by Ross Welford
She strides past him toward the copter-drone, her long cloak fluttering in the downdraft from the copter blades. Without warning, she stretches up and grabs one of the arms of the copter-drone, and it lurches to one side. She screams something at Dr. Pretorius and uses her other hand to try to hit her. Dr. Pretorius’s eyes widen in fear, and she powers the copter blades some more till they whine in protest, trying to lift up and away from Aunty Nush.
“No, Aunty! No!” yells Ramzy, rushing forward and grabbing her arm, but that just pulls the copter-drone down farther till it’s tilting alarmingly to one side. “Let her go!” Then he shouts something, and there’s a loud exchange between them.
Aunty Nush’s face suddenly softens, and she says something that could be, “Really?”
Ramzy nods. What he says sounds like, “Error! Error!” but clearly means, “Yes! Yes!”
Aunty Nush looks up at Dr. Pretorius, and when their eyes meet, she slowly lets go of the copter-drone. It rocks and surges toward the roof, then stabilizes. Dr. Pretorius eases it forward, through the bashed-in doorway and into the air above the astonished crowd.
On the ground, Ramzy and Aunty Nush are embracing. She is stroking and kissing the top of his head while tears stream down her fat cheeks and they turn to look at the copter-drone.
Dr. Pretorius looks down, gives a little salute, and I like to imagine that she says, “So long, folks!” but it’s too noisy to hear. Instead, she gets higher and higher and then the drone banks off to the right, over the road, over the beach, and over the sea, becoming a speck in the twilight.
And she’s gone.
Then my arms are round Mr. Mash, and I’m covered in blood from his scorpion wound, and people are shouting around me.
“Stand back!” they say. “The dog’s infected!” Nobody will come closer: they stand around in a circle, and I see Dad’s face pushing through to the front.
“It’s all right!” I hear myself saying. “It’s all going to be all right.”
And there’s Jessica. I want to hold up the glass bottle and shout that I have the cure, but all the people standing around will see, and it’ll be on television, and I think of all the explaining I’ll have to do, so I just hold it in my fist.
And of all the people that are standing around, not daring to touch me in case I’m infected, it is Jessica who steps forward. She crouches down and puts her arms round me and whispers, “Did you get it?”
As we hug, I slip the little vial into her hand and say, “I got it.”
Then Dad is there, hugging me, too, and Clem. Ramzy is hugging his dad now, and Sass and her mum are hugging as well. Mr. Mash is motionless beside me.
The last thing I say before I pass out is “Can we get him to a vet? He’s been stung by a scorpion…”
When I come round, I’m in the hospital again. Dad is sitting by my bed.
“Hi,” he says.
I blink a few times, then say, “Mr. Mash?”
Dad nods slowly. “Very sick. But he’s gonna be OK. Did you say scorpion?”
I’m not even sure what I remember. I gulp down a glass of water that Dad hands me, and say, “Did it really happen?”
“It really happened,” says Dad gently. “At least…something really happened. You can fill in the details when you’re ready. Right now, you just need to rest.”
“The cure? Jessica got the bottle?”
“Oh yes. It was analyzed two days ago and tested yesterday and full production started last night, so—”
“Two…? H-how long have I been asleep?”
“Medically induced coma, Georgie. Three days. We thought we’d lost you.” His chin wobbles a bit, and I see him clench his jaw. He grins to disguise it. But a tear leaks out anyway and tumbles down his face, splashing on his round tummy.
“And the other dogs? Everyone’s dogs?”
“No more killings, Georgie. The cull was suspended yesterday when the cure was announced. You’ve done it. I don’t know how, but you’ve done it. They’re calling it a million-to-one chance.”
As I close my eyes again, Dad’s words go round in my head. A million-to-one chance. A million. Chance. Million…
Then I sleep some more.
