The Deadly 7
Page 15
“Ah! Yes, I must say he does look rather dehydrated.” Hoot took off through the trees.
The sound of the stampeding cattle receded into the distance, making room for the chirrup of crickets and the chatter of parrots to be heard instead.
“What’s … the … problem? He’ll … be fine,” drawled Puff, as he flopped onto the ground.
“He’s not fine though, is he? I mean, look at him,” said Nelson, looking down into Spike’s now hollow eyes.
“’E’ll bounce back. ’E’s a cactus, innit?” Stan stomped angrily on a branch, snapping it in two.
“Master Nelson, there are times when one must make sacrifices for the greater good,” said Miser, bowing low to avoid Nelson’s gaze.
“Sacrifice Spike? Just leave him behind in the dust? All he needs is water. Then we can carry on.” Nelson addressed the entire group, as it was clear they were all on Miser’s side.
The awkward silence was broken by a very loud call from Hoot, who sailed through the trees toward them.
“Fear not, my dears! Once again, good ol’ Hoot has come up trumps and saved the day! With my keen eye I have spied us some water, here beneath these rocks no less. But please, there is no need to shower me with praise. I already know how much you admire me and I can’t blame you—I am rather dazzling, aren’t I? Now follow me, it’s just over here. Step lively. Come on now. Look sharp.”
“Gawd, I hate that bird,” growled Stan.
Nelson carried Spike in his arms (which was very easy as, without water, Spike was featherlight) to where the rest of the monsters stood gazing into a gap between two huge bare orange boulders.
“Clever old me tossed a stone down there and heard a plop. All the water you need!” announced Hoot, tossing his head back and standing with one claw poised like an explorer waiting for someone to take his photo at the end of an impressive expedition.
Looking down between the rocks, Nelson only saw darkness and heard the echo of Hoot’s words.
“Are you sure?” he asked, as the ends of Spike’s arms began to crack and wither into dust.
Hoot tossed a pebble into the hole. It rattled down between the two huge boulders like the last grain of sand in a timer before disappearing into the black void below.
There was a pause.
A long pause.
And then finally a plop. A distant but significant plop.
“Hoot, it’s flippin’ miles down there!” exclaimed Nelson.
“I do jump-jump!” said Nosh, bouncing up and down like an excited sack of potatoes, and before Nelson could tell him that was a bad idea, Nosh had slid down between the rocks with a great “Wheeeeeeeeee!”
“Nosh! No!” cried Nelson, but it was too late. Nosh had gone, his voice tailing off into the distance like the whistle of a cartoon anvil about to fall on someone’s head.
Then silence. Nelson and the remaining monsters held their breath.
Splash!
It might have been a mile away, but it was definitely a splash—the sound of something falling into water.
“Nosh? Nosh? Are you okay?” called Nelson through the gap in the rocks, but Nosh didn’t reply, he was too busy laughing.
“Jumpy-jumpy!” he cried, clearly having a whale of a time down there.
“Hoot. Fly down there and bring up some water in your beak or something. Fast as you can— Spike’s shriveling up. Look, I think he’s stopped breathing.”
“Ah, now, there’s the hitch, sir. I’m afraid I cannot fly into this cave for it is dark and a tad on the scary side.”
You couldn’t hear Nelson begging Hoot to reconsider over the sound of the other monsters cursing Hoot at the top of their lungs.
“There’s no use getting all hot and bothered. I am a vital member of this group and therefore it is of the utmost importance that I remain safely by the side of our leader, Nelson.”
“Honk!” blasted Crush, sending Hoot flying up into the trees.
“Can one of you take Spike?” begged Nelson, but it was clear from all their faces that this was not going to happen without an awful lot of wasted time.
Nelson was going to have to jump with Spike by himself. He’d never even had the guts to jump off the top board at the swimming pool before, so this was ridiculous! If it had just been Nelson standing on his own, he would never have jumped, but because he was cradling a monster that needed water to survive, he had no choice.
He might well be scared.
He might even scream.
