Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11 It wasn't the word 'Run!' that frightened Flora, or the way Charlie had said it– it was the look of real terror in Charlie's eyes. 'Come on!' she cried. 'We have to go! NOW!' She ran to the door and pulled on the handle, but it was still locked. 'Dylan! Unlock the door,' she shouted. 'Not a chance!' said Dylan, pointing his phone straight at Charlie. 'Dylan!' 'No! No way am I missing this!' Charlie was desperately battling to slow his change down to give his friends time to escape. He was doing everything he could, trying to breathe slowly and remembering all the good things in his life. But as soon as he thought of any happy thoughts they blew away from him like the last leaves of autumn. The storm inside him was raging. 'Dylan, if you don't open this door we could all get very badly hurt! Please,' Flora begged.

'Yeah, nice try,' Dylan replied. Flora strode right up to Dylan and went nose to nose with him. She started speaking very quietly. 'Dylan. If you don't open this door immediately, I will be forced to punch you. And then kick you. I don't want to, but I will. And if you have any doubts that I'll do it, look into my eyes. Look deep into my eyes. Can you see it? That's right. That's your doom you see there, Dylan Van der Gruyne. NOW. OPEN. THIS. DOOR.' Dylan swallowed nervously. 'Fine!' He swung round and unlocked the door. Flora, Mohsen and Wogan charged through and started running down the corridor. But Flora stopped when she realized they weren't being followed. Dylan was still recording Charlie. Charlie's face was creased with concentration.

'Dylan! You need to come with us!' shouted Flora. 'You're in terrible danger!' Dylan looked from Charlie to Flora and back to Charlie again. 'GAH, OK!' he cried, and he started running towards Flora. And the second they escaped the room, the fire in Charlie finally exploded. He felt himself torn apart, growing, every part of him stretching. He was filling the room. His expanding body smashed through the wall of the office, knocking it down like paper. He could just make out the small figures of his friends at the end of the corridor, running in terror. As he grew and grew, crushing the desk and

computer under him, he saw them turn the corner and start down the stairs. Charlie was long now, as long as the corridor, but he was still growing. He smashed through the walls of the corridor, expanding into the chamber of chickens, scattering poultry in a storm of outraged clucking. He tried his hardest to slow his growth down, desperately clinging on to distant happy memories, but the fear that he might crush his friends turned those happy thoughts to ice. Charlie didn't need a mirror to tell him what he was turning into. There was only one thing it could be. Only one thing that enormous. He was a whale.fn1 He felt his back scraping the ceiling and the floor below him buckling under his huge weight. He could feel a great tail at the end of his body, swishing slightly, some instinct driving it to swim, but with each swish it knocked into the wall, causing dust and debris to fall on to Charlie's head.

Charlie tried to stay as still as possible and focus on changing back to Charlie. A broken silence settled in the building. Only the sounds of plaster crumbling from the ceiling and the distant pattering of his friends' footsteps interrupted the quiet. And then there was a vast creak that Charlie felt underneath the whole length of his huge body. It could only mean one thing. Suddenly the floor beneath Charlie gave up. It could no longer take his weight. Charlie smashed through the collapsing floor and into the level below. He hurtled down, and then smashed through the floor of that level too, taking printers, pot plants and desks with him. His speed and weight took him straight through the next level too, and the one after that. Finally he crash-landed in the basement room, on a bed of crushed computer equipment– the servers that kept all of Van der Gruyne Industries' information, the same computers they had seen when they first entered the building, and which were now completely destroyed. He lay there, breathing heavily through the blowhole at the top of his head. A few chickens clucked and pecked around him, and a handful of loose feathers floated in the dusty air. He was relieved to be still again, no longer crashing through ceilings and floors, but he was desperately worried for his friends. Had they made it out safely? Or had they been horribly caught up in the destruction caused by a massive whale collapsing through the building?

Everything I do just makes things worse for my friends, Charlie thought, his heart aching with misery. Because HE was in trouble, his friends had got themselves into this horribly dangerous adventure. Charlie just prayed they had all escaped in time– even Dylan. Whatever had happened, Charlie knew he didn't deserve friends like Flora, Mohsen and Wogan. They were too good for him, and they'd be a lot safer and happier if he just moved away from them anyway. Charlie's vast black eyes saw the destruction around him– the destruction of the building and the destruction of his dreams, and he let out a great sigh through his blowhole, and the sigh felt like an ending.