by Adam Frost
He looked up, glancing through the glass roof, then looked back down again.
Then he pulled back his hood.
Both Danny and Mia gasped. He was one of the oldest men that they had ever seen. His face was nothing but folds of wrinkled skin, hanging loosely from his skull. His eyes were tiny and bloodshot. Dark brown splotches covered his cheeks and neck. Thick black veins stuck out from his temples.
He put the remote in his pocket with a claw-like hand and pulled out a gold necklace.
“Grebe’s amulet,” said the Space Twister. “Activated at last. Put it on for me, Danny. My hands are shaky and I can’t undo the clasp.”
“What do you m-mean?” stammered Danny.
“Come on, help me put it on,” said the Space Twister. “You’re probably the only person on Earth who understands. It’s the remote, isn’t it, Danny? It’s the remote’s fault. Now put the amulet round my neck. You never know, I might let your sister live.”
“You – you better let her live,” said Danny, feeling suddenly angry, “and my friend Eric too.”
“Ah, Eric,” said the Space Twister. “That, I’m afraid, will be impossible. Now the amulet.”
Danny hesitated, looking at his sister.
The Space Twister fired the gun, hitting the ground just in front of Mia.
“The amulet!” he squealed with a shrill, cracked voice.
“OK, OK,” said Danny.
“Now!” screamed the Space Twister, firing again, narrowly missing Mia’s leg. “Now! Now! Now!”
He fired repeatedly, the last bullet ripping a tear through Mia’s sleeve.
As the Space Twister prepared to fire again, Eric leapt out from behind the moon buggy and squirted Truth Spray into the Space Twister’s face.
“Tell us your darkest secret!” he shouted.
“What? What?” stammered the Space Twister. “What’s going on?” Then his face went slack and he spoke quickly and evenly, “When I was a boy, I once stole fifty pounds from my father’s wallet. You see, I wanted this model aeroplane and he said we couldn’t afford it. Well, I wasn’t about to take no for an answer so I took the money and headed to the toyshop as quickly as I could…”
A split second later, a pellet whipped through the glass roof and hit the Space Twister on the shoulder, sending him sprawling forward on to his face. The gun clattered on to the floor and spun away.
Eric, Mia and Danny hugged each other.
“Mia, Mia, are – are you OK?” gabbled Danny. “Did the bullets hit you?”
“Just my top,” said Mia, “but you can buy me a new one for my birthday.”
“We got him!” said Eric. “We totally got him. The plan worked.”
“It nearly didn’t!” cried Mia. “Because of you running off!”
The Space Twister was groaning and fiddling with something in his pocket.
“Is he still conscious?” asked Mia, frowning and looking over Danny’s shoulder.
“You’d better grab the remote and that amulet,” said Eric.
The world suddenly sprang back to life. The Space Twister had pressed Play on the remote. Within a few seconds, dozens of people were crowding round the Space Twister, saying: “Are you OK, sir? What happened, sir?”
“Oh no!” exclaimed Danny, trying to fight his way through the crowd.
He heard more voices. “Are you all right, sir? Can I help you with that, sir?”
Eric appeared next to Danny, trying to push a short man with a large beard to one side.
The man with the beard said, “He’s trying to tell us something. Let the old man speak.”
Then a column of light flared up from where the Space Twister was lying. It shot through the glass dome and up into the sky. Everyone staggered back. The light got brighter and brighter and then collapsed in on itself and vanished.
Everyone was crouching down and covering their eyes.
A young man stepped forwards wearing Grebe’s amulet round his neck. He was perhaps twenty years old. He had one brown eye and one blue eye. He had black slicked-back hair and white unblemished skin. There was no scar cutting his face in two.
At the same moment, Eric turned pale and his legs gave way. The E on his right hand was no longer written in blue ink, but in dark red blood.
Two metres away, another boy fainted. He also had a scarlet E on his right hand.
Behind the moon buggy, two more boys passed out. In front of the giant TV, beside the huge robot, next to the fairground rides, more boys fell like dominos. They dropped on to their knees, drained of life.
