The Beasts of Upton Puddle (20 page)

Joe caught sight of Mr. Henderson at the back of the mob and fought his way against the flow to see him.
“Mr. Henderson?” he said, pulling alongside.

“If you're going to ask what happened, you'll have to wait with everyone else. That's why I've called an assembly.”

“Is Mr. Graves all right?”

Henderson looked down at Joe with one of his eyes. The other one didn't quite make the journey away from the crowd.

“You mean you're not interested in the Beast like the rest of these little monsters?”

“Is he badly hurt?”

“He's fine, Copper. The nurse is attending to him in the first aid room.”

“Thanks.” Joe squeezed his way through the back of the line before Henderson could grab him.

A few students were gathered outside the first aid room when Joe arrived. Two of them pressed their ears against the door while the others bustled to get their turn.

“What's going on in there?” Joe asked.

“Shh!” hissed a lanky student with long hair. “We've already been sent away once.”

Joe walked right to the door, opened it, and walked inside while the others stared agog.

Mr. Graves, the groundskeeper, sat in a chair next to the nurse, Mrs. Hedley. One of his arms had been wrapped with a bandage and, although there was no
sign of any serious injury, his face was bleached with shock as he looked straight ahead.

A police officer stood by the window scribbling into a notepad and promptly stopped when Joe barged in.

“Are you all right, Mr. Graves?”

Mrs. Hedley stood, her fists on her hips. “Get out of here right now, boy. This is—”

Joe heard the eavesdroppers outside scuffle away quickly.

“Did you really see the Beast?”

“I said—”

“Big shaggy thing, really long fingers? I've seen it too.”

Mrs. Hedley grabbed Joe's arm.

The groundskeeper looked straight at Joe. “That's it! It came right out of the ground, it did. Big green eyes and . . . and claws like . . . like eagle's claws, they were, but hairy.”

“Hold on, Mrs. Hedley,” said the officer. “It sounds like this lad knows something.”

She let go of him.

Graves was still talking. “Scared the bejeezus out of me. I'm tellin' you, boy, the sooner I get out of this job, the better. The Duggan boy—he's my ticket out of Clarkdale. His old man works for Redwar Industries, you know. Head of security, he is. He's going to get me a nice little cushy job at the gatehouse . . .”

Graves, obviously still in shock, rambled on, but Joe had seen enough. The groundskeeper wasn't seriously
hurt, but . . .

“What's your name, son?” said the officer.

“Joe . . . Joe Copper.”

“So it sounds like you're another eyewitness to this creature. Are you prepared to make a statement?”

Joe looked at the officer and thought about his promise to Mrs. Merrynether. Her future depended on his next words, but so did the safety of the village. Joe took a deep breath before deciding on his answer.

Each tick of the clock accused Joe of betrayal.

Tic. Nine hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-eight seconds since he'd told a police officer that Merrynether Mansion might be where the Beast of Upton Puddle came from.

Toc. Nine hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-nine seconds since he'd felt the sickening weight of treachery line his stomach like a bag of heavy stones.

Tic. Ten hours since that same police officer smirked at Joe's confession.

But it didn't matter to Joe that nobody, not even his mum, believed him. He had still broken his promise.

The night closed in on Joe as he stared at the expensive new clock his mum had bought to cheer him up. She knew exactly how much it hurt Joe to be kept away from the new world he'd discovered, and she'd left it on his bed, wrapped and with a bow and card ready for his
return from school. The clock face glowed in the dark, illuminated by a million pixels to show off a digital picture of something mystical or mythological. Normally Joe would have been thrilled by it. He had a bizarre fascination with clocks, but this one only reminded him of what he'd lost.

Each hour the picture changed into something new and spectacular. At one in the morning, the bright green hands moved across the figure of a stomping cyclops. Joe stared at it. It reminded him of something. Something he'd been dreaming about earlier in the night, perhaps?

Joe switched his lamp on. Rubbing his eyes, he fought to remember images from the sleep he'd been woken from a few minutes ago. Was it sand? A beach maybe? Yes, a beach. The same beach he'd dreamed about a few weeks ago in the forest. And that colossal tree-shaped tower with all the eyes attached to its branches. That's why the Cyclops reminded him of his dreams. But what did it mean? Was it a real place? A few months ago the idea that such a place existed would have been ridiculous, but since then he'd seen things that defied explanation. And he'd been told he had a destiny.

A sudden chill of excitement flushed his tiredness away as he thought about it all. How could he get back to sleep now? But what woke him in the first place? He listened for a moment but only heard the usual night noises.

Tic. Six hours, twenty-seven minutes, and forty-one seconds until he'd have to get up.

Toc. Six hours, twenty-seven minutes, and forty seconds of lying there thinking.

Tic. Plink! At the window.

Toc. Creak. Something pressing at the windowpanes.

Holding his breath, Joe crept to the window, gathered his courage, then pushed the curtains aside. Blue-white light flooded the room, and Joe stepped back in shock.

Danariel hovered outside.

Next to her, with quaking knees, Lilly teetered on the window ledge with his upper body concealed by a huge red brick. A muffled, panting voice ranted, just audible through the glass. “Sor help me, boy. If ya hadn't com to da winda dis toime, I would've put dis bloddy ting roit troo it!”

Joe opened the window, careful not to knock the cluricaun down. “What are you doing here?” he whispered. “People will see you.”

Lilly dropped the brick, and it thumped in the grass below. The cluricaun's angry face shone a curious purple in Danariel's light as the tiny man began one of his outbursts. “Oooh, noice to see ya, Lilly. And it's a pleasure ta see you too, Danariel. What brings you to my humble dwelling? . . . Let os in, ya pickle-brained pillock!”

