“I know he tried to kill me, but we can’t just leave him there!” protested Nelson as he followed the monsters out of the cowshed.
“Oh, great,” moaned Spike sarcastically. “We’ll just lug a massive unconscious bloke around with us then, shall we? Or better still, we should just stand around here discussing it.” Even though Spike’s sarcastic tone was deeply irritating, Nelson couldn’t help thinking he had a point.
Actually, it was a very good point.
But it was all so confusing.
Everything was happening so fast and it was all so … mad. It was as if someone had taken reality, made it into a jigsaw, thrown the jigsaw onto the floor, and then said, “Now, hurry up and put it all together!” as they danced all over the jigsaw pieces in a clown suit, blowing a trumpet.
If Brian was married to Nelson’s sort-of auntie Carla, wouldn’t that make him his sort-of uncle? How could he have been Carla’s slave if she had died in the fire? And why would he want to ram him off the road?
Nelson could feel the thick dust from the cowshed making a home for itself in his lungs. The cool air-conditioned limo would be a great relief from the dust, heat, and danger, but it was not to be. Spike pointed to the freeway about half a mile away. “Look at them all, in their perfectly working cars. It’s all right for some, isn’t it? Never me though.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Nelson, and Spike pointed to liquid pooling out from under the limo. But the smell told Nelson it wasn’t water. It was gas.
“We must’ve gone over a rock when we came off the road. It’s ripped the tank right open.”
“Great! Just great! You were supposed to be controllin’ the driver!” bellowed Stan.
“I can’t make rocks disappear, you stupid angry tomato!” yelled Spike.
Stan squared up to Spike, desperate to punch him in his spiky head, and he would have done so had it not been for the police sirens.
Everyone turned to look in the same direction. There wasn’t a police car to be seen, but the sirens were getting louder and they all knew it was just a matter of seconds before one came over the horizon, and that would mean Trouble with a capital T.
In that moment of panic, it was Miser who spoke first. “Master Nelson, there is not a moment to lose. You must choose your cow.”
“Choose my cow?” said Nelson, turning to see Miser pointing at the herd of cattle that were staring at Nelson and his monsters as if glued to a thrilling TV show.
“Indeed. There are eight of us, but Hoot can fly, so we shall only need seven of the animals. Might I suggest the bull? I think it most appropriate for you, Master Nelson,” said Miser, gesturing toward a hefty-looking fellow at the front of the herd. The bull had a heavy fringe of coarse hair that covered his eyes and two huge white horns that jutted out from the sides of his head.
Anticipating Nelson’s next question, Miser took the lead. “These beasts are strong; they will carry us quickly. With some assistance from Master Spike, we shall make good time,” said Miser.
“Seven needles?! If I take out seven of my needles, I’ll lose all my water and shrivel up,” complained Spike, showing the small hole in his arm that was still leaking from earlier.
“Sorry, just a second,” said Nelson, holding up his hand as if in class. “Are you saying that Spike should do that thing with his needles to all those cows so we can ride them?”
“Well, of course, if you have a better plan, Master Nelson?” replied Miser with a slight bow, but Nelson did not, and exactly twenty-six seconds later seven cows, one of whom was the bull I just described, stood very still with wide, googly eyes and a cactus needle sticking out of their foreheads while the monsters did their humming thing and pointed the way to Celeste.
Spike was leaking water from the new holes in his green flesh but stood with his straggly arms raised before the herd like the conductor of a cow choir.
“Cows! You will do as I command! You will carry us and you will run as fast as you can, and not stop until we have reached Celeste,” shouted Spike, but cows being a bit on the stupid side of things only heard the words “You … run … not … stop…” And with a great moooo! all seven set off at a speed normally reserved for the likes of racehorses or zebras being chased by lions. This would have been a fantastic start to the next leg of their journey had Nelson and his monsters actually been on the cows’ backs at the time.
Seven monsters and one boy instantly gave chase.
“Couldn’t you have waited until we were sitting on them?” shouted Nelson as they sprinted after the herd.
“It’s not my fault! They’re stupid cows! They didn’t listen!” yelled Spike.
“Tell them to stop!” begged Nelson, his fists pumping like pistons and his sneakers pounding the earth.
“I’m trying, but you keep interrupting me!” yelled Spike in return.
“Catchy cows! Catchy cows!” shouted Nosh, rolling through the dirt like a runaway bowling ball.
“I say! Shouldn’t you chaps be riding these horseys?” called Hoot from above.
“They’re cows, yer great fool!” cried Stan, whose little legs were struggling to carry his enormous upper half. The rest of the monsters howled and yelled and screamed and above all ran as fast as they could after the cows.
* * *
The herd stampeded down through the field, which sloped toward a low wooden boundary fence, smashed that fence to bits as if it was made of breadsticks, and then ran straight into a narrow river. The splash was immense and the water deep, but that didn’t stop them from swimming toward the other side. Luckily cows aren’t very fast swimmers.
“This is our chance! While they’re in the water! Jump on!” cried Nelson, launching himself off the riverbank. The water that engulfed him was so cold that Nelson would have screamed but his lungs seemed to have shrunk to the size of two Brussels sprouts.
In that split second of madness, Nelson reached out, grabbed the tail of the bull, and pulled himself forward. All around, the river was erupting as the monsters landed like bombs among the herd.
“It looks very cold,” said Spike, hesitating at the river’s edge before Stan came right up behind him and with a great kick in the backside sent him sailing through the air and into the water before leaping in himself.
Only now did Nelson realize just how huge the bull was. Its back was easily as wide as a kitchen table, and those horns were as long as Nelson’s own arms! Though they were clearly to be avoided under normal circumstances, the horns gave Nelson something to grab on to, and with a great heave he managed to swing his right leg over the bull’s back.
I’m sitting on a bull in a river, thought Nelson, and as he looked around he saw his monsters clawing and pulling their way onto the backs of the herd too.
“Bravo!” shouted Hoot from above, but none of them could hear for the great crashing of water and the pounding of hooves as the cows arrived on the other side of the river and thundered up the bank.
* * *
Jesus sat in his gas-drained limo feeling incredibly envious of all the other cars zooming along the highway. Spike had made sure he had a clear memory of driving to the airport in order to pick up his client Donna Gatsky, only to be rammed off the road on his way there by a crazy truck driver who was now lying unconscious in the cowshed. Spike had also made sure that Jesus’s memory did not contain a single trace of a boy called Nelson or any peculiar goings-on. Not only would the police who arrived shortly afterward completely believe Jesus, they would ask for his autograph as several officers had been his biggest fans when he had been a kickboxer.
As for the man lying in the cowshed … the police would discover he was extremely concussed and recovering from ten years of deep hypnosis. They would have to investigate his story further …