Mothers and fathers screamed in terror.
Another pellet flew through the glass roof and hurtled towards the Space Twister. He glanced up and danced nimbly out of the way.
“Eric? Eric?” Danny was murmuring. “What’s wrong? Eric?” He looked up and saw the Space Twister looking down at him. “What have you done to him?” he demanded. “What have you done?”
“Taken his youth,” said the Space Twister. “If only you hadn’t come today, he might still be alive.”
Another pellet tore through the glass roof, but once more the Space Twister stepped lightly aside.
“They should be more careful,” said the Space Twister. “That nearly hit your sister.”
Mia was crouching down beside Danny, looking up at the Space Twister like a cat about to pounce.
“Now I’m in a quandary,” said the Space Twister, leaning down to pick up his gun. “You see, if I kill you, the remote won’t work. Because it thinks I’m you. But then, I don’t really need the remote any more. Because time can’t hurt me now. So, given that you and your friends keep trying to spoil my fun, I think I’ll go for … a dead remote and a dead Danny.”
There was another tinkling sound overhead. The Space Twister looked up again, but this time the pellet was nowhere near him. Instead, it seemed to be flying towards Metal Gretel, the giant robot that was standing at the back of the glass dome.
The pellet hit a large red button on Metal Gretel’s chest.
“So destroy the robot,” hissed the Space Twister. “Like I care. Now, Danny…”
The red button turned green and Metal Gretel lifted up one of her giant legs, bringing it down with a heavy, hissing stamp.
There was even more screaming.
Metal Gretel swung her other leg forward, pulling down the wires and guy-ropes that were holding her in place.
The Space Twister looked around in fury and pulled a walkie-talkie out of a holster in his belt.
Metal Gretel took two more huge steps forward, making the ground shake as she stomped through glass cases and roped-off displays.
The Space Twister was shouting into the walkie-talkie. “Ronald! Barry! Get here now! Stop that robot! The children called Eric must not be harmed!”
Parents were trying to drag their unconscious children out of the way and towards the exit.
Metal Gretel flung her left arm out sideways and bashed a hole in the glass dome. Then she took another step forward and squashed a hover-scooter.
Danny and Mia had dragged Eric behind a giant satellite dish that shielded them from view.
Danny was switching on his Time Tablet.
“He’s still breathing,” said Mia, putting her hand on Eric’s chest.
“Right, take the crystal out of his mouth,” said Danny, “so he appears in the Time Tablet.”
Mia rooted around in Eric’s teeth and extracted the crystal. “Yuk,” she said.
Danny typed Eric Taylor into the Time Tablet and Eric’s file flashed up on the screen. Danny clicked into it and typed:
Eric opened his eyes and stood up.
But the sentence vanished and changed to:
Eric tried to wake up, but he couldn’t.
Danny typed:
Eric summoned up all his strength and opened his eyes.
The sentence changed to:
Eric was in a coma and couldn’t wake up, no matter how much he tried.
“Drat!” ex
claimed Danny. “It must be physically impossible.”
In front of the satellite dish, there was more smashing and screaming as Metal Gretel crunched her way through the Science Palace.
“It’s linked to the Space Twister,” said Mia. “When he put the amulet on, all the children called Eric collapsed. They all had an E on their hands.”
Danny started typing into the Time Tablet. “The Space Twister told me that he’d stolen Eric’s youth,” he said. “He must have done the same to every Eric in the building.”
“OK, so what are you doing?” asked Mia.
“The Space Twister must be in here somewhere,” said Danny. “He’s not wearing a crystal. I’m going to find him and delete him. Delete him forever.”
“Wait, wait,” said Mia. “If you delete him, you might delete Eric too. Say the Space Twister really has stolen Eric’s youth? Then they’re sort of one person. We have to work out exactly what the Space Twister has done before we delete him.”
Then time stopped and all was still. The Space Twister had pressed Pause on the remote.
