by Emma Fischel
I had a feeling the screeching was bad news – and I was right.
I came out of the bathroom. The PPs were standing on the landing, both waving their pjs in my face.
Lily was glaring and looking totally fed up.
‘Idiot! Why?’ screeched Mo, bright red and gnashing her teeth. ‘Why? We had fun today! Why did you have to go and RUIN it?’
I gaped.
It was their pjs. Both pairs. They had holes in them. Big jagged holes – like something had been tearing great big bites out of them…
Like a moth thing, hungry because it was growing so fast.
* * *
That night my dreams were all muddled. Full of slithering things wearing Twin Club badges, and fire-breathing sisters, and moth things eating pizza.
Next morning I came out of my bedroom and stepped straight on a sheet of paper. Which had writing on it:
STEP ON ME IF YOU’RE AN IDIOT
And I could see – even from this far away along the landing – that the PPs had stuck big notices on their doors. One on Lily’s:
TWIN CLUB MEMBERS ONLY
And one on Mo’s:
FINN!!! KEEP ABSOLUTELY OUT!!!
FOREVER !!!
And in the kitchen, I found a note on the table from Mum:
GONE TO GET MILK.
BACK IN FIVE MINUTES.
FINN, DO NOT DESTROY THE KITCHEN.
I sat at the kitchen table, glaring at nothing in particular.
It was quiet down here. Just the hum of the big boiler in the cellar below, the tick tick tick of the grandfather clock…
And a slithering noise.
It was outside. I could see it through the side window, slithering across the driveway. Gravel must be a lot harder to slither across than floorboards, because it was slithering much slower. Which meant I got a good clear look at it...
And I had even less idea what it was.
It was about as long as a ruler, with a mousey sort of face – only with red popping eyes, big flapping ears and three pointy tusk things sticking out each side where whiskers should be.
And that was it. The rest of it was a tube. A slithering furry tube, dragging a long mousey tail behind it.
And whatever it was, maybe those red popping eyes were blind – because it was slithering straight towards a flowerpot. Any second it was going to crash straight into it.
Except it didn’t.
Because it flattened itself. Completely. Went flat as a sheet of paper. Slithered straight under the flowerpot, came out the other side, and popped back into shape again.
I gaped. What was it? What species, even?
Well, it didn’t really matter – because the moth thing got it.
Two jets of green foam shot out from high up a tree. They hit the slithering thing, which stopped, mid-slither.
I felt my mouth drop open. What happened? Was it dead? Stunned? Frozen to the spot? What?
Then the moth thing appeared. It came flapping down from the tree, swooped on the slithering thing, picked it up in two of its long bony legs, and flapped off.
That shiver was back now. Big time. Because the moth thing had got as big as a cat.
I had to do something.
* * *
‘Mummy,’ said Oliver. ‘Finn wants me to show him the monster tunnel in his garden.’
Oliver’s mum beamed at me. ‘How kind of you,’ she said. ‘Oliver loves playing the monster game. He pretends your garden’s full of them.’
‘It’s not pretend, Mummy,’ said Oliver, tutting. Then we went out of his back door and down the garden.
Now, I didn’t think the Gulliver House garden had a monster tunnel. And I didn’t think these were monsters.
Of course not. A four-year-old might be happy with that explanation. But I wasn’t.
It was just, I no idea what else they were.
Mutants maybe? Animal testing gone horribly wrong? Released from a secret laboratory?
I just didn’t know.
But maybe – just maybe – Oliver had actually seen something. And whatever that something was – a hole? a burrow? actually a tunnel? – maybe I could shoo the moth thing through it, and block it up.
Well, it was worth a try. Because I wanted the moth thing gone.
Fast.
Chapter Seven
The Bristling Thin
You can NOT rush a four year old.
First Oliver had to show me his wormery. Then he had to show me his stone collection. And then he had to show me his bunny. A fat black bunny lolloping around in a little run at the bottom of the garden.
‘Big Bunny,’ said Oliver proudly. ‘Say hello to Finn.’ Big Bunny stuck up a paw in greeting.
