assumed that they were driving to a special futuristic rocket launch pad and was amazed when Sunita explained that the anonymous looking car actually was the space rocket. David thought that Sunita must be a bit bonkers and that her space story was just a load of twaddle, when she suddenly pressed a triangular button on the dashboard which looked like the switch for the hazard warning lights.
This generated a sound much like a jet engine starting up, only much deeper. David had a good look around the car but certainly could not see anything remotely resembling a jet engine.
“What’s that sound?” asked David.
“Don’t worry, it’s just the sound of one hundred Plasmatronic Vibrospheres starting up in the boot of the car. They are like jet engines but much more powerful and also tiny” replied Sunita.
“As we have a long way to go, we will have to use all of them” she added.
They drove out of the village, on to an empty stretch of motorway and without warning or drama, whooshed straight up into the air!
David looked down on Possum Road and could see Lady Orange and a milk-man pointing at the flying anonymous looking vehicle in amazement.
The force of the Plasmatronic Vibrospheres pressed David hard into his seat as they continued to shoot up into the sky.
Conscious of his hair appointment, David tried to check the time by looking at his watch, but the force of the engines was so powerful that he ended up punching himself in the face. Within seconds, they were in blackness and total silence as they entered space and blasted past the moon. The view of the stars through the anonymous car’s windscreen was magical and completely breathtaking.
“Now we really need to get a move on and step into what’s called ’Ten-Minute-Nano-Particle-Velocity’. It’s something I recently invented which can transport me anywhere in exactly ten minutes” explained Sunita.
She pressed a button marked T.M.N.P.V which resulted in ten very weird minutes. Suddenly the force of acceleration and the sensation of speed ceased, and it seemed as if they had actually come to a stop. Sunita explained that the anonymous space car was now parked in a space bubble, and that the whole universe was moving past them faster than the speed of light. During Nano-Particle-Velocity, the human brain gets very confused and odd things are often visible. This was obviously very much the case as David watched a large pair of false teeth fly past the windscreen, then a toothbrush followed by a mean dentist who was dressed as Elvis. A few seconds later, a herd of frightened cows went mooing by, chased by a grim piano. This was all far too weird for David. He found a bucket on the back seat and put it over his head.
“We have arrived!!” shouted Sunita excitedly.
David removed the bucket from his head, just as they were coming into land. He could clearly see that this planet looked exactly the same as Earth and that they were about to land on the same stretch of motorway from where they took off, near Bottomhamsted. David checked his watch, they had only been gone half an hour, so there was still some time left before his hair appointment. They landed smoothly and were soon in the ‘other’ flatulent village of Bottomhamsted. They noticed a stranger standing on the pavement, so decided to pull over and ask a few questions.
“Hello stranger, we are new around here, can you tell us a few details about this area?” said Sunita.
“Welcome to the bottom village of Flatulence-hamsted” he announced.
“Factories are made in that teddy-bear over there, and if you are hungry there is a nice possum at the end of Restaurant Road” he continued.
David thought the stranger’s local knowledge was absolutely fascinating but that it sounded a bit backward. They moved slowly away from the stranger, fearing he might try to give them further backwards information.
“Let’s go to Possum Road and find ourselves” said Sunita.
David wasn’t sure if that would be such a good idea. The other David would definitely not be expecting a visit from himself and he might be extremely surprised. Anyway, they drove round to the other David’s house and knocked boldly on the door. The door opened and the other David stood there looking extremely surprised.
“Good afternoon, Other David, I am Real David” said David.
“Hello, my name is tea, would you like a cup of David?” said Other David.
It was immediately obvious that the inhabitants of this planet were indeed exact duplicates of the people on Earth, apart from the fact they all spoke a kind of backwards gibberish.
Real David decided this was getting very confusing so asked Other David why he was talking such rubbish. This led to a dispute about who was talking rubbish, as both boys thought the other was talking backwards.
An intense disagreement started which led to a punch-up, where Other David bashed Real David on the nose causing it to bleed.
