Grenville opened one piggy eye and squinted to see who was coming. His face fell. He thought Hamish would love this. The bully getting what he deserved.
‘Hey,’ said Hamish. ‘You forgot your watch at school.’
He took The Explorer out from his pocket. It glinted in the sun. The two bigger boys stared at it, then at Hamish, then at Grenville.
‘It’s super cool, Grenville,’ said Hamish. ‘You’re really lucky.’
‘Oh, er . . . yeah, cheers, Hamish,’ said Grenville, silently wondering why his old enemy was helping him. ‘Thank you for bringing my watch that is definitely mine back to me.’
One of the bigger boys sniffed. ‘Huh,’ he said. ‘Well, just because you’re telling the truth about a watch—’
‘Oh, and Grenville,’ said Hamish, ‘thank you so much again for letting me come round yesterday and see your complete set of Super Action Rascals.’
‘Oh, um, that’s okay, Hamish,’ said Grenville, slowly.
‘And your massive telly and your film collection, and all your movie posters. And your pool table.’
The two big bullies stared at Grenville, surprised.
‘And your table football table,’ Hamish continued, walking closer. ‘And your original pinball machine, and your games consoles, and your solid gold top hat.’
The bullies were staring at Hamish now, but he wasn’t scared. Hamish knew what real fear was these days, and a couple of thick old bullies wasn’t it.
‘And your train track,’ Hamish said, starting to enjoy himself, ‘and your radio-controlled cars and your fish tanks, and your massive stuffed raccoon.’
‘Yes, fine, not a problem,’ said Grenville, thinking that was probably enough now.
‘And your life-sized cardboard cut-outs of the Prime Minister,’ said Hamish, improvising. ‘And your replica football stadium, your moon rocks and, of course, thank you SO much for letting me see your personal robot-monkey butler.’
Too much?
Apparently not, because the two bigger boys cleared their throats, gave Grenville an apologetic pat on the back and began to walk away. They’d be leaving Grenville alone for a while, Hamish suspected. If only because they were probably worried he’d set his personal robot-monkey butler on them.
‘Um . . . thanks, Hamish,’ said Grenville, very sincerely and rubbing his neck.
Hamish held the palm of his hand out.
Grenville dropped The Explorer into it.
‘I’m sorry about taking it off you,’ he said. ‘Those boys, they . . . well, they think unless you’ve got money you’re a nobody. They’ve been giving me a hard time for months. I don’t have all those toys, Hamish. But I guess I got used to pretending.’
You know what would have been the best thing in the world for Hamish to say right at this moment? Probably something like, ‘Well, I guess we’ve all learned an important lesson today.’
Or, ‘We all make mistakes. It’s forgiveness that sets us apart.’
Or, ‘Money is not what makes the world go round, Grenville!’
Or anything else that you might see on an inspirational bumper sticker, really.
He’d have looked so wise. And I think both you and I would really have felt like he’d been on some kind of personal journey and all our lives were the richer for it.
But Hamish wasn’t a ‘big moment’ kind of kid, so instead he just said, ‘That’s okay, Grenville!’ followed by, ‘Hey! I saw you on the toilet yesterday!’
And then he ran away laughing, finally feeling his revenge was complete, while Grenville stood there fuming.
‘You’re late,’ said Alice, grumpily as Hamish approached the clearing.
‘I had detention,’ said Hamish. ‘Actually, the whole class did. And the class next door. And Mr Longblather got so furious with himself that he ended up giving himself detention too, so we had to wait for him to finish that before he could come and supervise ours. And, after detention, I had a score to settle with an old nemesis. And sort out my PPP.’ It had actually been quite a busy day now he thought about it.
‘Nice,’ said Alice. ‘But while you’ve been out there, having fun and settling scores and going shopping, Elliot’s been working hard with Mr Bodfish.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Head of maths at St Autumnal’s. Elliot showed him your mum’s graph. He changed all the words and pretended it was a graph that shows how often birds poop on his dad’s car. And Mr Bodfish came to a conclusion.’
‘What was it?’
