The Boy Who Made the World Disappear

by Ben Miller

  Harrison shrugged. What else could escape from Earth except for rockets?

  ‘I’ll show you,’ said Shelley’s grandmother, as she searched for something under the bench. ‘There’s a switch here somewhere . . . Ah, there we go!’

  The lights dimmed, and all the cities on the globe lit up.

  ‘What do you see now?’ she asked.

  ‘Light?’

  ‘Precisely. Light is the other thing that is able to escape the Earth. So, let me ask you another question.’

  Harrison made his best Ready-to-Answer-Questions face.

  ‘What would the Earth look like if light couldn’t escape?’

  ‘Ummm . . .’ said Harrison.

  ‘It would look like this,’ said Shelley’s grandmother, making her way slowly over to a second, scarier-looking globe, whose surface was completely black. ‘A black hole.’ She ran her hands over the smooth black surface. ‘All its insides collapse into a teeny tiny dot. The bit you see is called the Event Horizon. And nothing that crosses that can ever come back. Unless . . .’

  ‘Unless what?’ asked Harrison, a hopeful feeling rising in his chest.

  ‘Unless you use the black hole to travel in time.’

  ‘Riiiight,’said Harrison, not really understanding and starting to think that maybe Shelley’s grandmother was a little bit mad.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard of an Einstein-Rosen bridge?’ asked the old lady.

  Harrison shook his head. ‘I’ve heard of Tower Bridge,’ he tried. ‘That’s in London.’

  ‘It is indeed,’ said the old lady. ‘Well, an Einstein-Rosen bridge is similar, except instead of taking you from one place to another, it takes you from one time to another. Some people call it a wormhole, but I don’t much care for that phrase.’

  ‘A black hole … The bit you see is called the Event Horizon. And nothing that crosses that can ever come back.’

  ‘Sounds gross,’ said Harrison. ‘Like it would be full of slime.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said the old lady. ‘Whereas an Einstein-Rosen bridge is truly a thing of beauty.’

  ‘So how do you turn a black hole into a Heinz-Frozen bridge?’ asked Harrison.

  ‘Einstein-Rosen. And that’s just the problem,’ said the old lady, her eyes gleaming in the darkness. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

  That night, as Harrison lay in bed trying to fall asleep, he came to a decision. The black hole had to go. Despite looking really cool and being a great place to hide overcooked vegetables, it was almost certainly what grown-ups would call a health-and-safety nightmare. And while it had been fun, it was all getting a bit too serious now.

  No, it was time to get rid of it. So, once he was sure everyone in the house was asleep, he put on his dressing gown and slippers, untied the black hole from the bottom of his bed and tiptoed downstairs. With a bit of luck, he reasoned, his black hole would look like a discarded party balloon and it would be taken away with the rubbish.

  Outside, the sky was in chaos. High clouds drifted slowly across a full moon, while low clouds scurried towards the horizon in completely the opposite direction. A storm was coming in, and the leaves of the mulberry tree shimmered restlessly. Harrison made his way stealthily and silently to the Bin Palace, which was what his father called the shed-without-a-roof at the end of the front garden, where all the bins were kept. A shaft of moonlight hit the ground and cast a sharp shadow of Harrison and his black hole on the lawn. After double-checking that no one was watching, he tied the black hole to the handle of the large black bin. The green one, he was fairly sure, was for garden waste only.

  He checked the lane once more to make extra-triple-sure no one had seen him, then he shut the door of the Bin Palace, pulled his dressing gown tightly round him and scuttled back into the house.

  No sooner had the front door closed, the wind picked up and the bins began to rattle. A tissue blew out of one of the recycling boxes and scurried up into the night sky, like an angel being called back to heaven. A blue plastic sack full of cardboard jostled a large white canvas bag, spewing plastic milk bottles onto the pavement. The lid of the large green bin flipped open and grass clippings took to the wind like confetti. Finally, the black bin shuddered, as if it was catching a summer chill, and the black hole caught the wind, its string pulling tight. And, slowly, the knot that Harrison had tied began to unravel . . .

