Chapter Sixteen

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‘What the hell are you doing in my sunbed?’ Mr Jones squeaked. He whipped his knobbly knees up near his ears as he pushed the lid up to let in some light.

Remy had a crick in his neck from being folded into layers like a club sandwich, and Lewis was spouting gobbledegook. Morphing that quickly from being a lazy boy to a salivating, carnivorous T-Rex and then back to a boy again within the space of five minutes had done something weird to his circadian rhythms. He told Remy it felt like he’d been chasing demented squirrels, blindfolded. And every now and then, one threw a nut at him. They crawled out of the sunbed and flopped to the floor.

‘My head hurts,’ Lewis groaned. ‘I’ve got a gross taste in my mouth and I’m hot, like I’m really sick.’

Remy’s eyes widened. ‘Of course you’ve got a horrible taste. You just ate Miranda.’

‘Oi!!! Are you deliberately ignoring me?’ Mr Jones snapped.

‘Yes,’ Lewis snapped back. Remy reminding him that he’d tried to eat Miranda just topped off what was turning out to be a very un-cool day. He hoiked to cough out the last bits of hairball that were tickling his tonsils.

Remy pulled himself up, hanging onto one side of the sunbed. ‘If we’ve come back to the time before you got stuck in the chimney, does that mean Mum isn’t buried under rubble in Napier? All of that should be wiped out shouldn’t it?’

Lewis shrugged. ‘Dunno. The whole thing does my head in. Maybe it depends on whether the person’s still alive at the time that you time travel.’

Lewis tried to backtrack the minute he’d said it, but it was too late. Remy went from calm and collected to desperado in seconds.

‘I’ve got to go back NOW,’ Remy said, looking around. ‘What did I do with the un-timer?’

‘Why don’t you check if she’s here first.’

Mr Jones squirmed. ‘She’s not here. Why would you think she’d be here? Do you see her anywhere?’ His voice was higher than normal and he spoke so fast his words blurred together.

Lewis stared at him. Remy glanced around, half hoping his mum was going to pop out of nowhere, although he had no idea why it would happen at the Jones’ house. It was an ordinary attic, with old suitcases caked in dust, sagging boxes of old crockery, and ladders with platforms, swinging ropes and bars.

‘Hang on … a minute.’ Remy waited for his brain to catch up with his mouth. ‘What’s all the rope stuff for?’

Mr Jones let out a breath and looked at the clock on the wall. ‘My my, is that the time?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’ve got to get ready for my appointment. You boys can let yourselves out.’

He ran for the exit, but Remy was right behind him.

‘Awwww, come on, Mr Jones. You can tell us. Why do you have a high ropes course in your attic?’

Mr Jones looked like he was shrinking. ‘Well, you know, my lads like to keep fit. Swing, swing, round and round, across and under, and flip, they let go of the bar and …. I really must go.’

‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ Lewis said, leaning closer. ‘That’s why you wear the weird undies. You’re the one who swings around in here.’

Mr Jones clasped his hands together and began to whisper. ‘Keep your voice down. Yes, I do occasionally ‘swing around in here,’ as you put it, but it’s all a bit of a secret because I’m auditioning for the Twirling Brothers Circus and I don’t want anyone to know about it.’ He spat the last few words out, and then lifted a finger to his lips.

Footsteps echoed on the stairs below and then moved to the ladder.

Mr Jones went pale. His voice softened. ‘Look, I’d better go down. Nobody needs to know you’re here.’

He wrapped his towel tightly around his hips as he slipped through the hatch and eased it shut.

There were muffled voices close by. One of them was a woman.

Remy pressed his ear to the floor. ‘It doesn’t sound like Mrs Jones.’

‘No, everybody knows when SHE’S around. I’m kind of hoping she got whacked in the head by the tail of a brontosaurus,’ mumbled Lewis. ‘Is that wrong?’

‘Lewis … it sounds like my mum.’ Remy was confused.

‘I don’t think you should ….’

It was too late. Remy had the hatch open and was climbing down before Lewis could stop him. He leaped off the last three rungs of the ladder and ran smack bang into a woman wearing a spangly red and silver lycra top and frilly tulle skirt. Her glittery stockings ended in some patent leather white boots. She looked like something out of a bad country and western line dancing infomercial.

‘Mum!’ he yelped.

‘Remy!’

‘You’re alive!’

‘And you.’ She touched his face, his shoulders, his hair. ‘I was so worried about you, and there hasn’t been a moment to talk. Do you know where your father is?’

Remy shook his head. He hadn’t seen him since they were in that mess of a kitchen eons ago.

‘Trust him to miss out on all the drama. He’s probably lying with his feet up on the couch wondering when someone’s going to cook him dinner,’ she moaned.

