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Kola Nut Hotel: Creepers Sleepers


Part 1

Wildmouth shot out of his suite on the top floor of the Kola Nut Hotel and bounded down the stairs. His acute lion’s ears had heard the squeak of the letter box. He just managed to stop before knocking Miss Wu over like a skittle. 
“Is it for me?” gasped Wildmouth, excitedly.
“No, it’s for Russell!” said Miss Wu, showing Wildmouth the letter, addressed to “Mr. R. Tusks, Head Gardener, The Kola Nut Hotel”.
“What?! Again?!” asked Wildmouth, bitterly. “Jumbo-nose gets more fan mail than me!”
“It’s not fan mail!” said Miss Wu. “It’s some seeds he ordered,” said Miss Wu, seeing the logo of an exotic garden centre on the envelope and shaking it, making a rattling sound.
“Can I have some? I’m very peckish!” said Wildmouth, in his most irresistible voice, which he often used in his rubbishy films. “Surely the silly elephant can spare a few...”
“No! Get off!” said Wu. “Russell would be very cross if you interfered with his private mail! And don’t call him Jumbo-nose!”

Wildmouth slunk back up to his room. Miss Wu put the letter into Russell Tusks’ pigeon-hole behind the front desk, next to another small package that had been delivered the day before. Tusks was away at a botanists’ conference and Miss Wu wasn’t expecting him back until the next morning. She greeted some guests, a party of pelicans, as they came in, but then the pelicans dashed upstairs as Skates, the hotel bellboy stumbled into the lobby with a garden hose, spraying water everywhere. Miss Wu ducked behind the front desk to avoid getting soaked.
“I can’t stop it!” cried Skates. “It’s out of control!”
Skates opened his large beak wide to try and swallow the water, but the hose flicked this way and that like a mad snake. Some pottery ducks got shot down as the walls, carpet and ceiling got alternately squirted.
Skates tried to go back outside, but by now he was entangled with the hose and couldn’t walk. The furniture in the lobby, the table, chairs and cushions sounded like a dull set of drums as the jet of water hit them. Ornaments up on a high shelf were knocked off one-by-one like targets in a shooting gallery. And then the water suddenly stopped...
Miss Wu came back into the lobby: she had crawled out to the patio to turn off the tap to which the hose was attached.
“Skates!” she cried.
“Sorry!” said Skates, preparing to be fired.
“I told you to be careful with that tap!” Miss Wu continued. “You have to turn it gently... remember?!”

They set about mopping up. Skates dried the floor and walls as best he could with some old hotel towels and picked up all the pieces of the ducks and the ornaments. He took the furniture out on to the patio to dry out in the cool evening breeze. Miss Wu dried the hotel guest book with a hair-dryer. She was sad to see that some guests’ names had been washed away. 
By the time they had finished it was time for bed. Skates went quietly to the little office behind the front desk, where he had a hammock to sleep in, and Miss Wu went upstairs to her room on the first floor. Neither of them went straight to sleep though. Skates decided to try to fix the broken ornaments to surprise Miss Wu in the morning, so he picked up all the pieces from the floor of the lobby and took them into the office. He got some glue and set to work. Miss Wu did some paperwork, wrote some letters, and made a shopping list for the next day. When she had finished that, she danced around to some old records, read a book, looked at the stars through her telescope. Finally she got into bed and studied some Strawberian irregular verbs.
While Skates and Miss Wu were busy, one of the seeds in Tusk’s letter, which had been soaked with water, started to grow. It took root in the sample of rich, brown super-soil in the other package which one of Tusks' botanist pals had sent him. The monster honeysuckle seedling easily broke through the wet envelope, and crept towards the office’s half-glazed door, attracted by the light. Inside the office, Skates had nearly finished his repair work. That’ll have to do! he said to himself, sleepily sticking a pottery panda’s head on to the body of one of the flying ducks. The plant extended a tendril around the door knob and started to turn it. Skates looked at the clock and, seeing that it was well past his bedtime, yawned, climbed into his hammock and reached out to pull the cord of the light. Suddenly in darkness, the plant let go of the door knob and crept up the stairs, now attracted by the light under the door of Miss Wu’s room.


