Chapter Eight - Senior Winners

You can download Fleur's FABO bookmark by clicking on the image.

Here's Fleur's Author Report:

Fabo judge’s report

Greetings Fabulous Faboistas! Well! I always say it’s good to make your characters suffer – and blimey people – you for sure are putting poor old Remy and Lewis through a hard time! Great ideas and terrific energy in the writing from all of you and it was such fun seeing where your imaginations had taken the story. I particularly loved all the descriptions of the journey down the chimney, and also the ambiguity as to who exactly are the goodies and who (and what) are the baddies.

We’ve decided to bend the rules a bit this week and have two seniors winners because their stories were so good that we felt they both deserved recognition. Also, several of the juniors ruled themselves out of contention in the way they wrote or presented their stories (see advice below). This was a shame as there’s heaps of talent in your writing along with some very inventive ideas.

Congratulations to Andy Xie and Angus Smith, both from Auckland Normal Intermediate. I’ll send you both a copy of Deadly Prospect.

Only one person guessed that I wrote Chapter Seven; congratulations to Emily Woodhouse from St Kilda’s Collegiate in Dunedin. Emily, I’ll send you a copy of Mission Girl (which used to called A New Song in the Land and now has a new title and a new cover.)

A few bits of advice:

Please everyone, put your age and Year level on your entry.

Paragraphs! These are important, and if you don’t have them then that sends your entry right down the list because it’s like getting all dressed up for a posh event, like a wedding, and then putting gumboots on your feet. In other words, it spoils the whole effect.

Point of View: The Visitors is written in the third person, so your chapters need to also be in the third person so that they follow on naturally from the Fabo chapter.

Details: Make sure you are clear about where the characters are physically. For example, the chimney the boys had to climb down was in the Jones’s house, so be careful to have your actions set in that house.

Read Your Work Aloud: Several of us have mentioned that in our reports, so it just has to be The Best Advice Ever. We all do it with our own stuff – can’t you just see us, sitting at our desks and muttering to ourselves.

Thanks for your hard work, people. It’s exciting for us watching the entries come in, and then cackling to ourselves as we read what happened next. A few times too, at least one of us will say, ‘Damn! I wish I’d thought of that!’

Fleur

Chapter 8 - Misunderstandings and Cannons

by Andy Xie (Auckland Normal Intermediate)

Remy gulped as he jumped down the hole. The fate of the human race depends on you.

Great.

He was so distracted by his inner musings that he didn’t brace himself for the landing.

Numbness grasped his legs as his legs impacted on the floor, and vibrations swarmed through his body. Nothing like ground-shock to wake you up. He coughed, and ash and dust flew off his body. He was encased in it, like a caterpillar in a chrysalis.

Then he got his bearings.

Remy quickly stepped away from where he landed -

And Lewis landed, right where Lewis had been a split second ago. Remy’s heart throbbed, as if it was a wound that had salt rubbed all over it.

“That,” Remy muttered grimly, “Was way too close for comfort.”

“Sorry,” Lewis muttered.

Remy suddenly felt like laughing. This was just like the good old times, before the two of them had to save the world.

This was normal.

A normal life, Remy reflected, is the best life. Remy sighed. Well, normal was pretty messed up right now.

“So,” a thin papery voice sliced through the air, “What are you two doing here?”

Remy quickly looked up. Lewis gasped. The gruesome gorillas stood before them.

Remy’s mind spun into life, its gears whirling at max speed. What would a superhero do, he asked himself. Then he found it, he found the only thing he could do.

“HAH!” he cried, as he jumped up, and flung his arm out, sending a grey cloud of dust sputtering out, “Ninja smokescreen!”

The ash crawled about a centimetre from Remy, and slowly floated down to the ground. The gorillas blinked. A blank expression was glazed on their faces. Remy held his pose; arm out, legs slightly bent, ridiculous smile on his face.

“Dude,” Lewis said, “That was lame.”

“Yes, I say old chap, that was a quite ridiculous performance,” Giles said. His eyes were cold and alien; the only light in them was one of pure untamed hatred.

Remy felt like his heart would just fall out of his chest. His smile slowly faded. A freezing breeze wandered into the house, ruffling the hair on Remy’s neck. Lewis let out a slight shiver. Tension crackled throughout the space between the four, settling fireworks off in Remy’s mind. As their lights were snuffed out, Remy felt an entirely new sensation: absolute fear.

