Attack of the Meteor Monsters

by Chris Priestley

  She gazed around in what looked like panic. The door to the trophy room was open.

  ‘Spoon,’ she said. ‘My name is Spoon.’

  ‘Spoon?’ said Sponge.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sponge. ‘Lovely.’

  No one quite knew what to say next, and there followed a great deal of shoelace inspection and fingernail fiddling before Mildew summoned up the courage to go on.

  ‘Have you come far?’ he asked.

  ‘Quite far, yes,’ said Milk.

  Spoon and Sponge stared at each other. There were no questions left to ask and yet the girls still gazed at them expectantly. What more could they reasonably want?

  ‘What is this?’ said Milk, looking at the broken and repaired bust outside the Headmaster’s office. ‘It looks rather like …’

  She pointed at Sponge.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mildew with a forced chuckle. ‘We’ve often laughed about that, haven’t we, Sponge?’

  Mildew and Sponge cast a furtive glance at each other. It looked like Sponge because it was Sponge, but how could they ever explain the existence of a Roman bust of a Maudlin schoolboy? Kenningworth leaned forward, peering at it.

  ‘It does bear a startling resemblance to you, now she comes to mention it. How have I not noticed that before?’

  Sponge wanted to say, ‘Because you’re a self-obsessed blot,’ but he thought it best not to. There were so many things that Sponge wanted to say but didn’t. In fact the things he didn’t say outnumbered the things he did. By quite some way.

  ‘Why is it broken?’ said Spoon.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mildew. ‘That’s rather a long story and –’

  Big Brian, the school bell, clanged its mighty brain-rattling clang, shaking Maudlin Towers to its very foundations as usual, and Mildew and Sponge had never been so relieved to hear its din.

  In fact, all the boys seemed relieved and were unusually eager to head for their lessons. For Mildew and Sponge this meant the most dreadful of all starts to the day – double maths with Mr Painly.

  They left the girls with a swift farewell and wandered into Mr Painly’s classroom, slumping themselves down as their maths teacher added some more digits to a baffling equation on the blackboard.

  ‘I trust you didn’t find the homework too difficult,’ said Mr Painly.

  There was a collective groan from the boys so pitiful it would have tugged a tear from the eye of even the most heartless and uncaring of dentists.

  ‘I’m not sure I can cope,’ whispered Sponge, ‘with having g …’

  ‘With having what, old kipper?’ whispered Mildew.

  ‘With having g …’ repeated Sponge.

  ‘Spit it out, Sponge!’ hissed Mildew.

  Sponge lifted a trembling finger and pointed instead. Mildew gasped. Some of the girls had followed them in. Mr Painly dropped his papers in surprise when he turned to see them. The girl called Milk raised her hand as alarm began to spread through the room.

  ‘Sir,’ she said. ‘We have been told to join in with the class while we are at the school. If that’s all right with you, sir. The Headmaster insisted.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Mr Painly with a smile. ‘The more the merrier.’

  He dropped some more papers, picked them up, coughed, adjusted his moustache two or three times and continued.

  ‘I have to warn you that we are flying at a rather high altitude, mathematics-wise. Please don’t feel embarrassed to ask for help if you can’t keep up.’

  Mildew and Sponge noticed the girls glance at each other.

  ‘Sir,’ said Milk with a smile. ‘We have long since overtaken anything your human mathematics can conceive of.’

  ‘Human mathematics?’ said Mr Painly. ‘A curious way to put it.’

  Mildew noticed Spoon nudge Milk hard in the ribs and whisper to her. She said nothing more.

  ‘Very well,’ Mr Painly continued with a frown and a sniff. ‘Let’s see whether our “human mathematics”, as you put it, can still throw up the odd surprise for you …’

  When Big Brian rang its cacophonous chimes for the end of the lesson, Mildew and Sponge saw the girls trudge out with the weary, stunned and confused expressions they recognised all too well.

  ‘Not to worry,’ said Mildew to Milk. ‘He has that effect on everyone.’

  ‘But … but … but …’ said Milk.

  ‘We know,’ said Mildew consolingly. ‘Maths is an unpleasant business.’

