Crush leaped up at Nelson and hugged him around the neck. “Hoooooooooonk!”
“All right, Crush, take it easy. You’re going to strangle me,” spluttered Nelson as he ducked into the duty-free shopping area and hid behind the shelves filled with perfume bottles.
The rest of the monsters surrounded him but said nothing. They were all in shock due to having narrowly escaped what could have been a very nasty end to their journey and an even nastier end to Nelson’s life. Even Puff was wide awake and panting hard, with a disturbed look on his fluffy face (though it was hard to tell if Puff was freaked out because Nelson had almost been roasted alive or because he had just run for the first time in his life).
* * *
“Oh no, my backpack. Damn. Must have dropped it,” said Nelson, and like a perfectly timed joke it fell from above and hit him on the head.
“Terribly sorry, but you dropped this back there and I thought you might be needing it,” said Hoot, and Nelson was grateful despite the bump on his head.
So many security guards were rushing to the scene that nobody noticed an eleven-year-old boy covered in clear gloop quietly making his way toward the departure gates.
PLEASE DON’T EAT THE SOAP
“Last call for BA flight 133 to Rio, now boarding from Gate 29.”
Security men and women flocked in the opposite direction from Nelson and his monsters, who walked as quickly as they could toward the gate.
“What about our trunk and my uncle’s false leg?” said Nelson through clenched teeth like a ventriloquist (so people wouldn’t think he was talking to himself).
“The trunk is back there—we’ll have to leave it behind,” said Spike, tottering along on his stumpy little legs and clearly not enjoying the pace of their march along the moving walkway.
“I took the liberty of stowing the leg you speak of inside your bag,” whispered Miser, who needn’t have bothered as no one but Nelson could hear him.
Nelson smiled. He wanted to compliment Miser on his quick thinking, but they had arrived at Departure Gate 29 and there were too many people around to risk drawing attention to himself yet again.
That’s when he remembered that he was still covered in gloop.
“I’ve got to get cleaned up,” said Nelson, now heading straight for a bathroom reserved for parents with babies that was opposite the departure gate.
“We gotta get on that plane right now!” shouted Stan, but Nelson didn’t stop to answer.
The monsters followed him into the bathroom and Nelson locked the door.
“I can’t get on a plane like this. People will ask questions, and I won’t know what to say. Anyway, I don’t even have a ticket, and I’m not getting inside Nosh again.” Nelson sat down on the toilet seat and dropped his head into his hands. Crush honked and hugged his legs, but Nelson was too worried and upset to notice.
“I will acquire a ticket. But I will need some assistance,” said Miser, and Stan raised one of his enormous hands.
“Yes, I shall need Master Stan for this. And Master Puff.”
Puff just yawned.
“What are you going to do?” asked Nelson, flicking gloop from his fingers.
“Concern yourself with correcting your appearance, Master Nelson, and leave the rest to us,” hissed Miser, and he left with a very sleepy Puff crawling slowly behind.
The door closed and Nelson pulled Crush from around his neck, took off his sticky jacket, and began to wipe the gloop off his jeans with wads of paper towels. Hoot, Spike, and Crush shuffled about anxiously, while Nosh drank from the soap dispenser as if it was a delicious smoothie.
“Please don’t eat the soap—you’ll catch fire again,” said Nelson, but it was too late. A tiny flame, no bigger than that of a birthday candle, lit the top of Nosh’s head. Nelson shuddered at how close he had come to being cooked and digested by Nosh’s ghastly guts.
THE DISGUISE
Donna Gatsky was a woman with pointed cheekbones, pointed glasses, a pointed haircut, pointed chin, pointed nose, and pointed shoes. Even her black pinstripe suit was sharp. She was famous in the Hollywood movie business for getting her way by being absolutely horrible to everyone. I’m only telling you this so you don’t feel too sorry for her when you find out what happens next.
As you can see, Donna is pretty scary. What’s even more frightening is that the person she is shouting at is her mum!
Donna was about to board the flight to Brazil, but first she needed the loo.