The gorillas took a step closer, their faces fixed into savage snarls.

Mrs Jones walked in the room. Her mouth formed a perfect “O”. “Oh,” she muttered.

Mrs Jones, unlike her sons, took care in her appearance, and it showed.

The gorillas took a single glance at her. Miranda smiled cruelly. “Hullo, Mrs.”

“Oh my,” Mrs Jones uttered, clearly quite flustered. Her eyes flitted from the gorillas to Remy and Lewis.

Suddenly, Remy heard the screeching of tires and the rumbling of an engine. Mr Jones! Remy willed himself to remain calm. Mr Jones was really strong… If anyone could beat the gorillas in a fight, it’d be Mr Jones. All Remy had to do was stall. He glanced at Lewis. Lewis caught his gaze, nodding. Remy exhaled in relief. So Lewis had figured it out too.

“Hey, dunderheads!” Lewis yelled, “Wanna fight?”

Remy’s eyes nearly burst from his eye sockets. That was not what he had in mind. Before he could react, Lewis charged at the gorillas.

“God, Lewis, do you want to die?”

“This isn’t as stupid as the ninja smokescreen stuff, and it is definitely not the dumbest thing you’ve seen me do!”

Yes, it was, Remy thought grimly.

But the smokescreen – now that had been genius.

Just as Lewis brought his fist up to punch Giles, Giles swung his arm, batting Lewis away like a fly. Lewis flew, and skidded to a halt on the ground. Mrs Jones was hyperventilating.

The whole thing was actually pretty funny, Remy reflected, if the fate of the human race wasn’t at stake.

“What are you doing at my house?” Roared a gruff grizzly voice.

Remy whirled, startled, to catch a glimpse of the voice’s owner. Behind him was a lightly tanned man, who wore a singlet that concealed muscles that were as hard as rock. He was bald, his shaved head reflecting the light, and his eyes were hidden beneath the darkest shades.

“I’ll ask again, what are you goons doing at my house?”

“We are having a perfectly fun tea party,” Miranda sneered sarcastically.

Mr Jones cocked his head, inspecting the gorillas. “Well, I’ll be darned,” he muttered, “Talking gorillas.” He cracked his knuckles menacingly, and rushed to meet the gorillas in an epic clash of brawn and might.

***

Mr Jones lay sprawled on the ground, bruised and battered from his battle.

It had been totally one-sided. To say that it was an utter defeat would be an understatement.

Giles and Miranda towered over their unfortunate opponent. Giles brushed some imaginary dust off his shoulders.

Remy and Lewis cowered in a lonely corner.

Mrs Jones had fainted.

“So,” Giles hummed, “Who’s next?”

Remy hear punched his ribs as hard as Giles had punched Mr Jones. Were they planning on doing the same to him? He swallowed nervously. He knew that there would be a way out somehow, he just couldn’t figure out how.

The wall behind Giles and Miranda caved in on itself, and among the rubble stood two fairies, carrying ridiculously large cannons. A tendril of smoke escaped from the nozzle of one of the cannons.

“Too Cool! Ummm!” Lewis cried, elation in his voice, “Man, am I glad to see you!”

The fairies ignored him. “Giles. Miranda.”

“Too Cool. Ummm.”

“Don’t forget me!” Lewis cried.

“Is this what it’s come too?” Too Cool asked, “An all out brawl? This is the fruits of your ‘master plan’?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Giles responded coolly.

Too Cool smiled, re-adjusting the grip on his cannon.

“Cool.”

Emerald flames spat out of the cannon, and engulfed the gorillas, burning them alive.

They howled with hellish hate, and their screams echoed across the room. Remy swallowed in terror. He glanced at Too Cool.

Too Cool was smiling.

For the first time that day, Remy found himself asking himself a simple question: whose side was he supposed to be on?

And as he watched in horror as the gorillas shook the fire off and entered battle, another question popped into his mind: what in the world was going on?

Chapter 8 - Misunderstandings and Cannons

by Angus Smith (Auckland Normal Intermediate)

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE UNIVERSE EATER

Soot encased Remy in its stifling embrace, seeping into his mouth and eyes. Rough bricks jarred and hammered at his elbows as he made his painstaking way down the abyss. Somewhere high above him in the enveloping darkness came Lewis, spluttering at the disgusting taste of the hell that was the Jones’ chimney. Slowly and unsteadily they traversed the sooty interior, their ribs and knees gradually being skinned to a sticky red pulp. Remy mentally listed off an itinerary of foul oaths and swear words that could be applied before the names of Ummm and Too Cool.

