The Ice Monster

by David Walliams

  Just as she was about to scoop out a large dollop of treacle, she was shoved against the shelves, causing all the tins and jars to come crashing to the floor.

  BANG!

  CRASH!

  WALLOP!

  The mammoth had surged forward to slurp up every last bit of the sweet-smelling gloop. Dotty was holding on to the animal’s trunk, so was shoved into Titch, who was shoved into Elsie. Now there was a cloud of sugar and flour and tea whirling around the room, causing the three non-mammoths to cough and splutter. In amongst the chaos, the mammoth’s trunk searched out every last morsel of food that had been splattered on the walls, floor or ceiling – or, indeed, was still floating through the air.

  The more they all tried to stop Woolly from devouring everything in sight, the faster she ate.

  RUMBLE!

  GURGLE!

  “Oh no, listen to her tummy again!” said Dotty.

  “I think we’re heading for an explosion,” predicted Titch.

  The girl gulped. “You don’t mean a bottom explosion?” she asked.

  “I do, young lady,” replied Titch.

  Suddenly, there was loud knocking.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  “This is the military police! Open up! We know you’re in there!” came a voice from the other side of the door.

  “Shush!” shushed Dotty. “Nobody say a word!”

  “We heard that,” came a voice.

  “YIKES!” exclaimed Dotty.

  “We heard that too!”

  “Darn!”

  “And that.”

  “Dotty! Shush!” implored Elsie.

  “We heard that as well.”

  “It wasn’t me that time!” called back Dotty.

  “I fear a bottom explosion is coming,” said the little old soldier, “at a terrifying speed!”

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  “Open this door at once!”

  “Well, why don’t we?” said Elsie with a smirk.

  “You don’t mean use its rear end as a cannon?” asked the little soldier.

  “Exactly!” replied the girl. “Open the door and fire at will!”

  “Just coming, officers!” called out Dotty, as she squeezed past the mammoth to get to the door.

  “QUICKLY, MADAM, OR WE WILL BE FORCED TO BREAK THIS DOOR DOWN!”

  “Patience is a virtue!” she called back.

  “By the sound of Woolly, she’s ready to blow!” said Elsie.

  Dotty put her hand on the key, and began to turn it in the lock.

  “Just a jiffy, officers!”

  CLICK! went the key.

  “The door is unlocked!” Dotty called out.

  CROOMADOOB! MUNTYMUNTY! BOODADOOZLE!

  The handle turned and slowly the door opened.

  The three shared a mischievous look as the mammoth straightened her back and lifted her tail.

  “FIRE!” shouted Titch.

  Fire the creature did.

  GGGRRRUUURRR!

  The noise of Woolly’s bottom burping sounded just like a bear growling.

  It fired all over the military policemen, covering them from head to toe in hot, sticky mammoth poop. The force of the bottom blast was so strong it knocked them off their feet. The poor men were completely disorientated, as their eyes and noses were covered in the stuff.

  “Let’s make a run for it!” said Elsie.

  “CHARGE!” cried Titch.

  The three guided the animal back out of the larder, and began leading her down the corridor.

  “You bring up the rear, Dotty!” ordered the old soldier.

  “Not on your nelly!” snapped the lady. “I don’t trust that area one bit!”

  “Where are we going?” asked Elsie.

  “Away from that awful smell!” replied Titch as they hurried along the corridor and up the stairs to his ward.

  “This is where I sleep!” announced Titch, as he opened the door to his ward.

  “We should have hidden Woolly in here in the first place,” muttered Elsie.

  “I think he shares it with other people,” replied Dotty.

  “Well, I’m sure we could have told a few old soldiers to keep their traps shut.”

  The door opened to reveal not a few, but twenty old soldiers, all poking their heads out of their berths.

  “Oops!” said Elsie.

  Slowly, Titch led the woolly mammoth into the ward by the tusk. He coughed and cleared his throat.

  “Good morning, gentlemen. Gentlemen! If I could have your attention, please. I would like to introduce you to a new comrade.”

  The old soldiers put on their spectacles, attached any wooden arms and legs, or sidled into wheelchairs. Slowly, they approached the magnificent beast.

  “What in God’s name is it, Titch?” piped up one.

  “Does it bite, Private?” asked another.

  “Is this what we’re having for breakfast?” said a third, who had a long white beard that made him look like a military Father Christmas.

  Elsie stepped forward. “No. This is my friend, Woolly.”

  “Good Lord! A female in the Royal Hospital!” remarked one old soldier.

  “And another!” said another.

  “The hairy elephant thingummy can stay! But they need to go!” exclaimed a third.

  “HOO!” Woolly seemed to hoot in agreement.

  “Three females in the Royal Hospital!” thundered another old soldier. “This is a disgrace!”

  “It’s worse than the Boer War!”

  “This place will have to be closed down!”

  “It’s a scandal of epic proportions!”

  Titch raised his voice to shout over them. “Let’s have some hush, men! Wait until you hear the girl’s story. Elsie…”

  The girl smiled, and cleared her throat.

  As she told the story so far, the old soldiers were rapt. They had heard stories of incredible bravery and derring-do, but this tall tale topped them all.

