‘Seven standard years,’ corrected Thaal, whose mind was already pondering the religious significance of the number seven.
‘Well today Boot, one of the deep cover operatives assigned to protect humans, filed a report with his superior that one of the humans he is protecting had seen a Drawl. That human is this same girl, Grace,’ Talus paused to study the Emperor’s face, but it gave no clue as to what he was thinking.
The General continued. ‘Our scientists have been working on a device, a machine that could take this human and make her aware of our dimension. Enable us to communicate with her, explain the situation. Maybe we could convince her to enlist the other humans’ help in the war against the Drawl. What do you think?’
The Emperor stroked his whiskers thoughtfully. He was known for his incredible concentration. He could condense hours of thought into mere minutes and make an informed and considered opinion very quickly. He shot a glance at his religious counsel.
‘What do you have to say on the matter Thaal?’ he questioned.
‘This is indeed an intriguing development. The ancient texts do speak of one who would be born of the humans, a lowdim with the ability to see beyond their own dimension. If it is this human, then his Holiness the cat Pope would be most keen to meet her.’
‘So it’s settled then. General, liaise with the scientists to have her brought across. I would like to meet her myself. Imagine a talking human. What a novelty.’ And with that the Emperor rose and moved toward his desk, signalling an end to the meeting. As the General was leaving Emus reappeared from a little room off to the side and escorted the General to the door.
***
Thaal slipped out unseen and strode through passageways known only to the religious sect who inhabited the palace. He made his way across the great parade and caught a cyclo to the other end of town. The vehicle pulled up outside the papal temple and Thaal stepped out onto the footpath. He didn’t pay the driver. Members of religious orders seldom paid for anything. It was considered a blessing to provide service for those who worked for the cat Pope.
Thaal entered the papal palace through the main gates. The guards, much more lavishly dressed than the imperial guards, snapped to attention as he passed. This palace was much more extravagant than the imperial one he had just left. The Pope wished his subjects to associate the splendour of the palace with the splendour of heaven. No expense was spared. Gold was everywhere. Even the marbled floors were inlaid with gold leaf and ornate statues decorated the foyers. Large oil paintings depicted heroic scenes of cat saints from the past. The grandest painting of them all was hung in the main foyer. It depicted the current cat Pope banishing the Drawl from their dimension with a staff of light and the breath of God.
As the secretary opened the heavily engraved door for him Thaal strode into the Pope’s office and greeted his holiness by dropping to one knee and kissing his ring.
‘Your worship,’ he whispered. ‘I bring interesting news.’ The Pope helped Thaal to his feet and beckoned him towards an over-stuffed red leather sofa in the middle of the room. The Pope himself preferred a plain wooden chair. It was an interesting counterpoint to the opulence of the rest of the building, but it helped to create an air of piety and humility, which the Pope was well aware of.
‘First a little refreshment Thaal?’ suggested the Pope.
Thaal knew it was a request impossible to refuse.
‘Yes that would be most appreciated,’ he replied. The Pope made idle chit chat while his servants came and brought food and drinks for them. Then he set about nibbling on a piece of cake and sipping on his steaming hot cup of tea. Thaal could do little but play along. He knew the Pope was testing his patience. It was one of the many little mind games the pontiff enjoyed. Thaal just smiled and enjoyed his tea.
‘So, this news you bring Thaal,’ the Pope finally asked. ‘What is so important it can’t wait?’
‘It is the prophecy. I think she is ready,’ he started. The Pope’s ears twitched at the word prophecy. Thaal continued: ‘An operative assigned to protect the humans has reported that the girl has seen a Drawl.’
‘And you are sure this is the same girl from before?’ the Pope questioned.
‘I am, and not only that, the Emperor is planning to have her brought across. They claim to have a machine….’
The Pope’s eyes widened.
‘They will bring her here? Impossible, no human has ever…,’ but his voice trailed off as he thought more about it.
