Fantastic Stories Read online

  But to Tom by far the most interesting thing was the thing he found himself standing in. It was a sort of crater scooped out of the ground, and it was ringed with a dozen or so odd-shaped eggs.

  ‘My hat!’ said Tom to himself. ‘I’m back in Jurassic times! 150 million years ago! And, by the look of it, I’m standing right in a dinosaur’s nest!’

  At that moment he heard an ear-splitting screech, and a huge lizard came running out of the forest on its hind legs. It was heading straight for Tom! Well, Tom didn’t wait to ask what time of day it was – he just turned and fled. But once he was running, he realized it was hopeless. He had about as much chance of out-running the lizard creature as he had of teaching it Latin (which, as he didn’t even speak it himself, was pretty unlikely).

  Tom had run no more than a couple of paces by the time the creature had reached the nest. Tom shut his eyes. The next second he knew he would feel the creature’s hooked claws around his neck. But he kept on running … and running … and nothing happened.

  Eventually, Tom turned to see his pursuer had stopped at the nest and was busy with something.

  ‘It’s eating the eggs!’ exclaimed Tom. ‘It’s an egg-eater… an Oviraptor! I should have recognized it!’

  But before he had a chance to kick himself, he felt his feet sinking beneath him, and an uncomfortably hot sensation ran up his legs. Tom looked down to see that he’d run into the bog.

  ‘Help!’ shouted Tom. But the Oviraptor obviously knew as little English as it did Latin, and Tom felt his legs sliding deeper into the bubbling mud.

  Tom looked up, and saw what looked like flying lizards gliding stiffly overhead. He wished he could grab onto one of those long tails and pull himself up out of the bog, but – even as he thought it – his legs slid in up to the knee. And now he suddenly realized the mud was not just hot – it was boiling hot!

  His only chance was to grab a nearby fern frond. With his last ounce of strength, Tom lunged for it and managed to grab the end. The fern was tougher and stronger than modern ferns, but it also stung his hand. But he put up with it, and slowly and painfully, inch by inch, he managed to claw his way up the fern frond until he finally managed to pull himself free of the bog.

  ‘This isn’t any place for me!’ exclaimed Tom, and, at that moment, the sky grew red – as if some distant volcano were erupting.

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Tom. ‘How on earth do I get out of this?’

  The moment he said it, however, he took it back, for the most wonderful thing happened. At least, it was wonderful for Tom, because he was particularly interested in these things.

  He heard a terrible commotion in the forest. There was a crashing and roaring and twittering and bleating. A whole flock of Pterodactyls flew up out of the trees with hideous screeching. The lizard creature stopped eating the eggs and turned to look.

  From out of the middle of the forest came the most terrible roar that Tom had ever heard in his life. The ground shook. The lizard thing screamed, dropped the egg it was devouring and ran off as fast as it could. Then out of the forest came another dinosaur, followed by another and another and another. Big ones, small ones, some running on four legs, some on two. All looking terrified and screeching and howling.

  Tom shinned up a nearby tree to keep out of the way.

  ‘Those are Ankylosaurs! Those are Pterosaurs! Triceratops! Iguanadons! Oh! And look: a Plateosaurus!’

  Tom could scarcely believe his luck. ‘Imagine seeing so many different kinds of dinosaur all at the same time!’ he said to himself. ‘I wonder where they’re going?’

  But the words were scarcely out of his mouth before he found out.

  CRASH! Tom nearly fell out of the tree. CRASH! The ground shook, as suddenly – out of the forest – there emerged the most terrible creature Tom had ever seen or was ever likely to see again.

  ‘Crumbs!’ said Tom. ‘I should have guessed! Tyrannosaurus Rex! My favourite dinosaur!’

  The monster stepped out into the clearing. It was bigger than a house, and it strode on two massive legs. Its vicious teeth glowed red in the flaming light from the sky.

  The curious thing was that Tom seemed to forget all his fear. He was so overawed by the sight of the greatest of all dinosaurs that he felt everything else was insignificant – including himself.

  The next moment, however, all his fear returned with a vengeance, for the Tyrannosaurus Rex stopped as it drew level with the tree in which Tom was hiding. Its great head loomed just above Tom and the tree, and made them both quiver like jelly.

