Fantastic Stories Read online

  ‘No you’re not!’ exclaimed Mick. ‘I can’t stand living with you another day. I’m the one that’s leaving!’

  Well, they argued and they argued and they argued about which one of them was to leave, but they just couldn’t agree. So, in the end, they both left.

  They marched along the road that led to the great wide world, and when they reached the crossroads, Mick turned to Mack and said: ‘Goodbye, Mack. I’m taking this road that leads to the sea.’

  ‘No you’re not!’ shouted Mack. ‘That’s my road! You’ll have to take the road to the hills.’

  Well, they stood there arguing for about an hour, but they couldn’t agree about which road the other was taking. So in the end, they both set off along the same road. And pretty soon they came to the sea.

  ‘Ah!’ said Mick. ‘I can’t wait to put an ocean between us two.’

  ‘Neither can I,’ said Mack.

  When they got to the harbour, however, they found there was only one ship due to sail.

  Could they agree which of them was to take it? No, of course they couldn’t.

  ‘I was the first to say I wanted to put an ocean between us,’ said Mick.

  ‘But I was the first to say I wanted to leave!’ exclaimed Mack. So they stood on the quay, and they argued and they argued and they argued – until they saw the ship weighing its anchor, and they both had to leap aboard – otherwise they’d both have missed it.

  As soon as they got on board they started arguing again, and they didn’t stop once.

  Their crewmates quickly grew tired of them.

  ‘Don’t you two ever agree about anything?’ the other sailors asked.

  ‘No,’ said Mack and Mick together. ‘Never!’ And they carried on arguing about which of them felt the more seasick.

  Eventually the Captain could stand it no longer, and he made them sleep down in the hold of the ship, away from the rest of the crew.

  But, even down in the hold, the entire ship’s company could still hear Mack and Mick arguing and arguing and arguing as bad as ever.

  So the Captain hauled them up on deck in front of the whole crew, and said: ‘We are all sick and tired of your constant bickering. It sets our teeth on edge all day, and it keeps us awake all night. So here’s what I’m going to do. Either you two stop arguing, or I’m going to throw you off the ship at the next desert island we come to.’

  Mack immediately turned to Mick. ‘See?’ he said. ‘This is all your fault.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ exclaimed Mick. ‘I wouldn’t be arguing if it weren’t for you! It’s all your fault.’

  And they were taken down into the hold again still arguing and arguing.

  Well, the ship sailed on for seven days and seven nights, until one morning the lookout shouted: ‘Land ahead!’

  The Captain looked through his telescope and saw a desert island on the horizon. Once again he summoned Mack and Mick up onto the deck in front of the whole crew, and he said: ‘I’ll give you one last chance. If you can keep yourselves from arguing as long as that desert island is in sight, you can stay on board. But if you have so much as one argument, I’ll throw you overboard, and you’ll have to live out the rest of your lives on that island.’

  Well, Mack looked at Mick, and Mick looked at Mack. Then Mack said: ‘Well, Mick, if anyone starts an argument – it’ll be you.’

  ‘That’s a laugh, Mack!’ exclaimed Mick. ‘You’re much more likely to start an argument than I am!’

  And with that, of course, they started arguing again, and they didn’t stop until the ship reached the desert island, and the two of them were thrown overboard and they had to swim for the shore.

  Mack and Mick stood on the shore of the desert island, and watched their ship disappear over the horizon.

  ‘Well this is a pretty how’s yer father!’ said Mack. ‘We try to get away from each other …’

  ‘And we end up marooned together on a desert island,’ said Mick.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Mack.

  There wasn’t much to eat on that desert island. For breakfast they managed to find two clams, so they ate one each. For lunch they managed to catch a dodo (I’m afraid it was the last one). Normally they would have argued about whether to roast or boil it, but as they didn’t have any pots or pans they had no choice. They stuck it on a stick, and held it over the fire. And it tasted pretty good.