But he had to jump.
And he did.
Well, he didn’t jump at first. He sort of skidded down the rocks until his sneakers couldn’t keep up, and just when he felt he was going to fall on his face again, he jumped. And he screamed. All the way down through the inky blackness. Falling and falling and falling through the air and finally crashing with an explosive pow into the waters below. The cheer from the other monsters above was as loud as the splash.
Seconds later there were bomb-sized splashes all around him as the other monsters landed in the water.
Nelson sank so deeply into the pool that it took him several seconds before he could kick to the surface again with Spike in his arms.
As he broke the surface, Nelson instinctively flicked his head so that his bangs flew out of his eyes. He didn’t need to swim to the rocks at the side of the pool because Miser was already on a dry rock and reached out a tentacle to pull him in with great ease. Everyone was laughing at the thrill of it all, and when Nelson realized he could stand as he raised Spike from the water, he found the patient looking back at him with a stunned but reassuringly lively expression.
They had landed in a cave of indeterminate size, as the only light came from the gap between the two boulders above.
“Ooh, look at the little baby!” said Stan, who was watching Spike gurgle and blink himself back to life in Nelson’s arms. The monsters’ laughter echoed around the dark cave, which in that moment gave Nelson a fleeting memory of standing beneath the dark dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral the night he had made his monsters.
“I say! Not so bad after all, eh?” called Hoot as he spiraled down toward the others, but they were all too happy to bother throwing a rock at his head.
“Ow!” said Nelson, as cactus needles began to protrude once again from Spike’s rubbery flesh. Crush ran to Nelson’s side and hugged him with all his might (which was a great deal of might).
“Honk!”
Spike sat up by himself and blinked slowly as he stretched and twisted his body back to life. “What are we doing down here? What happened to the cows?” he said.
BANG!
The noise was so loud it was minutes before anyone would hear anything other than the ringing in their ears. The explosion had been magnified in volume by the cave acting as an echo chamber. The blast of air that accompanied the noise sent every single one of them flying back into the water, and when they finally rose to the surface, startled and terrified out of their wits, they found the air to be full of swirling blue smoke.
* * *
At this precise point in time, just outside St. Paul’s Cathedral, a young man called Frank Mole was serving hot dogs from his small kiosk to a couple of football fans on their way to a match.
BANG!
The explosion happened right beside Frank’s kiosk and sent hot dogs flying in all directions, like little meaty torpedoes. No one was hurt, merely dazed, deafened and disoriented, but for a few terrifying seconds Frank Mole thought he was covered in blood, until he realized it was actually his own tomato ketchup. As a cloud of blue smoke drifted away on the breeze, people turned to see the patch of scorched earth where the explosion had taken place.
What they couldn’t see was a very, very startled monster standing in the middle of it all. It was Nosh, and he was as surprised to be there as the folks who were picking themselves off the ground. And the reason for his sudden appearance was about to pop out of his mouth.
Nosh had never once eaten anything he found dis
agreeable, and this was the first time he had ever thrown up. The Bang Stone fell out of his mouth and onto the pavement, where it fizzed for a moment before Nosh quickly picked it up again and stuffed it back into his mouth.
BANG!
The poor people who had already been scared senseless by the first explosion screamed for their lives at the second blast, and Frank Mole decided that although he had found this spot to be extremely profitable over the years, from now on he would sell his hot dogs somewhere else.
BANG!
Just as Nelson and the monsters had begun to haul themselves out of the water and onto the shore, yet another explosion sent them flying backward.
This time, when the blue smoke cleared, they would find the culprit of this loud and very, very scary incident.
* * *
Nosh threw up the stone and quickly put it back inside the little clay pot he’d discovered in the bag Miser had secretly stolen from Brian. Nosh would never have gone looking through Miser’s belongings, or anyone else’s for that matter, but the stench of rotten eggs was irresistible, and he was so hungry. It was this eggy smell that had reminded him of one of the other smells he liked the most, which was fried onions. He had caught a whiff of them from a hot-dog stand beside the subway-station entrance when he and the monsters had escaped from St. Paul’s Cathedral and begun their journey to find Nelson, and it was precisely this place he had been thinking of when he popped the strange eggy stone in his mouth and exploded.
