FFWATTAANNNGGGG!
The wires jumped with the surge of power. Mini shafts of lightning shot out in every direction, smashing glasses, shattering cupboard doors and sending the rats scurrying for cover under the desk with the old woman. Grumpfart was blown clean off her feet and went whizzing through the air with her huge dress blown right over her head so that you could see her ginormous green knickers – not a pretty sight. She landed in the far corner with a loud squelch.
SHHPLOOOP!
The slumped body in the chair jerked and jolted. For a split second you could see the skeleton inside glowing a ghastly green. The monster’s hair stood on end and his body suddenly rocketed from the chair, hit the ceiling and stayed there for several seconds, humming with electricity, before crashing back down to the floor. Astonishingly, he landed on his feet and stood there, swaying gently.
The eyes popped open – well, one of them at any rate. The other seemed to be stuck shut. The Stitcher snatched up a broom handle and prodded the head with it until the eye snapped open.
‘Hmmmm – that’s better,’ muttered The Stitcher, switching off the synthesizer and removing the clips. The monster stood there, swathed in clouds of smoke as they drifted from his super-heated body. Grumpfart had recovered from her unexpected air travel and came over to admire the new monster.
‘What will it do?’ UURRKKK!
The Stitcher ignored her and gazed at her new creation. ‘There, my dear. And how are we today? Hmm?’
The monster’s eyes rested on The Stitcher. His jaw worked up and down. His mouth fell open. ‘Muh, muh, muh,’ he went, over and over, like a lost lamb, his voice getting louder all the time. ‘Muh meee, mummy!’
‘Yes, my sweet. That’s very good. How do you feel?’
The monster answered in short bursts. ‘I – am – jumpy.’
‘Hmmm. You’ve had a bit of a shock,’ muttered The Stitcher, and her face cracked a wicked smile. ‘About thirty thousand volts,’ she added with a cackle.
‘What – is – my – name – please?’ began the monster, but then his voice suddenly changed and he spoke almost normally.
‘High cloud will move in a westerly direction bringing rain to all parts by the end of the afternoon. Temperatures will be below normal and – oh – dear – my – head – feels – funny.’
‘Hmmm,’ said The Stitcher. ‘I must have connected a bit from an old television set to your brain and you’re picking up the weather forecast. Hmmm. I shall call you – Weatherman.’
‘– An area of high pressure is moving in from the west bringing more rain on Thursday and there is –’
‘That’s quite enough!’ snapped The Stitcher, banging the monster’s head with the broom handle again.
‘Ooooh!’ giggled Grumpfart, holding her own noddle.
The monster jerked. ‘My – name – is – Weather – man. I – like – that. Thank – you.’
‘Hmmm. Now let’s test your reactions.’ The Stitcher covered her own face with both hands. A moment later she whipped her hands away and shouted – ‘BOO!’
Weatherman jumped almost a mile in the air and he burst into tears. ‘Please – don’t – do – that. I – am – scared. Please – mum-mee.’
The Stitcher groaned and her head slumped forward. ‘Another scared monster. Will I never create one that has no fear? What is the point of having monsters that are so easily frightened?’
She turned to Weatherman. ‘Listen to me, tin-head. You must never show how scared you are, all right? People will just laugh at you and you are supposed to strike fear into their hearts. Now off you go like a good boy and join the others.’
‘Yes – mummy,’ croaked Weatherman and he plodded away down the hallway while The Stitcher gazed after him. He’d only taken a dozen steps when his left arm fell off. He bent down, picked it up with his right hand, scratched his head with it and carried on.
The Stitcher didn’t notice. ‘That’s one more,’ she muttered. ‘Sixty years of work and I’m almost done. Hmm. All I have to do now is complete my masterpiece, or maybe I should call it my monsterpiece! Ha ha ha!’ she sniggered. ‘And he’d better be fearless. I’m sure I know what to do to his brain. This time I shall get it right and then I’ll be ready to take my revenge on the world and let loose ALL my crazy creations!’
And she broke into the kind of horrible cackle you might expect to hear falling out of the crabby, brown-toothed mouth of an ancient crone who held a nasty grudge against the entire world.
‘HA HA HA HA HA HAH!’
