Hamish and the Monster Patrol

by Danny Wallace

  ‘What if she wasn’t?’ said Lydia, mysteriously. ‘And you . . . Hamish.’

  Hamish looked embarrassed.

  ‘No prizes for guessing what runs in your family’s blood,’ she said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  Wait! Did Lydia know the truth? Did she know that he was related to Scarmarsh?

  ‘Heroism!’ said Lydia.

  Hamish could not take this any longer. All the guilt. And now this Chosen One and heroism stuff. You know when you have a secret and it’s just bursting to come out? Something that weighs so heavily on your shoulders that you think you’ll never have the strength to lift it? Something you need to share, but you’re too scared to? Hamish needed to say something, and now was the time.

  ‘It’s true that my dad is a top Belasko agent,’ said Hamish. ‘But there’s something else. Something I haven’t told any of you about, because I was too worried you’d be scared of me or kick me out of the PDF or something.’

  His friends all swapped confused glances. What could possibly be so bad they’d kick Hamish out of the gang?! Wait – had he been stealing Chomps or something?

  Hamish took a deep breath.

  ‘Axel Scarmarsh is my uncle.’

  There was complete silence. Lydia took a step back. Hamish looked up at his friends, who seemed completely blindsided.

  ‘Scarmarsh?’ said Buster. ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘No. My dad is his brother,’ said Hamish, lowering his head.

  ‘Yin and yang,’ said Lydia, shaking her head. ‘Good and evil.’

  ‘Hamish,’ said Venk. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘It scares me,’ admitted Hamish. ‘I feel responsible. All this time he’s been attacking Starkley. He seemed to have some kind of vendetta against it but we could never work out why. And when I found out, I worried he was choosing Starkley to attack because of Dad. But now I think it’s because of me.’

  ‘But he captured us once,’ said Alice. ‘Why wouldn’t he just have kept you?’

  ‘I think he’s changed his plans and decided he wants something from me. Maybe he’s realised he’ll never beat my dad or turn him evil. But maybe he thinks he has a better chance with me. And what would hurt my dad more than that?’

  ‘Has he told you this?’ asked Kit, folding his arms, curious.

  ‘He comes to me in dreams,’ admitted Hamish. ‘I think. I mean, maybe they’re just dreams. But they seem real. Am I going mad?’

  Lydia shook her head, but had no time to reassure him. She needed to know more about the dreams, and fast.

  ‘They usually start on a cliff,’ said Hamish. ‘The whole PDF is there. But I’m gripped by an impossible force and can’t move.’

  ‘The Chosen One,’ said Lydia, in awe. ‘The boy on the cliffs! Kit – get the book.’

  Kit dashed out of the room to fetch Luciana’s book from the Astral Plane. Maybe there were more clues in there.

  ‘Hamish,’ said Lydia, sensing what Hamish was thinking. ‘Right now, you need to know two things.’

  ‘What are they?’ said Hamish, quivering, hoping that they were two good things.

  ‘Number one,’ she said. ‘You are not your uncle.’

  ‘And number two?’

  ‘That might be the key to beating him.’

  Suddenly, the door flung open.

  ‘GUYS!’ came a voice.

  It was Grenville Bile. Well, just look at his El Gamba costume. Desperate to distract herself from the thought of the sea monster, Clover had obviously been working on it right up until the world had turned into one big emergency. Grenville had gone full prawn. There were googly bug eyes strapped to the top of his mask. Dangly legs woven into a pink cape. A couple of droopy antennae.

  ‘TELL ME YOU BROUGHT MY PRAWN BURRITO?’ he yelled.

  24

  DAYS UNTIL ARRIVAL: 2

  Alice held Lydia’s hand as they walked to Viola Road. She’d left Kit in charge of briefing the PDF further, but she had one very important question that simply couldn’t wait.

  ‘Who was that odd child dressed as a crustacean?’ she asked.

  ‘Grenville,’ said Alice. ‘He’s okay once you get used to him. I think he’s going mad because there’s no fast food in town any more. He hasn’t had a burger in weeks. He’s had to start eating broccoli. It’s really getting to him.’

