The Ice Monster Read online

  “Get lost, you little thief!” shouted the newspaper seller. He whacked the girl on the back of her head with a rolled-up copy of The Times.

  You got whacked by grown-ups every day if you were an urchin. You were the lowest of the low. At least it made a welcome change from being battered with a broomstick at

  “I only want to look!” pleaded Elsie.

  “These papers is not for looking at. They is for buying. Now scram! Before I give you a kick where the sun don’t shine!”

  Not being a fan of a boot up the bottom, Elsie smiled at the man and ambled off down the street. She turned into an alleyway, then reached into the back of her grubby trousers and pulled out a copy of The Times. The girl had become an expert thief.

  There were big, bold black letters on the front page. Elsie knew these spelled out words, but it all looked like a jumble to her. The picture underneath did speak to her, though. It was of a peculiar creature that looked like an elephant.

  Once, she’d poked her head through the flap in a circus tent to get a free show, and seen an elephant performing tricks. However, this elephant was covered in thick hair, and its tusks were long and curved. It was encased in a huge block of ice, and a number of Arctic explorers were standing around it, looking proud. Despite the creature’s bizarre appearance, Elsie found it hard to think of the poor thing as a monster. Monsters you were scared of. This animal you wanted to hug.

  It looked a great deal smaller than the elephant she’d seen at the circus. Perhaps it was a baby. Despite having been dead for thousands of years, it still looked lost and alone.

  “An orphan,”

  whispered Elsie to herself.

  “Just like me.”

  As an urchin, Elsie was always on the outside looking in. Every day, she would see a whole other London whirling around her. Horse-drawn carriages speeding down the street,

  children in uniform marching off to school,

  lords and ladies stepping over her as they left the Royal Opera House.

  Elsie’s brain was forever buzzing with questions.

  Where was everyone going to at such a pace?

  What did those scrumptious-looking cakes in the bakery window actually taste like?

  And what was inside all those magnificent buildings?

  One day, the girl decided to step out of her world and into the other.

  Elsie was standing in front of the most magnificent building of all, the Natural History Museum. When she tried to walk in, she was immediately thrown out by the hobnail-booted brute of a security guard, Mr Clout.

  “I don’t want no trouble from filthy beggars like you,” he shouted as he hurled her down the steps.

  Elsie was not one to give up that easily, so she sneaked in behind a gaggle of top-hatted gentlemen.

  Soon she was sneaking into the museum every single day. Elsie couldn’t read, but she earwigged in on the guides and soon became something of an expert. So, when she saw a picture of the “Ice Monster” on the front page of the newspaper, she knew instantly that it was, in fact, a woolly mammoth. Elsie had learned that these creatures had lived during the Ice Age, when sabre-toothed tigers, GIANT bears,

  sloths

  and beavers stalked the Earth,

  and birds like the Teratornis, a bird bigger than a person, darkened the skies.

  Elsie was desperate to follow the story of the Ice Monster. So every morning she swiped another newspaper to search for news of the creature. Weeks passed, and then one day she spotted a jumble of letters she recognised on the front page of a newspaper.

  They looked exactly like the ones she’d seen on the side of her favourite building.

  Elsie knew she had to meet it.

  Soon after the Ice Monster was found, London was plunged into the cruellest of winters. A bitter wind brought a flurry of snow. Before long, the entire city was hushed by a thick covering of white. The River Thames froze over.

  In this kind of weather, homeless children like Elsie perished in doorways. They would go to sleep and never wake up, to be found at dawn with a dusting of frost on their faces.

  Poor Elsie was HUDDLING in her tin bath under a pile of newspapers, trying to keep warm.

  She looked at her hands. They were shaking with the cold, and turning blue. The girl almost missed . Almost, but not quite.

  Elsie sneaked into the NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM at closing time, behind a troupe of nuns so the security guard wouldn’t see her. Once inside, she scuttled along the long corridors, past the dinosaur bones hanging on wires that looked like giant ghosts, and eventually found an unlocked cupboard. She crept inside, and closed the door. It was a cleaning cupboard and too small in which to sleep lying down, so she slept standing up, with her head nestled between some mops. She looked not unlike a mop, as skinny as a rake with a shock of tangled hair on top.

  Elsie was sure no one would find her in there. But she was wrong.

  Very early the next morning, before dawn, Elsie was woken by a cleaning lady opening the cupboard door. The woman yawned and grabbed the first “mop” she could find. It was actually Elsie.

  “Aaahhh!” screamed the lady.

  “ARGH!” screamed the girl.

  Elsie was being held by the neck.

  “You’re not a mop!” said the lady.

  “No. I’m a girl.”

  “What are you doing in my cleaning cupboard?”

  “I was sleeping. I didn’t want to die of the cold.”

  “No, you don’t want to do that.”

  Elsie gulped. “Are you going to tell on me, missus?”

  The cleaning lady did the last thing the girl was expecting.

  She smiled.

  Most of the time, grown-ups treated urchins like Elsie with cruelty. Not this lady. She was different.

  “No! You’re not going to tell on me, are you?” asked the lady.