‘That Elliot’s dad should move his car.’
‘Oh. And what else?’
‘He found a pattern in the numbers,’ she said. ‘He was able to work out when they will reach their peak. That means when the Final Event will be.’
‘What are you saying?’ asked Hamish, urgently. ‘That we know? That there will be a Final Event and when it’s coming?’
‘Oh, Hamish,’ she said, putting one hand on his shoulder. ‘We’ve got until Saturday. That’s three days. And, after that, the world as we know it will change forever.’
The Others
‘Three days,’ said Elliot, shaking his head, and tapping the graph. ‘And only three potential Pauses in between.’
‘It’s not enough,’ said Venk, worried. ‘Three days is not enough!’
In the clearing, each member of the PDF had a Pause Protection Pack over one shoulder.
Hamish was wearing his ‘H’ jumper as usual. The rest were mainly in overalls.
Hamish checked The Explorer.
‘What time is the next Pause?’ he asked.
‘Around 7.04,’ said Elliot, checking his workings. ‘Though remember, I can’t tell you exactly when.’
It was 7 o’clock now.
‘What I want to know is – why us?’ said Hamish.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Venk.
‘Well – why are we the only Pausewalkers? What links us?’
Everyone thought about it. Venk toyed with the strap of his PPP.
‘Well, we’re all kids,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Of about the same age. And we all live in Starkley.’
‘Yes,’ said Hamish. ‘That’s true. But there must be something else. There must be a reason.’
‘We go to different schools,’ said Clover. ‘So it’s not that. Hey – maybe it’s our birthdays! I was born on July 2nd – what about you?’
‘January 10th,’ said Buster.
‘November 22nd,’ said Venk.
Hmmm. Well, it wasn’t that either.
Hamish checked his watch again. 7.02.
‘Aha!’ said Venk, having an idea. ‘I’m the eldest child in my family!’
‘Me too!’ said Buster, delighted.
‘Me three!’ said Clover.
Were they onto something?
‘But I’m the youngest,’ said Elliot.
‘Me too,’ said Hamish.
‘Me three,’ said Alice.
They fell into silence, thinking hard. The truth was, they were all pretty different.
‘There has to be something,’ said Hamish.
‘Ow,’ said Buster, rubbing his cheek.
‘What’s up with you?’ asked Alice.
‘It’s nothing,’ said Buster. ‘I think my filling’s coming loose.’
‘You eat too many sweets,’ she said. ‘Feeding that Beast of yours.’
‘You can talk,’ he replied. ‘You pretty much have a lollipop on your person twenty-four hours a day!’
‘It’s Chomps for me,’ said Hamish, smiling. ‘Or it was, until I was banned from—’
‘Ow ow ow!’ said Buster again. His tooth really was killing him.
‘You should get another filling,’ said Venk, helpfully.
‘Oh, sure,’ said Buster. ‘I’ll just do that myself tonight, shall I?’
‘You should go to my dentist, Dr Fussbundler at The Tooth Hurts,’ said Hamish. He checked his watch. It was 7.04. He looked around. No sign of the Pause.
‘I did go to
The Tooth Hurts,’ said Buster. ‘Dr Fussbundler glurged this great glug of globby goo all over my gums. He wouldn’t stop making awful dentist jokes.’
‘Yes!’ said Clover. ‘I’ve noticed that when I go. “I’m filling good today!” and all that. I couldn’t stop groaning on my last visit.’
‘Wait,’ said Hamish. ‘Wait just a second . . .’
‘And then he looms over you, doesn’t he?’ said Venk, laughing. ‘And he says—’
‘“Brace yourself!”’ chuckled Alice, rolling her eyes.
‘Wait!’ said Hamish, again, and everyone turned to him, slightly annoyed he was interrupting their fun.
‘You’ve had a filling at Dr Fussbundler’s,’ he said, pointing at Buster. ‘And so have you, and you, and you, and you . . .’
‘Yes?’ said Alice.
‘And so have I.’
‘So?’
‘So maybe that’s what links us!’
‘What – too many sweets?’ said Buster.
