“BUT I DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY,” says Violet.
She’s standing in the shop window now, her back to the glass. In front of her, the mermonkey looks down over the top of its typewriter. Its left arm is extended, and in its hand it is clutching a tall, scraggy, moth-chewed top hat, held out as if asking for an offering.
“You do,” I say. “Remember? From your parents’ room in the hotel?”
Violet puts her hand in her pocket and pulls out the foreign coin she found on top of the wardrobe.
“It might as well be yours,” I say with a shrug.
“But how much does it cost?” she asks.
Jenny Hanniver smiles. “Oh, that depends entirely on you. Some who come here stuff that hat full of cash before the monkey will talk to them. While others have only to brush it with their fingertips. Try your coin, Violet. It’s the only way to find out.”
Violet reaches out and drops the coin into the hat. It lands with a soft thud somewhere inside.
Nothing happens.
But then, before anyone can speak, something does.
The mermonkey shudders. There’s a wheezing, clicking sound like rusty gears being driven by a spring, and its left arm lifts up, and up, and up, until it plops the hat down on its head. Then there’s a rattle as something – the coin, surely – falls down into a hidden mechanism.
The creature’s eyes light up.
There’s a bone-jarring scream from somewhere, which makes Violet jump in surprise. Steam, or possibly smoke, curls out from the creature’s ears as it rises up on its coiled, iridescent fishtail. The mermonkey curls its other arm till its hand stops, hovering over the typewriter. With a terrible screeching sound, it slowly extends a long, bony index finger. Then it starts to type.
“What’s it doing?” Violet cries over the horrible, shrieking, clacking sounds. But Jenny just nods towards the typewriter.
And then, as suddenly as it started, the mermonkey judders to a halt. Its right hand draws back from the keyboard, and the left hand holds the hat out once again. Its eyes wink out, and silence returns to the shop, leaving only a hint of acrid smoke in the air to suggest that anything happened at all. Then there’s a ping! from the typewriter, and a card is ejected from it, fluttering down to the floor at Violet’s feet. She picks it up.
“And that, Violet Parma, is your prescription,” says Jenny Hanniver. “It’s the book the mermonkey has chosen for you. Not, perhaps, the book you want, or the book you were expecting. But, very possibly, the book you need.”
Violet rejoins us. The card in her hand is just like the one around her neck – a drawing of the mermonkey on one side, and a line of letters and numbers on the other:
4 - 2 - E - Pu - 78
“But what does that mean?” she says. “Is it code?”
“Herbie?” Jenny looks at me with a twinkle in her eye. “Can you remember how to read the mermonkey?”
I scratch my head under my cap. “Um, I think so. The first number is the floor we should go to?”
Mrs Hanniver smiles, and indicates the stairs, faintly visible deep inside the shop. “Call me if you need help,” she says, and turns away to a pile of books waiting to be sorted on a nearby table.
“Come on,” I say to Violet. “This way!”
“And the rest of it?” says Violet as we reach the fourth floor. We’re alone up here, with no sound but the creaking of old wood and the wind at the windows. We can see three rooms ahead of us, one after the other, all of them as stuffed to their high ceilings with books as the rest of the place.
“The ‘2’ means the second room,” I say, leading the way.
“And the ‘E’?” says Violet, when we get there. “Is it … East?”
“It is,” I say. “And it’s easy to orientate in this town – the sea is always the same direction. So this is the east wall. What was the next part of the code?”
“It just says ‘Pu’.”
“‘Pu’ is for purple,” I explain. “See, all the shelves are different colours. Purple’s the one-less-than-top shelf.”
I grab a library ladder and hook it to the rail on the ceiling.
“There you go, Violet. It’s your book, you can have all the fun.”
Violet climbs. “The last part of the code is 78,” she calls down.
“That’s the book itself,” I call back up. “Just count them from left to right. If you get to the end of the shelf before 78, then count back…”
“OK,” says Violet, counting under her breath and tapping each book spine with her fingertip. And then: “I think I’ve got it!”
Violet slides back down the ladder, and lands neatly. In her hand is a slim aqua-green hardback book, old-looking and with no dust cover. The title is stamped in faded silver letters across the front. It looks like the last person who read it used a piece of dried seaweed as a bookmark.
“So this is mine?” she says, clearly still unsure about all this. “My book?”
“In more ways than one, perhaps,” says a man’s voice, and we jump with fright. A shadow crosses the next room, and Sebastian Eels fills the doorway. He pushes one hand through his thick hair and a few half-melted snowflakes flutter down. “Now that is a very interesting choice.”
And he takes the book.
“Malamander.” He reads out the title. “By Captain K. So mysterious, isn’t it, when an author tries to hide his real identity? But it seems the mermonkey has chosen to tell you a story about our famous local legend, Violet. The tragic story of old Captain K and his battle with a monster.”
Violet reaches out and takes the book back. Politely, but quite firmly.
“How do you know my name?”
“So sorry – rude of me. Jenny just told me who you are. Peter Parma’s girl. I’m Eels, by the way. Sebastian Eels.” And he holds one large slab-like hand out to shake. Violet’s hand is engulfed by it. “I dabble in a little writing myself.”
“We should be going,” I say, heading towards the doorway.
There’s a pause before Sebastian Eels moves out of the way and allows us through.
“Of course. Well, goodbye, Violet. If you ever need any help with that book, feel free to get in touch. I’m something of an expert on the legend of the malamander. And you can often find me here.”
We are just heading back downstairs when the author calls out to us.
“Oh, and I would be especially interested to hear if you catch sight of it yourself.”
Violet stops, and looks back. “The malamander? I thought you said it was just a legend?”
“Oh, indeed.” Sebastian Eels grins, passing his tongue over his teeth as he does so. “But in a place like Eerie-on-Sea, legends can sometimes have a little more … bite.”
