“I meant any questions about the mammoth, Your Majesty.”
“The what?”
“This creature here.”
“No,” replied the Queen with her customary bluntness.
“Shame it’s dead already,” came a deep voice from the shadows of the hall. “Or I would shoot it.”
All heads turned to see who had so rudely interrupted Her Majesty the Queen.
Out of the darkness stepped a figure dressed in a pith helmet, knee-high lace-up boots and a khaki coat. A plume of grey cigar smoke followed it.
“Who the blazes is that?” demanded the Queen, struggling to see.
“Oh n-no,” stammered Lankester.
“Who is it?”
“Lady Buckshot the big-game hunter, Your Majesty,” replied Lankester.
“Oh no!” agreed the Queen.
Disapproving murmurs echoed around the hall.
“What is she doing here?” pressed the Queen.
“Well, ma’am,” replied the hunter, “I shot and killed every single stuffed animal in the museum.”
“Such a shame the animals weren’t armed, or they could have fired back,” hissed the Queen to Abdul, just loud enough for Buckshot to hear.
“Ha! Ha!” Abdul couldn’t help but laugh.
“It’s a shame this here monster is already dead,” began Buckshot. “It would have been my great pleasure to shoot it, right between the eyes.”
“Well, erm, um, L-L-Lady Buckshot,” spluttered Lankester, “the mammoth as a species has long since been extinct.”
“I am in the extinction business,” replied the hunter. “I would wipe out every last creature on Earth if I could.”
“How delightful for you!” said the Queen sarcastically. “Now, where is this tea and cake?”
Lankester leaped in. “Tea and cakes will now be served in the gallery. If you would follow me…”
The Queen took Abdul’s arm, and she shuffled out of the hall.
The great and the good all followed, which left Buckshot alone with the mammoth. From the top of the stairs, Elsie and Dotty watched as she marched right up to the front of the tank. There she mimed taking out a shotgun, loading it and firing. “BOOM!” She even provided a sound effect, before miming the mammoth’s brains splurging out.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” she chuckled to herself, before drifting back into the shadows.
Now only Elsie and Dotty were left in the main hall.
“I am trembling!” chattered Elsie, holding on to the balcony rail. The evil stench of Buckshot’s cigar smoke had snaked all the way up there.
“Me too. Evil woman. She’s always dragging in some poor tiger or lion she’s shot, with a wicked grin on her face.”
“So, now she’s gone, do we dare?” asked the girl.
“Dare what?” replied the cleaning lady.
“Do we dare to go down and take a closer look?”
Dotty shook her head. “Ooh, Elsie, you’ll get me into deep doo-doo.”
“Let’s just have a very, very, very quick look.”
When the girl put it that way, it was hard to say no.
“A very quick look?” asked Dotty.
“A glance, really.”
“A glimpse?”
“Less than a glimpse, a peep.”
“A peek?”
“Exactly!” replied Elsie.
Dotty sighed heavily. “All right, then. Let’s have a peek at this manmoth.”
“I think it’s ‘mammoth’,” corrected Elsie.
“Yes, ‘manmoth’! That’s what I said.”
Elsie smiled, and pulled the lady along by her sleeve. “Dotty, come on…”
“I am not sliding down the banister!” protested Dotty.
“But it’s the fastest way down!” replied Elsie.
Dotty was right to be reluctant. It was an awfully long way from the topmost floor of the museum to the bottommost.
“In the time we’ve been arguing, we could already be at the bottom,” reasoned Elsie.
The girl clambered on to the banister. Dotty sighed, then hitched up her skirt and joined her.
“This is a very extremely bad idea,” said the lady.
It was too late.
WHOOSH!
“Ouch. Me bottom cheeks are ablaze!” complained Dotty.
“HOLD ON!” called out Elsie.
Soon they ran out of banister.
The girl landed on the floor.
THUD!
Dotty landed on top of her.
THUDDER!
Mesmerised, Elsie approached the Ice Monster. All that was separating the girl from a species that had become extinct thousands of years ago were a few inches of glass and ice.
“Funny-looking thing,” muttered Dotty.
“I think it’s beautiful,” whispered the girl. “It’s like the biggest cuddly toy in the whole wide world.”
Dotty chuckled. “I’m not sure it would be all that cuddly if it was alive. Now come on. We need to get out of here before Mr Clout comes back.”
The girl stood still.
“Elsie? ELSIE?”
The lady tugged at the little girl’s arm. “We need to go.”
“I don’t want to leave it alone here,” replied Elsie.
“You what?” Dotty couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“It looks sad.”
“You’d look sad if you’d been dead for ten thousand years!”
“Let me climb on your shoulders.”
“You what?”
“I need to take a closer look.”
“Young lady, we need to get out of here now, before the Queen Her Majesty comes back.”
“Quicker than a peek,” implored Elsie. “A peek-a-boo! I promise.”
“No! Now come on!” With that, Dotty tried to drag the girl out of the hall.
However, Elsie was far too quick for her. Before Dotty knew it, Elsie had climbed up her back.
