Jack Strong and the Red Giant

by Heys Wolfenden

  If Xylem’s bedroom was the strangest, then Ros’ and Grunt’s weren't far behind.

  When Jack found Grunt, he was snoring fast asleep in a hollowed-out snow hole, covered in a mass of furs much like the ones they had first found him in, only cleaner and far less smelly. The temperature was well below zero. How he could sleep in that was anyone’s guess…

  Ros by contrast was lying on a bed of solid stone in a dark cavern, huge torches hanging from the walls. Stalactites pierced down from the ceiling and Stalagmites sprung-up from the cold, damp floor. It looked like the jaw of some mighty beast. About a hundred feet away from Ros there was a narrow path cut into the rock, followed by a huge, gaping drop which seemed to have no bottom. Jack stepped back from the edge immediately.

  If these three were the weirdest then Padget’s and Vyleria’s surely were the finest and most impressive.

  Padget’s bedroom was the very definition of opulence. It had a giant double king-sized bed on one side of the room, upon which was a massive golden duvet and at least a dozen plump pillows. The walls were royal red, complete with golden borders and huge floral swirls. There were also several large paintings on the walls depicting scenes of conquest and coronation, along with some giant sparkling chandeliers hanging down from the white ceiling. With a view fit for a king there was also a massive window at the foot of the bed that allowed Padget a splendid view of a large lake surrounded by many beautiful gardens. And around all this were what Jack took to be Padget's servobots and buddy-bots as they zipped and zoomed about the room like a horde of metal flies.

  Vyleria’s bedroom by contrast overlooked a sprawling mega-city. She had to be at least a mile high from where Jack was standing and she had an excellent view of the tiny, little ant-like people scurrying around on the roads below. There were also streams of flying cars and motorcycles, and it even seemed to Jack that some of the buildings were growing and moving by themselves.

  Technology purred all around him. Her bed, her wardrobe, her chest of drawers: everything seemed to be robotic in some way. There was also what looked like a giant, 3-D computer game in in one corner of the room. It seemed to be some kind of space racing game, where if you sat in the virtual spacecraft it would seem like you were actually flying through space.

  And then there it was.

  His bedroom.

  He had never been so glad to see it before today. His bed was made, and his cream curtains were pulled apart to reveal Huddledown Hill as it climbed above the moors opposite, fields of grass dancing on the wind. Just as there had been on his thirteenth birthday there was also a steaming plate of chips and curry left on the window sill by his bed.

  After dabbing the plate clean with a couple slices of bread, Jack pulled the duvet over his head, closed his tired eyes and dreamt of home.

  Chapter 14: Home

  Jack wasn’t sure what time it was when he awoke. Outside he could hear blackbirds singing and a light breeze ruffling the leaves of the trees.

  He pulled the curtains apart and peeped through the window. Only in his dreams had he seen the sky so blue and cloudless. The bright, yellow sun was rising steadily in the sky and down below cars and people were going up and down the main road.

  He was home at last.

  “What time do you call this?”

  Jack turned around expecting to see his mum, only to see Vyleria standing by the door instead.

  She was wearing one of the spacesuits that Jack had found in the equipment room. Hers however, was bright red with patches of crimson on the arms and legs. It was skintight.

  “Come on Jack,” she said (sounding a little bit like his mother). “I want to explore this planet of yours.”

  “What… what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve told you, I want to see your world.”

  “But … it’s so early Vyleria. Can’t it wait?”

  “Early? It’s six in the morning!”

  “SIX IN THE MORNING?” he shouted, pulling his head back under the soft, warm duvet. “I want to SLEEEEEEEEEEEP!”

  “Come on Jack, everyone else is still sleeping. I thought you of all people would be up and ready.”

  “Why me?”

  “You seem like the adventurous type.”

  “I do?” he asked, pulling his head from under the duvet.

  “Yes, now come on I want to explore,” she said, tugging (again like his mum) at the duvet.

  “Okay fine,” he said, “just leave me alone so I can get changed will you?”

  She turned her back.

  “Not like that!” he shouted. “I mean leave the room.”

  “What’s the matter Jack, too shy?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly it. I’m too shy, so can you leave the room now please?”

  “Okay,” she said grinning, closing the door behind her.

  “And knock before you come back in please!” he shouted.

  What does she want to see this place for? He thought. It’s not like there’s anything special about it. It’s quite boring actually…

  Jack got changed as quickly as he could and was just about to tell Vyleria to come back in when she abruptly burst in anyway. “Does everyone take this long to get ready on your planet?”

  Jack thought for a moment, but wasn’t sure.

  “So what’s there to do around here?” she asked, peeping out of the window.

  Again, Jack had to think.

  “Err… we could watch TV.”

  “What’s TV?”

  “It’s like a box and there are pictures on it, but they’re moving and…”

  Jack stopped.

  “You look confused; maybe it’s best if I show you.”

  Jack took her downstairs and into the living room. He went over to the small TV in the corner and switched it on. He flicked from one channel to the next, from the news, to the weather, to some cartoons, to a movie; they even watched some adverts.