I gaped. How did he get her to do that? How?
‘Big Bunny,’ said Oliver, wagging a finger. ‘Play dead.’
Big Bunny lay down. Completely still.
After that, Oliver was ready, so we set off for the fence.
‘I’m currently too short to climb the fence,’ Oliver informed me, as he wriggled underneath.
Through the fence and on the path, Oliver stuck his hand – small and sticky, but with a firm grip – in mine. ‘Let’s skip, Finn,’ he said.
So off we went – skip skip skip – along the path through the woods, towards Gulliver House.
‘I like your monsters,’ Oliver said, pointing his feet carefully as he skipped. ‘They’re funny. One monster, the remarkably fluffy one with the big horn and the black tongue, let me stroke it.’
Skipping and gaping is not easy to do at the same time – but I managed it.
‘It had a caterpillar, a most astonishingly big one, caught in its mane,’ Oliver said, grabbing hold of my other hand too, and skipping sideways. ‘So I took the caterpillar out and it crawled away. Heaven knows where it went.’
A caterpillar, astonishingly big… Well, I knew exactly where it went. My wardrobe.
Suddenly – extremely suddenly – Oliver stopped skipping. ‘This is the tree I have to stop at, Finn,’ he said. ‘Mummy says.’
And he pointed straight ahead towards a big huddle of trees just inside the Gulliver House garden.
‘And there is the monster tunnel,’ he said. ‘But sometimes it’s not.’
What? What did he mean?
Well, there was no time to find out, because just then something – mainly bristles and teeth – went scuttling through the trees behind us. Then I heard a skidding sound, and a yelp, and high-pitched bawling noises. Lots of them…
It was behind a tree, flat on its back, mouth wide open, wailing its head off.
The bristling thing. The thing I saw scuttling across the garden last night.
Close up, it looked very young. The size and shape of a football, with piggy nostrils, a bawling mouth, long eyelashes, four paws, a stumpy tail – and everything else was bristles.
It also had jaggedy teeth in its mouth, which clattered furiously together when it saw me and Oliver. Before I could stop him, Oliver crouched down, and gave it a stroke.
The thing tried to bite his hand off.
Oliver looked astonished, then stern. ‘No, no, no,’ he said, wagging his finger.
The thing tried to bite his finger off.
I grabbed Oliver’s hand before it managed to. ‘No!’ I said.
‘No?’ said Oliver, staring at me like I’d said something baffling. ‘Why not?’
Why not? Was he blind? ‘Look at its teeth,’ I said.
Oliver looked. ‘They’re very pointy and sharp,’ he observed. Then he looked at me with his saucer eyes. ‘But monsters never bite children. Or hurt children. Or eat children. Mummy says.’
Oh.
‘And,’ said Oliver, ‘I asked Mummy if I was allowed to stroke the monsters, and Mummy said yes. Mummy says all the monsters in your garden are lovely monsters, and I can play with them as much as I like.’
Oh, now this was tricky – but I had to say something. Because sending Oliver home with missing fingers and having hi
m tell his mum a monster bit them off was quite likely to get me in trouble.
‘Oliver,’ I said. ‘Most monsters in the garden are lovely monsters. But some monsters are bad. So you must never EVER pat a monster, or try to be friends with a monster, in case it’s a bad one.’
‘Never, Finn?’ said Oliver, eyes popping.
‘Only if you’re with me,’ I said. ‘And I say you can.’ Because, who knew? Maybe some of them were lovely… Maybe.
‘So Mummy was lying?’ said Oliver and – oh, no – his bottom lip was trembling.
I felt my brain beginning to ache. How to handle this?
‘Mummy didn’t mean to lie,’ I said. ‘She just doesn’t know about the bad monsters in the garden. No one does. Just us.’
And that’s when it hit me. I had proof. Right here.
I could pick the bristling thing up. Take it to Mum, show the PPs. Then they’d have to believe me. About this – and about the moth thing…
Except it wasn’t that easy.
