This information did not sit at all well with Hamish.
‘A little vomit?’ he said, as Boffo started to smile.
‘Yes, just a little vomit,’ said Mrs Quip. ‘It’s perfectly normal.’
Boffo kept smiling as Hamish stared into his eyes. They seemed to have changed colour. They were now bright green and Hamish could make out a look of anticipation.
What exactly was this baby planning?
‘You can have him back now!’ said Hamish, struggling to turn the giant baby. But he could barely lift him to hand him back.
‘No, no,’ said Mrs Quip. ‘You enjoy him!’
‘Honestly, take him back!’ said Hamish, his arms now shaking from the weight of the baby beast. ‘I think you should—’And then he stopped.
Because he could feel a rumble.
And the rumble became a VIBRATION.
And the VIBRATION became a SHAKE.
And the SHAKE became—
Oh, poor Hamish! A river of milk began to pound his face!
‘AAAAAARRRGH!’ yelled Hamish BLUUUUUUUUURRGH! continued Boffo, who now looked like a milk-dispensing fire extinguisher. He was bright red and the milk was shooting out fast!
‘AAAARGH!’ yelled Mum.
‘AAAARGH!’ yelled Mrs Quip. BLUUUUUUUUUURGH! continued Boffo.
This was insane! Unstoppable! It was like a firefighter’s hose on full blast!
How much milk had this baby drunk?
‘AAAARGH!’ yelled Hamish, still holding him. BLLUUUUUURGH! continued Boffo.
When would it stop? When would it stop?
All Hamish could do was keep the baby in the air and try and point him at places he wouldn’t cause too much mess. Hamish was already soaked, so he aimed Boffo at his mum’s wellington boots by the door.
And, finally, Boffo stopped. Just like that.
‘This is the worst day of my life!’ said Hamish – and that was saying something.
BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP burped Boffo, beaming.
‘I’ve been BABIED!’ yelled Hamish, as Mrs Quip tried to wipe his face with a tiny towelette.
‘Hamish!’ said Alice, standing in the doorway, looking pale. ‘We need you upstairs. Fast.’
Leg It, Hamish!
In Hamish’s room, the PDF were all pressed up against the window.
‘What is it?’ asked Hamish, rushing in and sopping wet.
‘What’s that smell?’ said Clover, holding her nose. ‘Is that . . . cinnamon?’
‘I was babied,’ said Hamish, appalled. ‘It lasted so long that I thought I’d spend the rest of my life being barfed over!’
‘Look,’ said Buster. ‘Here it comes again!’
Hamish walked over to the window and peered outside. All he could see was one of those Sharm! cars from Frinkley. Mrs Quip must have ordered it to take them home.
‘Over there,’ said Buster, pointing. ‘On the corner!’
And there, just where Lovelock Close meets Myna Street, a lone pram trundled along the pavement.
Hamish stared for a second before realising what the big deal was . . .
Because, yes. You read that right. A lone pram.
It was black, with its hood pulled right down, and it was smoothly coasting down the street, completely on its own, with no parent or big brother or sister to be seen.
‘We should stop it,’ said Hamish, uncertainly. ‘I mean, what do we do? It’s a runaway pram!’
‘Wait,’ said Elliot. ‘Watch.’
The pram didn’t seem out of control – that was the strange thing. It was maintaining a steady speed. It was going neither slowly nor quickly. It just seemed to be cruising.
‘That’s the third time it’s been down your street, Hamish,’ explained Elliot, peeking at it from behind the curtain. ‘Now watch this!’
There was dog poo maybe ten metres in front of the pram, right in the middle of the pavement, just outside Mr Ramsface’s house. It must have been old Mr Neate’s dog that had done it. Old Mr Neate didn’t pick up after his dog. He’d say: ‘What am I supposed to do with that? Pop it on my head and pretend it’s a hat? Make a lovely teapot out of it?’
And people would reply: ‘Er, no. You throw it in the special bin.’
And old Mr Neate would walk away, laughing, like they’d just told him a really good joke.