‘Ha ha ha ha ha hah’ it echoed down the silent, stony corridors of despair.
HOW VERY AWFUL!
3 Back to the Soup Bowl…
Ben struggled to heave himself out of the huge soup bowl. He kept slipping back in. Charlie thought it the funniest thing ever. His friend’s head would appear at the edge of the bowl for a few seconds and then suddenly vanish back into the gloop.
Eventually Charlie offered Ben his arm to grip on to and Ben managed to drag himself out and slop on to the floor.
‘You’re a bit of a mess,’ Charlie observed.
‘Really? I hadn’t noticed,’ muttered Ben, trying to wipe his eyes clear of soup so that he could at least see.
Charlie didn’t like the look of the dank, stony walls of wherever they were. ‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘I fell into some tomato soup,’ Ben answered.
‘I mean, how did we get here and where are we?’ Charlie went on. His eyes were beginning to bulge. He was already wondering what dreadful dangers lurked beyond the dark grey stones of the walls.
Ben tried to wipe sloppy slabs of soup from his arms, chest and legs, but he only managed to spread it around even more.
‘It was your Cosmic Pyjamas,’ Ben pointed out. ‘It was that stupid picture. I touched it and WHAM! BAM! Here we are.’
‘Here we are where?’ asked Charlie.
‘Just a moment, I’ll look at the map.’
‘What map?’ Charlie asked.
‘The map I haven’t got,’ Ben answered heavily.
‘How – how are we going to get back?’ Charlie moaned.
‘We’ll take the bus from the bus stop.’
‘What bus stop?’
‘The one behind the giant soup bowl,’ Ben went on and to his amazement Charlie began to walk round to the far side of the bowl. He soon came hurrying back.
‘There isn’t one,’ he squawked.
‘Of course there isn’t, jelly-brain.’ Ben couldn’t help laughing.
‘How will we get back then?’ Charlie repeated with increasing concern.
Ben shrugged. ‘Don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘But look at it this way. We got here somehow, so there must be a way back.’
‘Not helpful,’ complained Charlie.
‘Sorr-ree,’ muttered Ben.
They sat down against a mouldy wall and tried to work out what had happened. It was almost as if they had travelled through outer space, but they hadn’t been in a rocket or space suits, so surely that was impossible? In which case, what had happened? Obviously they were no longer in Charlie’s house and, without being able to prove anything, it felt as if they’d travelled hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles.
Charlie had a bruised backside and Ben was covered in tomato soup. They were in a large room with a stone floor, stone walls and a high stone ceiling. There was a thick wooden door in one corner and there was no obvious way they could have got into the room apart from the door, which was shut.
Besides, Ben had fallen straight into the soup and that meant they must have come from above, through a ceiling made of solid stone, which was impossible. It was a mystery they couldn’t solve. Their minds were soon taken off the problem by noises from beyond the door. Someone was coming.
Clump, clomp, clump, clomp…
It sounded like a giant wearing hobnail boots. Quite possibly a child-eating giant with hobnail boots, one who especially liked tomato-soup-flavoured children. Charlie shot b
ehind the giant soup bowl. Maybe he was hoping to escape by bus. Ben went and joined him and they both prayed for a No. 177 to come along. It didn’t.
Clump, clomp, clump, clomp…
The door opened and in walked a tall, small child. She was little and grubby, about eight or nine years old, but she had two large tins tied to her feet with hairy string to make her taller, which is why she was both small and tall. Her face was pinched and her hair lank and greasy. Ben certainly wasn’t scared of her, so he popped out from behind the soup bowl.
‘Oh!’ The girl took several steps back, keeping her eyes on him all the time. ‘Is you one of them?’ she asked, with a surprised frown.
‘I don’t know,’ Ben answered. ‘Who are them?’
The girl looked back over her shoulder towards the door. ‘Them Back There. I ain’t seen you before. What you wearin’ all that soup for?’
‘I like the smell,’ Ben quipped.
‘Where did you come from?’ the girl demanded.
‘The soup bowl,’ Ben answered truthfully.
Charlie decided it was safe for him to come out too. After all, Ben hadn’t been killed yet, so Charlie thought it was safe to put in an appearance.
‘There’s two of you!’ cried the girl. ‘How did you get in?’
