He’d told Grandma Patty that nobody died in his story, but he couldn’t be certain.
Would the story end when he got back home? Maybe.
Would it have a happy ending? Maybe.
He gazed out of the window as the buildings went by in a blur. There were no answers out there.
Instead he put a hand out and laid it on Grandma’s walking stick. He turned it slightly to read another sticker.
‘Grandma?’
‘Yes, love?’
‘Why don’t I see lots of you normally? Don’t you like to visit us?’
She shuffled a little in her seat so that she could look at his face. ‘Of course I like to visit you, Master Tommy. Why wouldn’t I?’
‘Well, before yesterday I hadn’t seen you in months.’ He ran his fingers down her stick. ‘Is it because I can’t walk?’
‘Whoa! Stop that right now!’ She grabbed his chin between her finger and thumb. ‘Where’s this come from, eh? What’s made you think that?’
Tom shrugged. ‘We’ll be at my house soon, this adventure will be over, and then you’ll probably go home. I’ll sit in Dodge, and things will go back to the way they were. And that means not really seeing you much.’
‘Tom. Who knew that you’d want your granny cramping your style? I’ll see you every week, if you want. Every day.’
‘Don’t say that when you know it won’t be true. So why do I hardly ever see you? Do you not like us?’
She expelled a large breath. ‘I like you all just fine. You’re my little Tommy Gun, your mum is a diamond, and your dad-’
‘Yes?’
Grandma Patty stared down the length of the bus. ‘Your dad is a good man who always does what he thinks is best.’
Tom considered that a little and thought he knew what it meant. ‘You don’t agree on much, you two, do you?’
She gave a little huff. ‘I like to do things my own way, dress how I want, go where I please, say what I fancy. Your dad likes to do things by the book.’
Tom nodded. ‘You threw the book away.’
‘But not yours! That notebook safe? I bet we’re going to need it when we get back to your house!’
He got the impression that she didn’t particularly want to talk about it anymore. But Tom didn’t want to leave it alone just yet. ‘Did you say or do something that he didn’t like? Did you two fall out?’
‘Stubborn little monkey, aren’t you? No, it wasn’t one thing in particular. I’m just not very good adjusting what I want to say to sensitive ears.’
‘You mean little ears. You mean me when I was just a kid.’ When he thought hard about it, he remembered her calling him Tommy Gun when he was small.
‘Your dad thought I was a bad influence. I did say something once that I shouldn’t have.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I’m not bloody telling you! Oops, sorry.’
Tom smiled at his grandma’s slip. ‘Go on, you might as well tell me. It can’t be any worse than what we’ve been through today.’
‘No. Enough.’ For once, Patty’s face was stone.
Tom understood that he was going to get nothing more out of her. He looked back at the walking stick. ‘So this one – Iron Maiden. It describes you, right?’
‘No, cheeky, it’s a heavy-’
‘-metal band, yes. What does it mean?’
‘An iron maiden was a medieval torture device, basically a huge cupboard in the shape of a woman that you locked people in. Only thing was that it had these nasty spikes inside so that when you closed it you skewered the person from head to toe, popping eyeballs, spilling their guts and draining them of blood.’
Tom smiled. ‘Yeah…maybe it’s describing details like that to a little kid that got you in trouble with dad.’
‘Hmmm…could be. Here’s our stop.’
*
The house was a short stroll away, and as the pavement of the avenue curved around, Tom’s home came into view. He savoured every step, knowing that soon enough he would be reunited with Dodge and probably not let out of the house for at least ten years.
As they got closer he saw the front door open.
And the man in the black suit leave.
‘Look, Grandma! He’s there! Do you think-’
‘-I’m sure your mum and dad will be fine. But I think we should hurry.’
Grandma’s run wasn’t the quickest since her tumble in the shop – more of a shuffle with her stick – so that when Tom got within a couple of houses of his own home, he was alone.
