The Many Worlds of Albie Bright

by Christopher Edge

  Anyway, I don’t start running around Clackthorpe in the nude, but as I look at the empty cardboard box and the flickering laptop screen, I have my own brilliant idea.

  On his TV show, Dad once said that the greatest scientific discoveries are made when a scientist looks at something and thinks, “I wonder what will happen if I change this a bit.”

  That’s what an experiment is.

  So if Schrödinger’s cat could be sent into a parallel universe when it was put in a box with a lump of radioactive uranium, a Geiger counter, and a bottle of poison, what would happen if I climbed into the box instead? Obviously I don’t want to turn up in a parallel world as dead as a dodo, so I can ditch the bottle of poison. I’ve already got my mum’s digital USB Geiger counter, but looking around my room, I can’t see any lumps of radioactive uranium. I do, however, spot my packed lunch.

  One cheese-and-pickle sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a banana.

  Do you know that bananas are radioactive? Take a look at the fruit bowl in your kitchen. If there’s a banana in there, chances are it’s just given you a dose of radioactivity. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you’re going to turn bright green if you take a bite. You’d have to eat about five million bananas to turn into a mutant zombie. It’s radioactive because in addition to all the vitamins you find in normal fruit like apples and pears, bananas have a secret ingredient called potassium-40. This means that at any moment, there’s a 10 percent chance that a banana will give you a blast of gamma ray radiation when an atom inside it decays.

  I grab the banana from my bed and put it next to the laptop, digital USB Geiger counter, and cardboard box on the floor. If there’s a 10 percent chance of the banana going radioactive, then according to Dad’s book, this should split the universe in two. In one universe the banana will sit there harmlessly, while in the other it will spit out a radioactive gamma ray. If I hook up the Geiger counter to Mum’s quantum computer, then maybe it can find a shortcut to the parallel universe where this happens. I decide to call this the Quantum Banana Theory.

  Pulling the box on its side to make it easier to climb inside, I plug the Geiger counter into the laptop’s USB port. Then I put both of these and the banana inside the box.

  Peering inside, I can see the digital readout on the Geiger counter screen showing a big fat zero CPM. CPM stands for clicks per minute—the higher the level of radiation, the more clicks you get from the Geiger counter. So there’s no sign yet of the banana going into meltdown. It’s time to start the experiment.

  I’m just about to climb inside the box when a teeny-tiny worry stops me. I know from watching my dad’s TV show that loads of scientists have experimented on themselves, and it hasn’t always gone well. To test his theory that lightning and electricity were the same, a scientist called Benjamin Franklin flew his kite in the middle of a thunderstorm. He proved himself right when a huge bolt of lightning hit the kite and gave him a massive electric shock! Then there was the guy who strapped himself to a rocket-powered sled to find out what would happen when a human being traveled faster than the speed of sound, and he nearly popped his eyeballs out of his head.

  Experimenting on yourself can be a risky business. How can I be sure exactly what will happen to me when I close the lid of the box? I need to find a safe way to test the Quantum Banana Theory.

  This is when I have my second eureka moment. Maybe Schrödinger had the right idea after all. Before I climb into a cardboard box with a radioactive banana, I need to find a cat to try it out.

  The only pet I’ve ever had was a hamster called Hawking. Mum and Dad gave him to me for my tenth birthday to try to make up for the move back to Clackthorpe. Dad suggested his name, although I sometimes called him Hawkeye because I thought that sounded cooler.

  Unfortunately, next door’s cat—Dylan—must have thought his name was Hamburger, because when I set up a hamster run for Hawking in the back garden, Dylan jumped over the fence and ate him. I’d only turned my back for a second, but when I turned around, Dylan was in the middle of the run munching on my hamster. When she heard me shout, Mum rushed out to try to get Dylan to drop him, but by the time he did, it was too late for Hawking.

  It’s funny—I think I cried more when Hawking died than I did when Mum passed away. It’s not that I loved my hamster more than my mum. To be honest, he was a bit annoying sometimes when he was chugging around his squeaky wheel when I was trying to get to sleep. I think it was because when I saw him on the grass after Dylan had stalked off, I realized there wasn’t anything I could do to put things right. Not like now.

