by Phil Ford
‘Aye aye, skipper!’ And Clyde had said it before he could stop himself.
There was a murmur of laughter among the other kids, and Mr Chandra homed in on Clyde like a missile. ‘The joker in the pack!’
‘I do my best,’ Clyde smiled back and wondered, did he really think this was going to win this guy over?
Mr Chandra grabbed the exercise book lying before Clyde and checked the name. ‘Well, Clyde Langer, I hope your classwork is as sharp as your wit.’
And Clyde knew he was just in too deep now to pull back. ‘Don’t worry sir. It takes brains to be this funny.’
Rani saw Mr Chandra’s face darken like an ocean storm — and then she saw something else.
The clown at the window behind him.
But that was impossible. They had come up the stairs to the form room. It was on the first floor.
But there was a clown outside the window, a white-faced clown with points of ginger hair and a big red mouth, dressed in a costume of red, yellow and blue and he was looking straight at her. And he was holding a red balloon on a string in one gloved hand. And she just knew that he had that balloon especially for her. And he couldn’t possibly be there. Because there was nothing he could be standing on out there.
Her eyes flashed around the room. No one else could see the clown. But still he was there, offering her the balloon. Just as he had been earlier, for that fleeting moment in the school corridor. She had seen him standing among the bustling crowd of school kids that had moved around him, had for all she knew, moved through him.
This couldn’t be happening, she told herself.
The Head Teacher tossed Clyde’s exercise book back on to the table before him.
‘No, Langer. It takes brains to know when to shut up and listen!’
And the clown had gone.
Rani sat back in her chair, trying to make some sense of her thoughts, trying to work out what was happening to her.
At the front of the class, Mr Chandra had pushed his hands into his pockets as he ploughed on. ‘Now, a third child has gone missing. I’m speaking to all classes today, reminding you all to be careful and — just as importantly — telling you all that if you see anything or anyone suspicious, tell the police immediately.’
Ranis eyes found the window again. Yeah, maybe she should tell the police, should tell someone, but — lets face it — who on earth was going to believe her?
Chapter Three
Do you save the world
every day?
Sarah Jane felt wrong. This was not her, at all. She stood on the doorstep of the house that had until recently been Maria’s home. In one hand she held a vacuum flask filled with tea, in the other she held a plate of cakes. Nothing could have been more alien for Sarah Jane.
She pressed the doorbell and waited for her new neighbour to show herself. Sarah Jane had waited for the removal men to finish work, and then she had given her new neighbour another hour to open boxes, find the first broken china, realise that the couch was never going to fit in the lounge and that her favourite CDs had mysteriously never made it from the last house to this one. Then Sarah Jane had been unable to wait any longer. If Clyde was right, and that maybe something extra-terrestrial had somehow made it back to Marias house, she had to find it and deal with it quickly. It was possible. After all, Sarah Jane had herself once unwittingly carried a plague of Squaleen locusts home with her after visiting a Prastaki trading ship from the Thunderhead Spiral Galaxy. Squaleen locusts are almost microscopic but they have enormous appetites and seem to love the taste of furniture stuffing. They also reproduce every fifteen minutes. Sarah Jane had to completely refurnish her house by the time she had dealt with them.
When no one answered the doorbell, Sarah Jane felt a chill creep through her bones — what if something worse than Squaleen locusts had been waiting here?
Sarah Jane pressed the doorbell again, and this time the door opened. Behind it stood a woman in her late thirties dressed in jeans, tee-shirt and yellow rubber gloves. She looked grimy and hassled.
‘Yes? Hello?’ she asked.
‘Hello,’ Sarah Jane began, struggling to look like a good neighbour. ‘I live over the road. I saw you were moving in. Thought maybe you haven’t been able to find the kettle yet.’
And the woman’s eyes settled on the flask and cakes and her face lit up. ‘Oh, tell me, do you save the world every day, or is it just on Mondays?’ Sarah Jane found she could only smile.
And her new neighbour was smiling, too, ‘Come in, come in.’
