‘Well, Mrs Quip was right,’ said Alice. ‘He does seem rather advanced for his age.’
She wasn’t kidding. He was wearing slippers and studying the crossword.
‘Also, who calls a baby “Boffo”?’ said Alice. ‘It sounds like a card game your grandma makes you play in a caravan when it’s raining outside.’
On hearing his name, Boffo rustled his newspaper and put it down. He looked up at them and smiled, just as creepily as ever.
‘So what’s the plan?’ whispered Alice. ‘Wait for him to spit on you so we can grab his DNA? Or are you hoping for another mega-vomit?’
At this, Boffo took one more sip of his coffee, then set the cup to one side.
He rolled up his romper-suit sleeves and took a step backwards.
‘Where are you going?’ chuckled Hamish. Boffo was strapped into the bouncer with nowhere to go. Or so Hamish thought . . .
Boffo took another step backwards.
‘Hey, stop,’ said Hamish, as the elasticated ropes started to strain against the top of the door.
But Boffo took another step backwards.
And another!
‘Boffo, no!’ said Hamish. ‘The whole thing will come crashing down!’
The rope was tense now. The little hooks that kept it stuck to the door frame were shaking and shifting.
And still Boffo stepped back.
‘Stop!’ said Hamish, suddenly realising what Boffo was up to. All he had to do was take his little feet off the ground, and that bouncer would fire him like a catapult!
‘BOFFO!’ yelled Hamish, as Boffo lifted both legs and—
VWOOOOOSH!
Hamish pushed Alice out of the way as Boffo shot straight towards Hamish at a hundred miles per hour!
Hamish just managed to fling himself back in time.
The elastic stopped Boffo centimetres from Hamish – just long enough for him to slap Hamish round the face!
Then VWOOOOOOSH he pinged straight back again, through the door to the kitchen.
Hamish hardly had time to come to his senses, when—
VWOOOOOOSH!
Boffo whizzed straight back towards Hamish, and SLAP-SLAP-SLAP!
Another three baby slaps to the face!
‘OWWWW!’ yelled Hamish, as Boffo zoomed away again.
Alice clambered to her feet. Even though this was definitely a terrible, awful thing to be happening to her best friend, she couldn’t stop laughing. Especially because there was still lots of life in that elastic. Boffo started to whizz straight back towards Hamish, clenching his fist, ready to deliver a proper baby punch!
Instinctively, Hamish reached out, and—
‘GOT YOU!’ he yelled, triumphant. He’d caught Boffo!
Hamish held Boffo at arm’s length, trying to avoid his still swinging fist. But goodness, this was one heavy baby. It was like holding one of his dad’s bowling balls! And, what’s more, the elastic was really pulling at Boffo now. It was straining as the hefty infant tried to hit poor Hamish Ellerby.
Hamish quickly came up with a plan. All he had to do was keep out of reach and wait until the baby got tired of trying to bop him and then gently put him back where he’d started.
But Boffo was furious to have been caught.
His clenched fists shook.
He went bright red.
His eyes started to water.
Drool began to pour from his mouth.
As he struggled and strained to bash Hamish, spit flew from his gob.
‘Alice! Now!’ cried Hamish, and, once she’d stopped laughing, Alice got a cotton bud out of her backpack and popped some Boffo-spit on it.
Boffo’s rage only grew. He took a huge great gulp of air and . . .
It. Was. Deafening!
The whole room shook. The windowpanes rattled. The plaster in the ceiling cracked.
Hamish’s ears were ringing and his arms trembled from the strain. But he couldn’t let go, because, if he did, Boffo would go flying!
‘Hamish Ellerby, what are you DOING to my darling Boffo?’ yelled Mrs Quip, suddenly reappearing. She had her hands on her hips and a furious look on her face. And who could blame her? To anyone who didn’t know what just happened, it really looked as if Hamish was about to fire a crying baby from a catapult!
‘It’s not what it looks like!’ yelled Hamish, his arms now really aching.
