by David Sinden
David Sinden Matthew Morgan Guy Macdonald
An Awfully Beastly Business
Bang Goes a Troll
Illustrated by Jonny Duddle
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALADDIN
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
First Aladdin edition September 2009
Text copyright © 2009 by David Sinden, Matthew Morgan, and Guy Macdonald
Illustrations copyright © 2009 by Jonny Duddle
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and related logo is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected]. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Designed by Tom Daly
The text of this book was set in Bembo.
The illustrations for this book were rendered in pen and ink.
Manufactured in the United States of America
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Library of Congress Control Number 2008942949
ISBN 978-1-4169-8651-5
ISBN 978-1-4169-9669-9 (eBook)
Tonight,
look up at the moon.
Look at it closely.
Stare at it.
Now ask yourself:
Am I feeling brave?
Chapter 1
HIGH ON A SNOWY MOUNTAINTOP, A BLIZZARD was howling. A tall man in a long fur coat staggered knee-deep through the snow, glancing into the mouths of caves. He gripped his high fur collar, shielding his face from the wind, and peered down into a hole in the ground. “This is the one,” he muttered. “Blud! Bone! Over here!”
“Coming, Baron Marackai.”
Two men were trudging toward him through the snow. One was small and was clutching a rifle. The other was big with a frosted beard and was dragging a long black hose.
“Stick the hose down here, Bone,” Baron Marackai ordered.
The big man Bone poked the end of the hose into the hole in the ground. He twisted a nozzle and thick black oil started pouring out into the mountain.
The three men waited silently as oil glugged from the hose. Snowflakes were swirling around them, whitening their hair and clothes.
“It’s fr-fr-freezing up here,” the small man muttered. The rifle in his hands was rattling and a snotty icicle hung from his nose. He glanced down the mountainside, his eyes following the hose to an oil tanker and a cattle truck parked on an icy track. “Can I w-w-wait in the tr-truck, sir?”
“Stay where you are, Blud, you sniveling runt,” Baron Marackai ordered.
“Yes, B-Baron M-Marackai. Sorry, B-Baron M-Marackai,” the small man muttered.
The Baron turned to Bone and stamped his serpent-skin boot. “Hurry up!” he yelled.
Bone looked down into the hole. “Nearly finished, sir.” The hose gurgled and he shook black oily drips from its end.
“Is that the whole tankerfull?”
“It’s all in there, sir.”
“Splendid,” the Baron said. “Blud, pass me the matches. It’s time to smoke out the trolls.”
Blud fumbled in his jacket pocket and handed Baron Marackai a crumpled box of matches.
Baron Marackai struck a match and its flame fizzed, then went out. He tried to strike another but it snapped in two. “These are old matches, Blud!”
“I found them on the reception desk at the hotel,” Blud told him.
“You useless fool,” Baron Marackai muttered. He took the remaining matches from the box and struck them all at once. They sputtered into flame and he dropped them down the hole. There was a whooshing sound as the oil caught fire and flames roared underground. All across the snowy mountain, thick black smoke began billowing from holes and caves.
“Get ready!” Baron Marackai ordered. He hid behind Bone, using the big man as a human shield. Blud crouched beside him.
“Not you, Blud,” Baron Marackai said. “You’re the shooter!” He pushed the small man into the open.
Blud stood shivering in the wind and snow, his eyes darting from left to right as he pointed his rifle from one smoking cave to another.
From inside the mountain came the sounds of underground beasts: growls and squeals, bellows and squawks. Beasts came hurrying from caves, trying to escape the smoke. An ice-bear bounded out into the snow, roaring. A vampire owl flew screeching into the air. A giant wraith spider scurried out, hissing.
“It’s the trolls I want!” the Baron shouted.
“There’s one!” Bone called.
From a smoking cave, a huge green troll charged out on all fours, swiping the air with its long tusks. It roared, snorting smoke from its nostrils. The troll saw Blud and stood tall, beating its chest. “Oof! Oof! Oof!”
“Help!” Blud cried.
Baron Marackai peered out from behind Bone, pointing. “Shoot it, you moron!”
Blud aimed his rifle at the troll. His teeth rattled as he squeezed the trigger and fired. A feathered tranquilizer dart shot out and struck the troll on the chest.
The troll stumbled, then toppled to the ground with a thud. It lay in the snow, face down, unconscious.
Blud spun round as another big green troll ran from the mouth of a cave.
“Aim between its eyes!” the Baron shouted.
Blud fired another tranquilizer dart, hitting the troll on the arm. It tumbled into the snow. Another troll burst out and Blud fired again. The feathered dart hit the troll on the nose.
“Behind you!” Bone called.
Two more trolls charged out from the smoke-filled mountain and Blud fired twice. The trolls fell, one on top of the other.
Troll after troll burst from the caves. There was oofing and roaring, and the whizz and crack of tranquilizer darts firing from the rifle. One by one they toppled into the snow.
Slowly, the mountain fell silent and the smoke began to clear. More than twenty trolls lay tranquilized and unconscious on the ground.
