The Gorgle

by Emma Fischel

  Poor Big Bunny. Picked up, dragged off in those bony legs. What a horrible fate.

  Oliver sniffed again.

  I crouched down, and gave his nose a wipe. Well – someone had to, and Oliver didn’t look like he was planning to.

  ‘Big Bunny will be happy in heaven,’ I said. ‘Because God grows carrots.’

  ‘And lettuces?’ said Oliver, a small fat tear rolling slowly out of each eye.

  ‘All vegetables,’ I said.

  ‘Did a monster eat Big Bunny?’ said Oliver.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said – but I did know. I knew exactly what had eaten Big Bunny. A mutant moth thing that grew so fast I could see it happening.

  Then I heard snuffling and padding paws. And a face appeared through the fence.

  A twitching, snuffling face.

  A face with a pink nose and long whiskers.

  A face with black floppy ears…

  Big Bunny.

  What?

  No. That could NOT be Big Bunny. It just couldn’t. The moth thing got her. I saw it with my own eyes.

  But while I was standing, gaping and baffled, Oliver was already wriggling under the fence.

  ‘Big Bunny,’ he shouted, beaming, and running as fast as he could towards her. ‘You’re back!’

  But Big Bunny shot off down the path – the left-hand path. The one that went deeper and deeper into the woods.

  ‘Big Bunny,’ Oliver wailed. ‘Come back!’ Then he shot off too, fast as his sturdy little legs could take him. Following Big Bunny…

  A feeling went creeping and crawling right up my spine. A feeling that something was very wrong. And I knew. I just knew.

  That was NOT Big Bunny.

  So I leapt the fence. Hurled myself down the path and grabbed Oliver’s arm – just as he skidded towards Big Bunny…

  Or whatever it was.

  Because something was happening to Big Bunny. Her floppy ears were getting longer, thinner, wagglier… Her face was getting flatter, wider… Her black fur was turning green – sludgy green with stripes. She was sprouting wings… And long insecty legs… And growing…

  I ran. Grabbed hold of Oliver’s arm, and ran. I sprinted back up the path like I was running for Olympic gold, half pulling, half-dragging him along. I bundled him over the fence, and threw myself after him.

  And behind us, I heard flapping wings wheeling through the trees. I heard shrieking noises – horrible shrieking noises, worse than Mo makes – gradually fading away.

  Then it was gone.

  And Oliver was jumping up and down, gnashing his teeth. ‘BAD monster!’ he yelled, shaking his fist at the woods. ‘You pretended to be Big Bunny. My bunny! You did BAD magic! You tried to trick me!’

  Then a whistle blew out. Three sharp shrills, coming from the top of Oliver’s garden…

  Because baby Arthur was starting to hatch.

  * * *

  So that was it. Oliver went off to his granny’s – and I went indoors. Quaking, and thinking.

  It was time for action. Time for a plan…

  A trap. My biggest and best trap EVER. A huge pit – bigger than me – big enough for a moth thing. Disguised with a false floor to make it look as if it was solid ground.

  I’d bait it with Wolfgang, tuck a lump of steak from the fridge underneath him. I’d wait. Crouch in the shadows, waiting for the moth thing to see Wolfgang, smell the meat, swoop down, land – and go plummeting straight into my pit.

  Then I’d hurl stuff at it. Stuff from the shed. Netting. Mesh. Bits of fencing. Mouse traps. Wooden posts. Giant flowerpots. Keep it busy trying to bite and claw and struggle its way out.

  Busy for long enough to get Mum. Show her. Get her to call someone – the police, the council, pest control. Whoever was in charge of dealing with moth things.

  That would work as a plan, I thought, ignoring some small niggling feelings I was having. Yes. It would.

  And I was starting my plan right now.

  Except Mum also had a plan for the rest of that day.

  I knew it wasn’t worth me saying I had my own plan. Not when my plan was building a trap for a moth thing...

  So I didn’t. And by the time Mum’s plan – mainly shopping for school stuff and trudging round a town – were done, it was dark.