  ‘It made no sense,’ said Spoon, staring off into the distance. ‘No sense at all.’

  Sponge nodded.

  ‘That’s maths for you,’ he said. ‘It’s simply not meant to be understood.’

  he boys trudged off to their next lesson in a state of fevered agitation. Girls and maths! It was far too much for them to deal with. Sponge actually felt like his brain might go pop at any moment.

  ‘I feel like my brain might go pop,’ said Sponge, ‘at any moment.’

  ‘Courage, my friend,’ said Mildew. ‘It’s double English now. Your brain can have a rest.’

  But the imminent brain-popping sensation was not entirely relieved when Mildew and Sponge discovered that the girls intended to attend all their classes and found them already seated in the English classroom.

  Their English teacher, Miss Bronteen, had not been the same since her beloved had come back with the pirate crew that had taken over Maudlin Towers some weeks earlier. Miss Bronteen had not been the same before then, to be fair, but she was now even less so.

  Whereas once she had stared out at the breeze-befuddled moors she used to roam as a youngling, Miss Bronteen now stared at planks of wood. She had enlisted the services of Mr Scurry, the caretaker, to have the window boarded up, and so, though she stood in precisely the same place as ever she did, Miss Bronteen now gazed upon the roughly hewn wooden screen Mr Scurry had erected to block the view.

  ‘Take out your copies of Blithering Abbey, turn to page 397 and –’

  ‘Miss?’ said one of the girls who had joined the class.

  There was a collective gasp from the boys at the very notion of interrupting Miss Bronteen. She turned round slowly.

  ‘So it is true,’ she said with the arch of an eyebrow. ‘There are indeed young ladies here at the school. Who would ever have thought it possible? What is it, my dear?’

  ‘What should we do, miss?’ said Spoon. ‘We don’t have copies of Blithering Abbey, nor have we read it.’

  Miss Bronteen stared wide-eyed and trembled from temple to toe.

  ‘Have not read it?’ she cried, her voice quivering with disbelief. ‘Have not read it? What is the world coming to? Every girl should read Blithering Abbey.’

  ‘Sorry, miss.’

  Miss Bronteen sighed.

  ‘I suppose we must make allowances for our visitors, boys. So rather than read Blithering Abbey, we shall instead create our own work of literature.’

  This news was greeted with a rich variety of whines and muttering which Miss Bronteen chose to ignore. Taking a deep breath she turned away from her pupils.

  ‘I want you to begin work on a very, very long Gothic novel,’ she said, speaking into the planks. ‘A novel full of pitiless gloom and dankness, and dank, pitiless gloominess. I want bleakness. I want despair. And I want it by Wednesday. Begin.’

  When the class had ended, Mildew and Sponge waited behind until the rest of the boys and their female visitors had trooped off to break.

  ‘Miss?’ said Mildew.

  ‘Yes?’ said Miss Bronteen. ‘Wherefore do you linger, boys?’

  ‘Sorry, miss?’ said Sponge.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ she said with a sigh.

  ‘You were a girl once, miss,’ said Mildew. ‘In a way.’

  ‘That is correct,’ she said. ‘Although it seems a very long time ago now.’

  ‘A very, very long time ago,’ said Sponge.

  Miss Bronteen frowned.

  ‘Only Sponge and I wer
e wondering if you might have any advice on how to communicate with the feminine types we now have among us. The Headmaster has asked us to ensure their well-being during their stay. But we are not used to talking to the other gender, miss.’

  Miss Bronteen smiled and Mildew took out a notebook and pencil and waited for her words of wisdom.

  ‘Do not be afraid of them, boys,’ said Miss Bronteen. ‘They are human, just like you, after all.’

  ‘I suppose …’ said Mildew.

  ‘All I would say …’ said Miss Bronteen.

  ‘Yes, miss?’ asked Sponge expectantly.

  ‘All I would ask,’ she continued, ‘is that you do not lead them on a foolish dance across the moors for months on end, only to savagely and cruelly crush their dreams and expectations and leave their hearts bruised and battered and grievously wounded, casting them aside like an old bonnet …’

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t think we’ll –’

  ‘And then return years later to rekindle those dormant dreams and dangle a glimpse of happiness only to snatch it away at the last minute and snuff out the candle of hope forever. Would you promise me that, boys? Would you?’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ said Mildew and Sponge.

