Rebecca’s World

by Terry Nation

  REBECCA’S WORLD

  Rebecca is mysteriously transported to a distant planet as she looks at it through her father’s astral telescope. There she makes friends with three very bizarre characters: Grisby, who has the most painful feet in the universe; Captain ‘K’, a reluctant and bespectacled superman; and Kovak, an unemployed spy known as the man of a thousand faces—all of them embarrassingly alike. She meets the sinister and smooth-talking Mister Glister, and his two henchmen, Lurk and Cringer. And she comes face to face with the evil GHOSTS who control the planet. Rebecca’s new friends tell her about the legend of the GHOST tree and its strange power over the GHOSTS. They explain that if the tree could be found the GHOSTS could be banished forever. The only trouble is the tree is located somewhere in the heart of the Forbidden Lands—a dark and mysterious region filled with weird creatures and hidden perils—where no one has ever dared to venture. Much against their better judgement Rebecca persuades her three companions to go there with her. Their exciting journey, with its dramatic climax, is the story of Rebecca’s World.

  Terry Nation, who is one of the most experienced and successful writers of popular television drama, has skilfully transferred his talent from the screen to the printed page. Rebecca’s World is a marvellously gripping (and frequently comic) adventure story, with a memorable cast of characters. A story that will be enjoyed by children and adults alike.

  Published by G. Whizzard Publications Ltd.

  in association with André Deutsch Ltd. 1975

  105 Great Russell Street, London WC1.

  © 1975 R.M.N. and J.S.N. Trust

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in

  any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Publisher.

  Printed by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd,

  Aylesbury, Bucks, England

  ISBN 0 903387 06 9

  G. WHIZZARD ANDRE DEUTSCH

  This is for Kate. Bert and Sue.

  Tom and Nora. It’s for Joel, but

  most particularly it’s for Beck.

  CONTENTS

  First Author’s Note

  Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15 / Chapter 16 / Chapter 17 / Chapter 18 / Chapter 19 / Chapter 20 / Chapter 21 / Chapter 22

  Last Author’s Note

  You can see Rebecca’s World. It’s the first bright star of evening. And if you stare at it long enough, then close your eyes and think about it very hard, you can make it your world too.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ebecca lived in a big house in the country. At least it seemed like a big house to her, but then she was quite small, so perhaps it wasn’t all that large.

  It was the eleventh day of the school holidays and she was bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.

  She had mooned and moped around the house all day, getting under everybody’s feet, until finally her mother said in a tense, tight voice: “Go upstairs and play in your room.”

  Rebecca walked mournfully along the landing. She closed her eyes and stretched her arms out in front of her, wondering how far she could go before she ran into something.

  There was a muffled crash.

  Rebecca opened one eye and saw that she had knocked over a vase of flowers from the window sill. It had broken and the water was soaking into the carpet.

  “It’s not fair,” she thought miserably. “I bet I’ll get blamed for that.”

  She closed her eyes again and moved on blindly, walking over the flowers. This time she managed to go quite a long way without touching anything. She took a sneaky peep and found she was standing outside the closed door of her father’s study.

  She knocked. There was no answer.

  She opened the door and went in. There was a huge window at one end of the room. Standing alongside it was her father’s brand new astral telescope. Rebecca had been strictly told that on no account was she to touch it.

  So she went across and touched it.

  The telescope swung easily under her hand and tilted upwards at the already darkening sky.

  Rebecca stared out through the window. There was only one star to be seen. It was a very long way off, blue white and twinkling.

  “I bet the people who live on that star aren’t bored,” she thought. “I bet they’re always doing exciting things and having adventures.”

  She wondered if she would be able to see what they were doing if she looked through the telescope. She put her eye close to the lens thing that you look into and turned the knob to focus it—the way she had seen her father do.

  Suddenly there was the star looking bigger and brighter, although still far away. There was no sign of any people. As she stared, Rebecca wondered more and more about things that happened on the star. She wished that she could go there and find out. Just a little visit. Not for long.

  Then a very strange thing occurred. Rebecca had the oddest feeling that somebody on the star was looking at her. She couldn’t say why. It was just a feeling. But if they were, and were looking at her through the wide end of her father’s telescope, then she would appear to be very tiny. Rebecca knew that if you look down the wrong end of a telescope everything seems much smaller.

  And then another peculiar thing happened. Rebecca began to feel smaller. And as she did, the star appeared to become larger. It became so large that it filled the whole telescope. The glare almost blinded her.

  Rebecca shut her eyes, but the brightness was still there. And all the time the star continued to grow, until she felt she need only reach out her hand to touch it.

  She put out her hand.

  There was a whirling curling swirling furling hurling feeling. Rebecca was spinning. The bright white light of the star seemed to dazzle inside her head. There was a high-pitched buzz that made her ears ring.

  And then, as suddenly as it had all started, it was over. The brightness inside her head and outside her eyes grew dimmer. The sound faded away.

  Rebecca still felt a little dizzy and opened her eyes quickly to stop herself falling over. She looked around. And this was the most curious thing of all.

