Something is lying on the beach, on the edge of visibility. Violet jogs over to it and picks it up. It’s Mrs Fossil’s bucket, her beachcombing treasures spread out around it.

From where I’m standing, Violet is half vanished in the mist. I see her silhouette as she stoops to scoop the spilled things back into the bucket.

And then I see something else.

A shape. No, the shape. The strange, crouching, spiny shape from a moment ago, faint but massive in the mist beyond Violet. And it’s getting closer, making a throaty, clicking, burbling sound as it comes.

“Violet, behind you!”

This time she doesn’t hesitate. It must be the panicky high-pitched squeak in my voice, which, for once, is actually quite useful.

Then we are both running up the beach, not looking back – running and running until we reach the top of the steps in the sea wall, and we can see the town and the cheery lights and the door of the Grand Nautilus Hotel.

EXOTIC ERRATICS

WHEN I GET BACK TO MY CUBBYHOLE, Mr Mollusc is standing there.

“Where have you…?” he begins. Then he notices the too-big borrowed coat, my seaweedy trousers and the fact that my Lost-and-Founder’s cap is a soggy mess on my head. And I’m still carrying Mrs Fossil’s bucket of stinking beach-findings, which is dribbling a trail of seawater on the polished marble floor behind me.

The vein on his temple starts to throb.

“What…? How in…? Why…?”

“Have you lost a question, sir?” I say, sliding past him.

I flip the sign on my counter from CLOSED to PLEASE RING FOR ASSISTANCE.

“I’ll just pop downstairs and see if someone has handed one in.”

Then I descend to my cellar, leaving the hotel manager spluttering behind me.

Violet has already climbed in through the window, and is sitting in my big armchair.

“What just happened, Herbie?” she says.

I scratch my head. As is often the case in Eerie-on-Sea, that’s not a question that’s easy to answer. I take my coat off and drape it over a chair beside my wood burner. Fortunately, a small glow is still winking at us in the stove window.

“First thing is to get warm and dry,” I say, chucking in a couple of logs. “The legends and monsters can wait.”

“I don’t believe in the malamander,” says Violet. “I don’t know what we saw just now, but I’m not ready to believe in sea monsters. Yet what did we see?”

I wring out my cap into Mrs F’s bucket.

“We saw a shadow in the mist, that’s all. And the Boathook Man attacked you.”

Violet shudders. “Do you think the Boathook Man attacked poor Mrs Fossil, too?”