  To Harrison’s great relief, the next morning everything felt like it was back to normal. He’d had a restful sleep, free of anxious dreams about Hector Broom and Blue. And there was no black hole tied to the bottom of his bed.

  But when he arrived in the kitchen ready for his breakfast, there was no sign of his parents or sister, which was most definitely not normal.

  Maybe they’ve slept in, he thought.

  He climbed the stairs to check their bedrooms. He looked in on Lana, who was still fast asleep. But his parents’ bed was empty. Where were they?

  He went downstairs again and this time he noticed the front door was ever so slightly ajar. He put on his shoes and went to investigate.

  With a sigh of relief, he saw his mother and father standing in the front garden, looking over the fence. And they weren’t alone. All their neighbours from the lane were there too, chattering excitedly and pointing at something just out of sight.

  Harrison walked over to see what was going on and when he reached the grown-ups, he could hardly believe his eyes.

  The Hardwicks’ cottage had completely disappeared!

  All of it. The walls, the roof, the windows . . . all gone! The only thing that remained was the floor: the grey-and-white squares of lino from the kitchen, the mustard-coloured carpets from the front room and the balding doormat that had been just inside the back door. The only piece of furniture left was the downstairs loo, bolted to the floor in the middle of a square of faded pink carpet. And there, hovering right in the middle of it all, was the black hole, now twice the size it had been the night before.

  Harrison gulped.

  ‘I’ve heard of a roof blowing off,’ Chris the farmer was saying, ‘and maybe the odd window being broken in a storm. But never anything like this.’

  ‘Those walls were made of solid stone,’ said Jinnie from Cuckoo Cottage. ‘There’s not a wind in the world could shift that.’

  ‘Isn’t that your balloon, Harrison?’ asked his father. ‘What’s that doing there?’

  ‘Umm . . . ’ said Harrison, not really sure how he could explain everything to his father. This was like something from a nightmare. Somehow, his black hole must have got loose in the wind and swallowed the cottage, with the Hardwicks inside it! He had to get it back, or it might gobble up the entire street!

  ‘Maybe . . .’ began Harrison’s mother.

  Everyone turned to look at her.

  ‘Maybe they moved it. The house. In the night.’

  ‘Moved it?’ asked Chris.

  ‘Yes,’ said Harrison’s mother, not sounding sure at all. ‘Stone by stone. I’ve heard of people doing that, if they really love a house and they have enough money. Maybe the Hardwicks are eccentric millionaires and we just never knew it.’

  Everyone fell silent. Eccentric millionaires moving an entire cottage seemed extremely unlikely, but no one else could think of another explanation that made more sense.

  Harrison quietly started to walk down the garden path, towards the garden gate.

  ‘The really strange thing is that there’s no debris anywhere else,’ Chris said. ‘Not a chip of stone, not a scrap of wood, not a flake of slate. It’s like the cottage vanished into thin air.’

  Which was when Harrison heard his father say: ‘Harrison? What do you think you’re doing?’

  Harrison, who was now halfway up the Hardwicks’ garden path, stopped in his tracks.

  ‘Nothing,’ replied Harrison.

  ‘Don’t say “nothing”,’ said his father. ‘You’re obviously doing something.’

  ‘I’m fetching my balloon,’ said Harrison, try
ing to look innocent.

  The wind was picking up again and the black hole started to drift.

  ‘You’re just going to have to leave it there,’ his father told him. ‘Someone’s kidnapped the Hardwicks and stolen their house. It’s too dangerous for you to be wandering around, and the police are going to have to dust for fingerprints. We must leave everything untouched.’

  ‘But I need it,’ argued Harrison.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said his father. ‘No one needs a balloon. People need cars and knee operations and slotted spoons to drain pasta. Nobody needs a balloon.’

  Harrison had to think quickly. ‘I’m taking it to Show and Tell,’ he said, crossing his fingers behind his back once again.

  ‘Show and Tell?’ his mother asked. ‘I thought that was just in Reception?’

  ‘It’s a special one for the whole school,’ Harrison fibbed.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the black hole had moved across the Hardwicks’ garden towards the fence. He needed to grab its string before it did any more damage!

