Sea Monsters and Other Delicacies (6 page)

ULF HEARD AN ENGINE START, AND BLACK SMOKE
belched from Captain Crab's boat. The Captain stepped out on deck. “Ahoy there!” he called. “My boat's working again!”

“So is the sea monster!” Ulf replied.

Captain Crab climbed down from his boat and stepped onto the dock beside Ulf. “I knew you'd save it, werewolf,” he said, looking into the examination bay. The sea monster's tentacles were swishing gently in the water.

“Do you want me to tow it back to the Reserve
for you, Dr. Fielding?” Captain Crab asked. “I can sling the net over it.”

Dr. Fielding was packing her medical bag. “Thank you, but we'll release it when it's had time to recover and replenish its venom. It'll find its own way home. We'll track it in the submersible and see that it gets back safely.”

She headed into the marine store and came out again holding a small black box with an aerial poking from its top.

“What's that?” Captain Crab asked.

“It's a tracking beacon,” Dr. Fielding said.

At the RSPCB, beacons were used to monitor the movements of beasts released back into the wild. They sent signals to the RSPCB's computers, helping to build a database of endangered beast populations throughout the world.

Dr. Fielding handed the beacon to Orson. “Would you mind attaching it for me, please?”

“No problem,” Orson said.

Ulf watched as the giant jumped into the examination bay and swam to the sea monster. He clipped the beacon to the sea monster's shell, then flicked a switch on the little black box. Ulf saw an orange light starting to flash at the top of the beacon. Orson swam back and heaved himself out of the water. He stood dripping wet on the dock, smiling. “Okay then, so everything's fixed. I'm going to go get dry.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Orson,” the Captain said. “I should be going too. Now that my boat's working.” He held out his hook, and Orson shook it with his finger.

“Good-bye, Captain,” the giant said. Orson strode off down the dock, his boots squelching as he went.

“You should go and get dry too, Ulf,” Dr. Fielding said, feeling his damp T-shirt. It was still wet from when he'd been in the water.

Ulf looked down at the sea monster.

“Don't worry, Ulf. I'll make sure it's comfortable, and we'll do your inspection as soon as I get back.”

Every month, before the full moon, Dr. Fielding gave Ulf a full physical examination, monitoring his transformation from boy to wolf.

“Good-bye then, werewolf,” Captain Crab said.

“Thanks for your help, Captain,” Ulf replied.

He walked to his ATV and kick-started the engine.

 

Captain Crab watched the werewolf and the giant leave. He narrowed his eyes and turned to Dr. Fielding. She was holding the venom extractor. “I'm still amazed that this worked,” she said.

The Captain grinned. “Good old Professor Farraway,” he said. He followed her as she walked to her Jeep and placed the venom extractor on the backseat.

“Captain, can I ask you something?” Dr. Fielding said.

“Why, of course,” Captain Crab replied. “Is something the matter?”

She took a piece of coral from her pocket. “Did you notice anything suspicious out on the Farraway Reserve?”

“Such as?”

“Poachers,” Dr. Fielding replied.

Captain Crab raised his bushy eyebrows. “Now why would you ask that?”

She showed him the piece of coral. “This is part of the sea monster's shell.” The coral's edge was jagged and broken, and had black flecks of gunpowder on it. “It's as if its injury was caused by a blast.”

“What do you mean, Dr. Fielding?”

“Shock fishing,” she said. “It's a method of poaching sea beasts. Explosives are used to stun them, causing them to float to the surface. It was outlawed over fifty years ago.”

“I didn't see any poachers,” Captain Crab told her.

Dr. Fielding picked up her phone from the front
seat of her Jeep. She tapped a number into the keypad. “Hello, this is Dr. Fielding from the RSPCB. Could you put me through to the department for National and International Criminal Emergencies?”

“NICE?” Captain Crab asked.

“It's just a precaution, Captain,” Dr. Fielding told him. “Hello, is that the department for National and International Criminal Emergencies? I'd like you to check something. Could you send a boat out to the Farraway R—”

Captain Crab knocked the telephone from Dr. Fielding's hand and kicked it into the lagoon. “Oops,” he said.

“Captain! What are you doing?”

“I wouldn't worry about poachers,” the Captain replied. He stared at Dr. Fielding. “Now I'd like that venom extractor, if I may.”

Dr. Fielding glanced at the venom extractor on the back seat of the Jeep. “What on earth for?”

Captain Crab grinned. “Oh, Dr. Fielding, I've
wanted it all along. Why do you think I went to all the trouble of bringing you a sea monster? I needed its venom.”

Dr. Fielding grabbed the venom extractor and held it behind her back.

“You see, I knew that the venom extractor worked,” the Captain said stepping closer.