  Dylan belongs to Mrs. Carrington—the crazy old lady who lives next door. You never see a bird land in our back garden anymore out of fear that Dylan might be lurking somewhere in the bushes, waiting to pounce. And as for any sparrows too stupid to read the BEWARE OF THE CAT sign on Mrs. Carrington’s back gate, the only sign they leave behind is a ketchup smear on the grass while Dylan prowls around picking feathers out of his teeth.

  Dylan’s even got a feline behavior order from the council. It says he has to be kept indoors on Tuesday mornings when the trash collectors are on their rounds. This is because Dylan scalped one of them with his claws when he disturbed him taking a nap on top of a recycling bin. Mrs. Carrington came around to our house to complain about this and tried to get Mum and Dad to sign a petition to give Dylan back his freedom, but Dad was just about to take Mum to the hospital and told Mrs. Carrington he had more important things to worry about.

  When NASA decided to fly to the moon, they chose the toughest test pilots who would be able to survive the journey. If I was looking for a cat to test the Quantum Banana Theory, then Dylan was the number one candidate. The only problem: how would I get Dylan inside the box?

  On top of the pile of books next to my bed is one of my favorite books ever: Snake Mason’s Guide to Wild Survival. It’s the tie-in book to my favorite TV show—Wild Survival. Snake Mason is an adventurer who travels the world showing celebrities how to survive in the wild. He’s taught pop singers how to wrestle crocodiles, caught poisonous snakes with Premier League footballers, and rescued reality TV stars from man-eating tigers. If I want to catch Dylan and live to tell the tale, then I need to follow the advice in Snake’s book.

  Flipping through the pages, I find a plan to catch a Bengal tiger by digging a trapping pit. This is a deep pit in the ground covered with branches and leaves as camouflage. When the Bengal tiger takes a stroll through the jungle, it steps onto the camouflaged branches and falls right into the trap. In the book, Snake says this is one of the best ways to catch a dangerous big cat.

  Now I could dig a pit in the back garden, cover it with branches and leaves, and just wait for Dylan to take his usual prowl across the lawn to pee in the flower beds and fall right into my trap. But I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this without Granddad Joe spotting me, and besides, Dad would go nuts if I dug up the lawn.

  So it’s the second part of Snake’s plan that catches my attention.

  To help you capture this dangerous tiger, you need to lay a trail. Wild boar, goats, and deer can be used as bait to tempt the tiger into your trap.

  I don’t think they make wild boar–flavored kibble, and the only goats and deer near here are at Stormbridge Wildlife Park. But maybe I can find something in the kitchen that will help me tempt Dylan inside the box.

  Heading downstairs, I hear Granddad Joe snoring. I look inside the living room and see him fast asleep in his armchair, mouth open wide, while on the TV Doc Brown shows Marty McFly his DeLorean time machine. No need now to explain to Granddad Joe why I’m looking for cat food, not popcorn.

  I know from the pets project we did in school that there’s a ton of food cats can’t eat. Chocolate, cheese, chewing gum—they’re all the ones I know, because Miss Benjamin gave me the letter C to research. I can’t remember the other ones, but as I look through the kitchen cupboards in search of cat treats, I don’t want to risk picking something that’s going to
poison Dylan. Not before he’s had a chance to test out the Quantum Banana Theory.

  I find what I’m looking for at the back of the cereal cupboard. A packet of LolCat Treatz with Chicken. Mum bought these when Mrs. Carrington asked us to look after Dylan while she was going to visit her sister up in Hull. But then the Hawking incident happened, and Mum told Mrs. Carrington that she didn’t think we could look after Dylan after all, given the circumstances. Mrs. Carrington told Mum that I shouldn’t have let my hamster run wild in the back garden and that Dylan probably thought he was a rat. They didn’t talk much after that.

  On the side of the packet it says Every cat’s a LolCat when it eats these tasty treats. Shake the packet and watch your cat come running! I only hope they’re tasty enough to tempt Dylan to follow my trail.