  Elsie ended with a plea. “Gentlemen! Will you help Woolly?”

  “I’m in!” came one voice.

  “I am too!” came another.

  “Me too.”

  “And me.”

  “And me!” said another and another and another, until all but one soldier had raised his hand. All eyes turned to the one who hadn’t.

  “Sorry, what was the question again?” asked the one who looked like Father Christmas.

  “That’s the brigadier,” said Titch. “He forgets things. We’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Who forgets what?” asked the brigadier.

  The mammoth lolloped over to the window at the far end of the long ward and looked out. Elsie trailed after her friend, before following her gaze over the rooftops of London. Woolly lifted her trunk and pressed it against the windowpane, as if longing for something way out of reach. Elsie stroked the mammoth’s trunk, then lifted one of her big furry ears and whispered into it.

  “What are you looking at, my friend?” she whispered. “If only you could tell me.”

  “HOO!”

  Dotty ambled down the ward to join the pair. “Do you think we could teach Woolly to talk?”

  “Talk?”

  “Yep. Then she could tell us what she was looking at.”

  “But how would we teach her to talk?”

  “That would be the tricky bit,” replied Dotty, looking lost in thought. “Maybe we could teach her one HOO for yes, and two HOOS for no, and three HOOS for maybe? Then list all the places in the world and see what she says?”

  Elsie didn’t want to hurt the lady’s feelings. “It’s a great idea, Dotty. It just might take a while to go through every single place in the world.”

  She turned round to address the old soldiers.

  “Does anyone have a compass?” she asked.

  “Admiral, you’re never without yours!” said Titch.

  “That’s right, Private!” replied the admiral. He began patting his pyjama pockets. “Now, where did I put the blasted thi
ng?”

  “It’s round your neck!” said Titch.

  The admiral found it on the end of a chain. “It’s round my neck! Why didn’t you tell me?” He took it off and limped over to the girl.

  DUFF! DUFF! DUFF!

  Elsie noticed one of his legs was wooden.

  “My leg, before you ask, was bitten off by a shark. Cheeky blighter did me a favour, really – I had gangrene anyway, so the leg had turned green. Didn’t have to have it sawn off. Shark died of food poisoning. Rum old business.”

  The admiral passed the compass to Elsie.

  “There we are, young lady. We haven’t been introduced. I am the admiral. The only naval man in here.”

  “He was thrown out of the old sailors’ home for drunkenness,” remarked Titch.

  “That night I’d only drunk seven bottles of rum, Private!” thundered the admiral. “It takes at least nine to get me drunk!”

  A cloud of rum-smelling breath sailed right up Elsie’s nose. Her eyes watered, and she sneezed. It was so strong that for a moment she herself felt drunk.

  “Thank you, Admiral,” replied the girl. Elsie held the compass flat in her hand. The black arrow was pointing exactly the way the mammoth was pointing too.

  “North!” exclaimed Elsie.

  “HOO!” went the mammoth.

  “See, she does talk!” added Dotty. “Every time, Woolly has been pining to go north.”

  “HOO!”

  “She’s talking again,” remarked Dotty.

  “So, Admiral, tell me this…” said Elsie.

  “Yes, young lady?” replied the old man, with a smile.

  “What is the absolute furthest north you can go?”

  The admiral guided the girl over to his bedside.

  “Behold my globe, child!”

  Beside his bed stood a magnificent orb with a map of the world on it. “This came from my ship.”

  “Before it sank,” chipped in Titch.

  “That’s quite enough of that, Private. I adore gazing at my globe. It reminds me of my glory days, all those adventures on the high seas! Look, young lady, we are here in London.”

  He indicated the spot on the globe. “Pop your finger there.”

  The girl did so.

  “Now trace your finger north, north, north.”

  As Elsie moved her finger up, the admiral read out the places. “Scotland, Orkney Islands, Iceland, Greenland, the Arctic, the North Pole. You can’t get any more north than that.”

  “The North Pole!” said Elsie. “Is it cold?”

  The soldiers couldn’t help but laugh.

  “It’s so cold, young lady,” began the admiral, “that the sea is There is no land, just a huge expanse of ice.”

  “ICE!” she exclaimed. “Perfect for a creature from the Ice Age. That’s where we must take Woolly! To the North Pole!”

  “HOO!” agreed Woolly.

  Elsie lifted her arms in a triumphant show of leadership. She looked around the ward. Every single old soldier stared back at her, mouth open in shock.

  “But how would we get to that there the North Pole?” asked Titch.

  “We would sail, soldier!” announced the admiral. “This is a job for the navy.”

  “But surely you’ll need the army for ground support, sir,” replied Titch.

  “You may be right there, Private. This is a job for both divisions of Her Majesty’s armed forces. A joint navy and, to a lesser extent, army mission.”

  “Hang on, hang on, hang on!” interrupted Dotty.

  “What is it, woman?” thundered the admiral.

  “Don’t you need a boat?”

  There were murmurs from the soldiers.

  “She has a point.”

  “She’s not as daft as she looks.”

  “I think we’re missing a chess piece.”

