Muck Gubbins

Have you ever heard the way fairytales begin? If this was a fairytale – as in a nice story of princes and princesses with a happily-ever-after ending – it’d begin like this.

Once upon a time, in a beautiful kingdom far, far away; over the mountains and past the oceans and far beyond Swindon, there lived an old wizard. He was beloved by the people of the kingdom for his kindness and his gentle wisdom, and the personal sorcerer to the Royal Family because of his awesome power.

However, this isn’t a fairytale; it’s a 100% completely almost true story. It does take place in a beautiful kingdom far, far away and it does involve a wizard, but wise and powerful he was not. He wasn’t beloved by the people for his kindness or gentle behaviour; in fact they hated him for his bad language, unfashionable wardrobe choices and general uselessness. In that kingdom, “Muck Gubbins? My cat’s a better wizard and that’s saying something. My cat can’t even breathe fire these days!” was all too common a phrase.

But Muck Gubbins was a positive person. He maintained that one day he’d get his Fireball spell just right, without setting fire to anyone’s washing line and he would tell everyone stupid enough to stand still in his general area that one day yellow tartan robes would be back in fashion. The trouble was, he’d been saying the same things for a long time; he wasn’t a young wizard anymore, and it was looking less and less likely that yellow tartan robes would ever make an appearance on the cover of Fashionable Wizard Weekly. Plus, due to Muck’s wayward fireballs the King was running dangerously low on underpants.

The King decided enough was enough.
         “I’ve decided enough is enough,” said the King. “That man is a menace and he’s just got to go.”
         “Yes dear,” said the Queen, not looking up from her crossword.
         “That’s the third pair of pants I’ve lost this week to that man and his fire. Three pairs!”
         “Yes dear,” said the Queen.
         “I just won’t have it anymore. I simply won’t.”
         “No dear,” said the Queen.
         “Then it’s settled,” said the King, “Gubbins, you’re fired!”
         “That’s a hat stand dear, Muck’s in his office,” said the Queen.

As it happened, Muck wasn’t in his office and the King ran straight into him as he stormed out of his room.
         “Muck!” he shouted in surprise, as he sent a cloud of dust, jellybeans and breadcrumbs flying into the air from Muck’s robes. That might just be the sort of things wizards keep in their robes, but I’ve never looked so it might just be Muck. Yeah, chances are it’s just him.
         “Er yes, hello Your Royal Kingliness,” said Muck, dusting his robes down and flapping at the King to make sure he was quite breadcrumb free.
         “I was just coming to find you Gubbins. Coming to find you and tell you that you’re fired!” he said proudly.
         “F…fired?” Muck repeated weakly. Just at that moment the Queen, who was kinder hearted than the King and often found herself feeling a little sorry for Muck, popped her head around the door.
         “Wasn’t Muck going to demonstrate the fireworks he’d prepared for Jocelyn’s birthday?” she said, raising her eyebrows at the King. Jocelyn was the young princess and her birthday parties were renown throughout the land for their splendour and wonderful food and high quality enterta-well, ok, really they were renowned for the likelihood that Muck would turn up with one of his GREAT IDEAS that would then go horribly but amusingly wrong. This year however, Muck had sworn things would be different. The King looked at Muck.
         “That’s true. Ok Gubbins, if you show me some eye-burstingly brilliant fireworks, fireworks so awesome that people will think God’s having a disco and everyone’s invited, fireworks so colourful and fantabulous that everyone will be on their knees weeping with joy at the sight I might…might consider not firing you,” said the King. For a moment Muck said nothing. Then he fiddled with the sleeve on his robe. Then he straightened his hat.
         “The thing is,” he said, “we’d have to…ah…go outside! Yes, that’s it, can’t demonstrate fireworks inside the castle. No far too dangerous,” he said. The King gave Muck a look, a look the King only wore when he was dealing with his personal wizard. It was his patented Muck’s Gone Insane Look™ and he used it often.
         “Well then,” said the King, very slowly like someone trying to explain complicated magic to a sausage, “let’s go outside.”
         “Oh we can’t possibly,” said Muck. “It’s raining, absolutely pouring with rain. Your Royalness wouldn’t want to get his…er…crown wet would he?” he said. The King glanced out of the window.
         “It isn’t raining,” he said seriously, beginning to guess where this conversation might be going.
         “Oh, well that’s exactly my point. It’s far too hot to go outside, and the peasants might be revolting and…and…” Muck was getting desperate, “I think someone spotted a bee earlier.”
         “Muck,” said the King calmly.
         “Yes?”
         “You already tried the fireworks out didn’t you?” said the King, still in a very calm voice.
         “It was a big bee!” Muck insisted, but out came the King’s Muck’s In Very Big Trouble Look™ and Muck hung his head, “Yes.”
         “They set the washing line on fire didn’t they?”
         “Yes.”
         “Do I have a single pair of underpants left?” asked the King, his calm voice beginning to slip and a dangerous twitch developing in his eye.
         “Several pairs your Royal Pantless-ness,” said Muck, enthusiastically, “they just might not be as white as they were before. And I suppose they are in more pieces but if you were to just gather those pieces up-”
         “Muck,” the King interrupted again, “You. Are. FIRED!”
And so it came to be that Muck was unceremoniously booted from the kingdom as though all his former glories and years of service to the Royal Family counted for nothing, when realistically, with the kind of service Muck had to offer, he should really have been booted out of the kingdom and into the dinner bowl of a dragon several years ago. But Muck’s story doesn’t end here, oh no young children, it goes on and since I am the only one alive and still living on this planet who now remembers it, looks like you’re stuck with me for a while yet.