The bristling thing had a thorn in its paw, which explained the yelp. A big spiky thorn, which had to come out. Because a bristling thing in extreme pain was a lot more likely to use its teeth on me if I tried to carry it.
So I stroked its bristles – carefully, well away from its teeth. I had a quiet chat with it, explained what I was about to do. Then I tickled it under the chin – at least, where I reckoned a chin might be – and it started purring, and batted its eyelashes at me – and it really did have quite lovely eyes.
Well… compared to the rest of it.
I judged it was ready. Calmed down. It seemed to understand I meant it no harm, that I was here to help.
So I moved my hand towards the thorn, and small nervous smoke rings started coming out of the bristling thing’s nostrils – which should have warned me, but didn’t.
I gave the thorn one quick yank and pulled it out. The bristling thing leapt up. It gave a yelp of pain. A blast of flames and sparks shot out of its nostrils, and set fire to the sleeve of my hoodie.
I wriggled out of my burning top fast as I could, then I chucked the hoodie to the ground, and got busy stamping out all the flames.
And while I was doing all that, the bristling thing scuttled off.
Then I heard a noise – BOOM! – along with a sudden flash of light.
I looked up and saw Oliver clapping his hands and pointing. ‘The monster tunnel!’ he beamed. ‘It was there.’
But it wasn’t. Not when I looked.
Nothing was.
And the bristling thing was gone.
Chapter Eight
Big Trouble
I took Oliver home, then slunk around the garden for a bit, because I knew Mum would yell at me about my hoodie when I went in.
But she didn’t.
Because when I went in Mum yelled at me about something else.
‘Finn!’ she shouted, as soon as I stuck my head round the kitchen door. ‘How could you? Frightening a small child like that. Telling Oliver there were bad monsters in the garden. I’m ashamed of you.’
Oh no.
Clearly Oliver had been talking – too much. Told his mum all about the bad monsters, and so she had told my mum…
So Mum carried on yelling at me. A lot.
And when I tried to tell Mum what had really happened, how we had a mutant fire-breather in our garden, Mum just blocked her ears and started screeching, ‘GO! TO! YOUR! ROOM!’
And all the time, the PPs sat at the kitchen table, listening in, goggle-eyed.
A bit later, they came clattering in to my bedroom.
Mo was chortling. ‘Lily has an extremely stupid idea,’ she said, then screeched with laughter. ‘Tell him your idea, Lily. Tell him it!’
Lily stared down at the bows on her shoes, looking bothered and confused. ‘I think you might be telling the truth,’ she mumbled. ‘Because you’re the sort of idiot who finds ambushes and traps and cutting holes in sisters’ pyjamas funny. But I don’t think you would be that mean to a four-year-old. You just wouldn’t. However fed up you are.’
You know what? There are times – not often – when I feel like giving Lily a great big smacking kiss, and this was one of them.
Not that I did.
‘So…’ screeched Mo, handing me her camera, which she’d won – Mo’s hobby also being entering competitions. ‘Get some proof of these… mutants. By dinnertime.’
* * *
It took me two hours to find the moth thing.
It was lurking, deep in the woods. Crouched low, head down, teeth crunching. Eating a small heap of grey fur and guts and squishy bits – I had no idea what.
I felt something icy cold creep through my insides.
Because as it ate, as it crunched each mouthful in its sharp little teeth, the moth thing grew. Right in front of my eyes.
An inch. Maybe two. Maybe more.
And it was already bigger than a cat. Quite a bit bigger.
It’s hard holding a camera steady when your hands are shaking and your knees are knocking – but I did my best.
I pressed the button.
Click. I took the picture. Then I checked to see how it came out. Perfect.
I crept closer. Took another picture, just to be sure – and that was when the moth thing spun round.
It hissed. It reared up. It flapped its horrible sprawling wings at me. It waggled its bony insect legs – arms, whatever they were. It took one jerking threatening step towards me.
I knew what it was saying. Go away. Leave me to my dinner…
So I did.
Fast.
