by Z. Fraillon
And he hadn’t heard a thing.
7
Jasper turned around slowly. Snow had begun to fall, and moonlight shone down. And what Jasper saw in the moonlight made his breath catch in his throat.
A guard dog stood directly in front of him. It wasn’t a monster, but still, this dog looked nasty. It let out a fierce, low growl, and Jasper’s heart leapt in his chest. The dog was huge, with sharp, gleaming teeth. Jasper wasn’t scared of dogs, but this one looked, well, vicious. It was a trained guard dog, and what it was probably trained to do was ferociously rip you to pieces.
Dogs can sense fear, Jasper told himself. He didn’t like his chances in a one-on-one fight. He looked at the trees – but he knew he could never climb one in time. The dog would get to him first.
Jasper took a deep breath and crouched down, his hand held out towards the dog. He tried to treat it like a friendly puppy. ‘Hiya, pup,’ he said as calmly as he could.
The dog growled more loudly, its teeth still bared.
Jasper held his breath. He had a bad feeling he was about to get torn apart. ‘Good dog?’ Jasper said hopefully. He tried to imagine it was one of his dogs at home, but they were both fat labradors. It wasn’t quite the same.
The dog snapped its jaws shut and cocked its head to one side. It seemed to be deciding whether or not to bite him.
‘Not,’ Jasper whispered.
The dog sat down and whined at Jasper, licking his outstretched hand. Jasper slowly let his breath out and gave the dog a pat.
‘You are a good dog, aren’t you, fella?’ Jasper murmured as he rubbed the dog’s head.
It was so nice to encounter something that was friendly. Jasper suddenly felt homesick. He missed creatures that didn’t want to eat him. He missed his dogs. He missed good food. He missed his bedroom, with the walls covered in comics he’d drawn. He missed his cosy bed. He missed his mum. He even missed his sisters.
He had been writing letters home to his mum every couple of weeks as promised. Each letter was more of a lie than the last. When she dropped him off at Monstrum House she had told him to be careful – but she had no idea just how hard that was in a school crawling with monsters.
Jasper didn’t like lying to his mum, but he also didn’t want her to worry about him. What good would come of telling her about being shoved in monster-infested rooms or being made to stand in the snow for hours? Would she even believe him?
Jasper wanted to make his mum proud. If he could just make it through his first year without being expelled, he knew she’d be happy.
The funny thing was, Jasper wasn’t such a bad student at this school. He was actually OK at the classes. In a funny way, Monstrum House suited him – the stuff they learnt came easily to him. It just made more sense than normal school.
‘I bet Mondrag doesn’t pat you much, does he, fella?’ Jasper asked, as the dog rubbed its muzzle against him. He ruffled the dog’s ears, then gently pushed it away.
He sighed and got up. ‘I still have ages to go through this course,’ he muttered. ‘And chances are the thug brigade are already on the prowl, waiting to catch me out of bed and give me more penalty points.’
Jasper was about to start his run along the path through the forest again, when the dog barked sharply. Jasper stopped and turned. The dog barked again, and gripped the bottom of Jasper’s hoodie firmly in its mouth.
The dog pulled at it, wrenching Jasper away from the path. Jasper resisted. He wasn’t sure this was such a good idea. How did he know where the dog would take him? After all, it had been trained by Mondrag. What if it was a trap?
But there were no rules to say you had to run the penalty course along the path, it’s just what everyone did. Perhaps there was another way through the forest.
The dog barked again, and Jasper realised he didn’t have much of a choice. He didn’t want to argue with those teeth.
‘OK, OK,’ Jasper gave in, and followed the dog into the trees, away from the well-worn track.
It was darker and denser in the forest than Jasper had thought possible, and he could hear strange noises.
But before he had a chance to be worried he was suddenly back at the school. The dog had just saved him half an hour! He couldn’t believe it – they had come out from the forest almost directly next to the mansion. Jasper didn’t even know the forest stretched this close – and he had made it his mission to know his way around the campus.