  ‘Well,’ said Lydia. ‘I suppose you can’t all be geniuses.’

  They stopped outside Alice’s house.

  ‘This is it,’ she told Lydia.

  After they went inside, Alice made her grandma wait in the hallway. She could hear her mum in the kitchen, chopping stuff. That’s what she did when she was worried.

  ‘Mum,’ said Alice, and her mum spun round.

  ‘ALICE!’

  Alice braced herself. She hadn’t even left her mum a note before jumping in a spaceship and shooting off to the Amazon. She reckoned her mum must have been furious when she’d found out.

  But her mum didn’t seem angry. She seemed entirely relieved.

  ‘Hamish’s dad explained everything to me. About Monster Patrol. About my mum. She was captured, wasn’t she?’

  Alice nodded. ‘She was trying to keep the world a little safer. It’s just in her. She says it runs in the family, trying to save the world.’

  ‘You’re my world,’ said Alice’s mum. ‘It’s my job to keep you safe. That’s what she taught me, though I don’t think she meant to.’ Then something dawned on her. ‘Wait, what do you mean she says it runs in the family?’

  ‘Uh, about that,’ said Alice, and she walked towards the door and opened it. Standing there was Lydia.

  ‘Mum?’ said Alice’s mum.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, darling,’ said Lydia. ‘I got a little . . . bugged down at work.’

  And Alice’s heart swelled as her mum and grandma ran to each other and melted into each other’s arms.

  And, as they hugged, Alice’s mum reached out to squeeze her brave, brave daughter’s hand.

  Hamish paced up and down. There was a lot on his mind.

  Lydia had spoken quickly and with great purpose at a town meeting later that evening.

  It was her professional opinion, she told them, that whatever monster was headed towards Starkley was coming to destroy it once and for all. She had asked the PDF to fill her and Kit in on the history of the town, and the very strange things that had been happening.

  Like the WorldStoppers, who had attempted to pause time itself in order to steal the grown-ups. The Venus Spytraps that had littered the town, snapping at people with their ginormous jaws. The Hypnobots that had attempted to zap the world to turn it stupid. The GravityBurps that had sent everyone high into the air, and the weird hypnotised babies that had risen up against them.

  And, of course, the Terribles. The monsters that had once been just a madman’s idea, but which Scarmarsh had developed and perfected on the island of Frykt.

  ‘Don’t underestimate the Terribles and their part in this!’ she declared, standing on top of the Astral Plane parked in the middle of town, looking out at the citizens who had chosen to remain. ‘I am certain they will play their role!’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Mr Slackjaw, who’d loaned her his ladder so she could clamber up the side of the plane.

  ‘Well, what normally follows a battering ram?’ she said. ‘After it’s knocked down the door to the castle?’

  Everyone looked blank.

  ‘Foot soldiers!’ yelled Kit.

  ‘And what normally follows a Trojan horse, once it’s made its way to the very heart of its target?’ asked Lydia.

  Everyone looked blank.

  ‘Foot soldiers!’ yelled Kit.

  ‘What I’m saying is, whatever this thing is, that won’t be the end of it. The monster that’s coming will cause terror and division! But what comes after will do the real work!’

  ‘Terribles,’ said Hamish, and Kit nodded gravely.

  ‘So we have to do what we can to stop the b
ig thing. I propose a quick training session in the art of Monster Patrolling for the entire town. Kit, Smasha and I will make sure that the people of Starkley are well prepared for whatever this thing actually turns out to be. Serpent. Sea-Ape. Mega Bug.’

  She pointed at Hamish.

  ‘And we will keep the Chosen One close by and protected!’

  Hamish blushed. He wasn’t really into being called the Chosen One all the time. Imagine if that was how you were introduced all the time by your parents. ‘These are our children Sam and Sarah, and that one over there in the corner is the Chosen One.’ Or imagine if your teacher called you that when they did the register? ‘Joe . . . Amit . . . Jade . . . Mo . . . the Chosen One?’ You’d get sick of it pretty quickly. Anyway, Hamish decided he just had to go along with it, because that’s what a Chosen One would do, and maybe that’s why he’d been chosen.

