I followed her.

  ‘Hils, why am I following you?’

  ‘Because we’re brothers-in-arms.’

  That’s the army way of saying, ‘Because you want to be captured and tortured by the Stinkly Wrinklys.’

  ‘I’ve found the light switch,’ said Hils.

  ‘Don’t turn on the lights.’

  Hils turned on the lights.

  38

  THE HQ

  ‘This doesn’t look anything like the inside of a secret HQ should look,’ I said to Hils. ‘It’s cosy. Secret headquarters are never cosy. They’re intimidating. They’re shiny. They’re full of robot soldiers who are willing to die for you. They are not cosy.’

  ‘Maintain radio silence,’ said Hils. ‘Proceed with intelligence gathering.’

  That’s the army way of saying, ‘Be quiet, Charlie, and look around.’

  I looked around.

  It was even cosier than I thought.

  There was a super-comfy-looking couch. The sort that you sink right into when you sit on it. The couch had hand-knitted blankets spread over the back and was covered in a tonne of cushions. Every single one of the tonne of cushions had a picture of a kitten embroidered on it.

  How many cushions do you need to make a tonne of cushions?

  108,219 small cushions

  62,994 medium cushions

  1 really, very, super big cushion that weighs exactly a tonne

  Behind the couch was a wooden, Narnia-sized wardrobe which was probably full of dusty, smelly old fur coats.

  Across from the couch were two recliner chairs. Next to each chair was a small table covered in all the things that Stinkly Wrinklys loved: unfinished knitting, a tissue box with a kitten on it, spectacles, hand cream, a glass of water, one of those tube things that you stick up your nose and sniff on really hard to get rid of snot, a photo of a grumpy-looking old man, a small radio and a magazine filled with stories about pregnant princesses. On the walls were paintings of fishing villages and lots of paintings of strange old-fashioned ladies wearing hats and holding ferrets. (In my secret HQ I will have only one painting: a vampire tiger holding a nuclear-powered guinea pig.)

  MY SECRET

  HEADQUARTERS

  I have been working on designs for my secret HQ since I was eight. Each night just before I go to sleep I invent another special feature.

  Some of the special features in my secret headquarters

  Ultrasonic Parsnip Obliterator

  I hate parsnip. Lots of food has parsnip in it. Like parsnip soup. If I think there is parsnip in my food I blast it with the Ultrasonic Parsnip Obliterator and any parsnip is completely and utterly destroyed. (Also works on turnip.)

  Annoying Habit Exposing X-Ray Machine

  Even if you are really, very, super good friends with someone, they can still have habits that really annoy you. Dayton Parish is my friend BUT he has one REALLY ANNOYING habit. He is constantly trying to pick my nose. He tries to pick my nose because he wants to eat my snot. He is conducting an experiment to see if every person’s snot tastes different. Dayton trying to constantly pick my nose is very annoying. The Annoying Habit Exposing X-Ray Machine (AHEXRM) solves this problem. When anyone enters my secret HQ they are scanned by the AHEXRM and I can immediately see what annoying habits they have. If their annoying habits are too annoying I can send them to my . . .

  Fake Secret Headquarters

  I will have two identical secret HQs. Both will look exactly the same on the outside and have exactly the same cool stuff on the inside BUT only one of them will be my REAL secret headquarters. Someone – maybe with a really annoying habit like they comb their hair with lamb chops – might think they’re in my real HQ but they’ll really be in my fake HQ. They’ll never know because they will both be exactly the same. Only I will know which is which.

  Portable Cross-Country Running Simulator

  They make us do cross-country running at school all the time. Cross-country running is awful mainly because you always end up all sweaty and muddy. At the end of a run if you aren’t all sweaty and muddy the PE teacher – Mr Hardy-Soul – makes you do the course again. The Portable Cross-Country Running Simulator instantly makes you all sweaty and muddy so you look like you’ve been doing cross-country even when you haven’t. (It can also instantly remove all the sweaty and muddy after you’ve finished.)

