‘Darling Maxy, you’re quite right. There seems to be a fellow asleep in the window. At least, I think he’s asleep. How very odd.’ Rather than alert anyone then and there, Ailsa finished her usual walk around the park, came home, gave Max his breakfast, washed her face, applied very thick moisturizer to her face and hands, made a pot of coffee, lit a cigarette, and settled into her reading chair by the window. Only then did she call the police. The nice thing about this chair, other than it being the most comfortable chair in the world, was that it gave her a view of the street below, where, soon after making her call, she watched police cars arrive and escort the pale mystery man from Harrods.
Then, with Max curled around her feet and the morning sun creeping across her carpet, Ailsa Linley took her nap.
THE LAUGHTER THAT MADE A CARTON OF MILK EXPLODE
No one had ever heard Stan whistle before, but since he and the other monsters had stuck Jim in the window of Harrods he had not stopped whistling ‘Singin’ in the Rain’. He was even whistling it as they all walked behind Celeste and Nelson on their way to school.
‘What did they do with that van man?’ asked Celeste.
‘Well?’ said Nelson, turning round to face his monsters. Stan had refused to tell Nelson what they had done for fear of making him angry with them.
‘Answer Cel’s question. What did you lot do with that man?’ The monsters all appeared to be pleased with themselves, which made Nelson uneasy.
‘Put it this way. He ain’t gonna be givin’ us any more hassle and you can cross me off the wish list cos I’ve ’ad mine now,’ said Stan with a wicked chuckle.
‘You didn’t hurt him, did you?’ ‘Oh, do let’s tell Nelson! It was such fun!’ Hoot was giddy with excitement.
‘This is not making me feel any better.’
‘Master Nelson,’ mumbled Miser. ‘We did not harm him in any way. Stan simply made certain that Jim Tindle never bothers you or us again. Ever.’
At this, all of the monsters exploded with laughter. Though Celeste couldn’t hear it, the sound made Nelson clutch his ears. Any bird within earshot took to the sky. Worms wriggled deeper into the soil. Cats shivered. Dogs howled. A carton of milk exploded in a kitchen across the street.
When the monsters had finally pulled themselves together, Nelson sighed and turned to his sister. They were opposite Nelson’s school.
‘What did they say?’ asked Celeste.
‘Just that we won’t be bothered by that man any more and that we don’t need to worry.’
‘Do you trust them?’ said Celeste. ‘Seriously? Because if there’s even a tiny chance this man could come back again, we need to tell the police right now.’
‘I trust them,’ said Nelson, and Crush let out a triumphant ‘HONK!’
‘OK, well let’s hope that’s the end of it. Go on then, Nelse. Have a good day and I’ll see you back at home later.’ Celeste turned to face the monsters she could not see but knew were close by. ‘And you lot, stay out of trouble, please.’
‘We will!’
‘Bye, Celeste!’
‘We love you!’
‘See ya later!’
‘Toodle-doo!’
‘Baa-bye!’
‘Hoooonk!’
Though they also knew she couldn’t hear them, the monsters waved and called out their goodbyes anyway.
Celeste climbed on to her bike and cycled away as Nelson crossed the street to school, leaving his monsters behind.
‘Don’t be all worry-worry, Nelly-son! Iz all gonna be good now dat man gone!’ Nosh called as Nelson passed through the school gates.
‘It’s not gonna be good, though, is it?’ moaned Spike. ‘I’m the last one on the list. Once I’ve had my wish, we have to leave him forever.’
‘Yeah, well, you don’t even know what you want, so we could be here forever at this rate,’ said Stan.
‘Actually,’ replied Spike. ‘I know what I want to do now. And I want to do it tonight.’
IF U EVA COM BAK WE WIL DISTROY U
‘His name is James Marcus Tindle, thirty-four years old, single. Currently living out of his van, which was towed away from East London last night. A pretty ordinary bloke, and we’re not sure what drove him to break into Harrods just to take a nap.’
The police officer looked up from her notebook to see her chief inspector with tears in her eyes and the final Harry Potter book in her hands.
