The Beast of Seabourne

by Rhys A. Jones

  All around them, students fussed over models and put the finishing touches to their projects, but all Oz, Ellie, and Ruff could do was check their connections one last time. It took no more than thirty seconds, which was just as well, because the bell rang for registration at that moment.

  Outside, under a bruised sky, latecomers bustled across the yard with their models and posters, but Oz’s attention was drawn to three people jostling each other just to the side of the lab. Two had their backs to the entrance and were blocking the third pupil’s passage. Oz instantly recognized Skinner’s lanky frame and knew the smaller one next to him must be Jenks. The third, facing them, scarlet blooms on each cheek, his expression tight and grim, was Niko Piotrowski, one of Oz’s 2C classmates. Oz elbowed Ruff and nodded in Niko’s direction.

  “What’s going on there?”

  “Don’t know, but Niko doesn’t look too happy about it,” Ellie said.

  “Come on.” Oz set off towards them.

  “Just tell us what you’ve got, Igor,” they heard Jenks say as they drew nearer. Igor was Jenks and Skinner’s nickname for Niko, presumably because he retained his Polish accent.

  “Is just my project,” Niko said. “Vocal animal transducer.”

  “Yeah, but what does it do?” Skinner asked, peering at the thing suspiciously. It looked like the bell of a bugle connected to the mouthpiece of an ocarina, but between the two, Oz spied a black plastic box with lots of wires coming from it.

  “You will find out this afternoon,” Niko said. There was a tremor of anger in his determined words.

  “But I wanna know now,” Jenks said, grabbing for the instrument. Niko pulled it away just in time.

  Jenks tutted. “Come on, Igor, don’t make us take it from you.”

  “Yeah, Igor,” echoed Skinner, “show us your project before it accidentally falls onto the floor and smashes to smithereens.”

  Niko shook his head. “I have to assemble in laboratory. It is too delicate to show you here.”

  Oz knew Niko had taken the competition very seriously. He’d even missed football practise to get it finished. What was more, he’d done it all single-handed.

  “Don’t be such a ponce,” Jenks said, still unaware that Ellie, Ruff, and Oz were now right behind him. “Come on, show us what you got.”

  “That your best chat-up line then, Jenks?” Oz said.

  Jenks wheeled, eyes flashing, his face flushing darkly. “Chambers! What do you want?”

  “You to get lost,” Ruff said.

  “We’re just having a little chat with Igor,” Skinner whined.

  Ellie turned to Niko. “Having a cozy chat with Jenks and Skinner, were you, Niko?”

  “No,” Niko said. “They will not let me take project to lab.”

  “Two against one again, Jenks? We need to get you some extra maths lessons,” Oz said.

  “Hey, Skinner, didn’t you lose some money this morning?” Ruff asked.

  Skinner frowned and felt in his pockets. They saw him smile in relief before his eyes narrowed furtively. “Maybe I did.”

  “I heard someone found a two-pound coin on the floor over by your bus. Better check it out.”

  Skinner’s face lit up, and he stepped towards the bus bay.

  Jenks shook his head and grabbed Skinner by the arm. “No one found anything, Skinner. Adams is just messing about.”

  From behind them, Niko, seeing that his assailants were now well and truly distracted, hurried past and into the lab.

  “Oi, where do you think you’re going?” Jenks yelled, but his shouts attracted the attention of their year master, Enforcer Manning, a burly Lancastrian with thinning hair, who was making his early morning rounds.

  “Kieron, Lee, get to registration!” he bellowed.

  “Yes, sir,” Jenks called back cheerfully before dropping his voice to seethe, “Why do you keep sticking your big nose into my business, Chambers?”

  “Because I can smell troublemaking gonks a mile off, and funnily enough, the trail always leads to you.”

  Jenks glared at Oz but didn’t say anything else.

  “Don’t see you with a project,” Ellie said.

  “Well, that’s where you’re wrong, Messenger,” Jenks sneered. “My brother’s bringing it in.”

  “I can’t wait,” Ellie said.

  Jenks bristled, but with Enforcer Manning still scouting for stragglers, he slouched off, contenting himself with a couple of rude gestures in reply. Niko came out of the lab just as a white van pulled up at the school gates and gave a couple of loud blasts on its horn. Jenks and Skinner dashed over. A face, a pastier and older version of Jenks’, emerged from the driver’s side window.