So, Muck decided…oh…hold on a minute. Sorry about this guys, Muck is insisting I give him a chance to explain himself. I’m not sure this is a great idea but I guess it is his story…although I didn’t even know he could write to be honest. Well…here goes…and you watch your language Gubbins.

Thank you, good writer lady – although the slur on my writing ability is not appreciated. You don’t get to be personal wizard to the Royal Family without at least learning to write perfictly. Anyway, the thing about this incident is – the fireworks were spectacular! Ok, they veered a little off course and yes, several pairs of underpants tragically lost their panty little lives in the aftermath but what better way to die than in a blaze of green and pink fire? And they spent their whole time wrapped around the king’s bum – is that the kind of life you’d want for your children? Of course it isn’t, really I did them a favour. And there was a bee! I saw it with my own eyes. Bees are those things that fly and have claws and peck your eyes out aren’t they? They’re dangerous! And the peasants might have revolted! I mean, I’ve never known them to plan a revolution I suppose, but I definitely heard one of them compare the King to a monkey’s bum once, and it comes down to the same thing. And after years of loyal service, did they even hesitate to throw me over the borders of the kingdom? No they did not, they kicked me right over and told me not to come back. Well I showed them didn’t I? Hahaha!! They rued the day they messed with Muck “Dragon Slayer” Gubbins! I-

Ok, ok, someone’s getting carried away – I’m going to jump in here before he gives the whole story away. Stupid man, can’t even spell perfectly properly…I did tell you he was insane didn’t I? My apologies for the interruption, I’ll get on with it now.

