The 117-Story Treehouse Read online

  “Yay!” says Little Peter Poopypants.

  We wave good-bye to Little Peter Poopypants and our dot rises into the sky and flies up, up, and away.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE SPLAT IN THE HAT

  We fly

  And we fly

  And we fly

  And we fly.

  We fly fast.

  We fly slow.

  We fly high.

  We fly low.

  We go and we go

  And we go and we go.

  We see a beautiful beach below.

  The sand is blue,

  The sea is green.

  It’s the most interesting beach

  We’ve ever seen.

  We land the dot

  Beneath a tree

  Where we find a rug

  With food for three

  And a sign that says,

  This picnic’s free!

  We sit on the rug

  And start to eat—

  But then a big fat

  SPLAT

  Makes us jump to

  our feet!

  “Oh no!” I say.

  “It’s the Splat in the Hat! The free picnic for three was just a trap!”

  “Ha-ha,” it cries.

  “You’re right about that!

  Now prepare yourselves

  For a SPLAT ATTACK!”

  We’re covered in splats

  from top to toe.

  “Come on!” I say.

  “Let’s GO GO GO!”

  We run to a house.

  We bang on the door.

  But the splat’s right behind us

  And it splats us some more!

  The door opens wide

  And two children say,

  “Quick, hide in here

  Till the splat goes away.”

  “Thanks!” we say

  As we run on through.

  But the splat is too fast—

  And it splats in, too!

  It splats the wall!

  It splats the floor!

  It splats the window!

  And it splats the door!

  It splats the dog!

  And it splats the cat!

  It splats the fish!

  And it splats the mat!

  “Oh no!” cry the children.

  “Boo-hoo, boo-hoo!

  Our house is all splattered

  And we are, too.”

  “Don’t cry,” says Terry.

  “I know what to do.

  Prepare to meet

  Dot One and Dot Two!”

  “These amazing dots

  Will make your home neat

  Because splats are their

  Favorite things to eat!

  These de-splatting dots

  Eat splats for lunch

  And breakfast and dinner

  And snacks and brunch!”

  Terry releases

  Dot One and Dot Two

  And they get right to work—

  They know just what to do.

  They bite and they munch!

  They chomp and they crunch!

  They gobble and guzzle and slurp!

  (And every so often

  They stop all their chewing

  And let out a very large burp.)

  They de-splat the dog!

  They de-splat the cat!

  They de-splat the fish!

  And they de-splat the mat!

  They de-splat the wall!

  They de-splat the floor!

  They de-splat the window!

  And they de-splat the door!

  They de-splat Terry

  And Jill and me

  And in no time at all

  We’re completely splat-free!

  They de-splat the girl

  And they de-splat the boy.

  And they are so happy

  That they shout with joy:

  “Hooray! Hoorah!

  Calloo! Callay!

  Dot One and Dot Two

  Have saved the day!”

  “They came to our rescue

  When it really mattered

  And now everything’s clean

  And completely de-splattered!”

  “My splats! My splats!”

  Cries the Splat in the Hat.

  “Oh why, why, why

  Did you have to do that?”

  The Splat in the Hat

  Begins to cry.

  A big fat tear

  Rolls out of each eye.

  It cries.

  And cries.

  And cries.

  And cries.

  In fact, it cries so much,

  That I’m happy to say,

  It completely washes

  Itself away!

  And that is the end

  Of the big bad splat—

  And all that is left

  Is its dotty old hat.

  “Good work, Terry.

  Well done,” says Jill.

  “But I must confess

  That I’m feeling quite ill.

  For the Story Police

  Are drawing near.

  And being captured

  Is what I fear.”

  “Don’t worry” says Terry.

  “Fear not! Fear not!

  For I have got

  Another dot—

  The sort of dot

  That can become a …

  “And my inflatable underpants

  Will make a great sail.

  We’ll escape those police

  And their jail without fail!”

  CHAPTER 10

  WHERE THE FILED THINGS ARE

  We sail and we sail and we sail and we sail.

  We sail fast.

  We sail slow.

  We sail high.

  We sail low.

  We go and we go and we go and we go.

  “Look!” says Jill, pointing to an island-shaped shape in the distance. “There’s an island!”

  “I hope it’s our treehouse desert island!” says Terry. “It looks a bit like it, except I don’t remember our island having quite so many filing cabinets.”

  “Our island doesn’t have any filing cabinets,” I say. “And this one has stacks of them. Stacks and stacks, all piled on top of one another!”

  Our dot-yacht comes to rest on the shore and we all climb out onto what should be a beach but doesn’t look like one because, weirdly, there is no sand—not even a single grain.

