CHAPTER ONE - SAVING THE WORLDS
Hurtling through space at 750,539 miles per hour with the fate of two planets in their hands (one of them Earth), Tom and Alice Button were in a bit of a pickle. They had a tricky brainteaser to solve and time was running out for the billions of aliens and humans in peril. One of the friendliest and most trusting life forms in the universe faced extermination by conniving blobs that also had their sights set on Earth.
And only the Buttons could do anything about it.
This was a lot of responsibility for 11-year-olds who had never previously travelled further than a French camp site that reeked of camel breath. Yet here they were combating a hostile race that smelled like camel sweat, on a planet several zillion miles away and - as they would soon discover - an attack on their own world. Mozart's feat of writing his first symphony by the age of nine deserves nothing but praise. The Buttons, though, were surely attempting a record for double-planet salvation (certainly in their age group).
At the start of the summer holidays, Tom and Alice had no idea they'd be studying space and the universe, let alone embarking on intergalactic missions to Planet Schmocolate. Tom had thought a quark was the call of a sick bird and that a spectrometer measured how far people with glasses walked. Even the brainier Alice struggled on the subject of the universe outside our solar system, whose contents she knew by heart (eight planets, stretching from Mercury to Neptune orbiting a giant life-giving sun).
“There's Jupiter!” gasped Alice, pointing at the biggest of the planets through the windscreen of their metallic-green rocket. Jupiter's giant red spot seemed to stare back creepily. “Eye-ya-ya! We're running so out of time. I mean we’re so running out of time.”
Sure, the twins had a secret special gift - a power they'd never imagined would be so potent before they embarked on the mission. But even that couldn't help them decipher the strange verse that might rescue the kindly aliens with their peculiar, high-pitched language. (They called humans “quottle zottle dum de dums zimminy chuck” – meaning “strange upright things with funny facial hair.” They later dropped the “zimminy chuck” facial hair bit after realising children don’t grow moustaches and beards, nor most women.)
Strapped tightly in her seat in the cramped cabin, Alice repeated the first line of the verse aloud for what seemed like the thousandth time.
“Space travel mixed, space travel mixed…”
Tom ran his finger down over a printout twice as long as him that listed possible solutions to the clue suggest by the onboard computer. None looked right; they'd have to figure this out on their own. Tom felt his frustration growing. He went to scratch his floppy, brown curls - forgetting about his glass space helmet - and stubbed his finger. Lights flashed on the sides and armrests of their cushioned black chairs that filled half the room in the gloomy cabin.
“This is bonkers,” sighed Tom. “Complete oxypodmash.”
He shook his hair to try to sooth the itch, but only succeeded in activating the drip inside the helmet which sent a spurt of water up his nose. He coughed and wondered for an instant how he might get Alice’s water drip to fire into her nose before remembering the seriousness of the situation.
“It’s got to be in those letters,” he declared. “It has to be.”
Heading back to Earth after their first month in space, Alice and Tom were beginning to think their luck was out. What had started as a dream opportunity to travel the universe, make space friends and repair the Earth's environment was turning into a nightmare.
How different their lives had been just weeks ago.
Like most adventures, theirs began on a perfectly normal day. It just goes to show, you never know what's around the corner.
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The Button twins lived in a mostly unremarkable town called Drabton. Most of the time it lived up to its dreary name, but occasionally it was quite crackers. Some guidebooks used phrases like “pleasant enough.” Others were less kind. “The best thing about Drabton is the exit sign,” wrote the Dullards' Guide to the Dullest Places on Earth. “There's only one difference between watching paint dry and Drabton: when the paint dries, you can put another coat on, which is something to do. In Drabton, there's nothing to do.”
That was slightly unfair. Like most towns, Drabton wasn't an exotic holiday location but a perfectly decent place to grow up and go to school. Tom and Alice Button liked Drabton; it was home. True, they yearned for a little more excitement, but who didn't?
It had been a slow summer. Most headlines in the Drabton Gazette were variations of “Cat Stuck in Tree in Centenary Park” or “Cat Rescued From Tree in Centenary Park.” The only recent non-cat headline was: “Lamppost Gets New Lick of Paint.” A photo showed a crowd watching the grey paint dry.
Drabton wasn't totally drab, though. Indeed, once a month, when the Drabton Fireworks Company tested out new products, it was one of the most fantastic places on the entire planet. The company's factory - known locally as The Works - was two miles out of town on a vast site at the foot of Falcon Mountain. Firecrackers, Catherine wheels, rockets and every type of firework imaginable were prepared there and shipped to all corners of the globe.
