Hamish and the Neverpeople

by Danny Wallace

  Hamish and Alice hid on the floor of the taxi. Gift of the Gab test? What was Leo up to? And then the car squeaked to a halt.

  ‘Oy-OY! officer!’ said Leo, and Hamish’s eyes widened. Leo was talking to a policeman! His mum had been right! He was going to get arrested!

  ‘No taxis down this way today, please, sir,’ said the policeman. ‘This is a restricted area. Turn around now, please.’

  ‘But I am on a secret mission, officer,’ said Leo, and then he picked up a small packet of mints. ‘I’m bringing the PM his mints.’

  ‘His . . . mints?’ said the policeman, eyeing Leo with great suspicion.

  ‘His mints, sir. Haven’t you seen what’s going on round the front? It’s not like he can pop out to the shops himself!’

  ‘Here – you’ve eaten half of these,’ said the officer, studying the packet.

  Leo shrugged.

  ‘Did you see him on telly last night? He’s not himself lately. That’s precisely what the Prime Minister asked for – half a packet of mints delivered in a bright green cab.’

  The policeman looked unsure.

  ‘This seems most irregular.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t question it if I was you,’ said Leo. ‘He’s in a foul mood today because no one liked his pants.’

  The policeman considered all this.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But be quick about it!’

  Leo drove on, round the corner, until they came to a small patch of grass with a statue of a man called Mountbatten on it.

  ‘See those hedges over there?’ said Leo. ‘There’s a wall behind them. You get over that and you’re in the Prime Minister’s back garden . . . but you’ll need to be quick. You can’t be spotted!’

  ‘Thank you, Leo,’ said Hamish.

  ‘Here’s my number,’ said Leo, handing them a small green business card. ‘This trip’s on me, on account of the whole, er, “scenic route” thing. If you need me, just call!’

  And so Alice and Hamish got out of the taxi, and ran as fast as they could towards the Prime Minister’s hedges before anyone saw them.

  Alice scaled the wall first and dropped down a short rope she’d pulled from her bag.

  ‘You brought a rope?’ said Hamish, as he climbed up it.

  ‘ALWAYS BE PREPARED!’ she yelled.

  They jumped down together.

  There were huge trees in the Prime Minister’s back garden.

  A hot tub.

  A barbeque.

  An outdoor bowling alley.

  A zip wire.

  A pizza oven.

  A miniature adventure playground.

  Swingball. Ping-pong. Minigolf. A huge piñata shaped like a hedgehog.

  A swimming pool with a massive helter-skelter slide.

  It was amazing.

  Well, except for the weird, giant golden statue of the Prime Minister staring at a pen, which he’d had made to celebrate the day he thought he’d fixed one with his mind.

  ‘This place has everything,’ said Hamish, checking out the skate ramp.

  ‘I HAVE JUST ONE THING TO SAY TO YOU!’ bellowed a voice from somewhere behind them. They spun round and immediately lost all courage. Caught!

  ‘Oh!’ said Hamish, panicking. ‘I’m so s-s-sorry! We’ll go!’

  In front of them was a very tall man in military uniform. He was wearing a beret and shiny black boots and was standing to attention with his hands behind his back. Hamish thought he’d seen this guy on TV.

  No, wait – he’d been in Starkley, when they’d rushed the PM away! That’s where Hamish had seen him!

  ‘AND THAT ONE THING,’ he said, very loudly, and quite angrily, ‘IS AS FOLLOWS . . .’

  Hamish wanted to cry. He hated being in trouble. And now he was going to be told off by a grown-up. And not just any grown-up. A grown-up in a uniform! They’re the very worst types of grown-up to be told off by!

  Both Alice and Hamish squinted and squirmed as they waited for the man to say the one thing he wanted to say. Oh, this was going to be bad. He had leaned right down and was pausing for effect. That meant he was going to really tell them off.

  Which is when the man took a deep breath and said . . .

  ‘If I had a cat, I’d call him Poopy.’

  The kids stayed quiet for a moment. Alice glanced at Hamish and then back at the man.

  Hamish didn’t really understand either. He wanted to clarify.

