Eddy Stone and the Alien Cat Attack Page 11

  “Childhood imagination,” Banderfield told the reporter. “Such a precious gift.” He bent down and spoke quietly in Millie’s ear. “No, of course you can’t. Go away and stop annoying me.” He turned his back and led the young woman towards the windows.

  “That one will do,” said Eddy. “Nice colours. I hope the Galactic Conservation Council like it.” He took one of the smaller paintings down from the wall and tucked it under his coat. “I’ll just adjust time so we can get away easily.” He reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out the shrinking device.

  “It’s my go,” said Millie. “I want to do it!”

  Heads turned to see what the little girl was shouting about.

  “Shh!” said Eddy. “We don’t want them to spot what we are doing.”

  “Then give it to me!” said Millie. She snatched the device. Her fingers jabbed down on the number buttons as she did it.

  1-2-3.

  “That’s the wrong way round,” said Eddy.

  “Oh dear,” said Professor Blubblubblabblubblubblubblap.

  “Press 3-2-1,” said Eddy.

  “I am,” said Millie.

  “I think we have a problem,” said the Professor.

  “It’s not working,” said Millie.

  But it was.

  “Run!” said Eddy.

  Unfortunately for them, it was working in the wrong way. Eddy grabbed Millie’s hand and almost dragged her off her feet as he ran as fast as he could towards the door. But everyone else in the room was moving faster. Much faster. Walking towards him like they were in a crazy speeded-up film.

  “What’s happening?” said Eddy.

  “Putting in the numbers the wrong way round makes the device work in reverse,” said the Professor. “It has shifted time in the wrong direction.”

  Eddy felt hands grabbing for him. By the time he tried to wriggle away they already had a firm grip. Voices jabbered at him like angry gerbils. Someone was squeaking into a phone.

  “How long will this last?” asked Eddy.

  “For us about thirty seconds,” said the Professor. “But everyone else will experience ten minutes.”

  The seconds whizzed by in a flurry of action. They were lifted up, feet off the ground, marched out of the building in a blur. For Eddy and Millie the world was running at an incredible speed. And it didn’t return to normal until they were in the back of the police car.

  “Exhibit A,” said Sergeant Constable. “An original Banderfield.” He plonked the painting down next to his little Christmas tree on the front desk at Saltburn Sands police station. “Well?”

  “We only needed to borrow it,” said Eddy. “We were going to bring it back.”

  He wondered whether to try the shrinking device again. To alter time – the right way – and make a run for it. But when he felt in his pocket the device wasn’t there.

  “The law calls that stealing, young man,” said the Sergeant. “Do you realize what a serious situation you are in?”

  “We do,” said Eddy, trying to calm things down. He knew they had to get out of there fast, and if they were very polite and extremely sorry, maybe they could. Millie had got the idea as well.

  “We were only playing,” she said, “and as you are such a nice and kind and clever policeman, please let us go.”

  “Well—” Sergeant Constable began.

  “What are you talking about?” said the Professor from Millie’s stomach. “He’s clearly a blundering idiot who has no idea what is happening round here.”

  “What was that?” said Sergeant Constable.

  “Don’t listen,” said Eddy. “She just drank something that disagrees with her.”

  “Are you trying to be funny?” said Sergeant Constable. “That voice I heard. It was you doing your ventriloquism again, wasn’t it? I’ve got two pieces of advice for you, sonny. Number one – that voice you did was completely wrong for a little girl. Far too deep. And number two, if you are trying to get locked up you are going the right way about it, so no more of your cheek. Understood?”

  “Completely,” said Eddy. He looked at the clock on the wall. They were due to meet the Galactic Conservation Council in just over an hour. Getting locked up would be a disaster. “We all understand that, don’t we?” he added.

  “Yes,” said Millie. “I do. And so does Horaceboris.” She clutched her cuddly tightly. Her tummy rumbled quietly.

