Massive thanks to my editor, Liz Bankes, for all her genius help with this book, and to my amazing publisher Ali Dougal and brilliant agent Caroline Sheldon for always being so keel. And to Jenny and Woody for telling me when something’s rubbish, and coming up with the title!

First published in Great Britain 2020 by Egmont UK Ltd, 2 Minster Court, London EC3R 7BB

Text and illustration copyright © Jim Smith 2020

The moral rights of Jim Smith have been asserted.

First e-book edition 2020

ISBN 978 1 4502 9545 1

Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1806 6

barryloser.com

www.egmont.co.uk

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

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Contents

Cover

Dedication and Copyright

Title Page

Meet the Pebbles

Rhubarb Plonsky

The next chapter

Donut High Street

Another blooming chapter

The Cool Doods

Daily Donut HQ

Donut Super-market

Boring old bus stop

Doesn’t time fly

Still still Thursday

Donut Diner

The offer

Melvin’s wee

Melvin the Cool Dood

Trouser pocket

Shiny little Pebbles

Melvin’s room

Great Aunt Pebble

The sleep-over

Weird Hector

Rubbish morning

Rhubarb’s present

Super moon

Doodard and Doshi

Danger at Donut Diner

Melvin has an idea

The plan

Get scooping

What they were whispering

No more squeeze

Diving into the monster’s bum

Swimming down an arm

Deirdre’s jam jars

Back to Donut Diner

Mystery solved

Best title yet!

Back series promotional page

See that car driving over the bridge? Inside it are some Pebbles.

I don’t mean pebbles like stones. What I mean is a family called The Pebbles.

This is what they look like:

Sorry if you’re listening to an audiobook, by the way.

The Pebbles were driving from Hokum City towards a completely round island.

On one side of the island, three huge clumps of earth had fallen into the sea, making it look like a giant fish had taken a bite out of it or something.

‘Donut Island here we come!’ grinned Deirdre Pebble, peering into the rear-view mirror. ‘Looking forward to your new life, kids?’

Swirling black thunderclouds rumbled in the sky above and lightning flickered like a half-broken bulb.

‘Nope,’ said Violet Pebble, who was the oldest and most annoying of the two. ‘I don’t see why I have to leave all my friends behind just because you got a stupid new job.’

‘Violet!’ cried Norman Pebble in his trying-to-be-a-dad voice. ‘Your mother’s new job is NOT stupid.’

Melvin Pebble, who was sitting next to his big sister, wiggled his bum in its seat. ‘I can’t wait,’ he said.

Violet rolled her eyes. ‘It’s alright for you,’ she said. ‘Your friends are all complete losers.’

‘Violet!’ snapped her mum. ‘Melvin’s friends are NOT losers.’

Melvin peered out his window at the storm. ‘It’s okay, Mum,’ he said. ‘Vi’s right. My friends ARE losers. And so am I.’

He held a finger up. ‘But not any more,’ he said. ‘Pebble family, I have an important announcement to make.’

A bolt of lightning shot out of a cloud, striking the middle of the island with an enormous . . .

‘WAAAHHH!!!’ screamed the Pebbles, as the car swerved left and right.

‘So, my announcement,’ said Melvin, once they’d all settled down again. ‘I have decided that from now on I’m gonna be the coolest kid in town.’

Violet laughed. ‘Oh per-lease,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t be cool if you were stuck inside a fridge. With sunglasses on. And gel in your hair. Wearing a t-shirt that said I AM COOL on it.’

‘Oh yeah?’ said Melvin. ‘Well I wouldn’t even be able to fit inside a fridge. Unless you took out all the shelves. But even then it’d be a squeeze. So who’s laughing now?’

‘Not me,’ said Violet, yawning as the car trundled off the bridge, past an enormous billboard.

This is what it said:

Violet stared through her rain-splattered window at the billboard. ‘The boringest town in the universe,’ she grumbled.

