The sky’s darkening. An orange moon hangs low over the houses amidst early-evening stars. The town’s eerily quiet except for the squeak of Finn’s old pushchair.
I’ve brought it with me to carry everything I own. On top of my clothes, I’ve balanced two loaded Derf guns. One of them is the Derf Super Blaster; it can fire a superb thirty-six rounds per minute. I’m not going anywhere without that at the moment. I also have a sleeping bag, six oranges and a grapefruit, and as an afterthought all the hairy things I could find, like the bathmat and Dad’s dressing gown. If we don’t use them for filming Werewolf then I could always sleep under them. Last of all I took the empty cardboard washing-machine box from behind the wheelie bin. It can either be the lunar module, or my new home, depending on how things work out.
I think I’ve actually run away from home. It seems safer to sleep out on the common in the washing-machine box, eating grapefruit, than to risk my bedroom and my parents.
I try to remember when it started. The beard was the first obvious thing. But Dad ordered a load of insulation blocks about two weeks ago. The same insulation blocks that he’s now sawing in half and turning into a pyramid.
Perhaps that was it. Perhaps it was already happening but I didn’t spot it.
But Miss Primrose didn’t start then, surely. Although she did bring in those old pillows at least a week before the wetsuit.
‘Wooooooooaaaaaaaaah!’
What was that?
‘Yeeeeooooooooowww!’
I dive over a low wall into a garden, but I can’t bring the pushchair, and have to leave it on the other side.
Feet, and I mean bare feet, slap on the pavement, but there’s also a clacky sound, like someone in heels.
‘Woo,’ says a high voice. A woman.
I can hear someone sniffing. The sniffing gets closer, and closer. I crouch.
‘Ha!’ the woman shouts, grabbing my hair.
‘Yow!’ I scream.
‘Urgh!’ she cries, and yanks my hair until I’m standing.
Four people stand behind her. One of them is the school secretary. She’s gnawing on a bone. She looks crazed. They’re all dressed in fur of one sort or another. Fur?
Struggling on the end of the woman’s hand I reach for the pushchair, wrench open my backpack, pull out Dad’s furry brown dressing gown and put it on.
The hair yank woman stares at me, her brows furrowing.
I put the towelling bathmat over my shoulders.
‘Ooohhhw,’ says Hair Yank, dropping me and standing back.
‘Aah,’ says one of the men; he’s wearing a stupidly small fox fur round his neck, like old ladies in detective programmes.
‘Ug,’ says another, who’s so tall I can’t see his face properly.
Hair Yank grabs me by the hand and, helped by the school secretary, hauls me over the wall. I’m not sure, but Hair Yank looks awfully like the woman that works in the hairdresser’s. The woman I saw painting a deer on the outside of her house. In every way Stone Age except for the nail varnish and the high heels.
They push me along the pavement, while I push the pushchair. When we reach the common, they caper across to the statue ring. For a second I’m free, but the tall man stops about ten feet from me, comes back, picks me up and carries me over to the statue Stonehenge. He puts me down and leans on my shoulders, clamping me to the ground.
Curiously, although he’s dressed as an ancient Briton of some sort, he smells of aftershave.
‘Urghghg!’ the man with the dead animal round his neck shouts, pointing at the moon.
The last stones in the ring have been slipped into place since we were here earlier. But the modern statue’s lying on its side in the middle like an altar.
‘Baaaaa.’ What’s that? It sounds almost like a sheep. But it could be a goat.
Please let it be a goat.
‘Shhhhhh.’ Now that, definitely, sounds like Henry.
I look around. There’s no actual sign of Henry and his goat, but he must be there. There are plenty of stones to hide behind. My guard stops and sniffs the air as if he can smell food but then, obviously not quite Stone Age enough to spot a goat in the dark, turns and joins the others.
My captors look very serious. One of the men’s got a National Trust tea towel on his head and a set of letter beads around his neck and they all look to him. He looks up at the moon and then points at a bright star.
‘Ulph,’ he says. ‘Ulph.’
