Right. Now to answer the eternal question: is this plan gonna work? Going over the checklist in her notebook, she rummaged through a stack of cardboard boxes and pulled out two deflated inner tubes and a bicycle pump. Next, she located a coiled length of rope in the cupboard above the washing machine. Lastly, she folded up an empty cardboard box, then stuffed it all into her backpack, which, try as she might, wouldn’t zip all the way.
Lucy hopped on her bike and headed out to the road, keeping her fingers crossed for good luck. She was going to need it.
The Thing
The cold nipped at Milo’s toes as he crunched across the island shore in his water shoes. He’d arrived at the Siren’s Lair bright and early in his quest to track down the Thing. Today it was proving more elusive than ever. Once more, Milo whistled, hoping for a response. “PHEW-EEEE-OOO.” None came.
A few days before, Milo had managed to get within an arm’s breadth of the creature by hiding in a fir tree at the far side of the island. He’d spent three uncomfortable hours waiting, reading Sticky Secrets to pass the time. This town’s history is truly insane. At last, the white stag emerged through the foliage and nibbled on the sweets Milo had scattered on the ground below. Milo had moved to get a closer look, but he lost his footing and dropped the heavy book. Immediately, the deer spooked and bounded off. Milo slid down as quickly as he could and gave chase, but the creature had vanished faster than the spectre of fiscal responsibility at the Federal Reserve.
Now, after a couple days of careful tracking, Milo felt he had a handle on exactly where the Thing was hiding.
Ducking under a broken sign that read “Restricted Area: Trespassers Will—”, Milo entered a sheltered clearing in a copse of leafless alders and indigo sticky pines. He set his pack behind a shoulder-high boulder covered in layers of graffiti, some of which was carved into the stone itself.
On the far side of the clearing, ringed by a sprinkling of white-capped mushrooms, was a bubbling hot spring no wider than Milo’s waist. He’d be willing to bet his Burberry brogues that this was, in fact, the fabled “spring of life” mentioned in Sticky Secrets. At first glance it certainly didn’t seem “mystical” or “magical”, and its scalding waters smelled like boiled eggs. But, Milo reasoned, perhaps what made it “special” wasn’t what it did, but what it contained.
He had realised the day before that this small stinky spring would make a perfect hiding place. Of course, the Thing was much too big to fit inside, but if it could shrink down from a giant lake monster to a deer that was a fraction of the size, perhaps it could shrink down even smaller. Small enough to fit inside that tiny little waterhole? Milo was determined to find out.
“PHEW-EEEE-OOO!” Milo whistled to announce his presence. He didn’t want to scare it off this time.
Unzipping his bag, he took out a paper parcel from Mandy’s Candies and tentatively approached the spring. He placed one end of a long rope of red liquorice into the bubbling water and laid the rest on the soil at its edge. Then he added a trail of gumdrops leading all the way up to the graffiti-covered boulder. “PHEW-EEEE-OOO.” Milo set his bag beside the rock and waited.
There was nothing at first. Is it in there?
“PHEW-EEEE-OOO,” he whistled again.
The liquorice twitched. Milo perked up. All at once the red candy rope disappeared into the simmering spring. It’s working.
Slowly, snakily, a thin black tendril emerged from the water and felt around in the dirt. Yikes! Milo ducked behind the boulder, his instincts urging him to run. That thing is like a slimy rat tail. Heart racing, he forced himself to look.
The slithering appendage was exploring the sugary surface of the nearest gumdrop. Another tendril emerged from the spring and groped around, looking for more. As soon as it found the second gumdrop, more dark feelers emerged, resembling the spines of a sea urchin. With a series of SLURPs, the spines clumped together and coagulated to form three fat tentacles, like the ones that had harassed Milo’s sinking boat.
Sweet Cerberus.
Bit by bit, a quivering, bulbous, beach ball-sized blob that looked like it was made of inky jello squished up and out of the spring.
Horrified, Milo darted back behind the boulder. Is that what the Thing looks like when it’s not pretending to be something else? It’s astonishingly gross. He could hear the creature squidging over pebbles and pine needles, inching ever closer to the boulder. Milo felt the sting of sweat on his brow. Did it know he was there?
“PHBEEWWW-BEEEEEEE-BWOOOO,” came an unearthly trill, somehow originating from the blobby Thing.
Milo felt a jolt of prideful recognition. That’s my whistle! Could it be that the creature was calling to him? He hesitated, not yet willing to emerge from his hiding spot.
Tentatively, a black protrusion groped round the boulder and found Milo’s sleeve. Both he and the Thing flinched, then froze.
Moments passed, Milo hardly daring to breathe. Eventually, the tentacle quietly slithered back to the other side of the boulder. There was a gurgling, sucking sound. Milo could feel all the air in the vicinity rush towards the Thing. What was happening? Digging his nails into his palms, Milo stuck his head round the stone and dared to look.
The creature’s gelatinous dark body was growing, narrowing and twisting, like an enormous slab of black clay being moulded from within. Its colour began to pale, turning grey, then bone white. At last, the being congealed and settled into the form of a mighty stag as big as a horse. Colourless slime shimmered on its flanks.
Milo covered his mouth to suppress a squeak.
The horned deer stared down at
