The HighFlying SkyDiving Chocolate Robbery
Dolly Hunter wound the red and yellow handle that stuck out of the side of her newest, most specialized, high-flying-sky-diving machine.
Underneath, in a tiny basket, dangling from a number of chains, each with a different sized rubber plug hanging from its end, was a small and very angry rat.
Nat, the river rat bristled and fumed in her tiny prison. She had been airlifted from the pond by a duck-powered helicopter in the middle of her morning constitutional. This meant she was now wearing nothing but a stripy swimsuit and a rubber hat into which she had neatly tucked her ears. She was wet and cold and wanted her breakfast.
'Let me out!' She demanded in her loudest voice, which wasn’t very loud really.
Dolly and Bill exchanged a look. Even though they knew she was securely trapped in the basket they were still worried about what she might do to them if she escaped.
Dolly finished winding the enormous elastic band that filled the body of the high-flying, sky-diving machine. She climbed into the driver’s seat strapping her mum’s motorbike helmet onto her head. She gave the secret sign and Bill flapped his wings rising unsteadily into the air. Moments later he slapped down in the duck-seat at the back of the vehicle. Dolly pushed a big green button on the dashboard of her flying machine and they took off with a huge twang. Far below them the pond, looked like a puddle and Dolly’s house looked like a toy house with a toy car parked outside. She could see some tiny people playing football in the garden with a little tiny, pea-sized ball. She tore her eyes from the scene below. She needed to concentrate. Dolly shouted as loudly as she could, because it felt good to shout and because it helped her to concentrate sometimes. Bill put his wings over his ears and tried not to look down. He was afraid of heights and he wasn’t sure if he completely trusted Dolly’s latest invention.
After quite a long time the nose of the flying machine stopped pointing up, briefly it pointed straight ahead, and after that it pointed down. They were going at quite a speed when Dolly pushed the red button on the dashboard and a parachute unrolled from a hidden panel between her and Bill on the top of the flying machine. The strings pulled tight as the parachute filled with air and they began to slow down. Dolly looked over the side and laughed. Her calculations had been accurate, they were hovering over the large and opulent garden of Amelia Hoggsbottom.
Amelia Hoggsbottom was Dolly’s least favourite person. Amelia owned the house she lived in with her mum and dad, her four brothers, two sisters and her oldest sister’s boyfriend, Tom. As the house only had three bedrooms the boys had to sleep in bunk beds. One was a normal set of bunks but one was a triple decker bunkbed. The boys took turns to sleep in that one because whoever slept at the top had to sleep with their nose pressed against the ceiling. Tom didn’t complain very much. Before he came to live with them, he had slept in the park, under a tree.
Every month Amelia sent a huge pair of wolf-hounds round to their house to collect the rent. And every month she asked for a little bit more money. Dolly’s dad said she was trying to get rid of them because she wanted to turn their house into an aviary for her collection of song-birds. At the moment the birds, which she caught herself, lived in a big cage next to her house, They woke her up very early in the morning with their singing and she was sick of it.
Dolly’s family were very poor. They hadn’t enough money to mend their house. When it rained the roof leaked and they had to put saucepans all over the place to catch the drips. It was like living inside a musical instrument. Amelia Hoggsbottom was mean. She didn’t use the rent she collected from the family to mend their roof. Instead she spent it on chocolate puddings which she gave to her horrible friends at parties she held in her enormous garden every month on the day after she collected the rent.
Yesterday was rent day. Down below in Amelia Hoggsbottom’s great big garden her horrible friends wandered around, their jewels sparkling in the sun. On a table near the house were the chocolate puddings. No one was allowed to eat them until a special gong was struck signalling that it was time for pud. Bill licked his beak. He had two rows of very small, very sharp teeth and he chattered them together whenever he was nervous. He was doing it now. Not only were they hovering high above the ground, something that always made him anxious. But they were about to carry out one of the biggest criminal heists that the valley of Literal Piffle had ever seen.
‘Quick,’ said Dolly. ‘Lower the rat basket, it’s nearly time for the chocolate gong.’ Bill took hold of a small wooden handle, gripping it in his sharp teeth, he started to turn. The angry rat in the small basket descended slowly towards the chocolate puddings. In the basket Nat held on for dear life as she swayed around in the warm summer breeze on the end of a long piece of string. The flying machine hovered high in the sky and the basket hovered somewhat lower, just above the heads of Amelia’s horrible friends. They were all crowding around the wild song-bird cage pretending to admire the birds but really trying to get as close to the puddings as possible without looking like that’s what they were doing.
As Dolly heard the gong ring out, she gave Bill the signal, and he quickly lowered the basket until it was resting on the table. The furious rat jumped out of her prison as soon as she possibly could. Amelia Hoggsbottom’s guests rushed to get their chocolate pudding only to find, there on the table, an angry wet rat in a stripy swimming costume. The rat looked particularly strange due to the fact that she was still wearing her swimming cap. The guests started to scream and run around.
Up above Dolly was ready with her long-distance-grabbing-contraption. She leaned over the side of the flying machine and let it down. When it reached the table she opened its jaws and grabbed all the chocolate puddings. Quickly she closed the jaws of her machine and started to pull it back up again. Once it was airborne she told Bill to cast off. He cut the rope which fell amongst the panicked guests getting caught around their legs and tripping them up till they all lay in a huge tangled heap on the lawn. At the very bottom of the heap was Amelia Hoggsbottom who had been standing right in the middle trying to bring order to her party by shouting at everyone as loudly as she could. The high-flying-sky-diving machine flew off to a secret location behind a tree on the far side of the pond.
Bill climbed from his seat with knees that shook and feet that flapped. He was very relieved to be back on solid ground. Dolly unbuckled her mums motorcycle helmet and threw it to one side. She laughed a wild and dangerous laugh, leapt from her vehicle and started to unload the chocolate pudding. When Bill’s knees stopped shaking he came to help her. I’m sorry to say that Dolly didn’t share her puddings with her brothers and sisters, she was not that sort of criminal. She ate them all herself.