Lost on Mars

by Paul Magrs

  This was later in the evening, when we’d all eaten our fill and the dishes were cleared away. A fire was burning merrily in the grate and we sat peacefully together by the light of the Christmas tree.

  ‘It must have been very hard for you,’ said Da. ‘Thinking that we had gone forever.’

  I nodded. ‘We thought you had been … eaten.’

  Grandma gave a squawk of fright. ‘Eaten! Oh, my goodness! Who’d eat me? A tough old girl like me? Tougher than the old bird we’ve just demolished!’

  We all laughed at her, but I could still remember what Sook had said about what the Martians did.

  ‘They took you away. You Disappeared. We thought they had eaten you…’

  Da was frowning. ‘But that’s a horrible thing to believe! That’s what you’ve truly thought for all these months?’

  I nodded. I was starting to feel a little foolish by now.

  Al said, ‘We decided we had better leave Our Town and keep moving west. Into the wilderness.’

  Da sighed. ‘It’s always been like that for us. We’ve always had to keep moving across the prairies. I thought we had to keep away from the Martians. That’s why we kept walking into the wilderness…’

  ‘But not any more,’ cackled Grandma, looking glad. ‘We don’t need to keep running anymore.’

  She hauled herself to her feet and went off to heat up some milk, she said, so we could have a final drink before we went to sleep. She peeked out into the snowy gully between the tall buildings and declared it best if we stayed the night. We weren’t going to complain about that. She told us to fetch the spare coverlets and pillows from the airing cupboard and we could make a small camp in the living room and sleep under the tree.

  While Al and Peter went to deal with the bedclothes, Da held me back for a moment. ‘I know you did your best, Lore. You did the best you could to save everyone.’

  ‘I did, Da. I really tried.’

  He said, ‘I believe they’re still out there, you know. Your Ma and your sister, Hannah. Even that kronky old Toaster and mad Ruby. And we’ll find them, I promise. We’ll bring them here to be with us.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘But I still don’t understand how you came to be here. Did the Martian Ghosts bring you to the City Inside?’ I could hear Grandma singing happily in her tiny kitchen, boiling the milk. I could hear the boys messing around in the hallway, bringing duvets and things.

  ‘Christmas next year, we all will be together,’ Da said quietly. ‘I promise you.’

  I could tell that, for some reason, he wasn’t going to answer all my questions tonight.

  ‘And you’re happy to be here, in the City?’ I said. ‘You don’t want to return to the prairie?’

  He surprised me then. ‘Things are better here, Lora. Don’t you think so?’

  ‘I – I’m not sure…’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he rubbed his beard thoughtfully. ‘Here, we’ve got the help and support of people who know far more than we do. Clever people, who’ve been on this planet much longer than we have. I think back to the living we scratched out of the ground before in our old lives and it seems so pitiful. We didn’t even know this grand, wonderful City was here!’

  He smiled broadly and kissed me on the cheek. The conversation was over, I could tell.

  I was pretty surprised and all, by Da’s attitude. If there was one man who’d been happy in those wide-open Martian spaces, then it was him. I never thought to see him content in a tiny, cosy flat like this. But I guess people change. The stuff that happens to them forces them to change.

  ‘You’ll see, Lore,’ he winked at me. ‘This is a great City. A good place for us to live.’

  Then the boys were coming in with all the bedclothes to make our overnight den, and Grandma was bringing a tray of steaming mugs.

  She grinned, nodding at the clock above the mantle. ‘Look! It’ll soon be Christmas Day!’

  44

  I woke before all the others.

  It wasn’t quite dawn.

  I sat up in the festive living room under the dark shape of the Christmas tree and watched them sleeping, Al and Peter breathing contentedly. Grandma and Da were in their own rooms. The apartment was very still. The clock on the mantle ticked very softly.

  I found myself looking through a gap in the thin curtains. Starlight, Earth light and a Mother of Pearl glow. I got up and drew closer, hugging my duvet to me.

  One of the stars was slowly expanding. It grew into a large ball of blue light.

  It was falling out of the sky, coming closer across the tall tenement roofs. Somehow I knew the light was coming directly to me.

