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CHAPTER THREE
“Giddy up, horsy, giddy up!” Cried Jimmy’s disoriented voice from my back.
“Get off, Jimmy. Besides, i’m not a horse.” I garbled back at him in a strange voice.
“No, but I am! Neeeeiigghh!!” Whinnied Jimmy as he transformed into a black stallion and began galloping around.
“Reffreffreffreff!” Barked Jimmy.
Hm. That barking sounds just like Poppy.
“Reffreffreffreff!” He yipped again as he trampled me with his hooves and licked my face.
I woke from my odd dream with a start to find Poppy licking my face.
“Ow! Urgh! Eeeek!” I yelped as the little pug bounced around on my head.
“Alright, i’m awake! Get off!” I cried as I sat up in bed.
Ding dong! Went the doorbell.
Poppy immediately jumped off my head and ran to the door.
I found her there ripping into a number of newspapers. In a few short seconds she had turned them into confetti.
“Rreffreffreffreff!” She barked.
As I walked into the kitchen, I realised that I could smell something.
It smelt disgusting.
It was faint, but it was still strong enough to waft through house.
“Hey, Anna.” I said.
“What’s that smell? It smells like a public toilet, a dead rat and a garbage bin all rolled into one!”
It’s true, it does.
Anna sniffed the air. “I dunno. I think its… well, I have no idea. Look, Poppy can definitely smell it.”
I looked over at Poppy, who was running in circles, panting and snorting.
I went over to the toaster and began toasting some bread. The smell of the toaster muffled the smell somewhat, but didn’t get rid of it completely.
Ding dong!
Went the doorbell again.
Poppy stopped running in circles and ran to the door.
When I opened it, Jimmy was standing there.
“Yullo!” He chirped.
I sighed. “You may come in.”
Jimmy bounced into the kitchen, said “Hi!” to Anna, and then stopped in his tracks.
“POOH!” He screamed.
I winced. My parents wouldn’t appreciate being woken up by somebody screaming ‘pooh’.
“What’s that stinking stinky smell?! It smells like a public toilet, a dead rat, a garbage bin and a toaster all rolled into one!”
Ker-chunk! Went the toaster, highly offended.
“Sorry, toasty.” Said Jimmy.
“I’ve no idea. It just appeared this morning.” Said Anna.
Dad stumbled into the room.
“What’s going on? What’s that smell? Who screamed ‘pooh’? Ari Anderson, if you’ve invited that lunatic Jimmy over again-“
Dad stopped in his tracks, noticing Jimmy over in the corner, patting the toaster, not paying any attention to anything else that was going on in the world.
“Jimmy. So great to see you. Having some toast, are you? Good, good.” Said Dad, his voice dripping with honey.
As soon as Dad’s back was turned, Jimmy bugged out his eyes, stuck out his tongue and leered at him.
The rest of the day seemed pretty normal after that. Me and Jimmy got out of the house to avoid the smell, did a bit of drawing.
“Hey, Ari.” Said Jimmy as we were walking home.
“Do you have new neighbours?”
I paused.
“Um…No. Not that I know of.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure you do now.” He said, pointing to 2 people unloading boxes from a van and hauling them into a house.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Hi!” I chirped to one of the new neighbours.
She glanced up sharply, as if expecting a tiger to jump onto her, and then relaxed.
“H-hi boys. Me and my husband Adam are moving into that house over there.”
She pointed over to the house next to mine.
“We are going to have a party tonight. Maybe a welcome to the neighbourhood party. We might invite you. Now, i’m sorry I can’t talk now, but i’m very busy unloading these boxes. See you!” She hobbled into the house.
“Um… I thought the other people threw you a welcome party, not yourself.” Mused Jimmy.
“You’re right, actually. You can’t welcome yourself to somewhere you’ve never been. Odd, but it was probably just a mistake.” I said.
“And why did she say, we might invite us? We’re her closest neighbours! Or at least you are.”
I stayed silent, pondering.
“And it was funny how she didn’t tell us her name.” Said Jimmy once the woman had left.
He gasped.
“Maybe… maybe she’s a wanted criminal on the run and she can’t reveal her name because then she’d be caught!”
I rolled my eyes.
“Then why would she reveal her husband’s name?”
Jimmy though for a moment, and then gasped twice.
“Maybe it’s only herq who’s on the the run! Maybe the husbands done nothing!”
Jimmy attempted to gasp three times, but he ran out of lung space and began coughing like a smoker.
While Jimmy was writhing around choking on his own throat, I slipped back inside my own house, and was met by that familiar odour again.
