The Sandwich Inspector Who Woke the Hill

Part One. The Lunchbox Mystery

The first time we saw Mister Coyote was on a Monday, and we didn't see him at all. All we saw was a pebble.

It was lunchtime. Kenji opened his lunchbox, and instead of a cheese sandwich, there was a smooth grey pebble, with a little note stuck to it. The note said: THANKS! YUMMY! LOVE, C.

"Who's C?" said Kenji.

"Mine's gone too!" shouted Ollie. He held up a crumpled note and another pebble.

"Mine too!" shouted Maya.

By the end of lunchtime, forty-three sandwiches had vanished from our class, and forty-three pebbles had turned up in their place. Alex had a pebble. Felix had a pebble. Even Willow, who had been sitting on the end of the bench next to Elfine and Marion, had a pebble where her little pouch of Reading Cat treats had been.

Willow looked at the pebble. Then she looked at us. Then she looked at the door, with her ears slowly turning flat.

"There's a thief in this school," said Marion.

"It's not a thief," said a voice from the doorway. "It's a Sandwich Inspector."

A man leaned against the door frame. He was thin and bendy, with yellowy-grey hair that stuck out in all directions, and a long face with a pointy chin. His eyes were bright amber, like two drops of honey. His grin went all the way across his face, and it had a lot of teeth in it. His badge said Mister Coyote, Sandwich Inspector.

"Somebody has to check them, you see," he said. "To make sure they're safe. For children. I'm doing it for you. You're welcome. Did you know there's a sandwich called a club sandwich and it's got no club in it? Disappointing. Did you know I once ate a whole sandwich in the dark and it was a sock? Anyway, nobody has said thank you. Not once. But it's fine. I'm fine. Is anybody else hungry? Because I am, again, already."

He didn't stop talking for nine whole minutes. We timed it.

Part Two. Hiding the Lunches

On Tuesday, we were ready.

Kenji hid his lunchbox inside his coat. Ollie sat on his. Maya put hers in her bag, put the bag in her locker, put the locker key in her sock, and stood guard.

Alex and Felix had a plan too, and they had worked it out together, the night before, with their heads close. Alex took both lunchboxes and hid them under the very middle of the piano stool in the hall. Felix put a sign on top that said NOTHING TO SEE HERE. "That's the cleverest place," Felix said. "Nobody looks at things that say there's nothing to see."

At half past twelve, we all checked our hiding places.

Kenji's lunchbox had a pebble in it. So did Ollie's. So did Maya's, even though the locker was still locked.

And under the piano stool, with a note saying THIS SIGN WAS A GOOD TRY, there were two more pebbles.

"How does he do it?" wailed Ollie.

At that moment, a very large cheese sandwich, about the size of a door, wobbled past us down the corridor on two skinny legs.

"Hello, class!" said the sandwich, in a muffled voice. "Nothing to see here! I'm just an extremely large, very normal sandwich!"

"That's him!" shouted Maya.

The sandwich took off at a gallop. A single yellow eye winked at us from behind a lettuce leaf. Then he was gone, with a swishing tail sticking out of the back, and a trail of crumbs behind him.

Willow growled. It was not a polite growl. It was a long, rumbling professional growl.

Part Three. Elfine Has a Fact

Elfine pushed her glasses up her nose.

"I know exactly who he is," she said. "It's the thing Mister Raven warned us about. He's Coyote."

"I thought he was a man," said Dot.

"He's a trickster," said Elfine. "A very old one. Coyote stories come from lots of different nations across North America, like the Navajo and the Nez Perce and the Crow. Every nation tells them a bit differently. But in every one, Coyote is clever and cheeky and always hungry. And he always, always ends up tangled in his own tricks."

"What sort of tricks?" said Felix.

"There's one about the stars," said Elfine.

"Tell it," said Alex.

She told us, sitting under the climbing frame, where the nest was still wedged in the beams.

"In the very beginning," she said, "the sky was black, and the stars hadn't been put up yet. A wise old woman and her helpers were placing them carefully, one by one, in beautiful patterns. They were making a picture. It was slow work, and every star had to go in exactly the right place."

