Chapter 4. In the Dark
The next day, Saturday, was fine and sunny. Andy rode round to Ryan’s place, where Ryan had narrowly avoiding mowing the lawns by claiming he had to do a research project.
‘Well, it’s true,’ he told himself. ‘We will be doing research on how to make the pen work.’
He had tried writing that he was a millionaire again the previous night but it
hadn’t worked so he had given it up in frustration and used his electronic set to construct an alarm instead. This had gone off three times during the night so Ryan was feeling a little tired.
‘I’ll see what brilliant ideas Andy can come up with,’ Ryan sighed.
Andy was full of ideas.
‘We could have a racing car each. That would be neat.’
‘We’re too young to have licenses,’ Ryan pointed out. ‘Where would we drive them? Our parents wouldn’t let us.’
‘You’re right,’ said Andy gloomily. ‘They’d probably take them off us until we were older. Hey, you could make us grow up overnight,’ he suggested excitedly. ‘Then we could do all sorts of neat stuff.’
‘I don’t know.’ Ryan was doubtful. ‘We’re going to grow up anyway, one day. We want something we can do now. What about wings?’
‘Nah,’ said Andy in disgust. ‘Too much like fairies or angels. That’s the sort of thing my sister would do. I’d rather fly in a plane. Anyway, we don’t know how the pen works yet.’
‘It’s worked twice now,’ said Ryan defensively.
Andy wasn’t convinced.
‘Write something now,’ he urged. ‘To test it.’
Ryan sighed. He took the pen and wrote;
Ryan and Andy tried to think of a good idea. They wanted the pen to make something amazing happen. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Andy said
Ryan looked expectantly at Andy who stared blankly back.
‘I haven’t,’ he said baldly.
‘Haven’t what?’
‘Got an idea.’
‘You must have,’ said Ryan in exasperation.
‘Well, all right, let’s turn invisible,’ suggested Andy. ‘Then we could go round and do things to people and they wouldn’t we know it was us. We could go to R18 movies and get into fairs and things and go for rides and not even have to pay for them,’ he finished in excitement.
‘Actually invisible is quite a good idea,’ admitted Ryan. ‘I’ll give it a try. He took Andy’s notepad and wrote,
Ryan and Andy looked at their legs. They couldn’t see their feet. Slowly the effect grew and their bodies became invisible.
The boys stared at their feet.
‘Nothing’s happening,’ said Andy at last. ‘Why isn’t it working?’
‘I don’t know.’ Ryan threw the pen down in frustration. ‘It worked on the snakes and the music notes.’
‘Let me try,’ said Andy. Picking up the pen he wrote hurriedly;
Ryan looked at Andy. He couldn’t see him because Andy was invisible
‘It’s working,’ cried Ryan. As he looked, Andy slowly faded from sight. The pen appeared to be floating in midair.
‘Quick – turn me invisible too,’ he cried.
The pen swooped down to the paper and continued writing;
Ryan turned invisible as well
‘Yahoo! It’s working!’ Ryan yelled with excitement as he saw his hands fade in front of him. He turned to race over to the bedroom mirror. Andy obviously had the same idea and there was a crash as they collided and fell over a chair.
‘I can’t see you, how do I know where you are?’ complained Andy.
‘How about if we each tie a string or something around our wrists – that way we could see each other,’ Ryan said brightly.
‘Yeah, but then everyone else would see it as well and it would look pretty weird having two bits of string floating along.’
Ryan thought for a minute.
‘I know, we’ll carry something in our hands. I can still see the pen; well at least I could until you dropped it on the floor. So if we each hold something small in our hand we can open our fingers when we want to show each other where we are.
‘Good idea,’ Andy said admiringly. Ryan rummaged through his desk drawer. ‘Here, take this.’ He picked up a bottle top for himself and thrust a plastic wheel that had broken off a toy car, at Andy. ‘Now let’s got and have some fun.’
A keen eyed observer would have seen the strange sight of a bottle top and a plastic wheel bobbing along at waist height, accompanied by odd sounds.
‘Ouch! You bumped into me again.’
‘Well don’t walk so fast.’
‘I’m not going fast, it’s you that’s going slow.’
‘Let’s walk side by side then.’
‘We can’t. There isn’t enough room. We’ll bump into other people.’
‘That might be fun.’
