‘YEEAAAACCCHHH!’ screeched one, backing away from two or three babies who were waddling towards him with their arms outstretched for a cuddle. ‘AWWAAAY! AWWAAY!’
Dozens of Terribles turned and squirmed and did everything they could to avoid the affections of these tiny, pure-hearted infants, and thundered away in absolute and total terror.
Then: FSHEEEEEEEEWWWWW.
What was that deafening noise? The clearing began to fill with bright white smoke.
Hamish turned to see the doors of the Post Office Tower start to close.
The boosters at the bottom were firing up and beginning to spark – CA-CLACK! CA-CLACK! The woods filled with the familiar acrid smell of Scarmarsh’s fuel.
‘He’s trying to escape!’ cried Hamish.
Alice looked up at the tower. There was no way in. And, if they somehow did get in, what if it blasted off anyway? It would take them straight into space. She couldn’t go into space today. She was supposed to pick up eggs on her way home.
‘The lorries!’ said Hamish. Just like Scarmarsh had done to Frinkley, Hamish would use his own things against him!
He ran for the first Formula One lorry and pulled out the giant pipe at the back – the one they’d been using to fill all the petrol tanks and barrels. It was extremely heavy – he needed Alice’s help.
She was next to him in an instant, as she always was, helping him lift the pipe as Buster yanked hard at the lever to start the flow.
Out shot the Formula One at a thousand miles an hour, lifting Alice and Hamish in the air for a second as they grasped the pipe . . .
‘Aim for the boosters!’ yelled Hamish.
Elliot and Clover ran to the second lorry and grabbed its pipe as Buster followed and pulled on that lever too. A great whoosh of Formula One rushed from their pipe, arcing up into the air, chasing the tower as it took off. The powerful stench of cinnamon and diesel pumped out of the lorries as the kids held on with all their might.
Above them, the tower was starting to shudder and judder now.
The PDF had the right idea, but were they too late?
Some of the boosters were failing, but still the vast building was rising slowly, slowly into the air. And, the higher it got, the harder it was to hit. They just couldn’t lift the pipes any further. This would take serious muscle!
‘BOFFO!’ yelled Venk, cradled in Boffo’s arms as if hewasababyhimself. ‘IFYOULOVEME,HELPUS!’
‘Yes, Venk!’ shouted Hamish.
Boffo flung Venk over his shoulder and stormed over to a lorry, using his giant baby arms to lift the pipe, aiming the Formula One high, high up into the air . . .
And hitting the boosters dead on!
The Post Office Tower was now shaking wildly as it rose above the trees . . . it still had power but not much! It wasn’t heading straight for space any more, but towards the sea instead. Scarmarsh was just desperate to get anywhere other than here!
The PDF cheered, knowing they had done enough damage: the tower was sputtering and stuttering and belching out huge great globs of black smoke, like full stops across the clear blue sky.
And just as it left their sight . . .
No. Not the sound of the tower exploding.
But a sonic boom, as a fresh trail of fire tore across the sky!
Hamish’s dad re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in his spaceship after racing 163 thousand miles to be there – too late to fight Scarmarsh, but just in time for lunch.
Ice Ice Baby
When the ice-cream van rolled back into Starkley, surrounded by a hundred triumphant babies, the cheers and roars of approval were deafening.
Scarmarsh had been beaten. The babies were safe.
Oh, I wish you’d been there. It was quite the sight.
When Hamish’s dad had landed in the clearing – and sent his colleagues off to chase Scarmarsh through the air – he hadn’t been expecting to see quite so many infants wielding spears. I mean, who ever does? But Angus Ellerby had known precisely what to do next: make sure there was no more Formula One on Earth.
Right now, he and Belasko were taking care of the barrels and ‘free samples’ Scarmarsh had been preparing.
If there was one thing that was particularly gratifying, thought Hamish, as he clambered out of the van to the sound of cheering, it was that you really couldn’t see much of a difference between Frinkley people and Starkley people any more. Everyone looked the same.
They looked happy.
They also looked really, really pleased to see the PDF. No more suspicion. No more wariness. Just gratitude.
‘Who wants a kebab?’ said Nurse Pickernose, running up to the gang, excitedly. ‘I thought I’d use up the last of them today and give them all away free!’
‘Really?’ said Hamish. ‘How come?’
‘Maybe I was a little quick to give up nursing,’ she smiled. ‘Today was a wonderful reminder of the old days. And also all my meat’s due to go off tonight.’
‘How much do you want for it?’ asked Madame Cous Cous, who already had plans to release a brand-new Kebab Candy Floss.
