“Vodanoys and grodders, you mean?” Nora followed me, grabbing my arm to keep her balance.
“I remember something about grodders,” Aiden said. “Aren’t they the big hairy bulls with the fiery red eyes?”
“Yeah. They can kill people by trampling them with their hooves. They’re not very intelligent though,” Nora added. “Sometimes other creatures will use them for pulling or carrying heavy things. The most famous grodder was the one belonging to the dark enchanter, Geraddin of France, who used to tie his enemies to its legs and have them dragged along. . .”
“Sounds like a nice guy.” I was starting to wonder if Nora had memorized all of Cryptorum’s books. “Anyway at least if the monster is big we’ll see it coming. I seriously don’t think there’s anything here except those kobolds. Look – the whole place is empty.” I waved my arm at the scrubby wasteland. “There’s nothing here at all.” I leapt across the next ditch. I was halfway over when something grabbed my ankle.
“Robyn!” cried Nora.
I fell and my sword tumbled out of my hand. The grip on my ankle got stronger, pulling me into the water. Twisting round, I kicked out with my other leg. My foot met something hard and the creature yelped.
I landed half in and half out of the muddy water and groped around for my sword. Now I could see the monster – a skinny creature with grey, clammy skin. Its hands were webbed but the freakiest things were its round bug-like eyes, flappy gills and fishlike mouth. It crept towards me, its mouth opening and closing.
I edged backwards, panic shooting up my spine.
“Hey!” Aiden leapt over, waving his sword. “Get back, you!”
The creature hissed and slid beneath the water till only its eyes and the top of its head were visible.
“Where’s my sword?” I found the blade and staggered to the top of the bank.
The creature glided closer, its eyes still fixed on me.
“It’s a vodanoy. They’re like watery cousins of the kobolds,” Nora whispered. “They like to drag people under the water.”
“And how about that one?” I pointed my blade at the pale monster with masses of writhing tentacles and a jaw full of spiky teeth that was rising from the ditch behind her.
Nora and Aiden swung round. “It’s a nesha!” squeaked Nora.
I started jumping ditches. I couldn’t understand why Aiden and Nora weren’t moving. The nesha creature was still rising from the water and looking bigger and hungrier by the second. “Guys, wake up!”
Aiden jerked forward and they both ran. We didn’t stop until we were far away from the ditches. I leant over, trying to get my breath back.
“On second thoughts,” puffed Aiden. “I think I prefer the kobolds, so let’s stay away from the water.”
Nora had gone green. I hoped she wasn’t going to pass out. “That nesha looked much worse than the picture in the book!”
“Probably because pictures in books can’t jump out of the water and eat you,” I said. “Hey, where’s the bow?”
She flushed. “I must have dropped it. Sorry.”
A horrible guilty feeling bubbled inside me. I was the one who had told Cryptorum to let us face real creatures. The others were obviously hating this and it was all my fault. “We should go back,” I said. “Maybe it’s time for Miss Smiting to collect us.”
We made our way back through the bushes and patches of brambles and took a couple of wrong turns. There were no real paths on the heath and it was hard to work out where we were in the dark. At last we got to the log where my dad had tried to teach us how to cook on a fire and I knew we must be close to where we’d left Cryptorum.
I took a deep breath. I knew he was going to be smug. I guess I had to admit he was right – we had a lot more to learn.
We pushed our way through a gorse bush and the boulder was right up ahead. Cryptorum wasn’t there. The cage he’d brought wasn’t there either. I walked a bit further but I still couldn’t see him.
“Mr Cryptorum?” Aiden called.
I checked my watch. “We’ve been more than an hour.”
“He wouldn’t have gone without us, would he?” Nora bit her lip. “I can’t believe he’d do that.”
I wasn’t sure what Cryptorum would do. He was a guy who’d been fighting these unseen creatures nearly all his life. Maybe it had turned him a bit funny. “Why don’t we look over here?” I pointed to a cluster of straggly trees. “We haven’t been that way yet. If he’s not close by we’ll come back.”
