by Elle Simpson
Hold on, Hannah.
It could only have taken seconds; it felt like hours. But just when I thought my head was about to explode, Bob’s metaphorical mind-arm went thumping to the table top.
The pressure was gone. My brain was my own again. Sore and mushy as smooshed-up jelly, but mine.
So I looked Bob dead in the eye, I didn’t blink, and I said, “The creature didn’t speak to me. Not at all. That’s the truth.”
I thought he’d never look away. He didn’t seem to need to blink, so I just concentrated on keeping my face blank, maybe a little out-of-it, trying to mimic how I’d felt before. And I must’ve been an amazing actress – because it worked.
“Prepare the ship for departure,” Bob said, glancing over his shoulder.
That was for Cheekbones, who did blink – not the proper blink, the sideways blink – and turned on his heel. I caught a flash of silver as he walked away, this strip of shiny metal stuck across the nape of his neck.
Another figure appeared in the orbiter doorway then – another Akanarin. Taller than Bob but pretty much identical otherwise. He didn’t come over. Just stepped aside to let Cheekbones past, nodded once at Bob, and then stood there watching. Waiting.
“Listen to me now, all of you,” Bob said. His voice was so much stronger than before, more like a pulse of energy than the weird feeling of empty sound. No use trying to hold on – it was far too strong now to resist.
Bob said, “You will remember these past moments as nothing more than a daydream, brought on by shock and a lack of sleep. You will think it odd, when you think of it at all, and you will only think of it if your mind notices a gap in your recollection. You will have no suspicions or errant memories, not of this time or any since the landing of the ship, and you will be entirely content. As far as this morning’s events are the concern of anyone else, I came to thank Miss Stanton for her help the evening last – and nothing more. Do you understand?”
All at once, me, Mum and Toni, Doctor Vlad, the men in black, we said in one faint, blank voice, “We understand.”
“I should think that you do,” Bob said, satisfied. He waved a creepy hand and the tall Akanarin disappeared back into the darkness of the ship. “Awaken. Now.”
Everyone did, blinking like our eyelids had weights attached.
“I will take up no more of your time,” Bob said. “I return now to the city of New York, to meet once again with the leaders of your world.” He cocked his head towards me, another old-school bow. “But I do so dearly hope, Hannah Stanton, that we will meet again.”
8
I don’t remember much of the trip home. Bob – hereafter known as Creepy Bob because reasons that be obvious and evident – had messed with my head too much by then. Too much to fix properly, at least.
But I remember flashes of it: the lumpy back seat of Toni’s car, Buckford whizzing by, checkpoint after checkpoint, until…
“You’re looking a little green, love,” Mum said, eyeballing me in the rearview mirror. “You feeling all right?”
No. I wasn’t. Not even slightly at all.
I wanted to tell her, Creepy Bob’s mind-whammied all of you. He’s lying about Cheekbones. There’s no way in a chilly day in hell he’s not up to something.
But it didn’t matter what I wanted. I couldn’t tell Mum anything. Because as far as my ding-donged brain knew, Cheekbones was a insect. Bob just popped over to say thanks. My memories of the crash were faint and fuzzy because I’d banged my head.
That was all. Nothing to worry about.
I definitely should’ve been worried about the throbbing in my head, though. Definitely should’ve told someone about that. But I didn’t. And I hadn’t. Because there was no reason to – that was what the voice in my head kept telling me, this comforting echo that sounded a lot like Creepy Bob.
You don’t need to tell a soul, Hannah. You’re fine. There’s nothing to worry about.
“Hannah?”
“Nothing. Sorry, Mum. It’s fine, I’m fine. Don’t worry.”
Toni turned off the main road and the suspension bottomed out on a familiar, bumpy lane. Ahead of us the countryside was flat and green. And it only got flatter and greener as we went, until the tallest thing for miles and miles around was a gigantic white satellite dish in the middle of a sheep field – the Big Dish.
Little Buckford.
We were home.