  “Come on, Lee, I haven’t got all day.”

  “All right, all right,” Jenks said. Both he and Skinner disappeared around the rear of the van and emerged with a lumpy mound swathed in black plastic.

  “Think it’s a body?” Ruff said.

  “I wouldn’t put it past them,” Ellie mused.

  They left Jenks and Skinner to their dubious offloading and joined a trickle of fellow pupils crossing the open yard on their way to Room 33. Niko appeared at Oz’s elbow, having run to catch him up. “Thank you for help with Jenks and Skinner.”

  “They’re such a pain, those two,” Ellie said.

  The whole of that afternoon was to be given over to the science competition, with teams having just five minutes to explain and demonstrate their projects.

  “You’re all right for Sunday, then, Niko?” Ruff asked, changing the subject.

  “Sunday?” Niko looked blank.

  “The mixed five-a-side competition,” Oz said. “I know you haven’t been able to make practise, but you put your name down a month ago.”

  “Yes. I have been busy with project, but now it is finished, I will come to competition.”

  “Brilliant,” Oz said. That would put them at full strength. Enough to give Jenks and Skinner and their Skullers team a run for their jellybeans.

  “Sounds like you mean business with this transducer thingy,” Ellie said.

  “I do research, find great site on Internet for help. I work hard. Now, is nothing left to do but play.” Niko grinned. It was infectious.

  Despite Niko’s obvious enthusiasm, Oz felt absolutely confident that they would win. The water cycle in a box was a no-brainer for first prize; he was sure of it. He was looking forward to showing the class and Skelton what it could do. In the meantime, there was a whole morning of lessons to get through.

  In English, they were doing a poem about a raven. It was quite spooky, but there was more to it than just spookiness. Oz found himself empathizing with the poor chap in the poem, who just wanted to know from the weird raven if his dead girlfriend was in heaven and safe. Oz had been there and got the T-shirt when his dad died in an accident almost three years ago.

  However, sitting as he did next to Ruff, Oz had no chance to dwell on such maudlin thoughts. Ruff ‘s opinion of English was that it was a bit “buzzard.” He thought the raven—who kept saying “nevermore” throughout the whole poem—sounded like a stuck record, and spent most of the lesson squawking “nevermore” in a supposedly raven-like voice but which, to Oz, sounded suspiciously like a parrot’s.

  Geography with Mr Gingell was, as usual, a laugh. Oz planned to show him the water cycle box once the science project was over. They’d covered climate in the first year with Gingell, and he had the knack of making everything seem interesting and relevant. Sometimes, they’d spend a whole week’s lessons discussing things that happened in the news. Like when the Icelandic volcano went off and threw ash plumes into the air, or when there was a tsunami. Or when that school trip went missing on a mountainside the autumn before; Gingell did a whole double lesson on how to survive the night in fog. He was better than Gorilla Griddle, the bloke who presented How to Live on an Island With Just a Safety Pin and a Bit of Dental Floss on the TV.

  At break time, Oz, Ellie, and Ruff grabbed a hot chocol
ate each from the machine and made their way across to the music block. Halfway there, Ellie halted and pointed towards the science lab.

  “Isn’t that Jenks and Skinner?” she said.

  Oz followed her accusing finger. It was indeed Jenks and Skinner. They were leaving through the front door of the lab, and they looked far too pleased with themselves for Oz’s liking. Mr Skelton appeared from the direction of the staff room. Ellie ran towards him.

  “Sir, we just saw Jenks and Skinner leaving the lab,” she announced breathlessly.

  “And?” Skelton frowned.

  “But everyone’s projects are in there.”

  “Obviously. Since the two of them had problems with transport this morning, I needed to give them time to set up.” He saw the look of disbelief on their faces and added, “Not everyone is as organized as you three, you know.”

  “But sir. That was Jenks and Skinner,” Ruff said in disbelief.

  “Sir, can we just go in and check our stuff again?” Oz asked.

  Skelton, however, had no time for trivialities. “Anyone would think they’d been up to no good, by the way you’re reacting.”