I told Mum about our odd new neighbours.
“Hm. They’re probably just nervous from being in a new neighbourhood. And they’re probably just a bit rushed.
And maybe the party were just with a few people they already knew.” Explained Mum.
I looked out the window.
It was dark, and a small crowd of people were streaming into the small house.
“Wow.” I said.
“That’s a lot of people for such a small house.”
We all sat in silence at the dinner table.
There wasn’t much point in talking, because the stink was still hanging around and the party next door was absolutely deafening.
Suddenly the music cranked up even louder.
The windows shuddered, and we all clapped our hands over our ears.
“Geez!” Yelled Anna over the wall of noise, “If it’s this loud in here, imagine what it would be like in there!”
“What? I can’t hear you, i’ve got my fingers in my ears!”
The stink then got really, really bad, and I swear I could hear angry bellows and screaming and some sort of crunching noise.
Finally, the music died down, and we all blew out in relief.
“Cripes, did you hear that?” Yelped Anna.
“OF COURSE I HEARD IT, OTHERWISE I WOULDN’T BE STICKING MY FINGERS IN MY EARS!!!”
“No, not the music, Ari, the screaming! And that weird crunching noise!” She paused to sniff.
“And how the stink just got ten times worse!”
“But…You can’t hear smells!”
Anna put her head in her hands.
I smirked.
“But yes, I did hear the noises, and smell the smell.” I said.
“What were they, Dad?” Asked Anna.
“Errr… Well… Maybe the, um, screams were screams because the music was too loud, and the crunching might have been the boombox or whatever was making that horrible noise malfunctioning.
“And the smell… well…search me.”
I nodded slowly. He was probably right.
“I’m just surprised they aren’t streaming out of the house now. I doubt anyone would stay after something like that happened.” Mused Mum.
“And it’s so quiet!”
After dinner, me and Anna decided to find out where that godawful smell was coming from.
We wandered around the house for a while, and found nothing.
“Well, we’ve checked the bedrooms, the lounge room, and the kitchen. Where else could we look?” I asked finally.
“AACKASplashoooo!” Sneezed Anna, who was covered in dust from crawling under the bed.
“Well, we haven’t looked in the basement yet…”
We looked at eachother. We both fully knew that the basement was out of bounds. We would get in big trouble. Anna sighed.
“Come on.” She said.
The basement would remind an onlooker of a very, very small, completely empty underground carpark.
Smooth, grey concrete, cobwebs and boxes were the main focus in here.
Except for the stink.
“Urggh.” Shuddered Anna.
“De smell is devinidly gumming from hee!” I whined in a high pitched voice with my hand over my nose.
The smell seemed to be strongest coming from a wall.
“Look!” I said, pointing at the wall.
Anna raised an eyebrow.
I sighed.
“Smell! De smell is de stongest here!”
“Wait…” Said Anna, putting hear ear up to the wall.
“Dad’s your ear, Anna.”
“I know id’s my ear! Dust Shud ub vor a seg!” Said Anna, with her nose pinched.
I listened closely too.
Strange slurping noises were coming from behind the wall, like someone was eating very messily.
Me and Anna stared at eachother in horror.
“What the heck is that?” I squeaked, forgetting about the smell and unblocking my nose.
The stink surged into my nose holes, making me cough and splutter.
“Huuuh?” Boomed someone, or even something, with an incredibly deep, otherworldly voice.
“Eees thaat youuu, youuu eedeeiitt hyooooo-muun?”
Anna and I ran, trampling eachother trying to get away from what ever that thing was.
We ran through the house, banging and crashing into things.
The rumbling of the creature or whatever it was was deafening, or was it just our own stomping footfalls?
Eventually, we stopped, our heads hurting, our legs aching and our lungs completely empty of oxygen.
“Thank, huff, g, huff, god, I think we huff, puff, lost it.” I panted.
“Hey kids!” Said the perky voice of Dad.
“We just got an invitation from our new neighbours.
We are invited to their next party!”
I was confused.
“The next one? They’ve already HAD one!”
Dad shrugged and handed me the invitation.
___________________________________________________________
Dear Resident, it said. You have been invited to our next house party! Come over on the 29th of January and feast with us!
Signed,
Your new neighbours.
____________________________________________________________
Anna raised an eyebrow.
“Why didn’t they bother to learn our names? Why didn’t they say their names?”
We looked at eachother and thought.
About the stink.
About the people going in and not coming out.
About the screaming and crunching noises.
About the funny voice.
And we realised.
“They’re hiding a monster in the basement.” Whispered Anna.
“And they’re inviting people in to get eaten.” I completed.