  Never mind, I thought. One day won’t make much difference. Because how tall can a moth thing get? Three foot? Four foot, tops?

  Yes. About that, I thought.

  Because even if the moth thing was still growing – and it probably wasn’t – it could NOT grow more than that. It just couldn’t.

  That’s what I actually thought.

  Silly, silly me.

  Chapter Ten

  The Trap

  I got digging early the next day. I chose a spot inside the woods – but only just. I wanted to be close to the garden. Close enough to run for it if I needed to…

  The PPs came and watched me dig, Twin Club badges sparkling.

  ‘That’s not a den,’ Mo said, curling her lip and forgetting they weren’t talking to me. ‘We know it’s not.’

  I’d told Mum I was building a den for the PPs. To say sorry for being an idiot.

  ‘We know it’s a trap,’ Mo said. ‘And we know it’s for us. We know you think we’ll fall into it. We SO won’t.’

  I felt miserable. Alone.

  ‘If you’ve got nothing better to do than stand there yakking on at me,’ I snapped, ‘just go away.’

  ‘Oh, we’ve got better things to do,’ said Mo, cackling and sticking her nose in the air. ‘We totally have.’

  Lily didn’t say anything. Just glared at me with a vicious sort of gleam in her eye.

  So I dug and I dug and I dug. I dug all morning.

  But something happened as I dug. The niggling feelings I ignored yesterday came back. Then the niggling feelings turned themselves into questions.

  I tried to ignore the questions, but I knew they were there. Questions like …

  – Is a stuffed dog with a lump of steak underneath actually going to convince a moth thing it’s dinner?

  – Suppose the moth thing just swoops on the stuffed dog and doesn’t even try to land?

  – Is a moth thing that can crunch up the door of a rabbit hutch going to be stopped by some stuff from the shed long enough for me to get Mum?

  By lunchtime I was fed up with digging and fed up with questions.

  But I carried on, all afternoon. I dug until my arms were aching. I dug until my fingers were in blisters. And every time I felt like stopping, I thought about that fat furry face. Those slitty nostrils. Those bulging eyes. And I carried on.

  But still the questions niggled away. More and more of them. Worse questions than the morning ones. Questions like…

  – If a smallish moth thing grows a few inches as it eats, does a bigger moth thing grow a lot more inches as it eats?

  – How fast would a moth thing have to grow to be too big for a boy-sized pit?

  – If a moth thing is thinking of eating a four-year-old for dinner on a Tuesday, what is it thinking of eating for dinner on a Wednesday?

  And most of all…

  – Is this trap a brilliant plan, or the kind of plan a boy comes up with when he can’t think of any other plan whatsoever?

  And the more I dug, the more questions niggled.

  By the time the sky was growing dark, and the last shadows were stretching across the garden, my pit was so big I had to prop a ladder up to get out.

  That had to be a big enough pit to trap a moth thing.

  Had to be.

  So, as the sun sank behind the trees, I put Wolfgang and his steak in position, I forked the last leaves across the false floor. I was ready to go back down the garden, crouch in the shadows, and wait for the moth thing.

  But I didn’t need to wait.

  Because, just then, I heard it. The flap flap flap of giant wings.

  And then I saw its shadow, way down the garden, by the woods. Its great big shadow.
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  And at that moment, I knew what I’d feared all along.

  My plan. My trap. The pit. The netting. The mesh. All of it was useless.

  The moth thing was too big. Much, MUCH too big.

  And then I did start panicking. A lot.

  Chapter Eleven

  Cornered

  I shot off like I had rocket fuel for blood. Sheer total terror powered my legs across the garden, towards the house, towards the nearest door…

  The front door.

  I charged up the big stone steps. I grabbed the front door handle, and wrenched it round.

  ‘Please let it be unlocked, please,’ I heard myself babbling.

  It was.

  So I hurled myself through, slammed it shut behind me, and bolted it.

  Safe. For now.

  ‘Mum!’ I yelled, charging through the hallway. ‘Mum! Where are you?’

  I flung doors open. Checked room after room after room.

  But Mum wasn’t there. Not anywhere.

