Graunt Doom grinned. ‘Me knows you was going to say that.’ She held up what looked like a matchbox. ‘Here Yesterday’s beetle. If you gets back me give you Ghastly Otherwhen beetle too.’
‘Um…any other hints?’ asked Boo.
Graunt Doom peered into the octopus guts. ‘Don’t eats breakfast this morning,’ she said helpfully.
‘I already have.’
Graunt Doom shrugged. She stood up. ‘Too bads. Keep tail wagging and ears pricked up. Remembers you is a Hero. No other help I can gives. Time for brunch. Me see if zombie spaghetti can wrestle tentacle pancakes. See youse later!’
Boo watched her go.
SCHOOL FOR HEROES ENTRANCE EXAM
A bogey with one hundred fangs, ten tentacles and a flamethrower is about to devour you (the flamethrower is to cook you first).
What do you yell?
a. It isn’t fair!
b. HEEEELLLPPP
c. Look out, your shoelace is undone! Take that!
P.S. Anyone who answers a. is not cut out for Heroism. Life isn’t fair, kid. Get used to it.
7
Searching for Yesterday
Boo put the beetle’s box in his school bag, then slipped the bag onto his back and padded into the wormhole.
What am I doing, he wondered suddenly, trotting down a wormhole to another universe, all alone and without a single plan between my whiskers?
‘Squeak?’ The mouse stuck his head up from his pouch, peered around and ducked back down again.
Well, all alone except for a mouse.
How could he convince the Guardians to give Yesterday her freedom—or at least let her study a bit longer at the School for Heroes?
Why should they listen to a puppy dog, even if he was a Hero?
But he had to try, he thought. At least then Yesterday would know they hadn’t all abandoned her, forgotten about her, just going on with their lessons and Heroing as though she had never existed.
And if this didn’t work, he’d keep thinking till he thought of something that did!
Suddenly he felt better. He lifted his leg and left a few drops on the dark side of the wormhole, then padded onwards. Somehow all wormhole journeys seemed to take the same length of time—or all the ones he’d taken so far had, anyway. Surely he’d walked for long enough now…
Even as he thought it he began to rise, up, up through the blackness of the wormhole roof. There he was, under the rough leather hammock in Yesterday’s stone hut.
He peered around. The hut had been rebuilt since the school bus had pounded through the doors, the rocks piled up again. He could feel the heat of Yesterday’s universe through his paws, somehow quite different from the heat of the volcano, a low steady heat, while the volcano always seemed ready to bite your paws. Stone floor, stone walls, the big rock for a table.
‘Yesterday?’ he barked softly.
If only I’d had the sense to bring her something, he thought. Some food at least, the sort she liked. All he had in his bag was his slug sandwiches for lunch, and Yesterday didn’t like slug sandwiches, even when the slugs were all green and bubbly. At least he still had the banana Dr Mussells had offered him. Yesterday liked bananas.
‘Yesterday?’ he barked again, lifting his leg on the door post, then suddenly wondering if Yesterday would mind. Okay, it was bad manners to widdle at school, except in toilets, but Hero School was weird in lots of ways. And Yesterday liked dogs. She’d said so. So she wouldn’t be silly about a few drops of widdle…maybe she’d even like the smell.
‘Who is it?’ The voice sounded young and scared. But it wasn’t Yesterday’s. Boo lifted up his nose. Yesterday’s scent was there, but only faintly. Another human’s—a boy’s—scent was stronger.
Where was Yesterday? Was it the boy who’d spoken? Dinosaurs didn’t speak.
He gulped. Did they?
‘It’s me. I mean it’s Boojum Bark, Hero Level 4.’ Boo padded out of the hut, trying not to shiver at the memory of the few scraps of bloody bone that had been all that was left of the Greedle and its bogeys.
But there was no sign of the Greedle now. Boo supposed the dinosaurs had devoured everything. There was the lake of silver grey, the grey flat rocks, the dull grey sky above. The only difference this time was the young human shivering in front of him.