"And Coyote was watching," said Marion.

"Coyote was bored," said Elfine. "He kept saying, Is it done yet? Are we nearly finished? How much longer? In the end, he couldn't stand it any more. He grabbed the whole bag that was left over and flung it up into the sky."

"All of them?" said Ollie.

"All of them. WHOOSH. And they went everywhere, in a big, messy, glittery splatter. That's the Milky Way, they say. And all the scattered stars that aren't in any pattern."

"Did he say sorry?" said Kenji.

"Not for about a thousand years," said Elfine.

"That's longer than Ollie," said Marion.

"I said sorry about the cake the same day," said Ollie, with his mouth full.

"I like that," said Dot.

"So do I," said Elfine. "But the careful stars were already finished, and they were beautiful. And the messy ones are beautiful too, just in a different way. The point is, Coyote's mistake made something new."

"He rushed it, though," said Marion.

"He did," said Elfine. "And that's his big problem. He never waits. And he never listens."

Part Four. Caught by the Tail

By Wednesday, Marion had had enough.

"I'm going to catch him," she said, "and I need an inventor. Which means I need Elfine."

Marion drew a map of the playground in the dirt with a stick. Elfine labelled it in her best handwriting. Alex worked out where Coyote would come from, and Felix worked out where he would go next, and Dot found a bit of string. Marion's pocket was already full of string, but she let Dot feel useful.

They made a trap out of a lunchbox, a sandwich on a plate, three metres of string, and a net made of Mister Harris's spare jumpers. Willow supervised from the top of the slide, with her tail wrapped round her feet, looking like she had seen better plans.

At twenty past twelve, a long yellow-grey shadow crept across the playground. It stopped by the plate. It sniffed. It looked left. It looked right.

"Ha!" said Mister Coyote softly. "Ham and mustard. Delicious. A genius has left this here for me."

He snatched the sandwich.

There was a twang. A whoosh. The net flew up. And Mister Coyote, with his skinny legs kicking, was hoisted up into the air and left hanging upside-down from the climbing frame, beside the raven's nest, with one sandwich in his mouth.

"Wait!" he said, through the ham. "This is a misunderstanding! I'm inspecting the net!"

"We got you!" yelled Marion.

"Yes, well done, very good, a ten out of ten," said Mister Coyote, swinging gently. "Now, if somebody could just get me down. I'm getting a bit dizzy. And I've lost all the feeling in my hat."

Part Five. Why He Does It

They lowered him down gently, with the string.

Mister Coyote sat on the ground, with his hair sticking up and his eyes wide. For the first time since we had met him, he did not say anything at all. He stared at his boots.

"Why do you do it?" said Felix, kindly. "Take the lunches."

"Because I'm hungry," said Mister Coyote.

"You can have lunch," said Alex. "Missus Tibbs would give you lunch. All you have to do is ask."

"I know," said Mister Coyote. He rubbed the back of his head. "It's more fun the other way. And if I ask, then nobody notices me. But when I take things, everyone notices."

Felix and Alex looked at each other. They had a way of doing that, and each one knew what the other was thinking.

"That's a bit sad," said Felix.

"You don't have to trick people to be noticed," said Alex.

"I know that too," said Mister Coyote. "I'm not very good at listening to myself. Or to anybody. My friend Fox is always telling me, Coyote, slow down, think. And do I? No. I do the first thing that comes into my head. That's how I once got a lump of mud stuck on my nose for a week."

"Everyone makes mistakes," said Dot.

"The good bit is fixing them," said Felix.

Mister Coyote raised his head and gave us the smallest, most embarrassed smile. "Well," he said. "I could start with the forty-three sandwiches. They're in a burrow under the big oak. I'll bring them back tomorrow. I promise. And I suppose I could say sorry."

He took a long breath. "Sorry."

It was the quietest word we had ever heard him say.

Part Six. The Howl

He should have brought the sandwiches back that night.

But Mister Coyote was so happy that we had forgiven him that he did something silly. After school, when everyone had gone home, he climbed to the top of the big hill behind the school field, put back his head, and let out the loudest, most joyful howl in the history of the world.

"Aaaaaah-woooooooooooo!"