Sarah Jane stepped over the threshold and followed the woman between the piles of boxes into the lounge as she apologized for the mess.
‘Sorry it’s such a state,’ she said. ‘I had a plan — a list of what was what and where it was going. But then you have to go and use removal men, don’t you? Forget it, you might as well give in to chaos. I’m Gita.’
Gita offered her hand, and Sarah Jane juggled the cakes and flask to take it.
‘Sarah Jane.’
Gita beamed: ‘Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Sarah.’
‘Jane.’
‘Lovely.’
And Gita went off to find some cups, as Sarah Jane laid down the flask and cakes and flicked back the face of her wristwatch and began to scan the room with the alien technology embedded in the watch body. All life gives off energy Scientists had even photographed the energy that humans radiated. They called it kirlean energy. Aliens were no different, but every species had its individual energy which left traces wherever they went. As Sarah Jane scanned, Gita hunted through boxes in the kitchen for cups.
‘This has been a nightmare, I can’t tell you. We should have moved in last Friday but the removal company double-booked us. Can you believe it?’
‘Oh, no,’ Sarah Jane called back, all her concentration on the scanner on her wrist.
‘So, that’s your house over the road, is it, Sarah?’
‘Sarah Jane,’ she muttered, eyes still on the scanner.
‘The big one, right opposite. Have you got kids?’ The scan was negative. Sarah Jane closed her watch with a smile. ‘All clear.’
As Gita showed up with two mugs, ‘Sorry?’
‘A son,’ Sarah Jane said quickly. ‘Luke. There’s just the two of us.’
Gita glowed. ‘We’ve got a girl. Rani. She’s fifteen. Very clever. Shall I be mother?’
Without waiting for an answer, Gita opened the flask and started to pour. Sarah Jane could see that Gita was the kind of woman who got on with things. She couldn’t have been any more different to Chrissie Jackson. Though, she supposed, the world did owe quite a debt to Maria’s mum and the designer high heels that she had so often tottered around Bannerman Road in. She had, in fact, saved the world with one. The universe, Sarah Jane reminded herself, was a place of constant surprise.
‘So what do you do for a living, Sarah?’ Gita asked as she handed her one of the mugs.
What was it with the women in this house? None of them could get her name right. Was it that difficult? But she decided to let it go.
‘I’m a freelance journalist.’
Gita’s face lit up with interest and delight. ‘A journalist? My Rani wants to be a journalist. What a coincidence! Maybe she could come round? You could give her some tips.’
Yes! Marvellous! Just what she wanted!
‘Oh. Well, my work tends to be rather specialised,’ Sarah Jane told Gita, and tried to sweeten the dismissal with a smile. ‘And I am really very busy.’
But Gita wasn’t the sort of woman to let a dismissal put her off. She continued to beam like a searchlight. ‘Rani will be so excited. And she and your Luke are bound to be friends. You’ll love her. She’s very curious. Wants to know everything about everybody.’
Sarah Jane felt her smile sag with dread — that was all she needed. A nosy fifteen-year-old neighbour. Sometimes the universe was surprising, and sometimes it seemed that it just had it in for you.
Chapter Four
Weird
Rani had managed to get through her first morning at Park Vale without seeing any more clowns. As she walked across the playground with Luke life felt almost normal. A little way off, Clyde was playing basketball with some mates and she did her best to ignore him as he tried to show off for her. It wasn’t all that difficult, and it was kinder that way — Clyde wasn’t actually much of a basketball player. Even if he was kind of cute, in his own way.
She couldn’t help wondering what kind of common ground he and Luke found to be friends, but it was pretty obvious that the two of them were best mates. Perhaps Luke had been bullied in the past, she thought, and Clyde had looked after him. That would make sense, she thought. Luke was the kind of thoughtful kid that would get picked on and Clyde, for all his show of rebellion, was the kind of guy that would stick up for other people. She felt glad to have fallen in with the two of them.
‘So what were the last people like that lived in our house,’ she asked Luke as they crossed the playground and, behind them, Clyde called for the basketball. ‘Mr Jackson and his daughter?’
