Gargantis

by Thomas Taylor

  “Shouldn’t that be the other way around?”

  “Ha!” I reply. “That’s just what I unexpected you to say.”

  “OK.” Vi rolls her eyes. “Where did you get that shell from, anyway?”

  “Handed in.” I flop back into my chair. “New guest, just arrived. He must have found it, um, somewhere.”

  “You don’t know?” says Vi, sitting on the other side of the wood burner. “Didn’t you ask where he found it? Didn’t you ask for details? That’s not like you.”

  I think about explaining, about telling Vi just how weird and sinister the faceless guest was, with his dripping hood and creepy voice, but I can’t be bothered. This is mostly because, annoyingly, Violet’s right – I should have run after Deep Hood to find out more. How else am I going to return the stupid shell to its rightful owner if I don’t follow up leads when they’re hot? I’ll just have to knock on the man’s door in the morning and ask. Right now, though, I’d really like to change the subject, so I’m pleased when Violet changes it for me.

  “Are you hungry?” she says. “It’s been ages since we last went to Seegol’s for fish and chips.”

  At the mention of Seegol’s delicious chips, my stomach does a little flip of anticipation. My ears, however, report the sound of raging weather to my brain, so my brain sends a signal to my stomach to knock it off. My stomach does another little flip anyway.

  “I’d love to go,” I say. “But the storm…”

  “It’s a monster,” Vi admits with a whistle. “Though it’s also exciting to be out in. I’ve never experienced anything like it. And besides, Seegol’s isn’t far.”

  Well, that’s true enough, as you’ll know if you’ve ever seen a map of Eerie-on-Sea. But being out on the deck of the pier in this wind, with lightning forking overhead…

  “Come on, Herbie!” says Vi, jumping up. “It’ll be like we’re on an adventure again.”

  “OK.” I stand up and reach for my coat. My firelit corner of the cellar suddenly looks cosier than ever. “And if the storm’s really bad, we can always bring the chips back here.”

  I don’t so much climb out of the cellar window as get sucked out. The wind seems to be trying to lift me into the air by my cheeks. I brace myself against it, planting my feet, and see Violet braced too, her mass of dark curls standing out from the sides of her head like a windswept hedge. I start to speak, but a gust of air whips the words away and tries to take my tonsils, too, so I clamp my mouth shut and think of chips. We stumble across the cobbles to the sea wall and squint in astonishment at the sight beyond.

  The ocean is devouring the pier.

  Or rather, it’s trying to: waves like the jaws of some immense, elemental creature chomp at its Victorian ironwork, breaking in gouts of spray that lick the shuddering deck. Garlands of suspended pier lights dance crazily in the wind, while the neon sign – the one that says EERIE-ON-SEA in fizzing, candy-coloured letters – crackles and blinks more than ever. Above this boils the storm in a vault of bruise-coloured clouds, lit with electrical flashes of its own.

  Only the lights of Seegol’s Diner – the fish and chip shop at the heart of the pier – shine solid and reassuring.

  I look at Vi, and her eyes are bright with excitement. She starts down the steps to the pier, clutching the sea wall, then stops. She opens her coat like a pair of wings, waits for them to fill with the furious air and then, at just the right moment …

  … she jumps!

  Incredibly, the storm holds her in the air, even lifting her slightly. Violet Parma is flying!

  Then gravity notices and drags her back down. Violet lands smartly on the deck of the pier, closes her coat against the buffeting of the storm and beckons me to do the same.

  I spread my coat open and look up into the lightning sky. For a moment, I feel like Batman.

  Then I see something.

  A shape – a colossal, heaving shadow, vaster than imagining – coils through the storm clouds above Eerie-on-Sea.

  “!” I cry, all thoughts of Batman swept away.

  The wind, as if seeing me miss my chance to fly, punches me back against the sea wall, pinning me there like a curious specimen, hammering my face with spray. It takes a great effort to peel myself off the wall and get my coat closed. I stumble down the steps to join Violet. She’s trying not to laugh.

  I squint up into the sky and rub my eyes. There’s nothing there now but flickering clouds and a tumbling storm. Surely that was all there ever was.

