Miser wrapped his tentacles around the short guard’s body and squeezed. The guard let out a gasp, and Nelson pulled his arm away. But he pulled too hard.
‘AAAAH!’ screamed Nelson as he toppled from the balcony and fell through the air.
‘I say, why is Nelson going without me?’ said Hoot, who clearly hadn’t understood the mistake.
It all happened so fast, Nelson didn’t even have time to close his eyes. The floor of the cathedral seemed to swell beneath him as if it was going to swallow him up, and then . . . it didn’t. Nelson felt a great pull from the straps of his backpack, like a seat belt in a fast-braking car, and instead of smashing into the ground, Nelson just swooped, with his face only a few centimetres from the tiles.
Crush fell from Nelson’s neck and went rolling across the floor, knocking wooden chairs into the air. Nelson threw his arms in front of his face as his body landed and skidded across the tiles. His chin scraped against the floor and he bit his tongue, but none of it hurt in that moment.
Once his body had stopped sliding, Nelson gasped, lifted his head and took in what had happened. Despite being terrifyingly late to the rescue, Hoot had caught him, or rather he had caught Nelson’s backpack, the contents of which were scattered all over the cathedral floor.
‘No need to thank me, dear boy. Hoot is always happy to help, although that was rather unexpected. A little warning next time wouldn’t go amiss.’
Breathless and shaken, Nelson pushed himself up on to his knees and threw his head back to see what was going on above.
A cloud of Puff’s purple fart gas swirled in the dome of the cathedral. The security men were spluttering and coughing and falling to the ground. He could hear his monsters shouting and hoped that neither they nor the men they were trying to evade had been hurt in the scuffle.
Nelson sneezed and felt blood trickle out of his nose. He hadn’t yet realized blood was also dripping from his grazed chin and oozing out of the corner of his mouth, courtesy of his bitten tongue.
‘HO-oo-ooo-NK!’ Crush was waddling back towards Nelson. His eyes were crossed and he could barely walk in a straight line.
Though he had just survived a great fall, Nelson couldn’t help feeling the entire episode had been a disaster. More guards were sure to arrive soon. Police too. There was only so much sleeping gas Puff could produce before Nelson was caught and thrown into the back of a police van. So much for saving the world.
‘I say, is that supposed to happen?’ Hoot had stopped preening his feathers to point at something on the floor.
Even if Nelson had not been too shaken and breathless to speak, he would still have been rendered speechless by what Hoot was pointing at.
Among the contents of his backpack that had spilt out as he fell from the Whispering Gallery was the little cuddly rhino Ivan had given him. And what made the sight of this rhino truly peculiar was that it was moving.
The movement was slow but deliberate, as if someone had attached an invisible thread to the top of the rhino’s head and they were pulling it on its back across the floor. As the rhino slid past the satsuma and broken chocolate bars and matches and water bottle and Oyster card and chewing gum, it gathered speed. Faster and faster it moved, until it went whizzing right past Hoot, reminding Nelson of Ravi zooming along the rugby pitch past the referee.
‘HONK!’ Crush waddled after it until the rhino suddenly stopped and flipped upside down, its head on the ground, feet in the air, and its whole body quivering as if it were receiving a continuous electric shock.
‘Honk! Honk! Honk!’ said Crush, which was clearly his way of saying, ‘What the heck is going on with this rhino?’
‘We comin’ down, Nelly-son!’ cried Nosh, but Nelson didn’t look up to see them leaving the sleeping guards in the Whispering Gallery.
Nelson shuffled on his knees towards the rhino, slowing as he got closer and stopping to crouch beside Crush. He could taste the blood in his mouth now, but it didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was transfixed by the quivering upside-down rhino.
‘Is it one of those walking-talking toys?’ asked Hoot, who had also stepped closer.
But Nelson didn’t answer. He looked up again. ‘This must be where he fell. It’s where Buzzard died. And the extractor needle . . . I stuck it in the rhino for safe keeping.’ Nelson needed to think out loud, for what was happening was too great to contain in his brain.
