Takeshita Demons by Cristy Burne Read Free Book Online Page B

through the pipes
until they exploded with the pressure."
    Cait took off her own beanie. "If it's frozen
pipes, then they're not going to be frozen for long.
Something's messing with the temperature in
here."

    We looked around, remembering suddenly why
we were here.
    "Can she do that?" Cait asked. "The nukekubi?"
    I shook my head. "No, I don't think so. It's got to
be something else." I knew there was something my
Baba had told me, something else. But it floated just
out of reach, a kite on the wind.
    "So how will we know if it's burst pipes that
made all that noise?" Cait interrupted my thoughts.
    But before I could answer, a dripping sound
came from the classroom behind us. Almost at once
more drips echoed from the corridor. Gone were the
ringing and screaming of tortured pipes. Instead
we could have been in a bathhouse. The sound of
dripping water was everywhere. Five minutes ago
we were freezing solid, now it was warm enough to
go without a jacket.
    "The water's melting," Cait said. She pulled off
her scarf. "This is ridiculous."
    The drips grew into trickles, like a hundred taps
not turned off properly.
    "The whole water system's busted," I said.
    "What happens now?" Cait asked, watching as
the trickles formed torrents and water began to gush
from broken pipes up and down the corridor.
    "I dunno."

    "Will she like all this water?" Cait asked.
    I stepped backwards as the water advanced
towards our open door. "No, I don't think so.
Baba never said."
    I stepped back again, this time splashing right
into a puddle. Behind us the floor of the classroom
was shiny with water. More water was pouring in
from the broken pipes, forming a fountain that was
gushing and trickling its way into a flood.
    Cait climbed on to the nearest desk. "I think we're
going to get a little wet," she said, her legs dangling as
water rushed around and under the table legs below.
    Shoes wet, I jumped up on the desk next to Cait.
We watched as the water from our classroom floor
inched closer to the door. "We're going to be in so
much trouble."
    "Deep trouble," Cait laughed at her own joke.
    "But really it's not so deep," I said, looking down.
"Perhaps we should make a run for it?"
    "What about the flying head?"
    But I didn't have time to reply. Another
thunderclap echoed as water from the corridor
rushed to meet the water from our classroom. Great.
The temperature had stopped rising, but now the
whole school was flooding. And we still had to find
my brother, defeat a flesh-eating demon, and get home before Mrs Thompson or the plumber caught
us sneaking around the school after dark.

    The classroom window had fogged up, but
I could see giant snowflakes bashing against the glass.
Inside it was as warm as a summer's day. "This is so
weird." I racked my brains, trying again to think of
what it was my Baba had told me. Something about
the weather... Something important.
    "Totally," Cait said, looking around. Each desk
had formed a little island in the growing ocean. "We're
surrounded. It's like something's set out to trap us."

     

Five minutes later, when the water had stopped rising,
we had a new problem on our hands.
    "What on earth is that?" Cait asked, staring
in dread as water began arriving in waves at our
classroom door, causing mini-tsunamis to rush
against the walls of our classroom. The water was
behaving like surf at the ocean, forming waves that
raced through the door, each curling after the next.
    "Flood's getting worse?" I asked, my teeth
chattering despite the warm temperature.
    "No," Cait said. "I think something's coming."
    The waves were growing larger. We could see the
bulk of them as they pummelled past our open door,
with just the smaller waves pushing sideways into
our classroom. I didn't know what to do. We were
perched like helpless sailors on our school-desk
desert islands.

    "Perhaps we should run for it," I said again.
"It could be her. Who cares about wet shoes?"
    But it