  As night began to fall, they broke branches off a tree and made themselves a rough shelter by the beach. There they sat together, looking out into the night sea, hoping their ship would return to pick them up. But it didn’t. And they fell asleep, trying to remember the names of the flowers that grew in their garden back home.

  The next day, they searched the island and found a sparkling stream of fresh water. There they decided to build a house. Then they lit a fire at the top of the nearby hill to attract the attention of any ship that might pass by.

  ‘We must make sure we keep it burning …’ said Mick.

  ‘Day and night,’ said Mack.

  But that night, as they sat down to a meal of fresh fish, they heard the wind begin to blow.

  ‘Looks like there’s going to be a storm,’ said Mick.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Mack. ‘We’d better tie the roof on.’

  So they tied the roof down with creepers from the forest, as the wind blew stronger and fiercer. Then the rain began to lash the island. Before long, Mick and Mack were cowering in their little log house, listening to the thunder breaking over their heads, and watching the bolts of lightning striking out of the sky.

  Suddenly there was a terrible noise and the sound of breaking branches.

  ‘Run!’ cried Mick

  ‘I am!’ cried Mack.

  And they ran as hard as they could out into the storm, just as a huge tree came crashing down on their log house, smashing it to pieces.

  Still the wind blew even fiercer, and the rain lashed across their backs, and the water ran down their faces like sheets of tears.

  We must find shelter!’ said Mick.

  ‘Over there!’ cried Mack. And they started running towards a cave. They reached the cave just as the wind began to turn into a hurricane. It blew away the remnants of their house as if it had been matchwood.

  The lightning hit tree after tree, and fire swept across the island. Mack and Mick trembled, holding onto each other in the safety of the cave.

  As day broke, the storm subsided, but as it did, their troubles redoubled. They awoke to a roar that made their blood run cold.

  Mack and Mick both sat bolt upright, and stared in horror, for there in the mouth of the cave was a huge monster with a head as big as its own body. When it opened its jaws and roared again, both Mack and Mick thought they were going to tumble into it – its throat seemed so vast and deep.

  The monster advanced into the cave, and looked from Mack to Mick and from Mick to Mack.

  Mack backed away towards one side of the cave, and Mick backed towards the other, as the terrible creature took another step further into the cave. First it turned towards Mick and showed its razor-sharp teeth. Then it turned towards Mack and stretched out a razor-sharp claw.

  ‘It can’t make up its mind which of us looks tastiest!’ cried Mick.

  ‘Well let’s not give it the chance to find out!’ shouted Mack.

  ‘Ready?’ shouted Mick.

  ‘Ready!’ screamed Mack. And they both together sprinted for the entrance of the cave as fast as fear could take them. First the monster darted towards Mick, then it turned towards Mack, but by then Mack was out of the cave, and so was Mick!

  ‘See you on the other side of the island!’ shouted Mick.

  ‘Right!’ yelled Mack. And they both ran off in opposite directions, and the monster stood roaring in the cave mouth, hopping from one foot to the other, unable to decide whether to chase after Mick or chase after Mack.

  So it was that Mack and Mick found themselves on separate sides of the island.

&nb
sp; Mack found himself amongst quicksands and deep dark bogs that nearly sucked him down on several occasions … until he had the idea of tying branches to his feet so that he didn’t sink in.

  Mick found himself in a dark forest, infested with wild wolves. He armed himself as best he could with a stout stick and a knife, and pursued his way. But he could hear the wolves following him, and he could see their eyes glinting in the blackness of the forest.

  Mick wished he had Mack with him to give him courage. And Mack wished he had Mick with him to help him every time he fell into a bog.

  At length, however, they met up together on the other side of the island.

  ‘Thank goodness!’ cried Mick.

  ‘It’s good to see you!’ cried Mack.

  But no sooner had they hugged each other and done a little dance of joy, than an even worse calamity befell them!

  They heard a terrible explosion above, and they looked up – in time to see the top blow off the volcano in the centre of the island and flames begin to shoot up into the sky. A great cloud of soot shot up into the air and covered the sun. The next minute, they saw molten rock bubbling up over the rim of the crater and down the sides of the mountain towards them.

