by Dave Shelton
The bear, struggling to keep his balance, nevertheless still held the bait steady over the now choppy waters.
“That’s odd,” he said.
The growling got louder still, the volume growing more quickly now. The boy looked all around, trying to work out which direction it was coming from. There was nothing to be seen. It made no sense. Louder still. He could feel the vibrations of it through the boards of the boat’s hull, up through his feet and legs to shake his stomach. Deafening now, the sea around them foaming and angry. And then the boy realised.
“It’s coming from underneath us!” he shouted to the bear.
“What?” said the bear, turning to look at the boy but still keeping his baited arm outstretched.
A huge column of water shot upward from the sea directly behind the boat, the tremendous noise of it combining with an unearthly growling, howling, thundering cry as something very big and very strange burst out of the sea and neatly snatched the fish from the bear’s hand. The boat was thrown up into the air, turned a neat somersault and landed back down on the water with a smack, knocking the boy and the bear over onto their backs. They looked up at the terrifying thing towering above them, at the many eyes, the tentacles, the barnacle-encrusted skin, the gaping mouth full of very big and very pointy teeth.
The boy screamed and turned his head away. But then he found himself staring at The Very Last Sandwich, lying next to his head, and screamed again even louder.
The bear rose slowly to his feet, looking up at the creature in awe.
“Ooh …” said the bear, “you really are a big fella!”
The strange thing arched its serpentine body to bring its head closer to the bear, all its many eyes staring straight at him with alien curiosity. The thing looked at the bear. The bear looked at the thing.
“Oh well,” said the bear. “Made a plan. Better stick to it, I suppose.” And with that, mallet in paw, he leaped from the boat.
The Thing from the Deep
The bear leaped straight at the thing’s dreadful face, but the creature raised a swift tentacle from the water and struck the bear in the belly, batting him up into the air. He twisted his body as he flew upwards, turned a graceful loop and landed neatly on the thing’s head. Then he started belting it with the mallet.
“Don’t hit him!” shouted the boy. “Ask him if he knows the way!”
The bear stuck to his task, swinging the mallet with all his strength repeatedly at the monster’s head. He looked determined and angry.
“We …”
THWACK!
“… are …”
THWACK!
“… not …”
THWACK!
“… lost!”
CRUNCH!
Splash!
“Oh,” said the bear. The handle of the mallet had snapped with the last blow and the head of it had dropped into the water. So far as the bear could tell, the enormous, scary, dangerous monster did not seem to have become any less enormous, scary or dangerous as a result of being hit repeatedly on the head.
“Ah,” said the bear.
“I think you’ve made it angry,” shouted the boy. “That probably wasn’t such a good idea.”
“No,” said the bear. “Probably not.”
The thing reached up a slimy tentacle and made a grab at the bear. The bear twisted and ducked under it, but the slippery goo that oozed from the creature’s skin made him lose his footing and slip from the top of its head. Thrashing his arms about as he fell, he managed to grab on to one of the beast’s antennae. He had avoided falling off completely, but now he was dangling in front of the monster’s massive face.
“Try to stay away from its mouth,” shouted the boy helpfully. “I think it’s still hungry.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” said the bear.
He gazed into the monster’s many eyes. With his free paw he gave it a little wave.
The monster did not wave back. Instead, it shook its head, bouncing the bear around at the end of the antenna like a fish on the end of a line. It opened its mouth wide, exposing its countless teeth and dribbling thick snotty drool down its front. Its jaws slammed shut again and again, snapping at the bear as he swayed and swung and bounced around in the air, clinging on as best he could as he twisted and bent his body to keep clear of a toothy death. “Coo, dear!” he said. “Your breath smells rotten!”
And then, suddenly, the monster stopped thrashing about and remained for a moment perfectly still as it regarded the bear gradually swinging to a halt before its many, many eyes. The bear stared back unblinking with a faint, rather friendly, smile.
“Have you had enough now?” he said. “Do you give up?”