“What on earth did you just do, Nosh?” spluttered Nelson, as he collapsed on the rock for the second time.
“I explode,” said Nosh, shuffling his feet awkwardly as if about to be told off.
“Yeah, I know that, but how come you’re still alive?” said Nelson.
“Hot dogs,” said Nosh.
“’E’s lost the plot,” groaned Stan.
“No, Nosh fink of hot dogs and Nosh go bang! And me go to da hot-dog man,” said Nosh, rubbing his empty belly and wishing now that he’d picked up a few of those stray frankfurters.
“What hot-dog man? Where?” said Nelson, who had decided not to get too close to Nosh until he knew for sure he wasn’t about to explode again.
“Da big place. Da church. Where Nelly-son make us.”
“St. Paul’s Cathedral?” said Nelson. This made no sense.
“Yeah! San Pauly Thedral! Nelly-son right! Yeah! I eat stone, I fink of hot-dog place by Pauly Thedral and bang! I there. Then I fink, oh no, I not wanna be by Pauly Thedral. I wanna be back wiv Nelly-son, so I eat eggy stone and I fink of Nelly-son, and bang! I back to Nelly-son!”
* * *
Nelson could have berated Miser for stealing Brian’s belongings or Nosh for letting his hunger win out over common sense, but there was no doubt that without Miser’s greed or Nosh’s gluttony they would never have discovered the Bang Stone. This must be that magic stone his uncle had told him about. The one that had enabled Pogo’s dad to travel to Brazil and back so quickly. Cars and planes and cows had brought them so far, but with this stone they could travel directly to Celeste without another wasted moment. It was a gift beyond value.
* * *
“This actually might explain things a bit,” said Nelson as he hauled his backpack over his shoulders. “On the news they said there’d been an explosion on the boat my sister was on. It could have been the same as this. Yeah, Brian must have eaten one of those stones. He must have swallowed it and taken my sister with him.”
The monsters were not interested in solving clues. They just wanted the ache they had felt ever since they came into existence to go away as quickly as possible. And it wasn’t going to go away until they saved Celeste.
* * *
Nosh had agreed to swallow the stone again and was already looking forward to having the eggy taste back in his mouth. The rest of the gang huddled around him, reluctantly preparing to give Nosh a big hug.
Hoot cleared his throat and spoke loudly and clearly to the group, like the coach of the world’s smallest and ugliest football team. “Now then, just in case we are all blown to smithereens, I would just like to say how much I have enjoyed your company, as I am quite sure you have enjoyed mine. And if by some astonishing miracle we should survive this explosion, I would like to offer each of you my very own styling and grooming tips, which I guarantee will vastly improve the looks of even the most hideous of you. Very good. Carry on.”
You would have thought Hoot’s last comment would have been met with a barrage of insults, but the rest of the monsters were too stunned by his arrogance to reply.
“Okay, is everyone ready?” said Nelson.
“Honk! Honk! Hooonk!” said Crush.
Nelson held hands with Miser and Stan. Puff had crawled up onto Nosh’s head like an ill-fitting purple wig, and Crush wrapped his arms around Nelson’s neck and clung on.
“Why do I have to hold hands with Hoot? He’s a total fool,” said Spike in his usual surly tone, but no one took any notice. Miser took Spike’s other hand and they all squeezed in around Nosh.
“You ready, Nelly-son?” asked Nosh, as he opened the clay pot and the stench of sulfur shot up all of their noses like a stinky bullet.
“We just close our eyes, we think of her, and we say her name—Okay?” said Nelson, and all the monsters nodded. “Right. Phew. This is it. If this works, we’re gonna rescue my sister. Okay, do it, Nosh.”
Nosh greedily stuffed the blue stone into his mouth.
