The Ice Monster

by David Walliams

Up ahead, Elsie saw the sandwich-board man she’d met outside the Natural History Museum. On spotting the mammoth charging towards him, he shouted, “THE BEAST IS ALIVE! THE END IS NIGH!”

  “Your end will be nigh if you don’t get out of the way!” shouted Elsie.

  By tugging on the mammoth’s fur, the girl just managed to make her swerve past him.

  “THE END IS NOT QUITE NIGH!” he shouted as they passed.

  “Woolly’s going to trample someone to death if we’re not careful,” said Elsie. “We need to get her off the streets, hide her somewhere.”

  “I know the perfect place,” replied Dotty.

  “Where?”

  “The Royal Hospital. It’s not far. It’s where Titch lives. He’ll help us.”

  “How do we get there?”

  “Can you steer?”

  “A little bit.”

  “Then steer right.”

  The girl tugged on the fur on the mammoth’s right side, and the animal veered right.

  “But, Dotty, we can’t just turn up there with a mammoth!”

  The lady was stumped by this. “Oh yes, you’re right. I’m pretty sure they only treat old soldiers. Not animals.”

  “Prehistoric animals!”

  “Yes. I imagine they aren’t welcome.”

  “Someone might tell on us.”

  “We have to disguise her somehow!” said the girl.

  “We could shave her and say she’s an elephant.”

  “Hold on!”

  “I am holding on, love! For dear life!”

  “I’ve got an idea.”

  Elsie steered the mammoth down a dingy backstreet. Just ahead was a laundry where a number of sheets were hanging up to dry.

  “We just need to borrow these sheets.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “IT’S A WHAT?” roared the guard at the gate of the Royal Hospital. He was a fearsome old soldier, a sergeant major no less, with a chest full of medals on his scarlet coat. He sported a monocle on his left eye, and an eyepatch on his right.

  “It’s a brand-new top-secret tank!” replied Elsie, gesturing at the mammoth hidden under some sheets.

  “BALDERDASH!”

  “It’s not balderdash! It’s a brand-new weapon. For Private Thomas,” added Dotty.

  “Titch Thomas?”

  “Yes, that’s him! The shortish one.”

  “Shortish is an understatement!” chortled the sergeant major. “Titch is so tiny he gets mistaken for a toy soldier! Ha! Ha!”

  Dotty started to look angry. She didn’t appreciate hearing the love of her life spoken about in this manner. “He may be small, but he is perfectly formed!”

  “Titch is seventy-three if he’s a day,” replied the sergeant major. “And his feet wouldn’t reach the pedals! What on earth does he need this contraption for?”

  “That’s top secret, isn’t it?” answered Elsie. “If we told you, it wouldn’t be top secret.”

  The old soldier did not look convinced. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “That’s top secret too!” replied the girl.

  “Now open this gate!” ordered Dotty.

  “HOO!” went the mammoth. From under the sheet, she raised her trunk. The sergeant major was becoming increasingly suspicious.

  Elsie and Dotty looked at each other nervously.

  “What was that?” demanded the sergeant major.

  “That?” asked Dotty.

  “Yes, that!”

  “Erm, um, well…” began Elsie. “It was its cannon thing, just lifting up.”

  She pushed down on the trunk, and Woolly let out another “HOO!”

  “It just said something!” snarled the sergeant major.

  “No, it didn’t!”

  “Yes, it did!”

  “Didn’t!”

  “Did!”

  “It was me!” chimed in Dotty.

  “I was looking at you the whole time,” said the old soldier.

  “From the good eye?”

  “Yes! From the good eye! Your face didn’t move.”

  “Well,” began Dotty. “That’s because…”

  “Spit it out, woman!”

  “That’s because the sound came from… my botty.”

  “Your botty, madam?”

  “It was a botty burp!” explained Dotty.

  “I can’t smell anything!” protested the sergeant major, pointing his nose towards the lady and sniffing the air.

  “Count yourself lucky!” chimed in Elsie, continuing the lie by wafting the air in front of her screwed-up face. “POOH! It’s a real stinker.”

