Hamish and the WorldStoppers Read online

  Hamish frowned. Was this a trick?

  ‘Oh, hang on, I forgot!’ said Grenville, with enormous smugness. ‘You’re not allowed any, are you? No, I saw your name on the list in the sweet shop. Banned for life, it said. You and all your friends!’

  Hamish stared at Grenville’s bag. It was topped to the brim with Madagascan Mouth Melters and at least four of those brand-new Turkish Twizzlers. His mouth began to water.

  ‘I’m going to the wrestling at the town hall a bit later,’ Grenville said. ‘My mum “found” some spare tickets.’

  Oh, I bet she did, thought Hamish.

  ‘Do you have the time, by the way? I don’t want to be late!’

  Grenville knew full well Hamish didn’t have the time.

  ‘Oh, actually, it’s okay,’ he said, checking The Explorer on one chubby wrist. ‘I’ll just check my watch.’

  And as he waddled away, dropping sweet wrappers behind him and belching, Hamish could not wait for the next Pause.

  He knew exactly what he was going to do – monsters or not.

  Let’s Make a Plan!

  In his bedroom that night, Hamish worked out a plan.

  There were two parts to ‘Plan 1’. He called them ‘A’ and ‘2’.

  A) Find the girl with the blue streak in her hair and find out what the heck was going on with those awful lolloping monster things.

  2) Get Grenville back!

  Let’s say the next Pause was – ooh, I dunno – thirteen minutes and thirteen seconds long.

  If it happened during schooltime, Hamish knew one thing: the girl with the blue streak would also be at her school. All he’d have to do is hop on one of Mr Slackjaw’s scooters and whizz round to St Autumnal’s sharpish to find her. That was A sorted.

  If the Pause happened out of school, well . . . the girl could be anywhere. So Hamish reckoned he’d be better off using the time to go round to Grenville’s house and teach that little oik a lesson. That was when 2 would come into action.

  Excellent, thought Hamish, as he put his favourite blue and white ‘H’ pyjamas on. It’s always best to have a plan. And another plan too.

  He looked down at his updated PSK on the bed.

  After the last Pause, he’d added a few new items to the kit, including a miniature bottle of travel deodorant he’d found under Jimmy’s bed. He was pretty sure those monsters could smell children’s fear, so a hearty spray of ‘New Tropical Pumpkin Man-Mist’ might well help him avoid their noses. Although it would mean he would stink pretty badly of pumpkins.

  Hamish moved to his window and watered the sunflower that sat in front of it, in its little blue pot.

  The sky was growing dark outside. It was getting late.

  Through the window of the house next door, he could see Mr Ramsface with his ukulele, playing the two little Ramsfaces a goodnight song. Mrs Ramsface was leaning on the door frame to one side, gazing at them all adoringly.

  Hamish wanted to look away, but couldn’t stop staring at the cosy scene. He wished things could go back to how they were. When Dad was here to read him stories, and Mum wasn’t too busy to lean on his door frame, and when Jimmy wasn’t quite so fifteen. He leaned his head against the window, and let his eyes grow heavy to the sound of the tick-tick-tick-tick-tick of his bedside alarm clock.

  He went over the plans again in his head.

  A) If it happens tomorrow at school, I’ll find the girl.

  2) If it happens tomorrow at home, I’ll go and get my watch back and make Grenville pay.

  What Hamish couldn’t have known is that the next Pause would happen a lot sooner than that.

  The Wee Small Hours

  Sometime in the wee small hours, Hamish woke.

  He opened his eyes and saw the blue light of the moon stretching across his ceiling and down into his room. Maybe he could get straight back to sleep if he was lucky.

  But as he closed his eyes, and wiped the drool from his cheek, he felt a little unsettled.

  You know in films where they say something like: ‘It’s quiet – too quiet’?

  Well, that’s how it felt. Too quiet.

  Hang on. Where was the tick-tick-tick-tick-tick of his alarm clock?

  Hamish’s blood ran cold.

  He sat up. He listened. He listened hard. But there was no ticking clock.

  Slowly, quietly, he turned the clock to face him.