Bored travel writers were in such a hurry to leave Drabton that none had stuck around long enough to witness one of the spectacular displays. On the 15th day of every month, Drabton's population would gather in Centenary Park to watch the multi-coloured streaks of light swish through the night sky. Tom and Alice looked forward to the displays more than anything other than their birthdays, which were on different days, strangely enough, even though they were twins.
Next week's display promised to be even better than usual. The Buttons had overheard their dad chatting with Norm Anderson, the mayor of Drabton. Mayor Anderson seemed to think that something special was planned; something out of the norm.
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Like most Drabton adults, Tom and Alice's parents worked at the gigantic fireworks factory. Mr. Button had once said he was involved in rockets, but would change the subject if quizzed about his job, turning bright red, stuttering and scratching his frizzy mop of grey hair. Mrs. Button was a nutritionist, though her kids were always puzzled why a fireworks factory would need a food expert.
“There are lots of people making lots of bangs,” she would say chomping on a carrot, a stick of celery or whatever her latest diet allowed. “They need fuel and I make sure they get the right sort.”
Norm Anderson, too, had once worked as a “Senior Whiz Engineer” developing the noises that rockets produced. Their dad said the mayor had tried inventing an animal-friendly rocket because he felt terrible that fireworks made cats cower behind sofas and dogs bark as if burglars had smashed through the backdoor. He wanted to eliminate pet-scaring bangs and screeches by attaching tiny, powerful speakers to fireworks playing recordings of people saying in soft tones: “Cool doggy, cool doggy!” and “Sweet kitty, sweet kitty!” During testing the speakers got damaged by the explosions and monstrous, distorted voices screamed something that sounded like “Kill doggy, kill doggy!” and “Eat Kitty, Eat Kitty!” The traumatised pets that heard them were never the same, the project got scrapped and Norm Anderson left to become mayor.
Tom and Alice weren't sure whether their father was joking. When they overheard him and the mayor, he sounded deadly serious. The twins had separated from their dad in Vale Carpets - Drabton's biggest shop where you could buy pretty much everything under the sun except, oddly, carpets. Hank Vale, the store owner who worked part-time at the fireworks factory, seemed to do a roaring trade selling anything from chocolate bars and ladies underwear to oxygen tanks and laser guns. (Bras and laser guns were on sale this month, reduced by 20 percent to ₤10.50 and ₤1.3 million respectively).
The twins were in an aisle full of ladders fronted by a sign: “Suitable for rescuing all breeds of cats from trees.” They were stroking a small terrier dog with a cheeky face when Mayor Anderson whispered so loudly he may as well have shouted.
“Apparently it's a new turbo-rocket that just keeps going and going towards the stars. Have you heard about it, Mr. Button?”
“Err, I'm sure The Works has plans for all sorts of new fireworks,” replied Mr. Button, whose gangly limbs reinforced his awkwardness in conversations. He looked into the distance, as usual grappling for the right words. “But I don't know if, err, nothing about a turbo-rocket.”
“I heard it may be unveiled soon, perhaps even this month,” the mayor enthused, as if discussing the location of buried treasure. As the announcer at the displays, Mayor Anderson would find out before most people about new fireworks, but he had little patience and liked a good gossip. Mr. Button looked flustered and changed the subject when he saw his children.
“Looks like snow, rain, I mean sunshine,” he sputtered.
Everybody knew Mayor Anderson loved to exaggerate. A short, stocky man who stood on tiptoes in photographs, he regularly tripped over because his trousers were too long and he was talking too much to watch his step. He once told Mr. Li of the Shanghai Fireworks Association that the chef at Drabton's Chinese restaurant had invented chopsticks. The mayor wore a wig and was convinced everybody thought it was real hair. In fact, his brown mop looked like a guinea pig and moved from side to side when he talked.
“Well hello there, Tom and Alice,” he declared. “How the devil are you two? My, how you have grown!”
“We're children so of course we've grown,” Tom and Alice thought to themselves but didn't say. Being the smallest in their school year, they actually hadn't grown much at all. The mayor was exaggerating again.
“Fine thank you, Mr. Mayor,” they responded instead.
“I was just saying what a fantastic selection of ladders Hank has. Did I tell the story about great grandfather Anderson climbing Mount Everest barefoot just using a step ladder? It was similar to this one-”
He caught his shoe on his trouser hem and tripped into the ladders, causing them to cascade like dominoes. For a small man, he produced an enormous clatter. The terrier barked.
“Are you ok, my old fruit?” asked Hank as he helped the mayor to his feet, stopping for a moment to let out a mammoth sneeze. Hank was almost twice the mayor’s size and, with his pony-tail and colossal, clonking boots, seemed 10 times bigger to Tom and Alice.
