A Super Weird! Mystery: Attack of the Haunted Lunchbox

Massive thanks to my editor, Liz Bankes, who, I have a terrible feeling, wrote half this book. Thanks as ever to my brilliant agent Caroline Sheldon and to Jenny and Woody for listening to my stupid ideas.

First published in Great Britain in 2020

by Egmont Boooks, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers,

1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

Text and illustrations copyright © Jim Smith 2020

ISBN 978 1 4052 9751 6

Ebook ISBN 978 1 4052 9752 3

www.barryloser.com www.egmontbooks.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication and Copyright

Rhubarb & the gang

The O in Donut

The Smelly Side

The Phantom Twizzler

Cheese & pickle sarnie

The Newshound Award

Brenda the hut

Terry Plonsky

See-through snacks

Unfinished business

Donut High Street

Trainer Trainers™

Mrs Terrible

Very short teeth

Donut Zoo

Crocodile Tony

Donut Pet Cemetery

Barnaby Toenails

After that

Mum’s the word

Donut Pizza

Bogey nose™

The Copiers

Back To The Smelly Side

Back To Donut Zoo

Tiny bat cave

Attack of the haunted lunchbox

The apology

One last piece of unfinished business

One last bum scratch

Three days later...

Back series promotional page

Hello and welcome to another amazing book all about Donut Island.

Donut is a completely round island with a giant hole in the middle of it.

Which is probably why it’s called Donut Island.

This is Rhubarb Plonsky.

She’s the editor of The Daily Donut,a school newspaper all about the super weird mysteries that happen here.

And this is Rhubarb’s sidekick, Yoshi Fujikawa.

Yoshi’s got a notepad which he’s always scribbling stuff down in.

If you’re listening to an audiobook, you’ll just have to imagine what I’m saying, by the way.

This kid is Melvin Pebble.

He moved next door to Rhubarb in the last book.

At first, Melvin thought Rhubarb and Yoshi’s mysteries were completely rubbish.

Then one day a massive slime monster climbed out of the giant hole and tried to eat everyone.

That changed his mind a bit.

Now Melvin works at The Daily Donut with Rhubarb and Yoshi.

Most of the time their mysteries are pretty rubbish, but every once in a while a good one comes along . . .

1

It was a few minutes after I’d written chapter one and Rhubarb was sitting at home working on a new logo for The Daily Donut.

‘What are you up to, Rubes?’ asked her mum, Thelma, walking into the living room.

She obviously hadn’t read the sentence before, had she?

‘I’m working on a new logo for The Daily Donut,’ said Rhubarb. ‘It needs something with a little more pizazz!’

Thelma smiled. ‘You really do love that newspaper, don’t you?’ she said, plonking her bum down on the sofa.

‘The Daily Donut is my whole entire life,’ said Rhubarb, all seriously.

Thelma chuckled. ‘My little detective!’ She stuck her hand down the side of the sofa cushion and rummaged around for the remote control. ‘Haven’t seen the remote, have you?’

Rhubarb pointed across the room. ‘It’s over there,’ she said, looking back down at her sheet of paper. ‘Argh, I can’t get this logo right!’

Thelma leaned forwards and grabbed something off the coffee table. It looked like a red plastic arm with a yellow rubber hand sticking out the end of it.

‘This is a job for the

she said.

The Grabby Grabber, in case you didn’t know, is a handy little gizmo that grabs your remote control when you can’t reach it. It was designed by Rhubarb’s dad, who was a famous inventor when he was alive.

Thelma pressed a button on the side of the Grabby Grabber and the rubber hand sprung out, grabbing the remote control and whipping it back to her.

‘I dunno what I’d do without my trusty Grabby Grabber.’ Thelma smiled, turning the TV on. ‘There’s no doubt about it, your father was a very clever man.’

Rhubarb stared at the Grabby Grabber. ‘Let me see that thing,’ she said, grabbing it off her mum.

‘That was his first big invention, you know,’ said Thelma. ‘Before the Grabby Grabber, people actually had to get up and walk over to their remote controls.’

Rhubarb smiled, thinking of her dad. She’d never known him, really. A crocodile ate him when she was just a baby.

‘Grabby Grabber,’ she said, reading the tiny words printed on the arm. And then she gasped.

‘What is it, Rubes?’ asked Thelma, as the theme tune to her favourite quiz show blurted out of the TV’s speakers.

Rhubarb pointed at the writing on the Grabby Grabber. Underneath it in even tinier letters were the words, ‘Made in Donut’. Except instead of a boring old normal ‘o’ in the word ‘Donut’, there was a drawing of a donut.

‘That’s exactly what my logo needs!’ she said, scrunching her piece of paper up and grabbing a new sheet from the other side of the room with the Grabby Grabber.

Rhubarb sharpened her pencil and wrote ‘The Daily Donut’ on the new piece of paper, in her best bubble letters. Next she rubbed out a corner of the ‘o’ and drew three little curves to make it look like somebody had taken a chomp out of it.

She held the piece of paper up and smiled, just as the doorbell rang. ‘Now that’s what I call a logo!’ she said, getting up and heading for the front door.