The pram had nearly reached the poo now. By Elliot’s calculations, it would be no more than 3.6 seconds before the pram sliced through the dog’s awful doings. Hamish held his breath.
And, at the very last moment, the pram swerved perfectly around it.
‘What the . . . ?’ said Hamish, startled and a little afraid.
He’d heard of self-driving cars. But not poo-swerving prams.
Then, once it was past the doo-doo, the pram turned and, as if someone had jammed on the accelerator, it SHOT OFF down the street, as a cat jumped out of its way in fright.
‘Well, I think it’s safe to say something’s definitely going on in Starkley,’ said Alice, watching it skid round the corner. ‘Again.’
‘But what?’ asked Clover. ‘I mean, it’s not like these babies have actually done anything.’
‘They’ve pushed people in bins!’ said Hamish. ‘And flicked their bottoms! And leapt at us and ROARED. What if it’s building up to something?’
Hamish heard his front door slam shut. They all watched as Mrs Quip walked down the path to the taxi, clearly struggling under the weight of Boffo.
She strapped him into a baby seat, while the driver sat inside and tried to retune his radio. Well, he kept hitting it. Hamish’s mum was waving them off and saying things like, ‘And thank you so much for asking! We love babies! We’d be so happy to look after him anytime! Hamish will be delighted!’
Boffo looked up at Hamish and grinned.
It sent shivers down his spine.
Downstairs, in the kitchen that night, Hamish’s mum was humming a happy tune. He was pleased she was happy. Things had been stressful and hectic for her in the Complaints Department of Starkley Town Council recently. Complaints had been flooding in! Though, weirdly, a lot of these complaints were from people living in Frinkley. It was exhausting.
Usually around now, Mum would be listening to the Janice Mad Show on Starkley FM. They’d be doing a phone-in about what the weather’s like. Was all she ever did, and it was normally just lots of people getting in touch to say exactly the same thing.
‘Peter in Starkley says it’s cloudy at the moment,’ Janice would say, reading out the texts. ‘Paul in Starkley says it’s cloudy. Pippin in Starkley says it’s cloudy. Percy in Starkley says it’s quite cloudy at the moment.’
On and on she’d go, never once thinking that all anyone had to do to see what the weather was like was look out of the window. But tonight for some reason the radio was just making a horrible CHHHHHH static noise instead and his mum didn’t seem to have noticed.
Hamish switched the radio off and wondered how to raise the idea of psycho babies with her. Particularly as her good friend had apparently just had one. I mean, you can’t say that about someone’s newborn, can you? You can’t say: ‘Oh, you appear to have given birth to a terrifying baby!’
‘Mum?’ said Hamish, edging closer. ‘Um, can I ask you something?’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s a bit . . . delicate.’
‘Oh!’ said his mum. ‘Of course, chicken. Anything.’
‘It’s about . . . babies.’
‘Ah,’ said Mum, suddenly looking absolutely terrified. She started to move things around on the dinner table which didn’t need to be moved around. That was odd. Why would his mum look terrified just because he wanted to ask about babies?
‘Hah! You know something, don’t you?’ Hamish said. ‘You know something about babies!’
She went red.
‘I thought you knew,’ she said, looking anywhere but at her son.
Hamish’s eyes widened.
‘So . . . it’s true?’ he said. ‘And they can con
trol buggies?’
His mum stared at him.
‘What is it exactly you want to know about babies?’ she asked.
‘I think they’ve all gone weird,’ he said. ‘I’m worried there’s more to it.’
‘Oh!’ said his mum, looking strangely relieved. ‘Well, I mean, babies are a bit weird.’
‘Too weird,’ said Hamish. ‘And, as Protector of Starkley, I’m going to find out why!’
‘Well,’ she replied, ‘you’ll have plenty of chances to study one. Mrs Quip has asked if we’d look after Boffo for a few hours here and there this week. And I said of course.’
