She was too quick for him. She was like a boxer or a dancer or both.
It continued like this for a couple of minutes with him desperately swinging and her deftly dodging out of the way.
Finally, she kicked his legs away, causing him to collapse in a heap on the grass.
Then she jumped on top of him, her knees pressing into his gasping chest. She looked him straight in the eyes. “Now are you going to leave my friend alone or do I have to beat you up again?”
“No! No!” he shouted. “Please!”
Jack had never heard Gaz sound so terrified before.
As soon as she let go of him he jumped up and, tears rolling down his face, ran off in the direction of the estate. He hoped he would never see him again.
“Now boys,” she said, turning to his mates, “does anyone else want to pick on Jack?”
“NO!” They all shouted at once, voices trembling.
After that two of them ran off, but astonishingly the rest stayed and played football with them.
Jack had never seen anything like it. One moment they had been jeering to bash his head in and the next they were all chatting happily and playing football together. Vyleria ran rings round them all of course, scoring ten goals and setting up many many more. She was amazing, perfect in fact.
An hour later, Jack and Vyleria were trudging off the football pitch in the direction of his home.
“You’re quiet,” she said.
He tried to get the words out, but he couldn’t.
He wanted to say thank you, but he was too embarrassed. Firstly, because he had been unable to defend himself and secondly, because it had taken Vyleria – a girl, no less – to save him.
He felt pathetic.
“I… I’m sorry.”
“Sorry, whatever for?”
“Because I was scared, because I couldn’t stand up for myself.”
“It’s okay, Jack. We all get scared sometimes and besides that Gaz is a pretty nasty boy. There's no shame in being scared of someone like him.”
“Yeah, but I should’ve stood up for myself. How do you do it?”
“I used to be scared of people like him, Jack. When I was younger, boys and girls would regularly push me around. No one stood up for me. Then one day I pushed back and the fear just slipped away. I’ve been pushing back ever since.”
“Well anyway, thank you Vyleria.”
“Don’t mention it. Now do you have any food at your house? I’m starving.”
“There should be. This is a house of my memories after all.”
Jack couldn’t believe it.
“Not gooseberry crumble again!” he grumbled, looking at the kitchen table.
“What’s gooseberry crumble?”
“That!” said Jack, pointing at the large, crusty pie in front of him.
“It seems okay to me.”
“Trust me Vyleria; it tastes a lot worse than it looks.”
Vyleria took a bowl of the gooseberry crumble, poured on some hot custard and then put a large spoonful into her mouth.
Followed by another and another.
She couldn’t get it in quick enough.
“What are you talking about, Jack? This is DE-licious! Have you got any more?”
Jack passed her his bowl.
He couldn’t believe it. In a few seconds that had disappeared too.
He never knew someone could like gooseberry crumble that much, well apart from his mum and dad that is.
“Have you got any more?’ she asked again.
Jack was about to say no when more plates full of gooseberry crumble magically appeared before their eyes.
She ate all these too. And then the next lot when they appeared, and the next and the next.
All-in-all she ate close to ten bowls before she had finished. He didn't know where she put it all.
“I’ll have to come back here every day,” she said, her whole face beaming. “Now what else is there to do around here?”
“Well, apart from playing football, not much.”
“On your whole planet?”
“No, of course not. But we are here, aren’t we? It would take hours to go to America or China by plane.”
But then Jack remembered that they weren't really on Earth at all, they were on their spaceship. If he wanted to go somewhere all he really had to do was close his eyes and dream.
When he opened them again he was in the middle of a busy street.
Lots of yellow taxis and expensive cars were bumper to bumper down the road, their horns beeping wildly. Throngs of people were streaming all around him and up above giant towers of steel and stone arose like mountains from a vast ocean.
“Wow, where are we?” gasped Vyleria.
“New York. It’s one of the biggest and busiest cities on Earth. I've always wanted to go here, but we couldn't even afford a trip to Spain, never mind the U.S.A. What do you think?”
“Yeah, it’s great. It resembles some of the pictures I’ve seen of the old cities on my planet.”
“Wanna take a look around?”
“Of course.”
They went everywhere. Up the Empire State Building, to Wall Street, Broadway, Times Square, Central Park; they even took a ferry to the Statue of Liberty.
And because it was all really a computer simulation Jack made sure that they had lots and lots of money. More money than he had ever had in his life. And with it they bought pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, ice cream, milkshakes and lots and lots of candy.
Back on the real Earth his mum and dad could barely afford to take him anywhere, but here on this spaceship it seemed like he could do anything.
It had been the best day of his life and he never wanted it to end.
Chapter 15: New Varda
Jack had never seen buildings so tall before.
The starscrapers on Vyleria’s planet just kept going up and up and up and up, their pointed spires disappearing into layer upon layer of pink clouds. Many were at least twice the size of those in New York and some were even bigger than that. Much bigger. The tallest perhaps did indeed scrape the edge of space. They would have blocked-out the suns too, but for the fact that they were made out of some kind of transparent material. Jack could see many people moving around in them. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. And since they were all so perfectly aligned it was possible to see right through a whole row of them.
