The 26-Story Treehouse (The Treehouse Books) Read online

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  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  CHAPTER 1: The 26-Story Treehouse

  CHAPTER 2: The Story of How We Met

  CHAPTER 3: Why the Sharks Ate Terry’s Underpants

  CHAPTER 4: Open-Shark Surgery

  CHAPTER 5: Terry’s Story

  CHAPTER 6: Andy’s Story

  CHAPTER 7: Jill’s Story

  CHAPTER 8: Why We Hate Pirates So Much

  CHAPTER 9: Flotsam, Jetsam … and Castaways

  CHAPTER 10: The Pirate Captain’s Story

  CHAPTER 11: Ten Unlucky Pirates

  CHAPTER 12: The Maze of Doom

  CHAPTER 13: The Last Chapter

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  COPYRIGHT

  CHAPTER 1

  THE 26-STORY TREEHOUSE

  Hi, my name is Andy.

  This is my friend Terry.

  We live in a tree.

  Well, when I say “tree,” I mean treehouse. And when I say “treehouse,” I don’t just mean any old treehouse—I mean a 26-story treehouse! (It used to be a 13-story treehouse, but we’ve added another 13 stories.)

  So, what are you waiting for?

  Come on up!

  We’ve added a bumper car rink,

  a skate ramp (with a crocodile-pit hazard),

  a mud-fighting arena,

  an antigravity chamber,

  an ice-skating pond (with real, live ice-skating penguins),

  a recording studio,

  a mechanical bull called Kevin,

  an ATM (that’s an Automatic Tattoo Machine, in case you didn’t know),

  an ice-cream parlor with seventy-eight flavors, run by an ice cream-serving robot called Edward Scooperhands,

  and the Maze of Doom—a maze so complicated that nobody who has gone in has ever come out again.

  As well as being our home, the treehouse is also where we make books together. I write the words and Terry draws the pictures.

  As you can see, we’ve been doing this for quite a while now.

  Sure, Terry can be a bit annoying at times …

  but mostly, we get on pretty well.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE STORY OF HOW WE MET

  If you’re like most of our readers, you’re probably wondering how Terry and I met. Well, it’s a long story, but it’s a pretty exciting one and it starts like this.…

  RING! RING!

  RING! RING!

  RING! RING!

  Excuse me for a minute. That’s our video phone.

  I’d better answer it. It’s probably Mr. Big Nose, our publisher.

  Yep, I was right. It’s Mr. Big Nose. Nobody else in the world has a nose that big.

  “What took you so long?” he says. “I’m a busy man, you know!”

  “But it was only six rings,” I say.

  “Don’t argue!” he says. “I’m a busy man—I don’t have time to argue. How’s the new book going?”

  “So far, so good,” I say. “I’m telling the story of how Terry and I met.”

  “Great idea!” says Mr. Big Nose. “How did you two clowns meet, anyway?”

  “Well, it’s a long story,” I say, “but it’s a pretty exciting one, and—”

  “I don’t have time to listen to long stories,” says Mr. Big Nose. “Save it for the book. Just make sure it’s on my desk by next Friday!”

  The screen goes blank.

  Friday?

  But that’s only next week!

  That doesn’t leave much time. I’d better get moving. Now, where was I? Let me see …

  “Andy!” says Terry, bursting into the kitchen. “We’ve got a problem!”

  “What sort of problem?” I say.

  “The sharks are sick!”

  “What’s the matter with them?”

  “They ate my underpants!”

  CHAPTER 3

  WHY THE SHARKS ATE TERRY’S UNDERPANTS

  I look at Terry for a minute as I try to understand what he just said.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I must have misheard you. It sounded like you said the sharks ate your underpants.”

  “I did say that!” says Terry. “And now the sharks are really sick! They’re just lying on the bottom of the tank not moving.”

  “But why did they eat your underpants?” I say. “I mean, how did they even get them?”

  “Well,” he says, “I came up with the idea of using the shark tank to wash my underpants. I dangled a dummy over the top of the water and the sharks thought it was a real person, and were jumping all around trying to bite it, and that churned up the water—you know, like in a washing machine.

  “So then I put my underpants on the end of a stick and lowered them into the water.

  “But the sharks were jumping around so much, they knocked the underpants off the stick and then they ate them. Now the sharks are just lying on the bottom of the tank and they’ve turned a weird green color!”

  You know, Terry has done some dumb things in the past, but this has got to be the dumbest ever!

  “What are we going to do, Andy?” says Terry.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “If only we knew somebody who loves animals and knows all about them and lives close by so they could get here in a hurry.”

