The chirrup of tree crickets. The calls of the Bare-Throated Bellbirds.
‘I took the liberty of preparing a few items before we came to collect you,’ said Kit, handing them both Monster Patrol backpacks and jumping out. ‘I hope you both like cactus sandwiches, cactus tea and cactus sugar?’
‘Ooh, um, lovely,’ said Hamish, who had been very well brought up but did not, in fact, think cacti belonged in sandwiches. He peeked inside. There were cactus tea bags, and cactus sugar lumps . . . oh, and one green banana. His tummy rumbled. Maybe if they sorted all this out, Starkley would have chips again.
Hamish clambered from the shuttle and looked up at Hotel Empanada. It was definitely the place from the newspaper article. But it really didn’t look like a proper hotel any more. The paint was peeling, the many arched windows were boarded up, and the sign was hanging loose. The three strange domes at the top of the hotel – which had once been golden – were green now, and covered in vines.
And there didn’t seem to be any other guests. Mind you, who’d stay here? Hamish knew they were somewhere between Ecuador and Peru, but that didn’t really mean much to him, because he didn’t really know where Ecuador and Peru were. The shuttle bus had flown for ages over miles and miles and miles of thick green forest so there was nothing much around. No other buildings. No shops. No tourist sights. It was a very strange place to start a hotel. But then, you even get hotels in Swindon these days.
‘Hola,’ said a strange frog man carrying a tea tray and wearing an ill-fitting suit.
‘Hola,’ replied Hamish, yawning. He was tired.
WAIT! WHY WAS THERE A STRANGE TALKING FROG MAN WITH A TRAY?
‘That’s Brendon,’ said Kit. ‘He looks after the hotel. Keeps people away. A very lonely job. He keeps asking me to get him a pet. Anyway, he stops anyone snooping around Monster Patrol HQ.’
‘How does he do that?’ asked Hamish.
Brendon unfurled an enormous, three-metre-long tongue and cracked it back into his mouth, like a whip. Hamish reckoned that was probably how.
‘Right, come on, I want to get out there,’ said Alice, still in a karate stance. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘And, just out of interest . . . what are the dangers we should know about?’ said Hamish. ‘I mean, we’re sort of in the middle of the jungle, right? I mean, if even Lydia needed help, shouldn’t we be more prepared? Alice says we should always be prepared.’
Kit started to laugh.
‘ABP!’ he said.
‘Huh?’ said Alice.
‘Always Be Prepared,’ he said. ‘That’s the Monster Patrol slogan! But don’t worry. Everyone thinks the jungle is so dangerous. But really it’s fine. I mean, there are the spiders . . .’
‘Spiders,’ said Hamish, prickling with sweat. ‘Sure.’
‘And of course the rattlesnakes and the boa constrictors, those are quite bad.’
‘Mm-hmm,’ said Hamish, feeling queasy.
‘There are the bullet ants. The red-bellied piranhas, the electric eels, and the poison darts frog. And the jaguars, alligators, giant otters and the hungry harpy eagle.’
‘Okay,’ said Hamish, a little pale now. ‘Good to know.’
‘And the wildfires, the dangerous river currents, the flash floods, the falling trees, the lightning storms and the mud slides.’
‘Cool,’ said Alice, desperate to get started. ‘But apart from that . . .’
‘Well, apart from that, the chance of jungle sickness, fever, malaria, dehydration and some serious tummy trouble.’
‘Uh-huh, tummy trouble, okay,’ said Hamish. ‘But that’s it?’
‘That’s it!’ said Kit. ‘Oh, I suppose there are also bloodsucking leeches, giant fanged mosquitoes and one particularly large fruit bat called Pipsqueak who seems to have a complex set of anger issues.’
Hamish blinked. He wanted to make sure Kit had actually finished this time.
‘And the bull sharks,’ Kit said, looking a bit sheepish now. ‘And the giant centipede,’ he added, opening the doors of the hotel.
Hamish drummed his fingers on his arm as he followed.
‘And the tiny little green assassin bug,’ Kit said quietly.
Alice began to pull the doors shut behind them.