‘Activate your angel face!’ whispered Alice. Hamish tried but he just looked mad.
And then Boffo smiled and let off a poisonous baby bottom burp.
Oh, the smell!
Hamish couldn’t hold on any longer! His fingers slipped and—
TWANG!
BOING! BOING!
Boffo boinged back and forth for ten whole minutes before anyone could catch him.
He was like a pinball, shooting this way and that and knocking over lamps in the living room and pots in the kitchen.
KA-SMASH!
Mrs Quip watched her son fly around as if she was at a tennis match. She shook her head and wheeled out a fresh tank of Formula One, ready for another feed to try and calm him down after his ordeal.
‘That’s the last time I’m asking you to babysit!’ she said, surveying the growing disaster area, and Hamish tried to hide the fact that he was delighted.
‘Let’s go,’ said Alice, nudging him and holding up her cotton bud. ‘We got what we came for.’
They might have got what they came for.
But they were about to get much more than they bargained for.
Call the
Infantry!
‘He’s certainly got a pair of lungs on him, that Boffo,’ said Alice, making sure the spit sample was safely put away in her Tupperware sandwich box. ‘I’ve never heard a baby scream that loudly!’
But Hamish wasn’t listening. He was looking around.
Something had happened to Starkley in the time they’d been in Boffo’s house.
It was like the weather outside had mirrored Boffo’s bad mood. The sky had darkened and storm clouds hovered above them. But there was also something in the air.
Not something you could touch or see. Something you could sense.
A mood.
Unrest. Anger. Frustration.
Hamish shivered.
‘Do you feel it too?’ asked Alice.
And then from round a corner came a boy on a squeaky bike. He was screaming.
It was their friend, Grenville Bile!
He was huffing and puffing and ringing his little bell and going as fast as his legs could cycle. Unfortunately, because this was Grenville, that was very, very slowly indeed.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Hamish, walking alongside Grenville as he furiously pumped away at the pedals.
‘What are you escaping from?’ asked Alice, ambling along with them both.
‘B-b-b-b-b-b-BABIES!’ yelled Grenville, red-faced and out of breath. ‘They’ve gone NUTS!’
Hamish and Alice stopped in their tracks and stared at each other. It had happened again. They had to get back to the sweet shop, pronto.
‘Escape while you can!’ yelled Grenville, now maybe four metres away. ‘RUN!’
The town square was abandoned.
Whatever had happened here had obviously happened quickly, unexpectedly and with great force.
There was rubbish everywhere. Crayon had been scribbled all over the doors. Cats hid in trees, too petrified to come down. Nubwick Stern, the piano teacher, who was known for never being confused or startled, wandered around, startled and confused. But no one else was anywhere to be seen. Poor old Starkley. This kind of thing was always happening!
Hamish could just make out what had once been Brenda, Mr Longblather’s 1984 Vauxhall Nova in terrier brown. The wheels had been unscrewed, the wing mirrors were gone and all four doors were missing.
Hamish stooped down to pick up something that had been left behind.
‘A spanner,’ he said, horrified. ‘In baby blue!’
And then . . .
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‘Hamish! Alice!’ yelled Madame Cous Cous, her hair all over the place as she flung open the door to her shop. ‘Get in!’
Inside, surrounded by the PDF, Madame Cous Cous seemed rattled but focused. She was in black Belasko overalls. Things were getting serious now.
She checked she had everything she needed, then walked over to a Billericay Bubble Gum machine and turned its little metal ratchet six times to the right, once to the left and twice to the right again.
A bronze ball of bubblegum bounced out.
Madame Cous Cous picked it up, took it over to her counter and placed it in a little hole.
Something clockwork inside the counter started to whirr, then the whole thing flipped over, revealing complicated scientific equipment. Rows of sweetie jars disappeared from the shelves, replaced by petri dishes, Bunsen burners and samples pots. Madame Cous Cous flipped a couple of Cornish Cola Coins into her mouth and started to suck, for focus.