  “Let’s have a look at the contents of your pockets then,” said Sergeant Constable. He held up a clear plastic bag. Eddy could see coins, bits of string, shining tinsel, the raisin box with the elephant hidden inside it, and the shrinking device housed in his broken phone. The Sergeant must have been through their pockets after he’d bundled them into the car. Eddy hadn’t noticed – but then everything had been a blur. “We’ll see,” the Sergeant went on, “if there’s anything else here that you shouldn’t have borrowed without asking.”

  The Sergeant tipped the contents of the plastic bag out onto the desk.

  “Be careful with that raisin box,” Eddy said.

  “Why?” said the Sergeant. “What have you got in there?”

  “Errrr…” Eddy bit his tongue. He could imagine how cheeky the real answer would sound.

  He didn’t have to imagine for long.

  “It’s a ephelant,” said Millie.

  “Right,” said the Sergeant. “I warned you about giving me cheek. I was just going to ring your parents and let you off with a stiff word. But as you obviously think this is all a big joke, we’ll see how funny you find a couple of hours in the cells.”

  “Please let us go,” said Eddy. “We’re very sorry, really we are. And we haven’t got a couple of hours.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” said the Sergeant. “And I’d better turn this phone off. You won’t be needing it in there.”

  “Don’t!” shouted the Professor from Millie’s tummy.

  “Please listen,” said Eddy. “That would be a really, really bad thing to do. If you turn it off, it will stop working.”

  “That is the general idea,” said Sergeant Constable. He pressed the power button. The device blinked off. For a second everything was still. But then…

  The elephant returned to its normal size. Very, very quickly.

  When the force of a rapidly expanding elephant meets the resistance of a small cardboard box, ninety-nine times out of a hundred there is only going to be one result. And the other time as well.

  The box exploded into a gazillion pieces.

  The elephant continued to spread outwards and upwards, taking most of the ceiling with it. Broken ceiling tiles clattered to the floor.

  The desk was next to go. It gave up its struggle with the huge weight that suddenly pressed down on it, and collapsed into a mess of shattered wood and plastic. The elephant’s feet hit the floor with a bump as the painting, the shrinking device, the Christmas tree and everything else that had been on top of the desk went flying across the room.

  The Sergeant’s mouth fell silently open. It was hard to say who was more surprised by what had just happened – him, or the elephant.

  The elephant had had enough of being trapped. First it had been stuck inside a cardboard box, and now it was squeezed into a very snug police station. And it wanted out. It started to turn round, to see which way to go. Being in the same small space as an elephant is not a good idea. Unless you also happen to be an elephant, you will find that there is a lot of it, and not very much of you. And that is dangerous. Very dangerous indeed.

  As the elephant turned to look for a way out, it stepped backwards.

  Eddy realized with horror that its enormous right foot was about to come down on top of Banderfield’s painting and the shrinking device, which had landed together on the floor. And its enormous left leg was heading for Millie, about to squash her against the wall.

  He had to move. Fast. One side or the other. To rescue the painting that might save the world, or to get his cousin out of the way before
she was turned into a very messy wall covering.

  He jumped. For Millie.

  Grabbing the sleeve of her pink princess dress, he hauled her out of the way as the elephant’s massive haunch crunched into the police station brickwork. The noise almost drowned out the sound of the elephant’s right foot trampling the shrinking device into tiny pieces and crunching down onto the painting.

  The elephant spotted the entrance to the police station and headed out, converting the front door into a front very-large-hole-in-the-wall as it passed through.

  Sergeant Constable finally spoke.

  “What?” he said. Which summed things up pretty well.

  “I told you,” said Millie. “But oh no, you just wouldn’t believe me.”

  “We hadn’t even had that front door mended since last time you were here,” Sergeant Constable mumbled. He wondered how he was going to explain all this to the Chief Inspector. He had a feeling that his retirement was going to come much sooner than he had been planning.

  “We’ll get off now, then,” said Eddy.

  “Duh!” said Sergeant Constable in a daze.

