‘Yes please.’
Celeste appeared, threw her arms around Ivan and kissed him.
‘Look what Ivan gave me.’ Nelson held up the toy rhino.
‘Did you say thank you?’
‘Of course I did! Look, can I just ask you something?’
‘Yep.’
‘What would you do if you’d really let someone down, like something bad happened to them, and you could’ve done something to help them or stop it ever happening?’
‘Depends. Suppose I would tell them I was sorry.’ Celeste was already fastening the strap on her cycle helmet.
‘What if you couldn’t? I mean, what if it was too late to tell them?’
‘It’s never too late to say sorry. Look, whatever it is you’re worried about, Nelson, you can tell me.’
‘OK.’
There was a pause before Celeste asked. ‘Well, are you going to tell me?’
‘Uh . . . maybe not right now. Is that OK?’
Celeste laughed as she unlocked her bicycle from the fence.
‘Yeah. I mean, it’s a bit annoying, but yeah, ‘course it’s OK. Tell me later.’
Nelson nodded.
‘See you later, Nelse. And call me if you hear any news about Pogo and Doody!’
Celeste and Ivan rode away on their bikes. Nelson waved, but his mind had already returned to Pogo and Doody.
‘She would have done something to help,’ Nelson said to himself, and it was true. Given the choice between helping someone and doing nothing, Celeste would always choose to help.
The sound of flapping wings brought Nelson’s attention back to the real world, where several bats had suddenly dived out of the sky above his house. This would not have been so alarming had they not been aiming straight towards his front door.
‘Aaah!’ cried Nelson, pulling the door shut just in time to block the little black bodies from getting inside. Donk! Donk! Donk! was the sound of three bats hitting the wood. Why on earth were bats trying to attack him? Was this some kind of punishment for not doing the right thing? There was no sound to suggest they were still outside the door, so Nelson took a peep. The bats were there but flying above his house. As far as bad omens go, this was up there with the worst of them. Nelson climbed the stairs, but in his mind he could still see the bats circling outside.
A VERY FROSTY RIVER RACE
Ever since they were teenagers, it had become a tradition for Matt and Alex to race each other in canoes along the Dordogne river on their annual summer holiday at Alex’s grandmother’s house. In the early days, the races had just been a lot of splashing about, packed lunches and good fun; but now they were older and had girlfriends, a very competitive edge had crept in.
‘Paddle left, Sienna! Left! LEFT!’ shouted Matt to his girlfriend, Sienna, who was sat right in front of him and still shivering wet. Actually, it was more like he was shouting at Sienna, which is why she slammed her oar down in protest.
‘It’s just a race, Matthew! Just a stupid race!’
‘Would it kill you to at least try paddling?’ was Matt’s (in my opinion, very badly judged) response.
‘I am never doing this again! Do you understand? I AM NEVER GETTING IN A CANOE WITH YOU AGAIN!’
The boat began to accelerate as it caught the current taking them around a bend in the river.
‘FINE! WITH! MEEEEE!’ yelled back Matt at equal volume, and Sienna burst into tears.
‘Oh great. Yeah, nice one, Sienna. You just go ahead and cry your eyes out. We’re gonna lose for sure now,’ moaned Matt, who had forgotten he was recording all of this on a GoPro camera clipped to the top of his helmet. But before Sienna could retaliate, there was a sudden loud bang and the boat jumped a few feet into the air.
Matt and Sienna gasped in shock as their canoe skidded forwards with a hollow scraping sound. What should have been narrow rapids in the river had now frozen solid. The canoe tipped over the edge of the frozen rapids and shot down the ice like a bobsleigh, banging against the rocks either side and making the couple scream. The ice at the bottom levelled out and the canoe was sent spinning like a compass needle across the frozen river.