Searchlights flashed around the school grounds, but the Monstrum House mansion loomed large and dark above them, casting a shadow over Jasper. The dog led Jasper through a hole in the fence, and right up to the school. It gave him a gentle nudge and scratched at the wall. Jasper scraped away the dead ivy to find a small door.
‘You’re serious?’ he asked. The dog just stared at him. ‘Well, you got me here – I guess I’ll take your word for it. Thanks.’ Jasper gave the dog a final pat. He checked the name on its tag:
Woof
‘Hmmm, original name.’ Woof licked Jasper’s hand before slinking silently back into the shadows of the forest.
Jasper twisted the handle of the door and grimaced as it gave a loud squeak. He waited for a prefect’s hand to land on him, but nothing happened. Jasper carefully pulled open the door. There was a dark tunnel ahead of him. He knew that once he closed the door behind him, he would be in darkness. He took a deep breath and climbed inside.
8
Jasper felt his way along the tunnel. It was a tight squeeze, and he had to commando-crawl along on his stomach, pushing his feet against the sides of the tunnel. Every now and then, the tunnel would stop and turn upwards, and he would have to squirm into a sitting position so he could haul himself up a ladder. He wondered what the tunnel was for. Where did it go?
The tunnel kept rising, until Jasper was sure he was up at least one storey high. Every now and then he could hear kids’ whispers as he crawled along. I must be passing by the sleep halls, he thought.
‘OOOOOOHHHHHH,’ he moaned, hoping to give the kids in the hall a fright. There was a muffled squeal, and then silence. Jasper grinned. He hoped that was Saffy he’d frightened.
Then Jasper started to hear a different kind of whispering. A spooky kind of whispering. It didn’t sound like kids. It didn’t sound human. It seemed to seep from the walls. Craaag ...kroomt ... lisss ... en ... lissssen ... Jaaaaassssper.
Jasper had heard this whispering before. He’d heard it when he first stepped off the plane to Monstrum House. And he’d heard it again in the maze of corridors near the records office.
Jasper moved quickly along the tunnel, trying to get away from the eerie whispering. But it seemed to be growing. It filled every bit of the tunnel. Was it telling him to listen?
Jasper came to another ladder and climbed it as quickly as he could. Where would the tunnel end?
There must at least be some air vents or something, he thought. He felt along the wall with his fingers. Nothing. Jasper climbed another ladder, this time running one hand along the wall, feeling for something – anything – that might indicate a way out.
He had just begun to crawl along the passage again when his hand hit a bolt on the bottom of the tunnel. He could feel a large panel around it. The bolt was rusty, but after some frantic jiggling, it came loose.
He gently eased the panel open and found himself staring down from the ceiling of a dimly lit bathroom.
Jasper had used this bathroom before, but he’d never noticed the small hatch in the ceiling.
He listened carefully for danger, his every sense working overtime.
But the whispering had stopped.
Jasper’s heart slowed. He shook the fear from his body. Get a grip, he told himself.
He was about to jump down from the hatch when he heard the door to the bathroom creak open. He froze. Who’s using these toilets in the middle of the night? he wondered. They were nowhere near the sleep halls.
The lights flashed on and Mr Golag appeared, hauling a large sack into the b
athroom.
Jasper didn’t have enough time to pull the hatch shut. He just hoped that Mr Golag didn’t look up. Jasper hardly dared to breathe.
‘Nearly there,’ Mr Golag panted. He puffed heavily as he swung the sack off his shoulder and gently pulled it open. Jasper caught sight of something a bit like an octopus, with slimy grey tentacles that had razor-sharp nippers on the ends. Mr Golag smiled lovingly and patted its wart-covered head, before up-ending the sack and dropping the monster into the toilet with a splash.
‘There you go, my beauty,’ Mr Golag cooed to the creature and dropped a leg of chicken into the toilet. There was the sound of mad splashing as the monster devoured the meat. Then Mr Golag pressed the flush button and the monster disappeared with a splash. ‘Awww,’ Mr Golag clucked, and slunk quietly out of the bathroom, turning off the light as he went.
