Taken Over

by Z. Fraillon

  Taken Over

  By Zana Fraillon

  Illustrations by Simon Swingler

  Monstrum House: Taken Over

  published in 2010 by

  Hardie Grant Egmont

  85 High Street

  Prahran, Victoria 3181, Australia

  www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

  in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic,

  mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written

  permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

  A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

  Text copyright © 2010 Zana Fraillon

  Illustration and design copyright © 2010 Hardie Grant Egmont

  Design and illustration by Simon Swingler

  Typeset by Ektavo

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Author dedication: To Eva, For Mockingbirds,

  Empires, Handmaids and more

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  1

  It was a stupid thing to do. A very, very stupid thing to do. Jasper McPhee wished he hadn’t done it. He wished he hadn’t even thought about doing it. But he had. The stupid thought had scuttled into his head, and before he had a chance to shoo it back out, he had done it. And now he was in serious trouble.

  ‘You are so dead,’ Felix whispered.

  Jasper was hiding under a table in the food hall. It was the first day of his second year at the Monstrum House School for Troubled Children, and he was already in trouble.

  He was trying to avoid Bruno, the head prefect.

  ‘Do you think he’ll remember?’ Jasper asked Felix hopefully. ‘He could have forgotten. After all, we were away for a whole six weeks. Lots of stuff can happen over the holidays.’

  But Jasper knew Bruno would never forget what he’d done at the end of last year. ‘Why did I do it?’ he groaned.

  Saffy snorted. ‘Because you are a complete – ’ Jasper jabbed Saffy in the shins before she could finish the sentence.

  Jasper peered out at the prefects from under the table. Bruno was the only one he recognised from the previous year. The rest were new. Jasper couldn’t believe it. Bruno had had it in for him all of first year. He had personally given Jasper more penalty points than all the other prefects put together. Which is why, on Bruno’s last day, Jasper had given him a little going-away present.

  ‘I thought the prefects only did one year here,’ whispered Jasper. ‘They’re not meant to come back!’

  ‘Well, it looks like he did. Maybe he had some unfinished business?’ said Saffy.

  Jasper softly thumped his head against the table leg. ‘Kill me now and get it over with,’ he mumbled to himself. He knew Bruno wouldn’t let him off the hook easily.

  Jasper thought of the way the rotten eggs had sailed perfectly through the open windows of the prefects’ bus. He thought of the look on Bruno’s face when the eggs hit him. Bruno had looked out the window and his eyes had met Jasper’s. His face had been dripping with stinking, disgusting, rotten egg. And Jasper had waved as the bus pulled away.

  It had been pretty awesome. In fact, better than awesome. It had been pure genius.

  Except now, Bruno was back. Now, it didn’t seem so genius. Now it just seemed stupid.

  ‘Hang on,’ Felix muttered quietly. ‘I don’t think it’s him.’

  Jasper rolled his eyes. ‘Very funny. Of course it’s him! I know the thug brigade all look like the same lumps of muscle, but that’s definitely ...’ Jasper stopped talking. Bruno was carefully surveying the students in the food hall. There was something different.

  ‘Yeah,’ Saffy murmured. ‘There’s no scar.’

  Jasper squinted at the prefect. Saffy was right. Bruno had a huge scar running down his face, but this prefect didn’t.

  ‘And I think his eyes are a bit closer together,’ Felix commented.

  ‘So, d’you think it’s safe to come out?’ Jasper whispered.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ Saffy said. ‘It’s definitely not him.’

  Jasper took a deep breath and crawled out from under the table and up onto his seat. But as soon as he did, the prefect’s eyes locked onto him.

  Jasper held his breath.

  The prefect reached into his pocket and pulled out a photo.

  ‘Uh, Jasper. I think he’s seen you,’ said Felix.

  ‘Maybe you should get back under the table,’ Saffy suggested.

  ‘Too late,’ Jasper whispered. The prefect was heading their way.