We walked through the trees, keeping really quiet. The only thing I could hear was the sound of our footsteps and the silence was starting to get on my nerves.
“I think we should go back,” I said.
“Let’s call him again.” Nora opened her mouth but I grabbed her arm before she could yell.
“I don’t think we should.” I couldn’t explain why. I just had the feeling that nasty things might hear us. “I really think we should go back. We’re never gonna find—” I stopped, spotting a big, dark square through a gap in the trees. It was a really old, broken-down house. I didn’t remember there being any houses on Blagdurn Heath. “Where did that come from?”
The moon sailed out from behind a cloud and the house suddenly looked extra creepy. The windows gaped where the glass should’ve been and the broken chimney looked like a crooked finger pointing at the sky.
I swallowed. In a dark gap beside the wall, two red lights were burning.
No, not lights – two fiery red eyes. There was also a big hairy body shaped like a bull and the meanest pair of horns I’d ever seen. The beast pawed the ground with its hoof.
I felt Nora tense. “It’s a grodder,” she whispered. “Don’t make a noise. You can’t outrun them. They’re really fast and really strong.”
My blood was pounding in my ears. “Can’t we just give it hay or something?”
We started to back up slowly. The beast didn’t move. We backed up some more. The grodder lifted its head and gave a huge bellow that rang out across the heath.
Then it charged.
Nora Knows Useful Facts About Hairy Monster Bulls
he fiery red eyes burned into us. The grodder’s hooves thundered on the dry ground.
“Run!” I yelled. Branches snatched at my hair as I sprinted through the trees.
Nora stumbled and I grabbed her arm, pulling her up. The monster had reached the thicket. Gaining speed, it smashed through trees as if they weren’t even there. It was even bigger than I’d first thought – as big as a car – and its horns stretched into two very nasty points. It bellowed again and the drumming of its hooves grew faster.
Nora looked back and gave a little shriek.
Aiden veered off to the right. “Split up!” he shouted. “Maybe it’ll get confused.”
“He’s right!” I gasped.
Nora ran left. I slowed a little, trying to see which way the grodder would go. The beast tossed its head and charged me. I ran faster than I’d ever run before. My legs burned – filled with panicked energy. This was good – the monster had left Aiden and Nora alone. But soon I was going to be grodder toast.
I looked back and wished I hadn’t. Beneath its red eyes, the beast had two huge nostrils and I was close enough to see the forest of hairs inside them. The monster pitched its head, probably in anticipation of tossing me into the air on its spiky horns.
Suddenly a loud snorting sound came from the left. Was that Nora? She sounded really strange and I thought for a second she must be hurt.
“Moo-eee-ohhh!” she groaned.
The grodder slowed a little.
“Mooo-eee-ay-eee-ay-ohhh!” Nora went on.
The monster swung its head, searching for the sound. I dodged behind a tree trunk. “Nora, what are you doing?” I hissed.
She carried on with the weird noises. “Mooo-ohhh!”
The grodder stopped completely. It sniffed the air, turning its head to and fro. Whatever Nora was doing, it was working. The beast took a few steps tow
ards the noise and stopped again.
“Eee-ay-eee-ay-ohhh!” yelled Nora.
The grodder gambolled towards her, its steps almost dainty. I leant against the tree, hoping it wouldn’t hear me trying to catch my breath. Peeking round the tree trunk, I watched the creature stop and swing its head from side to side. “Moo-ohh?” it groaned, trotting along again with its tail twirling happily.
I stared. What was going on?
Aiden broke through the trees. “Don’t stop!” he hissed. “That thing could turn mean any second.”
I raced after him and we didn’t stop running until we were far away from the thicket and those bright red eyes.
“Where’s Nora?” I scanned the darkness. “If she got caught by that beast—”
“I’m here!” Nora dashed round a bramble patch. Her plaits had unravelled and there was mud all over her face. “I think I’ve lost it. That was really close!”
“What were you doing?” I said. “Do you speak monster bull language or something?”
