‘The ultimate display of ignorance,’ said Eliza. ‘Have you ever heard of a kid who was so stupid he didn’t recognise his own mother?’
‘Where—?’ I began.
Oddly, she anticipated my question. ‘She’s in the loony bin at Sandifield. Where else would she be? I traced her through her medical records. I’m good at that. I can trace anything about anyone. And I know why she’s locked up there—she talks garbage all the time, just like you do.’
I couldn’t believe what she was saying. I realised it must have been Eliza, not my dad, who requested my mother’s records. She must have had them delivered to her house. That meant my mother was alive and locked up somewhere. She was alive!
I was shaking. I was stunned. And when I put my hand down to steady myself, I noticed that my arm was becoming transparent.
Ms Blit ran to the front of the hall. She was shouting: ‘Calm down, Simon, breathe deeply.’
I found myself chanting: ‘One elephant. Two elephants. Three elephants. Four elephants. Five elephants. Six elephants. Seven elephants. Eight—’
‘Elephants! Start counting,’ shouted Ms Blit. ‘One elephant. Go on.’
‘—elephants. Nine elephants, ten elephants.’
‘Two elephants, three elephants,’ said Ms Blit.
‘Eleven elephants, twelve elephants.’
Ms Blit counted to twelve elephants and her jaw dropped open. ‘Oh no! Five seconds plus! Calm down, Simon, please.’
I walked over to the lectern and pushed Eliza out of the way. My zygomaticus muscles were still high, so I guess I had a crazy grin on my face. I held up both hands to silence the chattering.
‘I accept the title of Void of the Year,’ I yelled.
John McCloud stopped crying.
Everybody jeered.
And then I disappeared. Vanished completely. Gone. Turned totally transparent. Invisible.
Everyone gasped.
It had happened. I had fallen into Twilight; from where no one ever returns.
29
Everything went slightly blurry and parts of my body that were normally within my field of vision—arms, torso, feet—disappeared.
I heard one person scream—I think it might have been Ms Blit. But everyone else burst into applause.
‘Cool,’ Edward Lin said. ‘How’d he do that?’
The scene was fading in and out of view. I felt Ms Blit grab hold of me and hustle me through the wings of the stage and out of the back door. I guess she couldn’t see me, but made a grab at where she thought I might be. ‘Stand there for a moment,’ she said, placing me against a wall.
She picked up a bag of flour that she had taken from a stack of things Eliza had brought to throw at me, and broke it over my head.
‘There. Now I can see you at least.’
I didn’t say anything. With my vision going in and out of focus, I didn’t know whether I would be able to communicate at all.
‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘You’ve gone beyond the limit. You’re falling out of the fabric of time. You’ve entered Twilight. There’s nothing I can do to stop it. I’m sorry, Simon. I’m so, so sorry.’
I tried to speak. I flapped my mouth, but it was full of flour so I kind of spluttered.
Ms Blit, her eyes full of tears, said: ‘I can guess the questions that you will want to ask. How long will it take before you end up in Nowhen? I have no idea. This has never happened before to anyone on my watch. Judging by the way you are fading, I think it will be a matter of an hour or two. No longer than that. Oh Simon, I am so sorry. We tried, we really did.’
She started to weep. ‘I’m going to take you to see your dad. If you’re going to disappear for ever, you might as well be with him.’
The picture of my mother was probably still up on the screen. I shook my head and pointed in the direction of the hall. ‘I want to see my mother,’ I said.
‘Your mother? How are we going to get there?’
Just then, there was a sound I recognised. It was a high-pitched whine over a throbbing, rumbling sound— Dad’s Breaker. I grabbed Ms Blit’s hand and we raced into the playground. Dad was landing.
‘Don’t turn the engine off. We need you to take your boy somewhere,’ said Ms Blit.
‘Simon! What’s wrong with you?’ Dad shrieked. ‘You look like a ghost.’
