Hamish and the Monster Patrol Read online

  The strange grip so tight around his waist, it’s hard to breathe . . .

  He can hardly catch his breath as the wind whips around his face . . .

  The clouds around him seem darker tonight. They shift and change rapidly, the cracks of thunder leave his ears ringing as he cascades through the air towards something . . .

  But what?

  Whatever it is can’t be good. Why can’t he have nicer dreams? Dreams where he dances around in a land of candy floss and chocolate rivers, skipping over rainbows while being chased by a friendly unicorn called Dumpling?

  But no. This is his dream. As real as anything you’re looking at now.

  A world so cold and dark and wet.

  Hamish feels hopeless as he loses all sight of where he could possibly be.

  Now the grip around his waist loosens.

  He stops perfectly still in the air . . .

  The waves somewhere down beneath him crash and roll. Lightning crackles through the air. Wind and untameable electricity prickle his skin.

  The swirling clouds begin to take a different form altogether.

  Something takes shape in front of him . . .

  7

  DAYS UNTIL ARRIVAL: 4!

  When Hamish got up for breakfast the next day, he thought immediately about Alice. What kind of hotel would send a bus all the way from the Amazon to Starkley? They were obviously mad. Maybe they thought Alice had been making a prank call. Plus, buses were notoriously slow. It would take months to arrive! And how was it going to get over the ocean?!

  There were more pressing issues at hand, in any case.

  As he sat down at the breakfast table, Hamish could hear his dad talking to some other people in his study. Hamish used every opportunity he could to listen into his dad’s discussions. It was all useful intel to pass on to the PDF. In an ideal world, what Hamish really craved was the chance to join his dad on a mission. Or to have his dad join him on one. And not a rubbish mission either, like one where you sit in a van for six hours and stare at a house. But a cool mission. One where the very fate of the world would rest on the actions of Angus Ellerby and his boy. Anyway, he could hear they were talking about the monster.

  ‘That’s if it even is a monster!’ one person was saying. ‘We don’t know for certain! We just know something is coming and that it seems to be growing. Maybe it’s something nice!’

  ‘Like what?’ a lady barked.

  ‘Like . . . a lovely big kitten?’ the man tried.

  Hamish’s dad had also been keeping him pretty up-todate on all the news. The difference was, when he talked to Hamish he would say things like, ‘It’s probably nothing to worry about.’ And when he talked to other grown-ups he sounded very worried indeed. But he shared whatever he could with Hamish because, as he liked to remind him, Hamish was a junior Belasko agent, after all. And his dad loved hearing Hamish’s ideas, because someone had once told him that ‘kids think differently’.

  Hamish had barely shovelled some cornflakes into his mouth when outside, the siren began to wail. Then the Central Speaker began to honk.

  ‘Oh, not again!’ said his mum, walking in with a teetering pile of paperwork. Emails and letters had been piling up in the Complaints Department of Starkley Town Council, because people had quite a lot to moan about these days. Like the power cuts. And the fact the heating didn’t work sometimes. And the way the taps would only trickle most mornings. And of course the constant honking of the Central Speaker, which really annoyed the woman who lived right opposite it. She said it was like having a mad opera singer shouting randomly in your garden all day.

  Dad burst out of his study as the Central Speaker continued honking.

  ‘This is not a drill!’ he was shouting into his walkietalkie, and outside, all the lamp posts began flashing blue and red. ‘A UFO has been spotted heading to Starkley – and fast!’

  A UFO?

  Now, Hamish knew not to get carried away. UFO just meant an unidentified flying object. I mean, a bird is a UFO until you’ve identified that it’s a bird. If you shot your teacher out of a cannon, they’d be a UFO. Or at least a UFT.

  Oh my gosh. Imagine a whole sky filled with UFTs. You’d never have anywhere to hide!

  ‘Where’s it heading?’ said Dad, and the crackly response came back.

  Too crackly.

  ‘Where?’ he said, grimacing, because we all think that if we grimace we can suddenly hear better for some reason.

  But Hamish had heard just enough to work it out.

  He leapt out of his seat to run for the door and grab his bike. He was absolutely certain the crackly voice had said the word ‘Viola’.

