The spanner fell out of my hand and clanged on the floor. There was no cooked breakfast. This was really happening.
“Fantabangle,” said Mr Kidd to Mrs Pearce.
“Mockety,” said Mrs Pearce to Mr Kidd. “Parlant mockety.”
Captain Chicken grasped my hand and shook it. “I think we’re all agreed. You are precisely the kind of person we need.”
“A very enterprising young man,” said Inspector Hepplewhite.
“My name is Vantresillion, by the way,” said Captain Chicken. “Bantid Vantresillion.”
I finally rediscovered my voice. “Where am I?”
“The Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy.”
“What!?”
“It’s about seventy thousand light years from the centre of your Milky Way Galaxy,” said Captain Chicken. “In the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud.”
“What!?” He was insane.
“It’s often confused with the Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy,” he said. “By you, I mean. Not by us. The Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy is, oh…much further away. Now…” He rubbed his hands together. “You’ll be in need of some sleep, unless I’m very much mistaken.”
He turned and waved his hand over some kind of red sausage sitting on the table. I heard a pop! from behind me and turned round.
And this was when I realized I might not be somewhere else on Skye, or on the mainland, or on the whale-shaped island. Because there was a spider walking towards me. A huge spider. About the size of a golden retriever. With the face of a squashed monkey.
I squealed and stepped backwards.
“Don’t worry,” said Captain Chicken. “It’s completely harmless.”
The giant monkey-spider walked up to me and held out a hairy leg. “Shake it, baby!”
I heard myself making a low, moaning noise.
“My name is Ktop-p-páãçôñìî,” said the spider. “It will make a car crash in your mouth. But you can call me Britney.”
“Go with the spider,” said Vantresillion. “It’ll show you to your room.”
The spider pressed a hairy leg into the small of my back and pushed me gently towards the door. “Ticket to ride!”
13
Short hairy tails
We went out into the corridor, turned left and started walking. I tried very hard not to look at the spider. Everything was white and smooth and hi-tech. There were no lights. The ceiling just glowed a bit. There were no doors. The walls just opened up every so often so that people in purple robes could enter and exit.
“This way,” said Britney.
We turned a corner.
“You come from Earth,” said Britney, trotting beside me. “I hear it is most delicious. Tell me about bagpipes. Tell me about Buckingham Palace and Elvis Presley. Tell me about cross-Channel ferries and Abba, who are a Swedish pop band that shake my booty.”
“Where’s Charlie?”
“Who is Charlie?” said Britney.
We walked in silence for a few more minutes.
“Does my English sparkle?” said Britney. “Do we groove? Speak it to me from the hip. You are the horse’s mouth. You eat the Yorkshire pudding.”
I was very tired. I needed sleep and I wasn’t in the mood for an argument. “Yes, you groove.”
“Disco inferno!” said the giant monkey-spider, waving two legs in the air.
We turned another corner and the white walls gave way to glass. We were walking across some kind of covered bridge between one building and the next. I stopped and looked out. And actually it was even scarier than seeing Britney for the first time. Because all around us, in every direction, stretched a barren, brown desert. No trees, no grass, no water. Just rocks and dust and craters. I turned to look out the other side of the bridge. And what I saw was much, much worse. There were two suns. And they were green. And they were revolving slowly around one another.
I staggered backwards and grabbed the handrail to stop myself falling over. “So, this is…”
“Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy,” said Britney. “Ten out of ten.”
“But…but…but…How did I get here?”
“No idea.” Britney held up two hairy legs. “My brain is small.”
“So this place…this planet…it’s…”
“Plonk.”
“Sorry?”
“Plonk.” Britney waved a leg over the barren landscape. “It is the name.”
“Plonk!?” I said. “That is the most stupid name for a planet I have ever heard.”
Britney looked decidedly huffy. “It is a most serious and shiny name in our language.”
“Oh.”
“You have one called Moon,” said Britney. “That is our word for passing wind out of the bottom. Now follow me.”
“So those people…” I said. “Mrs Pearce and Vantrethingy…”
“Not human,” said Britney. “Short hairy tails and no belly buttons.”
I thought of Mrs Pearce with a short hairy tail and it made me feel a bit ill. So I decided to stop asking questions.
“Whoa there!” said Britney.
We’d stopped by a section of wall with the words ARRIVALS UNIT on it. Britney said, “Snekkit,” there was a pop! and a door appeared in the wall. “Through here.”
We stepped into another corridor. The people here looked almost normal. None of them were wearing purple robes. Most were wearing jeans and T-shirts. There was a DOCTOR WHO T-shirt. There was a XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS T-shirt. One woman with large bosoms was wearing a T-shirt which said SET LASERS TO STUN.
“Your room,” said Britney. “Snekkit!” The wall opened with a pop! “Go in, human boy.” She was obviously still huffy about the Plonk thing.
I stepped inside. There was a white bed. There was a white chest of drawers. There was a white cubby hole containing a white toilet and a white sink.
Britney said, “Snore now. Door locking.” There was another pop! and the door disappeared. “Hey!” I banged on the hard white surface. I shouted, “Snekkit!” thirty times at different volumes in different accents, but all to no avail.
I sat down on the bed, exhausted. On top of the chest of drawers was a kettle and a selection of tea bags and prepacked biscuits, just like in a bed and breakfast.
In the first drawer was a small library of boy books: SAS memoirs, football annuals, superhero comics…
In the third drawer there was nothing except some coloured balls the size of large marbles. I picked a few up. As I was doing this, I dropped one. A red one. Except it didn’t drop. It just stuck in the air. I reached out and gingerly touched the ball. I could move it easily, but it wouldn’t fall. It was like pushing a coin around a table, except in three dimensions. Wherever I shoved it, it simply hung there motionless.
The other balls were the same. I could arrange them in mid-air in any shape I chose. A line. A cube. A smiley face. I put five of them in my pocket. I couldn’t wait to show them to Charlie.
Charlie. I’d forgotten about Charlie. I felt a stab of guilt. He was here somewhere. Probably. I hoped. And here I was mucking about with floaty balls and thinking how cool they were.
I had to find him. Except the door was locked and I was shattered. In the morning. Yes, I’d find him in the morning. But right now…
I laid my head down on the pillow. It was amazingly soft and comfortable. I was asleep in seconds.
14
Little blue suckers
I was sitting in the kitchen with Mum and Dad and Becky. Charlie was there too and we were eating lasagne and it was really, really good lasagne. Except someone was shaking my shoulder, so I rolled over and opened my eyes and screamed.