Nelson and the monsters closed their eyes, pulled each other close, and said, “Celeste.”
THE JELLY FREAKS
Nelson didn’t feel anything. He didn’t even hear a bang. He was supposed to have just exploded along with his seven monsters, and yet it felt as if nothing had happened. When he opened his eyes he and his seven monsters were enveloped by a thick, swirling blue smoke. Only now did Nelson realize he had been holding his breath. He gasped and the smoke rushed into his lungs, causing him to cough so hard Crush fell from his neck.
“I say, did that actually work? Are we there?” spluttered Hoot, shaking his head as if something was loose inside and he wanted to get it out. There was no way of knowing where they were right now—the smoke was too thick—but it didn’t sound as if they were in the cave anymore.
Nosh gagged and threw his arms out to push everybody back. Plop. Fizz. The stone fell out of his mouth and shook urgently on the ground like a beetle stuck on its back. Miser whipped up the stone in a flash and sealed it inside Brian’s clay pot, where you could still hear it trembling as if it wanted to get out. Still no one said anything. The smoke had rendered them all speechless. Their eyes were wide as they scanned the blue smoke for any sign of where they were. One thing was for sure: it was a hundred times hotter here than it had been in that cold cave. It even sounded as if the world around them was sizzling like sausages in a frying pan.
Nelson pulled his T-shirt over his mouth, turned around, and slowly raised a hand through the smoke. He’d not reached more than a few inches when his outstretched fingers discovered the unmistakable ridges of tree bark. As his fingertips tentatively traveled over the surface of the tree, Nelson wondered how anything so close to him could be hidden from sight. He leaned forward to see for himself what his hand had found and was rewarded by a horrific sight: a terrifying face loomed through the blue smoke, frozen in a silent scream.
Nelson jumped back and bumped into Stan.
“Oi!” snapped Stan, who was trying to look brave but not doing a very good job of it.
Nelson braced himself as if whatever he had touched would come for him.
But it didn’t.
“Master Nelson,” whispered Miser, “what have you seen?”
Nelson couldn’t answer, but that didn’t matter as Spike was able to answer for him.
“A bunch of boring trees. Look.” He pointed upward, and through the swirling smoke they could all clearly make out the silhouettes of trees.
Nelson looked back to the place where he had seen the
horrible face and saw it was nothing more than the knot of a tree trunk. His mind had clearly played a trick on him. But the tree was black as if someone had painted it with a layer of tar. Nelson looked down at his hand. His fingers were covered in something oily and black.
Crush let out the tiniest of honks. Actually it was more like the sound of a puppy cowering in the kitchen on fireworks night. That one nervous, trembling note summed up just how they all felt at that moment.
* * *
The smoke finally began to drift away, like ghosts who had had enough of haunting for one night and were going back to bed.
As the world around them started to appear, Nelson clung to his pendant. The good feeling it provided had never felt more necessary.
Nelson and his seven monsters were standing in the middle of a scorched patch of jungle. The trees around them were baked black and leaned so far out from the clearing it was a miracle they hadn’t toppled over.
“Briii-aaan,” came a haunting female voice through the trees.
“Celeste!” screamed Nelson, setting off at full speed in the direction of the voice.
The other monsters gave chase, roaring and hissing and shouting and honking as loudly as they could.
Running was not easy. The jungle floor was a web of wet and rubbery vines covered in a layer of black oil, designed to trip up even the most sure-footed explorer. Nelson’s sneakers might as well have been greased with butter the way they slid out from under him at every step and sent him crashing to his knees. The monsters fared no better and stumbled among the gigantic black spaghetti-like tree roots.
Nelson stopped. In the short distance he had traveled, he had already managed to completely lose his sense of direction. Looking back, he couldn’t even see the patch of scorched earth anymore. This had to be the very worst rescue of all time.
Flop … Flop … Flop …
Nelson turned his head toward the sound of something or somethings landing repeatedly on the wet ground nearby. He held up his hand to the monsters behind him, ordering them to stop. And surprisingly, they did as they were told.