  And so while Alice’s mum handed out sandwiches, Kit and Smasha set up their training camp in the middle of the town square, and set to work . . .

  ‘Well, at least we’re preparing!’ said Hamish to Lydia, feeling better, as he watched some of the grown-ups doing their synchronised foot stamps and lunges with Smasha. ‘Though I’m not sure how I’m supposed to inflate my own head. Still, Frau Fussbundler’s knee kick looks pretty awesome!’

  Lydia smiled, and took Hamish to one side.

  ‘Oh, my boy, Kit is not doing this to prepare the town,’ she said. ‘This is to distract it.’

  She sat Hamish down on the bench to explain more.

  ‘Sometimes, when you face a great threat, you need to feel you are doing something, even when you are small and helpless. Starkley won’t be saved by knee kicks. Or even by missiles.’

  Behind them, the great old town clock rose and grew. The ground rumbled as a new section broke through the earth underneath.

  With a CLUNK, pistons started to whirr, and the clock was angled into position.

  It now looked like the missile it was always designed to be. The centrepiece of the town might also be the centrepiece of the battle, should it come to that.

  ‘It’s important that people feel they are doing something to protect the town. They need to feel unified. Especially when Starkley has been shut off from the rest of the country.’

  That really narked Hamish. Think of all the times they’d saved the world. And what was their reward? The Prime Minister cutting them off and leaving the PDF and Belasko to deal with things while they just looked the other way and hoped for the best.

  ‘No,’ said Lydia, ‘what we need to do is see if we can work out from Luciana’s book what it is that makes you the Chosen One. Because clearly, you and this monster have some kind of connection.’

  Hamish looked up into her eyes.

  ‘But what’s going to happen when it gets here?’ he asked.

  Neither of them knew.

  And that scared poor Hamish Ellerby.

  25

  HOURS UNTIL ARRIVAL: 48

  Lydia had gone to brief Belasko on ‘Creatures of the Deep – 1890 to the Present Day’, the follow-up to her hit lecture ‘Monsters on the Seafood Diet – they see food, they eat it!’, which was a joke first told in Ancient Greece.

  She wanted to impart all the information she could so that everyone might know what to expect when whatever this monster was finally appeared. Only when it appeared would they know what course of action to take. Could they reason with it? Could they distract it? Could they trick it?

  Or would they have to fight it?

  She’d compared notes with Kit – who loved talking with a proper monster expert – and even got a monster’s perspective from Smasha. After that, Lydia set the PDF their important tasks.

  Buster was to research any technology he thought might be useful for a water-based monster. Cannons! Barriers! Big metal nets! Belasko were going to get him whatever materials he needed and he was allowed to use any spanner he liked!

  Elliot was given direct access to the radar room, so he could work alongside the Belasko agents keeping a keen eye on the dot’s movement as it got closer to Starkley, while also researching possible sea monsters.

  Clover was going to be given a crash course in modern-day spy techniques by a team of Belasko agents. If spying ran in her family, it was important she was helped to reach her full potential!

  Venk was put in charge of sandwiches.

  And Hamish? Well, Lydia said Hamish needed to just talk. Sometimes, she said, talking about whatever was on your mind was a great way to discover what was really on your mind. She told him he needed to stop being quiet about his feelings, and just let them pour out, like a big gushing river. Luciana’s dream had convinced everyone that Hamish might well be the key to all this.

  He took her advice to heart and decided to have a chat with Alice to try and work things out in his mind and see if she had any idea why Hamish Ellerby of 13 Lovelock Close might in fact be humanity’s Chosen One.

  ‘You just need to think, Hamish!’ said Alice, which actually wasn’t the helpful insight that Hamish had been hoping for.

  ‘I have been thinking!’ he replied. ‘I just don’t understand it. I don’t have any special connections with monsters. On the whole, I dislike them!’

  They were wandering the empty streets of Starkley at dusk. It was after the curfew, of course, when kids were supposed to be indoors, but Lydia had insisted that Hamish and Alice be given the freedom to think and talk.

