Chapter Nine

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“That wasn’t… that couldn’t have been… Lewis?” Remy wriggled around in Too Cool’s grip, trying to see what had landed in the duck pond.

“’Course not, dude. Lewis is totally safe. Ummm has him.” Too Cool landed on the driveway with a thump so hard that Remy’s spine felt like it was going to spear right through the top of his head.

Mrs Jones didn’t seem to notice the crash landing. She was too busy gaping with her jaw open, making weird gasping sounds in the back of her throat and staring at the enormous black cloud of smoke and ash that was billowing on the exact same spot where her house used to be.

“Oops,” said an apologetic voice from behind Remy.

Remy turned. Ummm had landed behind him and the big fairy was looking sheepish. His tiara was crooked, his singed moustache stuck out in all directions and his blackened tutu hung in tatters. “Sorry, dude. Those cupcakes can be tricky. Especially the ones with baked bean additives. My finger slipped and it went off before I could grab Lewis.”

“So… that could be Lewis in the duck pond?” Remy’s voice squeaked up into high gear. “He might be dead!”

“I’m sure he’s okay. Or at least… totally not dead.”

“We have to get over there right now and—“

“Hold it!” Too Cool whipped out something from his tutu. “I have the suspects in sight.”

Remy jerked his head around to follow Too Cool’s gaze. Inside the swirling black cloud of smoke that had replaced Mrs Jones’s house, he caught a glimpse of two shapes moving.

“Gorillas in the mist!” Ummm grabbed a cupcake out of his own battered skirt.

Remy shrunk backwards, praying that Ummm’s finger wouldn’t slip this time.

Too Cool shot a glance backwards at Mrs Jones. Her face was turning a funny red colour, her teeth were making strange grinding sounds and her expression seemed to suggest that she didn’t need a cupcake to generate her own explosion.

“Stay here, Mrs Jones,” Too Cool ordered. “If the gorillas get hold of the ruby in your stomach, we’re all as good as dead.”

“My… my… my… house…“ She’d worked herself up into such a rage that she seemed lost for words. And looking at her face, Remy really hoped the words she was searching for had found a really good hiding place and she wouldn’t be able to drag them out any time soon.

“You too, Remy,” ordered Too Cool. “Stay here and guard that urn lid with your life.” Too Cool turned to Ummm. “Come on, let’s see if we can overpower the gorillas while they’re still weak from the explosion.”

Both fairies stalked forward towards the smoke, cupcakes held at the ready. The swirling black cloud seemed to reach out and swallow them up, so they were instantly invisible in the murk.

A moment later… BANG! Remy jumped. Bang, Boof, CRASH! A thunder storm raging inside the smoke cloud might have made less noise. Then came some horrible grunting, and a loud, angry squeal like an animal caught in a trap.

Remy swallowed. In a fight between criminal gorillas and giant police-fairies, who would win? The only way he’d found out was when the winner walked back out of the smoke. But what if it was Miranda and Giles that came out? Mrs Jones and the ruby she had inside her would be at their mercy. And so would he.

Remy had to get out of here, and what he needed to do was find Lewis. If the explosion hadn’t already killed him, Lewis could be badly hurt. Every second Lewis waited for help might be his last. But Remy couldn’t leave Mrs Jones alone.

“Quick, Mrs Jones, you’ve got come with me to the duck pond.” Remy grabbed her arm and tugged. She didn’t move. He tugged again. She was an immovable object, a rock of rage. Her face was so red it was almost purple. Her mouth opened and a flood of curses poured out, so fast that all Remy could make out were some rather strange comparisons that measured the size, weight, and quality of a fairy’s brain against the poop of various farmyard animals.

Remy dropped her arm and backed off fast. She was getting scarier than gorillas and fairies combined. Anyway, she didn’t seem in any mood to help anybody, let alone… Wait! What was he thinking? He could call and get help for Lewis right now!

Remy grabbed his phone out of his pocket and dialed 111. “Send an ambulance,” he gabbled to the woman who answered. She transferred him, and another woman asked for the address. “The duck pond next to the Jones’s house.”

“Excuse me?”

He took a deep breath, and told the woman the street name and number.

“The ambulance is on its way… but what’s that woman saying in the background?” the phone operator asked. “Did she yell something about shoving a fairy up a gyro-sphincter?”

Remy looked at Mrs Jones. Her raving was getting louder, spittle flying from her lips. Her face had briefly visited the colour purple, but now it was slowly turning a colour that Remy’s art-teacher might call violet. Or maybe indigo – he always got those two muddled up.

