Hamish and the Monster Patrol

by Danny Wallace

  The idea was that Belasko would use the choppers to soak those tankers in water, or create some kind of wall of water they couldn’t get past, then the Terribles would panic. They’d want to get away as fast as possible. It had been Lydia who had given them the idea: ‘divide and conquer’ she called it. Split up a pack and they lose the power of their numbers. Apparently, she’d done it tons of times with packs of marauding Tatzelwurms and Wolpertingers.

  But Hamish was nervous about the PDF and Monster Patrol managing their part of the plan. He knew that maths was on their side, though. Elliot had even worked it out on a piece of paper.

  ONE MONSTER TO DEAL WITH = LESS THAN LOADS OF MONSTERS TO DEAL WITH

  But this was a big monster. And if his and Luciana’s dreams were right, then whatever it was, and whatever it looked like, it had some kind of connection with Hamish. He was the only one who could stop it.

  The question was, how?

  As they neared the cliffs, the choppers peeled off and flew towards Frykt, the thuds of their rotor blades heavy in the sky. Smasha slowed the Astral Plane and watched them fly away. Nobody said anything, but it was like their protection was getting smaller and smaller.

  Thankfully, Hamish’s dad broke the silence.

  ‘We’re not on our own,’ he said, chewing his lip, a little nervously. ‘We’ve got each other.’

  Smasha began to guide the Astral Plane down towards the cliffs. The winter sky was clear this afternoon. Bright. Blue. Crisp. But in the distance, on the very edge of the horizon, grey clouds were beginning to swirl. Waters were becoming choppier.

  ‘What’s our plan, Grandma Lydia?’ said Alice, leaping from the plane once it had landed. Everyone else followed hot on her heels.

  ‘We’ll know when it happens,’ said Lydia. ‘You know, the Monster Patrol motto is “Always Be Prepared”.’

  ‘Kit told us. And that’s what I say,’ said Alice, proudly.

  ‘But look where that motto got me,’ said Lydia. ‘Captured by a flying peanut in a cave. You know, I’m starting to wonder if maybe life is about dealing with whatever’s right in front of you. Believing you can do it. Maybe a better motto would be “Always Believe”.’

  Hamish and his dad stood at the edge of the cliffs.

  ‘You’ve always come up with a plan in the past, pal,’ he said. ‘Maybe there’s a way.’

  ‘If he’s the Chosen One, he’ll find a way!’ said Lydia, putting a hand on Hamish’s shoulder.

  Hamish’s tummy turned and flipped. He couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he wasn’t the Chosen One. I mean, wouldn’t he feel more . . . chosen, by now if he was? Braver? In control? Wouldn’t he be glowing or something? Also, who was doing the choosing? Chosen One Choosers needed to be a lot more forthcoming in their choices, Hamish thought, and maybe even provide a list of relevant reasons, just so everyone’s on the same page.

  Suddenly, from behind them, there came the most awful noise.

  A sort of HUFFING, GRUNTING, STRAINING, GURNING, PUFFING, YUKKING noise.

  Expecting the worst, Hamish turned round, only to let out a sigh of relief when he saw Grenville Bile on his mum’s old tricycle. He was red-faced and out of breath and only halfway up the hill towards them. As usual, he was dressed in his elaborate El Gamba costume, which Clover seemed to have added about a million sequins to. El Gamba’s logo was now in sparkly silver on his heaving chest and belly. He was cycling (or should that be tri-cling?) against the wind, which made his cheeks flap and his cape straight and his nostrils wide.

  He must be here for a very important reason, thought Hamish.

  ‘I was told there’d be cake!’ yelled Grenville, when he finally reached them.

  ‘What?’ said Hamish.

  ‘The Belasko catering tent is supposed to have cake,’ Grenville said. ‘They had a sign up and everything. They got a delivery. And it was free! But everyone from Belasko seems to have jumped in various vehicles and there’s no one doing any catering whatsoever. I had to nick an old Twix out of a bin. But then someone told me you have sandwiches?’

  ‘LOOK!’ said Dad, suddenly, as halfway from the horizon, something was TEARING through the waves, seeming to slice the sea in two as it shot towards them.

  ‘Bad time?’ said Grenville.

  And then Clover and Buster and Kit and Smasha and Venk all let out yelps as The Thing began to riiiiiiiiise from the depths . . . thousands of small black fish falling from its head and body!

