by David Sinden
Sea Monsters and Other Delicacies
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
Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Jonny Duddle
Originally published in Great Britain in 2008 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd.
Published by arrangement with Simon & Schuster UK Ltd.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
ALADDIN and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Library of Congress Control Number 2008939726
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-6790-8
ISBN-10: 1-4391-6790-7
Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com
Tonight,
look up at the moon.
Look at it closely.
Stare at it.
Now ask yourself:
Am I feeling brave?
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 1
IT WAS NIGHT, AND UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS, a fishing boat puttered across the sea. In the boat’s wheelhouse, a tall man in a long fur coat was clutching the wheel, steering through the choppy waves. He glanced across the water toward the black silhouette of an old oil rig. It stood heavy in the sea like an iron giant.
The man smiled, then cut the boat’s engine. He poked his head from the wheelhouse. “This is the place,” he said. His face looked twisted like a rotten apple core. “Hurry up, Blud! Hurry up, Bone! It’s time for some fishing. Get me a sea monster! Now!”
On the deck of the boat, a big man with greasy hair and a thick black beard dipped his hand into a wooden crate. He took out a hand grenade and pulled out its pin with his teeth. He threw the grenade into the sea, then leaned over the side of the boat, listening. From deep underwater came a muffled boom as the grenade exploded. The boat shuddered. “That’ll give it a headache,” he said. “Come on, you big beast! Up you come.”
At the rear of the boat, a small man in a ragged suit looked up from a bucket. His face was pale green. “Did we have to come here?” he groaned. “I don’t like the sea.”
The boat was rocking from side to side in the waves.
The man in the fur coat stepped across the deck and gave the small man a kick. “Stop whining, Blud, you pathetic toad.”
“Yes, Baron Marackai. Sorry, Baron Marackai,” the small man, Blud, replied, scrambling to his feet.
The man in the fur coat, Baron Marackai, pulled a flashlight from his pocket. He switched it on and shone it out to sea. “There must be one here somewhere,” he said.
Blud and Bone gazed across the water, following the beam of light.
Baron Marackai looked at them. “Well, don’t just stand there,” he told them. “Throw in more grenades! Blast the beast out of the water!”
“Yes, Baron,” both men said, running to the crate. “Whatever you say, Baron.”
Blud and Bone each took out a handful of grenades. They pulled the pins out and threw the grenades overboard. “Bombs away!” they yelled.
From deep beneath the waves came a succession of muffled explosions. Blasts belched from the depths and the boat lurched. Blud and Bone clung to its side. They threw more grenades, and the sea erupted in plumes of water. Flapping fish showered onto the deck.
Baron Marackai paced up and down, shining his flashlight over the dark water.
“Excuse me for asking, Sir, but what do you want a sea monster for?” Blud asked.
Baron Marackai licked his twisted lips, then turned to face the small man. “So that we can eat it,” he said.
Blud grinned. Bone rubbed his big fat belly.
“We’ll boil it alive, then scoop out its brains and chop off its tentacles,” Baron Marackai told them. “It’s the most delicious beast imaginable.”
“But what if we get caught, Sir?” Blud asked. The small man’s eyes flicked left and then right, looking out to the dark sea, checking there were no other boats in sight.
“Those fools won’t stop me this time,” Baron Marackai said. He rubbed the small stump of flesh where his little finger was missing, then held up his right hand. “Now repeat after me. Death to the RSPCB!”
Blud and Bone held up their right hands and folded down their little fingers. “Death to the RSBPC,” they said.
“The RSPCB, you numbskulls!”
Blud and Bone sniggered.
Baron Marackai stamped his snakeskin boot. “Enough!” he said. “Now get to work! I have a plan that will send the RSPCB to their doom.”
“That’s what he told us last time,” Blud whispered to Bone.
Baron Marackai picked up a dead fish from the deck of the boat and slapped it across Blud’s face. “Don’t talk about last time!” he spat. “Just get me a sea monster! And leave the RSPCB to me.”
Blud and Bone threw grenade after grenade, hurling them into the sea. Explosion after explosion echoed beneath them. The sea erupted. Fish and seaweed showered down, and the boat heaved and rolled.
Baron Marackai shone his flashlight over the side, sweeping it back and forth lighting the waves.
A huge tentacle broke the surface of the water. “There!” he called gleefully. “Sea monster to starboard!”
The tentacle rose upward, twirling high in the air. Then it crashed down, smashing against the boat. The Baron clung to the side as Blud and Bone slid across the deck, slamming into the wheelhouse.
“Get up, you idiots!” the Baron shouted.
Blud and Bone scrambled to the side of the boat and peered over the edge. Beneath the waves they could make out the dark shape of a huge beast with giant tentacles.
“It’s enormous!” Blud said.
“It’s gigantic!” Bone said.
“What did you expect, you nincompoops? It’s a sea monster!”
