Monster Mission

‘Yes. He smiles. He’s got a lovely smile.’ Minette saw the curve of the great beast’s mouth as he swam into the bay. ‘And what else does he do?’

There was another pause. Then: ‘Swims,’ said the little kraken. ‘He swims.’

‘That’s right. He swims.’ Minette nodded hard, giving encouragement. ‘And what does he do when he swims?’

No answer.

‘What does he do when he swims round the oceans of the world making everything better? Think.’

The little kraken thought. You could see him trying, but the ropes were beginning to cut into his flesh. He was too young to think through pain.

‘Don’t know,’ he moaned.

But Minette would give him no chance to go under. ‘Yes, you do. When he swims he does something else. What is it?’

Another sigh. Then: ‘He hums,’ said the little kraken.

‘That’s right.’ She rubbed his head to give him encouragement. ‘He hums, doesn’t he? Humming is what krakens do.’

He tried to turn his head. His eyes were still bewildered.

‘Humming is what krakens do,’ repeated Minette. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ His voice was very weak but he was following her.

‘And you’re a kraken,’ she insisted. ‘Aren’t you? A kraken is what you are.’

It didn’t seem as though the poor exhausted creature could speak again, but he took a weary breath and tried once more.

‘I’m a kraken,’ he repeated obediently. ‘A kraken is what I am.’

At first she’d thought it was going to work. There had been a flash of pride in his eyes as he spoke; but almost at once he fell silent and turned away—and then Boris came and pushed her roughly down the ladder.

Now she sat beside Fabio, her head in her hands and knew that it was over. She had done all she could and she had failed.

In the darkness, the wan faces of the captives showed a wretchedness that was beyond tears. The two aunts sat with closed eyes trying to bear what they had done. Facing their own deaths was not so hard but what they had done to Fabio and Minette was not to be endured. Only Herbert was still upright, listening to the sound of the water against the sides of the ship.

Another hour passed … and another … The Hurricane’s engine had been turned off while they waited for the fog to lift, but now they heard it start up again.

Unsteady at first, fainter than before … wavering … but gradually settling into a kind of thrumming rhythm.

Except that the engine hadn’t sounded quite like that…

Fabio who had been dozing, sat up suddenly and dug Minette in the ribs.

Then slowly, wonderingly, the wretched prisoners looked at each other with a dawning hope.

The great kraken had reached the Islands of the Southern Reef. The turquoise water, the coral strands, were staggeringly beautiful.

There was little to do in this paradise. The people who lived there respected the sea and the creatures in it, and they came out to pay their respects to the great kraken, standing with bowed heads. They did not gawp or gape or stare; the legend of the kraken who healed the sea was in their stories and had been for generations.

‘He does not smile,’ said the old chief, whose great-grandmother had seen the kraken when he came before and told him about the healer’s mouth curving in a bow which made everyone joyous to watch.

‘He is troubled,’ said the chief’s wife, who was a magic woman.

‘How strangely his hum is sounding,’ said a child. ‘There are two hums, aren’t there? A big hum and a little hum.’

‘It must be an echo.’

But the kraken had stopped swimming. He was quite still in the water, resting. His head was tilted. Like the islanders he was listening … listening …

What was going on? His own hum was being interfered with. It was being disturbed. This had never happened before. Sometimes there had been an echo from his hum when he swam in a ford between mountains, and sometimes the whales joined in, but this was different. What he could hear was his own hum but it was smaller.

He fell silent, and all the creatures under the water came up to look at him and wonder what was happening.

But the silence was not complete. The small hum, the underneath hum, was still there. It was unsteady, quavery … but it was growing now in strength.

A great judder went through the kraken, sending the resting birds up in a flutter from his back. He made himself absolutely quiet once more, but it was still there—this other fainter hum that wasn’t his own hum … and yet was just exactly that.

Then the people on the barrier reef saw a most extraordinary sight. The great kraken reared up out of the water—and now he did not hum. Instead he roared.

And then he turned.

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘I don’t want to watch! I don’t want to!’ shrieked Lambert. He tried to hold on to the cabin door but his father dragged him out so roughly that he fell forward on to the deck.

‘You will watch, you namby-pamby little shirker. You’ll watch them go overboard and you’ll like it. It’s time you learnt that you don’t get something for nothing.’

Pushing and pulling, kicking Lambert’s shins, Mr Sprott forced his son towards the rail.