Spylets are Forever, page 6
‘G-Mamma, have you been . . . drinking?’ Janey’s mother helped her off the floor.
‘I have not! Haven’t eaten or drunk anything in hours. Not well,’ said G-Mamma, fanning her face. Trouble pushed a doughnut in her direction, and G-Mamma turned visibly green. ‘See? Not even tempted by my old favourite. Re-eallllly sick. Just been sitting here, watching myself sew.’
She pointed to the workbench at which an industrial sewing machine hummed. There was no Rosie B though. At that moment the Wower door opened, and they all turned expectantly. But nobody exited the cubicle, and the door slid closed again.
It wasn’t until a familiar voice said, ‘Do you think this will w-w-work?’ right in Janey’s ear that they realized what had happened. Rosie Biggenham was completely invisible, apart from her round blue eyes which were bobbing along beside Janey’s shoulder.
‘G-Ma . . . I mean, Rosie! We can’t see you! Or rather, I can see straight through you.’ Janey prodded where she thought the girl’s shoulder might be, her finger squashing against some cool-feeling material.
The blue bobbing eyes glanced downwards, and then off to the right as Rosie looked down her arm. ‘Lordy lord, I am even more cleverer than what I thought!’
‘Told you,’ said G-Mamma weakly, too nauseous even to look smug.
‘I know! And it was easy,’ said the space under Rosie Biggenham’s eyes. ‘All I did was take some cells from inside the Time Slide with a sieve, and use a shaving from a tortoise’s shell because they live just FOREVER, and then zip over to Berty Bert Bert’s Spylab in Oz to use a merino-wool spinning machine to make some thread and then weave it into a lightweight gauzy material using Trouble’s claws as a rudimentary loom and then cut it out and made a suit and then got in the Wower, and look!’ The eyeballs spun as Rosie did a twirl. ‘I. Am. A. Genius! Not only will the time cells stand up to the time travel so we don’t feel so sick, but I’m invisibubble into the bargain.’
‘Invisible,’ said Janey, grinning.
‘That’s what I said. Invisibubble.’ The blue eyes fixed on the identical – though bloodshot – ones across the room. ‘Hey. Know what I’m thinking?’
‘Of course!’ said G-Mamma. She tapped out a rhythm with her foot. ‘Invisibubble . . .’ Tap tap tap.
‘With the help of Trouble,’ rhymed Rosie, clapping her unseen hands as Trouble smugly snapped and unsnapped his peacock tail in time to the beat.
‘And never ever ever,’ started G-Mamma.
They ended together: ‘Have I been more clever!’
G-Mamma sniffed. ‘I’m going to miss you, young G, Rosie B, little me.’
The blue eyeballs began to fill up, so Janey grabbed what she thought was Rosie’s shoulder. ‘Come on. Time to send you home.’
G-Mamma didn’t even have the strength to come with them to the garden, so Janey and her mum accompanied the bobbing eyeballs down the stairs and across the grass to the Pet Jet. ‘Bye, Rosie,’ said Janey. ‘I’ll programme it and you should pop out in the right era, I think. I’ll follow on shortly.’
For one terrible moment it seemed as if one of Rosie’s eyeballs had dropped out on to the grass, but then Jean handed Janey the little object she had picked up. ‘It’s a Spyclops, one of those marbles that Dad created as a boy,’ said Janey. ‘An early SPI-buy.’
‘I think it was delivered by this tortoise that I used for the suit. I found it wandering around near the R-Evolver.’ Rosie held it out to them, its head rapidly retracting.
Janey took it. ‘Look,’ she said, puzzled. There was a name written across its back in black ink. ‘Bob. It’s called Bob.’ Now she looked more closely, she could see more writing beneath the name. It was virtually the same message she’d seen before, but this time in small untidy print. ‘EMOC. Come back.’
‘It’s from Sol – young Dad,’ said Janey to her mother. ‘He needs me, now. You said I could go back after I’d checked on Copernicus.’
‘I know, but it’s so dangerous,’ Jean sighed. ‘Look at what all that travelling has done to your father.’
‘There’s a solution for that. Rosie,’ said Janey, ‘you didn’t happen to make two Invisibubbles, did you?’
invisibubbled
Two pairs of Ultra-gogged eyeballs, one blue and one grey, leaped down the BELIEVƎ helter-skelter towards the era of Geneva Delacroix. To Janey’s great relief, the Invisibubbles really worked – the suit seemed to squeeze all her organs in place so that the sick feeling was much reduced. Acupressure points, Rosie B had explained – she’d made them extra tight around the wrists to help with the nausea. Clever, thought Janey.
