Gargantis

by Thomas Taylor

  I freeze.

  The mermonkey is activated by a coin thrown in the hat, but as Jenny always says, sometimes you don’t even need to do that. Some people have only to touch the hat in the creature’s hand to set off the mechanism and be dispensed a book.

  I slowly move my hand away, still holding the top hat.

  I notice Violet watching me from behind a pile of books in her arms.

  “Nice try,” I snap to the cat.

  Erwin gives a twitch of irritation, then turns his bottom towards me in disgust.

  “But why not, Herbie?” says Violet. “What are you scared of?”

  I stare at the hat and think about The Cold, Dark Bottom of the Sea by Sebastian Eels. Could I have been wrong about it being a warning, after all? A warning to never go to sea again? If I am wrong, then think of all the books I’ve missed by never consulting the mermonkey again! And yet, when it comes to the mystery of my origins, and the fate of my family, being given a book about a shipwreck is surely more than coincidence. It’s easier for Violet. She thinks she might see her parents again. What if a new book just confirms the fact that I don’t even have that slim hope?

  “A book is like a mirror,” says a feline voice. “We always see ourselves inside.”

  Erwin has climbed up into a gap in a bookshelf and is giving me the frosty eye.

  I stick my tongue out at him. Well, he deserves it for interfering. Then I drop the hat onto a nearby chair and shove my hands in my pockets.

  I won’t be consulting the mermonkey today, or any other day, and that’s flat.

  “Oh, Herbie!” Violet puts the books down, snatches up the hat and then wedges it roughly between the fingers of the mermonkey’s extended hand. The creature trembles on its pedestal, but it remains inactive.

  “There!” she says to me. “Happy now?”

  I consider sticking my tongue out at Violet, too, but before I can, she speaks again.

  “Toss me a coin,” she says. “From the jar behind the counter. I’m going to show you it’s OK, by getting a book for myself.”

  I tip a coin out of the jar – a nice shiny one – and flick it over to Violet.

  The coin flashes silver as it flies between us. But instead of catching it, Violet steps to one side, and with a deft movement, she nudges the coin with her elbow…

  … straight into the mermonkey’s hat.

  The creature’s eyes light up, and it begins to scream.

  “That’s not fair!” I cry over the mechanical shrieks of the creature. Already it has raised its hat with a creaking, clanking sound and plopped it on its head. The coin clatters down into the mechanism.

  “It’s completely fair,” Violet calls back. “This way, whatever book comes out, it will have been chosen for us both.”

  By now the mermonkey’s eyes have lit up and puffs of smoke wreathe its head, filling the room with a familiar pong – a pong, if you are wondering, that is a mix of burnt fur, overheated electric wires and the metallic, oily tang of a creaky old clockwork machine on its last gasp. If Eerie-on-Sea ever produced a perfume, it’d smell something like this, and no one would buy it.

  The mermonkey uncurls its arm over the typewriter keys, extends one bony index finger, and – with a violent jabbing motion – begins to type.

  Klack, klack, klickety-klack.

  Then, as suddenly as it began, it stops. Its hand retracts, its eye lights flicker out, and the mechanism judders to a halt.

  There’s a ping! and a postcard is projected from the typewriter. It spins away in an arc, circles the book-lined room and boomerangs back to land at my feet.

  With a shaking hand, I pick up the card.

  On one side is the usual printed drawing of the mermonkey, but on the other is the important bit – a series of letters and numbers that looks like this:

  2 - 3 - N - Mb - 54

  It appears as though I’ve consulted the mermonkey after all.

  CLARITY MARKS

  THERE AREN’T MANY PEOPLE who know how to read the mermonkey’s book code, though you might, if you’ve been to Eerie-on-Sea before. The machine made such an impression on me when I first consulted it that I’ve never been able to forget.

  2 - 3 - N - Mb - 54

  2: This number represents the floor of the shop your book is located on. In other words, the book is upstairs on the second floor.

  3: This is the room on the second floor we need to go to. In this case, the third room. I say “we”, but I’ve decided that I don’t want anything to do with this book. Violet’s gone without me, and if you listen carefully, you can still hear her footsteps as she runs up the wooden staircase.