  “How utterly uncouth,” huffed the old soldier. “I had no idea that ladies could even, for want of a more polite expression, unleash a gas attack.”*

  “Sadly, it happens,” mused Dotty.

  “HOO!”

  “There my bottom goes again!”

  “HOOOOO!”

  “Oops, and again!”

  The sergeant major’s face turned a shade of beetroot. “Madam, do you have any control over your, for want of a more polite expression, rear gun?”

  “HOOOO!”

  “It seems not,” replied Dotty. “Dotty’s gotty a grotty botty.”

  Elsie could feel the mammoth becoming more and more restless. “Please let us through before she lets another one go!”

  “Most irregular!” muttered the old soldier. He raised the gate at once, and saluted as the three unlikely visitors passed through into the grounds of the Royal Hospital.

  “Thank you so much,” said Elsie.

  “HOOOO!”

  “Naughty bottom!” called out Dotty, slapping her own rear end.

  Just as they led the mammoth across the lawn, she stopped. With her trunk, she snuffled under the snow, and began to munch on the frozen grass.

  “RUMPH! RUMPH! RUMPH!”

  Having not eaten for ten thousand years, the animal was hungry. As much as the pair tried to keep moving, the mammoth was staying put. From under the sheets she munched and munched and munched. She must have eaten a ton of grass before she was full.

  From his sentry post, the sergeant major looked on. He raised a telescope to his good eye, and spied on the strange goings-on in the grounds of the Royal Hospital.

  “Just refuelling!” called out Elsie.

  The old soldier shook his head. “Ruddy strange sort of tank.”

  “Yes, it doubles up as a lawnmower,” said Dotty.

  Just as the pair thought they might have got away with it, the inevitable happened. The animal laid a mammoth poop.

  PPPFFFT!

  THUD!

  The prehistoric poop plopped on to the snow. It was mammoth both in origin and size, large and brown and steaming.

  “Just testing the brand-new weaponry,” explained Elsie.

  “It’s a stink bomb,” added Dotty.

  “Don’t worry!” began Elsie. “It’s not explosive!” Then she added under her breath, “I think.”

  “Well, you can’t leave it there on the lawn!” roared the sergeant major.

  “What do you want us to do with it?” asked Elsie.

  “Put it back in the chute.”

  The pair looked at the back end of the mammoth.

  “I’m not sure that’s going to work,” said Dotty. “I’d say it’s more of an exit than an entrance.”

  “Well, pick it up, then!” he ordered.

  “Me?” asked Dotty. She’d been a cleaning lady for forty years and had dealt with all kinds of unspeakable mess, but this was beyond beyond.

  “Yes, you,” said Elsie.

  The lady gave the little girl a stern look.

  “Don’t dilly-dally, woman. Get on with it!” bellowed the sergeant major.

  Reluctantly, Dotty bent down. Holding her nose as far away from the hot steaming pile as possible, the lady scooped it up in her hands. She stood up and held it away from her as far as her arms would allow.

  “At last!” called out the
sergeant major.

  The three unlikely friends moved on. The little girl couldn’t help but smile, which made the lady fume.

  “Would you care to swap?” asked Dotty, already knowing the answer.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” said Elsie, leading the mammoth across the courtyard. She noticed an unusually short old soldier looking out at them from a tall window. He was smiling, waving and blowing kisses in the most extravagant manner.

  “TITCH!” exclaimed Dotty.

  “It just looks like a hairy elephant to me,” remarked Titch in his musical Welsh accent.

  Elsie was pleased to finally meet this man she’d heard so much about. He was indeed short. Not even taller than her. In fact, Dotty was as wide as he was tall. There was no denying that they made an unusual match. However, all that mattered was that the pair glowed in each other’s presence.

  The animal was drinking water from a toilet stall in the Royal Hospital, her trunk stuck down the U-bend.

  “Well, she’s not a hairy elephant!” replied Elsie haughtily. “She’s a woolly mammoth.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing!” scoffed Titch.

  “Well, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist! It’s a prehistoric creature.”

  “I’m prehistoric myself, and I don’t remember seeing those as a boy in the Welsh valleys.”

