The Kid Who Came From Space

by Ross Welford

  ‘Not goot,’ she says and wipes her long, grey tongue with the back of her hand.

  Next she tries the Cheesy Wotsits. She doesn’t spit them out, and we watch as she quickly eats the whole packet.

  Iggy and I finish the chocolate. When I pop open the can of Coke, she drinks it thirstily, then grimaces as the bubbles go down her throat and up her nose. She splutters and coughs.

  ‘What is in this?’ she says, and then belches noisily.

  Iggy shrugs. ‘Dunno,’ he says. ‘It’s just … fizz?’

  I have had to avert my face from the smell of Hellyann’s burp, but I know the answer. ‘It’s carbon dioxide. CO2. It’s added to the drink to make it fizzy.’

  Hellyann burps again. ‘Why?’

  Now it’s my turn to shrug. ‘Don’t know. For fun, I suppose?’

  Hellyann looks at me, blinking rapidly. I think she’s utterly baffled by what I have just said.

  I say, ‘Now can we talk about Tammy?’

  I don’t know if anyone has ever told you anything so amazing, so literally incredible, that you just cannot believe it – yet at the same time, you have no choice but to believe it?

  I guess not, but that’s what it’s like listening to Hellyann in the shadowy bike shop that smells of rubber and oil combined with the pungent odour of alien being blown towards us by the fan heater whenever she walks in front of it.

  She paces around, never sitting – a hairy bundle of nervous energy. And for once, Iggy ends up stunned into silence. He sits, unblinking, mouth open.

  ‘I know where your sister is,’ Hellyann begins.

  I nod slowly, my eyes wide and my heart hammering with hope in my chest.

  ‘She is alife, but she is a long, long way away.’

  I lick my dry lips, swallow hard and glance over at Iggy, who hasn’t moved.

  ‘Look at this.’

  She reaches behind her back and detaches the strange, shiny backpack that we saw before when she healed Iggy’s leg. She opens the top and takes out a small, grey, rectangular block about the size of a paperback book, which she positions on the glass-topped table between us.

  She strokes her fingers over one end of the book and about 30 centimetres above it appears a bright white line, like a length of super-illuminated floating wire. That impresses me, and I say ‘Woah!’, but Iggy remains silent, as if he knows something even more incredible is about to happen.

  From out of the glowing line, a picture appears, blurred at first, then, after a few seconds, slowly becoming pin-sharp. Only, it’s not a picture, it’s a scene, in 3D – like a hologram, only in black and white, like an old movie.

  In the scene people are moving around, only a few centimetres tall, on the tabletop in front of us. It looks like a street scene in a city: there are cars, and buildings. Someone throws a ball for a dog; a tree’s branches wave in the wind.

  I watch transfixed and I glance across at Iggy, whose eyes are darting from point to point in the scene before us.

  ‘Why …’ Iggy says, but Hellyann holds up her hand to stop him.

  She reaches into the scene, her hands passing through the seemingly solid people and buildings, and strokes the ‘book’ again, making the picture freeze. The scene changes, and a grid appears, dividing the scene into dozens of little blocks, then one of the blocks grows to fill the space.

  And there she is.

  Slowly, I reach forward, my hand trembling, lips parted. There’s no mistaking who it is.

  I say, ‘Tammy …’

  The picture moves again. Tammy’s 3D head is almost life-size and the detail is incredible, even if the image is not in colour. She turns, but she’s not looking at us; her eyes are blank and her face displays an empty half-smile. She touches her chest with her hand and says, ‘Tammy.’ Then an off-camera voice says, ‘Hellyann.’

  I’m breathing heavily and, to my surprise, tears are streaming down my face although I didn’t know I was crying.

  ‘What … I mean … where? Where is she?’ I say quietly.

  ‘She is in danger,’ says Hellyann. ‘Very grafe danger.’

  The image on the glass tabletop fades and dies.

  Iggy lifts his face to stare at Hellyann. ‘Did you … kidnap her?’

  ‘Not me.’ She says it so quickly and forcefully that I immediately believe her. ‘But yes, she was taken. She was taken py someone who then solt her.’

  ‘Sold her? Who to? What for? Is she OK?’

  My mind is racing with the horrible possibilities.

