It was quite a shock to suddenly see the bottom of the river. The lights from the fish around him illuminated the white sand and rocks and Nelson was reminded of photographs he had seen of the surface of the moon. It was so hot down here now that Nelson would have wiped his brow if he’d had one. His fellow fish skimmed the riverbed, their beautiful silver bodies gliding between mini-volcanoes that sent small jets of white sulfur into the water. Nelson found the water around him brightening and turned to see that he and his new friends had been joined by more fish.
They were now gathering around a white stone cone that rose from the riverbed and spouted white dust into the water.
Nelson found a place among the circling fish and waited eagerly to see what happened next. Maybe it would be a light show, or this mini-volcano might erupt, or maybe they were about to have dinner. Nelson realized that he was hungry, but he had no idea what kind of food he was going to eat now that he was half boy, half fish.
* * *
Many fish had assembled, illuminating the white volcano with their lights. For a moment they all held still, and Nelson was reminded of the few times in his life he had been to church. This, like those, was one of those times to watch what everyone else was doing and copy it as best you can.
After nearly a minute of silence, one of the fish swam forward and approached the mouth of the little volcano. The fish’s body was long and thin like a barracuda, its tail was as beautiful as a butterfly wing, and its teeth were small and delicate.
The pretty fish swam into the cloud of white before flipping over and darting down into the volcano. It had vanished, and in doing so it had stemmed the flow of white dust into the river water. Nelson was amazed. Seconds later, the pretty fish emerged from the mouth of the volcano, accompanied by a puff of white. Nelson would have clapped, but his flippers weren’t much use in that department.
All eyes followed the pretty fish as it made its way toward Nelson.
I hope I don’t have to do that now, he thought. He had had enough adventures for one day and swimming to the bottom of a boiling hot mini-volcano did not appeal to him.
It was only as the pretty fish drew nearer that Nelson realized it was carrying something in its flippers. All eyes turned to Nelson as the pretty fish opened its fins to reveal something that Nelson recognized at once.
A Bang Stone. Fizzing and shaking just like the one he’d seen Nosh eat.
It was their gift. The fish wanted him to have it. And instinctively he knew why. Nelson could feel their gratitude from the light they shone around him. The stone was their way of saying, “Thanks for getting rid of that horrible whale woman and restoring paradise.”
The Bang Stone wasn’t just a gift though. It was a way out. The ground above was sealed, perhaps forever, but this stone could take him wherever he wanted to go. The fish pressed in around Nelson, eager for him to eat the stone. He wanted to thank them. He wanted to let them know how grateful he was. All he could do was look around at their wondrous faces and hope that his own face somehow showed how he felt inside.
Nelson lifted the stone and opened his mouth …
At that very second, every single fish around him vanished with a flick of its tail, plunging Nelson back into darkness once more.
Nosh had explained how it worked: you simply swallowed the stone, thought of where you wanted to go, and you would go there.
Nelson knew exactly where he wanted to go, and without hesitating he swallowed the Bang Stone, closed his eyes … and thought of his home.
* * *
The fish had done well to swim away, as seconds later there was an explosion as Nelson disappeared. The riverbed erupted in a cloud of white dust that would take three days to settle, but Nelson never heard a bang or even felt a twitch.
OMMMMMMMMMMM
The time it took for Nelson to travel from the riverbed to his destination was less than a heartbeat, but in that moment time stood still. Nelson felt every cell of his body slowly separate, as if he was ice cream melting in the sun. It sounds awful, but it wasn’t. For that split second in time, Nelson felt every part of himself connecting with every single part of the universe. I know that sounds strange, and the truth is, it was. Nelson had been a boy for almost all his life, and more recently a sort of half fish, half boy, but now he was dissolving into nothing and yet at the same time becoming part of everything. He was reduced to his very essence, which he now realized was his soul. Nelson didn’t just feel it and know it, he could hear it. The hum of the universe. Like the sound that’s left over after a gong has been struck. Ommm. This was the sound of everything, from a rock to a rock star. It was the sound of the soul.