  “You call this entertainment?” she said. “What else do you do around here besides sit in front of this thing?”

  Jack paused for a moment. Well, there’s the computer, he thought – but he didn’t have a computer – we could play a musical instrument? - But he didn’t have one of those either – We could wash the dishes? Err perhaps not...

  Then he had a great idea. “We can play football!”

  “Oh, I seem to remember you talking about that earlier with Padget. What is it again?”

  “It’s when you kick a ball around a field and you have to put it into the net without the goalie catching it.”

  “What like a fish?”

  “No, it’s a big net.”

  “So like a big fish then,” she sniggered.

  “Listen, you’ll have a great time, I promise.”

  “I will? It doesn’t sound interesting. Back home we play games with spaceships!”

  “Look just trust me, okay?”

  “Fine, have it your way. Let’s get going. It’s getting late as it is.”

  “Late? It’s only six thirty.”

  “Exactly.”

  Jack opened the door on a slightly cool, sunny morning. Everything was quiet apart from the steady rumble of traffic and the occasional tweet of a blackbird or starling. He had forgotten how green everything was: the grass, the trees, the hills, the gardens in front of the houses, the moors. How could I have ever taken this place for granted?

  “Wow Jack, I can’t believe how green everything is and small too.”

  “What do you mean small?” he asked, bouncing his one and only football along the pavement.

  “On my planet, we used to have tiny houses like these thousands of years ago but the population just kept on growing and growing and we had to knock them all down. My planet is one big megapolis now, covered in huge starscrapers that go up and up and up, far into the clouds. It’s the only way we can house everybody.”

  Jack thought about this mega-world of a zillion starscrapers for a moment. He wished he could go there. How exciting it would be to l
ook down upon the clouds from your bedroom window.

  “And what do you mean you can’t believe how green everything is, isn’t the grass green on your planet?” he asked.

  “No, it varies. It can be anywhere from bright red to bright purple or even pink.”

  “Wow really?” asked Jack, imagining this rainbow world in his head.

  “Yes. And we have three suns too. Many of our scientists don’t believe it’s even possible for life to exist on planets where there is only one sun like yours.”

  “Really? Some of our scientists think the same of worlds like yours.”

  “Well, I’m glad for both of us they are wrong,” she chuckled. “But unfortunately on my planet we don't have much grass left and even fewer trees. We cut most of the trees down and paved over the majority of our open areas hundreds of years ago. We only have a few natural habitats left and these are mostly on far flung islands. I often wonder what it looked like back then. Actually, I think it would have looked a little bit like your world, minus the green of course – you don't know how lucky you are, Jack.

  “I don't feel lucky. I wish I could live in your world with all those flying cars and starscrapers. It sounds so exciting.”

  “Yes well it is, I suppose. But I just wish that we had more balance you know. Surely we can do without any one million of the billions of starscrapers? And all that steel, glass and concrete means that we have to constantly recycle our air. We are always told what a grand achievement this is, but I don't know… it doesn't feel natural to me. Sometimes I think it would be more of an achievement to not have to do this. What do you think?”

  Jack didn't know what to say. She had a point, but he had never given much thought to the environment; most of the time he was either in his own fantasy world, getting told off by the teachers or else dodging school bullies. Besides, he found it hard to place any lasting value on a small, lonely place like Rockingdale. Many times he had found himself wishing that it would all just disappear; I mean it was all so sad and ordinary, wasn't it?

  “I guess so,” he said a few seconds later. “But, I think I would need to go to your planet first… you know to make a proper scientific comparison and all that.”

  “You bet!” she said. “It would be my pleasure. I could also take you over all the genetic enhancements we’ve made over the last few thousand years.”

  “Genetic enhancements? Such as what?”

  “All in good time,” she said, smiling broadly.

  “Oh, come on tell me at least a couple,” he begged.

  “Okay well, have you heard of photographic memory?”

  Jack looked puzzled.

  “It's the ability to recall a past image or memory in great detail.”

  “Oh yes, I can do that.”

  “Well on my planet – thanks to our geneticists – we now have videographic memory.”

  “What's that?”

  “It's the ability to re-live an entire memory for a few minutes or even hours. It's almost like going back in time.”

  “Wow, that sounds cool,” said Jack, trying to imagine which memory he would choose to go back to.

  “Well, it all depends on the memory. If it's a good, happy memory then it can be very exciting, at least until you get bored of it that is. But if it is a sad or traumatic memory then it can be very unhealthy. Many people on my planet have to seek treatment for this and in some rare cases some genetic de-engineering is performed to 'switch off’ the ability.”

  “Yes, I can imagine,” said Jack, thinking what it would be like to re-live getting beaten up by Gaz Finch over and over again.

  “But that’s not the biggest change we’ve made to our bodies,” said Vyleria.

  “Oh really – what is?”

  “This,” she said, before pinching his arm with her fingers.

  “Ow!” said Jack, rubbing his skin. “What did you do that for?”

  “To prove a point. Now do it to me!”

  “What? I’m not going to hurt you, I would never…”

  “Trust me Jack, it will be fine.”

