‘Activate your machines!’ shouted Mr Longblather, taking charge.
Hamish and his pals watched as dozens of vacuums of different shapes and sizes roared into life.
The high-pitched thrum of hoovering filled the air.
It sounded just like sports cars at the start of a big race.
‘GO!’ yelled Mr Longblather, and the seeds began to RATTLE and CLATTER up the vacuum-cleaner pipes and bounce around inside.
‘Don’t miss any of them!’ yelled Madame Cous Cous, who had got the hang of walking on the sea of seeds now. She had her hands behind her back and looked like she was ice-skating along the pavement.
But, of course, it was impossible not to miss some of the seeds. Have you ever tried to clean up a bazillion tiny seeds?
Buster stumbled around as the seeds rolled and skipped and were generally impossible to control. Clover accidentally knocked some down into the sewers through a drain cover. Venk slipped and kicked some into Frau Fussbundler’s trouser turn-ups. Other seeds were nestled up high, in chimneys or hanging baskets.
‘What happens if we miss some?’ said Alice, using a trowel to scoop a great pile of seeds up and place them in a Tupperware box.
‘Then I suppose we’ll soon know about it,’ said Hamish, looking concerned.
It seemed an impossible task, but everyone agreed the important thing was to just try their best. Soon the paths were clear, the grass had been hoovered and everybody had checked everybody else’s hair, the way monkeys look for nits.
Mr Slackjaw had filled up a whole lorry with the seeds and decided the best thing to do would be to pop them all in the sea. They were biodegradable, after all, and this way at least the fish might get a tasty treat.
‘STAGE TWO!’ yelled Madame Cous Cous, who really was starting to act like a bit of a military dictator. ‘Now we PROTECT STARKLEY AGAINST ANOTHER GRAVITYBURP!’
What was going on with her?
She had a hammer in one hand and nails in the other. Everyone was a little worried she was just going to nail their shoes to the ground.
‘Hamish,’ said Dad, very seriously. ‘You and your friends – come with me. It’s time I explained something.’
Uh-oh!
Hamish’s dad looked worried, as he led the PDF into the shed at the bottom of Elliot’s garden – the official WAR ROOM Elliot had built just in case of scrapes like this one.
‘Let me tell you my theory,’ Hamish’s dad said, pacing around, while outside the rest of the town got to work setting up anti-GravityBurp protection. ‘Because, if I’m right about what’s going on, Belasko is going to need all the help it can get. I’m going to need you guys to stay in Starkley.’
Buster puffed out his chest, proudly.
‘And do what?’ asked Hamish, eager for instructions.
‘Just stay here,’ said his dad. ‘We’ll work it out.’
Buster depuffed his chest. That didn’t sound like much of a task. Hamish’s heart sank, but he tried not to show it.
‘As you know,’ said his dad, ‘it is vital to maintain the secrecy of Belasko. We have been fighting against our enemies for years now. There were The Shrinkers. There was B.E.A.S.T. You know all about the WorldStoppers. And, of course, you also know about .’
The PDF nodded.
Axel Scarmarsh had been the group’s top enemy the last time the world had been in danger. Together with his awful inventions the Terribles, he’d tried to zap the world’s biggest leaders and take over the planet. The last time they’d seen him, he’d been at the top of the Post Office Tower in London, just before it turned into a giant space rocket and shot off into the stars.
‘For a while, we thought Scarmarsh was an evil genius who was pulling all the strings,’ Hamish’s dad continued. ‘But then we found out he had a boss. Or rather – bosses.’
Hamish took a deep breath. He knew what his dad was about to say.
‘There are a group of . . . “people”,’ said Dad. ‘Called “the Superiors”.’
Everyone went, Oooh. That was quite an impressive name. But it was also a little unnerving. Nobody likes having superiors. Buster’s mum was always complaining about hers.
‘It’s the Superiors who are doing this, I’m sure of it. They’ve been to blame for every strange thing that’s ever happened here in Starkley. And now it looks like they’re upping their game. They want to take the whole planet for their own.’