Her voice started to fade in Remy’s head. So did his excitement about finding her alive. Suddenly he was picturing Lewis the T-Rex chasing after his mother, grabbing her by her tulle, and shoving her into his great big gob. ‘Well, YOU don’t look like you’re exactly working at the moment. What’s going on? Why are you dressed like one of Santa’s helpers?’

Mrs Polanik blushed. ‘I’m … I’ve been training on the trapeze with Stanley. There’s a competition and prizes worth $10,000.’

Remy imagined what it was like to thwack a giant dinosaur tail into the ground and make all the other dinosaurs shudder.

‘You can’t go swinging around on a trapeze, when you haven’t even told Dad,’ said Remy indignantly. He was beginning to think that his dad was getting a super-slimy deal. ‘You’re always going on at Dad about him not spending enough time at home AND not earning enough money. And all while you’re swinging around with Stanley?’ Remy’s voice went up at the end.

‘Please don’t talk to your mother like that,’ said Mr Jones. When he spoke, it sounded like he had a peg on his nose. Remy wanted to put one on his lips, and a whopper-sized one on his whole head, and then attach it to one of his silly ropes, and let him dangle there for a while. Oh, and half a dozen on his undies too.

‘How about you go and fling yourself around on your trapeze without a safety net,’ Remy said.

Mr Jones blushed. ‘Well I ….’

‘I’m just trying to earn more money,’ Mrs Polanik said looking flustered. ‘And what’s wrong with having fun? Aren’t mothers allowed?’

A noise down the hallway interrupted them. Giles was juggling a poker and a baseball bat. Most of his clothes were shredded and soot-smeared. Only Remy’s rugby socks had survived unscathed.

‘What’s the bother, eh chaps?’ The words sounded friendly but there was something different about Giles. He swung the poker and bat around in his hands, getting faster and more furious as he twirled.

He stopped twirling suddenly and roared at them. ‘Whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as getting EATEN BY A DINOSAUR!’

Remy sucked in a breath and held it. Giles hadn’t said ‘wot’ at the end. He was one super-stressed monkey.

No one replied. Lewis squeezed through the gap between Mrs Polanik and Remy. ‘I wasn’t myself, I’m sorry. Really sorry.’

‘We’ve been nothing but polite with you people,’ Giles’ eyes darkened as he stared at Lewis then Remy. ‘But not anymore. First you try to eat us, then you send someone around with a weapon.’

‘We never sent anyone …’ Lewis said, looking at Remy for answers.

Giles tutted. ‘It’s okay, old sport. We dealt with him. But we’re not our normal happy chappy selves. Especially Miranda who has symptoms of post-T-Rex-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder.’

He started twirling his batons again and smiled in a way that made everyone shuffle nervously. ‘Damn fine that you’re all here though. Well almost all here. What did you do with the mermaid? Jolly good show if you knocked her off the rock, wot.’ Giles smiled again. ‘Very convenient. Very, very convenient.’

‘Wh … what have you done with my wife?’ Mr Jones asked in a shaky voice.

Giles ignored him.

‘My wife,’ Mr Jones insisted.

‘Your wife had something that … we wanted …’ Giles said. He started picking at one of his nails.

Remy gasped. They must have extracted the ruby somehow. How did they do that? Visions of scalpels, machetes and fire pokers danced in front of Remy’s eyes. Everyone started to chatter like a troop of baboons that had suddenly spotted a lion at the waterhole.

Giles bent down. He slowly pulled something out of his right sock, hiding the gadget with the stubby fingers of one hand while he twiddled with the other. Lewis nudged Remy and pointed.

‘NOOO!’ Remy said, lunging forward but Giles had already pressed the last button on the un-timer. The polished matai floor started shifting beneath their feet, and the air moved in waves of shapes and colours, slowly at first and then faster and faster until everything blurred and twisted.

By the time, Remy’s fuzzy head began to clear he could feel twinkling lights tickling his nose and cheeks. The spinning had stopped. He opened his eyes. When he finally managed to focus, he saw sunlight streaming through leaves. Then a big cloud came over.

‘Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh.’

It was the wide-jawed face of a gorilla, and not one that Remy knew. He scrambled backwards and bumped into a tree. The silverback gorilla put his head to one side, and then scratched his chest. He leaned over to poke at Mrs Polanik’s tulle skirt. Then he sniffed it and put a handful into his mouth.

‘It’s not candy floss,’ Remy spluttered. ‘Wake up, Mum.’

Candy floss or not, the gorilla threw Mrs Polanik over his shoulder. Her arms flopped across the silver saddle on his back as he climbed a nearby tree to his nest.

‘Holy hippos,’ Remy gasped.

‘Galumphin’ gorillas, more like,’ a voice grunted behind him.

Remy blinked. ‘Dad?’ He looked around for the voice.

Giles pushed Gerard forward, and watched him stagger groggily.