  My family and friends slumbered on as I went to stand at the window to meet this light halfway.

  I thought it might be a fairy, or a genie, come to grant me wishes. I thought it might be a Christmas angel. Or a ghost.

  Something marvellous, magical.

  And so it was.

  It was Sook.

  She slid out of the sky onto the fifth-storey gantry with ease, her scaled wings folding up neatly behind her. She looked so gorgeous and perfect. I opened the window for her and in she came, noiselessly, bringing a scattering of snow. I fell into her arms and she chuckled at me.

  ‘I found you again, Lora.’

  ‘You were looking for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You just left us here, in this City. And then you went away again.’

  ‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘That is my job. I bring you to the City. Just as I brought your father, your grandmother, and all the others.’

  ‘W – what?’

  She didn’t say any more just yet. Next thing, she drew me out of the apartment.

  I felt a heart-stopping pang at leaving the others behind, but I had no choice. We were standing on the roof on Christmas morning, just before dawn. It was freezing and we were flying, plunging into the frosty skies over the proud towers of Eventide District. Sook had her arms tightly about me and the whole pale, pink sky was starting to come alive. The Christmas morning light was like golden sheets of flame whirling about us.

  I saw that this District was on the eastern flank of the City Inside, where the horizon started to curve upwards into the sphere of sky. Now we were soaring back into the centre, streaking past green glass towers and sapphire steeples. I’d never seen the City look so beautiful before.

  Sook kept on chuckling. She was delighted I was with her again. Her whole body shook with joy and her sheer delight in flying and holding me like this.

  I recognised some of the City below us. Certain districts and distinctive buildings. I even thought I glimpsed our own tower block in Stockpot.

  Soon it looked like the very centre of the City was beneath us. There were the university buildings and the grey stone of the library. Here was the smooth green dome of the Planetarium. It was in the very heart of the City Inside and now I looked all around me, I saw how huge that City was. Two hundred and fifty years in the making. All that life, teeming within.

  Sook said, ‘I once told you that the friendships between humans and Martians were very important.’

  ‘You did,’ I said. My teeth were chattering. My breath was coming out in long plumes.

  ‘I brought you here because of our friendship, Lora. You must believe that.’

  ‘Sook,’ I said. ‘Are there Martians here, in this City? I think I’ve seen them … I think I’ve heard their laughter…’

  ‘They are here, Lora,’ Sook told me. ‘The Martians and their strange children rule this City in secret.’

  I felt a horrid sensation, like small, cold hands squeezing my heart. ‘Are they going to take us over?’

  ‘We are already here. Human and Martian lives are inextricably linked in the City Inside.’

  ‘Da says you’re wrong, Sook. He says the Martians don’t eat human flesh…’

  ‘Oh, but they do, Lora. The Martians are always very hungry.’

  ‘Well then, what am I to do?’

  Sook s
lowed to a graceful halt above the curved rooftops. She gripped me hard about the waist, and kissed me once on the lips.

  ‘You are going to save your people and this City, Lora. And I swear I promise to help you.’

  Before I could say anything, Sook lifted us back into the skies.

  I was too breathless to speak, as we took flight across the sheer, fantastic blue of Christmas morning on Mars.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Penny Thomas and Janet Thomas and everyone at Firefly, and to Patricia Duncker.

  Paul Magrs grew up in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham and went to the University of Lancaster. He was a Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing at UEA, running their famous MA course, and then at MMU in Manchester. Now he writes full time, at home in Levenshulme, where he lives with his partner Jeremy Hoad. He’s written many children’s and YA titles, including five Doctor Who novels with BBC Books, Strange Boy, Exchange and Diary of a Doctor Who Addict.

  First published in 2015 by Firefly Press

  25 Gabalfa Road, Llandaff North, Cardiff, CF14 2JJ

  www.fireflypress.co.uk

  Text © Paul Magrs 2015

  The author and illustrator assert their moral right to be identified

  as author and illustrator in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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

  Print ISBN 9781910080221

  epub ISBN 9781910080238

  This book has been published with the support of the Welsh Books Council.