As monsters go, it was not that impressive. However, it could give you a nasty nip on the ankle. Unless, of course, you wore rather thick socks, which was something that the residents of the area did with increasing regularity as the word of the monster spread.
It was not long, though, before the national media heard about the phenomenon. However, they decided that it was not quite enough for them to leave the London Metropolitan area for, despite the possibility of travel expenses and a chance to see what the rest of the country looked like.
The media decided to wait until the Annoying Little Bugger of Cleethorpes actually killed someone, or – what could be worse – one of their rivals attempted to get an exclusive deal with a suitably traumatised victim of the Annoying Little Bugger.
Exobologists were more than keen to get a glimpse of the fabled creature, even though it wasn’t as fearsome as some wished. ‘Still,’ as one camera-festooned amateur exobologist said, ‘…a nip on the ankle can be quite sore, sometimes.’
Eventually, when a victim managed to get a camera-worthy wound as well as some shaky out-of-focus smartphone footage of an actual attack, the popular press grabbed their chequebooks and rushed off to investigate.
However, several years of staff cutbacks and time spent mostly in the office recycling press releases meant there were few reporters with the necessary skills to investigate such an elusive phenomenon.
The police too were hampered by health and safety legislation and Police Federation rules that forbid any police officer to do anything more dangerous than fill in a diversity-awareness form without specially-trained backup. As there were no officers trained in dealing with irritating miniature monsters, there was nothing they could do.
And so the attacks carry on, despite a local philanthropist offering a reward of nearly five whole pounds for the capture of the beast.
[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]
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