“Giddy up, horsy, giddy up!” Cried Jimmy’s disoriented voice from my back.
“Get off, Jimmy. Besides, i’m not a horse.” I garbled back at him in a strange voice.
“No, but I am! Neeeeiigghh!!” Whinnied Jimmy as he transformed into a black stallion and began galloping around.
“Reffreffreffreff!” Barked Jimmy.
Hm. That barking sounds just like Poppy.
“Reffreffreffreff!” He yipped again as he trampled me with his hooves and licked my face.
I woke from my odd dream with a start to find Poppy licking my face.
“Ow! Urgh! Eeeek!” I yelped as the little pug bounced around on my head.
“Alright, i’m awake! Get off!” I cried as I sat up in bed.
Ding dong! Went the doorbell.
Poppy immediately jumped off my head and ran to the door.
I found her there ripping into a number of newspapers. In a few short seconds she had turned them into confetti.
“Rreffreffreffreff!” She barked.
As I walked into the kitchen, I realised that I could smell something.
It smelt disgusting.
It was faint, but it was still strong enough to waft through house.
“Hey, Anna.” I said.
“What’s that smell? It smells like a public toilet, a dead rat and a garbage bin all rolled into one!”
It’s true, it does.
Anna sniffed the air. “I dunno. I think its… well, I have no idea. Look, Poppy can definitely smell it.”
I looked over at Poppy, who was running in circles, panting and snorting.
I went over to the toaster and began toasting some bread. The smell of the toaster muffled the smell somewhat, but didn’t get rid of it completely.
Ding dong!
Went the doorbell again.
Poppy stopped running in circles and ran to the door.
When I opened it, Jimmy was standing there.
“Yullo!” He chirped.
I sighed. “You may come in.”
Jimmy bounced into the kitchen, said “Hi!” to Anna, and then stopped in his tracks.
“POOH!” He screamed.
I winced. My parents wouldn’t appreciate being woken up by somebody screaming ‘pooh’.
“What’s that stinking stinky smell?! It smells like a public toilet, a dead rat, a garbage bin and a toaster all rolled into one!”
Ker-chunk! Went the toaster, highly offended.
“Sorry, toasty.” Said Jimmy.
“I’ve no idea. It just appeared this morning.” Said Anna.
Dad stumbled into the room.
“What’s going on? What’s that smell? Who screamed ‘pooh’? Ari Anderson, if you’ve invited that lunatic Jimmy over again-“
Dad stopped in his tracks, noticing Jimmy over in the corner, patting the toaster, not paying any attention to anything else that was going on in the world.
“Jimmy. So great to see you. Having some toast, are you? Good, good.” Said Dad, his voice dripping with honey.
As soon as Dad’s back was turned, Jimmy bugged out his eyes, stuck out his tongue and leered at him.
The rest of the day seemed pretty normal after that. Me and Jimmy got out of the house to avoid the smell, did a bit of drawing.
“Hey, Ari.” Said Jimmy as we were walking home.
“Do you have new neighbours?”
I paused.
“Um…No. Not that I know of.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure you do now.” He said, pointing to 2 people unloading boxes from a van and hauling them into a house.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Hi!” I chirped to one of the new neighbours.
She glanced up sharply, as if expecting a tiger to jump onto her, and then relaxed.
“H-hi boys. Me and my husband Adam are moving into that house over there.”
She pointed over to the house next to mine.
“We are going to have a party tonight. Maybe a welcome to the neighbourhood party. We might invite you. Now, i’m sorry I can’t talk now, but i’m very busy unloading these boxes. See you!” She hobbled into the house.
“Um… I thought the other people threw you a welcome party, not yourself.” Mused Jimmy.
“You’re right, actually. You can’t welcome yourself to somewhere you’ve never been. Odd, but it was probably just a mistake.” I said.
“And why did she say, we might invite us? We’re her closest neighbours! Or at least you are.”
I stayed silent, pondering.
“And it was funny how she didn’t tell us her name.” Said Jimmy once the woman had left.
He gasped.
“Maybe… maybe she’s a wanted criminal on the run and she can’t reveal her name because then she’d be caught!”
I rolled my eyes.
“Then why would she reveal her husband’s name?”
Jimmy though for a moment, and then gasped twice.
“Maybe it’s only herq who’s on the the run! Maybe the husbands done nothing!”
Jimmy attempted to gasp three times, but he ran out of lung space and began coughing like a smoker.
While Jimmy was writhing around choking on his own throat, I slipped back inside my own house, and was met by that familiar odour again.
I told Mum about our odd new neighbours.