‘Uh . . . you all right, Chief Inspector?’
‘Sorry, I’m on the last few chapters. He’s about to face Voldemort. But . . . uh, I’ll come back to this . . .’ Realizing this was neither the time nor the place to discuss Harry Potter, she slipped her bus ticket between the pages as a bookmark, took a deep breath and returned to the matter at hand. ‘Right then. This man in Harrods. What do we know about him?’
‘No previous convictions, no driving offences or anything. A few months back he was fired from his job at Heathrow Airport for a minor breach of regulations. No wife or kids. Parents are next of kin. Dad lives alone in Scotland; Mum remarried and lives in Essex. Ambulance team gave him the once-over. Said apart from signs of exhaustion, he’s perfectly healthy. The only trouble is, he says he has no memory of how he got there. It’s like he may have had a blackout or something.’
‘Hmm. How did he get in?’
‘That’s the one thing we’re not completely sure of. The only sign of a break-in was a door on the roof that had been broken in half.’
‘The roof of Harrods?’
‘Yes, but there was no way of him getting up there without a fire-engine ladder. Even weirder was that he didn’t show up on any CCTV footage. It’s like he just appeared in the window.’
‘Well, it’s obvious he must have stayed in the shop after it closed and hidden somewhere.’
‘I suppose so. I mean, yes, you’re right.’
The chief inspector was fast losing interest in Jim Tindle and beginning to feel Harry Potter calling her back to the story.
‘Look, this Jim Tindle is probably just a loner after a bit of attention. His photo’s all over the news today. So just give him a warning and maybe keep an eye on him for a bit, but otherwise I think we’re done with this bloke.’
The police officer nodded. ‘Yes.’
She hadn’t even left the room before the chief inspector was back at Hogwarts.
The Central Line train to Epping roared into the station, screeched to a halt, sucked up hundreds of people and wailed as it disappeared into the tunnel.
A pregnant lady called Chloe was standing by a seat reserved for people like her, but it was occupied by a man. Normally Chloe would have no problem in asking for the seat, but there was something about the man’s eyes and the way he was twitching and rubbing his arm that made her feel uneasy, so she clung to the rail and turned to look away from him.
Jim Tindle didn’t even notice the pregnant woman standing right in front of him. He pushed back the sleeve of his jacket as far as it would go to reveal a message written on his skin in black pen.
IF U EVA COM BAK WE WIL DISTROY U
He knew the message had been written by the monsters. (He was right. It had been written by Stan, who wasn’t very good when it came to spelling.) And though he could not remember them putting him in Harrods, he knew they were responsible. He licked his thumb and tried to rub the ink away. Of course, they had used a permanent marker. It would take weeks before their message would start to fade. Even so, he rubbed the letters so hard that his skin began to turn red.
The train suddenly stopped. They had reached the next station. Jim yanked his sleeve back down and looked up just in time to see his fellow passengers turn away from him. One of them was reading a newspaper with a photo of Jim asleep in the window of Harrods on the front page.
Shame and anger pulled his stomach into a fierce little knot. Everyone in the carriage knew who he was. The doors were already closing when Jim leaped from his seat, pushed past Chloe, and sat down in one of the metal seats on the
platform. Fluttering by his feet was another newspaper. Jim snatched it up and stared at the image of himself asleep in the shop window, a baby’s dummy in his mouth. The headline read:
NUT TAKES NAP IN HARRODS
He shuddered. He could never go back to Nelson now. There was no way he could risk whatever those monsters might do to him next time. His mission to expose them to the world was over, Jim realized, grinding his teeth in frustration.
He had to go back to his ordinary life and try to forget about it. The problem now was that the chances of finding another job this side of Christmas were practically zero. He was now the famous ‘nut’ who slept in Harrods. New employers need only google his name and this image would appear. Who could trust a man who did something like that? He only had £25 and some loose change in his pocket, which wasn’t nearly enough money to get his van out of the police compound.
Jim had nowhere to go and no one to turn to.
