The Dark Giants (4 page)

Sophie T instantly approved of Amelia’s fourposter bed and the deep bay window that
jutted out like her own private observation deck, giving a view of nearly the whole
headland.

‘This is like a fairy-tale room!’ she sighed. ‘You’re like Rapunzel or something.’

‘Except her mum isn’t an evil witch,’ Charlie pointed out.

Sophie T ignored him and instead pointed to Amelia’s single bed, which Dad had brought
out of the storeroom and put by the wall. ‘Is that
where I’m sleeping?’

‘Oh,’ Amelia said. ‘No. I mean, unless you’d prefer to? But there’s so much room
in the fourposter, I thought you could share it with me. Charlie was going to sleep
in that one.’

‘Charlie’s sleeping in the same room as we are?’

‘Well … yeah. I mean, it’s a big room, and there are curtains around the bed, if
you’re …’

‘No, it’s fine,’ said Sophie T. ‘I’ve just never shared a room with a
boy
before.’

‘What’s wrong with boys?’ Charlie asked.

Sophie T looked at him sideways. ‘Where would I begin, Charles?’

‘How about with how awesome we are? Or how tough? Or how we’re never afraid of the
dark?’

Sophie T sucked in a breath, and then returned, ‘Or how stupid you are? Or how smelly
and ugly and
hairy
?’

Charlie hooted. ‘You don’t think that about
Barry Hamburger. You think he’s
gorgeous
.’

‘Well, he is. Plus he’s totally talented –’

Charlie hooted again.

‘– and he writes his own music.’

‘And,’ Charlie added, grinning triumphantly, ‘is a boy.’

‘He’s not a boy, Charles.
You’re
a boy. Harry Badenburger is a
guy
.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘I’ll tell you …’

‘Guys,’ Amelia said quietly. Then, ‘Guys?’

‘Go on,’ Charlie said stubbornly. ‘Tell me what?’

‘Guys!’

‘There’s hardly any point.’ Sophie T crossed her arms. ‘Seeing as you’re too thick
to understand.’

‘
Guys
!’ Amelia raised her voice and the two of them looked at her, guilty, and then
at each other, accusing.

‘I’m very sorry, Amelia,’ Sophie T said, still
glaring at Charlie. ‘I’ll just go
brush my teeth and get changed in the bathroom. Where it’s
private
.’

She got her overnight bag and strode past Charlie, her nose in the air.

Amelia sighed.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Charlie when she was gone.

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘I am! But also, I was only trying to do you a favour.’

Amelia rolled her eyes at him.

‘It’s true! I’ll bet you anything Sophie T has completely forgotten about what happened
downstairs.’

‘Hey!’ Amelia hurried to stand right beside him and whispered, ‘What do you think
it was?’

‘For a moment, I thought it had to be Grawk.’

‘Me too!’

‘But then, how?’ Charlie asked. ‘Grawk on a ladder? Wearing magnifying spectacles?’

‘Yeah,’ Amelia deflated.

‘Anyway,’ he went on. ‘Whatever it was, there’s no way we can find out with Sophie
T around.’

‘I know.’ Amelia gazed sadly at her window.

It took ages to fall asleep. First they had to all get ready to turn off the light,
then they talked, then Sophie T told Charlie to tell Amelia about the time Ms Slaviero
brought an orphaned fruit bat to school and it got spooked by the bell and flew onto
Dean’s head and hung onto his face so tightly that no-one could peel it off again.

Then finally there was nothing more to say, and Amelia stopped thinking about Sophie
T and strange yellow glows and Grawk and Foxy and Lady Naomi and mysterious canisters,
and instead just lay quietly, enjoying how cosy it was to be snuggled into bed …

And then, right next to her ear, a little explosion of warm breath went, ‘
Psssst!’

Amelia bolted awake. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Shh!’

‘Charlie?’ Amelia sat up straighter. He was crouched on the floor beside her. ‘What’s
going on?’

‘Listen!’

Amelia frowned into the darkness and waited. After a moment, she heard a scraping
noise on the roof. Not the scuffling, wrestling noises in the ceiling that rats made;
this was heavier, but also quieter, more distant. And it was undoubtedly
outside
.
Something was walking on the hotel, and every now and then a tile shifted under its
feet.

‘I hear it,’ she said. ‘But what –’ She froze as an almost familiar growl rumbled
above her. ‘Could it be Grawk?’

‘Something’s happened to him, if it is,’ said Charlie.

‘Well, I have to find out.’ Amelia wriggled out of bed, then listened to the steady
breathing beside her. As far as she could tell, Sophie T was still asleep. ‘Come
on,’ she whispered. ‘Find your shoes.’

‘I don’t know,’ Charlie whispered back, but she could hear him feeling around on
the floor. ‘You don’t know it was Grawk. Or maybe it was
a
grawk, but not your nice
Grawk. What if another wild grawk came though? Or something else?’

‘Something else that sounds like Grawk?’

‘Or something that knows how to sound like what you most want to hear. To lure you
out, like bait.’