Of course, she’d never’ve said that if she’d known what was going to happen in the rest of this book.

The Pebble family car drove up to its new house. Not that a car can have a house exactly, but you know what I mean.

Melvin jumped out and stretched his legs. The thunderstorm had finished and he could just about see the moon hanging in the sky, like a gigantic chopped-in-half donut.

‘Feels great to stretch your legs, doesn’t it?’ grinned Norman Pebble, bending over to touch his smelly feet, and his bum peeped out of its trousers.

‘Not really,’ said Melvin, as his mum staggered up to the house carrying a giant cardboard box. Clinking around inside was her collection of empty jam jars.

‘You can never have too many jam jars,’ smiled Deirdre. Not that anyone had mentioned them or anything. She just liked talking about her jam jars.

Norman looked at his wife. ‘You do realise jam jars are supposed to have something inside them, don’t you, Deirdre?’ he said.

‘It’s tragic really,’ said Melvin, watching his mum. He walked round to the boot of the car and heaved out a box himself.

This one had written on the side.

The flaps were half-open and the tops of a million little toy packets fluttered in the breeze.

‘SHHH!’ shushed a noise from behind him and Melvin twizzled round.

In front of him sat a fat little bush. Its leaves were rattling like it was shaking with fear. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Melvin giggled, nervously.

‘What’s wrong, little fella?’ he asked the bush, sort of as a joke. ‘You scared of the storm?’

‘Please be quiet!’ said the bush, and Melvin stumbled backwards.

‘Th-that bush!’ he stuttered. ‘It’s alive!’

All of a sudden a girl’s head poked out, about the same age as Melvin’s.

It’s got a head as well!’ screamed Melvin.

‘SHUSH!’ shushed the girl. ‘Would you keep it down? I’m waiting for my new next-door neighbours to arrive.’

Melvin breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Oh,’ he smiled. ‘I think that might be . . .’

whispered the girl. ‘I’ve been hiding in this bush all blooming weekend and the last thing I need is you lot scaring them away.’

Deirdre plonked her jam jars down by the front door and walked over to the girl. ‘We’re the Pebbles!’ she smiled.

The girl went silent for a millisecond, then clicked her fingers.

‘Hey, you’re my new next-door neighbours!’ she grinned. ‘My name’s Rhubarb Plonsky. Very nice to meet you!’

Deirdre Pebble chuckled at how ridiculous her new next-door neighbour’s name was, even though her own name was Deirdre Pebble.

‘Very nice to meet you too, Rhubarb Plonsky,’ she said, putting her hands on her hips. ‘I’m Deirdre and that’s my husband Norman.’

‘And those two are Violet and Melvin,’ she said, pointing at them. Violet was still slouched in the back of the car. ‘Say hello, kids.’

‘Hello kids,’ said Violet, and Melvin sniggled.

‘Hello, Rhubarb Plonsky,’ he said.

Rhubarb sniffed the air. ‘Is that a Hokum City accent?’ she asked.

Violet raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s a pretty good shnoz you’ve got there,’ she said.

Rhubarb marched straight up to Melvin and did another sniff.

‘Stinks, doesn’t he,’ said Violet.

Rhubarb shook her head. ‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘It’s something else. Do you like mysteries, Melvin?’

‘Erm, I dunno,’ said Melvin.

‘Hmmm, we’ll see,’ said Rhubarb, pincering one of the little plastic toy packets from Melvin’s cardboard box. ‘What are these things, anyway?’

Melvin pulled the box away and pushed the cardboard flaps shut.

Violet slid out of the car and wandered over. ‘That’s my little brother’s collection of toy bags.’

‘You collect toy bags?’ asked Rhubarb.

Melvin nodded. ‘And the toys inside them,’ he said.

Rhubarb stroked her chin. ‘But none of the bags were open,’ she said.

‘Melvin doesn’t open the bags,’ said Violet. ‘He’s way too cool for that.’