The PDF smiled as they watched more babies reunite with their parents and the last wafts of cinnamon were carried off on the wind. Everyone seemed to have learned a little something about their families today.
The babies, for example, had learned that home is where the heart is, that power is no match for love and that the safest place for them was right alongside their mums and dads. And the parents had learned that, deep down, their babies were extremely dangerous trained assassins capable of terrifying and unpredictable acts of violence.
It was all absolutely lovely.
‘Check out Boffo,’ said Alice, nudging Hamish.
The big baby had just sat on a bench and it had immediately collapsed. He still had Venk hoisted round his neck and was sucking his thumb – by which I mean Venk’s thumb – until he saw Mrs Quip, tossed Venk aside and stomped over to his mother, knocking her clean off her feet.
‘I hope the Formula One hasn’t affected him permanently,’ said Hamish, concerned. ‘I mean, the babies will get smaller again, right?’
A moment later, a huge and impressive black motorbike roared into town. An absolute giant of a man in a leather jacket leapt off and ran towards Mrs Quip, tearing off his motorcycle helmet and diving to hug Boffo hard. Hamish recognised the man immediately.
‘It’s Mr Massive!’ he said, delighted. ‘Mr Massive is Boffo’s dad! No wonder the Formula One had such an effect on him! He was already going to be huge!’
On the stage Horatia Snipe suddenly tapped her microphone.
‘Well, if we’re all back and ready to proceed,’ she said, ‘it’s time to award the prizes! And I can tell you that for the first time ever . . . all the babies have been awarded first place!’
Well, this wasn’t like Horatia Snipe at all!
Early editions of the Frinkley Starfish would detail the events of the day in all their glory. The PDF would be hailed as great heroes. And the travel section would recommend the wonderful town of Starkley as the region’s Greatest Place to Visit!
Plus, as a thank you from the Mayor of Frinkley, not only were the PDF given the ‘Freedom of Frinkley’, but every child in Starkley was given free Laser Quest and hot dogs for life.
‘There’s just one thing I don’t get,’ Hamish said, while the celebrations continued, not even looking up when he felt his dad’s comforting hand on his shoulder as the afternoon turned to evening.
‘What’s that, pal?’ said his dad, and the two of them instinctively looked up at the sky, their bellies full of kebab and chips. The moon was out early, and one or two bright stars twinkled in the sky.
And, somewhere out there, was Axel Scarmarsh. Hamish’s dad had been just too late. His first instinct had been to check on Hamish. Maybe he was overly protective. But Hamish wouldn’t have it any other way.
‘Why us?’ said Hamish. ‘Alice wondered too.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Dad.<
br />
‘Scarmarsh has half a universe to play with. So why is he so obsessed with Earth?’
Hamish’s dad didn’t say anything. He just stared up at those bright stars.
‘Like, he keeps choosing Starkley,’ continued Hamish. ‘He builds a lair not far away. He keeps targeting us. And yet he knows this is the one place where you are, and where I am. He said it was “tradition”, but it’s more than that, I know it.’
‘I think he’ll be back one day,’ said Dad. ‘Maybe you can ask him.’
‘But why?’ said Hamish, turning to stare at him. ‘Why will he be back?’
Hamish understood that every hero needs a nemesis. But he’d never signed up to this. He’d never done a single thing to Axel Scarmarsh.
His dad kneeled down so that they were the same height.
‘Some people choose love over power,’ he said, ‘and others choose power over love. I chose love. I think you would too. But Scarmarsh? He chose power.’
‘When?’ said Hamish, confused.
His dad thought about what to say next. He remembered something from many years before. Something he’d avoided talking to Hamish about so far.
‘Remember Mum showed you a photo? The one where I’m fishing?’ he said. ‘And I’m with my brother? The one Mum told you I fell out with? The one who never spoke to me again?’
‘Yes,’ said Hamish. ‘He fell. He cut his head in that bog.’
‘Well, we argued that night, and all the next day. It got out of hand. I’d done something stupid, like kids sometimes do, but the worst thing is I never said sorry properly.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Hamish.
‘My brother fell,’ said Dad. ‘In the marsh. He got a scar.’
Hamish’s eyes began to widen.
‘He got a scar . . . in the marsh?’ he said, and even as he repeated those words, and rolled them slowly around in his head, he couldn’t quite believe what his father was telling him.
So Angus Ellerby made things really very clear indeed.
‘Axel Scarmarsh is your uncle,’ he said. ‘And I have a feeling he wants a family reunion.’
THE END
For now . . .
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd
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Text Copyright © 2018 Danny Wallace
Illustrations Copyright © 2018 Jamie Littler
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Hamish and the Baby BOOM! Page 15