Humpty's bones

Thirteen

Peeping through gaps on the shelves, Pitt and Jenny tried to see what had arrived in this gloomy cavern. There was no doubting the beast’s size. Even from his hiding place on the floor, Adam looked, too. But all three felt strangely dizzy. Their limbs didn’t work properly. They felt sleepy. And all three had the same sharp pain boring through their skulls. This is how they stayed for the next thirty seconds. Then, as if the beast, had satisfied itself that there was nothing of interest in this area, it padded away.

When they felt that it was safe to emerge they crept from their hiding places. All three agreed amongst themselves how ill they’d felt. All of them noticed how the light had dimmed when the creature had entered this section of tunnel. But when they all tried to describe what they had seen of the beast no single one could agree on a description.

Adam declared, ‘I could see paws. Four of them. Like a lion’s.’

Jenny disagreed. ‘A lion? It was nothing like a lion. When I looked down at it from above I could see tentacles. Masses of tentacles. They were bright green.’

Pitt shook his head. ‘From where I was I could see bare skin, maybe its belly… there’s no fur, and certainly no tentacles. There were mottled patches on its body. I saw that kind of pattern once on something in a reptile house at the zoo.’

‘I had the best view,’ Jenny declared. ‘From right up there. It’s like a giant octopus.’

‘No way an octopus,’ Pitt insisted. ‘It’s a gargantuan lizard.’

‘You’re both wrong,’ Adam told them. ‘It’s a mammal. I saw furry paws. Probably a specially bred attack lion.’

‘Attack lion,’ Pitt snorted. ‘You’ll have had your eyes shut anyway.’

‘Are you calling me a coward?’

It was a dangerous thing to do. But for the moment they forgot about the real possibility the creature might come back. Instead, they bickered over what they did or didn’t see.