  “This is the strangest island I’ve ever seen,” says Jill, looking around. “There are no trees, no plants, no birds or any other animals … just filing cabinets.”

  “I wonder what’s in them,” says Terry.

  “Let’s have a look!” I say.

  I grab the handle of a drawer marked P and try to pull it open. But it won’t budge. “It’s locked,” I say.

  “I think they all are,” says Terry, running from cabinet to cabinet, pulling at the drawers.

  “Quiet!” says Jill. “I can hear something. I think it’s coming from that drawer you tried to open, Andy.”

  We all lean in close.

  “Let me out of here!” says a small voice. “For Pete’s sake, let me out of here!”

  “We can’t,” I shout as loudly as I can to whoever—or whatever—is in there. “The drawer is locked!”

  “Then, for Pete’s sake, get a key!” says the voice. “Try one of the drawers marked K.”

  “There’s one over here!” says Jill.

  Terry and I run over to the cabinet and try to open the drawer, but we can’t. “This drawer is locked, too,” I say.

  “It doesn’t matter,” says Terry. “I can use a dot to get the keys out.”

  Terry draws a large dot in the middle of the filing cabinet drawer.

  He puts his hand into the dot-hole and pulls out three keys.

  “One each,” he says, handing them out.

  “Let’s try them,” says Jill.

  We rush over and open the P drawer. A blue-and-yellow parrot
with a black eyepatch and a wooden leg flies out and lands in front of us.

  “Thanks, me hearties,” it says. “I thought I was going to be filed away for the rest of me days!”

  “Are you a pirate?” says Terry.

  “Aye, that I be!” it says. “One-Eyed Pete the pirate parakeet at your service. And who might you be?”

  “I be Terry,” says Terry. “And that be Jill and that be Andy.”

  “Are you a pirate, too?” says One-Eyed Pete.

  “No,” says Terry, “but we did all work on a pirate ship for a while.”

  “Who locked you in that filing cabinet?” says Jill.

  “It was that blasted filing monster,” says One-Eyed Pete. “Blast and curse its blasted filing fingers!”

  “A filing monster?” says Terry. “Hmm … that sounds a bit like the monster in Mr. Big Nose’s favorite book, Where the Filed Things Are!”

  “He’s a monster all right,” says One-Eyed Pete. “This used to be a beautiful tropical island. There were all sorts of animals living here—turtles, monkeys, hippos, dinosaurs, giant rabbits, seals … until that crazy filing monster came along and filed everything!”

  “Do you mean there are other living creatures trapped in these filing cabinets?” says Jill.

  “Aye, missy,” says One-Eyed Pete. “All the drawers are stuffed full, and not only with all the island’s creatures but the rocks and trees and sand and rivers as well!”

  “But why?” says Jill. “Why would the filing monster do such a thing?”

  “Because it’s a filing monster,” says One-Eyed Pete. “That’s what it does.”

  “Well it’s not right,” says Jill. “Let’s put the island back the way it’s supposed to be.”

  “That’s much better!” says Jill, surrounded by grateful animals. “I’d sure like to give that filing monster a piece of my mind for locking you all up.”

  “I think you might get your chance to do just that very soon,” says One-Eyed Pete as the ground begins to shake, “because HERE IT COMES!”

  We can hear the monster chanting as it gets closer to us.

  “I’m outta here!” says Pete. “When the filing monster finds out what happened, it’s going to be MAD!”

  And with that, Pete flies off toward the shore, lands on our dot-yacht, and sails away.

  The rest of the animals fly and run and scurry and scuttle and dive for cover.

  I look around.

  I’m the only one left.

  Everybody’s gone. Even Jill and Terry are nowhere to be seen.

  “Pssst!” says Jill, peering out of a filing cabinet drawer marked H. “We’re over here.”

  “Under H for hiding!” says Terry.

  I run and join them … just in time.

  CHAPTER 11

  WHERE THE FILED THINGS WERE

  The monster stomps through the forest of filing cabinets and its feet sink deep into the sand, which is now back all over the ground.

  “WHAT IS THIS SAND DOING HERE?” growls the monster. “IT SHOULD BE FILED UNDER S!”

  It angrily scoops up a handful of sand and marches across to a filing cabinet drawer marked S. It stares at the open drawer and roars.

  “FEE-FILE-FO-FORE!

  WHO HAS OPENED UP THIS DRAWER?

  FEE-FILE-FO-FABINETS!

  WHO’S BEEN MESSING WITH MY CABINETS?!”

  The monster rips a palm tree from the ground and shoves it into a drawer marked P.

  It grabs an armful of rocks and drops them in a drawer marked R.