  She was in a place she had never seen before in her life.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was a room, but unlike any room she had ever seen before.

  It was round. Totally round. Round in all directions. In fact it was like being inside a ball. A very big ball. There was no way of telling which was the floor and which were the walls and where the ceiling was.

  Rebecca stared. There was a door in what should have been the ceiling and some windows in what could have been the floor, and sitting half-way up what might have been a wall was a man.

  All around the man were strange machines and instruments. They had lots of flashing lights and made whirring noises, and looked a bit like the things Rebecca had seen on television science fiction programmes. The man looked extremely angry. He pushed buttons and pulled knobs and turned dials, and the instruments gave off crackling noises and puffs of smoke. Finally, the man pulled one great big switch and all the instruments and lights seemed to die.

  The man turned to stare at Rebecca. It was quite obvious that he wasn’t pleased with her.

  “Wretched child,” he said, in a voice that sounded like chalk scraping on a blackboard. “Horrid…nasty…wicked…interfering child.”

  He got up from his chair and walked down the wall towards her.

  “That’s clever,” Rebecca thought. “I wonder how he does that.”

  He halted just in front of her and Rebecca was surprised to see that he was much shorter than her. A tiny man and extremely ugly. He had sprouty hair that seemed to grow in several colours, a nose that was a bit like
a chicken’s beak and a mouth like Poisson, who was Rebecca’s goldfish.

  He wore a white coat of the kind that men in chemist shops wear, but it was much too long for him and he seemed in danger of tripping over it. He stared at Rebecca through spectacles that looked as if they had been made from the bottom of milk bottles.

  “Ooooohhhhhh…I hate children,” he said in a spiteful voice. “Especially those who ruin my experiments and are taller than me.”

  “I’m sorry I’m taller than you,” said Rebecca, “but I can’t help it. I’ll kneel down if it will make you feel any happier.”

  So saying, she dropped to her knees and looked him full in the face. She tried to smile. She had often found that a smile was quite helpful when people were cross with her.

  “As for ruining your experiment,” she said, “I don’t see how I could have. I’ve only just arrived…as far as I can tell.”

  “Of course you’ve only just arrived,” the little man snapped. “You repellent, loathsome horror. You travelled along my transmitter beam and you had no right to! The beam is supposed to send people to other planets. Not bring them here.”

  He struck his forehead with his clenched fist in a gesture that was supposed to convey extreme frustration. But he did it too hard, and winced with pain.

  Rebecca got the feeling that the smile wasn’t doing much good, but she kept it on anyway.

  “Well I’m sorry,” she said.

  “That’s all very well,” shrieked the little man, “but I can’t send you back. The beam is all topsy turvy. It may take me weeks…months…years to get it right. Do you think I’d keep an odious…abominable…impudent child here for a moment longer than I had to?”

  The first little chill of fear ran up Rebecca’s back like a mouse. “Do you mean I can’t go home?” she asked nervously.

  “That’s exactly what I mean. You’re stuck here!”

  Rebecca thought she was going to cry. It’s all very well to go somewhere for a visit, but not at all nice when you can’t go home. The little man made a strange noise. It was like cellophane being crumpled up. He was laughing. He was laughing at her.

  “Hahahahaha…” went his crinkling laugh. “You’re going to cry. There’s nothing I like more than a really unhappy child. The sadder you are the funnier it gets.”

  Rebecca tried very hard to stop crying, but two big tears rolled down her cheeks. At the sight of them, the little man clutched his stomach and doubled over with laughter. He fell on the ground and kicked his legs in the air, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

  The laughter began to affect her. The little man rolling on the floor, shrieking with mirth, did look very comical. Rebecca started with a little smirk that turned into a smile and then into a chuckle, and a moment later the tears had stopped and she was giggling helplessly.

  The man saw she was happy again and stopped laughing. He looked angry.

  “Just like a child,” he shouted. “The moment I start to enjoy myself you go and spoil it by being cheerful. I’m going to work day and night to get my transmitter beam working properly, and the moment it is I’m going to send you back where you came from.”

  “That will be fine for me,” Rebecca said, in the same sort of brisk voice that her mother used when she was making a complaint in a shop.

  The little man ran back up the wall to his instruments and began to work with a screwdriver. He was still muttering about how he hated children, especially when they were happy, and even more especially when they were both happy and taller than him. It was only then Rebecca remembered she was still on her knees.

  She stood up. The man gave her a cold stare.

  “Well you can’t hang around here,” he said. “Come back in a week and see how I’m getting on.”

  Rebecca glanced up at the door in what should have been the ceiling.

  “How do I get out?” she asked. She looked a bit miserable again.

  The little man chuckled as he saw her face sadden. “Walk up to the door, you preposterous, pitiful person,” he yelled delightedly.

  “Well,” thought Rebecca, “here goes.”

  She started forward, and to her delight and astonishment found she was able to walk up the side of the room with no trouble at all. She was so pleased by this discovery that she walked straight up onto what should have been the ceiling, right past the door and back down the other side. The odd thing was that even when she was walking across the top of the room, she didn’t feel upside down.

