The Touchstone

by Andrew Norriss

  ‘I can't even manage the checkout at a supermarket,’ she wailed, tears streaming down her cheeks, ‘I can't do anything. I'm useless!’

  It had taken nearly an hour to calm her down and then Mr Paterson rang from Germany to ask if everything was all right and the crying began all over again. Douglas found he was rather glad when it was time for bed.

  He had sent the message to Kai. It was very short, simply saying that if it was possible, he would like to see her again before she left. Gedrus assured him it had been delivered but was not allowed to say whether Kai had read it or not.

  Although it had been a long day, there was one more thing Douglas had to do before he went to sleep. Lying on his bed, he reached for the Touchstone again and found the librarian at his desk watching television.

  ‘Hi there!’ Gedrus turned off the sound and swung round to face Douglas. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I'd like to do something for my parents,' said Douglas. ‘And something for Ivo and Hannah as well. To make up for what I did before.’

  ‘OK.’ Gedrus picked up a notebook and pen. ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘Well, I thought it might be better if you worked that out,’ said Douglas. ‘I'd just like to do whatever is best. I mean, if you think it's best that I don't do anything then I won't, but if there was anything I could do that would help any of them, I'd like to do it.’

  ‘Right.’ Gedrus leaned back in his chair. ‘Well, I could make some suggestions.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Douglas and he listened carefully while Gedrus outlined what he had in mind.

  It looked as if tomorrow was going to be a long day as well.

  The next day was Saturday and, after breakfast, Douglas told his mother he was cycling round to see Ivo. It was true that he was planning to call in on his friend but in fact he cycled first to Mr Linneker's house.

  The headmaster lived in a large Victorian villa on the south side of the town and, when he answered the door, Douglas hardly recognized him. He hadn't shaved, his shirt was hanging out of his trousers, there were dark rings under his eyes and he looked as if he hadn't slept for days.

  ‘This isn't a good time, Douglas,’ he muttered. ‘Why don't you come to my office on Monday?’

  ‘It's about Hannah,’ said Douglas. ‘I know where she is.’

  The headmaster stared at him, blankly.

  ‘She's gone to Norwich. Where you used to live.’ Douglas took a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘She's got several friends there but she's staying with this one.’

  Mr Linneker took the paper and stared at it.

  ‘Her name's Laura. She was her best friend and she's letting Hannah stay in the attic. She hides in the wardrobe if anyone comes up.’

  Mr Linneker was still staring at the name and address in his hand.

  ‘The thing is,’ Douglas went on, ‘it's partly my fault that she ran away and I…’

  But the headmaster was no longer listening. ‘Margaret!’ he shouted indoors, ‘Margaret! I've found out where she's gone!’

  Douglas waited on the doorstep for a moment. There was a lot more he had been planning to say, but the noise from inside the house seemed to suggest that now was not the time. He could hear the headmaster shouting for his shoes, the car keys, his mobile phone… and Douglas walked back to his bicycle.

  He was at the corner when the headmaster's car raced past him, with Mr Linneker at the wheel. He was heading for Norwich like a bat out of hell and didn't notice Douglas at all.

  Douglas's second visit was to Mr Parrot, who welcomed him into his tiny office with his usual beaming smile, and a box of doughnuts.

  ‘I was hoping you'd call in today.’ He took a doughnut for himself and pushed the box towards Douglas. ‘I wanted to check that everything was all right.’

  ‘I think so,’ said Douglas. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well…’ Mr Parrot leaned forward and spoke in a confidential whisper, ‘I was thinking about that burglary yesterday and it's just possible that what they were after was your name and address. People know that I'm getting information from somewhere and I was worried someone might be planning to ask you to tell them what shares to buy. Has… anything like that happened?’

  ‘No,’ said Douglas. ‘Nothing like that.’