Toni rolled to a stop at a checkpoint at the edge of the village. The little temporary car park there was overflowing with satellite vans and people holding giant fluffy microphones. A few of them shouted in our direction, but the supersecret SAS-type supersoldiers milling about had them well penned in.
“Won’t keep you long, Professor Stanton, Mr Garcia,” one of the soldiers said, nodding to Mum and Toni in turn as he stuck his head through the open window. “Just had to radio ahead for clearance to lift the next cordon.”
“That’s all right,” Toni told him. “There’s no hurry. Listen, while I’ve got you here – I’m making paella for lunch. Big pan, for sure. Plenty to go around. You and your colleagues, you should all come and try Toni’s paella, huh?”
“That’s very kind of you, sir, thank you,” the soldier said, looking as touched as a six-and-a-half-foot tall wall of muscle and body armour could. But his radio mumbled rhubarb at him before things could get properly emotional. “And you can proceed now, sir. Way’s been cleared for you.”
Toni set off at a crawl, slo-mo slaloming around all the razor wire and concrete blocks. And when we swerved close enough, I could just about see over the hedgerow at the edge of the road, and beyond it, down into the crater, maybe a mile away.
It was empty now, surrounded by armoured jeeps and cranes and police tape. No sign of Cheekbones’ ship. If you didn’t know what had happened, there were a thousand more likely explanations for how the crater got there: old WW2 bomb, potato harvest gone horribly wrong, really gassy cow.
In fact, the only thing to suggest that anything weird had happened at all was the fact that Mr Jenkins’ barn was listing to one side.
Mr Jenkins’ barn…
Mr Jenkins…
In my brain, a teeny, tiny train of thought started chugging.
But it barely left the station before it derailed. I couldn’t hold onto the thought. Anything too close to the crash just faded away. My mind felt slippery, and fuzzy, and foggy, and I just couldn’t—
“I’ll have to phone the insurance company. The demolition people too, should think,” Mum said as Toni rolled us past the turning we should’ve taken to the cottage. “Sooner it’s done, the better.”
“Um…” I could see our house, though, a way across the fields. And I could also see that all the cottage’s windows were gone and a huge crack ran straight up from the front door to the roof. “The demolition company? They’re doing what, exactly?”
Which, yeah – definition of a redundant question.
“The impact undermined the foundations,” Mum said. “We’ll have to demolish. The fire brigade let me in this morning so I could pack our things. Recoverable electronics and the like. Clothing needed more extensive decontamination, so I didn’t bother with any of it.”
“Don’t worry, kiddo,” Toni cut in quickly, before the indignant squawk could leave my mouth. “I bought you some new clothes on the way to the hospital.”
“We’re staying in the guest rooms at The Snail’s Arms until the insurance company sorts us out with something more permanent,” Mum carried on, completely and utterly oblivious, as if she was discussing the weather and not the fact that our house was about to be bulldozed and we were setting up home in a gastropub instead. Then she said, “Oh, let me tell you, they better not have boxed in my bike or we’ll be having words.”
They were tanks, by the way. No media people in The Snail’s Arms’ car park. Just tanks. Lots of tanks, and troop carriers – and Tony’s purple banger of a Fiat when he finally managed to squeeze it into the only parking space left, ho
lding his breath all the while.
Mum went to extract her bike while Toni hauled shopping bags out of the boot. He was still at it – bit of a shopaholic is our Toni – when Mum wheeled back over.
“Now,” she said, yanking me down to kiss the top of my head, “if we’re sure you’re all right, I have to go and check on my other child.”
I grinned and glanced over at the Big Dish. “Your favourite child, you mean?”
“Well…” Mum said, considering, as she clambered onto her bike. “My second favourite child, perhaps?”
“Oh my god, Mum. I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
(I mean, it so totally was, but I was still legit touched. You don’t know how much she loves that big, ugly satellite dish.)
Mum snorted. “Bring me some paella for lunch,” she called over her shoulder as she pedalled off, “and we’ll consider making that favourite child position permanent!”
Speaking of paella – you probably hadn’t heard of The Snail’s Arms, right? I mean, prior to the whole ‘Paella That Saved the World’ shenanigans?
