Chapter THREE

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'No,' Remy squeaked, throwing himself against the back door, slamming it shut.

'What are you playing at,' his father shouted through the door.

'Quick, you two. My bedroom. Through there,' Remy said, pointing at the door opposite that lead into the hallway. 'Then it’s the third door on the right. Hurry.'

'I say, steady on old chap,' Giles said.

'Now!' The door handle turned behind him and despite leaning against the door with all his weight it began to open. 'If my dad sees you it’ll do his head in.'

Miranda cocked her head to one side, frowning. 'Things haven’t been going too well for him lately,' Remy explained. 'Trust me. You should hide.'

Giles shrugged and, grabbing Miranda’s paw in his, began to make his way to toward the hall. Remy would have laughed when the two tried to go through the doorway at the same time, if he wasn’t using every scrap of his strength to hold the door closed.

'Remy!' his father yelled. The door gave a shuddering heave against Remy’s shoulder. Miranda, oozing out of his mum’s pink smock in a seriously hairy way, glanced back, winked at Remy and was gone. With one last shove the back door burst open and Remy flew across the kitchen, landing on the floor with a thud.

'What on earth is going on?!' Remy’s father said, picking himself up off the doormat where he’d fallen.

Sitting up, Remy rubbed at his knees. 'Um ... stuck..,' he said. '... the door ...'

'I finally get a chance for a sleep in and you two don’t have the decency to keep ... Oh. My. Goodness!'

Remy’s mother stood in the hall doorway surveying the kitchen, her eyes bulging and her mouth opening and closing silently like a drowning guppy's. From the detergent dribbles down the cupboard doors, to the puddles of water on the floor and the criss-cross pattern of flour and sugar, her eyes grew wider and her silence more ominous. Remy’s dad followed the trail of her eyes with his own growing horror.

'You know, Gerard,' she finally spluttered, 'Remy’s just a kid, but I really expect more from a grown man. This is ... this is ... this is more than I can stand! You can stay in that stupid little tent of yours but don’t bother coming in here for your meals anymore.'

'But Mum ...'

'Stop sticking up for him, Remy. He might be a great dad but he’s hopeless as a ...

'Bridget!'

'I mean it, Gerard. Enough is enough! Now clean up this mess.' Remy’s mum stalked out of the room muttering, 'Now where’s my work smock?'

Remy said nothing. He took the dish cloth from where it hung on the cold tap and started wiping the trails of detergent. He couldn’t look at his dad. He licked his lips.

'Dad, I didn’t ...' What could he say? The gorillas in my bedroom did it? The two gorillas in my bedroom from outer space speaking with funny old-fashioned English accents? And one of them is wearing Mum’s work smock.

Mum’s work smock! Oh no. He quickly swiped the rest of the sticky goop off, rinsed the cloth and dashed over the floury streaks. It wasn’t perfect but it would have to do. He looked over at his dad. Gerard hadn’t moved. His shoulders sagged and his head hung down.

'Dad, I’ve gotta go. I’ve got Mum’s dress.' Gerard’s head flicked up to cast a worried look at his son. 'I’ll explain later.' Remy threw the cloth in the sink and scooted out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the third door on the right. He took a deep breath and turned the door handle.

Miranda stood with her back to the closet door, her head inside the net of the basketball hoop attached to it. The gorilla smiled brightly when she saw Remy. 'I found your tele-transporter ring, but we’re having trouble locating the control panel?'

Giles was poking an enormous ape digit at the tiny buttons on Remy’s cellphone, the duvet off Remy’s bed draped over his head. Drawers stuck out at odd angles and their contents seemed to have exploded over every surface of the bedroom. Remy rubbed his hand through his hair. He wasn’t very good at tidying at the best of times and he’d pretty much used up all of the day’s cleaning effort out in the kitchen.

'I thought this might be it, eh what, but all it does is buzz in my hand,' Giles said holding the phone out to Remy. 'It looks a bit like my Un-timer but the buttons are ridiculously small.'

Remy took the phone. 12 text messages, all from his best mate Lewis. The last one said, Call Me!!!!!!!!

'I need that dress.' He pointed at Miranda. 'Could you take it off please? And what’s an un-timer?'

'But I like this,' Miranda said, thrusting her gorilla lips out in an alarming fashion towards Remy. 'I thinks it’s rather fetching on me don’t you think? Very slimming too.' She ran her paws down the sides of the dress. 'And pink isn’t your colour at all,' she added.

'It’s not for me,' Remy sighed. He rifled through the stuff on the floor. 'Here,' he said thrusting his red swanndri at the ape. 'And you guys have to leave.'

Miranda frowned. 'I can’t wear that.'

'You have to. I need that dress back. It’s my Mum’s.'

'Finders keepers. There’s plenty of other things where I found this. She can pick something else.' Miranda held the swanndri against herself and peered into the mirror. 'This would look better with a bit of lipstick, don’t you think. Something bright.'

'I don’t have any lipstick,' Remy said through clenched teeth. 'I’m a boy. I don’t wear that stuff. Look, you can’t stay. Things aren’t going too well at the moment. Mum and Dad will have a fit if they find you in here.'

'Charming. You’ve not exactly made us feel welcome. You’re not going to come across very well in our report at all, you know. But don’t worry. As soon as our bus is fixed we’ll be off.'

'How long will that take?'

'About ten minutes.'

Remy let out a huge breath. 'That’s brilliant.' He had way more important things to worry about.

'As soon as we have a monkey wrench, some superglue, balsa wood, tinfoil and enough Zaxxon 21 to fill the tank. Not 24 mind you, that’s for the sports model. And a stick of chewing gum,' Giles said.

'Oh, and a Ruby,' Miranda said, handing the pink smock back to Remy. 'Sorry about the rip under the arm.'

'I didn’t have any lipstick and I don’t have a ruby for you either,' Remy said, staring with horror at the tear dividing the smock almost in half.

'You don’t have a choice if you want to get rid of us. We need the ruby to fix the Un-timer – it got a little squashed when I sat on it in the crash-landing. It would be nice if it worked before we got going. When it works properly it sucks up the time we’ve been here. You won’t remember a thing once we leave. You’ll be back to the moment before we turned up.'

Just then the phone buzzed in Remy’s hand. He looked at the message. Where r u. Ur l8.

 

 

 

 

- Illustration by Fraser Williamson