“What the…?”
“Hold on to my ankles!” she ordered.
Elsie stood on the lady’s shoulders as a reluctant Dotty dutifully held on to her. The girl was now at head height with the mammoth. She pressed her nose up against the cold glass, and stared deep into one of its little black eyes.
“What are you doing up there?” called Dotty.
The truth was Elsie didn’t exactly know what she was doing up there. All she did know was that she was transfixed. She didn’t move. It was as if she were frozen solid too.
“We need to go!” implored Dotty.
Still Elsie stared. Then the most magical thing happened. It was a moment that changed everything. A bead of water formed in the creature’s eye.
“It’s crying!” called down Elsie.
“Oh, my! You’re imagining things, young lady. That manmoth hasn’t cried since long before even I was born. Now come down!”
“Not yet.”
“What do you mean, ‘not yet’?”
“‘Not yet’ means ‘not yet’.”
Down the corridor, there was the sound of bootsteps.
Clout was on to them.
“We need to go! Now!” cried Dotty. With the girl still standing on her shoulders, she began running as fast as she could.
“WHOA!” exclaimed Elsie as she tried to stop wobbling.
“WHO GOES THERE?” Clout’s shout echoed along the corridor.
Elsie toppled over and slid down Dotty’s back. Now she was riding her like a horse.
“Giddy-up!” ordered the girl as together they made their escape.
In her many years of working there, Dotty had cleaned every inch of the Natural History Museum. She knew all the best hiding places.
“Down here!” hissed the lady as she led Elsie down some stone steps. Ahead of them stood a huge metal door with a sign that read:
Dotty fished in her pocket and pulled out a jangling bunch of keys.
“It’s one of these,” she muttered to herself.
“But which one?” pressed Elsie.
“I know it’s a metal one.”
“They’re all metal! They’re keys! Give them here.”
Elsie snatched the keys off Dotty, and after a few attempts found the right one. She unlocked the door, and ushered Dotty inside. Then, as quietly as she could, the girl closed the door behind them, and locked it.
.
Listening through the thick metal, the pair heard the sound of bootsteps descending the stairs.
The door handle was turned…
.
The pair held their breath.
There followed the sound of bootsteps ascending the stairs.
The pair exhaled.
“Thank goodness Clout doesn’t have his keys,” whispered Elsie.
“No,” replied Dotty. “They’re right here!” she added, holding up the set in her hand. “I lost mine so I ‘borrowed’ his.”
“Clever Dotty!”
“I’m not just a pretty face!” said the cleaning lady.
Elsie smiled. There was no answer to that. “So, where are we?”
“The Natural History Museum in London.”
“Yes, I know that, Dotty! I mean where in the Natural History Museum in London?”
“Oh, we’re in the storeroom. Now stay close to me…”
If upstairs was full of wonders, downstairs was even more so. The storeroom was full of things that were too weird to be put on show.
The pair passed a number of curious creatures pickled in tanks. There was a shark with two heads, a giant tortoise the size of a baby elephant and a snake as long as a cricket pitch. Overlooking them were stuffed conjoined twin owls, a mighty lump of red rock that looked like it had fallen to Earth from another planet…
and an egg so big it must have belonged to a Megalosaurus.
A prehistoric human skull squatted on a plinth. It was bizarre-looking, half human and half ape.
“What’s this?” asked the girl.
Dotty ambled over. “Dunno. I wouldn’t touch it if I was you. It looks spooky.”
“If you think that skull looks spooky, you’ve never met Mrs Curdle.”
“Who?”
“She ran the orphanage I escaped from. And she’s got warts bigger than this!”
Elsie rested her hand on top of the skull, and it wobbled slightly. Intrigued, the girl rotated the top piece of the skull back from the jaw.
CREAK!
Suddenly, the pair realised they were spinning round!
“Something’s grabbing hold of me!” yelled Dotty.
“Something’s grabbing hold of me!” yelled Elsie.
“HELP!” they screamed.
“I think we might be grabbing hold of each other,” said the girl.
“Oh yes.”
“Shall we let go?”
“Yes.”
They did so.
“That’s better,” said Dotty.
“Where are we?” asked Elsie.
“Still in the Natural History Museum in London.”
“YES! I KNOW THAT!”
“ALL RIGHT!”
“I mean, where in the museum are we?”
“Dunno!” answered Dotty. “I’ve been cleaning this place for donkey’s years and I ain’t never been in here. It must be a secret room.”
“A secret room! Cor blimey!” Elsie couldn’t hide her excitement. “Let’s explore!”
“You go first,” said Dotty. “I’ll be right behind you in case of an attack from the rear.”
Knowing the old dear was frightened, Elsie said, “Hold my hand.”
Together they made their way across the dark room towards a faint flicker of light. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a dusty old bottle, thick with cobwebs. The girl blew on the bottle to reveal its contents. A light was dancing under the glass. It was as if a ghost were trapped in there.
“It’s alive,” said Elsie.
“How can a bottle be alive?”