  N: Now, this letter indicates which wall of the third room the book is on. “N”, of course, means the north wall. It’s easy to orientate yourself when you live by the sea, and Violet knows it all by heart anyway.

  Mb: OK, here’s where it gets a bit tricky. All the shelves in the book dispensary are painted in different colours, but it’s the same order of colours on every wall. The topmost shelf is always painted midnight blue – or “Mb”, as the mermonkey types it – to match the ceiling. And that faint creaking sound we can hear? Well, that’ll be Violet clipping the tall bamboo ladder to the ceiling rail so she can climb.

  She’ll be up there now, teetering on the top, counting along the spines on the shelf until she gets to fifty-four. And if there aren’t fifty-four books on the shelf? Well, she’ll just have to start counting back when she reaches the end, won’t she?

  There’s a bang from upstairs as Violet slides back down the ladder.

  “Did I hear the mermonkey?” says Jenny, reappearing with a broom and dustpan.

  “Violet did it,” I reply in a sulk. “It’s nothing to do with me. She’ll be down in a moment with some cheery book about being brave and facing up to your fears, I expect. Then we’ll head off with a spring in her step, while she tells me that she was right all along and I’m just a chump. Look, here she comes now.”

  And it’s true. Violet walks into the room with her hands behind her back.

  But there’s no spring in her step. She looks troubled.

  “Violet, what’s wrong?” says Jenny.

  “We need to go,” Violet replies, avoiding my eye. She picks up her coat and slips something into her pocket. That something, of course, is a book.

  “Vi?” I feel a coldness grip my stomach. “What is it? What book did you get?”

  “I didn’t,” she says, pulling her coat on. “I, um, I think you did.”

  “But you said it was being chosen for both of us!”

  “Who touched the coin?” asks Jenny.

  Violet continues to avoid my gaze. The coin only bounced off her pullover. I was the last one to actually touch it.

  And the card landed at my feet.

  “But it can’t be that bad, surely?” says Jenny, looking between us both.

  “Violet!” I cry.

  Finally, she looks up.

  So I do the eyebrow at her.

  I don’t often get to do the eyebrow – it’s normally other people doing it to me – but for once it’s my turn. I do the eyebrow, and the eyebrow says it all.

  Violet sighs.

  “All right,” she says. “Just promise you won’t freak out, Herbie, OK?”

  I give out a squeak that I couldn’t suppress even if my life depended on it.

  “Hey, it’s all right,” says Jenny, coming over and putting her arm around my shoulders. “Books are nothing to be scared of. Why are you worried, Herbie?”

  “Herbie never consults the mermonkey,” says Vi. “Ever.”

  “Yes, he does.” Jenny laughs as she replies. “He did so when he first arrived, though I remember he tried to keep that book secret. And then … now, let me see … um, well, there was that time when…”

  She looks at me.

  “But, Herbie, you’re here all the time. Are you saying you never get dispensed a book?”

  “Not after that first time, no.” I glare at
Violet. “Until now.”

  Jenny holds her hand out.

  “Come on,” she says to Vi. “Give it to me. Not showing him is even worse.”

  Violet slips the book out of her pocket and hands it to Jenny, who holds it up to look. I can see from the back that it’s a clothbound hardback in blue. A deep, dark, under-the-sea type of blue.

  “Set Course for the Storm,” Jenny reads the title aloud, “by Clarity Marks. I don’t see why that’s so troubling. It’s a good book, actually. It’s the true account of an explorer who survived terrible weather by navigating straight through it. She wrote this book herself. Here, Herbie, you might enjoy it.”

  She passes me the book.

  And Jenny might be right, if there was nothing but the title and the author’s name on the cover.

  But there’s also an illustration – a picture of a small sailing boat on the crest of a monster wave, its sails torn to shreds. The boat looks as if it’s about to be smashed to matchwood by a storm that rages above it, as a single human figure clings on for dear life. And below the heaving waterline, twisting and turning around the author’s name, is a long, sinuous tentacle, snaking up from the depths of the ocean to seize the boat. Snaking up, that is, from the cold, dark bottom of the sea.