SPANISH CITY SIEGE FUGITIVE STILL WANTED BY POLICE
Link to reclusive billionaire still “unproven”
Dog Plague mastermind is victim’s stepmum
WHITLEY BAY: One week after the dramatic Spanish City siege, the elderly woman who escaped in a self-piloted drone remains on the run and wanted for questioning by the police.
She was known as “Dr. Pretorius” to the children she had allegedly kidnapped. Police are investigating the possibility that she is in fact the Norwegian tech billionaire Dr. Erika Pettarssen who disappeared five years ago.
A spokesperson for the Pettarssen charitable foundation, which provides funds for developing technology in poorer nations, said they had had no contact with her.
The local children at the center of the siege were lured to a hi-tech games laboratory by “Dr. Pretorius,” where they tested virtual-reality games with an advanced form of transcranial direct-current stimulation device built into a bicycle helmet. One of the children—Georgina Santos—was taken to the hospital suffering headaches and vomiting. She is expected to make a full recovery.
The laboratory was located in the iconic dome of the 1910 Spanish City entertainment complex. Police computer experts say that all the disks that might contain clues about the games being developed had been wiped by the time they arrived.
In a startling twist, Georgina’s father’s partner—pictured at the scene cradling the blood-soaked girl—is Jessica Stone, the biobotics technician who is being credited with identifying the nanobiotic molecular antidote—the so-called cure for Dog Plague.
The two events are not believed to be connected.
I’m still in the hospital and my memory is still fuzzy. I want to keep asking people stuff like “What happened to the scorpions?” and I woke up once, saying, “Are the soldiers still outside the hospital?” And then my mind just goes blank for ages.
Mimi the doctor is nice, but she thinks I’m “confabulating” again, and it’s difficult to know what I’m remembering right and what is wrong.
Then Clem turns up on his own. He’s shaved his stupid beard off, which makes me smile because he looks more like the Clem that I remember, but it’s only when he sits down that I know why the words million and chance have been kicking around in my head.
When I ask him about the Geordie Jackpot, he gives a rueful smile.
“Campervan,” he says. He had emptied his pockets to get the keys, and his wallet containing the winning ticket got fried with the rest of the campervan’s interior. To give him credit, he doesn’t actually seem that disheartened. “What you never had you never miss,” he says, but I wonder if he’s been practicing saying that.
Clem was lucky. Thanks to the panic over Dog Plague, he was only given a police warning on the night everything happened. He expects he’ll have his learner’s permit confiscated, but it could have been worse.
“Why has the beard gone?” I ask him.
“Got a date, haven’t I?” he says, blushing a little, which is so cute! My brother is actually very good-looking when he’s not all oily and beardy.
“Who?” But I already know the answer.
“Anna Hennessey. She saw me on TV apparently. Sass went home all upset and told everyone about the chase in the van, and, well…I think she reckons I’m a bit of a bad boy.”
“You?” I scoff. “She’ll be disappointed.”
He grins. “Yeah, well. Maybe I can persuade her to go for nice guys!” He pauses, then says, “Thanks, Pie-face!”
I’m back home now.
Ramzy, according to Dad, has been hiding with his dad and Aunty Nush to escape th
e “media circus.” Apparently, they had had journalists and bloggers and everyone knocking at the door at all hours and wanting to interview Aunty Nush about bashing the door in, and she has no interest at all in talking to anyone.
But things have calmed down now, and most of the journalists have gone, Dad says, so after a couple of days Ramzy comes to see me. And Mr. Mash, of course, who’s got one of those cones on his head to stop him licking the scorpion wound.
Ramzy goes nuts when he sees it. “Hey! That’s like Timmy in the Famous Five!” he says. “He had one on all through Five on a Secret Trail because he cut his ear chasing rabbits!”
I smile. It’s good to see Ramzy again, and we head down to the beach with Mr. Mash, who now has Dudley’s collar disc clinking next to his own. That was Ramzy’s idea.
