The Ice Monster. Tony Ross

and scraped, making the hole bigger and bigger.

      SCRATCH! SCRATCH! SCRATCH!

      Eventually, the hole was just large enough for Elsie to squeeze her tiny, underfed body through it. However, she couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to her twenty-five friends.

      “Wake up!” she called softly. Little eyes began to appear out of the dark. “I’m going to run away tonight. Who’s coming with me?”

      S I L E N C E.

      “I said, ‘Who’s coming with me?’”

      There were murmurs of, “I’m too scared,” and “Curdle’ll kill us,” and, “They’ll catch us and beat us to death.”

      The littlest little’un of the lot was named Nancy. She looked up to Elsie like she was a big sister. Nancy whispered, “Where are you going?”

      “I don’t know,” replied the girl. “Anywhere but here.”

      “Please don’t forget about us.”

      “Never!”

      “Promise?”

      “I promise,” said Elsie. “I’ll see you all again one day – I know it.”

      “I’m going to miss your stories,” said another orphan, Felix.

      “Me too,” added Percival.

      “Next time I see you I’ll tell you the greatest story of all.”

      “Good luck, Elsie,” said Nancy.

      “You’ll always be in ’ere,” replied Elsie, patting her chest.

      The girl gave one last shimmy up the pipe with her monkey feet. She squeezed herself through the hole in the wall, and with one final she was gone.

      

      Elsie ran and ran and ran, as fast as she possibly could. She didn’t dare look back. She was free but alone, and now she had to fend for herself on the streets of London, even though she’d never been outside the orphanage before. The big city was a scary place, especially for a little girl. lurked in every corner.

      Soon enough, though, Elsie taught herself how to steal food from the market stalls. As for a bed, she found an old tin bath to sleep in, and used old newspapers as sheets. In her mind, Elsie pretended that it was a grand four-poster bed fit for a queen.

      With no home or family, Elsie was what was known as an “urchin”. Victorian London was teeming with them.

      Elsie didn’t look much like a hero.

      However, as you will soon discover, heroes come in all and .

      

      Living on the streets of London had its advantages. You slept under the stars. You ate all the fresh fruit and vegetables you could swipe. Best of all, you were the first to know about everything. News spread fast, and this was BIG news.

      Having never been to school, Elsie couldn’t read or write. However, the newspaper sellers would holler the headlines to passers-by.

      Could this be true?

      A real-life monster?

      Ten thousand years old too?

      Elsie was old enough to know that monsters weren’t real, and young enough to believe that they might just be.

      The girl had just swiped an apple off a market stall for her breakfast. Munching contentedly, she wove her way through the march of top-hatted gentlemen heading for work, until she reached the newspaper stand.

      “Get lost, you little thief!” shouted the newspaper seller. He whacked the girl on the back of her head with a rolled-up copy of The Times.

      You got whacked by grown-ups every day if you were an urchin. You were the lowest of the low. At least it made a welcome change from being battered with a broomstick at

      “I only want to look!” pleaded Elsie.

      “These papers is not for looking at. They is for buying. Now scram! Before I give you a kick where the sun don’t shine!”

      Not being a fan of a boot up the bottom, Elsie smiled at the man and ambled off down the street. She turned into an alleyway, then reached into the back of her grubby trousers and pulled out a copy of The Times. The girl had become an expert thief.

      There were big, bold black letters on the front page. Elsie knew these spelled out words, but it all looked like a jumble to her. The picture underneath did speak to her, though. It was of a peculiar creature that looked like an elephant.

      Once, she’d poked her head through the flap in a circus tent to get a free show, and seen an elephant performing tricks. However, this elephant was covered in thick hair, and its tusks were long and curved. It was encased in a huge block of ice, and a number of Arctic explorers were standing around it, looking proud. Despite the creature’s bizarre appearance, Elsie found it hard to think of the poor thing as a monster. Monsters you were scared of. This animal you wanted to hug.

      It looked a great deal smaller than the elephant she’d seen at the circus. Perhaps it was a baby. Despite having been dead for thousands of years, it still looked lost and alone.

      “An orphan,”

      whispered Elsie to herself.

      “Just like me.”

      

      As an urchin, Elsie was always on the outside looking in. Every day, she would see a whole other London whirling around her. Horse-drawn carriages speeding down the street,