  DIAMOND-SHAPED PANES

  “HERBIE, WAIT!”

  I’m running, which is why Violet has to shout this. And as I had a head start – out of the book dispensary like a shot – Violet’s struggling to catch up.

  I race down the street, jumping and weaving around people repairing their storm-damaged property, heaping sandbags against doors and preparing for the return of the storm.

  And where am I running to?

  Well, see for yourself. I jump the last few steps into Tenby Twist and skid to a halt in the grubby shadows at the back of an old half-timbered building. As I struggle to get my breath back, Violet catches up, also breathing heavily.

  “Herbie!” she gasps. “What … are you doing? What is this place?”

  “Pub,” I manage to say, pointing to where the sign of the Whelk & Walrus swings with a gibbet creak. A strong whiff of pipe tobacco, greasy food and damp waterproofs fills the air. From inside the building can be heard the lusty sound of a sea shanty being sung by a large group of men.

  “Pub?”

  “Fishermen,” I explain, pulling the front of my uniform flat as I get my breath back. “I’ve come to see Boadicea Bates and her crew.”

  “What?”

  “It turns out you were right,” I explain. “The mermonkey has helped me decide what to do with the fish-shaped bottle. Or, at least, what I should do with this.”

  And I pull my cap from my head.

  Freed from confinement, the little crackling light – the sprightning, as we now know it’s called – crawls sleepily out from within my mad, sherbety locks and takes to the air. In a moment, she’s fluttering about over my head on tiny electrical wings, chasing the dingy shadows from behind the pub with her wondrous light.

  “Herbie, they’ll see!” Vi hisses, grabbing my hat and trying to cover up the sprightning again.

  “I want them to,” I reply, reaching up and catching the little creature in my hands.

  “It’s never been about the bottle, Vi,” I say. “It’s what was in the bottle that matters.”

  And I open my hands. The little creature fizzes and crackles where she sits in my palm.

  “Mrs Fossil and the doc will have to find a way to share the bottle itself,” I continue. “It’s only mouldy old glass, anyway. I’m giving the sprightning to Boadicea.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I’m a Lost-and-Founder, Vi, not a zookeeper for magical creatures! Because the mermonkey is still warning me about boats. Because Deep Hood terrifies me, and he wants this sprightning thing. So I say let him fight Boadicea for it. I don’t see why any of this should have anything to do with me.”

  Vi looks cross. “But you were entrusted with it. You, Herbie! Surely there’s a rule of lost-and-foundering that means you can’t just give up. And what would Boadicea Bates do to this poor little creature? What would Deep Hood do to her?”

  I look down into my hands. The sprightning sparkles. In the dazzle I can’t see a face, but somehow I know she’s gazing up at me.

  Why did Violet have to mention the rules of lost-and-foundering?

  Because, of course, she’s right.

  I throw up my hands and propel the little electrical fairy into the air. Maybe, after all this, she’ll just fly away. But she doesn’t. She turns one fluttering orbit of my head before coming to hover over it again, making my scalp tingle with static. Then she lands and crawls back into my hair.

  With a sigh, I jam the cap back on my head and the light is hidden once more.

  “Thank you!” says Violet, clearly relieved. Then she glances at a nearby window. “And now, since we’re here, let’s take a look at what the fishermen are up to.”

  We press our faces to the tiny diamond-shaped panes of glass. Inside the pub, in a golden fug of steamy air and smoke, is a large group of fishermen, drinking pints of beer and talking in low voices.

  “I can’t hear anything,” Vi whispers. “Can you?”

  I’m just about to suggest trying a different window when we see, through the smoke and vapour, a rectangle of light as the front door of the pub swings open. The fishermen go quiet as a tall and terrible figure enters the Whelk & Walrus.

  Deep Hood has arrived.

  DRASTIC ACTION

  THE WHELK & WALRUS PUB is not like this in the summer.