He was just a pup—a boy, Boo corrected himself—younger than Yesterday. He wore a tatty leather tunic, just like Yesterday’s, and had bare feet and a dirty face. But Yesterday held herself straight and brave. This boy looked like he was trying not to run away.
‘You…you’ve come out of the wormhole, h—h—haven’t you?’ stammered the boy.
Boo nodded. ‘It’s okay. I’m a Hero.’
‘N—not a bogey?’
Boo sighed. ‘Do I look like a bogey?’
The boy peered down at him through his dirty hair. ‘I don’t know. I never seen a bogey before.’
‘Trust me. Bogeys are ferocious.’
The boy blinked. ‘Aren’t Heroes ferocious?’
‘Well yes. But in a different way. A good way,’ Boo added. The boy looked like he was going to melt into a puddle of terror.
A shadow passed across the flat grey rock, a deeper shade of grey. Boo glanced up. It was one of the flying dinosaurs, one with a long narrow head. Even from down here he could see its two rows of teeth.
He forced himself not to shiver. He was a Hero, wasn’t he? He bet the Werewolf General wouldn’t shiver just because there was a flying dinosaur up there who could rip the most ferocious of the Greedle’s bogeys into shreds…He looked back at the boy. ‘I’m looking for Yesterday.’
The boy looked more nervous still. ‘That’s me.’
Boo blinked as Yesterday’s words came back to him. I don’t even have my own name.
Boo sat on his haunches, then lifted his bum quickly. This ground was hot. ‘I’m looking for the Yesterday who lives here.’
‘I live here,’ said the boy. ‘I feed the dinosaurs. I feed them in the morning and I feed them in the evening. That is my job.’
Boo tried not to show his exasperation. ‘I mean…the other Yesterday. The Hero Yesterday.’
‘You mean the Yesterday who fed the dinosaurs before?’ The boy looked slightly reassured.
‘That’s the one.’
‘She’s not here.’ The boy looked almost happy at finally being able to give the right answer.
Boo hoped you didn’t need too many brains to feed dinosaurs. ‘I can see that. Where is she?’
‘With the Guardians.’
‘What’s she doing there?’
The boy stared at him, then shook his head. ‘She is with the Guardians,’ he said again, as though that explained it all.
‘Well, how can I get there?’
The boy’s eyes opened wider. He didn’t answer.
This was getting nowhere.
Suddenly Boo was furious. Not at the boy. Boo bet this kid had never had a chance to know anything. There was no one to care for him, here in this barren land of rock and lizards. No one to cook him sheep’s eyeballs and spaghetti, or dust his sleeping basket with flea powder. No, he was angry at the Guardians. Who did the Guardians think they were, putting a scared kid like this among the dinosaurs, with a wormhole to watch over, too? Who knew what bogeys might be lurking?!
What would the Werewolf General do? he wondered. And then he knew.
‘Look, kid,’ barked Boo. ‘I’m a Hero. Do you know what that means?’
‘No,’ said the boy.
‘It means that if a Monstrous Bonglegrub oozes its way up that wormhole I might be the one who zaps along to save you—and save the Guardians too. If a Hero wants to see someone, they get seen. Look,’ he added more gently, because the boy was quivering like the practice jelly-monster bogey back at school. ‘You must have some way to contact the Guardians in an emergency. What if a Monstrous Bonglegrub does come up that wormhole?’
The boy quivered even more. ‘Is it going to?’
&
nbsp; ‘No,’ said Boo honestly. ‘But I’m betting that the Guardians will be very, very angry if you don’t let them know a Hero wants to see them. Now.’
The boy stared at him for a moment. ‘All right,’ he whispered at last. ‘There’s…there’s a button in the hut. I push it if trouble comes.’ He nodded, as though to reassure himself. ‘I feed the dinosaurs every morning. I feed the dinosaurs every night. I press the button if trouble comes.’ He looked pleadingly at Boo. ‘They won’t be angry?’
Boo jumped up, planted his paws against the boy’s chest and licked his grubby chin. The boy leapt back, terrified and shivering.