It rolled over the town. It rattled the windows. It echoed from the hills and back again, louder and louder and louder.

And the hill underneath his feet began to shake.

We heard it from our beds. It was a deep, slow rumble, like a huge stomach that hasn't been fed for a hundred years. The ground trembled. Cupboard doors rattled. In the morning, when we ran to the school gate, we saw that the hill behind the field was not a hill any more.

It had two enormous eyes.

It had a nose as big as a bus.

And it had a mouth, which was slowly opening, wider and wider, like a cave with teeth.

"Oh dear," said Mister Coyote, who was standing at the school gate with his hat in his hands. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I think I've woken the Gobbler."

Part Seven. The Gobbler

The Gobbler stood up.

It was as tall as a church and as wide as the field. Its fur was brown and shaggy and matted, with clumps of heather in it. It had a huge round belly, and every few seconds that belly gave a rumble so loud that the playground cracked.

"Who woke me?" boomed the Gobbler. "I'm so hungry. I'm so, so hungry."

Then it started to eat.

It scooped up the climbing frame in one big hand, and the bike shelter, and the bins, and the whole row of school fence. It slurped up Mister Harris's car, which was parked in the field, and it swallowed it whole. It swallowed three sheep who had wandered in from the farm. It swallowed the old see-saw, and the bench, and the whole sandpit.

"Run!" shouted Mister Harris.

But Dot, who is tiny and was last out of the classroom, tripped on her shoelace. The Gobbler's huge hand swept down and scooped her up, and she vanished into the enormous mouth.

"DOT!" shrieked Maya.

Alex and Felix started running toward the Gobbler before anyone else did. They didn't say anything. They didn't need to.

"Wait!" yelled Mister Coyote. He caught them both by the coat. "Stop. Listen to me. This is my fault. I'm the one who woke it. I need to fix it."

"But how?" said Alex.

"There's an old story," said Mister Coyote. "Where a big monster swallowed everyone, and Coyote went inside on purpose. But I can't do it by myself. I'll need two very brave helpers."

Part Eight. The Plan

Elfine was already talking.

"It's like an old story," she gasped. "The one where a Monster swallowed everyone, and Coyote went in and fixed it from the inside. This is the same sort of thing! We know how it goes!"

"I'll go in with Mister Coyote," said Alex.

"And I'll go in with Alex," said Felix.

"No," said Marion. "You'll need a way back. I've got string."

Marion pulled a ball of the strongest rope she could find out of her pocket. It had been in there for months. She tied one end round Mister Coyote's waist and the other round Alex's, and the middle round Felix's. "Three tugs means pull us out," she said, and Elfine and Mister Harris and Missus Tibbs and Kenji all grabbed the other end.

Somebody beside us was very pointedly not saying anything.

Willow was sitting at Marion's feet, looking up at her with those wide golden eyes. She had a funny gleam in them.

"Willow," said Elfine slowly. "You have a plan."

Willow flicked her tail. She looked up at the Gobbler's enormous nose.

"She's going to climb it," said Marion.

"Brilliant," said Mister Coyote. "Absolutely mad. I love it."

Alex took a deep breath. Felix took his hand.

"Ready?" said Mister Coyote.

"Ready," said both twins.

And the three of them walked straight into the open mouth of the Gobbler.

Part Nine. Inside the Gobbler

It was very dark, and very warm, and it smelled a bit like a wet dog.

They walked down a tunnel of squishy pink walls, with the rope trailing behind them. The floor was bumpy and wet. Every few steps, there was a rumble that shook them from side to side, like being on a boat.

"Is this a stomach?" whispered Felix.

"I think it's more of an entrance hall," said Mister Coyote. "Very spacious. Lots of storage. Watch your head."

At the end of the tunnel was a huge cavern, lit by a soft golden glow. It was full of everything the Gobbler had swallowed. The climbing frame was lying on its side. The see-saw was balanced on a pile of lunchboxes. Mister Harris's car was upside-down in a puddle. The three sheep stood in a corner, looking cross. And in the middle of it all, sitting on a bike with her arms wrapped round a lunchbox, was Dot.

"Dot!" shouted Alex.