  Back up in my bedroom, I check that everything is in the right place. I move the cardboard box so it’s facing the door—still on its side so that Dylan can easily climb in. At the back of the box, my mum’s laptop is still hooked up to the Geiger counter, the banana propped in front of it. Everything is ready—except me.

  Now, obviously I’m not going to try to catch Dylan the psycho cat without some kind of protection. When Snake Mason captured the man-eating tigers of the Sundarbans, he wore a camouflage Kevlar bodysuit and a helmet with a face painted on the back because tigers usually attack you from behind. I have to make do with a pair of gardening gloves, my old BMX body armor that is now two sizes too small, and a scary clown Halloween mask worn back to front. I look ridiculous, but if it keeps me safe from Dylan’s claws, I don’t care.

  With the packet of LolCat Treatz in my gloved hand, I step out into the back garden. I’m ready to start laying my trail.

  Little bubbles of excitement are fizzing inside my stomach, and I can’t stop a tiny burp from slipping out. If this works, then I’m one step closer to finding my mum.

  I decide to put the first treat at the bottom of the garden path. This is right next to the shed, or what my dad likes to call his workshop, although he never goes in there now, as he spends all his time working down in the Deep Mine Lab. This is one of the places where Dylan likes to hide in the flower beds—jumping out to ambush any birds that make the mistake of landing in our garden.

  This time, though, there’s no sign of Dylan lurking in the undergrowth and the only sound I can hear is a bee buzzing over the rosebushes. Now, Snake Mason says that the most dangerous sound you’ll ever hear in the jungle is silence. This is a sign that a big predator is on the prowl and all the other animals have fled real quick. So when even the bee stops buzzing, some sixth sense for danger makes me turn around to see Dylan crouching in front of the shed, ready to pounce.

  As I slowly back away, Dylan eyes the first of the LolCat Treatz that I’ve dropped on the path. To me these look more like something a cat leaves behind than something it’d want to eat, but Dylan must think differently, as he arches his back and pounces on the treat. One second it’s there, and the next it’s gone.

  Licking his lips, Dylan turns his attention back to me. He seems to have a fresh swagger in his prowl as he steps toward me. Beneath my BMX body armor, I can feel my heart thudding in my chest.

  “Nice kitty,” I say, slowly backing away. I shake another treat into the palm of my gardening glove. A single one weighs three grams, and this packet of LolCat Treatz says it contains sixty grams of treats. This means I’ve got nineteen left. I’ve measured the distance from the cardboard box in my bedroom to Dad’s shed, and it’s thirty meters. This means I can give Dylan one LolCat treat every one and a half meters.

  Down the garden path, through the kitchen, and up the stairs past the sound of Granddad Joe’s snores, I carefully shake out the tasty chicken treats, Dylan gobbling up each one with a snap of his jaws. The packet in my hand is getting lighter with every step I take, and as Dylan slinks up the final step to my bedroom, I only hope I’ve got enough left to get him into the box.

  Inside the cardboard box I can see the glow of the laptop screen and the blur of flashing zeroes and ones lighting up the Geiger counter. No sound of any clicking yet to tell me the banana is going radioactive. I tip the last of the LolCat Treatz into my hand. There are only two left.

  Dylan stops dead in his tracks, his hackles rising as the door swings shut behind his tail.

  I’m now trapped in my bedroom with a psychopathic cat.

  Opening my trembling hand, I show Dylan the last of the LolCat Treatz, then throw them into the open cardboard box with a flick of my wrist.

  Dylan doesn’t need to be asked twice. With a flash of fur he springs forward into the box. Quickly I push the cardboard flaps shut behind him, pressing my weight against the lid as I prepare myself for the inevitable feline explosion when Dylan discovers he’s trapped.

  From inside the box I hear the faint clicking of the Geiger counter, followed by a puzzled meow. Then this meow is suddenly cut off into silence like a cat being pushed out of a spaceship airlock.

