by Tom Fletcher
Lucy went home and did her homework.
Oh, Lucy, you’re such a boring snorebag!
“No, I’m not!” said Lucy.
Yes, you are! These people didn’t buy this book to read about you doing your homework! This book is all about how you save the town!
“Is it?” Lucy asked.
Yes! Now put that homework down and go and get on with it!
Lucy put her homework down and went and got on with it.
First she changed out of her school uniform and got into her favorite denim overalls.
“Well, if I’m not going to school, I might as well be comfortable,” she said to herself, clipping up the buttons and suddenly feeling nice and comfy and ready to get stuff done. Funny how overalls do that.
“That’s better,” she said, licking her hand and slicking her bangs over to one side.
Just as she did this…
Lucy ran outside to see a car sticking out of her mom’s neat hedge in the front yard. Steam and smoke were hissing out of the engine, and she could hear laughter and giggles coming from inside.
“What the jiggins?” Lucy cried as the driver’s door swung open and she saw the person behind the wheel. Actually, it was two people: two young boys from her school. They were brothers and always getting into trouble.
“Buzz? Buddy?” Lucy cried. “What on earth are you doing?”
Buzz was sitting at the steering wheel, barely able to see out of the window, while Buddy was crouched on the floor, operating the pedals.
“Just going for a spin,” Buzz explained.
“But you’re a little boy! You can’t drive!”
Buddy called out from under the steering wheel, “Why have we stopped?”
“I think we’re out of gas!” Buzz replied.
“You’ve stopped because you’ve crashed, you nitwits, and you’re lucky you didn’t hurt anyone, or yourselves!” Lucy cried. “Now get out of that car, or I’m going to tell…” She paused.
The boys looked up at her.
“Who?” asked Buzz, and the boys smiled with the cheeky smile people use when they know they can get away with something.
“Oh!” said Lucy, suddenly realizing that there was absolutely nobody she could tell. Nobody to stop these boys from doing whatever they wanted.
She was on her own.
“Well, children can’t drive around in cars. It’s silly and dangerous,” said Lucy, and she reached into the car through the open door, switched off the engine, and took away the keys.
“Hey, those are our dad’s keys!” Buzz said. “You can’t take those! It’s stealing!”
“Exactly, they’re your dad’s keys for your dad’s car. What would he say if he saw you both now?” Lucy said.
“Yeah, but he can’t see us, can he?” replied Buzz.
“But he will when he comes back. Unless you think your dad is never coming back. Do you?” Lucy said.
Buzz’s face changed suddenly.
“Course he’s coming back!” Buddy insisted.
“Good, and when he does, you can tell him to come and pick his keys up from me. Until then, I’ll look after them.” And with that, Lucy popped the keys in the pocket of her overalls.
She was just about to head back inside when she heard someone calling her name from farther up the street.
“Lucy! Lucy! I need your help!”
Lucy followed the faint cries to Ella’s front door and walked inside. Ella had got herself wedged inside the washing machine while playing hide-and-seek. To be fair, she hadn’t been found for three hours, and by that point no one else was playing the game, so technically she had won.
“Yes! I’m the best!” Ella cheered as Lucy carefully removed the door with a screwdriver, like she’d seen her dad do once, and Ella was free to continue annoying her friends.
“Right, time for a sandwich!” Lucy said to herself, rubbing her hungry tummy, but…
“Lucy! Help!” another voice called out.
Lucy sighed and quickly headed in the direction of the child in need. By the time she’d helped that one, there was another, then another, and another—followed by even more!
On that day—the day it all began—twelve separate kids got their hands stuck in cookie jars. Seven got Play-Doh wedged up their nostrils. One managed to paint herself purple…even in her belly button!
And every single child wanted Lucy to help them out.
Lucy’s afternoon continued like this until long after the sun had set. She ended up helping half the popu-lation of Whiffington, and by the end of that day you wouldn’t believe the state of the town itself.
What do you mean, you would?
OK—check this out.
The houses were so messy they looked like they’d been decorated for Halloween. Toilet paper hung from the branches of every tree, windows were flung wide open, and sofas had been shoved out into front yards, with children jumping on them.
WITH THEIR SHOES ON!
One house had the entire contents of its living room spread out on the roof, and another had the entire roof in the living room. It was as though all of Whiffington had turned completely topsy-turvy! The grown-ups hadn’t even been gone for twenty-four hours yet, and already the town looked like a scene from a disaster movie.
As she walked home that evening, Lucy helped any-one who needed it and picked up as much trash as she could, dumping it in the back of her dad’s truck. Being responsible had become part of who Lucy was, especially since her dad left. She’d seen how tough it was for her mom, and she’d had to grow up pretty quickly.
So, while all the other kids spent this first grown-up-free night causing mayhem and getting up to mischief, staying up late, eating ice cream for dinner and pizza-burgers for dessert (pizza-burgers are burgers stuffed inside two slices of pizza instead of burger buns; they’re amazing—you should try them if your parents ever go missing), Lucy was getting herself ready for bed. She was the only child in Whiffington to brush their teeth that night. She was also the only child in Whiffington to wash the dishes, take the garbage out, put on pj’s, read a bedtime story, and turn out the light.
