The Monster of Shiversands Cove (4 page)

‘Be back in one hour, me hearties,' said the pirate. ‘This landing place – it be no place for boats at low tide, arrrrrrr.'

I felt my teeth grind more. Why not just say ‘this creek will be all sand when the tide goes out so the boat will get stuck'?
Much
better.

There was a little machine with tide timetables in it, and a label that said:

WELCOME TO TIDE ISLAND!
TIDE TIMETABLES. PLEASE TAKE ONE!

So I pressed the button and out popped a small booklet. It showed the times of high and low tides for every single day of this year and it also had little pictures showing what kind of moon there was.

‘Full moon on Friday,' I said to Dad, which was a
big
mistake. Straight away, Dad threw his head back, then howled, right in my face. I glared at him. And as for the glum baby, did seeing Dad, a fully-grown man, doing a werewolf impression make it move a muscle?

No. It just sat there, squashed into a pack on its dad's back – toes still pointing – and stared.

* * *

Tide Island was a gloomy sort of place. The far end jutted right out to sea, battered by winds from across the ocean. There were lots of jagged black rocks, and a few bits of grassy stuff struggling to grow. The only building on the island was small and strange, shaped like a tiny lighthouse. It had an arched wooden doorway and a sign outside it, which read:

MILDRED MARCHWOLD WROTE HERE

There was lots more writing underneath the sign. I skimmed through it. It was all stuff about how the building belonged to some olden days writer who lived in our cottage, but came here to do her writing.

Now she was dead and, for some reason, grown-ups had decided to leave the room just as she had it, for visitors to see. I had no idea why they decided that. When we pushed the door open and went inside it was almost empty. No wonder she got her writing done. There was nothing else to do in here. There was no TV, nothing interesting. There was just a chair, a desk, and an olden days machine with a stack of paper next to it.

The machine was huge and heavy-looking and all black, with lots of metal prongs with letters on them. A typewriter, Dad called it. He said it was the way olden days grown-ups used to write books, before laptops. Well, whatever it was, it was heavy. I know because I had a go at lifting it, and I had to heave, really heave.

There was other stuff in there, too: more about Mildred Marchworld. There were things like book covers and notes she wrote but I wasn't much interested. Books aren't really my thing, particularly not ones with fairies and elves on the cover. I did like the window, though. It was a porthole one and it looked straight out to sea.

I stared out but no, there was still no sign of the whale thing. Maybe we'd see it on the way back.

And we did. Well . . .
I
did.

* * *

I kept scanning on the way back, using the binoculars and scanning left, scanning right, as we chugged out of the creek and away from Shiversands Cove.

It was out there. I
knew
it was out there somewhere and I really,
really
wanted Dad to see it.

Then, I spotted it. We were chugging around Tide Island, turning back towards Lightsands Bay and there it was. It was out at sea, swimming slowly through the water. Clear as clear.

I gaped. It was
huge
. That long neck, that big snouty head, frills flapping around it, that long,
long
body . . .

Dad
had
to see it.

‘Dad,' I said, thrusting the binoculars into his hands. ‘Look! Quick! Out there. That's what I saw yesterday. That whale thing. What
is
it?'

Dad grabbed the binoculars and looked through them. I waited, expecting him to gasp or say something. To tell me what it was.

He didn't.

He started scanning around, scanning left, scanning right. What was Dad doing? Why wasn't he looking at the whale thing, the mutant, whatever it was?

‘Look!' I said, guiding him, pointing the binoculars straight at it. ‘Right there.
There
!'

Dad was still peering and shaking his head. ‘Nope,' he said. ‘Can't see it.'

But . . . it was
there
. Slap bang in front of his eyes. How could Dad
not
see it?

 

 

The whale thing turned and stared straight at us. It gave a big swish of its tail and slapped it down on the water. Which startled me, so I yelped.

And now it was Dad who was staring. He was turning and staring at
me
. Me! Narrowing his eyes, as if he was baffled by the yelping, as if he was wondering what I was up to.

That
was when I knew. That was when I realised.

Dad couldn't see it. The whale thing, the whatever, even though it was clear as clear, Dad could
not
see it.

I looked all around the boat and I realised something else. It wasn't just Dad. It was
all
the grown-ups. Not one grown-up could see the whale thing. They were all staring straight through it, not seeing it at all. They were looking out to sea, as if that enormous whale thing simply wasn't there.

Which was when I heard a chuckle: the chuckle of a baby.

I turned. The baby, not glum any more, was waving its fat little arms and trying to clap its fat little hands. Its eyes were popping with excitement.

That
enormous
creature swimming out there, there were only two people on this boat who could see it.

The baby.

And me.

 

Chapter Six

Magic Eyes

Back at Shiversands Cottage, I huddled in the sitting room, struggling to think, struggling to come up with a reason, some kind of explanation. Why –
how
 – was it possible that I could see that enormous creature out there in the sea, and Dad couldn't?

It
wasn't
possible. It just wasn't.

I tried and tried but I could
not
come up with one good reason, not one explanation for how that was possible. Only this one . . .

That the thing out there, the big greeny-grey thing cruising around just outside our cove, was a monster. It had to be. It was an actual, real-life sea monster, some kind of magical creature. And the reason I could see it but Dad couldn't, was this: because I had magic eyes and Dad didn't.

No. It was
not
possible. I did
not
have magic eyes. There was no such thing as magic eyes. But magic eyes were the only explanation. There was no other explanation that made sense, none at all.