"Alex! Felix!" shouted Dot, and she threw herself at them. They both hugged her at the same time.

"I knew you'd come," she said, in a small, shaky voice. "I was a bit scared. But I stayed brave. Brave and loud. I kept shouting for help."

"You're the bravest person I know," said Felix.

"And the loudest," said Alex.

"I'm tiny but I'm very good at being loud," said Dot, sniffing.

Part Ten. The Smallest Voice

They found it at the very back of the cavern.

At first, they thought it was a pile of leaves. But the pile was moving. It was breathing. It was curled up in a ball, with its head tucked under its arms, shivering.

It was a small, shaggy creature, no bigger than Willow. It had huge, dark, watery eyes, and bits of heather in its fur.

"I'm so hungry," it whispered. "I'm so, so hungry. I was asleep for such a long time. And then I woke up, and nobody had left me anything to eat."

Felix knelt down beside it.

"Are you the Gobbler?" he said.

"I'm the real one," whispered the little creature. "The big one's just my coat. When I'm hungry, it grows and grows. But the hungrier I get, the more I gobble. And the more I gobble, the sadder I feel. I don't mean to eat things. I just can't stop. I'm only hungry."

"It's not a monster," whispered Alex.

"It's a hungry little hill-spirit," said Felix, "who has been alone for a hundred years."

"A hundred years with nobody to feed it," said Mister Coyote. His voice sounded odd. "I know what that's like. When you're hungry, you do silly things. You grab. You gobble."

Alex stood up straight. "So we feed it," he said. "Properly. Not by gobbling. By sharing."

"But we don't have any food," said Felix.

"Yes, we do," said Mister Coyote slowly. "Forty-three sandwiches. In a burrow under the big oak."

Part Eleven. Dot's Big Voice

"But how do we tell them?" said Alex. "The rope only works for pulling. We can't send a message."

"Three tugs means pull us out," said Felix. "We need a message that says bring the sandwiches."

Then they all looked at Dot.

She was standing on top of an upside-down bucket. She had her hands cupped round her mouth, and she was grinning from ear to ear. "I'm LOUD," she said. "Shall I?"

"Please," said Alex.

"Go on," said Felix.

Dot took the biggest breath of her whole life. Her little chest swelled up like a balloon. And she bellowed up the Gobbler's long, echoing throat, in a voice that shook dust from the ceiling:

"BRING! THE! SANDWICHES!"

The sound rolled up the tunnel and out of the mouth, like a cannonball. It echoed round the hills. Every single person on the school field jumped. Mister Harris dropped the rope. Missus Tibbs fell over.

"Did that come from the Gobbler?" said Maya.

"That's DOT!" shouted Kenji. "That's definitely Dot!"

"Bring the sandwiches!" shouted Elfine. "She said bring the sandwiches!"

"I'm going!" shouted Marion. She was already running.

Part Twelve. The Feast

It took six minutes. Marion sprinted to the big oak, dived into the burrow, and came out hugging a huge cloth bundle. She ran back across the field with Ollie, Maya and Kenji running behind, each carrying armfuls of sandwiches. Missus Tibbs fetched the dinner hall's biggest saucepan of soup.

The whole school queued up at the Gobbler's great, wobbling lip. One by one, they threw in sandwiches. Cheese. Ham. Jam. Banana. Egg. Peanut butter. The soup went in last, all at once, in one big, steaming glug.

Inside, the little shaggy creature sat up. It sniffed. Its eyes grew round. And then it began to eat, slowly at first, and then happily, nibbling at every sandwich and licking every crumb.

"That's the best thing I've ever tasted," it whispered.

"We made them," said Dot, "because we like sharing."

"Everyone should have enough," said Felix.

"Even a hill," said Alex.

And as the little creature ate, something extraordinary began to happen. The huge brown coat around the cavern started to shrink. The walls drew in. The ceiling lowered. The rumbling in the Gobbler's stomach faded to a purr. Outside, we all watched the Gobbler's mighty shape begin to get smaller and smaller, like a balloon letting out its air.

"It's working!" yelled Elfine.

"Pull!" yelled Marion.

