Daisy gripped the red stone tightly in her hand and concentrated on returning to where they had left from. Once again things began to whirr about and she had the odd sensation of falling in every direction at once. Things spun and twisted for an uncertain amount of time, until, until …
… she landed. She opened her eyes. They were at the top of the hill, at exactly the spot they had left from. It seemed to be late afternoon. Immediately Daisy noticed that the earth was shaking much more violently than it had been. There were fallen trees everywhere and even when standing still it was an effort to stay upright. Daisy put Ben down.
‘Let’s get that stone back,’ she said.
‘That means going underground again, doesn’t it?’
Daisy nodded.
‘Oh, boy,’ sighed Ben.
They ran as quickly as they could (well, as quickly as Daisy could; Ben could have gone a lot faster) down the hill towards the cave’s entrance. When they were halfway down, the earth suddenly gave a tremendous lurch. Daisy was thrown to the ground and then felt herself falling. But she wasn’t falling down the hill. She was falling with the hill. The entire hill was collapsing!
As she fell Daisy felt her stomach try to escape out of her mouth and then with a tremendous whack everything stopped. She landed hard, and had the wind completely knocked out of her. She tried to suck in some air and then looked around. The hill was no longer a hill. It had been flattened, and was now at the same level as the surrounding countryside. She looked around anxiously for Ben. He was next to her, wide-eyed.
‘The cave where the stone was,’ he panted. ‘The hill’s fallen in on it. All the passages would’ve collapsed.’
Daisy realised he was right. ‘We’re too late,’ she said despairingly.
She sat back, feeling defeated. She knew what would happen next. Without the red stone controlling the fault in the earth, the planet was going to crack and collapse and die, and she and Ben and her parents and everyone else were going to die with it. Of course, she and Ben might be able to use the red stone to escape to some other planet, or back to the spaceship. But what was the point? She’d just have to live with the knowledge that the world had ended, and that it was her fault.
‘Come on, Daisy, get up. We’ve got to put that stone back in place.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Daisy flatly. ‘How can we? The cave’s collapsed. We did our best, Ben, but we’ve failed.’
Ben growled. ‘Not yet.’
‘Yes, yet. And it’s all because of me.’
Ben growled again, baring his teeth and standing up very straight. ‘Give me the stone, Daisy.’
‘What’s the point, B–’
Ben cut her off with a ferocious bark. ‘Give it to me now, or I’ll come and get it.’ He took a step towards her.
‘Ben! This isn’t you!’
‘And this isn’t you, Daisy! You’ve given up! If you think it’s your fault, then do something about it! You can’t let your parents die, and all your friends, and everyone else!’
Daisy was tired. So tired. She just wanted to lie down and sleep. Actually, what she really wanted was a bath, and some fish and chips and a caramel milkshake and some chocolate ice-cream with extra chocolate and most of all, her mum tucking her into bed (although when her mum did tuck her into bed, Daisy always complained that it was much too early and she should be allowed to stay up a bit longer).
She sighed. ‘I’m too tired.’
‘Then give yourself some more energy.’
‘Whaddayamean?’
‘See if you can use the red stone to give you some extra energy.’
Daisy stared at the stone. Would it work? It was worth a try. She concentrated hard on thoughts of energy flowing into her from the red stone and, sure enough, soon a new warmth and liveliness began to seep into her bones and her muscles and her blood and her liver and her brain and all the other bits of her, except her fingernails and toenails and hair because those bits don’t really need energy.
She tried again. ‘Make me happy.’ She waited. She still felt miserable. Even the stone couldn’t change that.
‘Ah-hmm,’ said Ben, raising his eyebrows.
‘Oh, sorry. Here.’ She put the stone at Ben’s feet and he placed a paw on it. ‘Fill me up with energy,’ he said. ‘Stop me being hungry. Get rid of all my fleas.’
Daisy watched him. After a few moments his face dissolved into a slow, satisfied smile. ‘Ahhh,’ he sighed. He wiggled in delight for a few moments and then said, ‘Okay, let’s get going.’
