The Boy Who Made the World Disappear

by Ben Miller

  ‘That’s right,’ said Shelley, with an encouraging smile.

  ‘And your grandmother told me about looking at parents and grandparents to see what we would look like when we were older . . . ’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Shelley.

  ‘Which means . . . ’ Harrison gasped.

  ‘That old lady isn’t my grandmother. It’s me!’ Shelley finished for him.

  And then everything went dark.

  ‘Harrison! Harrison!’

  Someone far, far away was calling him.

  ‘Harrison, wake up!’

  He opened his eyes and immediately felt sick. How much of that was to do with altitude and how much to do with Shelley shaking him vigorously by the shoulders, he wasn’t exactly sure.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked her.

  ‘You fainted,’ said Shelley. ‘I was going to give you some oxygen, but then I figured you might need it. Because this needs feeding.’

  She held up what appeared to be an empty piece of string, hovering in mid-air.

  ‘It’s gone!’ exclaimed Harrison.

  ‘Almost,’ said Shelley. ‘It’s about the size of a strawberry seed. I’d say you’ve got another –’ she made some quick calculations in her head – ‘five minutes and thirty-eight seconds before it disappears altogether.’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Harrison.

  ‘We need to move fast,’ said Shelley, ‘so I’m going to keep this short. Number one: you need to put the entire earth in your black hole. That’s the only thing that can stop it shrinking to nothing now. Number two: you need to make it spin. Number three: you need to throw yourself into it. Am I making sense?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Harrison.

  ‘Okay,’ said Shelley. ‘There’s no way out of a black hole, unless it’s spinning.’ She pressed a button on a remote, and the giant mirror began to rotate. ‘Because, as you know, that turns the black hole into an Einstein-Rosen bridge . . .’

  As she spoke, she climbed the rickety wooden contraption, into a seat that was set on top of a giant lever arm.

  ‘But I need your help!’ called Harrison over the noise of the machine. ‘I still don’t know how to get everything back!’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Shelley, bracing herself. ‘It’s pretty much foolproof. Just remember: Earth, Spin, Throw Yourself In.’ She pressed another button on the remote. ‘Oh, wait,’ she said. ‘There’s one more thing I need to tell you. Make sure the black hole is spinning the right way. Last time I did this, I went into the past instead of the future!’

  ‘Lift-off in T minus

  boomed a voice.

  Shelley settled back in her seat, ready for another extraordinary journey!

  ‘One more thing,’ she said, breaking her concentration for a moment.

  ‘You’ve got to get the speed right. I wasn’t quite fast enough and ended up twenty-eight instead of eight! You don’t want to change age, so creep in as slowly as possible!’

  She gave Harrison a big smile, and sat back again.

  Then a split-second later, she sat back up.

  ‘And you need to keep calm!’ she shouted. ‘Any emotional disturbance and you’ll end up off your timeline.’

  ‘Which means there’ll be two of you – the new you and the old you! And, trust me, you really don’t want that!’

  The mirror was now spinning really fast and the noise was almost deafening.

  ‘Apart from that, it’s quite literally child’s plaaaaaaaaaay!’

  The giant arm launched her head-first across the room, right into the spinning black hole!

  All that was left were the soles of Shelley’s shoes, fading slowly from view . . .

  But Harrison didn’t wait to watch them fade into darkness. He had work to do and very little time in which to do it.

  He snatched up the string and ran outside.

  He fitted his mask to his face and twisted the top of the oxygen bottle.

  Sweet and sour, sweet and sour.

  Then he dipped the end of the string into the dust on the ground.

  Nothing.

  Was he too late? He peered at the end of the string. If his black hole was there, he couldn’t see it.

  He tried again, dipping the bottom of the string back in the sand.

  And then something started to happen.

  Something incredible.

  All the sand on the plateau began to tremble, as if it was being sucked up by the world’s most powerful and most tiny hoover. There was a jolt and he was hit by a gale of wind, flinging him upwards.

  It was as much as he could do to hold on.

  Now he could see his black hole again, right at the end of the string, the size of a golf ball.

  It was working! The hole was growing again!

  Beneath him, the entire mountain appeared to shudder and fold, as if it was as thin as a bed sheet . . . then it sucked up into the black hole.

  Harrison felt as if his head was about to explode as the wind blasted against him even more strongly!

  He took a deep breath through the mask.

  Sweet and sour, sweet and sour.

  The black hole was the size of a football now and still growing. Way below him, the earth began to curve and the sun began to rise, as torrents of rock rushed up towards him.

  For a few brief seconds, he was burning in the brightest, hottest sunlight he had ever seen!

  And then he was plunged into darkness.

  Sweet and sour, sweet and sour.

  And suddenly he was floating in space, with nothing but a huge black hole between him and the sun.

  The entire earth had disappeared inside his black hole! The whole world, and everything in it: every person, animal and plant was relying on him to get this right.

  He looked at the oxygen bottle. He could only have a few minutes of oxygen left. He needed to think fast.

  Sweet and sour, sweet and sour.

