by Geoff Palmer
Praise for Too Many Zeros
‘A rollicking good read for pre-teenage children and their parents. It’s funny, fast-paced and captivating. A real page-turner.’
Maggie Rainey-Smith, Beatties’ Book Blog
‘An excellent Kiwi kid sci-fi novel ... very enjoyable.’
The Southland Times
‘... science fiction done really well. It’s fast-paced, warm, and recommended for the tween in your life.’
Bookie Monster
‘Amusing ... action-packed ... will appeal to both boys and girls from about nine or ten upwards. With spacecraft, aliens both friendly and antagonistic, and male and female main characters, it’s a great read.’
StoryTime
Too Many
Zeros
Geoff Palmer
PODSNAP PUBLISHING
Wellington, New Zealand
Prologue
‘That thing the monkey-people complain of, boredom ...’
‘What about it?’
‘I think I have it.’
‘You can’t. We don’t get bored.’
‘Perhaps it’s contagious.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, you are repeating yourself.’
‘I am?’
‘Yes. You said exactly the same thing fourteen years ago ...’
1 : Pie Soup
The acrid pong of burnt pie drifted from the open door of the microwave. Tim took out the dish and prodded what was left with a fork. Soggy islands of pastry floated in leaked pie filling. It looked like lumpy soup.
‘Is it ready?’ his sister called from the back yard. Coral had climbed on to the rotary clothes line and, with one arm outstretched, was revolving slowly with the washing.
‘Er, yeah,’ Tim said.
‘What are we having?’
‘Pie soup and salad.’
‘What sort of soup?’
It wasn’t his fault, it was his aunt’s ancient microwave. The zero key stuck sometimes so instead of hitting 2-0-0 to warm the pies for two minutes, he must have hit 2-0-0-0 and set it for twenty. He hadn’t noticed till the smell of burning interrupted the TV programme he was watching.
The microwave’s green digits still displayed the time remaining — 7:26 — and when he reached up to close the door he noticed a pair of mice on a shelf to the right, partly hidden by a collection of cookbooks. One of them — the fawn one — seemed to be studying the display, while its silvery-grey companion fumbled with something in its paws. Then they turned to each other, went up on their hind legs, exchanged a high-five and did a little jig.
Tim nearly dropped the dish in amazement.
Coral stomped in making him jump. She slumped at the kitchen table and threw down her cellphone.
‘Still no signal?’ he asked, glancing back at the shelf. It was empty.
She shook her head. ‘All my friends’ll think I’m dead.’
‘You could use the regular phone,’ he said, checking the shelf again.
‘You can’t text on a regular phone,’ she snapped, then caught sight of their after school snack. ‘Aw yuck, what’s that?’
Tim tried to explain about the microwave but she just shook her head and sighed. ‘I’ll be so glad to get out of this dump.’
* * *
‘I had a ring from your mum this afternoon,’ Aunt Em announced when she and Uncle Frank returned from their weekly Bridge Club session. ‘She said your dad’s operation went fine. The doctors are very pleased with him. And your mum’s physiotherapy’s going well too. She reckons she’ll be out of the wheelchair in no time.’
‘But ...?’ said Coral, sensing there was something more.
‘But ...’ Aunt Em began, ‘... I’m afraid it’s going to be another six or eight weeks.’
Tim groaned inwardly, catching the look of horror on Coral’s face. He could tell she was thinking the same as he was. Six or eight weeks! Why did they have to have such daft parents? Nobody he’d ever known in his entire life had parents who went hang-gliding. Every other adult on the planet spent their spare time gardening or fixing up the house, but not their parents. They were always off bungee jumping or white water rafting or taking parachute jumps.
It wasn’t as if the sky wasn’t big enough for both of them. But no, the only two hang-gliders launched that afternoon had gone and crashed into each other. And now there they were, in Auckland hospital, having wheelchair races and getting metal pins put in their legs. When would they grow up?