  ‘Good boys,’ she said, and turned back to the blocked-up window. ‘Leave me now. I would be alone.’

  Mildew consulted his notes as the two boys stood together in the cloisters.

  ‘Not an awful lot in the way of practical help, Sponge,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Sponge.

  ‘I wonder if we might be better served by a visit to the library.’

  ‘For books about girls, you mean?’ said Sponge.

  ‘Girls?’ said Mildew. ‘No – I think we have to accept that girls will forever remain a mystery to us, Sponge. No – I was meaning something that will help us in convincing the others about our meteor.’

  ildew and Sponge were heading down the corridor on the way to the library when they turned a corner and, to their immense agitation, bumped into the two girls they had spoken to earlier – Milk and Spoon.

  ‘Hello,’ said Milk.

  ‘Ah … yes … indeed … quite,’ said Mildew, looking at his watch and realising too late that he didn’t have one.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Spoon.

  ‘Going?’ squeaked Sponge with a slight splutter. ‘Nowhere.’

  ‘You have to be going somewhere,’ said Milk.

  ‘Oh, Sponge and I often go nowhere,’ said Mildew. ‘We’re famous for it. We went nowhere twice yesterday, didn’t we, Sponge? Three times if you count geography with Mr Drumlin.’

  Sponge stared at Spoon but said not a word.

  ‘Sponge!’ repeated Mildew.

  ‘Biscuit,’ said Sponge dreamily.

  ‘Biscuit?’ said Milk.

  ‘Don’t mind Sponge,’ said Mildew. ‘He often says biscuit when he can’t think of what else to say. Biscuits aren’t very far from his thoughts, you see. His head is basically a kind of prickly biscuit barrel.’

  ‘What is so fascinating about biscuits?’ said Spoon.

  Both boys rocked sideways with shock.

  ‘What is so fascinating about biscuits?’ they gasped. ‘What can you mean? They are the food of the gods!’

  ‘We’ve never actually tasted them,’ said Milk.

  ‘Never … tasted … them … ?’ said Sponge. ‘But …’

  Both girls shook their heads. Sponge reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper bag.

  ‘I usually have some on me in case of emergencies,’ said Sponge, offering the bag to the girls.

  They eyed it warily and then Milk reached in and gingerly took a biscuit. It was a ginger biscuit. Spoon did the same and bit into hers. Both girls nibbled with increasing confidence and their eyes opened wide.

  ‘Delicious,’ said Milk. ‘I don’t think I’ve tasted anything better this side of the Zygor Cluster.’

  ‘Shhh!’ said Spoon.

  ‘The Zygor Cluster?’ said Mildew.

  ‘Yes,’ said Milk. ‘It’s near … Birmingham.’

  Neither Mildew nor Sponge could think of any response to this and so with a parting smile and nod, they scuttled off to the library and found Miss Foxing, the school librarian, sitting at her desk.

  ‘Good morning, miss,’ said Sponge.

  ‘Good morning, boys,’ she said. ‘What are we after today? I’m afraid I’m still waiting for the new Finlay Feathering mystery, Mildew – and Every Boy’s Book of Biscuits is still out, Sponge.’

  ‘Rather amusingly,’ said Mildew with a chuckle, ‘Sponge here imagined we were coming to the library to look for books about girls …’

  Miss Foxing raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Girls, you say?’ she said, sitting back in her chair.

  ‘But we are actually looking for –’

  ‘Could this have anything to do with our young visitors?’ said Miss Foxing.

  ‘But –’ began Mildew.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sponge. ‘The Headmaster has charged us with mingling with the said girls but they are a fathomless mystery, miss.’

  Miss Foxing came round from behind her desk and, indicating they should follow, took them to an area of the library they had never noticed before – despite it being only a couple of feet from the entrance.

  ‘Perhaps you mean books like these …’ said Miss Foxing.

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Mildew, taking one of the books from the shelf. ‘This is exactly the sort of thing. Look, Sponge. Every Girl’s Book of Fabulous Females. It even has a girl on the cover.’

