One Beastly Beast

by Garth Nix

  ‘Is that so?’ the captain roared.

  His hand went to his cutlass, but Mrs Blood whispered something in his ear. No one else was meant to hear, but Bill did, for his ears were very sharp.

  ‘In thirty-ss days-ss,’ he heard her say, ‘we’ll-ss be at-ss sea and then-ss he’ll have-ss no choice-ss.’

  ‘No way,’ said Bill. ‘It’s like I said. I’m an inventor, not a pirate.’

  ‘Well we just might take you anyway,’ sneered Captain Blood, drawing out his cutlass.

  But Bill was even quicker on the draw and his pockets were full of inventions. He pulled out something that looked like a cross between a small electric drill and a set of artificial teeth.

  ‘This is the fang-o-rotor,’ said Bill in a very serious voice. ‘It has never been tested on humans. Do you want to be the first?’

  Captain Blood stared at the fang-o-rotor and his face began to pale. He put the cutlass back and joined the other pirates where they huddled against the wall, as far away from Bill as they could get.

  ‘Now get out!’ shouted Bill, pressing the trigger to whiz the teeth around. ‘Once I start it I don’t know if it will stop.’

  ‘Arrrrrrrggggghhhhh!’ the pirates screamed as they ran out through the door, all except for Mrs Blood, who dived out through the window screaming, ‘Arrrrrrrggggg hhhhh-ssss!’

  As the last pirate disappeared out of the door, the gnashing teeth of the fang-o-rotor slowed to a not very scary chomp.

  ‘Flat battery,’ said Bill. ‘Or else I made it wrong.’

  ‘Hhhhmmmppph!’ exclaimed Mrs O’Squealin, taking the fang-o-rotor and putting it up on a shelf too high for Bill to reach. ‘You and your inventions! A perfectly fine set of parents scared away. You should have at least tried them for the thirty days, Bill. You might have come to like the pirate life.’

  ‘But I’m an inventor,’ said Bill. ‘Maybe I should invent my own parents.’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ said Mrs O’Squealin. ‘It’s my job to find parents for you and I don’t want any more inventions getting in the way. Now, it’s time for lessons, so off you go.’

  Chapter Four

  Bill thought that by scaring off the pirates he had ruined his chances of ever being picked for adoption again. But the very next day, while he was in the garden making an invention out of a coffee jar, four chopsticks, the garden hose and a spare roller skate, Mrs O’Squealin called out of the window to him.

  ‘Bill! Bill! Stop whatever you’re doing and come in. I’ve got some more parents for you to try.’

  Bill was extremely wet due to the garden hose being on while he was experimenting with it, but he didn’t stop to change. Inventors don’t spare any thought for things like fresh clothes or cleaning up.

  To make sure Mrs O’Squealin wasn’t trying the pirates on him again, Bill peeked through the glass panel in the door.

  This time, there were only two people waiting – a tall man with a long white beard, who wore a flowing robe of darkest black, covered in silver stars and golden moons. His wife looked almost exactly the same, except she had long white hair instead of a beard, and her robe had golden stars and silver moons. Both wore black pointy hats which shaded their faces so Bill couldn’t see their eyes.

  Bill knew instantly that they were a wizard and a witch. This seemed a bit more promising than pirates, especially as an inventor could use a little magic.

  Perhaps these two would be good parents, at least worth trying for thirty days. He raised his hand to knock, but before he could, the wizard opened the door.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, in a voice that seemed to come from long ago and far away. ‘You are Bill. I am the Wizard Walter Wenish and this is my wife, the Witch of the North-by-Northwest. You may call her Emily. We would like to adopt you.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Bill. ‘Can I ask a few questions, first, before I make up my mind?’

  ‘A tower by the sea, where you can have your own room,’ replied Emily. ‘You won’t have to go to school because we will teach you wizardry and witchcraft. I’m not sure about inventions.’

  ‘You read my mind,’ said Bill, who’d only just thought of the questions about where they lived, whether he’d have his own room, whether he’d have to go to school and, the most important of all, whether he’d be allowed to make inventions.