  Jasper leapt up from the table and ran. There was no way he was hanging around to get beaten up by a Bruno look-alike. Jasper was a fast runner. He could outrun most kids. And even with all the junk food he’d gorged on over the holidays, he was still speedy. The door was only two steps away …

  Jasper made a dive for it, but he was wrenched back by the hood of his jumper. He felt himself lifted up and spun slowly around. The Bruno look-alike held Jasper at least a foot off the ground. He pressed his nose against Jasper’s. ‘You’re McPhee, aren’t you?’

  Jasper gulped, ‘Um, well,’ he began. Being suspended in the air by a hoodie was really quite uncomfortable.

  The prefect dropped Jasper to the ground. ‘My brother told me all about you,’ he sneered, and shoved Jasper out of the food hall and into the corridor, where they were alone. No-one could help him now.

  2

  Jasper closed his eyes. Bruno’s brother! He was going to die. And if this guy was anything like Bruno, it would be a long and painful death.

  Jasper hated the prefects at Monstrum House. They were probably the worst thing at this place, which was saying a lot. The monsters were dangerous, the teachers were definitely creepy, but the prefects were just nasty.

  Jasper had been to plenty of schools. He’d been expelled countless times. But he’d never been to a school like this – with prefects who wanted to beat you up, teachers who could read your thoughts, and monsters all over the place. But perhaps the weirdest thing about Monstrum House was that of all the schools Jasper had been to, this was his favourite. At least, it had been until now.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jasper tried.

  ‘So am I,’ the prefect scoffed. ‘Sorry I wasn’t here to see it.’ Then the prefect grabbed Jasper’s hand and started shaking it up and down. Jasper felt as though his arm was about to be wrenched from his body.

  ‘All those years of putting up with Bruno and no-one has ever tried anything like that. Awesome. You’ve got guts. I just wish I’d seen it. Boris, by the way.’

  Jasper’s brain was still trying to catch up with what he was hearing. ‘Um, I’m Jasper. Hi,’ he managed.

  ‘Bruno is absolutely spewing. He wouldn’t stop going on about it. All holidays he was trying to work out how to get back at you. When I was accepted for my year here, he was stoked. He gave me your picture so I could work out who you were straight away. You should’ve heard all the things he wanted me to do to you.’

  Jasper gulped.

  There were actually two schools called the Monstrum House School for Troubled Children. They both looked the same, but were very different. The Monstrum House everyone knew about was a military school. That’s where parents thought their ‘troubled’ kids were sent to be straightened out.

  But w
hat most people didn’t know was that some of the students were selected to go to another, secret Monstrum House. A Monstrum House where they were taught how to hunt monsters. The two schools didn’t usually have anything to do with each other – except for the fact that the biggest, toughest kids from the military school were sent to the monster-hunting school in their last year to be prefects. That’s why Bruno was at Jasper’s school last year, and why his brother Boris was here now.

  ‘So tell me everything,’ said Boris. ‘Every detail. I want to –’

  ‘NOW!’ yelled Saffy, as she and Felix came bursting through the door. Jasper managed to catch a glimpse of Saffy’s furious face before she launched her kickboxing attack into Boris’s stomach. Saffy had a lethal kick. So did Felix.

  ‘No, it’s OK!’ Jasper shouted, but Felix had already swung his foot up to karate kick Boris in the head.

  ‘Yikes,’ Felix yelped, hopping backwards as he rubbed his foot.

  The last person Felix and Saffy attacked had been knocked out cold, but their kicks bounced off Boris like rubber.

  Boris rubbed his head, looking confused.

  ‘Are you, um, OK?’ Jasper asked Boris nervously.

  Boris looked at Jasper. ‘Friends of yours?’ he asked quietly.

  Jasper nodded, as Saffy and Felix both shook their heads furiously.

  Boris turned towards Saffy and Felix. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Boris,’ he said, holding out his hand.

  Saffy blinked. Felix let out a shocked laugh.

  ‘He’s Bruno’s brother. But he’s nothing like Bruno. Right?’ Jasper looked to Boris for assurance.

  ‘I can’t stand him. Last year, when he was here, was the best year of my life,’ Boris grinned.

