To Robin Berk,
who is more like Henry Hunter
than anyone I know.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue: How I Met Henry Hunter
Of Course There Are Vampires, Dolf…
An Encounter With Some Unpleasant People
The Unpronouncable Place
Castle Dracula – Maybe
The Red Tower
Bella
More About The Beast
Hunting for Henry
The Order of the Dragon
An Encounter with The Beast
One Bite Too Many
Almost the End of the Story
Author’s Note
Copyright
Prologue
HOW I MET HENRY HUNTER
The first time I saw Henry Hunter he was hanging by his fingertips from the window sill of the headmaster’s study.
He looked down as I walked past, fixing me with his large, slightly protuberant blue eyes and said, “Could you spare a moment, old chap?” (Yes, he really does talk like that.)
I wasn’t really sure whether to answer or just ignore the boy dangling from the window. You see, I hadn’t been at St Grimbold’s School for Extraordinary Boys very long, and wasn’t sure of the protocol in such an event. But he did look as though he might fall at any moment.
“Um, can I help?” I asked.
“Well, could you be a good fellow and fetch the ladder from the gardener’s shed?” said Henry, beaming at me.
The gardener’s shed was just a short walk away, but since the situation seemed to call for it I ran all the way there and back. I leaned the ladder against the wall, angling it close enough for Henry to reach with his feet and climb down.
“Thanks!” he said rather breathlessly. Then he nodded towards the window of the headmaster’s study and added, “You might be better off not hanging around here for a while.”
“Okay… right… thanks,” I said, wondering what I was thanking him for. I found myself following Henry as he walked quickly away across the playing fields. He headed towards the elm trees which lined the drive up to the imposing cast-iron school gates.
I caught up with Henry and noticed he had a bundle of bright green cloth tucked into the front of his school blazer.
“So – um – what were you doing up there, anyway?” I ventured. I didn’t normally ask such direct questions, but somehow I knew the answer would be too intriguing to ignore.
Henry turned his bright blue eyes on me. “I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you,” he said.
“Try me,” I answered. I was becoming fascinated by Henry’s odd behaviour and manner of speech.
“Okay,” said Henry. He looked around to make sure no one was watching, then pulled the mysterious bundle from his jacket, unwrapping the fabric at the edge for me to see what was inside. It looked a bit like a flute – but not the kind likely to be played in a school orchestra. This one was elaborately carved out of what looked like old bone (not, I hoped, human – but you never know).
I didn’t know what to say. “I-I’ve never seen anything like it before!” I stuttered.
“That’s not surprising,” said Henry, pushing back his slightly floppy hair, “because it’s one of a kind. Anyone who listens to it has to do whatever the person blowing it says! I didn’t think it was the sort of thing Dr Hossenfeffer should be in charge of.”
There it was. The sort of casual remark I would become very familiar with as I got to know Henry Hunter better. The sort that showed that he, a twelve-year-old (even in a school for extraordinary boys), thought nothing of challenging the headmaster. I’d soon discover that it was the kind of thing Henry Hunter did all the time.
Henry explained that Dr Hossenfeffer, the current headmaster of St Grimbold’s, had stolen the strange flute from a passing Himalayan priest. I suspect his reason may have had something to do with trying to control a hundred and fifty unusual boys. But in any case Henry had decided it was far too powerful an object to be in the hands of an ordinary schoolmaster – especially one who was supposed to be looking after us. So he’d picked the lock of Professor Hossenfeffer’s study, cracked the seven codes required to open the headmaster’s strongbox, taken the flute and was just about to leave when he heard the old boy coming. That’s when he climbed out of the window and found he was stuck. I came along and the rest, as they say, is history.
After the whole dangling-from-the-window-ledge event Henry and I became best friends. Although I’m still not quite sure why. Maybe it’s because every hero needs a sidekick – or at least someone to tell the story of their adventures. Since then, Henry has said to me on more than one occasion: “Every Sherlock Holmes needs his Watson, Dolf, and you are mine.”
At first, I thought this wasn’t very flattering – everyone knows Dr Watson isn’t the sharpest knife in the box – but I soon came to realise that almost no one is as bright as Henry Hunter, so I decided I could live with the comparison.
A few days after the incident of the flute, Henry came up to me in the quad and said in his rather high and nasal voice, “You’re Adolphus Pringle, aren’t you?”
I nodded, a bit surprised he knew my name – I hadn’t mentioned it during the window-sill rescue.
“I just wanted to thank you for helping me out of that spot of bother the other day,” Henry said, flashing me a toothy grin.
“You’re welcome,” I told him. “It was no problem.”
Henry and I stood in the corner of the quad, quiet for a moment – one of those rather awkward silences that sometimes happen when no one can think of what to say next.
Then Henry grinned again and said, “Listen, I’m just off to look for this rare bug. Like to come along?”