“Splendid!” Baron Marackai said, stepping out from behind Bone.
He walked through the snow to one of the trolls and kicked it with his serpent-skin boot. “Sleeping like a baby,” he said. “Bone, pick out five young ones and load them on to the cattle truck.”
Bone trudged over to inspect the tranquilized trolls. “How do I tell which are the young ones, sir? They all look big and ugly.”
“The young ones have the softest skin,” Baron Marackai told him.
Bone knelt down and pinched a troll’s cheek, tugging its thick rubbery skin.
Blud skittered over to the Baron. “What are we going to do with them, sir?” he asked.
The Baron rubbed his hands together. “We shall use them in the Predatron,” he said.
“The Predatron!” Blud said excitedly.
“These stupid beasts won’t stand a chance.”
“But what if we get caught, sir?” Blud asked. The small man glanced shiftily from side to side. “What if you-know-who find
out?”
“I have prepared for that,” Baron Marackai said, grinning.
The Baron stroked the small stump of flesh on his right hand where his little finger was missing. He held his hand up. “Now, repeat after me. Death to the RSPCB!”
Blud and Bone turned down their little fingers then held up their right hands. “Death to the RSCPC!” they said.
“The RSPCB, you numbskulls!”
The Baron picked up two handfuls of snow and pushed them in the men’s faces. “Now load those trolls on the truck! I have important business to attend to.”
Blud and Bone wiped the snow from their eyes and watched curiously as the Baron strode off across the mountain. He was peering into the caves.
“Where are you?” the Baron called. “Come to Marackai.”
He glanced over at a small hole about twenty yards away. The head of a creature with pointy ears and large white eyes was poking from it.
The Baron waved. “Coo-ee!”
The creature ducked as Baron Marackai ran toward it.
The Baron reached into the hole and pulled the creature out by its neck. “Well, well, what have we here?” he said, screwing up his nose.
It was a little gray goblin. It was dirty and wrinkly and wriggled in the Baron’s grasp. In its bony hand the goblin was clutching a small black bat.
“Don’t hurt me,” the goblin pleaded, its fat snout twitching.
The Baron smiled, his face twisting like a rotten apple core. “Spying, are you, goblin?”
The goblin’s white eyes blinked. “Help!” it called.
“There’s no one to help you here, you revolting little creature,” the Baron said. “The RSPCB is miles away!”
The goblin looked down at its bat. “What to do, little bat? What to do?” he muttered.
“Give that to me, goblin,” Baron Marackai ordered.
“No! Not my bat!”
The Baron reached for the bat in the goblin’s hands. “I SAID, GIVE IT TO ME!”
Chapter 2
AT THE RSPCB, THE ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE Prevention of Cruelty to Beasts, Ulf was riding his ATV through the beast park. The sun was shining as he sped across the Great Grazing Grounds then up onto the bridge above the meat-eaters’ enclosures. Beneath him, in brick-walled pens, carnivorous beasts looked up: a gorgon hissed, a long-haired minotaur snorted at him, and an Egyptian scorpius rattled its tail.
Halfway along the bridge, Ulf stopped and looked over at a beast with the body of a giraffe and the head of a piranha. This was the giranha, the tallest of all the meat-eaters. Its head was as high as the bridge. It turned toward Ulf, gnashing its teeth.
Ulf reached into a feeding-sack on the back of his ATV and picked out a frozen chicken. “Lunchtime,” he called, throwing the chicken across to the giranha.
The beast lunged with its long neck and snapped the chicken out of the air. Ulf watched as it gobbled the chicken whole.
“You’re going home today,” he told it. “Orson’s coming to fetch you.”
Ulf turned, hearing the trees part at the edge of the Dark Forest. Orson the giant came striding out with a thick rope looped over his shoulder. “How is she?” the giant boomed.
“She’s doing fine,” Ulf called.
Orson strode to the gate of the giranha’s enclosure and slid its metal bolt. As the giant pulled the gate open, the giranha reared up on its hind legs. “Whoa there!” Orson said.
The giranha stomped its hooves into the ground, gouging out great chunks of earth. It started screeching.
“Easy girl,” Orson said, clipping a beast collar to the end of his rope. The giranha lunged for him with open jaws, and Orson clicked the collar around the beast’s neck. He heaved on the rope with his powerful arms, bringing the giranha under control.
Orson was huge. He could handle any beast. He looked at Ulf on the bridge. “Off you go.”
Ulf revved his bike engine, then rode down the end of the bridge waving another frozen chicken in the air. “Here girl, come and get it,” he called.
The giranha swung its head around to watch him.
“That’s it, Ulf,” Orson said. “Now let her have it!”
Ulf threw the chicken into the air. Orson relaxed the rope and the giranha lunged from its enclosure, catching the chicken in its jaws.
Ulf held a third chicken over his head as he rode into the Dark Forest. “Come and get your food,” he called.