Rhubarb opened the front door, which is the sort of thing you do when a doorbell rings, isn’t it.

Standing in front of her were Melvin and Yoshi.

‘Guess what?’ said Rhubarb, holding up her sheet of paper. ‘I’ve designed a new logo for The Daily Donut!’

‘That’s brilliant!’ said Yoshi. ‘But even better, I think we’ve got a new case.’

Rhubarb’s nose drooped. She was a tiny bit disappointed they weren’t a tiny bit more excited about her logo.

‘Ooh, a new case,’ she said, folding the paper up and sniffing the air. ‘It hasn’t got anything to do with baked beans, has it?’

Rhubarb can sniff out a mystery miles away, in case you didn’t know.

Melvin gasped. ‘That nose of yours is seriously impressive,’ he said.

Yoshi whipped his notepad out of his pocket and flicked to the latest page. ‘There’s something super weird going on at Smelly Side Supermarket,’ he said. ‘The baked bean tins have been turning around by themselves.’

Rhubarb stroked her chin. ‘Fascinating,’ she said. ‘Sounds like a job for the Daily Donut gang!’

The three of them zoomed across town, over to the other side of the giant hole in the middle of the island.

Melvin sniffed the air, copying the way Rhubarb had done it earlier. ‘Poowee, it stinks over here!’

Rhubarb smiled at her friend. ‘That’s why it’s called the Smelly Side,’ she explained, as they strolled past a pongy cheese shop.

Yoshi looked around. ‘I wish I lived here,’ he said. ‘It’s where all the super weird stuff happens.’

They walked up to Smelly Side Supermarket and its glass doors swooshed open.

‘This way,’ said Rhubarb, heading straight for the tinned vegetables aisle.

Yoshi gasped. ‘It’s not just the baked beans that are round the wrong way,’ he cried, pointing at the shelves. ‘It’s all of the tins!’

Rhubarb stared at the tins. Sure enough, every one had been twizzled so the back of its label faced outwards.

‘This is bigger than we thought,’ she said.

‘It’s awful,’ agreed Melvin. ‘How will customers know what they’re buying?’

Rhubarb swivelled one of the tins round the right way.

‘Yuck!’ said Melvin. ‘No wonder it’s called the Smelly Side.’

Yoshi whipped his notepad out and jotted down what had happened so far. ‘Let’s see if any other products have been affected.’

The gang ran to the end of the aisle and hung a left. Melvin shrieked, pointing at a completely twizzled-round 24-pack of triple-ply toilet rolls.

Just then the manager, who was a frizzy haired woman, appeared from behind a display of man-size tissues.She was wearing a name tag with ‘Gloria’ written on it.

‘Who are you lot?’ she asked.

‘We’re from The Daily Donut,’ said Rhubarb, handing her a business card. ‘It seems you have a problem.’

‘Yeah,’ said Melvin, handing her his one too.

Gloria pincered the cards and gave them a quick read. ‘It’s happening on the fruit aisle too,’ she said.

They all ran towards the fruit aisle and skidded to a stop in front of a giant pyramid of satsumas.

‘Hang on a second, how do you know if these have been twizzled?’ asked Rhubarb. ‘They don’t have any labels.’

‘Yeah, just these little barcodes,’ said Melvin, pointing at a tiny round sticker on one of the satsuma’s bums.

Gloria picked a satsuma up and the whole entire pyramid collapsed. ‘You don’t work at Smelly Side Supermarket for thirty-seven years without knowing a thing or two about tangerines,’ she said.

‘Erm, the sign says satsumas,’ said Yoshi, but Gloria just shrugged.

‘Tangerines, satsumas, what’s the difference?’ she said, as one of them rolled towards Rhubarb and bumped against her shoe.

Rhubarb picked the satsuma up and sniffed it. Then her eyes opened wide.

‘What is it, Rubes?’ asked Melvin, but she didn’t answer. She was too busy staring at a man holding what looked like a Grabby Grabber.

‘What’s he up to?’ said Gloria, peering at the man. He was wearing a black and white stripey anorak and looked kind of like a giant, person-shaped version of a barcode.

He pressed the button on the side of his Grabby Grabber and the yellow rubber hand sprung out and picked up a sprig of broccoli.

‘Hey, he’s twizzling that broccoli!’ cried Rhubarb, zooming over and tapping him on the shoulder.

The man turned round, still holding the broccoli in his Grabby Grabber. ‘May I help you, young lady?’ he asked. In his other hand, he was carrying one of those barcode zapper thingys you can get.

‘We were just wondering what you were doing,’ said Rhubarb to the man.

‘I’m beeping barcodes,’ he said, zapping the little barcode sticker on the broccoli. Something did a buzz inside his pocket.

He stuck his hand into it and whipped a phone out, then slid his finger across the screen. A million barcodes popped up and he scrolled though them, proudly. ‘I’m collecting every one in the whole of Donut!’

‘Yeah, and twizzling my tins round while you’re at it,’ said Gloria.

