‘LA LA LA LA LA LA!’ shouted Hamish, dancing around and waving his arms in the air. He needed to distract the unicorn for long enough for Alice to understand that she was in grave danger. He looked at Kit desperately. But Kit was backing away, signalling for Smasha to start up the boat again. His Mon-Stunna just looked tiny and pathetic now, in the face of such power and noise.
And then WHAFF!
The unicorn swiped its mighty head and bashed Alice out of the way. She flew to the ground, and the unicorn towered above her.
Well, Hamish found himself consumed by rage.
‘CHARGE!’ he shouted, and he began to run at the unicorn. Because no one and nothing knocked his best friend to the ground. Whether school bully or mythical unicorn!
The unicorn looked startled, as Hamish leapt at it, clinging to its mane. It tried to shake him away, but now Hamish found himself sitting on top of the creature as it began to buck and rear.
‘You’re supposed to be LOVELY!’ screamed Hamish, as he hung on for dear life. ‘You’re supposed to smell of STRAWBERRIES!’
RAAAWR roared the unicorn, trying to fling him off.
‘You’re supposed to dance on RAINBOWS!’ shouted Hamish. ‘You’re supposed to poop CUPCAKES!’
The unicorn’s red eyes glowed brighter and more ferociously. But now Alice had staggered to her feet and seemed to have come to her senses. She’d had a mad moment, fuelled by nothing more than a need to get this unicorn out of the way so she could find Lydia, but by doing that she’d put Hamish in danger.
She looked down for something to throw at the unicorn.
‘You’re supposed to PEE GLITTER!’ Hamish yelled, and Alice thought he seemed less scared by the unicorn now and more disappointed.
WHOOOOOOOFFFF!
A great blast of FIRE shot from the unicorn’s mouth, burning the branches above them and sending clumps of leaves and sticks tumbling to the ground. Insects caught fire in the air and dropped to the floor a second later.
‘Guys!’ shouted Kit. ‘Abandon mission!’
‘Where are you going?’ Alice yelled at him. ‘Come on, Monster Patrol!’
And, as if in response, the unicorn’s eyes flashed a deeper blood red, and it REARED into the air, turned on its clawed hooves and THUNDERED away into the jungle, thrashing through bushes, snapping branches clean in two, left, right and centre.
Alice stood staring, powerless.
The unicorn had gone in a split second.
And it had taken poor Hamish with it.
13
DAYS UNTIL ARRIVAL: 3
Hamish’s bottom was getting very sore now.
I mean, it was really sore.
Not just from all the bucking and rearing the unicorn was doing, but from the constant powering through the undergrowth and overgrowth and everything-in-between-growth.
It was like getting whacked by a goblin with a badminton racket a thousand times a minute.
OW OW OW OW OW OW OW!
Hamish had no idea what he was going to do. He’d just instinctively jumped for the unicorn when it was threatening Alice. And that, he now realised, was a very silly idea. And very bad for his bottom.
THWACK! OW!
Not great for his top either! Another branch slapped him in the face as the unicorn ran and reared past a low-hanging banana tree. Clumps of bananas thudded to the ground with a WHOMP as groups of howler monkeys watched and applauded in delight.
Hamish had no plan other than to just hang on. Sometimes that’s the only plan anyone ever has. And even though he really wanted to get off this unicorn, he knew that getting off this unicorn would be the worst thing possible. If he got off the unicorn, he’d be lost in the jungle. Alone! At least he knew exactly where he was – he was on a unicorn! And although this terrifying fire-breathing unicorn wasn’t the best company, sometimes you’ve just got to take what you can get, don’t you? And sometimes that will mean hanging out with an awful mythical beast.
THWACK! OW!
Was the unicorn doing this on PURPOSE? It seemed very angry about having Hamish on its back. Furious, even. As well as charging through bushes, it would occasionally spin around like a Waltzer, clearly trying to get rid of the ten-year-old boy who was clinging on to its back for dear life. That was another reason Hamish didn’t want to get off the creature: what it might do to him when he did!