  Shelley’s words echoed in his brain. ‘Earth, Spin, Throw Yourself In.’

  He’d put the earth in. Now he needed to make the black hole spin. But which way? And how?

  He looked up at the black hole, deep and dark, with the sun burning round it like a halo. But wait . . . where were the stars? Ah, there they were, like a carpet beneath his feet.

  Now what was it Shelley had been trying to tell him, before she shot off? Spin one way and you go into the past. Spin the other way and you go into the future.

  But which was which?

  There was no way to know.

  He looked down at his trainers. There was a bright star, halfway between them, that he thought he recognised! Now that he looked more closely, he could see that the crisscross pattern beneath his feet was Cygnus, the swan, and the bright star was Deneb, its tail!

  But there was a problem.

  Cygnus wasn’t spinning. And that meant he wasn’t spinning either.

  He tried twisting his body. It was useless. There was nothing to push against except empty space. And then he had an idea.

  He took off one of his shoes, threw it and Cygnus looked like it was beginning to turn, which meant he and his black hole were spinning.

  So he took off his other shoe and threw that too.

  Now Cygnus was turning even faster!

  Then Harrison started to climb the string, hand over hand, closer and closer to the black hole.

  He stretched out his hand . . .

  Hisheart began to beatfaster.

  What if something went wrong? What if he fell inside and never got out?

  Keep calm, Shelley said.

  He had to keep calm!

  Sweet and sour, sweet and sour . . .

  He touched its edge . . .

  Then – whoosh! – he took off, as if he was sliding head-first down the world’s biggest water slide!

  Harrison was thrown left and right and up and down as he rushed through space and time, faster and faster!

  He saw Blue barking . . . then a giant piece of broccoli . . . Hector Broom, flic
king his elastic band . . . swimming pools and textbooks rushing past him so fast he had to close his eyes . . .

  And, finally, way off in the distance, he glimpsed his parents, waving to him . . .

  But, wait, were they waving hello or goodbye?

  Suddenly he was rushing away from them, out past stars and galaxies and galactic clusters . . .

  Out into darkness.

  And then everything stopped.

  Harrison opened his eyes.

  There was Cygnus again. Only it wasn’t spinning any more!

  It hadn’t worked!

  Then Harrison realised he wasn’t wearing his oxygen mask.

  Harrison was thrown left and right, and up and down, as he rushed through space and time.

  He was lying on his back, looking up at the stars on the ceiling at Hector Broom’s space party!

  ‘Right!’ said Shelley. ‘Shall we play some games?’ She flicked a row of switches on the wall and all the lights came back on.

  He’d done it! He’d travelled back in time to Hector’s birthday party! That meant none of the Bad Things had happend yet! His parents, Blue, Hector Broom and the entire planet were safe and sound!

  For a few seconds, Harrison lay there, flooded with relief. Then he smiled an absolutely enormous smile. He jumped to his feet and raised his hand as high as it would go.

  ‘Yes!’ he bellowed.

  And everybody laughed.

  Needless to say, it turned out to be one of the best birthday parties ever. And when Hector Broom pulled out his rubber band and gave a menacing smirk, Harrison found he didn’t care. Once you’ve seen the inside of a black hole and lost almost everyone you love, an elastic band doesn’t seem quite so scary. Harrison was enjoying himself so much that he hardly noticed his mother and father creeping in at the end.

  ‘You’re here!’ yelled Harrison, and raced across the room to give them both a huge hug. He’d missed his parents so much. Then he spotted Lana and gave her a huge hug too.

  ‘Harrison has been a real pleasure to look after,’ Shelley told his parents.

  One by one, Shelley gave each child a slice of birthday cake and a beautiful, shiny helium balloon in the shape of a planet. Hector Broom got a stripy brown and yellow Jupiter, and Persephone Brinkwater got a purple Venus. Charlie Nwosu got a sky-blue Neptune, Marcus Down got an orange Saturn with pink rings and Carl Ng got a bluey-green Uranus. Katie Broad got a silvery Mercury, which was very lucky because it matched her angel costume.

  Finally, it was Harrison’s turn.

  ‘Have you got a balloon for Harrison?’ asked Harrison’s mother.

  ‘Ah,’ said Shelley. ‘Yes, I’ve got a special balloon for you, Harrison.’

  Harrison’s heart sank. Could it be happening all over again? He didn’t want a black hole!

  But then Shelley handed him a beautiful red balloon.

  ‘This is Mars,’ she said, tying it to his wrist. ‘Who’s “Mars” named after, do you know?’

  Harrison shook his head.

  ‘He’s the Roman God of War,’ said Shelley. ‘But to win, he has to learn to control his temper.’

  ‘Maybe someone should give him a black hole,’ said Harrison with a knowing smile.

  I started by saying that most stories are about a good person who does a Bad Thing, and that this story was no exception.

  So let me finish by saying that most stories about a good person who does a Bad Thing have a moral, and this story is no exception to that rule either.

  So what, you may ask, is the moral of this story?