  “This is a very peculiar world,” she thought to herself, as she started up towards the door again. When she reached it this time, she opened it and stepped outside.

  And then very much wished she hadn’t.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was very spooky.

  A thick fog wrapped her in its cloudy billows. And the silence was so silent that it seemed to echo all around her. Rebecca blinked her eyes quickly to be certain she was seeing properly. She was.

  The fog was pink. Pink fog.

  “It’s like being inside a ball of candy floss,” she thought.

  She stretched an arm out in front of her and lost sight of it. She pulled it back quickly and was relieved to see her hand still attached. She groped her way forward for a pace or two. And then she heard the noise. A low sort of groaning, moaning sound that was really quite scary. And the worst thing about it was that it was coming closer.

  Then she heard the footsteps. Shuffling, scuffling, slow footsteps. Rebecca strained to penetrate the candy floss fog, but could see nothing. The eerie sounds were coming closer.

  Rebecca decided that even though the little man in the round room was not very nice, being inside with him was better than being outside on her own. She turned around and started for the door. But it wasn’t there. At least if it was, she couldn’t see it.

  She took a few blind steps to the right. And then to the left. And then a few paces backwards, until finally she didn’t know which way she was going. And all the time the moaning sound and the shuffling footsteps came nearer.

  The creature, whatever it was, seemed very near now. The fog distorted the sound so much that it seemed to be coming from all around her.

  “I’ll be brave,” thought Rebecca. Then instantly changed her mind and started to run.

  She set out with the speed of a galloping racehorse, but had not taken more than three strides when she crashed into something large and soft and green. She hit it with such force that she bounced backwards, tripped over, and sat down hard. The large, soft, green thing gave a great bellow of pain.

  Rebecca scrambled to her feet ready to dash off again, when the fog cleared a little and she had a chance to get a look at the ‘creature’. It wasn’t nearly so frightening as she had imagined.

  On the ground in front of her was the most miserable man she had ever seen. His mouth turned down at the corners, his forehead wrinkled in a frown and his eyes seemed on the verge of tears. His voice was the saddest she had ever heard.

  “Why can’t you look where you’re going?”

  There was no anger in the voice. It was full of sorrow and self-pity.

  “I’m very sorry,” said Rebecca. “I was running away from you.”

  “Mmmmm,” said the man. “People do. They say I depress them.”

  He limped a bit closer, groaning and grunting with every shuffling step. He was wearing a raggy, shaggy, green fur coat with a matching hat.

  “I like your coat,” said Rebecca, hoping a compliment would cheer him up.

  “Thank you,” he said. “It’s past its best though. It was brown when I got it, but it’s got a bit mildewed. It’s the fog that does it.” He took another step forward, wincing as he did.

  “Is there something wrong with your feet?” asked Rebecca.

  “Something wrong with my feet?” he echoed. “You may well ask. You may well ask if there’s something wrong with my feet.”

  “Alright,” said Rebecca. “Is there something wrong with your feet?”


  The man pointed an accusing finger towards his feet.

  “Those feet,” he said, “are the most painful feet in the entire universe. Concentrated into those two extremities is a massive quantity of pure undiluted agony.” He talked about his feet as though they belonged to somebody else.

  “Those feet,” he went on, “are the sorest pair of throbbers in the entire history of feet. Would you like to see them?”

  “No thank you,” answered Rebecca. “It’s very kind of you to offer though.”

  The man seemed more cheerful now he was talking about his feet.

  “I don’t blame you,” he said. “I only look at them myself when I’m forced to. Between them,” he said, looking down at his boots, “they have every foot ailment known to science. Corns. Callouses. Varookas. Bunions. Fallen arches. Gout. Ingrowing and outgrowing toe nails. And some things the doctors haven’t found names for yet. Yes. They’re throbbers. Real little throbbers. By the way. My name is Grisby.”

  They shook hands.

  “I’m Rebecca or Becky, or sometimes just Beck. Whichever you prefer.” She quite liked Grisby. He wasn’t very cheerful but at least he was friendly.

  “Going anywhere special?” asked Grisby.

  “Nowhere in particular,” Rebecca answered.

  “Oh good. That’s where I’m going too. I’ll limp along with you.”

  And they started to walk. At least, Rebecca walked. Grisby just hobbled, grimacing with every step.

  The candy floss fog was clearing now. They were in what seemed to be a park, with neat flower beds and gravel paths.

  In the distance was what Rebecca supposed was a town, although the buildings were unlike any she had ever seen. All sweeping curves and gentle arcs and graceful spirals. They looked as if they were made from glass.

  Then Rebecca noticed something else. There were no trees. Not one. She stared around in a full circle. There wasn’t a tree in sight.

  She was just going to ask Grisby about this when the silence was broken by the most dreadful shrieking screech Rebecca had ever heard. It rose to an ear piercing peak, then faded for a moment, only to build up again still louder.