Just Crazy (17 page)

Hundreds of mini-Dannys are pouring out of the neck of Danny's headless body.

Wave after wave after wave.

Hundreds of them.

Thousands.

They're pouring out of his neck, down his arms and leaping to the ground . . . and, worst of all, they're heading towards me. Laughing their tiny heads off.

They're really close to me now. They swarm around my feet and start climbing onto my runners.

‘Hey!' I say, shaking my foot. ‘Get off!'

But they don't stop.

They keep leaping. I shake even harder. They fly off and land on the carpet, but immediately regroup and keep trying to climb onto my shoes. It's like standing on an ants' nest. They're getting crazier and crazier. And there are more coming. They keep streaming out of Danny's neck. They're everywhere.

I've got no choice.

I'm not normally a violent person, but I'm going to have to squash them.

I start stomping.

But it doesn't stop them.

As I flatten them they split into two and each mini-Danny becomes two even minier-Dannys. And the minier-Dannys laugh even harder and louder than the mini-Dannys.

They all start leaping onto the bottom of my jeans. They're climbing up my legs like spiders. I've got to stop them. If I don't they'll be all over me in seconds.

I look around.

There's a can of flyspray on the windowsill.
I brought it into my room to use against mosquitoes — I hope it works against mini-Dannys.

I snap the lid off and start spraying my legs.

As the spray hits them the mini-Dannys fall backwards onto the floor, spin around on their backs and kick their legs in the air.

But it doesn't stop the others from trying.

For every one that I kill, two take its place. And when I kill those two, four more jump on, laughing the whole time. The noise is incredible.

This is so horrible. It can't be happening.

Hang on.

Maybe it's not happening.

Maybe it's just another one of my crazy dreams. I've been having a lot lately.

If it's a dream then all I have to do is pinch myself and I'll wake up and everything will be fine.

I put the flyspray down on the windowsill and pinch the skin on my forearm. Ouch.

I blink.

The light hurts.

I look around.

I'm in my bed, drenched in sweat.

At least I hope it's sweat.

What a relief!

It
was
just a dream.

A nightmare.

But at least I'm awake now.

I look over at my fishbowl.

That's strange.

Goldie's missing.

But I only dreamed that Danny swallowed Goldie . . . didn't I? If Goldie's really gone, that means I wasn't dreaming and if I wasn't dreaming that means that . . . well, I'm not sure what it means . . .

And why is the room shaking?

Is this an earthquake?

The plaster on the roof above my bed is cracking. A big chunk of it falls onto my bed.

I hear a loud splintering sound. Dust and bits of plaster rain down onto my bed and the room is filled with light.

It's like the roof has been lifted off the house.

Maybe it's not an earthquake. Maybe it's a cyclone.

No!

It's a gigantic Danny!

A Danny that towers into the sky.

A Danny that looks as big to me as I must have looked to the mini-Dannys.

He's hideous.

He's horrible.

But he's unmistakably Danny.

He tosses the roof away as if it's no heavier than the lid of a shoebox. It crashes to the ground. The whole house shakes.

Danny throws back his head and laughs. An enormous ear-splitting laugh that seems to fill the whole world.

He reaches down, picks me up by the collar of my pyjama top and lifts me high into the air. He tilts his head back and holds me above his mouth.

Oh no!

He's going to eat me — just like he ate Goldie!

It is a horrible view from up here.

I can see every filling in his mouth. His big disgusting tongue. I can see every crack and fissure — and there's this yellow gunk all over it. But the worst thing is his breath. It smells like dead fish. And it's blowing all over me.

I don't want to go in there.

I don't want to die.

But there's nothing I can do.

I'm dangling in the air.

And then Danny lets go.

I'm going down, down, down.

Down into the slimy dark-redness of Danny's throat.

It's all around me.

The warm squishy walls.

Pressing.

Squishing.

Digesting.

Digesting!

I've got to get out of here.

I've got to go up.

But I'm going down.

Suddenly the squishing stops.

I fall into a big red cave.

Dark.

Dripping.

Wet.

I land on something squelchy. Everything's sort of wobbly and unsteady. It's like being in a jumping castle that's covered in slime.

I guess this must be Danny's stomach.

What am I saying? I can't be in Danny's stomach.

This can't be real.

I must be dreaming.

That's it. Of course. I'm still in my dream.

Or am I? Is it a dream, or maybe it's some sort of weird hallucination. What if I've gone mad but I don't know I've gone mad because not knowing I've gone mad is part of the madness? But then the fact that I'm thinking this means that I
must
know I'm mad so I
can't
be mad. But how can I be sure that I'm not just dreaming that I'm mad — or that I'm mad and I'm just having a regular dream? I could try pinching myself again, but that didn't really help the first time. That's how I ended up in here. What if I pinch myself and I end up in an even worse dream? I couldn't stand it. This is bad enough.

No.

I'm just going to have to deal with the situation as it is. It's the only way.

I have to find a way out of Danny's stomach. But how?

As my eyes adjust to the dimness I can see a whole landscape emerge from the gloom around me.