‘Where?’
‘I know the hill’s collapsed, which means that technically we shouldn’t even be calling it a hill anymore, but let’s try to find the passage where you exited the cave. Maybe there’s still a way in there. If there’s not, we can try the other entrances.’
Daisy nodded. She thought it was hopeless, but they had to at least try. They made their way cautiously along what used to be the hill until they found the bushes that hid the cave entrance Daisy had emerged from. The earth was torn up and mangled, and there was no sign of any way in. They continued on and soon came around a bend and saw the main entrance. Or at least what used to be the main entrance. Now it was a load of collapsed rubble.
‘There’s no way in there either,’ said Daisy.
‘Look!’ said Ben, pointing with his forepaw. Above and to the right of the entrance, exactly where they had left them, lay Sinclair and Dennis. Daisy didn’t want to go too close to them because she knew that without their heartstones, they would now be dead. But she still started walking as fast as she could towards them, because lying next to them was her mother, and sitting next to her, with his head on his knees, was her father.
Chapter 22
UNEXPECTED HELP
‘Dad!’
‘Daisy!’
A violent shudder rocked the earth. Daisy half fell, half sat down next to her father.
‘Mum won’t wake up,’ said Brian Malone shakily. ‘At least, she does sometimes, but when she does it’s like she’s not really there.’
Daisy had an idea. Sinclair has said that Gamion’s hypnotism could be undone by either a blue or a red stone. She might not be able to save the world, but at least she could try to un-hypnotise her mum and the others. She pulled out the red stone.
‘I think I can help her,’ she said. ‘I need to focus.’
She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on her mum. She felt her father’s presence next to her, and then Ben’s and – there it was! – Jackie Malone’s. But it was like there was a barrier encircling Jackie Malone. Daisy could feel the wholeness of her father and Ben, but her mother was muted, caged, trapped. Daisy tried to sense the nature of the barrier around her mum, and she realised that it was connected to other barriers around other people nearby. If she could break it, surely they would all be released. She concentrated hard on the barrier and its connection to the other barriers, and imagined breaking it apart. She felt the power of the red stone flow through her. She trembled, but stayed focused … and then the barrier was gone. She was sure of it!
She opened her eyes and gazed down at her mother. Jackie Malone was groaning. Her eyes fluttered open and she managed to squeak out, ‘Where am … what … huh?’ before they shut again.
Daisy squeezed her father’s hand. ‘She’s going to be all right, Dad.’ Then she remembered an important detail. ‘At least, that is, until the world ends.’
Brian Malone looked bewildered. Far too many confusing things had happened to him in much too short a time and he desperately needed some sort of explanation. So Daisy quickly outlined most of what had happened, leaving out that Ben could talk and the bits about Fiona, which she thought might be unnecessarily alarming. As she spoke Brian Malone’s hand went to his mouth and every few sentences he muttered, ‘Oh my goodness.’
When she’d finished Daisy
said, ‘So the good news is that I’m pretty sure Mum will recover soon. The bad news is that the whole planet is going to be destroyed and we’re all going to die.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Brian Malone.
‘The only way of stopping it happening is if we can get that red stone back in place.’
‘Right. Then we should –’ began Brian Malone.
‘But all the entrances have collapsed, and probably all the caves have too, so we can’t. I’m sorry, Dad.’
Her father shook his head. ‘No, I’m sorry for having been so scared. If only I’d listened when you called me from the train station, we could have driven up together and got here a bit earlier, and that might have made a difference.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Daisy. She was pretty sure that was true, but even if it wasn’t she didn’t want to saddle her dad with the guilt of feeling that it was his fault that the world was ending. She knew that feeling, and it wasn’t nice. ‘It’s my fault. If I hadn’t unlocked the stone, Gamion couldn’t have taken it.’
