Hamish X and the Cheese Pirates (24 page)

The monkey held onto Hamish X's boot with one strong arm and reached out with the other, trying to grab hold of the ledge at the top of every swing. When the boy felt he couldn't hold on any longer, the monkey finally grasped the ledge, letting go of Hamish X's leg and pulling itself to safety.

Hamish X's arms quivered with exhaustion. Even without the added weight of the monkey, he found he didn't have the strength to even try to pull himself up. He felt his fingers losing their grip. A shadow fell over him. He looked up into the pink leathery face of the monkey, gazing down with its one brown eye. The creature sat on its haunches, staring at the boy with its furry head cocked to one side.

“Help me,” Hamish X begged. “Please!”

The monkey didn't move. At last, Hamish X felt his strength give out. He let go of the ledge and prepared himself for the end. In that instant, the monkey's long arm shot out and grabbed the front of the boy's woolly jacket in an iron grip. He hauled Hamish X up onto the ledge.

For several minutes Hamish X just lay on his back, panting as the terror left his body.
I'm alive,
was all he thought, listening to the racing of his heart and the blood singing in his veins.
I'm alive and anything is possible
. Finally, he sat up and looked around him.

He was on a small stone outcrop a few metres square. To his right lay the edge and the drop. To his left was the mouth of a cave. The opening was narrow but high
enough for him to stand upright. Sitting in the mouth of the cave was the snow monkey.

Hamish X immediately tensed. The monkey squatted on its haunches, looking at him. Suddenly, it leapt across the intervening distance and grabbed him, crushing him in its powerful arms. Hamish X began to struggle, but he soon realized it wasn't an attack but a show of affection. The creature hooted softly, running its large hands over Hamish X's head, picking at his scalp.

“Hey now, settle down,” Hamish X chuckled. “Whew, you need a bath, monkey! Whoa.”

The monkey hooted loudly and tossed Hamish X onto the ground, tickling him furiously.

“No! No! Stop!” Hamish gasped helplessly. Finally, the monkey allowed him to get up. It sat back on its haunches and grinned, baring his huge fangs in what seemed to be a laugh.

“Well, here we are. But where is here?”

The monkey hooted and slapped the rock between them.

“I don't suppose you understand anything I'm saying, do you monkey?” Hamish X smiled. “Well, I suppose I can't just keep calling you monkey. What should I call you?” Hamish X scratched his head. “You don't look like a Dave or a Ron. Hmm.” The monkey sat in silence, watching Hamish X with its one brown eye. “I know.” Hamish X snapped his fingers. “I'll call you Winkie on account of your permanent wink. Winkie! Does that suit you?”

The monkey hooted and hopped up and down, slapping its chest with open palms. Suddenly, it lunged out, grabbed him by the arm, and began pulling him towards the open mouth of the cave.

“Hey.” Hamish X dug in his boots. “I have to find my
friends. Winkie!” Winkie tugged harder, and finally Hamish X had no choice. He allowed himself to be dragged into the mouth of the cave.

The cave led into a narrow, winding tunnel. Hamish X tried to keep up with Winkie, tripping over unseen rocks on the uneven floor. The darkness was complete, but the walls were covered with a variety of glowing fungus that cast a pale green light.
⁶⁹
Eventually, his eyes adjusted. He probably could have followed Winkie by smell alone, so profound was his monkey stench.

Winkie led him on a winding course through the glowing bowels
⁷⁰
of the island. Soon, Hamish X had lost all sense of direction, but he was fairly sure they were steadily climbing. At one point they entered a vast cavern lit by the glimmer of a lava pool far below. A narrow path curved precariously over the seething rock. “Parveen was right,” Hamish X whispered to himself. “It is a volcano.”

They left the lava pool and followed a steep tunnel up, up, up until Hamish X saw a faint glow ahead. Winkie stopped and laid a smelly hand over Hamish X's mouth. Hamish nodded. They crept forward softly until the tunnel ended in an opening awash in a glare of light. Hamish X heard human voices. Cautiously, he crept up and peered around the corner.