  Vacuum Toilet

  Sometimes you need to do a poo quickly and it just doesn’t want to come out. If you need to poo quickly then all you have to do is sit down on the Vacuum Toilet and the super suction vacuum cleaner hidden in the bowl will do the rest. (The Vacuum Toilet is used at your own risk. Charlie’s Secret Hideout Inc. accepts no responsibility for injuries sustained while on the Vacuum Toilet. Hils told me to put that in.)

  ‘Hils. We’ve been looking around for a while now. We should leave.’

  ‘At ease.’

  Army-talk = ‘We’re not leaving.’

  ‘What if the Stinkly Wrinklys come back?’

  ‘Stand easy.’

  Army-talk = ‘They won’t come back.’

  ‘That’s not true, Hils. They will come back. You just mean that you don’t think they will come back while we’re here. You are wrong. They will come back while we are here. We need to leave. Right away.’

  Hils did not leave right away.

  ‘Hils, I know that you are superior to me in every way.’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Except one. You know there is one thing I am much better at than you. I am much better at knowing when something is going to go horribly, horribly, horribly wrong.’

  Just then the door to the Stinkly Wrinklys’ HQ swung open.

  It was Mrs Cyclopolos and The Skrink.

  THE STINKLY WRINKLYS WERE BACK.

  39

  THE WARDROBE

  Hils and I ran straight into the wooden, Narnia-sized wardrobe and shut the door.

  Outside I could hear Mrs Cyclopolos and The Skrink walking around their secret HQ.

  ‘Do you think they saw us?’

  ‘Negative.’

  ‘What if they did?’

  ‘They didn’t.’

  ‘What if they did?’

  ‘They didn’t.’

  ‘What. If. They. Did?’

  ‘Then any moment soon they’ll open the wardrobe door and find us.’

  ‘I knew it! THEY’RE GOING TO OPEN THE WARDROBE DOOR AND FIND US.’

  ‘Cease all transmissions.’

  That’s the army way of saying, ‘Shut up. Shut up.’

  ‘We’ve got to get out,’ I said.

  ‘Hold your position.’

  Army-talk = ‘Stay where you are.’

  ‘We’re trapped,’ I said. ‘We’re trapped. I knew it. I knew it.’

  ‘Halt,’ said Hils. ‘Your indiscipline is placing this whole operation at risk. Halt.’

  Hils was right. I needed to halt. I needed to take a deep breath. I took a deep breath. It sounded so loud I was sure the Stinkly Wrinklys would hear it. I decided the best thing to do was not to breathe. I tried not to breathe. The problem with trying not to breathe is that you don’t breathe. If you don’t breathe you die. I decided not to die. I started breathing again.

  ‘There must be something in this wardrobe that we can use to help us escape,’ I said.

  I looked around the wardrobe.

  There was a long, dusty, smelly old fur coat. (I knew there would be.)

  A fish bowl.

  A basket of dry brown stuff that maybe used to be flower petals.

  An ancient vacuum cleaner.

  A tin of shoe polish.

  A jar filled with lots of tiny bits of different coloured soaps.

  A bunch of bent forks held together with a rubber band.

  A pair of gardening gloves.

  A gigantic pair of ladies’ underpants.

  ‘We must be able to use this stuff to make some sort of escaping machine thing,’ I said.

  But what?

  I needed time to think.

  No, I didn’t. I didn’t need time to think. I had already thought. I had thought a really good thought.

  ‘I’ve got it, Hils. I’ve had a thought. A plan thought. I know how we can use all this stuff to help us escape.’

  Hils didn’t say anything.