Just as she was getting all cozy on her pillow, a great racket broke the silence.
“Lucy, can we have our dad’s car keys back, please?” called up Buzz from outside. His voice was loud and echoey, and when Lucy peered out of the window, she saw that he was using a megaphone. “We promise we won’t drive it.”
“But I thought you said we were going to break the land-speed record?” whispered Buddy, his voice amplified by the megaphone.
“Shhhhh!” hissed Buzz.
Lucy slipped downstairs, stuck her hand out of the front door, and quickly took the megaphone from the noisy boys. She tucked it into a safe hiding place along with their father’s car keys: inside the fridge.
All was quiet, and Lucy was exhausted. She walked back up the stairs to her bedroom and climbed under the covers.
“Peace at last!” she sighed.
What Lucy didn’t realize was that, even though her mom and dad weren’t there, she wasn’t alone.
There was someone else in Lucy’s house.
There was something else in Lucy’s room.
Something hiding under Lucy’s bed, waiting for her to fall asleep—just like it did every night…
OK, so things are about to get a little scary. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Are you ready? Take a deep breath.
Here we go…
Lucy’s eyelids were feeling heavy. She was exhausted after her busy day helping the kids of Whiffington adjust to life with no grown-ups about. However, even though she felt more tired than she’d ever been, for some reason she couldn’t sleep.
She lay on her bed and started to imagine she was sinking peacefully into the mattress, as if it were a fluffy cloud. She closed her
eyes, and for a moment she could see her mom perched on the edge of her bed, where Mrs. Dungston normally sat each night. Lucy’s mom would slip off the hairband holding her hair back, letting her long brown curls fall down past her shoulders as she sipped on their nightly shared mug of cocoa before handing it to Lucy.
“Close your eyes, my little Lucypops,” Mrs. Dungston would say, her brown eyes twinkling. “Feel yourself floating on the fluffiest cloud. Light as a feather.”
“But, Mom, I’m too awake to go to sleep. It’s impossible!” Lucy would answer.
“Impossible isn’t real, Lucypops. It’s just in your mind.”
Lucy felt the corners of her mouth rise into a little smile at her mom’s nickname for her—Lucypops. Her dad used to call her this too. Before he left.
Suddenly the fluffy cloud she was floating on in her mind dissolved, and she was just lying on her cold mattress in her empty room in her empty house. Alone.
Impossible certainly felt very real.
She quickly closed her eyes again in an attempt to get back on that cozy cloud. She tried to imagine her body sinking into it. It was her favorite thing to imagine. But on the night of the day it all began, Lucy’s mind just couldn’t imagine things right. Her comfy cloud was not as comfy without her mom there.
Where are you, Mom? Lucy thought as she rolled onto her side and looked at the full moon through the gap in the curtains as it watched over Whiffington Town. Was her mom out there somewhere?
Lucy tried to shake the worry out of her head. She rolled this way and that, then that way and this. But neither way was working, so she just settled on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Her heart sank as the little glow-in-the-dark stars and planets looked back down at her: her dad had once arranged them into a giant smiley face on the ceiling.
Lucy realized that there were reminders of her parents dotted all over her room. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the certificate presented by her dad on the day she broke the family jelly bean–eating record, gulping down twenty-seven in thirty seconds. (Even the green ones.) She turned away from the wall, but this put her face to face with the bookcase, which was overflowing with all the stories her mom read with her.
The absence of her mom made it very quiet in her house. Unusually quiet. So quiet, in fact, that the silence was almost loud. Lucy tried humming a little song to herself, a lullaby, but it didn’t help. It just reminded her of her dad.
“Time for a song, Lucypops,” she pictured him saying as he reached into his pocket for his most prized possession: his silver harmonica. “Any requests?” he always asked, but Lucy knew he was teasing, because he always played the same song. It was one he had written himself, and it was called “Lucy’s Lullaby.” He’d played it to her every night until he disappeared.
Lucy sighed.
She got out of bed and walked over to her wardrobe, but just as she was about to open the door she heard a tiny noise. It sounded like the creak of her floorboards.
Lucy suddenly felt a little chill, a shiver running down her back, like someone was watching her (which you already know was true, but Lucy didn’t yet).
“Hello?” she called.
She looked over her shoulder, but there was no one there.
“Don’t be such a silly sausage, Lucy,” she whispered firmly to herself. “You’re just getting the chills because you’re alone. Now, pull yourself together.”
With that, she opened her wardrobe and lifted a wooden panel on the floor, which revealed a secret hiding place. This was where she kept special things she didn’t want anyone else to find.
There wasn’t much in it. A pretty shell she’d found at the beach once. A smashed-up pebble that had gotten her to second place in the playground hopscotch championships. And a framed photograph.