‘But that’s it!’ said Kit. ‘Now go to bed! Your rooms are ready! WE LEAVE AT FIRST LIGHT!’
Hamish and Alice watched him walk off.
‘Oh, and guys?’ he said, turning around. ‘ABP!’
THE DREAM
Thunder.
Thunder so thick and throaty and so loud it seems to grip his ribs.
Hamish blinks in the rain, stopped still in the darkness.
Above him – one by one – the stars in the sky disappear, blown out like candles.
Hamish is small, vulnerable, totally alone – no match for the infinite power of nature.
But this isn’t just nature. This is something else. Something unnatural. Something controlling nature.
The wind that moves like a freight train.
The sheets of rain, dense and painful.
It is whatever had dragged Hamish from the coast and now keeps him stuck still in the air.
Now the clouds that had been turning and swirling and forming become something else entirely.
Just a blur right now. But unifying into something.
Hamish squints to make it out, this image like a face pressed against frosted glass.
Oh, he knows that face all too well.
Scarmarsh.
11
DAYS UNTIL ARRIVAL: 3
It was hot in the jungle.
Everyone’s socks were already wet and squishy and it was still only early in the morning.
Hamish yawned sleepily and held on to his jungle helmet as Smasha bounced the Monster Patrol All-Terrain Vehicle through the rainforest.
Fat wet vines kept smacking Hamish in the face, though, which was a wonderful way to stay awake.
He had also immediately been hit by the smells of the forest. The flowers, the wood, the strange and mysterious perfume of the plants. It had rained overnight and the soil smelled rich and vibrant. In fact, the whole place was full of life. Hamish felt silly thinking it, but the mix of smells and dark greens really reminded him of his grandad’s old greenhouse.
Alice was wide-eyed and alert as she sat up front, helping Kit find his way. The vehicle they were in looked like a cross between a jeep and a hotel laundry van. It even had a cage hidden in the back just in case the Monster Patrol needed to secretly transport a monster somewhere, while pretending they were just taking underpants and T-shirts to be washed.
‘Monster Patrol is so cool!’ said Alice, delighted. ‘The ship! The jeep! We’ve just got an old ice-cream van in the PDF!’
Hamish rolled his eyes. It was a very cool ice-cream van, thank you very much. Although he had to admit, this was also a very cool jeep.
Kit had been up most of the night searching Lydia’s travel diary for clues, but the map in the photo was still the strongest one. He couldn’t believe that all this time they’d been looking in a completely different part of the rainforest.
‘Her boot was found here,’ said Kit, pointing on a real map at an area of thick trees. ‘But from the one in the photo it seems she was heading in this direction.’
‘Hmm,’ said Alice. ‘Literally this whole map is just trees.’
Kit looked awkward.
‘Yeah, it’s like fourteen ba-jillion square miles of forest.’
Alice and Hamish glanced at each other. Even if they split up, that could take about thirteen hundred years to search.
‘First things first,’ said Alice, over the buzz of the engine, and trying to take this sensibly. ‘Kit, show us where the boot was found.’
‘No point,’ replied Kit, as Smasha swerved to avoid a fallen tree and burst through some bracken. ‘There’s nothing to see there any more. It’s overgrown. And very dangerous. The last time we were there we detected an increase in monster activ
ity. Probably because we kept turning up and looking at where the boot had been found. Maybe they decided we’d make a nice lunch.’
‘Or maybe they were protecting something,’ said Hamish, adjusting his backpack and feeling rather sweaty.
‘You said something might have grabbed my grandma,’ said Alice. ‘Do you think it was the BÜÜÜÜG?’
Alice hoped not. BÜÜÜÜGS were deadly. And although she knew the reality of the situation, and what fate Lydia might have faced, words like ‘deadly’ were not words she wanted to think about.
‘Maybe,’ said Kit. ‘But BÜÜÜÜGS are more chasers than grabbers. Whatever it was must have been fast, for her boot to have been pulled off.’
Hamish started to become very concerned about fast-moving monsters. Or fast-moving anythings. Jaguars. Cheetahs. Tiny little green assassin bugs, whatever they were.