Flop. The rhino had stopped quivering, fallen on to its back and was once again just a toy. Nelson reached out, but even before his fingers touched the fur, he could feel warmth coming from the rhino.
There was a clattering of feet and hooves. His monsters had found their way downstairs.
‘Look what we just caught,’ said Nelson, lifting up the toy rhino and showing it to the approaching monsters.
‘What? It’s a toy rhino,’ said Stan.
‘No,’ said Nelson with a triumphant grin. ‘It’s Buzzard.’
PARIS SMASH
The top of the Eiffel Tower was leaning to one side, and one of its elevators dangled over the River Seine like a discarded yo-yo. The Arc de Triomphe was no longer an arc but a pile of rubble. The surrounding buildings on the Champs-Élysées were covered in a carpet of frost, and an icy wind howled through the empty streets. Not since those dreadful Nazis had strutted in and taken over the city during the Second World War had Paris been in such a terrible way.
Behind windows lurked terrified locals and a few daring folk filming the storm cloud with their smartphones. The monster within the cloud was not interested in landmarks or their historical value; it didn’t even know that it was in Paris. It only knew that stopping every now and then to smash things up, especially fancy or beautiful things, temporarily released some of the pain and fury it was feeling.
Gleaming irresistibly in the night like a precious jewel was the golden dome of Les Invalides (pronounced Lays On-va-leed), and the monster wanted nothing more than to smash it to bits like you and I might delight in smashing open our boiled egg with a teaspoon. It started its attack by blasting itself into the side of the building like a wrecking ball. Instantly the supporting columns crumbled, and the power providing the exterior lighting was cut, plunging the dome into darkness. This made the monster even more furious. It leaped on top of the dome and began beating it with its rotten wings. The monster may have only been the size of a cow, but its fury was immeasurable.
It pounded the dome so violently that great chunks of stone fell from inside the roof and cracked open the great tomb of Napoleon below.
And just as suddenly it all stopped.
Silence fell.
The monster had stopped smashing the dome and was now sat on the ground beside it, twitching slightly, but otherwise barely moving. Its frosted beak was closed, but its eyes were wide, staring in all directions without blinking as if in a trance. It didn’t feel like smashing things any more. Instead it felt something quite different . . .
‘Buzzard,’ whispered the monster, stretching out one of its wings to point north.
‘Buzzard,’ growled the monster, as if agreeing with itself.
‘Buzzard, Buzzard, Buzzard.’ The monster felt something it had not felt for over 350 years: the soul from which it had been extracted had returned.
THE HAUNTED RHINO
‘Do you think it already knows? The monster, I mean. Do you think it knows Buzzard’s soul is back in the world?’ Nelson had just reached the top of the stairs to the roof of St Paul’s and was so puffed that he had to kneel on the ground to get his breath back.
‘Course it does,’ wheezed Spike as he flopped down next to Nelson. ‘It’s gonna feel it right away, all the way down to its bones. That feeling, that connection we have with you, it’s the only thing that makes life worth living.’
‘Well then . . . we better get a move on. We don’t want that thing coming to London. We gotta get out to the coast where it’s wide open and safe.’
‘Hello?’
Nelson and hi
s monsters froze. Someone had just called out. Nelson scrambled to his feet. Another guard must have located them on the roof.
‘Hello? Is somebody there?’ said the voice. But it wasn’t coming from inside the cathedral; it was coming from Nelson’s backpack. And the backpack moved. ‘Hellooo?’ said the voice again. Nelson swung the backpack off his shoulders and on to the ground.
Crush jumped up and clung to Nelson’s neck. Stan tensed and clenched his fists, and Hoot cocked his head to one side.
‘I say, isn’t that funny. For a moment there it sounded as if someone was in that bag of yours,’ said Hoot.
But there really was something inside the bag.
‘Help me. Someone. Please. I fell from a great height and now I’m stuck. Is somebody there who can assist me?’ The backpack shook.
Puff hissed like a cornered cat and bared his sharp little teeth.
‘HONK!’ said Crush, and the backpack seemed to jerk in response.
Stan raised a fist and was about to bring it crashing down on to the backpack when Nelson held up his hand. ‘Wait! Just . . . wait a second . . .’