So, as that idiot told you, he was unceremoniously kicked from the kingdom and into the wild lands around it. Muck sat down on the border, with the castle he had just been evicted from right in front of him, and tried not to cry. He imagined being back home in the castle right now, perhaps getting ready for dinner to be served in the Hall and then maybe having a nice hot bath before slipping his pink and yellow dotty pyjamas on (I did tell you he had terrible taste in clothes right?) and snuggling down into his nice warm bed. Instead, he was out in the cold, beyond the borders of the kingdom and to top it all, it had just begun to rain. Now if Muck were half the wizard he often claimed to be, there would have been many solutions to his situation. He could have conjured up food with a simple Dinnerius Appearius spell. It would have been easy-peasy to perform an Abra-cad- umbrella spell to keep the rain and off, and even one of the common fire-breathing cats of the kingdom would have been able to keep itself warm. However, as we have established, Muck wasn’t even one eleventh of the wizard he often claimed to be, and most of the kingdom’s cats were more magically talented and much handsomer than Muck. So Muck sat in the rain, his turquoise hat in his hands, and despaired.
         “Oh whatever will become of me!?” he wailed, plonking his hat back onto his head and thoroughly soaking his hair with rainwater as he did so.
         “I’ll tell you what’s going to become of you,” said a threatening, scary sort of voice, the kind of voice that creeps from the shadows and into your ears without knocking just to give your brain a good kicking, “dragon food – unless you hand over all your gold.” Muck spun round on the spot. Well, he didn’t, that would be quite athletic and far too smooth a move for old Muck Gubbins. What he in fact did was to jump in fear, and promptly fall onto his face in the mud.
         “G…gold?” he stammered, and he raised his face from the puddle to stare up at the owner of such a voice. Its face wasn’t much prettier – it had a mucky, stubbly beard that looked as though it needed to jump off and give itself a bath, tangled black hair and from its ear dangled an earring – just to let everyone know that he was definitely One of The Baddies, and all in all, Muck thought the muddy puddle made for a better view. The ruffian also had an eye-patch, but let’s face it, that’s kind of cool, and if the world didn’t have teachers and bosses and Eye-patch Police well, we’d all wear them wouldn’t we?
         “Yeah, you heard me beardy, I said gold,” said the ruffian. Muck frowned, and stroked his long silvery beard with pride. He thought “beardy” as an insult was a bit rich coming from a man whose own beard looked like it might have millipedes living in it, but Millipede Beard did, after all, have a rather large sword pointed at Muck’s nose, so he thought it best not to mention this.
         “I…I’m afraid I don’t have any gold,” said Muck, turning out his pockets as evidence. A large quantity of mysterious and probably illegal things fell out onto the wet grass but, as Muck had said, none of them were made of gold. Millipede Beard scowled down at this collection of interesting junk, and raked his sword through it as though hoping to discover something fabulous under all the wizarding rubbish – jewels or teeth or Rice Crispies or something, I don’t know, what do people who wear eye patches consider valuable? In any case, it was clear that he found nothing in Muck’s sorry collection that caught his interest, and the eye that was still in his head frowned dangerously.
         “Look at them fancy robes youse wearing, you must have something better’n this mess,” he said, waving his sword dangerously and proving that you should never trust anyone that says “youse” instead of “you’re”. Well, I’m just warning you. Anyway, Muck dug around in the inner pockets of his robes and the thief leaned forwards eagerly, clearly expected the appearance of Muck’s secret fortune. He was disappointed when Muck produced a short and rather bent brown stick.
         “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got? A stick?” said Millipede Beard and Muck frowned and actually got to his feet.
         “A stick?” he demanded, “A stick?! I’ll have you know that this-” he waved the stick in Millipede Beard’s face, “is the finest magic wand in all the land, made for the finest wizard.”
         “Wizard?” said Millipede Beard, looking slightly worried for the first time as Muck brandished his wand.
         “Aha! I thought that’d show you,” said Muck triumphantly, “for I am Muck Gubbins, the greatest wizard in the land and I…why are you laughing?”
         “Muck Gubbins? You’re Muck Gubbins?” said Millipede Beard, who was indeed laughing in disbelief. “You aren’t the greatest anything of anywhere. I’ve heard all about you. Didn’t you once turn the King’s head into a melon trying to repair his glasses?”
         “I…well…technically yes…although I did manage to turn it back again…eventually,” Muck mumbled shamefully. Millipede Beard roared with laughter, and actually had to wipe a tear away from his grubby face.
         “Ah that’s the funniest thing I ever heard!” he cackled, and Muck’s frayed temper snapped.
“That’s quite enough of that you little rapscallion! I assure I can do quite fearsome things with this wand!” He waved it dangerously before Millipede Beard’s eyes who, weak from laughter, merely stared at Muck with a big ugly grin on his bigger, uglier face. Muck, despite his many, many (many) short-comings, has a rather large amount of common sense. It’s why he’s survived so long, and he decided that there was a time and a place for performing great and awe-inspiring acts of magic, and that this was just not one of them. So he poked his wand into the thief’s good eye and legged it into the trees behind him.