  ‘I’m sure we could cope with a certain amount of invention-making,’ Walter added. ‘Say an hour per week. The rest of your time will have to be spent in serious study of course – Algebra, Trigonometry, Astrology, Alchemy, Spellcraft, Magic, Mystery and Needlework.’

  ‘It’s traditional for wizards and witches to make their own clothes,’ explained Emily, reading Bill’s mind again. ‘But it won’t be all work, Bill. We’ll also have our midnight picnics, out on the marshes. We’ll be chasing toads to roast on sticks with cave-fungus cakes, all washed down with stinging-nettle wine. You’ll love it.

  ‘Roasted toads? Fungus cakes? One hour of invention per week?’ said Bill. ‘No way. I’m an inventor, not a wizard.’

  ‘Oh no, Bill, you can’t turn down Mr and Mrs Wenish!’ exclaimed Mrs O’Squealin.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Bill.

  ‘Because we’ll turn you both into toads,’ said Emily the Witch of the North-by-Northwest, tipping her hat back so Bill could see an evil redness glowing in her eyes.

  ‘And then we’ll roast you for our midnight picnic,’ added Walter, pulling his hands out of his pockets to point his long, yellow and ever-so-sharp fingernails at Bill.

  ‘So you see, you simply can’t refuse,’ said Mrs O’Squealin. ‘Think of what would happen to all the other children if I was turned into a roasted toad!’

  Bill nodded, as if he was going to go along, but his hands went to his pockets. Both of them were full of water, plus a few inventing-type odds and ends. Including lots of little magnets that Bill had picked off the orphanage fridge.

  Bill knew that if there’s one thing witches and wizards are afraid of, it’s magnetised water.

  ‘My pockets are full of magnetised water,’ Bill said in a very serious voice. ‘If you don’t leave right away, both of you will get it.’

  ‘Don’t try some silly trick on me,’ said Walter, but then he saw that Emily was already edging towards the door.

  She’d read Bill’s mind and knew that he really did have the water in his pockets. Just one drop of magnetised water could confuse a witch or wizard for a week. They wouldn’t know up from down, north from south, day from night, or roasted toad from cornflakes. Bill had two whole handfuls of magnetised water in his pockets, enough to confuse twenty wizards for a year.

  ‘Only joking,’ Walter muttered nervously, watching his wife slip out of the door. ‘Wouldn’t think of turning anyone into toads, least of all you two. Shouldn’t be taken seriously. Just a joke. Really, is it quite so late? Must be off. It’s been a pleasure. Perhaps some other time.’

  When he got to the door, he opened it just a crack and practically slithered through. Bill pulled his hands out of his pockets and let them drip upon the floor.

  ‘So that’s where the fridge magnets went,’ said Mrs O’Squealin sternly. ‘Well, I suppose that this time it was for the best. I don’t know about your inventions, Bill, but obviously I’ll have to work harder to find suitable parents for you.’

  Bill nodded, but he wasn’t very confident, given the first two sets of parents Mrs O’Squealin had shown him.

  Chapter Five

  Mrs O’Squealin didn’t stop trying to find new parents for Bill. Only the next day she tracked him down up in the attic, where he was trying to convince some mice to try out a fleet of rubber-band-powered biplanes built to his own design. But the mice had worked with Bill’s inventions in the past and didn’t want to fly. Bill was hoping a piece of cheese would change their minds.

  ‘Leave those mice alone and come downstairs,’ commanded Mrs O’Squealin. ‘Some more parents want to check you out.’

  ‘Don’t try the biplanes without me,
’ said Bill to the mice. He didn’t realise that saying this would make them try for sure. Mice hate being told what to do.

  ‘Now, Bill, these particular parents look a bit… well… odd,’ said Mrs O’Squealin as they went down the stairs. ‘But they seem very nice and… interesting.’

  Bill wasn’t listening. He was thinking about inventing some special steps that you could lie on so that they massaged your back on the way down.

  He was so busy thinking about how you would get back up these special steps that he walked into the parent room without looking through the window.

  ‘This is Bill,’ said Mrs O’Squealin – from out in the corridor. Then she slammed the door and made a sound like she was going to throw up.