‘Yeah right, you try it then. That woman pushed her pram right over my foot. It’s still sore.’
The bottle top limped along.
‘Let’s go to the movies,’ said Andy.
‘We will have to be careful not to bump into anyone.’
‘It shouldn’t matter too much. The theatre is always crowded so they’ll think it’s someone else.’
The boys arrived at the movie theatre and Andy confidently waked past the queue and the ticket box and paused by the door of the theatre.
‘Are you there, Ryan?’ he hissed.
‘Yes,’ whispered Ryan. ‘I’d really like some popcorn,’ he said wistfully.
‘We can’t,’ replied Andy regretfully. ‘People would notice a pot of popcorn moving in the air by itself. Here goes.’
They slipped inside the door as the usher opened it.
‘Where shall we sit?’
‘Right at the front,’ said Andy firmly. ‘My mother never lets us sit there. She always says it’s bad for the eyes and gives her a crick in the neck but I reckon it will be the best place.’
Ryan agreed. Nervously he followed Andy and they settled themselves in the middle of the front row. A few minutes later the audience started coming in. Most people sat in the middle or towards the back but the seats around them slowly began to fill. The advertisements started and Andy tapped his wheel on the armrest in time to the music. Ryan looked anxiously around but no one appeared to notice. Fortunately the theatre was dimly lit and Ryan sighed with relief as the lights finally went out and the movie credits appeared. He felt guilty that they were there without paying and wondered how long the invisibility effect would last.
The movie began with the blowing up of a ship. There were shrieks and groans from the passengers as they ran in search of lifeboats. The sound was tremendous from where the boys were sitting, and Ryan thought that the people at the back near the speakers must be deafened.
‘Your mother should have said that movies ruin the ears as well,’ Ryan muttered, but Andy was blissfully oblivious to anything. The pandemonium on screen continued as Ryan caught the glimpse of a torch held by an approaching usher. He shrank into his seat then gasped in dismay as he saw the usher indicate his seat to a large girl carrying a can of drink in one hand and a large tub of popcorn in the other. He froze in fright as the girl sat down heavily in his lap.
‘Ooh,’ shrieked the girl. She jumped to her feet spilling her drink over Andy who spluttered in annoyance. ‘Get your feet off my seat,’ she hissed to the boy in the row behind.
‘I haven’t got my feet anywhere near your seat,’ he retorted.
Ryan took advantage of the confusion to slink out of the seat to the floor. He crawled in front of Andy as the large girl plumped down on the now empty seat and began munching her popcorn.
‘Andy,’ Ryan whispered. There was no reply.
Ryan reached out and grabbed at where Andy’s legs should have been and connected with an ankle. He gave it a tug.
‘Get off,’ snarled a man in the next seat and kicked him.
Ryan crawled away in a panic. He had
no idea where Andy had gone and he was not enjoying himself. All he could see from the floor were a large number of legs topped by faces raptly watching the screen. He crawled along the floor and spotted a plastic wheel.
‘Andy,’ he cried in relief. He patted the air around the wheel but there was no body within reach. Miserably Ryan slumped to the floor and tried to concentrate on the movie. He found it confusing. People with peculiar accents appeared to be discussing war strategies and a particularly annoying girl, wearing very little, draped herself over all of them in turn.
‘I’d rather watch a cartoon,’ Ryan thought. ‘This is boring.’
At the end of the movie, Ryan was caught up with the crowd as it stampeded out to purchase more refreshments before streaming out of the entrance doors. Ryan clutched his bottle top in one hand and Andy's plastic wheel in the other. From time to time he opened his fingers briefly and waved them around but Andy did not appear.
An increase in noise announced a fight in progress. Two ushers came over to break it up.
‘What’s going on here?’ asked one of the ushers.
‘He pinched half my popcorn!’ The young red haired man was indignant.
‘I did not,’ a weedy lad in a black jacket protested.
‘You did so. It was full and I didn’t eaten any of it.’
‘It wasn’t me.’
‘You were standing next to me,’ the red haired man scowled.
‘Andy!’ thought Ryan, and pushed and shoved his way through the crowd. Ryan stood by the door and watched as people began to go to their seats for the next movie. There. He saw a piece of popcorn briefly move in the air then disappear. Marching over Ryan felt around and located Andy.
A Present From Aunt Agatha Page 4