Miranda sniggered. ‘Humans are so funny.’

‘What did you do to him?’ Remy asked, bending over to help his dad stand.

Giles chortled. ‘Nothing much. I tried to get the bat off him back in the kitchen and accidentally swung him into the wall. Whoops. Silly me. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.’

Remy stroked his dad’s face. He wrapped his arms around him and squeezed as tightly as he could.

‘I’m okay, Son,’ he mumbled. ‘No need to worry.’

‘But Dad,’ Remy whispered. ‘The gorilla took Mum.’

The glare of the sun was obviously painful, but Gerard squinted into the trees, and stared at his red spangled spandex wife in white boots.

Miranda and Giles basked in the glory of changing the world and sharing the occasion with their old family. Every gorilla (except the silverback) grunted submissively and fought for the chance to groom them. There was so much back-scratching going on that Remy thought he was going to puke.

‘They can’t have that many fleas.’

Lewis shuffled closer. ‘Do you think they’d notice if we slipped away?’

‘What’s the point? We don’t have an un-timer anyway.’

‘Well you might not,’ Lewis grinned. ‘I picked yours up from the sunbed. But we need a plan.’

Miranda laughed gaily with what she thought was a tinkling ladylike giggle but was more like a cow horn. She was enjoying being a celebrity, so much that she didn’t notice Lewis and Remy whispering. But Giles did. He strained his ears to hear their last sentence.

‘… we can’t let them turn us into monkeys.’

MONKEYS!

Giles puffed out his hair and snorted. Remy and Lewis went quiet as he towered over them.

‘We gave you a chance to prove humans are superior and what did we see? Boys who make better DONKEYS than people, a shrieking lunatic woman and a man who wears rubies on his nappies.’

No one had the heart to correct him.

Giles saw Remy’s silence as agreement. ‘You humans were an evolutionary stuff-up, eh wot?’

Miranda slapped him on the back. It was all such a fine joke.

‘The way forward is a potent force - a powerful, unemotional creature that will enable us to make full use of land and ocean resources. Did you know that 71% of this planet it made up of ocean and that 50% of the world’s species live in it? You may know something of the giant squid, a mysterious creature that lives in the darkest most unexplored reaches of the ocean. We have the chance to evolve into an amphibious creature that has the strength and supernatural powers of the squid and the advanced intelligence of the gorilla.’

Remy hoped this creature would be more advanced than Giles and Miranda or civilisation was in the pooh. But maybe it wasn’t the right time to say that – not when Giles was only a couple of metres away and his mum was up a tree with a silverback gorilla.

Lewis mumbled that humans hadn’t been given much chance to prove themselves.

‘This is coming from a boy who gave us a blurgstonne of tinfoil without even knowing what we were going to do with it.’

Giles and Miranda laughed so hard they almost couldn’t breathe. ‘Oh, oh, oh, stop it, or I’ll pee myself,’ Giles begged.

Remy’s heart sank. Perhaps they were right. Humans did get themselves into a lot of trouble. If it wasn’t for the fairies and their exploding cupcakes, the end of the human race would have come faster than this. He looked around at his friends. Most of them were looking at the ground. But not his dad.

His dad was making small discreet movements with his hands. Remy followed his dad’s gaze to where his mum was standing on a tree branch. She was watching every move he made.

‘We can reverse all of the hysteria of human life. You can leave your troubles behind,’ Giles said, glancing back at Remy.

Remy flicked his eyes back to watch his mum as soon as Giles turned away.

He watched her gently pull the vine next to her and give a small nod in his father’s direction. She smiled as if he’d just whispered a joke. Remy felt a rush of energy surging through him. He straightened his back and pushed himself taller against the tree trunk. He knew it. His parents had a plan. And he could help.

‘Don’t worry. The transition will be painless for the rest of your family and friends,’ Miranda said smugly.

‘That’s right. They’ll just cease to exist,’ a familiar voice said from behind a tree. Too Cool stepped out of the shade, his torn tutu flapping dramatically. ‘That’s not cool, dude. It’s also not cool that you’re trying to genetically manipulate history.’

‘Yeah,’ said Umm stepping out from the other side of the tree. ‘Humans may not be perfect but they’re good enough. And Remy and Lewis are the kind of kids we’d want for ourselves if we weren’t intergalactic policemen chasing fugitives.’

Mr Jones cheered. ‘You’re right. Our kids are the future.’ The female gorilla next to him responded to his outburst by searching for fleas in the hairs on his back.

Too Cool coughed. ‘Well, not your kids, Stanley. They’re just plain weird.’

He tossed a cupcake into the circle of grooming gorillas as if he was tossing a mango to a monkey.

Mrs Polanik grasped the vine tightly and plunged through the air.

 

 

 

Illustration by Ruth Paul