  “Tell on you?” replied the girl. Elsie was befuddled.

  “I could lose me job over this.”

  “No, no, no. Never. I’m not a snitch.”

  “Thank goodness for that. Me neither. What’s your name?”

  “Elsie.”

  “I’m Dotty. Dotty by name and, I’m told, dotty by nature. Are you a child?”

  The girl was confused. She thought that was obvious. “Yes.”

  “I only ask because you are taller than me gentleman friend.”

  “How tall is he?”

  “Titch is shorter than you. That isn’t his real name. That’s the name all the other soldiers gave him.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Seventy-three.”

  “Has he shrunk?”

  “Nope, God made him that way.”

  Dotty pulled out a dog-eared photograph from her pocket. “Here’s Titch.”

  Elsie looked at the picture. It must have been taken a while ago, as it showed a young soldier in uniform holding a gun that was taller than him.

  “He is small,” remarked the girl.

  “He’s bigger in real life than in the photograph.”

  “I guessed that,” replied Elsie.

  “He’s my hero!” said Dotty as she kissed the picture, before putting it back in her pocket. “So, I bet you’re hungry.”

  The girl nodded her head. “Ravenous!”

  Elsie was always so hungry her tummy hurt. Dotty reached into another pocket.

  “Here, have me packed lunch. Bread and dripping.”*

  Smiling, Elsie took the food. She tore a crust of bread into halves, and handed a piece back to the lady. Both were touched by the kindness of the other.

  Elsie devoured her half greedily. It was only bread and dripping, but to her it was the nectar of the gods.

  “Where’s your mum and dad, little one?”

  “Dunno. Never met them.”

  “Orphan, then, are you?”

  “Suppose so.”

  “Poor thing.”

  “There’s no point feeling sorry for meself. I gotta get on with it.”

&nbs
p; At that moment, they both heard bootsteps down the corridor.

  The lady lifted her finger to her lips to mime “Don’t say a word” and hurriedly shut the door.

  Elsie stayed as still and quiet as she possibly could in the cleaning cupboard. Through the door, she could hear the grown-ups arguing.

  “WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO, DOTTY?” boomed a voice.

  “Just me mops and brushes, Mr Clout, sir,” replied Dotty.

  “A likely story, Dotty!” the man scoffed. “As the museum’s head of security, I order you to open that door!”

  “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  “Me hands have gone all floppy.”

  “What do you mean your hands ‘have gone all floppy’?”

  “Too much mopping!”

  “Well, I’ll open it, then.”

  “I wouldn’t if I was you.”

  “Why?”

  “I just blew off in there.”

  “You did what?”

  “I did a bottom burp in the cupboard so all the stuffed animals wouldn’t have to smell it. It’s a really stinky one. It would have peeled the paint off the walls.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you were talking.”

  “I was talking to my own bottom.”

  “You were talking to your bottom?”

  “Giving it a jolly good telling-off, Mr Clout, sir.”

  Elsie had to put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. This lady really was dotty.

  “I have never heard so much nonsense in all my life!” thundered Clout. “Now step aside, woman, or I will be forced to use… force!”

  The girl heard a slight scuffle.

  “OOF!”

  “OUCH!”

  “GET OFF ME FOOT!”

  As fast as she could, Elsie nestled herself in behind the mops and brushes.

  Clout peered inside the dark and dingy cleaning cupboard. His hulking frame all but filled up the doorway. He had huge hobnailed boots on his feet, so polished you could eat your dinner off them. The man covered his nose.

  “It don’t half reek in here!”

  That was Elsie’s pong.

  “Tell it to my bottom,” replied Dotty.

  Just then, something caught the man’s eye among the mops and brushes.

  “What’s this?” he said, pointing at the girl’s hair poking out.

  “That?” asked Dotty innocently.

  “Yes, that.”

  “Oh, that! That is one of my new real-hair mops.”

  “Real-hair mops?” asked Clout.

  “Yes. It’s great for those areas me everyday mops can’t reach. Like between the dinosaurs’ toe bones.”

  “I don’t think I can bear that stink a moment longer,” said the man, his eyes watering.

  “I did warn you, Mr Clout, sir. Me blow-offs are really something.”

  “They should have their own museum,” mused Clout. “THE UNNatural History Museum.”

  “Very good, Mr Clout, sir,” she said as she slammed the door shut. “It’s always lovely talking to you, but, if you will excuse me, I need to give the dodo eggs a good spit and polish.”

  “Dotty?”

  “Yes?”

  “You need to get something for that bottom of yours.”

  “I’ll invest in a cork.”

  “Then we’ll all have to wear tin helmets in case you pop.”

  “That’s a good point, Mr Clout. I’ll try and think of something!”

  “Get to work!”

  “You get to work!”

  “I can’t get to work until you get to work.”

  “Well, you tellin’ me to get to work is stopping me from getting to work.”

  “GET TO WORK!” thundered the man.

  Dotty picked up her mop, and began cleaning the floor. On purpose, she ran the dirty mop over his highly polished hobnailed boots.