* * *
Everything had suddenly become so clear to Nelson that he realized he had made a mistake in where he had chosen to go. Home was not to be his final destination, and in that fleeting moment of time, he redirected himself.
BANG!
It just so happened that Nelson had appeared in the very same spot a jelly freak had been standing, and the explosion had blown the nasty fellow to bits.
He was back on the monster battlefield and only meters away from his sister, who lay lifeless in the grass. Though his vision was blurry, Nelson could see the cows running away, clearly startled by his sudden and very noisy appearance. He felt his stomach retch and the fizzing Bang Stone pop out of his mouth. But he couldn’t breathe. He gasped and remembered he was half fish! Nelson used all the strength he had left inside him to flip his body, inch by inch, toward his lifeless sister.
* * *
Meanwhile, his seven monsters had been win-ning the battle and only three of the jelly freaks were left. The rest lay twisted and broken on the beautiful ground, which was busy absorbing their bodies and replacing them with stunning flowers and bushes and ferns. The fire that had raged through the treetops was now nothing more than a few cinders.
The deadly seven were more like the messed-up seven now. Nosh lay on his back, unable to digest anything more, smoke billowing from his gigantic mouth. Spike had fallen to his knees as every needle in his body had been spent and now he leaked water from every open pore. Miser had lost several tentacles, but despite the pain had managed to fight on with his remaining limbs. Puff was high up in a tree, having been tossed there like a toy by one of the jelly freaks, and pinned beneath him was Hoot, who had gotten his head stuck while trying to escape earlier. The last of the deadly seven still fighting were Stan and Crush. Stan’s red body was black and blue, and one of his eyes was swollen shut from what must have been a heck of a blow.
The only one still in any state to fight was Crush. Of all the monsters, it was Crush who had the most life left in him at the end, and he dispatched the last three jelly freaks by lashing them together with his chainlike arms and then using his head as a hammer to pound them to bits.
Carla lay among the ferns, gazing dreamily at the blue sky above. Nothing could dent her happiness. She didn’t even care that she was now missing the lower part of her right leg. Her transformation back from the whale-like creature to the beautiful woman she had been before the fire was complete. In many ways it was a shame that after all she had been through, Carla was about to be crushed like an ant.
“Crush! No!” shouted Nelson. Crush froze with his elephant-sized foot in midair, just about to bring it down on Carla’s head.
All the monsters turned to see a half fish, half boy kneeling beside Celeste with his flipper hands raised above his head. Dazed, injured, and exhausted, the monsters could only pant and stare as the fish-boy addressed them.
“It’s me! Nelson. Look, don’t kill her. Just leave her alone, okay? She’s not a threat to you or to anyone else anymore!” urged Nelson, whose evolution back into a human boy had thankfully begun with his lungs.
The monsters said nothing. Their red eyes had become glazed and their eyelids heavy.
Nelson squeezed the water from his T-shirt onto his sister’s face. The journey from the riverbed to her side had given him a sense of cl
arity he had never felt before. It was as if his mind had always been a bin overflowing with rubbish and now it was a glass of water. And water would save his sister. The River of Life might have closed up forever, but he hoped there was still enough of it soaked into his T-shirt to revive her.
He squeezed and twisted his T-shirt as best he could with his fish flippers and wiped as much of the water as he could onto her lips. Nelson didn’t stop until every last drop had been wrung out of his T-shirt. All the time he was doing this, he was becoming less fish and more boy. By the time he had finished, Nelson had fingers and feet, and when he laid his head on her chest he knew he had ears, because he was rewarded with the greatest sound he had ever heard.
A heartbeat.