‘I will pray on it,’ he said finally. Thaal knew the conversation was over. As he rose to leave he realized things had not gone as he had hoped.
Chapter Three
Grace slowly opened one eye, took a cautious look around and then opened the other. She was lying on the couch in her living room. Her mother was leaning over her fanning her with her apron. Her dad was looking on with a concerned look on his face.
‘Oh Gracie what happened?’ asked her mother. ‘I heard this bang and when I came in I found you lying on the floor.’
Grace’s memory of what had happened suddenly returned and she kicked her feet to sit up. She jerked her head about frantically, but couldn’t see anything that didn’t belong. Her father was sitting at the end of the sofa smiling at her. The cat was asleep on the other lounge seat. The hot drink Grace had brought in for her dad still sat where she had left it. It was as if nothing had happened.
‘There was this, this…,’ Grace’s mind struggled to find the right words to describe what she had seen, ‘horrible black monster and it was sucking your brains out Dad.’ Grace studied her father’s face. He wore a bemused look. But there were no signs of horrible disfigurement. No claw marks on his face, and he certainly didn’t look like someone who had been made a happy meal of for some hungry monster.
‘Grace, are you taking drugs?’ her mother blurted out. Always direct and not one to dress things up or pussyfoot around, her mother got straight to the point. ‘You know just because all the kids at school are doing it, doesn’t mean--’
‘Mum I’m not doing drugs OK!’ interrupted Grace, looking up at her mother’s face which was slowly turning red, a rouge of embarrassment, anxiety and relief.
‘Relax Joyce, it’s probably hormonal. You know all kids go through it when they get to their teens, why I remember when I was going through puberty--’
‘Eww!’ interjected Grace. ‘That’s like enough of the icky OK? It’s not hormones, it’s just…,’ Grace thought about it but she was at a loss to explain what it was as well. Maybe I’m working too hard at school, or is it anxiety about my midterms? Grace looked at Boot. The last thing she remembered was the cat leaping through the air. Boot was now tucked up into a tiny ball half buried in the sofa cushions sleeping happily away. No doubt trying to look as small and as inconspicuous as possible in the hope that mother doesn’t see him before she goes to bed. But it seldom works and usually Boot is unceremoniously dumped outside at night. Occasionally if he is lucky he will sneak into either Grace’s or her brother’s room and sleep curled up at the bottom of the bed.
‘Well I think it’s an early night for you young lady. Off you go and brush your teeth.’
Grace was tired, too tired to argue. So she shot her mother a half-hearted dirty look instead, and then shuffled off down to the bathroom.
***
‘More power!’ commanded Yang, the head scientist of the Institute of Applied Defence, the most renowned scientist in the whole empire and chief scientific advisor to the Emperor. Yang was a brilliant scholar, raw talent coupled with unbridled enthusiasm made for one fantastic discovery after another. His achievements were the pride of cats across the nation. Yang’s brightest student was Yin, a young short haired turquoise coloured cat with bright green eyes; eyes that often distracted Yang from his work. They had been working on this project for several months now. It had started off as conjecture over a coffee. Outlandish ideas scribbled on a napkin. Yang had been showing off and Yin not wanting to seem dim h
ad also theorized wildly. The result was an outstanding piece of inter-dimensional theory. Nothing more would have been made of it, however, if it hadn’t been for an accidental discovery by Yin in an unrelated experiment. They would never have made the leap from paper tissue to a near working prototype.
‘Now ease it off, and stop!’ The glowing blue light in the chamber centred in the room abated. Yang approached and opened the small door on the side. He reached in and retrieved a small red object.
‘Primary inspection of 3D object looks positive. Integrity seems nominal,’ he babbled on in his usual narrative drone. Science was an anomaly, exciting to do, but boring to report on. After a few minutes Yang held the object up, watched the light play off its shiny red surface, inspected its curves and without warning, took a large bite from it.