  ‘The sea!’ cried Mack.

  ‘Here we go again!’ yelled Mick, and they both plunged into the sea, and started to swim … But even as they hit the water, the white-hot molten lava flowed over the shore.

  And they had swum no further than the shadow of the mountain at mid-morn, when the lava reached the sea. The air was filled with an ear-splitting hiss, and the island disappeared in a cloud of steam, as the water started to bubble.

  ‘Help!’ yelled Mick. ‘The sea’s boiling!’

  ‘We’ll be cooked – like the ogre in the next story!’ cried Mack.

  And they both swam as hard as they could, until – as fate would have it – they reached cooler water. But the smiles on their faces quickly disappeared as they looked around them … ‘Sharks!’ screamed Mick.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ screamed Mack. But sure enough, they could see sharks circling all around them.

  ‘Look out!’ screamed Mack. ‘Here comes one!’

  ‘What a way to go!’ yelled Mack, ‘After all we’ve been through!’

  But, just at that very moment, white-hot ash started to fall out of the sky.

  ‘Dive!’ yelled Mick. And the two brothers dived, while the hot ash fell on the sharks, and the sharks were so confused they thrashed the sea, and then turned on their tails and swam off.

  Some time later, Mack and Mick found themselves clinging to a tree trunk, on which they drifted for two days and two nights. On the third day, however, the breeze blew them onto a little sandy island with two trees in the middle of it.

  They lay there gasping, and wondered what else could possibly happen to them, until they both fell asleep from exhaustion, and didn’t wake up until the next day.

  When they opened their eyes they blinked and looked again, but – sure enough – they could see something on the horizon.

  ‘It’s a sail!’ exclaimed Mick.

  ‘We’re saved!’ exclaimed Mack. And the two of them jumped around the little island for joy.

  But as the sail got closer, they began to realize it was a very strange sail indeed. In the first place it was big – bigger than any sail either of them had ever seen. The second strange thing about it was that it appeared to be made out of fish-skins, for one side was plain and the other was covered in silver scales. But – without a shadow of doubt – the very strangest thing about the sail was the fact that there was no ship under it. It was simply a giant sail of fish-skins, flying across the water.

  And when it reached the island, something even stranger happened. It blew over the heads of Mack and Mick, until it reached half-way across the little island, and there the two trees caught it in their palms – as if they’d been hands – and held it tight.

  The sail of fish-skins billowed out as the wind filled it once more, and then the strangest thing of all happened… The island itself began to move… It started to glide across the water like a ship – blown by the wind caught in its fish-skin sail.

  Mack and Mick were so surprised and so terrified all at the same time that they held onto each other tight.

  Well, the wind blew the sail, and the island sped through the seas until finally they saw ahead of them the shoreline of their own country. As they approached, the wind died down, and the little island started to sink beneath the waves, so Mack and Mick both had to swim for it, until they arrived back at the harbour from which they had first set out.

  Mack and Mick crawled ashore, and as they did so they heard a voice. There, standing on a rock, was the captain of the ship in which they’d first sailed.

  ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What happened to you?’

  Mack and Mick looked at each other and said: ‘We’ve been bored stiff!’

  And they told the captain their adventures.

  ‘What!’ exclaimed the captain, when they’d finished. ‘Your house was destroyed by a typhoon! You were attacked by a monster! Beset by quicksands “‘ and wild beasts! You were caught under an erupting volcano! Attacked by sharks! And brought home by a magic sail! How can you possibly call that “boring”?’

  ‘Tell him,’ said Mack.

  ‘No, you tell him,’ said Mick.

  ‘Well,’ they both said together, ‘we were so hard put to it that we didn’t have time for a single argument!’

  ‘But that’s marvellous!’ exclaimed the captain.

  ‘No it isn’t!’ replied Mack and Mick. ‘Because the one thing we learnt is that we like arguing!’

  And with that, the two brothers took their leave of the captain, and made their way back home.

  There they continued arguing to their hearts’ content.