  “But sir—” Ellie began, but she got no further as the bell signalling the end of break rang out.

  “Right, that’s it. Go on, get to your lessons,” Skelton said, shooing them. “I need to make sure that all the Bunsen burners are connected up before year ten gets trigger-happy with the lighters.” He hurried off towards the lab.

  Ellie watched him go, open-mouthed. “Did I just hear him say that he let Jenks and Skinner into the lab alone, or was it a nightmare I had?”

  “He must be stark raving mad, if you ask me.” Ruff said. “They could have done anything in there.”

  No one said anything else; they didn’t have to. Jenks and Skinner were a nuisance at the best of times. In a lab full of carefully prepared and delicate bits of equipment such as the science projects, they were downright dangerous.

  While Ellie and Ruff struggled with music theory, Oz went off to practise in the assembly hall. Since Soph had come along with her amazing ability to help with study and learning, Oz had taken up the drums.

  A couple of sublimserts—Soph’s amazing way of implanting knowledge into a sleeping brain—had set him up, and he’d managed to find a set of electronic drums on eBay for next to nothing. After a few months, he’d actually got quite good, and Mr Fidler, the music teacher, had roped Oz into the school jazz orchestra. With a concert looming, Mr Fidler took every opportunity he could to get them to sharpen up. While he organized tasks for the rest of the class, Oz and the other half-dozen or so pupils in the hall were left to their own devices.

  There was a full drum kit permanently set up, and Oz relished the chance to provide a pounding rock beat for Aaron Bradley, who always brought his guitar. The resulting noise usually annoyed the saxophonists immensely—since they were into more subdued music—but Oz didn’t care. Not even when Tracy Roper stood up with her hands over her ears and yelled, “If you hit those things any harder, you’re going to break them!”

  Eventually, Mr Fidler returned and imposed a little discipline. Because he was completely bald, with a droopy moustache and Coke-bottle glasses, Jenks and Skinner had nicknamed him Mr Potato Head. But he was an enthusiastic teacher besides being an excellent musician, and over the last few months, Oz had come to like him. But as practise wore on, Oz found his mind drifting towards the afternoon and the science competition. A flock of tiny butterflies kept taking off in his stomach whenever he thought of it, and more than once Mr Fidler had to reprimand him for not concentrating.

  At last, the bell went for lunch, and he met up again with Ellie and Ruff, but they were all too nervous to talk much. They mooched around for the remaining half-hour and were all pretty relieved when afternoon registration ended and they were finally sitting in the science lab. The tank was exactly where they’d left it and looked intact, despite Jenks and Skinner having been alone in the lab.

  The atmosphere buzzed with nervous excitement, and at one forty-five sharp, Mr Skelton walked to the front of the room, raised his arms, and called for quiet.

  “Right, well, here we are,” he said, looking around at the expectant, fidgety class. “The year eight science project presentations. Just to recap the rules. Each of you will get five minutes to present your project to our adjudicators, myself and…” He beckoned to the first of two men standing to the side. “May I introduce the Vice Chancellor of Seabourne University, Dr Lorenzo Heeps.”

  Heeps wore a pinstriped suit with a striped blue shirt and a yellow tie. He had a trimmed, grey-flecked moustache and beard and a crow sitting on his head. At least, it looked like a crow whenever Oz saw it, though he knew it was really a coiffured hairstyle.

  “May I say what a great pleasure it is to be here,” said Heeps, and beamed at them all.

  Everyone applauded politely, everyone, that is, except Ellie, Ruff, and Oz, who exchanged knowing glances. Heeps was someone none of them trusted. For one thing, they knew that, despite his respectable and affable appearance, he was a Puffer, and Gerber’s man through and through. In the months leading up to Soph’s appearance, he had tried to convince Mrs Chambers to sell Penwurt, and he had secretly obtained photographs of the library panels, so he could decipher the alchemical code carved into them.

  Luckily, Ruff had beaten him to it. Nevertheless, Lorenzo Heeps was also Pheep’s dad, and, as Ruff had so aptly put it, she must have inherited her “evil toe-rag genes” from somebody…

  “The other gentleman you see is Mr O’Flynn, who will be reporting on today’s competition for The Echo.” Mr Skelton consulted a clipboard. “We will proceed in alphabetical order. Those of you in teams, may I ask that the spokesperson only be out front? First, then, with a ‘novel way to feed a cat,’ are the Anchor Angels.”