  Violet grabs my arm and pulls me along the trembling pier towards Seegol’s Diner.

  WEATHER-PICKLED REGULARS

  WE HAVE TO BATTLE against the gale to get the door of Seegol’s open, and when we finally slip inside, the wind slams it shut behind us.

  “Ah, such bravery!” comes an accented voice we know well, and Mr Seegol salutes us from behind his counter. This counter is also his kitchen – an island of brushed steel, hissing fryers and warm light, surrounded on all sides by tables and chairs. There are a few people sitting there – weather-pickled regulars who will not let a “bit of a blow” keep them from their golden-fried fish and pots of strong tea. Outside the diner the storm rages as if insulted by all this, clawing at the windows and howling like a banshee around the door.

  We sit at a table and breathe in the comforting aroma of freshly fried chips as Seegol makes his way over.

  “Isn’t it incredible?” he says.

  “The weather?” I reply.

  “Of course, the weather!” Seegol cries. “Look at the sea, Herbie! Now is supposed to be low tide, but the wind is so strong it has blown the sea back up again!”

  As if to prove this, the whole diner leans one way, then the other, making all the salt and pepper pots dance across the tabletops.

  “You must have seen storms before,” says Violet, clutching her chair. “Living out here on the pier. It’s always been a shaky old place.”

  Seegol wags his finger.

  “Never like this,” he says, and suddenly I notice that behind his usual cheery exterior, there is a hint of real worry. “Days it has lasted already, and it just seems to grow stronger! And sometimes, when I look up into the clouds, I see… I think I see…”

  “What do you see?” I ask.

  Seegol looks as if he’s about to say one thing but decides instead to say something else.

  “Ah, it is nothing. It’s hard to see anything straight when Gargantis wakes.”

  “Gigantic what wakes?” I almost manage not to squeak.

  But Seegol is staring at the streaming windows, lost in thought, so Violet answers for him.

  “When Gargantis wakes,” she explains. “It’s an old Eerie saying. The fishermen use it when there’s really bad weather. Gargantis is just a local word meaning ‘storm’.”

  “How do you know that?” I’m surprised at Violet telling me something about Eerie-on-Sea. She’s only been here a few months.

  “I read it in a book,” she replies, looking pleased with herself.

  “Gargantis sleeps, Eerie keeps,” says Seegol then, as if he’s quoting something. “Gargantis wakes, Eerie quakes …”

  “… and all falls into the sea,” Violet finishes.

  Mr Seegol forces a grin. “Ah, but you have come for chips, not old sayings and superstitions.”

  “Chips!” I cry, eager to get on to more important business. “Yes, please! Will this do, Mr Seegol?”

  And I pull a silver napkin ring from my pocket and roll it across the table. Mr Seegol scoops up the ring and turns it around in the light.

  “Victorian,” I explain, nodding at the object in Seegol’s hand. “Nice curly-wurlies on it. Only a bit dented. It was handed in at the Lost-and-Foundery a hundred years ago, so I signed it out for good just this morning. No one will be coming to collect it now, so it’s mine, according to the rules. Good enough for chips, Mr Seegol? And maybe some of those crispy scampi sticks?”

  Seegol rubs the napkin ring with his sleeve, making it gleam, a
nd looks satisfied.

  “You should let me pay one of these days,” Vi says to me. “Now that I have a job of my own.”

  “Job?” Mr Seegol looks at Violet in surprise. “You have a job?”

  “Violet lives at the book dispensary now,” I explain, referring to Eerie-on-Sea’s peculiar bookshop. “She’s Jenny Hanniver’s assistant, helping people consult the marvellous mechanical mermonkey. Helping it choose books for them, I mean.”

  “The mermonkey!” A faraway remembering sort of expression spreads over Seegol’s face. “I haven’t seen the mermonkey for so long.”

  “Then you should visit us sometime,” says Violet, “and see what the mermonkey chooses for you.”

  “Ah, perhaps, perhaps…” The restaurant owner smiles a sad smile. Then he bows slightly and heads back to his kitchen to put chipped potato in the fryer.

  “He won’t ever come to the book dispensary, will he?” Violet whispers to me, watching him go.

