“So,” I said, “what happens to you if you don’t like it here?”
“They fire you into space?” said Charlie. “Or feed you into some kind of grinding machine? I have no idea. But it basically starts with a couple of armed spiders dragging you off screaming. Like this.”
He pointed over my shoulder. I turned round. Captain Chicken aka Bantid Vantresillion was standing at the edge of the room in his violet robe, with two giant monkey-spiders at his side. The spiders were wearing crash helmets and carrying orange toilet plungers.
“Seize them!”
The giant monkey-spiders sprinted towards us.
“Run!” said Charlie.
We dodged and dived. We slid along benches and jumped over tables. I covered a woman in mushroom soup. Charlie sat in a bowl of treacle pudding. A spider raised a toilet plunger and a fizzing line of laser-light zapped past my leg, singeing my jeans. Charlie dodged a second one and it set fire to the hair of a sci-fi fan who was eating a knickerbocker glory.
“I love the nightlife!” shouted one of the spiders.
“Bumper cars!” shouted the second.
Somehow we made it to the main entrance. I shouted, “Snekkit!” the wall opened up and we raced into the corridor.
I have to say we did pretty well. I don’t think either of us had run that fast in our entire lives. At one point I shoved a fat guy off a hover-scooter and we both leaped on, but the joystick looked like a tomato and I had no idea how to use it so the scooter just sank to the floor with a squirty hiss. We leaped off and kept on running.
They caught us, of course. They had more legs and the deadly toilet plungers. So I guess we were pretty lucky they didn’t fill us full of smoking holes. We ground to a halt and stood with our hands on our knees, puffing and wheezing. A couple of seconds later our arms and legs were wrapped in hairy brown tentacles. The spiders were surprisingly strong. And their breath was appalling.
“Snack them down!” said one of them. “Alive! For freshness!”
“Foot on the brake!” said the other. “We do not want the electric prod.”
“No,” said the first. “We do not want the electric prod.”
Vantresillion appeared behind the spiders. “Take them to the holding cell.”
“What are you going to do to us?” asked Charlie.
Vantresillion laughed, then turned and walked away.
“Come with us, little bald monkeys,” said the first spider.
We were lifted into the air and they scuttled off at high speed in the opposite direction, jiggling us up and down and not bothering at all about banging our heads on the walls when they went round corners.
Three minutes later they snekkited a door open and threw us into a small room and snekkited the door shut behind us.
This room was different. This room was not white. This room was grey and black and brown. The walls were made of something like concrete and they hadn’t been cleaned for a couple of hundred years. There was brown goo running down them and a mess in the corner like something had died there quite recently.
“Lovely,” said Charlie.
We didn’t say anything for a while.
I took a deep breath. “Sorry, this was my fault.”
“It’s OK,” said Charlie. “I forgive you. Sort of.”
Once more we didn’t say anything for a while.
“What was the plan?”
“The plan?” asked Charlie.
“Yeah,” I said. “The brilliant plan. The one I screwed up by being a total, total moron.”
“Oh, that one,” said Charlie. “Well, if you put those suckers on your forehead and think hard enough, you can make Brussels sprouts that go off like grenades when you throw them.”
“And …?”
“I was collecting them,” said Charlie. “You know, building up an arsenal, so I could fight my way out.”
“To where?” I said. “We’re seventy thousand light years from planet Earth. Unless you’ve got some black forest gateau that turns into a spaceship.”
“OK,” said Charlie. “No need to be sarcastic. At least I was trying.”
There was a sinister grating noise from the other side of the wall.
“That’s probably the grinding machine,” said Charlie. “Thanks for coming to get me, by the way.”
I nodded. “No problem. I mean, obviously I didn’t have a choice. You being my friend and everything. Plus I missed you.”
“Yeah, me too. I think I’d have gone mad if you hadn’t turned up. Everyone talking about Blade Runner and speaking Vogon.”