Jasper had no idea what to do. Could the monster get out of the toilet? He racked his brain, trying to remember if Stenka had ever told them anything about toilet-dwelling monsters during their Species Studies classes. All the monsters he’d learnt about seemed to have flown from his head, leaving him with nothing.
‘There is no way I am ever using that toilet again,’ Jasper mumbled to himself.
In fact, how could Jasper ever use any toilet? The toilets were all connected by pipes – the monster could be in any one of them, just waiting to nip some poor unsuspecting student.
Jasper couldn’t hear splashing coming from the toilet. It’s now or never, he told himself. He took a deep breath and leapt from the hatch, aiming as far away from the toilets as possible. He landed softly and was out the bathroom door before he even had a chance to catch his breath.
What on earth is Mr Golag doing letting a beast like that loose in the school? Jasper thought.
And then it struck him. The Task!
9
Stenka looked at the students. She was smiling. This couldn’t be good.
‘Your first Task,’ she beamed.
Despite Stenka’s threatening smile, Jasper was feeling pretty pleased. He hadn’t told Saffy and Felix about his discovery the night before – he was saving that for after class.
‘A simple exercise really,’ Stenka continued, walking up and down between the couches in the Species Studies class. This classroom was the best in Monstrum House, with cosy couches and an open fireplace. But it wasn’t enough to take the chill off Stenka’s smile.
‘You have twenty-four hours to catch the monster. You had all night to research your clue. I imagine most of you have some idea of the monster you will be hunting?’ Stenka looked around at the room of students. Nobody seemed confident. But then no-one else had the inside information that Jasper, Felix and Saffy had!
Jasper glanced down at their collection of clues!
In the darkness underground, I creep and crawl without a sound.
If you hunt me, best beware, I am nastiest at my lair.
But just a single button pressed will send me to a lengthy rest.
The secret last line ran through his head. There’s one thing you won’t care to find: the eight legs of the Grubbergrind.
They were going to nail this Task.
Stenka rapped her stick down in front of Saffy. ‘Well? Let’s hear it, Ms Dominguez. What kind of monster are you trying to catch?’
Saffy blinked. ‘Um,’ she stammered. ‘We know. It’s a Grubby … a Grubbo … ’
Felix was trying to mouth the word ‘Grubbergrind’ to Saffy without Stenka seeing. But Stenka always saw.
She cuffed Felix over the back of the head. ‘I don’t believe your name is Ms Dominguez, now is it, Mr Brown?’ she hissed. Felix gulped and shut his mouth. ‘Well?’ Stenka turned back to Saffy.
‘Um … an underground kind of monster?’ Saffy mumbled feebly.
Stenka handed Saffy a card with two penalty points on it.
Jasper thought that, technically, Saffy was right. He debated pointing this out to Stenka, but the look on her face told him not to.
‘And while I’m handing out points,’ said Stenka, ‘Don’t ever miss my class again.’ She handed Jasper a card with four penalty points on it.
Stenka turned back to Saffy. ‘Now, Ms Dominguez, can you at least give me the monster’s order?’
‘Um … we think it’s a Muncher.’
There were uneasy mumurs from the rest of the class.
‘Think? Or know?’ asked Stenka.
Saffy shrugged.
Stenka stopped smiling. ‘Lucky guess,’ she barked. ‘But I would advise you to learn your monster names, Ms Dominguez. And most particularly their weaknesses.’
It was a Muncher. There was silence in the room as the realisation sunk in.
‘Couldn’t they have chosen something less, well, dangerous?’ Felix muttered.
Jasper had to agree. After all, lots of monsters didn’t actually kill people, they just … messed with them a bit.
‘Now,’ said Stenka, turning to the class. ‘You are free to take any supplies from Storeroom A for the Task. You should find everything you need in there.’
Supplies! This Task was starting to sound better. Jasper wondered if they’d finally discover that this school was packed with cool monster-catching gadgets. Maybe there would be something like Spiderman web-shooters! He sketched himself in the back of his textbook, shooting a web over the squelchy toilet monster as he flew through the air.
