Then the knife moved aside and I looked down, saw the blood running down my chest over my legs, pooling at my feet, and then the knife was dropped to the floor and the creature leaned forward with both hands, parting the wound torn in my chest, spreading my flesh open and then its hand began to splinter bones, pushing them aside, forcing them backwards like wings.
I sagged in their arms, unable to breathe, feeling cold, but they would not release me. Their grip was like iron, and as they pushed my ribs apart even more, forcing them through my back I felt myself fade and I felt distanced from the ruin of my body and then agony flared through me and the snow turned red.
Pip Norris and the Amazing Flying Saucer
Nobody had told Pip Norris on his first day of school that you had to go back the next day, and two and three quarter years later there still seemed to be no ending of school in sight at all. His parents had told him he would go to school until he was eighteen of course, and then university until he was twenty-one, but those numbers were as unimaginable to him as his parents age. Thirty-five was ancient, and his dad was thirty-seven! It was just a number that he could not ever possibly imagine being himself. He liked birthdays but they only came around once a year and they always seemed so far away. Just like Christmas. Twenty-one was just as impossible a number of Christmases as thirty-seven was and so he simply concentrated all his efforts on being seven and three quarters.
It was not that he disliked school. Science was cool. Especially when they talked about stars and things. They had even been allowed to have a go of the school telescope! Jimmy Perkins from his class had said he could see an alien with it, but Pip didn’t like him much as he had pushed him once in the playground, and he told lies. His mum and dad had a big dog too. It had angry teeth and was called, “Butch”. He had seen it once when Jimmy’s mum and dad came to collect him from school, though they didn’t bring it all the time. To Pip it looked like an angry dog and he caught it sneaking a glance at him once, and it looked hungry. Pip didn’t see the point in dogs really, and he decided that he was not scared of them, full of teeth or not. He just did not like them very much.
Today’s class was poetry. Pip liked poetry just as much as he liked Jimmy Perkin’s dog, and the warm morning sun streaming in through the large classroom windows was making him sleepy. The teacher’s voice droned softly in the background. The teacher was reading a story about a crocodile at the dentists and it was okay Pip thought, but not as exciting as it had first sounded. The crocodile bit sounded good but the dentist bit definitely didn’t. Pip thought he had not seen many crocodiles in the dentist's waiting room, but then when he was there he was usually worried about what was going to happen when he went in and so he may not have noticed a reptile being present anyway. It was difficult to remember really, what with the teacher droning on with his silly poem and the sun shining across the open book on his desk.
Pip liked books. Well. Most books. The ones with super heroes in and aliens and monsters were cool. Poetry ones seemed to be a waste of time really. Especially if they had a crocodile in them who had gone to the dentist. That seemed impossible. Space aliens were much more realistic, even if Jimmy Perkins had not really seen one because he was a liar and had a hungry dog too. He found himself looking out of the window across the playing fields and then to the woods beyond. He thought about home and wondered what mum was doing. Dad would be at work of course, building red cars or maybe blue ones. Mum was probably cooking.
He thought for a while, wondering what the rest of his world did when he was at school. He didn’t know really because he was confined to the playground. Perhaps everything was different then because he was not there. He was not out in the world so to speak. Did everything carry on the same whether he was there or not? He thought about this for a while and concluded that it would be quite fun to find out.
Eventually it was dinnertime but he was not really in the mood. It was chocolate pudding and mint custard too, which was disgusting, though he did have a difficult time in convincing the dinner lady that he was not going to eat it.
“Just a mouthful.” she had smiled.
“I don’t like it.” Pip had said, and he meant it. It took a stand-off of about ten minutes before she reluctantly gave up and allowed Pip out to play in the playground.
He thought about playing planes but he didn’t feel like it very much, and so found himself drifting away from his classmates until he was standing by the fence at the rear of the school, playing fields all around him, the forest beyond. He should not have been there really as it was out of bounds but he had found himself wandering until he reached the fence, for just inside it, more or less at the very corner of the field he could see what looked like a small comic fluttering against the wire. He ran to collect it and upon picking it up was pleased to see that not only was it in very good condition, but the cover of it showed it had Meteor Man in it, and that was his favourite. Meteor Man was one cool dude!
Amazed at his luck he went to sit down and start reading the comic straight away, but as he stopped to sit he saw the woods beyond and a small hole in the corner of the fence. He thought about what he was thinking before and wondered what the woods looked like when he was meant to be at school. Meant to be somewhere else. He knew what they looked like when he wasn’t at school of course, because his dad had taken him there many times. They had held fir cone fights and ran around hiding a lot too. But he did not know what the woods were like when he was at school, and so, looking around to see if anyone was near or watching him he decided that it was time to find out.
Nobody seemed to notice him, and there was still a little time for lunch hour he supposed, though he did not know for sure because his mum did not let him have a watch at school. Or out of it, come to think of it.
“You can’t tell the time!” his mum had said.
“It’s not fair!” Pip had stomped. “You don’t let me have a mobile phone either and all of my friends have one.”
“Ridiculous idea a kid having a mobile phone!” his father had scowled. “When I was your age I was lucky to have shoes on my feet, never mind a bloody mobile phone!”