However, Kildark wasn’t. Another man had come out of the house and had spun the villain around. Then Tom saw the flash of the Snuggerthang blade, and the man – police, thought Tom, because he’d seen handcuffs – crumple and slump to the ground.
Kildark left his victim and headed towards his car, parked across the street. Tom ran closer, to within shouting range. ‘Stop! What have you done? This shouldn’t happen!’
Kildark paused, his hand on the door handle of his car. He beamed at Tom. ‘I think it’s time you realised that it isn’t up to you.’
Grandma Patty overtook Tom and went straight to the fallen police officer. Tom moved closer to Kildark. ‘It is up to me! It’s my story. And although I can’t remember it all, I know I would never have written anything like that. I know me! At the end of the day you’re going to lose!’
Kildark slipped inside the driving seat but didn’t close the door. He smiled at Tom. ‘The close we get to the end, Master Holliday, the more I get a feel – a sense – of this situation. I know you wrote a story, and I know why I’m here. The detective there said a few things that unlocked a few doors. I still managed to kill him though. As for me losing? Don’t count on it.’
Grandma Patty’s shout could be heard over the car engine. ‘Tom, get over here!’ As Kildark drove off Tom followed his grandmother’s call. She was crouched over the prostrate man, her hands covering his stomach wound. Blood seeped through her fingers and coloured the grass beneath him. ‘I don’t know if I can help him! Run into the house and call an ambulance!’
As Tom turned to run he saw his mum and dad bounding down the path from the house. He tore off towards them.
But he only got so far. Ten paces away from his grandma and he found himself caught up in some invisible sludge. His legs became heavy and he couldn’t move them any further forward. He feared the effects of the story wearing off on his ability to walk, but then when he pushed his arms closer to his parents he found that they got lodged in an invisible barrier too. He looked at his stricken family. They were two metres away, but were also caught up in something that prevented them from getting closer to him. His dad seemed to be wading through waist high, unseen mud.
‘The story won’t let me get to them!’ Tom shouted over his shoulder. He could see his mum calling his name but he couldn’t hear anything.
‘But it let this poor man in! Come back and help me!’
Tom pulled out of the sludge and sprinted back to Grandma. The man was deathly pale and staring up at the sky. Grandma had unwrapped her scarf and balled it up against the man’s stomach. She was pushing down as much as she could without crushing him. Tom dropped to his knees next to her. ‘What do you want me to do, Grandma?’
‘I don’t know, Tommy. I don’t think I can save him – there’s nothing we can do.’
Tom leaned back a second. ‘Nothing we can do…but what about Helena and George? Helena would summon up a potion or something, a magic ointment.’
‘But Tom…’
‘What do you have in your bag, Grandma? Anything you can use? Grandma!’
Exasperated, she pulled him over the man’s body. ‘Hold this down.’ As Tom leant his forearms against the scarf, she rooted around in her large tartan handbag. After thirty seconds her hand came up with a half-full tube.
‘Toothpaste?’
‘Err, no. It’s cream.’
‘For what?’
‘Haemorrhoids.’
‘What�
��s that?’
‘I think this counts as one of those things you don’t need to know about.’
‘Whatever, Grandma.’ Tom lifted up the scarf. ‘Squeeze some of it here!’
‘Tom-’
‘It’ll work!’ He looked at the man’s face. He’d passed out. ‘It has to!’
Patty squeezed the contents of the tube onto the man’s stomach and smeared it in. The white cream soon turned pink. It looked like a bizarre layer of icing.
Patty pulled her hands away quickly. ‘It’s hot!’ They stared down at the messy mound. It was smoking.
Colour returned to the man’s cheeks. His eyes flickered open. ‘What…what’s happening?’ He lifted his head to try and see his stomach.
‘You’re going to be okay. My grandmother has worked some magic with a special cream!’
Patty smirked appreciatively. ‘It’s never been that effective before!’ She knelt by the man and smoothed the excess cream away from the wound. ‘It looks like you’re going to be all better.’