  They passed Lord of the Fries and sighed.

  STILL NO CHIPS read the sign. OR FISH EITHER, ACTUALLY.

  Hamish looked at the menu. Everything had been crossed out. There were no sausages. No mushy peas. No curry sauce. Not even any cheap scampi.

  His tummy rumbled. He’d love some cheap scampi again.

  ‘Maybe it’s not a normal monster?’ said Alice, still thinking. ‘Maybe it’s a monster that means something to you? Maybe it’s something you love, or fear? Grandma Lydia seems pretty sure it must be something.’

  ‘But what am I supposed to do when it gets here?’ asked Hamish. ‘What does a Chosen One do?’

  Alice looked like she wanted to help him, but just didn’t know how. Hamish felt the same. He hadn’t asked to be the Chosen One. He hadn’t asked for these dreams. He hadn’t asked to be the nephew of the universe’s second-worst supervillain. Sometimes he just wanted to sit in his pants watching the telly.

  When he really thought about it, he felt that Lydia had been telling the PDF that they were all Chosen Ones, in a way. That Buster had his technical ability for a reason. That Clover may very well really have had a grandad called The Blender. That perhaps everybody has a reason they’d been born here, or led here, and a reason they’d come together. Still – it felt like Hamish had been given the biggest job, and it was one he’d have to live up to.

  ‘Tell me about the dreams again,’ said Alice.

  ‘They come and go,’ said Hamish. ‘At first they were always the same. And then they started to change.’

  Alice had an idea.

  ‘Then you need to have another one,’ she said.

  ‘But I don’t want to have them at all,’ said Hamish.

  ‘Hamish,’ she said. ‘This thing – whatever it is – is going to destroy Starkley. In just two days. You and I both know it. I hear the grown-ups whispering. I think my mum’s been talking to your mum about moving house at the last minute. We’d have to go and stay with my cousin, two hundred miles away.’

  Hamish was pretty sure his parents would have a backup plan too, if it all got too dangerous. One that meant never coming back to Starkley. Losing his friends.

  Alice clapped her hands together and made an only-one-thing-for-it face.

  ‘You need to start using your dream properly,’ she said.

  ‘Using my dream?’ Hamish replied.

  ‘Yes. Luciana told Kit that some people can dream differently,’ said Alice. ‘In all the dreams you’ve told me about, things happen to you. Everything happens to you. And Scarmars
h talks to you.’

  ‘So?’ said Hamish.

  ‘So what if you took control of your dream?’ she said, and Hamish’s eyes widened in fear.

  Because how was he supposed to do that?

  That night, in bed, Hamish stared at the ceiling.

  He didn’t want to go to sleep.

  He didn’t want to lose control again.

  And he didn’t know how to take control.

  He could see through his curtains that, outside, the street lights were flashing red and blue. Every now and again he’d hear the honk of the Central Speaker.

  He lay there, for what could have been an hour, or it could have been eternity, until moment by moment his eyelids grew heavy and he seemed to fall backwards into a tunnel, finally finding an exhausted sleep . . .

  THE DREAM

  Silence. Blackness. Nothing.

  No Central Speaker.

  No flashing lights.

  None of the normal night sounds, invading the dream. No burble of the telly downstairs. No cutlery being put away in drawers. No dishwasher being opened. No quiet mumbling of Jimmy in the room next door, composing his latest terrible poem.

  Just silence . . . followed by the sound of a key rattling around in a lock.

  Hamish sees nothing, not at first.

  But he feels where he is. He is on a hard wooden chair. The room he’d been in last time.

  The key rattles again. He sits up, tense.

  There is only the sound; there is nothing to look at. A complete absence of anything. Like being in space, in a galaxy with no stars.

  The rattling stops, as the key finds its mark.

  Every tooth of the key clicks as its blade slides into the lock.

  Hamish hears each spring-loaded pin line up with the next.

  And then the key turns and the lock clicks . . .

  In the doorway – a familiar figure.

  ‘Where do you think you are?’ says Scarmarsh, quite calmly.