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Lydia, staggering backwards, for the first time looking genuinely, heart-crunchingly, eye-sweatingly fearful. ‘It’s . . . no, it can’t be . . . it’s . . .’

  30

  IT’S HERE!!

  ‘Well, I wasn’t expecting THAT!’ said Smasha. ‘Seafood!’

  ‘You can talk, fish face,’ said Kit.

  ‘Why is everyone constantly surprised I can talk?’ said Smasha.

  ‘This can’t be!’ said Lydia, open-mouthed and shaking her head.

  ‘Well it can and it is,’ said Grenville. ‘You’ve got to be a realist.’

  Hamish stared up at the mighty Prawn Kraken.

  It was huge. And hideous.

  How was he supposed to have a connection with that?

  It was a hundred metres high. Armoured. With huge antennae that lashed out and CRACKED in the air like electrical whips.

  The storm around it was intense, darkening the skies. Water lashed down around the PDF now, as Dad got on his walkie-talkie.

  ‘Madame Cous Cous, activate the town clock!’ he shouted. ‘Engage missile mode. We’re going to have to shoot this!’

  But as lightning flashed around the gigantic monster, the electrical interference meant no one could be sure if the walkie-talkie was even working.

  The Prawn Kraken let out a deafening . . .

  ROOOOOOAR!

  The air swelled with the thick, pungent stink of fish.

  ‘Well . . . I’m going to leave you to it . . .’ said Grenville, calmly, but his trike had toppled in the wind and flipped its way down the hill behind him.

  As he turned, the Kraken spotted him and ROARED again. Have you ever walked past a fishmongers and been hit by that smell? Times that by a million!

  ‘What do we do, Lydia?’ asked Alice, holding her nose.

  Lydia turned to Hamish.

  ‘Remember in your dreams, you said you could see through the eyes of the monster. Try and remember, Hamish! What did you see?’

  Hamish squeezed his eyes shut and tried to recall.

  ‘Everyone’s standing on the cliff,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘And what happens?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Hamish, struggling. ‘That’s all there is!’

  ‘What do you notice?’ said Lydia, with great urgency. ‘When you took control of your dream, and you turned round, what did you see?’

  The Prawn was getting ready to step on to the mainland. It could easily crush them underfoot. Underfeet. And then it would go on a rampage through Starkley!

  ‘I see a figure,’ said Hamish, remembering, as his hair blew wild in the wind. ‘Someone I didn’t expect to be there. They’re wearing something that’s flapping around them. I thought maybe it could be Dad!’

  He opened his eyes and looked to his dad, who was still trying to get through to someone on the walkie-talkie.

  But as he did so, he noticed someone else.

  Someone whose clothes were flapping in the wind, wildly and madly, just the way they had in his dream. It hit him in an instant.

  ‘It’s a cape!’ he said, realising. ‘I saw a cape!’

  ‘Wait?’ shouted Clover, over the noise of the wind. ‘Are you saying . . .’

  But no. It couldn’t be. Could it?

  ‘It’s GRENVILLE!’ yelled Hamish, pointing. ‘GRENVILLE BILE IS THE CHOSEN ONE!’

  This was not a sentence anyone had ever said before!

  The ground thudded as the first of the prawn’s legs made contac
t. The beast heaved itself from the water, its body shell CRACKING and CLICKING sickeningly! Hundreds of gallons of water crashed to the ground.

  ‘Grenville!’ urged Lydia. ‘Take charge!’

  ‘What?’ said Grenville. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Fight it!’ said Alice.

  ‘FIGHT IT?!’ said Grenville. ‘It’s five hundred times my size! You might as well ask me to fight Sweden!’

  The monster had really spotted Grenville now. What was that tiny round baby prawn with its dangly antennae doing up here, on a cliff?

  ‘Guys, thanks for the offer and all that, but I don’t really want to be the Chosen One,’ said Grenville, waving his arms in a ‘No way!’ motion – which just made all the little arms that Clover had sewn into his bodysuit do the same. ‘No – Hamish is the Chosen One!’

  ‘He’s Scarmarsh’s chosen one,’ said Lydia. ‘But the kid in the dream? The kid who saves Starkley? Scarmarsh doesn’t get to choose that one!’