  I wait for a moment, trying to work out if Dylan has just got a frog (or a hamster) in his throat. Maybe he’s playing dead to try to fool me into opening the box. But as the seconds tick on, I can’t hear a single sound from inside. Not even the faint click of the Geiger counter.

  Tensing myself, I slowly open the cardboard flaps, ready for Dylan to spring out, claws first. But when I look inside the box, all I can see is the laptop, the banana, and the Geiger counter. There is no cat. Dylan has disappeared.

  My brain tries to work out exactly what this means. When Schrödinger put his cat in a box with a lump of radioactive uranium and a bottle of poison, he knew that it was going to end up either dead or alive—or maybe even both at the same time. But unless Dylan’s been vaporized by a radioactive banana, there’s only one explanation for what’s happened here. The Quantum Banana Theory works, and Dylan is now in a parallel universe.

  I stare into the box, the zeroes and ones still scrolling across the laptop screen. My head’s buzzing with excitement. This isn’t a box anymore—this is a door to another dimension. And on the other side of that door, my mum could be waiting for me.

  There’s no time to waste. It’s time to try the experiment again—this time with me as the subject. Climbing into the box, I pull my knees up to my chest to fit inside. It’s a tight squeeze, but I just about manage it. I reach forward and pull the flaps of the box closed behind me. All I’ve got to do now is wait for the banana to spit out a radioactive gamma ray, and then the universe will split into two.

  My stomach makes a groaning noise like the TARDIS taking off. It must be nerves, or maybe I shouldn’t have skipped lunch. In the light from the laptop screen, I can see the banana resting against the Geiger counter, and although my stomach’s still rumbling, I don’t think it would be a good idea to eat part of the experiment.

  I feel like an astronaut sitting in a rocket as the countdown reaches zero. Adrenaline is racing around inside me, and it’s all I can do to keep myself sitting still.

  Downstairs, Granddad Joe is probably still asleep in front of Back to the Future, while Dad is in his underground lab pretending that everything’s OK by trying to solve the mysteries of the universe. Me? I’m actually doing it. I’m going to find Mum again.

  That’s when I hear the clicking noise—the telltale sound of the Geiger counter that means a radioactive particle in the banana has just decayed. I tense up waiting for the universe to split into two. I’ve watched loads of science fiction films, so I’m expecting the box to start shaking itself to bits with flashing lights and some seriously impressive special effects, but all I get is a beep from my mum’s laptop and then the clicking stops.

  Is that it?

  Nervously I push open the lid of the box and peer outside. I can see my telescope still pointing up out the skylight, and piles of books, comics, and cardboard boxes cluttering up the floor. With a sinking feeling, I climb out of the box.

  Nothing has changed. There’s my desk and swivel chair, the map of the s
olar system still stuck up above my bed. It hasn’t worked.

  I can feel my eyes starting to leak. Dad was wrong. Quantum physics is a load of rubbish. Parallel universes don’t exist. You only get one world. You only get one mum. And I’m never going to get to see mine again.

  I rub my eyes angrily, and that’s when I notice something’s not quite right.

  On the poster of the solar system above my bed, there should be eight planets lined up from left to right: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. But this poster seems to show nine instead.

  I shake my head, thinking I must have rubbed my eyes too hard, but when I look again, there’s still a brand-new planet between Mars and Jupiter.

  I stare at the poster in disbelief, trying to make sense of it. Instead of the asteroid belt, there’s a bright-purple planet hanging in space where no planet should be. The caption on the poster gives me its name. Ceres.

  When I realize what this means, I can’t stop myself from smiling. Dad’s book said that in a parallel universe there might just be one tiny change. Well, I reckon a brand-new planet in the solar system must count as a pretty big one. The Quantum Banana Theory really works. I must be in a parallel universe.

  “What the—”

  The sound of my own voice makes me spin around. Standing in front of me I see—well, me. The same face, the same hair, the same school uniform. It’s like looking into a mirror, except this Albie isn’t wearing BMX body armor, gardening gloves, and a scary clown Halloween mask worn back to front.

  I open my mouth to start to explain exactly who I am, how I’ve traveled from a parallel universe, and how everything’s going to be OK now.