Chapter Twelve

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“Do you realise what this means?” exclaimed Remy. “A whole lot of people died in the Napier earthquake—

“About 250 people,” interrupted his mum.

“—But we could save them!” he continued. “We could warn them—“

“Who’s going to believe us?” cut in Lewis. “Look at us!”

Remy looked. The two fairies looked like they’d escaped from a bad horror movie: Peter Pan versus Predator. Their tutus were so blackened and torn he could see – gulp! – actually, he didn’t want to see what was underneath.

He spun around to his Mum, Lewis, and Mr Jones instead. They looked like… well, like excretions from Uranus. Their clothes were ripped, their hair stuck out at funny angles. Mr Jones had just a tiny scrap of jeweled g-string left hanging out from the top of his trousers.

“Four battered humans, three pairs of undies, two filthy fairies, and a mermaid in a pear tree,” sang Eyepod.

“Nice Eye-tunes.” Lewis made google eyes up at her.

Remy jabbed him in the ribs. “Would you concentrate? We have to make people listen to us!”

He stared down the hill. The town looked busy. Ancient-looking motorcars sputtered and coughed along the streets. People bustled this way and that. Bicycles whizzed along, a tram dinged, and a stream of black smoke rose from a train in the distance.

How on earth could they possibly warn all those people in time?

Remy turned to the fairies. “Can you help?”

“Sure,” said Too Cool. “But first we gotta apprehend the prisoner.” He glared at Eyepod, his eyes narrowed and his hands hovering over the cupcakes on his belt like a gunslinger from the Wild West.

Eyepod squealed.

Lewis jumped in front of Too Cool. “Hey, stay away from her!”

“Stop mucking around!” yelled Remy. “We’ve got to come up with a plan.”

But Lewis’s eyes had gone to the ripped place in Ummm’s tutu that Remy didn’t want to look at. “What’s that sticking out?“

Remy’s mum was also staring. “You have a tail?”

“What’s the matter?” Ummm sounded offended. “Don’t you believe in fairy tales?”

“Will you guys LISTEN!” shouted Remy. “We have to save everyone before the earthquake starts at 10:47. Does anyone know the time?”

“I do,” said Mr Jones. “It’s—“

“Look!’ Too Cool yelled. “The gorillas!”

Remy spun around. Giles and Miranda were peering around from behind a stack of wooden barrels that were piled up outside a nearby building.

As Remy turned, Giles grabbed a barrel and threw it. It hit the ground and rolled straight at Lewis and Remy.

“Jump!” shouted Remy.

He and Lewis leaped high in the air, straight over the top of it. Miranda launched another barrel and they ducked to the side.

“Think those apes have been playing too much Donkey Kong?” puffed Lewis.

“Hey,” cried Remy. “They’ve got Mrs Jones!”

He started towards her. Ummm pulled him back. “I’ll get them!” Ummm pulled a cupcake off his belt. “Stand back, it’s chocolate!”

Lewis’s eyes went round with horror. “No! Don’t throw that, you’ll kill her!”

He grabbed Ummm’s arm just as the fairy launched the cupcake. It fell hopelessly short, hit the ground, rolled along, then dropped down into a drain. A deep drain.

“Oops,” said Ummm.

Remy strained his ears, listening to the cupcake bouncing against the side of the drain as it fell. Finally he heard a tiny splash that sounded like it came from a long way underground. But no explosion.

“Was it a dud?” asked Remy. No answer. He turned around. Both fairies were cowering on the ground, their hands over their ears.

Mr Jones was looking at his watch. “It’s exactly 10:47.”

KA…BOOOOOM!

The underground explosion threw Remy off his feet. He whacked the ground hard, and tried to hang on. The ground was shaking so hard, it was like riding a bucking horse. Beneath him, he felt the ground split apart. Remy rolled to one side as a crack appeared where he’d been lying a moment earlier.

The houses around him were being shaken to pieces, their wood splintering and bricks crashing to the ground. Dust was rising in a giant cloud that rasped in his throat and blocked out the sun.

He could see Lewis lying nearby, but no one else. “Mum!” He peered through the swirling dust. Where was she?

The crack in front of him grew wider, the ground tearing in half. He could see right down into the earth where the cupcake had gone off.

Remy clutched the ground, staring down the hole. Was it possible that the cupcake Ummm had thrown had started the earthquake?

“Remy!” His mother and Mr Jones came stumbling towards him. But the ground was rippling like a wave; it threw them over. A house just behind them came crashing to the ground.

“Mum!” he yelled.

Dust rolled out from the collapsed builidng. Remy tried to blink the muck out of his eyes, desperate to see whether his mum was okay.