Miser had been passing the time by picking pockets with his tentacles as easily as you or I would pick up groceries from the supermarket checkout conveyor belt. This wasn’t just out of habit—Miser was trying to find someone who had a ticket for the flight to Brazil. Preferably someone flying alone.
Donna stomped right past Miser with her steel wheelie suitcase in tow, and Miser, Stan, and Puff followed her into the bathroom.
Once Donna had finished on the loo, she came out to wash her hands and reapply her trademark deep-red lipstick. In order to do this, she laid her passport and boarding pass beside the sink, giving Miser a chance to check the details.
“This American lady is traveling to Brazil on the very flight we need to be on,” he announced excitedly. He continued: “Stan, prepare to catch this beautiful creature. Puff, I must ask you now to pass your ghastly gas and send this lady into a deep slumber.”
Puff did exactly that. Before Donna had a chance to pop the cap back on her lipstick, she had flopped like laundry into Stan’s open arms.
“Very good,” said Miser. “Now I must take this lady’s suitcase next door to Master Nelson while you two find an appropriate place for the lady to rest.” Then Miser dashed out with Donna’s suitcase, boarding pass, and passport.
* * *
“I’m not dressing up as a woman!” protested Nelson, who had by now managed to get most of the gloop off his clothes. It had been bad enough dressing up as Adolf Hitler, but dressing up as a woman and then getting on a plane in front of all those people made even driving the van seem easy by comparison.
“At least you can wear clothes,” moaned Spike. “I can’t. They’ll just get ripped to bits. I’d love to know what a nice coat feels like. Or a woolly hat. Or gloves. Or slippers—”
“Shut up about slippers!” shouted Stan, who had just joined them, and Spike sighed.
Nelson stared at the open suitcase and the suit that lay folded neatly inside it. Donna was clearly a woman who did not like variety, as it was identical to the one she was already wearing.
“Yer look like a girl anyway,” said Stan, and the monsters burst into hysterics.
“Shut up, Stan,” said Nelson, who right then and there decided the first thing he would do when he got his sister back was to get her to cut his hair. Very short.
* * *
The suit fit pretty well. That extra height Nelson had gained this year was suddenly coming in handy. Donna was only a couple of centimeters taller than him, so he just had to turn the trousers up a little for them to fit properly. The hair was easy to mimic. Nelson soaked his hair with water and then allowed Spike to style it into a severe bob, using his spiky hands as combs. A handful of Nosh’s sticky slobber made excellent hair gel so that it would stay in place for the flight. Nelson packed all his clothes into Donna’s suitcase, tried to apply the red lipstick to match the photo in the passport as best he could (while the monsters all chuckled at him), and then added the finishing touch—a pair of dark sunglasses. No one wears sunglasses in an airport in the middle of the night except rich and crazy people, but fortunately Donna fit both of these categories, so it would not arouse suspicion.
The only problem was the shoes. Donna hadn’t packed a spare pair so Nelson would just have to keep his filthy sneakers on and hope they didn’t draw too much attention.
This is the drawing Nelson never wants anyone to see.
Nelson looked into the mirror. Instead of an eleven-year-old boy with one freckle on the end of his nose, messy ha
ir, and a slightly goofy expression, he saw a very smart woman called Donna who looked like someone who always got things done her way. Katy Newman would love this, thought Nelson, before taking a deep breath and unlocking the bathroom door.
“Nelly-son look like lady!” cried Nosh with a big laugh, but Nelson ignored him.
“Ready?” said Nelson.
“Ready!” said his seven monsters, and Nelson opened the door.
SING ALONG WITH HOOT
Nelson could still hear the raised voices and alarms ringing at the far end of the terminal they had set fire to, but he didn’t dare look back.
He and the monsters walked as fast as they could and thundered down the tunnel leading to the plane like a football team heading toward the field. Even Hoot was running, as the tunnel was too low to fly in without hitting the roof. Nelson had managed to get past the stewards at the gate by responding to their comments, such as, “You are the last to board, Ms. Gatsky,” and, “It’s good to see you flying with us again, Ms. Gatsky,” with nods and little high-pitched grunts instead of actual words, and he was planning to use exactly the same technique when he met the stewards on the plane.
