Chapter Eleven

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Remy snatched the piece of cloth. Yep. No doubt about it. It was definitely off his mum’s work smock. He hoped a gorilla had been wearing it and not his mum. Then he hoped it was his mum because if it was a gorilla, then that gorilla had Mrs Jones complete with ruby.

Remy shuddered, he could see the ghastly operation scene in his mind: a gorilla with a knife, opening up Mrs Jones . . .

Enough! He swiveled around and raced for the duckpond. If Lewis really was still alive but lying unconscious in the duckpond, then Remy needed to be doing artificial respiration. He took off for the pond, following the grubby fairies who were still dragging the Jones asses.

Remy leapt in the air as Too Cool (or it could have been Ummm – hard to tell when they were both so disguised with ash and mud) bellowed, ‘What’s that mermaid doing? She should be in custard. Er custody.’

But Remy’s attention wasn’t on any old mermaid. ‘Lewis!’ he yelled. ‘Man, I thought you’d been dispatched to cupcake land.’

‘Remy!’ screamed another voice.

Remy stared, then he gaped. ‘Mum?’ His voice squeaked. ‘And Mr Jones?’

Then he saw the mermaid and his mind filled with stuttering static. Cor, what a babe! One of the grubby fairies shoved him out of the way and waded into the pond, heading for the mermaid. Lewis threw himself in front of her. ‘Over my dead body!’ he yelled.

The fairy – probably Too Cool Remy thought – plucked him out of the way and dropped him with a splash that cleaned half the muck off the fairy. Yep, Too Cool.

Remy’s mind cleared of static. ‘Hang on a tick! Leave her alone! What’s she done to you?’

Eyepod cast her eyes down and tried to look modest.

Ummm growled low in his gut. ‘Harm? She’s dangerous and don’t you go being fooled by a pretty face.’ He took a step towards Eyepod. ‘The jig’s up, sister. You’re history.’

Lewis sparked into life jumping up with a mighty splash of duck-poo laden water that shot right into Ummm’s not very handsome face. Ummm fell back with a whoosh that only left enough water in the pond to keep Eyepod afloat. ‘She’s on our side,’ Lewis bellowed. ‘She’s helping us to save the world.’

‘Save the world?’ screeched Remy’s mum. ‘What’s going on here? And for goodness sake wash those filthy creatures in the pond.’ She pointed at the Jones boys.

That, Remy decided, was an excellent notion. Ummm grabbed up the net complete with Joness and dunked it in and out of the water, the boys braying their throats hoarse when they weren’t spitting out duck water. Ummm was wrecking revenge for his own ducking, Remy thought.

Then he noticed his mum’s left hand. ‘Mum! Where’s your ruby ring?’

‘Ruby?’ The fairies, Eyepod and a bunch of braying Joness all stared at Remy, then at his mum who put her hand into the pocket of her torn smock and pulled it out again wearing her ruby ring.

Remy and Lewis had their brains working in high-gear – and that was even though Eyepod was looking particularly gorgeous and smiling at each of them whenever she caught them looking in her direction which was quite often.

‘We’ve got Mum’s ruby,’ Remy whispered (just in case a couple of gorillas appeared). ‘And I’ve got this one.’ He tapped the urn lid.

‘So,’ Lewis whispered, ‘we might have enough ruby-power to activate the un-timer.’

Mr Jones’s face got so hot that the mud on it dried and flaked off. ‘There’s one on my – er – underpants too.’

Ummm leaned across, grabbed hold of Mr Jones’s trousers with one hand and with the other tweaked the g-string right off Mr Jones’s tanned behind. ‘Oooouch! Watch yourself, you great hairy fairy!’

‘Ssssh!’ hissed Remy, Lewis, Too Cool and Ummm. Mr Jones and Mrs Polanik just looked mystified and fed up. The Jones asses brayed hoarsely. Mrs Polanik swiped at her face, duckweed wasn’t her favourite accessory.

But Eyepod said, ‘Just one small hitch. Sure, we’ve got enough ruby-power but we don’t actually have an un-timer.’

Lewis, Ummm and Too Cool snivelled with disappointment, but Remy said, ‘Look, those gorillas must be somewhere close. They must still have the un-timer.’ He wouldn’t bet on it though, they were so – well, gorilla-ish. ‘If we put the rubies together then they just might activate the un-timer by remote control.’

Too Cool clapped his huge hairy hands. ‘Great idea!’ And because it was Too Cool saying that, Remy immediately knew it wasn’t such a great idea after all, but before he could even take the huge breath he was going to need to defuse the plan, the fairies got down to business.

Too Cool snatched the urn lid from Remy. Ummm wrenched Mrs Polanik’s ruby ring off her finger. They draped the g-string over the urn lid and popped the ring on the knob.

Remy said, ‘I don’t think . . .’

Then everything went swirly as the duck pond turned into a washing machine on permanent spin. Just when he was sure he was about to throw up, the swirling turned into cruising. Colours whipped past him, smells tickled his nose.

Thwack. Thump. Crunch. Remy rubbed duckweed and pond scum from his face. He was glad to stop moving. ‘Lewis! Mum! Mr Jones.’ They were all there and so were the fairies. But yay! Not one of the three Jones asses.

Then Lewis spun around. ‘Where’s Eyepod?’

‘Up here. I’m the first mermaid in history to live in a tree,’ she said and she was smiling. Lewis decided to leave her there because he couldn’t see a handy pond wherever it was they’d landed.

‘Where are we?’ screeched Mr Jones.

‘We’re in a town,’ Remy said. ‘It looks pretty strange, but it’s definitely a town and it’s definitely an Earth town.’ Thank goodness.

Lewis ran over to a newspaper that was lying in a driveway. He opened it up and he and Remy peered at it. ‘Looks like we’re in Napier,’ Lewis said.

Mrs Polanik snorted. ‘Rubbish. I know Napier well. We’re on a hill but there’s not enough city down below us for it to be Napier.’

Remy read the date on the paper. His voice didn’t sound like his own as he said, ‘If this paper is right, then today is the third of February 1931.’

They’d gone back nearly 100 years.

‘Cheer up,’ said Eyepod, ‘at least you haven’t been sent back to when humans were apes.’

But Remy and Lewis didn’t cheer up. They had an excellent knowledge of New Zealand disasters.

‘Feb 3,’ Lewis said. ‘That’s definitely the date?’

‘Yeah,’ Remy said. ‘Fraid so.’ A thought hit him between the eyes. ‘What’s the time?’

Mr Jones took a step towards the two of them, his hands curled into claws. ‘What does it matter what the time is? Here we are, stuck in a time warp – thanks to you two idiots and you want to know the time?’

‘Yes,’ Remy said. ‘Because if it’s before 10.47 in the morning then we’re just in time to be flattened by an earthquake.’

 

 

 

- Illustration by Helen Taylor