Short Stories For Older, and Not Quite So Old, Children

by Dandi Palmer

  Suki noticed Nat's control box. The instructions, 'ten hazelnut chocolate bars1000', were still on its display.

  She gulped. "You didn't - did you!?"

  "That is how you spell chocolate, isn't it?" asked the four-year-old.

  "No, that's how you spell DISASTER!"

  Nat's panic had turned to fury. "If we ever get out of here I'm going to nail your teddy bear to the helicar's garage and use it for laser practise!" he bellowed at his sister.

  Angelina burst into tears.

  A thick brown wave lifted the slab of pumice the young people had crowded onto and set them adrift on a sea of chocolate. Suki seized a barley sugar branch and tried to guide them towards the portal entrance.

  Angelina stopped bawling, so Nat could take his fingers out of his ears. "But surely... if this is only an illusion, we can't come to any harm - can we?"

  Suki said nothing. If the rock sample she had discovered was authentic, then so was the sea of chocolate and hazelnuts under their pumice raft.

  The children passed the worried looking hadrosaurs that had huddled on high ground above the lapping waves. Would being fossilised in hot chocolate be any better than falling into a bubbling pitch bog?

  As soon as Suki, Nat and Angelina had almost reached the portal entrance, the three ton dinosaurs decided to plunge into the chocolate sea and start to swim.

  Large waves picked up the pumice raft and spun it round and round.

  Suddenly they were catapulted into the air. The marzipan sun began to dribble down the blue icing sky, giant chocolate hadrosaurs were swimming through a tide of custard, and the volcano erupted hazelnuts.

  Dizzy and bruised, Suki, Nat, and Angelina found themselves on a platform pulsating with mauve light and surrounded by figures in protective clothing.

  "Well congratulations kids!" announced a gruff voice, "You're still alive, though I can't think why!"

  Suki was still dazed. "What happened?"

  The woman with the gruff voice removed her visor. "You've managed to rewrite history."

  Nat looked terrified. "How?"

  "Instead of the dinosaurs being wiped out by a comet, they lost all their teeth through eating nothing but chocolate."

  Angelina wanted to ask why they didn't get false ones, but she hadn't seen anyone with such a fierce expression since trying to make toffee in her father's cut glass trophy for airbeam racing.

  Suki was bolder. "But chocolate must have some nutritional value, and it had to drain away eventually."

  "It did, but how do you chew palm fronds and cycad nuts without any teeth!" The stern woman turned to Angelina. "And you are banned until you learn simple arithmetic!"

  THE JUGLE EGG

  The desert floor would soon be hot enough to bake a protein biscuit.

  Alisia pulled on her wooden soled shoes and looked out over the dull, brown sandscape studded with thornbushes and the odd brilliant flower. Something nearby chirped in alarm and scuttled away. As the rays of the second sun struck Fire Mountain the desert seemed to blaze.

  Alisia pulled on her hood and cloak to protect her from the ultra violet radiation then started to walk.

  Her scanner whirred as it pinpointed the location of the others in the search party. Most of them were too old and slow to keep up with Alisia, and hoping they wouldn't need to spend another night in the desert. Their old, crashed spaceship in the shelter of a plateau was far more comfortable. Its water recycling system had long since failed, but they had a nearby well and solar panels to operate a pump. Their diet of water and protein biscuits may have been well-balanced, yet was boring beyond belief. Most of the stranded group would have walked to the other side of the huge desert if they thought there was any chance of finding fresh fruit there.

  Unfortunately this planet's crust wasn't stable and the crew had spent years hoping a rescue party would arrive before their settlement was swallowed by an earthquake.

  Alisia had not known any other home and was used to the parched world. She was fascinated by the strange reason her parents had ended up there. It all seemed too fantastic, even for an 11-year-old imagination. Perhaps they had invented the story to keep her amused, or decades of exposure to the two suns, twenty moons, and relentless heat had turned their Earthly brains.

  Most of the science crew seemed crazy anyway, as they experimented with their cracked instruments took readings from peculiar monitoring systems and scanned for the slightest anomaly on the small world. There were plenty of lizard-like creatures and insects, the size of toads, yet the scientists were waiting for something much larger, something that should have appeared well before Alisia was born. When they believed an anomaly worth investigation had been detected, every spare member of the crew was sent out to investigate.

  As Alisia trudged on there were rumblings from deep in the ground. Somewhere in the mantle, the planet's crust was about to throw a tantrum. There was a beep from her scanner. It warned Alisia she was entering the region of dimensional fluctuation.

  Could it be? Had this mysterious anomaly actually arrived at last?

  Without warning, Alisia was flattened to the ground by the downbeat of huge wings. When she looked up the creature had gone. Was this really supposed to happen? On Earth there was the legend that the Phoenix rose anew from the ashes of the fire it had immolated itself upon. Here, the Jugle was supposed to lay an egg that hatched the gateway to another dimension through which it could be reborn. Alisia had never believed either legend and thought that the mission had just been sent to find the mysterious civilisation that believed in it. If they had ever existed, their artefacts were now buried metres below the sand of this benighted planet.