I don’t know how long we were in the holding cell. The lights were on all the time and our watches hadn’t worked since we arrived on Plonk. We talked about Megan Shotts and the locusts. We talked about Mr Kosinsky’s snowman socks. We talked about salmon mousse, and strawberry jam and Cheddar cheese sandwiches.
But thinking about home made us sad. So we played noughts and crosses on the floor by scraping the dirt with the toes of our shoes. Then we tried to name all the countries in the world. Except we kept remembering that we were going to be killed, which was a bit distracting.
Ten hours passed. Or maybe twenty. Or thirty. We got really tired. We tried to lie down and sleep but it was hard to relax lying in brown goo. So we stood up again. And then we got so tired we didn’t care about the brown goo any longer so we lay down and slept.
We hadn’t been asleep for long when we were woken by two more giant monkey-spiders. Or maybe it was the same ones. It was hard to tell.
“Do the locomotion,” said one.
“Walkies!” said the other.
“Are you going to execute us now?” asked Charlie.
“Hurrah,” said one. “You are a clever boy.”
“We are the champions!” sang the other. “But you’re not.” Then it snickered gleefully.
We fought for a bit, but it was no use. They grabbed us by the arms and legs and hoisted us over their heads and hauled us off down the corridor.
Five minutes later we were taken into a hi-tech white office with blue rubber plants and Bantid Vantresillion sitting behind a desk. The giant monkey-spiders dropped us onto the floor.
“You may go now,” said Vantresillion and the spiders scuttled out.
“Charles…” said Vantresillion. “James…”
“Are you going to kill us?” asked Charlie again, getting to his feet.
“No,” said Vantresillion.
“But the spiders,” I replied, “they told us…”
“They have a strange sense of humour,” said Vantresillion.
“Oh.”
“Normally we’d kill you,” said Vantresillion. “But I think you may be able to help us.”
I felt a huge wave of relief and everything went a bit wobbly for a few seconds. But Charlie still had his head screwed on properly. “Great,” he said. “Just fire away and we’ll see what we can do. We like being helpful, don’t we, Jimbo?”
“Er, what?” I said. “Yes, that’s right. We like being helpful.”
“Hmmm,” said Vantresillion. “I have a problem. Every time one of the Watchers travels to Skye to come back to Plonk we lose contact with them.”
“Plonk,” said Charlie, chuckling. “That makes me laugh every time.”
“Charlie…?” I said.
“What?”
“Don’t be rude about their planet, all right?”
“Good idea,” said Charlie. So I reckon he was feeling a bit wobbly as well.
“And every time we beam someone down to find them, we lose contact with them too.”
“That’ll be the army,” said Charlie. “Or the police. Both, probably.”
“But no one knows about the Weff-Beam,” said Vantresillion through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, they do,” said Charlie. “Jimbo told them, didn’t you, Jimbo?”
“Did I?”
“It’s OK,” said Charlie. “You don’t have to keep it secret any longer.”
“Righ
t,” I said. I had no idea what Charlie was doing, but I had no other ideas so I decided to go along with it. “Yeah. We had a notebook. And a map and stuff. From Mrs Pearce’s attic. And I gave it to Mum and Dad. So they know all about the Weff-Beam thingy.”
“You’re lying,” said Vantresillion.
“Scout’s honour,” said Charlie, holding up three fingers. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Come to think of it, he was probably right. Becky had seen the Weff-Beam. She’d go to the police. They’d have the place surrounded by now. Tanks, barbed wire, marksmen.
“I guess they’re shooting them as they come up out of the ground,” said Charlie. “Because they’re aliens with tails.”
“I have lost five Watchers,” said Vantresillion darkly. “Any more and I swear I will kill everyone on your benighted little planet.”
“You’re just kidding, aren’t you?” said Charlie, smiling.
Vantresillion leaned over and pulled a black box into the centre of the desk. There were a series of buttons on the box. He placed his finger on the red one. “I press this,” he said, “and your planet blows up. No Eiffel Tower. No Great Wall of China. Just a load of smoking rocks in space.”