  Hellyann speaks slowly, as though she’s trying to be gentle. She kneels down in front of us.

  ‘Nothing ferry bad has happent to her. Not yet. She is not even aware of her situation, thanks to a process that you would call “consciousness-erasing” or “mind-cleaning”.’

  ‘Like a computer memory wipe?’ I suggest fearfully, and Hellyann nods.

  ‘Yes. But to not worry about that: her consciousness is simply masked. Hidden, you might say. And we can, I pelieve, get her pack.’

  There’s a long pause.

  Eventually, I say, ‘We?’

  Hellyann stands up. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘We. This is dangerous. I neet your help. I cannot to this alone.’

  I’ve had enough. I want to be told the whole truth, right now, and I throw out my arms in frustration. ‘Where is she?’ I demand with my voice rising and stamping my foot with each word.

  Hellyann seems unmoved and carries on speaking in her guttural monotone.

  ‘Have a look at this,’ she says. She strokes the silver-grey block and the picture appears again: the street scene with tiny figures moving about, and the hum of a city street. ‘This looks like Earth, yes?’

  We look carefully. The buildings, the cars, the trees, the dog …

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I suppose … wow!’

  I stop when a huge pair of birds, like hawks or ospreys, swoops into the scene, circles, and flies out.

  Hellyann enlarges the scene again to show a shopfront, only it looks like a shopfront from years ago – an old village toyshop, like you see in pictures.

  The more we look, the odder it becomes. The cars on the street are a strange mixture of styles: a low sports car, and an ancient, rattling wagon from, I don’t know, the 1920s or something. There’s even a tractor.

  And the people – there are maybe ten or twenty of them, no more. The same people walk up and down the street, in and out of the shops, crossing the road pointlessly again and again. A woman gets in her car, drives it up the street and out of the scene, and then it reappears coming the other way, after which she parks it, gets out, goes into a shop and then does the whole thing again.

  Iggy and I watch, transfixed, literally speechless.

  Then Iggy utters a groan. ‘Oh my God! Look!’

  Two figures appear. Creatures, just like Hellyann: naked, pale and hairy, with tails. They walk down the middle of the street, looking about them and pointing.

  ‘It’s all fake,’ I say, but Iggy shakes his head.

  ‘It’s not fake,’ he whispers. ‘It’s real. It’s … it’s a zoo!’

  I feel sick and turn away, directing my anger at Hellyann.

  ‘That’s horrible! Why would you do that?’

  Hellyann has picked up Suzy and is holding her gently. She blinks and looks back at me with her strange, wide-eyed gaze. ‘For knowletch. For learning. But I akree it is wrong. That is why I am here.’

  Iggy and I glance at each other, dumbfounded, and Hellyann continues to stroke Suzy. ‘I haf neffer held an animal before,’ she says. ‘It feels goot!’

  I have so many questions I want to ask. Where is this? Who are the other people in the scene? How did they get there?

  At that exact moment, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I look at the screen: Mam. I think for a second about letting it ring through to voicemail, but … she’s in hospital.

  I put my finger to my lips to tell the others to be quiet and swipe to answer the call.

  ‘Hi, Mam.
’ I am trying so hard to sound normal, but even those two syllables sound as though they’re trembling.

  ‘Hi, sweetheart. How are you?’ Mam’s voice sounds … like it usually does. That is, not drugged or slow or any of the things I was expecting, and I am so relieved I find myself grinning just at the sound of her voice.

  ‘I’m OK. What about you?’

  She tells me she is feeling better, but still sad and worried, and that the doctors have recommended rest and some more treatment, and I’m listening and distracted at the same time because Hellyann and Iggy are watching me take this call.

  ‘Where are you?’ Mam asks.

  ‘I … erm … I’m at Iggy’s,’ I lie and I hate myself immediately for lying to my mum who’s in hospital. ‘I’m just heading home in a minute.’

  There’s a pause. ‘You’re at Iggy’s? But your dad’s been trying to get you. He’s called Iggy’s mum …’

  I look at the screen of my phone: two missed calls from Dad.

  ‘My phone’s been acting weird. I got it wet.’ At least that’s the truth. ‘And … erm, we were out the back, in Iggy’s, erm … shed.’

