Locked In (5 page)

Jasper stood in the dark. The room was silent. He heard the door lock with a soft click. An image of the Blibberwail popped into his head, and his bravery disappeared.

He tried to think of all the daring things he had done before, like standing up to bullies twice his size, or the time he'd sneaked into school at night and rewired the computer system so the kids could get onto the
Access Denied
websites. Jasper got a buzz from taking risks.

But bullies were one thing, and monsters were another. Monsters were seriously scary. Since dinner that night, Jasper had heard stories of two-headed monsters hiding under the beds in the sleep halls and monsters with sharp fangs chasing kids down the corridors. The fact that Jasper had seen the fanged, drooling, three-nosed Blibberwail didn't help either. His ears were still ringing from its screech.

No matter how hard he tried not to think about it, Jasper knew that if this was a test at a monster-hunting school, chances were there was a monster in this room. And it probably wasn't in a cage.

He guessed he was about to find out.

7

It was dark. Very dark.

‘Hello?' Jasper called out. ‘Anyone there?' There was no answer.

Jasper stood still, waiting for his eyes to get used to the dark and for his heart to stop racing. He was locked in, with nowhere to go.

‘This is really not very nice,' Jasper called out to the prefects. But there was no response.

Then Jasper heard it again. The same eerie, faint whispering he'd heard when he got off the plane earlier that day. The words were strange and didn't quite make sense, but Jasper felt that he could almost make them out. ‘
Slaan wryn kommmt
...
Jaaaaasp
...
'

A dim light shone under the gap in the door. The whispering stopped.

Jasper could make out the shape of a bed in the darkest corner of the room.

It's a test.
Jasper reminded himself.
Just a test.

A monster-hunting test. And what better place to find a monster than under a bed?

Jasper thought he saw something move – a flicker of the darkest black in the very back corner beneath the bed.

He heard a soft scratching noise. Jasper's heart beat even more quickly. He looked around the room again. There was nothing he could use to help him catch the monster, like a big cage with a flashing button that said
PUSH TO CATCH MONSTER
.

The scratching became louder, and then there was complete silence. The silence was worse than the scratching.

Jasper clenched his teeth and took a deep breath. He mentally listed everything in the room he could use.
Bed
...
er, blanket? Pillow?
A rough plan began forming in his brain.
It's worth a go
, he thought.

He sprinted towards the bed. With a flying leap, he landed squarely in the middle of the mattress. He threw the covers over the top of himself, and lay in the dark, waiting for the monster to attack.

He tried to remember what Von Strasser had said about the monsters that hide under beds. It was something about them waiting for you to fall into the deep sleep that makes you defenceless.

And then what?
Jasper wondered.

He closed his eyes and lay very still. After a little while, he let out a soft snore. He waited a few more minutes, then slowly let his arm slip through the covers and dangle down from the bed. He hoped the monster wasn't smart enough to know he was faking sleep.

He waited. And then he could feel
it
waiting. Suddenly, he felt very cold.

That did it. Instead of being afraid, a sudden surge of courage pumped through Jasper's body. This was a fight he was
not
going to lose.

There was a soft slither as the monster crept out from under the bed. Through the covers, Jasper caught his first glimpse of the monster. The sight of it made him take in a sharp breath. His lungs were bursting with a giant scream. It took every bit of his self-control to keep quiet.

The monster was covered in shiny black fur. It had red-tipped spikes forming a crest down its back and a scaly tail that ended in a heavy-looking club. Being thumped by
that
would really do some damage. But its eyes – its eyes were the worst. They glowed like lamps in the dark, casting a sickly green light over Jasper.

There was complete silence – then Jasper felt the cold, sharp nails of the monster clawing at his arm.

Jasper felt himself begin to panic. He didn't know what to do.
I am a total goner
, he thought.

And then an image of his family popped into his head. His mum, his sisters, his two dogs. He had to get out of this place. Some part of his brain clicked back into action. He got ready.

Just as the monster was about to drag him from the bed, Jasper jumped. He sprang from the bed, with the monster's claws latched firmly onto his arm. In surprise, the monster let go.

Snobleshriek

Jasper narrowly dodged being thumped by the monster's armoured tail as it tried to scramble back under the bed. Then he pounced. He swung the monster by its tail, and landed it with a thump in the middle of the bed.

‘GOTCHA!' he yelled.

Before the monster had a chance to escape, Jasper had bundled it into the bed covers and tied the corners of the sheets together. The monster jumped about inside the bundle, pricking Jasper with the spikes down its spine, but it was no use. It was trapped.

Jasper couldn't believe it. He had caught a monster! A real monster! He had done lots of cool stuff in his life, lots of brave stuff, but he'd never done anything like this.

