Hamish and the WorldStoppers

by Danny Wallace

  The PE teacher, Tyrus Quinn, was doing squat thrusts outside the gym in a tracksuit that was a little too tight for him. For a PE teacher, he was remarkably tubby. Imagine if a cat tried to squeeze into one of your socks. That’s how he looked in that tracksuit. Mr Quinn used to be one of Hamish’s favourite teachers. But recently, he’d seemed a lot . . . meaner.

  Talking of meanies, Hamish glanced nervously around. He couldn’t see Scratch Tuft or Mole Stunk anywhere. Usually, they’d be with Grenville in the corner of the playground, making menacing faces at the smaller kids. But today Grenville was alone, reading his wrestling magazine and practising his moves.

  Hamish looked at his dad’s watch. It was a bit too big for him, so he’d used rubber bands to stop it slipping off his wrist. It was almost nine o’clock now. If the school bell went on time at just after nine and Scratch and Mole hadn’t shown up, he might just get away with it.

  But then . . .

  ‘OI! HAMISH ELLERBY!’

  Oh no.

  ‘C’MERE, YOU BULBOUS LITTLE PIPSQUEAK!’

  There they were! Fresh off their little pink bikes and striding towards him. Hamish felt in his pocket for his chocolate bars, praying they would be enough.

  ‘YOU WRETCHED LITTLE GRIZZLER, HAMISH!’

  He began to walk backwards, away from them, but backed straight into the school fence. Now he had nowhere to go. All he could do was stand there and wait, as they got closer, and closer, and—

  Wait.

  What was that?

  Was that a flash of lightning? Just a brief, quick flash from a faraway bolt?

  Hamish looked up to the sky. It was grey, just like it usually was in Starkley, but it wasn’t raining today. He listened for a roll of thunder . . .

  Which is when he realised he could hear nothing at all.

  Not a word.

  Not a laugh.

  Not a scream.

  Not Tyrus Quinn grunting while he did his squat thrusts.

  Not Grenville practising his moves.

  Not Mr Longblather’s blather.

  It had all stopped with the flash.

  Hamish looked around the playground.

  Scratch and Mole were just a few metres away from him, angry looks on their furious little faces. Their fists were clumped into tight little balls. Their sharp, wonky, yellow teeth were bared. But they were still. Hamish waved his hand in front of their faces to see if they would move, but their tiny eyeballs just stared into nothingness.

  Well, this could be interesting, he thought.

  And, as he waved his hand some more, Hamish noticed his dad’s watch rattling around on his wrist . . . It was still ticking.

  He checked Scratch’s watch. It had stopped.

  He checked Mole’s watch. It had stopped too.

  But The Explorer kept going, kept ticking, kept working.

  Something about this made him feel braver. It made him feel like he wasn’t alone. He had his dad’s watch here. Maybe that was a bit like having his dad.

  Hamish had an idea. The Explorer had a stopwatch on it. He pressed Start and began to time the . . . well, what would you call it? The Pause? He began to time it and slowly started to walk around the playground . . .

  A football was hanging way up off the ground. Two boys had frozen in mid-air, trying to head it. Hamish walked right the way around them, checking in case there were any wires holding them up, still not convinced this wasn’t some kind of trick or joke that the whole town was playing on him. He noticed a 5p coin was falling from the smaller boy’s pocket. Hamish reached up and tucked it back in.

  Astrid Carruthers was like a floating statue, jumping high above her skipping rope. Her face was frozen in a permanent grin.

  Grenville Bile was holding Colin Robinson up and had obviously been about to chuck him in a bush. Poor Colin Robinson.

  And look – a bee was about to sting a kid much smaller than Hamish. So very, very carefully, Hamish used two fingers to move the bee right the way to the other side of the playground.

  And before he knew it—

  The playground erupted into noise once more.

  Tyrus Quinn kept grunting.

  The two boys jumping for the ball bopped their heads together and fell to the ground, grouching and ouch-ing.

  Astrid kept skipping.

  Colin was flung into that bush.

  The bee stung a tree.