  ‘Well, let me know if it does. Can't have you bothered by that sort of thing.’ The financial adviser leaned back into his chair. ‘Now, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Two things,’ said Douglas. ‘One, I'd like to buy a shed for my friend, Ivo. He had this workshop in his garden that got knocked down, and it was partly my fault so I'd like to replace it. But I'd like to do it anonymously. Could you organize that?’

  ‘How about I tell him it's a gift from a local philanthropist? Someone who read about the accident in the paper and felt sorry for him,’ said Mr Parrot. ‘It does happen occasionally.’ Then he listened as Douglas explained how big the shed should be and what it would need in the way of tools and workbenches, carefully writing it all down in his notebook.

  ‘The other thing I'd like to do is lend my father sixty thousand pounds. He's invented this supermarket trolley that always steers in the right direction but he needs some money to develop it.’

  ‘Sixty thousand pounds to your father…’ Mr Parrot carefully noted down the figure, wondering if any other financial advisors took instructions like this from their twelve-year-old clients. ‘You think it'll be a winner, do you? This trolley?’

  ‘It's probably going to make him very rich,’ said Douglas, ‘but I'd prefer him not to know the money came from me. Not yet anyway. Is that all right?’

  ‘Your father told me I was to let you invest your money wherever you wanted,’ said Mr Parrot, happily. ‘I'm sure we can keep the secret a little longer.’ He opened a drawer in his desk. ‘I'll need you to sign a few forms and, while you're doing that, you can tell me if you've seen any more of your pictures.’

  ‘Pictures?’

  ‘The pictures you get that tell you what shares to buy,’ Mr Parrot explained.

  It might be his last chance, Douglas thought, and he reached into his pocket for the Touchstone.

  Gedrus told him that shares in a company called Plasco, which made optical data storage systems, were likely to do very well in the coming week, and Mr Parrot was delighted at the news.

  Douglas's third visit was to a large modern building in a road off the High Street, called the Greenwood Dance Studio. Inside, the entrance hall was painted entirely in shades of green and filled with green furniture. The young man behind the reception desk was dressed in a green silk shirt, had green highlights in his hair and was talking on the phone in loud, urgent tones.

  ‘You can't do this to me!’ he was saying. ‘I've got nearly two hundred pupils. Who's going to look after them?’ He lowered his voice as the door opened and Douglas came in. ‘Look, if it's the money, I'm sure we can work something out, but you have to…’

  But whoever he was talking to had hung up and he slowly replaced the phone. ‘What do you want?’ he asked Douglas, without looking up.

  ‘Do you teach ballroom dancing here?’

  ‘We used to,’ muttered the man, ‘until about three minutes ago.’

  ‘I was thinking of learning myself.’ Douglas seemed quite unperturbed by the man's lack of interest. ‘My mother did a lot of ballroom dancing. She was Home Counties Latin American Champion three years in a row.’

  ‘Your mother?’ A flicker of interest crossed the man's face and he looked up. ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Rachel,’ said Douglas. ‘Rachel Paterson. Well, she was Rachel Findlay then of course. It was before she was married.’

  ‘Rachel Findlay?’ The man's eyes widened. ‘Your mother is Rachel Findlay?’

  ‘You've heard of her?’

  ‘Well, of course I've heard of her!’ The man at the desk came round to stand beside Douglas, who noticed he was wearing green trousers and green suede shoes as well. ‘I saw her win the Hesketh trophy in
1991. She taught me to salsa.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Not that she'd remember – I was only thirteen – she was giving lessons to anyone who…’ The man stopped, struck by a sudden thought. ‘She wouldn't be interested in a job, would she?’

  ‘What sort of job?’

  ‘Teaching! Teaching dance!’ The man banged his fist on the reception desk in his enthusiasm. ‘I mean, if there was any chance she was free… any chance at all…’

  ‘Well,’ said Douglas thoughtfully, ‘I'll give you our phone number. It might be worth giving her a call.’

  It was nearly midday before Douglas finally arrived at Ivo's house in Raglan Road and the first thing Ivo wanted to know was whether he had heard anything from Kai.