Hamish suddenly noticed that Mrs Quip had left a vast Formula One tank with a bright red pipe for Boffo to suck on. It gurgled and blurgled in the corner. It was on wheels so it could be carted to wherever the little emperor was. The stench of cinnamon began to sting Hamish’s eyes.
Boffo’s Formula One tank. In his kitchen.
‘Wasn’t Boffo just a sweetheart?’ said Mum. ‘Just the cutest? Just the cuddliest?’
Hamish realised he’d be seeing a lot more of Boffo Quip. And that his own mother had been won over by him. What was it with adults and babies? Why couldn’t they see what Hamish did? That babies weren’t as cute, small and helpless as they wanted you to believe? Maybe he needed to tell Dad, because Hamish’s world was starting to feel smaller. Babies were beginning to take over his thoughts the way one had already started to take over his kitchen.
Was he going crazy, or . . . was this some kind of invasion?
Hamish couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being targeted.
The Curious Case
of the Bear in
the Night-time
Hamish tried to put all thoughts of being singled out by the babies from his mind. It was silly, wasn’t it?
Yes, so babies had gone crazy in the hospital. And yes, they’d gone crazy in the town square. And sure, one had vomited all over him in his own home and left a huge tank of cinnamon-stinking formula in his kitchen, but really – they were just babies. Even if they were scary, they were nothing to be afraid of. He could hardly interrupt his dad’s mission to track down evil old Scarmarsh and say, ‘Please come back to Starkley – there’s loads of weird babies!’, could he?
No, there was probably a very simple explanation. So Hamish brushed his teeth, washed his face and popped his pyjamas on as usual. He pushed open the door to his bedroom, closed his window, turned his bedside light on and popped a glass of water on his bedside table, just as he always did.
Then, as usual, he said hello to baby Boffo’s weird Toppy Sparkles bear that was in his bed and made sure it was all tucked in.
Then he . . .
Wait.
Hang on a second . . . What did I just say?
Hamish stopped in his tracks and took a second look.
Staring out from his bed (now tucked up rather nicely) was a bright blue teddy bear.
‘Toppy Sparkles,’ Hamish whispered to himself.
But this wasn’t Boffo’s – his was pink – so whose was it?
Wait. What if . . . Boffo had been in his room?
No. That was impossible. How could he have been?
And surely his friends would have noticed if the bear had been there all along.
Hamish’s eyes flicked to the window he’d just closed. Had he left that open? Or had Mum?
He eyed the teddy suspiciously as he walked round his bed. Its weird eyes seemed to follow him. Where was he going to put this stuffed monstrosity? He didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night and feel like Toppy Sparkles was staring at him, all googly-eyed and terrifying. Or for Toppy Sparkles to malfunction somehow, and start yelling, ‘I’M TOPPY SPARKLES!’ at the top of its voice at two in the morning. Maybe Hamish should stick him in a drawer until he could get rid of the bear in the morning.
Yeah. He’d do that.
Hamish reached to grab Toppy Sparkles, pulled his duvet back . . .
And screamed!
‘AARGH!’
Because, when Hamish really, properly looked at this Toppy Sparkles, all he could see . . .
. . . was its head!
Where was its body? What had happened to poor Toppy Sparkles?!
What kind of monster would do something like this? thought Hamish, flattened against the wall, as Toppy Sparkles’ weird googly eyes looked weirder and more googly and deranged than ever. This was horrifying!
Hamish needed air so he went to open his window. And his heart nearly stopped.
Across from him, down on the street by the Ramsface residence, stood a shady and mysterious figure.
Who was that? What were they doing?
A tall man in a wide-brimmed hat and a long brown jacket leaned against a lamp post.
The world seemed suddenly silent, except for the sound of Hamish’s own heartbeat throbbing in his ears.
He put his hands flat on the glass to steady himself, and stared out as the stranger looked up and down the street. And then, as if he knew he was being watched, the man looked up . . .
And stared straight at Hamish.
They locked eyes.
The stranger tipped his hat at young Hamish.
Hamish was scared. There was something not right . . .
He wanted to back away from the window and disappear into the relative darkness of his own room, but he was too terrified. For a start, Toppy Sparkles was there.
