Marge and the Secret Tunnel Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  About the Author

  Marge and the Secret Tunnel

  Marge and the Great Shopping Race

  Marge and the Lost Kitten

  Have you read Marge’s other hilarious adventures?

  Copyright

  Isla Fisher has worked in TV and film for 25 years. She has played many fun and different characters, but her favourite role is being a mummy to her three children. Isla has been making up bedtime stories for them every night since they were born, which is how Marge in Charge began.

  Eglantine Ceulemans spent her childhood reading Belgian comics. She loves combining humour and sensitivity, and using different media and techniques. Eglantine currently resides in Lyon.

  It all began when I was searching for our missing Frisbee.

  ‘CATCH!’ shouted Jakey, as it sailed above my head and vanished behind the oak tree at the bottom of our garden.

  Oh no! I didn’t want to lose any more toys. I couldn’t seem to find the skipping rope or my fairy house, and Jakeypants had been in a grump ever since his police car went missing.

  I race past the rose bush, gallop around Mummy’s tomato plants and begin hunting for the Frisbee.

  That’s when I discover the hole.

  It’s covered with branches, as if someone is trying to keep it a secret. It’s a great big hole, wide enough to fit a bear, or a space alien, or all twenty-three of my beanbag puppies. (Although I would never take them outside, in case it dirtied up their fur.) Our Frisbee is right next to the hole.

  ‘Did you find it?’ my brother pants, popping up beside me. He means the Frisbee, but I show him my discovery.

  Jakey’s eyes grow wide.

  ‘Put your hand inside,’ he dares me.

  I am a bit scared to, in case there is a creature hiding there. So I drop a rock down first and it seems to go a really long way!

  I gulp …

  ‘This isn’t just a hole. It’s a tunnel!’

  ‘A secret tunnel!’ my little brother gasps.

  Where does it go? Maybe it leads underneath the hedge, or to the centre of the earth … My heart is racing as I peer into the darkness.

  ‘I bet it ends in Oz!’ Jakey exclaims.

  Daddy went to Australia once for work. He called it ‘Oz’ and showed us where it is on Jakey’s globe and it’s right on the other side of the world! So I don’t think it’s possible that our tunnel could go that far.

  We are thinking so hard about the mystery tunnel that we get a fright when we hear Mummy’s voice calling us to come inside.

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t tell anyone about this,’ I warn my little brother, who is rubbish at keeping secrets. He once told on himself for making a dog’s lead out of Daddy’s computer charger. I know I won’t tell a soul.

  Today is Mummy and Daddy’s ‘anniversary’ – which means they have been in love for a long time. They have been kissing on the lips a lot (which is gross), so I can’t wait for them to go out. It also means that our brilliant babysitter is coming to watch us this afternoon!

  Have I told you about Marge?

  She is not a boring, normal grown-up. She has a dancing ferret called Ferdinand and the very first time we met her she fed us chocolate soup! If anyone can help us find out where the tunnel goes, it’s Marge!

  DING DONG

  That’s the doorbell. Jakey and I gallop inside.

  The first thing I see when I swing open the front door is a long, skinny pair of skis. My eyes travel up to Marge, who is wearing a pink ski-suit, goggles and a helmet!

  Mummy arrives at the door and she looks surprised too. ‘You’ve come well prepared, Marge!’ she says.

  ‘I am practising for the Queen’s cross-country skiing championships!’ she explains to Mummy. Did I mention our babysitter is a member of the royal family? And she’s so short that she can peer into our letter box without bending down.

  Mummy doesn’t seem to know what to say, but Jakey has already stolen Marge’s ski goggles and is throwing imaginary snowballs at me.

  ‘I know there is no snow but it’s still good exercise.’ Marge gives us a hug.

  ‘We won’t be back until late,’ Mummy tells Marge. ‘I’ve left a list for you on the fridge, but the most important thing is that Jakey decides what he wants to talk to his class about when he starts school again. He needs to describe an adventure he’s had over the holidays.’

  ‘I HATE homework!’ Jakey whines, taking one of Marge’s skis and thrusting it at Mummy like a sword.