  I don’t answer. Everyone knows that Mr Seegol never strays far from the pier.

  “You should, though, Herbie,” Violet says then. “When was your last time?”

  “Me?” I reply. “But I visit you and Erwin in the bookshop all the time.”

  “I don’t mean visit. I mean consult the mermonkey. When was the last time you asked it to choose a book for you, Herbert Lemon?”

  My mouth falls open. It’s a second or two before I remember to close it.

  “Herbie?”

  “I … I’ve already had a book from it,” I say eventually. “Once. When I first arrived in Eerie-on-Sea. I don’t need another one, thanks.”

  “But that was years ago!” Violet looks amazed. “Are you saying you’ve never thrown a coin in the mermonkey’s hat since?”

  I fold my arms and say nothing. The thing about the mermonkey is that it never gives you the book you want – oh, no, that would be too easy. And it won’t choose the book you were expecting, either. No, it will be the book you need, or so Jenny Hanniver says. And that, you see, is my problem.

  “What was it?” says Vi, as if reading my mind. “Come on, Herbie! It’s obvious you didn’t like the mermonkey’s choice. So, what was the book?”

  “I thought it was supposed to be private,” I say at last. “The book you’re dispensed.”

  “Well, not always. It depends. We’ve been getting a lot of fishermen in lately, since the storm blew up. Some of them haven’t visited the mermonkey for years, so I help them.”

  “The fishermen?” I reply, happy to change the subject. “Since when do they bother with books?”

  “Hey, everyone bothers with books.” Violet gives me a stern look. “They just need to find the right one, that’s all. Besides, the fishermen of Eerie have plenty of time on their hands right now. They can’t go out to sea in this storm: the wind tears their sails to shreds, and the one motorboat that tried had its engine exploded by lightning. The fishermen are grounded.”

  “They’ll be in the pub, more likely.” I grin. “There won’t be much reading done in there.”

  “It’s not funny, Herbie,” Violet replies. “One fisherman has drowned already. And now the townsfolk are starting to get scared, what with the stormquakes and everything.”

  “Stormquakes?”

  “Come on, Herbie!” Violet cries. “Surely you’ve noticed. Even down in that cellar of yours. The storm is so fierce it makes the ground shake. Cracks have started to appear in Eerie Rock itself.”

  “But how can a storm do that?”

  “Maybe you’ll find the answer to that in a book.” Violet smiles sweetly. “Like I said, you just need the right book, that’s all.”

  And she raises one eyebrow at me.

  “I’m not telling you, Violet!” I snap. “I got a bad book from the mermonkey. That’s all. It must happen sometimes, and it happened to me. So I’ll leave your mermonkey to the fishermen and the tourists, thanks very much. And that’s the end of it.”

  “Herbie!”

  But I won’t be Herbied, not this time. I’m not sure even Jenny knows the title of the awful book I was dispensed when I first came to Eerie-on-Sea, and that’s how it should stay.

  It’s a relief when our chips arrive.

  CAT IN A BOX

  WE NOTICE SOMETHING’S WRONG as soon as we get back to the Lost-and-Foundery. Well, not exactly “as soon as” – it takes us a moment to shake the sting of the storm from our ears and get our breath back. But then we notice it.

  “What’s all this?” says Violet, picking something off the floor.

  “Looks like slivers of wood,” I reply, spotting more splinters scattered around on the threadbare rug.

  “I’m pretty sure this mess wasn’t here when we left.” Vi picks up a few more slivers and splinters. “And all these bits of wool, too.”

  “Wool?”

  “Yes.” Vi holds her hand out to show me. “And this looks like white fur…”

  Her voice trails off as we stare at each other. Then we both swing around to look at the box of lost scarves by the fire.

  “Erwin!”

  The cat isn’t there.

  Violet runs to the box and rummages around the scarves, even though there’s no way a big old moggy like Erwin could be hiding in there. He’s gone.

  “But he can’t be,” says Violet.

  “Of course he can,” I reply. “He could have crept up into the hotel, or maybe he’s hiding somewhere else in the cellar.”

  “Then how did all this splintered wood and shredded wool get here?”

