Chapter SIX

38Next »

‘I’m going to kill them, all of them,’ Blake Jones said in a low villainous voice. Except it didn’t come out that way at all. What actually came out was, ‘Hee haw, hee haw, hee hee haw.’

He coughed and cleared his throat, then tried again.

‘Hee haw.’

Blake stamped his foot on the ground in frustration. He was the biggest of the three and didn’t like looking stupid in front of his younger brothers.

Lockie Jones, the youngest, snarled in the direction the two boys and their two friends had gone.

Errol Jones, the middle of the three brothers smacked a fist into his palm, showing what he was going to do when he caught up with them.

Blake tried to understand what had happened, but it didn’t make much sense. One of the two kids with the funny accents dressed in the gorilla suits had pointed his finger at them, and now he couldn’t talk, and neither could his brothers. It had to be some kind of spray. That was it! Some kind of throat spray.

He wasn’t the smartest of the three brothers but occasionally he had a good idea, and he had one just then. It was so good in fact that he decided to write it down.

That was another good idea! Writing stuff down. They couldn’t talk but they could write notes. That made two good ideas in one day, which was a record for him, so he decided to stop thinking in case he broke something.

He fished around in a pocket until he found a stump of pencil that he had been using to write rude words on the wall of the locker room at school. He looked around for something to write on but couldn’t see anything. He looked at his brothers and made writing movements in the air. Little Lockie looked blank, but Errol, who was unquestionably the brightest of the three, walked over to the For Sale sign outside the house next door to them, and kicked it until the sign came off the wooden post.

He brought it back and put it on the footpath in front of Blake.

Blake knelt down. He grinned at his brothers, at the same time sticking the tip of his tongue out through the gap where his missing tooth was (he thought that looked cool and evil). Then he started writing.

IVA PLANN, he wrote. THAY AR GONE TOO PAY FOR WOT THAY DID TOO US.

He wasn’t the greatest speller, but neither were his brothers, so to them it all made perfect sense.

He wrote away for the next few moments and when he had finished he showed it to his brothers.

They looked at each other and grinned. They didn’t dare laugh, because that just came out as ‘He he he he haw,’ which sounded really stupid.

Blake made a fist and stuck it out. Errol made a fist too and put it on top of Blake’s. Then Lockie added his fist to the knuckle tower.

Nobody could beat the three Jones brothers when they were together. Especially not when they had a plan.

And this was a particularly evil plan.

+                     +                         +

‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ Lewis whispered.

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Remy said. ‘Why are you whispering?’

The building was a long thin warehouse, much like the other warehouses in the streets around the area, except this one was much older and made of brick. It had once had windows, but they were long since boarded up. There was a big doorway with a curved top that looked a bit like a huge, yawning mouth, and windows to either side of it that looked like beady eyes.

The mouth looked ready to swallow up anything that got too close, which, just at that moment happened to be Remy, Lewis and two crazy gorillas from outer space.

‘It looks deserted,’ Lewis said, a little louder this time. Not quite a whisper, but almost.

‘They keep it that way, so they don’t get robbed,’ Remy said. ‘My dad told me. This is where he comes to buy his supplies.’

Supplies like cling-wrap, and baking trays, and tinfoil.

‘I say old chap,’ Giles said, ‘Pip pip what. Let’s jolly well get on with it then shall we?’

‘Are you awfully sure there’ll be enough tinfoil,’ Miranda asked. ‘We do need a frightful lot of it.’

‘They supply to all the caterers and supermarkets in the area,’ Remy said. ‘They have boxes and boxes and boxes of it, stacked from the floor to the ceiling on a huge big rack.’

‘Well that does sound like a gillygram or two,’ Giles said.

‘A gillygram or two!’ Miranda exclaimed.

‘What the...’ Remy began, but stopped, staring.

 Giles and Miranda linked arms and began to dance, hopping around in a circle, occasionally flinging one leg in a strange, highland sort of fling, clasping their other hands together behind their heads, all the while singing:

‘It’s enough and it’s okay

And I really have to say

That all I need today

Is just a gillygram or two

A gillygram or two

A gillygram or two

It’s okay and it’s enough

And it’s quite a lot of stuff

But I’d find it really tough

Without a gillygram or two

A gill....’