No, he had to cling on no matter what. No matter where this unicorn might be going.
Wait . . . What if this unicorn was taking him somewhere specific? Like, to other fearsome unicorns? Or to the gruesome BÜÜÜÜG? Was this what had happened to poor Lydia?
THWACK! OW!
Hamish was getting really annoyed at the trees now, and you know someone’s annoyed when they can get annoyed at trees. As he shielded his eyes from more branch attacks while keeping a very firm fist wrapped around the unicorn’s tusk, Hamish noticed the ground beneath them had become worn. Almost like a path. This wasn’t a random journey into the jungle any more. This was a known one. A well-travelled one.
And then Hamish’s stomach leapt.
Up ahead, maybe ten seconds away at this great speed, was a clearing.
And just beyond the clearing, Hamish could see a gap between that piece of land and another.
A very large gap.
‘Stop, unicorn!’ shouted Hamish. ‘Whoa, boy! Or girl! Or whatever you are!’
But the unicorn wasn’t stopping. In fact, it was speeding up. Galloping. Head low, hooves thundering . . .
He could see the gap now. It wasn’t just a gap. This was a ravine. It was like the Grand Canyon. The closer he got, the wider it seemed, like zooming out on a camera and seeing the whole picture.
He’d seen films. He’d seen cartoons. He knew that a drop like this probably wasn’t good. They couldn’t leap that. Nothing could. This unicorn was mad.
Hamish had maybe a second to decide what to do . . . jump? Or stay?
Too late!
Hamish leaned into the unicorn. Pressed his head against its muscular neck. Gripped its tusk tighter. Closed his eyes. Gritted his teeth. Held his breath.
And when they were just centimetres from the edge, and as Hamish knew that the cavernous drop was below him, the unicorn
The leap seemed to last forever . . .
Then . . .
He rose, and he rose, and he seemed to fly!
Fly for just a moment, but it was still a moment, wasn’t it?
Travelling far further and far faster and far higher than Hamish had been expecting!
And when they landed with a JOLT and the unicorn stopped still immediately and unexpectedly, Hamish was flung from its back and bounced heavily into the undergrowth, his Monster Patrol backpack breaking his fall.
He stared up at the canopy of trees above him, the sunlight dappling through. His fingers raked the wet soil beneath him.
He had survived!
And then the unicorn’s face came clear into view, and Hamish felt its hot and sour breath on his face.
He realised that about now would be a cracking time to have a plan.
14
DAYS UNTIL ARRIVAL: 3
‘Well, fat lot of good you were,’ said Alice to Kit, grumpily, as she pushed vast broken branches out of the way. ‘Monster Patrol. Pah!’
They were making slow progress in the heat, moving past Lobster Claw flowers and Monkey Brush vines, following the trail of devastation and trampled ferns and bushes the unicorn had left in its wake.
‘I never said I was any good!’ said Kit. ‘To be honest, I’m more of a monster enthusiast than a monster expert or fighter. But I’m trying!’
‘You’re suddenly very trying,’ agreed Alice, resting for a second by a rubber tree. ‘And now Hamish is lost in the jungle at the mercy of a unicorn while time ticks away in Starkley. You just went for the boat! Why didn’t you even try your stunny thing?’
‘It’s basically just a toy,’ said Kit, sadly. His previous confidence had all but vanished. ‘I put it together because some
times it frightens the smaller monsters.’
Alice slapped her forehead. This was a disaster. And Kit seemed rather less impressive now. One thing was for sure: Monster Patrol was turning out to be no PDF.
‘Look,’ said Kit, scrambling to catch up with Alice as she strode forward again. ‘That’s why I need to find Lydia. She was the expert. She can teach us all. The world needs Monster Patrol and only she can bring it back properly!’
‘So what can you do?’ said Alice, spying more broken branches and realising the unicorn must have dragged poor Hamish that way.
‘Well . . . the odd spell.’
‘Oh, great,’ said Alice, sighing. ‘We’re back to “magic”, are we?’