As the huge beast scraped the hull of the boat, the Baron ran inside the wheelhouse.
Blud and Bone cowered as tentacles reached up, coiling over the deck. The tentacles were long and thick and covered in barnacles. They wrapped around the stern and smashed the hauling winch from its fittings.
The boat was tilting in the water.
“It’s angry, Sir,” Blud called, crawling for cover behind the wooden crate.
A tentacle whipped toward him, grabbing him by the leg and dragging him across the deck. “Help!”
Bone picked up a large iron anchor and started whacking the tentacle with it.
Baron Marackai poked his head from the wheelhouse.
“Don’t lose it, you imbeciles!”
Chapter 2
ULF WOKE UP FEELING THE SUN HOT ON HIS FACE. He crawled from the straw, rubbing his eyes, and stepped out through the d
oor of his den. The sun was high in the sky above Farraway Hall and, on the rooftop, he could see Druce the gargoyle creeping over the tiles, peering down the chimney pots.
Ulf got onto his all-terrain vehicle and kick-started its engine. He rode up the path along the side of the paddock, stopping at the edge of the yard. He hopped off and went into the feed room to grab a sausage.
“Up late last night, were you?” he heard.
Ulf turned, looking out through the feed store’s large wooden doors. Flying toward him from the flower garden was Tiana the fairy. She sparkled as she flew. “Everyone’s been up for hours,” she said. “I’ve been collecting nectar.”
In her hand was a basket made from a hazelnut shell. It was full with yellow syrup.
Ulf opened the meats fridge and took out a sausage. “I overslept,” he told her.
All night Ulf had been awake watching the moon. It was nearly full and there were just two days until his transformation.
He gobbled the sausage, then wiped his hairy hand on his T-shirt. To look at him, Ulf could easily be mistaken for a human boy. But every month, on the night of the full moon, he would undergo a complete physical change, turning from boy to wolf. Ulf was a werewolf.
“Do you want to help me collect nectar?” Tiana asked.
Ulf shook his head. “I promised I’d give Orson a hand with the trolls. Besides, nectar’s for fairies.”
He licked the sausage fat from his lips and stepped out of the feed store into the yard.
“Suit yourself,” Tiana said. “More for me!” She flew back to the flower garden in a trail of sparkles.
Ulf hopped onto his all-terrain vehicle and rode through the yard, past the fire zone, the hatching bay and the quarantine unit. “Open,” he called. A voice-activated gate opened in front of him. He stood up on his foot bars and rode out into the beast park.
Farraway Hall was the headquarters of the RSPCB, The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Beasts. It had been Ulf’s home for over ten years, ever since he’d arrived as an orphaned werecub. It was a rescue center for rare and endangered beasts.
Ulf bumped along the track past the aviary, a high-netted enclosure containing the winged beasts. He glanced through the wire mesh and saw three griffins tearing at a lump of meat. Next door to them, a mantabird was hovering like a flying carpet.
Ulf accelerated to the biodomes where the extreme-weather beasts were housed. As he passed the desert dome he saw a fountain of sand shoot up from the blowhole of a sandwhale. In the snow dome a yeti was beating its chest, and in the storm dome he could see electrodactyls diving into the eye of a hurricane. Ulf glanced back as a conductor lizard flicked out its tongue, catching a bolt of lightning.
He sped away, looking up to Troll Crag, a rocky hill dotted with caves. Halfway up, he could see Orson. Orson was a giant. He was walking toward the mouth of a cave, holding a tree trunk in each hand.
Ulf rode up the rocky hill to meet him.
“Afternoon, Ulf,” Orson said, laying the tree trunks on the ground. The giant dusted his hands on his shirt. They were as big as shovels.
“Sorry I’m late,” Ulf said, jumping off his ATV. “I overslept.”
“Can you help me clear this cave, please?” Orson asked. “The trolls have been banging around and the roof’s fallen in.”
Orson ducked his head inside the cave, and Ulf followed.
The cave was large and smelled of troll dung. A pile of rocks and boulders lay on the ground. At the back, Ulf could see chewed bones where the trolls had been eating, and huge footprints leading down two dark tunnels. From deep underground, he could hear the faint echoing sounds of trolls snorting and grunting.
As Orson began clearing the larger boulders, Ulf helped him, shifting the smaller rocks and stacking them outside the cave.
It was hard work, and a smelly way to spend an afternoon, but Ulf liked being with Orson. While they worked, the giant told Ulf stories about what it was like in the wild.
Ulf longed to see the wild. All afternoon he tried to imagine what it must feel like to live there, as he carried rock after rock, stacking them outside the cave.
When the cave was clear he rested in the sun, looking out from the top of Troll Crag. From high up he could see over the whole of the beast park, over the Dark Forest to the Great Grazing Grounds. To the south, Dr. Fielding’s Jeep was parked on the dock by the seawater lagoon.