  As he pedalled through Starkley, Hamish saw Belasko agents jumping into trucks all over the place. There was blind panic. They were bumping into each other, dropping their car keys, slapping each other out of the way so they could be the one to drive. Was the UFO the start of another invasion of some kind? Did it have anything to do with the slow-moving sea monster? They still had four days to come up with a plan, didn’t they?!

  Hamish reached Viola Road, skidding to a halt on the tarmac which was slick from rain.

  He looked up in disbelief.

  There was a FLASH of light and he was hit by a blast of hot air. He shielded his eyes and stared at the ground. Beneath him, the wet road dried almost instantly as water and puddles were swept away by something from above.

  There were fumes in the air, and the noise of . . . what was that?

  A chopper? A jet plane?

  Hamish felt tiny against its power and ear-blistering racket.

  ‘Hamish!’

  A tiny voice almost cut through the roar of the engine. Hamish looked up and, through the wobbly air from the fumes and a sky full of dust and old Epic Soda cans and plastic bottles of Anonymous Sauce that had been blown from the bins, he could just make out Alice standing outside her front gate. She was pointing upwards excitedly.

  Hamish unshielded his eyes and saw that, above them both, some kind of flying machine was lowering itself slowly on to the street.

  It was boxy, and NOISY, and long, with three landing skis that now juddered from the base. On the side was some kind of logo. A pair of eyes and a scowl and the letters MP.

  MP?

  Military Police?

  Member of Parliament?

  Mucky Pups?

  The machine didn’t look slick or particularly cool – it looked almost home-made, and dented, and like a scrappy hunk of clunkering steel. You could see all the places it had been mended too, with metal plates hammered over dents and holes. Hamish squinted to see if he could make out who was flying it. There were two shapes in the front window as it turned to make its final landing and slow its engines.

  ‘Hotel shuttlebus!’ mouthed Alice, looking delighted. Her eyes were shining with excitement. But Hamish wasn’t so sure. He ran to Alice protectively, which was nice, though entirely unnecessary, as Alice was the one with all the kung-fu books.

  Now landed, a great burst of white steam rolled over the ground like fallen clouds – and a door fell open. The kids held their breath. Belasko agents were arriving, their cars coming to a halt behind the Alice and Hamish.

  But Alice didn’t want the grown-ups to take over. This was her house; her street. She stepped forward.

  ‘Hello?’ she tried. ‘I’m Alice Shepherd! And this is my friend, Hamish Ellerby!’

  From the smoke, a figure emerged.

  A kid!

  Maybe twelve years old and wearing some kind of dark blue boiler suit – like a plumber! – with that same ‘MP’ logo on his chest, and yellow stripes down each arm and leg.

  ‘They call me Kit!’ he said confidently and with a light accent. ‘Kit Alexander Lopez. And I’m here to pick you up so we can look for your grandmamma.’

  This was not the way people normally introduced themselves. And who says ‘grandmamma’? Alice was intrigued.

  ‘Why do you want to help me look for my Grandma Lydia?’ sh
e said, in awe, because this kid was pretty cool. ‘Who are you exactly?’

  ‘I literally just said I was Kit Alexander Lopez,’ said Kit Alexander Lopez, who had indeed literally just said he was Kit Alexander Lopez.

  Then he smiled and pointed at the logo on the plane.

  ‘Monster Patrol,’ he said, proudly. He looked around at the tall security fences and warning signs. ‘What in the name of Julio is happening here?!’

  Alice was a little intimidated by this guy. He was so sure of himself . . . and also weird.

  ‘WAIT!’

  Hamish spun round to see his dad. Angus Ellerby strode up the street with some of the other Belasko agents. ‘Monster Patrol? You guys wound up years ago!

  You don’t exist!’

  ‘Oh, we exist, mister sir,’ said Kit. ‘But we operate in – how you say – the shadows. And what I mean by that is we operate in secret, not that we hide behind curtains.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Hamish’s dad.

  ‘Also, yes, maybe we are fewer in number than in the old days. And we might have a smaller budget. But we’re here. We’re dedicado. And we’re PREPARED.’

