The Machu Picchu Mystery Read online

  For Phoebe and Willow.

  THE MACHU PICCHU MYSTERY

  Copyright © Matt Beighton 2020

  Matt Beighton has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, lent, hired, circulated or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author.

  Also available in paperback

  ISBN (Standard Edition): 978-1-9161360-6-9

  ISBN (Dyslexia Friendly): 978-1-9161360-7-6

  www.mattbeighton.co.uk

  www.monstacademy.com

  Bump In The Night

  Somewhere deep in the mountains of Peru, a long shadow slipped out of a cave and into the night. It flowed like water between the crumbled walls of the ancient citadel of Machu Picchu. In the dead of night, it was just one more patch of darkness. But it seemed deeper than the others. It was as if the night itself was casting a shadow.

  Hidden away in another cave, a group of young monsters settled down (or up – vampires need somewhere to hang as well) for the night. The soft whistles of dozens of creatures of various shapes and sizes snoring soon drifted out of the open windows.

  Something went bump in the night.

  “What was that?” shouted a young boy. He was hairier than most boys his age and looked bedraggled and tired.

  “It’s just a parrot,” a young girl replied, not even bothering to look at the panicked boy. She had the appearance of a resigned mother hen. Her pale skin was already starting to redden in the Peruvian sun. The young monsters of Monroe’s Academy for the Different were just arriving at the foot of Machu Picchu Mountain in the heart of Peru.

  “That’s definitely the last time I ride a broomstick!” a different girl said to the boy.

  “You and me both,” he said. “Gloria, why aren’t you feeling as sick as the rest of us?” He looked angrily at the pale girl who was sporting a wide grin.

  “Honestly, you two make me despair. Trixie, you’ve been at Monstacademy for two years now, and you’re still useless on a broomstick.”

  Trixie Grimble felt her own face turning red. Gloria was right. It had been nearly two years since she’d first learnt that her old school was closing and she was going to have to get used to going to school with the hideous monsters of Monstacademy. In the end, other than a few bad apples trying to take over the world or control people’s minds or have the entire school shut down, it hadn’t been that bad. Gloria and the hairy boy, Colin, had become her immediate friends.

  “And Colin Curlyton,” Gloria continued unabashed, “you have been a monster for far too long to still feel sick when you ride a broomstick.”

  “It’s not my fault,” he whined. “I prefer to chase sticks, not ride on them.”

  Colin was a werewolf...sort of. Trixie had been delighted to find out that he was cursed, and every full moon he would turn into a pink poodle. It didn’t make him very popular with the other werewolves. He’d been most upset to find out that he didn’t qualify for the local branch of the Lycanthrope Hunting Club.

  “It’s always been my dream to join the LHC,” he’d said immediately after opening the rejection letter. He hadn’t appreciated Trixie and Gloria falling about laughing at the thought.

  Gloria was equally outcast from her own kind. As a vegetarian vampire who preferred parsnips to punctures, she fit in perfectly with Trixie, the girl with no monster genes whatsoever. Gloria was so healthy from her diet of vegetables, she sometimes had to use face paint to keep herself looking suitably pale.

  “Children, gather round please.” Miss Brimstone was the deputy-headmistress of Monstacademy, a banshee, and the organiser of the trip. Their aim was to “integrate into a different community and learn all about monsters from the past.” She had reminded them endlessly of it on the long flight over. Apparently, they were going to be taking part in lessons, learning the local customs and, hopefully, not making too much of a nuisance of themselves. “We don’t want to lose anybody. There are few enough of you to begin with.”

  Miss Brimstone wasn’t wrong. Trixie had thought there would be dozens of children eager to see the other side of the world. Instead, it had ended up being the three of them, plus a couple of first-years who Trixie didn’t recognise. At least, she didn’t have to put up with Heston Gobswaddle. “We’re only here for a few days, so let’s make the most of it,” she finished.

