Oliver Fibbs and the Abominable Snow Penguin Read online

  For Rosie, Connie and Louise,

  and for Sarah Manson,

  with many, many thanks

  (SH)

  For Charles, much love

  (BL)

  Contents

  I’M OLIVER

  CHAPTER 1 DEEP THOUGHT

  CHAPTER 2 A HERO IN THE HOUSE

  CHAPTER 3 SHOW AND TELL

  CHAPTER 4 PROJECT ANTARCTICA

  CHAPTER 5 JINXED!

  CHAPTER 6 THE ICE PALACE

  CHAPTER 7 COMPASS FAIL!

  CHAPTER 8 TOES

  CHAPTER 9 RUMBLED

  CHAPTER 10 THE TRUTH-HONEST

  CHAPTER 11 GROUNDED

  I’M OLIVER

  HI! I’m Oliver Ranulph Templeton Tibbs, mild-mannered comic-reader and EXTREME PIZZA-EATER. Also known as Oliver ‘Fibbs’, just because I tell people I’m DABMAN, the Daring and Brave, dashing and bold DEFENDER OF PLANET EARTH (D.O.P.E.).

  Meet my Super And Special family:

  Mum, Charlotte Pomeroy Templeton Tibbs, is a life-saving brain surgeon.

  Dad, Granville Fitzwilliam Templeton Tibbs, is an award-winning architect.

  My big twin sisters, Emma Letitia and Gemma Darcy Templeton Tibbs, go to the National Ballet Academy: ballet, ballet, ballet – it’s all they talk about.

  Then there’s my little brother, Algy – Algernon Montgomery Templeton Tibbs. He’s a maths genius, chess champion and King of Sneakiness.

  And how could I forget Constanza, our Italian nanny? She’s a bit dizzy, but she gets me.

  At school, I’ve got my best friend Peaches Mazimba on my side. She’s the most sensible person ever, so I’ve recruited her to be a D.O.P.E. like me: she’s ‘Captain Common Sense’.

  Unfortunately, I’ve got the Super And Special Gang against me:

  Bobby Bragg can break bricks In half with his bare hands. Aka ‘the Show-off’, he has the Power to BORE PEOPLE STIFF.

  Hattie Hurley is a Spelling Bee Cheerleading Champion. Aka ‘the Spell Queen’, she has the Power of Big Words.

  Toby Hadron is a science whizz. Aka ‘the Boffin’, he has the Power of Inventing .

  And finally there’s my teacher, Miss Wilkins, Keeper of the Points, and dispenser of detentions, especially when she thinks I’m telling FIBS – but as I keep telling her (and everyone else): they’re not FIBS, they’re stories!

  The human race was doomed. A meteor the size of Mount Kilimanjaro was hurtling straight for the Earth. When it crashed, tons of dust would be thrown into the atmosphere, blocking out the sun of a hundred years. The global temperature would plummet. Millions of people would die!

  There were less than two minutes to impact . . .

  ‘Oliver, have you got wedged in the toilet seat again?’ asked Dad, knocking urgently on the bathroom door.

  ‘He’s been in there for over an hour,’ I heard my little brother, Algy, say.

  I sighed. Was there nowhere in this house where I could sit and have a nice, quiet read of my comic?

  ‘No, everything’s OK,’ I replied. ‘I’m just . . . thinking.’

  ‘Really?’ said Dad, not even trying to hide the note of SURPRISE in his voice. ‘What are you thinking about?’

  ‘Oh, you know: life, the universe, and . . . stuff.’

  ‘Excellent news!’ he exclaimed. ‘Algy, leave your brother in peace – he Needs To Think.’ (That’s how he said it, like each word had a capital letter.)

  ‘But I need to pee,’ complained Algy.

  ‘Then go downstairs.’

  I heard my little brother stomp away, growling and grumbling.

  ‘You have a good think, Oliver,’ Dad shouted to me through the door. ‘Take as long as you need. Just remember that your uncle Sir Randolph is coming for lunch. He wants to say goodbye before he sets off on his expedition to Amble Across the Antarctic.’

  The creaking floorboards along the landing told me that Dad was striding off to his office. Finally, I could get to the end of Arctic Blast.