‘Eww yuck! Oh that’s disgusting. I mean really, what do lodims find appealing in that?’ He spat the small piece of apple from his mouth and tossed the remaining fruit onto the lab bench. Yin looked on smiling, not just at Yang brushing the apple pulp out of his tongue, but because the experiment had been a success.
‘I think we are ready to test it on something bigger, something more…alive,’ suggested Yang. He looked at Yin, but she wasn’t nodding.
‘But we have no way of knowing how it will react with a living, breathing, moving thing. It’s all very well moving fruit but….’ Yin’s eyes flashed a look at the pile of failures in the corner. Fruit that had been turned inside out or burned beyond recognition and some had disturbingly vanished from both dimensions.
‘A human is not a piece of fruit. What if we turned this Girl inside out? Can we justify the risk?’ she questioned Yang.
‘The risk is not ours to justify, it’s up to the Emperor,’ Yang replied, trying to avoid the question.
‘But you are his chief scientific advisor. It will be your recommendation that the machine is ready.’
Yang paced across the room tugging on his bottom lip. Sometimes Yin was just too bright for her own good he scowled to himself. Lost in thought Dr. Yang could pace for hours. Whenever any doubt remains go back to first principles his father had taught him. Yang sighed and called his assistant over.
‘Let’s start again from the beginning,’ he said.
***
‘Race you!’ shouted Jason, as he tore off ahead of Grace towards the front gate. Grace didn’t want to run in her school shoes, but her spirit of sibling rivalry got the better of her and she sprinted after her brother. Jason paused at the mailbox and checked inside, grabbed the mail, gave it a quick glance before stuffing it back into the box.
‘It’s for you,’ he shouted over his shoulder as he took off up the path and disappeared inside. Grace stopped running and grabbed her letter. She followed Jason inside, went straight to her room and dumped her school bag on the floor. Flopping down onto the bed she kicked her shoes off, rolled onto her belly and examined her letter.
The letter was from her grandmother, whose once beautiful handwriting had been replaced by a barely legible scrawl. Grace’s grandma was now very old and not in the best of health. Grace read and reread the letter then she rolled off the bed and sat down at the writing desk her father had spent all one winter a few years back making for her. Grace had learned most of the swear words commonly used by adults by listening to her father yelling away in his workshop that year. She scratched around in one of the cubby holes and finally pulled out her special writing paper, not the everyday stuff she used for homework but the paper she wrote important things on, like the love letters to Grant Minke, even though she never posted them. There was a small pile sitting in a locked drawer in her desk.
Grace finished her letter and stamped it with a green frog sitting on a lily pad with the words Miss You printed neatly underneath. She folded it tidily and slid it into the envelope. Then she put it on the dinner table for mum to post in the morning. In the kitchen Grace could hear Boot scratching at the back door. Someone is not happy about being outside she thought, as she plodded down to the lounge. The rest of the family was, of course, watching TV.
After dinner and homework Grace found herself back in the lounge with her mum and dad. Her brother was sitting on the floor watching something on the box. Grace was reading a book for school. It was about some kids who lived on an island with no adults and no rules. It started off sounding fun, but now Grace wasn’t so sure. The story started to get heavy and so did Grace’s eyes. Finally unable to resist she closed her eyes just for a second and fell asleep.
Grace jerked her head up, blinked twice and tried to swallow but her mouth was dry. Something had startled her awake. The TV was still droning away but some other noise had disturbed her. She swung her legs off the sofa to fetch a glass of water. On the outside window ledge she could see Boot scratching madly at the window sill. That mad cat, she thought. Will he never give up? I thought cats hunted in darkness, and slept indoors during the day? Grace wondered why no one else had noticed Boot scratching at the window. But as she turned to ask she could see why.
The creature was back, and this time it wasn’t alone. The room appeared to be full of them. There were at least two on her father, one was sitting on the couch next to her mum and there were two feeding on her brother. Grace just stared, she didn’t scream, she didn’t move. She just sat there watching. Maybe if I don’t move they won’t notice me she thought. She watched as the creatures shuffled around her parents and brother, jostling for a better position, fighting and crawling over each other. More and more of them seemed to arrive, crawling down the walls sometimes melting through them, but all were trying to feed on her helpless family. Yet her mum and dad seemed totally unaware of their presence. They weren’t struggling. They quietly stared right through them absorbed in the TV.