“I'm fine, I'm fine,” scoffed Mayor Anderson, dusting himself down. He craned his neck towards Hank and pointed a finger. “You should sort out the flooring or somebody will do themselves an injury.”
Tom and Alice weren’t the only ones too embarrassed to tell the mayor his wig had fallen off. The dog sniffed the brown tuft of hair and started to cock his leg to relieve himself. Mayor Anderson pointed outside the shop and shouted: “Look everyone!” As they turned, he went to pick up the wig and grabbed the dog by mistake. The pooch was understandably upset given the delicacy of the moment and nipped his hand. The mayor quickly shoved the hairpiece back on at a funny angle.
“Look at what?” asked Hank, turning back.
“It was a group of Tibetan lemurs,” continued the mayor. “They've gone now. Anyhow, Mr. Button, let me know if you hear anything about you-know-what.”
He winked repeatedly and their father's face turned crimson. The mayor marched out of the shop, tripped on his trousers again and this time grabbed his wig before it fell. He'd kept the guinea pig on his head, but had he let the cat out of the bag?
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Tom and Alice loved the long summers playing late into the warm evenings, but the days soon rolled into one and, before they knew it, the holidays would be over. Dad was working all summer so the Buttons weren't even going away. The monthly firework displays promised to be the highlights of the summer.
“What was Mayor Anderson saying about a turbo-rocket today, dad?” asked Tom, climbing into the top bunk in his Arsenal pyjamas.
“Nothing, err, oh that. You know I'm not allowed to discuss new fireworks, even with you. If news leaked to the Gazette then, umm, every firework maker in the world would copy us.”
“But they copy you anyway. You've found Mr. Li disguised as a bush at almost every display this year.”
“That's not the point. And you know Mayor what's-his-name. If a dog barked, he'd tell you he heard a lion.”
“What's the point of talking about what might happen at the display?” added Mrs. Button, the top of her curly brown hair tickling her husband's chin. The children took after their mother when it came to height, freckles and hair. “We're going to see for ourselves this week. Why ruin the surprise?”
Tom couldn't think what to say but Alice was good at this.
“You always so ask dad what a movie is about and whether it's any good before you see it so why's that any different to Tom asking about the fireworks and whether there's a turbo-rocket before we go to the display?”
Alice was capable of saying sentences like that without stopping for breath, especially when she didn’t try speaking like the coolest girls at school with their “I’m so not listening” talk. Brainy as she was, Alice could never quite get it right.
“But that's different,” replied Mrs. Button, tucking Alice into the lower bunk. She didn't say why it was different (an annoying parent thing) but it closed the conversation. “Sleep time now.” She turned off the light.
“What about the brainteasers?” asked Alice. “Make them hard please.”
“Err, yes, I nearly forgot,” said Mr. Button.
Their father liked to leave Tom and Alice in bed with a puzzle or two to ponder as they dozed off. Mr. Button said they were good exercise for the brain and would help them later in life. He wasn’t to know they would come in use much sooner.
“Here, err, you go. How can all of your, well, cousins have an aunt that isn't your aunt?”
“Oh boy,” sighed Tom.
“All your cousins have an aunt who isn't your aunt? That sounds easy,” mused Alice, her shoulder-length brown curls spread over the pillow like a fan.
“And, umm, what planet do you get if you scramble the letters of heart?”
“That sounds even easier,” said Alice, disappointed.
“Goodnight guys,” said Mr. Button, shutting a door covered by a giant poster of the solar system with a “You Are Here” arrow pointing at the blue planet third from the sun.
As the twins lay in the semi-darkness - it was still light outside even though the sun had set - Alice recalled that her father hadn't actually denied the turbo-rocket existed. The way he had behaved suggested that something out of the ordinary was planned. That was typical of Alice: she was a deep thinker who calmly assessed the evidence before reaching a logical conclusion. Tom tended to react instantly, guided by emotions and his sense of right and wrong. That meant he could be brave and fearless at times, foolhardy and a bit of a hothead at others.
He had only recently pushed Wally McSnide into a swimming pool for stealing his goggles. Wally, a gormless and neckless brute whose favourite hobby was inflicting pain on smaller kids, pinched goggles for fun, but this time Tom had got it wrong. The goggles were still on his head. As punishment, he was barred from attending last month's firework display. Even worse, he was taunted by Wally for weeks.
For the next display, Tom and Alice plotted to go with their mother to Centenary Park half an hour before the start. That would leave enough time to find a good spot high on Devil's Mound.
“Mum!” declared Alice, staring at the underside of Tom's bed.
“Why do you want her?” yawned Tom.
