slept.
And while he slept, people forgot that there had been such a creature, and the stories about him got wilder and wilder until this healing monster was jumbled up in people’s minds with Giant Blobs and vicious triffids and nonsense like that.
And the sea got muckier and muckier and more and more neglected.
But of course everyone did not forget. The sea creatures remembered—the seals and the selkies, the mermaids and the nixies, and the people who lived and worked on the islands and by the shore.
And the aunts remembered.
“Oh yes, we always remembered,” said Etta now. “Our father told us about him and our grandfather told our father. We have always known, but we never dreamt—”
She fell silent, overcome by her feelings and the children gazed into the embers of the fire and thought about what they had heard.
Why am I not frightened, Minette wondered. Once she would have been terrified at the thought of a great sea monster swimming towards them, but now she felt only wonder. And something else: a longing to help and serve this creature she had never seen. She felt she would do anything for the kraken when he came. Which was silly, because how could an ordinary girl do anything for the mightiest monster in the world? But she didn’t feel silly. She felt awed and uplifted as though some amazing task awaited her.
Fabio didn’t feel quite like that. Fabio felt that the story he had heard needed a celebration. So he did something rather noble. He turned to Coral, sitting in her cloak beside him, and said:
“Aunt Coral, the moon is full—or very nearly. Would you like to dance the tango?”
Chapter 9
Stanley Sprott, Lambert’s father, had had a good time in America. He had bought three factories and a cinema and turned out a family living in a house next to the cinema so that he could bulldoze it and build a Fast Food restaurant. There had been a court case and a fuss because the family had a disabled child and a sick mother, but Mr Sprott had won. He always did win because he knew how to hire the best lawyers and now, as the chauffeur drove him in his Mercedes from the airport, he reckoned that his trip to the States would earn him a clear million dollars.
Beside him in the car sat his bodyguard, Des, a large man with small eyes and an even smaller brain. Des had only learned to read when he was 25 and he liked to show that he could do it, so as they stopped for the traffic lights he looked at the posters on the wall of the police station and said: “There’s some mad aunts been on the rampage, kidnapping children. They’re offering a thousand pounds reward if anyone’s got any info.”
Mr Sprott thought this was very funny.
“Aunts!” he snorted as the car moved on, leaving the pictures of Aunt Coral and Aunt Etta flapping in the breeze. “Trust the police to be fooled by a bunch of aunts!”
Mr Sprott had a very low opinion of the police, who had tried to interfere with some of his enterprises and been thoroughly foiled.
Arriving in his house, he stood for a moment in the hallway and looked about him. He had the feeling that somebody who should have been in his house, was not.
But who? Who was it that was not there? While Des went to turn off the burglar alarms and look for letter bombs, Mr Sprott thought about this.
Well, for one thing his wife was not there. But there was nothing strange about that. His wife had faxed him from Paris to say she was going to go and buy some more clothes in Rome, and she had faxed him from Rome to say she was going to buy some more clothes in Madrid.
So it wasn’t Josette Sprott who should have been there and wasn’t, and it wasn’t the housekeeper who always had two hours off in the afternoon.
Which meant that it was his son, Lambert.
“Lambert!” bellowed Mr Sprott, standing in the middle of the hallway.
No answer.
“Get him on the intercom,” Mr Sprott told Des.
But though all the rooms were connected electronically, Lambert did not
And while he slept, people forgot that there had been such a creature, and the stories about him got wilder and wilder until this healing monster was jumbled up in people’s minds with Giant Blobs and vicious triffids and nonsense like that.
And the sea got muckier and muckier and more and more neglected.
But of course everyone did not forget. The sea creatures remembered—the seals and the selkies, the mermaids and the nixies, and the people who lived and worked on the islands and by the shore.
And the aunts remembered.
“Oh yes, we always remembered,” said Etta now. “Our father told us about him and our grandfather told our father. We have always known, but we never dreamt—”
She fell silent, overcome by her feelings and the children gazed into the embers of the fire and thought about what they had heard.
Why am I not frightened, Minette wondered. Once she would have been terrified at the thought of a great sea monster swimming towards them, but now she felt only wonder. And something else: a longing to help and serve this creature she had never seen. She felt she would do anything for the kraken when he came. Which was silly, because how could an ordinary girl do anything for the mightiest monster in the world? But she didn’t feel silly. She felt awed and uplifted as though some amazing task awaited her.
Fabio didn’t feel quite like that. Fabio felt that the story he had heard needed a celebration. So he did something rather noble. He turned to Coral, sitting in her cloak beside him, and said:
“Aunt Coral, the moon is full—or very nearly. Would you like to dance the tango?”
Chapter 9
Stanley Sprott, Lambert’s father, had had a good time in America. He had bought three factories and a cinema and turned out a family living in a house next to the cinema so that he could bulldoze it and build a Fast Food restaurant. There had been a court case and a fuss because the family had a disabled child and a sick mother, but Mr Sprott had won. He always did win because he knew how to hire the best lawyers and now, as the chauffeur drove him in his Mercedes from the airport, he reckoned that his trip to the States would earn him a clear million dollars.
Beside him in the car sat his bodyguard, Des, a large man with small eyes and an even smaller brain. Des had only learned to read when he was 25 and he liked to show that he could do it, so as they stopped for the traffic lights he looked at the posters on the wall of the police station and said: “There’s some mad aunts been on the rampage, kidnapping children. They’re offering a thousand pounds reward if anyone’s got any info.”
Mr Sprott thought this was very funny.
“Aunts!” he snorted as the car moved on, leaving the pictures of Aunt Coral and Aunt Etta flapping in the breeze. “Trust the police to be fooled by a bunch of aunts!”
Mr Sprott had a very low opinion of the police, who had tried to interfere with some of his enterprises and been thoroughly foiled.
Arriving in his house, he stood for a moment in the hallway and looked about him. He had the feeling that somebody who should have been in his house, was not.
But who? Who was it that was not there? While Des went to turn off the burglar alarms and look for letter bombs, Mr Sprott thought about this.
Well, for one thing his wife was not there. But there was nothing strange about that. His wife had faxed him from Paris to say she was going to go and buy some more clothes in Rome, and she had faxed him from Rome to say she was going to buy some more clothes in Madrid.
So it wasn’t Josette Sprott who should have been there and wasn’t, and it wasn’t the housekeeper who always had two hours off in the afternoon.
Which meant that it was his son, Lambert.
“Lambert!” bellowed Mr Sprott, standing in the middle of the hallway.
No answer.
“Get him on the intercom,” Mr Sprott told Des.
But though all the rooms were connected electronically, Lambert did not
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