Free Monster Mission by Eva Ibbotson

cheeks, he took hold of a handful of Lambert’s hair and yanked the snivelling boy’s head backwards, knocking it against the wall. Then he kicked him extremely hard on the shins.
    ‘Ow!’ moaned Lambert. ‘Stop it!’
    ‘I’ll stop it as soon as you say you’ll come and do your share of work.’
    ‘I don’t want to. I want my father. I want my mobile tele—’
    Fabio yanked his head forward, then pushed it back again hard against the wall, and went on kicking.
    ‘Are you going to come out and work or not?’
    ‘No.’
    Fabio kicked again – and suddenly Lambert crumpled up and collapsed on the floor.
    ‘All right,’ he blubbered. ‘I’ll work, but stop it.’
    Fabio stopped at once. ‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘You can help me muck out the chicken house.’
    The aunts saw the boys come. Fabio was carrying the remains of Lambert’s lunch on the tray, including the broken soup bowl.
    ‘You can take it out of my pocket money,’ he said, handing them the pieces.
    ‘What pocket money?’ asked Aunt Etta.
    ‘Even kidnapped children have to have pocket money,’ said Fabio firmly.
    So Lambert began to work. He worked badly and he worked slowly. He complained because the television was on the blink and whenever he could, he crept off to look for his mobile telephone which he was sure Myrtle had hidden somewhere. But when he stopped for too long, Fabio just looked at him and he picked up his tools once more.
    Everyone agreed that such a tiresome, blathering boy had to be kept away from the unusual creatures
    - the selkies and the boobrie and the stoorworm – so they gave him jobs to do in the house or with the animals on the farm. But a couple of days after Fabio had beaten him up, Lambert crept down to the shore with a lemonade bottle he had stolen from the larder. Inside the lemonade bottle was a message he had written to his father telling him to come and rescue him, and he was going to throw the bottle into the sea.
    But he never got as far as doing that. Instead he dropped the bottle, which smashed on the stones, leaving a dangerous mess of broken glass, and came back to the house blubbering and screaming at the top of his voice.
    ‘I saw a thing! I saw a horrible creepy thing!’ His whole body shook with terror. He looked as if he was going to have a fit.
    ‘What sort of a thing?’ asked Fabio.
    He and Minette were sitting at the kitchen table, shelling peas for supper.
    ‘A girl … all queer and horrible. She didn’t have any legs – not any!’ He sobbed and gulped again and a runnel of snot ran down his nose.
    Minette handed him her handkerchief. ‘What do you mean, Lambert?’ she asked.
    ‘The bottom end of her was a monster. She had a tail all covered in scales. It was growing from her body.’ Lambert retched and turned his head away. ‘I saw it. I saw it. I won’t stay here, I won’t!’
    Minette and Fabio exchanged troubled glances.
    ‘What was the top of her like?’
    ‘I don’t know … she had sort of green hair – and when I screamed she flopped her tail – I heard it flop …’ He shuddered. ‘And then she dived into the water.’
    ‘It sounds like Oona,’ said Minette in a low voice. ‘Of course it would be her – she’s been frightened enough already by that ridiculous Lord Brasenott. I’ll go and comfort her. If only it had been Queenie, she’d have seen Lambert off.’
    She slipped out and Fabio was left alone with the blubbering Lambert.
    He had had an idea.
    ‘Lambert,’ he said. ‘Listen to this, because it’s important. When Minette and I first came, we saw all sorts of strange creatures – mermaids like you’ve seen and a long slithery worm and a giant bird – oh, all sorts of things – but then we realized they weren’t real. They couldn’t be real because creatures like that don’t exist. I mean, there aren’t any such things as mermaids, are there?’
    Lambert had stopped crying. He was actually listening.
    ‘No,’ he said. ’There