Or some of him anyway.
The man took a step forward, into the light from the lamp post, and gave Hamish a strange and creepy smile.
Then, right behind the figure, the lights in the Ramsface house suddenly came on.
‘All right, all right, I’m DOING it,’ came a distant but familiar voice.
It was Mr Ramsface. Obviously unlocking the front door so he could put the bins out.
What would the tall man do now? Walk away?
But what happened was far odder and more heart-jangling than that.
The man in the hat turned round and simply collapsed in a heap!
I’m serious. Just like that! Collapsed in a heap!
Hamish watched as the man just crumpled to the ground.
He’d gone from six feet tall to almost nothing in a heartbeart.
All that remained was the coat, the hat and a pair of brown leather shoes on the pavement below.
Hamish was confused. People don’t just . . . crumple!
Had the guy fallen into a manhole? Had gravity somehow crushed him to the size of a beef-and-onion Oxo cube? Had he evaporated?
And then, as Mr Ramsface finally managed to get his own front door open, Hamish stared in disbelief as the coat gently wriggled on the ground for a second.
Then four tiny figures – who Hamish now realised had been standing on each other’s shoulders under the coat – popped out from underneath and sped away in different directions under cover of darkness, their tiny hands slapping the pavement.
Hamish put his hand to his mouth. He knew then and there that he’d been sent a message.
The head of Toppy Sparkles.
The tank in the kitchen.
The collapsible baby man.
Hamish been told to Back Off . . .
By a gang of terrifying babies.
Bully For You
It was the next morning and the PDF were up bright and early and pacing around Garage 5.
‘They’re getting stronger?’ said Buster. ‘Intimidating you?’
‘I think the buggy followed us from the square after that baby jumped at us,’ said Hamish, sitting down at the table. ‘And it made sure that was where I lived. And then those other babies were sent to bully me.’
It sounded a bit odd, saying that some babies were bullying him. But that’s what it felt like. Hamish had some serious bags under his eyes. He’d barely slept as he kept worrying that a baby would shimmy up the drainpipe and start slapping him awake or tweaking his nose or something.
But what he couldn’t work out was wh
y the babies would be targeting him in the first place.
‘I’ve been doing some research!’ said Clover, producing a clipboard and a doll. ‘And what I’ve found out will startle you, confound you and concern you. Gather round!’
She held up the doll with one hand and pointed at it with the other.
‘This is a baby,’ she said.
The PDF all stared at the doll. They didn’t need to. They all knew what a baby looked like.
‘You can tell it’s a baby,’ said Clover, ‘by its baby face, baby eyes and baby size.’
Elliot looked impressed and made notes.
‘But now . . .’ said Clover, and she reached into her pocket and took out a golden wig, which she lay across the doll’s head, ‘. . . it’s a very small man.’
She put the doll on a chair for everybody to stare at and nodded importantly, like she’d just blown their minds.
The whole team waited for the next part of the presentation.
‘So that’s it,’ said Clover.
‘Oh!’ said Hamish. ‘Well, thank you, Clo. That was very . . . short.’
‘So if it’s wearing a golden wig,’ said Venk, confused, ‘it’s a very small man . . .’
Clover looked a little embarrassed all of a sudden.
‘What Clover means,’ said Alice, ‘is that we need to be on our guard. babies are wily. They may use disguises. They can infiltrate society at every level. They can get anywhere, be anyone. Right, Clo?’
‘Right!’ said Clover. ‘That’s exactly what I meant.’
Hamish had been working on a plan of his own.
‘We need to know where they’re coming from, what’s causing this and what they want,’ Hamish said. His sleepless night had given him plenty of time to start thinking about a plan to find out what on earth was happening. He took a very deep breath.
‘We have to go to Frinkley.’
‘Frinkley?’ said Buster, horrified.
No one on the team wanted to go. I mean, sure, it was glamorous. And yes, that huge wrestler, Mr Massive, had been born there. But you don’t want to go where you’re not welcome, do you?