‘Matt . . . look . . .’ said Sienna in a shaky little voice, and she pointed towards a spectacular wave that had been frozen in a great arc against a large rock on the other side of the river. The most incredible thing about this wave was that it also contained Alex and his girlfriend, Mia. They had both been frozen inside their canoe from the shoulders down, which meant that though they couldn’t move, they could at least breathe. They would have screamed too, but they were all struck dumb by the sight of a glistening creature sitting on the riverbank beside them.
It was lucky for everyone the creature was invisible apart from the sparkling frost that had settled in patches upon its body, for this creature was so frightening and ugly that it would have surely stopped all of their hearts had they caught a glimpse of it. Instead, what they saw resembled a hideous frozen ghost but with no recognizable features. And it stank to high heaven! Well, you can’t spend centuries at the bottom of the sea, never having a bath, and expect to come up smelling of roses, can you? No, this was a smell so foul and strong, it could make your eyes melt.
While Matt and Sienna pulled Alex and Mia out of the ice and away from this mysterious and very smelly frozen entity, the monster saw itself for the first time in its life. Reflected in the ice, the creature saw a swollen mass of scaly skin from which a large twisted beak sprouted between two bulging eyes, and on either side of its body draped two ragged and featherless wings. Being trapped at the bottom of the sea for hundreds of years clearly hadn’t done it any favours looks-wise either.
‘WHY I AM SO UGLY?’
This is what the monster said, although its beak was such a broken mess that its words sounded more like the effects of violent indigestion than anything else. The monster let out a blood-curdling wail and a torrent of hailstones came from its mouth, sending both couples flying in all directions.
The monster choked and snorted the remaining hailstones out of its beak as Matt, Sienna, Alex and Mia scrambled up the opposite bank and away into the trees.
The monster watched the humans running away. It panted and drooled, the drool turning to icicles that tinkled as they broke off. There before it stretched the ice, reflecting the sun like a blanket of jewels. The grass covered in leaves and flowers on the opposite riverbank so pretty and delicate. The bare branches of the trees swaying gracefully in the breeze. Everywhere the monster looked, it saw beauty, and it felt it did not belong. Like Hoot, it was born of pride, so it wasn’t very clever, but it knew it was ugly, and its envy for the beauty it saw all around exploded into uncontrollable rage. The air around the monster froze and swirled into a little storm cloud. It shivered and smashed the river ice with its beak like a headbanger at a rock concert until the river flowed once more.
You may wonder, why all the snow and ice? It’s a good question, and one I can answer with a story about a bag of sausages. I recently left a bag of sausages in a warm cupboard by mistake. Stupid thing to do, I know, but then again, I am a forgetful person. Anyway, after a month there was a bad smell and I thought there was a problem with the plumbing or that a mouse had died underneath the cupboard. When at last I found the bag of sausages, they were no longer sausages – they were pure evil. I mean, they had transformed into something truly rotten. The colour of the sausages, the shape, the size, the texture and certainly the smell were completely different from the sausages I had bought, and if this is what happens to a bag of sausages after a month in a cupboard, just imagine what happens to a fantastical monster that has been trapped at the bottom of the sea for over three centuries inside a bell and the first experience it has of the modern world is the aching cold of an industrial freezer! Given how ugly and smelly this monster is, I think we’re all very lucky it didn’t produce something much worse than snow and ice. Anyway, I hope that clears things up, because the monster is about to scream again.
‘BUZZARD!’
Somewhere deep inside its body, the creature felt a pulling sensation. It was the same kind of feeling a homing pigeon experiences as it begins its journey home. It’s like a form of hunger, but instead of being satisfied by food, the hunger will only be satisfied once the destination has been reached. And home for this monster was the place Buzzard’s soul had left his body.
‘BUZZ-AAAAAAARD!’ wailed the monster, and it flew across the gulping ice flow, smashing its way through the surrounding woods on the other side, splintering trees as if they were mere twigs, and sending both couples diving to the ground.