  ‘Sorry, did you—’

  ‘I SAID THE ONE THING I WANT TO SAY RIGHT NOW IS THAT IF I HAD A CAT I’D CALL HIM POOPY!’ yelled the man, with his face now just centimetres from Hamish. ‘OR MAYBE MR POOPY, I’M NOT SURE!’

  And, as Hamish looked properly for the first time into the man’s eyes, he shuddered.

  He had the same blank look that the Prime Minister had in the car as he left Starkley. It was like he wasn’t really there.

  Behind him, the back doors of Downing Street were flung open.

  ‘SERGEANT MAJOR, STOP RUNNIN’ AWAY!’ shouted Mysterio, flustered. ‘COME BACK IN HEEYAR AT WANCE!’

  Now that the doors were open, there was a lot of shouting coming out of 10 Downing Street. Hamish could hear glass smashing and things being knocked over and Mysterio seemed very keen to get back in.

  He stopped in his tracks when he saw a confused Hamish Ellerby and Alice Shepherd standing right there in the back garden, when he was pretty sure they should have been in Starkley.

  ‘And I zappose YOU better come insidey as well . . .’ he whispered.

  The Prime Minister’s Diary

  Inside 10 Downing Street it was utter mayhem.

  Turkish rugs were all squiffy. Velvet drapes had fallen from their rails. A cat chased a dog up the bannisters. There was a lot of shouting. And it seemed like anything that could have been knocked over had been knocked over.

  ‘You betta come upstairs,’ said Mysterio, sadly. ‘You’s not gonna BELIEF your eyes.’

  Up the polished wooden stairs, all the grand paintings of old Prime Ministers were wonky.

  There was the portrait of Prime Minister Englebert Fetch and his unusually curled moustache.

  There was Monika Potts, holding her Prime Minister of the Year Award (she was the only person who could have won, to be fair).

  There was Jobb Dunn, looking very serious and giving two thumbs ups, even though he never actually did anything.

  There was Alistair Plumb with his monocle and very unusual socks.

  And there was Tabatha Gurnley, just eating a sausage and smiling, like she always did.

  ‘I can’t believe we’re actually here,’ said Hamish, amazed.

  But the smile soon faded as Mysterio pushed open the huge oak doors of the Prime Minister’s Office and they saw what was inside.

  All the important people that Hamish and Alice usually saw on television were behaving very oddly indeed.

  The Prime Minister had a cat on his head.

  The Minister of Defence was just spinning around in her chair.

  The Chancellor of the Exchequer was doing squat thrusts on the table.

  And the noise!

  Everyone was talking at once.

  ‘I GOT A BOO-BOO!’ the Minister of Defence kept shouting, as she spun round.

  ‘Has anybody seen my knees?’ asked the Health Minister. ‘Has anybody seen my knees?’

  ‘Who wants to look at my pants again?’ yelled the Prime Minister, proudly, from in front of a large portrait of him lifting sixteen cans of Fanta.

  Hamish and Alice stood in shocked silence. This was definitely not what they were expecting from the people in charge of the country.

  Suddenly, they had to jump out of the way as Mayor Bunkum rode through the room on a bicycle, ringing his bell and holding his bike helmet.

  ‘Sorry!’ he said, as he knocked a priceless vase from its perch and rode on, bumping down the stairs. ‘Sorry!’

  ‘Even the Mayor’s like this!’ said Alice, in disbelief.

  ‘He’s alwayz li
ke that, to be honest,’ said Mysterio, quietly

  ‘What’s happened to them all?’ said Hamish. ‘How did they get this way?’

  ‘We gotta Prime Minister home last night,’ said Mysterio. ‘And we just was finding everybody like thees!’

  ‘IF I HAD A CAT, I’D CALL HIM POOPY!’ shouted the Sergeant Major, right into Mysterio’s ear.

  ‘I GOT A BOO-BOO!’ yelled the Minister of Defence.

  ‘Alice,’ said Hamish, quietly. ‘Have you noticed their eyes?’

  Each and every set of eyes was large and round and blank.

  Alice pulled Hamish to one side.

  ‘Hamish,’ she whispered. ‘Do you think this is what “Neverpeople” are?’