“Hm. They’re probably just nervous from being in a new neighbourhood. And they’re probably just a bit rushed.
And maybe the party were just with a few people they already knew.” Explained Mum.
I looked out the window.
It was dark, and a small crowd of people were streaming into the small house.
“Wow.” I said.
“That’s a lot of people for such a small house.”
We all sat in silence at the dinner table.
There wasn’t much point in talking, because the stink was still hanging around and the party next door was absolutely deafening.
Suddenly the music cranked up even louder.
The windows shuddered, and we all clapped our hands over our ears.
“Geez!” Yelled Anna over the wall of noise, “If it’s this loud in here, imagine what it would be like in there!”
“What? I can’t hear you, i’ve got my fingers in my ears!”
The stink then got really, really bad, and I swear I could hear angry bellows and screaming and some sort of crunching noise.
Finally, the music died down, and we all blew out in relief.
“Cripes, did you hear that?” Yelped Anna.
“OF COURSE I HEARD IT, OTHERWISE I WOULDN’T BE STICKING MY FINGERS IN MY EARS!!!”
“No, not the music, Ari, the screaming! And that weird crunching noise!” She paused to sniff.
“And how the stink just got ten times worse!”
“But…You can’t hear smells!”
Anna put her head in her hands.
I smirked.
“But yes, I did hear the noises, and smell the smell.” I said.
“What were they, Dad?” Asked Anna.
“Errr… Well… Maybe the, um, screams were screams because the music was too loud, and the crunching might have been the boombox or whatever was making that horrible noise malfunctioning.
“And the smell… well…search me.”
I nodded slowly. He was probably right.
“I’m just surprised they aren’t streaming out of the house now. I doubt anyone would stay after something like that happened.” Mused Mum.
“And it’s so quiet!”
After dinner, me and Anna decided to find out where that godawful smell was coming from.
We wandered around the house for a while, and found nothing.
“Well, we’ve checked the bedrooms, the lounge room, and the kitchen. Where else could we look?” I asked finally.
“AACKASplashoooo!” Sneezed Anna, who was covered in dust from crawling under the bed.
“Well, we haven’t looked in the basement yet…”
We looked at eachother. We both fully knew that the basement was out of bounds. We would get in big trouble. Anna sighed.
“Come on.” She said.
The basement would remind an onlooker of a very, very small, completely empty underground carpark.
Smooth, grey concrete, cobwebs and boxes were the main focus in here.
Except for the stink.
“Urggh.” Shuddered Anna.
“De smell is devinidly gumming from hee!” I whined in a high pitched voice with my hand over my nose.
The smell seemed to be strongest coming from a wall.
“Look!” I said, pointing at the wall.
Anna raised an eyebrow.
I sighed.
“Smell! De smell is de stongest here!”
“Wait…” Said Anna, putting hear ear up to the wall.
“Dad’s your ear, Anna.”
“I know id’s my ear! Dust Shud ub vor a seg!” Said Anna, with her nose pinched.
I listened closely too.
Strange slurping noises were coming from behind the wall, like someone was eating very messily.
Me and Anna stared at eachother in horror.
“What the heck is that?” I squeaked, forgetting about the smell and unblocking my nose.
The stink surged into my nose holes, making me cough and splutter.
“Huuuh?” Boomed someone, or even something, with an incredibly deep, otherworldly voice.
“Eees thaat youuu, youuu eedeeiitt hyooooo-muun?”
Anna and I ran, trampling eachother trying to get away from what ever that thing was.
We ran through the house, banging and crashing into things.
The rumbling of the creature or whatever it was was deafening, or was it just our own stomping footfalls?
Eventually, we stopped, our heads hurting, our legs aching and our lungs completely empty of oxygen.
“Thank, huff, g, huff, god, I think we huff, puff, lost it.” I panted.
“Hey kids!” Said the perky voice of Dad.
“We just got an invitation from our new neighbours.
We are invited to their next party!”
I was confused.
“The next one? They’ve already HAD one!”
Dad shrugged and handed me the invitation.
___________________________________________________________
Dear Resident, it said. You have been invited to our next house party! Come over on the 29th of January and feast with us!
Signed,
Your new neighbours.
____________________________________________________________
Anna raised an eyebrow.
“Why didn’t they bother to learn our names? Why didn’t they say their names?”
We looked at eachother and thought.
About the stink.
About the people going in and not coming out.
About the screaming and crunching noises.
About the funny voice.
And we realised.
“They’re hiding a monster in the basement.” Whispered Anna.
“And they’re inviting people in to get eaten.” I completed.