And it was at this low moment, the lowest moment of his already low-flying life, that Jim suddenly saw the light. Well, it wasn’t really a light; it was a poster. But it had the same effect on Jim as a lighthouse to a ship lost in a storm. Plastered to the wall on the other side of the platform was a poster for the latest exhibition at the Museum of London: ‘Wren’s Inventions’. As well as a photo of Doody and Pogo, whom Jim recognized from the telly, the poster showed a few examples of Sir Christopher Wren’s inventions, and among them was an image of the sin extractor. Jim had seen it on TV and heard Nelson talking about it. He knew this was the device used to create the invisible monsters. Why had no one else tested it?
The tracks began to crackle. The next train was about to arrive. Jim felt the satisfying click of an idea falling into place. He stood up and dropped the newspaper on the floor. Wind as warm as breath rushed through the platform and blew the paper away.
If he couldn’t get Nelson to admit he had monsters, then maybe he, Jim Tindle, could make some monsters of his own. He wasn’t at all sure how to do it or if it would even work, but he had nothing to lose in trying.
‘STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS,’ warned a voice coming from the loudspeakers.
And a few noisy seconds later, the train and Jim Tindle had gone.
GOODNIGHT, NELSON
‘I wish we didn’t have to do rehearsals on a Saturday. Honestly, Katy Newman is nightmare,’ said Nelson to his monsters as he crawled into his tent, which was still at the end of his garden. He was shivering and wet from the rain, which was pounding noisily on the roof of the tent. ‘She made us sing those songs from Bugsy Malone a billion times. She keeps going on about us having to be perfect, like we’re in a real West End show or something. Now I will never get those songs out of my head.’
Nelson started to hum ‘You Give a Little Love’ as he wiped his wet hair back from his forehead and looked around at his monsters. They all looked glum, and they had every reason to be.
‘Why did you all want to meet here instead of the workshop? You know it’s safer there.’
Crush honked and cuddled up next to Nelson.
‘All right, I know how you’re all feeling,’ said Nelson. ‘Spike’s is the last wish. But it’s not fair to be sad about that now. We can’t ruin whatever Spike wants to do just because he’s the last one.’
‘Let’s just get on wiv it,’ Stan growled.
‘So have you made up your mind, Spike?’
Spike nodded without looking up at Nelson.
‘Well? What do you want to do?’
Instead of replying, Spike covered his mouth and nose. The other monsters did the same. Crush pressed his trumpet-like mouth into the sleeping bag.
Nelson was about to say ‘What are you all doing?’ but he only got as far as ‘What . . .’ when a cloud of purple gas engulfed him, his eyelids drooped, and his body slumped forward to the ground.
Without a word to each other, the monsters rushed out of the tent to let the gas disperse. The rain fell on them so hard you couldn’t separate the rain drops from their tears.
‘It’s safe . . . to go . . . back in,’ said Puff miserably. For the first time in days he wasn’t floating.
The other monsters crawled back into the tent, and together they tucked Nelson into his sleeping bag. Crush stroked the wet hair on his forehead and cooed like a wood pigeon.
‘We shouldn’t ’ave done it like diss,’ stammered Nosh.
‘Course we should,’ snapped Stan. ‘Anyway, it was Spike’s wish.’
They all looked at Spike, who had tears rolling down his green cheeks.
‘All I wanted was to not have to say goodbye to him,’ he said with a sniff. ‘Can you imagine how hideous it would be to see him say goodbye to us? I don’t ever want to feel what that’s like. That’s my wish.’
‘Yeah, well, ya got ya wish. Now let’s get on wiv it,’ said Stan, his eyes glistening.
Miser picked up the fluffy toy pigeon, inside which the needle from the sin extractor was hidden.
‘Aw, Nelly-son. Me gonna miss you so much,’ said Nosh, his voice cracking, his bottom lip wobbling.
‘At least . . . we’ll all be together . . . mixed together . . . in his soul . . . like before we were born,’ Puff said as he crawled up beside Nelson.
‘Hooooooonk,’ wailed Crush, still stroking Nelson’s hair.
‘Oh, lemme just look at Nelly-son a lickle bit more before we goin’,’ said Nosh longingly.