  A couple of third-year students sauntered out of the food hall. ‘Are you serious? A Smurmymorph was living in your basement?’ one of them exclaimed. They dropped their voices to a whisper when they noticed Boris, and walked quickly away.

  Boris followed them with his gaze. ‘A Smurmymorph?’ he muttered under his breath. His eyes flicked to Jasper. ‘What’s going on here? This is a school for serious delinquents, right? Where they send the kids who are too bad for military school. That’s what this place is supposed to be.’

  Jasper looked at Felix and Saffy. ‘Um, well,’ he stuttered.

  ‘Because, to be honest, none of the kids here seem that bad to me,’ Boris continued. ‘The kids at the military school I went to last year were far worse than anyone I’ve seen here so far.’

  ‘Give us time,’ Saffy shrugged. She looked sharply at Jasper, who took his cue.

  ‘Yeah, first day back and all,’ he added.

  ‘And what is it with this place?’ asked Boris. ‘It’s freezing! And it’s so dark, and ... is it just my two-way radio, or is there, like, some creepy whispering going on around the place?’

  Jasper froze. Could Boris actually hear the whispering too?

  Felix laughed, ‘Yeah, Jasper used to go on about some weird whispering, hey, Jasp?’

  Jasper mumbled something into his hoodie. He’d learnt last year that the strange whispering he heard was the result of a monster bite. A bite that had infected him with monsterness. And unless he controlled the whispering, he would slowly turn into a monster himself. He hadn’t told Saffy and Felix about that yet. Whispering was the first monster characteristic to develop. Jasper knew there were other kids at school who’d been bitten too – they were called the Whispered. But Boris? A prefect?

  Saffy shared a look with Felix. ‘Maybe it’s just your mind playing tricks. Fear will do that to you. This is a pretty cold and spooky place – until you get used to it,’ she added.

  ‘I don’t scare easily,’ Boris said. ‘But it is really cold.’ He was interrupted by his radio crackling to life. He listened intently, and then said, ‘Roger that. I’m on my way, sir. Over and out.’

  Boris nodded at Jasper, Saffy and Felix. ‘Well, duty calls. But McPhee, you owe me a story,’ he said, turning and marching away.

  As soon as Boris had turned the corner, Saffy took off her shoe and inspected her foot. A massive bruise was blossoming across it. ‘Ow! It felt like I kicked a bloomin’ brick wall!’ she complained.

  ‘Last time we come to save you, Jasper,’ said Felix. ‘You weren’t even in trouble.’

  ‘Gee, don’t sound so disappointed,’ Jasper replied. ‘Anyway we have Rest and Relaxation class now, you can both let your pain simply float away. Come on.’

  The three of them started down the hallway.

  ‘Who would have thought, hey?’ Felix said as they walked towards class. ‘Bruno has a brother who isn’t a complete bully! Mad.’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t know if we can trust him,’ said Saffy. ‘It’s a bit weird – him asking all those questions about the school.’

  ‘Maybe we should let him know what’s going on,’ said Jasper, thinking of what Boris had said about the whispering. ‘He was pretty nice. And he suspects something. I bet he’ll find out sooner or later.’

  ‘Shall I go through all the flaws in your thinking?’ Saffy scoffed. ‘One, he is a prefect. They don’t know about monsters. Which brings me to two, they aren’t supposed to know about monsters. Three, he would think you were insane, because, honestly, who still believes in monsters at our age? Four, he is too old to see monsters anyway, and five –’ ‘Unless,’ Jasper interrupted, then stopped.

  Unless he’s been bitten by one, Jasper thought. And he is one of the Whispered. Then he’d still be able to see monsters.

  ‘Unless?’ Saffy prodded.

  Jasper grinned. ‘Unless you’re a complete know-it-all who has to be right all the time, pain in the –’

  ‘ATTENTION!’ Stenka’s voice crackled over the intercom.

  The three of them stopped in their tracks. The Monstrum House intercom didn’t sound like the normal, tinny sort you heard in most schools. It sounded as though a voice was drilling into your brain.