  Before Tom knew what was happening, he suddenly saw the Tyrannosaurus reach out its foreclaws and pull the tree over towards itself. The next second, Tom found that the branch to which he was clinging had been ripped off the tree, and he was being hoisted forty feet above the ground in the claws of the Tyrannosaurus Rex!

  Tom was too terrified to be frightened. A sort of calm hit him as the creature turned him over and sniffed him – as if uncertain as to whether or not Tom was edible.

  ‘He’s going to find out pretty soon!’ exclaimed Tom, as he felt himself lifted up towards those terrible jaws.

  ‘I bet,’ thought Tom, ‘I’m the only boy in my school ever to have been eaten by his own favourite dinosaur!’

  He could feel the monster’s breath on his skin. He could see the glittering eye looking at him. He could sense the jaws were just opening to tear him to pieces, when… There was a dull thud.

  The Tyrannosaurus’s head jerked upright, and it twisted round, and Tom felt himself falling through the air.

  The branch broke his fall, and as he picked himself up, he saw that something huge had landed on the Tyrannosaurus’s back. The Tyrannosaurus had leapt around in surprise and was now tearing and ripping at the thing that had landed on it.

  And now, as Tom gathered his wits, he suddenly realized what it was that had apparently fallen out of nowhere onto the flesh-eating monster. I wonder if you can guess what it was? It was Tom’s old friend the Stegosaurus – complete with bits of the garden woodshed still stuck in its armour plates, and the branch of red berries sticking out of its mouth.

  ‘It must have given up eating my dad’s roses and gone back to the berries!’ exclaimed Tom. And, at that very moment, Tom could have kicked himself. ‘I’m an idiot!’ he cried. For he suddenly noticed that the tree he’d climbed was none other than the very same magical tree – with its odd-shaped leaves and bright red berries.

  But even as he reached out his hand to pick a berry that would send him back again in time, he found himself hurtling through the air, as the Tyrannosaurus’s tail struck him on the back.

  ‘Baaa.!’ bleated the Stegosaurus, as the Tyrannosaur clawed its side and blood poured onto the ground.

  ‘Raaaa!’ roared the Tyrannosaur as the Stegosaurus thrashed it with the horny spikes on its tail.

  The monsters reared up on their hind legs, and fought with tooth and bone and claw, and they swayed and teetered high above Tom’s head, until the Tyrannosaur lunged with its savage jaws, and ripped a huge piece of flesh from the Stegosaurus’s side. The Stegosaurus began to topple… as if in slow motion… directly onto where Tom was crouching.

  And Tom would most certainly have been crushed beneath the creature, had he not – at that very instant – found that in his hand he already had a broken spray of the red berries. And as the monster toppled over onto him, he popped a berry into his mouth and bit it.

  Once again the world began to spin around him. The clashing dinosaurs, the forest, the bubbling mud swamp, the fiery sky – all whirled around him in a crescendo of noise and then… suddenly!… There he was back in his own garden. The Jones’s washing was still on the line. There was his house, and there was his father coming down the garden path towards him looking none too pleased.

  ‘Dad!’ yelled Tom. ‘You’ll never guess what’s just happened!’ Tom’s father looked at the wrecked woodshed, and the dug-up vegetable patch and then he looked at his prize roses scattered
all over the garden. Then he looked at Tom: ‘No, my lad,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose I can. But I’ll tell you this… It had better be a very good story!’

  * * *

  NOTE: If you’re wondering why the magical tree with the bright red berries has never been heard of again, well the Stegosaurus landed on it and smashed it, and I’m afraid it was the only one of its kind.

  Oh! What happened to the Stegosaurus? Well, I’m happy to be able to tell you that it actually won its fight against the Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was, in fact, the only time a Stegosaurus ever beat a Tyrannosaur. This is mainly due to the fact that this particular Tyrannosaur suddenly got a terrible feeling of déjà-vu and had to run off and find its mummy for reassurance (because it was only a young Tyrannosaurus Rex after all). So the Stegosaurus went on to become the father of six healthy young Stegosauruses or Stegosauri, and Jurassic Tail-Thrashing Champion of what is now Surbiton!