  His shed? Where did that come from? I don’t think Iggy even has a shed …

  ‘So you’re on your way back? OK, I’ll tell your dad. I … I miss you, Ethan, love …’ Her voice trails off, and I think she moves her phone away from her face and I hear a little sob.

  There is a lump in my throat that feels like a golf ball because I know Mam is trying to ‘be brave’ with me on the phone. I want to say, ‘It’s all right, Mam, you can cry’, but I don’t because she is talking – talking quite quickly, so she can get off the phone and cry.

  ‘I’ll be back home soon, Ethan, love. Be a good lad. I love you. Bye.’

  She has gone before I can even say ‘bye’ in response.

  I put my phone in my pocket and Hellyann approaches me, sniffing deeply. ‘You lie very effectively,’ she says. ‘When we lie, we can smell it instantly. You do not smell at all. Not of lying, anyway.’

  ‘Erm … thanks. I suppose. Listen, my dad’s been asking for me. I have to go, but …’ I look over at Iggy.

  ‘What do we do?’ he says. He looks first at Hellyann and then at me, pleading with his eyes for an answer.

  ‘We will pring her pack,’ says Hellyann evenly. ‘But you must tell no one. No one at all. It will threaten the whole plan.’

  ‘You have a plan?’ I say, and I know I sound pleading and desperate but I just don’t care.

  ‘Oh yes. I haf a plan. It requires total secrecy.’

  ‘Yeah. Sure. Whatever,’ I say, but it comes out too easily.

  Hellyann blinks slowly. ‘You may not actually smell when you deliver falsehoots,’ she says, ‘but sometimes it is obvious.’ She points at me. ‘You are thinking of telling your father as soon as you get pack, are you not?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Stop it. You were. Of course you were. Humans are dependent on their parents. Only, if you do that, he will inform the police, and the police will inform your military, and I will be unaple to leaf, and Philip will be discovered, which will haf—’

  ‘Hang on. Who’s Philip?’

  ‘Philip is what you would call an Artificial Intelligence bot. Right now, though, it – he – is repairing my craft. He is so powerful that were he to fall into the hants of Earth people, it would have a deffastating effect …’ Hellyann closes her eyes for a moment as if thinking hard. ‘You haf to trust me.’

  We say nothing.

  Can I trust her? Do I have a choice?

  ‘One more thing,’ she says. ‘My stick – I haf mislait it. I dropped it by the tree when that dock attacked me. I must ket it pack.’

  ‘That may be difficult,’ I say, and I tell her that I saw the younger Geoff holding it.

  ‘That is a proplem then that we must solve tomorrow. I cannot leaf it here.’ She says it all so calmly and matter of fact. I mean, Dad just has to lose his keys and he’s swearing and slamming doors – this is much more important and Hellyann hasn’t even raised her voice. It’s like she doesn’t even know how to panic.

  Iggy points out the bed platform above the sales desk. ‘Bed’s up there. Toilet at the back. You’ll find drinking water there as well. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be back at eight tomorrow morning.’

  Hellyann shakes her head uncomprehendingly and Iggy sighs. There’s a clock mounted on the wall by the till. ‘Look, when the long hand is pointing straight up and the little hand … Oh, forget it. It’ll be shortly after it gets light. All right?’

  I grab my jacket and leg it back down the hill while Iggy locks the big front doors of Mad Mick’s Mental Rentals.

  She has a plan, I think.

  It’s only a tiny bit of hope, but a tiny bit of hope is better than no hope at all.

  It’s only when I take my jacket off in the hallway that I realise how much it stinks of Hellyann. The house is quiet. Gran must have gone to bed, and Dad is still at the Stargazer.

  I’m shoving my jacket into a plastic carrier bag and running up the stairs when I hear his key in the door. By the time he comes into my room, I’m in bed, in my pyjamas, with the jacket shoved under my bed.

  ‘Ethan?’ he says as he comes up the stairs, and I don’t like the way he says it. He comes into my room and sits on the edge of my bed. Normally, this means that a ‘talk’ is to be delivered, but right now, with Tammy missing, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I mean, my dad looks like he’s been in a fight, which of course he hasn’t, but he looks worn out and beaten up from worry and grief.

  ‘Where were you?’ says Dad. ‘I tried to call you.’

  I repeat the half-lie that my phone got wet and I missed his call, without answering the bit about where I’ve been.