  I slumped in the kitchen. Where was she? Where was she?

  Then – clack clack clack – I heard two pairs of feet in the corridor.

  Lily and Mo.

  They came prancing into the kitchen, flashing their Twin Club badges, grinning and giggling at me.

  Then they stopped – both of them. They stood stock still and stared straight out through the window behind me.

  Their mouths dropped open. Their eyes stretched wide, and they started to shudder.

  I turned around.

  It was there. Outside the window. A monstrous great head. Staring in at us.

  It moved past the window, jerking its head, like dinosaurs do. I could hear its feet. Thud… thud… thud.

  I ran and slammed the bolts across the back door.

  It moved on to the side window.

  Thud… thud… thud.

  It turned and looked straight in. And moved on again.

  Mo clutched on to my arm. ‘It’s looking for a way in,’ she said, whimpering. ‘It’s going round the house. It’ll find a way in. It absolutely will.’

  ‘It can’t,’ I said. ‘The doors are bolted. The windows are too small. It absolutely can’t.’

  Lily clutched at my other arm. ‘Mum,’ she said. ‘She went up the garden. To the compost. Where is she? Where is she?’

  I didn’t answer. Didn’t know what to say.

  Something must have happened to Mum. Somewhere out there. Something –

  No. I wasn’t thinking about that.

  Thud… thud… thud.

  ‘I’m scared,’ said Mo, in a teeny quavering voice that didn’t sound like her at all. ‘Really scared.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Lily.

  ‘And me,’ I said.

  Then we all huddled together in the middle of the kitchen. All quavering, quaking, panicking.

  ‘We’ll ring,’ I said, scratching around for a plan. ‘Say the house is on fire. They’ll send someone. Big engines. Grown-ups. And it can’t get in. As long as we stay in the house, we’re safe.’

  That was when I realized something. The thudding had stopped. There was no noise at all.

  Except one.

  A small noise. The noise of something slithering…

  ‘What is it?’ said Lily, clutching on to me. ‘What’s that noise?’

  I knew what it was.

  It was the noise of something big that had shapeshifted into something small, something small and slithering – a small slithering thing that could flatten itself enough to get in anywhere.

  Anywhere.

  Even from outside a house… to inside a house.

  It came right into the hallway. Then the slithering noise stopped.

  And I knew why. I knew that out there, in the hallway, the thing was changing shape again. Changing and growing and growing and growing…

  Back into something bigger.

  Something much MUCH bigger.

  And then we heard it again. Inside. Closer.

  Thud… thud… thud.

  I looked at Mo and Lily. ‘It’s in the hallway,’ I whispered.

  ‘But… how? How can it be?’ screeched Mo, really panicking. ‘Its wings will get stuck in the railings! Its head will get squished in the doorways! It’s too big to come along the corridors… Isn’t it? ISN’T IT?’

  Lily was looking at me, eyes full of terror. ‘You said we were safe inside,’ she said. ‘You said it couldn’t get in.’

  ‘I was wrong,’ I said. ‘We’re not safe. Not in here. Not anywhere.’

  I don’t know what I thought the PPs would do. Faint flat out on the floor? Swoon into a kitchen chair? Throw their arms in the air and run around screaming?

  They didn’t do any of that.

  They looked at each other – and they both got this ferocious light in their eyes.

  Mo rolled up her sleeves. ‘We have to fight it,’ she said. ‘Totally.’

  Lily was nodding. ‘We have the advantage,’ she said. ‘There’s one of it, and three of us.’

  ‘We’ll drive it down the garden,’ Mo said.

  ‘Into Finn’s trap,’ said Lily. ‘Then we’ll – I don’t know – sit on it, until help comes.’

  They each grabbed one of Mum’s big shopping bags and started filling them. They scooped up tins and bottles from the cupboards. Apples and pears from the fruit bowl. Plates and mugs and bowls. Mo even flung the fridge open and started grabbing stuff.

  I could NOT believe it. What did my sisters think they were they doing?