‘We were hoping you could tell us,’ Ben said. ‘One moment we were playing on Charlie’s bed and the next I was trying not to drown in the soup. Name’s Ben, by the way. He’s Charlie. How about you?’
The girl shook her head. ‘I don’t have no name,’ she said quickly. ‘Except the ones Them Back There call me – Scumhead, Wormbag, Tin-toes and so on.’
‘That’s not nice.’ Charlie was shocked. ‘Suppose we call you Small-Tall, because that’s what you are, sort of.’
The girl seemed impressed. ‘You’s clever, you is.’ Charlie lifted his chin proudly, but the girl hadn’t finished. ‘Except you’re wearin’ pyjamas, which is weird, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. An’ they’ve got funny pictures on ’em.’
Charlie ignored that. ‘What is this place?’ he asked.
Small-Tall shrugged. ‘It’s where we are, innit?’
‘Yes, but where are we?’ Charlie insisted.
‘In here, of course! I thought you was clever. Anyways, what you doin’ here? Have you come to work?’
‘No way!’ said Charlie. ‘We’re going home as soon as we can.’
Small-Tall burst out laughing. ‘Are you doolallylilo or somefing? Nobody goes home from here!’
The boys looked at each other with alarm. Were they in some kind of prison? Ben frowned. ‘We were hoping you might help. You could tell us where we are, for a start, and who Them Back There are. This is your house, after all.’
‘My house? You havin’ a laugh? House of Horrors, this is. Belongs to The Stitcher. Everyone knows that.’
Charlie had turned pale. He didn’t like the idea of anyone called The Stitcher. He hardly dared to ask, but he had to know who The Stitcher was.
‘She’s a nasty old hag-bag, that’s what she is. Not that you’re likely to see her. She only comes out about once a year, an’ when she does you always know she’s comin’ cos of the smell an’ the noise. Grumpfart goes wiv her, see? She’s a walkin’ cesspit, she is, you wait an’ see. An’ if you do see ’em, you watch out. The Stitcher’s Big Trouble. She’s the one what makes Them Back There.’ Small-Tall nodded to herself.
Ben was losing patience. ‘But who,’ he began slowly and determinedly, ‘are Them Back There?’
‘Monsters, of course,’ declared Small-Tall. ‘Everybody knows that! Where you been all your life? I’m tellin’ you, this is a House of Horrors.’
Charlie hurriedly sat down in case he fainted with shock. ‘Monsters?’ he repeated faintly. ‘What – what – what sort of monsters?’
‘Oh, you know,’ Small-Tall answered casually. ‘This an’ that.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ben practically yelled at her. ‘What sort of monsters are we talking about?’ Ben was dying to know. He reckoned this was the most interesting thing that had happened to him in ages.
‘Dunno, bit of a mix, I guess – there’s a vampire, Dracolio. An’ there’s Pizza-Face. He’s called that cos his face is so mashed up it looks like pizza toppin’. Then there’s ’Andy Mandy – she’s a laugh! Got a hand where her ear should be!’
Ben was intrigued. He’d always wanted to meet a real vampire. Charlie, on the other hand, was horrified. How could Small-Tall joke about monsters? She hadn’t finished either.
‘An’ then there’s werewolves, bogtrolls, vampwolves, werepires, boglevamps – mix ’n’ match really. Oh yeah, almost forgot – there’s Headless Harry and his Headless Dog too.’ Small-Tall looked at the boys to see what effect she’d had on them.
Charlie’s legs had gone all wobbly. ‘Who, or what, is Headless Harry and his Headless Dog?’ he asked, with a trembling lip.
Small-Tall shrugged. ‘Bit obvious, innit? They ain’t got no heads, have they? At least they have got heads, but not on their shoulders. They have to carry ’em. Looks like they’ve got handbags, really.’
Charlie gulped. Heads being carried like handbags? ‘Aren’t you sc-sc-scared of them?’
Small-Tall stopped for a moment and thought. ‘Not really,’ she answered. ‘It gets nasty when they shout an’ come after me, but I’m too quick. Anyways, I’m the only one who’ll speak to ’em. The others is too scared.’
‘What others?’ asked Ben. ‘Who are the others?’