  It snatches a bird from the sky and is about to shove it into a drawer marked B when Jill jumps out and yells, “STOP! That’s no way to treat birds! Birds belong in the sky where they can be free— not locked away in a drawer marked B!”

  “Uh-oh,” I whisper to Terry. “She’s done it now.”

  “Who are you?” says the monster.

  “I’m Jill,” says Jill defiantly.

  The monster glares at her.

  “Did you open up all my filing cabinets?”

  “Yes, I did!” says Jill. “You had animals filed in there and it’s not right.”

  “Yes it is,” says the monster. “It was exactly right. I’m very good at filing. I had the snakes under S. I had the toucans under T. And I had the lambs under L. And I’m going to put you under M for MEDDLING HUMAN WHO SHOULD MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS!”

  “Animals are my business,” says Jill. “I run an intergalactic animal rescue service, you know … and that includes animals on Earth who are trapped in filing cabinet drawers.”

  “And I run a filing business,” says the monster. “I love to file and I found an island that needed filing and that’s exactly what I did until you came and messed it all up. But I’ll soon fix that!”

  The monster pulls the drawer all the way open and sees Terry and me.

  “Aha!” it says, scooping us all up. “More meddling humans!”

  “Put us down right now!” says Jill.

  “Please!” says Terry.

  “Pretty please!” I say.

  “I’ll put you down all right,” says the monster. “Right in the M drawer!”

  “Wait!” says Jill. “I don’t think M is right.”

  “I think it’s perfect,” says the monster. “You’re a bunch of meddling humans. What else could it possibly be?”

  “Well,” says Jill, “you could file me under G for girl and Andy and Terry under B for boys.”

  The monster frowns. “Yes, yes, that’s a much better idea.”

  It opens the B and G drawers.

  “But hang on a minute,” I say. “You could file us under our occupations: me under W for writer, Terry under I for illustrator, and Jill under A for animal rescuer.”

  “Or,” says Terry, “you could file us under our names: T for Terry, A for Andy, and J for Jill!”

  “Or our eye color,” says Jill. “B for blue, G for green, and H for hazel.”

  “STOP! STOP! STOP!” says the monster. “You’re getting me all confused!”

  “Sorry,” says Jill. “We’re just trying to help.”

  “Well you’re not helping,” says the monster. “But I know what to do. I will cut you all up into pieces and file a piece of you under each of the letters you have suggested. Oh, I am such a clever filing monster! Now where did I put my scissors? Oh yes, here they are … under S, where they belong!”

  The monster puts us down and gets out a very large and very sharp-looking pair of scissors.

  “Eek!” says Jill.

  “Yikes!” says Terry. “I wish we’d stayed in jail—I’d much rather be in jail than cut into little pieces.”

  “Me too,” I say. “I never thought I’d say this, but I wish the Story Police were here right now to arrest this crazy monster. Where are they when you really need them?”

  “We’re right here,” says a voice behind us. “And we’re putting a stop to this ridiculous story before it gets any worse and any more crimes are committed. We’re putting you ALL under arrest.”

  CHAPTER 12

  THE REALLY BIG, REALLY DEEP HOLE

  We have no choice but to surrender. The Story Police arrest all of us—including the filing monster—and march us down to the beach where their boat is waiting.

  “Where are you taking us?” I say.

  “To see your old friend, Judge Pumpkin Scones,” says the chief.

  “She’s not our friend,” says Jill. “She sentenced us to a billion years in prison!”

  “It would have been better for you if you’d stayed there,” says the chief. “This time she’s probably going to sentence you to a zillion years.”

  “But why am I under arrest?” says the monster.

  “Because you were about to cut everybody up with a pair of scissors!” says the chief. “Young children may be reading this book, perhaps even at bedtime. They don’t want to see people being cut into pieces by monsters— it could give them terrible nightmares. Now stop arguing, put those scissors down, a
nd get in the boat with the other prisoners!”

  As we climb aboard the boat we see that the other prisoners are an old man almost bent over double, a woman with bright red frizzy hair wearing a flowerpot on her head, a moose in a doctor’s coat, and an angry-looking man with a really big red nose.

  “Excuse me,” says Terry to the man with the big nose, “you seem familiar. Have we met before?”

  “Of course we have, you clown!” says the man. “It’s me, your publisher, Mr. Big Nose. I should have guessed you two had something to do with this! I’m a busy man, you know—I haven’t got time to be arrested for story crimes that I didn’t even commit!”

  “You published their books,” says the chief. “You’re just as much to blame as anybody—you should have checked them more thoroughly to make sure they didn’t break so many story rules.”