Taken Over (8 page)

‘Is this another plan like the big nest?

Because that one didn't turn out too well,' Jasper pointed out.

Saffy glared at him. ‘The assembly hall has heaps of fearful vibes, right?' she said.

Jasper and Felix nodded. After all, it had been the place where everyone was told about the monsters.

‘But there's somewhere in the school even more terrifying. I can't believe I didn't think of this before! Think about it. Somewhere we all dread. A place we all have to confront our fears.'

‘The Trail of Terror!' Felix and Jasper replied. ‘Of course!'

‘
That
is where the queen will be, and
that
is where we'll have to go,' Saffy said triumphantly.

‘But what about the Skrinkerscreech?' Felix whispered. ‘They'll sense Jasper and Boris in a second.'

‘Exactly,' Saffy smiled.

Jasper looked at her. ‘Look, I know I can be annoying, but killing me? Don't you think that's going a tad too far?'

Saffy looked thoughtful. ‘Hopefully it won't get to the killing bit. But we
do
want the monsters to sense you. Felix, how many drones stay with the queen during nesting?' she asked.

‘Five, I think,' Felix replied.

‘OK, so here's the plan. We need to tempt those five drones away from the nest. We can't get to the nest with them in the room, otherwise they'll just gas us like the others, yeah?'

Felix and Jasper nodded, and Boris grinned even wider. He was getting the hang of the whole Hunt thing.

‘So what will tempt the drones out?' Saffy prompted.

‘The threat of another monster,' said Jasper.

‘Me.'

‘Or
us
,' Boris added, thumping Jasper on the back and almost sending him flying across the hallway.

Felix was groaning softly to himself.

‘The Trail of Terror has a corridor leading off it,' Saffy continued. ‘We'll wait just around the corner. As long as you can outrun them to the end of the corridor, we'll have you covered.'

Boris nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yeah, no worries. Right on!'

‘So,' said Saffy, ‘all we need to do now is get some more drool, and … '

Suddenly a pair of prefects appeared, completely oblivious to the frozen monsters nearby. ‘ON THE GROUND! NOW!' yelled one of them, and barrelled Saffy to the floor.

‘Wait! I have a cancel card!' said Saffy.

‘Him! It's him we want,' said the other prefect, pointing his baton at Jasper.

‘Hang on!' Boris boomed. ‘I have this under control. He's under prefect arrest.' He nodded towards Jasper.

‘Under arrest? Why isn't he restrained then?' asked first prefect, who still had Saffy pinned.

Boris smiled. ‘Tactics. I was treating them nice until I had backup, just in case they tried something.' He looked the other prefects up and down. ‘But now that you're here, I don't think I need it anyway. These three are a piece of cake. And unless you'd like to take it up with me personally,' he added with a sneer, ‘you're not taking any of my prefect points for bringing them in.'

The prefects were both smaller than Boris. The one on top of Saffy stood up slowly. ‘Yeah, whatever,' he said. ‘Just because your brother got the most prefect points last year …' But they backed away and slunk off down the corridor.

Jasper, Saffy and Felix turned to Boris, whose sneer had turned into a grin.

‘Prefect points?' Felix asked.

‘Don't you know? The more penalty points we give you, the more prefect points we earn. That's why the prefects are always trying to nab you lot,' Boris explained.

Jasper was secretly impressed. Boris hadn't only disobeyed orders, but he'd lied to the other prefects to save them.

Saffy beamed. ‘We just might make a monster-hunter out of you after all.'

14

The Trail of Terror lay just ahead. Jasper could see the door. He knew that inside, they'd not only find their greatest fears, but possibly also a whole bunch of monsters that wanted to kill him. He took long, deep breaths, psyching himself up to be bait.

‘Come on,' Boris moaned. ‘You're taking so long!'

Jasper looked at Felix. ‘I think I liked him better in prefect mode,' he muttered. ‘And Saffy, the dog drool you put all over me has dried now, so it won't be any use. But I'm very sticky and stink like a dog. Thanks a lot,' Jasper finished.