  The meteor crashing towards the Earth was being controlled by evil Russian billionaire Boris Popov, the owner of Popov’s Pants, who had made his fortune selling woolly underpants with the catchphrase: ‘A warm bottom is a happy bottom’.

  But now the globe was getting warmer, and so many people had stopped buying Boris’s snuggly underwear that he was losing millions of roubles every day. When the meteor struck and the world froze, Popov’s Pants would be back in business.

  Q had discovered the villain’s secret headquarters in the icy wastes of northern Siberia, but when he got there the building was deserted. As Q stood in the empty control room, surrounded by humming computers, glowing buttons and flashing lights, Boris Popov’s face appeared on a huge screen . . .

  I closed the comic and sighed. I wonted to be Daring and Brave like , but I was stuck with being Dull And Boring. I spent my whole life drowning in an ocean of Super And Special people, competing with my family at home, and all the kids at school.

  I opened the toilet door, and cried out in alarm.

  Mum and Dad were waiting outside, grinning at me like I was the cutest puppy in Cutepuppyland. Mum was holding a thick, heavy book in front of her like a shield.

  I snapped the comic out of sight behind my back and gave them my best innocent smile.

  ‘This is great news, Oliver,’ Mum said. ‘You’ve decided to start thinking.’

  ‘Er . . . yes,’ I replied. I thought it was about time I did.’

  ‘Maybe you’re going to be a great philosopher, and have . . . Big Ideas,’ she said, holding out the book she was carrying as though it was a precious ancient relic.

  The title shone out from the shiny black cover in fancy silver writing:

  ‘All human wisdom is in here,’ she added.

  Here we go again, I thought. Another big, complicated book to read, when all I actually want to read is a comic.

  I let my story fall quietly behind the toilet door, and took the monster book from Mum’s hands. It was so heavy I nearly dropped it.

  ‘Wow! Thanks, Mum!’ I exclaimed, and I meant it too: this was going to be an excellent book to hide my comics inside. ‘I’ll make a start on it now.’

  Dad puffed out his chest, his big daft grin spreading even wider across his face. ‘That’s my boy,’ he said, his eyes glistening with tears. ‘Take your time, Oliver. Take as long as you need.’

  I stepped back into the toilet. As I slowly closed the door, my parents continued to stand there, beaming happily.

  I picked up Arctic Blast, and slipped it inside the great big book of deep thoughts: it was a perfect fit. Opening my comic at page one, I started to read the story all over again.

  Just as I got to the end of the adventure for the second time, I heard the yippy-yappy bark of a tiny dog downstairs.

  ‘Poochie!’ I cried.

  ‘WHERE’S OLLIE?’ bellowed my uncle, Sir Randolph Maxwell Templeton Tibbs.

  Uncle Sir Randolph was Dad’s older brother and a famous explorer, or ‘Professional Wanderer’, as he liked to be called. He was THE superstar in my family of superstars, the only one who’d been knighted by the Queen. Even my brain surgeon mum and my architect dad spoke about my uncle with awe in their voices. He had real adventures that could have come from the pages of a comic book.

  He wasn’t just cool, he was arctic.

  I slammed closed and ran downstairs to greet my favourite relative. He stood in the hallway surrounded by the rest of my family, but seemed to tower above them all, filling the space like a huge bear.

  Great plumes of black hair, flecked with long streaks of grey, billowed up from his head, cascaded down from his chin, and exp
loded out from his tangly eyebrows, so that from a distance, his whole head appeared to be . A thin, white scar slashed diagonally across his forehead, the result of a near-miss from a bandit’s arrow in the Sahara Desert.

  Uncle Sir Randolph saw me and his face lit up in a dazzling, toothy white smile. ‘THERE HE IS!’ he roared, and held up his left hand in greeting.

  We all stared at it, transfixed by the missing tip of his index finger, BITTEN off by a mountain lion in the Rocky Mountains.

  ‘Give me four and a half!’ cried my Uncle, and his THUNDEROUS laughter rumbled through the house.

  I leaped to my feet and smacked his hand with mine. He picked me up, hurled me towards the ceiling, then caught me as if I was as light as a beach ball.

