This is the book I'm working on at the moment. It's a book for 6-8 year olds and will have lots of

black and white illustrations.

                             CHARLIE ZOOM AND THE ICE MONSTER

                                                            CHAPTER 1

‘Hurry up Mum; it’s going to get me!’

‘Ben, how many times do I have to tell you?  I’m getting ready for work.' Mum shouted from the bathroom.

I looked at the Mickey Mouse clock on the wall.

‘But I’ve been waiting ten minutes already. It’s going to eat me alive. It’ll gobble me up.’

‘Good. I hope it’s got a mountain of indigestion tablets.’

Mum just doesn’t care. She's cleaning her teeth instead of coming to rescue me. Wait until she comes into my bedroom. All she’ll find is a left over foot or maybe half an arm.

I slid back under the duvet and tucked my pencil case under my pillow.

‘Ssssh!’ I told Charlie Zoom. ‘Stay very quiet.’ Then I held my drawing pad close to my chest.

That’s when Mum came storming into my bedroom.

‘Are you still in bed?’ she said. What a silly question. It was obvious where I was.

I was too frightened to stand on the carpet, because IT was waiting to get me.

There’s a round mirror on the wall opposite my bed. I stared into it and my face looked back at me. It was bright red. Mrs. Plummet makes us draw faces in our exercise book. If I drew my face right now, it would have a wobbly lip and my brown hair would be standing up straight, as though I'd had a fright. The last time I looked like this was when a gigantic earthworm frazzled and zapped me. Yes, they do exist. You try looking under my Aunt Lucy's garden shed and see what happens.

‘Right, Ben Adams,’ Mum snapped at me. ‘I hope this is not another of your silly made up stories.

‘You’ve got to whisper.’ I told her. ‘IT can hear us talking.’

Mum put her hands on her hips. That’s when I know she’s getting angry. ‘You’re making this up.’ she said. ‘You’re deliberately making me late for work.’

‘I’m not.’ I said. ‘I really heard it.’

‘So where was the scratching noise?’ she snapped. ‘Is it under your bed?’ In the attic? Show me and be quick about it.’ She tapped her watch twice.

I put down my drawing pad and swung my legs very slowly over the side of the bed.

‘Hurry up.’ Mum said.

‘It’s in there.’ I pointed to the cupboard in the corner of my bedroom. It’s painted blue, just like my bedroom walls. It hides the rattling pipes.

‘Scratch, scratch, scratch,’ I moved my fingers into a claw shape. ‘It kept me awake all night. I thought it was going to sneak under my bedclothes and bite off my toes.’

Mum closed one eye and looked at my pyjamas. Then she looked at my feet. ‘Is that why you slept with your shoes and socks on?’ she asked.

‘And my bicycle helmet.’ I said. ‘What if it climbed under the bedclothes and up my legs and over my stomach and on to my face and into my ears? What if it crawled inside my head and ate my brain?’

‘You can’t chew concrete.’ Mum said tapping my head with her finger.

Then she walked over to the cupboard, swung open the door and said something I cannot repeat. It was a swear word. If I told my Grandma, she would be shocked. If I told my teacher, Mrs. Plummet, she would make Mum write down a hundred times. "It is not nice to swear." Then she would send my Mum to see Mr. Chatsworth. He’s our head teacher. He would make Mum sit in the corner.

‘It could be a mouse,’ Mum said. ‘But it would never survive in this rubbish tip.’

‘Mice like rubbish tips,’ I said. ‘and so do snakes and worms and beetles. We're doing a recycling project in school. Mrs. Plummet said that some human beings live on rubbish tips and that’s not fair.’

‘Mrs. Plummet is so right,’ Mum said. ‘But a mouse would never survive in this cupboard. It wouldn’t be able to breathe. Oh, these socks are so disgusting. Why haven’t you put them in the wash basket?’ She held up my Superman socks and pulled a face.

My Gran says my socks smell like stinky cheese. People eat stinky cheese all the time, but I wouldn’t like to eat my socks.

‘Nope, it’s definitely not a mouse. It's got enormous teeth. Grrrr.’

Mum checked her watch again. ‘I’ve no time to wrestle a wild animal. So when it finally appears, tell it to come back tomorrow.’

‘How would you like to wrestle a king sized rat?’ I asked.

‘What?’ Mum took three steps back.

‘A king sized rat. That’s what in my cupboard.’