“Um. What should you do if someone’s gone mental?”

“Symptoms?”

“Raving about…” His face grew warm. “Um… ramming a fairy’s head up a gorilla’s…. Well, you get the idea. And I think she might have forgotten that she needs to breathe.”

“Sounds like hysteria. You could try slapping her.”

Remy stared at Mrs Jones’s clenched fists. Her knuckles were white. “Any other ideas?”

“A shock should snap her out of it.”

“Now, that I can do. Thanks.”

He hung up and turned to Mrs Jones, getting as close as he dared. Then he leaned forward and yelled as loud as he could in her ear. “We’re in DANGER! We could be KILLED! We’ve got to RUN before the GORILLAS CUT YOUR STOMACH OPEN TO GET THE RUBY OUT!”

Her mouth snapped shut and she blinked at him, frowning.

“What did you—?” Her question was cut off by another deafening BANG from within the black smoke. Remy stared as two figures slowly limped out from the thick swirling haze, dragging something heavy behind them.

Were they fairies or gorillas? His eyes strained, and his feet were poised to run. He couldn’t see a tiara sparkle or a tutu shimmer – but then, the smoke would have blackened them, wouldn’t it?

“We got ‘em, dude! We captured the gorillas!” It was Too Cool’s voice, and Remy whooped and punched the air. They’d done it! They’d saved the world! Now everything could go back to the way it was before the madness started; the fairies could turn back time, and Lewis would be okay – he would never have been caught in the explosion, so he wouldn’t be hurt.

Remy ran forward. Too Cool and Ummm looked like they’d been in a pretty mean fight. Their tutus were ripped, their tiaras cracked. They were covered in soot and ash, great clumps of it sticking to their hair as though they were wearing strange tufted wigs. Behind them they dragged some sort of net, in which Remy could see the gorillas struggling.

“I knew the gorillas were sneaky, but they were even trickier than I expected,” said Ummm. “We like, almost lost the fight because of their tricks. I mean, we totally had them cornered, and then suddenly they pulled their trickiest trick ever. All at once, there were three of ‘em!”

“Three of them?” Remy screeched to a halt.

Ummm scratched his head. A great clump of ash and soot floated out of his hair. “Yeah, it was so totally strange.”

A horrible thought sauntered into Remy’s brain, its heavy boots tracking in great gobs of fear. He squinted at the struggling gorillas inside the net. “Did they say anything?” he asked.

“That was the other weird thing,” said Too Cool. “The gorillas we’ve been hunting, like, never shut up. But the only thing they had to say this time sounded like, ‘He haw, he haw’.”

Remy reached his finger in through the net and touched gorilla fur. It came away under his finger… clumps of ash and soot sticking to mud. Just like the sticky black mud the fairies had covered the Jones brothers in. All three of them.

He swallowed. “I guess after they got so filthy, they came straight home to change. They must have just arrived when… KABOOM!”

“What?” Too Cool frowned, not yet understanding.

Man, thought Remy. If Mrs Jones was furious before, she’s going to go nuclear now when she sees what you’ve done to her beloved sons.

Only… his stomach flipped over as another, even worse thought slunk into his brain and put its feet up, not caring that it was dripping pure terror all over the place.

Mrs Jones had been very quiet for the last little while, and even though Remy didn’t know her very well, he was pretty sure that it wasn’t like her to keep her mouth shut for that long. And the two gorillas – the two very sneaky criminal gorillas – were still on the loose somewhere close. Not only that, but thanks to his (possibly unwise) shouting, they now knew about the ruby in Mrs Jones’s stomach - the ruby they needed to send Remy and everyone he knew back to the time when they lived in trees and ate fleas they picked out of each other’s fur.

Remy turned around to scan the driveway and his stomach churned like it was mixing a gut milkshake.

Mrs Jones had vanished.

A bright piece of cloth was snagged on the letterbox, hanging limply down like a flag on a still day. It hadn’t been there before, Remy was certain of it, so someone must have been sneaking around behind him and left it there.

He immediately recognized what it was. Still, he raced down the driveway and snatched it up, examining it to make absolutely sure that his worst fear was confirmed before he threw open the door to his brain and told panic to come on in.

Why was it there? Was it a warning? A threat? Had it been snagged there by accident – maybe there’d been some sort of struggle? Whatever the reason, the only thing he was sure of was that it couldn’t be good.

It was his Mother’s torn pink work smock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Illustration by Brian Lovelock