“What do the other ones do?” asked Charlie. “Do they make cappuccino?”
I turned to him and scowled. “Just try and be a bit nicer, OK? He might actually be telling the truth.”
“Look,” said Vantresillion. He spun round and a screen appeared on the wall. In the centre of the screen was a planet. Sort of like Saturn, with rings around it and three moons. “Zip Seven,” said Vantresillion. “We’ve got a Weff-Beam there too.” He pressed the yellow button. There was a loud bang and the planet erupted in a vast ball of fire.
“Holy cow!” said Charlie.
The planet was gone. Just a load of smoking rocks and three little moons drifting sadly off into space.
“My God,” I said. “Were there, like, people on that planet?”
“Yes,” said Vantresillion. “But they looked like squirrels and they were stupid and I didn’t like them very much.” He took two brass wristbands from his desk and threw them to us. “Put these on.”
We put them on. He pressed a third button and they snapped tight.
“Ouch!” said Charlie.
I tried to get mine off but it had shrunk and there was no way I could slip it over my hand.
“You go down on the Weff-Beam,” said Vantresillion. “You talk to whichever moron is in charge down there and you tell them we want the Watchers back.”
“But…” said Charlie. I could hear the wheels spinning in his brain. “They’re not going to believe us. “The Earth is going to be blown up.” It doesn’t sound very convincing, does it?”
“Then you must be persuasive,” said Vantresillion. “Snogroid!”
A door opened and a spider scuttled in. Vantresillion chucked the spider another wristband. “Put this on.”
The spider put it on and we heard it snap tight. “Delightful bangle,” it said. “And most snug.”
Vantresillion turned back to us. “You will have five minutes. Then you call me using the wristbands. If you have not solved the problem, then this happens to Charles.” He pressed the green button. There was another bang and a hideous scream. The spider erupted in flames and the room was filled with brown smoke and the smell of burning hair. When the smoke cleared there was a ring of black ash on the floor and a buckled wristband, still glowing slightly from the heat.
“That should help change their minds,” said Vantresillion. “Five more minutes and I will do the same to James. After that I will just lose patience and press the red button. Then I will press the last button and get a nice cappuccino.” He thought this was very funny and laughed for a long time. “Now. Follow me.”
∨ Boom! ∧
16
The big knobbly stick
Vantresillion strode down the corridor with us jogging behind him. He was carrying the button box and we were wearing the wristbands so there was no point in running away.
“Hey,” said Charlie. “Look on the bright side. We’re going home.”
“Except we’ll only be there for five minutes, then we’ll be dead.”
“No,” said Charlie. “Then I’ll be dead. You get another five minutes.”
“Brilliant. That makes me feel a lot better.”
“You never know,” said Charlie. “Brigadier-General Doo-Dah might actually believe us.”
“No one ever believes us,” I said. “About anything.”
“In here,” said Vantresillion. “Snekkit.”
A door opened in the wall and we found ourselves in the large white hangar where I’d first arrived. The white ceiling twenty metres over our heads. The high windows with the starscape outside. Just as before, Pearce, Kidd and Hepplewhite were sitting at the long table in their violet robes.
“Tidnol,” said Vantresillion. “Basky dark.”
“Crispen hooter mont,” said Mrs Pearce, standing up. She walked over to us. “Well, well, well. You turn out to be useful after all. Now that is a surprise.”
“Always willing to help,” said Charlie.
“Get into the Weff-Beam unit,” said Vantresillion. “And remember. Five minutes. Charles is dead. Ten minutes. James is dead. Then I get bored very, very quickly.”
He shoved us towards the tubular cubby hole. “Inside. Both of you.”
“It’s going to be a bit of a squash,” said Charlie.
“Getting squashed is the least of your problems,” said Vantresillion.