  ‘So does this one,’ said Sponge, looking on in awe. ‘The Adventurous Girl’s Guide to High Jinx.’

  ‘They all have girls on the cover,’ said Mildew, taking down others at random.

  The books were all in pristine condition.

  ‘They seem brand new,’ said Mildew. ‘When did you get them, miss? Why have we never noticed them before?’

  ‘Some have been here for many years, Mildew,’ said Miss Foxing. ‘It’s just that you boys have never shown the slightest bit of interest in them.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ said Mildew.

  Mildew and Sponge sat at a table and began to pull titles off the shelves at random, non-fiction at first, but after a while they began to leaf through novels.

  ‘Sponge,’ said Mildew after a while, looking up and over the cover of Molly Musket Strikes Again.

  ‘Yes?’ said Sponge, clearly engrossed in reading Samantha Swanly Saves the Day.

  ‘I think we have allowed ourselves to be distracted from our mission.’

  ‘Oh – I think you’re right, Mildew!’

  The boys returned to Miss Foxing.

  ‘Can I be of assistance?’ said Miss Foxing with a smile. ‘Again?’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ said Sponge. ‘We need your help.’

  ‘What can I do for you now, boys?’ she said.

  ‘We are looking for books about meteors and all that kind of caper. Do you have anything like that?’

  ‘I think there might be the very book for you in the section you’ve just been in, actually,’ said Miss Foxing.

  ‘Really?’ said Mildew.

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Foxing, wandering over and taking a large book from the bottom shelf. ‘Here we are.’

  ‘Everything Any Girl Could Reasonably Want to Know about the Universe,’ said Mildew, reading the title on the cover.

  ‘That seems perfect,’ said Sponge. ‘Thank you, miss.’

  Mildew opened the book and the boys began flicking through the pages expectantly. About thirty pages in, the pages became blank and continued blank until the end.

  ‘There seems to be something wrong with the book, Sponge,’ said Mildew.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sponge. ‘It’s almost entirely empty. Look, there’s a note here on the last page. It says: “The publishers apologise for the lack of information hereafter. The universe is very large but our knowledge of it is very small. Perhaps one day these pages will be filled as new
discoveries come to light. Until then, sorry …” ’

  The boys sighed and slumped over the desk.

  ‘Wait a minute, Sponge,’ said Mildew. ‘Look at this – on the last page with anything useful on it.’

  Sponge followed Mildew’s finger to a drawing of a cluster of stars.

  ‘The Zygor Cluster,’ said Mildew.

  ‘I had no idea Birmingham was so far away,’ said Sponge.

  ‘No,’ said Mildew. ‘It’s not. The Zygor Cluster is in outer space.’

  ‘Then why would Milk and Sponge say it was near Birmingham?’ asked Sponge.

  ‘Why indeed?’ said Mildew, stroking his chin.

  ‘Look at this, Mildew,’ said Sponge, pointing to another page.

  An illustration showed a strange object hurtling past planets and stars. It had tiny windows through which the silhouetted occupants could be glimpsed. Underneath it were the words: Artist’s impression of a space-carriage.

  The two boys gasped and stared at each other, wide-eyed.

  ‘A space-carriage!’ they cried.

  ‘Shhhh,’ said Miss Foxing.

  he boys left the library, edging round each corner with great trepidation, making sure that there were no random girls loitering about ready to pounce. They sat down on their favourite step in the cloisters to mull things over.

  ‘It’s awfully annoying that the other boys don’t believe us about the meteor,’ said Sponge.

  ‘Pah!’ said Mildew. ‘It’s all Kenningworth’s fault, the trotter. If only we could prove what we saw.’

  ‘But how would we do that?’ said Sponge.

  Mildew got up, placed a fist on each hip and stared off, slightly upwards and to one side.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Sponge.

  ‘I’m adopting a heroic pose,’ said Mildew. ‘Statues do it all the time.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sponge. ‘Why, might I ask? You look like you are about to make an announcement of some kind.’

  ‘I am! We shall scale Pug’s Peak and find the meteor!’