  “We’re in a bit of a hurry,” said Eddy. “Bye!”

  He led Millie out through the front very-large-hole-in-the-wall. It was a mess. And so were their plans. He had no elephant. No painting. Almost no time before the Galactic Conservation Council arrived. And absolutely no idea at all how to be ready for them.

  “Agent Ginger Tom reporting to Malvalian Grand Control. Construction almost completed. Send pillaging fleet now. Report ends.”

  That is all they need to know, thought Drax. No need to complicate things. And no need to make the effort to say more. What he had found out couldn’t possibly matter at this stage, even though it was extraordinary. It was something one of the tubeoids had said. Apparently, many of the information transmissions – “TV programmes” was their name for them – were not true. They were just made up. Including the ones about superpowered beings. Beetleman with his impenetrable body armour and razor-sharp pincers. Hero Hound and his amazing special abilities. The Weather Women who came on screen to tell the world where they were sending wind and rain and sunshine and snow that day. None of them could really do any of the fantastic things that they appeared to. There were as fake as his own disguise as Ginger Tom. If Grand Control knew that, they would have to rewrite half the mission databank. And they wouldn’t like that. So he would keep it to himself.

  Ginger Tom. He was getting to quite like that name. It had a bit of a swagger to it. A name that commanded respect from the cat guards.

  He was starting to think that he had perhaps been a bit quick to write off the cats. Some of their activities were really very interesting. Especially the ones that involved small furry things that ran away when they were chased, or small feathery things that flew away. He wanted to find out a lot more about these small things. But he had never managed to get near enough to them. Not yet, anyway. Still, there was always next time.

  But right now he fancied a bit of a sleep. That was another good idea that the cats had. Regular rests through the day. He stretched out and yawned. He had noticed that he had started making a strange noise when he relaxed. Purring, the tubeoids called it. Just like the real cats. He would have to think about that. When he woke up.

  “This is a disaster,” said Eddy.

  He and Millie had returned to the podule to find Henry sitting glumly in front of the smoking remains of a burned-out cardboard box wrapped in scorched strips of kitchen foil. His face and beard were smeared with soot. Around him lay his batch of unfortunate pies.

  “It turns out that I’m a bit out of practice,” said Henry. “I had a few difficulties with the pastry. And the filling. And my field oven caught fire. Until the rain put it out. I think that’s why they are a bit overdone in places. And a bit underdone in others.”

  Eddy picked up one of the pies. On one side the pastry was hard and charred black, while on the other side it was pale and almost raw. And the whole thing was so flat that it looked like a Fluffy Wuffy Cushion Bunny had sat on it.

  “I’m sure I’ll do better next time,” said Henry.

  “You ain’t got a next time,” said Thursday, who was watching from a nearby tree. “The Galactic Conservation Council are due here any minute.”

  “Maybe this one’s not so bad,” said Henry, holding up one of his crusty victims. “It looks a bit less like a baked cowpat than the others.” The pie fell to pieces in his hand, leaving a trail of thick brown gravy.

  “It’s not just the pies,” said Eddy. “It’s everything. No elephant. No painting. And no time to think of anything else while we were in Saltburn Sands. We were in such a hurry to get back here.”

  “I hate to tell you this, kid,” said Thursday, “but right now your chances with the Council aren’t looking great.”

  “Maybe there’s something out here that we could show them,” said Eddy. He looked round at the woods. The grey sky. The bare winter trees. The fallen leaves and soggy twigs on the ground. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe they’ll just like the look of the place.”

  “We’ll soon find out,” said Thursday. “Here they come.”

  A puff of purple smoke curled out of nowhere. It spread and grew until it formed a ball of coloured cloud that was as tall as Eddy. Tiny bolts of lightning crackled through it.

  “Is this it?” said a plummy voice from the purple cloud.

  “Oh dear,” said another. “Bit of a dump, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the middle of winter,” said Eddy. “You should see it in the summer – green leaves, blue sky, it’s really beautiful.”

