‘No Polish Butter Lollies for you!’ she said, with a foul and twisted smile, leaning in close to Hamish’s face so he could see it properly. ‘No Afghan Aniseed! No Belgian Bon Bons! No Swedish Cinnamons! No Chinese Wispas!’
Hamish started to back out of the shop, as Madame Cous Cous seemed to grow bigger and bigger and get angrier and angrier.
Hamish could see that the door to the stockroom was slightly open. There were boxes and boxes of unopened Chomps in there. There must have been millions!
‘No Edinburgh Eye Poppers for you!’ she cried. ‘No Falaraki FizzWizzers! Nothing at all for you or your friends – FOREVER!’
And then she began to bark. And Hamish turned and ran out of the shop.
All Hamish could hear as he sprinted down the road was the cackle of Madame Cous Cous – gatekeeper of the sweets – and the howl of what sounded like a mad dog in quite some pain.
When Hamish got home, he found his mum on the phone, looking very worried.
She still had lipstick all over her face from this morning.
‘Poor Scratch and Mole,’ she said, putting the handset down. ‘Such lovely little girls.’
Hamish scrunched his nose up. Lots of grown-ups seemed to think Scratch and Mole were very polite and well-spoken. They didn’t realise they behaved like completely different children in front of other people’s parents.
Instead of growling things like, ‘C’MERE, YOU WINKLE-FACED NINNYHAMMER!’ they’d say things like, ‘Oh, Mrs Ellerby, you do look lovely today’, or, ‘My, what a wonderful morning it is. How lucky we are to be alive!’.
I bet you do that too, you little stink nit.
‘What happened, Mum?’ asked Hamish. ‘I saw the police at school.’
She sat him down.
‘Their parents . . . well, they seem to have disappeared.’
‘What – all four of them?’ said Hamish. ‘At once?’
‘Yes,’ said his mum. ‘It’s the strangest thing. Someone thinks they probably went on holiday to Magaluf and just decided to let the girls look after themselves. What a terrible, terrible thing.’
Hamish thought of his own missing dad, and his mum could see it.
‘Oh, Hamish,’ she said. ‘I know. We . . . ’
But she didn’t know what to say. What could she say?
She’d usually just say, ‘We have to just carry on.’
‘That’s okay, Mum,’ said Hamish, not wanting to have that conversation. ‘I’m going to go and get changed and then I said I’d meet up with Robin.’
Hamish’s mum looked at him sadly. Hamish turned away before she tried to talk to him about it again.
‘Have you noticed something weird going on with the grown-ups?’ said Hamish, sitting on his favourite swing at the park. He’d changed into his after-school clothes – his white jumper with the big blue ‘H’ on, his black and white baseball shoes with the silver wings and his cool black jeans.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Robin, who had his binoculars out, because he thought he’d seen a worm at the other end of the park. Robin was absolutely terrified of worms. That was why he always wore wellington boots.
‘It just feels like there’s something weird going on,’ said Hamish. ‘Like how come Madame Cous Cous is so horrible now?’
‘Oh,’ said Robin, still on the lookout for evil worms. ‘That place is scary. I don’t go in there any more.’
‘Well, that’s lucky,’ said Hamish. ‘Because you’re banned.’
‘I’m what?’ said Robin, looking at Hamish in shock.
‘You’re banned for life. All my friends are, because I spoke out loud.’
Robin sighed.
‘Well, that’s a relief really,’ he said. ‘Last time it took me a week to get all the splinters out of my bottom from her bashing stick. But yes, I’ve noticed some grown-ups are a lot grumpier than they used to be.’
‘Like who?’
‘Like Rex Ox at school,’ he said. ‘He had his leaf blower out the other day. You know how I hate loud noises. Well, when he saw my football, he stuck it right on the end and then blew it way up into the sky. It went up and up for ages. He just kept laughing. I think my ball’s probably on Mars by now.’
