by Sue Bough
Copyright © 2019 Sue Bough
Interior Illustrations copyright © Sue Bough, 2018
Cover Illustrations by Lorna Murphy
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
Matador
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ISBN 978 1838599 508
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
Heartfelt thanks to my family & friends who badgered me to bring Norman to life and who believed in him before a single word was written… For Pops, who will always be my Arthur Snodgrass – and for Charlie, my immovable rock.
Contents
The Green Planet
A Brilliant Invention
Lost
The Fib Pot
Lies
Spies
To the Wasteland
The Laboratory
A Flash of Light
A Cunning Plan
A Strange Meeting
Bad Timing
The Landing Party
The Antidote
The Switch
Fall and Rise
Boy Meets Girl
Hooting With Honours
Look up at the sky on a winter’s night and find Orion, the Hunter, with his twinkling belt of three stars. Follow their path to Sirius, the Dog Star, shining brighter than a thousand candles…
Stare long enough at Sirius and you’ll see the ghostly outline of something else hidden there. Rub your eyes and it’s gone – but it’s no trick. Behind Sirius lies a secret planet, stranger than anything yet discovered… the Green Planet.
The Green Planet
From a distance, the Planet looked almost normal.
Nothing strange about its craters that belched candyfloss-scented steam. Certainly nothing unusual about the rocks that lay quiet and still until… Wait a minute… Did that one just move?
Sure enough, a big rock opened a sleepy eye. It shook itself, sending a shower of sparkling dust into the air, then sneezed and settled back into its hollow.
Not such an ordinary place, after all.
The rock sat next to a large hole, lined with plastic tubing that poked out of the ground. Beside it was a post with a flashing sign that simply said ‘Z’.
Poffff!
Suddenly, the hole exploded.
The rock watched as something small and blue shot out and landed with a thump on its backside. As the dust cleared, the blue thing coughed and began to mutter.
POFFFF! Suddenly, the hole exploded.
“Blasted Zube Tubes… nearly choked me…”
The creature got up and dusted itself down. It pulled on a lead held in its three-fingered hand. The other end was attached to an excited ball of orange fluff.
“Come on, Spong… better get a move on. We’ve got to find these bugs before tea.”
The blue object was in fact a Poggle called Norman Snodgrass. He had bright beady eyes, long pointy ears and a trumpet-shaped hooter instead of a nose. He wore only a belt, covered with many buttons, clips and lights, which squeezed his large stomach.
Norman waddled over to the rock and prodded it nervously with the longest of the three toes on his left foot. The rock opened its eye again, frowned and shuffled sideways. Norman sifted through the dust hollow… then jumped as something moved under his toes. He dived into a bag hanging from his belt. Pulling out a glass jar, he scooped up the dirt and screwed the lid shut.
Norman held up the jar. There was something whizzing around inside.
“Only a Double Bug but better than nothing,” he sighed, watching a furious yellow insect with green spots buzzing and banging into the glass.
Without warning, it gave a loud ‘PING!’ and split into two identical bugs, which whirred around in opposite directions.
“Oh no… I should have collected this one last. There won’t be room for anything else soon.”
PING! Once again the Double Bug did what Double Bugs do best, and four insects now zoomed around, avoiding collision through split-second timing.
“Have to let ’em go, I suppose,” Norman sighed. “Wouldn’t impress Miss Lastic anyway; she only wants us to collect rare bugs. Nothing rare about these things…”
He shook the container glumly, setting off several more ‘pings’ and by the time he managed to open the jar, hundreds of Double Bugs scuttled off in a light green blur before burying themselves, bottoms first, in the dirt.
“Come on, Spong, better keep looking.”
Norman ambled off while his furry companion poked its snout helpfully under the rocks and stones. A belch of steam erupted from a nearby crater. The animal sniffed the sweet air, whining to be let loose.
“Now, Spong,” said Norman, “you know I can’t do that. Strict instructions from Miss Lastic: ‘Only let him off the lead indoors.’ I know what you’ll do if I let you go!”
He rubbed Spong under the chin and the little creature turned from orange to a golden yellow. A series of squeaks and purrs followed, and Norman smiled, remembering the day they had first met.
*
“Right, Poggles,” Norman’s teacher had barked two weeks earlier, “shut down your Data-Globes and pay attention. We have been given a new pet to look after this term!”
Instantly the chat from Norman’s classmates stopped. Everyone’s attention was fixed on a metal box that was quivering slightly on Miss Lastic’s desk. She opened it… and with the words, “This is Spong – he is a Reversible Minky…” she lifted out an orange ball that looked like a furry hedgehog. It squeaked excitedly in her hands. “Now, I’ll pass him around so you can all stroke him,” she continued, “but listen carefully to these instructions while you do so.”
A tall, spotty Poggle quickly grabbed the creature from Miss Lastic’s three-fingered hands.