‘Silly sods.’ Uncle Frank shook his head, seeming to echo Tim’s thoughts. He glanced at Coral, gave his nephew a broad wink and added quietly, ‘Women gliders, eh?’
Coral’s face shot up, her prim mouth angry. ‘It wasn’t ...’ she started, then spotted her uncle’s teasing grin.
‘Sorry Coral. Only kidding. Get that phone of yours working?’
She shook her head. ‘I really can’t understand why. I mean, we’re only stuck in the middle of nowhere five hundred kilometres south of civilisation.’
‘I’ll have you know the West Coast is perfectly civilised,’ Frank said regarding at her sternly. ‘We cracked that making-fire business months ago, and the joker up the road’s just bought one of them newfangled wheel things. We’ve got countryside, sea air, and town’s only twenty K away. What more could you want? ’
‘A cellphone tower?’ she suggested.
‘Well the joker from the bank reckoned he could get a signal from the top of the hen house. You tried that?’
‘Yes,’ Coral sighed. ‘And no, you can’t.’
‘You’re probably not tall enough. Try it on a chair.’
Em glared at her husband. Frank looked at Tim and winked.
* * *
‘Mice? In my kitchen? Not likely!’ Aunt Em said.
‘I saw them,’ Tim insisted. ‘Up there on the shelf beside the microwave.’
His aunt squinted at the shelf.
‘They’re gone now,’ he added. ‘It was when I was heating the pies. They looked like they were ...’ he checked himself, ‘... sniffing the air.’
‘Ah!’ she said. ‘That’ll be Smudge. They wandered in here, caught one whiff of the cat and are probably halfway to Westport by now. Eh, Smudgy-wudgy?’ She turned to the black and white barrel on legs that had just squeezed through the cat door.
‘If that cat gets any bigger I’ll have to stick her out with the girls,’ Frank muttered.
The ‘girls’ were his cows, a herd of fifty or so that he milked every morning and evening.
Tim turned back to washing the dishes while his uncle dried. From the kitchen window they could see Coral’s silhouette balanced on a chair on top of the hen house, turning slowly this way and that. She tried jumping and holding the phone high over her head, then went up on one leg and stretched her left arm out towards the sea, looking like a graceless ballerina. The chair wobbled, Coral wobbled, and they both fell over.
Frank snorted. Tim laughed.
‘What are you two ...?’ Aunt Em asked, looking past them. In the distance Coral was huffily righting the chair and trying again.
‘Oh Frank,’ she said. ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep tormenting that poor girl. You know this whole area’s a black spot for cellphones.’
‘Is it really, love?’ Frank replied innocently, giving Tim a nudge.
* * *
Tim doodled idly, adding to the pattern of spider webs he’d already drawn around the edge of the blotter. He was trying to write an essay entitled ‘Going to School in the City’. He didn’t have to do it now, it wasn’t due till next Monday, but he liked to get things done in good time. Besides, it was important. He was going to have to read it out in front of the class.
Perhaps that’s what was stumping him. He just couldn’t get started, c
ouldn’t get past the image of all those country kids staring back at him.
Six or eight weeks! The words echoed round his skull like a prison sentence. He tried to look on the bright side. He had a big bedroom — it was a big house — but it was all a bit old and creaky and run-down. ‘Lived in,’ his mum would have said. The place had enormously high ceilings, bare wooden floors and a toilet with a pull chain.
There was no computer either. That was a disaster. He’d never dreamed anyone could live without a computer. There were two back home, plus his dad’s laptop from work.
Still, the desk was pretty cool. He wouldn’t mind having that back home. It was a big old kauri one with high sides and an array of small drawers and cubbyholes along the back. The best bit was the cover which rolled down like a slatted wooden blind and hid everything away.
The wooden surface was protected by a large pad of ancient blotting paper and it was on this that Tim resumed his doodling. He glanced at his workbook. ‘Going to School in the City, by Timothy Townsend.’ That was as far as he’d got.