Part 2

Just as the plant got to Miss Wu’s door, she closed her book of verbs and switched off the bedside light. The honeysuckle then sensed a glimmer from upstairs, and crept up towards the door of the suite on the top floor, which Wildmouth, who had fallen asleep on his couch, had left ajar. The lion lay snoring in the flickering candle light with a scrapbook of his photos and film reviews open on his chest. The plant took hold of the candlestick, a mirror, and the scrapbook, and took them out through the open doors of the balcony out into the night sky, where the moon was rising. Wildmouth stirred in his sleep and felt for his precious scrapbook. When his big paws didn’t locate it, he awoke with a start in the now dark room. He got up from the couch and tripped up over the trailing plant. He picked himself up from the floor and tip-toed to the balcony, where he saw the plant growing up into the air with his possessions.
“Hey!” he roared. “Come back with my stuff! Give me my scrapbook back, you thieving thistle!”
The plant now had a big, trumpety flower, and it was admiring itself in Wildmouth’s mirror. The lion grabbed the plant’s stem and started shaking it, but the plant simply absorbed Wildmouth’s energy, turned it’s flower towards him and blew a raspberry. Infuriated, Wildmouth bit the plant, but found it very tough and bitter: “Bhlurrrghhhh!” he cried, blowing and spitting and sticking out his tongue. Then the branch holding Wildmouth’s scrapbook swung down and hit him on the snout with it.
“Right! I’ll get you, you cheeky cheeseplant!” said Wildmouth, raising a foot onto one of the plant’s sturdy leaves and starting to climb. He was a bit scared of heights actually, but he tried to imagine he was in a scene from one of his awful films.
Miss Wu and Skates, woken by all the noise Wildmouth had been making, came onto the balcony to find Wildmouth already about twenty metres up the stalk of the plant.
“Mister Wildmouth!” cried Miss Wu. “What are you doing up there? And how did this giant plant get here?!”
“My dear Miss Wu,” Wildmouth shouted back. “I’ve no idea how it got here, but it’s got my scrapbook!”
Skates thought he must be dreaming as he watched Wildmouth slowly climb the plant. When the lion eventually got to the top he tried to wrest his scrapbook and mirror from the plant’s tendrils, but the monster honeysuckle’s grip was strong and it started swinging from side-to-side to try and shake Wildmouth off. 
“Oh dear!” cried Miss Wu, “Hang on!”
By now, all the hotel guests were at their windows, gawping at the spectacle of the lion being thrown around like a big, furry doll, screaming his head off.
“What is it?” asked one of the pelicans.
“I don’t know!” said another.
“I’ve never seen anything like it!” said a third pelican.
“It’s very noisy!” said a fourth.
“I can’t sleep with all this racket!” said a grumpy walrus from another window.
“I’m sorry about this!” said Miss Wu, leaning over the balcony. “Everything will be under control shortly!”
“I hope not!” said a penguin from a small window.
“Yes, we love it!” said another one.
“Poor Wildmouth,” said Miss Wu. “what are we going to do?!”