It was like a lightbulb above Hamish’s head.
‘The fillings!’ he said. ‘I think the fillings stop us from being affected by the Pause!’
Revolution Revelation
This was a revelation.
And the kids had realised something super, super quickly.
They couldn’t be the only kids in Starkley to have had a filling. That would be madness. How could Dr Fussbundler pay for such nice white walls if they were the only customers? How could Madame Cous Cous survive if she wasn’t selling enough sweets to rot children’s teeth?
No. There must be other kids who’d had that grey gunk slathered on their teeth by Eric Fussbundler. And that meant there would be other Pausewalkers out there.
Hamish knew immediately that this was important.
‘We can raise an army!’ he said.
‘Sure,’ said Venk. ‘In three days.’
‘We’ll break into The Tooth Hurts,’ said Alice. ‘There should be a record of all the kids who’ve had fillings in town. Then we can just go round, door to door. We’ll recruit them to the PDF!’
And that was when Buster stepped forward.
‘Or in the twenty-six minutes and twenty-six seconds of this Pause,’ he said, ‘there may be another way.’
At the very, very top of the very, very highest rollercoaster at the funfair, all six kids had crammed themselves into the very front carriage.
‘The Gap-toothed Otter!’ said Hamish, happily. ‘We meet again!’
This had always been Hamish’s favourite ride. That’s why he saved all year to make sure he could go on it again and again. An enormous, spindly rollercoaster with a giant plaster otter’s head at the bottom. His dad had introduced him to it and said it even used to come to Starkley when he was a kid. There was a space in the middle of the otter’s two enormous front teeth for you to shoot through at high speed. Elliot had already been sick twice and all they’d done was climb to the top.
Buster pressed ‘Stop’ on the remote control he’d rigged up.
‘My dad was an engineer,’ he said, as the carriage teetered at the peak. ‘I used to practise for hours in his garage.’
‘Was he taken too?’ said Hamish. ‘Is your dad out there in the woods somewhere?’
The group fell quiet.
‘No,’ said Buster, sadly. ‘No, he wasn’t taken.’
‘Oh,’ said Hamish, realising what Buster was saying. ‘Oh, Buster, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
Now Hamish could guess why Buster was so determined. Buster just wanted to make the world a bit better.
It was easy to see why, sitting at the top of this rollercoaster, looking out over Starkley at night. You could see everything from up here. You could see the town clock. You could see Grenville’s house. You could see the top of Hamish’s roof. You could see Winterbourne, and St Autumnal’s, and Spring Grove primary, and the Summer House nursery. You could see it all.
The Pause had frozen the town at a beautiful time of night.
‘This seems quite an unfair punishment for poor toothbrush technique,’ said Elliot, sadly. ‘Being stuck in the Pause.’
Hamish hadn’t thought about it that way. He saw it differently. He saw it as an opportunity.
‘I guess I’m just scared,’ admitted Elliot. ‘The first time it happened, I was just stuck there at breakfast, with my family. I’d just made a joke about particle physics in relation to quantum mechanics and they all froze. It was like they just didn’t enjoy jokes about particle physics in relation to quantum mechanics!’
‘Weird,’ said Alice.
‘Anyway,’ said Elliot, ‘three minutes later, they all started eating again like nothing had happened. From that moment, I just felt a bit disconnected from them. Like they were one thing and I was another.’
‘You’re just like them,’ said Hamish, reassuringly. ‘You’re still one of them. It’s just that at the same time, you’re different too. Maybe you’ve got a chance to help them. Protect them. Protect the world! Prevent the Final Event!’
Out of the blue, Hamish’s dad’s words came to him . . .
‘Prevention’s as good as a cure, H! Always prepare!’
Then . . .
‘Look!’ Alice said. ‘You were right, Buster! Movement!’
Somewhere far below, a tubby lad in a stripy top darted nervously around, scurrying about and checking the bins.
‘I know that kid! His name’s Dexter,’ said Alice. ‘He’s scavenging. Maybe they got his parents.’
‘And over there – look!’ cried Buster. ‘There’s a girl, down there. They can join us!’