On the way, he shrugs off his little backpack and takes out a book. “Speaking of the Famous Five,” he says. “Remember this?” I look closer and it’s not a book at all. It’s a heavy white rectangle, disguised with a Famous Five book cover. I shake my head.
“Have I seen it before?” I ask.
“It’s her life’s work. She gave it to us to look after,” says Ramzy. “But I think you should keep it. You never know if she’ll be back.”
The beach, once again, is full of dogs, and Mr. Mash runs to the shoreline to bite the white tops of the waves. The weather has turned cooler and we sit on the stone steps looking out at the dark blue sea as the salty breeze whips up little flurries of sand.
“Hard to believe it really happened, isn’t it?” he says, and I can’t think what to say. Perhaps it’s because I find I’m forgetting so much of it, as if there are holes in my mind that the memories are falling through. I tell this to Ramzy and he says, “Good job I can remember, then.”
He really seems unaffected by it all, which I’m glad about, but a little jealous at the same time.
“I told you about meeting myself, didn’t I?”
“You did. What were you like?”
“I was OK,” I say. “Expensive sneakers, though. And a cool watch.”
“That’s the Geordie Jackpot. That’s what happens when you don’t make the difficult decision to save the world. The ticket doesn’t get burned in a freak campervan explosion.”
We stay there for a bit, looking at the horizon. “Where do you think she went, Ramzy?” He doesn’t answer. He’s on his feet and walking toward the Spanish City.
“I’ve got an idea.”
Five minutes later, we’re being scowled at by Norman Two-Kids as we look around his shop, while Mr. Mash waits obediently outside.
“You buyin’ somethin’ or not?” he says.
“Just browsing!” says Ramzy cheerfully. Then softly, to me, he says, “Look at the cameras: there, there, there, and there.”
There are security cameras everywhere, pointing in every direction, including one directed straight at the Geordie Jackpot terminal.
“Excuse me, sir,” says Ramzy to Norman. “But if I were to purchase a Geordie Jackpot ticket…”
“Hey, I remember you. Go on, get lost.”
“Just one question: do the tickets have the time of purchase written on them?”
“Course they do. But you’re still not buyin’ one. Go on—clear off!”
As for Jessica…
Well, that’s two of us in the family who have now met the king. He came up on a “private visit”—no press, no photographers, no warning—and he brought his Jack Russell terrier, called Tigger, who’s quite old now but super cute. Jessica invited me and Mr. Mash too. The king wanted to thank the people who worked at the Jenner laboratory, and spent ages talking to Jessica.
Then he shook my hand. As he bent down to pat Mr. Mash, he moved in close, murmuring so that no one else could hear.
He said, “I’ve just been told the most extraordinary story involving a very brave dog and something called a FutureDome. Is it true?”
I nodded and found myself saying, “Yes, sir.” I’ve had enough of lying.
“Well, your secret’s safe with me,” he said, and then he winked. “Jolly well done, both of you!”
* * *
—
We’ve been getting on quite well, actually, Jessica and I. I think it was seeing her and Other Me in the future, how Other Me called her Mum. I’ve thought about it a lot and I have worked something out.
Danger and horror and difficulty often bring people closer together. That’s what must have happened with Jessica and Other Me. Living through everything that led to the world that I saw must have made them trust each other and like each other.
And so it came to me as I was taking Mr. Mash’s cone off for the last time. Why not allow that to happen, anyway?
I thought of my Wisdom of the Dogs poster. Like people in spite of their faults.
Dad loves Jessica. So I will too. At least I’ll try.
She has been nice. St. Woof’s is still closed down, so Mr. Mash has been living in the barn, but seeing as it’s the school holidays, I have plenty of time to hang out with him, and he’s not lonely. Jessica’s allergy is not her fault. She even suggested the other day that Mr. Mash might be able to stay so long as he didn’t come in the house. There’s a shed in the garden that we could turn into a fabulous doghouse. (Ramzy has already drawn up plans, obviously.)
Clem has been in touch with the Geordie Jackpot people. He got an email back from them.
