“There are no papers left. Sold them all. People are scared, and that sells. They say that picture was taken somewhere not far away, one or two miles from here.”
“Did they catch them?” Koby asked fearfully.
The café owner chuckled. “Don’t be too frightened, kiddo. There was just the one animal. The police will catch it tomorrow—they’ll mount a major search operation! They’re just wondering which zoo it’s escaped from. And what the creature actually is.”
Koby stared at the photo. The café man didn’t understand that Koby was afraid not for himself, but for the monster. For all the monsters. Time was running out.
“When is the full moon?” he asked abruptly.
“Full moon, eh?” the café owner echoed, taken aback. “It’s tonight. Just noticed on my calendar.”
“Are you sure?” Koby asked, white as a sheet.
The man smiled.
“Quite sure. What do you need to know that for?”
“Just interested,” Koby replied hurriedly. “Got to go. Thanks!”
The man was shaking his head as Koby jumped on his bike and set off back to camp as speedily as he could. Throwing his bike down as he sprinted toward the tents, he realized that there were visitors. He stopped and hid behind a bush. These visitors he did not want to meet. The three witches were back.
Koby peered through the branches and watched. Dad seemed to be heatedly gesturing toward the tents. He was pointing at the kids, who were standing in a group around him. The women waited. Dad dropped his hands and fell silent. His posture showed defeat. The conversation continued, but Koby couldn’t hear what was being said. In the end the women bowed goodbye and headed toward the forest behind the tents, their skirts sweeping the ground. Koby waited a moment, then picked up his bike and pushed it into camp. Dad saw him and raised his hand in a subdued greeting.
“What happened?” Koby asked.
“I think our camp might be over,” Dad said, smiling sadly.
“What do you mean?” Koby said.
“The monsters have not been found, and your mother’s trip in Lapland is being cut short. Everybody is coming home tomorrow. That’s what those women said.”
“So Mom is coming home?” Koby asked.
“Well, of course she is! She won’t be staying in Lapland on her own,” Halley snapped irritably.
“Why can’t you carry on looking after all of us?” Koby asked Dad.
Dad shrugged.
The children looked miserable. They had been having a great time, and now this. This was the first summer vacation when it hadn’t been deadly boring at home or they hadn’t been forced to attend some weird class on growing vegetables in containers.
“When will Mom be home?” Koby asked.
“They’ll all be home in the morning,” Dad said.
“Our last night in the tents,” Minnie said quietly.
“It could be a good thing too,” Dad said.
“How could it?” Minnie asked. “We haven’t even found the monsters.”
“Not yet, but someone has seen them,” Koby said. “There was a photo of one on the front page of the evening paper. There’ll be a big search operation here tomorrow.”
“No!” yelled Mimi. “No, no, no!”
“It’s crazy. Parents let monsters take care of their kids, but they won’t let you,” Halley raged to Dad. “Really sensible.”
Dad smiled lamely.
“So where are they supposedly putting the monsters if they catch them?” Mimi asked crossly. “Grah at least can live in our hall closet for as long as it wants. Never mind what Mom says!” Then she let out a sob.
“But tonight is a full moon,” Koby pointed out.
“Really?” Halley piped up.
Mimi stopped sobbing and looked at Koby. In fact, everybody was looking at Koby.
“Really,” Koby said.
“Quite sure?” Mimi asked.
“Quite sure,” Koby said. “The camp is over, but perhaps we can still get the monsters back to their home.”
Following a moment of stunned silence, Dad said: “OK. We’ll have something to eat and take a little nap so that we can stay awake until the moon comes up.”
Mimi and Alice leapt up and cheered.
CHAPTER 30
Door to Home
THE NIGHT WAS CLOUDY and darker than usual. The moon was out of sight, hiding behind the raggedy clouds drifting across the sky. Tonight, nobody had stayed in the camp to sleep. The entire camp was trekking in a silent, nervous line along a forest path that almost disappeared under vegetation.