“What’s Dr. Fielding doing?” he asked.
“A sea beast is coming in,” Orson told him, stepping out of the cave. “She’s getting everything ready.”
Ulf could see Dr. Fielding heading to the marine store by the examination bay. Dr. Fielding was the RSPCB vet. She tended the sick and injured beasts that were brought in from the wild.
“What kind of sea beast?” Ulf asked.
“A sea monster,” Orson told him. “A boat’s bringing it in. Dr. Fielding got the phone call this morning.”
In the distance, out at sea, Ulf could see a fishing boat heading toward the lagoon. “Can we go and help?” he asked.
Orson picked up the two tree trunks lying on the ground. “Let’s get these in, then we can,” he said.
The giant smashed the tree trunks over his knee, snapping them in half. He carried them into the cave and Ulf helped him wedge them upright so they stood like pillars supporting the roof.
“That should hold it,” Orson said.
He stepped out, brushing the dust from his bald head, then strode off down Troll Crag. “Come on, Ulf,” he called.
Ulf jumped onto his ATV and bumped down the rocky slope, following Orson around the edge of the marsh and Sunset Mountain, then along the shore of the seawater lagoon.
Dr. Fielding was standing on the dock. She turned and smiled as Ulf and Orson came toward her.
“Just in time,” she told them. “Orson, could you guide the boat in, please?”
“No problem,” Orson said. He strode off along the dock to the automatic sea gates at the mouth of the lagoon.
“Ulf, would you give me a hand with the examination bay, please?” Dr. Fielding asked.
Ulf jumped off his ATV and followed Dr. Fielding to a concrete rectangular enclosure full of water. It was set into the dock and sealed off from the lagoon by an underwater gate. This was where sea beasts were examined.
“Can you open it up, please?” Dr. Fielding asked him.
With both hands, Ulf twisted a metal wheel on the dock. At the front of the enclosure an underwater gate slowly opened.
As he looked up, he saw the fishing boat motoring across the lagoon. Its front was tilting upward, and from its stern, steel cables were pulling something heavy through the water.
Dr. Fielding waved from the dock. “Over here, Captain Crab,” she called.
The boat motored slowly toward the examination bay and an old fisherman poked his head from the wheelhouse. “Ahoy there,” he called. He had a curly white beard and was wearing a blue fisherman’s cap. “Captain Crab at your service, Dr. Fielding. One sick sea monster needing urgent attention. Found it floating in the marine reserve, out by the old oil rig.”
“Can you bring it into the examination bay, please?” Dr. Fielding called. “We’ll need to take a good look.”
Captain Crab looked at the huge dock enclosure. “My word!” he said. “This place has changed a bit since old Farraway’s day.”
He ducked his head back into the wheelhouse. The boat pulled into the examination bay. Ulf heard a clang and then a grating sound as the steel cables slackened at the back of the boat, releasing the sea monster in the water.
Ulf looked down. Beneath the boat, bundled in a net, he could just make out an enormous beast with thick coiling tentacles.
“You can reverse out now, Captain,” Dr. Fielding called. “Ulf, can you close the gate, please?”
The boat’s engine belched black smoke as Captain Crab reversed out of the examination bay. Ulf turned the wheel on the dock, and the underwater gate clanged shut.
The sea monster was secure.
Orson came striding along the dock, rolling up his shirtsleeves. He reached into the water to pull the net from the beast.
“Not with your hands, Orson!” Dr. Fielding told him. “It’s venomous! Use a grappling hook.”
The giant pulled back his arm. From the marine store, he fetched a long pole with a hook on its end. He pushed it into the water and heaved the net from the sea monster.
Ulf stared in amazement as the sea monster’s huge tentacles uncurled, writhing and thrashing, churning the water. They reached to the edges of the examination bay.
“Orson, would you mind showing the Captain where to moor his boat?” Dr. Fielding asked.
She opened a hatch in the dock and began climbing down a ladder to the underwater viewing gallery. “Come on, Ulf,” she called. “Come and have a look at this sea monster.”
Chapter 3
ULF CLIMBED DOWN THE LONG METAL LADDER, following Dr. Fielding to the bottom of an underground room deep beneath the dock. One wall of the room was made entirely of glass. This was the viewing window for observing sea beasts. It looked out underwater into the examination bay. Through it, Ulf could see the sea monster.
“It’s gigantic,” he said.
“It’s a Redback, one of the rarest sea monsters on the planet,” Dr. Fielding told him. “An adult female, about one-hundred-and-fifty years old.”
The sea monster resembled a huge armored octopus, covered in a hard spiky shell of red coral and barnacles. It had a craggy-looking face with bulging green eyes, and eight massive tentacles, each as thick and as long as a tree trunk.
“What happened to it?” Ulf asked.
“Captain Crab found it floating in the Farraway Reserve. It’s not normal for a sea monster to come to the surface. They’re bottom dwellers.”