Nelson crouched by his backpack, lifted the top flap and tugged at the drawstring. Crush hugged tightly to Nelson’s neck and hid his face as the contents of the backpack spilt on to the floor – among them the chewing gum, the Bluetooth speaker and the fluffy rhino. None of these items were a surprise to Nelson as he had packed them all himself, but there was a surprise when the fluffy rhino stood up and looked at Nelson.
‘Is this heaven?’ said the rhino, the tip of the-extractor needle just visible at the top of his head.
No one answered. Well, not right away. They were all speechless, as I’m sure you would be too if a toy rhino started speaking to you.
‘Are you an angel?’ it said hopefully, and suddenly Nelson understood.
‘Buzzard,’ said Nelson. ‘You’re Buzzard, aren’t you?’
‘Oh yes! Tell me, giant angel boy, have I arrived at the gates of heaven?’
‘Umm . . . well . . . no. You’re still in London.’ Nelson hadn’t felt this awkward since he was asked to play Adolf Hitler in a school musical.
‘In London? So I am alive? I AM ALIVE! What luck!’ cried the little rhino. ‘For a moment there, I thought I had fallen to my death! But no! I AM ALIVE! ALIIIIIVE!’
There can be nothing more awkward than having to tell someone they are dead.
‘Well, you’re kind of alive. I mean, you did die, but that was over three hundred and fifty years ago, and now you’ve come back as . . . as a cuddly rhino.’
It was only now that Buzzard, understandably, totally freaked out.
‘Aaaah!’ he cried as he looked down at his fluffy hands, feet and belly.
‘Aaaaah!’ he cried again when he felt the horn on the end of his nose.
‘Aaaaaah!’ at the sight of seven monsters staring at him with open mouths.
‘Hello there, little fellow! Well, aren’t you a noisy thing!’ said Hoot, which did not help one bit.
‘Aaaaaah!’
‘OK, OK, just calm down, Mr Buzzard. Calm down. Everything’s gonna be fine. They look strange, but these monsters won’t hurt you.’
‘Monsters! I AM IN HELL! HELL HATH CLAIMED MY SWEET SOUL!’ Buzzard began running around in little circles while screaming his head off.
All of them would have given anything to make Buzzard stop, except Crush. Crush was in love. This cute little rhino running around the roof of St Paul’s had completely stolen his heart and he simply had to cuddle him.
‘No don’t chase him, Crush,’ said Nelson, but it was hopeless. Once Crush fell in love, there was no stopping him.
‘Aaaaaaah!’ cried Buzzard as Crush chased him, but a sight even more mind-blowing was waiting for Buzzard at the edge of the roof, as he looked out over the city. London looked nothing like the city he had left behind. Compared to his time period, London appeared to have become a sea of lights reaching into the sky. He might as well be on another planet.
‘HELL!’ he screamed.
‘Nope, not hell,’ said Nelson, while shooing Crush away from Buzzard. ‘I mean, parts of it are bit dodgy, and I s’pose it’s changed a lot since your day, but it’s not hell,’ he went on, pointing up at the dome of the cathedral. ‘Look. This bit is still the same.’
‘Aaaaaah! Aaaaaah! Aaaaah!’ screamed Buzzard, who was now breathing so hard that he passed out and flopped on to his back.
Even though everyone felt Buzzard had every right to freak out, it was a quite a relief to have a bit of quiet for a moment. Crush saw his opportunity, ran to where Buzzard lay and threw his arms around him.
‘Well, I don’t know about you chaps, but I think he’s adorable!’ crowed Hoot.
‘Is it dead?’ said Stan, poking the fluffy ear of the rhino.
‘He’s not dead. He’s alive. In fact, he’s very, very much alive.’
Crush’s four hands felt Buzzard’s belly inflate and deflate as if it were breathing. The seam that had once only suggested a mouth was now a real fluffy mouth that opened and closed.
‘HONK!’ said Crush, and Nelson smiled.