“Get out here! Both of you! Now!” shouted the Space Twister, his voice echoing in the silent glass cavern.
“Look, I’ll distract him,” said Mia. “You find out what his powers are and how we can beat him.”
“OK, but—” started Danny.
“It’s the only way,” said Mia. “Look, did you see behind those fairground rides? There was a hall of mirrors. I should be able to keep him busy in there for a few minutes.”
She turned round and ran along the side of the dome. She found a solar panel with a mirrored surface, unlocked it and jumped in. Before she vanished, she shouted, “Oi, scarface. Over here.”
The Space Twister ran towards the sound.
Danny stared at his Time Tablet and tried to think. He looked down at Eric and tried to think. He thumped his head with his hand, hoping to jolt his brain into action.
Without realising it, he had whispered, “Jasper.”
Roxie had said that Jasper was staying behind in Hamburg to find out more about the amulet. Roxie had mentioned Jasper’s surname too – what was it? GIBBONS popped into Danny’s head.
Mia’s voice was now coming from the other side of the dome. “Come and get me!” she shouted.
Danny poked his head up from behind the satellite dish and tried to work out where Mia was. Behind Metal Gretel, he could see the edge of the hall of the mirrors. Mia’s head was sticking out of a convex mirror near the entrance. The Space Twister was running towards it, shouting: “Get out here and fight!”
Danny sat back down again and read the end of Jasper’s file:
Jasper opened the book and saw Grebe’s famous riddle on the first page. The first two lines Jasper already knew: “My face is gold, my case is gold/For gold keeps out the wind and cold.” But the last four were new to him:
“And if you take the prize from me
From Father Time, you will be free.
If ten score drops of blood you drain
From youths who share your Christian name.”
Jasper looked at the diagram of the amulet underneath the riddle. It had an opening at the top a few millimetres wide. The inside appeared to be hollow. The two circles of gold that formed the amulet were only half a centimetre thick. It looked like it was designed to contain something – something liquid. Reading the poem again, Jasper could only conclude that it was meant to contain blood.
But blood from where? Ten score drops – that was two hundred drops of blood. From young people that share your name? How could you possibly persuade children to give you their blood?
Jasper turned the page and saw another drawing in Grebe’s journal. It showed a human wearing the amulet, restored to his youthful self. Around him, there were sketches of sleeping children. There was a Latin phrase underneath the diagram that Jasper translated into English. “To wake the children, pour out the blood.”
Danny heard more glass breaking and Mia shouting: “Better luck next time!”
He thought back over the past hour. The Space Twister had taken the amulet but it wasn’t going to work unless he filled it with two hundred drops of blood from children with the same Christian name as him. Eric. The Space Twister’s first name must be Eric.
The Science Palace was just a way of luring children called Eric to one place. The hand stamp on the way in had taken a drop of blood from each child. When the Space Twister had taken enough blood, he’d filled the amulet with it. And when he’d put the amulet on, every Eric in the Science Palace had collapsed.
Danny needed to think faster than ever. “To wake the children, pour out the blood.” So first of all, he needed to get the amulet from around the Space Twister’s neck.
He took the crystal out of his teeth so that he would appear in the Time Tablet. Then he typed in his own name.
“Only one mirror left,” yelled the Space Twister from the other side of the dome. “It’s time to show yourself.”
Danny found his own file and chose Edit. After the last sentence, he typed: “The Space Twister walked across the Science Palace and handed Danny the amulet.”
The sentence changed to: “The Space Twister thought about handing Danny the amulet but decided to keep it.”
It’s no good, Danny thought, I need to find his file. I need to get inside his mind. Then a thought flashed into Danny’s head and he typed in “Science Palace, Kensington”.
He knew the Space Twister’s first name. Eric.
The Science Palace appeared and Danny clicked inside. There were about fifty people who were still in the glass dome: just over forty of them were Erics.
Danny scanned the small photos that sat on top of each folder.
“Mr Danger!” declared the Space Twister suddenly. “I’ve got your sister! Come out from your hiding place or I’ll blow her brains out.”