  “Who addresses the Galactic Conservation Council?” said the first voice.

  “Me,” said Eddy. “Eddy Stone. I’m here to save the Earth.”

  “Well you haven’t made a very good start,” said the first voice. “Not good at all.”

  “We’re used to better than this,” said the second voice. “If someone is trying to impress us.”

  “It’s not that one is big-headed,” said a third voice, “but when all the most advanced species in the galaxy have asked one to judge whether planets should live or die, and when one can harness the natural forces of the universe to punish anyone who would dare to disagree, like this…”

  A crackle of lightning shot out of the purple cloud and instantly reduced a nearby tree to a small pile of smouldering ashes.

  “…is it too much to expect a little fuss to be made of one? A red carpet? Some welcoming music? I don’t think so.”

  “I could do ‘Blue Cs’,” said Millie.

  “Please don’t,” said Eddy.

  “I was hoping for drinks and nibbles,” said the second voice.

  “I must apologize, your high and mightinesses,” said Thursday. “These are simple tubeoids who don’t really understand how to behave in the presence of greatness like yourselves.”

  “Yes, yes – just show us the three things that you think prove this planet is worth saving, will you?” said the first voice.

  “And don’t take too long about it,” said the second. “We’ve got a very important dinner party to get back to.”

  “Too long?” said Eddy. “We’re talking about the fate of a whole planet here, and you hope it’s not going to make you late for dinner?”

  “Once again, I apologize to your honourable councillorshipnesses,” said Thursday, scuttling in front of Eddy. “He doesn’t mean—”

  “Blah blah,” interrupted the first voice. “Stop wasting time. What have you got for us?”

  “I’ve got pie,” said Henry. He pushed the least deformed of his efforts towards the cloud on a piece of tree bark. A wisp of purple mist curled forward and twined itself round the crust, which began to crumble away.

  “Oh good,” said the second voice. “That should keep me going until dinner.”

  “It’s an example of the way that cookery is a prized skill on our planet,” said Eddy, trying to make the best of the situation.
“You may notice the two-colour effect of the pastry which is incredibly difficult to create and considered particularly delicious.”

  “Hmmmm,” said the first voice. “I’ve tasted worse.”

  “Needs more salt,” said the third.

  “What’s next?” said the first voice. “Second item.”

  “Is it pudding?” said the second voice. “That would be nice.”

  “Actually,” said Eddy, “I’m afraid we had a bit of a problem. We were going to show you a picture. And an elephant. But…”

  “Instead –” Millie produced a piece of paper from behind her back – “I’ve got a picture of a ephelant that I drawed.” She tilted a bold, bright-crayoned picture towards the cloud. “Ephelants are brilliant. Also it is art. That is brilliant, too. Thank you.” She curtsied.

  “I did it when we got back from the zoo,” she whispered to Eddy. “I had crayons and paper but it was a bit of a rush.”

  “Oh dear,” said the third voice. “No sense of form. The crudest handling of colour. And the technique – ghastly.”

  “Perhaps you are being a bit harsh,” said the second voice. “If you look closely, does it not perhaps have a sort of innocent charm? Oh, no, you’re right. It is terrible, isn’t it? And what is it supposed to be? Six legs…”

  “One is a trunk and one is its tail,” said Millie.

  “And what are these round things?” said the second voice. “Wheels?”

  “They are its ears,” said Millie. “You must be stupid if you don’t know that.”

  “Well it’s a very poor presentation so far,” said the first voice. “Even allowing for your primitive nature and low intelligence. You are going to have to do much better with the third item.”

  The third item, thought Eddy. What third item?

  An idea came into his head. Could he? Well, what did they have to lose?

  “You know what?” said Eddy. “I am sick and tired of being told that we are stupid and useless, and that we’re weird because we stick our food into our heads. Maybe we haven’t got the biggest brains in the universe, but we’ve being doing alright with them so far. So I’ll tell you what the third item is – it’s us.”