  ‘All we have to do is cover the fish bowl in shoe polish, then stick the dry brown stuff into the shoe polish then stick the gardening gloves on top of the fish bowl for ears then use the little bits of soap to make eyes and ears. Then we’ll attach the fish-bowl head to the top of the fur coat and it’ll look exactly like a bear. We’ll use the forks to make the bear’s claws and have it wear the underpants because a bear wearing human underpants must be scarier than a bear not wearing underpants then we’ll use the vacuum cleaner to blow air into the fur coat and that’ll make the bear float out of the wardrobe straight towards the Stinkly Wrinklys and while they’re screaming, “The bear in underpants is going to eat us!” we’ll escape and never come back here even if we find out there is a pile of diamonds sitting on the front step that we wouldn’t get into any trouble for taking.’

  ‘That’s a really, very, super good plan, isn’t it, Hils?’

  ‘Negative.’

  40

  THE TERROR

  ‘Then you think of a plan, Hils, because we’re still trapped.’

  ‘I am fully cognisant of that operational actuality.’

  That’s how the army says, ‘I know we’re trapped.’

  ‘The Stinkly Wrinklys are going to find us and then who knows what they’re going to do to us. They’ll probably eat us.’

  ‘Negative. No one eats children.’

  ‘There are millions of Stinkly Wrinklys in the world, Hils, one or two of them must eat children.’

  Hils thought for a moment.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ she said.

  I was probably right? I was never probably right. I just wished that the thing I was probably right about wasn’t that there might be one or two Stinkly Wrinklys in the world who eat children.

  ‘You’re right, Hils. They’re going to eat us.’

  I had always wondered how I would react if my life was in imminent danger. I was sure I would develop superhuman strength.

  Well, now my life was in danger.

  I didn’t develop superhuman strength.

  I didn’t even develop human strength.

  I farted.

  It sounded like a duck exploding.

  It smelled like a nappy sandwich with extra pickles.

  ‘Poo,’ said Hils.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said.

  From outside the wardrobe I heard a long, terrifying clanking and grinding.

  ‘What was that?’ I said.

  I farted.

  It sounded like a thirsty pig drinking yogurt from a bucket.

  It smelled like an old gumboot full of cat food.

  ‘Poo.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  I heard a petrifying clinking, a heart-stopping plopping and a deathly snorting.

  ‘WHAT WAS THAT?’

  I farted.

  It sounded like a squeaky shoe popping a balloon full of bacon.

  It smelled like opening your lunchbox after it has been in your warm schoolbag for a thousand years.

  ‘Poo.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Time to evac,’ said Hils.

  ‘Evac’ is army for, ‘Get out of here’.

  That’s exactly what Hils did.

  SHE OPENED THE WARDROBE DOOR AND STEPPED OUT TO A CERTAIN DEATH BY STINKLY WRINKLY EATING.

  I didn’t fart.

  I was so scared I had run out of farts.

  41

  THE EMBARRASSMENT

  Hils stepped out of the wardrobe to certain-death-by-Stinkly-Wrinkly-eating.

  I closed my eyes and waited to hear the horrific sounds of her being eaten.

  I didn’t hear anything.

  I certainly didn’t hear any . . .

  Chasing

  Grabbing

  Struggling

  Restraining

  Screaming

  Gnashing

  More screaming

  More gnashing and a bit of ripping as well

  Much more screaming

  Munching

  Grinding

  Tearing

  Coughing

  More coughing

  ‘I’ve got something caught in my throat.’

  More coughing

  ‘Probably a bit of finger. Or maybe some kidney.

  I’ll just have a quick drink of water.’

  Drinking

  ‘Ahhhh. That’s much better. Now, where was I?’

  Shredding

  Rupturing

  The most screaming yet

  Crunching

  One final scream that I’ll never forget as long as I live

  Swallowing

  Burping

  Flossing

  Mouth washing

  Evil satisfied laughing.

  All I could hear was . . .

  Snoring

  I poked my head out through the wardrobe door. There – completely uneaten-to-death – was Hils. She was standing next to the two Stinkly Wrinklys who were both reclining in their chairs.

  Asleep.

  Then I saw the eyeball.

  42

  THE EYE BALL

  ‘Hils. They’re watching us.’

  ‘Negative. They’re asleep.’

  ‘They’re watching us. On the table. Next to the chair. In the glass of water. There’s an eyeball.’