The opening looked out over a vast cavern lit by strings of electric torches. Huge metal machinery stood silent under the lights: a vat, a press, a cutting machine.
“It's a cheese factory,” Hamish X breathed. Covering three of the four walls were rows and rows of cages stuffed with miserable snow monkeys hooting and screeching. They barely had enough room to sit down in their cramped quarters. Ranged in front of the cages were small glittering cylinders with hoses sprouting from them.

“This machinery seems to be in excellent working order,” a familiar voice said. “As soon as we can begin the milking process, our first batch will be ready for consumption in under a year.”

When he saw who spoke, Hamish X almost shouted out loud in fury.

Viggo Schmatz, wearing a ridiculous orange hat, was examining the cheese press. The cheese maker's clothes were ragged and filthy and he had a leather collar around his neck. Beside him, Captain Cheesebeard, flanked by two pirates holding swords, rubbed his hands together gleefully.

Hamish X would have leapt down right then and there, but Winkie restrained him with his powerful paws.

“Good! Excellent! Wonderful!” Cheesebeard gestured to the caged monkeys with one filthy hand. “Who would have thought these useless, ridiculous creatures would be the source of such an exquisite, delightful cheese?” He strutted up to one of the cages, banging his fist on the bars. All the monkeys inside cringed back fearfully. “We'll milk them dry! And when they wear out and die, there are plenty more where they came from. An endless supply!” Cheesebeard laughed and the pirates dutifully joined in. The monkeys started hooting and soon the din was tremendous. Finally, the chaos died down.

“It will be my pleasure to serve under a man of your
incredible vision, Captain Cheesebeard,” Viggo simpered. “With your leadership and my humble expertise, the world of cheese will tremble!”

“Will your children perform their duties as required?” Cheesebeard asked.

“They will do as they are told. They have no choice. Keep them hungry and tired and you won't have any problems. And when they wear out, I have contacts in the ODA who will be happy to provide us with more.”

“What about the woman? She seems like a handful.”

“Don't worry about that idiot Mrs. Francis,” Viggo tutted, waving a hand dismissively. “All you have to do is threaten the children and she'll fall into line.”

“I like you, Viggo Schmatz,” Cheesebeard leered. “You have a cruel streak and a spiteful nature. We have so much in common. Let's chat some more over a bottle of wine.”

“Delighted, Captain!” Viggo bowed deeply, an evil grin on his nasty face.

Cheesebeard and Viggo linked arms and walked towards the doorway that led out of the cavern.

“You can take the hat off now,” Cheesebeard said.

“Thank you, sir.” Viggo whipped the ridiculous orange hat off his greasy head. He clapped it on the head of one of the pirates. “There. You wear it. Ha! You look stupid!”

“He does, doesn't he? Ha!” Cheesebeard laughed.

Cackling, they left the cavern with the two pirates trailing behind.

When they were sure the cavern was clear, Hamish X and Winkie dropped down from their vantage point. As soon as the monkeys saw Winkie they started hooting and shrieking whilst grabbing hold of the bars and rattling the cages. Winkie hooted back in long, low notes, trying to soothe them. At last, the hooting subsided.

“I can see you have a bone to pick with these pirates, too,” Hamish X said. Winkie snarled.

“Let me take a look around.”

Hamish X walked up and down the cavern, his big boots scraping on the rock floor. He examined the cages. They were arranged in rows, one on top of the other. The monkeys looked miserable. Winkie went up to one cage and pressed his face to the bars. The monkey inside pressed her lips to the opposite side, hooting mournfully.

“Is she your …” Hamish X was about to say “wife” but he wasn't sure if monkeys married.
⁷¹
“Partner?” Winkie hooted and sighed. Hamish X suddenly realized something. “It's all the lady monkeys who are are locked up. That's so sad.” He crossed to Winkie and scratched his head. “You poor guys must be so lonely.” He felt anger start to rise in his heart. “It isn't right.”

He looked closely at the locking mechanism. Each row had a lever that one had to pull to release the doors. They were all locked electronically, connected to a computer on the cheesing floor.

Hamish X studied the locks. He studied the computer. Finally, he sat down at the keyboard. “I wonder.” He laid his fingers on the keyboard, and as if under someone else's control, they started to dance across the lettered keys. Hamish X laughed out loud. “I guess I know about computers! Your lady friends will be free in no time.”

