Monster Mission

But all day he was furious. Twenty thousand pounds! It wasn’t as though he wasn’t suffering just as much over his lost daughter. He didn’t light candles by her bed because of the fire risk but the housekeeper, who was fond of Minette, had bought a bunch of flowers and put them in her room. Of course the Daily Screech was out of the question—he wouldn’t be seen dead with his photograph in a rag like that—but if the Morning Gazette was interested he might say a few words about his sorrow and his loss. There was a photograph somewhere that the housekeeper had taken outside the university in which he was standing beside his daughter wearing his gown and hood. It had come out rather well and made it clear the kind of background that she came from.

Fabio’s grandparents were too snobby to talk to any kind of newspaper, but they appeared on a late night television panel to bleat about the lack of discipline in modern life and the feebleness of the police who still hadn’t returned their grandson.

And even as Minette’s parents were getting rich and Fabio’s grandparents were complaining, a helicopter was getting ready to take off from the Metropolitan Police pad outside London. It was a small machine manned only by one policeman and a policewoman—and their orders were clear.

‘Remember, if you get a chance to land, it’s the two children we want. The aunts can wait. And don’t pick a fight with Sprott. We’re after the boy and the girl right now, and nothing else.’

As soon as they opened the door of the mermaid shed, Fabio and Minette realized that something serious had happened.

Loreen lay on the tiled floor, chewing mouthfuls of gum and weeping. In her sink in the corner, Oona looked stricken and pale. Old Ursula was shaking her head and muttering.

‘It’s my fault,’ Loreen wailed. ‘I’ve been a rotten mother and I deserve all I get.’

‘What is it?’ the children asked. ‘What’s happened?’

Loreen hiccuped and tried to speak but what with her gum and her sorrow no one could make out what she was saying and it was Old Ursula who said: ‘Queenie’s eloped. She’s swum off with that muscleman who came yesterday and tried to catch her.’

‘What muscleman?’

‘He came in the dinghy with Lambert’s father and Queenie went up to sing to him. We didn’t think she fancied him but she’s gone.’

A low croak came from Oona as she tried to speak. ‘She … didn’t... fancy him. She … said his biceps were silly.’

But the other mermaids took no notice of Oona, who was trying to make out that Queenie hadn’t gone of her own free will. Twins always stuck together and what had happened with Lord Brasenott made Oona think that all men were evil, which was silly.

‘I spoiled her,’ wailed Loreen. ‘She always had the best shells and the prettiest pearls for her hair.’

‘Now don’t carry on so,’ said Ursula. ‘It isn’t your fault Queenie turned out so flighty.’

‘She didn’t—’ began Oona—but Loreen only put another piece of gum in her mouth and went on wailing. I’ve been a rotten mother, and it’s all my fault,’ she said again, and she picked Walter out of the washing-up bowl and slapped his tail though he hadn’t done anything except grizzle and whine in his usual way.

‘We must tell the aunts,’ said Fabio.

‘Oh dear, must we?’ cried Loreen.

But Old Ursula said yes, it was best to own up. ‘Get some wheelbarrows and we’ll go up to the house,’ she said.

So the children came back with three barrows and Art, because flopping about overland made the mermaids’ tails sore, and no one took any notice of Oona who went on croaking that her sister had not liked the muscleman.

The aunts were very much upset. Not because Queenie was flighty, which they’d known all along, but because it meant that Mr Sprott now knew that there were mermaids on the Island—and maybe other things too.

‘I wonder if he knew before he came to lunch,’ said Coral. ‘Do you think that was why he wanted to buy the Island?’

‘Perhaps he’ll come back with photographers?’ faltered Myrtle.

Fabio and Minette looked at each other. They had lived in the world outside long enough to know that Mr Sprott might come back with something much more serious than that.

A day passed, and half a night, and then they heard the sound they had been dreading: the noise of a boat coming into the bay. So Sprott was back already!

In an instant the aunts were out of bed. Etta ran for the Captain’s blunderbuss, Coral fetched Art’s catapult, Myrtle grabbed the long-handled brush she used to scrub her back.

Outside, the night was black and moonless but they could make out the boat nosing in beside the jetty. The engine died … the cargo was unloaded … and almost instantly the boat went into reverse and moved away.

The aunts, clutching their weapons, peered into the darkness. Then suddenly Etta broke the silence with a great shout and ran towards the jetty. And there, standing tall among her suitcases, was a woman in a long raincoat holding what seemed to be a frying pan.