Sometimes when Pip was alone he tried saying the “bloody” word out loud. He knew his mum would go mad if she heard but he liked the sound of it in his mouth, and it felt daring and dangerous when he said it. Once Sally Greenway from class 4b had said “fuck”, but that was different altogether and far too dangerous for him. Also Sally did not have a hungry dog full of teeth but mum had said she was “common” which he did not know what that meant, but if meant that you said “fuck” once or twice then she was certainly that.
He looked around. Nobody was anywhere near, the playground across the playing fields behind him, the sound of the children running and calling there almost distant. So Pip ducked down, comic book in hand and crawled through the hole in the fence and into the fields outside the school. The forest was a minute's walk away but he stopped; frozen. He was now outside of school when he should be in it. He was part of a world in which he should not be present. It felt dangerous and exciting, and the thought that perhaps he should really stop right there and go back through the hole and back to school was only a momentary one and was carefully ignored.
He did not walk though. He knew that he could be spotted if he did so, and so he ran across the field and into the woods, the trees swallowing as he raced along the path, comic book in hand. Once under the cover of the trees he stopped and threw himself onto the ground, rolling behind a fallen log to conceal himself as he had seen soldiers do in films. He lay still, his heart beating, listening for any sound at all. There was a slight whispering of a summer breeze coming through the woods, and sunlight shone down through the canopy of leaves overhead, but that was all. Birds were singing nearby and clutching his comic book he rose to his feet slowly, prepared to drop back to the ground at the slightest sound but there was nothing. No sounds other than the forest, and no sign that the school had realised that he was not there, which was
he thought extremely cool, and so he strode back to the path, slowly at first but once he saw nobody was about he gained confidence and so he was soon heading into the woods.
He walked slower the further he went. The path was quite wide and he knew it from when he walked there with his dad. It did not twist much, and he had a good view ahead and behind him. He knew that any grown up who saw a kid wandering in the woods at this time would be curious and might call a policeman. This, he knew, was what his dad called “being in deep shit” and he did not want that. He just wanted to see what the world did when he was not around, and to also read the Meteor Man comic book he clutched tightly under his arm.
There was a slight scare when he saw a man walking his dog quite some way off and he darted and hid behind a log. The dog found him of course and sniffed and licked at his face as if to say, “What are you doing behind this log? Got a ball or a bone?” but both he and the owner ignored the dog and as the man walked past calling it it soon got bored of the now prone Pip and ran off after its owner who walked by oblivious to his presence.
Pip walked down the hill and crossed over to the edge of the wood. Here the trees bordered several fields and ran down into the countryside beyond. He could see quite a way across the fields here for the trees had opened up behind him. He looked for somewhere to lean against and eventually he found a fallen tree trunk and sitting with his back to it and looking out over the fields before him he sat down to read his comic.
Meteor Man seemed to have real problems in this story, he read avidly, for the Green Mole had captured him and seemed to be laughing at him a lot. It all looked very serious. Pip paused, looking up at the fields and trees around him. It did not look as if the world got up to anything unusual when he was not around. His stomach flipped slightly as he knew that afternoon school would have started by now, and that he was probably missing Mister South’s French verb class. Smiling, he thanked his luck and got back to Meteor man.
Which is when he heard the jet flying overhead. Pip thought that there was something peaceful about the sound of a plane flying through the sky and so he put down his comic book and squinted skywards, looking for it. He could not see it however, and so picked up his comic book once again, eager to return to Meteor Man who seemed to be plotting his escape with a carefully concealed spoon.
He thought that the plane sounded a little unusual. The engine was a little squeakier than he remembered a plane to be. The sound it was making was almost like a higher note that only the boys could reach when they did choir practice. He put his comic down again and squinted at the sky even harder. As he did so he saw far up in the sky a small dot. It looked far away but was growing in size as it flew nearer. Pip watched it as it drew closer. He could not quite make out the size of it really. For a start it was not terribly high but the shape was still quite small. The sound of its engine was weird too. Pip stood up and carefully climbed onto the tree trunk for no reason whatsoever other than that he could do so. As he looked over the fields he saw that the shape flying closer was round, and spinning slightly. He jumped down from the tree and took a few steps forward, picking up his comic and tucking it into his back pocket as he did so.
The plane was now a lot nearer and slowing all the time, and just above treetop level. As he watched, it flew down into the field and began to slowly descend vertically into the grass near to where he was standing. It was not a plane though, thought Pip. Oh no! It was the wrong shape altogether. It was round, and he thought perhaps twelve feet from one side to another, and as it hovered over the ground three legs came out of the underneath of the circular plane and it landed awkwardly, bumping from one support to the next. Then there was a deeper whining sound as the engines shut down and from within the ship a small ramp fell down, a walkway from within the craft sloping down to the ground.
It really was the most amazing flying saucer that Pip had ever seen! In fact, it was the only flying saucer that he had ever seen that was not on the television or on Doctor Who. It looked amazing, and as he stood open mouthed there was a stirring from within the ship at the top of the ramp and slowly a figure shuffled out of the ship and began to walk down the ramp.