  “Cats sometimes have crazy moments,” I say. Although even as I say it, I know this isn’t the answer. Erwin’s not that kind of cat. I stoop and pick up another clump of white fur and peer at it through the magnifying glass.

  “Oh, no…”

  “What?” says Violet.

  “This fur? The ends of it are neat. As if it has been snipped off.”

  “Snipped?”

  Slowly we turn again, this time to look at the overturned bucket, the one we used to trap the strange clockwork hermit crab. It’s where we left it, the heavy books still piled on top. But when we look around the back, we immediately see where all the splinters have come from. In the side of the bucket is a ragged hole, as if something small and determined has cut, drilled and sawn its way out. There’s a mass of shredded wool there too – the remains of the old jumper.

  Violet lifts the books and kicks the bucket over, spilling woollen scraps everywhere. But there’s no sign of the little clockwork contraption.

  “Do you think…?” Violet looks around, holding the heavy books as if she might need to use their squashing powers at any moment. “Do you think that that thing is hiding somewhere in the cellar too?”

  I take my Lost-and-Founder’s cap off the peg, put it on and manage not to wince when the elastic strap pings my ear.

  “First,” I say, “we need to check on Erwin. Look over there!”

  I point towards the big wooden toolbox I got the winder keys out of earlier. There is more white fur on the floor here than anywhere else.

  “Did you shut that box?” says Vi. “Herbie, I thought you left the toolbox open!”

  “I did.”

  We hurry over to it, but when Violet reaches for the lid, she hesitates.

  “What if when we open it…?” She turns to me. “What if poor Erwin is…?”

  “What if he isn’t, though?” I reply.

  “Yes, but what if he is?” Violet wrings her hands. “If we don’t look, then at least he might not be.”

  “Yeah, but right now he IS and ISN’T at the same time, and that’s no good for a cat. Open the box, Vi!”

  And that’s when we hear a very loud, and very impatient, “Miaow!” from under the toolbox lid – the kind of miaow that sounds more like an annoyed human saying it than a cat miaowing it.

  Violet flings the box open.

  Erwin is sitting there, among the screwdrivers and pliers and oily rags, looking very uncomfortable
and out of place. His deep coat of fur is missing tufts all over, as if someone tried to give him a haircut while he was running away. On one side of his nose his whiskers have been snipped short. His ears lie flat, and his eyes are full of thunderous indignation.

  “Erwin!” Violet cries as she scoops him up.

  They say cats can’t smile, but as I watch Erwin being fussed over by Violet, his expression of outrage evaporates, his eyes close with happiness and he starts to rumble an enormous purr of relief and contentment.

  “Oh, Erwin,” Vi murmurs into his fur. “If only you could talk, you could tell us what happened…” Then she looks out at me and grins, because – well, because with Erwin things can get quite surprising. But one look at the cat, furiously rubbing his head on Vi’s chin, tells me he’s not in the mood for a chat right now.

  “It’s pretty obvious what happened anyway,” says Violet. “Erwin was attacked by that clockwork shell. But could it really have cut through the bucket using only that tiny scissor claw?”

  “Who’s to say it has only that claw?” I reply. “There could be anything in that shell. It could be a walking Swiss army knife for all we know.”

  “I suppose you’re going to say, ‘I told you so’.” Violet avoids my eye.

  “No need. You’ve said it for me. But really, Vi, just because something can be wound up, or a button can be pressed, or a lever can be pulled, that doesn’t mean it should.”

  “No wonder you never had any adventures till I came to town,” Vi declares, flopping with Erwin into my armchair. “With ideas like that!”

  “I had adventures!” I reply. “Some really quite big ones, actually. And Erwin never got shaved in any of them. After all, the thirteenth rule of lost-and-foundering clearly states—”

  “Wait!” says Vi. “What’s that?”

  “Don’t interrupt and I’ll tell you.”

  “No, I mean that sound.” Vi waves me quiet. “Can you hear it? Listen!”

  So I do. And I can.

  Above the constant rumble of the gale outside, and the boom and crack of thunder, we can hear the murmur of voices raised in alarm. Voices up in the hotel lobby. And somewhere in it all, Mr Mollusc’s peevish tones carry down to my cellar with the words “But … but … you can’t bring that in here!”