One Beastly Beast: Two aliens, three inventors, four fantastic tales

To Stella Paskins, Ruth Katcher, Cathie Tasker and Kay Ronai, the editors who brought these stories into print; and as always, to Anna, Thomas and Edward

Contents

Dear Reader,

Once upon a time, quite a long time ago, there was a boy who loved stories. He liked all kinds of stories, but particularly those about pirates, and aliens, and inventors, and sea serpents and knights and castles and monsters and dark nights when the moon was just a sliver in the sky, and a boy or a girl had to become a hero and take on terrible tasks to make everything right with the world.

The boy was lucky, because his parents loved stories too and their house was full of books, and he was even luckier still, because there was a library halfway between school and home. So he read more tales of adventure and excitement, more stories about talking animals and hideous beasts and brave children and magic both fair and foul.

That boy, of course, was me. I still love all kinds of stories, but most of all I like the ones that tell of fantastic creatures and fabulous places. When I grew up, I found out that I didn’t want to just read stories like that, I wanted to write them.

I’ve pretty much written all my books for myself. When I write, I just try to tell the kind of story that I like to read. These four stories in particular are for that young boy, who more than thirty-five years ago signed up for a life of adventure through reading.

Garth Nix

Chapter One

“Take these videos back to the shop, please,” said Peter’s mum. She took two DVDs out of her shopping bag and handed them to her son. “They have to be back by two o’clock or they cost extra.”

“OK,” said Peter. Anything to get away from the boredom of following his mother around. “Which video shop, Mum?”

“VideoPleaseMe,” said Mum as she locked the car. “Right over there. Then come straight over to the supermarket.”

“Yes, Mum,” said Peter, rolling his eyes. Anyone would think he was still a little kid.

“And no, you can’t have any money to rent games for your Play Station,” added Mum as Peter opened his mouth.

“Yes, Mum,” said Peter.

Peter trudged over to the shop, pretending that he was slow-marching in a procession. He held the two DVDs out in front of him like some sort of ceremonial regalia. The sacred DVDs of the king, he thought, and laughed.

“Make way for the king’s DVDs,” he said in a mock-regal voice to no one in particular as he crossed the car park.

“King’s DVDs!” said a voice from somewhere ahead of him and somehow down below.

Peter stopped pretending to be the king and tried to see who was talking. But there was no one around. Just one lady getting into her car. Besides, the voice sounded low and gruff. It couldn’t have come from her.

“Down here, matey!”

It was louder now. A deep and somehow slightly nasty voice that made Peter think of running away. But he took a quick, deep breath instead… and looked down.

Chapter Two

Just in front of Peter’s feet there was a heavy steel grating set in the ground – a kind of manhole for the drains – and that’s where the voice was coming from.

“What are you doing in the drain?” asked Peter. His voice quavered a bit, though he was more surprised than frightened.

“Ar, that’d be a tale to tell,” answered the voice. “A tale as wot’s longer than my tail, if yer take my meaning.”

Peter didn’t take his meaning, but he knelt down to take a closer look, putting the videos on the ground next to the grating. But as soon as he let go of them, the grating suddenly moved up and sideways. Peter instinctively jumped back. Then he stood and stared, unable to believe what he was seeing.

Four enormous black rats jumped out of the drain – rats that stood on their hind legs and came up as far as his knees. But these weren’t just really big rats. They had clothes on, old-fashioned clothes with big wide belts and floppy hats. Three of them held cutlasses in their pink paws, and one was pointing two pistols at Peter. Old pistols like the kind that humans hadn’t used for more than a hundred years, but rat-sized.

“You’re pirates!” exclaimed Peter, taking in additional details such as the eyepatch on the biggest, meanest-looking rat, and the skull and crossbones dyed white on his black chest fur, where his red shirt was rudely unbuttoned to the waist.

“Yes, we be pirates!” growled the rat with the eyepatch, gesturing to his mates to pick up the two DVDs. “We be video pirates, ah har, and those there discs will fetch us a pretty sum. I advise yer to step aside, lad, if yer knows wot’s good for yer!”

“But video pirates just copy stuff,” said Peter frowning. “They don’t steal them! We’ll have to pay a fine if you steal our DVDs.”