She picked it up and stared at it. Three people smiled up at her from the picture: a young Lucy with her arms wrapped around her mother’s neck as she kissed Lucy on the head and, behind them both, cradling the two most precious things in his life in his arms, Lucy’s dad.
Lucy’s heart ached every time she looked at this photo, at how happy the three of them were. She always made an extra effort to study her dad’s face, as if she was afraid that somehow she might forget him. She held the photo close so she could see every detail.
She saw his eyes, which were a deep, twinkling blue.
His nose, which was a little bit big, just like hers.
His mouth, which looked like it might break into a smile and make the dimple in his cheek appear at any moment.
She smiled to herself and hugged the photo to her chest.
There was one more thing hidden in Lucy’s secret hiding place, folded neatly underneath the other treasures. It was a bright fluorescent-green color and was giving off an awful stench of stewed sprouts and fish scales. Lucy pulled out her dad’s stinking work coat, the one he had worn when he was driving the big smelly garbage truck. She’d kept it hidden in here so her mom wouldn’t find it and throw it away, like the rest of her dad’s stuff.
Lucy slid her arms into the sleeves and put on the bright, smelly jacket. It was far too big and engulfed her like a stinky fluorescent duvet. She sat down, her back against her wardrobe, and took a deep breath. The disgusting fumes filled her nostrils with comforting memories of her dad, and she suddenly felt a little better.
She snuggled into the coat and made herself comfy on the floor, but as she wriggled, something fell out of its pocket and clunked loudly on the floorboards. Something silver and shiny.
It was her dad’s harmonica.
She picked it up, smiling, and played “Lucy’s Lullaby” as best she could. It wasn’t as magical as when her dad played it, but it melted away some of her troubles, at least for a moment.
When she finished, she held it tight in her hands and stared at the reflection on its shiny surface. She saw her face looking back at her. Then she tilted it slightly and saw the moon through the curtains. A little more, and she saw her bedside table, then her bed, and then the beady black eyes of the creature hiding under it…
WHAT?!
Lucy looked up from the harmonica and stared into the blackness of the shadowy gap beneath her bed, but the watching eyes had gone.
Her heart was racing—no, sprinting—in her chest. Had she imagined it? Or had there really been a pair of shiny eyes looking at her from underneath the bed?
Lucy wanted to stand up, but she couldn’t. She was frozen to the spot, frozen with fear. She was completely on her own in her dark bedroom, in her quiet house, in the middle of the night, with a creature lurking under her bed.
And things were about to get even weirder…
Have you ever been so scared that you couldn’t move? So utterly terrified that you’re just frozen, helplessly waiting for something nasty to come and get you in the night? Praying for the sun to come up and make everything OK again?
That’s how Lucy was feeling.
She was sitting on her bedroom floor, trembling with fear, wrapped in her dad’s stinky garbage-collecting coat, her sweat-soaked hair sticking to her forehead and her heart beating like a drum in her chest, and she was completely unable to move. Paralyzed with fear.
She tried to say Hello? But she barely even managed the H, let alone the ello! So she just sat there, staring into the shadows beneath her bed where she’d seen those two dark eyes watching her.
She couldn’t tell how long she stayed frozen—minutes, hours? Time doesn’t seem to exist when you’re that scared. However long it was, after what felt like forever of staring into the darkness, somehow Lucy drifted off to sleep.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: How can you fall asleep if you’re that scared? Well, that’s just the thing…You can’t!
Not unless a Creaker is there.
What’s a Creaker? Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Creakers!
Well, it’s the name of this book, for starters. Haven’t you been paying any attention?
Have you ever heard noises in your house when you’re in bed at night? That is a Creaker.
Have you ever felt as though there’s something else with you in your bedroom? That’s a Creaker too.
Have you ever found a sack of presents by the fireplace on Christmas Day? Wait, that’s not a Creaker—that’s Santa.
Have you ever managed to fall asleep, even when you were so scared it seemed impossible? That’s definitely a Creaker! It’s one of their naughty little tricks, and that’s exactly what this creepy little Creaker used on Lucy that night.
She didn’t notice anything at all, but from under the bed came a gust of hot air. It was the reeking breath of the Creaker as he blew a clawful of something golden and crumbly into her bedroom, which silently drifted into her eyes and settled there without Lucy suspecting a thing.
Ten minutes later she was fast a-snooze, leaving the Creaker to creep out of his hiding place.
* * *
—
In his bedroom on the other side of Clutter Avenue, Norman Quirk was in his favorite Transformers pj’s, busy ironing.
“Creases, creases, creases!” he huffed as he ran the hot iron over his Scout uniform for the fifth time that night. The pants were always the hardest part, and without his dad there to help he just couldn’t get them as neatly pressed as he thought was acceptable for a young Scout.
“Hmph, I’m afraid that’ll have to do.” He sighed, shaking his tired head as he examined each pant leg through his magnifying glass. He slid them onto a hanger, which he hung on the silver handle of his wardrobe door, ready for the morning.