But he stopped dead when he saw the steward waiting for him at the door of the plane. There was no way the monsters could remain undetected in there. They were sure to cause chaos within seconds, and then the plane would never leave. Nelson couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought this far ahead. He was an idiot, and wasn’t only about to get caught dressed as a woman, but was also going to give away the awkward secret that he had seven monsters following him about everywhere.
“You’ll have to go down with the luggage,” whispered Nelson.
“Typical. And you get to fly in the nice part of the plane, I suppose,” complained Spike.
“You’re making a scene. You know I have to get on this plane now,” Nelson hissed as he pretended to look for something in his pockets.
“The boy is right. We must avoid the humans’ carriage—this way!” said Miser, and with his tentacles he whipped open a door in the side of the tunnel. An airport security officer standing nearby assumed the wind had blown the door open and quickly moved to close it, by which time the monsters, most of whom were extremely cross about not getting to sit in the cabin, had escaped through it. Except Crush. Crush gripped onto Nelson’s leg like a toddler clinging to its mother on the first day of school.
“Everything all right, madam?” said the waiting steward to Nelson, who was trying to shake Crush off his leg as casually as possible.
“Mmm, hmm!” was Nelson’s high-pitched reply, before bending down as if to fetch something from out of the steel suitcase.
“Crush, please. Go with the others,” begged Nelson, but Crush would not let go and honked his distress as loudly as he could.
“Well, then you’d better not do anything stupid, okay?” whispered Nelson, peering at him over the top of Donna’s sunglasses. Crush honked and squeezed Nelson’s leg even tighter.
“Okay, let go now,” said Nelson, but Crush was too excited and happy to release his grip.
“Ms. Gatsky, we’re running late so if you wouldn’t mind…” said the steward, and Nelson had to walk with Crush hanging on to his lower right leg. Nelson had never met Donna Gatsky, but he was pretty sure that she didn’t walk with the pirate-style limp he had to adopt in order to get on board.
“Right this way, Ms. Gatsky,” said the steward, who had short blond hair that was coated in so much gel it made him look like a Playmobil toy. Nelson just nodded and smiled without showing his teeth. He was doing a remarkably decent job of seeming confident, but behind those dark glasses hid a very scared boy whose heart was beating like that of a hummingbird who’d just knocked back his fifth double espresso.
“How come that stupid honking little twit gets to sit up there with Nelson?” bellowed Spike, but none of the other monsters heard him over the roar of the jet engines or the wind that whistled through the metal bars of the spiral stairs leading down to the tarmac. Hoot instantly took to the air and drifted down to the door that hung open in the plane’s belly while the others bounded down the stairs.
“Chop, chop! Get a wiggle on, my lovelies!” cried Hoot as the monsters scrambled across the tarmac, narrowly missing a passing airline food truck, and leaped onto the conveyor belt that was carrying the very last pieces of luggage from the tarmac up into the plane. The monsters surveyed what was to be their home for the next twelve hours with the disdain of vacationers who have just opened the door to their hotel room and found it to be a dungeon. Spike let out a mournful groan and several of the monsters nodded in agreement.
“Oh, it’s not that bad, chaps. Come along, chin up,” said Hoot as he settled onto one of the crates.
“What about Crush? Where Crush?” shouted Nosh.
“I was just saying, he’s up there in the lap of luxury with Nelson. All right for some, eh?” moaned Spike.
“Well, I think it’s rather fine down here. Plenty of room to spread out and all that,” said Hoot, admiring his reflection in the surface of a chrome control panel. “Isn’t this fun, eh, chaps? All of us together on a grand adventure. I say, why don’t we all sing a jolly old song? Come on, Nosh—you must know a good tune.”
To everyone’s surprise it was Puff who spoke up. Puff hardly ever said a word, so when he did, everyone listened.
“Hoot … before we sing a song … why don’t you … fly up … and look in through the windows?… Make sure … Nelson’s on the plane,” said Puff in a slow drawl that was so deep you could feel his words vibrating in your chest, even in the cargo hold of a plane whose engines had begun to make about-to-take-off noises.