“Gently, Boris Whinge!” she reprimanded.
The tall Poggle scowled and blushed.
“Now, Reversible Minkies are friendly animals that can be easily tamed,” she began. “They are naturally curious and display their emotions through the colour of their fur. What you see now – orange – is their normal state. They turn pale orange when they sleep. Yellow means the Minky is happy, blue for sadness and purple means they’re annoyed. They will turn white if they are frightened. They are also very useful in times of danger and will glow red as a warning.”
The class of Poggles strained to get a glimpse of Spong, still held firmly in the clutches of Boris Whinge.
“There is one other colour,” continued Miss Lastic. “Green, which means… Well, I’m sure we’ll never see that. Now, Boris, pass Spong carefully to Ernie Sludgebucket – you’ve had him l
ong enough.”
Annoyed at being forced to give up the endearing pet, Boris threw him roughly to Ernie, who wasn’t quite ready to catch him. There was a sharp intake of breath as Spong slipped from Ernie’s grasp. Then the strangest thing happened…
In mid-air, before their astonished eyes, Spong flipped inside out! He became smooth and rubbery, like a ball, with four small paws and a snout, before hitting the ground with a ‘Boiiiiinnnggg’ and bouncing gleefully off the walls, floor and ceiling.
Then the strangest thing happened…
Squeals of hysteria erupted from the Poggle class as they ran around trying to catch him.
“Calm down, calm down!” shouted Miss Lastic, dodging slightly as Spong whizzed past her left ear. “Now, if everyone will just sit down, I’ll sort this mess out. This is exactly why I asked you to pass him carefully.” She aimed a beady eye at Boris.
“Not my fault if Ernie can’t catch,” he muttered sulkily.
“The reason…” said Miss Lastic, ducking again as Spong rebounded over her head, “the reason these creatures are called Reversible Minkies is because, given any opportunity, they turn themselves inside out and display the behaviour you see now. When they do, there’s really nothing for it but to wait patiently until they turn themselves back. So, will you all quietly reboot your Data-Globes and select your Mathematics modules.”
With groans and glares at Boris, the class reluctantly pushed the large round buttons on the benches in front of them. Hazy orbs of colour floated in the air above each Poggle before clearing to reveal a 3D menu. One by one, they selected the word ‘Mathematics’ from the list and the colours were replaced by whirling shapes and numbers.
“Oh yes, before I go I need a volunteer to look after Spong outside of school hours.” A sea of hands waved in front of Miss Lastic’s nose, and there were cries of “Miss! Me! Pick me!” The teacher scanned the eager faces.
“Norman Snodgrass. I shall ask you to take care of him.”
Norman jumped. He’d been so busy watching Spong, wondering what it meant if he turned green, that he hadn’t even put up his hand.
“Th-Thank you, Miss Lastic,” he stuttered, not quite sure what he was taking on.
Behind him, Boris Whinge hissed, “What does she want to give him to a long-toed freak like you for?”
“See me at the end of the day for some more care instructions, Norman,” his teacher added. “Ah, here’s Miss Take now.”
Miss Take, the Maths teacher, entered through the sliding door and seemed to find it completely normal to see a Reversible Minky pinging off the classpod walls. She put on her Data-Helmet and adjusted the antennae. A few blue sparks whizzed above her head, then 3D images of triangles and pyramids were projected into the air.
Miss Take tried to conduct the lesson as usual but, to be honest, I’m not sure that any Poggle learned much about trigonometry that day. It’s hard to focus on a Data-Globe when there’s a Reversible Minky bouncing overhead.
A Brilliant Invention
‘Poffff!’
Another explosion from the nearby tube announced the arrival of Ernie Sludgebucket, a skinny Poggle with a slightly oversized hooter – Norman’s best friend.
“How’s it going, Norm?” Ernie asked brightly. “Found anything yet?”
“Hopeless,” replied Norman. “Found one measly Double Bug, ended up with about a zillion and had to let ’em all go. You know what they’re like…”
“Never mind; we’ve got twice the chance of finding something good now! Oooohhh…” He picked himself up from where the tube had dumped him and rubbed his rear. “These things are getting worse,” he complained. “They either send you to the wrong place and suffocate you with dust, or fire you out like a cannonball. I don’t know why the Elder Poggles don’t fix them.”
“That’s what Mum said last night,” agreed Norman, “but the Human who invented them has gone missing. Professor Zube his name is.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?” Ernie snorted. “My dad says the Elders spread a rumour about a mad Earth Human who landed here, created the Zubes then mysteriously disappeared. That way there’s no one to blame for the mess they’re in now. I mean, do you know anyone who has actually seen this professor?”
“No… now you mention it,” said Norman thoughtfully, “I can’t say I do.”
With these thoughts hanging between them, the two companions resumed their search and, for a moment, the surface of the Planet was peaceful again.