You will be relieved to know that despite some nasty cuts, bruises, and some serious frostbite in the case of Matt’s fingers, both couples survived their encounter with the creature (though the same cannot be said for their relationships, as Mia and Sienna dumped their boyfriends the very next day).
THE CALL OF THE FRUIT BAT
It was only four and half hours since the first news report about Uncle Pogo and Doody had aired, and now every TV station, every radio station and every social media platform was buzzing with sightings and reports of the same storm cloud tearing its way through France. Nobody could see the monster within the cloud or hear its cry as it shot through the sky; they could see only the devastation it left in its wake. Matt’s GoPro camera had recorded the entire incident at the frozen river, and most of the planet had seen the clip by now (including his embarrassing argument with Sienna). One of the clearest video clips had been taken by the owner of a French campsite who had filmed the storm cloud smashing through his canteen area like a wrecking ball, before flying away again into the air in a great rainbow-sized arc. While the world tried to work out what this cloud-thing was, the monster inside the cloud had already injured hundreds of people, flattened an entire cathedral, frozen rivers and streams, crushed woodlands, destroyed two motorway bridges and a French service station, which to be honest was never that nice anyway, especially the toilets.
It must be an alien! It must be the effects of global warming! It must be an act of war! An act of terrorism! A publicity stunt for a new action movie! No, no, no!
A riot of rumours and speculation had been unleashed online, and even the most laid-back and sensible people turned into terrified idiots. There were so many different theories flying around, they drowned out the opinions of the few individuals who had correctly worked out that all of this must have something to do with Doody and Pogo’s haul from the Greek shipwreck. And even they didn’t have the answer the two main questions:
What is it?
How can it be stopped from smashing everything in its path to pieces?
The only thing everyone could agree on was the direction it was travelling; it was generally heading north, and it was doing so at a staggering speed.
Nelson was glued to the news on the TV screen in his parents’ bedroom, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t catch him because his mother was also glued to the TV in the living room and, having spoken with the doctors tending Doody and Pogo, his father was cooking something in the kitchen that sizzled loudly and smelt of onions and sherry.
Nelson grabbed the remote control and switched off the TV. He had just heard a noise, like someone knocking on a door in another room upstairs. He held his breath and sat very still, hoping he wasn’t about to get caught by his parents. Cold air was creeping under the door and chilling his toes. Had his parents left the front door open?
Nelson slowly rose to his feet and peered around the bedroom door. He could hear his parents talking downstairs over a mix of TV and cooking sounds. Across the landing he could see his own bedroom door was still closed, but there were sounds of someone or something moving around behind the door. There was the tinkling of broken glass. The fluttering of loose paper. The unmistakeable metallic clang of his tin of pencils being knocked over.
Had someone just broken into the house? Should he call down to his parents?
Nelson crossed the landing and listened at his door. The draft coming from beneath it suggested his window had somehow opened. He threw open the door and saw something that shocked him more than if he had been slapped by a nun.
A dozen fruit bats were hanging all around his bedroom, from the bookshelves, curtain rail, window frame and from the ceiling lamp hung four fruit bats like a living umbrella, all with their quivering outstretched wings touching and their mouths open wide.
Nelson could not speak or move or think. He just stood there with one hand on the door handle and his jaw hanging open while a cool wind blew in through his broken window.
‘Master Nelson? Can you hear me?’
It was Miser, but he wasn’t in the room. His voice seemed to be coming out of the air.
‘Miser?’ whispered Nelson breathlessly.
‘Ah! There you are!’ said Miser, but still Nelson looked around, baffled.
‘Wh-what’s going on? Where are you?’
‘You must stand in the middle of the fruit bats for a better reception, Master Nelson. I can barely hear you.’
Nelson slowly closed the door behind him and did as instructed. There was something deeply unsettling about having so many bats hanging in your bedroom, and it didn’t help that they all kept their mouths wide open so that their tiny teeth were on display.
