Monster Mission

So the police let her go and then the newspapers said they were too soft and aunts should be flogged like in the good old days.

Meanwhile posters of Etta and Coral were stuck up in police stations and public libraries and bus shelters everywhere. These pictures had been drawn by an artist from the descriptions he had been given by the people who had seen them last, and they were extremely odd. Aunt Etta had a nose like a pickaxe, a blob of hair like a jelly bag on top of her head and a moustache she could have twirled, it was so big. Aunt Coral had a mad squint in one eye, seven pairs of earrings in each ear and absolutely no neck.

Have you seen these women? it said at the bottom of the posters.

But of course no one had, because women like that do not exist. And so the days passed and still the police had no clues to go on. The Aunts’ Agency had closed down and it seemed as though the stolen children and their kidnappers had vanished off the face of the earth.

Chapter Eight

Aunt Etta woke and stretched and immediately felt very strange. Something had happened. And the something was important: perhaps the most important thing that had ever happened to her.

She got out of bed and went to the window. Her long grey pigtail hung down her back; her hairy legs and bony feet stuck out from under her flannel nightdress, but her mud-coloured eyes were as excited as a young girl’s.

Yet there was nothing unusual to be seen. A flock of gulls were out fishing; the sun was just beginning to come up behind the two islands to the east.

‘All the same, there is something,’ thought Aunt Etta, and the excitement grew in her. ‘Only what?’

Then she realized that the excitement was coming from her feet. It was being sent through her toe bones, and up her ankle bones and through her body.

For a moment she felt quite faint. Could it be … ? But no … that would be a miracle; she had done nothing to deserve anything as tremendous as that.

The sound of heavy breathing made her turn. It was Coral. She too was in her nightdress, folds of it wrapped round her like a bell tent, she too was barefoot and she too was panting with excitement.

‘Oh, Etta,’ she gasped. ‘I feel so strange.’

Coral’s long hair, which she dyed an interesting gold, hung down her back; she. looked like a mad goddess. ‘I feel as though … only it can’t be, can it? Not after a hundred years?’

‘No … it can’t.’

But they clutched each other’s hands, because it hadn’t stopped, the extraordinary, amazing … feeling.

‘We must wake Myrtle. She’s musical.’

But there was no need to wake Myrtle. Myrtle did not wear a nightdress; she wore pyjamas because she often went out before dawn to talk to the seals and she thought that pyjamas were more respectable. They were made of grey flannel so that she did not show up too much in the dusk and for a moment her sisters did not see her lying on the floor with her face pressed to the threadbare carpet.

‘Myrtle, do you feel—‘ her sisters began.

But before she could answer, Myrtle lifted her head. They had never seen their sister look like that.

‘Can it be?’ began Coral.

‘We must go up the hill,’ said Myrtle and she spoke like someone in a dream. ‘We must turn our faces to the north.’

‘But dressed,’ said Etta, coming to her senses for a moment. ‘Not in our nightclothes. Not even if—’

But her sisters took no notice and Etta herself only had time to put on her dressing gown before there was a thumping noise from next door. It was the Captain’s walking stick banging on the wall and it meant, ‘Come at once.’

The sisters looked at each other anxiously. If he had heard it too it could strain his heart. So much excitement is bad for old people.

And when they first saw the Captain they were very worried. He was lying slumped on his pillows, his eyes shut, and he was trembling so much that the whole bed shook. But when they came up to him, they were amazed. Captain Harper was a hundred and three years old, but he looked for a moment like a boy.

‘I’ve heard it,’ he murmured. I’ve heard it and I’ve felt it. Even if that’s all, even if there’s no more than that, I’ll die happy now.’

‘We’re going on to the hill, Father,’ said Etta. ‘We’ll tell you as soon as—’

The door burst open and Fabio and Minette came running into the room. They had tumbled straight out of bed, bewildered and still half asleep, and followed the sound of voices.

‘Something’s happened,’ said Minette. She was wearing quite the silliest nightdress that even her mother could have bought, covered in patterns of dancing elephants and picnicking zebras, but with her dark hair wild about her shoulders and her bewildered eyes, she seemed to be listening to music from another land. ‘We were woken …’

‘It’s a feeling … only it isn’t only a feeling.’ Fabio shook his head, trying to understand. ‘It’s a sound, except it’s all through us. We’re not making it up.’