  When Colin had first told Trixie that he’d signed them up for a field trip to Peru, she’d worried about getting permission from her mother. As it turned out, her mother had other plans anyway. She was taking her cat circus on a tour of Moldova, and so everything had worked out perfectly.

  They’d flown over on broomsticks because sneaking onto an aeroplane with a werewolf, a vampire, and a seven-foot-tall banshee would have been difficult. Trixie’s legs ached already, and she was sure she’d caught a chill. They didn’t have to wear their school uniform, which helped. Trixie was sure her mother had watched Indiana Jones too many times, and she’d sent her with an endless supply of beige. Even her socks were beige.

  The first stop on their itinerary was to find the school that they were visiting. Escuela de Monstruos (Monster School, as Gloria had translated) was hidden away at the top of Machu Picchu Mountain. Miss Brimstone had told them that monsters in Peru didn’t live so close to villages. The people in the mountains didn’t trust the monsters, and the monsters didn’t trust the people. The school had earned the nickname Cueva del Miedo – the Cave of Fear. Suddenly, it felt like Trixie’s first day at Monstacademy all over again.

  It took them nearly an hour to climb just over halfway up the mountain. Trixie looked out over the valley and saw the awe-inspiring Inca citadel far below. She’d seen pictures of it in class at her old school, but she’d never appreciated how big it was or how high up in the mountains. She didn’t have time to stop and wonder. Miss Brimstone was rushing them off the path and towards an arrangement of large stones half-hidden in the trees.

  Two enormous monoliths had been stood on their ends, and a third had been placed across the top. It formed a crude doorway. Or it would have if it hadn’t been placed against a solid-looking rock face. Delicate lines traced ornate patterns over the stonework, like snakes fighting for their position.

  Miss Brimstone approached the solid door with the air of somebody about to show off a clever trick. “All you have to do to enter is say, ‘Loqui, et amicus intraret.’” To demonstrate, she uttered the words and tapped the rock between the stones.

  Trixie was amazed. The rock had looked solid enough, but as soon as the teacher spoke, a crack appeared. It began to grow wider and wider. Once it was wide enough for a person to fit through, a pair of sad, sunken eyes emerged from the darkness. The rest of the body followed behind, and a short, stocky man with bowed legs, a dark complexion and a hunched back shuffled out to greet them.

  “My name is Diego,” he said with a strong accent. He didn’t seem happy to see them. “Follow me.”

  The crack opened out into a wider corridor that led further into the rock. It was wide enough for people to pass each other easily, but the roof was lost far above them. There were paraffin torches hammered into the stone walls but their flickering light didn’t reach that far. Something flapped busily in the shadows.

  Every so often, another corridor branched off and headed away somewhere else. Occasionally, there were wooden doors in the walls. Some of these had been left ajar. Trixie heard the sound of lessons going on behind them.

  “They still have their lessons, even at a time like this,” Diego grumbled as he led them deeper and deeper.

  “A time like
what?” Miss Brimstone asked. Trixie knew when her teacher was on edge. She was often the cause of that edginess.

  “Nothing,” Diego said. “Ignore me. Just the ramblings of an old man.” He smiled a crooked smile. Most of his teeth were missing.

  Finally, they emerged into a large cave. It wasn’t as big as the hall at Monstacademy, but it was still impressive enough considering it was underground.

  “Ah, here you are!” A small lady, no more than ten inches tall, stood up and waved her arms towards them. Trixie watched as a pair of hot pink wings emerged from her back, and the fairy buzzed gleefully towards them. “Miss Brimstone, it’s so good to see you!” she screeched.

  Miss Brimstone pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and rubbed her eyes. “Madam Garcia,” she said drily and forced a smile.

