Hamish and the WorldStoppers

by Danny Wallace

  Then came tiny Ratchett Gobb with his huge eyes and his little red lunchbox. That was weird. Felicity usually walked with him to school.

  But no sign of a girl with a blue streak in her hair.

  Hamish waited until the big gold bell at the top of the school began to ring.

  He started to feel uneasy.

  What if the things had got the girl?

  Did that mean he might be next?

  Hamish decided to run back to school. He could say he was late, because he had a dentist’s appointment. I mean, that was sort of true. He had had one. It’s just that it was ages ago. And, if they asked him to provide them with a note, he could just sing them a musical note and hope that that was charming and funny enough to let him get away with it.

  But no.

  Think of the trouble he’d get into, the way the teachers had been acting lately.

  Instead, he resigned himself to having to spend the day hiding in the park. As he turned a corner towards it, he spotted something a little unusual some way up the street.

  Someone was in a rubbish skip.

  They were flinging old bits of wood and plastic over their shoulder. They had a school tie around their head and their sleeves rolled up.

  And even from this distance Hamish could just make out a streak of blue.

  When she heard someone approaching, the girl stood to attention, like a meerkat in the Kalahari Desert.

  ‘Oh, you again,’ she said, as if everything was perfectly normal, and the last time the two of them met hadn’t been when they were surrounded by those dreadful things.

  ‘What are you doing in a skip?’ asked Hamish, because it seemed like that was a good question to start with.

  ‘Scavenging,’ she replied, without looking at him. ‘I suggest you do the same. We have to use all the time we have, seeing as the Pauses are getting longer.’

  So he was right. She hadn’t been frozen like everyone else.

  ‘You call them Pauses as well?’ he said, quietly, in case anyone overheard and thought they were mad.

  ‘Well, what else would you call . . . a pause?’ she said, simply. ‘Pause seems to be the best word to describe a pause. And anyway, I’m just getting what I need.’

  She picked up a large camping backpack and swung it onto her back. It was almost three times the size of her.

  ‘What’s in there?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘Supplies.’

  ‘I’ve got supplies too!’ he said, remembering his PSK. ‘What’s in yours?’

  ‘Batteries. Kitchen roll. Toothpaste. First aid kit.’

  Oh, thought Hamish. That’s a bit better than a couple of Chomps and a whistle.

  ‘Spare batteries. Spare kitchen roll. Spare toothpaste. Spare first aid kit,’ she continued.

  ‘Right, I see, and—’

  ‘Freezable food. Non-freezable food. Water. Powdered water.’

  ‘Powdered water?’

  ‘Yes. You just add water to the powder, and it turns into water. And, apart from all that, I’ve got everything you need to survive life during the Pause. Scissors, magnifying glass, fake moustache, the lot.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked Hamish.

  The girl looked dubious.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ she said, casting her eyes around suspiciously. ‘What if you’re one of Them?’

  ‘One of who?’

  ‘You know very well who,’ she said, before adding, quite dramatically, ‘one of . . . the Terribles.’

  Terribles? Is that what the things Hamish had been seeing were called? And how could she think he was one of them? They were horrible with tusks and slime and stink. Hamish looked nothing like one of them! Not even when he really needed a bath!

  ‘Do you mean—’

  ‘I mean the Terribles,’ said the girl. ‘You saw them. I know you did. Those ginormous awfuls. Those monstrous ghastlies. You better make sure they don’t know you’re a Pausewalker.’

  A Pausewalker, thought Hamish. I’m a Pausewalker.

  ‘The last thing the Terribles need to know is that there are Pausewalkers in Starkley. Do you have any idea what they’d do to you if they knew you were just pretending to be Paused?’

  Hamish thought about the night before and shivered. Had that creature at his window worked it out? He decided not to tell the girl.

  ‘I’m Hamish,’ he said. ‘Hamish Ellerby. I go to Winterbourne.’

  He held his hand out for her to shake, but she just looked at it and shook her head.

  ‘I know you do.’