  This thing – this monstrous moth thing – must be ten feet tall. At least. With wings and teeth and claws. And my sisters were planning to drive it down the garden with some tins, a bit of crockery and fruit, and a squirt of whipped cream from the fridge.

  They had no chance whatsoever.

  But as I looked at them, scooping up ammunition, gritting their teeth to stop them chattering, trying to look tough and hard and mean – as if that would bother a moth thing – to my utter astonishment, I felt a glow of pride.

  My sisters might be idiots. But they were heroic idiots.

  And also so busy with their ridiculous plan that they didn’t notice me pocketing the key to the kitchen door.

  ‘Ready?’ said Lily. ‘When I count to three, we’ll open the door and charge.’

  ‘Ready,’ Mo said.

  Then they both looked at me.

  ‘Ready,’ I said.

  We all punched a fist in the air.

  ‘One,’ said Lily – but I didn’t wait for two, or three.

  I just ran out of the kitchen door, slammed it shut and locked it. Then I ran along the corridor towards the hallway.

  Because if the monster was going to eat someone, it might as well be me.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Plan

  There it was. A huge hissing shape. Towering up in the big square hallway of Gulliver House.

  I took one look at it – its vast sprawling wings, its wide open mouth full of teeth, rows and rows of them, jagged as saws...

  And I changed my mind.

  That thing, that vicious waggling monster, was NOT having me for dinner. Not me, not anyone.

  Not if I could help it.

  I ran for the front door. Threw back the bolts. Kicked the huge doors wide open.

  ‘Come and get me, you great ugly monster!’ I yelled.

  It lunged at me on its huge insect legs. I threw myself sideways, rolled across the hallway, and ran for the stairs.

  I knew I had one advantage, and only one. I was small and nimble. And the moth monster most definitely wasn’t.

  I ducked and dodged up the stairs as two jets of green foam blasted right past my ears.

  I hurtled, panicking, along the landing, thinking: what now? Where can I go? What can I do?

  The moth monster stared straight up at me, eyes gleaming. Then it hissed, and started to flap its great sprawling wings.

  I could hardly breathe. Hardly think.

  It was going to come f
lapping and swooping up through the hallway. Up to the landing, pick me up in its horrible monster legs, and then… THEN…

  Then a plan burst into my head. An impossible, ridiculous, stupendously brilliant plan. A plan for someone small and nimble...

  So I clambered over the railings.

  And jumped.

  It was the biggest, most terrifying leap of my life.

  A giant leap straight down. Straight for the one place those huge jagged teeth couldn’t get at me.

  The back of the moth monster’s head.

  I grabbed hold of its antlers – thick greasy tubes, rough as sandpaper. I locked my arms round the hideous waggling things. I wedged my feet where its great sprawling wings met its fat furry body, and I clung on.

  I was going to RIDE that horrible hissing thing. Ride it out of the front door – and away from Gulliver House. Ride it to town. To a place with lights. With people.

  Because even grown-ups would notice a ten-foot moth monster pounding by. Flattening bus stops. Crushing parked cars. With a boy clinging on to its antlers, his feet wedged above its wings.

  The grown-ups would HAVE to believe in monsters then.

  They could call in the troops. Get helicopters tracking us from the air. Parachute special forces in with stun guns. Get diggers building giant monster traps. Get rid of it – somehow.

  Yes. Grown-ups would sort out the moth thing – they just had to see it first. And I was going to make sure they did.

  Only – of course – it wasn’t that simple.

  The moth monster took one giant leap out of the huge front doors, another giant leap down the big stone steps of Gulliver House – and I realized the power of the thing.

  I couldn’t steer it. I couldn’t control it. All I could do was keep clinging on.

  It shrieked and hissed and thrashed with rage. It kept twisting its huge head, trying to bite me, trying to shake me off.

  It crashed its huge bony wings against my back as it flapped and flapped and tried to take off – but it couldn’t, not with my entire weight wedged just above its wings.

  So I clung on, as the moth monster took great bucking strides... but not towards town, like I planned.

  Oh no.

  It was heading down the Gulliver House garden and straight for the woods.

  It leapt the gate in one big bound – and landed straight on the garden fork.