Now although Muck Gubbins was having his own surprising adventures in the outskirts of the kingdom, it was by no means the only thing going on in those wild wild wild-lands. Oh no, the wild lands are a wild place and hey, this isn’t all about Muck you know. As well as forests frequented by eye-patch wearing villains the outskirts are home to some rather forbidding looking mountains and perched almost on the peak of one of those mountains is a wonderful, fabled place known as Crazy Beryl’s Discount Junk. It is home to Crazy Beryl, who earned this nickname not because she’s crazy but because her name is Beryl. And also I hear she’s a bit crazy. It is also home to Crazy Beryl’s discount junk, an amazing collection of odds and ends, it’s and bits, whosits and whatsits and various convenience food items all at low low prices. Crazy Beryl is a wonderful woman, despite her tendency to wear peanuts as earrings and eat liver, but this story isn’t about her either.

Next door to Crazy Beryl’s is a tall, fearsome looking tower of the kind Dracula might buy if he were looking for a holiday home in a kingdom that has fire breathing cats. It was built entirely from solid black rock and huge statues of ugly gargoyles decorated every inch of it. But I mean seriously ugly gargoyles…like…geography teacher ugly. At its tip there was a turret of razor sharp black spikes, and one window for scowling down at the kingdom from. Sure, the window did have a window box full of peonies and perhaps the net curtains were a little much but hey, even evil geniuses enjoy interior design. Oh yes, it was a home fit only for an evil genius, or for Dracula’s summer retreat, and since the last time Dracula had been in the kingdom he’d had a spot of trouble with somebody’s wayward Fireball spells he didn’t visit much anymore, and it was an evil genius among evil geniuses who now lived in the tower. His eyes were the colour of the sky in the dead heart of a winter’s night, he was tall and thin as a skeleton, and not the cheerful dancing kind, and the people of the kingdom feared to speak his name. But I’m not one of the people of the kingdom and I’m not scared of anything…except dolls…but you know…they’re scary. Anyway, the guy’s name was Graham. Sorry, I mean Evil Graham¸ and don’t let the net curtains fool you, he was as bad as they come.