  Hamish was amazed.

  ‘How?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, you’re wearing a Winterbourne uniform, for a start,’ she said.

  Oh. Right. Hamish lowered his head.

  The girl stared him up and down, then hoisted herself out of the skip.

  ‘So how much do you know about the Terribles?’ she asked, landing expertly on the pavement.

  Hamish shrugged.

  And so the girl with the blue streak in her hair began to tell him all about the world of the Terribles.

  Which means I suppose I should tell you too.

  Have you ever found a bruise and not known how you got it?

  Could have been a Terrible.

  Have you ever lost a sock and not known how you lost it? Or found a toy where you definitely didn’t leave it? Or closed a window, but found it open?

  Terribles, Terribles, terrible Terribles.

  Here is what I know for a fact. They work by something they call the pecking order. There are the lows, the mids and the others.

  The lows are the most common Terribles. They’re the bruisers. They can’t help themselves. They might thumble or slurch past you while you’re stuck still in the Pause, clickety-clacking their nails on the floor as they do so, and then for no reason whatsoever – thwack! – they’ll deal you a punch. Or a flick. Or a pinch. The really nasty ones will scratch. No one likes those ones. Oh, and they stink! Have you ever smelled a really horrible smell and everyone blamed you for it? Well, that was probably them.

  Unless it really was you, of course.

  Then, higher up in the pecking order, are the mids. These ones are all bug eyes and pincers and horribly slickety-wet to the touch.

  Yeuch!

  They’re more interested in money than anything else. The mids steal, pilfer, nab and nick. Can’t find your wallet? Guess who. Money box mysteriously a little lighter this morning? I wonder why. Hole in your trouser pocket where you’re sure you put that £2 coin your Uncle Xavier gave you?

  Well, they probably burnt a hole in your pocket, didn’t they?

  And then . . . right at the top of the pecking order, there are the WorldStoppers themselves. So evil only long words will do. Malicious. Murderous. Malodorous. And yes – malevolent!

  They are too terrible to look at for long and too awful to even think about.

  But we must!

  The WorldStoppers lick at their long, thick, waxy moustaches. Moustaches that are stiff and solid and curled at the end like a mammoth’s tusks!

  And not just on the men!

  They carry whips in fat, meaty, greasy hands that are freezing cold to the touch. And they have big bottoms, as ripe and plump as old brown pears.

  Thwack-ash! goes the sound of the whip.

  The WorldStoppers badger and bully and belittle the Terribles. They try and dress a little like humans. Goodness only knows why, because they wouldn’t fool a chipmunk. They are huge and loud and awful and smart and they won’t leave Starkley alone.

  Not ever.

  Oh, and of course they hate children. Especially ones like you. But, so far, they’ve left kids alone. Adults are much easier pickings.

  Unless, of course, they think you are a child who knows about them.

  Because they have to keep their secret.

  Hang on – you know about them now, don’t you?

  Oh, dear.

  Hamish and the girl stood and stared at each other. They were nearly
at the corner of the road now. The girl adjusted her huge backpack as she decided which way to walk.

  ‘I’ll give you a tip, Hamish,’ she said. ‘The clock on the town hall is the only one in Starkley that tells the real time. People think it runs fast, but that’s only because it keeps going even during the Pause. So, when the Pause is over, everyone thinks it’s wrong. But it’s the only one that’s right.’

  ‘My mum would be delighted if she knew that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She works in the Complaints Office,’ said Hamish. ‘Everyone’s always complaining about the clock. She’s got this graph she’s obsessed with that shows all the angry letters and phone calls she gets!’

  The girl crossed her arms.

  ‘Well, it’s actually the only clock that works.’

  Hamish half-smiled.

  ‘Erm,’ he said. ‘Not . . . the only one.’

  She wrinkled up her nose.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My dad’s watch,’ he explained. ‘It’s called The Explorer and it’s not stopped in any of the Pauses.’

  ‘What?’ said the girl. ‘Are you serious? Where is it? We need that!’ She smiled for the first time Hamish had seen.