  Thankfully, at that very moment, a fire engine came clanking up the lane and hissed to a halt outside the Hardwicks’ cottage. Or rather, it hissed to a halt outside where the Hardwicks’ cottage used to be. Two redfaced fire fighters clambered down from the cab, and all the grown-ups rushed to tell them what had happened. Harrison seized his chance and raced after the black hole as fast as his legs would carry him, but just as his hand was closing around the string, there was a downward gust of wind and the black hole rushed upwards!

  Harrison watched in horror as it leapt the fence and took flight. It was heading straight for his sister’s bedroom!

  Without a moment’s delay, Harrison raced across the front garden, in through the open front door and up the stairs. He grabbed the footstool from the bathroom, sprinted to his sister’s room and placed it under the open skylight. Through the open window, Harrison could see the string of the black hole, twitching as if it was alive.

  He tried to reach the black hole, though even with the stool he was just too short to grab the string. Thinking quickly, he jumped down, grabbed all of Lana’s storybooks and stacked them on the top step of the footstool. He climbed back on top of them, which brought him a little closer, but the string was still way out of reach.

  ‘Aargh!’ he cried in frustration.

  Lana, who up until that point had been sleeping peacefully, despite the kerfuffle, stirred and rubbed her eyes. ‘What you doin’?’ she asked, sitting up in bed.

  ‘Trying to stop us being eaten alive!’ said Harrison.

  ‘Do you want to play cleaning?’ asked Lana, not grasping the seriousness of the situation at all. ‘Cleaning’ was her favourite game. She had a little toy cleaning cart with a bucket and mop, a feather duster and her very own toy squeegee mop.

  ‘Not now! We’re about to be disappeared!’ replied Harrison, running to his bedroom. ‘Where is it? Where is it?’ he asked, as he flung toy after toy out from under his bed.

  ‘Ah ha!’ he exclaimed, holding up his Robot Claw in triumph.

  He ran back into Lana’s room and climbed on the stool again. All he needed to do now was grab the string with the Claw. But it wasn’t at all easy. The black hole was bobbing and weaving in the wind, its string fluttering behind it like the tail of a kite.

  ‘Do you want to clean the window?’ asked Lana, offering Harrison the bucket in a way that wasn’t very helpful at all.

  ‘Lana!’ called Harrison, looking down at her in frustration. Suddenly the Claw lurched in his hand, as if gripped by an extremely powerful force. Glancing back up, Harrison saw that the tips of its fingers were touching the black hole!

  ‘Lana! Help!’ called Harrison, feeling that not only was he about to lose his Robot Claw, but himself as well. He thought Lana might see the danger he was in and hang onto his legs, but instead she tickled his right knee with her toy feather duster.

  ‘It’s pulling me in!’ he cried.

  Lana turned her attention to his left knee.

  His feet began to leave the footstool!

  Harrison stared at the black hole. It was like looking into some sort of tunnel, while time and space swirled around him. Was that Blue he could see, somersaulting round and round? And the Hardwicks’ cottage, rolling and tumbling like a jumper in a tumble drier? Harrison was gripped by a terrible curiosity: what would happen if he didn’t let go? What would it be like inside a one hundred per cent genuine black hole?

  He looked at his knuckles, turning white as he gripped the handle of the Robot Claw . . .

  And let go.

  For a few awesome seconds, he seemed to balance in mid-air, as if the black hole was deciding whether to swallow him or spit him out . . .

  ‘Lana! Help!’ called Harrison, feeling that not only was he about to lose his Robot Claw, but himself as well.

  And then he fell with a clatter onto the floor.

  Very helpfully, Lana put the cleaning bucket on his head.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ she said. ‘I want some toast.’

  Harrison pulled the bucket off his head and watched the black hole through the open skylight. Frozen on its surface was the Robot Claw, slowly fading from view. That had been a Very Close Call Indeed. And what was he going to do now? He couldn’t just leave the black hole hovering outside.

  Harrison’s eyes came to rest on Lana’s squeegee mop.

  That might work. He could use the mop to grab the string!