Unlike his monsters, who had the ability to understand animals, Nelson had no idea what the bats were saying, which is just as well, as they were all having a good laugh at how freaked out Nelson looked from upside down. Here’s a taster of what they were saying . . .
Look at this kid. He’s totally freaked out.
You’d think he’d never seen a bat before.
Do you reckon he has any snacks?
I could murder a banana right now.
You only just ate before we came out!
So? It’s not my fault if I’m hungry again.
Shh! The sooner we get this done,
the sooner we can go back to the zoo and eat.
All right! All right! Keep your fur on!
Without taking his eyes of the chattering bats, Nelson stepped beneath the four hanging from his ceiling lamp, and as he did so, he heard a ringing in his ears. It was like the high-pitched noise you might have experienced after a fireworks display or rock concert. He instinctively flexed his jaw as if this might release the pressure behind his ears and stop them ringing, but it did no good at all.
‘What is going on?’ Nelson heard his words echo around him as if he were in a cave rather than surrounded by plastic toys and IKEA furniture, and when Miser answered, his voice was as clear as if he were talking straight into both of Nelson’s ears at the same time.
‘Allow me to explain what is happening, Master Nelson. You have forbidden us from pestering you until your troubles at school are corrected – and quite rightly, I might add. But I’m afraid something quite terrible has happened, so I sought a different means of communication that I hope will not have been too invasive.’
‘Invasive? Miser, my windows are smashed in! There are bats in my bedroom! They’re all over the place just staring at me! In fact, it looks like they are laughing at me!’
‘I assure you, they are not laughing at you, Master Nelson. They are here to help us.’
‘Help us? What’s going on? Where are you?’
‘As usual, we are here in London Zoo. Or to be more precise, I am standing in the Fruit Bat Forest in an identical configuration to yours. The high-pitch noise you hear is being made by the bats. You will notice their mouths are wide open. This is because they are emitting an extremely high-frequency sound that travels for many miles and our voices are being carried on that very same frequency.’
A moment passed while Nelson stared at the quivering fruit bats. Only now did he notice they were not placed randomly around his room but rather like little satellite dishes, positioned to bounce sound in and out of the window.
‘Master Nelson? Are you still there?’
‘Uhh . . . yes. Yes, I’m her
e.’
‘We understand you did not do as we suggested and contact your uncle Pogo.’
‘No I didn’t. I’m really sorry.’
‘And now the monster has escaped.’
‘All right, don’t go on about it.’
‘A tremendous mistake.’
‘Look, I feel bad about it, OK? But what am I supposed to do?’
‘I’m afraid none of us knows what to do.’
‘Wow. I’m so glad we had this conversation.’
‘We thought you might have ideas or had perhaps learned of some information from the news.’
‘I only know some stuff about it from Doody and Pogo’s TV show the other night.’
‘Anything at all could be useful, Master Nelson.’
‘OK, well, it was made the same way you lot were, you know, the sin extractor. But this monster, it ate the other six before they grew to full size.’
‘Did you say it ate them?’
‘Yeah, I know – it’s disgusting, isn’t it?’
‘On the contrary, I think we can safely assume this monster must be born of greed.’
‘Right, except it can fly, and Hoot’s the only one who can do that.’
‘Do you think it could be born of pride?’
‘It could be. I saw a painting of the man it was extracted from. He was a podgy man and his name was . . . Buzzard. Yeah that was it. Buzzard. I can’t remember his first name. Anyway, he died at St Paul’s Cathedral right after his monsters were made. Fell to his death on the cathedral floor.’
‘Then this is where the monster will go.’
‘To St Paul’s?’
‘The point on earth where this Buzzard fellow died will hold the last residue of his soul. The monster will be drawn to this fragment of Buzzard’s soul just as we are drawn to yours.’
‘Right. And what will it do when it gets there?’
‘Ahh . . .’
‘What do you mean, “Ahh”?’
The Good, the Bad and the Deadly 7 Page 6