Alice was a very practical girl. The type of girl who’d see a magician doing a card trick and immediately work out how they’d done it, how they could do it better, and how much they were probably getting paid to deceive the public.
‘I know it sounds weird,’ said Kit. ‘Lydia was always very scientific, like Belasko. Because Belasko likes “science” and “gadgets” and “facts”. I told you my grandmamma was a little more experimental. She was trying techniques Belasko did not approve of.’
‘Is that what Hamish’s dad meant when he said Monster Patrol had changed?’
‘Some would of course call what we tried “magic”, but we say it was not exactly magic. Because when “magic” works, you no longer call it magic. When it works, then it is science.’
Alice rolled her eyes. If his monster hunting skills were anything to go by, she could only imagine this ‘magic’ and these ‘spells’ were the most rubbish spells possible, like spells for moving a spoon very slightly or making a beetle dance.
‘And what about him?’ she said, nodding at Smasha. ‘So you and a silent giant puffer fish just wander around, doing card tricks and waving toys at monsters, do you?’
Kit and Smasha looked at each other, aghast.
‘How RUDE!’ said Smasha, and Alice stopped in her tracks.
Had that Puffox thing really spoken?
‘You can speak!’ she said.
‘Of course I can speak,’ said Smasha, who actually sounded quite posh, like he belonged in a country house somewhere fancy, like the Palace of Westmonster.
‘Then why didn’t you speak?’
‘Because you didn’t speak to me!’ he said, indignant. ‘You simply strode on to our plane, gave me one look, and decided I couldn’t speak. And I know exactly why!’
‘Why?’ asked Alice.
‘It was because of my fish head, wasn’t it?’
‘Uh, well . . . sort of,’ said Alice.
‘Typical! You see a monster who happens to have a fish head and decide they can’t speak. You probably think I have some kind of special fish-head language and only hang out with special fish-head people, do you?’
Alice looked ashamed.
‘A bit.’
‘Well, just because I look different to you doesn’t mean we have nothing in common,’ said Smasha, stepping carefully to avoid damaging an orchid. ‘And Kit has always treated me with respect!’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Are you?’ said Smasha. ‘Because remember: we may not be the world’s best monster hunters, but we are the best chance you’ve got. And monster hunter runs through that boy’s veins every bit as much as it runs through yours!’
Alice stared at her feet.
‘I’ve been helping him with his words,’ said Kit quietly. ‘Puffoxes are highly intelligent, but they’re also very sensitive. He’s been in a real mood with you since you got onboard.’
‘So rude,’ Smasha muttered, behind them. ‘And you didn’t even say thank you for your lunchboxes. Who do you think was up all night cracking a cactus in two so you’d have a lovely lunch?’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said Alice, flicking a bright blue bug from her shoulder. ‘Please can we start again?’
She stared at them very seriously.
‘Look, we all want to find Lydia. You want to find your leader. I want to find my grandma. And Hamish wants to find a saviour for Starkley. But right now we’re lost in the jungle, and Hamish has been captured by a unicorn. It might be scaring him. It might be eating him! It might be using its sharp tusks, devilish claws and its fire-breathing FURY to torture him! So we had better hurry, because we need Hamish Ellerby – he’s not just my best friend, he’s one of the bravest people I know – and right now Hamish Ellerby is in deep, deep trouble!’
15
DAYS UNTIL ARRIVAL: STILL 3, YES
Hamish had never been licked so much in his life.
As it turned out, unicorns weren’t so bad when you got to know them!
There was the smell, of course. It smelled like a match catching fire. And you had to be really careful around that sharp tusk. And if it nuzzled into your chest, it’d leave black marks all over your top, like smudged ink, or soot. But apart from that there was mainly the licking and sniffing.
Sniff. Sniff. SNIFF.
Since it had managed to get rid of the weird human who just wouldn’t get off its back, the unicorn could not help but be curious. His huge sandpapery tongue had given Hamish’s hair quite the cowlick. But now it wasn’t Hamish he was interested in. It was those strange light green squares in his hand.
They looked clean. Pure. This unicorn was used to dirty things, covered in mud, or dirt, or moss. These seemed pristine.