  ‘Right!’ shouted Alice, clapping her hands together, totally convinced. ‘Enough light chit-chat! Let’s go, Hamish!’

  She started to clamber onboard the plane.

  ‘Wait,’ said Hamish. ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s go!’ said Alice. ‘They sent a shuttle! Kit’s here. Let’s go find my grandma!’

  ‘We can’t just . . . go,’ said Hamish, who was always up for adventure and totally got how important it was to always try and save the world, but was also still quite sensible. ‘You need to ring your mum at work and ask her! And there’s a monster coming! And we’ve got school tomorrow!’

  ‘Kit,’ said Dad. ‘How many of you are there left in Monster Patrol?’

  ‘Well, we are having to operate under the radar, señor,’ said Kit. ‘And that makes advertising for vacancies a little tricky.’

  ‘Belasko used to work closely with Monster Patrol many years ago,’ said Dad, looking at Hamish. ‘It was before I joined. Before Monster Patrol changed the way it did. But the story was that Lydia disappeared and Belasko presumed she passed away.’

  Alice’s face fell and Hamish’s dad winced realising how insensitive that sounded.

  ‘You knew about my grandma?’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that? Why did no one tell me about Monster Patrol?’

  She was interrupted by Kit.

  ‘Mister dad, we think Lydia is alive. Only problem is, we don’t know where.’

  ‘I knew she was alive!’ said Alice, her heart leaping.

  ‘All we found when she disappeared was a single boot in the jungle. Her travel diary was lost, and we ran out of clues,’ Kit continued. ‘But then, Alice, you called and asked for “Harry” – the secret Monster Patrol password. So we wondered who you were and how you could have got that information. And we realised you must have seen a clue in the diary. And no matter how hopeless something may seem, you must never ignore a clue. So LET’S GO!’

  Hamish’s eyes widened as Kit yelled. This kid was a real bellower. Hamish looked at Alice. She was bright-eyed and keen to go.

  ‘I’ve got the diary right here!’ she said.

  ‘Then we GO!’ Kit said, in a booming voice. He signalled through the window at his co-pilot and the plane’s engines fired up. A great rattling, shaky noise that blew the dust up from the street and wobbled the lamp posts.

  ‘Alice!’ came a desperate, pleading voice. ‘Wait!’

  ‘What is it, Grenville?’ Alice said kindly.

  He was looking up at her, with big round eyes. She reckoned she knew exactly what this was. Yes, they had their differences, but Grenville must suddenly be proud she was finally getting the chance to find her grandma, and he was clearly about to say something very touching.

  He looked up at her with two pleading eyes.

  ‘Can you bring me back a prawn burrito?’ he said.

  Oh.

  ‘Dad,’ said Hamish, ignoring this because he’d had an idea. An idea that would not only mean he could protect his friend, but help Starkley too. ‘What if Lydia could be useful?’

  ‘Useful?’ said Dad.

  ‘To us. To Starkley. With her particular set of skills . . .’

  Dad’s eyes widened.

  ‘Kit!’ he shouted. ‘If Lydia is still out there, find her. Tell her Starkley needs her help. Tell her there’s something coming – something BIG – and we don’t know how to stop it.’

  ‘Come on, Hamish!’ shouted Alice, over the din of the engines. ‘I can hardly do this without you, can I? We’re a team!’

  Hamish swallowed. This was happening a bit too quickly.

  ‘You don’t have to go, pal,’ his dad told him. ‘This is Alice’s mission. She’s got Kit to help her. And Monster Patrol don’t exactly do things the Belasko way. Also, your mum will go mad if I let you go off to the Amazon on a school day.’

  There was a time when Hamish would have been cross with his dad for trying to stop him going on an adventure, but Hamish knew why his dad was saying this. He was doing his job as a dad and protecting his son.

  ‘Why don’t you come with us, Dad?’ said Hamish, which was another way of saying he was going anyway. ‘It’d be fun. Me and you off on a mission together.’

  And do you know what? Hamish’s dad almost believed that was a good idea. Like, for a second he forgot his responsibilities. No, for like a microsecond. No, for like a fifth of a microsecond.

  But no matter how long that pause was, it wasn’t enough.