“It was a grodder mating call,” Nora told me. “I read about it in one of Cryptorum’s books – about the quadrupeds of the Unseen World. Actually I used the female mating call, which was a bit risky because if that one had been a girl then it would’ve thought its territory was being stolen and would’ve turned even meaner.”
I stared at her. “The grodder was a boy?”
“It must have been,” she agreed.
“A boy grodder looking for a girlfriend?” I grinned.
Nora wiped her forehead. “Yeah! I think it was pretty desperate for love judging by the loudness of its mooing.”
I snorted with laughter.
“That was a really good idea.” Aiden told her.
“Good idea?” I said. “That was a-MAZ-ing! That thing would have trampled me if it hadn’t been for you.”
Nora went pink. “Thanks! It was lucky I’d read that book. . .”
“You totally kept your cool too. It was seriously impressive.” This was big praise from Aiden so Nora went even pinker. Aiden tested the opening and closing of his torchblade. “The new swords worked pretty well too.”
A car horn beeped in the distance. “I really hope that’s Miss Smiting.”
We hurried in the direction of the sound. So we hadn’t actually caught anything, but at least we’d faced some creatures and survived. We were a pretty good team too. Aiden had made us weapons and Nora knew useful stuff. And me – well, I wasn’t bad with a sword.
The black limo was waiting next to the ditch again. I’d never been so happy to see a car before.
“I promisssed your parents I would bring you home,” Miss Smiting said as we climbed in. “Did you have fun?”
Fun. That was one word for it.
“Er, kind of,” Aiden replied. “What happened to Mr Cryptorum?”
“He returned early after catching three kobolds.” Miss Smiting accelerated down the hill. “The batsss found signs of creature activity elsewhere. You know that the bats help Erasmus – they are able to sssense things. Dark things.”
We nodded.
“So he left to invessstigate.” Miss Smiting turned the limo sharply and screeched to a halt outside my house.
I went inside, glancing into the hall mirror as I took off my shoes. There were leaves in my hair and a scratch all the way across my face where a tree branch had whipped me.
“There you are!” Mum came in. “You look like you’ve been at a war, not a nature club. That Miss Smiting said the trip was to Blagdurn Heath, so what on earth did you find up there in the dark?”
“Um . . . nothing much. . . I think I saw a squirrel,” I said vaguely, shoving the torch with its hidden blade deeper into my pocket. “What’s for tea?”
Cryptorum didn’t return to Grimdean House that week and Miss Smiting told us nothing about where he’d gone. She was pretty busy keeping our school running and Mrs Lovell seemed happy for her to do it. She had a ramp installed by the front steps for the boy two years below who used a wheelchair. She organized a proper music stand for Miss Mason, and asked Mr Paggley to always serve pizza and ice cream on Fridays as a treat for the kids.
She was pretty popular with everyone.
Bat Club wasn’t the same without Cryptorum. Miss Smiting told us she couldn’t train us in combat although she let us practise against each other. Aiden settled down to perfect the torchblades and soon both blade and torch parts were working perfectly. Nora read more books and practised archery with me until she was hitting the bullseye just as often as I was. Even Aiden admitted privately that she was now a pretty essential member of our team.
On the Monday after our trip to the heath, we were hanging out upstairs in Cryptorum’s study after school. Miss Smiting was in a chatty mood so I asked her how much she liked moving to Wendleton after living in a rainforest.
“It iss a little hard to remember. It wass fifty years ago, you understand, but I do remember that we arrived here in winter. I had never realized a place could be sso terribly cold.” She shivered at the thought.
“Why did you come?” I asked.
“My dear, Erassmus had saved my life. He fought off the two-headed wraith-gator which had sstalked me for many months.” Her green eyes flickered. “So I came here to assist him for a while and I have never looked back.”
“So Mr Cryptorum was already fighting monsters by then?” Aiden asked.