‘I’m not trying to tenderise you!’ barked Boo, exasperated. ‘I’m being friendly! If the Guardians are angry it’ll be with me, not you. Here,’ he added, because the boy looked so lost and so alone. ‘Have a banana.’
He wriggled his jaw around, grasped the banana in his bag and tossed it over. The boy caught it. He looked at it as though he had never seen a piece of fruit before.
‘Peel the skin off, bite, then swallow,’ said Boo. ‘Ooops, sorry,’ he added as the boy did all of that and promptly began to choke. ‘I should have said “chew” too. Then press that button.’
USEFUL DEFINITIONS
A Person: Someone who invites you to dinner.
A person can have three heads, long fangs and eighteen tentacles, but they are still a person as long as they’re polite.
A Bogey: Something that invites you to BE dinner. Or more often doesn’t bother with an invitation at all.
An Animal: Something that might have you for dinner or might be your dinner, but doesn’t have the capacity for invitations, polite or otherwise.
FROM COUNT TTOO-TTEN’S
GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSES
8
The Guardians’ Universe
Nothing happened.
Boo shifted his paws again on the hot rock as the boy came out of the hut. ‘That’s it?’
The boy nodded.
‘What happens now?’
‘I don’t know. I feed the dinosaurs in the morning. I feed the dinosaurs in the—’
‘I understand,’ said Boo hurriedly. He’d just have to see what happened. How did people get about in this universe? Back home you took a tortoise train, though not if you were in a hurry.
Boo lowered his bum carefully onto the warm rock and tried to make conversation.
‘How long have you been here?’
The boy blinked. ‘How long?’
‘Where did you come from then?’
For a moment he thought the boy would just repeat his question again. But instead he nodded. ‘I come from the holding pens. Lots of Yesterdays in pens,’ he said sadly. ‘Just me here. Lonely. Lonely…’
‘What are the pens like?’ asked Boo quietly.
The boy frowned, as though he wasn’t used to describing things. ‘Rock walls. Can’t see out. Food in morning. Food in evening. Not dinosaur food. Good food in pens. Lots of people. Good to cuddle up at night.’
‘Were your parents there?’
‘Parents?’ The boy frowned.
‘You know. Older people. People who love you. Look after you.’
The boy looked at him strangely. ‘No older people in pens. When you tall as me you work. I feed the dinosaurs. Feed them in the morning. Feed them at—’
‘Yes,’ said Boo hurriedly. He tried to absorb it all. Yesterday—his Yesterday—must have lived in the pens before she came here too. He tried to imagine them from the boy’s halting words. Rock pens with no comfort, no one to teach you or care for you. Just food, twice a day, till you were tall enough to work.
Boo gazed at the boy, sitting on a rock now with his grubby hands dangling in his lap, waiting for the evening feeding routine that was all he knew.
How had Yesterday survived this? Not just survived, but learnt to Find, managed to tame the dinosaurs, the first friends she’d ever had…
Suddenly a droning sounded far off on the horizon. Boo sniffed. Something was coming. Something that smelt strong and bloody…
Was it a bogey? But the boy stood up and nodded at the speck growing larger in the dull grey sky.
‘Food coming. Dinnertime.’
Boo stared. The flying thing was a long tube of rusty orange, suddenly bright in this world of grey. He sniffed. It carried meat. But there was another smell, a machine smell, which came from the dark smoke at the rear of the tube.
How could something fly that had no wings, or nothing winged to pull it?
The tube began to drop. Wheels appeared below it, like the wheels on the ancient Heroes’ wheelchairs. All at once they touched the ground. The tube rolled closer, closer, slowing all the time.
And then it stopped.
‘Skeeeewrkk!!!’ Suddenly the sky was full of monsters; from giant ones like the flying dinosaur he’d seen before, to tiny ones no bigger than his nose. More monsters thudded across the ground.
Boo gulped. He was a Hero, he reminded himself. Not a small scared puppy…
The tube opened like the petals of a flower opening for a tiny flying pig. But this flower was full of meat: giant whitish bones with shreds of red; and lumps of grey, oozing purple blood. Boo blinked, and suddenly the meat had vanished under the rampaging dinosaurs.