Part Thirteen. The Sneeze

Three tugs on the rope. Marion and Mister Harris and Kenji pulled with all their strength.

But the Gobbler's mouth had half shut as it shrank, and it was too narrow now for four people to squeeze through. Alex, Felix, Dot and Mister Coyote were wedged at the back of the throat, with the walls squishing round them.

"We're stuck!" shouted Alex.

"We need a bigger mouth!" shouted Felix.

"We need a sneeze," said Mister Coyote.

Up above, Willow had been sitting patiently on the Gobbler's great, damp nose. She was nine years old and very wise, and she knew a good moment when she saw one.

She leaned forward. She narrowed her eyes. And with one delicate golden paw, she tapped the very tip of the nose, one, two, three times.

The nose wrinkled. The huge nostrils flared. The whole hill quivered.

"Ah," said the Gobbler. "Ah. Ahhhh. AH-CHOOOOOO!"

The sneeze blew them all out of the Gobbler's mouth like corks from a bottle. Alex, Felix, Dot and Mister Coyote shot across the field in a tangle of arms and legs, together with Mister Harris's car, the three sheep, the bike shelter, the see-saw, the climbing frame and a hundred lunchboxes. They landed in a huge heap of mud and grass and laughing children.

Willow jumped down gracefully and began to wash her paw.

Part Fourteen. Gobbler Hill

When we looked up, the Gobbler had shrunk to a hill again.

But it wasn't the same hill. It was round and green and cosy, with a smiling mouth under a ledge of heather, and two sleepy eyes that blinked at us as the sun came out.

"Thank you," said a tiny, rumbly voice that seemed to come from deep inside. "I haven't felt full for a hundred years. I'm sorry I frightened you."

"You didn't mean to," said Felix.

"Everyone gets hungry," said Alex. "It's just that it's better to ask."

"And to share," said Dot, from the top of Mister Coyote's shoulders.

Everyone looked at Mister Coyote. He was covered in mud from his boots to his hat. He had a sandwich crust behind one ear. But there was no cheeky grin on his face now. He took his hat off and held it to his chest.

"I need to say something," he said. "I stole your lunches. I howled when I shouldn't have. I woke up a hill that needed a friend, and I made a terrible mess. I'm very, very sorry. And I have learned something."

"What's that?" said Marion.

"I listened," said Mister Coyote. "For the first time in my whole life, I listened to two very small people. And they were right."

From that day on, every Friday at three o'clock, Mister Coyote made forty-three sandwiches in the dinner hall kitchen, with Missus Tibbs supervising, and carried them up to Gobbler Hill. And the hill would sigh, and say thank you, and the whole school would sit on its warm green shoulders, eating together.

Part Fifteen. The Ending, with a Hook

The school was nearly back to normal by Friday.

Mister Harris's car was parked outside, with only a bit of heather in the wing mirror. The climbing frame was back, with Raven's nest still wedged in the top. Willow was lying across Marion's lap, purring like a motorbike. And Mister Coyote was sitting with his back to the school wall, humming quietly, eating a sandwich that he had asked for.

"This is the best sandwich I've ever eaten," he said. "Because I asked."

Then the ground began to shake again.

Not a rumble this time, but a drumming. A rolling, thumping, thundering boom, like a hundred huge drums.

We all turned. Out on the road, rolling slowly up to the school gate, was a deep stormy-blue van, with lightning bolts down the side. It was the same van we had seen before. Silver letters on the door read: HADAD'S STORM SUPPLIES. A great black cloud was gathering overhead, crackling and purple, and the air smelled of rain.

"Oh no," said Mister Coyote, covering his face with his hat. "That's the big one. That's the Storm Lord himself. And I've got a feeling he's not going to be as funny as me."

The van door opened with a clang. A booted foot stepped down onto the tarmac. And a deep voice, as rich as thunder, called out: "Is this the school? I've come about the job."

Elfine and Marion gasped. Willow arched her back. Even the Gobbler, on the hill, opened one sleepy eye.

Everyone turned to look at Alex and Felix. The twins looked at each other, with the first drops of rain falling on their faces. They said, at exactly the same time, "Monday."

The End.