Looking back, I don’t know whether he really wanted me to come along or if it was just something to say, but that didn’t occur to me then and I jumped at the opportunity of doing something other than school lessons or homework. Of course he neglected to tell me that the bug he was looking for was a metre long and found only in the jungles of Africa, but that was Henry for you. I also didn’t know he’d chartered a Learjet, hired some local natives as guides, and that he was carrying a £30,000 video camera with which he intended to capture the bug on film.
As we tore through the skies at 50,000 feet in the Learjet, Henry explained that everything strange about his life began with his name. Having the surname Hunter got him interested in hunting for things – but not for just anything, like a great new sandwich or a book by his favourite author – but BIG THINGS, like legendary creatures and items that no one believed in, such as aliens, yeti, the Holy Grail, mummies, and the crown of Alexander the Great. At first it meant looking stuff up in books (Henry always did that instead of using the internet – which he said made you lazy) but in time he graduated to mounting actual expeditions in search of particular things.
He could afford to do this, and things like hiring the Lear, because his parents were rich – his dad had, years ago, invented the Cronos microchip, which revolutionised the gaming industry by making it possible for gamers to interact with their favourite characters more closely than ever before. Then he’d created the Cronopticon (voted Best Games Machine Ever for several years running) and after that the Cronopticon 2, the Cronopticon Gigantic and the Cronopticon Mini – until just about everyone in the world owned one or other of his consoles. His dad was clever – but not as clever as Henry who, by the time he was ten, had degrees in subjects most people have never even heard of. Astrophysics, lepidoptery and callisthenics are some of the ones I can remember.
Henry also told me that he could disappear on adventu
res like this because his parents weren’t around. His mother had suddenly got a bad attack of responsibility and decided that she and her husband should put their billions to good use. They were off in search of a particularly rare orchid, which it was rumoured could cure half the diseases in the world. At first they came home every month or so to see Henry, but after a bit all he saw of them was an occasional email and a video call on his birthday and at Christmas.
So that was how Henry had ended up at St Grimbold’s, which may sound a bit tough on him, but he said he liked having parents who were off doing something useful and exciting – and it meant he had the kind of freedom no one gets when they’re twelve.
I didn’t have much of an opportunity to tell Henry about my background. Which is just as well, because I’m not super-bright, and I don’t have an upper-class accent or designer clothes or any of that stuff. I just happen not to fit too well in the kind of school that insists on homework, the right kind of gym bag and shirts properly tucked in. My last headteacher told me, “Pringle, you have an overactive imagination. It is not welcome here.” Luckily St Grimbold’s has a trust fund to offer scholarships to kids like me, who are reasonably smart but whose parents are anything but rich, to get ‘a proper education’, as my dad calls it.
The Hunters were another matter; they forked over a pretty hefty sum to get Henry into St Grimbold’s, and made it a lot easier for Henry to indulge in his hobby.
Hunting.
You name it: Henry hunted it.
And most of the time, I was with him.
The rare bug adventure was actually pretty ordinary compared to some we’ve had since, though we did encounter a group of hunters who were just as keen as Henry to find the bug, and who were prepared to do anything to stop us. But, thanks to Henry’s amazing skill and encyclopaedic knowledge of lepidoptera, we managed to escape, and film the giant bug, without getting killed. But that’s a story for another time.
For now, I want to start with a different adventure, one that’s more important for you to know about. A story that still gives me goosebumps. Not The Story of the Great Lizard of Jambalaya, or The Adventure of the Curried Frogs. It’s one from Henry’s files, an adventure that I think might contain some vital clues that I need rather badly. Of course I was there, so I know what happened, but, dear reader, I need your help.
So please keep your eyes peeled, your ear to the ground, your mouth wide. Because this is the first of…
OF COURSE THERE ARE VAMPIRES, DOLF…
This particular adventure started the way many of them did, with Henry Hunter sitting in the only comfortable chair in his study at St Grimbold’s – a swivelling leather recliner. His feet were up on the desk and he was reading the latest issue of his favourite magazine – the Unbelievable Times: A Journal of Unlikely Events and Strange Prognostications. I thought it was mostly a load of old rubbish, and told Henry as much, but he swore it was the best source of information on almost everything strange going on in the world. For instance, I remember the story of ‘The Martian Pyramids’, and ‘The Man Who Transferred his Brain to a Chipmunk’. But as the Unbelievable Times had fuelled more than one of our adventures, I couldn’t really argue.
“Listen to this, Dolf!” Henry said as I came back from the school shop, balancing two large milkshakes and a bag of sweets in my arms. Pushing back his floppy hair he read from the magazine.
DRACULA – A REAL-LIFE VAMPIRE?
Professor Killigrew, of the British Museum, has this week uncovered some missing papers that could prove the existence of Dracula – that he was not just a figment of the author Bram Stoker’s imagination. Incomplete papers found in the cellar of a London house, thought to be written by Stoker’s publisher, includes the following passage:
“A number of people have spoken to me regarding the events in Mr Stoker’s novel. It seems I am not the only person to believe that they are no mere fiction, but actually an account of real events. The implications of this for the world are frightening, since they imply that such creatures as the Dreadful Count really do exist. Are any of us safe from them, I wonder? I must confess that I am almost sorry to have published the book at all, though its success has far exceeded my expectations. The only possible explanation for the events of the last few weeks is that one of the Creatures exists. I cannot begin to say how terrible this would be if it is true. I have spoken with Mr Stoker and I can see that he, too, is afraid. I have taken the advice of several men of learning and they have suggested that I should conceal the location of the Beast lest it be discovered and somehow set free. Such an event is beyond anything I could imagine.”