Saffy had decided to cover Boris and Jasper in dog drool in case the monsters ran them down. ‘Better safe than sorry,' she said curtly.

They had collected as many flasks of dog drool as they could carry from the Species Studies classroom. Saffy and Felix had flasks all around them.
If
Jasper and Boris could make it to the end of the corridor, they'd be fine.

‘Remember,' Felix said, ‘if you can hear the buzzing, then it's probably too late. You'll have to tempt the drones out without leaving it for too long. Can you do that?'

‘I think so.' Jasper looked at Boris. He was a bit worried that Boris's monster side would get the better of him and he'd completely freak out. Jasper at least had some practice in controlling his whispering, but Boris didn't. There was a good chance his whispering would lead him straight into the path of the monsters. ‘If you hear me say run, then run.'

Boris smiled. ‘No worries.'

‘Break a leg,' Saffy said, shoving Jasper down the hallway.

Jasper and Boris jogged down the corridor. They had no idea how close they had to be for the monsters' antennae to sense them. Jasper hoped the plan worked. Otherwise, they were total goners.

They stopped at the door to the Trail of Terror. A sign on the door read, ‘Do not enter. Class 2B test.'

Jasper crouched, ready to run at the slightest sign.

He closed his eyes and listened. At first there was nothing. But then the whisper started racing through his head. The words were so quick that Jasper couldn't catch them. Jasper tried to stay calm as they became louder and louder. He pictured a blank piece of paper in his mind and tried to see the words on it.

KLUUSS ... NAAOOO. KLUUSS ... NAAOOO.
NAAOOOO. NAO!

Close now!
Jasper jumped up. ‘RUN!' he yelled, dragging Boris to his feet. Jasper couldn't hear any buzzing, but he knew it wouldn't take long. They raced down the hallway. A bang from behind made Jasper glance over his shoulder. The drones had burst through the door.

Then Jasper heard the buzzing.
Four seconds.
They were almost at the end of the corridor. Jasper could feel the wind from the drones' wings as they sped towards him. He got to the corner and dived around it. Boris flew on top of Jasper, knocking the wind out of him.

From underneath Boris, Jasper saw the drones freeze mid-flight and collapse on the ground.

There was muffled cheering and Boris clambered off Jasper, who tried to suck some air into his lungs. If Boris had stayed on top of him for much longer, Jasper was sure he would have suffocated.

‘One, two, three, four, five!' Felix crowed as he counted the frozen drones.

‘That was awesome!' Saffy exclaimed. ‘This dog drool stuff is great. If only all monsters had this as their weakness, Hunts would be a cinch!'

‘Easy for you to say,' Jasper wheezed. ‘You just have to spray 'em.'

‘Not quite,' Saffy replied. ‘That was the easy bit. Now comes the hard part. The Trail of Terror.'

‘You should be all right, seeing as you're the one with all the cancel cards. You mustn't have screamed at your worst fear,' Felix pointed out.

‘Mmm,' Saffy said airily.

‘So, you're
sure
there won't be any more drones?' Jasper said.

Felix shrugged, ‘Yeah, I'm sure. Well, pretty sure. At least, I think so.'

‘Great, that makes me feel so much better,' Jasper mumbled, checking his flask of dog drool. ‘There's not much left. Do you guys have any?'

‘Nah, we've just used most of it,' said Felix. ‘But don't worry, the queen doesn't have a stinger, so she's harmless.'

‘And we've got your back,' said Saffy. ‘You'll be fine.'

They walked slowly towards the Trail of Terror. The door was hanging open, and the path inside was dark and narrow. It twisted around corners, so it was impossible to know what was around the next bend.

Felix started shaking beside Jasper, and Saffy's breathing had become shorter. But there was no choice. They had to find the queen. And she was in there somewhere. She had to be.

‘Well, there's only one way to find out,' Jasper muttered, and stepped into the room.