The tall man lets go of me, and joins the others. They kneel in a semicircle around the stone, facing the tea-towel man. From under his dressing gown, he takes something long and silver that glints in the moonlight. A paperknife?
I hold my breath, moving to the back, hoping no one will notice me leave. If I take a couple of steps to my right, I can hide behind Queen Victoria.
Something squeaks behind the stones. It doesn’t sound like a goat, but it does sound like a pushchair.
I look around. The pushchair’s moved from where I left it. That means Henry must be nearby.
Phew.
‘Woooooaaghghghghg,’ says Tea-towel Man, and they all start to hum.
‘Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, mmmmmmmmmmmm.’
I take a step to the side and slip behind Queen Victoria. ‘Mmmmmmmmm, mmmmmmm.’
Tea-towel Man’s got his eyes closed, but he’s holding his paperknife up to the moon.
‘Mmmmmm, mmmm.’
‘Pst, Sam.’ It’s Henry’s voice, but I can’t see him. ‘Here,’ he whispers. ‘By Nelson.’
I look for the tallest stone, and there, about a metre above the foot, well, the head in Nelson’s case, is an odd, glowing lump. It beckons.
I drop to my knees and crawl towards it.
‘WHOA!’ screams Hair Yank and suddenly I’m whisked backwards.
‘Help!’ I shout.
‘Sam!’ shouts Henry, but the worshippers take no notice.
Hair Yank drags me towards the altar, and Fox Fur and Tall Man grab my wrists. ‘Help!’ I shout more loudly, and for a second there’s a flash of recognition in Tall Man’s eyes, like he might really be a human being.
‘Put me down,’ I yell, and the first Derf pellet whizzes across my nose, thudding into Hair Yank’s cheek.
‘Yow!’ she squeals, and I wriggle and kick, but between the three of them they have no trouble lifting me off the ground and hoisting me above their heads. The ground seems a long way away now.
Another pellet thwacks into the tall man on my right. ‘Yip!’ he says, letting go of my foot. I squirm and the other two struggle to hold me, until I’m almost on ground level again. I lash out with my free leg, and catch Fox Fur hard on the ribs.
‘Urgh!’ he grunts, his hands slipping.
A third dart ricochets from the altar and pings into the chin of the man with the tea towel. ‘What?’ he says, staring around himself like he’s just woken up.
There’s a clicking sound and a hail of purple pellets crashes into the group.
The last two left holding me finally let go, and I thump onto the ground.
A strange figure appears at the edge of the group; it’s got a silver ball for a head and two faintly glowing light bulbs strapped on the side, and it’s wearing the washing machine box. Out of the door pokes the Derf Super Blaster, firing thirty-six pellets a minute. The figure doesn’t move well, blundering into the stones, hampered by a goat tied to the side. From the washing machine box come peals of giggles, and the goat obviously wants to be somewhere else, none of which helps the figure’s aim because the pellets are hitting everyone, including me. But I don’t mind; I’m very glad to be shot – it’s far better than being dangled in the air.
‘I don’t understand,’ says Hair Yank, gazing at her nail varnish.
‘Run!’ yells Ursula from somewhere in the outer darkness.
Waiting for the hand on my collar again, I tack through the stones, skimming over the scraped turf, running for my life. Away in the dark someone else is running. It must be Ursula. And we head for the deep shadow of the cricket pavilion.
‘Yee ha!’ shouts Henry, skidding to a heavy halt beside me, accompanied by the sound of tearing cardboard and a squeal from the goat. ‘Now that was fun,’ he says, ripping the glowing helmet from his head.
‘Fun?’ I say. ‘What do you suppose they were thinking of doing with that altar?’
‘Turning you into Sam burgers, that’s what I think,’ says Henry, stroking the goat between the ears. ‘Don’t you, Lucy?’
Ursula splutters. ‘Don’t be stupid, Henry, they weren’t going to harm Sam. They’re just playing around.’ She gets to her feet. ‘This is the most boring town in twenty-first century Britain. There is absolutely no chance of human sacrifice here.’