He sped along the forest track and heard the giranha stomping behind him, pushing through the trees. He threw the chicken over his head, then glanced back to see the beast snap the frozen bird from the branches. Orson gripped the rope tightly, stopping the giranha from charging. Ulf held up a fourth chicken and accelerated away, luring the beast through the forest.
A sparkle flew across the track in front of him. It was Tiana the fairy. “Hello, Ulf,” she said.
“Mind out, Tiana,” Ulf called, swerving. “The giranha’s coming!”
Tiana was Ulf’s friend and lived in the Dark Forest with the other fairies. She was gathering leaves to make an autumn cloak.
She darted behind a tree and peered out nervously as the giranha stomped past, spitting out chicken bones.
Ulf rode on around the swamp and through the bracken. He jumped his bike over fallen branches and skidded on wet leaves. He splashed through puddles, and mud flew up from the ATV’s wheels, splattering his jeans and T-shirt. Then the trees thinned and he rode out into the afternoon sun. He heard the screech of the giranha as it came out of the forest behind him, followed by Orson.
The giant called to him: “Tell Dr. Fielding the giranha’s ready to go!”
The RSPCB was a rescue center for rare and endangered beasts. The giranha had been brought in three months earlier, suffering from a broken hind leg. Dr. Fielding, the RSPCB vet, had inserted a meter-long metal rod into its thigh bone to mend it. Orson had helped the giranha get strong again by taking it swimming in the freshwater lake. Now it was fully recovered and ready to be released back into the wild.
Ulf sped along the edge of the freshwater lake and into the paddock. The jackalopes were leaping in the sunshine. He heard a griffin screech from the aviary and looked across to see it landing in the branches of an oak tree. Ulf placed his hairy feet onto the foot bars and stood up on his ATV, twisting back the bike’s throttle with his hairy hand.
Though he looked like a human boy, Ulf was beast blood. He was a werewolf, a morphing beast, and on the full moon he would change from boy to wolf. The RSPCB was his home.
“Open,” he called as he reached a gate at the top of the paddock. The voice-activated gate opened automatically and he rode into the yard, pulling up outside a large country mansion. This was Farraway Hall, the headquarters of the RSPCB. Ulf stood up on his bike seat and peered in an open window. “Dr. Fielding,” he called.
“One moment, Ulf.”
He could see Dr. Fielding in her office. She was on the telephone, speaking into the handset: “That’s terrific news, Minister. Antarctic dragons are the only flightless dragons in existence. A preservation order is long overdue. Thank you.”
She put the phone down. “What is it, Ulf?”
“Orson’s bringing the giranha in,” Ulf told her.
“Excellent. The transporter’s waiting. I’ll meet you out front.”
Ulf rode round to the forecourt at the front of Farraway Hall. Parked by the entrance gates was the tallest truck he’d ever seen. Its back doors were open and a ramp led up inside. It had straw on the floor and a trough of water.
He heard the stomping of hooves coming around the side of the house. He looked back and saw the giranha, being held by Orson. “Easy, girl,” the giant said.
Ulf threw four frozen chickens into the back of the truck. The giranha saw them and stomped up the ramp. It screeched, then snapped one of them from the straw.
“That’s it, big friend,” Orson said to the beast. “Eat it up.”
While the giranha munched the chicken, Orson attac
hed harnessing straps around its body to keep it steady on the long journey ahead. He stepped down and closed the doors. “Thanks, Ulf,” he said.
Dr. Fielding came out from the house and went over to the truck to speak to the driver in his cab. “Look after her,” she said. “She’s a soppy old thing really.”
“I’ll see she makes it back safely,” the driver replied, starting the truck’s engine.
Ulf jumped off his ATV and opened the front gates. He watched as the truck drove out, heading away up the long driveway. The giranha was going back to its home in the African jungle. Ulf felt glad. He imagined it roaming free, pushing through the jungle trees.
“Well done, everyone,” Dr. Fielding said, as she bolted the gates shut. “One giranha safely mended and returning to the wild.”
Ulf smiled then hopped back on his ATV and rode after Orson. The giant was striding across the yard, whistling. “Do you need a hand with anything else?” Ulf asked.
“No thanks, Ulf. I’ve just got to give the sandwhale its scrub, then I’m done,” Orson said. He picked up a broom from beside the kit room and slipped it into his belt. “You get yourself something to eat, Ulf,” the giant told him. “You need to be strong for tomorrow.”
Tomorrow night Ulf’s transformation would take place. The moon would be full and he’d change from boy to wolf.
While Orson headed toward the desert dome, Ulf parked his bike by the feedstore. He fetched a sausage from the meat fridge, and sat on the paddock gate, eating it. The Mexican jackalopes were leaping in the long grass. He heard the low bellow of the Mongolian armorpod from out on the Great Grazing Grounds, and from Sunset Mountain came the hurroooooo of Bigfoot.
All the beasts would one day leave and go back to their homes in the wild, he thought. Ulf wondered when it would be his turn. He’d lived at the RSPCB almost all his life, ever since he’d been brought in as a werecub.
Ulf saw a sparkle shooting high over the paddock. It was Tiana the fairy.