They popped out, one after the other, into the field behind the Browns’ house. As planned, Rosie body-rolled quickly so that Janey wouldn’t wallop into her as she landed, but not fast enough. With a squeal, the padded space beneath Janey wriggled, and an indignant, muffled voice yelled: ‘Geroff! You’re smuffocating me!’
‘Sorry!’ Janey rolled quickly to one side. It took her a minute or two to locate her new friend; it wasn’t until a pair of crimson Ultra-gogs floated above her face that she spotted her.
‘Up you come, clumsy bum,’ said Rosie cheerfully, and an invisible hand hoisted Janey to her feet.
They looked around. ‘Good job we’re Invisibubbled,’ remarked Janey, pointing towards the back of the house where a woman was hanging out rows of blue pyjamas on a long washing line. ‘It’s broad daylight.’ Casting a longing glance in the direction of her grandmother, she flicked her eyes towards the gate.
‘Come on – if it’s daytime, that probably means Da— Solomon’s at school.’
Side by side they Fleet-footed to the gate and out into the lane. ‘This is brilliant!’ said Rosie. ‘I’ve always b-b-been rubbish at cross-country and stuff, but now it’s a breeze. Wheeeeeeeeee!’ and she vaulted over a parked car, leaving a very obvious dent in the bonnet. Janey laughed. With Rosie getting more G-Mamma-ish by the minute, it was a doubly good thing that they couldn’t be seen.
Before too long they came to Everdene School; in moments they had scooted up the front path and into the clock. Rosie peeled off her Invisibubble balaclava and her head bobbed around in front of Janey like a balloon on a string. ‘This is amazing!’ she said. ‘Who ever knew there was a room back here!’
‘Well, Solomon Brown, for one,’ said Janey, shuffling the papers on the desk. ‘This is his secret hideout. Look – a Spyclops, and a . . . a copy of the rebus.’
Shoving the piece of paper inside her Invisibubble, Janey pointed up to the stage. ‘It’s the fashion show,’ she said. ‘Listen – that’s Mrs . . . Maisie Halliday telling you to find the compère again.’
‘Yes. I will never forgive that Head Boy of ours for going off sick just at the w-w-worst moment. And he looked fine ten seconds before. Honestly, if he was scared, he just should have said. Anyway’ – more of Rosie appeared before her as the girl stripped out of her Invisibubble – ‘it’s lucky that underneath my wonderful inventionational sensational suit, I’m wearing . . . THIS!’
Janey gasped. The improvised pirate costume from earlier had clearly been through the Wower. Rosie was Glamour Pirate from head to toe, from the shimmering black curls that she loosed from a hairband and shook out like a mermaid’s, through to the jewel-encrusted satin shirt in jet shot with silver, and down to the purple silk pantaloons gathered in at her knees into long silver boots.
‘Eyelashes!’ said Rosie to her Ultra-gogs, and instantly some feathery eyelashes projected themselves on to the glass, framing her eyes as if they were her own. ‘Fa-fa-fa-fa – fashion,’ she sang in an imitation of her own stammering. ‘Hey, that’s good. Turn to the left! Right! I should suggest it to someone HUGE, like, David Bowie!’ Rosie slapped on a large beauty spot. ‘Excellent. Marilyn Monroe meets Adam and the Ants. Madam and the Pants. Yes!’
‘Who?’ said Janey. She’d never heard of any of these people. ‘Are they spies?
‘Never mind, Blondette,’ said Rosie with a cheeky grin. ‘Just meet the new Rosie B. Wish me luck!’
Moments later . . . ‘I’m Rosie B,’ called Rosie to the open-mouthed crowds. ‘Soon to be the Mamma-G. Now come with me . . .’ and she strutted down the catwalk in time to the music, ‘and the models . . . You. Will. SEE!’ With a drumbeat like a crack of thunder, Rosie pointed a ring-laden black Girl-gauntlet at Geneva Delacroix, who was staring at Rosie agog, and the fashion show began.
Trying not to laugh, Janey jumped out of the way of her young mother, who hadn’t noticed the eyeballs floating above centre stage. She eased through the crowd towards Solomon; on Maisie’s instructions, he was angling a spotlight away from Geneva and on to the ebullient Rosie B. ‘She’s the star,’ Maisie was hissing.