‘Hamish, look at this,’ said Elliot, holding up his camera. ‘We had to run straight back in here when it happened, but look!’
He pressed PLAY and Hamish watched as, completely out of the blue, the babies of Starkley went absolutely crazy. It was just like the video from the hospital.
One second the babies were calm, sleepy and normal. Then, all at once, they began causing mayhem.
They tripped people up.
They smashed fire alarms.
They threw things, spat, blew raspberries and knocked cups from tables.
They grabbed at people’s hair and pulled their dads’ glasses off.
They chased people, and growled, and ROARED, and rammed their prams through doorways and into shops, knocking down displays and making everyone inside scream.
People tried to run for it, but these babies were FAST, pulling on shoelaces or kicking toy cars in front of them as they ran, so that grown-ups would slip over and end up in the bushes.
Some of the babies were on the bonnet of a little red car now, thumping away at it and pulling the windscreen wipers off. They were like deranged monkeys in a safari park!
‘What caused that?’ said Hamish, watching in awe. ‘How could it happen?’
‘Did you get the DNA?’ Madame Cous Cous asked. Alice whipped off her backpack, found the cotton bud she’d kept safely in her sandwich box, flicked a few crumbs off it and handed it over.
Madame Cous Cous put the cotton bud in the analyser and began to run her tests.
Just then the ice-cream van – the PDF’s official vehicle – screamed up outside and out jumped Buster. The icecream van had had a bit of a makeover recently, because summer was nearly over and Buster’s mum had decided that ‘the state of the economy’ meant they couldn’t just rely on selling ice creams. So now the van was also a mobile disco. Buster didn’t really know what that meant, but he knew he loved disco balls. He’d stopped the car so sharply that the disco ball inside was now rocking back and forth like a yo-yo.
He cast a suspicious look up and down the street to make sure the coast was clear before running inside, carrying Hamish’s dad’s Holonow.
‘What is happening now, children, has not happened for many hundreds of years,’ said Madame Cous Cous, very seriously. ‘Someone has harnessed an age-old technique for raising an army. An army of CHAOS!’
Hamish knew it. Hadn’t he said this was just like an invasion?
‘I don’t understand,’ said Venk, which wasn’t an unusual thing for him to say. ‘You mean the babies have formed an army?’
Madame Cous Cous fiddled with the DNA analyser. She reached over to a pot of sweets on her counter and pulled down a candy cane like a lever. Immediately, the analyser started bleeping and blooping. She stepped forward, took the Holonow from Buster and placed it on the floor in front of them.
‘This will help to explain everything,’ she said. ‘Holonow – Code: Baby Fighters. Play.’
Immediately, the whole room began to flicker and change. The Holonow was a brilliant Belasko invention. It was a small device, no bigger than an orange, but when you pressed its button it put you right at the centre of an incredible hologram, showing you things you could never otherwise see. It could show you the surface of the moon as if you were standing on it. It could make you feel the past, as if you were travelling through time. Now, a thick grey fog began to roll through the shop and everything became much, much colder.
Hamish could feel sea spray in the air as it spattered on his face.
He could taste sea salt. The whole room seemed to rise and fall.
What was the Holonow showing them?
And then the fog cleared. Hamish and the PDF were right next to a GIANT VIKING LONGBOAT as it sliced through choppy waters. They could see every detail close up: the huge planks of wood stuck together with rivets, and the heavy oars that rowed back and forth as the great ship powered towards the shore under a giant flag flapping loudly in the wind.
‘WHOA!’ yelled Buster, over the noise. ‘VIKINGS!’
‘Exactly!’ replied Madame Cous Cous, her hair puffing up the way it always did when sea salt got involved. ‘But not the ones from the history books!’
Thunder cracked and lightning flashed as the longboat hit the shoreline, and a fearsome, high-pitched scream rang out. The scream of a hundred fearsome, fighting . . . BABIES!
Out of the boat they stormed, their hair in pigtails under little helmets, howling like wild beasts and waving their wooden axes.