There were also other buildings that were coloured light green or bright purple. One of these was shaped like a huge, flat star, its purple spokes spreading out deep into the bustling heart of the teeming city.
The city sprawled in all directions.
Jack could see nothing else: no mountains, no trees, no fields, no lakes, only a roaring metropolis bursting at the seams with people and all manner of flying cars and bikes. There were so many of them he couldn’t count them all. They were like millions and millions of buzzing flies. Except there was no buzz: the traffic was completely silent. The only noise he could hear was the staccato chatter of billions of voices all chirping together at once. Their footsteps barely made a sound either, the ground made not of concrete, but a type of rubber.
“What do you think of my city?” asked Vyleria.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s amazing. I also feel...”
“Feel what?”
“Lighter. It's hard to explain. It's like I've lost weight or something.”
“I don't know. It feels normal to me. Perhaps Earth has a heavier gravity than here. Hey, would you like to get a better view?”
“You mean like from up there?” he asked, looking up into the swirling clouds.
“Yeah sure, it’s easy. I know a great place too.”
They entered one of the buildings and stepped into an elevator.
“Level 1000!” she said.
With that they whooshed up the side of the starscraper at an incredible speed. The ground disappeared quickly beneath their feet, the people on the streets shrinking to the size of ants i
n seconds.
They passed thousands upon thousands of flying cars and bikes until finally they passed through a dense layer of pink clouds.
There they came to a stop. It had only taken a few seconds. He hadn’t felt any acceleration at all.
Jack and Vyleria stepped out of the elevator and onto the roof of the huge building.
There were several other people about too, some of them with pale pink skin like Vyleria, but there were others that were a light tinge of purple, as well as some whose faces were tangerine-colored.
“Quick, come this way,” she said, leading him to the edge of the roof.
Jack looked down over a towering precipice. About a hundred feet below them the sprawling metropolis of New Varda poked through a layer of clouds.
He gulped hard. He could feel the wind buffeting them. The tower was swaying a little bit beneath his feet and it made a whistling sound as it whipped past them.
There was nothing to stop him from falling off the edge. There was no wire, no railing, no fence. Nothing.
Jack’s brain was in overdrive as he imagined tumbling off the tower, arms flailing and voice screaming, as he flapped and floundered in the airy nothingness.
“Don’t worry Jack, you won’t fall,” said Vyleria.
“Are you sure?
“Yeah look, I’ll show you.”
Then she jumped.
Jack was half way through screaming “No!” when suddenly she bounced back, landing on the building with a double somersault.
“What was that?” he asked.
“It’s a kind of electric field that stops people from jumping off. It doesn’t happen so much these days but hundreds of years ago it was more common. Why don’t you have a try?”
“What?” he asked, not sure if he heard her correctly. “You want me to jump off?”
“Don’t worry, Jack. You’ll be safe. Trust me!”
Jack was absolutely terrified. He’d never liked heights, and this was far, far higher than he’d ever been before.
He looked over the edge. The wind howled. The clouds swirled. The tower swayed. He made to leap, but stopped just as he got to the edge. He was shaking all over.
“Look, I’ll show you again,” said Vyleria as she pirouetted through the air, before landing back again with a flourish. “It’s easy, see.”
“If you say so.”
Jack stared into the bottomless gulf and gulped. It was too high. His knees felt like jelly. His stomach like a trampoline artist.
“Hey, it’s okay,” said Vyleria. “Don’t worry. You’re not used to it. I forget how advanced we are here sometimes.”
Jack tried to smile, but couldn’t. “I'm sorry, I can't” he said. “Not today. But I'll do it another time, I swear.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling. “I'll hold you to that.”
The three suns were now hanging low in the sky and setting on a fiery bed of crimson and purple. Three rocky-looking moons had appeared in the sky and it was getting darker every second.
“Your planet looks very beautiful,” said Jack.
“Yes, it's better than white and blue isn't it? I like the wide open spaces on Earth and your ancient cities, but it would look a lot better with pink clouds I think.”
Jack looked at the candy floss-like sky for a moment. Swirls of pink were turning purple as the suns sank deeper into their beds. He had to admit she had a point. The whole planet looked like a fairytale.
“Hey, that gives me an idea,” said Vyleria. “Follow me.”
“Follow you? Follow you where?”
“Just trust me, okay,” she said, grinning.
Jack and Vyleria went back down the elevator and left the building. They then caught a train which shot across the rooftops on an invisible track, providing yet more stunning views of the city, including several buildings that seemed to be moving from one part of the city to the other. Finally, they got off inside a giant green pyramid that was as big as a small city.