  And – oh my gosh! – Scratch and Mole kept running at where Hamish had been standing . . .

  Except he wasn’t standing there any more.

  CRASH!

  Scratch and Mole ran straight into the wire fence then bounced back and landed slap-bang on their bottoms.

  ‘Oo­oo­ooo­ow!’ they yelped. ‘Ooooooow!’

  The whole playground filled with laughter as the girls hobbled away, clutching their bums. People used one hand to point and another to hold their aching sides.

  Hamish pressed the Stop button on his stopwatch.

  ‘Seven minutes and seven seconds,’ he said, reading the watch face.

  And then, quietly, he wondered what else you could do in seven minutes and seven seconds.

  What Would You Do?

  Scratch and Mole avoided Hamish for the rest of the day.

  They were sore and humiliated. And they didn’t understand how they could have been running at Hamish one second and flat on the floor the next. Their pride was hurt. How had stupid Hamish Ellerby outwitted them? They skulked around, eyeing him suspiciously. Every now and again they strolled up to their hero, Grenville Bile, and pointed at Hamish and whispered.

  Grenville Bile just stared at him, cracking his knuckles.

  But this whole thing had taught Hamish a lesson. He knew he had to be careful from now on. If the world stopped again and he wasn’t back in position when it started, people would begin to notice. He had got away with it this time. But this was his secret. Only he and The Explorer seemed unaffected by the Flash. Only he and his Explorer could move around in the Pause.

  But why? And what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t help but feel there must be a greater purpose to all this.

  He just needed to work out what it was.

  The last bell of the day rang and Hamish walked out of the classroom and into the long and squeaky corridor. He found himself next to his friend, Robin.

  ‘Robin,’ said Hamish, a little sheepishly. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Is it something I’ll know the answer to?’ replied Robin, nervously. ‘Because if it’s not, I’d rather you didn’t.’

  Robin was a nervous kid. And he didn’t like to be asked anything he wasn’t entirely sure of. The problem was, that was most things. For example, you couldn’t ask him anything about maths, history or science.

  Or English, French or geography.

  And don’t ask him about gardening.

  Or tadpoles or space.

  Or spinach.

  Especially spinach.

  Luckily, right now, Hamish didn’t want to ask Robin anything about spinach.

  ‘What would you do,’ Hamish asked, making sure no one else was listening, ‘if the whole world stopped still and you were the only thing that didn’t?’

  Robin raised two thick eyebrows as they made their way down the stairs towards the school doors.

  ‘An interesting question, my friend,’ he replied, in an important voice and putting both hands behind his back. ‘I suppose . . . I’d mainly eat hamburgers and cheese.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Hamish.

  ‘And I’d stay up really late. And then eat more hamburgers and cheese.’

  Robin loved hamburgers and cheese. Though, strangely, he hated cheeseburgers.

  ‘You’d stay up late and eat hamburgers?’ said Hamish, a little disappointed. ‘Is that it?’ He was sure there had to be something better to do in the Pause than that.

  ‘No,’ said Robin. ‘Of course not. I’d also watch telly. And I’d play all the games I’m not allowed to play, because they’re PE
GI 15. And I’d watch all the Rambo films, except for the bits where he’s shooting guns, because I find all that a little unsettling. And then I’d go to the swimming pool and turn on the wave machine and practise my surfing.’

  He stopped himself.

  ‘Taking care,’ Robin continued, ‘to observe any and all safety procedures, of course . . .’

  Hamish started to feel some excitement bubbling up in his tummy.

  ‘I’d have such fun,’ said Robin, actually getting quite into the idea now. ‘But mainly I’d eat hamburgers and cheese.’

  Hamish had a thought.

  ‘But wouldn’t you be scared?’ he asked.

  ‘Scared?’ said Robin. ‘Pah! Scared of what?’

  This was weird. Robin was scared of pretty much everything.

  ‘Well . . . scared that the world wouldn’t start again? I mean – that’s a pretty scary thought, right?’

  Robin started to laugh.

  ‘Who cares! It would be a world without rules, Hamish! You could do whatever you wanted! No more bedtime, no more schooltime, no more having-to-get-up-when-your-mum-tells-you time!’