  Hamish thought about that for a moment. ‘The name doesn’t make sense,’ he said. ‘Because these were people. I mean, they still are people. But something’s happened to them for sure. The same thing that happened to the Prime Minister in Starkley last night.’

  Alice put her hands on her hips. ‘Well, who’s running the country now?’ she said. ‘I mean, there are things to be done. They have to make speeches and squabble. They can’t just say “I want a cat called Poopy” or “Where are my knees?” all day. They have to decide on important stuff like how much Chomps cost or where you can park your bike.’

  She was right. The country was in peril. Who knew how much Chomps would cost from now on? And, in that moment, Hamish realised he had been right to trust his instincts. He’d known something wasn’t right the second it had happened to the Prime Minister. He’d known it as he stared into his eyes. He should have done something there and then and then maybe this wouldn’t have happened to the rest of them.

  Well, he wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

  He walked over to the Prime Minister’s desk as Mayor Bunkum rode back through on his bike, knocking a set of expensive-looking dishes off a sideboard with a CLATTER and an Mysterio chased after him, yelling ‘PRESS THE BRAKES! PRESS THE BRAAAAKES!’

  ‘Hamish,’ said Alice, in the middle of all the confusion, ‘I don’t like this. Maybe you were right before and it was a mistake to come to London. Maybe we should just go home to Starkley. We’ve got Leo’s number . . .’

  ‘Good idea, Alice,’ he replied, picking up the bright red telephone on the PM’s desk. ‘We’ll call him.’

  ‘And ask him to take us back to the station?’

  ‘No,’ said Hamish, picking up the Prime Minister’s diary and studying it.

  ‘What?’ said Alice. ‘Ask him to take us all the way back to Starkley? He’d definitely need his satnav for that!’

  ‘No,’ said Hamish again, now looking very pale indeed because he had spotted something incredible.

  ‘Where then?’ said Alice. ‘Hamish? What’s wrong?’

  Hamish held up the Prime Minister’s diary, and pointed at today’s date.

  Underneath it, in the fancy handwriting that Hamish recognised from his letter, the Prime Minister had written:

  The Prime Minister was supposed to be going to a meeting at the very place Hamish and Alice were intending to go! The very place the blackbird had shown them!

  Hamish checked The Explorer. It was 1.30 p.m.

  Alice’s eyes widened as she took it all in.

  Imagine how wide they’d have gone if she’d known that it wasn’t just the country that was in peril . . . but the whole world.

  Careful!

  I’d better tell you right here and now.

  The bit I was warning you about is coming up in a minute.

  The bit I said would blow your mind.

  The Big Secret.

  Are you ready? Can you cope? Because I’ll say it one last time: this is your last chance to put the book down before everything you think you know is turned on its head, all at once.

  No? OK. But don’t say I didn’t warn you . . .

  Alice and Hamish were in the back of Leo’s taxi, and Leo was confused.

  ‘Oy-OY!’ Arcadian Lane?’ he said. ‘What you wanna go there for? I ain’t been there in years!’

  ‘Look, Alice,’ said Hamish, pointing out of the window. ‘Do you notice anything?’

  Alice looked around, but couldn’t tell what Hamish meant. There were so many buildings and people. Some poured out of department stores like John Lewis, or shops like Miss Selfridge. Others stood in queues in Burger King, or next to vans selling Mr Whippy ice creams.

  ‘Look closer,’ said Hamish. ‘The posters!’

  They were passing a giant billboard of Vapidia Sheen. People were taking selfies in front of it, their huge, wide eyes staring blankly.

  The more Hamish looked, the more blank people he could see.

  Models on posters. Blank.

  The weatherman on the TV in the shop window. Blank.

  At some traffic lights, the driver of a big red bus turned to look at Hamish.

  Hamish shuddered. The man’s eyes were blank!

  Yet no one else seemed to notice. Normal people were milling around, staring at their phones as they walked, oblivious.

  ‘Something’s definitely going on,’ said Hamish. He was worried.

  The cab pulled into a side street and slowed to a halt.

  So this was No. 1 Arcadian Lane.