Hamish was shocked. Rex Ox had always been a great caretaker. He used to let the kids steer the school’s ride-on lawnmower. And the only reason he’d stopped was because Manjit Singhdaliwal had completely lost control one day and ended up carving his own name into the school field by accident. The Starkley Post said there were only two man-made things an astronaut could see from the moon: the Great Wall of China, and the name Manjit Singhdaliwal scribbled in ginormous letters on a field in Starkley. But Rex Ox took the blame for that, just like he did when some of the kids tried to make a parachute by sellotaping all the umbrellas from Lost Property together. They didn’t realise it would catch the wind before they had a chance to try it. Twelve kids ended up stuck up a lamp post four miles away in Frinkton. It was Rex Ox that got them down and kept the whole thing quiet. He had always been a caretaker who took care of things, which made Robin’s story very confusing.
‘Why on earth would Rex Ox suddenly use his leaf blower for evil?’ asked Hamish.
Robin shrugged.
‘He said he did it just because he could.’
Hamish was amazed. But, now he thought about it, Robin was right. Rex Ox had been a lot grumpier recently. And then there was Tyrus Quinn. Ever since he’d gone on a weekend away to Bruges, he’d been in a foul mood. Sometimes he’d make the kids do cross-country runs in their pants – even when it wasn’t PE! He’d just stroll into a science lesson and shout, ‘Right, you horrible bunch of abominable oddballs! Start running!’ And then he’d blow a whistle and chase them out of the school and into the woods, waving his stopwatch while they screamed.
And then there was Grenville Bile’s mum.
Oh, Mrs Bile was the worst. Because she had been grumpy for AGES! Well, with everyone except her pampered little darling Grenville, anyway. Now she was like double-horrible.
Hamish did a very good job of avoiding Grenville Bile and his mum – the woman they called the Postmaster.
‘I heard all the grumpiness is to do with the economy,’ said Robin. ‘That’s what my sister told me.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he replied.
Hmm. Well, maybe the economy was something Hamish could sort out in the next Pause. Surely seven minutes and seven seconds would be enough for something like that?
Briefly he thought about telling Robin about what had been happening. It felt like too big a secret to keep to himself . . . but this was a kid who was scared of worms. And leaf blowers. And sudden noises. And Velcro. Once, Hamish jokingly told him that the Wizard of Oz was based on a true story and Robin hadn’t left the house for a week. Hamish couldn’t imagine what would happen if he told him the whole world was stopping!
‘It’s a shame about Madame Cous Cous,’ said Robin, before Hamish could say anything anyway. ‘I promised my mum I’d buy her some Japanese Jellied Fish-Shavings for her birthday. Now I suppose I’ll have to go all the way to Japan to get some.’
Or maybe, thought Hamish, there was another way.
All he needed now was for the world to stop.
Here We Go!
The next day, Hamish knew one thing: he was ready for a Pause.
He had it all worked out. He had his Explorer. So he would explore.
He also made sure he had some chalk with him. He knew having some chalk with him would be very important. He could use it for all sorts of things. Drawing arrows. Marking spots. Did you know that a line of chalk can stop ants in their tracks? It’s absolutely true. Did you know a little chalk can get grease out of your clothes? That’s true too. Did you know that if you start to lick a stick of chalk . . . people will think you’re an absolute weirdo? That’s the truest of the lot. Anyway, the point is Hamish knew that chalk could be really useful for adventures.
r /> As he got dressed, Hamish kept one eye on the world outside. The trees were swaying. The breeze was blowing. But he knew it could all stop at any moment. That was the really exciting thing.
He waited all through breakfast and flinched every time he thought he saw a flash.
But it was always just Jimmy taking selfies in the kitchen.
He waited on the walk to school . . . and he kept waiting during assembly . . . and his first lesson . . . and his second lesson . . . and his breaktime . . . and his lunchtime . . . and he waited as he trudged all the way home again.
But the world did not stop.
The day after that, Hamish knew he was really ready. If anything, the day before had just been a dress rehearsal.
As well as his chalk, he’d also found a silver whistle he thought might come in handy, and a keyring with a torch on it. You never knew when you’d need a keyring with a torch on it.