  Getting back up on the footstool, he raised the mop up through the skylight, worked the handle and watched the sponge close on the string of the black hole.

  As gently as he could, Harrison pulled the black hole in through the open skylight, taking care that it didn’t touch the window frame. Then he drew the head of the squeegee mop towards him, hand over hand, until he could get a firm grasp on the string.

  Harrison breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  Then his stomach sank again as he realised what he had to do. It was time to tell his parents the truth.

  ‘Hector Broom is where?’ asked Harrison’s father.

  ‘In here,’ said Harrison, pointing to his black hole.

  ‘Hector Broom is in your balloon?’

  ‘It’s not a balloon,’ said Harrison, for what felt like the hundredth time. ‘It’s a black hole.’

  Telling the truth was turning out to be quite difficult, as neither his mother nor father seemed to be able to understand what he was trying to say.

  Harrison’s mother and father looked at one another.

  ‘Harrison, it’s not helpful for you to tell us lies when Hector is missing,’ said Harrison’s mother.

  ‘I’m not lying!’ said Harrison, starting to feel frustrated. ‘He’s in there. So is Blue. And all our school books, some broccoli, and Elmond the elephant.’

  ‘Who’s Elmond the elephant?’ asked Harrison’s father, looking more bewildered than ever.

  ‘Tshh,’ tutted Harrison’s mother. ‘One of Harrison’s soft toys.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Harrison’s father, as if he had known that all along, which he hadn’t.

  ‘Is there anything else in your “black hole”?’ asked his mother.

  ‘Well, let’s see. The gammon from last night, my school dinner from yesterday, the bike shed and the shallow swimming pool.’

  There was a long pause while nothing much happened. His mother’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words came out. Then his father smiled. And then he started to giggle.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, trying to keep a straight face. ‘I thought for a moment there you said the bike shed and a swimming pool.’

  ‘I did,’ said Harrison.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said his mother, with a chuckle.

  ‘I’m not being silly!’ said Harrison. ‘Throw something in and you’ll see!’

  ‘You can’t just own a black hole,’ said his father.

  ‘You can!’ exclaimed Harrison. ‘And I do!’

&nbs
p; ‘Now, really—’ Harrison’s mother began.

  ‘Euuurrgghhhhh!’ groaned Harrison.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Harrison’s father, backing away. ‘Code Red.’

  ‘AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!’ bellowed Harrison. ‘I HATE IT SO MUCH WHEN YOU SAY THAT!’

  And before he knew what he was doing, Harrison began to swing his black hole around him, faster and faster.

  ‘Harrison! Calm down!’ called his father.

  ‘And tell the truth!’ cried his mother.

  ‘EEUUURRRGH!’ wailed Harrison.

  Round and round Harrison spun, so that eventually all he could see was the black hole, while the rest of the world became a blur behind it.

  ‘WHY WON’T ANYONE BELIEVE ME??!!’ he screamed.

  But no one replied.

  Harrison began to feel dizzy. Then he began to feel sick. Then he stopped spinning.

  The kitchen wobbled back into focus. There was Lana, sitting at the kitchen table, colouring her unicorn’s tail with a purple crayon. There was her egg, simmering on the stove. And there was his black hole, swaying above his head. In other words, everything was exactly as it had been before.

  Except . . .

  There was no sign of his parents.

  Whatsoever.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Lana, looking up from her drawing.

  Once, when Harrison had got really cross in a department store because he had been told he couldn’t have a toy he wanted, instead of telling him off, or trying to get him to calm down, his parents had hidden in a rack of coats. Maybe they are hiding now, thought Harrison.

  But when he looked, his parents weren’t in any of the cupboards or under the table, or indeed anywhere else in the kitchen that it was possible to hide. A Troublesome Thought lodged itself in his brain and he tried his hardest to ignore it.

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’ asked Lana.

  ‘Nowhere,’ Harrison told her. ‘I mean . . . somewhere but maybe not here.’

  ‘Where’s Mummy?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harrison replied. It wasn’t much of an answer, but with his mind whirring, it was all he could manage. Was it possible that in his rage he had swept their parents up in his black hole?