  It had stopped.

  Hamish gulped hard and lay back down. He squeezed his eyes shut and pretended to be asleep. He wanted to shout out, but if the world had stopped then everyone would be frozen.

  Maybe it’s the batteries, he thought, trying to reassure himself. Maybe they just ran out and that’s why the clock stopped.

  But Hamish had to be sure. He needed to be certain.

  Somehow he found the strength to pull his covers back and slide out of bed. As silently as he could, he crept towards the window. The world was perfectly still, but it was always still at night, wasn’t it? Wait, look over there . . .

  A blackbird hung suspended about a metre from his window, its wings out, and silhouetted against the moon. Leaves from trees were frozen in the air around it. It looked like it was about to hit the glass – like Hamish could reach out and touch it.

  Again? thought Hamish.

  He slid the sunflower on his windowsill to one side so he could reach the lock.

  Which is when a noise caught him off guard.

  Not the noise of a weird bugle this time, but something that made him even more fearful and queasy. It was a noise like a thousand whispers and it was getting louder, and louder and louder. Hamish backed away from the window . . . his eyes were wide and his shoulders were stiff.

  Not those things again . . . not those terrible things.

  Where were they coming from? What did they want? Were they coming to get him? And then what? Eat him?

  He wanted to turn around and run for his bed . . . he wanted to scream . . . he wanted to spray the place in Tropical Pumpkin deodorant! But, as he stepped backwards he noticed the blackbird again. It would hit his window the second the world started again and he couldn’t let that happen. So, quickly, he strode back to his window, opened it, turned the bird around, closed his window and –

  THERE THEY WERE!

  The things, the awful, white-faced, black-cloaked things . . .Tusks and whispers and clickety-clacketing feet . . .

  The coal-black, red-tongued lizard horses . . .

  The horde poured round the side of the Ramsfaces’ house like a gas, filling up the garden, their hiss growing by the second.

  Hamish remained rooted to the spot. He couldn’t move now. He had to stay still, just as he’d done the other day in town. Just as the girl with the blue streak in her hair had done too.

  He watched in horror as six of the things started to scamper up the Ramsfaces’ drainpipe, and with their long nails began to trace around the outside of the children’s window, slicing around it to open it.

  Three or four others were doing the same to the back door, while even more of them prowled around the garden, keeping an eye out.

  What did they want with the Ramsfaces?

  Suddenly the back door burst open and two things lurched out, carrying what looked to be some kind of ragdoll in their arms.

  Hamish tried not to scream as he realised – it was Mr Ramsface! The man was still in his bright pink pyjamas as he was passed down the line, roughly thrown from thing to thing. The door slammed shut behind them as they poured out of the house, taking poor Mr Ramsface with them.

  Hamish wanted to bang on the window and shout at them to stop, but he couldn’t even move. His heart was thumping in his ears and the hair was standing up on the back of his neck, and then he felt colder than he had ever done . . .

  . . . as he made eye contact with a thing down below.

  This one wasn’t backing away like all the others.

  It was standing directly below Hamish’s house, in his garden, staring up at the window.
/>   It cocked its head, trying to work out why a boy would be staring out of his window at this time of the morning. What was this boy doing there when the world stopped?

  Slowly, the thing broke away from the rest of the group and headed towards Hamish’s house.

  It was coming.

  Hamish could hear it testing his drainpipe, pulling at it, clanking it against the wall.

  Oh, no, he thought. What do I do? What do I DO?

  Hamish could hear the thing as it hoisted itself up, pulling itself up the drainpipe, its nails catching the window frame below, grunting and slathering as it made its way up the side of the house . . .

  Stay still, thought Hamish. Stay completely still, and—

  But now here it was.

  Enormous. Taking up almost the whole of the window frame. Blocking out the moon.

  Its bony fingers were scraping the window as it tried to find purchase.

  Its breath was fogging the glass as Hamish tried not to show he was breathing. The thing saw the blackbird, suspended by the window, and screeched as it swiped it away with a heavy wet fist. The poor bird spun and flipped as it shot through the air then dropped like a stone into a hedge below.