‘They are hungry,’ said the boy. ‘Always, always hungry.’
‘Yes,’ said Boo softly. ‘What’s your job then?’ he added. ‘That tube thing does the feeding…’
‘This.’ The boy picked up what looked like a stick that leant against the hut. He walked towards the feeding monsters.
The frenzy was changing. The meat had almost vanished, Boo realised, stuffed into a hundred starving mouths. Now the large dinosaurs turned upon the small, grabbing them in their tiny claws, lifting them to razored jaws…
Zap! Zap! Zap! Something bright and white spurted out of the stick. The largest dinosaur screamed as the white light hit its arm. It dropped the lizard it had been about to eat and lumbered off, still keening.
Zap! Zap! Zap! The other dinosaurs must know all too well what the white light feels like, thought Boo, for they were also lumbering off now, growling, screaming or shrieking at the air.
The tube was almost empty. Blood streaked its walls and floor, and here and there tiny gobbets of meat sat among the stains. The boy picked them up, ravenously stuffing them into his mouth. He held out a scrap of meat to Boo.
Boo shook his head. The smell of meat made him hungry—but not the sort of starving hunger that lingered in the boy’s eyes. There was no way he could take food away from a boy like this.
Were these scraps what Yesterday had to eat? he wondered. They must be. Yesterday didn’t like meat much, even a nice dried rat. No wonder she loved the bananas at school and the scones on Speech Day and
the ice cream he’d brought to Mug’s party…
The boy frowned. He looked at the opened tube and then at Boo.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Boo. His heart was beating under his fur as it did after a Wham! Bam! exercise.
‘Plane should leave.’
‘Plane? You mean that tube?’
‘Plane flies off when meat is gone. Plane never stayed like this before.’
‘Where does it…? Ah,’ said Boo. He gulped. Something told him there was just one reason why the plane thing was still there.
It was waiting for him.
MISSING
One broom. If any Hero has flown off on it, please return to Jones the Janitor. The hall is getting dusty.
FROM THE SCHOOL FOR HEROES NEWSLETTER
9
Flying
Sometimes a Hero had to do what a Hero had to do. And if the only way to help Yesterday was to step into an orange tube and go whizzing through the sky then…
Boo gulped. He’d crossed the universes in wormholes! He’d fought the Greedle! He could do this.
‘See you later!’ he said to the boy, hoping his bark didn’t sound like a whimper. He stuck his tail up at a cool
angle and trotted over to the plane.
At least it smelt like food. Fresh meat, old meat…Boo sniffed again. There were other scents here that weren’t as good. Hunger. Fear. The rage of the dinosaurs when there was never quite enough for them to eat and the white light stopped them eating each other.
Boo stepped up onto the metal of the plane and sat among the stains, and the sides began to close about him. Snap! It sounded like a wolf snapping at a fly, thought Boo. And then the fly would be down in his dark tummy, being digested, just like he was here in the dark too…
Stop it, he told himself. After going through a whale and coming out the other end, he knew what digestive juices smelt like! This was just a box, that’s all. Look like a Hero! he told himself.
He sat up straighter, pricked his ears and tried to make his tail stick up instead of curling. Look out, Guardians! The werewolf Hero is approaching, he thought, as he checked that Squeak was still in his pouch. The little mouse seemed to be asleep. Boo envied him.
The plane was moving now, its wheels humming against the stones. Then suddenly they were airborne, which made Boo feel like he’d left his tummy on the ground.
‘Owooo!’ He couldn’t help a tiny howl. Was this what it felt like to be a flying pig? But flying pigs flapped their little wings, they didn’t whoosh up into the sky. And they were out in the fresh air, with little flowers to stick their noses in, not shut up in a metal box…
Boo gulped. Something was wrong with his tummy! He’d never felt like this before! What was happening to him?
Was there a secret deadly weapon on the plane?
Had the Guardians decided to destroy him? Maybe they were afraid of him, a Hero on a mission to find his friend.
Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs Page 4