Miser nodded, and the monsters gathered closely around their beloved Nelson to watch him sleep for one more minute, while just a few miles away, Jim Tindle entered the Museum of London.
JIM AT THE MUSEUM
Jim’s heart thumped in his chest, partly due to having drunk a can of energy drink, but mainly because a security guard had just entered the staff toilets where Jim was hiding.
‘Anyone still in here?’ barked the guard, and though of course Jim did not reply, the guard was not completely satisfied that the room was empty. First, he stooped to look under the doors. No feet could be seen. Jim was crouched on top of the toilet seat. Then the guard stood up and pushed open the cubicle doors, one after the other. Jim cursed himself for not locking his cubicle door, and then braced himself to be revealed as it swung open.
But the security guard did not see Jim. He was too busy looking at his reflection in the mirror on an adjacent wall. Until that morning, the security guard had had a formidable beard, but his new girlfriend had insisted he shave it off. Now he regretted it like mad. The guard stepped closer to the mirror, rubbed his newly smooth chin and realized he had liked his beard more than he liked his new girlfriend. Angry with himself, the guard growled as he switched out the lights and left the toilets.
Jim could not believe his luck. He had unwittingly been saved by a woman who didn’t like beards.
With enormous relief and excitement, Jim realized the museum was entirely his now, though he was only interested in one exhibit. And within minutes he’d found it. Residing alongside a broken office chair, a water cooler and life-size cut-outs of Uncle Pogo and Doody was the sin extractor. Jim had assumed getting access to it would be tricky, but an ‘incident’ surrounding the sin extractor a few days earlier had meant that it was being stored temporarily in a corridor right next to the staff toilets. Jim had no idea he had the monsters to thank for making his plan so much easier.
Jim removed the sheet of cardboard that had been placed over the device and gently lowered his right palm over the needles. He expected to find them as dull as old nails and was shocked to discover how fiercely sharp they were. Not only that, but, like a magnet, he could feel his hand being drawn to them.
Crouching beside the extractor, Jim reached underneath and picked up one of the copper test tubes held in the iron rack. It was inscribed with the word ‘ENVY’.
‘One of the deadly sins,’ said Jim, remembering what he’d seen on Doody’s documentary. He poked his finger inside, to find it dirty and empty, before replacing it in the rack with the others.
Jim st
ood up a little too quickly and was struck by a flash of dizziness. He grabbed the side of the sin extractor to steady himself, and its 350-year-old joints creaked under his weight. The cut-outs of Doody and Pogo watched as Jim took off his green army surplus jacket and dropped it on the floor. Next he took off his navy-blue knitted sweater, and then his black T-shirt. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure he was in alignment with the table, Jim took a deep breath and began slowly lowering himself backwards as if into a very hot bath. As his elbows were about to touch the edges of the table, Jim suddenly slipped and dropped heavily on to the needles with a horrid squelch. The pain was so sharp and so intense that Jim was paralysed. He couldn’t even move the air from his lungs to scream. It was pure blazing agony.
And then suddenly it wasn’t.
The agony was replaced by a rush of bliss. Tears of happiness sprang from Jim’s closed eyes and he groaned in ecstasy. He could not remember ever feeling so warm and safe, and when he opened his eyes he was no longer inside the Museum of London but lying in his father’s arms.
THE ARM THAT BROKE AND THE DAD WHO CARED
It was an afternoon in spring. Jim was four years old and sitting on his father’s lap in the back of a taxi. Jim had fallen off a climbing frame in the park and broken his arm, and his father had rushed him to hospital. In the memory, Jim couldn’t feel any pain in his arm, only his father gently stroking his forehead. ‘You’re going to be all right, Jimmy. What a brave boy you are. Yes, you are. So brave. You know I love you, don’t you, son? I love you very much.’ The feeling of being in his father’s arms, of being loved so much by him, had filled Jim’s entire being with the purest, richest form of happiness a human can feel. And suddenly the memory was over, and pain sent Jim twisting off the sin extractor and on to the floor.
The Curse of the Deadly 7 Page 8