  And then she stopped smiling, as she realised something.

  ‘You mean the watch that the big prawn bully took from you . . .’ she said, and Hamish nodded. ‘Well, you need to get that back. You have no idea how useful that will be when the Terribles return.’

  Hamish shivered.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘You never know when they’ll be back. Sometimes a Pause is just a Pause. And sometimes a Pause . . . is terrible.’

  ‘But . . . but . . .’ started Hamish, still completely and utterly shocked by what she’d told him.

  ‘Yes?’ said the girl, looking bored again.

  ‘But what do they want?’ he said. ‘What do the Terribles want?’

  The girl put her hands on her hips.

  ‘They want the grown-ups,’ she said, fixing him with a stare that sent shivers down his spine. ‘They want the grown-ups, and then they’ll want us.’

  They Want What?

  Hamish and the girl-with-the-blue-streak-in-her-hair-whose-name-he-still-did-not-know sat on the bench by the town clock and rested their feet on her huge backpack.

  Around them, the people of Starkley went innocently about their business. Two dogs started to bark at each other. A man dropped a coin and shouted a rude word. Mr Slackjaw stood outside Slackjaw’s Motors, staring at his last few Vespas and shaking his head. There was a policeman next to him taking notes. And, to their side, a lady began to hammer a poster into a tree that read:

  COME TO THE FAIR!

  ‘Don’t you ever feel you should tell someone?’ said Hamish, pointing at the people milling around. ‘Is it just us that know?’

  The girl nodded and took a lick of a lollipop.

  ‘Yes. It’s just us. No one else knows. Just you and me. Now look at this . . .’

  She unfolded a piece of paper. It had a chart on it, and various workings-out in bright blue and red pen. It had the name ‘Elliot’ at the bottom.

  ‘Who’s Elliot?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said, dismissively. ‘By my calculations, based on the length and frequency of recent Pauses, we can expect another one at around ten to six this evening.’

  ‘So they’re coming?’ said Hamish, glancing nervously around. ‘They’re coming again?’

  ‘The Terribles don’t use every Pause for their evil,’ she said. ‘Sometimes they don’t show up at all. I think some of the Pauses must be used for resting, or admin.’

  ‘Admin?’ said Hamish.

  ‘You don’t take over the world without at least a little planning,’ she replied, knowingly.

  ‘Aren’t you terrified?’ asked Hamish. ‘How can you be so calm?’

  ‘I used to be scared,’ she said. ‘But not any more. I’m not scared of anything any more.’

  ‘Last night they took my neighbour,’ said Hamish. ‘I didn’t know they took people. What do they want with the grown-ups? And how do you know so much about all this?’

  The girl’s face softened a little.

  ‘I know, because they took my parents,’ she said, quietly.

  A thought began to form at the back of Hamish’s mind. His heart swelled a little and something flipped in his tummy.

  ‘What do you mean they took your parents?’ he asked.

  ‘I mean,’ said the girl, her stare turning to a look of sadness, ‘that one day my parents were there, in the house with me, and then one day they weren’t.’

  ‘So you just woke up and—’

  ‘And they were gone.’

  Hamish didn’t quite know what to say. He wanted to tell her about his own dad and the day the Vauxhall hadn’t returned, but it felt too selfish somehow. This was her moment.

  ‘I looked for them,’ she said. ‘I thought maybe I’d forgotten they were going to visit my auntie or something. But then I saw they’d left their phones at home and the car was still there. So I waited and waited. I stayed at home all day. And, as it got darker and darker, I got more and more frightened. When it got to around one in the morning, I’d just decided to call the police when—’

  ‘The sky flashed?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘And the Terribles came out?’

  ‘Oh, Hamish,’ she said. ‘It was the worst. They arrived on their Requines.’

  ‘Requines?’

  ‘Haven’t you seen them? The Requines are the horrible lizard-horse things the Terribles ride about on.’

  Hamish shuddered as he recalled the horrible creatures.