‘But why?’ asked Buster. ‘What’s wrong with their planet?’
Which is when Hamish’s dad brought out a small device, no bigger than an orange, and placed it on the table in front of him.
‘What’s that?’ asked Venk.
Dad just smiled. Then looked at the device and said: ‘Holonow – play.’
And something amazing happened.
A bright red light filled the room. It seemed to trace round the edges of the kids from the centre of the little metal orange, as if it was scanning them.
Then . . . blackness!
To Hamish’s amazement, one by one, the room began to fill with stars! And satellites! And planets!
Planets that were the size of basketballs, but planets all the same.
A meteor whooshed through the room!
A giant orange rock turned and spun slowly towards them.
Hamish and the PDF looked around. This was extremely unusual.
It was like they were in SPACE!
‘My name is Vapidia Sheen,’ said a familiar-looking lady, walking towards them across the night sky. ‘Let me take you on a journey.’
Vapidia was one of the country’s number-one celebrities. She was super smart but Scarmarsh had turned her into a blathering simpleton during his last attempt to take over the world – though, like everybody else, Vapidia had been returned to her normal brainy self, thanks to the PDF.
‘She’s a hologram,’ explained Dad, quietly. ‘This is all a hologram.’
‘Let me tell you about . . . VENUS!’ shouted Vapidia.
The room began to twirl and turn, as if the shed was travelling at a thousand miles an hour.
The letters spun past them.
The sound of a loud woman singing ‘VEEEEEENUUUUUUUS!’ filled the air.
Clover was immediately sick in a bin.
‘So the Superiors are from Venus?’ asked Alice. Hamish’s dad put his finger to his mouth, as suddenly, where Elliot’s blackboard had been, a gargantuan grey planet came into view.
‘No one really knows much about Venus,’ said Vapidia, and Hamish half wondered if that meant they were just going to turn back again. (Although it seemed a long way to come just to hear that.) ‘But Venus is almost the same size as Earth, and is often called our “sister” planet.’
It looked strangely beautiful, just hanging there, gently spinning. Hamish noticed that Elliot had gone quite red.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘Holding my breath!’ said Elliot quickly. ‘You can’t breathe in space – there’s no atmosphere!’
‘Venus is covered in thick cloud, which means no one has ever got a good look at it,’ Vapidia continued as they seemed to get closer to the planet’s surface and began to float through the clouds. Everyone had the unmistakable sensation of flying. ‘Most of our space probes disappeared the second they landed on Venus. At one time, people thought it looked like a tropical paradise . . .’
Now the room transformed into a lovely tropical scene, with palm trees, and sunshine, and crystal-clear water lapping at their feet over wonderful white sands. Somewhere, someone strummed gentle guitar music and Hamish was sure he could smell his mum’s caramel coconut suntan lotion.
‘But now,’ said Vapidia, ‘we know that Venus has been ravaged by THE LAVA OF A MILLION VOLCANOES!’
BOOOM!
The beach scene vanished as the room turned bright orange and smoke poured in. There was the sound of EXPLOSIONS, and there were BRIGHT FLASHES, and it STANK OF BAD EGGS, and it was just absolutely, horrifically AWFUL.
‘VEEEEENUUUUUUUUUS!’ sang that woman again.
‘The planet is thick with smoke and fumes!’ shouted Vapidia, as the children clung to one another. ‘The throat-burgling, nose-assaulting pong of sulphur is everywhere! It is a heart-burningly, sweat-scarringly hot 470 degrees!’
There was a ROAR and the temperature seemed to SOAR.
‘There used to be water here, but now there is NONE!’ yelled Vapidia. ‘And not one shop to speak of!’
‘Okay, okay! We get it!’ shouted Buster. ‘Venus is rubbish! Turn it off!!!’
The kids had seen enough. Dad clicked off the Holonow and – just like that – they were back in Elliot’s shed, staring at a little metal orange.
The kids slowly realised they were all still clinging to each other and gently moved apart as if it hadn’t happened.
‘Our experts at Belasko think the Superiors have had enough of how rubbish Venus is and want to get rid of us so they can take Earth over,’ said Hamish’s dad.