“Where’s Eyepod?” shouted Lewis. “She’s helpless, stuck in a tree. We have to find her.”

“Here I am!”

From out of the dust came a sight so incredible Remy could only stare.

Eyepod had made it to the top of one of the houses. As it collapsed, she rode the falling rubble down. Standing right up on her tail, arms spread wide, hair streaming out behind her, she surfed the wave of destruction down to land right next to them.

“Phew, that was close.”

“Look out!”

A tumbling, sliding mess of debris burst from the dust, falling from further up the hill. Remy barely had time to yelp and cover his head with his arms before it hit.

Nails stabbed him, bricks bounced off him, wood bashed him. He lay pressed to the ground, trying to protect himself. One good whack to the head and he was history!

Then it went quiet. He lay groaning. The earth had stopped shaking. The dust started to settle. Where was everyone? It was deathly silent. Were they all dead?

A brick moved and Eyepod’s head poked out of the rubble.

She coughed. “That was a wipeout.”

“Where are the others?” Remy eased his aching body up to sitting and shook off bits of wood and brick.

“I’m here,” said Lewis’s voice. A Lewis-shaped pile of debris collapsed as he pulled himself out from it.

“Look out below!” There was a mighty crash as the two fairies landed in a heap. “We could barely keep airborne. Too much muck floating around. Don’t know where those ‘fairy-dust helps you fly’ rumours came from - truth is, dust gums our wings right up.”

“Where’s Mum?” asked Remy.

“And the Joneses?” asked Lewis.

Too Cool sighed. “Bad news,” he said.

“A real bummer,” agreed Ummm.

“What?”

“Sorry to have to tell you…” Too Cool looked down at his feet.

“They’re under there.” Ummm pointed.

Remy turned and stared at the enormous mountain of rubble. If his mum was under that, she was…

“Dead?” His voice shook.

“Really sorry, dude,” said Ummm.

“Saw them go,” said Too Cool. “Couldn’t save ‘em,” he added quickly.

“Buried?” whispered Remy.

“The Joneses… and your mum?” Lewis put his hand on Remy’s arm.

“It can’t be true.” Remy shook his head. “You’re wrong!” But when he looked around, he knew the truth. The buildings around them had been levelled. His mum had gone.

The gorillas had survived. They were nearby looking dazed, fiddling with the un-timer. Maybe they were trying to get it to work, but they didn’t have a ruby.

Remy reached into his pocket and pulled out a small red stone – the ruby he’d picked off the top of the funeral urn.

His fist closed around it and he glared at the fairies. “We know the un-timer can send us to a different time. But is it true that it can put everything back the way it was? So this never happened to us?”

“Yeah,” said Too Cool. “All you need is the right code.”

“You know the code?”

“Sure do.”

Remy looked over at the gorillas. “Then that’s the plan. We get the un-timer. Then I get my mum back, safe and sound.”

Giles and Miranda were so busy fiddling with the un-timer, they weren’t even watching. He could grab it right now! Remy took off, sprinting towards the gorillas. They turned around just as Remy launched himself at them. He wrenched the un-timer from their grip.

As he touched it, Remy remembered he was still holding the ruby.

BANG!

Suddenly it felt like another earthquake – this one was trying to shake Remy’s insides right out of him. Colours swirled. The ground twisted away, then snapped back with a jolt that threw him on the ground into a massive tangle of Lewis-and-Too Cool-and-Ummm-and-Eyepod limbs.

“Ouch,” he groaned, pulling himself free.

“Double-ouch,” agreed Lewis.

“We’ve time-travelled again,” said Eyepod.

“When are we?” asked Lewis.

Remy held up the un-timer. “It doesn’t matter, Lewis. We’ve got the un-timer and a ruby, and Too Cool knows the right code. We can get back to our own time. I can make everything okay!”

“Um.” Lewis pointed at the un-timer. “I don’t think you got all of it.”

Remy looked at the ripped piece of plastic in his hand. “Where’s the rest?”

“Over there.”

The gorillas were scampering away with the other half of the un-timer.

“This could be bad,” Too Cool was peering around. “The un-timer broke right in the middle of the time warp process. That’s like face-planting into a bowl of time-spaghetti.“

Remy looked to all sides, trying to work out what he was seeing. “Does this look prehistoric to you? I think we’ve gone way into the past.”

“No, it’s gotta be the future!” exclaimed Lewis. “Look over there. Is that a hovercraft?“

“Which is it?” asked Eyepod. “The past or the future?”

Remy gulped. “Actually, I think it might be both.”

 

 

 

- Illustration by Freya Blackwood