ALICE & MATILDA VS THE ZORIOUS BAZOO: Chapter 5: The Zorious Bazoo

ALICE & MATILDA VS THE ZORIOUS BAZOO

CHAPTER THE LAST

The Zorious Bazoo
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‘THE FINAL ROUND,’ hissed the Bazoo.

‘MY VICTORY WILL BE GLORIOUS!’

The girls waited. But the Bazoo said nothing more.
They waited some more, but the Bazoo simply stood there, grinning nastily.

And the girls came to realise that the final round was to be perhaps the hardest one of all - and yet also the simplest.

One line only each. And it HAD to rhyme with the last line spoken.

‘This game is getting quite laborious,’ said Alice.

‘NOW YOU SEE THAT I’M VICTORIOUS!’ the Bazoo cackled.

Glorious, laborious and victorious. Alice bit her lip. There HAD to be something else that rhymed, but no matter how hard she tried to think - it was just no use. She had run clean out of rhymes.
‘It’s all down to you now, Tilly,’ she whispered.
Matilda closed her eyes, wrinkled her nose, and furrowed her brow – as she often did when she was thinking hard.

Now, I may have mentioned that the two girls were clever. Clever in different ways. Alice was clever at solving puzzles, which is how she was able to work out the rules to each round of the Bazoo’s contest. Her sister on the other hand was good at finding things. And that included finding words.

Matilda thought and pondered, pondered and thought. She even threw a little rumination in there for good measure. She cast her mind back over each round of the beastly contest in search of a rhyming word she could use. But she found none.

She cast her mind back further, to when they first met the Bazoo in the tunnel that became three, then ten, then three hundred and then none. But there was nothing there either.

Finally, she cast her mind back even further, right to the very beginning of this story. And it was there she found her word.

Alice had been right to think that the only way they could beat the Bazoo would be by working together, for together they made a team that was impressive and worthy of praise. Now, you might remember that there was a very special - yet difficult - word for this, and it was this word which Matilda found.

She unwrinkled her nose, unfurrowed her brow, and finally she opened her eyes. Then she looked at Alice, smiled, took a deep breath and said:
‘Together we are quite MERITORIOUS!’

The Bazoo shrieked and his eyes almost popped from his head.

‘NO! NO! NOOOOOO!!!’

‘I think we’ve won,’ said Alice. ‘Well done, Tilly. Well done.’

‘STOP RIGHT THERE, LITTLE RIBBITS!’ hissed the Bazoo. ‘I HAVEN’T FINISHED YET! NO-ONE BEATS ME AT RHYMING. FOR I AM... QUITE.. REALLY... VERY... UMM... ZORIOUS!’

‘Zorious?’ said the girls together. ‘There’s no such word!’

‘Yes there is,’ lied the Bazoo. ‘Tis a Bazoo word.’

‘Liar,’ said Alice angrily. ‘We have won your silly game. Now let us go.’

‘Yes, let us go, ribbit,’ said Matilda.

‘Ssss! I’m no ribbit!’ snapped the Bazoo.

‘But you must be,’ said Alice. ‘You said yourself the ones who have won are the ones who are not ribbits, and the one who hasn’t won is the one who is quite clearly the ribbit. And you, sir, have lost, which must mean you are the ribbit. Besides you look like a ribbit, doesn’t he, Tilly?’

‘Most definitely,’ Matilda agreed. ‘Say - why don’t you take a look for yourself?’

The Bazoo hissed and spat and hopped up and down on his big flat feet. ‘RIBBIT INDEED!’ he yelled, but as he hopped, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in one of the many spoons hanging from his waist.

He stopped hopping, and stood as still as a statue, staring at his reflection. His mouth fell open. His eyes opened wide. Murple steam started to pour out of his long, dangly ears.

‘Ohh... GLOBBITS!’ he said, and then - PLOOF! - he disappeared in a big cloud of Murple smoke.

‘HOORAY!’ shouted the girls, and when the smoke cleared they found that the tunnel had once again returned to normal, and they could see daylight pouring in from the entrance.

The girls held hands and crawled back up the tunnel and out into the fresh air.

‘Well, that was rather odd - wouldn’t you say, Tilly?’ said Alice, as the girls danced around happily in the sun.

‘Zoriously so,’ giggled Matilda. Then her stomach gave the most enormous rumble. ‘I’m hungry’ she said.

Alice nodded. ‘It feels like three weeks since we last ate. Let’s go home. I wonder what’s for tea?’
‘Not ribbit pies, I hope’ said Matilda, and both girls ran off home, laughing.

From behind a root of the hazel tree growing directly above the Bazoolah, a worm poked his tiny head above the tips of the grass and watched the girls go.

A small Murple-ish worm.

‘You may laugh now, but just you wait,’ said Helterpot wormishly. ‘Soon enough we will meet again. Soon enough I will have my revenge. And then it will be I, Helterpot the Brave, who will have the last lau-argh!’

Helterpot never got to finish his sentence, for just at that moment a baby rabbit that had fallen from its nest way up high in the tree, fluttered down beside him and pecked him right out of the ground.

Goodbye, horrid Bazoo. Goodbye!

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END OF STORY
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