‘That’s right, Crush. We’ve got Buzzard’s soul back,’ said Nelson, and he turned to face the others. ‘This means we’ve got bait, and that means the monster is gonna come for it, so we better get to the coast quick as possible.’
Hoot cleared his throat and posed with his wings wide open. ‘Well, my dears, I am ready to receive your compliments. Do not hold back. Let your appreciation of me know no bounds, for if I am to make this flight in time, I must be larger and faster than I have ever been before!’
FRINTON-ON-SEA
Though the return of Buzzard’s soul had temporarily stopped the monster from wanting to smash things up, it now moved with even more speed and purpose than ever before. The effects of its journey could be seen in the frozen stripe it was leaving behind as it skimmed across the English Channel.
It landed with a tremendous crunch in a potato field and kept rolling until it had smashed a police car parked in a petrol station forecourt. Luckily the policeman was inside the petrol station buying a latte and a Twix at the time. As petrol hissed and sprayed out of the broken pumps only to freeze in mid-air like giant crystal crowns, the monster sat there panting, its freaky, bloodshot eyes glaring at the world around it. It could tell that Buzzard’s soul had moved from its original position. It could even feel the direction it was moving in.
‘Buzzard,’ it said, and its right wing shot up and pointed in this new direction. It knew Buzzard’s position had changed and it was determined to catch up with it as quickly as possible.
Have you ever watched a game show and known the answer to the question only to see the contestant splutter and fail to get it right? ‘If that’d been me on there, I would have won first prize!’ you exclaim, but the truth is, it is much easier to answer a question when you are sat at home with a nice sandwich and no pressure at all. If it had been you on the game show, it is very likely you would have got it wrong too. All those lights, all those people watching and all those cameras put a great deal of pressure on the brain. The answers may well be in there, but your brain is so squeezed it cannot get at them. I’m only telling you this because it explains why Nelson made the following ridiculous choice.
When deciding which stretch of British coastline would be the best place to battle the monster, Nelson could have selected from any number of appropriate locations. Suffolk and Norfolk alone had plenty of vast beaches and marshlands, all a safe distance from towns and villages. You probably know some great wide-open places too. Though Nelson was not under the glare of TV cameras, he was under a great deal of pressure to save the world, and the only beach Nelson could think of in the heat of the moment was the one he had visited last Easter bank holiday weekend called Clacton-on-Sea.
Rather than an empty field, this was a beach town packed with shops and restaurants and houses and hotels and, to top it all off, a magnificent pier complete
with big wheel, roller coaster and novelty attractions. Yep, a stupid place to stage a monster fight.
Realizing his mistake and that things were bound to get messy as they tried to trap a storm-breathing monster and feed it to Nosh, Nelson quickly took his monsters a mile south to Frinton-on-Sea instead, where there was more beach and no pier. Far from ideal, but there was no time to dwell on that now . . .
‘See anything?’ shouted Nelson over the wind. He meant did anyone see the monster, but the sky was clear but for a few clouds out at sea.
‘Nuffin’ yet,’ said Stan.
All of the monsters were gathered in the sand around Nelson and looking up at the sky, waiting for the monster that was about to be Nosh’s dinner.
Nelson pulled the cords on his hood to shut out the wind. Waves of sand snaked their way along the pavement. The windows of the little beachfront hotels were dark, and not a soul could be seen on the street. No cars. No buses or taxis. The emptiness would have creeped out Nelson had there not been something far creepier on the way. At least the mood was lightened a little by watching Hoot strutting up and down the beach, still at enormous size and singing ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ by Coolio.
‘Let’s go over the plan one more time . . . When the monster lands, it’ll wanna grab Buzzard straight away, but when I threaten to pull the pin out, the monster’s not gonna risk attacking us and losing Buzzard.’
‘Unless it’s as stupid as Hoot,’ Spike added.
‘It might be. We don’t know. But if it is like Hoot, then it will shrink when you lot start insulting it. And really, really go for it. Say the worst things you can think of. And when it’s small enough, we’ll feed it to Nosh, and BOOM! No more monster – right, Nosh?’
Nosh was chewing on a sandal he had found in the sand.
The Good, the Bad and the Deadly 7 Page 9