  “Well, that’s because woolly mammoths died out thousands of years ago.”

  “And you just brought her back to life, did you?” said the man with a chuckle.

  “Yes,” replied Elsie. “Actually, we did!”

  This stopped the old soldier in his tracks. He looked at Dotty for confirmation. The lady nodded her head.

  “Well, what the ruddy hell is she doing here?” he demanded.

  “I was rather hoping you might help us hide her!” replied Dotty.

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “A great big furry elephant?”

  “Well, no.” Elsie jumped in to correct him. “She’s a woolly mammoth.”

  “How long for?” he asked.

  “They live for fifty years or more.”

  “FIFTY?”

  “Yes. This is just a baby one.”

  “How big do they grow?”

  “To about the size of a house.”

  “A house?”

  Just then there was the sound of a flush in the stall next door.

  SPLISH!

  An impossibly old man shuffled out, wearing a nightshirt with a military cap, and leaning on a cane. The three looked at one another in panic. They’d had no idea the man had been in there the whole time.

  “Morning, Colonel,” said Titch.

  “I’d leave that a minute if I were you,” muttered the colonel, wafting the air and actually making the smell worse, not better. Despite the stink, the three smiled back at him, but said nothing, hoping he might shuffle on.

  He didn’t.

  The colonel spotted the rear end of the mammoth sticking out of the stall next to his. He took a moment to admire it, before commenting. “My word, that’s quite a remarkable large, furry bottom. New boy, is he?”

  “It’s a pet,” replied Titch.

  “A pet?”

  “Yes! Now I would hate for you to miss your breakfast, Colonel. Let me help you to the dining hall.”

  The private took the colonel by the arm, but the old man was having none of it.

  “You can’t keep a pet in the Royal Hospital, Private! It is against regulations!”

  “It won’t be here for long,” replied Titch, shooting a look at Dotty.

  “No more than fifty years, Colonel, sir,” chipped in the lady.

  Elsie shook her head in disbelief at Dotty’s stupidity.

  “FIFTY YEARS!” spluttered the colonel. “What kind of animal is this thing, anyway?”

  “She’s a woolly mammoth,” replied Elsie.

  “A what?” asked the man.

  “It’s like a hairy elephant,” added Dotty.

  “We can’t have a hairy elephant in here!” shouted the man. “Whatever is this country coming to? Get the blasted beast out!” With that, he whacked the mammoth’s bottom with his stick.

  THWACK!

  This would prove to be a grave mistake.

  “NO!” shouted Elsie.

  “HOOO!” cried the animal. She began bucking from side to side.

  CRUNCH!

  The wooden partitions between the toilets splintered into pieces as the mammoth struggled to get out. When she lurched backwards, the colonel gave her another whack with his cane.

  “TAKE THAT, YOU HAIRY-BOTTOMED BEAST!”

  THWACK!

  “STOP!” cried Elsie. She lurched at the colonel, and held on to his arm to stop him striking her friend again.

  “Get your filthy hands off me, girl!”

  The mammoth was trying to turn herself round in the cramped toilet. Her tusks bashed into the toilet bowl…

  CRASH!

  …smashing it to pieces.

  SPLURT!

  Water began gushing everywhere, soaking everybody and everything.

  “URGH!” cried the colonel.

  “Oh dearie me. More mess for me to clean up!” remarked Dotty, never one to leave her job far behind.

  “I’m going to be in big trouble with Matron,” said Titch, desperately trying to sit on all the toilets at once to stop water spraying across the ceiling. All he achieved was an incredibly wet bottom.

  “Ooh!” he screamed as he was propelled into the air. “The water’s going right up my whatsit!”

  Eventually, the mammoth managed to turn herself round, and ripped the cane out of the man’s hands with her trunk. With all her might, she hurled the cane across the room.

  W H I Z Z !

  It hit the window…

  BANG!

  …shattering it.

  CRACK!

  “Oh, cripes! Not another breakage,” muttered the lady.

  The water level in the room was rising rapidly. All four humans and the mammoth were soon knee-deep in it.