* * *
Celeste was alive! Nelson felt his own heart beating so hard and so strong it was as if it had turned his chest into a disco. He checked again, just to be sure, and not only could he hear her heartbeat, but her chest rose and fell with her first new breaths. Tears filled his eyes as he cradled his sister’s head in his lap and wiped the hair away from her forehead. When he looked up he realized he was surrounded. Nosh, Spike, Crush, Miser, Puff, Stan, and Hoot were back to their original selves, except for their battle scars. They said nothing, only smiled. When you feel this happy words are pretty useless. Celeste was alive and the ache that had tormented them since Nelson brought them into existence was gone at last.
* * *
Phew.
THE ADMIRABLE NELSON
This glorious moment was broken by the sound of sirens and a chopper flying above. Dust and leaves swirled as a police helicopter flew low over the trees, circling back when the pilot had spotted the clearing in the jungle.
Nelson sprang up and began waving his arms wildly at the helicopter.
“Stop!” shouted Puff. Yes, it was Puff, who spoke so rarely, and the rest of the monsters remained silent as he continued. “I … wouldn’t do that … if I … were you … Nelson … how will you … explain … being … here?”
“I’ll just tell them that I flew here…” but Nelson didn’t finish his sentence. He suddenly understood what Puff was getting at. If he was discovered by his sister’s side he’d have to tell the police how he’d gotten here, and that could lead to terrible trouble. After all, he had driven a van illegally, stolen the identity of a woman who was currently snoozing in a bathroom air-conditioning unit, and before that he’d set off a fireball in Heathrow Airport. Not to mention his part in knocking out Uncle Brian.
Maybe people would believe him, but that was not a risk Nelson needed to take. The clarity with which he now saw things gave him the headspace to reconsider his options. He could hear the police chopper circling.
Nelson addressed the monsters (and the seven cows who had come to have a look at what was going on) as quickly and concisely as he possibly could.
“She’s going to be all right now, she’s safe, but Puff’s right—if we stay, it’ll ruin everything.”
“Master Nelson is correct. We must leave before they find us,” said Miser.
Nelson stood up and carried the Bang Stone to a safe distance away from his sister. The seven monsters clustered around him and prepared to go home.
“Wot? We just gonna leave Celeste ’ere? After all that?” asked Stan.
Celeste yawned and began to shift in the grass.
“Master Stan makes a valid point,” said Miser. “One of us should remain with Celeste to ensure her safety.”
The monsters looked at each other in silence. Nelson knew Miser was right, but leaving any one of his monsters alone here was a very big deal indeed.
“Honk!” said Crush, letting go of Nelson’s leg and running toward Celeste, where he sat beside her head and honked again triumphantly.
“Thank you, Crush,” said Nelson, and Crush honked back, hugging Celeste’s arm.
“Nosh stay wiv Crush!” said Nosh, proudly taking his place by Crush’s side.
“Well, you two idiots won’t make it back on yer own,” sighed Stan, striding over to join them.
“Oh, great, now we all have to feel bad for not staying with Crush,” moaned Spike, but none of the other monsters paid any attention. They had all joined Crush.
“Master Nelson, we shall watch out for her and see that she is safe,” said Miser.
Spike shrugged, sighed, and joined his fellow monsters.
“Will you be able to get home again?” asked Nelson.
“’Tis simple. We possess another Bang Stone, do we not?” said Miser, turning to see where it might be.
The other monsters looked around, but all they saw were flowers.
“It must be ’ere somewhere,” growled Stan, as he kicked at the swaying grass.
“What if you can’t find it?” said Nelson, and the monsters fell silent at what was clearly a very likely outcome, given the plants continuing to spring up around them.
“We do it da old-fashioned way,” said Nosh with a big grin on his face.
“Ah yes. We close our eyes…” said Miser, and all the monsters closed their eyes, “… and we all say your name.”
“Nelson.”
All seven monsters stood around Celeste pointing at Nelson and humming like bees.
Nelson felt his skin prickle and a wave of certainty fill his heart just as it used to when he touched the pendant.
“See you soon then,” said Nelson, in a wobbly little voice due to a lump that had risen in his throat.