  A grand old red-tiled building that had seen better days. Many better days. One great big shutter down the middle. Boarded-up windows on each side. Old, tattered posters, faded and ripped on each one. A round blue and red sign above it all, dusty and browned.

  ‘It used to be a tube station,’ said Leo, leaning out of the window of his cab, as the kids got out and stared. ‘You know – the underground railway.’

  ‘But it isn’t any more?’ asked Hamish, his heart sinking.

  This couldn’t be it, could it? An old, disused underground station? He dusted off some dirt from the wall. A big black ‘1’ was revealed.

  ‘Hasn’t been used in years,’ said Leo. ‘They call ‘em Ghost Stations. They’re all over London. They were shut down over the years. Yeah, let me think – there’s Arcadian Lane, Dog Walk, The Ship . . . about ten of ’em.’

  Hamish looked around. There was no one else about. He checked his watch. It was nearly 2 p.m.

  ‘Thanks for bringing us, Leo,’ said Hamish.

  ‘You gonna be all right here?’ he said, sensing Hamish was saying he could go. ‘You sure you don’t want me to take you back to Victoria?’

  ‘We’ll be okay from here,’ said Alice.

  ‘You got my number!’ said Leo, moving the cab off. ‘Oy-OY!’ The kids watched him leave.

  ‘A Ghost Station?’ asked Alice. ‘I have, like, six billion questions right now.’

  They heard the sound of Big Ben striking two o’clock in the distance.

  Which is when they felt a breeze.

  ‘And I will do my best to answer those questions,’ said a voice from behind them.

  Hamish and Alice spun round.

  Standing right there was the woman they’d seen that day in Starkley The one that had told them about Hamish’s dad. She’d said that he was a hero, which had filled Hamish with hope and made him feel better about not having his dad around. She was dressed in white, and on her lapel was a badge with a logo Hamish recognised – a sunflower with wings.

  Belasko. The company his dad was supposed to work for.

  ‘I’ll be honest,’ said the woman, ‘I was expecting to brief the Prime Minister. Not two ten-year-olds. But I had a feeling you’d come here eventually . . .’

  ‘How?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘Because you remind me of someone,’ said the woman. ‘Someone else who turned up recently . . .’

  ‘Someone from Starkley?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Someone a world away from Starkley.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m sorry it’s just us two ten-year-olds,’ said Alice. ‘But the Prime Minister is a little busy with his pants right now.’

  ‘Then it’s true,’ said the woman, frowning. ‘They got to
him.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Hamish. ‘The Neverpeople? Is that who’s doing all this?’

  ‘Exactly the opposite,’ she said, with a gentle smile. ‘It’s time.’

  Hamish and Alice looked at each other.

  ‘Time for what?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘Time you knew,’ she said.

  WELCOME TO BELASKO!

  Be Vigilant. Stay Vigilant!

  Hello, recruit – and welcome to the hidden world of Belasko.

  Did you know Belasko is a Basque word meaning raven? Well, it is!

  For thousands of years, black birds have been linked to magic. Mystery. Secrets. The Unknown.

  The purpose of Belasko is to know the unknown. We are the Vigilant

  Our past glories are many!

  Who could forget the epic battle against B.E.A.S.T. and The Shrinkers?

  Who doesn’t remember the war on Intelli-vile?

  Who shudders not, as they recall The Great Stink?

  We must fight those who would do the world harm!

  Now say this loud and proud:

  Before there was the Before.

  Now there is the Now.

  After there will be the After.

  And then there will be the Then.

  I pledge allegiance to the Vigilant.

  I pledge allegiance to Belasko.

  I will do right, not wrong.

  I will always be prepared.

  Signed, in secret,

  On behalf of the Starkley PDF

  Arcadian Lane

  The woman in white flung open the door of No. 1 Arcadian Lane.

  ‘Thank you for signing that,’ she said, slightly out of breath. ‘Sorry to be a bore, but we have to maintain a certain level of secrecy.’

  But Hamish and Alice weren’t listening. They were staring.

  Because this place was magnificent.

  You would never have guessed it looked like this from the outside. Or that there was this much of it.

  It was huge, with a curved ceiling that seemed to disappear into the horizon, lit by thousands of bright white lights.