  WH-CRACK!

  The Kraken whipped its antennae above the group. As it snapped back, there was a flash of electrical impulse in the air. Its huge eyes were taking them all in. Stray, caught fish were falling from the cracks in its body and flapping to the ground.

  ‘Oh no!’ said Smasha, quickly picking them up and hurling them back into the sea as the Kraken watched, confused. ‘Be free, my brothers!’

  ‘Kit!’ said Alice, urgently. ‘You could use a spell!’

  ‘What?’ said Kit.

  ‘Is a werewolf spell all you’ve got?’

  ‘A werewolf spell?’ said Hamish.

  ‘Kit’s a werewolf,’ said Alice, like it was nothing. ‘He asked me not to mention it. Sorry, Kit.’

  ‘I’m not a werewolf,’ said Kit. ‘I could only turn into a werewolf because I had a werewolf claw. It’s shapeshifting! But I don’t have the claw with me!’

  ‘Wait,’ said Hamish, and there was that feeling he sometimes got . . .

  The tingle . . .

  The beginnings of an idea . . .

  ‘So because you had the claw,’ said Hamish, just to make certain, ‘you could turn into a werewolf?’

  ‘A giant werewolf!’ said Alice.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Kit. ‘But guys – I don’t have the claw!’

  ‘Maybe you don’t need the claw!’ said Hamish. ‘Does the spell work with other things?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ said Kit. ‘Maybe!’

  Hamish looked around. Dad was bashing his walkie-talkie, willing it to work. Buster had his screwdriver out, trying to help him. Lydia was staring up at the Kraken, in total awe. Hamish had to try something.

  Anything!

  ‘What else have we got that we can use?’ he said. ‘Because Grenville is the Chosen One. He’s the one who can take down that thing! What do we have for him?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ said Venk, confused.

  ‘Has anyone got a spider on them? Can we catch a fly?’ Hamish knew he was clutching at straws, but things were desperate!

  ‘You want to turn me into a FLY?’ yelled Grenville.

  ‘I’ve got some sandwiches?’ suggested Venk.

  ‘Stop going on about sandwiches, Venk!’ yelled Alice. ‘I know you probably feel like you haven’t been doing much to help, but we cannot turn Grenville into a big sandwich! How could a big sandwich beat a massive prawn?’

  ‘Funny you mention prawn, I’ve got prawn. Or cheese and onion?’ said Venk, oblivious, taking them out of his jacket.

  ‘Don’t say they’re prawn in front of a giant prawn!’ cried Alice.

  ‘Wait!’ said Hamish, startled. ‘Prawn?’

  ‘It’s only one prawn, because of rations,’ said Venk, a little sadly. ‘It’s only a little one.’

  ‘YES, Venk, you GENIUS!’ yelled Hamish, grabbing the sandwich and ripping the cling film off. ‘Kit, can you use the prawn the way you’d use a claw?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know!’ said Kit.

  ROOOOOOAR!

  The Kraken stepped forward.

  ‘Of course you can,’ said Hamish, encouragingly. ‘Because you’re Kit Alexander Lopez from Monster Patrol, and you’ve GOT THIS!’

  The Kraken was towering over them, finding its bearings. It knew what it had to do. It had been made for this. Engineered for it. It could see Starkley so easily from here. It STOMPED forward, crushing a bench. Its huge knees clashed against a lamp post which clattered to the ground and rolled past the gang, and off the edge of the cliffs.

  ‘Watch out!’ shouted Dad.

  ‘It’s now or never!’ yelled Lydia.

  ‘Grenville! HOLD THE PRAWN!’ said Hamish.

  ‘No thank you!’ said Grenville, holding both hands up. ‘I’ve been paying attention and this does not seem my scene at all!’

  But Hamish grabbed Grenville’s hand, stuck the prawn in it, and clenched the boy’s fist tight around it.

  ‘You can do this,’ said Hamish, staring straight into Grenville’s eyes. ‘Don’t you see? We’re all here for a reason. You’ve been preparing all your life. Your obsession with El Gamba. Your wrestling. Your love of prawns. It was all for this moment!’

  Grenville stared at him.

  ‘You want me to wrestle a prawn?’ he said, flatly.

  ‘It’s like you always say,’ said Hamish. ‘To be like the prawn, you have to think like a prawn! Now you get to do both!’