  “Yes,” agreed the admiral. “If you’re sailing, it’s always best to make sure you have a boat, otherwise there’s a strong chance you will get decidedly wet. Now, where are we going to get a boat from?”

  All the old men became lost in thought, but Elsie began imagining a theft so audacious it would make the seem like nuns.

  “I know where there’s a boat you can pinch!” she announced.

  All eyes turned to her. There were some mocking mumbles from the old men.

  “She’s a mere child.”

  “The girl knows nothing about boats.”

  “This tea tastes of coffee. It is coffee!”

  The admiral limped over to the girl, his wooden leg thump-thump-thumping on the floor.

  DUFF! DUFF! DUFF!

  “Pray tell us, young lady,” he began grandly, “where is this boat you speak of?”

  The girl consulted the compass to see which was east, then found a window facing in that direction.

  “It’s out there!” replied Elsie smugly, pointing down towards the River Thames.

  The old man hurried over to the window as fast as his leg would carry him.

  DUFF! DUFF! DUFF!

  All the old soldiers followed. They gathered behind the admiral, eager to see where the girl was pointing.

  “There!” said the girl.

  The magnificent old sailing ship was now a museum piece and, to celebrate the coming of the new century, had been moved from Portsmouth and moored on the Thames.

  “HMS Victory?” announced the admiral, before hooting with laughter. “HO! HO! HO!”

  “HA! HA! HA!” chimed in the men.

  Elsie was so annoyed she crossed her arms and gave them all a stern look.

  “What’s so funny?” she demanded.

  “My dear child,” began the admiral, “HMS Victory was Lord Nelson’s flagship in the Battle of Trafalgar all the way back in 1805. She’s over a hundred years old! She’s a relic!”

  “So are you!” snapped back the girl. “But you can still sail, can’t you?”

  The admiral’s face soured, but there was a hint of grudging respect in his voice. “Feisty one, aren’t you?”

  “I have been told so, yes.”

  “Mmm, well, it would be quite an honour to follow in Lord Nelson’s footsteps,” mused the admiral. “Do you know what, men? I think this young lady might be on to something!”

  Elsie beamed with pride.

  “With respect, sir,” interrupted Titch, “the military police may have been splattered with mammoth poop, but they will soon be on to us. We need to make a plan, and fast.”

  “Yes,” announced the girl. “Everyone listen to me!”

  The old soldiers were taken aback. Never in their long lives had they taken orders from a little girl, let alone an unwashed urchin like Elsie.

  “Well, young lady,” announced the admiral, “we would all dearly love to know your plan.”

  There were murmurs from the men.

  “Yes, we would.”

  “A girl with a plan, whatever next?”

  “Do you think we’ll get a bath today?”

  “We don’t have much time.” Elsie raised her voice. “So, gentlemen, please listen.”

  The admiral sailed in. “You heard what the young lady said, men. We don’t have much time, so everyone needs to stop talking and listen.”

  “Yes!” replied Elsie. “That includes you, Admiral.”

  There were snickers of laughter from the men.

  “HEE! HEE! HEE!”

  Nobody had ever spoken to the admiral like that, and the man’s face was glowing the colour of the Chelsea Pensioners’ scarlet coats.

  “Right!” began the girl. “We need two divisions. The first men need to make their way along the Thames to where HMS Victory is moored, and steal her. Then sail her down here to the hospital. We’re just a stone’s throw away from the river. The second division needs to raid the larder, and gather as many provisions as possible. Admiral?”

  “Yes, sir! I mean, madam. I mean, miss,” spluttered the old sailor.

  “How long will it take us to sail to the North Pole?”

  The ad
miral limped over to his globe…

  DUFF! DUFF! DUFF!

  …and traced his finger along the route. “Down the Thames, into the English Channel. North Sea. Norwegian Sea. Greenland Sea. Arctic Ocean, and boom! We’re there. No more than three or four weeks.”

  “What if I need the loo?” asked Dotty.

  “You go over the side like a sailor, madam!” replied the admiral. “It’s the only way to go!”

  “He still plops out of the window,” remarked Titch.

  “It’s refreshing!”

  “Not for anyone standing below.”

  “Three to four weeks,” began Elsie. “We’ll need a lot of food. Not least for this one!” she added, stroking her prehistoric friend.

  “HOO!” agreed Woolly.

  “It’s going to be very nippy up there at the North Pole,” said Dotty.

  “Good point, Dotty! So we’ll need all the warm clothes you can get hold of.”

  The admiral put up his hand.

  “Yes, Admiral?” asked Elsie.

  “Please can I be in charge of the ship?” he asked meekly.

  “Yes, of course you can, Admiral.”

  “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Me in charge of HMS Victory. This is a dream come true!”

  “You pick ten men, and bring back the Victory.”

  “Right,” began the admiral. “This is a dangerous mission. It could even be fatal. I need ten good men and true.”

  All the old soldiers puffed out their chests, and put on their most noble expressions, dying to be picked.

  The admiral selected his crack team. Ten men threw their scarlet coats and black trousers on over their pyjamas, and, as their medals clinked together, they put on their tricorne hats. Elsie noticed that, unlike all the other soldiers, Titch just had the one lonely medal.