*
Zube Tubes had sounded like a good idea at the time. The idea was simple enough and had struck the young Professor Zube in a moment of glorious inspiration forty years earlier…
Having recently landed on the Planet, he was sitting in a teapod, absent-mindedly observing the Poggle ‘honking hour’. This involved crowds of Poggles queuing to squeeze through the maze of tunnels that snaked inside the Planet, as everyone tried to return to their home pods at the end of the day.
The trouble was, as hard as Poggles crammed themselves into one end of a tunnel, more Poggles were trying to squeeze into the opposite end. As a result, the normally mild-mannered creatures turned puce with rage and vented their frustration by honking their large, hooter-shaped noses – and so it became known as the ‘honking hour’.
Professor Zube shook his head in amusement and sucked the last dregs of his mungoberry tea through a straw. Slowly, a smile crept over his face. Then, with a loud “A-ha!” that made his neighbour slop his drink, he began scribbling excitedly on his tea-stained napkin.
*
Six months later, the Green Planet had a shining system of plastic vacuum-tubing winding through it – rather like a vein of mould running through a nice piece of Gorgonzola cheese. Fortunately the tubes smelt far better, or no self-respecting Poggle would have gone anywhere near them.
Now all they had to do to travel was choose a destination from rows of tiny buttons at each tube entrance, step inside and wait. Within seconds, a door slid shut behind them and a whooshing vacuum sucked the Poggle through the tube. Along the way, mechanical flaps opened and closed with a swish, diverting the passenger to the chosen location. Just before arrival, the suction power eased off, allowing them to walk out normally.
The tubes were designed as a one-way system so there was no risk of colliding with a Poggle coming the other way, and the longest journey time from one side of the Planet to the other was now only ten seconds. Calm was restored and ‘honking hour’ was no more.
Sometimes inventions become so well known that they are named after their inventor. For instance, back on Earth in 1908, a man called Mr Hoover took two pillowcases, some piping and a bit of suction and found an interesting way of getting dust off his slippers. Nowadays nearly every home has one of these contraptions (much improved upon the original design) but rather than say, ‘Could you pass me the two-pillow-pipe-sucker’, we simply ask for the ‘Hoover’. (Actually, my dad calls it the ‘fluffy-up-the-tubey-hole’ – I think it could catch on.)
The same applied to the new travel tubes. The Professor actually called his invention a ‘multi-dimensional-vacuum-powered-transportation-network’ but no Poggle could remember its name long enough to ask for directions to one, so they shortened it to ‘Zube Tube’. Professor Zube was hailed as a hero and given the Freedom of the Planet.
That had been forty years ago, and for many years afterwards the Zube Tube network was a well-maintained, efficient form of transport, until one day… the Professor disappeared.
In his absence, the Zubes became very unreliable. Dust clogged the delicate mechanisms controlling suction and speed, and Poggles entering the network had no guarantee where they would end up. Popular destinations had piles of cushions at their exits to soften the falls of those being ejected at high speed. Sometimes the vacuum pressure dropped off altogether, leaving Poggles suspended in the tubes overhead.
&nb
sp; The poor overworked TWITs spent all day running from one place to another…
Technically Worrying Incident Teams (TWITs for short) were set up to deal with the problem. The poor, overworked TWITs ran around all day with ladders and saws, cutting holes in the tubes and rescuing the stranded; they tried to seal the holes with rubber plant leaves, but none of this improved the performance of the network.
Once, the Zubes were shut down for a whole week when one TWIT used the wrong type of leaves. There was general pandemonium, and a petition was presented to the Elder Poggles at that week’s assembly in the Star Chamber. As a result, Special Poggle Action teams for Network Needs and Emergency Repairs were created (SPANNERs for short). Things improved slightly but no one understood the system as well as Professor Zube.
There were rumours that he had gone to explore the Dark Side of the Planet but no one knew why, and now some people doubted that Professor Zube had ever existed.
Lost
Ernie Sludgebucket was feeling pleased with himself.
He held his jar up to his snout and grinned at the contents crawling inside.
Two Humm Bugs, three Firelighters and, best of all, a Trojan! Miss Lastic will be chuffed! he thought. Trying not to seem too happy, he strolled over to his friend. “What have you got, then?” he asked casually.
“Nothing… zilch… diddly squat…” Norman replied. “I’m going to be in big trouble.”
“It doesn’t help that you’re afraid to look anywhere in case a Scudder runs up your hooter,” Ernie sympathised.
Just the mention of the word Scudder caused Norman to spin round nervously. His eyes darted from rock to rock, searching for a glimpse of a hairy black leg. Anyone who has a phobia of Earth spiders will understand the toe-curling feeling they gave him. Think of the most awful spider you can… now double the number of legs and imagine it running backwards, sideways and upside-down at lightning speed – and there you have a Scudder.