Monster Mission

As he moved towards them, the mermaids started to sing, croakily at first, then more strongly. Herbert swam beside the kraken’s head, solemn and proud.

And now they saw that his body was not black as they had imagined but dappled in soft colours—the chestnut of a chaffinch’s breast, the rose of a stippled trout, the blue grey of a moonstone—all were in his skin as it caught the light.

But he had stopped. He was looking at the aunts. He began to speak.

Unfortunately he spoke in Polar. It sounded like the rumbling and clashing of icebergs and no one understood a word.

Aunt Etta hurried into the house and fetched a megaphone. ‘I’m sorry, we don’t understand,’ she shouted.

But the kraken had already gathered that. He tried again. This time he spoke Norwegian because Norway is further south than the Pole, and he tried only one word but still nobody understood.

‘Could you try English?’ shouted Aunt Etta through the megaphone.

There was a long pause while the kraken thought about this. Then he took a deep breath and said:

‘Children?’

His accent was strange but they understood him perfectly and the relief was tremendous.

‘What about children?’ yelled Aunt Etta through her megaphone.

The kraken repeated the word.

‘Children?’ he asked. ‘Are there … here … children?’

The aunts talked excitedly among themselves. Did that mean that the kraken wanted children, or that he didn’t?

But anyway none of them were able to tell a lie. They moved over to the alder tree, pulled out Fabio and Minette and led them down to the sand. They didn’t even think about Lambert who was still shut in his room. Lambert wasn’t a child; he was a stunted adult.

There was a pause while the kraken looked at Fabio and Minette. Have we got it wrong? thought the children. Are we going to be eaten after all?

Then the kraken smiled. It was the most amazing smile; his great mouth curved up and up and his eyes glowed with warmth.

And then he sank and the birds that had been resting on him flew upwards like a white cloud.

He was gone for a few minutes—and when he surfaced again there was someone on his back.

The someone was very small compared to the kraken; not much bigger than a mini car or a dolphin—but it was absolutely clear who he was. He had the same round eyes, the same wide mouth, the same rainbow-coloured skin …

But he was worried.

‘Will I be all right, Father?’ said the kraken’s son, as he had said again and again on the journey.

‘You will be all right,’ said the kraken as he had said a hundred times. And then: ‘Look—there are children to play with and care for you,’

They spoke in Polar but what they said was perfectly clear to everyone. In particular what was clear was the look the infant kraken gave to Fabio and Minette as they stood quietly on the shore.

And to the aunts there came a great thunderclap of understanding. When they had kidnapped the children they had done it because they wanted help, but even at the time it felt strange to find themselves behaving like criminals. Now they realized that there had been a Higher Purpose, as there so often is.

For they understood that the kraken was bringing his child to the Island to be cared for while he circled the oceans of the world, and that he wanted him to be with people of his own age, not elderly aunts.

‘We are most truly blessed,’ said Aunt Etta. She still had her megaphone to her mouth and the word ‘blessed’ echoed over the whole Island, and was taken up by all the watchers on the shore.

‘Blessed,’ nodded the stoorwom, and ‘Blessed,’ said the naak (but in Estonian) and ‘Blessed,’ cried the mermaids from the rocks.

Only Minette and Fabio were silent. Minette was remembering how she had wanted to serve the great beast when first she heard of him. Fabio, on the other hand, was wondering what infant krakens ate.

Chapter Thirteen

The kraken stayed for several days, resting after his long journey from the Arctic. Mostly he lay quietly in the bay keeping an eye on his child, but just having him there made everything flourish.

The children would run down to the shore barefoot every morning.

‘It isn’t just that the sand is more yellow,’ said Minette. ‘It’s as if it feels more like itself. Like sand is meant to be.’

It was the same with everything while the kraken guarded them. The turf was greener and springier, the wheeling birds were whiter and the patterns they made in the sky were lovelier.

Everybody on the Island felt it—everyone except Lambert who stayed huddled in his room.

‘Imagine we hadn’t been kidnapped,’ said Fabio. ‘Imagine we’d never known there was such a thing as a kraken!’