  “Me boots!” he cried.

  “OOPS! Sorry!”

  “Stupid old hag!”

  “Less of the ‘old’, please, Mr Clout.”

  “I need to get these boots sparkling for the visitors.”

  “Yes, that’s why they all come to the Natural History Museum, Mr Clout, sir. They don’t come to see the dinosaur bones. They just want to see their own face reflected in your boots. You better buff ’em up, good and proper.”

  Clout gave the cleaning lady a filthy look before marching off down the corridor to make someone else’s life a misery.

  After a few moments, Dotty opened the cupboard door.

  “Phew!” said Elsie. “That was close.”

  “If I know Clout, he’ll be back.”

  “I’d better get out of here.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find somewhere else to hide tonight.”

  “If you’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Folk will be trickling in soon. Now would be a good time to make a swift exit.”

  “I gotta ask you something.”

  “Yes, dearie?”

  “Why have you been so kind to me?” asked Elsie.

  “Why not?” came the simple answer.

  The pair shared a smile before the girl shuffled off down the long corridor.

  “Take care, little one,” called out the cleaning lady after her. “And please come back and see me very soon.”

  “I will,” replied Elsie.

  And she did.

  Every morning, Elsie checked the newspapers for more news of the Ice Monster. Weeks passed until one day she heard the cloth-capped sellers shouting from their stands…

  The girl’s heart pounded with excitement.

  Up in the Arctic, the mammoth and the huge slab of ice in which it had been found had been packed into a wooden crate full of snow and loaded on to a whaling ship. It was then transported thousands of miles from the Arctic all the way down to the mouth of the Thames.

  From there it travelled upriver towards London and its ultimate destination, the Natural History Museum. The whaling ship was escorted along the Thames by a formation of gleaming new boats of the British naval fleet, which broke up the ice to allow it safe passage.

  The Ice Monster was being given a huge welcome as if it were a visiting king or queen. Thousands of Londoners lined the banks all along the river to catch a glimpse of the creature, and to be part of this momentous occasion.

  Being little, Elsie was able to crawl under the grown-ups’ legs to scramble right to the front. There she could see the whaling ship, and the huge coffin-like crate into which the animal was packed.

  When the ships had passed, Elsie raced across London towards the museum. Living on the streets, the girl knew every nook and cranny of the city. She dashed along back streets, across gardens, down tunnels, over rooftops and even jumped on to the back of horse-drawn cabs to get there before the monster.

  A line of policemen with linked arms formed a wall round the museum as Londoners surged forward to see the wooden box trundle by on a carriage pulled by fifty mighty horses.

  “HURRAH!” cheered the crowds.

  But one lone voice was shouting something different. It was an old man with a long beard, wearing a big sandwich board over his shoulders. The words “THE END IS NIGH” were emblazoned across it. He held aloft a copy of the Bible, and cried, “This is the Devil’s work. The prophecy has come true. The beast has come! The end is nigh!”

  Elsie tugged on his coat. “It’s not a beast, sir – it’s a woolly mammoth.”

  The old man gave her a whack on the head with his Bible.

  “Wicked child!”

  Elsie pushed past him, helping herself to a lump of mouldy cheese from his pocket as she did so. The girl had just reached the gates of the museum when she was shoved back by a policeman.

  “Get back, you revolting urchin!” he bawled, and he shunted her aside.

  “Ouch!” she cried as she tumbled on to her back.

  “W
e don’t want your sort here. Now clear off!”

  As the lowest of the low, Elsie was used to being turned away, but, being strong in spirit, she was not going to take no for an answer. So she scrambled her way up the back of a gentleman’s coat, and trod on his top hat.

  SQUISH!

  Before he had a chance to cry out, she leaped off his top hat and on to the branch of a nearby tree.

  TWANG!

  With her monkey feet, Elsie shimmied up the tree with ease, and stood on the highest branch. From there, she watched as a hundred men rolled the crate off the back of the carriage. With thick ropes, they heaved it up the stone steps.

  The huge wooden front doors of the museum had been taken off their hinges. The crowd fell silent as the men began pushing the crate through the doorway. Would it fit in without taking the front of the Natural History Museum with it?

  A cheer went up as the crate just squeezed through.

  “HURRAH!”

  Soon mutterings passed around the crowd that a very important visitor would be coming to the museum today to witness the unveiling.

  “She’s coming here?”

  “Who?”

  “You know!”

  “Oh, my Lord!”

  “Not her?”

  “Yes, her!”

  “She ain’t been seen in ages.”

  “She’s so old now.”

  “This must really be something.”

  “I should have bought a new hat!”

  Sure enough, barely an hour had passed before the streets echoed with the sound of trumpets.

  All heads turned to see a golden carriage trundling along the road. Ahead of the carriage, liveried soldiers on horseback blew trumpets to herald the arrival of the very important person seated in it.

  This was a day that would go down in history, so it was only fitting that the most powerful person in the world should be there. was not just the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, but the monarch of a vast empire that spanned the globe. She had even adopted the title of “Empress of India”, despite the fact that she’d never actually been there.