Something tapped him on the shoulder. He twisted round to see a gigantic, slimy tentacle poised in the air behind him, swaying a little from side to side, like a cobra waiting to strike.
“Oh dear,” said the bear.
The tentacle lashed violently towards him but, rather than striking him, coiled around him, gripping him hard in a spiralling embrace from neck to toes.
“Oh!” said the bear.
The monster gave him a squeeze.
“Ow!” said the bear.
Then the creature raised the bear high into the air, tilted back its head and, after emitting a noise like a volcano laughing, dropped him into its mouth.
Then it spat him straight out again.
The bear flew through the air, foul-smelling gobs of thick spittle trailing in his wake, and landed with a splash some distance away.
The creature did not notice. It had turned its attention to the boat where the boy stood, rather nervously, holding the oar with which he had just jabbed the monster very hard in its stomach.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
“Don’t even think about it!” said the boy unconvincingly, wafting the oar in front of him rather limply while backing slowly and unsteadily away across the hull of the Harriet. The boat itself was moving away from the creature too, the prod of the oar having set it in motion.
The creature straightened itself, looming high above the boat, blocking out the sun and plunging the boy into gloom. Still edging backwards, the boy peered up at its awful face. It was hard to read its expression (the boy was used to faces with far fewer eyes), but it seemed safe to assume that it wasn’t happy. It raised two writhing, snaking tentacles high above the water and then brought them crashing down on either side of the Harriet.
The boat shot upwards on a plume of water, sending the boy flying onto his back, the oar dropping from his hands. The boy had scrambled halfway to his feet when two more tentacles smashed down into the water and another mighty wave shot the boat into the air. The boy, oars and everything else in the boat went flying. The boy landed hard on the bottom of the boat with oars and pans and stove and who knew what beneath and over him, and all of it in inches-deep water. The sponge that the bear had brought up from the sea bed landed on his head and bounced away somewhere. For a moment nothing happened. The boy lay there, propped up on his elbows amid the chaos of scattered and battered belongings. He tried to get up but banged his head against something. One of the oars had landed against the centre bench, its blade down in the bow section behind him, its handle up at an angle pointing at the beast. He had to wiggle around it as he got unsteadily to his feet, cautiously, half expecting the monster to toss the boat about some more. But it had tired of playing games now.
The creature arched its body, its mouth gaping wide, and issued a hideous roar that the boy could feel, like a stinky gale, as well as hear. Instinctively, he jumped backwards. One foot landed on the sponge, now saturated and slippery. His foot slid from beneath him and he toppled over, his full weight landing on the oar handle, smashing it downwards. The other end of the oar shot into the air, scooping up, as it did so, The Very Last Sandwich and shooting it over the sprawling boy. He watched it fly, as if in slow motion, curving through the air. It landed perfectly inside the gaping mouth of the sea monster.
The beast gave an involuntary gulp and came to an instant halt.
The boy hauled himself half upright, watching. The monster was still and quiet. The boat rocked gently back to equilibrium. The boy could hear the faint splashing of the distant bear swimming towards the boat, but he didn’t look round. Then there was a noise, a small noise, from somewhere deep inside the creature. It squinted one eye closed in discomfort but otherwise remained quite still. Then another noise, a little louder, a dull gurgling thud, like a small explosion. The closed eye opened and two other ones closed. A low rumble, and the beast’s eyes bulged and its face puffed up. It opened its mouth and belched neatly, seemingly rather relieved. It just had time to turn its attention to the boy again before another rumble made its body shake. Then another, louder and longer, and the monster’s eyes were shutting and opening madly, like lights blinking on and off. It groaned and closed all its eyes tight shut, as if concentrating hard. Somewhere very deep in the sea something went boom and the waters around the boat frothed with gigantic bubbles and the air filled with a terrible but familiar stench …
“Ooh,” said the boy. “Disgusting!”