Pip wasn’t really scared. The figure came down the ramp slowly, and in its hand it held what looked very much like the kind of gun that Han Solo used in Star Wars, one of his most favourite films. The creature was, Pip reckoned, about the same size as him but it wore what looked like a long gold cloak. Probably space clothes, Pip thought. On its head was a helmet that looked square and made of a shining material. Pip gulped. It might even be a robot! Pip jumped as a loud voice broke out across the small piece of field that separated him from the saucer. It sounded magnified almost, as if the robot alien monster space thing was using a microphone of some sort, like the microphone that they had used last Christmas when they went to Auntie Peggy's and did curry okay.
“Citizens of this planet your world is mine!” said the voice across the clearing as the figure continued to slowly wobble down the ramp. “Resistance will not be tolerated. You will surrender, all of your lands and wealth belong to me now. You will...”
There was a loud sound that sounded like, “Eek!” and Pip was surprised to see the figure on the ramp suddenly trip over the long gold cloak and tumble head first down the ramp, the silver helmet rolling away into the grass, the microphone suddenly silent.
Pip ran across the grass and was surprised to see at the bottom of the ramp what looked like to be a boy of about his age and height holding his knee sprawled at the bottom of the ramp. His knee was lightly grazed, presumably from the fall, and the silver helmet (which now was beginning to very much resemble a box covered in tin foil), was on the grass nearby, slightly squashed. The gun was beside the ramp, but even that now looked as if it was made of plastic. The boy had a look of both anger and pain on his face, and as Pip drew near he looked up to him and Pip could see small tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. The only odd thing about the boy, who he could see now was dressed in shorts and a horizontally hooped t-shirt very similar to one that he owned, was the colour of his skin, which was green, and the slight line of blood on his grazed knee, which was blue.
“I fell down the ramp.” said the boy from the saucer.
“I think you tripped on the cloak.” said Pip, gathering the offending golden coloured cloak off the ramp and throwing it on the grass out of harm’s way.
“It’s not a cloak.” said the green boy. “They are my mum’s curtains. I just thought that they looked like a cloak.”
“They do.” said Pip, “I thought it was a space cloak when I saw you come down the ramp.”
“Did you?” asked the boy, a look of surprise now on his face.
“Yes.” said Pip.
“Cool.” said the boy, and then he stood and held out his hand. “I am Queeb.”
“Pip.” said Pip, standing and shaking Queeb’s hand. “Are you really coming to invade Earth?”
“Not really. It will be time for tea soon and to be honest I was only playing a game.”
“Ah.” said Pip, not sure whether this was a good thing or not. “So the helmet?”
“A box.”
“And the gun?”
“Just a toy really.” Said Queeb. “It fires a sticky arrow quite a way though.”
“Cool.” said Pip, looking at the gun.
“I lost all of the arrows though.” said Queeb, bending over and rubbing at his blue blood encrusted knee.
“Bummer.” said Pip, much to Queeb’s apparent confusion, “It still looks pretty cool. Like it is off Doctor Who or something.”
“Doctor who?” said Queeb.
“Yes.” said Pip and started to laugh, much to Queeb’s confusion. “The television program.”
“Oh I see.” said Queeb. “We don’t have that at home.”
There was a shrill beeping sound that seemed to be coming from the region of Queeb’s pocket but he completely ignored it and it eventually stopped, at which point Pip thought that
it was safe to proceed.
“Nice flying saucer.” said Pip, looking up the ramp into the craft. It was quite dark in there though and he could not see inside.
“It’s okay.” said Queeb. “Once I get the stabilisers off it I may be able to get it to go a bit faster.” he paused slightly, picking up the gun from the grass and sticking it in the waistband of his shorts. “You should see dad’s. Quasi-dimensional gravity dampeners and everything.”
“Wow.” said Pip, not entirely sure what a quasi-dimensional gravity dampener was, but it sure sounded cool.
“Yeah. This side of the milky way to the next in just under fourteen seconds.”
“Rapid.” said Pip, a serious look on his face, staring back at the ramp.
“Go and have a look inside if you want.” said Queeb. “Don’t worry - it won’t take off or anything.”
“Okay.” said Pip nervously and began to edge up the ramp. Queeb walked ahead and as they entered the small ship a light overhead came on automatically. Pip looked around avidly, though the displays were really quite normal spaceship style, the outside of the circular ship showing various read outs. One wall held a small set of seats and what very much looked like a joystick he had seen on arcade machines at the local amusement park.
“It’s not bigger on the inside.” said Pip with an air of disappointment.
“How can it be bigger on the inside?” said Queeb with an air of irritation in his voice. “That's impossible.”
“I suppose it is.” said Pip. He knew Queeb had never seen Doctor Who so he thought it best to leave the subject alone. “Park it.” his dad would say, and so Pip did so. “Cool saucer though.”
“Thanks.” said Queeb. The buzzing sound from Queeb’s pocket started again and Queeb blatantly ignored it until eventually it stopped. “I would give you a go but it’s a one seater.”
“It’s okay.” said Pip, unsure whether it was or whether it wasn’t okay at all.
Scrapbook Page 17