The automatic glass doors swooshed open, revealing an arrivals hall full of people dressed in colorful summer clothes, all there to greet their friends and relatives. Being faced with this great wall of eyes gave Nelson another jolt of fear, and the monsters snarled like guard dogs sensing an intruder. A squeeze of the pendant and a quiet word to himself—“Keep moving. Don’t stop. No one can see them”—did the trick, and with each deep breath his fear subsided. Anyway, everyone was too busy straining their necks to get the first glimpse of whoever it was they were waiting for to care about a small lady in a smart suit and scruffy shoes.
Toward the exit of the arrivals hall stood a group of drivers wearing sunglasses and slightly-too-big-for-them suits and holding handwritten name cards, as if they were in a competition to see who had the best handwriting. One of these men held a card with the name DONNA GATSKY scrawled in black felt-tip pen.
“Look! A driver with a car! What luck!” hissed Miser, as his tentacles scavenged the pockets of people distracted by waiting for their friends and family to appear.
“I am not getting in a stranger’s car,” whispered Nelson through gritted teeth. “Keep walking straight out of the airport. I’ll pretend not to notice him,” and they were halfway to the exit doors when the stink of rotten eggs hit them.
“Yuck! Was that you, Puff?” wailed Spike, quickly covering his nostrils.
“Phwoar! Puff, you scumbag,” groaned Stan, and the others joined in with a chorus of insults. As he rejoined the group, Hoot even faltered in midair due to the intoxicating whiff.
“It’s … not me! It’s coming … from over … there,” said Puff, pointing to a crowd of people who were holding their noses and trying to get as far away from something as possible. As they cleared the area, the source of the stink was revealed: standing very still, and dressed in his usual inappropriate clothes, was Brian. Nelson instantly recognized him as the man he’d seen at Heathrow, but what chilled him to the bone was the sign Brian was holding in his big hands. It was a torn piece of cardboard and scrawled upon it in crayon was his name: NELSON GREEN.
“We have to go. We have to go quickly,” said Nelson out loud, and he turned to wave at Donna Gatsky’s driver. The man nodded back, lowered his name card, and proceeded to reach out his hand to take Nelson’s suitcase. Nelson flared his nostrils like in Donna’s passport photo and then shook his head to say, “No, thanks, I’ll carry my own bags.”
Nelson followed the driver as if this was all perfectly normal, the monsters trailing behind doing their best not to bump into people, but he could not shake off the feeling that there was something very wrong about that man standing in the crowd with the sign with his name. Why on earth would anyone be waiting for him here, let alone someone he didn’t even know? “What if he’s a nice person who is trying to help me?” said one side of his brain, but the other side of the brain won the argument by shouting, “Did you see what he looked like? Did you smell that stink of rotten eggs? Did you see his creepy eyes? And how did he get here quicker than we did? No way are we talking to that weirdo! Now shut up and keep walking!”
* * *
The heat that greeted them on the other side of the doors was similar to that of Nosh’s belly just before incineration time. Rio was insanely hot and bright enough to make Nelson squint even through Donna Gatsky’s woman-of-mystery sunglasses. The driver opened the back door to a long, black limousine.
“Big car!” shouted Nosh.
“Oh, now this mode of transport is very me,” said Hoot.
“Shut up and get in!” shouted Stan, and the monsters ran ahead of Nelson, who had stalled on purpose to let them in first. The driver had been too busy answering a text message from his boss to notice his car rocking as seven monsters climbed aboard.
Nelson did not like any of this. He didn’t want to be Donna Gatsky anymore. He didn’t want to get in a car with someone he didn’t know. He just wanted to find his sister and go right back home again.
He would have stood there debating his next move for longer had he not turned around. One simple twist of his neck was all it took to change his fate, for it just so happened that Brian had been looking out the window at the same moment, and his big, gluey eyes noticed an oddly small lady in a suit quickly look away. That was all it took. He might have been disguised as a woman in dark glasses, but that quick, frightened little turn of Nelson’s head was the giveaway. Brian’s fingers opened, the name card fell to the floor, and he ran toward the exit doors, shoving people and luggage trolleys out of his way.
* * *
Nelson dived into the limo and the driver raised his eyebrows in surprise before closing the door. The man had never seen anyone so keen to get in his car before.
The passenger area of the limousine Nelson was now lying on the floor of was big enough to have two large leather sofas facing each other, drinks cabinets down either side, a TV and DVD player, and the velvet ceiling was covered in little white lights like stars. All of this ludicrous luxury was hidden by the seven monsters clambering over each other for the best seat.
“Dis a big car, Nelly-son!” cried Nosh, who had already licked the armrest and decided that when no one was looking, he would definitely be eating it.
Nelson flipped over and looked out the tinted window to see the strange tall man with the bulgy white eyes running after the limo as it pulled away from the curb.
“That man! Look!” shouted Nelson, and they all turned to look out the rear window just in time to see Brian reaching out with his huge sausage fingers to grab the car.
“Ugly man!” shouted Nosh.
“I don’t know who he is, but he was after me. He had a card with my name on it and…” Nelson trailed off because the man had given up chasing the car and was now standing in the middle of the road just staring at it, traffic screeching to a halt behind him to avoid running him over.
There was a loud buzzing noise, and Nelson turned to see the tinted partition that separated him from the driver lowering.
“Hello. My name is Jesus,” croaked the man.
* * *
I should like to remind you that people in Brazil speak Portuguese. It’s a lovely language, and though they use the same alphabet as we do, their words often produce sounds we rarely make with the English language. The reason I mention this is because when you see the name “Jesus” (which is as common a name in Brazil as John is in England) pop up you just have to say it like this, “Hay-zoose.”
* * *
Jesus was huge. He had been a world-champion kickboxer until three years ago, when an opponent kicked him in the throat and he had all but lost his voice for good. His massive body was topped by a completely bald head, a broken nose, and two pairs of glasses (his driving glasses and, directly on top of them, his extra-large sunglasses). Jesus was now a driver for a major Hollywood studio, and it was his job to deliver Donna Gatsky straight to the movie set where the entire cast and crew were waiting for her to come and tell them off for not doing things as she wanted them done. Little did Jesus know that not only were his passengers actually a boy called Nelson Green and seven monsters, but that he would not be going anywhere near the film set today.