But eventually, the nightmare abruptly ended. Remy found his irreparably stained sneakers resting on firm ground. A giddy wave of elation temporarily flooded him, before being replaced by a thundery tsunami of pain. Lewis landed upon Remy’s head, causing him to fall forwards, whacking his head against the chimney bricks. He stumbled out into the light of Mrs Jones’ neat living room, to trip over the hearth and fall flat on his face. Lewis thudded hard to the floor of the chimney, bruising his bottom.

Remy lay, unable to move. He groaned. Bursts of intensely burning pain rocketed up his spine and icy daggers pierced his skull. He was dimly aware of three forms hovering at the edges of his vision, accompanied by the buzz of voices. Remy wanted to call out, but he felt tired. He grew to enjoy the pain, the constant burning of his head. He felt like dying.

After a few minutes of fighting the pain, the torment subsided, and Remy was free. Groaning, he climbed laboriously to his feet. Swaying and clutching his throbbing head, he slowly drank in his surroundings. Great leather potatoes lay resting all around the sea of pale fabric; a black demon, containing the faces and thoughts of others, crouched in off-mode; and there stood two looming colossi, cloaked in hair, framed by two pillars of light.

‘Remy, old chap?’

Remy blinked. Miranda and Giles stood before him, standing against the glow of two windows. Looking around some more once his head had cleared, he saw an anxious-looking Lewis at his side.

‘Are you okay, Remy?’ his friend asked worriedly. ‘For a second there I thought you’d cracked your head open!’

‘I-I’m fine…I think,’ Remy mumbled, steadying himself.

‘What happened there, eh, wot?’ Miranda asked, peering intently into his hazy eyes.

‘Two giant fairies forced us to climb down the chimney!’ Remy spat bitterly.

Miranda and Giles exchanged a worried glance. It was then that Remy and Lewis simultaneously remembered why Ummm and Too Cool had sent them down the chimney in the first place.

‘The fairies said you were criminals,’ Lewis frowned suspiciously.

After a moment of silence, Remy mumbled, ‘They also said you wanted to turn us back into apes with the Un-Timer. Is this true?’

Giles wore a look of genuine puzzlement as he replied slowly. ‘Are…are these…fairies named Ummm…and Too Cool?’

‘Yes.’ Remy nodded.

‘Well, they’re the intergalactic criminals,’ Giles explained, attempting to put on a sickly smile. ‘They’ve been lying to you. They’re the ones trying to steal the rubies, wot!’

‘Yes,’ Miranda cut in, ‘they want to stop us getting the ruby first, so we’ll be stranded on Earth forever and be unable to tell the Intergalactic Space Authorities of their plans to exterminate the human race.’

‘They what?’ Remy shrieked.

‘This day keeps getting better and better,’ Lewis sighed resignedly.

At that moment, the roof of the living room exploded in a torrent of smoke and flame. Ummm and Too Cool dropped in, landing before Remy and Lewis. Remy peered up through the gaping hole in the roof. He wouldn’t like to be around when the Jones’ got home.

‘Don’t listen to those squares, man!’ Too Cool said in a slightly more urgent-sounding tone than his usual drowsy monotone. ‘They’re the criminals here, dude.’

‘They’re like, lying. You know?’ Ummm chimed in helpfully.

‘Don’t listen to those bloomin’ fibbers, wot wot!’ Miranda bellowed, glowering at the strange fairies.

‘Who do we believe?’ Lewis looked uncertain. ‘We can’t just walk away and forget about all this. I don’t really understand what’s going on, but we have to side with someone.’

‘Miranda and Giles have been good to us,’ Remy pointed out. ‘But I have one question. Why did you disappear just before Ummm and Too Cool arrived?’

‘We had no time to waste in finding the ruby,’ Giles informed them, ‘we had to act quickly!’

‘Don’t be fooled, man. They’re the best actors in the history of the multiverse!’ Ummm said desperately, performing a little jig of despair.

‘I’ve had enough of this!’ Miranda roared suddenly, leaping at Ummm in a fury.