“Stay away from me.”

“Professor Farraway wasn't killed by a sea monster. He returned from his expedition safe and sound.”

“What are you talking about?” Dr. Fielding said. “I'd like you to leave now.”

Captain Crab laughed.

Dr. Fielding jumped into the Jeep clutching the venom extractor. She fumbled with her keys, trying to start the engine.

“In a hurry, are you, Dr. Fielding?” Captain Crab asked. The engine started. Captain Crab slid a wrench from his sleeve and struck Dr. Fielding on the head.

She slumped in her seat. He dragged her out and carried her to his boat, tying her hands and feet. Then he got into the Jeep and picked up the venom extractor. He unscrewed the flask and peered at the venom inside. He smiled.

“And now to get dessert,” he said.

BACK AT FARRAWAY HALL, ULF AND ORSON WERE
in the feed store. Ulf was sitting on a bale of hay, wrapped in a blanket, warming himself up.

Tiana the fairy flew in through the doors. “You're wet!” she said.

“Ulf saved the sea monster,” Orson told her. The giant was hanging his wet boots up by their laces. Beside them his socks were dripping.

Tiana perched on a barrel. “You went in the water with the sea monster, Ulf? You could have been killed!”

“The venom extractor works,” Ulf told her.

“You're crazy, Ulf.”

“He's a werewolf,” Orson said. “He's brave.” The giant was drying his bald head with a patchwork towel stitched together from old sacks.

Ulf was rubbing the hair on his arms. He could feel it growing longer. In just a few hours the full moon would rise and he would change from boy to wolf.

His ears twitched.

He heard the sound of the Jeep's engine pulling into the yard, and looked out through the large wooden doors. Captain Crab was sitting in the driver's seat.

“I forgot my things,” the Captain called, stepping out of the Jeep.

“Where's Dr. Fielding?” Ulf asked.

“She's just making the sea monster comfortable.”

Captain Crab stepped into the feed store. “How are you feeling, Mr. Orson? Nice and warm yet?”

“I'm fine, thanks,” Orson said.

From his back pocket, Captain Crab took out a tin canteen. “Care for a drop of my special?” he asked. “It'll warm you up.”

“Don't mind if I do, Captain. Thank you.”

Captain Crab turned to Ulf. “Would you mind doing me a favor?” he asked. He handed Ulf a key. “Would you get my sea chest for me? I left it up in my room.”

Ulf took the key.

“It won't take you long,” the Captain said. “The fairy can go with you.”

“Me?” Tiana asked. “But it's dusty up—”

“Come on, Tiana,” Ulf said, and he headed out into the yard.

 

Captain Crab watched as Ulf and Tiana went in through the side door of Farraway Hall. “He's very helpful, that werewolf boy. And brave, too.”

The Captain handed the canteen to Orson. “Here you are,” he said.

Orson held the canteen in his fingers.

“It's a nice big one, isn't it?”

“It's all right, you can drink it all.”

Orson took a big swig, draining the tin canteen. “My, that's—” Orson's lips froze. His skin turned icy blue.

Captain Crab gave him a gentle poke with his hook and Orson toppled back as stiff as a board onto the mound of grain.

“Have an ice sleep, Mr. Orson,” the Captain said, grinning. He fetched the towrope from the Jeep and tied it around the giant's ankles.

ULF CLIMBED THE STAIRS TO THE TOP FLOOR OF
the house and walked along the gloomy corridor.

Tiana flew beside him. “I don't know why he couldn't get it himself,” she said.

Ulf stopped at the door to Captain Crab's room and turned the key in the lock. He stepped inside, put the key in his pocket and started looking for the Captain's chest.

Tiana flew in after him and landed on a table with a puff of dust. She sneezed and shook her wings. “How could he sleep in here? It's filthy,” she said.

The Captain's hammock was lying in a heap on the floor. His lantern and jam jar were standing in the corner by the door.

Tiana looked for the Captain's chest. “Which one is his?” she asked. The room was full of chests. There were lots of them, and boxes and crates, and furniture covered in white sheets.

“I think his sea chest was brown,” Ulf said.

“They're all brown,” Tiana replied.

Ulf stepped to a chest by the wall and lifted its heavy wooden lid.

He gasped. Inside were two trolls' heads. Their skin was green and leathery and their snouts were shrivelled.

“Uuurrgghh!” Tiana cried, flying above them.

Ulf opened another chest. Inside he saw a vampire owl. Its feathers were dusty and it was stuffed with straw. He opened another and found the tail of a mermaid, chopped off and curling at its end. He pulled the corner of a white sheet. Underneath was
a dead phoenix in a glass dome. Its wings were spread and held up with wire. Then he pulled the sheet from a glass cabinet.