‘What’s happened to her?’ whispered Solomon. ‘It’s like she’s been transformed in some magical machine . . .’ A flash of suspicion crossed his eyes, and for a moment he stared hard at Rosie. Then he shook his head. ‘She looks nearly as good as you, Maisie,’ he said with a grin.
To Janey’s amazement, Maisie Halliday blushed. ‘Stop that, Brown, or I’ll dock you five house points,’ she said.
It sounded like . . . like her dad was flirting with Mrs Halliday. ‘Gross!’ blurted Janey before she could stop herself. Both Maisie and Solomon jumped, and whipped around in her direction. As quickly as possible, Janey dropped to her knees, taking off her Gogs and shutting her eyes tightly.
‘Did . . . ? Did you hear something?’ Maisie took a step backwards. Then came a sickening crunch. Squinting, Janey peered down at the floor. ‘Oh, look,’ Maisie was saying. ‘What have we here?’
There lay Janey’s trodden-on Ultra-gogs, with one lens splintered and one arm hanging off at a strange angle. With a quick look around, Solomon dropped to his knees and picked them up. ‘Those are mine,’ he said quickly. ‘Must have dropped them.’
But Maisie had already lost interest and had turned back to watch Rosie B leading the model troupe in a strange spiky war dance around the stage, to the huge delight of the baying audience. Solomon put the glasses in his pocket, stared at the people around him one more time, and slipped from the hall.
Janey would have slapped a hand to her forehead if it wasn’t for the fact that it would have made a sound. Now he knew that Janey was back in his time – and he was off to look for her. But if his parents waylaid him like last time, he’d end up getting sent to bed – and she’d miss out on the chance to talk to him. Again!
And even though his bike wasn’t actually a SPI-cycle, it was souped-up in some way, and unfeasibly fast. If she didn’t hurry, he’d get back ahead of her again, which would mean he wouldn’t find her, and so he’d have to deliver the message with Bob again. A loop. A time loop. ‘This could go on forever,’ Janey muttered as she dropped through the trapdoor under the stage, grabbed the shimmering pile of nothingness that was Rosie B’s Invisibubble – the future G-Mamma wouldn’t be needing it again, after all – and pelted out of the grandfather clock between the great swinging pendulums.
Outside the school doors Janey paused. ‘Bike,’ she said firmly, before remembering. Only then did she realize just how much she relied on her Ultra-gogs to find things for her. Even without them, however, she was able to spot the one thing that could possibly get her back to the Browns’ house before her father.
With a little bounce over the school gates, Janey sprinted after the bus. The doors closed and it pulled away just as she managed to reach it. ‘No money anyway,’ said Janey, and she hitched a ride the way she had always intended to – invisibly. Eyes squeezed tight against the exhaust fumes and possible detection, she jumped on to the back bumper and clung on to the rear windscreen wiper with her Invisibubble Girl-gauntlet. As the bus veered around corners and bumped along in fits and starts she held on firmly, trying not to cough. ‘There!’ She could see him. Solomon was whizzing along the main road on his bike, almost faster than the bus. The bus driver honked at him and Solomon slowed enough to let the bus pass. Janey grinned. That bike was definitely ‘special’ in some way.
Mistake. As the bus careered past Solomon, she’d instinctively turned towards him as she smiled. The bicycle wobbled dangerously as Solomon gasped at the sight of two grey eyes goggling down at him from the back of the bus. Freaky, thought Janey, wincing as the front wheel of the bike clipped the pavement. The bus groaned its way around the corner and speeded up so there was no chance of her jumping off without killing herself, and Janey lost sight of Solomon. Perhaps he’d fallen off his bike. Perhaps he was injured. Perhaps – perhaps she’d caused that too, and he was genuinely bedridden in his pyjamas. Janey shook her head. Time travel was very, very complicated.
At her stop, Janey dropped down off the bumper and Fleet-footed across to the house, just as the sound of wheels-on-gravel rattled towards her from the end of the lane. Solomon was already striding past the windows, in full view of anyone in the lounge, so she couldn’t alert him there. She had to stall for time. Surprise, surprise, surprise, thought Janey, remembering G-Mamma’s lesson. Bold as brass, and still invisible, she rapped importantly on the front door.