I dodged up through the trees, back on to the path, towards the Gulliver House garden. But as I ran to the gate I turned around, just to see if the moth thing was behind me, flapping and hissing through the trees...
Big mistake.
Because turning round to check behind me, meant I didn’t notice what was in front of me: A great big tree root. Stuck right across the path.
So I went hurtling over it, head-first, into a rolling tumble, and the camera – Mo’s precious camera – went flying out of my hand.
It flew out of the woods. High across the garden in a great big arc. And smashed straight into a tree trunk at high speed.
It was destroyed.
* * *
Mo raided my piggy bank. She took every single coin and note in it. ‘Idiot!’ she screeched, right in my face. Then she flashed her Twin Club badge at me, stuck her nose in the air, and walked off.
Lily wouldn’t even look at me – which was worse.
I waited until Mo was out of the way. Downstairs, bashing out notes on the big piano and wailing some horrible tune over the top of it.
Then I pushed Lily’s door open. Because I wanted to see her alone.
Lily glared. She clearly didn’t want to see me. So I held out the book in my hand.
Fibbing Fergus.
One last try to convince Lily about the moth thing.
Fibbing Fergus is the book me and Lily have used to swear we’re telling the truth, since we were five years old.
It’s the story of a boy – Fergus – who steals a book of goblins from a witchy neighbour, but says he didn’t. Then, after that, every time Fergus fibs a goblin shoots out of the book and plays a crafty trick on him.
Mo said Fibbing Fergus was boring, and that she only liked books about girls. But me and Lily loved it. We made Mum read it to us every night for three weeks after I got it.
And then Lily lost her gel pens and made me stick my hand on Fibbing Fergus and swear I hadn’t stolen them. She said a goblin would get me if I was lying. Which we both sort of believed, being five.
So I did swear on Fibbing Fergus – and that night she found her gel pens, stuck down the side of her bed.
Me and Lily used Fibbing Fergus a lot after that. We stopped believing in the goblin, of course. But we never EVER told a lie, not with a hand on Fibbing Fergus.
It was sort of a sacred thing. A shared thing. Just me an
d Lily.
And now… well, it was time for Fibbing Fergus again.
So I stuck one hand on Fibbing Fergus and looked straight at Lily. ‘I swear the moth thing is real,’ I said.
Then I waited. I really, really hoped it would work.
It didn’t.
Looks started flitting across Lily’s face. Unhappy, upset, betrayed sort of looks. The sort of looks that said a sacred childhood memory had just been destroyed by a brother.
Followed by another look.
Fury.
‘You will seriously regret that,’ Lily hissed, eyes glittering and hard. Then she pushed me out of her bedroom and slammed the door shut.
As for Mum, Mo went screeching to her about the camera, so Mum shoved a whole lot of buckets and mops and cleaning stuff at me and marched me out to the sheds.
‘Clear them up,’ she yelled, right in my face, glaring so hard her eyebrows actually met right in the middle.
The sheds were a mess. All afternoon I scrubbed. I mopped. I tidied. I sorted…
And all the while my brain did somersaults and twizzles and twirls trying to make sense of it all. But I couldn’t. None of it.
And every rustle, every flutter, got me twitching. I kept thinking I saw two bulging eyes peering in at me. A flash of sludgy green wings. Something waggling. Something strutting. Something hissing…
But I didn’t. Not until later.
* * *
It was dark, and I was up in my bedroom by the window, when I saw it again.
A shadow. Flapping across the garden, silhouetted against the moon – with a black bundle clutched between its front legs. A bundle with two floppy ears…
And next morning Big Bunny was missing.
Chapter Nine
Big Bunny is Back
‘Mummy says Big Bunny has gone to heaven,’ said Oliver. He gave a sniff. He looked up at me with big sad eyes. ‘Is Mummy wrong again, Finn?’
‘No, Mummy’s right this time,’ I said.
Oliver looked sadly at Big Bunny’s empty hutch. The splintered door. The mangled and shredded remains. The scratch marks and tooth marks, where something had ripped and clawed and chewed its way in.