  ‘No,’ Douglas told him. ‘Not yet.’ He had checked with Gedrus several times in the course of the morning but the answer had always been the same.

  ‘You're quite sure it's all right, are you?’ said Ivo. ‘Doing what Quomp tells you to do?’

  ‘It's what Gedrus said was best,’ said Douglas. ‘He was very definite.’

  ‘But what if he's wrong?’

  ‘I don't think Gedrus can be wrong.’ Douglas frowned. ‘That's not how it works.’

  He was feeling rather gloomy as he walked down the garden, with Ivo swinging expertly on his crutches, to see the remains of the shattered shed. The truth was that the events of the last two days were beginning to tell, even on someone as naturally calm as Douglas, and he was not finding it easy. He had started biting his nails, something he had never done in his life, and found it difficult to think about anything except the coming meeting with Kai – and yet the more he thought about it the more unsettled he became.

  In his mind, he was constantly going over all the things he might say to Kai when he saw her, all the words he might use to persuade her to return what she had stolen to Quomp. But the more he thought about it, the more it seemed that persuading Kai to surrender the Touchstones was a very forlorn hope and, what was worse, Gedrus seemed to agree with him. He had asked the librarian what his chances of success were and the reply had not been encouraging.

  ‘Slim,’ Gedrus had said as cheerfully as ever. ‘Very slim.’

  Douglas and Ivo spent the afternoon working on the plans for a new robot, one that would not attract quite as much attention as the Indestructible, but might still have a chance of winning the Robot Wars. It kept Douglas busy at least, and stopped him thinking too much about why there had been no answer from Kai.

  It also meant, as he sat hunched over the plans, that he did not notice Ivo quietly slipping two tiny balls, each no bigger than a BB gun pellet, one into the pocket of his coat and another into the back of his school bag.

  But then Ivo was very careful to do it while Douglas was looking the other way.

  When Mrs Radomir told Douglas it was time to go home, there was still no word from Kai. There was still nothing when he went to bed that night, and nothing the next morning. When it finally happened it was almost a relief.

  Douglas was walking back from Ivo's house the following afternoon when a car drew up alongside the pavement and the driver, whose face was largely hidden under dark glasses and a brightly coloured scarf, rolled down the window and called to him.

  ‘Greetings, Douglas Paterson,’ said Kai. She gestured to the seat beside her. ‘You wanted to see me?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’'said Douglas as he climbed into the car. ‘Very much. How are you?’

  ‘All the better for seeing you, my friend.’ Kai smiled and held out a hand.

  As soon as Douglas touched it a light glowed from her fingers, a warm tingling spread rapidly up his arm, there was a faint roaring sound in his ears, like waves crashing on a distant shoreline…

  And that was the last thing he remembered.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Douglas had no idea where they were.

  When he woke up he was still sitting in the car, but it was parked at the end of a long dirt track surrounded by a dense mass of trees. Directly ahead of him was a large building of rusting, corrugated iron that might once have been a barn or a small aircraft hangar.

  Kai was holding open the door. ‘Come,’ she smiled down at him. ‘This way.’

  She led him across the track to the building and when Douglas followed her inside he found himself in a huge open space with no windows, but lit with a dazzling brilliance by a series of lights hung round the top of the walls.

  The cement floor was almost entirely covered by an extraordinary variety of equipment. There were workbenches stacked with computer screens, banks of electronic equipment and rows of chemicals in glass jars. In one corner to his right there was a small forge, to the left was a pile of gas cylinders and a welding torch. Scattered over any spare sections of floor were metal sheets, steel rods, iron plates and wire coils, while at the far end, looking a little out of place, Douglas could see a large pink double bed and a kitchen area with a cooker and fridge alongside it. But none of these things were what caught his eye as soon as he stepped inside the door.

  What caught his eye, standing on the floor in the centre of the barn, was a Harrier jump jet. Douglas knew it was a Harrier because he had once made a model of it from a plastic kit, and this one even had the RAF roundels still visible on its wings.