  Bill felt like he was going to be sick too. Mrs O’Squealin had really done it this time. She’d locked him in a room with two hideously squidgy, lumpy, slimy, sweaty, yellow-tentacled, bulbous-eyed ALIENS!

  ‘Hello, Earth-boy Bill,’ one of them said. Its voice came out of a small black box it wore around what might possibly be its neck, where all the tentacles bunched together into a ghastly lump that had poppy eyes all over it. ‘I am Mr Smith. This is Mrs Smith, my blob wife. You can call us Mum and Dad.’

  Bill backed up as far as the door and reached into his pockets, feeling desperately for some invention he didn’t know he had.

  ‘Why do you want me?’ he asked, trying to speak without breathing through his nose. The aliens smelled really bad, like the stuff Mrs O’Squealin used to clean the toilet, only stronger.

  ‘This is where we get our kids,’ said Mrs Smith, waving several tentacles around. ‘We don’t have children ourselves. We just pick them up on Earth and take them back to Planet Squidgeron to turn them into us.’

  ‘You mean that you were once a human girl?’ asked Bill, hoping he’d heard her wrong. So far he hadn’t found an invention he could use.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mrs Smith. ‘I was picked up when I was five. And Mr Smith was too. Then we went to Squidgeron and got put in the machine. You go in human, all ugly and strange, and come out the other end as beautiful as me. You can even choose how many tentacles you want and the colour of your eyes.’

  ‘I like the way I am,’ said Bill, ‘though I see how the tentacles could be handy. So I think I’ll stay here at the Home, thank you all the same.’

  ‘Our spaceship’s parked right outside,’ said Mr Smith. With a lightning flick, he wrapped one fat tentacle around Bill’s arms and slowly drew him close. ‘You’ll like the trip to Squidgeron. We have some DVDs for you to watch along the way. Educational DVDs that explain why tentacles are great, and the benefits of having thirty-three eyes instead of two.

  ‘I won’t go!’ shouted Bill. ‘No way! I’m an inventor, not a Squidgeron!’

  But in his heart he knew he didn’t have a hope. Mr Smith’s tentacle had trapped his arms down at his sides and he couldn’t get at his pockets. Even if he had an invention there, he couldn’t reach it.

  This time it looked like he’d have to go along. To planet Squidgeron, to get turned into a blobby thing that smelled disgusting and made humans throw up their lunch.

  ‘Just this way,’ said Mr Smith, dragging Bill out through the door. There was no sign of Mrs O’Squealin or any other kids. Bill didn’t blame them. If he’d seen the aliens first, he’d have run away in a flash.

  When they were outside, Bill tried to kick himself free, but Mr Smith just wrapped another tentacle around his legs and held him up above the ground. The tentacles didn’t look like much, but they were really strong, stronger even than Mrs O’Squealin’s legendary grip of steel.

  The spaceship was parked on the lawn. A gleaming silver saucer, it rested on three springy legs. The door was open, with a ramp leading down.

  Bill stared at the ship and knew that he had only a minute more of freedom. Once he was in the ship it would be too late for any tricks.

  Chapter Six

  Desperately Bill looked around, hoping to see something he could use or somebody to help. And then he heard it, high above – the drone of rubber-band engines starting up. Tilting his head back as far as the tentacle would let him, Bill saw that the mice were preparing to launch the biplanes from the roof. All twenty aircraft he’d made with care, each one piloted by a brave and clever mouse.

  ‘Help!’ cried Bill. ‘I’m being kidnapped! Please attack at once.’

  Up on the roof, the mouse squadron leader looked down and narrowed his pink eyes. ‘Aliens at twelve o’clock,’ he squeaked. He didn’t know what it meant but it seemed to be the right thing to say even if it was only ten in the morning.

  ‘We’ll attack out of the sun!’

  Instantly, extra mice ran to the planes to sit behind the pilots, their anti-cat crossbows at the ready. Rubber bands wound to their tightest, they waited for the word to go.

  This took a little longer than it should as the squadron leader had to explain what attacking out of the sun meant. They would dive down with the sun behind them so it shone in the aliens’ eyes. This was bad for humans but should be even worse for the Squidgerons, he explained, because they had so many eyes to get blinded.