‘I like guessing what’s inside them,’ said Melvin, pulling one out of the box and giving it a fiddle. ‘Anyway, the packets are more interesting than the toys half the time.’

Rhubarb thought for a second. ‘Plus I suppose all the excitement’s gone once you’ve opened it,’ she said.

smiled Melvin.

Violet stared down at the two of them. ‘She’s almost as cool as you, Melv,’ she chuckled. ‘Say, be a good little brother and grab my bags from the car, wouldya?’

Rhubarb opened her mouth. ‘What’s it like?’ she said. ‘Hokum City, I mean.’

Violet looked around. ‘Better than this place,’ she grumbled.

Rhubarb’s face went all serious and she leaned forwards. ‘Donut’s not an ordinary town,’ she whispered, so only Melvin could hear.

‘What does that mean?’ asked Melvin. ‘Not that I care or anything,’ he added, trying to sound a bit cooler.

‘I’ll tell you tomorrow,’ said Rhubarb, marching off, but not very far, seeing as she only lived next door.

It was the next morning and Melvin was walking to school with Rhubarb Plonsky.

As they turned onto Donut High Street, Melvin peered around at the dusty old shops. Each one had the word ‘Donut’ written on its sign, then the name of the thing it sold next to that.

There was Donut Butchers, Donut Books and a shop called Donut Toys. Next door to that was Donut Funerals and across the street, next to Donut Magazines, was Donut Hamburgers.

‘Donut Hairdressers,’ said Melvin, reading what the nearest shop was called. ‘Who goes in there, little hairy donuts who want a haircut?’

Rhubarb sniggered. ‘Ooh, I like people who try and be funny!’ she said, giving him a nudge, and he boinked into a blue lamppost which had ‘Donut Electric Co’ written on it in dented-in letters.

At the end of the road stood a low, round building with an enormous plastic donut sitting on top of it.

The words ‘DONUT DINER’ were printed on the gigantic snack in huge yellow capitals.

Behind the building was a great big circle of scrubby-looking land with a wire fence all the way round it.

‘That’s where the hole used to be,’ said Rhubarb, spotting where Melvin was looking.

‘The hole?’ said Melvin.

Rhubarb nodded. ‘Why do you think it’s called Donut Island?’ she said. ‘A donut’s not a donut without a hole!’

‘Unless it’s a jam one,’ said Melvin. ‘So what happened to this hole?’

‘They filled it in,’ said Rhubarb. ‘Spose it was a bit dangerous, having a great big hole sitting there in the middle of town.’

Melvin zoomed his eyes in on the filled-in hole. There was a zig-zaggy crack in the middle, kind of like a lightning bolt had hit it.

He remembered the enormous

from the night before and a bubble popped in his tummy, like he was a can of donut-flavour cola or something.

‘That thing you mentioned yesterday,’ he said. ‘About Donut not being an ordinary town . . .’

Rhubarb smiled. ‘Bet you were thinking about that all night, weren’t you?’

‘Not in the slightest at all,’ said Melvin, trying to sound cool. ‘What did it mean, though?’

Rhubarb leaned towards him. ‘Do you like mysteries?’ she asked.

‘Do I like mysteries?’ said Melvin. ‘Didn’t you ask me that already?’

‘I dunno, did I?’ said Rhubarb, stuffing her hand into her rucksack and pulling out a few sheets of folded-in-half paper that’d been stapled together into a homemade newspaper.

‘Ta da!’ said Rhubarb. ‘All the latest Donut Island mysteries, hot off the press every Friday morning!’

‘What is it?’ asked Melvin, even though it was pretty obvious.

‘It’s my newspaper, stupid!’ said Rhubarb.

Melvin peered at the hand-drawn headline on the front page. This is what it said:

The Mystery Of The Cat That Disappeared In Mysterious Circumstances

Rhubarb scratched her bum. ‘Ooh that’s a good one,’ she said. ‘There was this cat right, and it went missing . . .’

‘What happened?’ said Melvin.

