Chapter Nine

The trip to the Tickling Honda's island took a very long time. Beth and Mr Jamie ate up their Plookies and drank their milk, and then they were bored. The man on the sat nav kept telling the Tickling Honda there was still three hundred and fifty nine miles to go, and even though Mr Jamie had never managed to count past one hundred he knew that must be a very long way. Beth had eaten all of her Plookie and checked underneath the Ben 10 duvet to see if there was any more underneath. She couldn't find any so she came over to Mr Jamie and carefully licked his face to get any Plookie crumbs off it. Mr Jamie didn't like that and said 'No, stop it Beth'. When he said that Beth got cross and bit his nose, before shouting 'YABAYABAYABA' and then suddenly going and lying down under the Ben 10 duvet, having a little fart, and then going to sleep. Mr Jamie thought he might as well go to sleep too. The Tickling Honda was concentrating on his driving and it was starting to get dark everywhere, and sometimes Mr Jamie was a teeny tiny little bit afraid of the dark, in case there were sneaky pirates hiding in it who wanted to come out and get you with their swords. Just like that Cloud Pirate. There weren't any clouds around at the moment, but you couldn't be too careful. So Mr Jamie sneaked over to the Ben 10 duvet where Beth was, snuggled in next to her, closed his eyes and thought about Plookies... and then was fast asleep.

When Mr Jamie woke up he thought it was still dark. Then he realised it was because Beth was sitting on his head. 'Ow, Beth, get off my head', said Mr Jamie. And Beth did, although not until she'd licked it first to see if there were any bits of food left that Mr Jamie hadn't found. Mr Jamie went over to the front of the cot to see the Tickling Honda. He looked very tired and a little bit grumpy. His face was all old and saggy and his eyes had gone quite cross, like Mummy's were sometimes when Mr Jamie and Beth woke her up very early in the morning.

'Tickling Honda, where are we?' asked Mr Jamie.

'I don't know', said the Tickling Honda, rather grumpily. 'The Sat Nav Man keeps telling me we have seventy five miles to go, or something, and then he tells me to do something called a U Turn. Do you know what a U Turn is?'

'No,' said Mr Jamie, 'I don't know what a U Turn is. But I don't expect it matters. The Sat Nav Man will sort us out. Do you want to have a sleep, Tickling Honda?'

'I can't have a sleep until we get to my island. Otherwise you two will get us lost.'

'We won't get us lost', said Mr Jamie. 'We'll just listen to the man and make the cot go in the right direction. You've made it go magic, haven't you?' The Tickling Honda nodded, still looking grumpy. 'Well then, tell your magic to make it follow the Sat Nav Man, and then it will all be okay.'

'Oh, okay', said the Tickling Honda, and he did a funny dance and made a strange noise. It sounded a bit like 'EE-WOO-OO-WOO-EE-WOO', but whatever it was seemed to work, because the Sat Nav Man said 'Yes Sir' and then didn't say anything else about U Turns. 'I'll go and have a lie down, but you must wake me up if anything happens. Anything at all.'

'Okay', said Mr Jamie, and Beth said 'yabayawaYABAyawa', which Mr Jamie knew meant 'I'll try not to wake you up, unless something really exciting happens, or I get hungry, or I need a poo'. Before long the Tickling Honda was snoring underneath Mr Jamie's Ben 10 duvet and making the cot start shaking with the big GRRRRRRRRR-schooooom, GRRRRRRRRR-schooooom snore noises that he kept making.

Mr Jamie sat next to the sat nav and pretended he was in charge. It was very exciting. He was in charge and Beth was his First Mate. Although he wished she would stop trying to eat his nose. He told Beth that they had to be very quiet and keep watch through the bars of the cot, in case the Tickling Honda's island had been invaded by enemies and they needed to attack them. Mr Jamie had the sword that he'd taken from the Cloud Pirate, so he could use that for the attacking, and the Tickling Honda had his special magic. He wasn't sure what Beth had to do the attacking with, but her nappies were quite scary, and he supposed she could always go and bite their noses, or pretend she was going to eat them like she had with the Cloud Pirate. Just as Mr Jamie thought that, there was a noise from underneath the cot. He looked at Beth. She had heard it too, and was trying to get her head out through the bars of the cot to see what it was. Mr Jamie crouched down next to Beth, and together they looked out the side.

Straight into the eyes of...