The pyramid thronged with people. After hustling and bustling for almost an hour and catching umpteen elevators and mini-subway systems they arrived at some kind of terminal. There they waited in a long line, the roof of the pyramid arching high above them.
It was only when they got to the front that Jack saw the huge clear tube rising up from the base of the pyramid, shooting straight out of the top. Within this he could see various mini-elevators going up and down, each one crammed with people.
After five more minutes it was their turn and they stepped into one of the elevators along with a group of other people.
“Where are we going?” asked Jack.
“It’s a secret, you’ll see.”
Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then it started to move: slowly at first, but then faster and faster.
They rose above the hive of the city, and pierced through the clouds like a bullet.
Up and up they went. Higher and higher. Quicker and quicker. The ground beneath them becoming smaller and smaller and less distinct. Cities merged with continents, and continents with seas, until eventually the whole planet was spread out below them like a huge electric pancake.
Above them was only darkness. Then the stars began to appear. Millions of them. And moons too. So many moons. And here was he thinking that there were only three!
Then they stopped.
Jack looked around. The planet was far, far beneath them, buried under a swirl of pink and a swathe of blinking lights.
Satellites.
Spaceships.
Space stations.
There were swarms and swarms of them.
“Okay Jack, it’s time to get off.”
“Get off? Get off where?”
“At the space station, silly.”
Jack looked upwards. Spread out above them like an eagle was the biggest space station he’d ever seen.
It was white and shaped like a huge claw. The space elevator was attached to its underside and was humming with activity. People were queuing up here too, ready to go back down to the surface.
After stepping off the landing platform, Jack and Vyleria made their way to the arrivals lounge. Here, they were handed their spacesuits from some attendants, though these were a lot bulkier than the ones on their spaceship, though still smaller and lighter than the ones Jack had seen the Apollo astronauts wear.
After waddling down a long corridor they arrived in a room with a clear glass window and beyond that there was nothing but outer space.
Then a voice came over the intercom.
“Counting down to Zero Gravity in…
FIVE!
FOUR!
THREE!
TWO!
ONE!
ZERO!
Jack began to feel his body rise.
He was about to float off the ground, only for his boots to stop him. Like the ones on their spaceship they seemed to be magnetic too.
“Congratulations! You are now in Zero-Gravity.” The voice repeated. “Space doors opening in…
FIVE!
FOUR!
THREE!
TWO!
ONE!
When the voice counted down to zero the screen in front of them began to rise. Everybody in the room clapped and made their way forward, stepping out into the great beyond.
There were even more stars than before. Billions. Trillions even.
He forgot about Vyleria for a while as he stood there transfixed, taking in the great expanse of light.
And that was when Jack saw it. All of a sudden a huge grey moon emerged from the shadow of the planet, its pitted skin a hive of activity. At least half of its surface was covered in buildings, with fleets of satellites and space stations in orbit too.
“How… how is this all possible?”
“Surely you must have colonised your moon by now, Jack?” asked Vyleria.
“No,” he said a little embarrassed. “We went there about forty years ago and then we… err… stopped.”
“STOPPED? Whateve
r for?”
Jack didn’t know the answer to that one, so he just shrugged.
“How many other moons and planets have you colonized?” He asked.
“All of them.”
“ALL OF THEM?”
“Yeah, of course. The technology’s there, so why not use it? Every discovery enhances our civilisation and besides, it's better than blowing things up,” she said. “Hey, I have an idea, would you like to look at some of the other planets we’ve been to?”
“Yeah, sure but how? They must be so far away.”
“Come, follow me.”
Vyleria dragged Jack to the edge of the space platform. Beneath them were only stars.
Here there were a series of space telescopes, each one as big as a small lorry.
Jack and Vyleria sat down in the first one they came to.
Vyleria immediately put her eye to the glass, pushed some buttons and flicked some switches.
“There you are,” she said. “Have a look at that.”
Jack peered through the telescope, not knowing what to expect.
For a moment the universe glared back at him; then he saw it.
The first thing that he noticed about the planet was its colour: it was bright purple, like a huge plum. Then there were the rings. There were so many of them, each one shimmering like a necklace of diamonds. They wrapped around the planet at its equator and extended far into the black depths of outer space.
He zoomed in for a closer look.
Like Vyleria’s planet this too was one big metropolis. The lack of oxygen seemed to have no impact on their civilisation, the domes built around the baking dunes making it habitable.
“Amazing eh?” said Vyleria.
“It sure is,” said Jack. “I wish we had all this stuff in our solar system. It sure would beat rainy camping holidays in the Lake District.”
“What’s the Lake District? Is it one big lake?”
“Not exactly. But there are lakes there. I’ll have to take you there sometime. If you can put up with all the rain that is. Hey Vyleria, do your people play sport?”
“DO WE? We have the best sport in the entire galaxy! Space-racing.”
“What’s space-racing?”
“Jack, I thought you’d never ask! Let me tell you all about it…”
Jack Strong and the Red Giant Page 10