Once again, he waited as he got ready for school.
And he waited all through breakfast.
He waited on the walk to school and he waited all day long.
But nothing happened. Nothing at all. The world just kept on going.
Hamish started to wonder . . . had he missed his chance?
What if the world just wasn’t going to Pause again?
And then it was Saturday, which was normally the best day of all. Despite that, Hamish was pretty down in the dumps.
Why isn’t the world stopping any more? he thought, as he plodded towards the high street.
Starkley High Street had all the usual things. There was the sweet shop, of course, the butcher’s, a small supermarket run by a funny little man in a sailor’s cap and the newsagent’s. There was Slackjaw’s Motors too, which always had a fleet of brilliant blue Vespas out the front. Hamish had lost count of the number of times he would just stop and stare at those cool little scooters each week. His dad had told him he used to drive around on one when he was a teenager and Hamish thought that was the greatest thing ever. He couldn’t wait until he was a teenager, because then maybe he could drive about on one too. He couldn’t understand why Jimmy wasted the fact he was old enough to do cool things like that and instead just wanted to speak to Felicity Gobb all day! Hamish had found one of Jimmy’s love poems the other day.
It went:
FELICITY GOBB IS A GIRL THAT I LIKE?
MORE THAN A TRAIN AND
MORE THAN MY BIKE?
OH, FELICITY GOBB, HOW I LOVE THEE?
MORE THAN MY NOSE, BUT
NOT AS MUCH AS MY KNEE?
Turns out Jimmy wasn’t very good at poetry.
Bleeurgh!
Anyway, Hamish thought as he crossed the road, girls are one thing but Vespas are quite another, and if you had a Vespa, you—
Hamish stopped dead in his tracks and held his breath.
Was that it? Was that a Flash?
He listened closely. The silence was overwhelming. It was in every nook and cranny. It was in every corner of every corner. It was like somehow the sound of nothing was louder than the sound of anything he’d ever heard before.
He glanced around, quite carefully. This was a Pause all right!
Everyone was still. Right in the middle of the street. Right in the middle of thoughts and conversations and ideas. Astrid Carruthers was halfway through some bubblegum. Her face was almost hidden by the pale-pink bubble billowing out of her mouth.
There were people walking out of shops, people walking into shops, people halfway through sitting down on benches. Hamish had once read about a place called Pompeii, where a big volcano had gone off, turning everybody to lava statues. And he’d heard about a Chinese Emperor who wanted some soldiers to protect him in the afterlife, so had thousands of fake ones created for him out of clay. This was like that – but with living, breathing people!
He would fit in as much as he could to this Pause, he decided. And there was something he should do for Robin too. He took out his Explorer and set the alarm for six and a half minutes. Assuming the Pause was the same length as the last one, that would give him more than enough time to explore and get back to the same spot before the world started again. Then he took out the chalk from his pocket and drew around his feet, marking where he’d been standing when the Flash had happened, so he could get back to it and no one would think he’d even moved.
He took a careful step forward and poked Astrid Carruthers in the arm.
Nothing. No response. Could she still feel that, he wondered? Would it hurt when she Unpaused?
Slowly, it started to hit him. The world belonged to Hamish Ellerby. He was the King of Everything! Whatever he wanted to do, he could do. Whatever he wanted to see, he could see.
But what was first? What had he always wanted to do?
Which is when he had an idea.
He turned around and saw it.
It looked amazing.
Could he?
No, surely not.
No, he couldn’t.
Could he?
Hamish revved the sky-blue Vespa, feeling like the naughtiest kid in the world.
He also felt cool.
He knew how to ride one, because he’d looked it up on YouTube once and it seemed easy enough. But he was only ten! There was no way he’d be allowed to do this with grown-ups watching!
He turned the handle and the mighty Vespa shot forward, leaving poor old Mr Slackjaw standing frozen behind him.
He’d been about to hand over the keys to someone for a test drive, but now his hand was empty. I better remember to put the keys back, Hamish thought, as he clung on.