‘Enough already!’ Remy shouted, stopping them in their tracks. Giles looked rather miffed, and Miranda a little hurt.

‘It’s a very popular song where we come from,’ Miranda said.

‘Sorry,’ Remy said, ‘But let’s just get on with this and get you off this planet so we can get on with our normal lives.’

‘Boy,’ Lewis said, shaking his head. ‘This day couldn’t possibly get any weirder.’

Just then the day got a whole lot weirder.

It started as a low buzzing, whining kind of sound, the sort of sound that is almost not there, like a mosquito in the far corner of your bedroom on a hot summer’s night. You don’t even realise you are hearing it at first, but then it gets a little louder, and you notice it, then louder again and you realise that you weren’t imagining it and if you don’t jump out of bed and turn on the light and try to squash it or spray it you’re going to end up with a nasty itchy bite in the morning.

But this wasn’t a mosquito, although as the buzzing/whining sound got louder it did start to sound a little like one. A very large one!

It was coming from behind them and Remy and Lewis both turned at the same time, trying to see what was making the noise. But there was nothing there, except maybe for a slight glow in the air that was probably nothing more than a drifting bit of mist caught in a loose ray of sunshine.

‘What’s that noise?’ Remy asked, turning around to Giles and Miranda. ‘Can you hear that...’ His voice trailed off.

Giles and Miranda were gone. Vanished!

‘Remy,’ Lewis said in a voice that wasn’t as steady as it had been a few seconds earlier.

Remy looked back. The mist was glowing more than before. And come to think of it, the day was not really misty at all, so this was a strange rogue patch of mist, if it was mist at all. And the day was completely overcast, so the glow was not from a loose ray of sunshine.

The misty patch solidified and tiny miniature lightning bolts began to emanate from the centre of it, flicking out left and right like a lizard’s tongue darting for flies.

A pink spot appeared in the centre, growing larger and larger until suddenly there was a huge thunder-crash and the whole thing disappeared, leaving behind just a cloud of wispy smoke and two large fairies.

Now usually a fairy would be about the size of your palm, at least the ones that Remy had seen in fairy tales would. Sometimes books would have pictures of ones that were so large that if they stood next to you they would come up to your knee.

In most respects these two fairies looked like normal fairies, with sparkly pink tights and large transparent wings that fluttered a little in the cold breeze.

But ‘large’ didn’t really even begin to describe them. They were at least six foot tall and judging by the muscles that rippled across their shoulders, they were serious body-builder fairies.

‘Look out,’ Lewis yelled, ‘She’s got a cupcake.’

Remy and Lewis spun on their heels and ran, heading for the corner of the building. Behind them they heard a low voice say, ‘Dude, like, who are you calling a “she”.’

Lewis beat Remy to the corner of the building and stopped. In front of them was a high brick wall that joined the building to the warehouse next door.

‘This way,’ Remy yelled,’ pointing to a dumpster that was pushed up against the wall. They ran to it, climbing onto it, then scraping their way up over the wall, dropping down to a weed-covered section on the other side.

Remy almost began to think they might be safe, when there was a fluttering noise overhead and the two oversized fairies descended from the sky in front of them.

This time there was nowhere to run. Their backs were to the wall, and any chance of escape was cut off.

‘Bam, blood everywhere,’ Remy said in a quivering voice, staring at the cupcake that one of them was holding and remembering what Miranda had said.

‘Like, just chill dude,’ the first fairy said. Looking a little more closely now, Remy could see that he had a moustache. A big, hairy one.

‘Yeah, like whoa,’ the other fairy (the one without a moustache) said.

‘Don’t kill us,’ Lewis squeaked.

‘Kill you?’ Moustache said. ‘Why would we want to kill you? Have you done something bad, dude?’

‘It would have to be like, really bad,’ No-Moustache said.

‘Really, really bad,’ Moustache agreed.

‘Yeah, like blowing up a planet bad.’