  Jack dug his fingernails into her skin. “Sorry, did that hurt? I think I pressed too hard.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t feel a thing. You could kick me and punch me and even chop off my arm, but I wouldn’t even feel the slightest bit of pain. I switched off my central pain nerve.”

  “Your central pain nerve? What are you on about? That’s impossible.”

  “No, it isn’t. Our scientists developed this capability late last century. You’ll be surprised what science can do, Jack.”

  “Wow, I sure could use that,” said Jack, thinking of all the times it would come in handy with Gaz Finch and his friends.

  “Yes, but you have to be careful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if you don’t realise you’ve cut yourself there’s a chance that you can bleed to death by accident. It’s happened before.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” said Jack, seeing himself slowly bleed out in one of the school’s bathrooms. “But even with all of our technology we have nothing on this spaceship,” said Vyleria.

  “I know it’s… magical,” said Jack.

  “Yeah that's right, it's magical, extraordinary. It can do things that are a million light years more advanced than our two civilisations put together.”

  “I wonder where it came from?”

  “I don’t know,” she said as she skipped off down the road. “But I’m sure we’ll find out.”

  After walking a little under twenty minutes (it should have taken forty but Vyleria insisted they run) they made it to the football pitch.

  Jack approached it with a little apprehension. The last time he was here Gaz Finch had beaten him up and he’d run away in tears. But this wasn’t the real football pitch he told himself, it was just a room inside the spaceship, a mirage of sorts. He would be safe here.

  “Is this it?” asked Vyleria.

  “Is this what?”

  “The football pitch you talked so much about. I was expecting so much more the way you were going on about it.”

  “Well there are bigger ones in places like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London, but you have to be either really good at football or really rich to watch it, and unfortunately I’m neither.”

  “Oh, I see, what’s rich?”

  “You know, having a lot of money. You do have money on your planet don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course, but it’s different. It doesn’t play a major role in our lives. We all have about the same and even if we didn’t it wouldn’t stop you from seeing sport. We have giant holo-screens everywhere: in the centres of cities, in parks, on buildings and in our homes.”

  “It sounds like a lot of fun. I’m always on at my mum and dad to get Sky, but they can never afford it.”

  “What's Sky? Do you watch the football on a huge, floating screen in the clouds or something?”

  “No (though he thought that was a good idea), it's satellite television. It's beamed to our T.V screens via a satellite, hence the 'sky' bit, but at an extra cost. Most of the other kids at my school have it, but my family can't afford it.”

  “Well, on my planet you'll see something better, I promise. I’ll tell you what after we visit here you can come and visit my planet okay?”

  “Yeah, that would be great, thanks,” he said, grinning.

  “Don’t mention it. Now how do you play football?”

  Jack started out teaching Vyleria how to play football but in the end it seemed to be her teaching him. She was a natural. She could run, shoot, dribble the ball with both feet and skip past a tackle with ease. She could even flip through the air and do all kinds of overhead scissor and bicycle kicks. She was even great in goal and Jack couldn’t get a shot past her once she had got the knack of it. Jack was no football scout, but he reckoned she would walk right into any of the top four teams in England at this rate.

  “OI MONGY!”

&
nbsp; Jack froze.

  He knew that voice. He couldn't believe it. What was he doing here? It wasn't possible, it was his world now – HIS!

  Jack reluctantly turned around to see Gaz Finch swaggering towards him with his usual posse of mates.

  “Oi, Mongy!” he said. “I thought I told you never to come back ‘ere?”

  Jack remained rooted to the spot. He didn’t know what to do. His heart started to thunder.

  “Hi Gaz,” he said, trying to sound as calm as possible. “What are you doing here?”

  “Wot d’you mean wot am I doin’ ‘ere Mongy?”

  “I thought… I thought.”

  “You thought wot? You thought you could take me again did yer?”

  “No Gaz, I didn’t … I don’t … I just wanna play f-football.”

  “Well, you can.”

  “I… I can?”

  “Yes, if you beat me in a fight!” he said, smirking at his mates.

  “F-fight? I don’t wanna fight you Gaz, honest, I just wanna…”

  “F-f-f-fight,” Gaz mocked. “'Av u 'eard 'im lads. What a mong!”

  “Why don’t you just leave him alone?” shouted Vyleria.

  Jack and Gaz turned round at once.

  “Who are u?” yelled Gaz, his whole face snarling, his posse doubling over with laughter. “Look at little red ridin’ hood ‘ere. Wot u gonna do get the big bad wolf on me? Ha ha ha!”

  Jack didn’t know what hurt more: Gaz’s cutting remarks or Vyleria’s response.

  As soon as he had finished speaking she punched him straight in the face, knocking him to the ground.

  “I don’t believe it,” he sobbed, spitting out one of his teeth. “She ‘it me.”

  “Yeah, and I’ll hit you again if you keep picking on my friend.”

  Gaz struggled to his feet, legs wobbling.

  “No girl is gonna punch me and get away with it!” he screeched, spitting out blood.

  He swung at her.

  He missed.

  He swung again.

  Same result.