Monster: The perfect boarding school thriller to keep you up all night
Every girl at Bathory School has heard stories about The Beast. No one believed they were true.Until Now.'Grisly, nail-biting fun!' - Lovereading4kids.co.ukAt sixteen Nash thought that the fight to become Head Girl of prestigious boarding school Bathory would be the biggest battle she’d face. Until her brother’s disappearance leads to Nash being trapped at the school over Christmas with Bathory’s assorted misfits.As a blizzard rages outside, strange things are afoot in the school’s hallways, and legends of the mysterious Beast of Bathory – a big cat rumoured to room the moors outside the school – run wild.Yet when the girls’ Matron goes missing it’s clear that something altogether darker is to blame – and that they’ll have to stick together if they hope to survive.
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C.J. SKUSE is the author of the YA novels PRETTY BAD THINGS, ROCKOHOLIC and DEAD ROMANTIC. She was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England. She has First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children and, aside from writing novels, lectures in Writing for Children at Bath Spa University where she is planning to do her PhD. C.J’s fifth novel THE DEVIANTS will be published by HQ in 2016.
For Jamie, he is my brother
I said there is no other
‘Hell is empty. All the devils are here.’
The Tempest,
William Shakespeare
Jenny Savill at Andrew Nurnberg Agency for your belief when I needed it most.
Anna Baggaley, Sarah Reader and everyone at HQ for your ceaseless support, editorial advice and general love for my little Monster
All my family, friends and early readers—my sister Penny Skuse, Matthew Snead, Laura Myers, Di Toft, Rachel Leyshon and Barry Cunningham. Thank you for all your advice and encouragement.
Hestercombe House and Gardens—a constant inspiration to me. This time round, Bathory School in the flesh.
Connie Bowler—for your very helpful reminiscences about boarding school life.
Judy Wasdell—for having a dog who habitually sniffs out spines.
All the UKYA book bloggers who follow me on social media and regularly spread the word about my books.
As always, a soundtrack of artists helped me knit and unpick this book every step of the way: Aiden, Alice in Chains, Gabrielle Aplin, Avicii, The Bangles, The Beatles, Birdy, Eminem, 5 Seconds of Summer, Foo Fighters, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Ellie Goulding, The Heavy, Hole, Keane, Jay-Z, Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson, My Chemical Romance, Nirvana, Paramore, Rage Against the Machine, Royal Blood and Slipknot.
And to anyone who has screwed me over, rejected me or even just mildly pissed me off in the last thirty-odd years—you helped too. A lot.
Table of Contents
That last week at school before the Christmas holidays, death was in everything.
In Geography, the sea was eating away the coasts. In English, Juliet was stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger. Even the school gerbil, Rafferty, was found stiff in his water bowl on Tuesday lunchtime. The skies above us bore a foreboding grey gloom, telling us snow was on its way to suffocate the land. In the dorms, everyone was packing up their trunks for the coming break and preparing to say goodbye to the year.
And in our last floodlit netball practice that Friday evening, I saw the monster.
The thing generations of Bathory girls had nightmares about. The Beast of Bathory.
I watched it in the fading light through the wire mesh of our netball court fencing. A black mass, stalking quietly across the playing fields, its two yellow eyes turning to stare at me every so often as it walked, unchecked. Unafraid.
Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! went the whistle.
‘Nash, pass! Pass! I’m free! I’m free!’
I was watching it as much as it was watching me.
Pheeeeee! ‘Natasha, are you playing netball today? Or are we playing netball and you playing Musical Statues?’
I tried to get my head back in the game. ‘Sorry, Mrs Scott.’
‘Rebound, pink team,’ she called, marching back up the court, whistle ready in her mouth. I sneaked a look behind me to the playing fields, but there was no sign of it. It must have dashed into the hedge. I put my trainer to the yellow line and clutched the ball firmly, looking for a free pink-bib to throw to.
‘Aaaaaaand …’ Pheee!
‘Nash! Nash! Overhead! Here! Here!’ Maggie Zappa was calling for it. Wing Attack, socks at half-mast, hair a mass of black curls. School rebel. I wasn’t throwing to her.
‘Nash! Here!’ Clarice Hoon, Goal Attack, too much make-up, bedmate of half the Lower Sixth St Anthony’s boys. We had a history. I wasn’t throwing to her.
Dianna Pfaff, my opposition Centre, was using everything she had. She wasn’t as fast as me, but she was tall, with a ballerina’s balance, and had several times marked me out of the game. Her thick blonde curls bounced and flew as she darted left to right in front of me, shadowing my every movement with her hands. I had to throw.
I saw Regan. Wing Defence, black plaits hanging down and thick, clear-framed glasses. Way back on the line. She had arrived in the Lower Fifth with a subtle smell of wrongness about her and the appearance of a spinster in her late fifties. She wasn’t even calling for it. I threw to her.
It bounced high off the ground in front of her, and she fumbled it offside.
Pheeeeeeee! ‘Foul ball. Advantage blue team.’
Regan bit her lip. Clarice rolled her eyes.