  With all the noise, it was only a matter of time before someone came thumping on the door.

  THUD!

  THUD!

  THUD!

  “What in heaven’s name is happening in there?” came a female voice.

  “Matron!” hissed Titch, a flash of panic in his eyes. Then he raised his voice. “It’s all right, Matron. Everything is under control. Just a minor problem with the flush.”

  The colonel, who had only come in for a quiet morning poo, was having no more of this nonsense.

  “Matron! They’ve got some great hairy elephant in here!”

  “Seeing things again, Colonel?” she called out.

  “See for yourself, woman!” he called back.

  Matron pushed open the door. A ten-thousand-year-old woolly mammoth was staring back at her.

  But before she had time to scream a rush of water swept her off her feet…

  WHOOSH!

  …and carried her down the corridor at speed.

  The other five all popped their heads round the door to watch her go.

  “At least that floor is getting a good clean,” remarked Dotty to herself.

  Fortunately, there were many fantastic hiding places in the Royal Hospital. With Matron flushed away, Titch led Elsie, Dotty and Woolly down to the food-storage room, and slammed the door behind them.

  “It’s nice and chilly in here,” said Titch. “I’m sure your furry friend will feel right at home.”

  The mammoth did. Elsie did too, for this was where all the food for the elderly soldiers was kept. The old boys obviously ate well as there were giant jars of sweets, and tins of all sorts of goodies, like jam, honey and treacle. To a girl who had lived her entire life under the shadow of hunger, the smell of the food was like the sweetest perfume.

  “I’m starving,” said Elsie. “Please may I have a tiny bit of jam?”

/>   The little girl’s eyes widened, and her lip quivered. How could the grown-ups possibly say no?

  “A little dollop can’t hurt, can it?” said Dotty.

  “No,” agreed Titch. “No one would miss a dollop.”

  “Strawberry or raspberry?” asked Dotty.

  “I’ve never had either,” replied the girl. “What’s nicer?”

  “Raspberry, I think.”

  “Raspberry it is, then!”

  Titch reached up, and took down a jar of raspberry jam. Slowly, he unscrewed the lid as the little girl licked her lips. However, before Elsie could dip her finger in, a huge furry trunk snaked around and slurped up the lot.

  SLURP!

  “What the…?” exclaimed Elsie.

  “Bad manmoth!” chided Dotty, slapping Woolly’s trunk away.

  WHACK!

  The mammoth didn’t even react. She was too busy being in a state of bliss at having tasted jam for the first time.

  “Maybe I should try some strawberry, then?” said Elsie.

  But as Titch unscrewed the lid the mammoth’s trunk snaked its way around and slurped up every last bit.

  SLURP!

  “WHAT?” exclaimed Elsie.

  “BAD MANMOTH!” yelled Dotty.

  “Not too loud!” hissed Titch.

  “Well, she’s being very naughty!”

  “I know. But, if I know Matron, she’ll have all the soldiers up out of their beds looking for that thing.”

  “She’s not a thing,” said Elsie. “She’s a mammoth.”

  “Mammoth thing, then. I don’t know!”

  RUMBLE!

  “What was that?” asked Elsie.

  “Thunder?” guessed Dotty.

  RUMBLE!

  “There it is again!” exclaimed the girl.

  “Is it the pipes?” wondered Titch.

  RUMBLE!

  “It is the pipes!” said Elsie. “Woolly’s pipes! Listen!”

  All three fell silent.

  RUMBLE!

  “It must be the jam,” said Dotty, “not agreeing with her tum-tum. Don’t let her have any more.”

  “I won’t,” replied the girl. “But I am absolutely starving. You hold her trunk while I have a tiny bit of treacle.”

  The treacle was in a huge tin the size of a bucket. Titch shook his head and lifted it down towards the girl as Dotty blocked the animal’s view with her body, and held on tightly to its trunk. Excitedly, Elsie prised the lid off. Immediately, the sugary aroma whispered its way up her nostrils. It was so sweet that for a moment the girl felt as if she were floating. She dipped her finger in, and it felt as smooth as silk.