  After all, the world would be a very dull place indeed if we all agreed about absolutely everything, wouldn’t it?

  THE SLOW OGRE

  THERE WAS ONCE AN OGRE who loved to eat… CABBAGES! And he loved to eat … SAUSAGES! And he loved to eat… RADISHES! But best of all… absolutely best of all… he loved to eat… PEOPLE!

  But there’s nothing so extraordinary about that, because that’s what ogres do. None the less, he was a very extraordinary ogre – and I shall tell you why. He was very… very… very … incredibly… unbelievably… wonderfully SLOW!

  When he got up in the morning, it took him eight hours to get out of bed. It would take him nine hours to walk downstairs, and then it would take him ten hours to boil his breakfast of human heads and gentlemen’s socks. Then it would take him fifteen hours to eat it. It would take him twenty hours to get up from the table, burp, and put on his Ogres’ Boots (which are, by the way, very expensive). And it would take him another twenty-three hours to walk to his front door.

  Now, as I expect you know, there are only twenty-four hours in a day, so it had already taken him three days, and all he’d done was get up and have breakfast.

  He was, as you can see, a very slow ogre indeed.

  Being so slow was a slight problem when it came to stealing… CABBAGES! out of people’s gardens.

  And being so slow was a slight problem when it came to snitching… SAUSAGES! out of butchers’ shops. And being so slow made it quite difficult when it came to rustling… RADISHES! out of people’s salad bowls. But you may well wonder how on earth… how on earth… such a slow ogre could even in a thousand years… ever manage to catch people to put in his breakfast stew.

  Well, here’s this Ogre getting up this morning. It’s already taken him six days to put his coat on and leave his lair. It’s taken him three weeks to walk down the road, and he’s just arrived at the house of a very rich gentleman.

  It’s taken him half a day to knock at the gates. In the meantime nobody has come in or gone out, because… well you wouldn’t, would you, if you had an ogre as tall as three men standing outside your gates?

  But now the Gatekeeper shouts throug
h the letterbox: ‘Go away! We don’t want any ogres around here, thank you very much.’

  ‘Oh! I’m not an ogre,’ says the Ogre. ‘I’m just a poor fellow who has grown too big through eating… CABBAGES! and eating… SAUSAGES! and eating… RADISHES!… ’

  And?’ asks the Gatekeeper.

  ‘And nothing else,’ replies the Ogre.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ cries the Gatekeeper.

  ‘But look at me,’ says the Ogre. ‘I’m so slow, how could I possibly be an ogre?’

  So the Gatekeeper looks out of the window, and he sees the Ogre moving so slowly … so extraordinarily slowly… that he barely seems to be moving at all.

  ‘Anybody could run away from me before I’d got the chance to grab ‘em and rip off their heads and boil ‘em up for a delicious breakfast stew… I mean a disgusting breakfast stew,’ says the Ogre.

  ‘That’s true,’ says the Gatekeeper. ‘Maybe I’ll open the gate.’

  But the Gatekeeper’s Daughter says: ‘Daddy! Don’t let him in!’

  So the Gatekeeper shouts back to the Ogre: ‘But before I open the gate, first tell me what you want.’

  And the Ogre replies: ‘Oh! I just want to do an honest day’s work, in return for a dinner of… CABBAGES! and… SAUSAGES! and… RADISHES! and… ’

  ‘And?’ says the Gatekeeper.

  ‘And absolutely nothing else at all,’ replies the Ogre.

  ‘Honestly?’ asks the Gatekeeper.

  ‘Honestly,’ replies the Ogre.

  ‘Well, in that case, maybe I’ll open the gate,’ says the Gatekeeper. ‘We could use someone as big as you to put up the Christmas holly.’

  But the Gatekeeper’s Daughter cries: ‘Daddy! Don’t let him in!’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ says the Ogre. ‘I’ll put up the Christmas holly and I’ll put on a show for all the little kiddies.’

  ‘Well that would be very nice,’ says the Gatekeeper, ‘but maybe I should just check with the Master of the House.’