The phone rang. It rang for what seemed like thirty seconds before her dad got up to answer it. As he rose the creatures moved away and joined the others on her mum and brother.
‘Grace, telephone,’ her dad called from the hallway, ‘It’s some boy called Grant.’ But Grace still didn’t move.
‘Grace! Your father’s calling you,’ said her mother.
‘Ew-wew some boy wants kissy, kissy with sissy, sissy!’ teased Jason and as Grace looked around all the creatures had gone. She stood up and walked slowly to the phone.
‘Hello?’ she said.
Chapter Four
Yang was still deep in thought when Yin coughed. She had sat in silence for what seemed like hours watching her mentor pace up and down the lab room floor.
‘You know we could just tell the Emperor that the experiment failed,’ she suggested.
Yang looked up at his student as if he had just been struck in the back with a bat. His deep blue eyes sparkled with the intellect that lay behind them as his mouth opened and closed without uttering a sound.
‘It was only a suggestion,’ Yin followed up lamely, realizing that Yang’s professional reputation was at stake and that admission of failure was not going to be an option for the proud scientist. Yang looked away and wandered off lost in thought again.
‘What about testing it on some other living thing, something less…important?’ Yang looked disinterested but Yin continued.
‘Well you are looking for a solution to a problem that may not exist. If we try it on something else that would be a start wouldn’t it?’
Yang started to come around. He looked up.
‘We could always try a dog I guess. Nobody likes dogs, especially not the annoying little ones. Find me a puppy or something to experiment on. If it’s a success, then I’ll present my findings to the Emperor.’
The floppy eared beagle tried to lick Yang’s assistant’s face as she pulled it out of the trans-dimensional device. Its skin was still too plentiful for its growing body and whatever Yin grabbed the puppy just seemed to slip right through Yin’s hands.
‘For crying out loud, give me that.’ Yang’s patience finally wearing thin, he grabbed the puppy from behind the neck the wa
y its mother would and lifted it free of the machine. He plopped it down on the work bench and stormed off. Happy the experiment had been a success, but not so enthusiastic about the dog’s presence.
‘What should we do with it?’ Yin called after him.
‘Just keep it away from me,’ Yang’s disgruntled reply echoed back. Yin looked at the puppy, who was chewing on the cables running into the back of some expensive looking test equipment.
‘Ai yai yai!’ she cried as she pulled the puppy away. Inspecting the wires she also found fresh dog pee. Yin rolled her eyes in disgust. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all she thought as she set off to find a bucket and mop.
***
Grace looked at her outfit in the mirror.
‘What am I thinking?’ she groaned and for the fourth time returned to her closet to look for something to wear.
‘Grace, telephone,’ came her mum’s voice from outside her bedroom. Grace opened the door and took the phone
‘Thanks.’ Closing the door she answered the phone. It was Naomi, a school friend who was also going to the dance tonight.
‘I know,’ said Grace. ‘I know, neither do I. It’s like everything I try on is just so…yeah. So what are you going to wear...Really? I’m going with Grant so I guess I’ll see you--’
Naomi cut her off.
‘Ok I guess we can swing by on the way there and pick you up. See you about seven then?’ Grace hung up the phone and went back to her wardrobe.
Grant arrived right on six thirty. Grace tried in vain to answer the door and sneak off without her parents seeing but her dad was not to be denied. He had been waiting in the kitchen, deliberately stalling, so that he could answer the door when Grant called.
‘So you are the young man taking my daughter to the dance then?’
‘Yes sir.’ Grant tried to look Mr. Kelly in the eye but he couldn’t hold the stare and dropped his eyes to look at his shoes. He rubbed them against the back of his calves to clean an imaginary smudge.