“OUCH!” said Real David.
Real David wanted to punch Other David back, but was astonished to see that Other David already had exactly the same bleeding nose as himself!
“Odd” mumbled Real David.
As this was a duplex planet, if Real David became injured, Other David would also have exactly the same injury. When they both realised that what they were actually doing was punching themselves in the face, they decided to stop the fight and call it a draw.
All this excitement had caused the Davids to forget about their haircut appointments, and they were running out of time. Other David quickly said good-bye and dashed off to the barbers, but Real David was now getting very worried that he might soon have to suffer long hair!
“What can I do Sunita?” he shouted.
“Let’s go and visit the other Sunita, she has a Teleport Device which we can set for the hairdressers in the real Bottomhamsted” she replied.
Teleport Device:
A futuristic gadget for moving people around at maximum speed. Much faster than a bus, because it uses science instead of wheels.
They ran round to the other Sunita’s house and explained the situation to an extremely surprised Other Sunita. This time they were being very careful not to get into any disagreements or fights. Other Sunita invited David to step into the bathroom where there was a shower, which had been converted into a teleportation unit. David stepped nervously into the shower and waited for something to happen. As there was now only one minute until the appointment, Other Sunita set the co-ordinates directly to the barber’s chair, then suddenly with a flash and a Zap, David disappeared.
One minute later David was in the barber’s chair, having his haircut.
“Looks like you fell asleep there for a minute” said the barber.
David checked his new cool hairstyle in the mirror, paid the barber and headed off to Possum Road to see if Sunita was back yet. As he arrived at her house, he found the door was no longer silver just badly painted wood. He knocked on the wooden door and an old lady answered who had never heard of Sunita! David apologised for disturbing the elderly lady, then he walked slowly back home trying to work out what could have happened.
The next day at school, the rumors about the space girl had stopped and nobody could remember the stories told by the strange boy called Dwain. Even Dwain himself couldn’t remember her. David knew he had not dreamt about his great space adventure, as he still had the bruises which he had given himself during the fight with himself on the Duplex planet.
David didn’t understand what had happened that day but was sure that he would see Sunita again one day.
MR KEN WONG
World’s fastest rickshaw rider.
Following a relaxing but uneventful week-end spent trying to work out what had happened to Sunita, David was back at school again. He was making his way across the playground as usual, when he noticed the bike shed for the first time. David thought he would take a quick look behind the bike shed, as he had heard many stories about bad boys hanging around there. Surely enough, when David looked behind the bike shed, he found a number of scruffy boys who were smoking cigarettes, and generally swaggering around
like drunken oafs. David thought it would be best to keep away from these bad boys and go straight to class, but unfortunately he leant on one of the many bikes which were lined up in the shed. Typically, David had leant on a badly parked and extra heavy mountain bike which then toppled over, creating a domino effect. He could not believe that all the bikes in the bike shed then fell over one by one, with an embarrassing crash and a crunch. The scruffy smoking boys were all very offended by this interruption and swaggered over towards David with screwed up faces. David decided he was not actually fearless at that moment and ran as fast as he could into Mrs Wigglits class. He charged into the classroom, sat straight down and asked to hear the next exciting tale.
“At the end of Possum Road is the ever popular Chinese restaurant owned by the wonderful Mr Ken Wong. His popularity comes not only from the fantastic meals which can be experienced at Ken Wong's, but also because of his Karate skills. Every time there are unwelcome Ninjas sighted in the street, Ken flies through the restaurant door in a flurry of Karate chops shouting ‘Hi Yah’. He then proceeds to Karate chop and Karate kick the Ninjas until they are all lying unconscious in the road. Some unwelcome Ninjas once found themselves lying in the street after an encounter with Ken Wong, when the ‘Bottomhamsted Brewery Brass Band’ came marching and trumpeting along. The group of heavy horn blowing brewers did not notice the
The Nutty Neighbours of Possum Road Page 12