Then, after the briefest pause, the noises started up again. A continuous, thundering rumble grew steadily in volume, accompanied by a series of increasingly violent explosions. To this dark music the creature began to dance. It swayed and shook and jerked in time to the strange rhythms of its own insides, its movements becoming bigger and wilder as the noises grew louder, its tentacles thrashing crazily, slapping at the water in a terrifying frenzy, churning up the sea and pushing the little boat away at some speed. The boy looked on, fascinated and appalled. He dimly registered that the bear had climbed into the boat and joined him, watching the weird spectacle before them. The monster howled, a jagged, high-pitched, unearthly noise, adding to the general farting, thrashing, splashing fugue. Its body writhed, its tentacles flailed. The boat rocked and bucked and jumped, but its startled occupants kept their eyes steadily on the creature.
Then it stopped.
The banging and the booming and the howling all ceased in an instant, and the monster froze. The great tangle of its tentacles made it look like a diagram of a very complicated knot. It was strangely beautiful. There was no sound except, perhaps, a strange sigh.
Then it exploded, throwing out ragged lumps of stinky, slimy flesh and drawing a pattern of splashes in a wide circle on the surface of the sea. The remains of its body folded in on itself, its tentacles wilted, and it sank slowly beneath the water.
“Do you think it was something he ate?” said the bear.
Floating Down
The boy and the bear tidied up the contents of the Harriet and, leaning over opposite sides of the boat, scooped up sea water and did their best to wash away bits of exploded monster. They were happy and relieved to be alive and they laughed and joked easily as if their recent ordeal had forged between them a strong, deep friendship.
This lasted about five minutes.
“You know, it was nice of you, but there was no need to interfere like that,” said the bear. “Defence of the vessel from sea monsters is really the captain’s job and I had the situation completely under control.”
“Under control?” said the boy.
“Yes. Of course,” said the bear.
“Under control from inside that thing’s mouth?”
“Um, yes,” said the bear.
“So what, exactly, was your plan to escape?” said the boy.
“Oh, I didn’t have a plan,” said the bear. “I never have a plan. No point having a plan when you’re a sea captain. When you’re dealing with the sea you have to be able to adapt at a moment’s notice. You have to deal with each situation as it arises. There’s no point moaning about it, you just say: ‘Here is where we are. What do we do now?’ My dad taught me that. He was a sea captain too, you see.”
The bear looked off to the horizon. Or perhaps to somewhere beyond it.
“Probably still is,” said the bear. “Wherever he’s got to.”
The boy sighed.
“So, what would you have done, without a plan, to get free?” he said.
“I don’t know. I was about to have a brilliant idea but I was interrupted,” said the bear.
“Oh,” said the boy, reaching down the neck of his T-shirt to extract a globule of pink blubber. “Another of your brilliant ideas?” He tossed the bit of monster into the water.
“Yes,” said the bear.
“Only, your last ‘brilliant idea’ started with us having a fish to eat and ended with us not having a fish to eat.”
“Um …”
“Not to mention the nearly-getting-killed bit in the middle.”
“Well,” said the bear, “there’s nothing wrong with nearly getting killed. Actually getting killed: now that would be annoying. But nearly getting killed is fine. I do it all the time and it’s never done me any harm.”
“Is that meant to make me feel better?”
“Yes,” said the bear.
The boy’s stomach interrupted with a loud grumble.
“Well, it doesn’t. A nice big fish to eat might make me feel better, but we don’t have one of those any more, thanks to you.”
“We can catch another fish,” said the bear.
“No we can’t,” said the boy. “The fishing rod’s gone. It must have fallen out when the gigantic sea monster was playing pat-a-cake with the boat.”
“Oh,” said the bear. He looked a little concerned. “But we’ve still got the stove, haven’t we?”
“Yes,” said the boy. “But why do you care when we’ve got nothing to cook on it?”
“Well, it’s almost four,” said the bear.
“I can’t believe,” said the boy, “that you’re worrying about tea.”