However, Professor Killigrew, when pressed, would not suggest there is any truth in the words. “It’s an interesting find, and our tests do show that it was written back in the late nineteenth century. But it is more likely to be an elaborate hoax. The references to ‘beasts’ and ‘creatures’ are pure nonsense, of course. I think it a trick to sell more copies of the book!”
But when we spoke to a Dracula expert, Professor Hans Trembling, from Whitby, he said, “There is indisputable evidence that vampires existed – indeed that they do still exist. This new evidence could be hugely important.”
“What do you make of that?” Henry asked.
“Sounds like a load of rubbish,” I said, sipping my milkshake. “Wasn’t Dracula killed, anyway?”
“Only in a few old horror films,” said Henry. “Or maybe in that Hollywood movie – what was it called – Van Helsing?”
“I liked that film,” I said. “Great CGI. So you’re telling me Dracula was a real person? That vampires exist?”
“Of course there are vampires, Dolf!” answered Henry. “There’s plenty of information going back hundreds of years that tells us they really existed. Vlad Tepes – aka Vlad the Impaler – was the most famous, and that’s who Stoker based his book on…”
He fell silent for a moment, staring into space with a familiar gleam in his eyes.
“Does this mean we’ll be going to Transylvania?” I knew that much about Dracula, at least. Although I had no idea where Transylvania was, I had a feeling we wouldn’t be back for supper.
Henry Hunter beamed. “Almost certainly, Dolf, but something tells me we should go to Whitby first.”
Before I had time to finish Henry’s milkshake, we were on our way to Whitby. As our train whistled though the ‘picturesque’ countryside (according to the tourism advert at the end of our carriage), heading north-east, Henry gave me a short lesson in the history of Bram Stoker, Whitby and vampires. (In fact, it was a rather long lecture, since the journey lasted three hours, but here are the interesting bits.)
“Bram – short for Abraham – Stoker was born in Ireland in 1847. He wrote Dracula after visiting Whitby in 1890. Did you know he was going to call it by a far more catchy title: The Un-dead? There are all kinds of theories about where he got the idea from. Some say he borrowed a library book about the places where vampires are supposed to live. The Unbelievable Times ran an article once saying that a weird old bloke called Arminius Vambery had told Bram about ‘strange goings on’ in Whitby while he was sitting on the cliffs overlooking the sea.”
“So he stole the story?” I said, disappointed by the possibility that not even Bram Stoker was original.
“Possibly – we don’t know.” Henry shrugged. “Anyway, Bram stayed for a day or two in the town and then went off to write his book. He came back a few times after that and ever since Whitby has been known as the home of Dracula – even though the Count actually never stayed there in the book. He just came ashore at Whitby from a ship carrying his coffin full of earth and went on to London. That’s where most of the story takes place.”
“But if he was never really there, why are we going to Whitby?” Not that I didn’t want to be there – it was better than being in school any day! Luckily for me, Henry had managed to convince the school governors – and my parents, who were a bit in awe of him – that I would learn a lot more if I went with
him on his various ‘field trips’.
“Because I think there’s more to find out about Bram Stoker and his book. Always go to the source, Dolf.”
“So what kind of thing are we looking for?” I was trying to figure out how I might be of help here.
“You mean apart from Dracula?” said Henry with a grin. “Probably papers of some kind.”
“Oh,” I said, trying not to show my disappointment. There always seemed to be dusty old papers involved in Henry’s adventures.
“Well, the first thing is to talk to the ‘local expert’ from the Unbelievable Times article. He certainly seems to believe in vampires.”
It’s not surprising Bram Stoker chose Whitby as the setting for Dracula’s arrival in England. The town hangs on to the cliffs like a dog biting the hem of a long coat, shivering from the battering winds and waves of the North Sea. Over it all looms Whitby Abbey, a great ruin of a place believed to be haunted by the ghosts of long-dead nuns – though I never saw a single one while we were there. In short, it’s bleak, chilly and the kind of place that gives me the creeps. I had to fight the urge to look over my shoulder for monsters every five minutes.
From the station we headed to the offices of the local newspaper, where Henry, with his usual charm, persuaded the receptionist to give us the address of Dr Hans Trembling. We walked through the narrow streets of the town centre – which looked really ordinary for somewhere with such a weird reputation for… well, weirdness – and less than fifteen minutes later we were knocking on the front door of a small, rather neglected house. Paint peeled from the door and window frames, and the curtains were drawn, but a brass plate to one side of the door declared it to be the home of
DR H. S. TREMBLING PHD
Henry Hunter and the Beast of Snagov Page 1