  The excited search party were dashing towards Alisia. She rearranged her UV cloak and looked down at a fresh crater in the desert floor. In its centre a huge egg pulsed with light. Alisia was now convinced that the mythical Jugle bird existed, and probably the people who believed in it; for all the good it had done them.

  The egg was huge.

  “They'll never move it”, she laughed to herself, though wasn't sure why that should be funny, especially when there was another rumble deep in the planet's crust. It looked as though it was going to be academic anyway. The desert would be the only safe place until the quakes were over.

  So the space ship under the shelter of its unstable plateau was quickly evacuated. Soon, ln the dim light of the setting red sun the crew was camped round the crater where the egg sat. Scientists monitored its every vibration while the others watched and listened apprehensively as the shaking of the planet's crust increased.

  Then the small planet gave a convulsive shudder.

  In the distance their spaceship tipped skywards and was swallowed into a huge fissure that opened at the base of the plateau. They were now stranded without water in a desert that would turn into a furnace as soon as the intense second sun rose.

  The adults said nothing, just sat and watched the alien egg.

  As the tremors increased and the lightning rent the night sky the egg became translucent. Inside it a tangle of excited molecules pushed the shell out as though it were a huge bud trying to burst into flower. The egg grew larger and larger until it filled the crater like a dome. Inside was a dimension filled with light.

  Alisia stood on the rim and stared at the world forming below them. There were valleys, waterfalls, lacy clouds, and flower filled meadows. And in the far distance, a gleaming city of spires hung in the crystal, cobalt sky like a cloud of sequins.

  She turned back to see the plateau crumbling into the fissure after their spaceship. The adults didn't move, either transfixed by the spectacle, or not daring to.

  There was nothing else for it. Alisia jumped from the crater rim, through the thin wall of the translucent dome, and into another dimension.

  Alarmed, her mother immediately followed. Then, one by one, the rest of the crew, until everyone found themselves standing in a flower filled meadow. Below them a vast world of alien beauty stretched away int
o the distance.

  Then they looked back. The dome they had fled through contained the dusty desert riven by earthquakes and lightning. Before anyone could have an irrational impulse to dart back to collect a piece of valuable equipment or protein biscuits, something invisible unfurled huge wings and flattened them to the ground with the draught from their downbeat.

  When they got up the dome and the desert inside it had vanished.

  Alisia looked at the intense blue sky of this new world and realised that they were galaxies away from anything she was familiar with. But she didn't mind. They were now, at last, going to meet the ancient civilisation who had also escaped to this magical planet.

  THE ODD FISH

  First published in Aquila in August 1994

  Angela had never seen so many teeth on a fish. But then, it was a very odd fish. Its body had several ridges running from snout to tail like a reinforced box, its scales were large and leathery, and it was in a very bad mood. It had been trapped in a rock pool as the tide went out and in fury its powerful tail was whisking away the water that remained.

  “Don't do that,” Angela told it, “you'll make all the water run out, then you'll suffocate.”

  The fish peered at Angela with round red eyes as though it wanted her for breakfast.

  “Just how long have you been stuck like that?” Angela asked.

  After a long pause the fish opened its fierce jaws and said. “If you are so worried about it, why don't you carry me out to sea?”

  Angela looked at its sharp teeth. “Goodness no, you might bite.”

  “And make you drop me? I may be a fish, but I am not stupid.”

  Its fins were very sturdy, like convenient handles, so Angela picked it up.

  As she walked with it towards the outgoing sea she asked the fish, “What were you doing so close to the cliff and all those rocks?”

  “That's where I used to live.”

  “What? In the rocks?”

  “Oh yes."

  “That's silly. Nothing could live in those rocks. There's nothing to eat.”

  Despite being out of water for some minutes, the fish wasn't gasping for breath. When Angela put it down in the shallow swell it looked up at her, balancing on its powerful fins like an irritable footstool.

  “You are a very odd fish,” insisted Angela.

  “Perhaps I am,” it replied, then turned and waddled into the sea.

  In the distance Angela's mother was waving to her so she ran back up the beach. Angela's brother had built a large, ugly sand castle and her father had fallen asleep in a deckchair.

  “Mum..."

  Angela's mother stopped knitting and looked at her daughter.

  “Shouldn't fish be soft and slippery?”

  “Of course."

  “Not hard, like a bike saddle with two rows of sharp teeth?”

  Angela's mother was puzzled. “Not usually. What makes you ask?”

  “Oh, nothing. Can I go and play by those rocks over there?”

  “Yes, so long as you don't climb up them.”

  Angela went round every rock she could reach, searching for the home of the odd fish. Where had it come from? How had it managed to breathe when the tide went out? She was about to give up her search when, at last, in one of the large rocks, she found a shallow depression shaped just like her fish. In the impression she could count its teeth and tough scales.

  Angela insisted her mother come and look at it. She became very excited and phoned the local museum. Within an hour a young woman with a small pick and a large satchel arrived. When she saw the impression of the fish in the rock she was even more excited.

  The next day a group of people came from London. Angela was allowed to watch as they measured, sketched and took photos of the fish, which they called a fossil. Then the fossil hunters started to search the other rocks and shingle. The young woman from the museum told Angela that there ought to be another part to the fossil, the part which had made the impression in the rock.