  ‘I see . . .’ said Hamish, realising Robin had a point. And if Robin wasn’t scared, why should Hamish be?

  ‘No more eating your five-a-day!’ said Robin, with glee. ‘No more making sure you drink enough water! You could have a Fanta bath! You could cook spaghetti and Maltesers for breakfast! You’d never have to do a squat thrust again! You could do whatever you wanted, because the whole world would be yours, Hamish!’

  Hamish looked at Robin. His eyes were shining from the sheer delight of it all. Then he shook his head and came back to earth.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, pushing open the doors of the school and starting to skip down the steps to the playground. ‘In real life it would be awful.’

  ‘Would it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It would be terrifying. I’d hate it. But as an idea . . .’But Hamish had stopped listening, because he had noticed a police car at the school gates. Its light was flashing and standing in front of it were two stern officers in uniform. The kids streaming out of the gates all slowed as they saw them. The officers were staring at the crowd, obviously looking for someone.

  Hamish felt immediately guilty.

  Oh, no, he thought. It’s me. They’re after me. They’re going to arrest me, because the world stopped and I kept moving around. This was it. This was the moment Hamish Ellerby would be arrested and sent to a home for malevalunt kids!

  I mean malovelant.

  Oh, you know what I mean.

  But . . .

  ‘Scratch Tuft and Mole Stunk?’ said the first policewoman.

  Slowly, the crowd parted. Scratch and Mole stood together, in the centre. They reached out to find each other’s hand. Hamish realised that no matter how fierce and foul they could be, they were still just little girls.

  ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news about your parents,’ said the police officer, gently, and as they began to tremble, she led them quietly away.

  MADAME COUS COUS’S

  INTERNATIONAL WORLD OF TREATS

  What Robin said had really made Hamish think.

  If the world kept stopping – but he didn’t – well, imagine all the amazing things he could do. He was getting extra time, after all. If the next Pause lasted for the same time as the one earlier, he’d get at least seven minutes and seven seconds of extra time! Hamish felt certain that with enough of these Pauses, he could do something really worthwhile. He could invent something, perhaps, like a flying car or a hover spoon. Or he could come up with a cure for all known diseases. Or he could work to bring peace to the world.

  He could do all of that.

  Or he could just eat loads of sweets.

  That would be quite a good short-term plan while he worked out the finer details, Hamish decided, and just to make a head start on that plan, he turned in the direction of the high street.

  Hamish pushed open the door of Madame Cous Cous’s International World of Treats. The little bell above the door tinkled.

  The sunlight was streaming through big square windows, but that wasn’t dust dancing in the air. It was sugar.

  Madame Cous Cous did not look up when she heard the bell. She was perched behind the counter, reading the Starkley Post and eating cocktail sausages from a mug.

  Oh, Hamish loved this place! All the kids in Starkley did. Madame Cous Cous stocked the finest sweets and candies from across the globe. The shop was legendary. One of the few places in town you could definitely not call boring. Dad used to bring him here all the time, calling it their ‘secret mission’, and buy him whatever he liked. It was the only reason Hamish had needed a filling from Dr Fussbundler. He rubbed his cheek and winced at the thought of that enormous dentist’s drill. The way it juddered and shuddered into his poor tooth until he could feel his brain rattling about in his head. But it was worth every second, he decided, if it meant he could still go into Madame Cous Cous’s.

  Once a year, this unusual old lady would book a round-the-world ticket and set off on a month-long adventure.

  She’d take trains, and planes, and buses, bikes and unicycles.

  She’d climb mountains and swim rivers.

  She’d fight bears and squish spiders!

  And all because she was determined to bring the very best treats from around the world to the children of Starkley.

  In France, she discovered the sweetest, most delicate cheese-and-bacon-flavoured mints sold by a glum old gum farmer high up in the Pyrenees mountains. She brought that stuff back to Starkley and it sold out within the hour! Délicieux!