“Spiffing idea, Puff! I’ll be back in a jiffy!” squawked Hoot as he sailed out the cargo door.
Puff smiled, but it was a wicked smile and the others were quick to realize what he was up to.
“But Hoot get stuck outside,” said Nosh, who had already eaten the handle of an old leather trunk.
“If I am not mistaken, that was Master Puff’s intention,” said Miser, as the last of the ground crew stepped outside and the cargo hold became dark as they closed the hatch. It was clear that playing a trick like this on Hoot was the funniest thing anyone could do, as the monsters began to laugh hysterically. Just so you know, the sound of monsters laughing is rather like the sound of the water from five bathtubs going down the drains at the same time, mixed with the sound of five lions roaring with satisfaction after eating a particularly meaty and delicious zebra.
* * *
Nelson had never sat in a first-class cabin before, and to say it was luxurious would be an understatement. His seat was at least three times the size of a dentist’s chair, as soft and comfortable as a feather bed, and it could adjust into any position with just the touch of a button. The royal blue carpet was so thick he could grip it with his toes (his sneakers had already been stashed under his seat), and the screen that rose like the arm of a ballet dancer from his seat promised him a selection of movies and games that made his brain spin with delight. It was as if he had been made lord of a fantasy world, and the stewards, who laid a Coke and some sour-cream-flavored nibbles on his side tray and presented him with a leather wash bag, were his loyal courtiers. Of course Nelson was not alone. Crush had at last let go of his leg, but was now snuggled up against him like a real-life cuddly toy. First-class passengers are also given lovely blankets and duvets, and Nelson used them to cover up as much of himself and Crush as possible. And he intended to remain under these blankets until the plane landed in Brazil.
* * *
Tap! Tap! Tap!
There were only nine passengers in the first-class cabin, and all of them turned toward the direction the noise was coming from.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
But there was nothing to be seen, unless you were Nelson, in which case you would have seen Hoot tapping on the window of the plane with a claw and his solid silver beak.
Nelson looked at him with wide eyes a
nd clenched teeth.
“Hello there! Just checking you were on the plane!” shouted Hoot, although Nelson could barely hear him through the triple glazing.
“And I see you are! Very cozy indeed! I shall now join the others and inform them of your position! We are going to have a sing-song! Toodle-oo!”
And even though no one but him could hear Hoot, Nelson’s cheeks flushed red with embarrass-ment and Crush gave a small honk of support.
Nelson resumed his position and the rest of the passengers went back to their newspapers and drinks. The plane made a gentle rocking movement and started to drift backward away from the airport terminal. Nelson was just bringing his Coke to his lips when he was interrupted once again by …
Tap! Tap! Tap!
He turned to see Hoot waving a wing at him.
“I appear to have been locked out!” shouted Hoot, as the plane started to trundle toward the runway.
All Nelson could do was shake his head ever so slightly and shrug. I mean, what else was there to do?
“Oh, dearie me! This could be a problem!” shouted Hoot, and Nelson nodded in agreement.
“Everything all right over here?” oozed the Playmobil steward, who for some reason had put on a jacket especially for takeoff.
“Mmm, hmm,” said Nelson as his cheeks managed to find an even deeper shade of pink and his eyes began watering with embarrassment.
“Well, let’s get your seat in the upright position for takeoff then, shall we?” said the steward, pressing a button and raising Nelson’s chair. Crush did not trust this young man at all and made his feelings known in the only way he could—by honking (angrily).
* * *
Though he knew no one else could see Hoot, Nelson didn’t dare look out the window again until the stewards had taken his empty cup away and started the safety demonstration. A quick peek through the glass confirmed that Hoot was perched on the wingtip. But just beyond Hoot, inside the terminal from which they were departing, Nelson saw an even stranger sight: a very large man who had rushed to the open end of the tunnel they had just pulled away from was being held back by security men. The man wore a sun hat pulled low over his forehead, his tummy hung out of his shirt, and he could not tear his bulging, milky eyes off the plane containing the boy he so desperately needed to catch. Of course, Nelson had no idea this man was Celeste’s uncle Brian.
The Deadly 7 Page 11