  Dad nods and sighs. I’m not sure he’s even listening. He turns his body to face me and he looks worse than I have ever seen anybody. He’s in a dirty T-shirt and jeans and he has beard stubble that’s grey in patches that I have never noticed before.

  Not only that, but his eyes are sunken and when he sighs I get a huge waft of alcohol from his breath. (Dad never normally drinks anything but water when he’s working. Not only that, he always dresses smartly for work, and waxes his hair, and shaves, and uses aftershave that Mam buys him for his birthday. ‘When you’re very tall,’ he once told me, ‘everyone notices you, so you have to make an effort.’)

  All the way back from Mad Mick’s bike shop, I’ve been weighing up the pros and cons of telling Dad about Hellyann.

  Her reasons for wanting to keep this all secret sound fair enough. But surely – surely – I can trust my dad? Even the dad in front of me who seems like a different man?

  ‘What’s that smell?’ says Dad, sniffing the air.

  It occurs to me to say, ‘That’s the smell of an extraterrestrial being’, but I don’t yet dare.

  ‘What smell?’ I ask.

  Dad sniffs again then shrugs, muttering, ‘Strange.’ Then he takes a deep breath. His voice is a little bit indistinct.

  ‘I am not happy about t’night, Ethan. That incident with Iggy in the bar? What were you thinkin’ of, man? And don’t try to say it was all his doin’. You were there, watchin’ him. He got up on the pool table, Ethan! I mean, he …’ He stops himself as this is building into a Dad rant that could last ages. ‘Haven’t we got enough on our plates at the moment?’

  His voice is cracked and croaky, and … is he drunk? I have never seen my dad drunk before.

  What can I say?

  I take a deep breath, and move myself till I’m sitting up in bed, and I tell him.

  ‘Sorry’ is what I tell him. ‘I’m really sorry, Dad.’

  And then he kind of slides off my bed till he’s sitting on the floor, holding his fingertips to his forehead. ‘Oh, Ethan,’ he says. ‘Oh, my son.’ He breathes in deeply through his nose as though he’s making a huge effort not to weep.

  All I want is for my dad to say, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll
sort this out. We’ll find Tammy one way or another, and everything will be back to normal. Trust your ol’ dad!’ And he’ll grin and play-punch my arm …

  And I know at that moment, with Dad slumped on the floor, and my mum in hospital with a mental breakdown, that that is not going to happen.

  That it is now down to me.

  Dad is mumbling and I have to strain to make out the words. ‘I’ve had enough of this, and more than enough of that … that boy who thinks he can get up with his muddy boots on my newly restored pool table and spout a whole load of … nonsense t’ the people who are tryin’ to help, for God’s sake. The flamin’ cheek of it! Meanwhile, my own son just stan’s by with a stupid grin on his face …’

  But I wasn’t grinning.

  ‘… like it’s all some huge prank. And … and …’ He stops his tirade and sniffs again. ‘What the blazes is that smell? If you’ve trodden in something, sort it out.’

  I’m blinking back tears. I take a deep breath, hold it for a couple of seconds and then blurt it out.

  ‘Dad, if you go to Mental Rentals, the alien – Hellyann – she’s there. Please.’

  That’s when he snaps. He stumbles to his feet, towering over me as I shrink back into my pillows.

  ‘Ah, stop it, man, Ethan! Stop it right now! I have had enough. Can’t you see? Look at us! Look at us!’

  Then he’s gone. The bedroom door slams so hard that the whole house rattles.

  All I can do is lie there in the half-light of my bedroom, my mouth turned down so far, until I feel a tear trickle down from my eye.

  Being disbelieved when you’re telling the truth must be the worst feeling in the world.

  I take my jacket from beneath the bed and hang it out of the bedroom window, leaving the window open a bit. It makes the air in my room cold, but I don’t really mind.

  Then I hear the creaky floorboard on the landing and the crack of light from my door gets wider. Is Dad coming back for another go? I hurry back into bed and pull the duvet over my head.

  ‘Go away,’ I say.

  ‘Ethan? It’s me.’

  Gran stands in the doorway in her dressing gown, the light from the landing behind her. Am I going to get a telling-off from her as well? My little, sweet gran who is never angry and who makes hot chocolate? I turn my head and ready myself.