The man looked confused. ‘But he…he stabbed me in the gut.’
‘Sit up and take a look.’ She’d scraped away the pink ointment to reveal flesh through a tear in the shirt. Where there had been an ugly, deep wound, there was now just a scratch on a slightly bruised patch of skin.
Tom was looking back at his parents. They couldn’t get near him, but that didn’t stop his dad from trying, his arms outstretched, pushing against an invisible force. Tom noticed that the grass around their feet, along a line from the house to where the wounded man lay, was purple and slick. It seemed to be waving in an unfelt breeze, and then it appeared to be growing before his eyes. ‘Err, Grandma…’
The elongated blades started to wind themselves around the injured man’s ankles. ‘We need to get him off the grass!’ Tom shouted. He helped Grandma Patty by wedging his hands under the man’s armpit and pulling. They dragged him clear of the aggressive grass. As they did so, Tom’s view of his parents and his house started to fade. The images that he knew so well became blurry and hazy, and started to disappear. Looking through the house, fields stretched off into the distance. The air filled with a pink dust. ‘The story is taking over,’ he said. ‘I’m losing my real life!’
He turned back to his grandma. She had got the man to his feet. ‘There’s not a mark on him! You were right, Tom – anything in your story pages-’
‘The pages!’ Tom pulled his notebook from inside his jacket. When he looked he saw that his ink had returned for a few more sides of the tale. He tore out a couple of sheets and ran towards his fading family. He got as far as he could then put them on the pavement, careful to avoid the grass, just in case. ‘For you, Dad!’
His father was virtually invisible at this point, but he could see what Tom was trying. The ghostly image was giving a thumbs up in acknowledgement. He mouthed some words. Tom thought the word read was in there.
And then that part of the world was gone. It was as if an imaginary circle had been drawn around them and then in the space of a ripple in the air and a puff of pink dust, something took Tom away from his ordinary world. When the dust settled the street was still intact, but his family had disappeared. In fact it looked like there was no life anywhere on the estate. The story was moving on, and they had to as well. There was no point staying here.
He looked at the lawn. The story pages had gone, so he could only assume that they were with Dad.
Grandma Patty was at his shoulder. ‘It doesn’t want it all to be over just yet. Looks like even the story is fighting against you. I think the only way you’ll get home is to push on and get to Kildark, and finish this thing off once and for all.’
‘Hopefully I can help,’ said a voice behind them. They turned to form a circle with the detective. He had one hand on his stomach and the other on his bearded cheek. ‘I’ve been working the case with your parents. I’ve been pretty close to the story all the way through, and now it looks like I’m in it. My name’s Ben Fields.’
They all shook hands, managing to accidently spread an amount of cream between them, then the detective’s palms returned to his newly healed stomach. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Now that I’ve experienced up close and personal exactly what your story can do, what’s next?’
Tom was reading the side of the tube and smirking. This stuff was doing wonders for his bruised knuckles. He didn’t catch everything that was said. ‘Hmm? What was that?’
‘I want to help you beat the man that just tried to kill me.’
GREENSPHERE QUEST by TOM HOLLIDAY
PART FIVE
George stopped and gasped as the spider disappeared over the horizon. “Oh it’s no use, that thing is too fast!”
Helena looked around. She spotted a carriage stop. “Ah, not if we can get a RIDE!”
“Yeah, but it’s likely to be half a day before the next one,” George explained. “He’ll be on the other side of Greensphere before we can even step on to-”
Suddenly an old wooden war-carriage, mounted with crossbows (complete with flaming arrows), a cannon, two very sharp spears and a huge catapult, pulled up beside them. “You were saying?” Helena asked. George sighed and followed her aboard.
“What’s with all the gear?” Helena asked the driver.
“Protection,” he replied. “ Where to?”