Before she could strike a blow, Too Cool raced to his companion’s rescue. The fairy suddenly sprouted wicked curved claws, which he promptly plunged into Miranda’s back. Crying out in pain, Miranda collapsed. Remy and Lewis gazed in horror as dark blood dripped sickeningly from the serrated claws. Laughing, Ummm rapidly grew claws of his own. They advanced upon a dumbstruck Giles.

‘So,’ the gorilla said calmly, backing away, ‘you’ve shown your true selves. I see who you are now! I wished I’d realised earlier.’

‘Oh, really?’ Too Cool sneered, his eyes turning a rosy red. He no longer spoke in a drugged-out slur.

‘I know that IT is here. IT should show itself,’ Giles said pointedly, grabbing Lewis and Remy by their arms.

‘So you were the good one?’ Lewis marvelled, gazing up at his gorilla friend.

‘Miranda,’ Remy gasped, gazing at the motionless hairy mountain.

‘It’s too late,’ Giles said quietly.

The air then rippled. A curious sensation gurgled in Remy’s stomach. And then out of nowhere IT appeared. IT had no mass, volume, weight or any conceivable size. It just was. It was black and ghastly, and possessed innumerable wispy tentacles and curved claws. IT had no eyes or features of any kind. And it stood before its two evil minions, right inside the living room of the Jones household.

‘Wh-what is it?’ Lewis gasped.

‘It is the Universe Eater, the gravest threat to life in the history of creation. How it got here, or what it’s doing, I don’t know,’ Giles told the room at large.

Ummm and Two Cool, now morphed completely into some kind of alien wolf, bowed before their unholy master. The Universe Eater pointed one clenching-then-unclenching tentacle in Giles’s direction then roared a command so foul-sounding that it defied description. The language was unearthly and foul, the tone harsh and guttural. Unable to take the horror a moment longer, Remy bolted from the front door and out into the street. Lewis began to yell a warning, but too late. A tentacle whipped out the open door, seizing Remy by the ankle. He was dragged inside. Then the Universe Eater consumed them all.

*

Remy came round in darkness. He screamed a silent scream, muffled by the enclosing blackness. It was the nightmare of the chimney all over again, except that this time Remy knew for certain he’d be unable to get out. He saw Giles and Lewis unconscious beside him, suspended in the endless black domain, neither lying or standing. Remy found he was able to walk through the unnatural realm, though his feet touched nothing solid.

Two sticky black blobs detached themselves from the concealing darkness, seizing Remy by the arms. They possessed sharp claws that dug hard into his flesh. They were Ummm and Too Cool.

‘You’re not going anywhere, mortal scum!’ One of the shapeless aliens hissed.

‘Where’s your boss?’ Remy asked, putting on a brave face.

‘Look around you,’ the other blob cackled, ‘you’re in IT!’

‘IT must be huge,’ Remy remarked.

‘IT is small and large, it is IT,’ one alien attempted. ‘It-it…it’s a bit too hard to explain.’

‘So we’re trapped here until we die, are we?’ Remy drooped, his last reserves of fighting strength promptly deserting him.

‘No,’ one blob said. If it had a mouth, Remy was sure that it would’ve grinned evilly. ‘Here inside IT, you don’t age.’

‘Great!’ Remy sulked, feeling useless with nothing to do. ‘Isn’t there anything I can do to get out?’

‘No.’

‘So…what am I meant to do now?’

The two aliens chose that moment to dematerialise back into the inky blackness. Remy sighed. There was nothing to do in this pitch-black prison. And since Giles and Lewis were still unconscious, there wasn’t even anybody to talk to. He floated helplessly, completely clueless as to what to do next. The Universe Eater had won.

Suddenly a pane of pure, brilliant white light winked into existence several metres away from where Remy hovered. He blinked in surprise. What was this queer thing? He nearly jumped out of his skin when Miranda’s face appeared on the glowing screen.

‘You’re not dead!’ Remy beamed, after having recovered from his initial shock.

‘Oh, no, I’m flippin’ sprightly, wot,’ Miranda said indignantly. ‘A little scratch is no bally deal for a seasoned gel like me! Anyway, to business. The black thing with tentacles is flying out to the city centre, intent on inflicting death and destruction upon us all. You’re inside the blighter, wot, and I have a cunning plan to get you out.’

‘Great!’ Remy exclaimed. ‘I’ll go and wake up Lewis and Giles!’

Turning, he saw Ummm and Too Cool standing behind him.

‘Oh, no!’