I knew what he meant. I had caught a glimpse of myself reflected in a window. I was visible where the flour had settled on me, but I looked like some sort of white statue. Flour hadn’t landed on my left foot, so you couldn’t see it at all.
My father recoiled. ‘He looks like a ghost,’ he repeated to Ms Blit.
‘It’s worse than that,’ she replied. ‘Ghosts hang around.’ Dad stared angrily at her. ‘Who are you? What’s going on? What have you done to my son?’
‘Listen, you.’ Ms Blit jabbed Dad in the chest. ‘Simon’s not going to be around for much longer. You must be the one person other than me who knows about his condition, right?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Simon has a serious medical condition. As you well know. He’s had it all his life, and you haven’t done anything about it, have you?’
‘What do you mean?’
I stood up. Although it was me who was changing, I found myself looking at Dad as if he had become someone else.
‘Dad,’ I said quietly.
Ms Blit was still yelling. ‘There’s something wrong with your child. He lives out of sync with the rest of the planet. And he’s been going transparent.’
Dad said nothing. His face seemed frozen.
‘Dad.’
He turned to look at me.
‘I’m dying.’
‘No,’ he whispered. His eyes were bulging. He was angry and sad and confused all at once.
‘I have less than two hours to live, and I want to say goodbye to Mum before I go.’
Dad opened his mouth, then closed it again. He gulped and said in a breathy voice, ‘Your mother’s—’
‘She’s not dead. You lied to me.’
He looked at me with panic in his eyes.
I stared hard at him, and felt as if I were growing taller. ‘You know?’ he said, in a strangled voice.
I nodded.
Dad staggered backwards. The colour drained from his face until he was almost as white as I was.
‘I had to pretend she was dead. After what happened she was—’
‘Take me to her,’ I broke in calmly.
‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘Yes.’
He looked towards the car, but didn’t move.
‘Move your bum,’ thundered Ms Blit. ‘We don’t have much time.’
He snapped into life and started the car. Within seconds, the three of us were flying over Easterpark towards the neighbouring town of Sandifield. We hovered for a while over various streets until Ms Blit pointed to a large white house hiding in a cluster of trees.
‘That’s it. Lower her over there.’
The car landed in the gardens of Sandifield Lodge.
I couldn’t believe that I was going to see my mother at last.
30
My mother looked more delighted than surprised to see me. I would have thought that anyone would be alarmed to see a figure who was mostly transparent and covered in flour. But she wasn’t. Then she looked at Dad, and her eyes crinkled.
‘Harold?’ she said, slowly.
He nodded.
‘You haven’t visited in years. And is this . . . ?’ Mum pointed to me. Dad nodded again. ‘Thank you. I wanted to see him more than anything else in the world.’
‘This is Simon. Your son. Our son.’
‘Hazel,’ she said. ‘Like mine.’
‘He’s got your eyes,’ Dad said.
‘Dark and straight,’ she said.
‘And your hair,’ said Dad.
Mum was answering questions before they were asked! She was displaced, just like me.
‘Hello, Mum,’ I said.
‘I’ve misse
d you,’ I said.
‘I’ve missed you, too,’ she said.
We stared at each other, speechless. There was the face that I had thought about for so long. She was beautiful. She was a hundred times more beautiful than I’d imagined. I said: ‘I’ve missed you for a long time. All my life.’
‘I’ve missed you all your life, too,’ she said. Her eyes filled with tears.
Dad spoke crossly: ‘How come neither of you can have a normal conversation with anyone else, but when you talk to each other, you sound fine?’
‘Displacement,’ interrupted Ms Blit. ‘It’s a long story.’ ‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ said my mother, putting her hand on my dusty white cheek.
‘Me too,’ I said.
‘Don’t leave me again,’ she said.
I looked at Ms Blit. She sniffed and her chin wobbled. I guess she didn’t know what to say.
‘Mum,’ I said. ‘I’ve come to say goodbye.’
‘So soon? You’ll come again tomorrow won’t you?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I won’t be able to come back.’