Tiana screamed. Inside the cabinet were row upon row of fairies, pinned flat against a black velvet board. Their wings were dry and cracked. Tiana flew to Ulf's shoulder, shaking. “They're all dead, Ulf. This room's full of dead beasts!”

Ulf pulled open chest after chest, then box after box. He found the blubbery head of a wartolump, a pickled impossipus in a glass tank, and a stuffed gorgon with its feet nailed to a plank of wood. Its eyes stared blankly at him.

“Who could have done this?” Tiana said. “It's so cruel!”

She covered her eyes with her hands.

Under another sheet Ulf saw a pair of brown leather shoes. He lifted the sheet up and saw two trouser legs and then a bony hand on the arm of a chair. It was holding a tea cup. Ulf whipped the
sheet off and froze. “Tiana, I think I know why Professor Farraway's ghost brought us here,” he said, trembling.

Beneath the sheet, sitting in an armchair, was a human skeleton dressed in a tweed suit.

Tiana peered between her fingers. “Professor Farraway!”

Ulf stared at the skeleton in the chair. It was Professor Farraway's body. His bones were shiny and polished.

“But the Professor died on an expedition out at sea. He was killed by a sea monster,” Tiana said.

Just then, Ulf heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

“When I was a boy, my father said to me, ‘Yo ho ho, it's a sailor's life for thee.'”

Captain Crab appeared at the doorway. “Well, well, so you found him then,” he said, looking at the skeleton. The Captain glanced around the room at the open boxes and leaned down, stroking one of
the trolls' heads. He looked at Ulf. “Now it's your turn to die, werewolf!”

Captain Crab picked up his hammock and threw it over Ulf. Ulf tried to claw his way out but the Captain held him down.

Ulf scratched at the Captain's face, and the Captain's skin tore off in shreds. It was made of rubber.

Tiana hurled herself at the Captain, tugging at his eyebrows and his nose. They came off in her hands. Underneath was a face that was twisted with hatred like a rotten apple core.

“Marackai!” Ulf said, staring.

“
Baron
Marackai to you, werewolf.”

“You're not a captain at all!” Tiana said. She bit Marackai's ear.

Baron Marackai laughed. “Didn't hurt, fairy!” He pulled his ear off, along with what was left of his rubber mask. Then he lunged at Tiana with his hook. It missed and dug into a table. The Baron pulled his
arm back and his hook came off. Underneath was a hand with its little finger missing.

As Ulf struggled in the net, the Baron grabbed his jam jar, unscrewed the lid and slammed it over Tiana, trapping her inside.

Ulf kicked Baron Marackai's ankle.

“Ouch!” the Baron said. He seized hold of Ulf with both hands, carrying him struggling in the net. “Couldn't you find my sea chest?” he asked. “Here it is. It's the empty one. I was saving it for you!”

He kicked open the lid of a wooden chest and bundled Ulf inside.

“Help!” Ulf shouted, kicking and struggling.

“Orson! Help!”

“The giant's asleep,” Baron Marackai said. He stamped his boot onto Ulf's stomach, pinning him inside the sea chest. “And he won't wake up in a hurry.”

The Baron laughed. “Haha hahaa haaaahaah! I gave him a drop of sea monster venom. Just like I gave my father.” He glanced at Professor Farraway's skeleton in the chair. “My father wasn't killed by a sea monster. He returned home from his expedition with a flask full of sea monster venom. Unfortunately for him though, he discovered my little collection here and threatened to throw me out of the house, so I slipped the venom into his tea.”

“You murdered him!”

“Not officially. Not according to the newspapers!” Baron Marackai laughed. “I threw his things in the sea and set his boat adrift so it looked like he'd had a little accident. I think he looks rather good among my trophies, though, don't you? You'll look good, too—when you're stuffed!”

“You'll never get away with it!” Ulf shouted. “Dr. Fielding—”

“I'm afraid she won't hear you, werewolf. She's a little tied up at the moment.”

Baron Marackai grinned. “I'm taking back what's mine!” he said. “This is my house and my land, and
every beast in your precious beast park will soon be dead! The RSPCB is doomed!”

The Baron lifted his boot. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Beast Feast to attend.”

He slammed the lid of the chest shut.

Inside, everything went dark. Ulf was trapped. “Let me out!” he shouted, pushing against the lid.

The Baron fastened the padlock on the chest.

“Help!”

Ulf heard the Baron heading out of the room. “When I was a boy, my father said to me, ‘Yo, ho, ugh—' as he drank his cup of tea.”

Ulf banged against the lid of the chest. He could hear the sound of the Jeep starting up and driving out through the yard. “Help!” he called. “Let me out!”