  Well, there are a few, really. One (which I think Harrison would agree with) is:

  Don’t Kick Off at birthday parties.

  Another might be this:

  However difficult it is living in a world where people get angry, a world where people didn’t get angry would be worse. If people didn’t get angry about injustices or unfairness then things would never change.

  Or maybe this:

  Sometimes angry people are just frightened people in disguise.

  And lastly, and perhaps most importantly:

  If you bottle up your worries, they might come out as anger. But if you try to explain your worries, you might just find someone who understands, and who is able to help.

  Since I wrote this story, I have received lots of letters from children asking me if black holes are real, and whether there is any danger that they might accidentally fall into one.

  First: the bad news. Black holes are real. There’s one in the constellation of Cygnus, just like in the story, and some people even say there’s a tiny one, about the size of a balloon, in the outer reaches of our solar system.

  But now: the good news. The chances of falling into one are zero. Unless, that is, you are planning a holiday near Deneb, or a mini break beyond Neptune.

  So what else in the story is true?

  Well, Harrison is a real person, though he’s never been on a mini break beyond Neptune, so he’s never fallen into a black hole, or been able to put anything else into one either. (Although sometimes I’m sure he wishes he could.) And until he learnt to use his words, he really did have a temper.

  Black holes do shrink, although not nearly as fast as they do in this story. The very clever scientist Stephen Hawking taught us that. And according to two other very clever scientists, Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, a spinning black hole might – I repeat might – form an Einstein-Rosen bridge, but no one has ever seen a real grandmother travel back in time through one.

  The other thing in Harrison’s story that is definitely real is the Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert. The VLT is the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory – which basically means that it’s the best place in the entire world to go if you want to see something in space – and is actually a collection of four telescopes. Together they are so powerful that if you took a car to the moon and turned on its headlights, the VLT would be able to see them from Earth. The observatory is open to visitors, so you can go and see it for yourself. You just need to log on to the website. And smuggle yourself onto a flight to Chile, of course.

  Or become an astronomer.

  Then you can see black holes for yourself. Or maybe even make one . . .

  The first person I have to thank is Harrison Miller, my son, for (a) letting me write this book about him, (b) listening so attentively whenever I read bits of it to him when he would much rather be doing something else, and (c) supreme tact whenever he felt something wasn’t really working. And while I’m at it, I also need to thank his older brother, Sonny, and his younger sister, Lana, who also feature and gave me lots of helpful advice.

  Neither Harrison nor Lana would be here without my wonderful wife, Jessica Parker; thank you, Jess, for making our home such a transcendentally fun and loving place to be, and for listening to more guff about black holes than any soul can usefully bear.

  Daniela Terrazzini is the most brilliant illustrator. Working with her has been a joyous to and fro, and her otherworldly cover – which she somehow managed to create before I’d finished the book – gave me the perfect ending.

  I had the germ of this idea a while ago, and it’s thanks to my luminous agent Luigi Bonomi, that it became what Harrison would call a ‘chapter book’. Without Jane Griffiths, however, my gifted editor at Simon and Schuster, I very much doubt it would be worth the paper its printed on. Jane has been a pitch-perfect sounding board from the very beginning, re-structuring the story, crafting the characters, and writing all the best lines.

  And while I’m thanking Jane, I must include the dazzling Rachel Denwood’s amazing team at Simon and Schuster Children’s: Sarah Macmillan and Eve Wersocki-Morris for their standout marketing and PR; Laura Hough for her indefatigable sales, Sophie Marchbank for her peerless production, Sally Byford for her creative copyedit; Jenny Glencross, Melissa Gitari and Sally Critchlow for their commanding proofreads; and Jenny Richards for her glorious design.

  Chloe Davies and Jam
es Douglas from Four PR have run an outstanding campaign, and my own personal publicists, Clair Dobbs and Caroline Fergusson, at CLD Communications remain my go-tos for all things public and relatable.

  Thanks also to my tip-top acting agent Samira Davies, and her equally tip and equally top assistants, Lisa Stretton, Geri Spicer and Alice Burton at Independent. And a galaxy of thank yous to my erstwhile personal assistant, Tasha Brade.

  I am very lucky to be on first-name terms with some thoroughly unshabby physicists, who have shared their insights on black holes over the years: special mention must go to Brian Cox, Jim Al-Khalili and Carlos Frenck. You may not know you helped, but you did. I have been a lifelong fan of Stephen Hawking, who had a heart to match his extraordinary brain, and is sorely missed.

  Finally, a huge caffeinated thank you to David Hodgetts, Sezan Walker, Rafael Agrizzi L De Medeiros, Aaliyah Main, and Marcus Hayes at Triple Two Coffee. I promise to let someone else have that corner seat for a bit.

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  A CBS COMPANY

  Text Copyright © Passion Projects Limited 2019

  Illustrations Copyright © Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Ben Miller and Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work retrospectively has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  London

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  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  HB ISBN 978-1-4711-7266-3

  eBook ISBN 978-1-4711-7268-7

  Audio 978-1-4711-8548-9

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.