‘Or creating a worm-hole that sucked the entire milky way in like a milk-shake up through a straw.’

‘Or farting during the big bang, when the universe was created, so that everything everywhere smelled really disgusting forever.’

‘Or...’

‘We didn’t do any of that stuff,’ Remy yelled.

‘Well okay, dude, then we’re not going to kill you,’ Moustache said. He held out a hand. ‘I’m ummm...’ he said.

‘Um what?’ Remy asked.

‘Just Ummm,’ he said.

‘It’s a silly name, dude,’ the other fairy said. ‘I told you they’d think it’s silly.’

‘It’s a family name,’ Ummm said. ‘It’s been in my family for like generations.’

‘I’m Too Cool,’ the other fairy said.

‘That’s your name?’ Lewis asked.

‘I just told you dude, weren’t you listening?’

‘Hi, I’m Remy,’ Remy said, shaking the fairy’s hand.

‘I’m Lewis,’ Lewis said.

The two giant fairies froze for a second, turned to each other, then burst into laughter.

‘What?’ Remy asked, a little annoyed at not being in on the joke.

‘Remy and Lewis?’ Ummm said, struggling to keep a straight face.

‘Yeah, so what?’

‘If you knew what that meant where we come from, you wouldn’t admit that to anyone!’ Too Cool said.

Remy had to wait for a moment before they could control themselves and get their breath back.

‘If you’re not going to kill us, then why are you here?’ he asked.

Things got serious, real fast.

‘We’re like policemen, dudes,’ Ummm said. ‘We’ve been tracking a couple of intergalactic fugitives. We’ve tracked them here, to this planet.’

‘To this location,’ Too Cool said.

Remy and Lewis looked at each other.

‘Are they like big and hairy?’ Lewis asked.

‘Yeah dude,’ Ummm said.

‘Like gorillas?’ Remy asked.

‘Totally,’ Too Cool said.

‘They were just here,’ Lewis said. ‘We didn’t know they were criminals.’

‘They needed some tinfoil for their spaceship, and a ruby,’ Remy said.

There was a silence, and a look of horror on both the fairies’ faces.

‘What?’ Remy asked, feeling suddenly very uncomfortable.

‘Did you say tinfoil?’ Ummm asked.

‘And a ruby?’ Too Cool added.

‘Yes, why?’

The fairies looked at each other. ‘So that’s what they’re up to!’ Too Cool said.

‘Did they mention anything about an un-timer?’ Ummm asked.

Remy slowly nodded.

‘It’s worse than we thought,’ Too Cool said.

‘What is,’ Lewis just about screamed it.

‘You humans evolved from apes, did you know that?’ Ummm asked.

‘Yes, some scientists figured that one out a few years ago,’ Remy said.

‘It took you millions of years,’ Too Cool said.

‘Much slower than any other planet,’ Ummm said in a slightly huffy voice.

‘So?’ Remy asked.

‘So Giles and Miranda are going to use the un-timer that they stole from Galactic President Yehbabi-yeh and they are going to unwind evolution,’ Too Cool said. ‘They are going to devolve you back to the apes.’

‘Like them,’ Ummm said.

‘But they’d like need a lot of tinfoil to un-time all those millions of years,’ Too Cool said.

‘A least a gillygram,’ Ummm agreed.

‘Or two,’ Too Cool said.

‘Please don’t start dancing,’ Lewis muttered.

‘Where would they find that much tinfoil around here?’ Ummm asked.

Remy nodded mutely and pointed to the warehouse next to them.

‘Hurry!’ Too Cool shouted, ‘There’s no time to waste!’

Ummm grabbed Lewis and Too Cool grabbed Remy, and with swift beats of their powerful wings, lifted them back up over the brick wall and around to the front of the warehouse.

‘Oh no,’ Remy whispered.

‘Totally,’ Ummm said, dropping Remy a couple of feet to the ground.

The front door of the warehouse no longer existed, except for some hot, still smoking edges. Through the hole in the door they could see a row of empty racks.

Of Giles and Miranda, there was no sign.

 

- Illustration by Fifi Colston