  ‘They were slinking around my street. The whole world was still. They were creeping into houses and they stole old Mr Neate who lived next door. They just flung him over their shoulders like he was a bag of old nuts,’ she said.

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I did nothing! I just kept still like everyone else. And they didn’t seem to notice me, so . . . I’ve been doing it ever since.’

  Hamish could see this girl was a fighter, living on her own with no one to tell about what had happened to her parents.

  ‘I ran out of money quickly so I used to just go to Lord of the Fries every night and take fishburgers,’ she said. ‘My fridge was packed with them. But then I realised I could use the Pause to do shopping and now I’m pleased to say I’ve discovered the benefits of vitamins and five-a-days.’

  She made a pompous face.

  ‘But why haven’t you told anyone?’ he asked.

  ‘In case the Terribles find out it was me who told!’ she said. ‘I thought I was the only person in the world who knew. It always used to happen at night so I could hide away. And anyway . . . I thought that if I watched and observed for long enough then maybe I could find my parents again.’

  She looked at him very seriously.

  ‘Because here’s the thing, Hamish,’ she said. ‘I think they’re taking a lot of grown-ups, but it’s the weak ones that return to Starkley. They’re the ones that are easy to brainwash and come back . . . processed. Like bad cheese. All curdled and stinky. I’m sure the strong adults, like my parents, are out there somewhere. They won’t give in. The Terribles have got them. But the weak ones come back processed and mean.’

  Hamish thought about it.

  Mr Longblather was certainly meaner than usual.

  Frau Fussbundler too.

  What about Tyrus Quinn? Rex Ox, with his football-firing leaf blower?

  And – my goodness, yes! – Madame Cous Cous and her awful big stick!

  The girl was right. It was perfectly clear that adults were getting meaner, so maybe the Terribles were processing them and sending them back!

  ‘The day after he was taken,’ said the girl, ‘old Mr Neate returned. He kicked his cat then put up a sign on his lawn saying Junk Mailers Will Be Shot! Now he just sits outside his house, throwing apples at children a
nd making rude hand gestures at the vicar.’

  Hamish was having trouble making sense of it all.

  ‘But why are the Terribles turning people mean?’ he asked.

  ‘So that we fight. So that we argue. So that the world is a horrible place that we don’t even want any more. I think they’ve started in Starkley, because it’s so boring that hardly anyone ever comes here. They’re testing things out and, if it works, I think they’ll turn the whole world mean. And that’s when they’ll take over. When we’re too mean to care.’

  Hamish was horrified. Could the very future of life on earth be at stake – right here in Starkley?

  If so, it looked like it might have to give its Fourth Most Boring Town certificate back.

  Hamish had one more question. He was almost too scared to ask, but he knew he had to.

  ‘My dad didn’t come home one night,’ he said, carefully, avoiding her eye. ‘Do you think he might have been . . . taken?’

  The girl smiled a gentle smile.

  ‘I don’t know, Hamish,’ she said. ‘It’s possible. But I just don’t know. Was he weak or strong?’

  He was the strongest, thought Hamish. He was the tallest! And he’d never give in to a bunch of ugly monsters!

  But at the same time . . . what if he hadn’t been taken? What if one day he’d just woken up and he was just bored of his life?

  Bored of Hamish?

  Maybe it was better never to know, because if that was the truth, it was almost worse than any bunch of rampaging monsters.

  ‘I have to go,’ said the girl, pointing up at the clock. ‘I’ve got a meeting.’

  ‘A meeting? A meeting with who?’

  ‘Never you mind with who,’ she said. ‘And anyway, it’s whom.’

  She heaved her huge backpack onto her little shoulders.

  ‘When will I see you again?’ he said. ‘Or is it you?’

  She smiled, but said nothing.

  ‘Later on?’ he tried. ‘During the next Pause?’

  ‘You know what you need to do during the next Pause,’ she said, turning back to face him. ‘You need to get your watch back. Something like that could really help us in the fight.’