  ‘Hurry up!’ shouted Bill as the first biplane wheeled down the roof and shot into the air. Mr Smith was walking fast – on his tentacles instead of legs. In another second they’d be up the ramp and it would be too late.

  Bill shut his eyes and held his breath. Perhaps it might be the last breath he ever had of good, clean Earth-person air. He’d never see the Home again through two normal earthling eyes, or walk across the lawn on feet instead of slimy tentacles.

  Then the black box around Mr Smith’s neck suddenly went. ‘Ouch! Ow! Heavens, I’ve been shot!’

  Bill felt the tentacles around him slacken.

  With one desperate surge of energy, he managed to break free! He hit the ground hard and it hurt a lot, but he forced himself to roll away. Bill knew the aliens’ tentacles were long.

  But Mr and Mrs Smith had no time to think of Bill. They rushed up the ramp, their tentacles waving in the air, trying to shield themselves from a constant rain of crossbow bolts.

  ‘I hate this planet!’ screamed Mrs Smith as she closed the spaceship door. ‘We’re never coming here again. We’ll go to Pluto and get an ice boy there instead!’

  Bill lay on his back, absolutely still, and watched the spaceship soundlessly fly straight up into the sky. The mice flew after it for a while, but as the rubber bands began to lose their twist, they circled back and landed on the lawn. Hurrying from their cockpits, they gathered around Bill, thinking he was dead.

  ‘He was a great inventor,’ said the squadron leader mouse, taking off his helmet and holding it across his white furred chest. ‘A boy who could have gone far. He will be missed.’

  ‘I’m not dead,’ said Bill, without getting up. ‘It’s just that being kidnapped by aliens is a bit of a shock. Not to mention having to deal with evil wizards and witches – and pirates who can’t take no for an answer.’

  The squadron leader nodded in understanding, saluted and marched away to help the others rewind the rubber bands. He knew Bill needed some time alone – thinking time. Bill had to come up with a new invention that could help him forget the troubles of the day.

  Chapter Seven

  Bill lay there for a long time, staring at the blue sky, feeling the lawn being comfortable and sort of annoying and ticklish at the same time. But try as he might, he couldn’t think of any new inventions that he could get up and make.

  He was still trying to think when he fell asleep. While he slept, the mice flew away, back up to their attic. But they left four crossbow mice behind to guard him, in case the aliens came back.

  Bill woke to hear one of these mice squeaking, quite close to his ear.

  ‘Halt! Who goes there? Advance one and be recognised!’

  ‘Um,’ replied a voice he didn’t know. A grown-up woman’s voice. ‘Does that mean I advance one step or that one of us should advanc
e? And since we haven’t met, I don’t see how you can recognise us, do you?’

  ‘That’s just what it says in the book,’ squeaked the mouse, clearly embarrassed. ‘And there’s supposed to be a password too.’

  ‘Would any password do?’ asked another voice, a grownup man’s voice.

  The combination of the two instantly sparked an alarm in Bill’s head. A man and a woman. Obviously they were more parents come to adopt him!

  ‘Perhaps I could invent a password?’ asked the woman. ‘How does humbuzzle sound?’

  ‘Humbuzzle,’ repeated the mouse. ‘Pass, friend!’

  Bill opened one eye to look suspiciously at the man and woman who were standing above him.

  They looked reasonable enough, almost like normal human beings. Both were wearing sensible overalls, and they had pockets stuffed full of odds and ends.

  The man was wearing a hat that was clearly of his own invention, because it had a solar panel for collecting electricity on the top. And the woman had a handbag on wheels that followed after her like a dog.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the woman, ‘we’re looking for a baby boy that was probably handed in. We had a mix-up when our automatic baby-minding and -feeding robot wrapped the baby in a banana skin and the banana in a blanket. By the time we found out, we were halfway to Jupiter and it took a while for us to invent our way back. We did send lots of message rockets, but they kept blowing up.’

  ‘When was this?’ asked Bill, getting to his feet.

  ‘Mmmm?’ replied the woman, who was distracted by a flight of mouse-piloted biplanes passing overhead.