Around the same time Muck Gubbins was being terrorised by a man with many-legged beasties living in his facial hair, Evil Graham was pacing around his evil living room, deep in evil thought while his two evil henchmen Phil and Steve watched him, and occasionally exchanged worried looks. When Evil Graham was deep in thought, it usually meant he was plotting something, and since no one has ever called Evil Graham “Clever Graham”, whatever he was plotting usually went wrong and had messy consequences that one of them would have to clean up, while the other made Evil Graham a very strong coffee and tried to get him to stop crying. After the pacing had gone on far too seriously long enough by halves, Phil cleared his throat and, after an encouraging poke in the back from Steve, stepped forward slightly.
         “Er…boss?” he said, and Evil Graham stopped his pacing and looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
         “Yes?”
         “Erm…we were just wondering…me and Steve that is…just wondering what…the plan for today is?” Now, when normal people ask the question, the response usually involves going to school, going to work or heading off to your secret lab to work on the race of super monsters you’re building – you know, average stuff. But when an evil henchman asks an evil genius what the plan for the day is, the answer is usually something manic and impossible and insanely clever. Sadly, with Evil Graham the plans are usually manic and impossible and just plain insane, but the guy tries his best.
         “Tomorrow,” said Evil Graham, “is Princess Jocelyn’s birthday.” Phil and Steve exchanged worried looks again; they couldn’t see where this plan might be leading, but they both had a feeling that Evil Graham taking a sudden interest in the Princess’ birthday was all going to end in tears and split coffee.
         “Yes…it is,” said Steve carefully. When Evil Graham didn’t say anything else, Steve shrugged. “So?”
         “So?! What happens when the princess turns sixteen?”
         “She gets sixteen candles on the cake?” Phil guessed. Evil Graham frowned.
         “No!” he shook his head impatiently, “Well, yes she probably does. But more importantly – she’s old enough to get married!” he announced. Phil and Steve looked at each other.
         “Oh yeah! I heard she’s getting hitched to that prince that visited last year, you remember? And the king couldn’t see him for days ‘cause that stupid wizard had turned his head into a-”
         “Oi!” Evil Graham shouted, and they both turned back to him. “She is not going to marry that stupid prince with his stupid blonde fringe and stupid big muscles,” he said, pouting in a sulky, jealous sort of way.
         “Oh,” said Phil, looking disappointed. He was impressed by big muscles, and as far as he was concerned they was the best thing a man could be in possession of. His own were his pride and joy, and he had thought the prince’s were almost as magnificent. “Then who is she going to marry?” Evil Graham smiled, as though they had finally reached the point of the discussion.
         “Me,” he said. Phil and Steve exchanged another weary sort of look and then Phil eyed Evil Graham up and down.
         “Honestly boss, I don’t think you’ve got the muscles,” he said, and took a step back in sudden fright when Evil Graham’s eyes darkened dangerously. “Plus,” he said hurriedly, “why would you want to marry the princess?”
         “Because…” said Evil Graham, heading towards the tower’s only window, pushing back the net curtains and gazing up at the sky, “I love her. She is as beautiful as a toad, as sweet as a snail’s breakfast and the thought of living my life without her makes me want to dress up as a monkey and go and live a lonely life in the jungle.” He turned back to his henchmen to see them both wearing expressions that so clearly said “Oh no, Evil Graham’s finally gone mental” that they might as well have had Post-It notes stuck to their faces that had “Oh no, Evil Graham’s finally gone mental” written on them. Pink Post-It notes. “Plus,” said Evil Graham after a pause, “imagine all the stuff we’d get away with if the princess was my wife!” Steve and Phil sighed with relief – that was better, there was genuine, honest evil mischief behind his plan; all this talk of being in love had started to scare them. “Now!” said Evil Graham, pointing a finger at the ceiling in a dramatic sort of way, “I need you to work out a way for us to gatecrash the princess’ party so that I can woo her. I’m a charming, handsome man aren’t I?” he asked. Steve and Phil nodded very quickly and very dishonestly. “Convincing her to marry me will be the easy part, getting in will be harder. Boys, go and do some spying!” Steve and Phil gave Evil Graham an evil sort of salute, and turned towards the door. “Oh, and stop at Crazy Beryl’s on the way back will you? We’re out of milk.”