Grah had been walking at the head of the line, but then it had suddenly vanished. All evening it had been jumpy and growly, continually peering in different directions, listening for sounds coming from the forest and beach.
“Where did Grah go?” asked Mimi, worried.
“It’s probably running around the forest like the others,” Koby said.
“What if it can’t find its way to the rock? Or if it’s late?” Mimi went on, miserably pushing her hands into her bathrobe pockets.
“Mimi, of course it can. Grah drew the map,” Halley pointed out dryly.
The path wound close to the marina. The boats rocked in the dark water; the masts clanged. There was no sign of the botherfairies.
“I wonder what happens to those spike fairies when the monsters leave?” Mimi asked. “What will they eat then?”
“Maybe they follow the monsters. They followed them here,” Koby replied patiently.
“Could we follow the monsters too?” Mimi asked quietly.
“Are you quite mad?” Halley huffed.
“It’s not easy to get to the monsters’ home,” Koby said. “If that monster you saw really was Runar’s monster, it’s been looking for its home for eighty years. And it’s still here.”
“Maybe it just doesn’t want to go home. It’s had much more fun here,” Halley said. “Maybe their home is a really horrid place. They have to go to the three witches’ school, and all kinds of spiky creatures attack them all the time.”
“Grah seems to want to go back,” Koby pointed out. “And according to Runar, the first monster did too.”
Mimi sighed and stroked her bathrobe. She missed their conversations. She missed its advice. When would it talk again?
“So not fair that all the monsters must go home together or nobody can go,” Mimi said. “What if one of them doesn’t feel like going? Or it’s sick or something?”
“Life is unfair,” Halley muttered.
“That chain thing is just like kindergarten outings, when everybody must hold on to a rope. If one is lost, everybody must stop and look for them, or you can’t go on,” Mimi continued.
“Perhaps Runar’s monster was part of a different chain,” Halley said in a prickly tone. “How do we even know if Runar’s monster is in any way connected to the others?”
Mimi sighed.
“Nitwit! Use your brain. Which monster was the very first?” she insisted.
“Mimi could be right,” Koby said. “First came Runar’s monster and then the others. After all, there must be some reason why they all want to go to the same place at the time of a full moon.”
“If they even do want to,” Halley said.
“Halley, stop it. We’ll soon see,” Koby said.
They trekked on in silence. The clouds sailed in the sky; the night shadows flitted on the ground. The path became ever narrower. The ghostly forest seemed to close up around them, to hug them out of sight. What else was it hiding? Somewhere behind the dense branches and night clouds was the full moon.
At last they came to the foot of the rock. The vertical wall rose in front of them, mossy and dark. In the half-light, the roots of the fallen tree looked like a giant sleeping bear. The bottle-shaped pile of stones was a dark shadow against the sky.
“We have arrived,” Dad said.
“What do we do now?” asked Oscar. “There’s nobody here.”
“We’ll sit down and wait,”
replied Koby.
They sat. It sounded like the forest was breathing. It hissed, whooshed, and rustled and was never silent for a moment.
“There’s a wind getting up,” Dad said. “That’s good. We might see the moon soon, if the wind blows the clouds away.”
They sat silently again. Nobody felt like talking. But Dad was right. Gradually, the sky cleared and the moon came out, ghostly, huge, and round. It cast a weak light over the Bottle Rock clearing and made Halley shudder. Mimi and Alice pressed themselves against her. In fact, all of them huddled against one another.
“Monster mosquitoes,” Mimi whispered.
“Where?” said Alice.
Halley pointed toward the sky.
High up in the sky, they saw a cloud formed by tiny dots of light. The cloud was moving away from Bottle Rock.
“Good thing they’re moving away, so that the monsters can come now,” Koby said.
“Or else the monsters have no intention of coming here, and we’re waiting for nothing,” Halley said.
“Please, stop that complaining,” Koby said to Halley.
