Chapter Eight

The Tickling Honda drove really fast. Faster even than Mummy when she had her Angry Bottom and was all cross and grumpy with all the other cars driving next to them. Faster than Beth when you took her to the playground and she got all excited when she saw a slide. She would stomp up the steps as quickly as her little legs would carry her and then throw herself down it head first. This was what Mr Jamie did, only he was allowed to because he was a Bigger Boy who was very soon going to be going to school. Mummy got all worried when Beth did it and told her to slow down, but Beth would run back up the slide again and do her sneaky naughty face. Beth didn't like being told what to do.

Going down in the cot was a little bit like going down in a slide, actually, and it made Mr Jamie's tummy go all swooshy and splooshy. Beth thought it was brilliant. She stood up grabbing onto the cot bars and shouted VERY loudly "YABAYABAYABAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABA." Mr Jamie shook his head at her.

"Beth, shush. You need to be quiet. The Tickling Honda is going to make this cot go next to Mummy's car and then we are going to sneak out and get the sat nav so we can find our way to the Tickling Honda's island. You want to go and see his hammock don't you? And his statue of the big bottom?" Beth nodded. "Well then sit down and be as small and quiet as you possibly can, and then no one will know we are here." And Beth, incredibly, actually lay down and put her head down as though she was going to sleep and Mr Jamie covered her bottom up with his Ben 10 duvet. Beth always went to sleep with her bottom poking up in the air. Babies were weird like that.

Mr Jamie had only just got Beth to lie down when all of a sudden there was a big CRAAAAAASH sound and the cot stopped very suddenly. Beth did a surprised face but then remembered what she was meant to be doing and lay back down again quickly. Mr Jamie looked around.

"Oh well DONE Tickling Honda. That's Mummy's car just there, and the sat nav's right inside it. But how will we get it out? Mummy will have locked it, and she's probably lost her keys like she does usually so you can't even go in the house and borrow those instead. What shall we do?"

"What does a sat nav look like?" asked the Tickling Honda.

"It's square and black and grey with a bit of string on the side where Mummy plugs it in to make the man start talking. She keeps it in the special glove box in the front of the car."

"Okily dokily" said the Tickling Honda, and all of a sudden he was GONE. Where had he gone? Mr Jamie couldn't see him anywhere at all. Beth couldn't have eaten him because she was still being a good girl and lying down with her bottom in the air. He wasn't under Mr Jamie's Ben 10 duvet. He wasn't on the floor next to the cot. Mr Jamie was very worried. He wanted to shout out the Tickling Honda's name but he didn't want Mummy or Daddy coming out and finding them.

Suddenly Mr Jamie felt a funny tickling feeling next to his nose. It made him want to a-a-a-a-ATCHOO! Mr Jamie sneezed VERY loudly, and when he opened his eyes there was the Tickling Honda standing back next to him again ... HOLDING THE SAT NAV!

"Tickling Honda! Where did you go?!" Mr Jamie was so excited to see the Tickling Honda again that he almost forgot to be quiet.

"I just did some special Tickling Honda magic and made myself go all tiny and got inside the car through the keyhole. Then I opened the glove box and found the sat nav and came back out again with it. I tried to land on your bottom so I could give it a secret tickle but I missed and landed on your nose instead. You sneezed and that surprised me so I forgot to do the magic any more and now I'm big again."

"Wow." Mr Jamie was so surprised he almost didn't know what to say. "My mummy would like some of that magic to make her bottom go all small. Do you know how to work the sat nav?"

"I think so ..." The Tickling Honda turned on the sat nav and typed in Tickling Honda Island, and all of a sudden it lit up and the man started talking to them. "Turn - left - and - continue - for - four - hundred - miles."

"That is a LOT of miles", said Mr Jamie. "Me and Beth are hungry and thirsty. Can we have some milk and Plookies please."

"Of course", said the Tickling Honda, and passed them over two Plookies each. Their tummies sat and wobbled and the Tickling Honda turned the cot around and set off for his island. What WERE they going to find there?

Chapter Four

Outside in the cot it was very cold, and very dark. Mr Jamie sat on the mattress and held Beth’s hand. She had fallen asleep almost as soon as they’d got outside; once the Tickling Honda had managed to squeeze the cot out of the window. Mr Jamie thought, if he was honest, that the Tickling Honda probably wasn’t actually a very good driver. They had only just made it out of the window in one piece, and now the Tickling Honda was sitting right on the edge of the side of the cot and shouting strange, magical, Tickling Hondary type words. He was getting a bit overexcited, and Mr Jamie thought that if Mummy was there she would probably have told him to calm down and have a sleep. He quite fancied a sleep, actually. He snuggled in next to Beth under his Ben 10 duvet, had a sneaky fart to warm his legs up, and then shut his eyes and imagined he was flying high up in the sky with the Tickling Honda ...