  Oz sat back. He was too nervous to take in much of what was happening, but he did note that everything he saw was amateurish and poorly constructed. There were a few exceptions, of course; Dilpak’s working model of a wind turbine involved blowing up a balloon, positioning it in a holder, and letting the air rush out to drive the turbine. His first attempt resulted in the balloon slipping through his fingers and zooming around the room making gross raspberry noises, like a windy poltergeist, much to the delight of the class, who batted at it and roared with laughter. The propulsion, when it did work, sent a little voltmeter’s needle flickering, and the tiny bulb he’d attached glowed impressively. But it only lasted a few short seconds before Dilpak had to blow the balloon up again.

  The water clock that followed wasn’t much better; it leaked all over the floor, and the spokesperson, Bernice Halpin from 2B, was so nervous she called it a “clotter wock” twice.

  When it came to Jenks and Skinner, who called themselves “The Geniuses,” things went downhill. Entitling their project “dungpower” should have been enough of a clue, but if anyone had any doubts that Jenks had somehow turned over a new leaf, the smell emanating from the sealed container he carefully opened soon put everyone right. Their plan was to place a funnel over a sizeable lump of dung and light the “gas” effusing from it at the stem of the funnel. Unfortunately, the rotted manure Jenks had asked his brother to provide ended up being fresh and steaming from the nearest field. Thus, even though the room filled with stink, no flame burned at the funnel.

  But what got Jenks hot under the collar was the large dollop that Skinner managed to drop onto his shoe halfway through the demonstration. That at least got them some applause in amongst the gales of laughter.

  Then it was Niko’s turn. His claim for his animal noise transducer was that, by simply adjusting a dial, he could alter the instrument’s pitch, and the noise, which was outside of normal human hearing, would call a variety of animals.

  “Is based on Polish hunting device. I make it into digital instrument,” he explained in a shaky voice. “Notes are transformed into ultrasonic signal by software and then sent out through bugle.”

/>   Heeps, who sat at a desk next to Mr Skelton to one side of the classroom and who had almost fallen asleep through three of the presentations, sat up keenly.

  “Excellent, Niko,” Skelton said. “Would it be possible to demonstrate?”

  “Dog, rat, or bat?” Niko said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have choice. Dog, rat, or bat?”

  Heeps cleared his throat. “Since bats are nocturnal, perhaps it would be unkind to disturb them in the middle of the afternoon. We’ve all seen dog whistles, so why not try the rats? I’m sure there’ll be one or two about this old school.”

  “There’s one sitting at that table next to Skelton,” Oz said out of the corner of his mouth so only Ruff and Ellie could hear.

  Ruff snorted and had to pretend he’d sneezed to cover his laughter.

  Niko adjusted the black box—which looked suspiciously like a stripped-down mobile phone—at the base of the mouthpiece, held the instrument to his lips, and blew. Everyone strained to hear a noise. But there was none. Not even a squeak or a peep. Twice Niko blew, his cheeks bulging out with the effort, and twice there was silence.

  “May I remind you that you now have two minutes left, Niko,” Mr Skelton said.

  “It should not take much longer,” Niko said, looking unperturbed and raising the instrument one final time.

  The room stayed silent for thirty long and embarrassing seconds. Oz and Ruff exchanged knowing glances. Oz could see Ruff was thinking exactly the same thing as he was. Was this a wind-up? Had Jenks been in and shoved chewing gum in the bell to make Niko look a fool? If so, Jenks and Skinner were going to pay big time. Niko was a good bloke and member of Oz’s five-a-side team. Skinner and Jenks were just a pair of…

  A muffled scream drew everyone’s attention. Tracy Roper, who happened to be sitting near the windows, was on her feet, her face contorted with a kind of frozen horror. She pointed wordlessly at something in the yard. Everyone stood and craned for a look at the cause of her agitation.

  “What is it?” someone asked from behind Oz.

  “Rats,” Skinner said. He, being taller than most, was able to see. “And lots of ’em, too.”