The PDF considered his words. They knew all too well that their old enemy had been a little quiet of late.
The last time they’d actually seen him had been in London, when he’d blasted off into space using the top of the famous Post Office Tower as his ship. Scarmarsh was an awful man, with dark thoughts and a darker temper, who’d tricked the PDF and used Hamish as bait to lure his dad out of hiding so he could zap him.
He’d failed, thank goodness, but failure only makes a baddie badder. It gnaws away at them, reminding them they’re not all-powerful, forcing them to try and prove themselves again and again.
The gang didn’t want to believe he was still a threat. After all, Hamish was always worried about something or other these days, wasn’t he? But still the thought unnerved them.
Scarmarsh, with his terrifying glare . . .
Scarmarsh, who seemed to haunt Hamish’s dreams . . .
Scarmarsh, who could look right through you . . .
As Alice always said – you had to be prepared.
‘Well, Hamish,’ said Elliot. ‘If you say there are weird babies out there, who are we to say there aren’t?’
‘So you’ll help me check it out?’
‘Of course we will,’ said Alice. ‘Tomorrow morning, the PDF will leave Garage 5 and go and spy on babies.’
When she put it that way, it sounded absolutely ridiculous.
But Hamish knew Alice didn’t think it was ridiculous.
And, before you know it, neither will you.
Mission
Improbable
‘Right,’ said Venk, turning up slightly late the next morning. ‘Let the baby spying begin!’
‘Baby spying’ didn’t sound like the most exciting mission in the world. It was right up there with trouser spotting or lamp staring. But it certainly seemed like one of the easiest.
Because as they stood in Starkley town square and looked across it – all really looked, together – it seemed there were babies absolutely everywhere.
It turns out you don’t really need to spy on babies. Babies are terrible at hiding.
It was a Saturday morning, so older brothers and sisters were watching cartoons, or at sports practice, or at their friend’s house, or riding their bike. It was just babies everywhere. Buggies littered the square. Distracted parents sat nearby.
‘What is this?’ said Venk. ‘International Baby Week?’
‘Let’s just have a gentle stroll,’ said Hamish.
‘How do we know a “good” baby from a “weird” one?’ said Buster. ‘Like I said, every one of them’s a weirdo.’
Infants sat on the grass, staring at flowers.
Mums and dads gently rocked prams as they stared at their phones.
It seemed a perfectly pleasant Starkley morning. The sun was shining and the sound of gentle laughter filled the air.
It was all just perfectly . . . pleasant.
‘So are you, um, sure about this?’ said Alice, trying to look ready for action. ‘Only I’m not really sensing any real sort of threat here.’
‘Just wait,’ said Hamish. ‘They’ll start beating people up or pushing them through doors soon.’
Buster and Venk swapped a worried glance. They’d been through a lot with Hamish – they wanted to believe him – but this did sound a bit odd.
Hamish could sense their growing doubt. It irritated him, if he was honest. The last time he’d felt like this was when his dad had tried to stop him from getting too involved in saving the world – even though, when the GravityBurps hit Starkley, it had been Hamish who had led the way.
He’d always been a bit frustrated when his dad kept trying to keep him out of things. But now he understood a bit more.
You see, after he’d seen the photo of Dad and his brother, Hamish hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it and had tried to speak to Dad about it. He’d never thought to ask before if his dad had brothers or sisters. He’d just assumed that because he didn’t know about them, he couldn’t have.
But Dad didn’t want to talk about it. He had a way of changing the subject. Always cheerfully, of course, and suggesting some distraction, like a kickabout in the garden, or a new film to watch. But Hamish had started to feel that sometimes people might pretend to be cheerful to hide a sadness within. He could tell whatever it was his dad was hiding was pretty big, or pretty sad. At first he was disappointed that there were more secrets being kept from him, but over hot chocolate one night, Mum revealed a little more.
She said Dad really didn’t like to talk about his brother or what had happened between them. She told Hamish that when Angus Ellerby was a kid – maybe just a little older than Jimmy was now – he’d shared a room with his brother, Al, on the farm in Scotland.