As the night wore on, there was no sign of the monsters. Alice fell asleep leaning on Halley, and many of the others were also nodding off. The cold crept through their clothing. Minnie and Oscar kept looking at their watches and whispering. How much longer?
“They’re not coming,” Mimi declared suddenly. A few children who were half asleep woke up with a start. “Halley is right. They’re not coming.”
“Let’s wait a little longer,” Koby said.
“They’re not coming,” Mimi insisted. “I know it.”
“Let’s wait,” Dad said. “They might still come. There’s a full moon.”
“I’m not waiting another second,” Mimi snapped, and jumped to her feet. “I’m cold and hungry, and those dusty lumps aren’t coming! I’m going now!”
“Just wait a minute,” Dad said, trying to soothe her, but Mimi set off striding back toward the camp.
“Mimi, stop!” Dad yelled. Mimi stopped and turned to look back. “I’m coming with you,” he said, and stood up.
At that very moment, a cracking sound came from the forest. Something big and heavy was moving about nearby. Suddenly they were all wide awake.
“There—on the edge of the clearing, under the trees,” Koby whispered, getting up. “Is something there?”
The rest of children clambered to their feet. Mimi took a few steps back toward the group. The last few yards she ran straight into Dad’s arms.
Something big and gray was discernible in the shadows. Even if you had seen monsters in daylight, even if you had slept on the same living room floor and in the same camp as a monster, it was another thing altogether to see a whole pack of monsters in the eerie light of the full moon at the forest’s edge. Even Dad looked nervous.
The monsters stepped out of the shadows into the clearing. They paid no attention to the watching children. In the small clearing in front of the rock, they began to circle each other. With a strange grace, they spun around one another, touched one another’s hands, then continued moving without bumping into anybody. The earth was thumping with their heavy steps. Were they dancing?
The dance stopped almost as suddenly as it had begun. A dark figure moved to the front. It was Grah. Immediately another came to its side and stopped. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth . . .
“Look,” Koby whispered. “That’s the chain. They’re forming a chain.”
“I told you,” Mimi said quietly from Dad’s arms. “I told you what the bathrobe said.”
The dark line of monsters stood motionless, as if waiting for something. Grah opened its huge hand, in which lay a crumpled ball.
“What is that?” Oscar whispered.
“Some paper?” Halley suggested, frowning. It was hard to see properly in moonlight.
“It’s the page that was ripped out of Runar’s book.” Koby recognized it, amazed. “Look.”
“It is?” Halley was doubtful.
Grah carefully smoothed the crumpled ball open.
“Grah took it, then?” Minnie whispered.
“Looks like it,” said Koby.
All of a sudden he felt that he understood. He nodded to himself and said: “They needed Runar’s monster to get home. Perhaps the picture is enough. Grah must have stayed behind in the camp because of that picture.”
“What do you mean?” said Oscar.
“It had seen the picture and knew where it was. When the other monsters took off into the forest, Grah stayed to guard the book,” Koby said. “Their return home depends on this picture.”
Grah held up the drawing so that they could all see it. The monsters grunted approvingly. And—even though Koby’s heart bled with the thought that a page had been torn from a library book borrowed in his name—he was happy that the monster had been found. Even as a picture.
Grah raised the torn-out page high in the air and roared. The monsters understood. A few roared a reply; others stamped their feet on the ground and waved their thick arms.
“Oh, Grah,” sobbed Mimi, as she understood that everything was over now. The monsters were going home. Tears ran down her cheeks.
Grah turned its yellow eyes to Mimi. It murred quietly. Mimi tore herself out of Dad’s arms and ran across the clearing, once more to the arms of her dusty, sneeze-making, earth-cellar-scented friend. She breathed her lungs so full of monster dust that she almost choked. Or maybe it was her crying that was choking her. Grah squeezed Mimi in its arms and hummed like a big bees’ nest, a deep, low hum.
“Mimi,” Dad said quietly. “Come. Let them go. We don’t know how much time they have or how long this will take. They must get to their home.”