  NICOBOBINUS AND THE DOGE OF VENICE

  THIS IS THE STORY of the most extraordinary child who ever stuck his tongue out at the Prime Minister. His name was Nicobobinus [Nick-Oh-Bob-In-Us]. He lived a long time ago, in a city called Venice, and he could do anything.

  Of course, not everybody knew he could do anything. In fact only his best friend, Rosie, knew he could, and nobody took any notice of anything Rosie said, because she was always having wild ideas anyway.

  One day, for example, Rosie said to Nicobobinus: ‘Let’s put a rabbit down the Doge’s trousers!’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Nicobobinus. ‘The Doge doesn’t wear trousers.’

  ‘Yes he does,’ said Rosie. ‘And we ought to boil his hat up and give it to the pigeons.’

  ‘Anyway, who is the Doge?’ asked Nicobobinus.

  ‘How d’you know he doesn’t wear trousers if you don’t know who he is?’ exclaimed Rosie (not unreasonably in my opinion).

  Nicobobinus peered across the water and muttered: ‘He doesn’t live in the Doge’s palace, does he?’

  ‘Gosh!’ said Rosie. ‘I’ve never been fishing with a real genius before.’

  ‘But he’s the most important man in Venice!’ exclaimed Nicobobinus.

  ‘They’ve got universities for people like you, you know,’ said Rosie, and she yanked a small carp out of the canal.

  ‘What have you got against him?’ asked Nicobobinus, as he watched her pulling out the hook with a well-practised twist.

  ‘He’s just extended his palace,’ said Rosie, looking at her fish. It was about nine inches long.

  ‘So?’ said Nicobobinus, wondering why he never caught anything longer than his nose – which wasn’t particularly long anyway.

  ‘Well, he extended it all over my granny’s house. That’s what!’ said Rosie.

  ‘And now your poor old gran hasn’t got anywhere to live?’ asked Nicobobinus sympathetically.

  ‘Oh yes she has! She’s living with us, and I can’t stand it!’ replied Rosie.

  Nicobobinus pretended, for a moment, that he had a bite. Then he said: ‘But how will putting a rabbit down the Doge’s trousers help?‘

  ‘It won’t,’ said Rosie. ‘But it’ll make me feel a lot better. Come on!’

  ‘You don’t really mean it?’ gasped Nicobobinus.

  ‘No,’ said Rosie. We haven’t got a rabbit – so it’ll have to be a fish.’

  ‘But that’s our supper!’ said Nicobobinus. ‘And anyway, they’ve got guards and sentries and dogs all over the Doge’s palace. We’d never get in.’

  Rosie looked Nicobobinus straight in the eyes and said: ‘Nicobobinus! It’s fun!’

  Some time later, when they were hiding under some nets on one of the little fishing boats that ferried people from the Giudecca to St Mark’s Square, when the weather was too bad for fishing, Nicobobinus was still less certain.

  ‘My granny says that where her kitchen used to be, they’ve built this fancy balcony,’ Rosie was whispering, ‘and she reckons any thief could climb in by day or night.’

  ‘They drown thieves in the Grand Canal at midnight,’ groaned Nicobobinus.

  ‘They’ll never catch us,’ Rosie reassured him.

  ‘Who’s that under my nets?’ shouted a voice.

  ‘Leg it!’ yelled Rosie, and she and Nicobobinus jumped overboard!

  ‘Lucky we’d reached the shore!’ panted Nicobobinus as the two sprinted across St Mark’s Square.

  ‘Hey! You two!’ yelled the fisherman and gave chase.

  Some time later, as Nicobobinus was standing on Rosie’s shoulders pulling himself onto the balcony of the Doge’s palace, he was even less certain.

  ‘Have you got the fish?’ hissed Rosie, as he pulled her up after him.

  Nicobobinus could feel it wriggling inside his jerkin.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘It was so unhappy I set it free. It said it didn’t want to get caught by the Doge’s guards in the company of two completely out-of-their-basket idiots like… ’

  ‘Look!’ said Rosie. ‘Do you see where we are?’

  Nicobobinus peered into the room with Rosie and caught his breath. It was a magnificent room, with lacquered gold furniture and elegant paintings on the wall. But that wasn’t what caught the attention of Rosie and Nicobobinus.