  He couldn’t leave Starkley when a sea monster was on its way.

  Hamish understood, just from the look on his dad’s face. And he knew he had a job to do too. With only four days to go until the experts expected the sea monster, maybe Hamish had found a glimmer of hope.

  ‘Tell the rest of the PDF to get to HQ,’ Hamish said. ‘We’ll ring Garage 5 when we get there.’

  ‘Get where?’ said Dad.

  ‘To Hotel Empanada,’ said Hamish. ‘Alice needs me. And I think Starkley needs Lydia if we have any chance against whatever monster is coming our way.’

  Hamish’s dad nodded his head.

  ‘If she’s still alive, and you can save Alice’s grandma,’ he said, ‘maybe Alice’s grandma can save us.’

  And Hamish’s dad smiled with pride, because he knew what was coming next.

  Hamish turned and ran for the shuttle.

  8

  DAYS UNTIL ARRIVAL: STILL 4

  ‘Bienvenido to the Astral Plane,’ said Kit, welcoming them, and ka-shunking the steel door shut before putting one finger in the air. ‘Now. I’m about to introduce you to my co-pilot. It’s SUPER-important that you don’t freak out.’

  Hamish and Alice glanced at each other. That didn’t seem like a very good sentence to hear. Like someone saying: ‘My dad has made you his special fishcakes. Try not to vomit after eating one.’ Or, ‘Here, I got you a present! Hopefully it won’t explode yet!’

  But there was something about Kit they trusted. He seemed no-nonsense. Very in control. He seemed like a kid with a plan.

  ‘Smasha, let’s rock,’ yelled Kit, leading Alice and Hamish towards the cockpit, past rows of wooden drawers and cabinets . . .

  Wait.

  WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT AT THE FRONT OF THE SHIP?

  ‘Alice, Hamish . . . meet Smasha.’

  The strange figure turned around in its chair and Hamish and Alice did their best not to freak out, which was hard, because . . .

  WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?!

  He was tall.

  That’s if he was a he.

  And he was furry. Not the way your mad uncle Jonno is furry. This was actual fur.

  Smasha seemed to have the body of a fox, with great tufts of hair buffling out of his boiler suit.

  But, and this was the really weird bit . . .

  He seemed to have the head . . .

  O
f . . .

  A puffer fish!

  Two big eyes! A couple of nostrils! Four little teeth!

  The weird-looking creature licked his fox fingers and pointed at Alice and Hamish, then got back to pressing buttons on the dashboard.

  ‘Smasha is my Familiar,’ said Kit, taking the co-pilot seat and beckoning the others to sit down in the chairs behind him. ‘He’s what you call a Puffox.’

  TYPE: PUFFOX

  DESCRIPTION: Head of a puffer fish, body of a fox.

  TEETH: Four. Who needs more?

  SKILLS: When threatened, Smasha can inflate his own head to three times its original size. Poisonous needles fly from it. He is Fast! Cunning! Agile! Unable to chew very well!

  LEVEL OF MONSTERING: Generally friendly. Loyal. The Puffox makes a great Familiar for any young Monster Patroller!

  ‘Uh, what is a Familiar?’ said Hamish, trying to sound as un-weirded-out as possible. ‘I thought Monster Patrol would probably have a sort of anti-monster policy?’

  Kit spun his chair round so he could talk to them properly. He clapped twice inexplicably – he seemed to have a lot of pent-up energy, this kid – then leaned forward.

  ‘Monster Patrol was set up by two ace scientists who realised they had to operate in total secrecy if they were to protect the world.’

  Ooh. This sounded good. And the way Kit spoke made it sound cool and fashionable.

  ‘Who were they?’ asked Alice, already totally fascinated.

  ‘YOUR grandmamma,’ said Kit. ‘And MINE.’

  Alice slapped Hamish’s arm, delighted. Then Kit slapped Alice’s arm, delighted. Grandma Lydia wasn’t just in Monster Patrol. She started it!

  Monster Patrol had a simple mission: to record any and all monster activity here on Earth, keep it under control and make everyone believe it was all just legend.

  That’s why you believe they’re just legends, isn’t it?

  The Loch Ness Monster? Just a legend, you say!