  Hils glanced at the squishy, glossy, starey eyeball in the glass of water next to Mrs Cyclopolos.

  ‘It’s a glass eye,’ she said.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A glass eye. An artificial eye made of glass. Lots of really old people have them. They put them in water when they’re having a nap, to stop them drying out,’ said Hils.

  ‘Yuck. How do you know this?’ I said.

  ‘Peripheral intelligence gathered while on a mission.’

  That’s the army way of saying, ‘I read about it in a magazine while waiting to see the dentist.’

  ‘Why do you think Mrs Cyclopolos has a glass eye?’

  Hils didn’t answer me. She had started looking around again.

  ‘I think it’s because one night, when she was really, very, super much younger, a spider laid its eggs in her eyeball and a few days later thousands of baby spiders started to climb out of her eyeball and her mum grabbed the vacuum cleaner to suck up all the spiders but instead sucked out the young Mrs Cyclopolos’s eyeball. They found the eyeball in the vacuum bag. It was covered in dust. They drove to the hospital and the doctors did everything they could to put it back in but there was too much dust on it and they had to give her a glass eye instead.’

  ‘Negative. That never happened. Somewhere here there is actionable intelligence concerning the Stinkly Wrinklys’ plans. We need to find it ASAP.’

  Even though I didn’t want to, I started looking for actionable intelligence.

  Behind the two sleeping Stinkly Wrinklys was a cabinet thing. It looked like the sort of place you’d hide actionable intelligence. It sat on four high legs and the cabinet bit was wide at the bottom and sloped up to a thin top. At the top was a key with a bit of thin gold rope hanging from it. I grabbed the rope and pulled. The whole front of the cabinet flopped down to form a little writing table. Behind the table were all these little cubbyholes filled with all sorts of bits and pieces. There had to be actionable intelligence in one of those cubbyholes.

  ‘Hils, I’ve found something.’

  ‘So have I,’ said Hils.

  I suspected that Hils’s something might be a much better something than mine.

  Hils was standing in front of a full-length mirror.

  ‘It’s a mirror,’ I said.

  ‘Affirmative,’ said Hils. ‘And negative.’

  Hils traced her finger all the way around the outside of the mirror. She didn’t seem to find anything. She tried to push the mirror along the wall to the left. Then to the right. She then walked over to a set of drawers. After a quick search she found a cloth. She went back to the mirror, wrapped the cloth around her hand, placed her cloth-wrapped hand on the surface of the mirror and gently pushed towards the wall.

  There was a soft click and the mirror swung open to reveal a small secret chamber.

  43

  THE CHAMBER

  Even though they had nearly blinded me with rooster brand chilli sauce, I thought it was pretty cool that the Stinkly Wrinklys had a secret chamber hidden behind a mirror.

  ‘There will definitely be actionable intelligence in there,’ I said.

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Or corpses.’

  ‘Negative.’

  We walked into the secret chamber.

  There were no corpses.

  There was actionable intelligence though.

  Every bit of wall in the secret chamber was covered in photos, newspaper clippings, handwritten notes and all the other sorts of stuff you’d expect to find on the wall of a secret chamber belonging to two people who were up to something bad.

  ‘They’ve had us under surveillance,’ said Hils.

  There, on the wall right in front of us, was a series of grainy black and white photos of me and Hils running down the alley chasing after Mrs Cyclopolos and The Skrink, trying to find out where they’d disappeared to, and us waving goodbye to the LLG.

  ‘Look at these,’ said Hils, pointing at some newspaper headlines the Stinkly Wrinklys had cut out and pinned up near the photos of us.

  44

  THE HEADLINES

  45

  THE LISTS

  Next to the newspaper headlines were two handwritten lists.

  46

  THE PROOF

  Hils and I were walking home.

  ‘What does all this stuff mean?’ I said.

  ‘I can’t be absolutely sure,’ said Hils. ‘But I think the Stinkly Wrinklys are preparing for a war. Against us.’