Читать книгу The Ice Monster - David Walliams, Quentin Blake, Tony Ross - Страница 13

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,

children in uniform marching off to school,

lords and ladies stepping over her as they left the Royal Opera House.

Elsie’s brain was forever buzzing with questions.

Where was everyone going to at such a pace?

What did those scrumptious-looking cakes in the bakery window actually taste like?

And what was inside all those magnificent buildings?

One day, the girl decided to step out of her world and into the other.

Elsie was standing in front of the most magnificent building of all, the Natural History Museum. When she tried to walk in, she was immediately thrown out by the hobnail-booted brute of a security guard, Mr Clout.

“I don’t want no trouble from filthy beggars like you,” he shouted as he hurled her down the steps.

Elsie was not one to give up that easily, so she sneaked in behind a gaggle of top-hatted gentlemen.

Soon she was sneaking into the museum every single day. Elsie couldn’t read, but she earwigged in on the guides and soon became something of an expert. So, when she saw a picture of the “Ice Monster” on the front page of the newspaper, she knew instantly that it was, in fact, a woolly mammoth. Elsie had learned that these creatures had lived during the Ice Age, when sabre-toothed tigers, GIANT bears,

sloths

and beavers stalked the Earth,

and birds like the Teratornis, a bird bigger than a person, darkened the skies.

Elsie was desperate to follow the story of the Ice Monster. So every morning she swiped another newspaper to search for news of the creature. Weeks passed, and then one day she spotted a jumble of letters she recognised on the front page of a newspaper.

They looked exactly like the ones she’d seen on the side of her favourite building.

Elsie knew she had to meet it.