Rhubarb stroked her chin. ‘The Annoying Case Of The Phantom Barcode Twizzler,’ she said. ‘Write that down, Yoshi. I think we’ll put it on the front page.’

‘The Phantom Twizzler, eh?’ said the man. ‘I like the sound of that!’

Yoshi looked up from his notepad. ‘Can I take your real name, too?’ he asked. ‘It’s for The Daily Donut.’

‘David Splurg,’ said the man, and Melvin sniggled.

Gloria pointed to the doors. ‘Yeah well, you’re banned from Smelly Side Supermarket, David Splurg!’ she boomed.

‘Alright, alright, keep your hair on,’ said David Splurg, trudging off towards the exit. ‘But this isn’t the last you’ve heard of the Phantom Twizzler!’

Rhubarb put her arms round Melvin and Yoshi. ‘Another mystery solved,’ she said.

‘Thanks for your help, kiddos,’ said Gloria, heading off to the tinned vegetables aisle to do some de-twizzling.

Melvin stroked his chin, copying the way Rhubarb had just done it. ‘We’re getting pretty good at this detective business, aren’t we?’ he said.

Rhubarb smiled, happy he was enjoying being part of The Daily Donut. ‘We certainly are, Melv,’ she said, as the three of them started walking home.

It was the next morning and Rhubarb was in her kitchen, making her packed lunch. She’d stayed up late the night before, writing up Yoshi’s notes for The Annoying Case Of The Phantom Barcode Twizzler.

‘Morning, Rubes,’ said Thelma Plonsky, trudging into the room. She waved her hand in front of one of the cupboard doors and it swished upwards, disappearing into a slot in the ceiling.

She grabbed her favourite green mug and walked over to the sink, pressing a big brown button next to it. Steaming hot coffee poured out of the tap, straight into the mug.

Next she pressed a white button, and ice cold milk started to dribble out of the tap. ‘That’s enough, thank you, Tappy,’ she said, and the milk stopped dribbling. ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. That dad of yours was a very clever man, Rhubarb.’

Rhubarb smiled as she sliced a cheese and pickle sandwich in half. She plonked it on the counter next to a carton of apple juice, a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, a chocolate bar and a satsuma.

Or maybe it was a tangerine.

She glanced around for her lunchbox, which was usually lying on the draining board, all washed up and ready for another day at school. ‘That’s funny, I can’t find my lunchbox.’

‘Oops, sorry Rubes,’ said Thelma. ‘I put the leftover bolognese in it last night.’ She bent down and stuck her head into a cupboard then stood back up, placing a metal box on the counter.

‘What’s that?’ asked Rhubarb. She’d never spotted it before.

‘It’s your Dad’s old lunchbox,’ said her mum.

The lunchbox was blue and had lots of different-shaped panels on the sides. Next to each panel was a little red button.

‘Check this out,’ said Thelma, pressing one of the buttons. A triangle-shaped panel slid open to reveal a small compartment behind it. A metal arm with a claw on the end shot out and grabbed the cheese and pickle sandwich.

2

‘Wow, is it one of Dad’s inventions?’ asked Rhubarb, as the claw disappeared back into the lunchbox, along with the sarnie.

Thelma nodded. ‘Terry never went anywhere without his Self-Packing Lunchbox,’ she said.

‘What, even to the toilet?’ asked Rhubarb, pressing four more buttons. Four of the panels slid open and four metal arms reached out and grabbed the carton of apple juice, the packet of salt and vinegar crisps, the chocolate bar and the satsuma.

‘Well no, not the toilet,’ said her mum.

‘What about to bed?’ asked Rhubarb. ‘Are you telling me he took his Self-Packing Lunchbox to bed?’

Her mum rolled her eyes. ‘Alright, so maybe he didn’t take it everywhere,’ she said. ‘I just meant he loved his Self-Packing Lunchbox, that’s all.’

Rhubarb stuffed it into her rucksack. ‘Well if my dad made it, then I love it too,’ she said, kissing her mum on the cheek and heading for the door.

Rhubarb opened the front door to see Melvin standing there with his finger pointing out, just about to ring the bell.

‘You can ring it if you want,’ said Rhubarb, feeling a bit sorry for him, missing out on a nice doorbell ring like that.

‘Nah, it’s OK,’ said Melvin, as they started strolling down the street. ‘There’s always another doorbell.’

‘Where’s Yoshi?’ asked Rhubarb.

‘Right here,’ said Yoshi, strolling up behind them.

They turned left on to Donut High Street and Melvin looked down at his trainers. ‘Hey, what’s with the pavement today?’ he said. ‘It feels all squidgy.’

Rhubarb took a couple of steps forward. ‘You’re right, it is a bit on the squidgy side. Well spotted, Melv.’

‘The Mysterious Case Of The Squidgy Pavement,’ said Yoshi, scribbling it down in his notepad. ‘What do you reckon, Rubes?’

‘I like it,’ said Rhubarb, as they walked through the gates of their school.

You know that bit when you’re walking from the gates of your school towards your classroom? I completely can’t be bothered to write about it.