Al was a little older than Angus. They were inseparable and used to play for hours down in the wetlands. The boys would fish, whittle wood, and learned how to start a fire with nothing more than a couple of pieces of old flint. It was like basic Belasko recruit training. And then they’d run by the wetlands, or on the coastal salt marshes. Beside wet dune slacks and woodlands. Past swamps and blanket bogs. By river valleys and loch edges.
The boys used to play by these, even though Hamish’s grandparents told them not to.
It was dangerous! they’d say. They could get stuck! Or contract some horrible disease in those muck-filled breeding grounds for pests!
But the boys did it anyway; they’d run through clouds of midges, dodging dragonflies and looking for mussels in freshwater rivers.
Life had been fun. The Ellerby boys made sure of it.
And then the clouds came. It was winter. And, on the day they were sitting in a tree over the marshes, Angus did something he would regret forever.
He pushed his brother, just for a joke. Just to scare him. The way they both always scared each other as kids do.
But his brother had been caught off guard. He thought they’d stopped playing. He wasn’t ready and he fell.
There was a rock down below, hidden just beneath the surface of the swamp . . .
‘HAMISH!’ said Alice, suddenly, shaking his shoulder and bringing him back from his thoughts. ‘Do you feel that?’
It certainly felt a little colder. It was like he’d brought the darkening clouds from his imagination into real life. The wind rose ever so slightly. And as it did . . .
. . . a lone baby seemed to slowly rise from its slumber.
‘Look,’ said Hamish, sensing something unusual. ‘What’s that little guy doing?’
The baby had a strange fixed grin. It lowered its head but kept staring their way.
Its arms began to rise . . . and it pointed straight at them.
‘Okay, that’s very creepy,’ said Buster, taking a step back.
But the creepiness was just beginning.
As the air grew colder and the trees loudly swayed, another baby shot bolt upright in its pram.
Then another!
They both pointed at the PDF, as the wind rose and swept and whipped.
‘What’s going on?’ cried Elliot. ‘Why are all these creepy babies pointing at us?’
‘Why aren’t their parents doing anything?’ said Clover.
But, oh my gosh, look at the parents . . .
They were blank-eyed. Their knuckles seem to drag on the ground, their shoulders sagging from carrying heavy changing bags and shopping. Some trudged slowly around the square, dragging their legs behind them and barely talking, just grunting at each other.
They looked brainwashed.
‘Are they . . . zombies?’ whispered Clover, as one slowly passed by, mumbling to herself.
‘No,’ said Alice. ‘They’re just exhausted.’
Of course!
The babies had probably kept their parents up all night. Wailing, shouting, screaming and ultra-pooping.
But what was causing the babies to act so oddly?
And why were they suddenly so scary?
‘Okay, just . . . keep . . . moving,’
whispered Alice through gritted teeth. ‘Let’s get back to base. Don’t . . . make . . . any sudden movements.’
‘Look!’ said Buster.
Up ahead was a new father with a handlebar moustache. He was wearing a baby sling on his chest.
‘La la la la la!’ he sang, happily, and completely out of tune.
He looked strangely out of place. Full of beans. Pleased with himself. And very prepared for fatherhood. He had trousers with enormous pockets packed with milk bottles, nappies and wipes, and this grown-up was now whistling in a carefree manner and patting his sleeping baby.
But he hadn’t noticed that his ‘sleeping’ baby was suddenly wide awake.
It peeked out from the man’s chest and spotted Hamish and Alice . . . then two small arms reached upwards.
The dad couldn’t believe what was happening. His tiny child had grabbed his moustache and wouldn’t let go.
‘OW!’ yelled the man, as the baby began to tug on it. ‘OW!’
This was a baby who knew what she was doing.
Whenever she yanked left, her dad would shout, ‘Ow!’ and stumble left.
If she yanked right, her dad would stumble right.
At this precise moment, the baby was pulling as hard as she could – weaving her dad straight towards Hamish and Alice.
