I was too angry to speak. I grabbed him by the collar and shook him hard. “You’re meant to be my friend! You’re meant to be my friend!”
“Hey, hey, hey,” said Charlie. It was the same grown-up voice Mum and Dad used when I was getting upset. “It’s going to work out fine.”
“Fine!?” I swung my fist and hit him as hard as I could.
“Ouch!” He put his hand to his face and took it away again. There was actual blood.
I pushed him backwards so that he fell to the ground. Then I turned and ran.
15
Orange toilet plungers
I reached the edge of the room. I was about to shout “Snekkit!” and leap through the door when the lights went out and the entire dining hall went dark. I skidded to a halt. I could see absolutely nothing.
I expected people to start screaming, but all I could hear were excited Ooohs and Aaahs that died away to a hushed silence. There was a distant whirring noise and a line of soft white light fell across the middle of the room.
I looked up and saw the roof opening like a huge eye to reveal an enormous glass dome. Beyond the dome lay a trillion miles of darkness filled with twinkling stars.
Bob appeared beside me. “I saw that thing back there. The bust-up with your friend. That was a seriously bad trip, man.”
“What’s happening?” I said. “I mean, the roof and everything.”
“Wait and see,” said Bob. “It’s kinda mind-boggling.”
The whirring stopped. The roof was now fully open. Way over to my right the two green suns were revolving slowly around one another. Over to my left…
“Here comes the ferry,” said Bob.
“The what?”
“The intergalactic ferry,” said Bob. “Goes round all the neighbouring star systems. Picks up passengers and cargo and stuff.”
A vast object began to slide into view. A spaceship. A real live spaceship. Antennae and gantries and rockets and pods and fins and tubes. Moving as slowly as an oil tanker but a hundred times the size.
“The scorch marks are from jumping in and out of hyperspace,” said Bob. “It gets pretty hot. And look at the front. You can see the asteroid bumper. That huge panel with all the dents in.”
There was a deep and distant rumble. You could feel the floor vibrating gently.
“Cool or what?” said Bob.
“Cool,” I said. “Definitely cool.”
“It’s not home,” said Bob. “There’s no football on the telly and the scampi’s a bit rubbish. But if you’re going to spend the rest of your life on another planet, then this one’s not a bad choice.”
He was right. Of course he was right. I was lucky. I was alive. I should be grateful.
There was a faint shooshing noise and little tongues of orange flame flickered from twenty rockets down the side of the intergalactic ferry.
“Final adjustments,” said Bob. “You know, before coming into dock.”
“Wow.”
We stood in silence, watching the ferry fly slowly over the dome until the last tail-fin disappeared and we were left staring up into the night sky.
The lights clicked back on and everyone covered their eyes while they got used to the brightness. The roof began whirring shut and the chatter started up again. Then I heard someone whispering, “Smelly fart,” in my ear, which was quite odd.
I turned and found myself looking at Charlie. “Smelly fart,” he said again. “Gordon Reginald Harvey Simpson Bennett Junior and walkie-talkies and raspberry pavlova. I’m still Charlie. Just…come and sit down and talk to me, OK?”
“Shut up.”
“Jimbo, please. Just…”
He was still Charlie. Whatever they’d done to him. I couldn’t carry on being angry for ever. “I’ll come,” I said. “But don’t give me any more twaddle about how you’re staying here, or I swear I’ll brain you.”
“Promise,” said Charlie.
We walked back across the room and he sat me down while he went to get some more food.
Two women at the next table were arguing about whether Daleks were scarier than Cybermen. It puzzled me. The inhabitants of Plonk were meant to be super-intelligent. They had hover-scooters. They had a ferry that went through hyperspace. Why didn’t they repopulate their planet with engineers? Or fighter pilots? Or accountants?
Charlie came back carrying a huge bowl containing an industrial volume of tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce. The smell was not good.
He stuck his spoon into the bowl and started fiddling and stirring. Like those kids at school who don’t really enjoy eating, but love building snowmen out of mashed potatoes and smiley faces out of peas. I wanted to tell him to grow up and actually talk to me. But it was good sitting here with him, and if he didn’t say anything I could just about pretend they hadn’t done anything to his brain.
At last he stopped playing with his spaghetti. “Try some,” he said, pushing the bowl towards me.
“No way,” I said. “I hate spaghetti.”
“Yes,” said Charlie. “But this spaghetti is special spaghetti.” He had the weird, religious-cult-member face on again.
“Charlie,” I said, trying to control my rising frustration, “I don’t like spaghetti. And you know I don’t like spaghetti because the last time I ate a tin of spaghetti I barfed the whole thing up. And you know I barfed the whole thing up because I barfed it up all over you.”
Charlie rubbed his forehead and took a deep breath and looked at me and squeezed his face up like he was having serious trouble on the toilet. “Jimbo, this is alphabetti spaghetti.”
“You’re eating alphabetti spaghetti?” I said. “Well, that’s really reassuring. Are you seven years old?”
“Just look at the bowl!” said Charlie.
“No,” I said, folding my arms.
Charlie stood and leaned across the table and shouted, “How thick are you!? Of course I hate this place. Of course I want to escape. And I had a brilliant plan. But you have totally screwed it up by being a total, total moron. Look at the bloody bowl!”
I looked at the bowl. The letters of the spaghetti were arranged to read:
“Oh,” I said. “That’s why you were acting weird.”
“Yes,” said Charlie sarcastically. “That’s why I was acting weird.”
“Because you wanted them to think you really liked it here.”
“Yes,” said Charlie sarcastically. “Because I wanted them to think I really liked it here.”
“So,” I said, “what happens to you if you don’t like it here?”
“They fire you into space?” said Charlie. “Or feed you into some kind of grinding machine? I have no idea. But it basically starts with a couple of armed spiders dragging you off screaming. Like this.”
He pointed over my shoulder. I turned round. Captain Chicken aka Bantid Vantresillion was standing at the edge of the room in his violet robe, with two giant monkey-spiders at his side. The spiders were wearing crash helmets and carrying orange toilet plungers.
“Seize them!”
The giant monkey-spiders sprinted towards us.
“Run!” said Charlie.
We dodged and dived. We slid along benches and jumped over tables. I covered a woman in mushroom soup. Charlie sat in a bowl of treacle pudding. A spider raised a toilet plunger and a fizzing line of laser-light zapped past my leg, singeing my jeans. Charlie dodged a second one and it set fire to the hair of a sci-fi fan who was eating a knickerbocker glory.
“I love the nightlife!” shouted one of the spiders.
“Bumper cars!” shouted the second.
Somehow we made it to the main entrance. I shouted, “Snekkit!” the wall opened up and we raced into the corridor.