The boy realised he was speaking quite loudly now. Not shouting exactly, but not far off. And he had climbed onto the central seat so that his face was almost on the same level as the bear’s. And he was poking a finger into the bear’s fur for emphasis.
Actually, he thought, that’s probably not a good idea. I should stop poking the bear.
“Don’t poke me,” said the bear.
“I’ll poke you if I want to,” said the boy. He poked the bear again, hard, in the ribs.
I really wish I wasn’t doing that, he thought.
“I won’t warn you again,” said the bear.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” the boy heard himself say. He watched his finger jabbing into the bear and wondered why it wouldn’t stop.
“I’m the captain,” said the bear. “I can order you to stop.”
“Ha!” said the boy. “Some captain you are! Days at sea with no sign of land. No food. No idea where we are …”
“We are not lost!” shouted the bear.
“… and your stupid hat doesn’t even fit properly,” said the boy.
His finger, like something that was no longer a part of him, stopped poking at the bear and shot up as if to knock the hat from the bear’s head. It didn’t get there. The bear’s paw grabbed his wrist and held it still with an uncomfortably firm grip.
“Don’t you ever,” growled the bear, “touch the captain’s hat.”
He stared angrily into the boy’s eyes. The boy stared angrily back. He didn’t want to but somehow he couldn’t stop himself. I should apologise, thought the boy. If I say the wrong thing now he might actually break my hand off. I should apologise. I’ll apologise.
“You’re the worst captain ever!” said the boy.
Oh. That wasn’t meant to happen, thought the boy. That wasn’t meant to happen at all.
The boy found he was gazing off into the distance. He gulped and looked back to the bear, expecting to meet with a terrifying stare. But instead he found that the bear was looking up into the air between them. Something small and blue and fuzzy was there, falling slowly down. The boy lifted his head and focused on it, his eyes twitching as they followed its movements.
It was a f
eather. It rocked and turned and twirled and danced as it fell and the boy, hypnotised, slowly lowered his head as he followed its descent. It came to a stop on the tip of the bear’s nose. The boy and the bear stared hard at the feather, the bear almost cross-eyed. They stared and they said nothing. They hadn’t seen a bird in days. They stared at the feather, then they stared at each other, then they stared at the feather again. It was a beautiful thing, rich blue in colour, shiny and perfect, with a gentle curl to it. It sat on the bear’s nose, basking in the afternoon light.
Then the bear sneezed, waking them both from their trance and shooting the feather back up into the air. They followed it with their eyes and then both looked beyond it, searching the sky.
“A feather!” said the boy.
“From a bird!” said the bear.
“Do you see it?” said the boy.
“No,” said the bear.
“If we can spot it …” said the boy.
“… We could follow it to wherever it’s come from,” said the bear. “There might be food there.”
“Oh. I was just thinking we’d catch it and eat it.”
“That’s plan B. Do you see it?”
“No.”
They stood there turning around and twisting their necks, searching the sky.
“There!” said the bear at last, pointing very definitely at a particular patch of sky. The boy examined it closely.
“Where? I don’t see … oh! Yes! Yes, yes, yes!”
The cloudless blue sky had a tiny dark speck in it.
“Well don’t just stand there,” said the boy. “Get rowing!” But when he looked down again he saw that the bear was already back in his seat, pulling hard on the oars, speeding them across the water.
Kark!
The bear rowed and the boy stood on his seat, keeping an eye on the bird. Now and then he would correct their direction with an urgent word to the bear or a gesture with his hand: “A little more to the left. No, my left! That’s it.” Even with all his effort the bear could not row the Harriet as fast as a bird can fly, but luckily this particular bird seemed content to dawdle. Sometimes it would circle around for a while and they would catch up on it, the dark speck growing bigger and occasionally catching the sunlight, flashing a startling iridescent blue. At one point it dived down into the water and the boy lost sight of it for long frightened seconds before it rose again into the air. They were close enough that the boy could just make out that it had a fish in its beak.