  ‘All students proceed to the assembly hall immediately for an emergency school assembly. THAT MEANS NOW!’

  Felix jumped. ‘We’d better go,’ he said, and started in the direction of the hall.

  ‘Maybe we’ll get out of Rest and Relaxation,’ Saffy said to Jasper with a wink.

  Jasper hated Rest and Relaxation – the class where their teacher tried to make them relax at the same time as scaring them half out of their wits. But an emergency school meeting?

  That really didn’t sound good.

  3

  The hall was buzzing with anticipation. No-one knew what the assembly was about.

  ‘Emergency assembly? What do you reckon?’ Saffy asked.

  ‘I reckon there must be some sort of emergency,’ Jasper grinned.

  Saffy rolled her eyes.

  There was a chuckle from behind them. ‘So, they let you back in?’

  Jasper’s hood was pulled over his eyes by a fourth-year boy in a black hoodie.

  ‘Mac!’ Felix cheered.

  ‘Let us back in?’ Jasper replied, as he squirmed out from under Mac’s grip. ‘You’re the old one. Isn’t there an age limit at Monstrum? Are there any other fourth years, or are you the only one immature enough to be allowed back in?’

  Mac smiled. ‘Ha ha. Actually, there are nine others in my class. But this is it for me. One more year before I can start work in the outside world. I was thinking of joining a tracking crew, but then you have to work night shifts, and I don’t know if that’s me.’

  Felix nudged Jasper. ‘That’s like your mum, right?’

  Jasper nodded. He’d only just found out at the end of last year that his mum wasn’t actually a garbage collector, but worked for Monstrum House with their Tracking Department. Instead of spending her mornings driving a truck to pick up rubbish, she was following monsters as they crept through the dark streets. Jasper had been happier thinking she was a garbo.

  ‘So what’s all this about then?’ Saffy asked Mac.

  Mac smiled. ‘Have you seen that pl
ant – the one that looks like ivy – that’s growing, like, all over the school? I reckon that a Day of Laying might be coming.’ Mac clapped his hands in excitement.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Felix groaned. ‘He clapped. He’s excited. This can’t be good.’

  Jasper was thinking the same thing. The only time Mac got excited was when he was hunting monsters.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ said a gravelly voice.

  Jasper was amazed that he hadn’t heard Principal Von Strasser enter the hall. Von Strasser always rode a horse, even indoors, and usually the clip-clopping was enough to silence everyone. Jasper turned to see the principal wearing a purple samurai outfit and a helmet on his head. He was sitting majestically on top of his horse. And the horse was wearing slippers.

  ‘Nice helmet,’ Saffy whispered sarcastically.

  ‘Why thank you, Ms Dominguez.’ Von Strasser beamed over the crowd at Saffy, who turned a deep red.

  ‘Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome one and all to another exciting year at Monstrum House,’ announced the principal. ‘As you can see, the first years have not arrived yet, and will not do so for another week. I am sure they’re still putting graffiti on walls, stealing cars and other such leisurely activities. But we, we have serious work to get down to. Preferably before they arrive.’

  There were murmurs around the hall.

  ‘SILENCE!’ screeched Stenka, the scariest teacher in the school. No-one made a sound.

  ‘I am sorry to say that, once again, the Day of Laying has come upon us,’ said Von Strasser.

  Mac elbowed Jasper in the ribs.

  ‘In the coming days, a swarm of monsters known as Skrinkerscreech will attempt to infiltrate the school grounds,’ continued the principal. ‘The Skrinkerscreech are flying, insect-like monsters.’ Von Strasser paused. ‘Well, I say insect-like, but they are actually about the size of a goat. Or a very small horse. But they look like insects. Quite terrifying, really. In fact, of all the monsters within the Screecher order, I would say that these probably scare me the most. Perhaps it’s their oversized stingers, or their fanged mandibles, or the fact that they were the first species of monster to be classed in the Screecher order. Hmmm …’ Von Strasser stopped speaking, apparently lost in thought.