Jasper looked at the squirming bundle, and felt a fantastic rush. It was that awesome buzz that came with being so close to danger.

Then Jasper remembered what Mac had said about loving Hunts, and he thought he had an inkling of just what Mac had meant.

8

The lights came on and the door clicked open. Stenka marched into the room. She glanced around and inspected the makeshift sack.

‘Good,' she said coldly, and wrote something on a clipboard.

Jasper was stunned.
Good? Good?
He had been better than good – he had been fantastic! ‘That's it?' he protested.

Stenka stared coldly at Jasper. ‘What would you like? A marching band?'

Actually, Jasper thought a marching band would have been pretty cool – maybe a bit over the top – but cool all the same.
I just caught a monster with my bare hands
, Jasper thought.

‘You didn't catch a monster,' Stenka said. ‘You caught a trained Snobleshriek, and they are two very different things. If that was a wild monster, it would have driven you mad with fear by now. Snobleshrieks are skilled at playing with the minds of children. Especially cocky children.' She paused. ‘They like to see them crumble.'

Jasper gulped.

‘Class 1B,' Stenka stated, handing Jasper a form. ‘I will be your class teacher.'

Jasper resisted the urge to groan.

Stenka looked at him coldly. ‘Any trouble, and you'll find out just how generous I can be with penalty points. Class starts at 6.30am sharp.
Don't
be late.'

Jasper looked at his watch. It was 2am.

Stenka strode down the hallway back to the front door. ‘Quickly. Back to the sleep hall,' she said icily. ‘But you had better make sure nobody catches you. After all, being out of bed at night
is
against the rules.'

Stenka led Jasper to the door of the spooky house. She smiled at the sight of the snow falling thick and fast.

‘Um, where's the van?' Jasper asked through chattering teeth.

‘What van?' she said, her sinister smile growing bigger every time Jasper shivered.

I should have known
, he thought. He was freezing and, on top of that, he now had to find his way back through the snow, barefoot.

Jasper clenched his teeth together to stop them from chattering. ‘Well, then,' he said to Stenka, forcing himself to smile. ‘I guess I'd better run.'

‘Yes,' said Stenka, then slammed the door in his face.

Jasper peered through the dark. He thought he could see the outline of the school in the distance – a dark looming tower in the night. But in between Jasper and the school was a dark forest. A very dark, very cold, very scary-looking forest.

A wolf howled again.

Jasper figured he had a few options. Unfortunately, escape from this torture chamber they called a school wasn't one of them. At least, not in this weather, with only his pyjamas on.

Option one: he could wait until morning. But where would he wait? He'd freeze to death by then, even if he built a snow cave. And there was the slight problem that he didn't actually know
how
to build a snow cave. And of course there were the wolves and monsters to consider.

Option two: he could try to sneak back into the old house somehow. Picking the locks would be a cinch, but he didn't particularly want to bump into Stenka again. Or the Snobleshriek. Or anything else that might live inside.

Option three: he could try and make it back to the school. It didn't look that far away. The van must have driven around in circles for a while, trying to freak him out along the way.

Jasper looked around. He was sure he could see things moving in the dark around him. Small, red eyes seemed to peer out from the bushes. That decided it.

He ran towards the school as quickly as he could. Jasper was a fast runner, but he'd never run quite this fast before.

He stepped on something sharp as he tripped and stumbled his way through the forest. His feet felt as though they had been shredded. He wondered if he should wrap his pyjamas around them for protection – but he wasn't desperate enough to run through the forest naked. Not yet, anyway.

He was almost there. The forest had thinned out. Now all that lay between him and the old stone mansion was a snow-covered field and the school fence. Searchlights scanned back and forth over the snow.

If I can make it through that field without being caught, this will be my lucky day
, thought Jasper
.

He leant against a tree and tried hard not to think about monsters. Of course, that just made him think about monsters even more.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He was sure he could hear the sound of very soft breathing, very close by. Someone, or
something,
was out there, watching him. And he bet this time it wouldn't be a trained something.

Von Strasser's voice echoed in his head.
You feel them just before they attack. An ice-cold chill runs down your spine when they are close.

‘Ice-cold chill' didn't even begin to describe the spider-like tingle of dread that was crawling up Jasper's spine.

He heard the snow crunch behind him.

He turned around and just caught a glimpse of a dark shape rushing towards him.

Then everything went black.

9

Jasper opened his eyes slowly. The whole world was spinning. It took him a few moments to work out exactly where he was: lying on his back, in the snow, in the middle of the night. At a school for monster-hunters. He wondered if he could just go back to being unconscious.