  All this time, Poochie darted around our feet, yapping My uncle’s dog was a miniature version of him: a tiny, noisy, puff-ball of frizzy grey-black hair.

  ‘Be quiet, Poochie!’ yelled Uncle Sir Randolph, then ROARED with laughter as the dog completely ignored him, yipping and scampering around the hallway.

  ‘I hope Constanza has made her delicious meatballs for lunch,’ he BOOMED, scooping the dog up in one of his massive hands. ‘I need all the energy I can get where I’m going.’

  ‘I make them extra beefy, Signore Randolph,’ replied our Italian nanny, ‘to keep you warm on the snow.’

  ‘Excellent!’ bellowed my uncle, and strode into the dining room, his huge, broad shoulders brushing the doorframes as he passed through.

  ‘I read in the paper that you’ve won another architecture award, Granville,’ he said, slapping Pad on the shoulder as they sat down at the table.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Dad, ‘for designing the new National Museum of Underpants in Wakefield.’

  Uncle Sir Randolph turned to Mum. ‘And, Charlotte, I hear you’ve just done a brain operation on pop star Justin Peeper. I didn’t even know he had a brain!’

  As we laughed, he looked across the table at my twin sisters Emma and Gemma. They hung on every word my uncle spoke, their cheeks bright pink, and eyes shining.

  ‘How’s the ballet dancing going, girls?’ he asked them.

  ‘We’re in the National Teen Ballet Company,’ said Emma.

  ‘We passed our Advanced Grade exams with Distinction,’ added Gemma.

  ‘Algy won the European Junior Chess Championships,’ said Dad, ‘and Oliver . . .’ He paused and frowned slightly, as he realized that I hadn’t done anything Super And Special to brag about.

  ‘Oliver’s going to be a great philosopher,’ said Mum.

  My uncle gazed at us all for a moment, and shook his head. ‘What an amazing family I’ve got!’ he said.

  ‘Tell us about the time you survived an avalanche in the Himalayas by body-surfing down the snow in your sleeping bag, Uncle Sir Randolph,’ pleaded Algy.

  This was my little brother’s favourite story, and as we ate lunch we made my uncle tell us more tales of his adventures, even though we’d heard them a hundred times before.

  ‘I need to use the little boys’ room,’ announced Uncle Sir Randolph, when we’d finished eating. ‘I’ll oust explore upstairs and see if you’ve moved it.’

  ‘You’ll have to use the bathroom downstairs,’ said Mum. ‘The toilet upstairs belongs to Oliver now.’

  ‘It’s where he does his thinking,’ explained Dad.

  ‘Well, I’m desperate for a “think”,’ chuckled Uncle Sir Randolph. ‘So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the downstairs Thinking Room!’

  He returned a couple of minutes later carrying a massive rucksack.

  ‘I have a special job for each one of you kids while I’m away,’ he announced. ‘Girls, I want you to look after Poochie.’

  The twins with delight, and both dived for the tiny grey hairball, who was fast asleep under the table.

  ‘Come on, Gem,’ cried Emma. ‘Let’s play with Poochie!’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea, Em,’ said Gemma. ‘Let’s pamper Poochie!’

  They rushed from the dining room, fussing over the poor, startled dog.

  Uncle Sir Randolph rummaged in his rucksack, pulled out a large snow globe and handed it to Algy. Inside, a family of plastic penguins stood like statues on a JAGGED pretend iceberg that towered above a painted blue-grey sea.

  ‘Explorers are terribly superstitious,’ he said, giving the globe a quick shake to start a white plastic blizzard swirling around the penguins. ‘I want you to shake this globe every morning and every night to make sure I have good luck. Do you promise to do that?’

  ‘I promise,’ whispered Algy.

  My uncle presented me with a black satellite phone. ‘Ollie, while I’m on my expedition, I want you to be my base-camp. Your codename is “LIFELINE”. My codename is “SUPER SNOWMAN”. I’ll phone you from the Antarctic every day and give you an update on my progress.’

  ‘Wow,’ I breathed, turning the heavy phone over in my hands.

  Uncle Sir Randolph put his hand on my shoulder and frowned, his grey eyes staring into mine as he handed me a blood-red envelope with the words “CODE RED RESCUE PLAN” written in big capital letters on the front.