‘Too busy?’ Mum said. ‘Well come the day after, then. Or next week. I don’t mind. I’ll wait. I’ve waited so long already. I knew you’d come one day.’
‘Mum, I can’t ever come back. I’m not going to be here for long.’
She knitted her brows. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re only thirteen. You’re not going to die of old age, that’s for sure.’ ‘I’m not going to die, exactly. I’m just not going to be around much longer.’
‘Silly boy.’ She took my hand and held it to her cheek.
‘This is a dream, isn’t it? That’s why you look so white; why I can see through you. I hope I never wake up from this dream.’
We sat and held hands in silence for a while. It was funny. Each of us had finally found someone who we could talk to, and all we did was sit there in silence.
‘Mum, I’ve still got these things,’ I finally said. ‘These things of yours. I’ve always kept them.’
I pulled out her hand-mirror and her white Bible. ‘I lent your mirror to this guy called Al who made, like, one of the most important scientific discoveries in history with it,’ I said.
My mother leaned down and pulled something out of her bag. ‘Look,’ she said. She was holding a small white Bible, like mine. ‘Snap.’
She waved it at me gently. ‘I hope you’ve read it. Or at least some of it. Bibles are not just for carrying around, you know.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve read some of it. But there’s something wrong in here.’
Her eyebrows rose. ‘Something wrong? Surely not.’
‘There is,’ I said. ‘It says that God started by making the first six days and then rested on the seventh. But Al, who is the cleverest guy who ever lived, even cleverer than me, made a great discovery.’
I don’t think Mum was really listening. She was just gazing at my face and smiling. ‘Go on,’ she said absently. ‘I love to hear you talk. Your eyes are so full of life and love. Like your dad’s used to be.’
‘Al found out that the first thing created was the great constant; the speed of light. Days came later. Time came later. Light takes priority over time. That’s why time isn’t stable. It’s important, but it’s kind of hard to explain.’
‘You think you know what this book says, but you haven’t really read it,’ she said. ‘You’re just like your dad. You don’t focus on the important things.’ She flicked the Bible to the first page of Genesis. ‘Can you read this to me?’ I read it out loud. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.’
I stared at the book. How could I have missed this? It did say that light was the first thing to be made, and that time came later.
Ms Blit leaned forwards and read over my shoulder. ‘Incredible,’ she said. ‘I’d never noticed that. Al Einstein could have saved loads of time if only he had read this properly.’
‘Give me a hug,’ said Mum.
I was never a cuddling sort of person, but somehow I didn’t mind hugging Mum, even in front of Dad and Ms Blit. After a minute or so I could see alarm in Ms Blit’s eyes. I guessed that I was fading further.
‘Simon,’ she said. ‘We can barely hear you. I think our time is up.’
‘Mum,’ I said, pulling away from her. ‘I just came to say goodbye, really.’
‘I wish I could make this afternoon last forever,’ she said. ‘Isn’t there anything we can do?’
‘No,’ I said.
She sighed. ‘Please?’
‘No. We can’t.’
‘Oh Simon, I would move heaven and earth to keep you a little longer,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry Mum. I wish I could stay but—’ I stopped. Al’s words were buzzing around in my head like a swarm of excited bees. I turned to Ms Blit. ‘If speed is the only constant thing, then there must be something we can do. Can’t we move heaven and earth? Al said that the cause of my problem might lie before I was born.’
I turned to face my parents. ‘Mum, Dad, did anything happen to me before I was born?’
‘The accident,’ Mum whispered. ‘I was pregnant when I had my accident.’
‘What accident?’ I croaked.
‘It was on the cargo run to Mars. I hadn’t gone very far when I bumped my spaceship into a tiny speck of dark matter. I went spinning off course and crashed into an asteroid. When the rescue team found me they thought I was crazy. Nothing I said made any sense. When they were checking me over, they also discovered that I was pregnant.’
I felt Ms Blit freeze beside me. At first I thought it was panic at the rate at which I was vanishing. Until she grabbed my hand.