Mimi let go. Grah looked into Mimi’s eyes and then put the girl down. Dad spread his arms, and Mimi ran like the wind right back into them and pressed her face against the shoulder of his jacket. Her little back shook with her sobs.
In the forest clearing, Grah turned back to the line of monsters. It raised the picture of Runar’s monster up in the air and grunted: “Grah-ih-Gru!” The others echoed: “Grah-ih-Gru!”
Then Grah struck its chest with its hand and yelled: “Grah!” The others repeated its word. Next to Grah stood Oscar and Alice’s monster, which struck its chest and shouted: “Grrr-hh-oo!” The others repeated.
“It had a name too,” Oscar whispered. “We didn’t know.”
The monsters’ roll call went on, rhythmic and ghostly. When the last call had sounded, the silence of the forest stunned their ears. Grah turned toward the rock and felt along the wall with its great hand. It found what it was searching for and knocked it with its fist. Something came off the wall. The monsters were growling their approval. Grah picked up the object as if to show the others.
“It looks like a plug off a boat,” whispered Halley.
Mimi raised her head from the folds of Dad’s jacket and turned to look.
Grah stepped to the edge of the rock, behind the fallen tree roots. The line of monsters followed. Grah reached up against the rock again, its fingers searching again for something on the rock surface. When it found the place, Grah murred. The monster choir replied.
“This could be scary, if one didn’t know . . .” Dad said quietly. “If one didn’t know that . . .”
He went quiet.
“That they’re not dangerous,” Koby filled in. “That they’re just . . . like that, like themselves.”
Dad nodded. That was it. Mimi got down from Dad’s arms and turned to watch what Grah was doing. Grah reached up against the rock wall and knocked the plug in. There was a heavy grinding noise. The monsters stamped their feet and growled.
“The door to home is opening,” Koby whispered.
“It is a sliding door after all,” Alice said in a low voice.
Grah grunted and took the picture of Runar’s monster. It held it out at arm’s length, as if the picture were standing in its own place in the line. The monster chain was ready to
leave.
All of a sudden, there was a scratching noise high up on top of the rock. A little shower of stones clattered down. The monsters’ eyes turned toward the noise faster than a thought.
“Look!” exclaimed Minnie, and everybody looked. The sight was astonishing. In the eerie moonlight against the night sky, standing high up on the rock and looking down, was an old light gray monster. It was huge and strong, and one of its ears was torn. The wild, glowing eyes stared unblinking at the line of monsters in the clearing.
“Perhaps we should be going,” Dad muttered. The monster nimbly leapt down from the rock. The leap would have seemed light, if the thud had not revealed the monster’s weight. It stood now only a couple of yards from where Halley and Koby had been sitting.
The children stumbled backward. Dad yanked everybody, whomever he could reach, back from the clearing. But Runar’s monster (for there was no doubt that it was Runar’s monster) was not the least bit interested in humans. It stared at the other monsters, who stared back at it. The stare was expressionless and motionless, like monster staring always was. The moment stretched and lengthened. At last, Runar’s monster took a cautious step toward the others.
“Grah-ih-Gru,” grunted Grah in a low voice.
The rest of the pack repeated as a humming, low choir: “Grah-ih-Gru.”
“Its name,” Koby whispered. “They’re greeting it by its name.”
Grah-ih-Gru lowered its head and walked toward its place at the head of the chain. As it passed each monster, it touched them on the shoulder or outstretched hand with its hand, covered by gray, matted fur. Finally it took its rightful place at the head of the line.
Grah let Runar’s drawing drop to the ground. Koby watched the paper drift down, relieved, but at the same time horrified. The page would be trampled by the monster pack.
Runar’s monster let out a low grunt, and the others replied in chorus. Then the old monster turned, walked slowly behind the tree roots, and vanished. The chain of monsters was silent as they followed Runar’s monster. Just before it vanished behind the roots, Grah raised its yellow eyes and looked at Mimi, as if to say goodbye. Mimi waved and let out a sob.
Monster Nanny Page 17