  “Yeah,” says Terry, “somebody like Jill.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “somebody exactly like Jill.”

  “Hey, I know!” says Terry. “Why don’t we call Jill?”

  “Great idea!” I say.

  In case you don’t know who Jill is, she’s our neighbor. She lives just on the other side of the forest and she loves animals and knows all about them. She’s got two dogs, a goat, three horses, four goldfish, one cow, six rabbits, two guinea pigs, one camel, one donkey, and thirteen flying cats.

  Terry leaps up. “I’ll call her on the video phone right now!”

  “But Jill doesn’t have a video phone,” I say.

  “No problem,” says Terry. “I’ll use my new super-flexible, endlessly extendable, titanium-coated talking tube instead.”

  “Hey, Jill,” says Terry. “Can you come over right away?”

  “I’m kind of busy right now,” says Jill. “I’m having a tea party with my catnaries.”

  “But it’s urgent!” says Terry. “The sharks are sick!”

  “What’s wrong with them?” says Jill.

  “They ate my underpants,” says Terry.

  “Your underpants?” says Jill. “Oh no! How many pairs?”

  “Three,” says Terry.

  “I hope they were clean,” says Jill.

  “Well, no,” says Terry. “That’s the thing, you see—I was trying to wash them.”

  “OH NO!” says Jill. “I’m on my way—meet you at the shark tank!”

  “Here she is now!” says Terry.

  “Wow,” I say. “That was fast!”

  “Yes,” says Jill, “these flying cats are great! Turning Silky into a catnary was the best thing you ever did, Terry—unlike feeding your underpants to the sharks, which has got to be pretty much the worst.”

  Jill peers into the tank. “The poor things,” she says. “I’d better get in and take a closer look.”

  We watch as Jill and her cats dive into the tank and get to work.

  She tries aquapuncture …

  dorsal-fin massage
…

  guided meditation …

  shark aerobics …

  and motivational movies …

  but nothing seems to work.

  Finally, Jill rises to the surface. “They’re definitely the sickest sharks I’ve ever seen,” she says. “They’re so sick, in fact, that I’m going to have to operate.”

  “Operate?!” I say.

  “Yes,” says Jill. “I’m going to have to perform open-shark surgery!”

  CHAPTER 4

  OPEN-SHARK SURGERY

  You’ve got to hand it to Jill. She really loves animals. Even sharks.

  I mean, I like animals, and I think sharks are really cool, but there’s NO WAY I’d ever get in a tank and operate on them, not even if they’re too sick to move.

  And judging by the way Terry is trembling, he’s not too keen on the idea, either.

  “Well,” I say, “I guess we’ll leave you to it. Good luck!”

  “Where do you think you’re going?” says Jill.

  “To the kitchen,” I say. “I’m kind of in the middle of telling the readers a story.”

  “Yeah,” says Terry. “I’d better go as well—Andy will need me to draw the pictures.”

  “Oh no, you don’t,” says Jill. “Both of you are staying right here—I need you to help me with the operation.”

  “But what about the readers?” I say.

  “Don’t worry,” says Jill. “I’ll deal with them.”

  “Excuse me, readers! Unfortunately, we’ve got a bit of an emergency here and I’m just going to have to borrow Andy and Terry for a moment. Is that okay? Great! Thanks for understanding. And do feel free to watch! Just try not to sneeze—we don’t want any more germs getting into these poor sharks.”

  She turns back to us.

  “I’ve explained the situation to the readers and they’re fine with it, so get your diving suits on and let’s get started.”

  We shrug, put on our diving suits, and follow Jill into the tank.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a tank full of man-eating sharks before but, believe me, it’s pretty scary. The sharks look even bigger down here than they do from up there.

  “What if the sharks wake up and get hungry while we’re doing the surgery?” I say.

  “They won’t,” says Jill. “Trust me. But just to be sure, I’ll give them each a dose of Dr. Numbskull’s Sleepy Shark Sleeping Potion.”

  “Can I just ask one question?” I say.

  “Sure,” says Jill.

  “Aren’t we underwater?”

  “Yes, of course we are,” she says.

  “Then, how come we can talk?”

  “Sorry, Andy, but that’s two questions and we only had time for one. Are you ready?”

  “Yes, but what do we do?” says Terry. “I’ve never operated on a shark before.”

  “It’s not so hard,” says Jill. “You know how to work a zipper, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there’s one about halfway down its belly. Just unzip it and empty the contents.”