  “It has been too long!” The fairy buzzed eagerly up to Miss Brimstone and threw her tiny arms around her shoulder. She had the kind of high-pitched, excitable voice that seemed peppered with exclamation marks. “You know, children,” Madam Garcia said, turning to face them all, “myself and Miss Brimstone went to school together! Isn’t that so much fun? She was always so grumpy! Come, we must catch up.” She turned to a couple of monsters that were hovering close by. “Take these to their dormitories please, and don’t forget to meet back here for dinner at five o’clock sharp.”

  One of the monsters had the body of a small horse. From the neck upwards, it suddenly became the upper-half of a human girl. Her dark skin contrasted against the patchwork brown and white of her fur. “I am Maria,” she said. “I am a centaur.”

  “I’m Xavier,” said the other monster, pushing his way past Maria. He was wearing the school uniform of trousers, shirt and blazer, but nothing could hide the fact that he was a skeleton. A walking, talking, skeleton. “I’ve lost weight recently,” he said with what Trixie assumed was a smile (have you ever seen a skull frown?). “I don’t like to talk about it!”

  Colin burst into laughter. Gloria rolled her eyes. “Those two will get on well,” she said to Trixie.

  “Let’s take you to your rooms,” Maria said.

  “Yeah, then we can tell you all about what’s been happening here,” Xavier said excitedly.

  “Xavier, don’t say anything,” Maria warned him.

  “What’s been happening?” Gloria asked, ignoring Maria.

  “Monsters have been disappearing!”

  The Pishtaco

  “How can monsters just disappear?” Trixie asked.

  Maria and Xavier took Trixie and the other children from Monstacademy down a twisting staircase and into a well-lit cave far below the main hall. Their guides refused to talk about the disappearing monsters until they were away from the other children.

  “It’s all a big mystery,” Maria said. She was stood at a small, wooden trolley, making them all small cups of herbal tea.

  Trixie looked around at the room while she waited. It was a cave. There was no doubt about that. The exposed walls were hard rock, and seams of sparkling quartz crisscrossed it in patches. But the monsters of Escuela de Monstruos had done a brilliant job making it comfortable. Some of the walls had been rendered and painted in bright colours. Tapestries hung in makeshift wooden frames, each one showing off a different famous monster from history. The floor was tiled with large flagstones, but a soft rug spanned most of the room. The children were all sat around it on soft beanbags and pillows.

  “We know who it is,” Xavier said through a mouthful of biscuit. Trixie wasn’t sure where to look whenever the skeleton ate. She could see the biscuit in his mouth and watched the crumbs fall into his chest where they just...disappeared. It was disconcerting.

  “Be quiet, Xavier,” Maria said. She tiptoed back to the group. The centaur was resting a tray heavily laden with cups of green tea on her back. Her hands were filled with a plate piled high with more biscuits. “They’ve only just got here, and you’re trying to scare them already. They don’t want to hear your ghost stories.” She placed the tea and biscuits onto a small end table, folded her legs underneath her body and lay down next to Xavier. Trixie had to stifle a giggle, it reminded her of a horse laying down in a field.

  “We do!” Colin almost exploded with excitement. “I definitely want to hear his ghost stories.”

  Gloria rolled her eyes. “If monsters are going missing, I suppose we should hear what you think it is, even if it ends up being ridiculous.”

  “It is,” Maria said with a frown.

  “It’s the pishtaco.” Xavier folded his arms and looked pleased with himself. Everybody else looked confused, except for Maria, who looked furious.

  “You mustn’t say its name!” she hissed. “If you say the name, you call him.”

  “Hold on,” Colin said. Trixie recognised the look of confusion on his face. His eyebrows always screwed up when he had to think about anything too complicated. “How can a fish taco kidnap somebody?”

  “Not a fish taco. A pishta—” Xavier began before Maria kicked him in the shin. When a centaur kicks you, you know you’ve been kicked. “All right, I won’t say it. But it’s not a fish taco. It’s a monster.”

  “It’s not even a monster, really,” Maria said. “It’s more ghoulish than that. The pisht...the monster lived hundreds of years ago. It would steal away people in the night and...eat them.” Maria looked uncomfortable. “But it’s only a myth. It never really existed. It’s just a story to scare children.”