It leaned forward, and with one quick lick from a tongue the size of a cushion, gobbled a cactus sugar cube down.
CHOMP.
SNAFFLE.
SWALLOW.
For a second, nothing happened. The unicorn just seemed startled. Its eyes weren’t red now; they were white, bright and interested. There were no fumes at all.
Giving it a sugar lump had been all Hamish could think to do. Now he wondered, peeling his banana and taking a bite . . . had he tamed the unicorn!?
He reached up, thinking he might like to pet the creature. And though the unicorn was suspicious, it let Hamish touch its mane, and the short fringe at the base of its tusk.
‘Good uni,’ said Hamish, calmly, as great big palm leaves swooshed and swayed around him. ‘Now . . . do you think I could ride you back to the others?’
The unicorn stared at him blankly.
‘Like, maybe I could just climb back on, and you could magically jump over that gap again?’ he said, smiling, as if that might help. ‘Because we need to hopefully find this woman who disappeared a long time ago so that we can reunite her with her granddaughter and then get her back to my town so that we can save it from a sea monster.’
Hamish tried the ‘angel face’ he usually made when meeting other children’s parents, and gave the unicorn a charming smile. Maybe it would understand that?
The unicorn licked his face again, and Hamish giggled and gave its head another tickle.
But as he did, he noticed something, and his hand froze still.
There was something just under the unicorn’s fringe.
Curious, he brushed the hair to one side, and revealed a very distinctive mark.
Hamish’s heart nearly stopped still.
He had seen a mark just like this before.
It was the same size and almost the exact same shape as one he was all too familiar with.
‘Scarmarsh,’ muttered Hamish.
He took a step back, feeling sick at the memory of the evil genius’s scar.
What did that mean? Was it coincidence? Did Axel Scarmarsh own this unicorn?
No . . . no, it was impossible.
Hamish stared again at the mark. He reached out, touched it, feeling sick as he did so.
A thousand ideas spun through Hamish’s head at once. Was Scarmarsh everywhere? In his dreams, in this jungle? Did his powers know no bounds? If Scarmarsh controlled the unicorn, what else might he control? Armies of gorgons, or griffins, or cyclopses, or yetis, or dragons? He could raise serpents, and giant moths – maybe Godzilla itself!
; He rubbed at the mark on the unicorn’s head, willing it to disappear.
And with relief, he saw that it was coming off . . .
It was just dirt.
Dirt picked up on their mad gallop through the bushes.
He felt like laughing and crying all at once.
Would he ever be rid of his fear of this man? If he was even seeing his presence in places he couldn’t possibly be?
But as well as relief, Hamish felt paranoid. Like he was being watched. He felt like he might never be rid of Scarmarsh, and not just because he was related to him. And now here he was, stuck in a jungle, a million miles from home, confused and separated from his friends.
He stepped back again, his tummy churning and the rainforest seeming to twist and whirl around him.
Which way had they come? Where was the ravine? How could he make it back over? Where would he sleep tonight? How would he protect himself? What would he eat? What would happen when night came? Could he trust the unicorn?
And as he stumbled further and further back, and the jungle spun faster around him, he tripped on something heavy, hidden in the long grass.
Hamish fell back on to the roots of a Babassu tree, hitting his head, hard.
A DIFFERENT DREAM
‘What is this?’ Hamish asks himself.
No longer is he at the cliffs, nor above the swirling waters of the sea.
He blinks in total silence.
No wind, no rain. No streak of bright silver shooting from blackened clouds, no brooding booms of thunder to shake him like a doll.
No, now Hamish sits in a room, lit by a single candle in the centre of a very long table.
He can feel the coldness of the walls without touching them. He feels their height instinctively, but he can see no doors. He spins around, noticing just a pinprick of light somewhere high above.
And as he looks back down . . . a figure sits at the other end of the table.
His stomach lurches.
He wants to speak, he wants to know where he is, but the words stick in his throat. He feels small, but the anger in his stomach has grown.
Hamish and the Monster Patrol Page 6