The generating room was down one of the twelve chamber corridors that led out of the main circular chamber where the monsters had introduced themselves. Indeed, if you could look down into the chamber, each passage entrance was spread out evenly, resembling the marks that would make up one to twelve on a clockface.
Peter, the Plastic Snowman, and the Urg and Raargh monsters emerged into another chamber – which was even bigger than the main chamber – and Peter could feel how much warmer it was there. There were not lots of flashing buttons and computers, as he had expected, but one, very large place where you put in a lot of coal and have a fire. This place is then used to boil water, just like a steam engine, and that boiling water generates pressure, and that pressure helps to generate energy. This space with the fire is called a furnace. There was already a fire raging away inside and the noise of heavy iron pumping away above that. Standing next to the furnace were the Y, the Nigel, and the Quarg monsters. And two very big hairy legs.
Peter looked up to see a very large body, upon which was a head that must have been thirty metres above him.
“URGH. This is the Monster Monster.” said the Urgh monster proudly. “But she can’t speak now. Her voice is so loud that she would surely hurt your ears.”
It hadn’t occur to Peter until now that there could even be girl and boy monsters - even though all their voices sounded like males - although he did remember that the Rarrgh Monster, the one who liked him very much and wanted to feed him chocolate pie and other treats was referred to as a ‘she’, so for sure that had to be a girl monster.
“QUARG. This is where you’ll be working,” said the Quarg Monster. “There is a big choice of coal shovels to choose from.”
Peter could see a shovel that was big enough to shovel up an amount of coal that would easily fill the back of a van. This, he presumed, belonged to the Monster Monster.
But then the two big legs of the Monster Monster began to walk away towards a big open door, and left. “Y. She’s finished her shift for the day,” explained the Y Monster. “And that’s where you come in, snowman.”
“NIGEL! You don’t seem to be melting!” said the Nigel Monster.
“URGH. That’s because he’s plastic,” explained the Urgh Monster.
“Y. Why? The snowmen are usually making a puddle by now.”
“URGH. That’s because the little boy is here. Because of his presence, the Snowman is not melting. Not yet anyway, which is good news for us because we get more work out of you.”
“QUARG. But it’s very hot. Surely the plastic will melt and we’ll end up getting a sticky mess on our lovely clean stone floor?”
“URGH. Good point Quargy. We’ll give him twenty minutes, maximize his time as a Plastic Snowman as much as possible before he starts to seriously melt, then we’ll get the boy out and he can work and melt more naturally.”
“NO!” shouted Peter.
“NIGEL. Do we have a NO Monster in here?”
“I’M NOT LEAVING HIM!” shouted Peter again.
“URGH. You’re not leaving him. Not for twenty minutes anyway.”
“I’M NOT LEAVING HIM AT ALL!”
But before Peter could grab the Plastic Snowman’s hand and not let go, the Rarrgh Monster stepped out and grabbed him with one of her tentacles. “RARRGH. No Peter, you can stand with me and then we’ll leave. I’ll give you some pie, a burgbeefer, I think you call it, chip and larter sausages, and some desert. I scream I think you call this sweet white cold stuff, although I don’t know why you like these mobile phones called Blackberries added to it. Then you can play with some Androids.”
But tears were streaming down Peter’s cheeks. He could see the Plastic Snowman being led away by the other Monsters to the furnace and being directed to the countless shovels of different shapes and sizes.
The Raargh Monster’s tentacles were holding him tightly. The Plastic Snowman then chose a shovel that suited his height, and was then escorted to a pile of coal that was so high it disappeared into the roof of the chamber, which itself was so high you couldn’t see it.
Peter was helpless. There was nothing he could do.