‘Ancient texts used to talk about “berserkers”!’ yelled Madame Cous Cous. ‘Fearsome Viking warriors that would howl like beasts and foam at the mouth! Also known as screaming and dribbling!’
‘Berserkers?’ said Elliot. ‘I take it that’s where we get the word “berserk” from?’
‘Yes,’ said Madame Cous Cous. ‘As in, “That baby has gone berserk!” ’
‘Wait,’ said Alice. ‘Warrior babies?’
‘It was said that the berserkers were so bonkers that they would gnaw the iron rim of their shields!’ said Madame Cous Cous. ‘Well, of course they did! They were teething!’
More and more yelling Viking babies poured from the boat, their faces daubed with colourful warpaint. They beat their chests as they splashed through the waves, crying ‘Raaaargh’ as they went.
‘Naturally, historians have kept all this quiet,’ Madame Cous Cous continued. ‘Belasko helped cover it up.’
‘Why?’ said Venk. ‘Warrior babies sound cool!’
‘The human race would come to an end if people realised! No one would ever have another baby if they knew that sometimes their baby’s yells are war cries!’ said Madame Cous Cous. ‘Babies are highly emotional creatures. Baby uprisings have occurred all through time. But nowadays we bring our babies up nicely. We fill them full of milk and that keeps them sleepy and we play them lullabies and give them lives of luxury. We do everything for them. Modern babies aren’t helpless: they’re just lazy. It was very different in the past.’
She pressed the top of the Holonow and the fog, the water, the boat, the noise all disappeared.
Clover blinked a few times and wiped seawater from her face, stunned by what she’d seen.
‘Of course, it wasn’t just the Vikings and the berserkers,’ said Madame Cous Cous. ‘Many other cultures harnessed baby rage. Ninjas. Spartans. And it seems that’s what’s happening now: someone has found out about the collective power of babies. They’re attempting to tap into them!’
‘Tap into the babies?’ said Hamish.
‘Babies pick up on emotion,’ explained Madame Cous Cous. ‘They can tell when someone around them is angry or stressed. And they have pure minds and hearts which means they can be influenced.’
Suddenly there was a BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.
‘The DNA,’ said Madame Cous Cous. ‘It’s ready.’
She waddled over to the analyser and gasped.
‘The baby you got this DNA from,’ she said, staring at the results, ‘there’s something deeply wrong with it.’
‘What?’ said Hamish, alarmed.
‘The baby you got this DNA from,’ said Madame Cous Cous, ‘is forty-two per cent tuna baguette!’
She slapped her hand to her forehead in despair.
‘Do you know what this means?’ she yelled. ‘We’re up against an enemy that is nearly half sandwich!’
Alice blushed.
‘Um, could that be because I kept the cotton bud in my sandwich box?’ she suggested. ‘I think you might have analysed my lunch. What happens if you ignore the tuna baguette bit?’
Madame Cous Cous rolled her eyes, then pressed a few buttons.
The screen began to flash red and black.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh, dear.’
War Babies
‘I don’t believe it!’ said Hamish, as the PDF sat huddled in the ice-cream van moments later.
If what Madame Cous Cous had told them was true – and it seemed to be! – then there was lots to do. They should call the Royal Air Force. And the Coastguard. And the Cub Scouts. And the Royal Society for the Protection of Everything.
Because if this was true – and I’ll say it again: it seemed to be! – every street in Starkley and beyond had to be on high alert!
‘Do we press the button?’ asked Clover, referring to the last time Starkley had been under grave threat and needed everyone together.
‘Not yet,’ said Hamish. ‘This requires kid gloves. Baby steps!’
What Madame Cous Cous had revealed about Boffo’s DNA was extraordinary.
‘This baby contains an unearthly substance!’ she had declared, pointing at the screen with her stick.
‘That’s why they wear nappies,’ Buster had said. ‘Babies contain plenty of unearthly substances!’
‘No, no, far worse than that!’ Madame Cous Cous replied, looking grave. ‘I mean a substance which is literally not from this Earth.’