‘Look,’ said Kit. ‘There’s a reason that hotel is the Monster Patrol HQ. This area is a hotbed of monsters. But trust me: we’d be safest if we avoid the boot area altogether.’ Alice turned to Hamish.
‘What do you think?’ she said.
‘You know what I think,’ he smiled.
‘We’re not here to be safe,’ she said, turning back to Kit. ‘We’re here to find my gran.’
Kit looked at Smasha and shrugged.
Smasha shrugged back, then turned a VERY hard left indeed.
‘OW OW OW OW!’ yelled Hamish, as Smasha smashed through trees and ferns and rode over hillocks and through bright, rushing streams.
SWASH!
THWACK!
OW!
This was like the worst, most painful fairground ride ever. There were seat belts to hold him in place, but Monster Patrol didn’t seem to design their vehicles for comfort. Everything was very boxy and angular and metal.
THWACK!
Hamish didn’t understand how he seemed to be the only one being hit by all this stuff. Had he bad-mouthed trees in the past? Were they taking their revenge? Maybe a Venus Spytrap had written a letter to the Plants Complaints Department. Another branch thwacked him in the cakehole, as Alice expertly ducked and weaved around, clinging to the handrail above her, totally focused.
‘Y-Y-Y-YOU KNOW WH-WHEN YOU M-M-MENTIONED FAST M-M-MONSTERS?’ shouted Hamish, as he bounced around. ‘WHAT TYPE?’
‘HANG ON A SECOND!’ replied Kit.
KA-SPLASH!
The vehicle splashed into the river and bobbed around for a second.
Somehow, Hamish was the only one who got wet.
But was this bad? Were they going to sink?
Smasha pulled a lever and the vehicle’s wheels retracted. A small chimney popped out of the roof and started puff-puff-puffing away. Wow. It now seemed to be a boat! Buster would have loved this. Hamish hoped everything was okay back home. He was sure when he and Alice had left, his dad would have gathered the rest of the PDF to their HQ in Garage 5 to help with ground support for Belasko. Or his friends were coming up with strategies to deal with whatever the Starkley Monster was going to turn out to be. Or maybe they were sitting in their pants watching telly. Hamish knew this trip was important too, especially to Alice, but he hated feeling like he was letting anyone down by not being there.
But if they could find Lydia, well, hopefully that would be the greatest gift he could give Starkley.
As the strange little gang began to float down the river – and curious Bulldog Bats swooped in the air around them – Hamish noticed disconcerting dark shapes shifting around, deep down in the green gunky murkiness around them. Every now and again something broke the surface of the water and immediately pelted and swooshed away again. What was it?
An eel?
A PIRANHA?
Worse?
‘Don’t panic,’ said Kit, sensing Hamish’s mood. ‘It might just be a Boto.’
‘A what-o?’ asked Hamish.
‘Amazon River Dolphin. Pretty friendly. But keep your arms in, just in case,’ said Kit. ‘Our last guest didn’t. We call him “Lefty” now.’
Hamish and Alice both very quickly and quietly folded their arms. The water around them seemed to get choppier and more active. Giant water lilies bobbed and wobbled around them.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Kit, scanning the treeline, and Smasha made an agitated growling noise. ‘We’re being watched.’
He wasn’t kidding. Once Hamish and Alice’s eyes got used to the light, as the sun streamed through the treetops and between the leaves and flashed and flickered, all they could see in the dark forest around them were . . .
Eyes.
Big eyes. Little eyes. Things that seemed to have one eye. Things that seemed to have three eyes!
‘Don’t make eye contact,’ said Kit, but that was almost impossible, seeing as all you could make contact with were eyes!
And then – just like that . . .
WHOOOOF.
Every single eye that had been watching them closed and then disappeared. The forest shook with the sound of scarpering critters.
‘What were they?’ asked Alice.
‘A bit of everything,’ said Kit. ‘Probably the odd Jungle Yeti. Maybe one or two Slurms. I definitely smelled a Welsh Rarebit.’
‘Why did they suddenly all go?’ asked Hamish, even though he definitely knew he didn’t want the answer.