15

Jasper waited in the darkness. He could hear Saffy, Felix and Boris breathing quietly behind him. The door to the room swung shut with a loud
creeeeaaaak.

‘Please tell me one of you did that,' Saffy whispered.

No-one answered. Jasper knew that the fears of every kid in their class lay inside this room. And a queen Skrinkerscreech with twenty-three eggs, or possibly twenty-three hatchlings feeding on screechwort. Jasper suddenly wondered how long it took the hatchlings to mutate into ferocious, hideous monsters
,
but he figured it was probably too late to ask Felix.

Footsteps echoed around them, but they couldn't see anyone coming. Suddenly, candles ignited overhead, and a flickering light cast spooky shadows on the walls. The footsteps became louder.

‘Well, I'm not just gonna stand here waiting,' Saffy whispered. ‘Come on!'

The footsteps were really eerie. Jasper didn't want to see who they belonged to.

They turned a corner and a huge rat came scurrying along the floor, followed by a horde of mice. Jasper saw Felix squirming, but rodents were something they could all handle. The room could get a lot worse.

The footsteps had stopped.

The four kids bunched together, trying not to bump into anything as they walked.

‘We need a new plan,' Felix hissed.

‘Isn't it a bit late to be planning now?' Jasper replied. ‘I thought the plan was get in, get the eggs, get out. Come on, let's keep moving.'

Around the next corner, Jasper felt something prickle at his neck. He stopped and slowly put his hand up to his shoulder. A huge tarantula crawled onto the back of his fingers. Jasper yelped and flung the spider away. He could see more spiders crawling from the walls, scuttling towards him on their hairy, horrible legs, or spinning down from above.

Felix brushed frantically at Jasper's shoulders and Saffy hurtled any spiders that came too close out of the way. Boris sprayed the others with his dog drool, which worked surprisingly well.

‘OK, a new plan would be good,' said Jasper.

Boris was inspecting a bloody sword next to a realistic-looking severed head. ‘Cool,' he murmured.

‘Mental manipulation,' Saffy said, turning to Jasper. ‘What did you learn in your tutorial today? It was some sort of Mental Manipulation, wasn't it? That's what you're good at.'

Jasper thought back to his lesson with Mr Z. It seemed so long ago. ‘Nothing of use. I barely had any time,' Jasper answered.

‘You must have learnt
something
,' Saffy huffed. ‘
I
invented a walkie-talkie, Felix learnt everything about the Skrinkerscreech, and you learnt … what?'

‘I didn't really learn anything,' said Jasper. All Mr Z had said was that Jasper had found his tune. Mr Z hadn't taught him how to make people forget. And even if he had, how would that help?

Unless we could forget our fears,
Jasper thought uncertainly.
But what if something goes wrong?
What if we forget where we're going or what we're
doing in here?

Jasper saw some small, blank faces growing in the walls around them. They looked at Saffy.

‘Oh no,' said Saffy. Her face turning pale, she grabbed Jasper's arm. ‘Please Jasp,
try,
' she pleaded.

Saffy
never
pleaded.

‘
Saffy …'
a voice called softly through the room.

Saffy's eyes grew wide. She grabbed her earplugs and was about to shove them into her ears when Jasper snatched them out of her hands.

‘I'll try,' he said and tossed the earplugs to Boris. ‘Boris, put these in. Just in case this doesn't work and we end up forgetting why we're here. Whatever happens, lead us to the queen. When we get there, stop me whistling. Got it?'

Boris nodded.

Jasper really hoped this would work. Boris was pretty tough. And besides, the Trail of Terror had been set up for Class 2B. Jasper was betting that if Boris wasn't in their class, his fear wouldn't be in here.

Meanwhile, dolls had started popping out of the walls. They floated through the air towards Saffy.
‘Why did you hurt me, Saffy?'
asked a Barbie doll with a melted face in a sing-song voice. The dolls surrounded Saffy and pulled at her hair and clothes. She swatted at them, screaming.