  “Wow!” I say. “I never knew sharks had zippers!”

  I unzip my shark and peer into its belly. As you might expect, it’s full of fish. I can’t see any sign of Terry’s underpants, but I can see some sort of large, round object. I reach in and pull it out.

  “Hey, look what I found! It’s Captain Woodenhead’s wooden head!”

  “Yikes!” says Terry.

  “Ugh,” says Jill. “That’s really creepy.”

  Jill’s right. It is really creepy.

  Even though the eyes are made of wood, it feels like they are looking right at you.

  And it’s quite a coincidence, really, because Captain Woodenhead is actually tied up with that whole story I was telling you earlier about how Terry and I met.

  You remember that lonely little boy? The one at the top of the very tall tower? Well …

  “Andy!” says Jill. “Stop talking to the readers! Do I have to remind you that we’re in the middle of open-shark surgery? Let’s focus and get this job finished—then you can blather away all you want.”

  “I’m not ‘blathering,’” I say. “I’m narrating.”

  Jill and Terry look at each other, roll their eyes, and smile.

  “Whatever,” says Jill. “Just save it till later.”

  “Hey, look what I found!” says Terry, holding up a pair of underpants.

  “And I just found a pair, too,” I say, pulling them out of my shark.

  “And here’s the third pair,” says Jill, holding them as far away from herself as possible. “Terry, these underpants are disgusting!”

  “I know!” he says. “That’s why I was trying to wash them!”

  “Will the sharks be all right now?” I say.

  “I hope so,” says Jill. “I think the best thing for them is to be zipped back up and have a good rest. The cats and I can take it from here.”

  CHAPTER 5

  TERRY’S STORY

  Back in the kitchen, our automatic marshmallow machine senses how hungry we are and begins firing marshmallows into our mouths.

  “So,” says Terry, through a mouthful of marshmallows, “what story were you telling the readers when I interrupted you?”

  “I was telling them the story of how we met,” I say.

  “Oh, I love that story!” says Terry. “We were both lost in the forest …

  and then we met and found that house made of gingerbread …

  and we started eating it and a nice little old lady came out and invited us in …

  and then she put you in a cage to fatten you up so she could eat you—which, come to think of it, really wasn’t a very nice thing for a nice little old lady to do—

  so I pushed her into the oven—which, come to think of it, wasn’t a very nice thing for me to do, but—”

  “Terry,” I say, “that’s not the story of how we met … that’s Hansel and Gretel—it’s a fairy tale!”

  (Remember how I told you that Terry can be a bit annoying at times? Well, this is one of those times.)

  Terry frowns and looks confused. “Oh, yeah … my mistake,” he says. “I remember now. I was taking some food to my sick grandmother and I met you in the woods.

  You had big eyes …

  big teeth …

  and you were covered in fur in those days …

  Later, you dressed up in my grandmother’s clothes … I never really understood why you did that.”

  “I didn’t do that!” I say. “And that’s not how we met, either. That’s Little Red Riding Hood!”

  Terry smacks his head. “It is? Of course! Sorry, Andy—how could I be so dumb? Hang on, I’ve got it. There was a castle …

  We met at the ball and danced …

  But when the clock struck twelve, you went running off and lost your glass slipper.

  I looked everywhere for you. I searched the kingdom, far and wide, but—”

  “Terry!” I yell. “You’re not even close! That’s Cinderella!”

  Terry shrugs. “Then I give up. I’ve got no idea how we met.”

  “Well,” I say, “if you promise to be quiet for the next twenty-one pages, I’ll tell you.”

  “Okay,” says Terry. “I promise.”

  “Was he all right?” says Terry.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, he was,” I say. “Because I rescued you in a pedal boat.”

  “Me?” says Terry.

  “Yes, because you were the boy in the story.”

  “I was?… Oh yes, now I remember … it was me! Of course … it was me all along … but what were you doing in a pedal boat?”

  “Well, that’s actually a whole other story,” I say.

  “Is it a long story?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Can we get an ice cream first?”

  “What a good idea!” I say. “Let’s go visit Edward Scooperhands.”

  CHAPTER 6

  ANDY’S STORY

  At the ice
cream parlor, I get a double-scoop chocolate ice cream but, as usual, Terry can’t decide what flavor he wants.

  “Hurry up,” I say, “the readers are waiting!”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, “but there are seventy-eight flavors here. I don’t want to make the wrong decision.”

  “Maybe you could ask the readers to help you choose,” I say.

  “Great idea!” says Terry. “I’ll do that.”