Chapter 28

Mimi darted between the little shanties, making her way across the floor of the crater to the cave opening she hoped led to the prisoners. Twice she had to stop and press herself up against a wall, hiding in the shadows as pirates lurched past. Once they passed so close to her that she could smell wine and the sweat of their unwashed bodies. Luckily, they were too drunk to notice her in the darkness. After a seemingly endless amount of crouching and running, she came to the opening in the ground that they'd watched Mr. Kipling and Mrs. Francis disappear into.

She crouched at the opening and looked down. The steps were roughly carved out of the black rock of the island. They stretched down a long way. Lights glowed below. Mimi couldn't see anyone but felt horribly exposed as she crept down the stairs, keeping up against the stone wall.

At the bottom, she found herself in a roughly square cavern with tunnels leading away on either side. Electric lightbulbs were strung along the ceiling of the tunnels, providing weak illumination.

“Which way?” Mimi whispered to herself. “Left or right?” She couldn't make up her mind. She decided to go right, but after just a couple of steps Mimi heard shuffling noises coming from that direction. She ducked into the left corridor and pressed herself up against the wall, willing herself to be invisible.

A pirate shuffled into the chamber, a cutlass at his side and a dirty scarf around his head. He turned and yelled back down the way he came.

“Kipling says I've gotta get the prisoners some bread.”

Mimi's heart jumped. She was going the right way.

“I'll be back in a few minutes. Youse want summink to eat or what?”

“Cheese! And some buns,” a deep voice echoed up the tunnel.

“And some cake,” another voice added.

“All right! All right!” Dirty Scarf hitched up his greasy trousers and started up the steps, passing within a metre of Mimi's hiding place. “Guard duty! What a pain,” he muttered as he climbed out of sight. Mimi waited a full minute before she relaxed.

“The prisoners,” she smiled grimly and set off as quietly as a shadow down the right-hand tunnel.

After only a few metres she reached an opening on the right side. Smoke drifted out in blue swirls around the naked lightbulb. Mimi crept to the edge of the opening.

“Ha! Quinzalp!” a deep voice crowed triumphantly. “That's twenty-six points and a triple word score, which makes a delicious seventy-eight!”

“That's not a real word, Tom,” a squeaky voice complained.

“It is so, Tim!” the deep voice boomed indignantly.

Mimi peeked into the opening and saw two pirates sitting at a folding table. One was huge, with dark skin and a cloud of puffy black hair sticking out from his huge head. The other was tiny, barely bigger than an eight-year-old boy. Apart from his luxuriously oiled moustache he was completely bald, his shiny scalp criss-crossed with scars. He danced on top of the stool and pointed at a Scrabble board spread out on the table between them.

Oddly, it was the big man who had the high voice. “Tom, you're cheating. It isn't a real word.”

“Tim, I don't cheat! It is,” the little man boomed in his deep voice.

“Is not!”

“Is!”

Suddenly, Tim swept the table out of the way and leapt on the smaller Tom. While they wrestled, Mimi took her chance and darted past the doorway and off down the corridor.

The tunnel sloped slightly downward, a bare electric bulb shining weakly every few metres. Mimi kept to the wall but still felt horribly exposed. Should she meet anyone coming up the other way, there was nowhere to hide. She would have to fight or run.

After a harrowing minute and a half she came to the top of a stairway that had been hacked out of the living rock. She crept down. Directly in front of her at the foot of the stairs was an empty cell. A door made of heavy iron bars stood open. To her left, the corridor ran ten metres, with three doors on each side and a heavy metal door at the end. The corridor to the right also had three metal doors shut tight—but the door at the end was slightly ajar. Voices echoed down the corridor.

Mimi could hardly contain her excitement when she heard Mrs. Francis shout, “You have to help me, Mr. Kipling. I know you're not like them. Think of your own daughter.”

“I am,” he replied. “I will do what I can to see that the children and you yourself are well treated. That's the best I can do.”

“No.” Mrs. Francis's voice was cold. “It's the least you can do.”

“I must be going.”

To Mimi's horror, the door opened wide and Mr. Kipling
stepped into the corridor. She cast around for a place to hide as he took a key from his jacket pocket and turned his back to her, locking the door. Mimi leapt from the bottom step into the empty cell directly across the corridor, pressing her body flat against its cold stone wall.