* * *
Up in the helicopter, the pilot turned around and addressed his passenger.
“Hey! You sure this is the place?”
“Yes, this is it—but it’s changed. It hasn’t looked like this in ten years,” said Brian, clinging to the window rail with his good arm (the other was in a sling and his head was wrapped in bandages). Among the flowers Brian could see Celeste and, not more than a few meters away, his beloved Carla on the ground, waving calmly up at him. For a moment he thought he saw the boy called Nelson.
Bang!
Nelson fell forward, partly because of the shock of being in a new place and partly because of the driving rain that blasted out of the stormy London skies. He hit the road hard with his palms, and the stone shot out of his mouth and rattled its way toward an open drain. He reached out after it but it was too late; the stone was carried away by the rainwater—gone forever. Nelson blinked the water from his eyes and, as he got to his feet, was suddenly bathed in blinding white light.
* * *
Uncle Pogo felt as if a 200-kilogram gorilla had been sitting on him all night. He’d never woken from a sleep with such a heavy feeling in his bones. Come to think of it, he didn’t even remember going to bed. As he scratched the back of his neck and rolled his aching shoulders, Pogo had a vague memory of sitting down to eat fish-and-chips with his nephew. After that, it was all a blur. What’s more, his leg was missing.
Uncle Pogo slipped into his canary-yellow dressing gown and hopped up the stairs to answer the door, leaning on his emergency walking stick (which unlike his false leg only contained a supply of Smarties).
Whoever is ringing the bell must be pretty desperate, thought Uncle Pogo. He found the keys Velcroed in their usual place and unlocked the door.
“Nelson! What on earth are you doing out there in the rain?” he said, ushering his nephew inside.
“I went out to … er … get milk,” said Nelson, as his uncle threw him a beach towel.
“Without shoes on?”
“I forgot them,” said Nelson, suddenly remem-bering the sight of his feet turning into flippers and his sneakers floating away.
“Forgot yer shoes, eh? You really are like me, aren’t yer, lad,” said Uncle Pogo, chuckling as he made his way to the kitchen to make them both a nice cup of tea.
THREE WEEKS, FOUR DAYS,
FIFTEEN HOURS, AND EIGHTEEN MINUTES LATER
Snip. Snip. Snip.
Nelson’s eyes were closed, but the sunshine streaming through the trees lit the inside
of his eyelids with bright pink and orange splotches.
Sssssnip.
He felt a shiver as the scissors closed right beside his ear and a lock of his wet hair landed on his bare shoulder. A blackbird sang from somewhere beyond the fence. Farther away, someone was mowing their lawn.
Snip. Snip.
Nelson made a shape with his mouth like a grumpy camel and puffed away the itchy little hairs that had settled on his nose.
Snip. Snip.
“You’ve changed,” said Celeste, although her words were muffled due to having a comb clenched between her teeth.
“I haven’t changed,” said Nelson, although if he’d been specific he would have said, “Nothing’s changed.”
What was most incredible to Nelson was how quickly normality had resumed. Just about everything in his life had gone back to the way it was with the speed and snap of an elastic band.Homework still needed to be finished before Monday. Trash bins needed putting out on Wednesday. The radio played the same songs as before. Minty wheezed and farted her days away on the kitchen floor.
It was like none of it ever happened.
Nelson wished he had a souvenir from his journey, something to remind him that it really did happen. A good scar, something small but cool just above his eye, would have been perfect. The red dots that had appeared on his back when he fell on the soul-extracting table were gone. He really had created seven monsters, and together they really had flown halfway around the world to save his sister. He had pretended to be a high-powered businesswoman and flown first-class to Brazil. He had ridden a bull. He had seen his auntie Carla transform from a nasty aquatic creature into a happy one-legged woman. A poisoned jungle transformed back into paradise. Monsters had battled each other. He had turned into a fish. He had exploded. And for a brief moment, he had even glimpsed the very meaning of life.
The Deadly 7 Page 18