Brian Malone put his arm around her. ‘We all do things we regret. Unfortunately, though, we can’t turn back time. We just have to –’
Daisy stared at him. ‘Wait! What did you say?’
‘I said we just have to –’
‘No, no, no! You said “we can’t turn back time”.’
‘Yes, but –’
‘But what if we could? Ben, let me pick you up.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Brian Malone.
‘Not where. When!’
Brian Malone looked even more confused than he had before (and he had already been looking pretty confused). ‘Wha … huh?’
‘Dad, we can’t put the stone back in place because the hill has collapsed. But what if we could travel back in time an hour or so to a time before the hill collapsed? Then we could put the stone back.’
‘But time travel is impossible.’
Daisy held up the stone. ‘With this stone Gamion hypnotised a whole town. With this stone Ben and I travelled back from somewhere on the other side of the universe. For the last few hundred years this same stone has been powerful enough to control a fault in the earth. How do we know it’s not powerful enough to take me an hour or two back in time?’
‘You might be right,’ said Ben thoughtfully. ‘It’s worth a try, anyway.’
‘Wait!’ said Brian Malone, swallowing hard. ‘Did Ben just … talk?!’
‘Whoops,’ said Ben, looking sheepish. (Actually, he looked more doggish than sheepish. But not dogged.)
‘Okay, Dad,’ said Daisy. ‘You know how you like to talk about big issues and small issues? I agree that usually a talking dog would be a big issue. But today it’s a small issue. The big issue is that the world is about to end. Yes, Ben can talk and he’s very clever. Now let’s focus on saving the planet. Yes?’
Brian Malone stared wide-eyed at Ben and slowly nodded.
‘Dad, Ben and I are going to try to travel back in time and replace the stone. You stay with Mum and –’
‘No,’ interrupted Brian Malone.
‘Dad, it’s our only chance –’
‘I know. I’m coming with you.’
‘But Dad –’
‘Let’s not waste time, Daisy. I might be able to help. And if I get too scared you can just leave me behind.’
Daisy hesitated and then gave him a big hug. ‘What about Mum? Ben, maybe you should stay here …’
‘Obviously that isn’t going to happen,’ Ben replied calmly. ‘And it doesn’t even make sense. If you fail, we’re all going to die anyway, so what’s the point of me not coming? None. Come on, let’s go.’
Daisy grabbed the stone, picked up Ben and put her arm around her father. ‘Everyone be quiet.’ She closed her eyes, felt the power of the red stone and focused on going back in time to the recent past. But not too far. If she went back to a time before Gamion took the red stone from the cave, then she wouldn’t be able to do anything. It had to be to a time after Gamion had seized the stone from the underground cave, but before the hill collapsed.
She concentrated as hard as she could, trying to anchor her thoughts on the ‘when’ of her destination. She pictured herself and Ben at the top of the hill, about to follow Gamion to the spaceship, and tried to zone in on that time.
Again, she felt the whirling, disorientating feeling of stone-travelling. But this time it was different, more like she was shrinking in on herself, as if the universe was rushing past and she was falling backwards into a big pool of everything swirling around her. Everything rushed onwards and away and up and out and everywhere …
… until eventually it was over. She opened her eyes. They were still on the hill, and it was still a hill! It hadn’t collapsed yet which meant that it had worked! They had travelled back in time!
But how far? If a dinosaur wandered into view, she’d know it had been too far. Luckily, one didn’t.
Daisy felt a trembling beneath her feet. The earthquake had started, which meant that they were sometime after the stone had been removed from the underground cave. Good. But how long did they have to get the stone back before the hill collapsed again? Actually not collapsed again, she corrected herself, because now that they had gone back in time the hill hadn’t collapsed yet.
She turned around. Sinclair and Dennis were lying near her, unconscious, but Jackie Malone wasn’t there, which meant they had arrived back at a time before Brian and Jackie Malone had reached the hillside. But had they come back to a time before or after Sinclair and Dennis’s heartstones had been removed? If it was after their stones had been removed, were Sinclair and Dennis dead already? Daisy had an idea. She no longer needed the heartstones they had given her, so she could replace them. Then, if she managed to replace the red stone, Sinclair and Dennis might survive.