“He wasss. But he had been away from this town for yearsss and the place had become overrun by vampires. They gathered in the town square at night and prowled the streetsss attacking anyone who ventured out. The people blamed warring gangs – they did not understand the danger.” Miss Smiting rose from her armchair and drifted over to the window. “The leader called herself Pearl – a vampire of such power that she was able to go out in the ssunlight.”
“Not many of them can do that,” Nora put in.
“She walked the streetss in her gaudy clothes and her boots studded with rhinestones, looking for new victimss. The horrid creature seemed to think she was ssome kind of celebrity.” Miss Smiting ended with a sharp hiss. “Her boldnesss gave other nasty creatures the confidence to roam around the town too.”
I tried to imagine crowds of monsters wandering freely around Wendleton with most people totally unaware. It was bad enough to have a few kobolds appearing in our garden. “People couldn’t see the vampires though, could they?” I asked. “They’re just another kind of monster.”
“Vampires are not like other monsterss,” Miss Smiting said. “They walk in both the human and the Unseen worldss. Most of the time, they look like any normal person you might pass on the street. So yess, people would have seen them but they would not have understood the peril.”
“It must have been so scary.” Nora clasped her hands together. “And Cryptorum had to fight them all alone.”
“It was not easy, but he was younger then.” Miss Smiting glanced at the photo on the desk showing Cryptorum with no lines on his face, his hair brown instead of grey. “He had the . . . what isss it called? The youthful energy.”
“That’s why you wanted him to find more Chimes like us, isn’t it? Because he’s getting older.” Aiden studied Miss Smiting intently. “Was it you who made the trees fall on top of our old school so that we’d have to move in here? How did you do it?”
Miss Smiting smiled. “Ah, that was not difficult. Where I come from there is a special moth – the moondust moth – which has spotted white wings. They love to eat roots so I sssimply released them into little holes beside the trees.”
“Wasn’t that dangerous?” Nora’s eyes widened.
“Not at all! I gave the moths time to work and then returned one night to give the trees a final push in the right direction.”
Aiden and I exchanged looks. He had a satisfied expression on his face. I knew he’d always suspected the trees hadn’t fallen down on their own.
“Now we musst get on.” Miss Smiting continued briskly. “I have a special task for
you today. Using ice-cream tubs we will make some little hibernation homes for the winter animalss.”
“But we need to practise our Chime skills!” I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t stayed late to play with ice-cream tubs.
“It’s probably because of me.” Nora turned pink. “My mum told me she was going to phone Mrs Lovell and talk about how much time I was spending at Bat Club. She said she wasn’t sure it was a suitable kind of club. She and my dad are both teachers at the high school and she wants me to get home earlier so she can help me with my homework.”
I pulled a sympathetic face. Nora had told me the other day that she didn’t have any brothers or sisters. That sounded awesome to me but maybe it wasn’t as great as I thought. I couldn’t imagine my parents insisting on doing homework with me.
“So we will do ssome nice things.” Miss Smiting picked up a bag of bits and pieces she’d left by the door. “Houses for mouses and maybe a bird table. Then before you go home, I will let you borrow a book from Erasmus’s collection so that you can study Chime skills a little more.”
“Ooh, great!” Nora’s eyes lit up. “I know exactly which book I want to take.”
A clattering sound came from downstairs.
Miss Smiting’s tongue flickered as if she was tasting the air. “Dratted children! They are trying to ssneak around again.” She handed the bag of stuff to Aiden. “Take these things next door and get started. I will deal with the little monkeyss. Robyn, fetch the sticky tape from Mr Cryptorum’s cupboard. I will return in a moment.” With a swish of her skirts, she zipped from the room.
“I bet it’s Hector again,” Aiden said. “He can’t stand the idea that we’ve been chosen for this club and he hasn’t.”
“If he knew we were making mouse houses from ice-cream tubs he might not be so jealous.” I bent down to open the cupboard but it was stuck. “Did she mean this cupboard? Guys?” I straightened up to find that Aiden and Nora had already gone next door. Sighing, I tried the cupboard again. Then I tried the desk drawers. There were pens and a rusty old key, but no sign of sticky tape. I scanned the room.
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