A sudden movement on the top of the desk caught his eye. A mouse! Two!! Just like the ones he’d seen in the kitchen that afternoon. They were the same colour too; one fawn, one silvery-grey. He froze and watched them. Seeing him watching, the mice stopped. Then the fawn one reared up on its hind legs and waved a tiny paw at him. Tim leaned closer. The mouse waved again. Then the grey one stood up and waved too.
Tim sat back and blinked. He must be imagining this.
The mice stopped waving and glanced at each other, whiskers twitching exactly as if they were having a conversation. Then they turned back to Tim, high-fived their tiny paws together, danced a little jig, paused, then waved again. That was exactly what they’d done in the kitchen. It was as if they were saying, ‘Remember us?’
He hesitated a second then raised a hand and waved back uncertainly.
The mice leapt up and punched the air with their tiny paws, just like a pair of sports fans after a brilliant goal. Then, using the tiered drawers along the back of the desk as stairs, they scuttled down and settled on the blotter.
The fawn one pawed at a pencil. The grey one joined it and Tim realised they were trying to pick it up. It was just an ordinary pencil but it must have seemed as big as a tree trunk to a pair of mice. He lifted it for them and held it with the tip resting on the blotter. Immediately the fawn mouse got to its hind legs and wrapped its paws around it. Tim let it go. The pencil wobbled. The fawn mouse wobbled, which only made the pencil wobble more. It made a faint squiggly line on the blotter then went crashing down, cracking the grey mouse on the head.
Tim laughed. The grey mouse glared at him and rubbed its head.
For a moment they seemed at a loss for what to do. It was evident they wanted to write something but human-sized implements were too big for them. Then Tim had an idea. He picked up the pencil, pressed its edge against the blotter and snapped off the lead. The fawn mouse seized it at once and wrote in tiny spidery letters on the blotter. The message said
Hi!
‘Er, hi,’ Tim said aloud.
The mice danced and waved in response, then the fawn mouse started writing again.
Sory bout this. Mouses throatses not good for speek.
And mouses brainses not good for spel.
But mouses bigness good for hide.
Tim had to read the message twice before it made any sort of sense.
‘Why are you hiding?’ he asked.
Re-serch
came the reply, which didn’t make any sense at all. But before he could query it the fawn mouse got busy again.
Plese take to kitchen. Nother test. More cook.
‘Eh?’ Tim said. ‘You want me to take you back to the kitchen?’ The mice nodded. ‘But what does ‘Nother test. More cook.’ mean?’
Again the mouse took up the pencil lead.
Tronic oven. 7:26. Good, good, good!
Tim frowned and scratched his head.
Wear first sore
the mouse added.
Things were getting worse. Their English was going from bad to incomprehensible. What was a ‘tronic oven’ and what on earth did ‘wear first sore’ mean? Then he suddenly got it.
‘You mean you want me to take you back to where we first saw each other? By the microwave? The electronic oven?’
The mice leapt up, punched the air and made tiny squeaking sounds. But what did 7:26. Good, good, good! mean? Then he remembered that was the time left on the microwave display after he rescued the pies. Seven minutes, twenty-six seconds.
Start cook. Stop. Good, good, good!
the fawn mouse wrote.
‘OK,’ Tim said, slowly reviewing the other messages. Somewhere in the back of his mind they did make a weird sort of sense.
2 : Kitchen Chaos
The wind outside was picking up and Tim could hear it rustling the cabbage trees along the eastern edge of the house. The old floorboards creaked faintly as he tiptoed towards the kitchen.
Passing Coral’s room, he glanced in to see her stretched out on the bed, twitching to the beat of a tiny music player half buried in her nest of blonde hair. Her useless cellphone lay discarded on the bedside table beside a photograph of her boyfriend, Precious Derek.
He tiptoed on.
A faint band of light lit the bottom of the living room door where his aunt and uncle sat watching television. TV here consisted of just two channels, and one of those went fuzzy at times.
Beyond the lounge was a walk-in linen cupboard, a little-used dining room and right at the back, the kitchen itself. Tim flicked on his torch.
