adjusted its tarpaulin toga.
“I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation,” it said. “We’ll just ask politely to be sent on our way, and that will be the end of it. I find that politeness—ten letters, ‘tact, or consideration for others’—goes a long way. Shall we?”
It extended a hairy, clawed hand, inviting them to lead on.
“After you,” said Jolly.
“Such manners,” said the Polite Monster as it stepped past Jolly. “Wonderful, just wonderful.”
“Four letters to describe that bloke,” whispered Jolly to Angry, once the Polite Monster was out of earshot. “Here’s a clue: hazel-, wal-, or pea- . . .”
53. The history of clowning does not record the appearance of female clowns until 1858, which is quite amazing as clowns have been around since at least the time of the Pharaoh Dadkeri-Assi in 2500 B.C. The first female clown was said to have been Amelia Butler, who was part of Nixon’s Great American Circus, but the next female clown, Lulu, was not mentioned until 1939. Now, though, lots of clowns are female, and can be found alongside the various trapeze artists, tightrope walkers, and lion tamers of the circus. Interesting fact: No clown has ever been eaten by a circus animal. This is because clowns taste funny.
