Becky paused for a moment. Then she said a really, really rude word. “We haven’t got a lighter!”
The mechanism juddered and smoked and the rock cracked into two pieces.
“Craterface’s lighter!” I searched madly through the pockets. The cigarettes, the wallet, the oily fluff…and the lighter.
I threw myself to the ground and shoved my arm down past the lid.
“Stop, you moron!” shouted Charlie. “You’ll blow yourself to pieces!”
He ripped off his shirt and shoved the sleeve into the mouth of the petrol can, then pulled it out and set light to it. The rock finally shattered, Charlie shoved the flaming shirt through the last inch of shrinking gap and shouted, “Run!”
We ran and hurled ourselves to the ground and waited. And waited. And absolutely nothing happened. Except for Vantresillion wandering into the ruined cottage, moaning, with his arms stretched out in front of him, clawing the air like a lost zombie.
He was standing in the very centre of the cottage when the blue light flashed on. He screamed again, but much, much louder this time. Then he vanished inside the column of light and we couldn’t hear him screaming any more. Then the light went off and the boom! shook the mountains and we saw that Vantresillion had been turned into a smoking black statue of himself. One arm fell off and smashed on the ground. Then the head did the same thing.
“It didn’t work!” said Charlie. “It didn’t—”
And then, suddenly, it did work. There was a shuddering whump! and the Weff-Beam unit and the cottage and the black statue of Vantresillion erupted in a massive cauliflower of orange flame. We closed our eyes and covered our heads. The heat wave hit us and it was like being run over by a really hot lorry.
We opened our eyes. There was an ominous silence for about two seconds, then a horrible clatter as broken pieces of highly advanced technology rained down around us. I looked up and rolled out of the way just in time to prevent myself being kebabbed by a long spear of ceramic tube-wall.
We got up and picked bits of ash and shrapnel off our clothing and walked back towards the ruin. Except it wasn’t there any more. There was a black crater. There was a ring of charred stones. There were some wires. There was a triangle of cracked blue glass.
I heard a little click and felt my wristband loosen and fall to the ground. I heard another little click and saw Charlie’s wristband do the same.
He bent down and picked them up. “You know,” he said. “Just to be on the safe side.” He drew back his arm and hurled them into the water.
And this was when we saw Mrs Pearce. She’d finally come round and got to her feet. She had her fingers pressed to her own wristband. “Gretnoid,” she said. “Nutwall venka berdang.” She pressed it again. “Gretnoid. Nutwall venka berdang.” Her voice was getting more and more panicky. “Gretnoid…? Gretnoid…?”
Charlie walked up to her. “You’ve lost all contact with Plonk, haven’t you?”
She growled at him.
“Brilliant,” said Charlie. “I’m kind of assuming they can’t blow us up now. Or the planet. Is that right?”
“You’re going to suffer for this. I am going to make you all suffer so very, very much.”
“How?” said Charlie.
She paused for a few moments, then she slumped to the ground and started to cry. “Oh God,” she wailed. “I’m going to be stuck on your stupid, primitive, godforsaken planet for ever.”
“Anyway,” said Becky, “we’re off now. There are five of your friends tied up over there. Behind the big boulder. They’re going to need a bit of help.”
We walked back to the tent. The five Watchers were tied up nearby. I recognized two of them from the red Volvo. They were all a bit snarly at first. Then Charlie explained that the Weff-Beam had been destroyed and that they wouldn’t be going home. After this they went a bit quiet. A couple of them cried, just like Mrs Pearce.
Becky dug around in the holdall and found a spare shirt for Charlie. We packed up and headed back down to the water. Mrs Pearce was still on her hands and knees, crying, when we walked past her.
“Cheerio!” said Charlie.
She looked up at him and whimpered like a sad dog.
We climbed into the boat and lowered the outboard into the water. Becky yanked the starter cord three times and the engine coughed into life and we puttered down the little channel to the sea.
17
Individual broccoli tartlets
We ran out of petrol halfway, having used the back-up supply to destroy the Weff-Beam. But there were oars and it was a sunny day, and just being on the surface of our own planet was a pleasure.
I tried to explain everything to Becky, but after a while she told me to stop. “It’s doing my head in, Jimbo. I’m tired and hungry and filthy. I’ve been living in the wilderness for nearly a week, hitting strange people over the head. I need normal. I need ordinary. I need bacon and fried eggs and toast. And I need a long hot shower. I do not need hover-scooters and intergalactic ferries.”
So she went and sat at the bow and Charlie sat facing me while I rowed and we shared our stories about how he’d been captured and how Becky and I had set off in pursuit on a stolen motorbike.
And maybe Bob-with-the-Hawaiian-shirt was right. Maybe it was cool being on a planet on the far side of the known galaxy. And maybe it was even cooler escaping and getting home again. But the coolest thing of all was having my best friend back.
“What about Mrs Pearce?” I said.
“What do you mean?” asked Charlie.
“She said she was going to make us suffer. You don’t think she’s going to, like, track us down and kill us, do you?”
Charlie put his head on one side and stared at me. “She’s an elderly lady with no job. The police will be looking for her. She has a tail. And no belly button. If I were her I’d be heading for the hills and living off nuts and berries.”
We took turns rowing and after a couple of hours we reached Elgol harbour with two seagulls circling above us and a friendly seal in our wake.
The red Volvo was parked a little way up the road from the slipway.
“So,” said Charlie, rubbing his hands together, “are we going to break in and hotwire it?”
“Don’t be daft,” said Becky. “I had the driver tied up for three days.” She fished a set of car keys out of the holdall. “These were in his pocket.”
“You are a true professional,” said Charlie.
“Thank you,” said Becky.
“Can I have a go at driving?” said Charlie.
“Are you out of your mind?” said Becky. “Get in the back.”
The Volvo was pretty straightforward after the Moto Guzzi. It had four wheels for starters, so it wasn’t going to fall over sideways. We scraped a couple of stone walls and bumped in and out of a few ditches over the first couple of miles but Becky soon got the hang of it.
The journey was glorious. All those things I’d never looked at before seemed wonderful now. Cooling towers. Transit vans. Concrete bridges. I looked at electricity pylons and felt a warm glow in my heart.
After three hours we stopped at Gretna Green. Becky ordered her fry-up, I ordered a pizza and Charlie ordered a black coffee and four apple turnovers.
We had another six hours of driving in which to plan our stories. But we were too tired. After about four minutes Charlie and I fell asleep and didn’t wake up till we reached the M25. Luckily, Becky only fell asleep twice, but each time she was woken up by a lorry honking as she veered into the wrong lane of the motorway.
We offered to drop Charlie off first but he reckoned our parents were less likely to kill him.