I thought back, back to the journey to Shiversands Cove, with Magnus in his car seat going on and on, telling me all the things Fairy Fenella said about magic eyes. How little kids are born with them, born with magic eyes. Special eyes. How some little kids, the lucky ones, see some kind of magical creature and keep hold of their magic eyes forever and ever.

But, even supposing Fairy Fenella
was
right about magic eyes, I was
not
one of those kids. I definitely wasn't. I never saw any magical creatures as a little kid, nothing that would help me keep hold of my magic eyes: no fairies, or elves, or goblins, no dragons, no monsters. Nothing.

Although . . .

I stopped and thought.

I thought right back, to something that happened when I was four years old, a dream I had. At least, I
thought
it was a dream.

I was in Norway, visiting my Norwegian granny, up in the mountains. It was late, and I was supposed to be tucked up in bed, fast asleep but
days are long and light in Norway in summer, and I couldn't sleep, not at all. So I knelt on my bed and stared out of the window, up at the mountain.

And that's where I saw it.

It was a monster, crouched on a ledge, high up on the mountain. The monster was far away but I could see it was huge. It was as tall as a giraffe and scaly like a dragon, with short arms, long claws and two giant wings which it started flapping.

Then, the monster took off. It soared down the mountain, huge wings flapping, flying closer and closer to Granny's house and to me, staring out of the window.

The monster saw me. It flew towards my window, and hovered outside.

I stared out at the monster and the monster stared in at me. It had shiny yellow eyes, a long flicking red tongue and big blobs of dribble trickling out of its snout. I knew it was much too big to get in through the window but I could hear it hissing and I started screaming. I screamed for Mum, I screamed for Dad, and they came running in, just as the monster flew off.

Mum and Dad both sat with me after that. They sat and held my hands, as I gibbered and whimpered, and told them what I just saw.

Dad said I was dreaming. He told me again and again that it was all a dream. Mum told me the same thing had happened to her. That she had a dream like that once, when she was as small as me, and, just like me, she was convinced her dream was real, when it wasn't.

But suppose Mum and Dad were wrong, suppose I
wasn't
dreaming? Suppose it was true, was real, and I really
did
see that monster? Then
that
would be why I kept my magic eyes and why I could see
this
monster now.

So, I huddled there in the sitting room, head spinning. What now? What should I do? Did I need to do anything?

Maybe not.

That monster was far out at sea, a long way off. It was nowhere near our cove and there was no reason to think it would attack. After all, it showed no sign of attacking the boat and something that big could have charged at the boat and caused a
lot
of damage.

But it didn't.

Besides, I have read hundreds of monster stories and one thing I know. Not all monsters are bad. There are good monsters too, friendly, helpful monsters, and this could be one of them.

So, although I would
prefer
to have a holiday without glimpses of a far away sea monster, as long as far away was where it stayed, I could cope. In fact, I could even do some drawings of it and send them to Rory. I could tell him all about it, tell him what he was missing.

And anyway, whales swim thousands of miles each year, so sea monsters probably did too. This sea monster was probably just passing through. It would leave soon; maybe it was gone already.

Just then, I heard Dad's feet clumping into the house. He stuck his head round the sitting room door. ‘Stan,' he said. ‘I have a little favour to ask you.'

* * *

‘No,' I said. ‘No, no, NO! I will NOT do it.' Then, I shook my head, and folded my arms.

Because Dad wanted me to be Wicked Wanda.

Wicked Wanda is a witch who keeps interfering with Mr Wizzywoz's plans. Wicked Wanda is also Mum but Mum wasn't here.

‘I need a stand-in,' said Dad. ‘So I can practise a new routine for the Lightsands Bay Festival.'

Then he threw himself to his knees and clasped his hands. ‘Please, please,' he said staring up at me and clutching my leg. ‘I'm begging you.'

‘Get up,' I said, pushing him off. ‘There's no way am I doing it. I do
not
feel like being Wicked Wanda and there is not one
single thing
in the whole world that you can say to make me change my mind.'

There – that told him.

But then Dad got this crafty look on his face. ‘If you stand in as Wicked Wanda,' he said, ‘I'll teach you how to use the lasso.'

Oh, that was
unfair
.

I have been
begging
Dad to teach me how to use his lasso. It's a real one, like cowboys use. Dad uses it as part of his Mr Wizzywoz routine and every time I beg him, he says he's too busy, or it's too precious, or we need a bigger space than our back garden. He has hundreds of reasons, all adding up to the same answer.

No.

Up until today.

Which is how I ended up prancing around the beach, standing in as Wicked Wanda.

* * *

I'll spare you the details. It was a terrible story: some race to find buried treasure. Maybe little kids would find it thrilling, but I didn't.

So I had to prance about, cackling, with a hunting horn I had to keep blowing. And Dad kept lassoing me, again and again, until he got the routine just right.

Then, at
last
, it was over, and I got to use the lasso. Dad stuck a picnic chair on the beach. He showed me how to do it, and I practised. I practised and practised, concentrating really hard.

Time whizzed by as I stood there, lassoing the picnic chair, getting better and better. It turned out I was a natural and I was enjoying myself so much, and concentrating so hard, that I almost forgot about the sea monster.

Then, I looked up . . . and there it was. Only it wasn't out at sea. No. Not any more. Now it was right here, here in Shiversands Cove.

I felt my legs go wobbly. The monster poked its head out of the water and swivelled it around. I knew what that monster was doing: spyhopping. That's what whales do; they poke their heads up and look around.