‘Kitchen kids, of course. Dozens of us kitchen kids, there are. There’s always more kids comin’, that’s what I thought you was doin’. Them monsters go out and get ’em and we end up here as slaves. That’s what we are – slaves, stolen off the streets.’
‘That’s terrible,’ said Charlie, genuinely shocked. ‘Don’t you ever try to escape?’
‘Are you jokin’?’ squeaked Small-Tall. ‘Fat chance of escape wiv all them monsters about. An’ if The Stitcher found us tryin’, she’d monsterize us too.’
One thing still puzzled Ben. ‘Small-Tall, why do you wear tins on your feet?’
Small-Tall rolled her eyes. ‘Can’t do the cookin’ otherwise, can I? Can’t see them pans proper without these. My idea. I thought of ’em.’ She gave the boys a proud grin. ‘I fink of lots of fings, I do. You’d be surprised what I fink of. Now, I got to take the soup to the kitchen. You can help if you want. Then you can meet the kitchen kids.’
Small-Tall got behind the giant soup bowl, leaned her shoulder against it and began to push. The boys were surprised to discover there were four small wheels hidden underneath.
‘This is their supper.’ Small-Tall sniffed. ‘An’ they’re welcome to it too.’
‘Hang on a moment,’ Ben said, hopping after her. ‘I think I’ve left a shoe and sock in there.’
‘Good,’ she grunted. ‘They’ll give it extra flavour.’ And they went through to the kitchen.
It was complete and utter bedlam. The noise was extraordinary, impossibly loud and overwhelming.
Charlie and Ben were staring at a steam-filled nightmare.
4 The Grub Tub
Children of all ages rushed about, carrying pans, spilling plates, dropping cutlery, dragging sacks of vegetables.
Everyone yelled at everyone else. Several of the smaller children had tins tied to their feet, like Small-Tall. They were all dressed in shapeless, colourless rags.
Right in the centre there was a stepladder crowned with a small platform. Sitting on top, with his legs dangling over the edge, was a pinch-faced, spotty teenager. When he wasn’t blowing screeching blasts down an old, battered trumpet, he was yelling commands through a megaphone made of rolled-up newspaper.
‘More potatoes at Saucepan Five!’ BLAAAAAAAAAARRR! ‘Hurry up, skanky pants! Oi! Tiddle-head! You’ve dropped the bacon again!’ PAH PA-RARRRRR! ‘Come on, get a move on. Them Back There are waiting.’ BLAR BLARRR!!! ‘What are you two mud-brains doing at the door there? Get on wit
h your work!’
Ben made a half-hearted attempt to clear some of the soup from his clothes and nudged Charlie. ‘He’s talking to us. Act like you know what you’re doing.’
‘What am I doing?’ squeaked Charlie, freezing on the spot, while Ben heaved a sack of cabbages on to his back.
‘Just look like you’re helping,’ hinted Ben.
Charlie looked round for something useful to do and, spotting a carrot that someone had dropped, he picked it up and approached some of the children.
‘Excuse me, is this your carrot?’ he asked. ‘Anyone lost a carrot?’ They ignored him, pushing him out of the way, until Charlie began to get cross with them.
‘This must be somebody’s carrot!’ he cried.
Ben shook his head and sighed. Charlie had never fitted in anywhere. He’d always stuck out like a sore thumb. ‘Charlie, come here! Take the other end of this sack and help me. Honestly!’
‘Honestly what?’ demanded Charlie, still in a mood.
‘Doesn’t matter. Keep your head down. We don’t want to get noticed. We’ll keep carrying this sack round and round. I don’t suppose anyone will realize we’re not actually doing anything. Don’t speak to anyone but keep your eyes open.’
‘I won’t be able to see where I’m going if I don’t,’ said Charlie crossly, putting a smile on Ben’s face.
‘You know what I mean. Look out for any other doors, or anything unusual.’
‘Ben, this whole place is unusual, turtle-head.’
Round and round went the boys, taking note of everything – the mess, the noise, the incredible hive of activity. Most of all they noticed the rag-tag children. A few were older than them, but mostly they were a similar age or younger. Working non-stop, they hurtled from one job to the next, urged on by frantic trumpet blasts and bellowed orders from the pimple-faced boy on the platform above.
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