  Daddy comes to Mummy’s rescue and twirls her around, and they laugh and kiss each other again.

  YUCK!

  ‘Marge is in charge!’ Daddy reminds us, grabbing the car keys, and we play the waving game until they head out the door.

  Once they are gone we can get on to important business. We tell Marge all about the secret tunnel. Her eyes light up with pride.

  ‘Well done, adventurers! When I was exploring the palace as a child, I once discovered a mysterious staircase …’

  ‘Where did it lead?’ I ask.

  ‘To the dungeon toilets,’ she tells us. ‘But I found a pair of glass slippers and a unicorn’s horn made of solid gold!’

  Jakey and I look at each other in wonder.

  ‘I think this secret tunnel leads to Australia,’ Jakey says.

  ‘Ah, Down Under …’ Marge looks dreamy. ‘That’s another name for Oz, you know. I can speak fluent Australian,’ she boasts.

  ‘Don’t Australians speak English?’ I ask.

  ‘They speak a type of English but it’s not the Palace English. For example, they say “G’day, mate” instead of “How d’you do?” And you kids would be called “ankle biters” instead of children. Now, let’s read Mummy’s list. Hop to it!’

  Jakey stands on Marge’s skis and slides, stiff-legged, to the fridge. After getting momentarily wedged between the table and the hallway door, he makes it back with the piece of paper.

  ‘Can we do Mummy’s list after we show you the tunnel?’ I beg. Nothing this amazing has happened since I rode on the Speed Demon roller coaster without a grown-up! Marge agrees, and we lead her down the garden to the oak tree.

  ‘Oh, this is very unusual indeed …’ Marge leans so deeply inside the tunnel that only her little legs stick out.

  WOOF WOOF.

  Our pug-nosed puppy Archie is barking at her feet.

  ‘Did you dig this?’ I ask, scooping him into my arms for a wet kiss.

  Jakey tugs at Marge’s legs. ‘Come out so we can all crawl inside together!’

  ‘Golly gosh, that would be poor manners!’ Marge snorts, backing out of the tunnel. ‘One doesn’t visit anywhere without a formal invitation.’

  She pulls a feathered pen from her handbag, turns Mummy’s list over and writes:

  Dear Sir/Madam/Bear/Monster/Goblin/Large Wizard/Whoever You Are,

  We request that we may be invited to explore your tunnel?

  Yours royally,

  Jemima and Jake Button and Margery Beaureguard Victoria Pontefois.

  Marge takes a small silver stick out of her bag. It turns out to be a collapsible fishing rod with a little plastic hook at the end. Marge hooks the letter, and like three little fishermen on the end of a pier, we lower the line inside the tunnel. Then we sit and wait.

  ‘Tell me more about Australia,’ Jakey begs.

  Marge pulls off her ski helmet. Out tumbles her long shiny hair of the most beautiful bright colours: red, green, yellow, orange and blue.

  ‘I have swum with butterfly fish on the Great Barrier Reef, gone walkabout with wallabees and I once escaped a particularly amorous emu who’d fallen madly in love with me and t
ried to lay an egg on my head!’

  Jakey and I snort with laughter.

  Suddenly the line begins to shake and pull.

  We scramble to our feet and squint down into the hole.

  ‘I’ve got a nibble!’ Marge cries, as she tugs at the rod and reels it in.

  On the end of our plastic hook is a fancy scroll with a red ribbon round it.

  ‘Holy moly macaroni!’ Jakey shouts.

  He tears off the ribbon and unrolls the paper.

  It’s a message:

  Dear Stranger/Fairy/Elf/Troll/Boy and Girl,

  You are invited to explore my tunnel I have some things that belong to you. You’re welcome to come and take them back

  A.

  P.s. P.T.O.

  Our missing toys must be at the end of this tunnel!

  ‘A is for Australia!’ Jakey shrieks. ‘Australia has written us a letter!’ I don’t know how my brother believes that a country can write a letter, but I don’t want to burst his bubble. (He also believes that there are little people inside traffic lights switching the red to green.)

  ‘P.T.O.’ means Please Turn Over, so I turn the letter around. On the back is a map.