  The plane was attached by dozens of cables and hoses to a variety of boxes, tanks and cylinders so that it looked like an animal that had been chained up to keep it on the ground. It made noises like an animal too. There was a constant humming sound, with the odd bark of an electrical flash and the occasional hiss and puff of escaping gas. It gave Douglas the impression, somehow, of enormous power that could barely be contained and was eager to be unleashed.

  He stared at it, open-mouthed.

  ‘That,’ said Kai, ‘is what will take me home.’

  ‘You can fly a Harrier jump jet into space?’ said Douglas. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘It was a useful framework.’ Kai led the way to an aluminium ladder that led up to a section of staging alongside the plane. ‘But it is not the metal that will protect me. The plane is surrounded by a force field, devised by the Tenebrians. Here, let me show you.’

  Douglas followed her up the ladder and found himself looking down into the cockpit where Kai pointed to a tightly wound mass of copper wire very similar to the shape he and Ivo had made for the Indestructible, though much larger. The control panel was laid out with rows of switches, dials and gauges, mostly held in place by large quantities of sticky tape and, instead of a joystick, there was what looked like the steering wheel from a car.

  ‘This can fly you back to your homeworld?’ asked Douglas.

  ‘It will fly me to a portal,’ said Kai. ‘Going through the portal will bring me to a few light years from my home planet where… arrangements have been made to get me home.’

  ‘Are you leaving soon?’

  ‘In a few hours.’ Kai gestured to the equipment that surrounded her. ‘The shields need another hour to reach full charge and there is some weaponry to load but… I shall be ready before evening.’

  Douglas stared at the plane and then at all the equipment that surrounded it. ‘You built all this in three weeks?’

  Kai gave a little shrug. ‘I had Gedrus to guide me. You have probably discovered for yourself what can be achieved with his help.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

  ‘And I would like to hear of your adventures.’ Kai was climbing back down the ladder. ‘Come, we shall sit down and you shall tell me your story.’

  Ivo was already waiting on the pavement when the maroon 4x4 Toyota drew up in front of the house in Raglan Road. He hopped straight over to it, pulled open the door and swung himself up into the passenger seat.

  ‘I still think this is most unwise,’ said Guardian Quomp from the driving seat. ‘It could be dangerous, and there's no point. No point at all.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Ivo was already fastening his seat belt, ‘but I'm coming. You promised, rememb
er?’

  ‘That doesn't mean it's a good idea.’ Quomp looked unhappily over the top of his glasses. ‘What did you tell your parents?’

  ‘I told them a friend of Douglas was taking us out somewhere and that we'd be back later this afternoon.’

  Quomp grunted, hesitated a moment longer, then reached forward to switch on the ignition.

  ‘Well, if you insist on coming you can at least make yourself useful. Here.’ He passed Ivo a grey metal object about the size of a thin paperback book. ‘You can navigate.’

  ‘So tell me,’ Kai said, leading Douglas across the barn to a battered wooden table and two plastic upright chairs, ‘what uses did you find for your Touchstone?’

  ‘A lot of things really,’ said Douglas. ‘I tried to get my parents back together.’

  ‘You used it to restore family unity?’ Kai nodded, approvingly. ‘A noble purpose.’

  ‘Unfortunately it didn't work out quite like I expected. I had to stop when I found out it was only making them unhappy.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear that,’ said Kai gravely.

  ‘A lot of the things I asked Gedrus to do turned out like that,’ Douglas went on. ‘I helped Ivo build a robot and he ended up in hospital with a broken foot. And I helped this girl in my class with some homework and it led to her running away from home.’

  ‘The Touchstone is a powerful force,’ said Kai thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps I was wrong to let you keep it.’

  ‘No, no, I'm glad you did,’ Douglas insisted, ‘only it made me realize you have to be really careful what you ask. You have to know exactly what you want and then phrase it very carefully, don't you? Which is why I'm here in a way.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’ said Kai.

  ‘Well, the thing is, I've come to ask you to do something.’