‘Simon. You’re a genius.’
I tried to look modest—not that anyone could really see me.
Ms Blit turned and pointed to the car. ‘Get in. All of you.’
We stood and stared at her.
‘Get in the car. Now.’
31
We got into the car. I sat in the back with Mum. Dad sat in the passenger seat. Ms Blit had told him, to his horror, that she was going to drive. But she didn’t join us right away. Instead, she opened the engine casing and spent several minutes fiddling with something. Then she fixed the convertible hood.
‘What are you doing to my car?’ Dad fumed.
‘Fixing it up a bit,’ said Ms Blit. ‘Your warp drive isn’t set up quite right. And your hood wasn’t airtight. I think I’ve fixed it. I’d better have or we’ll soon know about it.’ She climbed into the driver’s seat and pressed the controls. Whuuuummmpp. We blasted upwards and zoomed into the sky.
‘What are you doing?’ Dad asked. ‘This baby is only designed to go to the upper stratosphere.’
‘Oh, we’re going to have to go a little further than that,’ said Ms Blit.
‘If I were you, I’d give it a little more throttle and gear down on the—’
‘You are not me,’ she snapped. ‘Shut up.’
Dad lapsed into angry silence.
Ms Blit turned and faced my mother. ‘Now, I want you to tell me exactly where you had that little accident that landed you in hospital.’
‘It was a long time—’ said my mother.
My dad interrupted. ‘It was near the moon. This car isn’t designed to leave the Earth’s atmosphere. It would fall to pieces. Besides, there’s not enough fuel in this car to go to the moon and back. It’s a ludicrous idea.’
‘That’s not a problem,’ said Ms Blit. ‘We’re not coming back.’
Dad went white. He tried to wrestle the controls from Ms Blit, but she slapped his hand really hard and then pushed him away.
He slumped back into his seat, his face paralysed with horror as the car started to heat up. We soared up through the stratosphere and out into the blackness of space.
‘We’re dead,’ Dad said quietly. ‘We’re all dead.’
Ms Blit nodded.
Somewhere between Earth and the moon, we found it.
It was a little tear in the fabric of space and time; a speck of dark matter. It didn’t look like much—just a glowing, rippling, fizzing area of nothingness.
Mum had remembered the co-ordinates—they were obviously engraved into her brain.
‘What are we doing here?’ asked Dad. ‘This is dangerous. We should NOT be near a black speck. I want to go home. We need to radio for help. Get some fuel delivered or something. Let’s get away, now.’
Ms Blit fired the car’s tow rope at the tear in space. After using the levers to control the rope’s movement, she managed to get part of the grappling bit hooked around the centre of what she called ‘the dropped stitch’. The throbbing speck seemed to suck the grappling bit in.
Having achieved that, she folded her arms and took a deep breath.
‘What are you going to do now?’ Dad gasped. ‘This is so dangerous. We are all going to DIE.’
‘It’s all right, Harold,’ said Mum. ‘I think she knows what’s she’s doing.’
Ms Blit looked Dad in the eye. ‘What I am going to do now is to give the biggest piece of cloth in the universe a little tug. Not too far. Just far enough. I think I know roughly how to do it.’
‘What’s going to happen to us?’ Dad asked.
‘You three, I’m afraid, are going to vacate this car.’ She leaned over and reached towards the three red switches that controlled the ejector seats.
‘Stop!’ screamed Dad, trying to grab her arm. ‘You’re a crazy woman. If you eject us all into space, you’ll kill us. We don’t have space suits on. We’ll explode.’
‘I know,’ said Ms Blit.
They grappled over the controls. Mum and I just watched.
‘She’s going to kill us,’ Dad shouted, looking over his shoulder. ‘Do something!’
Ms Blit must have been stronger than Dad, because she managed to break free and press the ejector seat buttons.
The car roof sprang open. Three ejector seats pushed upwards.
Twilight in the Land of Nowhen Page 10