  Now the thing stared at Hamish. It looked him up and down, with black eyes that seemed almost to glow – and as it dropped its gaze, it noticed the sunflower that sat between them and flinched away from it slightly.

  Tusks tapped the glass and Hamish could hear its neck creaking as it lowered its head, like it was made out of old wet leather. They were eye to eye now, with the thing staring so hard at Hamish that it felt like it was trying to read his thoughts.

  It knows I’m faking! thought Hamish, as the thing’s eyes bulged once and once only as it realised . . .

  . . . that Hamish wasn’t frozen!

  And, just as Hamish was about to scream and make a run for his mum’s room—

  FV­VV­VAA­AA­AA­AAA­AA­RR­R­RR­RR!

  The thing’s eyes bulged wider now, but this time in panic. It looked at the sunflower and then at Hamish once more. FV­VV­VA­AAAR­RRRRRR!

  It reached for the drainpipe and started to slide down, not taking its awful black eyes off Hamish as it did so.

  Hamish remained still, but let his eyes drop slightly so he could watch the thing bounding over the bins outside the Ramsfaces’ house and bend a tree almost backwards as it leapt away and into the night. . .

  The world started again.

  The blackbird rustled in the bushes below, then flapped away, stunned.

  But Hamish didn’t feel much relief.

  They know about me, he thought, with a growing sense of panic, sitting back down on the bed. Now they know about me.

  The Morning After the Night Before

  If there was one thing Hamish could be certain of, it was this: the time to act was now!

  The trouble was he didn’t really know what action he should take.

  How is a ten-year-old boy supposed to ward off a horde of marauding monsters plundering through Britain’s Fourth Most Boring Town?

  Having spent the night thinking about it, Hamish was beginning to feel his PSK might be a little lacking. There’s only so much he could do with a Chomp and a small whistle and he suddenly felt vastly unprepared for what now seemed like it could be an apocalypse of some sort.

  He’d had an idea, though. It was of the most minuscule variety, but it was still an idea. The thing had acted very weirdly last night when it spotted the sunflower on his windowsill. It had definitely flinched. Were they allergic? Or did it just not know what one was? Whatever the reason, Hamish decided some sunflower seeds might come in handy. He’d plant them in the garden. Maybe he’d plant them all over Starkley. So he found an old matchbox in his dad’s desk marked BELASKO, poured out some of the matches and added a handful of Farmer Jarmer Sunflower Seeds from the back of his mum’s baking cupboard. He shoved the matchbox in his back pocket and immediately felt better. Between that and his PSK at least he had some things covered.

  But there had to be more he could do.

  Maybe he could alert the media. Then he remembered the Starkley Post only came out on Mondays. He’d have to wait days for the story to break!

  What if he told the army then? But what general in their right mind would believe a story like this? He’d be lucky if they sent a couple of Scouts and a Brownie to secure the area.

  What’s more, the Pauses seem to be happening with greater and greater frequency. And Hamish had no idea what the pattern was.

  There had been Saturday in town, for example. And then when he went to get eggs. And then there was last night. Were the Pauses picking up speed, as well as lasting longer?

  His dad always said that every good adventurer needed a guardian. Someone to look over them. He would tell Hamish, over Boggle and hot chocolate, that a good guardian was like a good shepherd. ‘And every sheep needs a shepherd, Hamish,’ he’d said.

  Well, his dad wasn’t here any more. And Hamish didn’t have a guardian or a shepherd or anything like that. Unless he plucked up the courage to tell Jimmy? He was always playing video games with zombies and evil bat monsters and stuff. Maybe some of that training had paid off.

  But Jimmy – sorry, James – was in a bad mood that morning, because Felicity Gobb still wasn’t returning his calls. Hamish had seen over his shoulder at the table that he’d been working on a brand-new poem to try and win her over, entitled simply ‘Felicity’.

  OH, FELICITY, FELICITY

  YOUR NAME’S LIKE ELECTRICITY

  I MUSTN’T BE PERNICKETY

  BUT MARRY ME, FELICITY!!!