Overhead, there was a heavy clattering, a deep, malevolent growl, and then a shadow
flickered past the starry sky outside Amelia’s window. Whatever the thing was, it
had just leapt off the roof to the grass two storeys below. Amelia
pushed past Charlie
and ran to the window. There was enough moonlight to make out a streak of movement
on the lawn below.

‘It’s Grawk,’ she whispered joyfully.

‘How can you –?’

‘It
was
. And he’s going to Tom’s. Let’s go!’

‘Amelia,’ Charlie hissed, but she was already slipping out of her bedroom door. He
followed her across the gallery, down the marble stairs, and into the lobby. ‘Amelia,
think about it. You don’t know for sure that was Grawk.’

‘I do. I know his growl.’

‘Right – his growl,’ said Charlie. ‘That wasn’t exactly a happy noise, was it?’

Amelia let herself out the main doors of the hotel, and sat down on the top step
to pull her shoes on.

‘Even if it is Grawk,’ Charlie went on, sitting beside her with his shoes, ‘and it
probably was,
OK? But even then – why do you think it’s a good idea to chase him
in the dark? What if he wants us to leave him alone?’

‘Then why was he watching us in the library? Why was he on the roof above my bedroom?’

‘For all I know, he was looking for a chimney to come down, and we were going to
be the three little pigs inside.’

‘No.’ Amelia wasn’t about to waste time arguing. ‘It was Grawk, and he was helping
us. I don’t know if he was standing guard over us or trying to get our attention
to show us something, but I’m going to find him.’

‘Amelia –’

She’d taken long enough already. Shoes on, she ran into the dark and called back,
‘Stay here or come with, I don’t care, but I’m going.’

Charlie ran after her. ‘Of course I’m coming.’

They sped through the grass, down the steep
slope toward the magnolia grove. Amelia
took a deep breath as they entered the thicker darkness under the trees. They couldn’t
run here, but had to pick their way through the leaf litter, feeling ahead for low-hanging
branches. They were still under cover when, across the clearing ahead of them, they
saw of a flash of white light coming from the other side of Tom’s cottage. Amelia
and Charlie stopped and listened. Another flash. And then two more, and the sound
of voices, a way off through the trees beyond Tom’s.

Amelia saw a faint yellow glow in the bushes off to one side, a distance from where
the voices seemed to be.

‘Grawk!’ she called softly – the yellow globes blinked twice and then vanished.

Charlie shoved her. ‘Look!’ he pointed.

While Amelia had been looking at the glow, that flashing light had come toward them.
She
heard footsteps treading through dry leaves, saw branches shiver as they were
shoved aside and then an enormous creature stepped into the clearing, its attention
focused on the gadget in its hands.

It was easily the muscliest being Amelia had ever seen, and not just in real life:
even including Charlie’s superhero comics. Grotesque ropey veins covered bulging
arms, and vast shoulders rose to a smallish head, which was completely covered by
a spiked metal helmet. The gadget lit up again, bathing the alien in an intense light.
Amelia saw dull, slate-blue skin covered with intricate patterns that looked halfway
between tattoos and scars. The creature grunted, shook the gadget and called back
over its shoulder. Its voice was like a nightmare version of Dad grinding beans in
his coffee machine.

A second blue giant stepped into the clearing.
This one was bigger still, with no
spikes on its helmet but a wild beard springing out from underneath instead. And
if that wasn’t horrible enough, it was dragging little Foxy in his centaur form behind
it by one spindly arm.

Charlie sucked in a breath and they both crouched lower behind the trees.

Foxy yipped at them, his attempts to speak their grumbling language sounding thin
and frightened, but – Amelia noticed – still cranky. He held his head high, and he
yanked his arm out of Beard’s grip. Spike growled something and shoved the gadget
at him. Foxy took it, inspected its working, and then the giant tapped it forcefully
and growled again.

It’s broken,
Amelia guessed. And why wouldn’t it be, with that massive blue finger
thumping it like a hammer blow?

Foxy yipped sharply and pulled the gadget
back out of Spike’s reach. He pressed something
and light glowed up into his face. Amelia saw him frown as he adjusted its controls.

Then there was another great burst of light, and Amelia realised it was blasting
out in a thin sheet, scanning the bush from top to bottom in a ninety-degree spread.
The edge of this light was only a metre or two from her hiding spot with Charlie,
and the two kids held their breath.

Foxy, still looking at the box, gave a yip of surprise and in a jumble of excited
growls, pointed into the patch of bush. The two blue giants immediately tapped their
helmets so that visors dropped down over their eyes (
night vision?
Amelia wondered),
and turned to follow Foxy’s finger. They were wearing backpacks with weapons strapped
to the side, and more holstered on their thighs. These guys weren’t mucking around.

Amelia squeezed Charlie’s arm. That yellow
glow that she so deeply hoped and believed
was Grawk had vanished into the very area Beard was now aiming his gun.

Foxy yipped and growled again, and then all three aliens suddenly ran, the bio-scanner
flaring out again as they smashed their way through the bush.

‘What the heck was that about?’ Charlie breathed as soon as the clearing was empty.

The aliens were making so much noise that he and Amelia didn’t need to worry about
being overheard, but both of them felt safer whispering. Amelia hoped wherever Grawk
was, he was too fast and too clever to be in danger.