Dear Mr. Santos,
Thank you for your email. We have an established procedure for lost ticket claims, and we investigate all such claims thoroughly.
We will be examining the videos taken within the shop where you say you bought the ticket, Narayan Supreme Stores. If we can establish that you bought the ticket, then we will begin the process of verifying whether you are, in fact, a Jackpot winner.
Yours sincerely,
Ms. J Knight
Geordie Jackpot Claims
Clem’s in a good mood, although he’s nervous. He finds out tomorrow if the Geordie Jackpot investigation will make him a winner. He hasn’t told anybody else.
It’s still a secret between him and Ramzy and me. And possibly Anna Hennessey, and therefore possibly Sass, and therefore possibly everyone else in the world. It doesn’t really matter to me, but I hope Ramzy gets his share. I can’t forget how upset he was when I was dismissive about it all. I get a pang of shame when I think about how he couldn’t admit how little money his family has.
I want his life to be as full of adventure as he deserves—and it’s looking pretty good.
In fact, everything’s looking pretty good.
* * *
—
Later that same day, we’re walking along the beach with the Spanish City ahead of us. There’s me, and Clem and Dad and Jessica, and Mr. Mash (of course). We’re going to have tea at the Polly Donkin Tea Rooms to celebrate Dad and Jessica’s engagement (the wedding to be performed next year by the Reverend Maurice Cleghorn).
I’m smiling to myself when Jessica hangs back and comes alongside me.
“What’s the smile for?” she asks, smiling herself.
“It’s a secret,” I say.
And then I add, for the first time, “Mum.”
All of that happened last summer.
All through the winter, and into the spring, I would look at Mum’s tree bent over the skyline, and I would feel that something wasn’t right.
Something was left unfinished. And today I’m going to finish it.
Dr. Pretorius’s disk cassette is still disguised as a Famous Five book. I have wrapped it in plastic, and sealed it with packing tape, and put it in an old tin and melted candle wax around the rim of the lid.
It’s very early on the morning of Dad and Jessica’s wedding and I’m the only one up. Mr. Mash and I walk up to Mum’s tree with a spade,
and I dig a deep hole underneath the branches while my dog watches.
It’s the first of May. There’s a clear blue sky, and a light breeze is shaking the boughs, which are heavy with pearly-white cherry blossom. The blossom is due to drop at any time now.
It’s perfect.
I place the tin with the disk in the hole and fill in the soil, stamping on it while Mr. Mash sniffs the ground curiously. I look back at our farmhouse, and across the fields to the silvery strip of sea; then I check around that no one’s listening. I’ve never done this before, but I’ve heard Dad talking to the tree as if it’s really Mum.
“Mum?” I say out loud. “I don’t know if anyone can ever create the dome again, but I’m leaving this here for you to look after. Just in case, you know.”
It feels strange, talking out loud, but Mr. Mash is listening, with his head tilted to one side, and so I carry on.
“I wish I could have saved you, too, but it doesn’t work like that. But we saved other people, so you know…”
I stop for a while.
Then I say, “Were you helping me? I think maybe you were. That’s what mums do, isn’t it?” I’m remembering how I thought of Mum’s song, before deciding to bust Dr. Pretorius out of the hospital, and Other Me didn’t, and how that seemed to be the difference between our timelines.
I pause for a bit and look up through the branches. Finally, I say, “Talking of mums…You’ll always be my real mum, but…I kind of have a new one now. I hope that’s OK. Shall we call it the Big Experiment?”
That’s it. I sigh deeply and contentedly and prop the spade over my shoulder. “Come on, Mashie,” I say, and start to head back down the path. Mum’s song—the one from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang—is playing in my head and, at that moment, the breeze picks up, and a blossom petal floats past me. Then another, and another, till Mr. Mash and I are enveloped in a cloud of white as a strong gust shakes all the blossoms from Mum’s tree, casting them onto the path before me.