“Get inside.” Joe grinned. “But be quiet. My mum might hear.”

“Bloddy mammie's boy,” Lilly muttered as he tumbled inside.

Danariel followed him gracefully. “Sorry to intrude, Joe, but we had to see you. We need your help.”

Joe closed the window and sat on the end of his bed. He was about to speak when a shaft of light broke in through the gaps in his door and his mother's voice came from the landing.

“Joe? Are you all right? I thought I heard something.”

“Fine, Mum. I just had a weird dream.”

“You sure you're okay?” The shadows of her feet were visible at the bottom of his door. “Want me to get you a hot water bottle or mug of warm milk?”

Lilly pointed at Joe, hissing desperate laughter through clenched teeth as though he were being strangled. “Mammie's boy,” he choked.

“Lilly!” Danariel spoke as quietly as she could.

“Honestly, it's fine, Mum. I just want to get back to sleep.”

“Well, okay, then. As long as you're all right.”

“Fine, Mum. Good night.”

Joe puffed out a deep breath as his mum walked away.

“I'm very sorry, Joe,” said Danariel.

“It's all right, but what are you doing here in the middle of the night? How am I supposed to help?”

“We don't know what else to do. It's Veronica.”

“Mrs. Merrynether? What's wrong with her?”

“That's just it. We don't know. She's vanished.”

“Vanished?”

“Yes. She hasn't been around for three days. The
first day we thought she may have been taking a longer time in the garden.” Danariel shot an accusing look at Lilly. “She's had a lot of tidying to do in the last week after what happened with Cornelius.”

“Nuts to you, fairy face,” snapped Lilly. “Da stupid orld bint has probably jost wandered off somewhere widout her glasses.”

“Lilly is feeling guilty, Joe. He thinks it's his antics that have driven her away.”

Lilly pretended to be interested in one of Joe's socks on the bedroom floor.

“That's why he's here. It's why we're both here. I don't think Veronica has run away. She would never do that. I think something has happened to her.”

“But I don't understand. What am I supposed to do? How would I know where she is?”

Danariel hovered down to Joe's knee. “We need you to go to the police. If she's reported as a missing person, they will try to find her.”

“There's no point. They won't believe me.”

“Why not?”

Joe looked sheepish. “I've already spoken to the police.”

Lilly pulled Joe's sock off his own head. “Ya sporken to dem already? Watcha been op to? If it was about me, I—”

“No, it wasn't about you. There was an attack at the school by the Beast, and I . . . thought . . .”

“You think the Beast is from Merrynether Mansion?” asked Danariel.

Joe hesitated. “Yes.”

“That creature has nothing to do with us,” Danariel said.

“How do you know for sure? You've only been there a few weeks. And you have to admit it's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it?”

“Look,” said Lilly. “Are ya goin' ta help os or not?”

“Of course I will, but the point is that the police laughed at me when I told them I thought the Beast came from the mansion. Do you think they'll believe me if I tell them Mrs. Merrynether's gone missing?”

“They would have to take your report seriously,” said Danariel.

“Yes, I suppose it won't hurt to try, but what about Heinrich? Can't he do it? It would be more convincing coming from him.”

“Have ya got any booze in here, boy?” Lilly had pulled a drawer out of one of Joe's dressers and was tossing the contents behind him.

“Lilly, he's a boy! Of course he doesn't have any drink.”

“Not even a toiny drop o' sherry? Maybe a tipple of—”

“Lilly!”

“Vodka?”

“No!”

Lilly continued his search all the same.

Joe did his best to ignore the cluricaun for the moment. “Like I said, shouldn't Heinrich do something?”

“Heinrich refuses to get involved with the authorities. He's worried that the police will have to search the mansion. But he also hates to be seen by anyone because of the terrible burn marks on his face. He fears that he would have to meet the police face-to-face if he calls them.”

“What? Isn't Mrs. Merrynether's safety a bit more important than that?”

“I think you underestimate exactly how strongly Heinrich feels about it. Apart from Veronica, you are the only person who's seen him for years.”

“But she could be in danger!”

“I know, and it's driven Heinrich almost to the point of breakdown. He hasn't eaten, and he isn't even taking care of any of the animals. Kiyoshi, the new creature, isn't helping matters either. Heinrich can't cope with anything at all. He's a wreck.”

“What are you going to do?”

Danariel looked up at Joe. “That's the other reason we came to you.”

“Me? But I . . . You want me to—? No.”

“We need you to talk to him. Bring him to his senses.”

“But how would I know what to say to him?”

“I don't know, but you have to help us. You're the only other human we can trust . . . and you have a destiny, remember?”

Joe stared into space, shell shocked.

“We need you,” Danariel insisted.

“Yes,” added Lilly, standing by Joe's feet and staring up at him with a face as serious as a lit match in a firework factory. “
Oi
needs ya.”

Joe looked at the cluricaun, doubly shocked.

“Oi needs ya ta find me some bloddy beverages. Are ya
sure
ya don't have a drop hidden somewhere?”

Joe shook his head dismissively. “There's really no one else?”

“No one,” said Danariel. “Will you help?”

Joe sighed. “All right, but if I do help, you have to do something for me too.”

Danariel's light flickered slightly as if she knew what Joe was about to ask. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want to know everything. I want to know why I have a destiny. I want to know where all these animals come from, and I want to know what it's all about. If I'm part of something big, I want to know what it is.”

The smile on Danariel's face fell into a contemplative, almost fearful, look. She nodded.