  My heart is thumping through my ribs! There is a house on the map, and a trail that leads down to a small stream. There is also a large X, in red pen, next to a drawing of a mermaid.

  ‘Can we go? Can we go?’ begs Jakey.

  I am not sure Mummy and Daddy will be happy if we leave our garden, but I’ve never seen a mermaid before.

  Marge says it’s rude manners to refuse an invitation, and Jakey grins.

  ‘Marge is in charge!’ he trills.

  Quickly we gather supplies. Water bottles, bug containers and sun cream, which Marge loads into her backpack.

  It will be pitch-black inside the tunnel, but luckily Marge has a torch on her ski helmet, so she will lead the way.

  The sky has grown cloudy as we get down on our hands and knees, and, one by one, slowly wriggle into the ground.

  The tunnel slopes downwards and then flattens out. I can’t see anything and my palms are sweating so the dirt sticks to them. I listen to the unfamiliar noises from outside – I can hear a faraway lawnmower and a strange scratching sound.

  It smells funny under the ground too, like soil and animal poop. But this doesn’t seem to worry Marge, who breaks into song.

  ‘Isn’t a foal a baby horse?’ I ask, blinking in the dark.

  ‘Horses don’t dig,’ Jakey laughs.

  Marge ignores us and warbles on.

  We both know an ox is a type of cow, and Jakey gets the giggles. I can’t imagine a cow fitting inside this tunnel. It’s much too narrow.

  I don’t know how long we have been down here, but it seems like ages. Just as I am starting to worry that there might be spiders, or even worse … GHOSTS, the passage turns upwards.

  Bright shafts of light appear around us and then we pop our heads out of the top. It’s like we have been in a submarine and are coming up for air.

  On top of the hill in front of us is a white house that looks just like the one on our map, and a bit like the new house next door. There is a gate behind us and a trail that leads down to some water. The stream!

  ‘Are we in Oz?’ Jakey looks excited.

  ‘Australia has a flat, wide desert they call the “outback” and a giant red rock called Uluru,’ Marge tells him, ‘so keep your eyes peeled.’

  We unravel the map while Jakey tries to convince us to look for dingoes. He really believes we are Down Under! We decide to follow the trail. If we can cross the stream, it will lead us to the red X on our map, and maybe to our missing toys!

  Along the way, Marge describes her favourite Australian creature to us – the platypus. It has a duck’s bill and it can swim, but it also walks on land. I wish I had legs and wings and a dolphin’s tail. Then I could go anywhere I wanted.

  The stream is winding across our path now. Marge finds a place where it isn’t too wide and tells Jakey and me to leap over.

  ‘It’s a kangaroo crossing!’ she explains.

  It’s my turn first. I bend my knees low to the ground … jump … and …

  I land safely on the other side of the stream.

  Jakeypants goes next. He runs, pumping his legs as fast as he can, then takes off, sailing into the air …

  He looks like a real baby roo as he bounces next to me.

  Now it’s Marge’s turn.

  I am not sure if it is because her legs are so short, or that she didn’t get a proper run-up, but our babysitter looks a bit like a hippo trying to pirouette as she plops straight into the centre of the stream.

  Marge begins to glide around in the water.

  ‘This is how a platypus swims,’ she laughs.

  Thankfully her ski suit is waterproof. Mummy is right – Marge always comes prepared!

  I am still wondering who the mysterious writer of the note is. But as I look around I can’t see anyone. Except for …

  ‘Hey, the mermaid!’ I point to a mermaid statue, just where it should be on the map.

  We must be here! We have found the X.

  Sure enough, next to the bronze mermaid is an old wooden toybox.

  CREAK …

  Jakey carefully opens the lid and we discover a treasure trove of missing loot! Jakey’s police car, my fairy house, our skipping rope and Archie’s squeaky dog bone!

  We gather our found goods and start heading back, over the stream and up the trail. The wind starts to blow the clouds away and the sun is speckling onto the path through the trees. It’s time to go home and do Mummy’s list!

  ‘Look,’ says Marge, pointing to a big, beautiful leaf she finds in the grass. It looks like lace. ‘This is just like a snakeskin! Which reminds me, Australia has lots of venomous snakes and spiders, Jakey.’

