The Clockwork Mechanical (Mechanicals Book 1)

by Peter R Stone

  “Not if I can help it. Orb! Orb, we did what you asked, now get us out of here!” I shout at the top of my lungs as I hold her hand.

  “I’m scared, Brad,” Megan shouts. We have to shout because it’s so loud in here. I notice the clockwork butterflies have landed on Megan's jumper. Their wings are still fluttering, but they're not trying to fly away: they're just trying to hold on to her.

  “There’s something I want to tell you,” I shout.

  “What?”

  “If we survive this and ever get back to school, next time I’m team captain in sports class, you’ll be the first one I pick for my team.”

  “You mean it?” she asks with tears in her eyes.

  “I promise,” I assure her.

  Spidey, who is pinned to the floor between us, suddenly starts tapping his legs up and down. I look at him, and then see what has got him so excited.

  A large round hole filled with crackling blue energy has appeared right beside us.

  “What on earth is that?” Megan shouts.

  “It’s our way out of here: it has to be,” I shout back.

  Little Spidey is trying to reach the hole, but the G-forces are so strong that he’s having trouble moving. He stops suddenly and begins winding up his winder.

  I push myself to my hands and knees. Then I reach forward, scoop Spidey off the floor, and tuck him under one arm. I offer the other hand to Megan. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Megan takes my hand and we crawl towards the glowing blue hole. It's some kind of portal, it has to be. The clockwork butterflies start flapping their wings furiously. I think they’re trying to help Megan move faster.

  The blue hole isn't far away, but it feels like we'll never get there. The heat in the module has become unbearable and the module is bucking like a wild horse.

  And then, just when I think we aren’t going to make it, Megan and I touch the glowing blue hole with our joined hands, and with a WHUMP we are sucked into it.

  We pass through a weird, thick gloop that is like a mix between yoghurt and air, and then we are dumped onto a hard metal floor.

  We are in a massive room filled with enormous pipes that reach from the floor to the ceiling high above. The ground is vibrating slightly and I can hear a distant rumbling.

  I stand and help Megan to her feet. Spidey’s little legs are going like crazy, so I pop him on the ground and he buzzes off to explore our new surroundings. The clockwork butterflies spring off Megan and start flitting about happily.

  “Are we back on the space station?” Megan asks fearfully.

  I cock my head to one side and listen. I realise that as well as the deep rumbling, I can hear the slap of waves on metal.

  "No, we're at sea, on a boat maybe?" I suggest.

  "You are on an offshore drilling platform, to be precise," says a familiar voice.

  We spin around and find the orb hovering beside us.

  "A what?" Megan asks

  "You know, an oil rig. Where they drill for oil," I explain. I turn to the orb. "You almost got us killed on that space station."

  "And yet you survived. You also defeated the Mechanical and turned off the force field. Thanks to the two of you, the space station broke apart during re-entry and most of it burnt up. Congratulations, you saved millions and millions of lives."

  "Why are we here, then?" I demand angrily.

  "You are here because I have another mission for you."

  Oh no...

  The Ring of Fire (Mechanicals Book 2) now available Bradley Millner and his friends have completed the mission the Orb gave them, but instead of taking them home, it dumped them onto an oil rig that’s drilled a well deep into the belly of the Earth. Worse, there’s an evil Mechanical onboard that’s planning to drop a powerful bomb down the well. A bomb that will cause over four hundred volcanoes in the Ring of Fire to erupt.

  High Altitude Airship (Mechanicals Book 3) now available The Orb has taken Brad and his friends to a high altitude airship, which is over Antarctica. A Mechanical onboard is using it to enlarge the hole in the ozone layer. They have to stop it, for without the ozone layer, humanity, the animals, and most of the earth’s plant life, will die.

  Clockwork Mechanicals - the Complete Trilogy now available. Clockwork Mechanicals - the Complete Trilogy - a middle grades book for one low price. 33,902 words and 287 pages.

  Includes:

  The Clockwork Mechanical.

  The Ring of Fire.

  High Altitude Airship.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you, Lord Jesus, for being my very best friend.

  I would also like to thank the three lovely ladies who beta read the book, Rachel Barret, Tamara Bass, and Karen Siddall.

  And of course, a special thanks to Mi-ke, the cutest and craziest kitten in the world. She plays fetch like a dog and was the inspiration for Spidey.