‘Do you know,’ said Clover, nodding, ‘I absolutely don’t blame them.’
‘The gravity on Venus is less than it is here,’ continued Hamish’s dad. ‘We think finally they have developed the evil technology to lift us all off the Earth, but they haven’t found enough power yet. That’s why they’re using GravityBurps, and not . . . um . . .’
He struggled to find the right word.
‘GravityBelches?’ tried Elliot.
‘Exactly!’ said Hamish’s dad. ‘A GravityBelch would be catastrophic!’
So the Superiors were trying to build up to a GravityBelch. Right now, their GravityBurps were annoying but not all that dangerous. But a GravityBelch – that could spell serious trouble. They wanted a GravityBelch that would just go on and on and on – like your dad belching after a beer, or your auntie when her Sunday roast’s all scoffed and she’s got gravy down her top. They were building up to this belch with little burps. They were getting up a head of steam.
‘But why a GravityBelch?’ asked Alice. ‘Where would it take us?’
‘Venus!’ Hamish guessed. ‘Maybe they want to belch us all up to Venus. Make a straight planet swap. We wouldn’t last five minutes on that rotten planet!’
‘We’d have to bring shorts,’ said Clover. ‘It’s hotter than Ibiza up there! And also there’s the whole not being able to breathe thing.’
‘Could they really belch us all the way to Venus, Dad?’ asked Hamish.
‘The Superiors are a superior breed of enemy. We need to be on our guard,’ said his dad. ‘Now more than ever. Thanks to the seeds.’
Yes. The seeds. There were still the seeds to worry about.
‘But what are they, Dad?’ asked Hamish, who to be honest until that moment had forgotten about the seeds because there was quite a lot of other stuff going on right now.
Hamish’s dad looked like he was trying to figure out how to tell them something awful in the nicest way possible.
‘They have been sowing the seeds,’ he said, ‘of an invasion.’
And then, from somewhere outside, came a noise.
Unusual Rumblings
Everyone in the town square screamed!
‘Get inside!’ yelled Madame Cous Cous, still brandishing her hammer. ‘It’s another GravityBuuuurp!’
Hamish and the PDF had done their best to help nail down anything that could be nailed down. Pictures were stapled to walls. Lamps were superglued to tables. Granddads were strapped to chairs.
All the town’s dogs had had their leashes tied to the town clock, although that meant that now they were starting to float in the air together, like a really weird bunch of dog balloons!
This GravityBurp was stronger than the first one. If anything, it proved Hamish’s dad’s theory that the Superiors were most certainly building up to something. This was definitely going to be a job for the PDF!
Hamish and the gang burst out of Elliot’s shed the second they felt the Burp and immediately began to rise off the ground.
Around them, garden chairs were levitating then shooting into the air.
‘Back in!’ yelled Hamish. ‘Get back in the shed!’
‘Whoooooa!’ cried Buster, who was floating up quickly.
Alice caught hold of him, bravely, but now she too started to rise.
‘I’ve got you!’ yelled Clover, leaping to grab onto Alice’s shoelaces, but now Clover started to levitate as well!
Hamish’s dad grabbed her, and the other boys grabbed Hamish’s dad.
‘PULL ME IIIN!’ yelled Buster, his legs waggling over his head.
It looked like someone had invented some kind of crazy Buster kite.
With a hard yank, Hamish’s dad pulled everybody into the shed and slammed the door.
As they glided up to the ceiling, they were prodded and poked by Elliot’s pencils, toy soldiers and microscopes that floated in the air around them.
‘We’ve just got to ride it out,’ said Hamish’s dad, not knowing that just a few hundred metres away, in the middle of town, blind panic was taking over.
Some people had left their vacuum cleaners outside, and now the sky was full of them, whizzing past citizens stuck in trees.
Frau Fussbundler had both legs wrapped round a tree branch, and was hanging onto Mr Longblather’s ankles.
Mr Longblather was holding onto Mr Slackjaw’s ankles.
Mr Slackjaw was holding onto stinky Grenville Bile’s ankles.