Now, the last time we saw Muck Gubbins he had just defeated a big meanie in the forest using only his cunning, his quick wits and a speedy bit of wand-fencing, but as we know Muck Gubbins isn’t the pointiest doughnut on the doughnut farm and running headlong into a forest that is rumoured to be packed full of meanies with earrings, ghosts that rattle their chains and never turn their music down and the biggest, fiercest, toothiest butterflies you ever saw, well…it’s just not clever.
         Muck gazed at his surroundings nervously. The trees seemed to loom over him in a way that was more than a little bit threatening. Trees, Muck decided, shouldn’t loom. Any tree that loomed was plotting something.
         Muck pricked his ears up nervously, like a batty old fox in turquoise robes. In the distance, carried on the waves of the wind he was almost certain he could hear the rattling of ghostly chains and he was definitely certain that someone was playing Brain Meltingly Loud Rock’n’Roll 6 at a volume that could…well…melt brains.
         Muck gave a passing butterfly a nervous scowl. Was it his imagination, or had the butterfly just bared its fangs at him? I mean, we are talking about Muck Gubbins so it could just be his imagination, but in those wild, wild, wild-lands even butterflies are not to be trusted.
         Muck Gubbins began to panic, surrounded as he was by looming trees, vampire-butterflies and rock’n’roll loving ghosts and things might have ended up all kinds of wrong for poor old Muck Muckulous Gubbins had he not happened to wander into the only part of the forest inhabited by something other than ghosts, robbers and killer butterflies. As Muck cowered on the floor, so terrified that he didn’t even care that he was getting mud all over his best turquoise robes, two people stopped to stare at him. They glanced at each other, with a glance that seemed to say “Who on earth is this strange man and why is cowering in our forest?” but could just have easily said, “Who on earth would ever wear turquoise robes?” One of the newcomers took a deep breath, picked up a stick, and poked Muck in the side of the head. He jumped violently, and scowled up at his new attacker. Blinking fiercely (his glasses had been one of the things he’d left behind on the floor after running from Millipede Beard, along with his best yo-yo and his signed photo of Kylie Minogue - life is cruel) Muck staggered to his feet in an attempt to look more intimidating. This didn’t work.
         “I am Muck Gubbins, personal sorcerer to the Royal Family and greatest wizard in the whole of the kingdom of…” Muck trailed off, blinking at the two people in confusion. “Say, I don’t normally get that far into that speech without people interrupting me with the pointing and the laughing and such.” He narrowed his eyes at them. “Haven’t you heard of me?” Both of the newcomers shook their heads.
         “We live out here in the forest,” said one, whom after staring at intently, Muck determined was a boy of about eight years old, “you don’t get to hear much about anything out in the forest.” His companion, who was a girl a little older and a lot taller than him, nodded solemnly.
         “Hey,” she said suddenly, “you shouldn’t be out in the forest, it’s dangerous!” This seemed a little backwards to Muck and he was sure that he should be the one warning the children of the danger.
         “That’s right it is!” he said, “I was just attacked by a vicious looking blighter with millipedes his beard!” he said dramatically. The girl nodded again.
         “After gold was he?” she said.
         “Yes,” said Muck, surprised, “Do you know him?”
         “That’s Three-Eyed Bob,” she said. “He doesn’t really know what gold is. Give him any old rubbish and tell him it’s gold and he’s happy.” Muck frowned.
         “Well it’s no good telling me that now,” he said. “I left all my best stuff behind getting away from him, my signed Kylie photo and everything.”
         “Well there is a sign,” said the boy, pointing to one of the looming trees. A piece of wood had been nailed into it and someone had painted on it in red – “Three-Eyed Bob likes gold, but he doesn’t know what it is.”
         “Very helpful,” said Muck and then wrinkled his nose at the sign. “Three-Eyed Bob? He’s only got one eye.”
         “We know that,” said the girl, as though Muck was incredibly stupid to point this out, “but he can’t count. He thinks two take away one is three. It’s best just to agree with him, he gets upset otherwise.”
         “Yeah,” said the boy solemnly, “and it doesn’t do to upset Three-Eyed Bob. Remember that time when he got his boots stuck in that mud, and then the squirrels all started laughing and then-” the boy’s story was suddenly and rudely cut short by Muck suddenly and rudely telling the boy to shut up.
         “If you’re quite done talking rubbish about three eyed men that only have one eye, we have work to do,” he said. He got to his feet and placed one arm around the shoulders of the boy (who looked up at him with a slight frown, as though seriously doubting his sanity) and the other over the shoulders of the girl (who simply sighed in a way that suggested this was not her first encounter with a crazed wizard).
         “We do have work to do,” she said, and lifted the basket she was carrying as evidence, “we’re picking marshmallows.” The boy nodded sagely, but Muck just snorted.
         “You can’t pick marshmallows,” he said. “It’s not as if they grow on trees or anything.”
         “Says who?” said the boy. Muck stared between the boy and the girl and then shook his head.
         “Look I don’t have time for this, I’ve got a life to sort out and I probably need your help in some way. You’re kids, you know all kinds of things.” The girl looked down at the boy and they stared at each other for several seconds, before nodding at the same time. They were brother and sister you see, they can have physic powers like that.
         “OK,” said the girl, “my name is Jess and this is my brother Rory.” Rory waved up at Muck seriously.
         “You mean you’ll help me?” said Muck, sitting down on the ground again, his bottom lip trembling as tears of relief sprung into his eyes like damp little kangaroos. Jess nodded, and patted his shoulder sympathetically.
         “Of course we will, now tell us all about it.”