‘I have a feeling we’ll find out soon,’ said Kit, tossing a rope at an old dead tree trunk poking out of the water and bringing the boat to a stop.
And Kit was right.
Because the very second they set foot on solid ground, they heard the sound and they smelled the smell.
12
DAYS UNTIL ARRIVAL: 3
This was NOT the way one of these things was supposed to look.
Everyone knows what these things look like. You do. I do. Your mum’s great-aunt’s neighbour’s poodle’s vet’s dad does. And so does the poodle.
But this was not white. It did not have kind eyes. It did not look like a cuddler. Or a nuzzler. Or like it would take them on a magical adventure, sprinkling stardust in its wake. This was not something you’d put pictures of on wallpaper, or pyjamas, or pillow cases.
This looked like something from a nightmarish otherworld.
Black clawed hooves. Fierce red eyes. Puffing out black fumes, like an old van on a motorway. It reminded Hamish of the Requines – the awful black horses the Terribles had used to storm Starkley back when they first invaded.
But this was . . .
This was . . .
Wait, was this really . . .
‘A UNICORN?’ said Alice.
Hamish didn’t like this part of the forest. The temperature was cooler here. The soil was blacker. He took a step back and heard the sickening crunch of cockroaches underfoot.
‘Be careful!’ said Kit, widening his arms protectively, and suddenly wielding a Mon-Stunna, which crackled and fizzed with electric blue energy.
‘I thought unicorns were friendly!’ said Hamish, confused.
‘They just have good marketing,’ said Kit, for the first time sounding . . . well . . . nervous. ‘People think they’re white, with a lovely horn, and that they fly along rainbows and drop glitter everywhere. Not the case. Not. At. All.’
And if this unicorn was anything to go by, Kit was right. It did not look happy. And Kit had been right in the plane, too. That was no horn. That was a devilishly sharp and twisted tusk. The unicorn was dirty, and muscular, with a matted mane and wild eyes. And the black fumes pouring from its nostrils reminded Hamish of something else Kit had said earlier.
‘Wait . . . did you say they could breathe fire?’
‘Of course,’ said Kit. ‘Unicorns are often used by other monsters to protect themselves. They’re the first line of defence against trespassers.’
‘Well, how do we beat a unicorn?’ said Alice. ‘Mister monster expert?’
Kit shot her a sharp look. It was a look that said two things: a) don’t make fun of me, and b) wait, let me think!
The tuske
d fiend took another step forward, clearly weighing up the danger these four strange figures posed. It sniffed the air, sensing the Mon-Stunna and hearing its crackle and working out its next move.
‘Just don’t do anything unexpected,’ whispered Kit. ‘We don’t want to startle it.’
All of this did not sit well with Alice. Why wasn’t Kit leaping into action? She was fed up with waiting. All she ever seemed to do was wait for monsters or enemies to make the first move. But now she was on a mission. Her grandma might be out there somewhere, nearby even, feeling lost and abandoned and in need of rescuing. No, Alice had things to do. She couldn’t hang about all the time, being scared.
I mean, Alice Shepherd – scared?
Of a unicorn?!
‘Follow my lead!’ she suddenly yelled. ‘Raaaargh!’
She leapt forward, and started clapping her hands together, trying to scare the unicorn off.
‘Alice! What are you doing? Kit said not to do anything unexpected!’ shouted Hamish, unsure whether to take his backpack off in case they needed a quick getaway. ‘Stop!’
But Alice had had enough of being told to stop all the time. She wanted to do something.
She wanted her head checked, is what she wanted.
Seeing her run, the unicorn reared up on to its hind legs and let out a terrifying roar. The jungle seemed to shake around it. But Alice was not stopping. Wild-eyed, she paced forward, shouting and clapping her hands together. Problem was, this was an excellent tactic if you were trying to shoo pigeons. But no one in the world will tell you a unicorn is the same as a pigeon.
Hamish could sense the creature was getting ready to charge. It scraped one hoof on the ground and tensed up. Alice was within spitting distance of it now . . .
Hamish and the Monster Patrol Page 5