‘Here we are,’ he whispered, lifting the pocket of his dressing gown to the level of the bench so the mice could clamber out. They stopped and peered up at the microwave sitting on the shelf above them.
‘Are you all right there or would you rather go higher?’ Tim asked.
The fawn mouse shook its head while the silvery-grey one settled back on its hind legs and seemed to scratch itself. Except it wasn’t scratching. Buried in the fur around its neck was a necklace with a small black stone attached to it. It unhooked the necklace, fiddled with the stone, and, to Tim’s amazement, the chain vanished inside, leaving the mouse holding what looked like a tiny calculator. It looked up at him and shrugged as if to say, ‘Well, what do you expect? I don’t have any pockets.’
Back in his bedroom the fawn mouse had written down what they wanted Tim to do.
99:59. Start. 1 sec. Stop.
So that’s what Tim did. He entered ninety-nine minutes, fifty-nine seconds — the longest time the microwave could handle — pressed the START button, paused, then hit STOP. The display showed 99:58 and the two mice huddled round the calculator. Tim tried to peer over their shoulders but the display was too small for him to read. The grey mouse pressed some buttons, nodding thoughtfully. The fawn one turned towards him with an ecstatic jump and a wave. Still carrying the pencil lead, it scrawled on the cream-coloured bench top.
Agane plese. 10x.
Tim cleared the display and repeated the exercise. 9 — 9 — 5 — 9 — START — wait — STOP. The grey mouse fiddled with the calculator, nodded, and the fawn mouse waved for Tim to do it again. Which he did.
Four times ... five times ... six times ...
He kept count as he went through the routine, and was so busy setting and resetting the microwave that he didn’t notice the sound of four soft feline paws landing on the sink bench behind him.
Seven times ... eight times ...
The grey mouse was busy doing calculations while the fawn mouse peered over its companion’s shoulder.
Nine times ...
With silent suddenness Smudge launched herself. The fawn mouse saw her first and squealed while the grey one was bowled sideways by an outstretched paw. Tim let out a cry and dropped the torch. It hit the kitchen floor and instantly went out.
Smudge skidded on the bench top. She wasn’t used to such a slick surface. It had made
her miss her original fawn-coloured target completely. Now she tried desperately to change direction by sticking out her claws, but there was nothing to grip. She slid across the bench with all four feet splayed out, only stopping when she did a face plant against the toaster.
Tim fumbled with his broken torch, wasting precious seconds.
Shaking out her flattened whiskers, Smudge spun round and, using the toaster as a launchpad, continued the pursuit. The toaster flew off the end of the bench and hit the floor with a crashing splatter of breadcrumbs.
The grey mouse had disappeared and Smudge was now chasing the fawn one which rushed blindly along the bench top, dodging between the salt and pepper shakers, heading for a dead end by the spice rack.
‘Go left!’ Tim shouted, catching sight of the action from the light cast by the open door of the microwave.
The fawn mouse darted left, and again Smudge skidded on the slick surface. The salt and pepper shakers went flying, the spice rack too, and this time she smashed hard against the breakfast bar, winging a wooden cup stand and sending four brand new coffee mugs crashing to the floor.
Now the fawn mouse had disappeared too and Smudge paused, torn between two areas of investigation. Then her sharp ears picked up a faint scrabbling sound. She tilted her head, peered to her right and padded to the edge of the kitchen sink where the grey mouse had fallen and was trapped.
She looked down. The rounded corners of the stainless steel sink had given the unwary mouse an exhilarating downhill ride — it would have been perfect for skateboarding — but it was also a perfect prison. Smudge paused, watching as the little mouse scrambled ineffectually against the slope before succumbing to gravity and sliding down again. She lifted a paw, extended her claws and slashed down at it.
Two things happened at once. Tim grabbed Smudge, snatching her off the sink bench and almost collapsing under her weight, and his uncle snapped on the kitchen lights.
‘What’s going on? What’s all the racket?’
