Girl, 16: Five-Star Fiasco by Sue Limb Read Free Book Online Page A

an overpowering urge to share her angst with somebody who wouldn’t be too judgemental. ‘I’ve done something stupid – that weekend in Dorset is just before our dinner dance and we haven’t really started organising it properly yet.’
    ‘Not started organising it yet?’ Granny looked amused. ‘Tell me all about it, dear!’

Chapter 9
     
     
     
    Somehow Jess had hoped Granny would come up with some kind of magic solution, but all she said, after shaking her head and tut-tutting a bit, was, ‘Let me think about it, sweetheart.’
    Jess knew that Granny would forget all about her Chaos crisis if there was a particularly gruesome murder on the news. She’d probably forget all about it anyway. Granny was getting a bit forgetful these days. She’d called Jess ‘Madeleine’ last week – that was Mum’s name.
    ‘Please, God,’ murmured Jess as she climbed the stairs, ‘don’t let Granny get dementia. And if you could possibly organise Chaos for us, that would obviously be a bonus.’ Poor God was going to have his work cut out, but when it came to organising Chaos, he’d be your obvious first choice.
    Jess checked her emails and found the latest instalment of Lord of the Wrongs from Dad.
     
    . . . Lord Volcano stared, baffled, at the magic shoes. He’d plugged them in and charged them overnight, but he still didn’t have the faintest idea what kind of magic shoes they were; the instructions were in Fishish, and where was he going to find a fish to translate for him? He gazed longingly at the sea below. It must be full of fish. And then a strange thought occurred to him. Why were the instructions in Fishish anyway? Fish don’t have feet, do they? Hmmm. There was something fishy going on here . . .
    Maybe these magic shoes weren’t really a present from his long-lost daughter Messica after all. Maybe it was a secret trap, a cruel trick being played on him by Sir Filo Pastry. Maybe they were truth shoes, and the moment he put them on, he’d blurt out all his secrets. Sir Filo Pastry, he knew, would be watching his every move on CCTV. Sir F would be waiting for him to reveal the location of his magnificent treasure, the shimmering Pot of Gold.
    If they were the kind of magic shoes that enable you to jump confidently off windowsills and soar effortlessly into the clouds, he’d be able to escape right now. On the other hand, they might be the kind of magic shoes that would turn you into a silver teapot. And handsome though silver teapots can be, Lord Volcano didn’t really fancy having boiling water poured in through a hole in his head on a regular basis. It wasn’t what he would have called a lifestyle.
    Thoughtfully he plucked his familiar, Donald, out of his cosy thatched matchbox.
    ‘Donald,’ he said, ‘I have a task for you. Go to my long-lost daughter who lives two hundred miles away through the forests of Pog, and ask her if indeed she really did send me these magic shoes and, if so, how on earth you’re supposed to switch them on.’
    ‘But, Master,’ said Donald with a puzzled frown, ‘I’m a snail! It’ll take me three weeks just to get down the wall of this tower!’
     
    Jess paused in thought. It was a relief to think about something other than a dinner dance. She started to type.
     
    ‘I’ve thought of that, of course,’ said Lord Volcano with a sneer. Sometimes he wished his familiar was something intelligent and stylish, like a dolphin, but his bath, though large, really wasn’t big enough for an ocean-going mammal. ‘Donald, you’re an idiot. I’ve made a little motor for you – it’s a bit like a racing-car engine but, obviously, scaled down.’
    With a few deft movements of his long webbed fingers, Lord Volcano attached the motor to the back of Donald’s shell and pressed the electronic ignition. It roared into life – in a tiny, tinkling way, a bit like a wasp in a jam jar – and propelled Donald violently across the windowsill and down the wall of the