  ‘We need to believe,’ shouted Kit. ‘We need to hold Grenville, and combine our belief! The more we believe, the stronger the spell!’

  Everyone placed a hand on Grenville’s sopping-wet costume.

  ‘For the record, I did not agree to this!’ he shouted.

  THUD! The ground shook as the awful Kraken took another great step forward.

  THUD! And another!

  Kit started to nervously murmur his incantation, summing up whatever magic he could as the wind and the rain battered and pelted them. These were not ideal conditions!

  And then . . .

  A first small firework popped around them.

  Shimmering and golden and gone in a heartbeat.

  Kit strained as he tried to keep going.

  ‘It’s not working!’ yelled Dad.

  ‘Of course it’s not working!’ shouted Grenville. ‘I’m just a boy holding a prawn on a cliff!’

  ‘BELIEVE!’ shouted Smasha.

  ‘Yes!’ yelled Alice. ‘The more we believe, the more magic Kit can put into him! It’s science! You can do it, my friend!’

  But it wasn’t just the gang who needed to believe it would work. It was Kit himself who needed to believe he could do it. It was all of them, together.

  Hamish grabbed him by the shoulders.

  ‘Remember!’ he shouted. ‘You are Kit Alexander Lopez of Monster Patrol! You protect the world! You have done this before! You can DO IT AGAIN!’

  The PDF gritted their teeth and shut their eyes. They had to believe. In Kit. In each other. In the PDF. In Monster Patrol. For the sake of Starkley. They were a family, and this had to work.

  Kit shuddered and said, ‘GAH!’ as more fireworks began to pop and fizz around him.

  And then more.

  Blues. Reds. Silvers. Golds. Purples.

  Getting bigger, faster, stronger. Lasting longer, and longer.

  ‘AND IT SHALL BE SO NOW!’ shouted Kit, desperately.

  ‘It’s working, Kit!’ said Hamish. ‘I can feel it!’

  And when he opened one eye to check, he was totally, utterly stunned to see what was happening to his old friend – to Grenville Bile, the Postmaster’s son.

  31

  FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

  It had started with a wobble.

  The wobble had turned into a judder.

  Then a wrench. And a twist. And a shaking of the wrist.

  Grenville Bile had started to grow almost immediately.

  His feet first.

  Then his legs.

  Then his tummy, stretching his poor El Gamba T-shirt to its very
limits.

  ‘What’s happening to me?’ he yelled, as Kit continued his murmuring, and ever-larger sparkling fireworks popped and burst on the air around him.

  The PDF opened their eyes and stepped back, as right there in front of them, their classmate and friend continued to grow in the wind and rain.

  ‘Keep going, Kit!’ yelled Lydia. ‘Continue the metamorphosis!’

  ‘Meta morpha WHAT?’ yelled Grenville.

  Grenville was now bigger than Hamish’s dad, and wasn’t slowing.

  ‘Metamorphosis,’ explained Lydia. ‘Therianthropy! Lycanthropy!’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s cleared it up!’ shouted Grenville, whose voice was now booming.

  ‘The Native Americans call it Skin-Walking,’ said Lydia, who looked like she had never seen anything more wonderful in her life.

  Above them, the Kraken stared curiously.

  ‘Uh-oh!’ boomed Grenville, who was now bright pink. ‘Something else is happening!’

  In one quick FLASH, Grenville Bile no longer looked like Grenville Bile!

  He had a sharp beak!

  Big black eyes!

  A hard shell!

  He was . . .

  Well, he was a PRAWN!

  The Kraken unleashed a thundersome

  ROAR.

  What was this thing beneath it? It CRACKED its antennae, causing everyone on the cliff to dive for cover. Kit opened his eyes, and fell to the ground, exhausted.

  ‘Did it work?’ he said, blinking and trying to come to his senses.

  ‘You turned Grenville into a big prawn!’ shouted Elliot. ‘So I’d say it worked!’

  And Grenville had far from finished his shapeshifting.

  His prawn legs had grown, giving him the balance he needed. His prawn arms had popped out, with giant claws on the end of each one. He grew . . .

  And grew . . .

  And gruesomely GREW!

  And still around his vast neck – his tiny elasticated El Gamba cape!

  ‘It’s GRENZILLA!’ shrieked Clover.