  Jakey grins and puts the leaf in his pocket. He loves to hear about dangerous animals.

  We wind our way back to the tunnel, just as Archie pops his head out of the hole, yapping.

  I knew it must have been our puppy that dug that hole! He is so good at burrowing. But he can’t have written the note, because dogs don’t know how to spell (and also he was with us when we found the letter!).

  Archie takes off, bolting towards the big white house.

  I chase after him. We’ve just found our toys – we can’t lose our puppy!

  As I reach the top of the hill I see a girl about the same age as me, holding a fluffy white kitten in her arms while Archie barks at her feet. That’s why Archie ran off!

  I wave awkwardly. I’ve never been good at making friends.

  ‘I’m Angie,’ says the girl.

  I like her straight away. She is wearing pink plastic sandals and has a friendly smile.

  ‘G’day mate,’ Jakey says. He thinks Angie is Australian!

  ‘I’m Jemima,’ I tell her. ‘Did you make that map for us?’

  ‘Yes,’ Angie says. ‘Sorry I borrowed your toys without asking, I dug the tunnel and when I popped out into your garden they were sitting on the grass. We just moved in and I don’t have mine unpacked yet.’

  So I tell Angie that she can share our toys, and after she has let us have a cuddle with her kitten (whose name is Clover), we all start to play with the skipping rope. Every time it’s Marge’s turn, she gets tangled up and we have to start over.

  ‘Are you a child or a grown-up?’ Angie asks our babysitter, which makes me giggle.

  ‘Everyone asks that!’ I smile at Angie. It turns out she is going to be in my class when we start back at school after the holidays!

  We play for a whole hour, and Archie even lets Clover chase him in circles without barking at her. I teach Angie how to do a cartwheel and she helps me do a handstand. She even cuddles Jakey when he pretends to be a baby koala, and lets him win at wrestling when we pretend to be crocodiles. Meanwhile, Marge claims that she’s a nocturnal wombat and falls asleep under a tree.

  Then I realise that we haven’t even read Mu
mmy’s list yet! Marge wrote our letter for the tunnel on the back of it! Thankfully Angie still has it. She reads it aloud.

  1. Can the kids please find all the missing toys and put them away?

  2. Take Archie out for a walk

  3. Help Jakey think of an adventure to tell his classmates about.

  It’s six o’clock – we have to get home! We wake up Marge and we all say goodbye.

  ‘Bye, Angie,’ I say, giving my new friend a hug.

  ‘Let’s play again before school starts,’ Angie says.

  ‘Hooroo, ankle biters!’ Marge says, which is Australian for goodbye.

  Jakey and I try to nibble Marge’s ankles as we begin crawling quickly back through the tunnel. This time Archie leads the way, flicking dirt in our faces with his wagging tail.

  Inside the house we tidy away our rescued toys. Archie is already snoring in his basket, so Mummy’s list is almost finished, except for Jakey’s homework.

  ‘Which adventure are you going to tell your class about, Jakeypants?’ I ask my brother.

  Jakey looks at me like I am bonkers. ‘I am going to tell them all about my trip to Australia OF COURSE!’ Oh dear, my little brother still thinks he has been Down Under! He says he is going to tell his class all about the big red rock Uluru, the dingoes and the venomous spiders. Jakey sure has changed his mind about homework, but there’s one big problem!

  ‘But, Jakey,’ I interrupt him, ‘we didn’t see any of those things!’

  ‘Not YET,’ Jakey says. ‘But we did see Marge swim like a platypus and we found the skin of a venomous snake!’ He pulls the leaf from his pocket. ‘Can we go back to Australia tomorrow, Marge?’

  ‘Of course! It was only on my THIRD expedition to the dungeon toilets that I found the solid-gold loo roll.’ Marge smiles.

  I nearly forgot that we still have a few more days of holiday left! As we settle into the sofa I lean on Marge’s shoulder and try to stay awake. I want to wait up to tell Mummy all about my new friend Angie, but my eyelids feel as heavy as Uluru. I hope Marge comes again tomorrow so that we can have another adventure – maybe Jakey will learn to play the didgeridoo!