Part 3

“Look!” said Skates, pointing up into the deep blue sky.
Miss Wu looked and saw a small bright light approaching from the west.
“It’s the grocery blimp!” she shrieked. “It’s McCluskey! He must be doing a late night delivery somewhere!” 
Miss Wu and Skates shouted and waved frantically to get the pilot’s attention. 
“Now what?!” grumbled the walrus.
The plant stopped swinging and snaked up towards the orange blimp’s light. Wildmouth, dazed, held on weakly. The egg-shaped balloon came to a stop above the hotel, and McCluskey opened the window and stuck out a megaphone. 
“What’s going on?!” he said. “Having a party? I’ve got some pickles if you want ‘em. And crackers. Not much else I’m afraid. Just on the way to the Imperial Palace with a load of lettuces - they need them urgently.”
“We’re not having a party!” shouted Miss Wu, as loudly as she could. “We’ve got a problem with a giant creeper! Can you help us, please!”
“That’s a big honeysuckle for sure!” said McCluskey, looking down at the flower which was still climbing towards the blimp. “Mmm....”
“Look out!” shouted everyone in the hotel, as the plant suddenly shot upwards.
The hotel guests shrieked as the plant tried to grab the blimp. McCluskey dodged it with deft movements of the joystick, and lettuces were thrown out of the blimp’s windows as it swung from side-to-side. The guests cheered. Even the walrus was caught up in the excitement, and made more noise than anyone else!
This went on for some time, until eventually the plant started to tire a little. Wildmouth, by now almost completely shaken to bits, took the opportunity to snatch his mirror and scrapbook away from the plant’s clutches, and climbed down dizzily back to the balcony, where he collapsed, clutching his scrapbook and mirror to his chest. 
Miss Wu and Skates looked up again as the gentle sound of tinkling music reached their ears. It was a lovely, peaceful, relaxing melody. The plant, lulled by the sound, shook its leaves and nodded it’s flower up and down as it tried to resist. Miss Wu felt herself becoming drowsy. Skates struggled to keep his eyelids open. Wu looked down at the other windows and saw the pelicans yawning. The penguins were wobbling. The walrus was already asleep and snoring loudly. Wu looked up again through her half-closed eyes and saw McCluskey at the window of the blimp, wearing noise-canceling headphones and gesturing at them. 
“Cover your ears, Skates!” Miss Wu cried.
They looked up and saw the plant was now fast asleep. 
McCluskey brought the blimp down level with the balcony.
“Play this again if it wakes up during the night!  whispered McCluskey, tossing them a small musical-box, which Skates caught in his beak. “It’s a Wangleburger super-lullaby! Now I must deliver these lettuces!”
The blimp shot off into the darkness. Skates turned the handle of the musical-box and a few notes of the super-lullaby sounded, causing a passing moth to fall asleep in mid-air and fall to the patio below the balcony.
“Be careful with it!” said Miss Wu. 
“Play it again, Skates!” said Wildmouth. “I’m going to bed!” The lion got under his eiderdown with his scrapbook and mirror.
Miss Wu turned away from the balcony and said, “We’d better let Mr. Wildmouth get some res...”
The plant darted down and snatched the musical-box from Skates’ hand. 
“It’s awake!” cried Miss Wu.
“It’s mad!” shouted Skates.
“Sneaky snowdrop!” growled Wildmouth, pulling the eiderdown over his head.
The plant held the musical-box and gripped the handle with another of its tendrils.
“What does it want?” shrieked Skates.



 Part 4

“Want drink!” said the flower.
“What?!” said Miss Wu, astonished.
“Water!” said the flower.
“It can talk?” wondered Skates.
“Water!” said the plant. “Want water!”
“No water in here!” came Wildmouth’s muffled voice from under his eiderdown.
“There’s a tap on the patio!” said Skates.
“Yes!” said Miss Wu, “lovely cool, wet water from the tap!”
The plant turned away from the balcony and snaked down to the patio below. Miss Wu and Skates watched as the plant picked up the hose attached to the tap and held it over it’s flower-head like a person about to take a shower.
“You have to turn the tap on!” called Miss Wu.
The plant extended a tendril to the tap at the wall of the patio.
“It’s a bit stiff, so turn it firmly,” Skates shouted down to the plant, glancing at Miss Wu, who glanced back. . . The force of the jet of water knocked the plant out instantly. The wild hose then leapt around spurting water this way and that and high up into the air. It sprayed the hotel guests through their open windows and woke them all up.
“What’s going on!” shouted the walrus.
Miss Wu apologised again and ran downstairs. She managed to crawl across the patio again to turn off the crazy water. Skates, Wildmouth and all the guests went downstairs and carried the plant out of the patio and bundled it into the shed. The penguins were happy to stand on guard outside. They took turns playing the musical-box which the plant had dropped on the patio, making sure their ears were covered.

Next morning, Russell Tusks returned from the conference. 
“I found these outside!” he said, plonking several lettuces on the front desk. “Has a letter arrived for me?” he continued, eyeing his pigeon hole.
Miss Wu told Russell what had happened and then took him to the shed, where Skates had taken over from the penguins, who had become exhausted. Skates stopped turning the handle of the musical-box and Tusks unlocked the shed door.
“Hello! Loquentes serpentium plantae?” he said quietly, using the plant’s official name.
“Who are you?” asked the plant.
Russell Tusks introduced himself and told the plant that he would take it to a place where it could live comfortably.
“Like it here!” said the plant. “Want to stay here with the kind birdlady and the funny lion.”
“But the lion isn’t funny - he’s just annoying!” said Tusks.
“Want to stay here!” said the plant.
Russell talked to Miss Wu and they decided to plant it in the field next to the hotel’s vegetable patch; this was the foundation of Russell Tusk’s botanical garden. Word soon spread about the talking plant, and it attracted many tourists to the hotel. Miss Wu looked after the plant and Wildmouth, who was happy to have an appreciative audience for a change, performed theatrical sketches on his balcony to make it happy. 

End of Creepers Sleepers



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