Rhubarb leaned forwards, dialling the volume on her voice down to a three. ‘Turns out,’ she whispered, ‘the cat’d gone for a really long walk.’

‘That’s it?’ said Melvin.

‘There’s even better ones than that,’ said Rhubarb, flicking to another page.

The headline on this one said:

‘Okay I admit it, that’s pretty weird,’ said Melvin. ‘So what happened?’

‘The granny hadn’t got stuck at all,’ smiled Rhubarb. ‘All she’d done was pop to the loo. Meanwhile, her husband decided she’d been sucked into the picture frame on the mantelpiece.’

‘Well that makes sense,’ said Melvin.

Rhubarb turned to a different page. This one read:

The Curious Incident Of The Murdered Hamster

‘Let me guess,’ Melvin said. ‘It died of old age?’

‘Ooh, you’re good,’ said Rhubarb.

‘I think I’m going off mysteries,’ said Melvin.

‘But mysteries are the best!’ said Rhubarb. ‘Tell you what, we’re having a Daily Donut meeting at mine after school. Why don’t you come along?’

‘Let me check my diary,’ said Melvin, as they walked up to the gates of Donut Juniors.

‘Follow me,’ said Rhubarb, leading Melvin into the school and down a long hallway lined with yellow metal lockers. She pushed a door open into a classroom and walked straight up to the front row.

Rhubarb plonked her bum down in a chair next to a bendy-looking boy with straight black hair and glasses.

‘Melvin, this is Yoshi Fujikawa,’ she said. ‘Yoshi works with me on The Daily Donut. He wrote that dead hamster story I showed you.’

Yoshi, who was scribbling something in a notepad, stopped writing and smiled at Melvin. ‘Took a lot out of me, that one,’ he said, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘I’m working on a similarly disturbing piece as we speak.’

‘Oh yeah?’ said Melvin, not holding out much hope for it, after what he’d read earlier.

‘Yeah, somebody dropped a slice of cucumber on the floor in the canteen last Friday,’ he said. ‘But nobody knows who . . .’

‘Okay,’ said Melvin. ‘Hey Rhubarb, are there any cool kids in this school?’

Just then, the door opened and a really old-looking boy with a moustache walked in. ‘Evening, gang,’ he boomed in a deep voice, and Melvin realised he wasn’t a boy, he was their teacher.

‘Look who’s here, Sir,’ said Rhubarb, pointing at Melvin.

‘Is it Monday morning already?’ gasped the teacher, glancing at his watch. ‘Last time I looked it was Friday afternoon. Oh well, in that case you must be the new kid. Very nice to meet you, Melvin Pebble. I’m Mr Thursday!’

Melvin pretended to laugh at Mr Thursday’s joke. ‘Nice to meet you, Sir,’ he said, looking round the room.

Sitting on the other side of the aisle, in the back row, were three cool-looking kids. ‘Hey, who are they?’ whispered Melvin to Rhubarb, and she rolled her eyes.

‘Hector Frisbee, Dirk Measles and Marjorie Pinecone,’ she said.

‘They call themselves The Cool Doods,’ said Yoshi, scribbling the words down in his notepad and holding it up so Melvin could see the stupid way they spelled ‘Dudes’.

Mr Thursday sat down at his desk as Melvin stared at Hector Frisbee.

His trainers were white with silver zig-zags on the sides.

His jeans were the really expensive ones Melvin had been begging his mum to buy him all year and his jumper was black with a little yellow bottle-top logo on the chest, which everyone knew was the coolest logo ever.

‘I hope everyone’s been looking after you, Melvin?’ said Mr Thursday.

‘Too late for us, Teach,’ sneered Dirk Measles. ‘Looks like the geeks have got their claws into him already.’

‘Thank you, Measles,’ said Mr Thursday, and Marjorie Pinecone smirked.

‘I spose Rhubarb’s told you all about her mysterious yawnpaper,’ she said to Melvin. ‘What’s it called again? Oh yeah, The Daily Do-NOT.’

