Creeped Out (6 page)

There was a queue of kids waiting to file into the storeroom.

Felix was ahead of Jasper in the queue. ‘Uh, Jasp,' he said, peering into the room. ‘It's not exactly what you were hoping for.'

‘This is it?' Saffy muttered as she entered the room. She picked up a box of rubber bands. ‘What are we meant to do with these?'

Other kids were grabbing whatever they could carry, and shoving it all into their packs.

‘Do you think any of this will come in handy?' Felix whispered, shuffling through a box of rulers.

Jasper shook his head, ‘I didn't see Mr Golag carrying any rulers with him.'

The other teams in the room were whispering to each other too: ‘… like the prefects used. If we aim right, we could hit its weak point without getting right up under its stomach,' Jasper overheard someone say.

‘Did you hear that?' Saffy asked Jasper behind her hand. ‘What do you think they mean?'

‘Don‘t worry about it. They've got it wrong,' Jasper whispered. ‘The button is the flush button. I've
seen
the monster, Saffy. Come on!'

Saffy spied a net shoved into a corner, and Felix gave Jasper the thumbs-up as he spotted a sack on the floor.

Jasper grabbed a box of matches, some towels, three torches and a handful of paperclips, not really sure if any of it would be useful.

‘Come on, let's get going,' he said to Felix, who was pulling something off the wall. ‘We still need to find some chicken.'

They made their way quietly down to the kitchen. The door was locked. Jasper took two of the paperclips from his bag. He stretched them out and wriggled them into the locks. There was a soft click, and the door swung open.

‘Looks like you might've done that before,' Felix said.

‘Maybe a few times. How do you think I ended up at this school?'

It only took them a few minutes to raid the kitchen, adding a stash of chocolate bars marked
teachers' supplies
to the mountains of chicken they had found. They huddled around the wood-fire oven, getting warm and shoving chocolate into their mouths.

‘Why do they have a pizza oven, when all we get to eat is tasteless mush and stale bread?' said Saffy, looking around.

It was a good point. Who was eating pizza around here?

No wonder the teachers and prefects don't eat in the
food hall with us
, Jasper thought.

He started rummaging through the pantry. There was everything needed to make good, tasty, real food. Sugar, flour, cocoa, rice, pasta, fruit, vegetables, and spices that Jasper had never heard of.

Then a large brown sack in the corner of the room caught Jasper's eye. The sack had a label that read
TO BE INCINERATED
. He wandered over and opened it.

And when he saw what was inside, he reckoned he could actually feel his blood beginning to boil.

11

‘What is it?' Felix asked, peering over Jasper's shoulder.

Jasper was fuming. He felt so mad he could hardly speak. ‘Letters,' he finally spat out. ‘Our. Letters. Home.' He could feel his breath tightening as his anger bubbled up.

‘It's a good thing I never bothered to write any, then,' Saffy said. ‘Not that my parents would notice. They've probably forgotten that I exist by now and are off on another trip overseas.'

Saffy's parents were high-powered executives who had dumped her in boarding schools her whole life. But when Jasper thought about his own mum, and of all the letters he'd written her over the months, he felt betrayed.

The truth was, he had gotten used to life at Monstrum House. For once in his life he was actually enjoying school. He had great friends. It was
exciting
to catch monsters. Somehow he had started to like it here.

But this changed everything. It was a slap in the face. He knew the teachers at Monstrum House weren't exactly nice. But this was just cruel.

‘Are you OK?' Felix asked quietly.

‘No, not really,' Jasper replied.

Felix and Saffy looked anxiously at one another. Felix's family wasn't much of a touchyfeely letter-writing type. In fact, Felix was nearly as scared of his brothers as he was of monsters.

‘They've been lying to us,' said Jasper flatly. He realised that for six months, his mum had had no idea how he was – or even
where
he was. She had told him to write whenever he could!

Jasper hadn't written the truth about Monstrum House in his letters because he didn't want to worry his mum. But now she would be worried anyway. He looked away. He didn't know if the others would understand.

‘This stupid school has taken every single letter we've ever written, and burnt it,' Jasper fumed. ‘They don't care about us. No matter how many monsters we catch.'