She knelt down, pulled up Sinclair’s shirt and pushed his bellybutton. Sinclair’s drawer slid open, once again revealing a black saucer. It was empty.
‘Oh dear. Now what’s happening?’ asked Brian Malone.
‘They’re aliens, remember?’ said Ben. ‘Let me explain.’
Brian Malone held up his hand. ‘Don’t bother. Having the reason why my daughter is opening up the stomachs of some aliens explained to me by a talking dog is probably more than I can handle at the moment.’
Daisy took the two heartstones from her pocket. One was still covered in her blood, so she wiped it clean with her handkerchief. The heartstones were both almost completely dull. Daisy pointed the red stone at them and tried to focus its power on restoring some of the heartstones’ power. After a few seconds they started to glow brighter. She picked one up and carefully placed it on Sinclair’s tray, then pressed his bellybutton again.
The tray wouldn’t go back in.
‘You need the password,’ said Ben.
Of course. She typed ‘Sinclair’ into the small keyboard within Sinclair and then pushed his bellybutton again. The tray slid back in.
They waited for Sinclair to show signs of life. Nothing happened.
‘Maybe it takes a while,’ Ben said uneasily. ‘Do Dennis while you’re waiting.’
Daisy repeated the process on Dennis. When she had finished she looked again at Sinclair.
Nothing.
‘Come on, Daisy,’ said Ben. ‘We have to get that red stone back in place before the hill collapses.’
‘Just a minute.’ Daisy had another idea. She still had the blue stones she had taken from Gamion on the spaceship. She slid one into Sinclair’s pocket and then reached into her own pocket and found the parchment with the red stone removal instructions on it. ‘Anyone got a pen?’
‘As if I’m going to have a pen,’ said Ben. ‘Where would I put it? I’m nude.’
‘I’ve got one,’ said Brian Malone. He unclipped a pen from his shirt pocket and handed it to
Daisy.
On the back of the parchment she wrote:
If you get better, a blue stone is in your pocket. You can use it to escape back to your planet. I am trying to replace the red stone in the cave to stop the earthquake. If I fail, please take my mum with you. Daisy.
Sinclair’s hands were folded across his chest. She lifted one and placed the note under it. She gave Sinclair and Dennis a last look, hoping for a sign of life, then tore herself away.
The quickest way back to the chamber where she had found the red stone was back through the small crack along which Daisy had slowly pulled herself to escape the caves, so they climbed the hill towards it.
Daisy saw a clump of bushes that looked familiar. ‘I think it’s through here,’ she said.
They pushed through them and there was the crack. It seemed like a lifetime ago that Daisy had emerged from it. She turned to Ben and her father. ‘You sure you both want to come?’
Ben nodded.
Brian Malone shook his head. ‘I’m completely sure that I don’t want to come. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.’ He swallowed. ‘But I’m coming. And it could be worse. I mean, at least there aren’t any monsters.’
Daisy coughed. ‘Actually …’
Brian Malone’s eyes widened. ‘What?!’
‘There is one monster. But …’ Daisy began, and then stopped.
‘Yes?’ prompted Brian Malone. ‘But what?’
‘But … nothing, sorry. I was trying to think of some reason why you don’t have to be scared of the monster, but you actually do, ’cos she’s really terrifying and vicious. Right then, let’s go.’
Brian Malone put his head in his hands. ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’
‘You don’t have to come, Dad.’
He took a deep breath. ‘I’m coming.’
Daisy got down on her knees and manoeuvred herself through the crack and back into the underground world. She held the red stone out in front of her, and even though it glowed, the shadows bounced at odd and unnerving angles and the uneven ground and low roof only allowed her enough room to drag herself painfully forward, using her elbows and feet.
Daisy Malone and the Blue Glowing Stone Page 20