Helena noticed that he wasn’t wearing the Greensphere carriage drivers’ uniform or a licence badge. “Hang on, you’re not a carriage driver!” she said. She reached up and pulled down from the clouds a huge purple orb. She wiggled her fingers and lightning crackled inside it, suggesting she was ready to launch him straight off the carriage.
The driver gasped, accidently fell back into his own carriage and said in a little, squeaky scared voice: “OK, OK, I stole this carriage. It’s hard to walk around this place at the minute with all the earth turning bad. How about if you tell me where you’re going I will help you on your quest, and we’ll say no more about it?”
“Who says we’re on a quest?” asked George.
“Isn’t that what always happens in stories like this?”
“Fair enough,” said George.
“Ok, we’re going to…” Helena trailed off. They hadn’t thought this through. Helena looked at the map posted on the carriage door. She spotted a place called Mariza’s Show. “Mariza’s Show, huh?” Helena asked, to no-one in particular, as she cast a spell to see how close it was to Kildark’s lair. Satisfied by what she saw, she said: “Mariza’s Show please!” She heaved herself up and then held out a hand to pull up George.
The carriage driver looked at his copy of the map, shrugged and tugged on the reins. “Thanks Mr…” George said.
“Just call me Meddo, kid,” he said, and with that they were off.
“Hey Helena,” George asked. “Why are we going to this show place?”
“One, it’s close to Kildark’s secret lair where he does much of his scheming. Two, Mariza is the name of Kildark’s wife, so if it’s the same lady, it’s good to take her down while we’re at it. That might bring him to us!”
“Oh,” George said, understanding what she was trying to achieve. Maybe he could be the one to do the running around for a change, and give them a bit of a rest. “I’m in,” he added.
“That’s a good job seeing as you’re in the carriage!”
The carriage took two minutes to get to Mariza’s Show. It was a large red brick building with a broad entrance, above which were the happy and sad masks of dramatic theatre. They checked the poster on the door and saw that it was only four minutes until the next show started. “Ok, George, Helena: I’ve got a plan,” whispered Meddo.
*
Meddo burst through the hall doors and lobbed a chilli right onto the empty stage. He had set it to explode with lava in three minutes. There was a little gasp from behind him. He took a look at the rest of the hall. There were rows and rows of wooden chairs, some of them occupied by surprised looking people. ‘Just part of the show, folks!�
� said Meddo.
George and Helena just walked in normally and sat down. “Did you have to be so dramatic, Meddo?” Helena asked.
Shortly after, Mariza appeared on stage with some walking teddies. She was a tall thin lady, wearing an elegant scarlet dress. This was her best feature as she had a rather plain face with purple rimmed eyes. She gripped a microphone in her skeletal hand.
As George and Helena stood up, Mariza’s microphone turned into a gun. She fired bullets that exploded in the air over the crowd and let out a gas. “Sleep gas!” yelled George.
“So the audience can’t see what she’s really like!” said Helena.
“Oh hello,” Mariza said in a sly, creepy, voice. “Would you like to meet my choir?” With that the teddies began to sing in a high-pitched squeal.
“Oh my gosh, shut up!” yelled Meddo, straining to be heard over the teddies’ extremely loud song that went something like: ”Giggalypuuuppla!” over and over and over and over again.
Then Meddo shouted, “Ten seconds left!” Ten seconds later, there was a boom and lava spread over each teddy. Within seconds they were all ash piles. “Terrible singing,” Meddo said.
Mariza stood at the side of the stage, laughing. “HA HA! I say, you think that is all I have? Let me show you how a true witch beats the ones who cross her path!” With that she reached behind her cloak and then threw a huge water balloon straight at the three friends. It burst on the floor and seemed harmless enough.
“Missed us!” chuckled George. But then she threw another and this time they all got splashed.
They laughed at the foolishness of it, but then somehow the world got dimmer around them. They cried out for help, but nothing could be done. It was something in the water. It had to be.
The three of them fell helplessly to the floor.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Leave the Last Page Page 10