Jasper grabbed a can of dog food from the bottom of the pantry and threw it into the very back of the pizza oven. ‘Let's see how their pizza tastes when that explodes,' he said.

But even the idea of the teachers eating dogfood pizza didn't make him feel any better.

Saffy laughed. ‘Of course they don't care about us. The teachers hate us, didn't you notice?'

‘Jasp, they make us hunt monsters,' said Felix. ‘Monsters that could kill us.'

‘All we've got,' said Saffy, ‘is each other.'

Jasper didn't know what to do. He didn't feel like doing the Task anymore.

‘Come on, Jasper. We have to use our heads,' said Saffy. ‘Once we get through this Task, we'll go on a Hunt! The outside world! We'll be out of here for good. And then you can
go
home, not just write.'

‘Fine,' said Jasper. ‘We'll do the stupid Task and catch the Grubbergrind. And then I'm going to poke it with sticks until it's really angry. And
then
, I'll put it in the teachers' bathroom.'

Saffy grinned appreciatively.

‘As long as it doesn't kill us first,' said Felix.

‘Well,' Saffy said, clapping her hands. ‘Now that's sorted, let's go catch a monster.'

‘Where are we going?' Felix complained, as Jasper led them around the back of the mansion and along the border of the forest.

‘Trust me,' Jasper said.

Felix muttered something under his breath. Jasper ignored it and led the way around the back of the school at a run. They had wasted precious time in the kitchen and their whole plan would fall apart if they didn't get to the monster first.

Given it was a trained monster, Jasper knew that the teachers wouldn't have too much trouble catching it. But he loved the idea of Stenka being surprised by a nipper-ended tentacle when she was washing her face. Their team could score some seriously good points by being the first to catch the monster, but by letting it go, Jasper would show the school that he was done with the whole stupid place.

‘Jasp,' Saffy asked as they jogged, ‘are you sure you know where you are going? It kind of looks like we're heading towards the kennels.'

Jasper smiled and stopped at the ring of trees that wound around the dog kennels.

Felix leant against a tree and stared at Jasper. ‘The kennels?' he asked. ‘Is that where the stormwater drains are?'

Jasper shook his head. ‘Not quite.'

Saffy caught on first. ‘A dog? You're getting a dog? I think you've finally flipped.'

Jasper motioned for her to keep quiet. They could hear Mondrag swearing loudly as he banged a hammer. It sounded like he was fixing something around the back of the kennels.

‘It's not just any dog, all right?' Jasper whispered.

The dogs were all locked in their kennels. Sniffer dogs to the left, guard dogs to the right. The sniffer dogs were mostly spaniels and wagged their tails happily as the three walked past. The guard dogs weren't quite so happylooking. A few of them began growling.

‘Sssshhhh,' Felix hissed, making more noise than the dogs. They all froze. The hammering had stopped, and Mondrag had stopped swearing.

12

Jasper listened intently. A dog barked.

‘Quiet!' Mondrag's voice boomed from around the back and the dogs all fell silent.

Felix let his breath out slowly.

One of the guard dogs came towards Jasper, wagging his tail in greeting. ‘Hey, Woof,' Jasper whispered. He grabbed a paperclip from his bag and fiddled his way into the lock on the cage.

‘Keep watch,' Jasper whispered to the others. He knew Mondrag couldn't be far away. ‘Come on fella, we're breaking you loose.'

‘Psst – Mondrag's coming!' Saffy said just as the lock clicked open.

There wasn't time to make it back to the cover of the trees. They flung themselves into the cage with Woof, trying to flatten themselves against the wire. Jasper glanced up and saw Mondrag turn the corner. They were stuffed. Just a few more metres and he would be on top of them.

The door to the kennel was still ajar. There was no way that Mondrag would walk past an open kennel, especially an open kennel with a dog and three students inside.

‘Aaaargh,' Mondrag steamed. He was only two kennels away. He must have seen them. ‘Stupid hammer!' Then he spun on his heels and headed back the way he'd come. ‘I must have left it back at the fence.' Mondrag's mutterings disappeared around the corner.

Wordlessly, the kids leapt to their feet and raced out of the kennel. Woof followed them to the safety of the trees. No-one could believe their luck.

‘We were so close to getting …' Jasper looked up. A dark shadow was blocking their path. ‘Caught,' he finished.