When he woke up Beth was sitting on his head. (He hoped she wasn’t having a poo.) She was talking to the Tickling Honda, who was sitting at the other end of the cot with his frog legs tucked under Mr Jamie’s Ben 10 duvet. He saw Mr Jamie open his eyes and waved.

“Morning! Did you sleep well?"

“Yes thank you”, said Mr Jamie. Or, at least, that’s what he tried to say. Because Beth was sitting on his head what he actually said was “Mmmff fannn ooo”, but the Tickling Honda seemed to understand anyway. Beth, noticing Mr Jamie was awake, shrieked in delight and fell off his head and onto the Tickling Honda, who picked her up and sat her down next to him.

“BAAAAAAAAAAA ba ba ga ba ga ba ba ba” said Beth to Mr Jamie, which he knew meant “I’m very happy to see you, and I’ve had some nice milk to drink, and sorry for sitting on your head and having a poo on it.”

Mr Jamie’s stomach growled like a big angry dog. The Tickling Honda heard it.

“Would you like some breakfast?”

“Yes please”, said Mr Jamie. “I’d like toast with red jam please. That’s what Mummy makes me.”

“Toast with red jam?”, said the Tickling Honda. “Urrrrrgggggggghhhh. DisGUSTing.”

“It’s NOT disgusting”, said Mr Jamie. “It is very nice INDEED.”

“Tickling Hondas don’t like red jam”, said the Tickling Honda. “It makes us fart a lot.”

Mr Jamie laughed a LOT. So did the Tickling Honda.

“What do you have to eat instead?”, asked Mr Jamie.

“We have Plookies”, said the Tickling Honda. “Plookies are the Tickling Honda’s favourite food.”

“What’s a Plookie?”, said Mr Jamie.

“Here you go”, said the Tickling Honda. And he put a Plookie into Mr Jamie’s hand. It looked a bit like a biscuit, and a bit like a cake, and a bit like a wobbly jelly. It was pink and brown, and it had shiny silver sparkles all over it, and it wobbled all over. Mr Jamie put it in his mouth and it wobbled right through his mouth, down his throat and into his tummy. Mr Jamie pulled up his top and looked at his tummy. It was wobbling like a jelly where the Plookie was inside it! And when Mr Jamie looked at the Tickling Honda and Beth ... they had wobbling Plookie-filled tummies too!

“I like Plookies”, said Mr Jamie. “Can I have another one?”

“In a bit”, said the Tickling Honda. “First of all we need to make a plan.”

It was a lovely day and the sun was shining down on the cot. Mr Jamie could see blue sky all around them, and some fluffy white clouds underneath instead of a floor. They looked a bit like sheep. Beth had seen them too, and stuck her hand out between the cot bars and grabbed a bit of cloud. Before Mr Jamie or the Tickling Honda could stop her she shoved it in her mouth and swallowed it all down. Mr Jamie was a bit worried in case she choked, but she did a big smile and then had a burp. Beth liked eating clouds.

“Right then”, said the Tickling Honda. “What shall we do?”

Mr Jamie was a bit shocked. How did he know what to do? It was the Tickling Honda who had brought them up here and made Beth’s cot fly and put them up in the sky. Mr Jamie was only threenearlyfour. He didn’t know what they should do next.

“Ummm ... shall we find your island? So you can go back and see your hammock?” Mr Jamie really wanted to find out what a hammock was.

“That’s a very good idea”, said the Tickling Honda. “The only problem is, I don’t know where we are. We flew all this way in the dark, and now I’m a bit lost.”

“We got lost because of your stupid driving”, thought Mr Jamie, although he didn’t say this to the Tickling Honda. He didn’t want the Tickling Honda to get upset. Mummy got lost quite a lot, usually when she didn’t listen to the man talking inside her car telling her which way to go and decided to try and find her way there all by herself. Then they would stay in the car for a very long time, until Mr Jamie really needed a wee but they had to find their house first. Mummy wasn’t very good at listening.

“I know!”, said Mr Jamie. “We need a map. Pirates always use maps when they’re looking for treasure. Shall we go and find a map.”

“That’s a brilliant idea”, said the Tickling Honda. “Right then shipmates! About turn! Forward bound! Let’s hunt out a map, and then we’ll ... uh oh.”

“Then we’ll uh oh?”, said Mr Jamie. “What do you mean, then we’ll uh oh? What’s an uh oh?”

The Tickling Honda didn’t say anything. He just pointed. And Mr Jamie, and even little Beth, turned their heads, and looked out the side of the cot, and saw, through the clouds, coming towards them ...