Grenville Bile was holding onto his mum who was holding onto the strange little man from the corner shop who wore a sailor’s hat and he was holding onto old Mr Neate who was holding onto a dog who was holding onto a bone, sitting on which was a fly.
Anyone who saw them would have thought they were most probably doing some kind of skydiving display, except they were all screaming and shouting, ‘Don’t let go! Don’t let go!’
The dog didn’t look that bothered, though.
Back in the shed, Elliot yelled, ‘Aaaargh!’, as he spotted dozens of sharp pins from his noticeboard rising up towards him, but thankfully Alice saw them too and blew them off course with a mighty puff. They lodged themselves in the ceiling around Elliot, in what looked for all the world like a low-budget circus knife-throwing act.
‘This is a nightmare!’ cried Buster, swiping a stapler that was headed towards him out of the way. ‘You’d think it would be cool having no gravity, but it’s actually incredibly inconvenient!’
And then . . .
It was over.
Creeping outside, watching vacuum cleaners fall to Earth, Hamish’s dad made a decision.
‘Okay, I need to get to Belasko,’ he said, rummaging around in his pocket for his car keys. ‘I have to warn them. The Superiors are building up to something pretty spectacular. And I need to ask special permission to press the red button.’
‘But . . . but can I come with you?’ asked Hamish, hopefully. ‘And what’s the red button?’
‘No,’ Dad replied. ‘You stay here. Go indoors where it’s safe. Wear a helmet. Listen to Mum.’
‘When will you be back?’ Hamish asked, desperately. He was a brave kid – he’d proved that much – but he was much braver with his dad next to him.
‘Stay strong, Hamish,’ said his dad. ‘And stay here. You kids know Starkley better than anyone. Well, you know most of it.’
What did that mean?
‘Stay in town! And keep an eye on The Explorer!’
Hamish looked down at his watch – The Explorer. His dad had given it to him just before he’d left to fight evil the last time. Hamish felt desperately sad and worried, what if his dad didn’t come back?
His dad knew what Hamish was thinking. He knelt down to look him in the eye.
‘I’ll be back,’ he said, ruffling Hamish’s hair. ‘Keep a watch of the watch.’
And, with that, he jogged off to find his car, quietly hoping it hadn’t floated away and landed in a pond somewhere.
‘Right, you heard my dad, PDF – we need to protect the town!’ sa
id Hamish, doing his best to focus. The truth was, they all knew his dad hadn’t said to protect the town. He’d just said ‘stay’ in town. Hamish was secretly a little disappointed and annoyed his dad didn’t think he could do something more useful than keeping an eye on things. He’d already saved the world twice! But he didn’t want to make his dad cross by causing a fuss, so instead he decided to make the best of it and prove that his dad could trust him to help. ‘First of all, we need a Burp Protection Plan.’
That was a sentence he’d never said before.
‘Yeah,’ said Venk, ‘but, if they’re getting more powerful and building up to a Belch, what can we possibly do?’
‘Well, ultimately, we need to stop them altogether,’ said Elliot. ‘But, until then, Hamish is right. We need some kind of protection.’
‘We need heavy boots,’ said Alice. ‘We need to fill our bags with rocks.’
Hamish nodded as she talked, but actually he’d stopped listening, because, as he’d watched his dad jog off, he’d noticed something.
‘Also,’ said Alice, warming to the subject, ‘we need to put things all over town we can grab hold of. Things on the side of buildings that people can just hang onto if they start to go up in the air.’
Hamish walked a little further through Elliot’s garden as Alice kept going. He stooped down. What was that? Had that been there before? Surely it must have?
‘And we should put whacking great nets up over the whole of Starkley!’ said Alice, oblivious to Hamish and pointing her finger importantly, ‘to stop us floating away into the ether!’
‘Hey,’ said Venk, seeing that Hamish was now concentrating on something else entirely. ‘What are you looking at, H?’
Hamish prodded it with one finger.
It was a small green shoot.
It seemed that something had started to grow from one of the seeds that they’d missed in Operation De-seeding.