‘Look out!’ said Hamish, horrified. ‘He’s got hot coffee!’
The dad’s steaming drink was teetering in his hand, and spilling its boiling contents every time he changed direction.
He was spinning right the way around now, trying to bat his child’s hand off his moustache with his free hand.
‘NO! Pepperino! Release Papa!’
But this baby was an expert driver!
A simple kick to the tummy made her dad bend over, which was particularly handy for getting through low doors.
And, if she pulled really hard, her dad would speed up.
Her dad was just a horse to her . . .
Now this poor man was hurtling straight at Hamish and Alice – his boiling hot coffee coming right for them!
‘JUMP!’ yelled Hamish, pushing Alice into a bush.
The dad and his baby shot past.
The baby tried to spin her dad around with a powerful tug of his moustache, but they were going too quickly.
Still careering backwards, the man’s bottom hit a bin and he fell straight in. He was stuck fast!
His furious, upside-down baby started punching him in the face!
‘Let’s get out of here!’ said Venk, but it was no good – they were still right in the middle of the square. Babies crawled slowly around them, like tigers stalking their prey.
‘Surrounded,’ said Alice, adopting a karate pose.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Venk, amazed. ‘Fight a baby?’
‘We fell right into their trap,’ said Hamish, frustrated with himself.
More heads popped out of prams and buggies.
Some wearing bonnets.
Some in tiny baseball caps.
Still the other tiger-babies prowled on all fours, their heads suddenly snapping round to keep a beady eye on Hamish and his friends.
Nostrils flaring. Growling.
‘Don’t make eye contact,’ said Hamish, quivering. ‘Show no fear.’
‘Just be confident,’ said Alice, as Hamish gripped her hand. ‘They’re just babies, remember. They’re JUST. BABIES!’
And then one of those babies got to its feet and started to run straight towards Alice.
‘Aaaargh!’ she screamed, as it leapt high into the air, and . . .
Thar He Blows!
Hamish and the PDF threw open the door of 13 Lovelock Close in a screaming panic and slammed it shut behind them.
Alice, Buster, Venk, Elliot and Clover thundered up the stairs to Hamish’s room while Hamish, out of breath, pressed his nose against the window in the hall and made sure they hadn’t been followed by any terrifying babies.
Yep. That’s a pretty embarrassing sentence . . .
But they’d managed to escape that last one as it broke away from the pack by leaping over the small fence around the flower beds. The baby had slammed straight into it, growling and barking and snapping its gums at them as they legged it away. It would have kept coming after them if it hadn’t been on baby reins.
The PDF had run to Hamish’s house instead of Garage 5 because at least there’d be grown-ups around. Grown-ups they could warn about what looked like the beginnings of an infant uprising!
They gibbered and jabbered at each other as they slammed Hamish’s bedroom door shut. It seemed to have affected every baby in town.
‘Hamish?’ yelled his mum. ‘What’s all the noise?’
Hamish double-locked the front door then ran to the living room.
‘MUM!’ he said, but stopped in his tracks as he saw a horrifying sight.
A dreadful sight!
Mum had visitors!
‘Look,’ said Mum, delighted, holding out her teacup. ‘It’s Mrs Quip and Boffo!’
Hamish almost didn’t recognise Boffo at first.
He seemed to have gained rather a lot of weight since Hamish had first seen him. He was really rather hefty. He had chubby little arms that looked like a row of bread rolls. Fat little fingers like sausages. He looked like a baby Emperor, sitting there on the sofa, all pompous.
‘Oh . . . er, hi, Boffo,’ said Hamish, trying to stay calm. How could he talk to Mum now?
Boffo Quip was frowning and staring at him, as if he was trying to read Hamish’s mind. He had tearstains on his cheeks. Evidently, he’d just had another Mega Boffo Tantrum.
Even though Boffo was a newborn, he appeared to already be on solids. Specifically, he was halfway through his second pack of Hamish’s mum’s chocolate Mustn’tgrumbles. That was probably the only way they’d stopped him crying and yelling. I know that’s what happens with me.