‘Nice,’ said Luke. ‘I miss Maria.’
Rani grinned, ‘Oh yes?’
Luke was quickly on the defensive. ‘We were friends. Maria, Clyde and me.’
‘We can be friends.’
Luke glanced away. ‘Yes. But it wouldn’t be the same.’
‘Oh. Sorry I suggested it.’
Luke turned, his eyes wide with apology. ‘No — I didn’t mean. I can’t explain…’
His embarrassment was comical, Rani almost laughed.
‘It’s all right, Luke.’
He shrugged, ‘Interpersonal-relationships are something I haven’t mastered yet.’
‘You know, Luke, I hope you don’t mind me telling you — but you do know you’re a bit weird, don’t you? I mean, I think you’re all right. Just a bit strange.’
It sounded like it wasn’t news to him. ‘I’m not strange, I’m just different. There’s a difference.’ Like she said, weird.
But not the weirdest thing around here. Those kids going missing, she told him that was weird. And the police just didn’t have a clue.
Luke tried to reassure her. He told her that statistically the chances of her being abducted were extremely remote.
She looked at him like he’d just proven everything that she had said. ‘Like I said, strange. I’m not worried, Luke, I’m interested. That’s all. It’s weird.’ And she thought uneasily of the clown, his face pressed to the first floor window, a red balloon in his hand, ‘I’m into weird.’
Luke watched her, thought about telling her that she had moved into the right road, then. Behind them, Clyde scored a basket and looked hopefully to see if Rani had noticed, but she had other things on her mind.
‘Have you ever seen anything strange?’ she asked Luke. ‘I mean, around school.’
Luke wondered what she was getting at, but that was when Clyde tried to repeat his basket just as the new Head passed by, and instead he hit Mr Chandra on the back of his head with the ball.
The Head’s bark silenced the playground. ‘Langer! My office! Now!’
And so, an hour later, Clyde was sitting outside Mr Chandra’s office, where the Head Teacher had left him since angrily escorting him up the stairs, telling Clyde that he was really going to have to sort his act out if the two of them were going to get along. Mr Chandra wasn’t at all interested in Clyde’s apologies and assurances that it had been an accident. Looking on the bright side, as he watched the hands creep around their circuit of the clock face, Clyde had to admit that his punishment could have been worse.
‘Are you still here?’
It was Dave Finn. He was a tall, skinny kid. Unlike Clyde, he was a natural for basketball and it had been Finney (that’s what everyone called him) who had passed Clyde the fatal ball.
Clyde gave Finney a resigned smile. ‘Me and Mr Chandra didn’t exactly hit it off from the start. I think he’s jealous of my popularity.’
Finney rolled his eyes. ‘Your trouble is you don’t know when to lay off.’
‘Yeah. Being funny is a curse. Me and the Wolfman — life’s just one big shaggy dog story.’
Finney shook his head. He had to get on; he’d come to pick up supplies from the stationery store for the school art club meeting. Finney was a pretty cool artist. Clyde had seen some of his classwork and stuff from art club, but it was the stuff he didn’t show the teachers that impressed Clyde the most — the stuff he couldn’t show them.
His caricatures. As mostly they were of members of staff and were hilariously funny Finney tried to keep them under the radar. Clyde reckoned it wouldn’t be long before Finney turned out his first Mr Chandra cartoon. The new Head dressed as a one-legged pirate, perhaps: the New Captain on the Bridge! The thought cheered Clyde up — maybe he’d even do one himself; Clyde didn’t shout about it, but he was no slouch with a pencil, himself.
The stationery store was right across the corridor from Mr Chandra’s office, Finney gave Clyde a grim thumb’s down before he went through the door and shut it after him. Clyde got up off the chair he’d been sitting on — this was starting to get beyond a joke: how long was Chandra going to keep him here? Clyde found himself looking at the trophy cabinet. Park Vale wasn’t all that good at collecting silverware in the inter-school competitions — the school’s football field mauling last night was about par for the course — but there were a few home trophies in there that kids got their names attached to for competitions and achievements at Park Vale. Clyde even had his name on one from this year’s sports day. He had come first in the 400 metres. All that running away from assorted alien bad guys turned out to be pretty good training.