Her . . . she could hardly even think it . . . grandfather Lancelot Brown threw the door wide open, then, baffled, stepped out on to the porch to look around. Janey dropped behind him and took as long as she dared to look at him. He was tall, very tall, with dark hair faded to a steely grey and intense dark eyes behind big square glasses. He looked clever and kind.
‘Who is it, Lance?’ her grandmother called out from the kitchen, and Janey had to hold her breath. Right there before her, solid and in the flesh and real life, were the grandparents she had never met. She put her hand over her heart, sure they could hear it beating.
‘Don’t know, darling,’ answered Lancelot slowly, ‘but Solomon’s just arriving.’
Time to dash. As Carmel Brown trotted down the hall, Janey had to stop herself from grabbing her arm, wanting to whirl her around and tell her what a fabulous son she had, and what an amazing super-SPI, loving husband and wonderful, wonderful dad he would turn out to be . . .
She didn’t think Carmel would believe her at the moment. ‘Do you think he’s finally been expelled?’ said the woman with a groan, then she gasped.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Lancelot in his brisk, raspy voice.
Carmel stopped with a hand to her cheek. ‘I could have sworn . . . well, that a butterfly just went past me, a grey-blue butterfly, and that . . . somebody kissed my cheek.’
Janey sprinted for the cellar door.
drawn onward
Janey had barely got out of her Invisibubble when there was some outraged yelling in the hallway and Solomon came pounding down the cellar stairs. He put a finger to his lips and closed the door. ‘Lunatics! Told them I’m getting some peace down here, away from them. Have you . . . been here all this time?’
‘No, I . . . oh!’
She jumped down from her perch as the cardboard box beside her started to move. A mini-earthquake was rattling it along the workbench. Solomon strode over and opened the box. ‘It’s just Bob.’
Janey breathed a sigh of relief. ‘The tortoise!’
‘How d’ya know it’s a tortoise?’
This time-loop stuff was hard to explain. ‘OK . . . this might not make sense, but sometime soon you’ll send Bob into the future, with a message on him to me to come back in time to help you.’ Solomon stared at her, slowly taking this in. ‘Cute name, Bob. Did you call him that because of the palindrome thing? The same backwards and forwards?’
At that Solomon shot her a slightly wicked grin. ‘I didn’t name him. But you’re right, he is the same backwards and forwards. Look.’ He lifted Bob out of the box, and the tortoise blinked at her with tiny gleaming eyes. Then Solomon turned him around and thrust his back end under Janey’s nose. Someone had drawn a mouth and two eyes on to his tail. He looked like a two-headed tortoise. ‘Aren’t you, Bob?’ said Solomon to the real head. ‘Same whichever way you go.’
‘I don’t think that’s very nice,’ said Janey, although she had to admit it did look a bit funny.
‘Calm down, it didn’t hurt him.’ Solomon popped Bob back in his box and wiped his own sweating forehead with a large yellow handkerchief. ‘I couldn’t give him back with any permanent damage, could I? I’m just minding him for Kobi. He’s got some big secret project on.’
Janey looked puzzled. ‘Kobi? Jakobi Delacroix?’ She was hearing that name more and more, and there was something – something peculiar – that she hadn’t quite put her finger on.
Solomon sneered. ‘How many Kobis do you know?’
‘OK, well, even more reason you should be nice to Bob, if he’s not yours.’
Rolling his eyes, Solomon said, ‘All right, Moan-a-lot. He can have extra lettuce tonight. After,’ he said, rummaging in his pocket, ‘you help me with this.’ He pulled various items from his trouser pockets, then started on his blazer. ‘It was . . . What did I do with it? Darn!’ he said suddenly. ‘I left the rebus in the den. I’d cracked most of it, but there’s this funny little letter like a no-entry sign.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got it.’ Janey held out the piece of paper she’d found on the desk under the stage.
Solomon snatched it from her. ‘You were there! I knew I saw you, or heard you at school. And on the bus! How—’
‘It’s too hard to explain,’ said Janey. ‘Come back again with me to my time, and I can give you a proper look round – at all the gadgets, all the history, all the ways we can travel.’
Solomon’s eyes gleamed. ‘Everything? Are you serious?’
‘Totally,’ said Janey. She held up the rebus. ‘And we can use the computer to help us work this out.’ She didn’t know how or when her father had updated the message for his younger self, but she was determined to figure it out.
‘You’ve got a computer? In your house? But only big organizations have computers. You can’t have one of your own.’