‘Fancy yourself a spider-man, Mr McPhee?’ Stenka asked, raising an eyebrow.
Jasper quickly covered up his sketch.
‘You should know that you may get injured during the Task,’ Stenka said sternly to the class. It was almost as though the teachers thought that real learning only took place through pain. ‘This is a monster you are hunting. While we have trained the beast as much as possible, it is still a monster with monstrous instincts.’
Jasper thought of all the monsters he had met. He looked down at the textbook in front of him and felt his heart race a little. Still, the Grubbergrind didn’t seem so vicious in the bathroom, he thought.
‘The trained monsters we use in Tasks are much less dangerous than the wild monsters you will encounter on a Hunt outside the school. But the monster will do all it can to stop itself being caught and, at the same time, attempt to capture and eat you,’ said Stenka.
Felix was beginning to look queasy. Even his bruises were taking on a green tinge.
‘The Task is intended to test those characteristics you need to become skilled monster-hunters,’ Stenka continued, ignoring the mumbled complaints from the class. ‘To catch the Grubbergrind before it catches you, you must know it’s weakness. What is the weakness of a Grubbergrind, Mr Brown?’
‘Something to do with a button?’ said Felix. Jasper couldn’t wait to tell Felix what the button clue was about.
‘Yes, well that was the clue,’ said Stenka. ‘This Task is a privilege. A chance to prove yourselves. Please indulge us by at least trying to use your rapidly shrinking brains.’
‘A privilege?’ Felix muttered. ‘Except for the lucky team of kids who manage to actually catch the monster, the rest of us will be caught, hurt, possibly eaten, and then punished by the teachers for not catching the stupid thing. This is really, really bad.’
Jasper didn’t bother telling Felix that it’d be hard for the teachers to punish you if you'd already been eaten.
By the time the gong sounded for the end of the class, there weren’t many people who were still excited about the Task – except for Jasper. Even though he knew the monster could eat him, he figured his chances of survival were pretty good. Knowing that the monster was in the bathroom pipes was a huge advantage for his team.
Stenka rapped a stick against her desk.
‘I don’t remember dismissing this class.’ Everyone fell silent. ‘Your Task has begun,’ she said quietly. ‘Good luck.’
Everyone froze. Did they actually hear her say good luck? Perhaps she was talking to the monster.
10
Felix peered into the toilet bowl. ‘In there?’ he asked for the third time. ‘I used that toilet this morning,’ he said.
‘I’ve been peeing out the window,’ Jasper admitted.
Saffy threw him a disgusted look.
‘So, what do you think?’ Jasper asked.
Neither Saffy or Felix looked very sure.
‘Listen,’ said Jasper. ‘I’ve been thinking it through all night. We have a massive head start. We know what it is and where it is. The other kids will still be trying to figure out how to catch it. From what I saw last night, all we need is a sack and some chicken. Then we just find our way down to the sewers, and the monster is ours.’
Felix was still staring into the toilet. ‘And why do we have to go into the sewers? Can’t we, like, tempt it from up here?’
Jasper shook his head. ‘I thought about that, but it would be too easy for the monster to slink back down the toilet before we grabbed it.’
‘OK, but how do we actually get down to the sewers? asked Saffy.
‘There must be a stormwater drain somewhere,’ said Jasper. ‘They use stormwater to flush out the sewerage system, so the two must be connected somehow.’
‘You make it sound easy, but I have a bad feeling about this,’ said Felix. ‘And you’re sure this is the right monster? I mean, going into the sewers is seriously gross.’
‘How many eight-legged monsters do you reckon the teachers let loose every day?’ Jasper replied. ‘And just think, while the rest of the class spend the day digging up the icy ground, we know that underground means the sewers. And the bit in the clue about the button makes perfect sense. Just a single button pressed will send me to a lengthy rest – press the flush button, and away he goes,’ said Jasper. ‘But if someone has a better plan …’
‘OK,’ Saffy agreed, shrugging her shoulders.