Rhubarb tutted. ‘It’s The Daily Do-NUT,’ she snapped. ‘Maybe if you’d actually bothered to read it, you’d know that.’

’Marjorie smiled. ‘Cool Rool number one: Reading is for losers,’ she said.

Dirk pretended he was about to cry. ‘Rhubarb’s bullying us again, Mr Thurs,’ he warbled, and Hector Frisbee shook his head.

‘Please ignore my sidekicks, Melvin,’ he said. ‘I’m Hector, by the way. If you need anything while you’re settling in, just let me know.’

‘Thanks,’ said Melvin, trying to think if there was anything he needed right now, apart from the wee he’d been holding in since halfway down Donut High Street.

Marjorie nudged Hector. ‘We probably shouldn’t be talking to him, you know,’ she said. ‘Cool Rool number two: No talking to Daily Donut losers.’

Rhubarb rolled her eyes and tapped Melvin on the shoulder. ‘Everyone thinks The Cool Doods are so cool,’ she whispered.

‘But they’re not,’ said Yoshi. ‘They’re actually really boring.’

Melvin nodded. ‘Er, okay. Thanks, guys,’ he said, flipping open his exercise book.

Then he pulled his favourite silver pen out of his pencil case and started doodling ‘The Cool Doods’ in his best bubble writing.

All of a sudden it was the end of school. Actually, it wasn’t all of a sudden at all, it took hours.

‘Coming to our Daily Donut meeting then, Melv?’ asked Rhubarb, grabbing her rucksack out of her locker, which was covered in cuttings from her newspaper.

Hector walked past with Dirk and Marjorie. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here, Doods,’ he said. ‘Thought we could go down Donut Diner and play it cool.’

Melvin turned to Hector. ‘Hey, I could come along if you wanted,’ he said. ‘I haven’t been to the diner yet.’

Hector smiled. ‘Not this time, Pebbles,’ he said.

The Cool Doods strolled off and Melvin waved. ‘Okay, see you later, guys!’ he called, as Rhubarb grabbed his sleeve.

‘Come on Melvin,’ she said, heading off to her house. ‘The meeting starts in ten minutes!’

‘Melvin, meet my mum,’ said Rhubarb, walking into her kitchen with him and Yoshi ten minutes later.

‘Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Plonsky,’ smiled Melvin, acting all nice and polite.

‘Ooh, my new mini next-door neighbour!’ said Mrs Plonsky, looking up from her crossword. ‘I met your parents earlier, what a lovely couple!’

‘Are you sure you met the right ones?’ said Melvin, and Mrs Plonsky chuckled.

‘Do you like mysteries, Melvin?’ she asked, just like Rhubarb had that morning.

Rhubarb gave her mum a cuddle. ‘Mum was the editor of The Daily Donut when she was a kid, too,’ she said.

‘Ooh, that reminds me,’ said Mrs Plonsky to Rhubarb. ‘I talked to the people at Donut Town Hall today and they said next Tuesday is still on.’

Rhubarb turned to Melvin. ‘I’ve got this talk thing next week,’ she explained. ‘It’s nothing special.’

‘Don’t be so modest, Rubes!’ said Yoshi. ‘She’s doing a whole great big presentation about being an editor of a newspaper and everything.’

Rhubarb’s mum nodded. ‘I’ve put flyers up all over Donut,’ she said. ‘The place’ll be full up. You should come along, Melvin. It’s gonna be fantastic!’

‘Of course I’ll come,’ said Melvin.

Mrs Plonsky smiled at Yoshi. ‘How are you, Yosh?’ she asked. ‘Still scribbling away?’

‘You bet, Thelma,’ said Yoshi, patting his notepad. ‘There’s been a major development in the Mystery Of The Dropped Cucumber Slice, in fact.’

‘Right,’ said Rhubarb, opening a door and clicking a light switch. ‘It’s meeting time!’

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