Hamish studied the little man more closely.
Was that . . . the beginning of a moustache?
Boffo was barely three weeks old and already he was more manly than Jimmy. This was extremely odd.
‘We’re thinking of entering Boffo into the Beautiful Baby Competition,’ said Mrs Quip, cooing over him. ‘Though we’ll probably wait until he looks a little less grumpy!’
But Boffo didn’t just look grumpy. He looked furious.
Hamish didn’t know what to do. He’d run home to get away from babies, and now there was one right here in his own living room, scoffing his mum’s biscuits!
‘Why don’t you sit down next to him, Hamish?’ asked Mum.
‘Uh, no, thanks,’ said Hamish. ‘I’ve got my friends round, and—’
‘I’m sure they can wait a few minutes?’ said Mum. ‘Come and sit down!’
Hamish smiled nervously, then very slowly and cautiously sat down next to Boffo. He perched as far away from him as he could. He didn’t like the look of this baby one bit. Boffo was staring at him and breathing heavily, like a dog you wouldn’t trust.
Hamish noticed Boffo had a weird pink teddy bear with him. He’d seen these advertised on TV. It was called TOPPY SPARKLES. It had the biggest, strangest googly eyes and a rainbow-coloured tummy. And it had cheap glitter on its cheeks, which kept falling off. Anyone who came within three metres of Toppy Sparkles ended up with glitter on them somehow. Mum’s face was already covered in it. She looked like she was auditioning for Balldancing Fever! but for the part of the disco ball in the opening titles.
To sum up, Toppy Sparkles was a very creepy teddy bear.
If you pushed its nose, it yelled, ‘I’M TOPPY SPARKLES!’ far too loudly in a Chinese accent. If you wanted it to stop shouting, ‘I’M TOPPY SPARKLES!’, you were out of luck. You just had to wait until it finished. It could go on for hours. Lots of parents had tried to get it banned, because every night, all over Britain, mums or dads putting toys away would accidentally tread on their Toppy Sparkles and the whole street would be up all night listening to ‘I’M TOPPY SPA
RKLES! I’M TOPPY SPARKLES! I’M TOPPY SPARKLES!’ over and over.
‘Would you like to hold Boffo, Hamish?’ asked Mrs Quip, suddenly.
Would he like to hold him? Look at the size of him! How would Hamish even pick him up?!
‘Oh, I’d worry about dropping him,’ said Hamish, even though if you dropped this baby you’d be more worried about damaging the floor. The aftershocks would go on for weeks. They’d be felt in China.
‘You’ll be fine!’ said Mrs Quip, grinning encouragingly. ‘Go on, have a cuddle!’
‘No, thanks, Mrs Quip,’ said Hamish.
Boffo’s eyes widened as he took an enormous, massive breath.
he screamed.
It was a deafening cry.
‘See?’ said Mrs Quip. ‘He wants you to pick him up!’
Boffo immediately stopped.
‘Um, okay,’ said Hamish.
‘Oof,’ she said. ‘Watch out, he’s a big’un . . .’
She dropped him onto Hamish’s lap. Boffo’s heels dug straight in and Hamish’s eyes started to water, because that was one place boys don’t like to be kicked.
Close up, Boffo stared at Hamish.
His baby breath was sour with a hint of . . . cinnamon?
Hamish didn’t like the way Boffo was looking at him. It felt like at any second this baby might do something crazy and unpredictable. But he couldn’t let on to the grown-ups. Not in front of Boffo. He felt instinctively that Boffo would not appreciate that one bit.
‘You should be careful, actually,’ said Mrs Quip. ‘He’s just had rather a lot of formula to drink.’
Ah, that would explain the cinnamon smell.
‘Um, why do you say I should be careful?’ asked Hamish, now feeling rather on edge.
‘Oh, it’s just that sometimes, right after his milk, Boffo might have a little vomit.’
Hamish and the Baby BOOM! Page 3