  “Are you sure that there was nothing else like this near here?” a bearded, middle-aged man asked Angela.

  “Only the fish,” said Angela.

  “The fish?” The man's eyes lit up.

  “But it swam away.”

  “But it couldn't have swum away.” The man sounded puzzled. “It would have been millions of years old and made of stone.”

  “I thought it seemed odd,” said Angela.

  “Odd?”

  “Yes. I suppose I should have known it wasn't a real fish by the way it talked.”

  The man's eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head. Angela knew then that the odd fish would have to remain her own special secret.

  QUEENIE

  David watched the rivulet of water wend its way down the dirty window pane. What had made him want to do his homework in the boathouse today of all days? It was cold, wet, and almost tea time.

  He was about to pack his knapsack and wander home when there was a splash. He turned back to see a plump rat struggling in the water.

  A rat! David hated them even more than snakes. And rats were supposed to be excellent swimmers. Where was the point in them leaving a sinking ship in the middle of some ocean if they weren't? But he couldn't stand there and watch this one drown.

  David pushed an oar into the water so the rat could scurry to safety. As it landed on the planking of the small dock, he leapt back just in case it wanted to thank him. A brief squeak and disappearing tail would have been quite sufficient. Unfortunately the large, plump rat was tame and better mannered. It sat in its haunches and gazed up enquiringly at its rescuer. The resident rats had probably pushed it in the water for being too cute.

  Having come to some decision, the rodent went to the boathouse entrance where it turned and squeaked urgently at David. He sighed. Which would be more fun, going home to finish his homework on the causes of the French Revolution or chasing a plump rat through the pouring rain? Then he realised that it had stopped raining and the sun was now valiantly trying to break through.

  So David followed the rat outside. He locked the boathouse door and slipped the key through the park gatehouse's letter box as he passed.

  Instead of returning to civilisation and its worried owner, the plump rat headed for a narrow path which led into the bramble wood.

  "No way!" David told it. His track suit was too new to run through rampant thorns.

  The rat stopped. It sat on its haunches and cast him a look of contempt.

  "That only leads to the old air raid shelter." The rodent's gaze was unwavering. "Oh, all right, but this had better be good." He just hoped that no one was eavesdropping.

  The rat scampered off.

  His track suit soon drenched and snagged, David doggedly pursued the intermittent flash of white and brown bouncing through the bracken, past the air raid shelter, and down to the river.

  Peering from holes in the bank were dozens of small, inquisitive faces. To some people, like his immature sister, this would have been pure Disney. To David, it was a job for the Pied Piper of Hamlin. What on Earth had he expected to find after following a fancy rat, other than its huge family of multi coloured rodents?

  David sat on a fallen tree trunk to examine the damage to his snagged track suit sodden with mud. It had been a present from his parents and he was going to be in deep trouble somewhere between the back door and the washing machine. He tried to pull some of the snags through to the other side. It only made matters worse, so he turned his attention to the rodents.

  Where had so many pet rats come from? Then had to admit that he really wasn't too bothered.

  Wet and irritated, David decided to go home. As soon as he got up the plump rat darted ahead, squeaking urgently to get him to follow it again. At least this route was free of brambles, mud, and wet overhanging branches so David trudged after the rodent.

  He followed it out of the wood and across a road to a track leading to a bland, brick building. David hesitated. This was spooky. His parents t
rusted him to be careful, and he could outrun anyone. However, what did you do when tempted to enter a bleak building in the middle of nowhere?

  The door was ajar and inside was lit by harsh, fluorescent light. On a long bench were rows of cages, their doors open.

  "Oh no!" David gasped. "Animal research."

  Now shaking, he reluctantly followed the plump rat to a door at the far end of the corridor. It was locked.

  The rat climbed onto the bench and squeaked at a hook hidden behind a cage. On it was a key.

  David took it down and unlocked the door.

  The room was dark so he fumbled about the door frame until he found a light switch. As soon as he pressed it everything was flooded with a lurid glow. Didn't red lights mean vampires and getting run over by cars that jumped them?

  Forcing himself not to dash back out, David went to the Perspex cage in the middle of the room. Inside it was a large bundle of fur.

  There was the wailing of sirens in the distance and the creature lifted its head.

  "Well," a voice squeaked, "either open the cage door, or run away before you're caught."

  The sirens were getting closer and, without thinking, David opened the cage and lifted out - he wasn't sure what.

  Before he could reach the main door, a young woman in a white overall blocked his way. David tried to hide the creature in his track suit top.

  "Do you mind," it complained. "How would you like to be pushed into someone's damp jacket?"

  Then David realised where the squeaky voice was coming from. "Urrk!"

  The young woman raised a hand. "It's all right."

  Through the open door he could see military vehicles pulling up. The men leaping out of them had guns. To David, things looked far from all right.

  "This way!" The young woman guided him down some steps in the floor. The plump rat followed and she bolted the trap door after them.

  They ran along a damp tunnel for what seemed ages and eventually came out through the old air raid shelter in the wood.