He saw his name on the trophy, and couldn’t help feeling a small buzz of pride. But then his eye was caught by something else. A reflection behind him. A movement of colour — blue, red and yellow. In the glass of the trophy cupboard he saw a clown slip into the stationery store.
A clown?!
What was going on here?
Clyde spun around. The door to the stationery store was closed. For a moment Clyde wondered if he was seeing things, and then he was crossing the corridor and reaching out for the handle to the stationery store. He felt the hair prickle at the back of his neck. He knew that he hadn’t imagined the clown, and just as surely, he knew that meant some kind of trouble.
‘Finney?’ Clyde said. But there was no answer from inside the stationery store.
Clyde opened the door and stepped inside.
The stationery store was a small room, shelved on every wall, packed with artists’ materials. There was no clown in there, and no Finney. But there were papers all over the floor. And outside somewhere Clyde heard a noise — a snigger…
‘Finney? Are you messing me around?’ Clyde dodged out of the stationery store, willing his friend to be there, a big grin all over his face, winding Clyde up.
But he didn’t see Finney. He saw the clown.
He was standing at the other end of the corridor, and Clyde knew there was just no way he could’ve got there. He hadn’t come past Clyde. This was weird.
The clown had orange hair that poked out in spikes either side of his head and on top, other than that he seemed to be bald, with a painted white face and a big red painted mouth. And as clowns went, this one didn’t look in the least bit funny.
‘Hey!’ Clyde yelled and started running towards the clown.
From somewhere it pulled a gigantic multicoloured handkerchief and gave Clyde a huge grin of yellowing, sharp teeth and a wave. For a moment the clown was completely hidden by the massive handkerchief — and then the handkerchief floated to the ground and the clown had gone.
Clyde pulled up, stunned. The handkerchief lay at his feet and there was no sign of the clown.
Then he heard it snigger again. The noise came from the boys’ toilets. The door was right by him. Clyde took a breath and collected his nerve and followed the sound of the clown’s lau
ghter — but the toilets were empty.
Clyde quickly kicked open the door to each of the toilet stalls, but the clown wasn’t in there.
‘He’s behind you!’
The voice was sing-song, like someone at a pantomime. Only quiet. And sinister.
Clyde spun around.
There was the clown. In the mirror behind the washbasins.
Clyde’s eyes snapped across the room. The clown wasn’t there. Only in the mirror. He had a red balloon on a string in his hand.
Clyde gasped. ‘Who — what are you?’
The clown looked hurt. Clyde noticed that his eyes were like small black dots on discs of silver. They weren’t human eyes, Clyde thought. Yeah, like appearing in a mirror with no body to give a reflection, didn’t give that away! But when the clown spoke it was with a strong American drawl. Like someone from the southern states.
‘All I want to do,’ said the clown, ‘is give you a balloon.’
And as he spoke, the clown’s hand passed out of the mirror, the balloon floating on a string.
And the door to the toilets flew open behind him.
‘Langer! I’ve been looking for you!’
Clyde spun around. Mr Chandra stood in the doorway, furious.
‘Why aren’t you outside my office?’
Clyde kind of thought that was obvious — he’d been chasing a freaky clown that was coming at him out of a mirror — but when he looked back, the only thing he saw in the mirror was his own reflection and that of the steamed-up Head Teacher.
All the same, Clyde’s luck had run its course with Mr Chandra. There was no way he couldn’t give him some sort of explanation — and, besides, there was Finney to think about.
‘Look,’ Clyde started, ‘I know this is going to sound weird, but I think Dave Finn’s been taken.’
‘Taken?’
‘Abducted. Like those other kids.’
‘Langer, if this is some sort of joke.’
‘I saw the guy who did it!’
And even as Clyde said it, he knew that this wasn’t going to work. He should have thought this through properly. He should have probably kept his mouth shut.