Through town he rode, swerving in between pedestrians and weaving around bollards. He was mounting pavements and creating wind where there wasn’t any. He shot past elderly Mr Picklelips so quickly the old man’s hat blew clean off. Hamish would normally have gone and picked it up again, but time was of the essence! He probably only had four or five minutes left!
Round the roundabout by the bakery he went, again and again.
‘Yahoooooo!’ and the high-pitched BVVVVVVT of the scooter were now the only sounds in Starkley.
Hamish had never felt so free!
Up Lilyturf Street he sped – where he noticed Grenville Bile had one hand round a smaller kid’s neck, and the other halfway up his nose as usual.
Down Alumroot Alley he motored and went past the Queen’s Leg pub. He swerved to avoid a cat on the road and caught his front wheel on the kerb.
Now he was doing a wheelie! He hadn’t meant to, and he didn’t particularly want to, but he was doing one! Imagine if his mum saw him now! She’d be livid!
He roared back to the high street, and then skidded to a stop.
He looked up at the sign.
MADAME COUS COUS’S
INTERNATIONAL WORLD OF TREATS
Hamish’s tummy did a little double-flip as he clambered off the bike.
He was banned from the shop, he knew that. But this wasn’t normal Starkley any more. There were no rules in the Pause.
But was there time? Could he risk it? He checked his watch. Three minutes to go . . .
Hamish crept inside. Madame Cous Cous seemed to be in the middle of a sneeze. She was holding her handkerchief, ready to catch it. Hamish could almost make out each and every individual germ that was headed for that grubby old thing, stuck still in the afternoon air.
Right, he thought. Japanese Jellied Fish-Shavings for Robin and his mum.
Robin’s mum was very sweet, but, just like her son, she was nervous about everything. She still made Robin sit in a booster seat in the back of their brown Volvo and wear a helmet for any car journey, even if it was just to the shops. And she always made Robin tuck his trouser legs into his socks when going up or down stairs, because ‘trouser legs are a real tripping hazard’. If Hamish was honest, he found it a bit annoying. But, after Hamish’s dad had disappeared, she’d prepared all sorts of bean casseroles and mango curries and brought them round so that Hamish’s mum didn’t have
to cook for a while. The last thing Hamish wanted was to be responsible for denying such a nice woman some disgusting-sounding candied fish product.
But just look at all those sweets!
Hamish licked his lips. Surely the angry old nit Madame Cous Cous wouldn’t notice if a couple of Korean Caramels disappeared? Maybe just three or four? Or six or seven?
Hamish ran his fingers over the glass bottles on the lowest shelf. His mouth began to water at the sight of a Swiss Swizzler.
Slowly, he screwed open a jar and poked one little hand in.
But, as his fingers found a Swizzler, he caught sight of a small sign, right above Madame Cous Cous’s head, reading:
THEFT IS THEFT!
Hamish’s cheeks began to burn.
Feeling guilty, he immediately let the Swizzler drop back down.
This was wrong. This was taking something wonderful like the Pause and doing bad with it. He shouldn’t be using it to his own advantage.
But what about Robin?
He’d got Robin banned from this place, so the least he could do was make sure he didn’t have to go all the way to Tokyo for his mum’s birthday present.
Then he glanced at the boxes of Chomps in the storeroom. Scratch and Mole would like some of those. Maybe he could take a couple for them. It might really cheer them up. Because, no matter how horrible they’d been to him recently, he knew what it was like when a parent disappeared.
And maybe he could just have a lick of a jam lolly while he was here. Who would begrudge a brave Pause traveller a lick of a jam lolly?
Hamish decided he would leave whatever money he had on the counter and write an IOU for the rest. He was pretty sure he had 20p in his pocket somewhere.
Unfortunately, it was at this point that Hamish realised that he couldn’t put his hand in his pocket.
Because his hand was completely and utterly stuck in the bottle.
Oh, no.
Oh, goodness me, no!
Hamish tugged at his hand, but it wasn’t budging. It was stuck fast! It was The Explorer! It was too chunky to get back out again!