The girl, who was maybe eleven years old, was carrying a vast, teetering tower of pizza boxes.
‘She’s not eating all that on her own,’ said Elliot. ‘There must be even more. Even more Pausewalkers!’
‘Yes!’ they all yelled, high-fiving and slapping each other on the back, and smiling and laughing and stopping very suddenly when they heard . . . VVVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR.
‘That wasn’t me,’ said Buster, with a guilty look on his face.
‘Oh, no,’ said Alice, the blood draining from her face. ‘The Bugle.’
‘It’s a Terrible Pause,’ said Venk, nervously. ‘I thought this wouldn’t be a Terrible Pause, Elliot?’
‘They must be going even faster than we thought.’ said Elliot, pulling the graph from his PPP and examining it. ‘We need to get down. Right now. We’re sitting ducks up here!’
‘We can’t get down!’ cried Clover. ‘They’ll notice a rollercoaster screeching about.’
‘What do we do?’ said Elliot. ‘What do we do!’
They were trapped – ninety metres in the air!
Everyone looked at Alice. She was always the one with the answers, but for the first time since they’d met, Hamish saw she looked lost.
‘Alice?’ said Elliot, but she was struggling to find the words.
‘We wait,’ said Hamish, taking control. ‘We keep still, we keep quiet and we hope they don’t look up.’
From the very peak of the ride, the gang watched in horror as the Terribles emerged in greater numbers than ever before.
Out of the woods they poured, seeping into town. From up here, it looked like an ever-thickening oil spill – a horrid black liquid filling in every road and crack in town, like rancid fat slickering into the town’s veins.
‘They’re after someone,’ said Hamish, his heart fluttering slightly. ‘A grown-up.’
KABLAAAAAANNG!
The rollercoaster began to shake.
‘What was that?’ asked Venk.
KABLAAAAAANG!
The great metal structure began to creak and shriek.
It started to judder and shudder.
Venk craned his neck to peer over one side.
‘Oh . . .’ he said.
‘What?’ said Clover.
‘Oh, dear . . .’ said Venk.
‘WHAT?’ said everybody.
&nbs
p; Venk turned to them.
‘One’s coming up,’ he said, looking like he couldn’t believe it. ‘One’s coming up right now!’
‘Coming up where?’ said Elliot. ‘Coming up here?’
Buster covered his mouth with his hands then screamed. It sounded like a tiny mouse squeaking in a box.
Panic was setting in. Venk began to tug at the safety bar.
‘We need to spray ourselves!’ said Buster, opening up his PPP. ‘We need some hot sauce!’
‘No,’ said Hamish. ‘If we all stink of hot sauce, the Terrible might work it out. It’s too obvious. Look, I’ve done this before,’ He turned to face them all. ‘Just stay still. Look blank. Or pretend you’re mid-scream. We’re on a rollercoaster, after all – if it sees us, we should look like we’re scared. So look convincing!’
It was the only plan they had. Everyone immediately pulled a ridiculous face. Buster looked like he had constipation. Clover looked like she’d stubbed her toe. Venk looked like he’d been told his feet had just fallen off.
SHUNK
The whole rollercoaster bent to the right!
CREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAK
What if the entire thing toppled over?
SHUUUUNK
It was bending to the left now.
THRAKAAAASH!
One nasty hand slapped over the railings. The gang all held their breath.
THRAKASH!
Another hand slapped over, and four huge and scratchy fingers felt around for something to grip onto.
Then heeeeeave . . . the great beast appeared.
This was not a Terrible any of the PDF had seen before. It had small slits for eyes and pincers where its nose should have been. Its cloak pulled back slightly to reveal a stomach covered in oily fat suckers.
If anyone could have screamed, that would have been the moment they chose. This thing was the grossest, ugliest, worstest thing they’d yet seen!
It clambered and flolloped over the children, planting one horrible foot in Hamish’s lap and one wet hand on Venk’s disgusted face, before moving down the rollercoaster car, heaving its horrid, flabby, slimy body past each child’s face.
Hamish and the WorldStoppers Page 12