  In Italy, she wrestled with the Italian Prime Minister for the last box of Italian candied prawns. He thought he should get them just because he was prime minister. Well, Madame Cous Cous wasn’t having that. So she grappled him out of the shop, and into the narrow streets outside, and down an alleyway, and into a gondola, which she then used to row all the way to the airport with that box of candied prawns under one arm. DELIZIOSO!

  She sold Mexican chilli sherbet. ÑAM!

  She sold peanut butter eggs she found high up in a Russian tree. VKUSSИY!

  She sold American fried jelly. DEEE-LISH!

  And those enormous toffee sausages everyone walks about with in Germany. Super-schmackhaft!

  The only thing she didn’t sell was Norwegian salted gobstoppers. She simply could not stand those Norwegian tongue girdlers. They offended her so much, in fact, that she had banned all Norwegians from her shop.

  So, because she wanted the kids of Starkley to have (almost) all the sweets of the world, you might imagine Madame Cous Cous was quite a lovely woman. And she was . . .

  Until the day she wasn’t.

  She had returned in February from her month-long trip away with absolutely no new sweets. Just a packet of Tic Tacs she bought at the airport. Her cloud of white hair, which had once been so soft and thick, was now a dark grey – like each and every hair was suddenly in a bad mood. Her once rosy cheeks seemed to have spread – so that now her whole face was a particularly angry red. And whenever anyone asked her what had happened to make her this way, she would bark at them, like a very fierce dog.

  It was rather odd to see a grown woman barking like a dog.

  Many people wondered whether she’d been swapped for her own evil twin – that was how bad and mean she’d become.

  Now Madame Cous Cous even kept a gnarled brown stick behind her counter with which she’d hit children if they took too long to get their change out. It wasn’t even their fault they took so long – their poor little hands were shaking, because they knew this fearsome OAP would rap their knuckles or thwack their backsides with that big long stick like it was nothing at all. Some kids would spend all evening picking splinters out of their bottoms after a visit to Madame Cous Cous.

  Which meant that Hamish now approached the counter with caution.

  Underneath a large white sign that said

  ONLY ONE-AN
D-A-QUARTER SCHOOLCHILDREN AT A TIME!

  Madame Cous Cous looked up at him, bored.

  ‘Yeeees?’ she said.

  ‘Um . . . ’ said Hamish, trying to decide what sweet to ask for.

  ‘What do you mean, “Um . . .”?’ said Madame Cous Cous, slamming her fist down on the desk with such force that an entire bottle of Brazilian Banana Babies shook on the shelf. ‘WHAT DOES THAT BIG RED SIGN SAY?’

  Hamish looked up at it.

  ‘It s-s-s-says “No Norwegians”,’ he stuttered.

  Madame Cous Cous closed her eyes, furious.

  ‘NOT THAT BIG RED SIGN!’ she yelled. ‘THE OTHER ONE!’

  Hamish read the sign next to it.

  ‘Well . . . that one says “COMPLETE SILENCE”.’

  ‘EXACTLY!’ she shrieked, pointing one skinny finger at him. ‘And YOU just SPOKE!’

  ‘But . . . but you asked me a question!’ said Hamish, desperately. ‘You said “yeeees?”’

  ‘SO WHAT?’ she said, bringing her big stick out. ‘You didn’t have to ANSWER! You could have performed a small mime!’

  ‘A mime?’ said Hamish.

  ‘STOP TALKING!’ she yelled. ‘I WANT COMPLETE SILENCE! Did I not make that CLEAR?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hamish. ‘But you keep asking—’

  ‘Will you STOP TALKING!’ she shouted.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Hamish, confused. ‘I honestly didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Right! That’s it!’ said Madame Cous Cous, one snooty nose in the air. ‘You are BANNED!’

  ‘Banned?’ said Hamish, and then he realised he’d said it out loud and quickly covered his mouth with both hands.

  ‘Banned!’ she said. ‘The ratty little motormouth Hamish Ellerby is BANNED from Madame Cous Cous’s International World of Treats and so are ALL HIS FRIENDS FOREVER!’

  She wrote his name down in her ledger and finished with a flourish. This was awful! This was dreadful! Why was she doing this?