There was the Space Twister’s picture. There was his folder. Eric Davidson.
“You’re the one whose head is about to explode!” shouted Danny, stepping out from behind the satellite dish with the Time Tablet in his hand.
He looked around at the Science Palace. Metal Gretel was frozen mid-step. There were still dozens of people as stiff as statues, stopped dead on their way to the exit. Over by the hall of mirrors, there was broken glass everywhere.
“You and your sister are about to be ejected from time,” said the Space Twister, walking towards Danny. Mia was next to him, with a gun wedged in her side.
Danny clicked on the Space Twister’s folder and selected Cut. The Space Twister vanished.
Danny navigated to Brazil on the world map and pasted the Space Twister into the middle of the Amazon jungle. He clicked Cut again, then he found the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles and clicked Paste. He dropped the Space Twister in the Grand Canyon and the Paris sewage system and the middle of the M1 motorway and the top of the Greenland ice sheet and the Kruger National Park and finally, when he was covered with filth and sunburnt and frostbitten and half-eaten by lions, the Space Twister was duly pasted back into the Science Palace.
He was a crumpled heap on the floor. Danny walked across to him and pulled down the collar of his jacket. He grabbed the amulet and yanked it over the Space Twister’s head.
A column of red light shot out of the Space’s Twister’s back, lifted him half a metre off the ground and slowly faded, dropping him gently back down again.
Mia had appeared next to Danny. “I turned off Metal Gretel and tied up the thugs,” she said. “What have we got here?” She turned the Space Twister over with her foot.
He was an old man again. He looked frailer than ever, barely able to open his eyes or move his lips. He was clutching the remote in one of his gnarled, shrivelled hands.
Danny prized the remote out of the Space Twister’s fist.
He felt the amber crystal glowing in his hand and felt immediately calm.
“Let’s try and put things back to normal,” said Danny.
He pres
sed Play and the Science Palace was a blaze of noise and activity again.
“We need to wake up the Erics,” said Mia.
Danny nodded and put the remote in his front pocket.
“If I pour the blood out of the amulet, the Erics should go back to normal,” said Danny.
The Space Twister started to giggle. “The old gadgets are the best,” he said.
Mia and Danny looked down and saw that the Space Twister had a gun in his hand. He aimed at Mia’s chest and fired.
Danny thought, It’s point blank range. Mia’s dead. Mia’s been killed.
He thought, I’ve got no time to get the remote out of my pocket.
He thought, Grace Bingley’s nickname was the Bullet. She twisted space and slowed down time.
Danny focused on the noise of the gun firing. He slowed down the sound and felt it getting lower and longer and deeper. He concentrated harder until the gunshot was hardly a noise at all, just a dim, deep rumble. At the same time, he threw himself sideways, between the Space Twister and Mia.
He noticed that the Space Twister had frozen, a triumphant grin on his face.
The world was almost silent now. There was a faint buzzing noise in his ears, that was all.
At the same time, he felt a burning sensation in his chest. As he tumbled sideways, it became sharper, cutting across his face and ripping through his body. He could feel time pressing on him, desperate to move, determined to resist any efforts to twist or stop or alter it.
Danny could see almost nothing now. Mia and the Space Twister were just blurred outlines.
Then it was as if he was torn in half. He felt the two parts of his body hit the floor with a thump.
When he woke up, Mia, Eric, Uncle Charlie, Roxie and Jasper were all standing round him. He looked up at the glass roof of the Science Palace.
“Will he be scarred for life?” asked Mia.
“No,” said Uncle Charlie. “He pulled back in time. It’ll take a while for the cut to heal, though.”
“Does it go all the way down his body like the Space Twister’s?” asked Eric.
Uncle Charlie nodded and then noticed that Danny was awake. “Hey, nephew,” he said. He frowned. “Listen, you’ve got to promise never to try that again. Ever. It might not hurt a space twister like Grace Bingley. But for normal people like me and you … it kills.”