“That's the answer to the brainteaser! How can all your cousins have an aunt that you don't have?”
“Oh, I see. Mum is the-” Tom tailed off. “I don't get it.”
“Mum is the aunt our cousins have, but she's not our aunt. And the other answer is Earth. It's an anagram of heart. Easy-peasy.”
Tom wasn't really listening. All he could think about was the display. Maybe the turbo-rocket would have its first trial; maybe it didn't exist and Mayor Anderson was in a tizzy about nothing. Whatever was happening, the twins wouldn't miss it for the world. It's not like they had anything else on.
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The park was already half full when the Buttons arrived for the display, exactly 30 minutes early. Tom and Alice carried their plan out faultlessly. Mrs. Button loved candy floss and would always stop at the stall by the park entrance to buy her children a giant swirl of the sticky pink fluff. Normally she would gulp her way through whatever they couldn't eat, saying she didn't really like the stuff and that her diet would be wrecked.
“I see they're selling candy floss,” observed Mrs. Button, whose constant battles with diets meant she fluctuated between slightly plump and plump. “I won't have one but I'll get you two a king-size portion.”
Tom and Alice grasped the sticks that held the fragile mass and a warm sugary waft filled their nostrils. Alice took a mouthful which crinkled and almost immediately shrivelled into a tiny, sweet crust.
“Actually, mum,” she said. “I can't so manage a whole one.”
“This is a bonkers size,” added Tom. “Why don't you share mine, Alice? And we could throw the other one away or-”
“No, no,” interrupted their mother in an alarmed voice. “We don't want to waste good food, not that it's particularly good for your teeth or healthy but... I'd have it myself but I'm on a diet.”
“Oh go on.” Alice passed it to her. “You deserve it.”
“I have been very good this week,” she said, erasing from her mind a whole chocolate cake she had devoured two days ago.
Within seconds Mrs. Button's freckly face had disappeared and all anyone could see was a shock of curly hair shaking around the pink cloud. This was Tom and Alice's chance to scram.
“We're just going for a walk,” cried Tom as he slid between Mayor Anderson - telling a group of perplexed tourists how Drabton was the birthplace of rap music - and one of the giant oak trees that seemed to have a magical draw on the town's cat population.
“See you back here after the display,” added Alice.
By the time Mrs. Button had freed her face, the candy floss was about half the size and the twins had disappeared.
“Ok,” shouted Mrs. Button. “But stay away from Devil's Mound! You hear? Stay away from Devil's Mound!”
She turned to the food stall and pulled out her purse.
“I think they'll manage a toffee apple, too. Large please.”
Tom and Alice were long gone and hadn't heard their mother's plea to avoid Devil's Mound. That was exactly where they were heading when they bumped into Wally McSnide and Jonny Stoate going in the opposite direction on the shadowy path through the trees.
“It's the tiny twins!” sneered Wally, placing his hulk-like frame in Tom's way to make sure they collided. “Checked your head lately for goggles or brains, Button? And how’s your freckly geek sister?”
Wally grasped Tom in a bear hug and Tom's legs kicked the air in circles like a cartoon character about to run.
“Put me down you lump of lard!” shouted Tom.
“Leave him you brainless brawn!” added Alice, kicking Wally in the shin. He dropped Tom and grabbed his leg in pain.
“She got you good there, Wal',” laughed Jonny. “Why are you picking on them anyway? Find someone your own size. Like a hippo.”
“So where are you two going?” asked Wally, wiping his sweaty brow and a runny nose with the back of his hand. “Not Devil's Mound?”
“Might be,” said Tom, brushing himself down. “You brave enough to join us?”
Wally rubbed the same hand over his trousers to produce a disgusting smear and then grabbed the back of his neck and winced. “We were going there but I got an awful pain in my neck so we gave it a miss.”
“It's funny though,” said Jonny, who was much taller than the twins and barely reached Wally's shoulders. “There were all these rustling noises up there and big Wal' suddenly got the pain. Didn't mention it before.”
Jonny did a chicken sound and flapped his arms like wings.
“You're the pain in my neck,” said Wally, slapping Jonny's head.
Jonny jumped on Wally's back and they tumbled like wrestlers. The twins slipped away while they had the chance, Tom breaking into a jog and Alice skipping on her rope. The path twisted through the trees and away from the lake where most people were gathering. Before long they could see Devil’s Mound, dark and forbidding, at the end of the walkway. A bush rustled on the side of the path, startling Alice. The bush stood up.
“Hello, Mr. Li,” said Tom.
“Ni hao,” the man in the bush replied.
The twins had no idea how the next few hours were going to change their lives. They had a special power, but they couldn't tell the future.
© Grant S Clark 2009