I’ll forgive you if you hadn’t. It’s not like it was particularly famous back then: just a gastroboozer in the land of Michelin stars, overpaid footballers, and quadruple-barrel, inbred investment bankers who wouldn’t know a decent tip if it smacked them on their flabby bums.
But if The Snail’s Arms was famous for anything or, like, known even at all, then that was for Toni’s paella. Because before Toni’s paella was the Paella That Saved the World, Toni’s paella was also the thrice-time winner of the Best Paella in Cheshire Award.
That’s thrice.
(I have to stress the thrice because Toni always does. Partly because he’s proud of his shiny awards, but mostly, I think, just because he likes saying thrice. Sometimes, when he’s had too much perry, he likes to keep on saying it until Mum throws a slipper at him.)
And I’m not here to question the authority of the esteemed judging panel of the Best Paella in Cheshire Award, but I don’t think it’s rude to wonder just exactly what they were smoking the day they made their decision.
Because here’s why: despite the fact that he’s a trained chef and, you know, Valencian, Toni can’t cook paella properly. Because Toni thinks paella should be made with snails.
Yes, you read that right – snails.
“Clothes, toiletries, new phone,” Toni said, piling bags into my arms before he turned to tackle the lock on The Snail’s Arms’ huge front door. “Come down to the kitchen when you’re finished getting changed. Shout if you feel sick. Shout if you feel dizzy. Paella for lunch.”
“Proper paella, though?” I asked as he herded me inside. “No snails?”
“Hannah, you know, if you would just try—”
“No snails, Tone.” I stopped with one foot on the first of the big flagstoned steps that led up to the guest rooms. “I will fight you.”
Tony heaved a put-upon sigh. “Okay, no snails. I’ll hack off another part of my soul, huh? Make it the proper English way.”
“Jolly good show, old chap. Also, where am I going?”
Toni nipped behind the bar to fetch a set of keys. He balanced them on top of my wobbly shopping pile. “Room 5’s clean.”
“I thought Room 5 had ramblers in?” I had the vague memory of a flock of neon anoraks having dinner yesterday. But it was a totally vague memory, like most of them were then.
Toni huffed out a laugh. “Oddly, you know, aliens? They crash land in the field next door and our ramblers feel the need to leave in a hurry.”
“It’s, like, miles away,” I said, glancing out of one of the big stone-linteled windows. You couldn’t even see Mr Jenkins’ farm. “That’s hardly next door, Tone.”
“Says the girl who ran into the crater,” Toni said, snorting.
“Yeah, and what was I going to do?” I muttered. “Run away?”
That got me another snort. “Oh, Hannah.”
“Whatevs. Go and make your weird paella, you snail sadist.”
And there was the last snort, loudest of the lot, as Toni disappeared into the kitchen. “Check on Carlotta for me?” he called.
“You know it, Toni Mac!”
I showered in the thankfully rambler-less Room 5, changed out of my borrowed, very pink scrubs, updated every social media account I owned to try and convince all my hysterical friends that I hadn’t actually been abducted by aliens, and then I went to check on Carlotta.
Who was fine and dandy. Just chilling in her tank in Toni’s office, making major headway into a banana. So I gave her a fresh one and left her to it. As pets go, Carlotta was mega chill in the care and keeping department.
(Because Carlotta is a snail – a Giant African Land Snail, to be precise. And I know what you’re thinking: that’s like a butcher owning a pet cow, right? But Toni Mac loves his big, ugly snail, and that’s the truth.)
My stomach was grumbling by the time I’d given Lottie her lunch, and the smell wafting up from the kitchen wasn’t helping, so I headed back downstairs.
Toni had been working hard. There were a few folding tables set up by the door, covered in sandwich platters and soup tureens, and on a table by itself, in pride of place, a huge pan of paella blipped away on its fancy burner.
A bunch of supersoldiers were milling about in the entranceway too – machine guns strapped to their chests, steel-toed boots scuffing up the flagstones – and every single one of them was armed with a heaving paper plate bending under the weight of Toni’s paella.