  “Listen, I’ve got a book all about it in my room,” Xavier said, suddenly remembering. “Colin, come with me, and we’ll get it. Sorry, girls. My room’s a bit too messy for you.”

  Gloria rolled her eyes again. “It’s like they are twins,” she said.

  “Xavier’s thinner,” Trixie said with a giggle.

  “They’ll be awhile,” Maria said. “Xavier will have forgotten what he’s gone for by the time they get to the rooms. He’s so forgetful. They’ll end up mucking about doing something silly knowing him.”

  “Do you think the pishtaco is kidnapping monsters?” Gloria asked.

  “I told you not to say the name,” Maria snapped.

  “I’m sorry, but I thought you said it was a myth?”

  “It is, but it’s still bad luck. No, I don’t think it is. Like I said, it’s just a story to scare children.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Trixie offered apologetically.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, when I was a child, my parents would tell me stories of vampires and werewolves and bogeymen to scare me. I thought they were myths until I grew up and found out they were very real.”

  “What are you saying? You think this ghoul from hundreds of years ago is real?”

  “I’m just saying it’s probably best not to rule anything out. How many monsters have gone missing?”

  “That’s the thing. We don’t know.” Maria looked apologetic. “We’ve had two monsters vanish in the last month. But before that, there weren’t any for a year or so. If you speak to the older children, they say it’s been going on for years. Maybe even longer. It always seems to get worse around the time of Fiesta de Fantasmas.”

  They all turned as Colin crept back into the room and edged over to his fluffy dog-bed in the corner. He sheepishly curled up into a ball but didn’t say anything.

  “What’s the Fiesta de Fantasmas?” Trixie asked, turning back to the group.

  “The Party of Spooks and Ghouls. It is a big festival that happens every year in the Inca citadel. At midnight, all of the monsters gather together and have a party where we can be ourselves. The vampires fly around, and the werewolves howl at the moon. We don’t have to hide who we are, for one night.”

  Trixie thought it sounded amazing. She also realised that she’d never be allowed to see it. “Why aren’t the people from the villages allowed?” she asked.

  “We do not get on with them. They do not like us, and we do not trust them,” Maria said sadly. “The day before the fie
sta is always an open day where people from the villages are invited in to see what we do. We try to convince them that we aren’t here to eat them. Many of them come and are nice, but there are always protesters who turn up with banners and songs and make us feel unwelcome. We don’t hold it at the school. We aren’t allowed to let non-monsters even know where it is. They would chase us.”

  “That’s horrible,” Trixie said with feeling. “Would one of them kidnap the monsters?”

  “Maybe, but we’d hear about it if they did. Madam Garcia tells us whatever the villagers do.”

  “What does she think of the monsters going missing?” Gloria asked.

  “She says that monsters sometimes leave without telling her. Many families worry about the rumours of missing children around this time and panic. They call their children home and don’t tell anybody. It might be true.”

  “But what if it’s not?” Gloria said.

  “I don’t think that it is,” Maria said sadly.

  Suddenly, Xavier burst into the room. He was hopping on one leg and carrying his other foot in his hand. “Where is that little scoundrel?” he shouted to the shocked group.

  “What is going on now Xavier?” Maria said sternly.

  “There he is!” Xavier said, pointing his foot at Colin. “I’ll get you for this,” he said and laughed. He tried to hop over to Colin but tripped on the edge of the rug and collapsed into a heap of bones.

  “Forry,” said Colin, his voice muffled. He sat up and blushed. He was holding Xavier’s leg-bone between his teeth. “Force of habit!”

  A Monster Disappears

  Trixie woke the next morning full of excitement. Their only plan for the day was to explore the ruined Inca citadel. Gloria was equally excited, but Colin wasn’t in a good mood. Xavier had made him sleep on the floor as a punishment for stealing his leg, and he hadn’t had much sleep.