  ‘If anything goes wrong,’ he continued, tapping the envelope with the stump of his BITTEN-off finger, ‘we activate CODE RED. It’ll be up to you to get help.’

  ‘Wow,’ I breathed again.

  My uncle frowned, and stared out of the window. ‘There was a time when my beloved Bunty was my LIFELINE,’ he murmured, his eyes filling with tears. ‘But then . . .’

  He shook his head as though waking from a dream, then slapped me hard on the arm, rocketing me across the room. ‘Are you up to the job?’ he roared.

  ‘I won’t let you down, Uncle Sir Randolph,’ I replied.

  Wait until my class hears about this, I thought. Bobby Bragg will be so green with envy he’ll look just like the hideous warty Toadman in .

  As Constanza drove us to school on Monday morning, I tingled with at the thought of doing . I usually call it time because everything I do, apart from my FIBS – I mean stories – is totally Dull And Boring. But for once I couldn’t wait to stand up and tell my schoolmates all about my Super And Special role in Uncle Sir Randolph’s expedition. Just my luck, today I was the last to be dropped off, as we took Algy to university, and the twins to their ballet school.

  I hurried into the classroom and sat down. As Miss Wilkins began to go through the register, my tummy fluttered with nerves as I got ready to tell the class about Uncle Sir Randolph, and show them the satellite phone he’d given me. Surely none of the Super And Special Kids would have something more interesting to talk about than this?

  Wrong!

  Bobby Bragg had taken up ice-skating a month before, and announced that he’d got so good at it that the Riptorn Assassins Junior ice-hockey squad – the best, and hardest, team in the country – had already signed him to play for them next season.

  The other kids went, ‘Oooooooo.’

  ‘How !’ said Miss Wilkins.

  Toby Hadron, the school science whizz, had invented a -machine. He wheeled in a metal box with hoses, power leads and pipes running from it. A short, wide tube, like the barrel of a cannon, stuck out at an angle from the top of the box. Toby flicked a switch, and snowflakes were blasted from the end of the tube, turning the air white.

  ‘Stop!’ cried Miss Wilkins as tiny crystal flecks settled gently on our heads. ‘How magical! At lunchtime, why don’t we see if your machine can cover the playground in snow.’

  ‘Let’s make snowmen,’ said my best friend Peaches Mazimba.

  ‘Let’s have a snowman competition,’ suggested Bobby Bragg.

  ‘Excellent idea!’ said the teacher as a babble of chatter filled the classroom.

  Peaches leaned over to me. ‘Let’s be a team!’ she said.

  When everyone had calmed down, Hattie Hurley stood up with her red, white and blue pom-poms at the ready. She told the class that she’d started her own dictionary of Big Words, to help her and the N
ational Super-Spellers Cheerleading Team defend their title of World Spelling Bee Cheerleading Champions.

  ‘I’m only including words that have at least eight letters in them,’ she said. ‘Like “aardvark”, “abominable”, and “antihistamine”!’

  ‘How admirable,’ said Miss Wilkins.

  ‘A-D-M-I-R-A-B-L-E!’ spelled Hattie, kicking her legs high into the air with each letter, and waving the pom-poms above her head.

  ‘Correct!’ laughed the teacher, and we all clapped.

  Peaches is normally Dull And Boring like me, but she’d made a lampshade out of green and red recycled milk-bottle tops. It was fantastic.

  ‘How unusual!’ said Miss Wilkins.

  Then Melody Nightingale sang a song inspired by Toby’s snow machine, called, ‘There’s No Business Like Business!’

  ‘How lovely,’ sighed Miss Wilkins.

  Eventually it was my turn. I stood up, and began.

  ‘My uncle is Sir Randolph Maxwell Templeton Tibbs, the world famous explorer.’

  The class went, ‘Oooooooooooo!’

  (It was at least two oo’s bigger than Bobby Bragg got.)

  ‘He’s going on a single-handed Amble Across the Antarctic.’

  Before the class could make any sound, Bobby Bragg shouted, ‘Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!’

  ‘That’s enough, Bobby,’ scolded Miss Wilkins. ‘I saw Sir Randolph on the ten o’clock news last night, so I know Oliver’s not telling FIBS this time.’