“Dunno. But look – something’s inside.”
Dotty peered in. “Very queer. Whatever you do, DON’T TOUCH IT!”
Like most children, Elsie had selective hearing and, on this occasion, chose not to listen. She reached out her hand to touch the bottle.
“Ouch!” she yelled, recoiling in pain.
“What did I tell you?”
“It’s hot!”
The girl pulled down the sleeve of her coat to save her fingers from being burned.
“I wonder what’s inside?” she pondered.
“Whatever you do,” repeated Dotty, “DON’T OPEN IT.”
Again, the child chose not to listen, and slowly she began easing the cork out of the bottle.
“I said ‘don’t’!” repeated Dotty.
A bolt of light shot out, illuminating the room for a split second in brilliant bright white.
Z A N G !
“ELSIE!” shouted Dotty.
It was too late.
The fizzing beam hit Elsie, and her whole body LIT UP.
“AAAHHH!” she screamed. Her hair stood on end and smoke billowed from her ears.
Was she going to explode?
Then as quickly as the light had appeared it disappeared. Elsie slumped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. THUD…
The next thing Elsie knew was that she was wet. Soaking wet. Her eyes opened to see Dotty standing over her, holding a bucket.
Another wave of freezing-cold water drenched her.
And another!
Next the lady began slapping the girl around her face.
SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!
“Wake up, Elsie! WAKE UP! Please! Don’t die on me!”
“ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT! I AM AWAKE!” she called up.
Dotty began shaking the girl just to make sure.
“STOP SHAKING ME!”
“Sorry!” said Dotty.
“What on earth was in that bottle? My reading ain’t so good.”
The lady read aloud what was scrawled on the label. “Lightning.”
“Lightning in a bottle?”
“That’s what it says.”
“How can you catch lightning in a bottle? That’s impossible.”
came a voice from the shadows.
Down in the secret room, the two intruders froze in fear as a figure wheeled himself out of the darkness, holding a lantern. The man was so elderly he had the appearance of a tortoise. He was completely bald, and wore a pair of half-moon spectacles on the end of his nose. His clothes were a dirty old laboratory coat worn over a tweed suit that was falling apart at the seams. He had gnarled slippers on his feet, and fingerless gloves on his callus-encrusted hands.
“It’s you!” cried Dotty. “Everyone thought you were dead!”
“No, lowly cleaning woman, I am very much alive!”
“Who is he?” said the girl.
“I am the professor!” he announced grandly.
“Professor of what?” asked Elsie.
“Exactly!” joked Dotty. “Everyone at the museum knew him. He used to be one of the top men here, until the—”
“Yes! Yes!” the professor interrupted. “We don’t need to go into all that.”
“What’s ‘all that’?” asked Elsie, intrigued.
“The professor nearly burned the whole museum down in one of his madcap experiments!” said Dotty.
The old man’s face turned a furious shade of purple. “That is not what happened, you stupid, stupid woman!”
“Well then, what did happen, you not-quite-as-clever-as-you-think man?”
The girl couldn’t help but smirk. Here were two grown-ups bickering like children.
The professor wheeled himself about his secret laboratory, lighting the candles around the space one by one.
Soon a room was revealed, the likes of which neither Elsie nor Dotty had ever seen before.
There were glass tubes everywhere, chemicals in dusty old bottles and scientific equations scribbled in chalk on every inch of the walls. It was like being able to see inside the old man’s b
rain.
Brilliant but bonkers.
“I was conducting a revolutionary experiment to harness the power of lightning,” continued the professor. “Something I had been working on for many years. One stormy night ten years ago, I launched a small metal-tipped balloon into the sky. Attached to the balloon was a length of copper wire. The wire led down to that bottle that now lies smashed on the ground.”
“So what happened?” asked Elsie, intrigued.
“I’ll tell you what happened—” interrupted Dotty.
“Do you mind if I tell my own story, thank you very much, you ignorant, ignorant woman?” asked the professor.
“I ain’t got a clue what ‘ignorant’ means,” scolded the woman. “But it better not be something bad!”
“My experiment was a complete success,” continued the professor. “I captured lightning in a bottle. That is what gave you that little electric shock.”
“Little?” exclaimed Elsie.
“Anything bigger and it would have killed you,” replied the professor. “Sizzled to death in a heartbeat.”
Elsie gulped. “So, if the experiment was a complete success, why did you lose your job?” she asked.
“Good question!” murmured Dotty.
“SILENCE!” ordered the professor. “The copper wire became wrapped round one of the museum’s towers. Another much stronger bolt of lightning hit the balloon, and it set the tower on fire.”
Dotty jumped in. “It’s very lucky that it was raining cats and dogs that night or the fire would’ve burned the whole museum down to the ground.”
The professor fell silent for a moment, then bowed his head in sorrow. “I was hauled in front of the museum director and told in no uncertain terms that I was never to practise science again. I was thrown out! But the museum was my life – I had nowhere else to go – so I hid down here in the cellar.”
The Ice Monster Page 4