“Don’t tell us how to do our piratin’,” said the rat menacingly. “We’re taking these here DVDs and that’s that!”

Quickly, the rats passed the DVDs down into the drain, while the one with the eyepatch kept his pistols trained on Peter. After the others had climbed back down, this last rat hesitated, then raised his pistols.

“Don’t try and follow us!” he ordered. “And don’t go blabbing to the navy, neither.”

With that said, he carefully uncocked the pistols and thrust them through his belt, before diving after his gang. Judging from the rat’s caution with the guns, Peter got the impression that he’d probably once had a nasty accident with them.

He was just bending over to look down the drain when the pirate rat suddenly popped back up, teeth shining evilly in the sun.

“Don’t even think about following us!” he snarled, before disappearing again.

Peter stood absolutely still for a minute and listened carefully. He could hear distant echoes coming from the drain, as if the rats were singing as they marched away. Away with his DVDs. Peter felt half angry and half petrified, but mostly he thought, What can I say to Mum? Four pirate rats stole the DVDs and I didn’t do anything?

He took a step forward, and then another. His foot was in the air for the third and final step when the mean-looking rat popped out again.

“I said—” he started to say, then his eyes bulged, his whiskers sprang out absolutely straight and he ducked back down into the drain.

Chapter Three

“Halt in the name of the king!” shouted a voice behind Peter. Before he could turn round to look, more rats raced past him. They were the same size as the pirates, but these were wearing blue-and-white-striped shirts and red cloth caps, and they all had pistols as well as cutlasses. They quickly surrounded the drainhole, ignoring Peter, except for the rat who was obviously their leader.

“Ruffians!” exclaimed this important-looking rat, and marched over to Peter. Peter looked down at him, taking in the blue uniform with gold buttons and braid, and the shiny black arched hat.

“I guess you’re the navy,” said Peter slowly. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Well done, sir,” exclaimed the rat. “Captain Erasmus Rattus at your service, of His Majesty’s Royal Ratship Tumblewheel. Currently on an anti-piracy cruise.”

“They took my DVDs,” said Peter. “Four horrible pirates! One had an eyepatch.”

“The scurvy knaves!” exclaimed Captain Rattus angrily. “If coming up Topside ain’t bad enough, it’s pirating videos as well. What’s your name, lad?”

“Peter,” said Peter.

“A goodly name,” said the captain. “Like the Blue Peter flag we fly when we’re leaving port. That’s a name for adventure, that is. I expect you’ll be wanting to come with us to recover your cargo?”

“Cargo?” asked Peter. “What cargo?”

“The DVDs!” cried Captain Rattus. “Why, if we don’t catch those pirates soon, they’ll be turning those DVDs into Frisbees and earrings and coasters and trading them for gold and ivory. They’re probably almost back to their ship by now. Are you coming with us?”

He pointed at the open drain and the sailor rats started to jump down, one after the other. Soon there was only the captain and Peter left. Peter looked at the hole and thought of the lost DVDs.

“I’m too big to get down there,” he said finally. He didn’t know if he wanted to go or not. He did like the sound of an adventure, but he wasn’t sure about all these rats.

“Too big?” muttered Captain Rattus. “We’ll soon fix that. Where’s the doctor!”

“Here, sir!” piped up a rat Peter hadn’t even noticed. An unobtrusive rat in a scruffy brown coat, who was lurking way back near another drain. He hurried over, pulled out a monocle, stuck it in his eye and peered up at Peter.

“Doctor Abednego Norvegicus at your service,” he said. “I take it that this is a matter of shrinkage, captain?”

“Shrinking!” corrected the captain. “Peter here wants to sign on for the duration.”

“Oh, I’m not sure if that’s exactly—” said Peter anxiously. “The duration” sounded like a very long time. “Well, as long as it takes to recover his cargo or when he gets sick of it then,” said the captain. “So if you could please shrink him down immediately, doctor, that would be most agreeable.”

“Hmmm,” said the doctor, looking up at Peter and making estimating motions with his arms. “How old are you, Peter?”

“Nine,” said Peter. “In July.”

“Very well,” said the doctor. “Since I haven’t a potion or the necessary lotion in the quantities you would require, it will have to be a spell.”

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