I stepped inside. Charlie stepped in beside me. Vantresillion pushed. Then he pushed a bit harder. Then he said, “Snekkit,” and the curved door slid shut behind us.
“Fasten seatbelts,” said Charlie, his face pressed against my ear. “Cabin doors to automatic.”
“So what’s the plan?” I asked.
“Absolutely no idea,” said Charlie. “If we’re really lucky, a paratrooper might kill us with a bazooka as soon as we come out of the ground.”
Then we heard the boom! and it was like being hit in the head with a cricket bat. I covered my ears with my hands and every atom in my body started vibrating. My clothes were soaked in sweat and I felt horribly seasick. Charlie must have felt seasick too, because he was actually sick down my back and it smelled really bad.
The atoms in my body stopped vibrating and the nausea started to fade. Charlie said, “Sorry about that,” and the word ZARVOIT flashed across the little screen beside my head. There was a short bing-bong like a doorbell, the roof of the tube slid back and we began to rise upwards.
Sunlight. I could see actual sunlight. We rose a little further and I could see the tops of the mountains. And grass. Real grass.
And then I saw a crazed figure standing above us, with matted hair and mad, staring eyes and a huge knobbly stick in its hands. It yelled like Tarzan of the Apes and swung the stick and whacked Charlie. He screamed and rolled sideways into the grass, holding his shoulder.
Then the crazed figure with the matted hair and the mad, staring eyes and the huge knobbly stick said, “Jimbo!” and I realized that it was Becky.
“Don’t hit me!” I shouted.
“You’re back!” shouted Becky. She grabbed me and hugged me, just like I’d done when I found Charlie in the dining hall. And I grabbed her and hugged her back. I don’t think I’d ever been more pleased to see her.
“Baby brother!” she said.
“You waited for us,” I said.
“Of course I waited,” said Becky. “What was I going to do? Go home and get killed by Mum and Dad for losing you? But where in God’s name have you been? And why is your back covered in sick?”
Then I remembered. “I’ll explain everything later. We’ve got to stop the planet being blown up.”
“What!?” said Becky.
I looked around. “Why aren’t the army or the police here?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” said Becky. “Now
just calm down and tell me what happened to you.”
Vantresillion’s voice appeared in my head. “How are we doing, James? Three minutes to go. I’m tapping my fingers. Are you speaking with the person in charge?”
I touched my wristband. “Er. Yeah. I’m speaking with the person in charge right now. We’re going to sort something out. Very soon.” I took my fingers off the wristband.
“Who are you talking to?” asked Becky.
Charlie got to his feet. “That really hurt.”
“Sorry,” said Becky. “I thought you were one of them.”
“Becky. Wow. It’s you,” said Charlie. “I didn’t recognize you with the cave-woman disguise.”
I turned to Becky. “What do you mean, one of them?”
“That big blue light goes on,” said Becky. “There’s a boom! I wander over and whack them over the head. Then I tie them up behind that big rock over there. Where are they all coming from?”
“Ah,” said Charlie. “You’re the reason they’ve lost contact. Brilliant. Super-intelligent alien civilization foiled by a girl with a stick.”
“Charlie,” I said. “Shut up. We haven’t got much time.”
“Oh yeah,” said Charlie. “I forgot. I’m still feeling a bit shaken. You know, on account of being assaulted.”
“There’s no police,” I said. “There’s no army. What the hell are we going to do?”
Vantresillion’s voice was in my head again. “Two minutes to go. I’m getting twitchy here.”
Charlie was walking round in little circles, squeezing his head. “OK. Think…Think…Think…”
“You haven’t answered my question,” said Becky.
“Which question?” I said.
“Where in God’s name have you been? I’ve been stuck here for six days living off loch water and Quality Street.”
“Six days?” I said.
“Yes,” said Becky. “Six days.”
“That’s funny,” I said. “I thought we were only gone for a day. Something must have gone a bit strange with space-time.”
Becky grabbed me by the shoulders and shouted, “Where in God’s name have you been?”