  ‘Do you see?’ exclaimed Rosie.

  ‘Toys!’ breathed Nicobobinus.

  ‘We’re in the nursery!’ said Rosie, and she was. She had just climbed in.

  Back at home Nicobobinus had just one toy. His uncle had made it for him, and, now he came to think about it, it was more of a plank than a toy. It had four wooden wheels, but the main part of it was definitely a plank. Rosie thought about her two toys, back in the little bare room where she slept with her sisters and her mother and her father and now her granny. One was moth-eaten (that was the doll that had been handed down from sister to sister) and the other was broken (that was a jug that she used to pretend was a crock of gold). But the Doge’s children had: hoops, spinning tops, hobby horses, dolls’ houses, dolls, toy furniture, masks, windmills, stilts (of various heights), rattles, building blocks, boxes, balls and a swing.

  ‘There’s only one thing,’ whispered Rosie.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Nicobobinus as he picked up one of the hoops.

  ‘The Doge hasn’t got any children,’ said Rosie, but before she could say anything else, one of them walked in through the door.

  ‘Hasn’t he?’ said Nicobobinus.

  ‘Well I didn’t think he had,’ said Rosie.

  During this last exchange, the little girl who had just walked in through the door had turned pale, turned on her heel, and finally turned into a human cannonball, that streaked off back the way it had come.

  ‘Quick!’ cried Rosie. ‘She’ll give the alarm!’

  And before Nicobobinus could stop her, Rosie was off in pursuit. So Nicobobinus followed … What else could he do?

  Well, they hadn’t got more than half-way across the adjoining room, when they both noticed it was rather full of people.

  ‘Hi, everyone!’ yelled Nicobobinus, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘That’s torn it!’ muttered Rosie. And on they dashed into the next chamber.

  The Doge, who had been one of the people the room was full of, sat up in bed and said: ‘Who are they?

  ‘I’ll have them executed straightaway,’ said the Prime Minister.

  ‘No, no! Apprehend them,’ said the Doge.

  ‘At once,’ said the Chief of the Guards.

  ‘My clothes!’ said the Doge, and sixteen people rushed forward with sixteen different bits of the Doge’s clothing. Getting out of bed for the Most Important Person In Venice in 1545 was a lot more elaborate than it is for you or me… at least, it’s more elaborate than the way I get up – I don’t really know about you.

  Anyway, by this time, Nicobobinus and Rosie had bolted through six more rooms, down a flight of stairs and locked themselves in a cupboard.

  ‘Phew!’ said Rosie. ‘Sorry about this.’


  ‘That’s all right,’ said Nicobobinus.

  ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ said a third voice. Nicobobinus and Rosie looked at each other in astonishment (although, as it was pitch-dark in the cupboard, neither of them realized they did).

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Nicobobinus.

  ‘I’m not allowed to play with other children,’ said the voice. ‘My nurse says they might hurt me or kidnap me.’

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ exclaimed Rosie. ‘Children don’t kidnap other children.’

  ‘Don’t they?’ said the other occupant of the cupboard.

  ‘No. And we’re not going to hurt you,’ said Nicobobinus.

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘A lark,’ said Rosie.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked the girl.

  ‘You know …’ said Nicobobinus, ‘fun.’

  ‘Fun?’ said the little girl. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ muttered Rosie.

  ‘Stick with us and you’ll see,’ said Nicobobinus.

  ‘All right,’ said the girl. ‘My name’s Beatrice.’

  But before either Nicobobinus or Rosie could tell Beatrice their names, there was a thundering as dozens of people went storming and clattering past the cupboard shouting things like: ‘There they are!’ and ‘No! That’s not them!’ and ‘Ow! Take that spear out of my ear!’ and ‘Quick! This way!’ and ‘Look in there!’ and ‘Help me! I’ve fallen over!’ and so on.

  When they’d all finally gone and it was quiet again, Nicobobinus, Rosie and their new friend stuck their heads out of the cupboard. The coast was clear, except for the guard who had fallen over.

  ‘Give me a hand would you?’ he asked. ‘This armour’s so heavy that once you fall over it’s very difficult to get back on your feet again.’