Monster Mission

Minette woke up in a strange bed with a lumpy mattress and brass knobs. She was in a big room; shabby, with a threadbare carpet and faded wallpaper covered in a pattern of parrots and swirling leaves. The curtains breathed slightly in the open windows. A high mewing noise came from outside.

Then she remembered what had happened and at once she was very frightened indeed.

She had been eating a sandwich, sitting opposite a strange fierce aunt who was supposed to be taking her to her father; and suddenly the compartment started going round and round and the face of the aunt came closer and then further away… and then nothing more. Blackness.

She had been drugged and kidnapped, she was sure of that. She could remember the way the dreadful aunt had peered at her as if she was looking into her soul. Minette knew all about fear but now she was more afraid than she had ever been. What dreadful fate lay in wait for her? Would they cut off her ear and send it to her parents—or starve her till she did what they wanted?

And what did they want? Kidnapping was about getting money out of people and neither her mother nor her father was rich.

Moving in the bed, she found she was not tied up, but the windows would be barred and the door locked.

Pushing aside the bedclothes, she walked over to the window. She was wearing her own nightdress; the aunt must have kidnapped her suitcase as well. The window was open and as Minette looked out she gasped with surprise.

For she was looking at a most incredible view. Down below her was green, sheep-cropped turf studded with daisies and eyebright. A large goose with black legs walked across it, followed by six goslings with their necks stretched out. Beyond the turf the ground sloped to a bay of perfect white sand—and then came the sea.

Minette looked and looked and looked. The sea in the morning light was like a crystal mirror; she could hear the waves turning over quietly on the beach. There were three black rocks guarding the bay and on them she could make out the dark round heads of seals. White birds circled and mewed and the air smelled of seaweed and shellfish and wind. It smelled of the sea!

‘Oh, it’s beautiful,’ she whispered.

But of course she would not be allowed to go outside. Kidnapped children were kept in dark cupboards and blindfolded. Any minute now someone would come and deal with her. She looked round the room. Old furniture, patchwork rugs, and by the bed—and this was odd—a nightlight. She had begged and begged for one at home but neither her father nor her mother had ever let her have one.

A small snuffling sound made her turn quickly. It had come from behind a screen covered in cutouts of animals in the corner of the room.

A fierce dog to guard her? But the noise had not been at all a fierce one.

Her heart pounding, she tiptoed to the screen and looked round it. On a camp bed lay a boy of about her own age. He had very dark hair and sticking-out ears and he was just waking up.

‘Who are you?’ he asked, staring at her with big round eyes.

‘I’m Minette. And I think I’ve been kidnapped by an aunt.’

The boy sat up. ‘Me too.’ He blinked. ‘Yes, I’m sure. I was supposed to be going back to my grandparents. She gave me a hamburger.’

‘Mine gave me a cheese and tomato sandwich.’

The boy got out of bed and stretched. He too was wearing his own pyjamas. ‘We’ll have to try and escape,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to.’

‘Yes. Only I think we’re on an island. Come and look.’

She didn’t know why, but she had had the feeling at once that the sea wasn’t just in front of them but all around.

‘Wow!’ Fabio too was struck by the view. ‘What a place.’

Minette had gone over to the door. ‘Look, it isn’t locked!’

‘I’m going out,’ said the boy. ‘They don’t seem to have taken our clothes away. They’re crummy kidnappers.’

‘Unless it’s all a trap.’ She thought of the films she had seen—holes suddenly opening in the ground with man-eating piranhas or sharks. ‘Do you think they’ve kidnapped us to feed us to something?’

He shrugged. ‘You’d think they’d choose fatter children than us. Come on, get dressed. I’m going out.’

There was no one in the corridor; there was no one on the stairs.

Then, from behind a door across the hallway, they heard a scream, followed by a thump, and then a second scream. Someone in there was being tortured—and it sounded like a child.

Minette leant back against the wall, white-faced and trembling.

‘Come on—quick!’ Fabio clutched her arm.

The children ran out across the turf, over the dunes, along the perfect crescent of sand. The tide was out; it was a shell beach; there were Venus shells and cowries and green stones polished like emeralds. No one stopped them; there was no one to be seen. It would have been like Paradise except for that ghastly scream.

‘Look,’ said Fabio.

A group of seals had swum towards the shore and were looking at them, swimming in a semicircle, snorting and blowing … With their round heads they looked like a group of Russian dolls.