  When the tourists are here, the fishermen keep away, and the landlord scrubs the place down. He puts out a sign saying FAMILIES WELCOME and sets little tables and chairs on the quayside, with a quirky “seaside” menu and candles in the evening. Out-of-towners nibble crab sandwiches and speciality ice cream in crispy cones as they coo over the quaint doings of the fisherfolk out on the harbour wall. Some nights there’s even a quiz.

  No true fisherman of Eerie would be seen dead in the place then.

  But the world turns and the season ends and the out-of-towners drift away. The last tourists to retreat from the Whelk & Walrus are driven from it by a rising tide of sullen knitwear and heavy beards as the nights draw in and the fisherfolk return. Pipes are smoked once more as sea songs are sung and beer is spilled and fights erupt, and Boadicea Bates presides over it all.

  In the winter months, families are most definitely not welcome in the Whelk & Walrus Pub.

  “We should go, Vi,” I whisper, feeling sick at the sight of Deep Hood.

  But Violet ignores me. She remains at the window, watching.

  Inside, Deep Hood crashes his metal-bound box onto a table and sits beside the roaring fire. The fishermen hang back, but Boadicea Bates steps forward. She speaks, but we can’t hear what she’s saying. After a moment, the hood twitches as Deep Hood begins a reply.

  Violet whispers something that sounds like, We need to get inside, Herbie, but since that would be bonkers, I must be mistaken. Then she leans over and says it again, this time straight into my ear.

  “We need to get inside, Herbie. We can’t hear anything out here.”

  I blink at her.

  “We can’t go in there now.”

  “We have to,” Violet says. “Something tells me that what’s being said in there is important. Besides, you wanted to go in a moment ago.”

  “That was before Deep Hood showed up!” I hiss, but Violet has already crept around to the back of the pub.

  The alley behind the Whelk & Walrus is filthy and chaotic and stinks of spilled dustbins and dead fish. Last night’s storm has only made this worse. Violet picks her way over to the back door of the pub and tests it.

  It’s unlocked.

  Before I can say anything, she ducks inside. Then she peeks back out and beckons to me.

  “Violet!” I whisper-shout, joining her at the door. “We can’t just—”

  But she pulls me in and shu
ts the door, so it seems we can.

  We’re in a corridor, behind the bar. Through a doorway inside, the steady drone of voices can be heard, and the bristly back of a barman’s neck can be seen as he pulls a pint. Violet puts her finger to her lips and very carefully removes a long, waxed hooded coat – which is wet, and probably belongs to one of the fishermen – from a peg. She slips it on, then takes down another and hands it to me.

  I pull the coat on over my uniform. The hood engulfs me with darkness and the smell of engine grease and industrial-strength skin cream. But at least it will hide my Lost-and-Founder’s cap.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I whisper, making Violet put an urgent finger back to her lips. The barman twitches and glances back in our direction. We shrink into the shadows, straining to hear what’s being said, but still the voices are just a hum of sound.

  Violet points into a second corridor, and we tiptoe along it, passing a small drippy room that smells so horrible it can only be the pub toilets. We hurry past and climb a short flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs is a door, and on the door is a greasy sign:

  I feel like I’ve been tipped into a nightmare as I see Violet reach out a hand, push the door open, and slip inside.

  We find ourselves in a gloomy space overlooking the crowded main room of the pub. There’s a staircase of treacly wood that leads down to the bar, but I’m relieved to see there’s no one up here on the balcony right now. We slip into chairs at a table beside the balustrade, which gives us a great view down on the bar room below. And if anyone looks up? Well, in the dark, smoky air – and dressed in our borrowed fisherman’s coats and hoods – we shouldn’t be noticed. I flash Violet a “I hope you know what you’re doing” look, and she gives me an encouraging grin. Then we look down into the bar, where Deep Hood is speaking again.

  “It is time,” he drawls in his careful, slippery voice, “to take drastic action.”

  “Aye,” says Boadicea Bates, who is standing in the centre of the room, though not too close to Deep Hood. “We cannot allow this Lost-and-Founder – this boy – to stand in our way, can we, lads?”