And the sight of that – of all things – was what did it.
“Oh my god.”
I had to take a seat on the bottom step while my poor ding-donged brain tried to process everything.
Aliens existed, and I’d met them. Toni was making paella, and Mum was being a workaholic. The whole world had changed completely, but nothing else had, not even slightly at all.
“Oh my god.”
Right then seemed like a really good time to just bury my head in my hands and freak the frick out – so I did, thoroughly and completely.
Until someone nudged my toe.
I looked up. Toni had a steaming plate in one hand and a concussion care leaflet in the other.
“Eat your paella,” he said, sitting down next to me. “Toni’s paella makes everything better.”
I sniffed up some snot, then took the plate and inspected it suspiciously. “No snails?”
“I said I’d make it the proper English way,” Toni told me sadly. “Chicken and chorizo. Far too many peas. And no snails. At all. Not even the little juicy ones.”
“Lottie’s fine by the way,” I told him, while we were on the subject.
Toni bumped shoulders with me. “But are you fine?”
“Toni—” I began, sighing, but Toni interrupted.
“No, not fine yet,” he said. “Eat your paella.”
“You’re such a nag.”
But I did as I was told while Toni flipped open his leaflet. “Dizzy?” he asked, reading.
“Nope,” I said around a mouthful of snail-less paella.
“Feeling sick?”
“No.”
“Unusually tired?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Head sore?”
Yes. And it’s getting worse. But it doesn’t matter, and you don’t need to tell a soul, Hannah.
“No. Not sore at all.” I handed Toni back my clean plate. He’d given me the best portion, with all the good crunchy bits. “There,” I said. “Paella eaten. Satisfied?”
Toni considered me a second. Then he took the sleeve of his t-shirt and scrubbed at my face like the giant, hairy nan he not-so-secretly was. “Now, go wash your face. You’re all snotty. We don’t do snotty at The Snail’s Arms.”
“You so do, though,” I told him, getting to my feet. “I mean, that’s all snails are, right? Just tiny little balls of slimy snot and—”
“Hannah,” Toni said, apparently offended on behalf of snail kind
everywhere and his girlfriend Carlotta in particular. He pointed to the door of the ladies loos. “Go.”
(Did I mention that The Snail’s Arms used to be a coaching inn? I think I did? Maybe I didn’t. But if I didn’t I have now. And I told you mostly just so I could also tell you that the ladies loos used to be the stables.
And you’re actually, literally never going to convince me that I’m not going to open a stall door one day and find some ghost horse in there doing her business.
Because it’s all flagstones and floor-to-ceiling doors with iron bolts and walls thicker than my brain during fifth-period physics. In fact, if the ladies loos weren’t the ladies loos, they’d make a pretty passable medieval torture dungeon.
And to postface this absolutely essential preface – I was splashing my face in the torture dungeon sink when the dizziness hit.)
“Whoa.”
I slapped my hands to the counter to steady myself. Didn’t help. The dizziness just got worse. So did the throbbing behind my eye. I watched the water swirling down into the plughole – swirling like my head suddenly was – and my mind drifted back to Toni and his leaflet. Feeling dizzy…wasn’t good?
You’re fine, Hannah.
No, feeling dizzy was fine. I didn’t need to tell anyone.
No, Hannah, Creepy Bob’s mind echo agreed. Don’t tell anyone.
But the thing was? Suddenly? I wanted to tell someone. Toni. Mum. Anyone.
Hannah, everything’s fine. You don’t need to—
No. I had to tell Toni. Something was wrong.
I grabbed a handful of scratchy paper towels from the dispenser, scrubbed my face dry, turned halfway to the door and—
Stopped.
Dropped the scrunched-up paper towels.
Stared at myself in the mirror.
Tried to stare at myself in the mirror. But that proved kinda difficult given that one of my eyes was completely bloodshot, the other was half closed, and my pupils were entirely different sizes.
“Okay,” I said, bizarrely calm. “That’s…not good?”
My reflection didn’t answer me. But the voice in my head did. “No, very much not good.”