  Underneath ‘Felicity’, Jimmy had scribbled out the words ‘toxicity’, ‘Sicily’, ‘polygamy’ and ‘growth industry’, as he’d had trouble making them rhyme. Nevertheless, Hamish felt that Jimmy’s poetic instincts had been spot on. Felicity was a much nicer name to rhyme with than Gobb.

  FELICITY GOBB

  EATS CORN ON THE COB

  And that was as good as it got.

  Now, if there are any grown-ups reading this (and there better not be), it’s very important you understand: kids sometimes need to skip school. Only occasionally, but sometimes there are vital things that need to be done and they’re not going to do themselves. Hamish had never skipped school in his life. He had a feeling it might be illegal. That said, he also knew that desperate times call for desperate measures.

  ‘So, yeah, bye, Mum,’ he said at the door, nervously. ‘I’m just off to school. School is where I’m going. I’m definitely going to school now.’

  ‘Er, okay,’ said his mum, distracted as usual. She was clearing the breakfast plates away, trying to find her phone and fix her hair and get her bag ready for work, all at the same time. ‘Have a nice day, chicken.’

  ‘I will, Mum,’ he said, blushing. ‘And you have a nice day too.’

  ‘Nice day? I wish!’ she said. ‘Complaints are through the roof!’

  She pointed at the laptop on the kitchen table. The big red graph she was always looking at showed a long, rising line with little sad faces all along it.

  ‘I don’t know what’s happening this year, but that graph is the bane of my life, Hamish!’ she said, shaking her head. ‘The town clock seems unfixable and Mr Slackjaw’s lost yet another moped!’

  She picked up the television remote and held it to her ear, thinking it was her phone.

  ‘Great!’ she said, annoyed. ‘And now my phone’s out of battery!’

  Hamish saw his moment, and started to creep away, making an innocent face.

  ‘Oh, and Hamish . . .’

  Curses! Had she seen through his lie about going to school?

  But whatever it was his mum was about to say, she stopped right there. Because over Hamish’s shoulder, she had spotted something.

  There was a police car outside the Ramsface residence.

  Mrs Ramsface was leaning on the door frame, dabbing her eye with a hankerchief while the policeman had his hands on his hips and w
as shaking his head, puzzled.

  ‘Oh . . .’ said Hamish’s mum.

  Hamish had a strong urge to run up to the policeman and tell him that Mr Ramsface had been taken in the night by some monsters with a sort of lizard horse.

  And then he realised how that might sound.

  He needed more information first. And he knew where he might get it.

  It was time for Plan 1: Part A.

  The Girl with the Blue Streak in Her Hair

  Hamish was determined that this would work.

  And why should he wait for a Pause before finding the girl with the streak in her hair? It’s not like she only existed in the Pause. The rest of the time she’d be walking around Starkley, doing precisely the kinds of things that Hamish was doing.

  Eating. Sniffing. Scratching. The lot.

  She was about his age, after all. And that meant that, right now, she’d probably be on her way to school, carrying that bag of hers with the St Autumnal’s badge.

  Hamish didn’t like St Autumnal’s. He thought it had ideas above its station. They played hockey and cricket instead of footie. Some of them learned tennis in the summer. At least twelve of the kids carried briefcases. And their motto – oh, dear – was in Latin.

  It had been the headteacher’s, Allegory Principle’s, idea. He thought it would inspire and unite the children and teachers. It was supposed to remind them to seize the day and make every moment in life count. It was supposed to celebrate all the opportunities that life throws our way. It was:

  MEMENTO MORI

  Which means: REMEMBER – YOU WILL DIE.

  It has to be said, there are more inspiring mottos.

  Hamish stood outside St Autumnal’s enormous black school gates, waiting to see if he could spot the girl. He felt very self-conscious in his slightly scruffy Winterbourne uniform, loitering by some bins.

  First he saw Lurgie Ting lolloping into school, cowering from his father, who seemed rather upset about something.

  Then Roger Flemm trundled by, wiping his nose and flicking the snot at a bench, the way Spider-Man shoots webs from his wrist.